The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Mock Draft With Kevin O’Connor, the Truth About Jimmy Butler, Plus 'Free Solo' Climber Alex Honnold

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the spat between Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and Jimmy Butler, and examines Butler’s NBA career and exits from his former teams (0:41). Then Ryen talks with The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor about his latest NBA mock draft and his 14 lottery projections (14:05). Next, Ryen is joined by mountain climber Alex Honnold to discuss the making of the documentary ‘Free Solo,’ in which he completed the first free-solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park (49:50). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:17:05). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Kevin O’Connor and Alex Honnold Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast jimmy butler what's the deal man i'm gonna give you the full timeline of jimmy butler's career try to make sense of his fourth stop also kevin o'connor has mocked draft out what's up on the ringer? We're going to go over all the lottery picks. And a special guest from the documentary Free Solo and some new work that's out there, mountain climber Alex Honnold on that documentary that changed his life, the sport,

and some other stuff as well. So, fired up about that and Life Advice. Let's talk about your number one seed, Miami Heat. Why not, right? Because we saw the turmoil on the bench. We'll run through this. Originally, I was going to do kind of an East breakdown because it actually gets pretty interesting

when you start looking at some of the East records and how they do against the West. And even though we feel like the East is better, and it is better, there's stuff that I'll just use next week. I think I'll do it next week because as I was going through it, I was like, wait, do we really know what's going to happen?

And by the way, we don't, all right? But the Heat are your one seed. And every time you look at the standings, you're like, yep, they're really know what's going to happen? And by the way, we don't. All right. But the Heat are your one seed. And every time you look at the standings, you're like, yep, they're still a one seed. And it's a team that defends like crazy, that I really like, that have missed big time chunks of the season from their three best players. And we have to take them seriously. But then I'm like, wait, if I like Miami's defense so much, then why wouldn't I just go ahead and pick Boston?

And we can do the Boston thing when we get into the East as well, as they just are stomping teams and just put it on Utah like that too. And I still think Utah's a decent team. But really last night in the NBA world and what this open is about today is Jimmy Butler. So in the third quarter, Golden State goes on a 19-0 run. Miami has a timeout. Brian Wynhorst said there was a specific closeout that Butler didn't get to. I mean, shocker, we're in March, late March, and Yvette didn't get out on the closeout. And Spoh and Butler get into it. Now, you can see whatever happened where Butler's back is to us to the video footage that we saw from a fan. And apparently the Miami Heat broadcast ignored all of this.

Shocker. So as we see Spoh and Butler going back and forth, at one point, whatever Butler says, Spoh, you can read his lips, his lips says back to him he's like you want me to fucking fight you Kyle Lowry's like I'm out PJ Tucker makes a face where he's kind of like what just happened and then he's kind of back to whatever he's doing but Udonis Haslam who's been there for two decades he's not having it and gets into it with Butler is like I'll beat your ass I'll beat your ass right. And Butler didn't seem to want a ton of that. Despite, I think we'd all agree Butler's a tough guy too. But then we get a different angle from above where it just keeps going. And this is the part that's a little weird.

All right. It's weird in that there seemed to be one player that was kind of holding Butler back, but it felt like the rest of the team was cool with Spoh going at Butler. And then he slammed his clipboard down and kept going. And then I thought the best part of it was that Butler and Spoh, even the times where it looked like Spoh was kind of like, do you really want some of this? Which is not usually the best look for your team. But in the moment, as I say all the time, we're not always the best at trying to figure out what it actually means because it could mean everything.

It could mean nothing. I don't know what it means at this point, but I thought it was kind of crazy that it kept going and it didn't seem like any of the teammates really cared. It felt like they had Spolster's side. And then they kind of came to a head at the end where they were very close to each other and they were animated and kind of talking out the whole point.

All right. So did the heat culture die last night? Not if you ask heat culturists, because this is only going to make them stronger, right? Cracks in the foundation? Probably not. Like I said, I think a lot of this stuff happens, but last night was aggressive. So it comes down to two camps. If you're a heat fan, awesome. This is great. This is exactly how we're built, built different. If you want the Heat to lose and you think they're overrated, then you think this is part of the end. And we don't have that answer right now. But really, this becomes a Jimmy Butler story and the Jimmy Butler timeline.

So let's revisit because it is a long one. And it is to be nice. I edited this to try to like, hey, I'm not going to bring up every single time Jimmy Butler got mad at somebody because you know what? As I was digging through it this morning, it's a very long list. But Jimmy Butler should be appreciated. Yes, I did like him coming out of the draft. He scored 2.6 points per game in 42 games his rookie year.

He played eight minutes per game. As a 22-year-old rookie, Jimmy Butler's playing eight minutes a game. His second year, he starts 20 at 82 games, scores eight and a half points per game. In his third year, he finally, we're like, wait, okay, there's something here, 13 points per game. There's an argument to be made that he should have been played earlier. This is not a guy that was 18 coming in. He was 22.

I've also said numerous times, I think the NBA evaluation thing is a little bit different in that we've had more developmental stars where players who look like complete projects have no idea turn into some of the game's best players. And that's usually not the way that this happens, which adds another wrinkle to it. So as Butler's coming into his own in that third season, Derek Rose comes back during Butler's fourth season. Rose to this point had played 39 games in 11 and 12. He missed all of 12, 13, played 10 games in 13, 14. So Butler's fourth year is the first season in about three years where Rose is actually giving you some decent numbers. And if you watch those Bulls games, you could see that Rose is like,

look, this is my city. It's my team. Sorry I've missed almost three years, but I'd like my team back. And Butler's like, yeah, I'm actually good now. And Butler, after those first three years in his fourth, fifth, and sixth season, made three-starred all-star teams with the Bulls. And Butler's like, no, it's kind of my team. And by the way, Butler was right.

He was better than Derrick Rose at that point. If you watch that team play on offense, it was awful because they would just basically go back and forth taking turns of whose team it was. You couldn't play basketball that way. And at that point, I had sided with Butler. I also had information that I shared on ESPN years ago and that one of the other reasons Butler was always so mad. And again, I would say he came into the league mad and then had more reasons to be mad. And justifiably so is that Chicago, when they were making them contract offers, they were kind of fucking with them a little bit being like, look, if you don't take this, like you're still not, it's still not really your team. We're not quite sure what your numbers are going to be. Almost implying that he may not get all the minutes that he needs to, to get the numbers for a contract that he thought he was

deserving of. I believe that's true. I double checked it. I had somebody who ran into Jimmy Butler later on saying, Hey, did you hear what that ESPN guy said about the contract thing? Butler said, yeah, he's absolutely right. I'm sure no one from Chicago would agree as far as front office side of it. None of those guys are there anymore. It doesn't matter, but it made sense. And I got it from somebody who was very reliable and double checked it. So when I was hearing all that stuff, I'm like, look, the basketball part of it tells me that Butler's right. And the history tells me that Butler's right to be upset.

So Rose gets traded after 1516. Butler's got the bulls do himself in 1617. And then that starts going off the rails because Butler, remember we had that post about like how much his teammates sucked or excuse me, he started complaining about his teammates a ton. He started crushing Hoiberg all the time. And he might have been right about Hoiberg. But then there was another weird element to it too, where Dwayne Wade agreed with Butler.

Then Rajon Rondo, of all people, posted something on Instagram essentially saying that the big three, the vets of the Celtics run of his earlier part of his career would have never done this to the younger guys. So then you're like, well, I don't know who to believe here at this whole point. So guess what? Butler gets his way. He's pissed off at the world. He gets traded to Minnesota while he's still under contract, but that's important because he wanted a new contract from Minnesota. So he's with the Timberwolves in 1718. There's all sorts of stuff that you can go look it up. I'm not going to

recite all of it here. There's a weird plane incident. There's another thing where his teammates aren't good enough. He didn't want to play. He missed a bunch of time towards the end of the regular season. There's a game where he didn't want to go back in, apparently. I don't remember all of it. I was looking it all up. They lost to the Rockets in five games in the first round. His numbers are bad, but to be fair to Butler, he had missed a huge chunk at the end

of the regular season with this knee thing, so he wasn't entirely healthy either. But then he doesn't do his exit interview. He demands a trade because he's mad about the contract offer. There was another part where apparently Butler was mad the team didn't restructure other things or get rid of other people so that they'd have more money to pay him, which I don't think is going to go over really well in the locker room. And then when Butler doesn't get his trade over the course of that off season, he comes back to Minnesota. And then we have the infamous practice where Butler coordinates it all because

the jump happens to be in town where he does the sit down with Rachel Nichols, which I've talked about all the time. And by the way, I was never criticizing the jump about it. Good for you. It's a great get. If anybody said to you, hey, Ryan Russillo, NBA star, fill in the blank, is really pissed off and wants to do an interview with you, you do it every single time. But from Butler's side of it, totally coordinated. He plays apparently with the third stringers against Wiggins and Towns and just berates them. The entire scrimmage apparently wins it. Woj has a tweet on it where he's like, you fucking need me. All right. And he's calling out Wiggins and Towns, who at that point, I don't think anybody's going to go back

retroactively and say Jimmy Butler was wrong about the passion of two younger players that were supremely talented, but hadn't quite figured it out yet. And yes, the Timberwolves needed him, but he didn't get the contract that he wanted. And they were like, okay, this is untenable. And at that point, I think ownership steps in. They trade Jimmy Butler to Philadelphia. Now, Philadelphia, he's got kind of the same problem,

just a different geographic spot in the country where he's with Philadelphia, a better team, clearly, and a nice little playoff round there against Toronto. Could have gone the other way. Who knows? But Butler explained this in the JJ Redick podcast on his exit from Philadelphia, a bunch of different things where he was mad about his teammates and their effort. He was mad about the trainers.

He was mad about the lack of leadership. He said there was no direction, which, by the way, all of us, I think, could have any single job and start finding ways to get pissed about the structure above us because I think that's kind of how we're all built. But Butler is now starting to develop a trend where it seems like everywhere you go, you are upset about the level of effort not meeting your level of effort. You can be right about that, but there's also a way of handling it. And if you're doing it every single time, every single place you go, it can start to become a you problem. And I think that's where it started with Butler. Butler makes a really

good point about the playoffs where he felt like all of a sudden Brett Brown, which I don't think he had a ton of respect for, which he basically admits numerous times, either hinting at it. And then I think after the fact being like, it was professional. Well, if it was, you're saying it was professional, it means you don't really like the guy. Where he was mad that Ben Simmons, big time playoff Ben Simmons, all of a sudden was not the on-ball creator that he had been during the regular season. A lot of those bigger decisions

were left to Jimmy Butler. And that part, I would side with Jimmy Butler because as I had heard after the fact, he just kind of felt like I have to be the grown-up here in Philadelphia. These guys can't kind of carry themselves. They've been losing all the time.

And now I'm here to save the day, but it's kind of their team and it's built around them. Fuck this. I'm out. Sign and trade Miami Heat. And if you looked at just the Philadelphia thing, if you just looked at the Minnesota thing and just looked at the Chicago thing, I think to that point, you'd be like, you know what? I think I might agree with Jimmy Butler and a bunch of these different positions that

he has. So he gets to Miami. He gets his money. He gets his team. And they go on this incredible run. And we can diminish it if we want because of the bubble part of it. I don't think the Miami Heat team that got to the finals was a great team. It wasn't.

It wasn't a great team. It was a really nice run. And they get to the finals. They don't have the size. They're not going to beat Anthony Davis and LeBron. All right? Butler, and I would never tell any player like, hey, you shouldn't think you're this good, but he has flirted with that top 10 neighborhood despite never really being that guy. I think he's really good. I just don't think he's ever been that guy.

And when you're not that guy and you're always pissed and there always seems to be a bad breakup, you can be right about a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that you're always right about everything. And I think to this point, Butler's always thought he's right about every single deal. I can understand the Chicago part, Minnesota, Philadelphia, we've been through it. The Spoh part is going to be challenging for me. Now Spoh handled it like a magician after the fact. We were arguing about where we were going to go to dinner. I watched his postgame presser. Spoh gets it. He's been around forever. He's one of the best coaches. If you're talking about the best coaches in the NBA, the conversation includes Eric Spolster.

I can't say definitively one is better than everybody else. I'd have to have somebody smarter at basketball than me to explain specifically why this one guy's head and shoulders about everyone else. But the conversation, if it's two, three, five guys, it can't happen without Eric Spolster. Eric Spolster is not Andrew Wiggins, not knowing who he is. Andrew Wiggins' brother tweeting out, hallelujah, when Butler demanded a trade in Minnesota. Butler being like, are you fucking serious, dude?

Are you serious? You're fucking with me? Again, I think I take Butler's side in that one. Eric Spolster is not Ben Simmons in a playoff spot being like, I'm not super comfortable creating plays here. Eric Spolster is not Derrick Rose trying to reclaim his team in City when he's not the same here. Eric Spolster is not Derrick Rose trying to reclaim his team in City

when he's not the same player. Eric Spolster is a guy that's won championships and been a steady force for a franchise that's reinvented itself a bunch of different times. So on this one, even though it may not mean a ton, it's a hard one to then say this pattern of behavior is the same. There's a great Kobe Bryant quote

Phil Jackson had in one of his books. I've mentioned it before, but it's incredible. Kobe was always pissed at his teammates all the time. He's pissed at them all the time because Kobe's level of effort, his investment in the game was beyond all of his teammates. And Phil said to him, he goes, whatever your 10 is, that's unobtainable for all these other guys. Their're 10 as you're 6 or 7, but they don't know that there's another. It's incomprehensible to them that there's this next level. It's never going to happen. So the sooner you accept that,

the happier that you're going to be. And it's a very smart quote. It's enlightening to make sense. It's like stop asking somebody to reach this level that they are incapable of. And that's why this makes you so special. The problem is Jimmy Butler's not Kobe Bryant. The problem is that he's carrying himself this way

and he's demanding this from his teammates. And he's always pissed, even if he's right to be pissed. You can't be pissed off at the world all the time, even if you're right. And the fucked up part about this is the heat. As I said at the very top, the number one seed. If they're playing a full-strength Brooklyn in a 1-8 matchup, who are you taking?

So if they lose that, it's not going to be because of this. But if Butler starts his exit again, or if this all starts to happen again, it has been the story for him every single chapter of his NBA career. Kevin O'Connor has a mock draft and it's out today. Check it out on TheRinger.com. Okay, you went according to the standings here as well. So you have Holmgren going number one overall

to Houston. How much of this is Chet? How much of it is Houston? It's a little bit of both. I mean, with Chet, he's clearly a top three prospect. And also for Houston, though, fit-wise, adding a rim-protecting presence like Holmgren, who can playmake a little bit, space the floor,

makes him a perfect fit with Jalen Green, their young star who's been absolutely terrific since early February. And then with Alperen Shengun, he's played quite a bit with Christian Wood, who doesn't bring it defensively in terms of his intensity and effort all the time. Holmgren, it's never going to be a question with that. So I think for Houston, getting Chet Holmgren could give them a real great foundation, maybe one of the best young foundations in basketball,

if they were to get those two guys paired together, especially with Sengun and the other youth they have. Where are you on Chet with everything? Give me your overall Chet thing. and the other youth they have where are you on chat with everything give me your overall chat thing i think i think with chet uh he is probably a safer prospect than i think people talk about him as like i think the concern with chet with somebody who's seven foot one 195 pounds with his weird skinny lanky body you do worry about injuries that's the concern in terms of what his floor would be but i'm curious what you think

ryan like i watched this guy play i see the toughness i see the skill i see the ability to play like a minimized role he can simply be a screener and a roller screen and pop for threes he's gonna be a great defensive player it's just a matter of staying healthy what heights he reaches as a shooter a scorer off the dribble that that's where the question is and that's where maybe you might favor a pure shooter like jabari smith or a shot creator like jayden ivy or more of like a a scoring forward like paulo bancaro so there's arguments for all of these guys and that's why the top of this draft more than any i think in you know the last seven eight years it's it's about about fit in terms of breaking the tiebreakers between these prospects that are all really close

in terms of talent level. I obviously like him a lot. I love his instincts. I love how engaged he is. I love that he can be off the ball and still impacting the game. These are a lot of things where I just don't like high-level prospects. I don't like lottery-pro lottery projected players where they disappear. I just, you know, I don't, I don't know what my hit rate is on it, but it's a bad sign

to me. It's a bad sign when I'm like, yeah, I know you're, you kind of physically check all these boxes and there's an idea that you can do a bunch of these different things, but Chet impacts the game. He impacts it in a bunch of different ways. I just, the physical part, he stayed healthy this year, you know, and he does get knocked around. He gets pushed off his spot. When you watch him box out with like guards, sometimes they'll get into him and get the, you know, some senior guard from San Francisco, like, you know, knock him on his ass a little.

And you're like, okay, yeah, it's going to happen. He's going to get pushed around for a bunch of years, but he's going to fill out. I don't know if you've heard me talk about the weird kind of shoulder thing with him. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's just the way he runs or carries himself because it's not like he's awkward. It's not like he doesn't have great hands and feet. So you would think like there are bigs that maybe don't look great physically and then some of their movement matches it. His movement is far more fluid than maybe just the way his physique is at this point so i don't

know how you feel about that or what you've talked to with teams about it because i know what's coming up yeah definitely i mean i think that for him maybe sometimes manifests with the shot creation uh you know in terms of his ability to move his body the flexibility he has to get low as a handler and all that um is that is that what you mean like sometimes when you see it or do you mean the kind of like the i think it was on bill's pod you mentioned kind of like hunched over a little bit running in the open floor hunched hunched yeah but i don't i don't know if it means anything i don't know if it's maybe just an aesthetic thing or what i you know i'm not i bring it up to bring it up but i it doesn't mean like oh he's never gonna play well because of that so i don't know

i mean i think i think there's a role for all of these weird bodied players in the nba today uh like with holmgren it's the type of thing where if you're asking him to defend a true interior big joelle abid and nicole yokich nobody can defend them but also with chet most times you can probably use him in like that robert will Robert Williams type of role, where he's off-ball, he's defending a wing or a forward, a limited shooter, and he's the guy helping on the inside rather than the guy who's the primary. So I think with the body concerns for Chet, there's certain matchups that I'd worry about him.

But I think early in his career, you're going to see teams use him more in an off-ball role, kind of like how the Cavs used Evan Mobley next to Jared Allen. And in that sense, I don't worry too much about Chet on the defensive end of the floor. It's just about like, is he just a guy who's screening and rolling on offense and picking popping and spotting up? Or is he somebody that can be an offensive hub for you a creator around the elbows and wings i think that's mine my main thought is how much offensive value will he provide in terms of self-creation versus a guy like jabari smith who granted there's some concerns there too but he he has more upside as a ball handler than chet or jayden ivy who is just a

creator and van caro who is a creator and those are the most valuable players in the NBA. But also Chet falls into like that, that Draymond Green bucket of player, different type of body, but somebody who impacts winning in ways beyond scoring. He just does it in a weird type of way. So I'm glad you brought that up because it does feel, it's not identical, but it's somewhat similar to the Cade and Mobley conversation we had a year ago. Because every time I would ask a team and I'd share this with everybody, I forget if the number was, it was close to 10 teams where I'd go, if you have the number one pick, like how much of a conversation is it between Cade and Mobley? And they're like,

there's no conversation. And that's everybody loving Mobley. And Mobley may be winning rookie of the year, although Cade's putting a real big push on this. But as you've watched Mobley and Mobley may be winning rookie of the year. Although Cade's putting a real big push on this, but as you've watched Mobley and I love him, okay, the guy doesn't even make mistakes, but I also noticed when Cleveland needs a bucket, it's a little bit more complicated for Mobley to take the game over. Whereas Cade every night he's closing these games out and he's making the

right decisions. He's figured a bunch of stuff out here the last couple of months. Um, you know, shocker, a guy that was hurt in preseason, wasn't an all-star immediately, right out of the gate.

So you go, okay, well, wait, I need a high ball screen guy that can control everything. Chet's not that guy. And I'm not like penciling in that Jabari and Foncaro are absolutely that guy. Ivy's probably the one that profiles the most out of any of the guys that we're talking about at the top.

So if the league told us a year ago, you take Cade over a Mobley who physically, now again, he's not Chet, he's more advanced physically, but I don't think he had the wide range of things that Chet has at least flashed at times. That, I think, can be a similar conversation, even though we're talking about different profiles of players. Well, doesn't this also touch on the fit aspect?

Because for Cleveland, they already have their creators. They have their Darius Garland. Granton Collins Sexton got hurt. They had him too. So they're drafting more of a finisher, a guy who enhances the rest of the roster and Mobley to complement those guys. And with Houston, they have Jalen Green. And they envision him becoming one of their top two creators on the team. So the place that needs some fill is room protection, energy, toughness. The guy who's screening for that creator being the finisher.

So in that sense, I'm not sure what's more important, the creating or the finishing. You want a guy who can do both, obviously. But I'm not sure you can expect that from any of them early on in their careers. They can grow into that. Jabari Smith, if he's pouring every resource he has into becoming the best ball handler he can be, he can get better at that.

If Chet Holmgren does the same, maybe he continues improving over the years to come. But I think that's why Chet ultimately is number one for most people at least that i've talked to recently because he has that baseline of of what he can be for a team in a winning atmosphere but then he could potentially grow into something greater than that all right so you have jabari going two to the pistons which makes all the sense of the world from basketball fit that would be if it were houston one detroit two and it went chet one i'd imagine the front office is like, cool, the Chet decision is out of our hands.

Unless you're absolutely in love with Chet, which I think some teams are really high on him because of what he potentially could be. Jabari with Cade. What do you see there as opposed to Jabari with two guards that don't know how good Cade is? Jabari with two guards that wanted him to go 15. Oh my God, yeah those those Auburn guards I

said to Titus and Tate uh on my pod this week at times I thought it was sabotage like what are they doing just not passing them the ball it's horrible right I was screaming at the TV give Javari the ball and then with then I mean with Chad with uh C kade cunningham it's not a concern with kade his facility he wants to be a playmaker and then then he becomes the score when he needs to be that's why kade's had so many great fourth quarters this year for detroit but he's a passer first and pairing him with jabari smith who's a shooter first i don't know like i i get excited about the idea of seeing those two guys grow together with some of the other pieces they have on that team. Um,

but, but like the thing with Kate is though, can you fit him with any of these guys? Like if you're the Pistons, if you're one or you're four, if it's Ivy or it's being Carol or, or it's Holmgren, or even if you slide out out of that Kate,

the benefit of Kate Cunningham is you could fit anybody with that guy. All right. So you got him going two uh and you got Jaden Ivey Purdue going to the Orlando Magic three so what's happening here give me your give me your Ivey breakdown and then transition that into where Banquero is right now because you have them going fourth to OKC so with the Magic at the third pick right here in the mock, the decisions the decision would be between probably Ben Caro and Ivy. Ivy

being a sophomore dynamic shot creator. And I think pairing him with Jalen Suggs in a back court, it's beneficial in two ways. With Suggs, I mean, you think he's going to be good. He's only a rookie, but he did struggle. What if he's not good?

Ivy gives you some insurance there in the shot creation department, but also if Suggs is good, then you got two big, strong guards who can defend and play hard. Ivy being more of the downhill creator, Suggs maybe being that secondary guy who's doing a lot of the dirty work, that would be a great pairing over Bancaro, who you have a lot of guys in that front court um i like banquero in a situation where he's able to be with some more established creators and that's why the thunder fit for banquero to me is like one of the the perfect fits in the top of the draft because okay see you've got gildress alexander you've got josh giddy and with those guys and their shot creation,

Ben Carroll, all he's got to worry about is scoring and to stay on the floor, play hard on defense. I think with Ben Carroll, maybe more than anybody at the top of the draft, it's going to be about which situation does he fall into and how does that environment influence some of the bad habits that we saw at Duke this year? Because I don't know, Ryan, I heard about before the season with ban caro i had him number one on my board and and right now

i have him fourth and i think i think with him i heard so much positive feedback about his work ethic the character the desire to be great before the season and then during the season it's like oh he's checked out and he's not trying at duke and i'm kind of puzzled by what's going on there yeah i i don't know if it's fair or not you know we'll see what happens with the rest of the tournament we'll see what happens with some of the stuff but i mean that first weekend when he comes out on the scene and everybody's watching that game at the same time, it's like, wait,

somebody thinks they're going to go ahead of this guy. And that was kind of my thing all season long is you watch Chet in his best moments. You go, okay, nobody's going against him. And then I ended up being like Saturday morning Jabari was my thing.

I go, I just want to watch Jabari as much as I possibly can. And I still like Paolo. I do. I do. I think it's a really weird team at Duke. It's, I made the point that I think there's five guys that would be leading

scores on major, major programs elsewhere. That's how, how impressive the talent is. I think AJ Griffin coming along kind of made it for Palo. Cause AJ was kind of supposed to be the guy, but I mean, look,

I mean, more is impressive at times and Williams center. I kind of like it weirder for Powell because AJ was kind of supposed to be the guy. But I mean, look, I mean, Moore is impressive at times and Williams is center. I'm kind of like, God, look at all these guys. So even though it was this stacked team, I still like Powell and I'd have to be told by Moore. You get the sense if there's a temperature thing, it does feel like the league has cooled on him a little bit, but it might be that the other guys are more impressed. I don't know. Like what's your, I know you can't tell us everything. I'm not going to share everything.

It just feels like if there were hot and cold, you know, associations with these players, it, it just feels like the momentum with him has cooled. And I don't know if that's specifically related to him, the player, or if it's the situation or if it's just how damn impressive the other guys

have been too. Yeah. I think it's largely the other guys have just been so impressive. Like the leap Jaden Ivey took as a sophomore, Jabari Smith. I don't think people were necessarily expecting him to be the number one pick. He's getting mid-lottery hype, but not number one. And then Ben Carrow was just disappointing. It was just disappointing. Defensively, there were so many times over the course of the season, hype but not number one and then ben caro was just disappointing it's just disappointing defensively

there's so many times over the course of the season the effort and the focus was just not there for duke and i'm not sure how much of that is a culture thing how much of that is a coaching thing um or what but ultimately we've we've kind of seen this before sometimes though like with college prospects who aren't locking in aren't putting an effort then in the nba they become tremendous defensive players i mean i like another duke guy i think about jason tatum one of the concerns about tatum coming out of duke was well he's got the length and he's got the size and he shows flashes on defense but it's the consistency's not there and all that with ben caro it's similar in In the NBA, does Ben Caro show oh, this is why the 6'10", mobile, 250-pound guy can actually defend 3-4 positions?

In an NBA atmosphere, maybe it turns into that for him. That's the conversations I'm having with people about Ben Caro on defense right now is culture fit, situation, coaching, the rest of that roster. what's the best fit for him to get the most out of him because i he's fourth on my mock third of my board right now in my heart like i said before the season he was number one on my board and i guess i'm kind of looking for reasons to move him back up um is where i'm kind of at with ben carroll because there's so much offensive talent.

There's so much shot creation. If that shot can go from like 30% from three, 70% from the free throw line, and he can become a far more efficient perimeter scorer, that's going to open up everything for him on offense because his shot creation, doesn't he remind you of old Blake Griffin a little bit? Late Clippers Blakeake the detroit blake griffin with that one great all-star season he had he reminds me a little bit of that kind of more groundbound blake griffin there's so much there i want to i want to look at his shot chart

stuff because sometimes when i'd watch him i felt like he got a little perimeter happy but then i you know as soon as i started wondering that you know writing down like hey check shot chart check trends and some of this stuff. And then I'd be like, yeah, but when he takes you down there and decides to bring it to the hoop, he, nobody's stopping that, you know, that little kind of one 80 pivot that he would do, but then he'd kind of finish in different ways around the rim too. So like, it wasn't just that he was overpowering everybody, which I hate with some, you know, some of these AAU guys that like, oh, you just dribbled

through everybody because you were fucking huge. Awesome. And then you'd never figure out a way to adapt to it. He already had counters with different things. So, I don't know. Alright, you have AJ going to the Kings. Yep, AJ Griffin going to the Kings.

Score, 6-6. Didn't really get an opportunity with Duke this year to show off every single I think layer of his offense with what he can do because like you said there's five guys that might have been leading scorers on different teams across the country if they weren't all on Duke but with

AJ Griffin it wouldn't shock me if one bit if in the draft pre-draft he's had a lot of injuries if medical means that his stock could dip a little bit it wouldn't shock the draft pre-draft he's had a lot of injuries if medical means that his stock could dip a little bit it wouldn't shock me if pre-draft because of his amount of talent he's able to show off more and we start talking about him as a little bit more than like seven eight or five six seven more like four five in the top five with Griffin because the offensive talent's there now it starts to get a little interesting because there's a second group that's been in the top five with Griffin because the offensive talent's there.

Now it starts to get a little interesting because there's a second group that's been kind of ignored by, I would say, the non-number one conversation. You know what I mean? This is where I start to do my work and you're watching this group and you're like,

somebody's going to hit. One or two of these players in this Keegan Murray, Iowa group, the Shaden sharp thing we need to get to to never play to kentucky mathurin arizona sohan johnny davis like in that group you're like some one or two of those guys are going to hit i think based on personality alone so if i wasn't going to go like one through 14 or one through 30 here let's talk about mathurin from arizona because he's somebody that was 129th

overall in his class as a recruit ranking, right? So this is not one of the top recruits coming in at Arizona. He's got an interesting background. He's from Montreal. He's one of the rare hockey basketball players. You don't have a ton of, um, he was 18, six, two and a half assists this season. He's 39% from three for his career. He makes his free throws. And what I'm going to start working on, I'm going to dig into this and I'll share it with you later. I want to look at like prospects. You don't have to be a top five prospect of your position in rivals or 24 seven. It's let me look at the lottery picks that went from freshmen to much bigger impact sophomores. So we see an actual trend of development, of improvement,

where somebody who's in a system is like, look how much better this guy got from his freshman to sophomore year. Not just because he got better because he stuck around longer, but we see that, wait, does he have the wiring that shows us a work ethic as opposed to just a dominant high school player that was kind of whatever, but still checks all these boxes physically and profile, but didn't kill it as a freshman. And now we're taking the lottery. Is there something to be said about somebody that makes a massive jump as a freshman? He was still decent as a freshman in Arizona,

but now as a sophomore. And on top of that, the way, once you watch him and the way he carries himself, he carries himself like he's the baddest motherfucker on the planet. And that's where I look at like him or Dern at Memphis, where I think Dern disappears. And he's a different kind of player. He's not going to be running your offense or all these different things. So that's a sophomore thing I need to work on in itself. to be somebody like who there's a lot of great parts about this and I think him being a sophomore makes him maybe more appealing even though you have what going ninth I think yeah right now in the the mock draft have a ninth to the next

which would be fun imagine him in Madison Square Garden that's how he carries it like what I was like wait he's from Montreal like I expected to know you know I expected to be one of the major cities somewhere and then it was like oh yeah that's, that's right. This is that kid from Canada. So go ahead. level, NBA level. You love to see improvement over the course of a season. Last year with Jordan Poole with the Warriors, we see him get better over the course of the year. He's killing it, averaging nearly 20 at the end of the year. It carries over to this season.

He's getting better again in the second half of the season. With Matherin, it's similar. He totally changes his game, but also his role changed too because last year with Arizona, they have Sean Miller at head coach. Matherin's a freshman. Now they have Tommy Lloyd as a head coach and mathurin goes from being more of an off ball guy to one of the main guys on the ball and that's partially player development it's partially just more more role and opportunity too and and he continues to crush he continues to get better and now doing it in massive games as well that's exactly what you want to see whether it's a young player in the nba or whether it's a college prospect because now if you're an nba team you

can look at math or and say okay well what if we get this again what does this look like in two three years with some more levels of improvement as he continues to improve as a defender as he continues to improve his positioning as he continues to cut down on turnovers what does all this good stuff turn into when you remove some of the fat and i think with mathurin that's why he's personally rising slightly on my board um because the more you see the more you hear about him and that work um he's the type of guy that you want to bet on i mean you don't you want you want to bet on workers guys who prove that they can get better and prove they can excel in different types of roles um and mathurin's doing that so uh i have him nine from the mock but would not shock me one guys who prove that they can get better and prove they can excel in different types of roles. Um, and,

and Mather is doing that. So, uh, I have a knife in the mock, but would not shock me one bit. If by the time we're doing this in June, he's higher. I haven't done enough work on it.

So I'm just going to go ahead and ask, cause I, I've kind of been like glimpsing in as I was doing the Mather and stuff. Am I an idiot for liking his teammate, Terry? Terry's cool. I like Terry, but not as much as Coloco.

Are you a Coloco guy? Well, I mean, he put on an absolute show the other night against TCU. You know what, though? Sheboy is a good example of this. Watching Kentucky lose to St. Peter's, there's a bunch of reasons why, but

one of the biggest things was like, so wait a minute, you're supposed to have a post player fix you guys and carry you offensively in 2022 like who does that anymore and that's what Kentucky was relegated to because Ty Ty hasn't been the same and the other guard is is a tough watch uh Wheeler for Kentucky yeah and um I'm like okay so you guys are going to try to win this game by going into the post the whole time. So Coloco, I wouldn't call him that. I think he's, would you say he's a little bit more Clint Capella-ish? Yeah, I think so.

With Coloco, I think there's some untapped perimeter skill too, though, that he hasn't been able to show at Zona. Granted, he's 22 years old when he's going to be a rookie. Yeah. Okay, so why would you have Mather, and I'm not saying you. Okay, so why would you have Matherin? And I'm not saying you're wrong, but why would you have Matherin behind an older Keegan Murray? I mean, I think I kind of know the answer, but I'll just tee it up.

Why do you have him behind Duren? Why do you have Matherin behind? I'm trying to think. On my board or the mock? Oh, yeah. You know what? I don't know because I guess on the mock part of this, that would change. Mock is kind of some fit a little bit. You know, like the Blazers at seven. You have Dame. You have Simons. Maybe you're not drafting Mathurin. The Pacers at six. You have Brogdon there. You just traded for Halliburton. I can see the argument for going for a guard there.

TJ Warren. I can see the argument for going for a guard there. TJ Warren. You got TJ Warren blocking Keegan Murray's minutes now. So, I mean, they have a lot of guys on that team where it's maybe not about need. It's just about BPA. I don't know. Now that I bring up BPA, I'm curious.

When you talk to teams, Ryan, what kind of feedback do you get in terms of taking the best player available versus factoring in need? Well, I've always said that the NFL, like you can tell, by the way, Warren's Warren's up, right? So I guess he would be out of the way. I just want to double check that. I think you make mistakes big time when you draft for need basketball. NFL, they do it all the time. I mean, the need driven picks, even in the first round, it's incredible how often it's need-driven.

Basketball, I don't... I think that's where you make big, big mistakes. I mean, unless it's like, you know, Chris Paul in year three, you know, if Derrick Rose were available, then maybe you go, okay, we can't. We actually can't do this. I think there are rare extremes. There's no absolutes.

But if I'm looking at, I don't know, I'll just go back to your mock here. I'm the Pacers, and I'm thinking like, all right, Keegan Murray's 22, and Matherin's two years younger than him, I guess. We can get on the months here. I just think you make a huge mistake when you go need for basketball because it's kind of like back to the Chet thing. It's other teams that will make mistakes where they go, well, we knew we were going to be taking on way more risk because it's about

trying to get somebody that breaks through and can carry your basketball team so maybe we'll take a flyer on a guy that's way lower floor because we think it's a chance of being more impactful than going oh cool we drafted somebody who's going to be a rotation guy you know maybe five through nine

on our roster at some point yeah he's going's going to play in the league six, eight years and get paid on the second contract, all this kind of stuff. But I mean, does that really make us better? Did we really put ourselves in a position to improve ourselves? And so I don't know. I'm not a big need guy

unless it's really, really extreme where two guys are completely in each other's way. Totally, yeah. I think the way it was framed to me a couple years ago that made sense is drafting for a need might be about breaking a tiebreaker. If there's a handful of prospects

where it's so close between them, you're factoring in need to say, oh, well, what's our philosophy? What are our potential opportunities in the near future with transactions? What does our coach want? What's the system look like? In terms of need,

I think all of that does kind of loop into how you end up ranking these players and who you consider the actual best player with who you are and what your team is and what you already have. But ultimately, I don't think you're going to draft a player who is clearly a worse prospect talent-wise than someone who is clearly a better prospect talent-wise than someone who is clearly a better prospect talent-wise

unless it's so close. That's when you factor in need. Versus, like you said, with the NFL, teams do do that based specifically off of need. That doesn't happen much in the NBA. But I think need does matter. It does factor into how you end up ranking these guys, which is why it's so tough.

It's so tough to rank with a general board. For some teams, Chet won't be number one. For others, he will be. He's not a no-brainer guy. To review, he has Chet 1 to Houston, Jabari 2 to Detroit, Jaden Ivey 3 to Orlando, Forrest Palo to OKC, A.J. Griffin number

5 to Sacramento, 6 would be Keegan Murray to the Pacers, Jaylen Duren 7 out of Memphis to Portland. And then we mentioned Matherin nine to the Knicks. So I skipped over somebody here who's become the mystery man out of Kentucky who's also sort of out of Canada.

And that's Shadon Sharp. If you watch any of his AAU stuff, you get why I don't know. I've seen him rank number three going into this class. I've seen him rank number one. Other places have billed him. On his Wikipedia page, it says that he was number one by ESPN 24-7 and rivals. But then there's other times I've seen him ranked as number three guy. He never played. Didn't play for Kentucky. I watched a Cal Pressure the other day where he was like, if he's going to go in the top three, I'll tell him to go, but they're hinting that he's going to come back to play at Kentucky. He is an incredibly impressive 6'5 perimeter guy with a ton of game, aggressive as hell.

There's a lot to really like about him from the AAU part of this. Some teams love him, but we haven't seen him play basketball now for a long time. I have a hard time believing, I don't know what your intel is, that he's not going to end up going in the draft here because we're talking about at least a top

10 pick, but what do you have on him? My impression is he'll go to the draft. We don't know that for certain yet, but my impression is he'll be in the 2022 draft. And with him, I wonder if he's the type of guy who, when teams see him up close with workouts, that's where his stock is going to be really truly determined because right now all we're going off of is intel based off what we've heard or some people have seen from out of Kentucky and also from everything that happened before college, playing AU, playing in high school,

and the improvement that he... We just talked about improvement with Mathurin and the guys like Jordan Poole with Shaden Sharp. He goes from an unranked prospect to six six uh go-to scoring type who has every move in the book from the perimeter who can defend who's a willing passer he he checks all these boxes of the type of player above the rim you know he's a great athlete he can finish with touch he just checks all these boxes of somebody who can be your leading guy of a franchise because of his scoring ability and his ability to do everything else it's just he's kind

of the mystery box because we didn't see him compared to all these other guys and we we've seen this story play out before jaden hardy goes to the g league hardy more of that scoring type as well who shows you know sprinkles of some other stuff. He plays in the G League, struggles. Some people don't even have him ranked in the lottery anymore when he was a top five guy entering, you know, this last season.

So it could have all fallen apart for Sharp had he played at Kentucky. But it also could have really established him as the clear, you know, number one, number two, number three guy, like he was out of high school. All right. How confident are you are in this group between Sohan Tan to Portland,

Johnny Davis 11 to the Wizards, Easton out of LSU 12th to the Grizzlies or out of Kansas, Abaji 13th to Atlanta, and then Walker Kessler, the big guy there from Auburn transferred to UNC going 14 to the Hornets. It's way early here. How confident do you feel about that group still being in that lottery flirting with lottery area? I'm not the biggest Johnny Davis fan. Wow. He's cool. He's a cool prospect, but I prefer all the other guys that you mentioned. Sohan, Eason, Abadji.

Those guys are just tough, play play hard multi-positional defenders i think i think this year's draft class is filled with guys like that um who can just contribute to winning and play their role and play it at a high level with davis i mean like there's a lot to like there too don't get me wrong he also brings that on defensively too it's just gone what is it wait i'm sorry i'm gonna just give me more on why you're not as big on him it's just the perimeter jump shot uh with guards who can't how who haven't proven they can shoot with any consistency i have some concerns there um with what he could turn into as a shooter but maybe over the course of time it gets better like other guys do it's not like he's a piss poor free throw shooter he shoots in the high 70s so there's a

chance he turns into something he brings it as a rebounder. He brings it on the boards. He brings it on defense. He's the type of guy who he even posts up. He could be used in different positions on offense. So there's a lot to like. But I think there's less certainty with what you want him to be. Whereas with

Sohan, with Eason, with Abadji, there's a lot of confidence with who they are. And with Walker Kessler, the other guy you mentioned, I have no confidence. He played the worst game of his life for Auburn and that last game was I don't think he played a single good possession,

but he was great all season. So how much do we factor in that he played like this abhorrent, ugly game in his potential last college appearance versus, hey, he's actually really good all year and an important rim protector for this team that people were scared to drive to the rim to face him because he's so long, so big,

and so skilled around the rim. So, I don't know. It's tough to balance that out. But also, Walker Kessler, he just kind of bores me compared to some of these other prospects if we're talking about whether I'm in or out on them. Yeah, it looks like all the G League

guys took a bit of a hit, at least on this mock. Is there one G League guy you like significantly more than others? I mean, is it Daniels? I love Jaden Hardy. I still love Jaden Hardy despite some of his struggles because I think he got better. He got better over the course of the G League season.

His scoring efficiency improved. His feel improved. Decision making improved. Even his defense got a little bit better. Hardy, I forget. I think it was Chris Haynes this week. He called himself the best prospect in the draft. And you like that confidence.

But also, if I'm drafting Hardy in the lottery where I have him ranked, I have him 25 on the mock draft to the Grizzlies. If you're drafting him high, I'd want to find out, does this guy have the understanding that you're not going to get utilized like the number one guy in the draft, and that your role is going to be more insignificant early in your career, and you're going to have to be patient and grow. But the personality aspects is where a lot of those guys,

their fate is going to be determined. Yeah, look, I get it. Being confident. Son Whiteside told Chad Ford that he should have gone number one. I was like, okay. He said he was like a mix of KG, but like more physical. It was some amazing comp. KG, but more physical?

Yeah, something like that. Like, what's that guard? Like, what's his profile? He's a better shooting Kobe. Oh, okay. The Marshawn Brooks Kobe one was one of the all-time. But to be fair, I think it was Grover who was training Marshawn Brooks, and then he was talking with Chad Ford about it.

I just remember it. They weren't saying he was going to be Kobe. They said there were movements in the way he set himself up in his triple threat, his jab step, and some of his up and, you know, some of the stuff that he was doing that they were like,

it looks like Kobe. And very quickly we realized that yes, that it may look like it, but Marshawn Brooks, shout out, shout out to the Friars. Didn't, didn't Marshawn Brooks average like 60 points in China at one point?

Maybe not average, but scored. All right, let's do it on the fly. Marshawn Brooks, China. I could see that guy getting major shots up in China. He averaged 35 points in 2016, 36 points in 2017, 37 points in 2018 what a beast beast i love marshall brooks yeah i mean he was playing for the southern tigers last year uh yeah i mean he's got his his international per game in a couple hundred games here is 28 28 28 a game, 41% from three. Makes his free throws, too.

Look at this. This guy's like Westbrook without the assist and rebounds. And he makes his threes. So maybe he's better. Only 33 years old, too. Can't give up on Marshawn Brooks in the NBA. Former Celtics draft pick. Granted, I think he went to the Nets.

Technically, he went to the Nets, yeah. I remember, I think that draft, I wanted Brooks on the Celtics. I was disappointed by the trade. A lot of people were, but I always felt like this about Danny. He was very good on the Providence prospects. You know? If Ainge didn't like Chris Dunn,

that's pretty much all you needed to know. Maybe that was a sign. Yeah, right. Anyway, all right. That is Kevin O'Connor. You can read his mock draft on The Ringer and make sure you check out The Mismatch with Ian Berno. And he also has his video series called The Void

where you can see the intense video breakdown work that he does. Thanks as always, man. Appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan. Mountain climber, Alex Honnold. So it's been maybe, I guess, a couple of years now since it feels like the world, everybody in the world knows who you are.

How's your life changed since the movie? Depends. Not that much. Obviously, I'm a little higher profile, but I'm still doing all the same things. Actually, probably the biggest change has been, uh, just a couple of weeks ago. Um, my wife and I just had a daughter. So that feels like a change that has nothing to do with the movie. Well, that is a pretty big change. And when I told a few

friends that I was having you on, they were like, Oh, did you see, you just had a kid, which I think kind of plays into your story and everything. So what's that been like? Uh, you know, I don't know. I think our daughter is pretty mellow, but it still feels like a lot of effort to raise a, raise an infant, you know? And yeah, I don't know. It's, it's an ongoing process for the next very long time. When my group first started having kids, a couple of guys did something funny and I'll never forget. They were like, I almost feel like I need to write a letter to my parents and sort of apologize. forget they were like i almost feel like i need to write a letter to my parents and sort of apologize yeah i i will say it all seems harder than than we sort of expected i'm like well i can't believe

everybody does this so you know what i also really liked is it's yeah i just this is funny for me because i feel like in a way you're just so functional in the movie which i think is probably a reflection of your decision making you're just a pragmatist you're like so functional in the movie, which I think is probably a reflection of your decision-making. You're just a pragmatist. You're like, okay, yes, this is how I see the world. So it could feel cold at times, which I think is what makes you great at what you do. Did you get any sense of that? Or are you like, well, hey, I'm pretty used to me. I've been hanging out with myself for a long time now. Well, I prefer to think of it as directness, you know, clarity, call it clarity. I'm very clear in my thinking and my decision making. But, um, but yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard a lot of what you just said over the years, you know, from, from various, uh, girlfriends and things

or other friends, but, um, but yeah, no, I think it all makes sense. When I watched you in the Alpinist on, on the, uh, the Marc Andre doc, it was funny because five minutes in, because this is all that happens. And as I was prepping for this, I'm like, well, how do I ask him about all the stuff that he's just sick of talking about? Because everybody has this fascination, like no ropes. And I've seen you in some of the interviews.

You're like, yeah, no ropes. You got it. And you tell the director, I think, in the Netflix doc, you're like, that's just a dumb question. Why are you even asking this? And as you've understood it, because it's your world, do you think more people have started

to kind of understand because of the success of the movie, at least if they disagree, but they understand your motivations better? I definitely think that more people understand climbing in a broad sense than they did 10 years ago. And not just because the film Free Solo,

but because of films like The Alpinist or Don Wall or Valley of President. And basically there have been several fairly successful mainstream climbing documentaries or even like 14 Peaks this last year is another Netflix documentary more about high altitude mountaineering in the Himalaya. But, you know, I do think that the success

of all these different documentaries give people a better glimpse of what climbing is and, you know, what people are doing. I mean, it's better give people a better glimpse of what climbing is and then, you know, what people are doing. I mean, it's better than people getting their understanding of climbing from the film cliffhanger,

you know, which is where we were at 15 or 20 years ago. Cause like if people watch Sylvester Stallone and cliffhanger and they're like, that's climbing, I want to try it. You're like, ah,

that's a bit of a stretch. Can anyone be that jacked and be a good climber? Uh, maybe not quite as jacked as Sylvester Stallone, of us alone, but there are a few very muscular climbers. It's rare, but it happens. I guess jacked isn't the right word. I should say bulky. I'd imagine 230 pounds at a certain point, your body might be a little bit more tired.

Yeah, climbing is all about strength to weight ratio. If you weigh that much, you have to be really strong. It's tough when you're kind of going on the journey through the movie and like it's this thing you have to do right it's very clear in the storytelling that lcap is something that you have to do how did that weigh on you up until the moment you actually decide, okay, today's the day? I don't know. I mean, depends on what scale you mean. I've been thinking about it for almost 10 years. So, you know, it'd been, I don't know if weighing on me is the right thing. I mean, in some ways you can say guiding or whatever else. I mean, yeah, sometimes that kind of thing does feel like a bit of a burden or a weight. You're like, oh, I have to do this thing.

But on the other hand, you know, it gave me a lot of guidance in life, a lot of inspiration, a lot of motivation for like almost a decade. So, you know, that's worth something. But yeah, it did very much feel like maybe a calling is the right term. It's like, this is something that I have to do in my life. Maybe not have to, but it's something that I really want to do. And I feel, you know, well-suited to, to take on things like you just, sometimes you just feel obligated to take on the challenges that you think you can. Yeah. Cause I don't know if the movie, like sometimes I was reading, um, some excerpts of a Navy SEAL book. Right. And he was, he was

giving these lessons about how it's the David Goggins book. And he was like, you know, I was almost drowning. And then I just decided to talk myself out of drowning. And then it was like, and use that in your everyday life. If you have a sales job or something and you just go, okay, but there's like such a massive disconnect. Like I understand that I'm supposed to like attack the day a little bit more, but like, this is, you're at a completely different level. So I think free solo could be inspirational, but I guess there's just so many of us, 99% of us in life will not have a moment like you had where you conquer something unimaginable that nobody else has ever done. And I wonder, I wonder how that process, like what, what's, I, I feel like I can get a sense.

You just be like, Hey, tomorrow's just the next day. But was there that moment where you realized like, I'm the only person that's ever done this? No, because I mean, it's sort of complicated answer, but I mean, part of the challenge of free selling is obviously the psychological side. Like you don't want to build it up too much in your head because the physical side of climbing all cap, you know what I mean? I climbed El Cap tons and tons of times with the rope. But the challenge is when you take the rope away and then there's like the greater psychological, you know, side to it. And for me, at least with my process for freestyling El Cap, an important part was to not let the psychological side grow too big. And so I was sort of intentionally not talking it up as like this will be the craziest climb ever done.

This will be the, you know, like by the time, like I need it to just be another day. I mean, you just said that like, oh, that it's not another day, but I actually wanted it to feel like, you know, this is Tuesday. Like I wanted to do all my preparation and get to the point where it was like, you know, I can do this tomorrow. I can do this next week. But either way, this is just like a normal day of climbing. And so, so part of my, my sort of

planning for El Capo is that I actually had, you know, like a normal climbing expedition planned for later in the month, like, and then some other stuff later in the year, like basically I had other goals lined up throughout the year. So it was like, I was just going to Yosemite for my spring season, like I normally would. And, you know, this was a climb that I was hoping to do while I was there, but it was part of my bigger year. You know, like there were other things going on after. And, you know, and that helped me keep it from growing too big psychologically. It wasn't like this is the end all climb of my life. This is like this is what I do in the springtime before I go on my summer expedition, which is preparation for my winter expedition to Antarctica.

You know, it was all sort of like part of the plan. Now, when you have the first, is it really a first attempt? You know, in the movie, it plays out this way the first, is it really a first attempt, you know, in the movie, it plays out this way where there's, there's an attempt and you're like, no, no, not today. What would have happened there? Yeah, I just wasn't really ready. I mean, I, I, I wanted to do it. I hope to do it. And I just, I just couldn't basically. Um, but yeah, no, it's all, it's all very fairly portrayed in the film. I mean, I'd sprained my ankle maybe six weeks before and, you know, thought that it was going to end my season, but then I was able to sort of do some prep work.

You know, I recovered fairly quickly and was like, oh, you know what? I think I can do it. But, but in the fall like that, the season was kind of ending, like winter is coming. It's going to start storming. It's getting too cold. The days are getting too short. It all, you know, it was like winding down and I was like, oh, I really want to do this now that I put a lot of effort into it. And at that point I I put a lot of effort into it. At that point, I put a lot of effort into the top part, which is where technically the harder climbing is. I hadn't put that much effort into the bottom. Then I gave up on the bottom because I just wasn't really ready for it.

As it turns out, when I came back in the spring, I managed to put in more prep on both halves and felt much better. The day it happens, when you're heading to the first lab what's like did you just know like there was everything so finely tuned at least mentally physically that you just like okay this is it yeah yeah pretty close i mean you know whenever you're doing something that you've never done before there's always a little bit of hesitation like oh this is pretty exciting this is this is something so you know i mean i was confident i knew it was the day i was ready i was psyched but at the same time you're still like oh jesus like you know i mean it's still a pretty daunting looking piece of rock no no i remember uh the the day that i did it i actually

parked over like normally you park kind of directly in front of el cap and you hike straight after the wall and the day that i did i parked sort of at the east end of el cap at a different parking lot and then hiked kind of the length of the wall uh because I didn't want to basically I didn't want to run into anybody in the parking lot and have to talk to anyone because you see other climbers all the time and they're like oh what are you doing today like oh yeah we're you know and it's like I just didn't want any interaction so I kind of parked at like the side lot and then but it meant that I had to walk the whole length of El Cap which is not that much further but it means that you're walking underneath the wall for you know 15-20 minutes and the whole length of El Cap, which is not that much further, but it means that you're walking underneath the wall for, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And the whole time you're like,

that's a big wall. You know, it really gives you, gives you a lot of time to reflect on the scale. Yeah, I know it is. It is a big wall. Uh, I talked to somebody who watched the movie on a flight and she said she had to take a Xanax at some point. She was like, you know, it's just too much, which we'll definitely get to in the virtual reality stuff you have coming out all right so that's the day and this may sound stupid but i imagine the soloing part of it probably makes you better like does it does it ramp it up where you just feel like every single movement every single maneuver everything is just that more in tune because you just know, right? Yeah, it can. I mean, like sometimes you can climb at your best and like you're saying, everything feels crisp and precise and you're like 100% focused on every movement. It definitely can

be that way, but it also can be the opposite where you're like in your own head and you're like, oh my God, if I slip, I die. And you're all gripped and you're like holding on too tightly and like moving like too jerkily, you know, like kicking the things and all kind of like spastic because you're like holding on too tightly. So, I mean, basically it can be climbing at its best if you're relaxed and climbing well. But, you know, it really depends on what you bring to it. Was there ever a moment, you know, I don't know, you know, if there was how, how the filming of it all worked,

even though the doc actually kind of is almost doing a documentary of itself. And then I watched that other outside piece of it the other day where you guys were hanging out and, and your crew, it was, it's amazing, you know, really how,

how locked in everybody was and how much they care. But there's, there's a story through it. And even in some of the outside pieces that I saw of just you being like, this might be easier if we just don't film it. Like how much would you ever come close to telling your friends, like maybe this just isn't the way to do it because it certainly feels like a lot of people in your position, it impacts it to what degree none of us would

understand. But there feels like there's a concept of like, look, this isn't necessarily the best condition to do this as dangerous as it is by having you guys be filming this movie and all these pieces in the way. Totally. So yeah, it definitely makes it a little bit more complex to have to think about other people like that all the time. And it's slightly, you know, I found it slightly more difficult psychologically to sort of perform in front of others. On the other And, and it's slightly, you know, I found it slightly more difficult psychologically to sort of perform in front of others. On the other hand, and this is something that I feel like wasn't really addressed by any of the making of or, or the film itself or anything. I mean,

I was working on the film for a reason, you know, I mean, I agreed to because it was helping me achieve the thing that I wanted to do. I mean, the thing, I mean, I guess they kind of show, but the, the camera guys were all like helping me carry ropes to the summit and helping me rappel in on things. Like there's a tremendous amount of physical effort that goes into rehearsing a wall like that. Like, um, the, the cameraman, Mikey Schaefer, he's the guy like, uh, that can't look through the telescope at the end. If you remember, like he's on the ground, right? Yeah. He's shooting the long shot. So, um, he had just torn his acl on a ski injury which is why he was shooting the long shot but through the two years of effort he was mostly the guy repelling the wall with me and doing all the filming like

on the face and so mikey and i repelled the face together i don't know like 20 times and it's a lot easier to repel a wall with somebody else uh just because you have two people to help pull ropes and like tie things and you know basically to do the work required to get up and down the wall. Like basically it's a lot of effort to carry all your stuff up there and then repel all the way back down. I'm sure you can imagine. And so, you know, even though there were definitely moments where it felt like more of a challenge to balance their needs and just like the logistical hassle of having all these people around. On the other hand, I mean, I knew that they were helping me do the thing that I wanted to do. You know, like it was definitely better for me to have them there

than totally alone. Yeah. I could ask it this way, but like, was there ever a holy shit moment in the less than four hours it took you? And you would say, yeah, the entire four hours, but no, the opposite, the opposite. It was, it was mostly very calm and great. There were a few moments, um, particularly down on the route where I had a few moments, particularly down low on the route, where I was like, this is pretty scary. I remember specifically, and this isn't even in the film, because it was a section that wasn't filmed. On a 3,000-foot route, they only filmed a couple hundred feet here and there

because it's just hard to cover everything. But one of the sections that wasn't filmed was kind of the first spot on the route that I started getting pumped. Like because the route is very low angle. So you're mostly on your feet for the first thousand feet. And then as the wall starts to kick back and get steeper and more overhanging, that means you're more on your arms a little bit. And so when I got to the first section where I was actually like using my arms, I started to get fatigued in my arms, which is totally normal. And I was getting pumped in like the appropriate way, like the way you would when you warm up for a day of climbing or something where you're like,

I'm getting like, I'm using my muscles and I'm feeling a burn, but like in a nice way, not like, not like in a terrible way. But I just remember this moment like, Oh my God, I'm getting pumped and being like, this is kind of scary. And then I was like, wait, I'm supposed to be getting pumped. This is totally normal. This is like, you know, and then it was fine. But, um, but there were definitely moments like that where you're like, Oh my God, what happened with the camper? Was there a guy that was, it was in the unicorn outfit that must've, I don't know if that helped you or you flew right past him. So it wasn't like it was necessarily in the way, but what was that like? No, now I'm actually starting to forget the details, but, um, I think that I've maybe passed three parties that

morning. Um, there's one in the movie.'s in a full-blown there's one in the movie where he's in a full-blown pink unicorn outfit yeah though actually if you if you watch closely you notice that when i go by they're still on the portal edge they're still like in their bed and then i can go by and then they show a long shot of him standing in the unicorn thing so i actually never saw them get out of bed wearing their weird costume so you know when i went by it was just kind of like trying not to jostle their bed and like, you know, good morning, but they're still like sleeping basically. And I slipped by and then later they get out and you're like, that's weird. He's wearing a unicorn costume, but it's not that unusual for people to have. Basically it takes all kinds of characters to

climb El Cap. So you see people with pirate flags and people with weird costumes and, you know, all kinds of stuff on the wall. If you go back to the beginning of it too, and kind of, you know all kinds of stuff on the wall if you go back to the beginning of it too and kind of you know look it's very revealing on on you and your life your personality you're like hey i live in a live in a van um i'm eating dinner at walmart for 88 cents um you just you know you're very functional like i have nothing to compare nothing to compare this to um but i used to paint and you know i'd be up pretty high in a ladder, certainly not El Cap, but, and I had a ladder. So, well, I would hate it because all I would do was think. It wasn't the painting, it wasn't the heights, it wasn't the wind, it wasn't anything. It was just that all I'm doing is thinking the entire time because the painting, once you get

decent at it, it's sort of mindless. And then I started thinking about you and I thought like, maybe with your personality and you can't, it's not like you'd be mindless when you're technically climbing this kind of challenging mountain, but do you think your personality is the perfect makeup for your sport? Well, I don't know about that, but I will say that, um, that I totally hear you on the having time to think. And that is one of the things I love about climbing that I love about soloing. Because like with all the hiking to and from mountains and all the easy soloing is mindless enough that you can just kind of think like you're saying. And I really like that.

And so on something like El Cap, probably a third of it actually is pretty mindless. I mean, like maybe a third of the face is relatively easy climbing, like easy enough grade that my mind can wander and I can think about whatever. You know, and then a third of it's like more serious. And then a third of it's kind of hardcore where you have to be like 100% like this is, this is intense. But, um, no, I, I like the mindlessness. I like the, the thinking, the, the time to yourself to just sort of wonder about the world. You know, it's like, that's, that's a big part of being outdoors to me for me i felt a little guilty uh during the as a guy that isn't married um when sonny's basically like

i took your side in one of the arguments i was not on your side when you were shopping for a house and you weren't helping with the tape measure i took sonny's side on that one because i did think that was a bad look but i I remember watching the movie and being kind of frustrated on your behalf. You're like, hey, this is pretty hard on its own. I don't need to be told all the bad things. And you were kind of like, hey, it was almost like you were a customer service. You're like, your position is noted and I'm going to keep climbing. I know it's a movie and clearly everything has worked out, but I found that kind of tough because I think all of us that were invested in the movie were kind of on your side because we wanted to see you accomplish this

great feat. And it felt a little bit like I know where she was coming from, but I don't know, I guess maybe you weren't even frustrated by it because you were so focused. But it was just kind of an odd dynamic, I think, because it was like, oh, he doesn't need this. Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's just like those types of conversations are such an integral part of a climbing relationship. It's like, you know, I mean, you're driving the conversation that's on film, but it's like we probably had variations of that conversation, you know, dozens of times. And it's not necessarily that's contentious or that's like a problem in the relationship. It's just that, you know, you can't do dangerous things without talking to your partners about it. And not just romantic partner, like with Sonny, you know, my, my, my wife, but like all my climbing partners, like every time you're doing something in the big mountains, you're doing alpinism, like, you know, you're doing alpinism like you know you're constantly talking about risk and people's

individual uh you know willingness to take risks not and so i don't know not that stressed if somebody needs to have some conversations about it yeah no you're right and there's there's a lot that we don't see um and obviously it all worked out so So I, I mean, also an interesting aside here is that when, uh, basically Sonny and I started dating right at the beginning of the filming of free solo. So through the whole process of, of the filming and then of the actual climb, we've been dating for a year and a half or maybe two years by the time I did it, maybe a year and a half. It's crazy. It feels so fast. You know, now we've been together for six or something and married for one or married for two.

I don't know. You know what I mean? It all starts to feel a lot. And so that's like kind of early in a relationship where there's still a lot more to hash out. And, you know, now having been together a lot longer, it's like we don't really need to have those types of conversations as much because we sort of covered a lot of that terrain.

But I think that the film just happened to be at the beginning. No, it's, it's, that's smart to kind of reassess the timeline for us. But I guess I feel like no matter what those conversations are, you can say that they're important. They matter and all these things like it wasn't really going to change anything for you, at least on the climbing side. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, I was, I was sort of on a path and, you know, if any of those conversations had gotten too contentious in some way, you know, I probably would have thrown away a good relationship to like finish the climb that I wanted. So then how do you assess it all now with, with a family?

Oh, I don't know. I haven't really had to yet. We'll, uh, we'll see. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if, if it all changes a little bit, but, um, but at the same time, I wouldn't be that surprised if it doesn't, I don't know. I mean, cause a lot of those, those, those sort of conversations as assessments of risk, it has to do with like how much you want to do a specific time, like how much it means to you to pursue specific goals. And, you you know right now i don't have any of those specific goals like that you know i'm working on all kinds of different climbing things but they're um but they're safe right now you know they're more like personal projects to different kinds and you know we'll

just we'll just see what's the best part about being famous now since this what's the coolest story that you've had oh well coolest story i mean the best part about being famous now since this, what's the coolest story that you've had? Oh, well, coolest story. I mean, the best part is, is obviously just being able to make a living relatively easily. You know, it's like getting like corporate speaking offers and things like that and being able to support the family and still go climb full time. And, um, you know, I mean, basically like that's, that's for sure the best part. Um, like people often ask, you know, when I'm, when there's like a line of people like take photos or something, they like oh do you hate this and i'm like no i'd much rather do this than like be laying brick or something you know because like technically i don't have any education i don't have any other real prospects like you know like i'd much rather be taking photos of people than

like having to work a real job like to me that's a that's a total no-brainer i'm like this is way better than actually working yeah because when you know it's not like if you're a baseball player we could just google how much you're making and everything i always thought that was really funny that the one kid when you spoke to the high school was like how much money do you have you know i thought it was like a very normal question and you answered it in a perfect way you're like oh comparable with a dentist yeah that was before the film came out like yes yeah that's that's what i was i was able to kind of put that one together. All right. And part of that, too, is that Alex Honnold, the Soloist VR documentary, which basically, if Free Solo wasn't intense enough for you, we have a chance to really enter this world.

So can you tell us about now the tech and what you've put into this as this is launched this month? Yeah. So the VR experience is just basically like watching a film like free solo, but in VR. So it's just so like in 360 video, I mean, you can watch the climbing, but you can also turn around and look at the mountains, like look at the scenery, you know, look up, look down. I mean, the 360 audio, I think, I mean, there are a lot of things that make it feel a lot more intense. You're just there. You're on the side of the cliff watching.

But like the audio is one of them. Did you get to watch the actual experience? Have you gotten to see it? No. It's totally mind blowing. So there's a scene in it when I'm climbing, I'm still in the space. And I pull off a little rock, like a little rock breaks off, which is not that crazy, but I toss it down. And in 360, you like watch it for a second, you track track it going downward and then you kind of lose it because it's this

tiny little stone and then you like look back at the climbing and then six seconds later you hear a rock hit the ground and you're like whoa and you look down again you're like geez and then you know it gives you a sense of scale in a way that that normal film just doesn't and so you just it's through oculus tv and then i guess, as far as all the different ways that somebody could go ahead and consumes it, they're interested in throwing this thing on. You need the Oculus headset and then it's free in the Oculus app store or whatever. It's like free on the Oculus TV app or something. So basically, if you own an Oculus, which is the goggles, then the content is free. That's crazy.

then the content is free. That's crazy. It's part of Meta's way to sort of drive consumers to Oculus, I think. Which, you know, for better or for worse, I don't know if I sort of support the whole Metaverse and all that kind of stuff. I don't know how I feel about VR generally and whatever else, but I will say that when you watch this on VR, it'll blow your mind.

It's totally insane. So, you know, from a personal perspective, I was like, you know, I'm doing a project that I can show my family. I mean, it really gives a better sense of what's going on, you know, while I'm sewing than, than like anything else I've ever done. You know, I mean, and actually, and this is a good example. I mean, so we've just been talking about free solo the film, and you've asked a lot of questions about sort of like the risk and the danger and like the mitigating all that kind of stuff the thing that i love about the vr experience is that it gives a much better glimpse of the positive side of free soloing because you're able to turn around and look at the scenery non-stop and you're like these are the most

beautiful places on earth this shot in the golemites and in the alps like basically some of the most beautiful mountains in europe and you know you're like here's some giant glaciers and like there are crazy mountains in the background There's the sun rising like over this crazy glaciated ridge. It's like, you know, it gives you a much better sense of what it's like to be in these beautiful places doing this thing. And I don't know. I mean, I'd like to hope that when people watch it, they come away with it with a better sense of like the upside, you know, like what's the positive of going so long in those places. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what as we finish up here i think that's always the sense of whether you know watching this the alpinist some of the other stuff and the interviews there just seems to be this massive

disconnect you know this this disconnect of of you know you know i as i was prepping for this i was like how do i talk about the thing that i have to talk about for like half the interview which is kind of the reason why everybody freaks out about these movies and freaks out about, you know, you guys as a, as a, as a community of solo climbers. But I don't know if that disconnect will ever be understood. People are going to listen to this right now and be like, it doesn't make any fucking sense. And then when you're talking to me, you're saying like, yeah, but you guys don't, don't get it. I don't know if that'll ever be bridged. I, you know, I, I don't, it might be an impossible thing. Yeah. There are some things that, that probably can't really be bridged. You know, it might be an impossible thing. Yeah, there are some things

that probably can't really be bridged without actual shared experience. I do think that the VR experience does a better job of bridging that than anything else I can imagine. Like, I think that when you watch so long in VR, you're just, I mean,

it is way more intense. So it's probably like scarier for some people. But on the other hand, if you think the climate is too intense, you can literally just look at the scenery and enjoy this you know some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth which is a big part of the appeal of soloing in those places to begin with is like to have these cool experiences in these incredible places and so you know i mean i i think i i hope that the vr experience does a better job of

bridging that gap what did you do the rest of the day after you soloed El Cap? Well, we did, you know, an interview, which you see in the film. I went down, I hangboarded, I did a little training session because I'd been on this like every other day program and I was trying to stick to it. And then, I don't know, I think we just kind of hung out, you know, like I was like, because that gets you to like mid-afternoon. And then, I mean, I'd gotten up at like 4 or 3.30,

so I probably went to bed pretty early. The next day, I think gets you to like mid-afternoon. And then, I mean, I'd gotten up at like 4 or 3.30. So I probably went to bed pretty early. The next day, I think we went to a Sunday brunch and had a pretty epic feast of a morning. I hadn't eaten sugar in months. And so I was like, brunch and having like, you know, I don't know, like French toast with Nutella and stuff. Well, congrats, man, on everything and the new addition to the family. And, you know, you're something else, man. It's just kind of awesome to watch your story and get to know you through these different versions of Access. So looking forward to this as well, the Oculus thing.

So good luck and thanks again. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for chatting. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com Podcast listeners, girlfriends, and wives favorite segment.

I've listened to you for years and I hate you, but I do like life advice, so finally it's something I can listen to with Jeff. Alright, 64215, swimmerimmers body in the off season. Um, also a massive SVP and Priscilla fan. Thanks man.

Okay. Uh, his name in this email is Kevin. Okay. Kev, I own a rental property and I had new tenants move in this past November. They said they needed a storage locker. So I offered up mine from the building.

But when I gave them the locker number, I accidentally gave the wrong one. Okay, for those that were, I was a little confused when I first got this one from Kyle. Apartments, storage basement, you know, fenced-in area, different fenced-in deals. You get assigned one. This guy had one because he owns the unit, but then gave them the wrong locker number, which isn't just a straight up locker. I'm imagining this sort of like a fenced in thing where you can see it, but it's safe because it's your own lock. Fast forward to this past weekend, the tenants want to retrieve an item from it and notice the lock on the unit wasn't theirs and all

the belongings were gone. I contacted the property management company and they advised that a sign was put on the unit two months ago saying they had the wrong locker and if their contents weren't retrieved, they would be discarded. Clearly, the tenants didn't see the sign and neither did I. And now the contents have been thrown out, donated. I spoke with the tenants and they don't have renter's insurance. They estimate the value of the contents that were near $5,000. Although from an insurance perspective, I'm not liable for this, but from a nice guy perspective, I'd like to help out as much as I can. If you were in my shoes,

what would you do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Well, obviously it sucks that if you're the owner of the unit that there couldn't be somebody from the property management department to be like, hey, just a heads up to everybody, we're going to clean out this storage unit and throw all the shit away or donate it. And what it also means is that property manager guy is going to grab himself a pair of skis. And that part of it's nasty. Like as somebody who had a storage unit once where it was going to be up for auction because look i was 26 and i was broke and i wasn't in the greatest place and the storage facility was uh on the mainland so i actually had to like take a boat over to deal with it for the day uh it's it's brutal like that part of it's brutal where you're like you're gonna just give all my shit away

because i'm behind a couple months and clearly the payment for the storage isn't even close but if you ran a storage unit you're like okay, we'll just have everybody be late. Every, you know, no problem. Just nobody pay their bill and have no influx of cash and we'll just keep your shit here, you know? So it's kind of like, it's on a much less serious note, but it's kind of like when you're at some of those gyms and they have the temporary lockers and they decide to like go through them once every couple months and then you show up.

There was one in West Hartford when I was back there where you would rollers and they decide to like go through them once every couple months and then you show up there was one in west hartford when i was back there where you would roll in and they would do kind of the purging of the lockers of the temporary lockers the non-permanent ones that came a membership but just hey you bring your lock i think everybody understand it shut the fuck up uh and then you go in and there'll be like seriously 40 to 50 little yellow tabs basically warning everybody if you're keeping this as a permanent locker like understand the content and then the other part of it is you're like there's just enough people that are selfish that they go oh well i'll get away with it even though i won't and then i'll get a heads up and then i'll be able to do my thing they're like hey this is why

there's never any empty lockers ever because all these people keep doing this stuff which you know this is what people do people can get real selfish it. This is a little bit more serious because we're talking about people in their living situation. So, um, it would have been nice if they could have given you a heads up, but remember people are motivated, um, in ways that benefit themselves more often than not, unfortunately. Uh, I think it's great. First of all, that you feel bad enough that you're like, Hey, what can you do? Do you trust them on the 5,000? That's going to be a you call. None of us know what the interaction is like. If you wanted to be a little bit of a hardo about it, because it's clear you don't want to just cover it, write a check for 5,000. They could be rounding up. People do that as well. You could say

something like, hey, well, can you give me an itemized thing? I'm going to try to see if my insurance can cover it, which could be bullshit because your insurance probably wouldn't cover it. But it might be a way to kind of get a real sense of if they're fucking with you or not on the $5,000. Because even though it sucks for them, you screwed up. You gave them the wrong number. I still don't know why I had to lead to this. But again, we already covered all that. You could say, I need to just for my own, I want to help out here, but you need to give me kind of an itemized thing. To ask for receipts

is probably a bullshit move because they're not going to be keeping receipts. But if it were furniture or something that was ordered from somewhere, the order history would be in their account. I mean, that stuff goes back. I can look at furniture that I ordered 10 years ago. Okay. So it's all kind of there. So that way you kind of cover yourself from being taken advantage of, but the fact that you want to help and step up here, um, is important. And I think it's the right call because you did make a mistake, but I also don't think that you should just go into this blindly and set yourself up to be completely taken advantage of. So I would say, can you give me an itemized list? Is there any way you have receipts on the bigger items? That way I can have my insurance, look at

it and maybe help this out. But I, I'm sorry, but I can't just cut you a check for $5,000 until I do a little bit more work on it. And if they're diligent and they have this stuff and you actually totally believe them, then it's kind of up to you. So I think your, your heart's in the right place here, but don't go into it. it so so determined to help that you also get fucked over on this because they're mad at you kyle you ever you ever pull one of these pull one of these no but like in situations when like i'm in the wrong like sometimes i'll be like all right all right got it got it um what can we do about this i mean and and obviously it's it's not like with what jumps into mind with me was like i i involved in like a head on crash on like Christmas Day.

And I like these two guys like going to work. I just kind of gave them all the money in my pocket. And it was a whole thing. I was a dummy. But it was like immediately I knew I was wrong. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead.

I'm just saying immediately I knew I was wrong. And I was just like, oh, shit. What can I do? I know you're probably going to like gouge my insurance for this. I'm sorry. I know I ruined your day. And I just kind of gave them all the money in my pocket. Fun story actually ended up technically fleeing the scene because the cops were taking forever to talk to me. So, but, but that's not even what this is about. I'm just saying when you know,

you're in the wrong and your gut reaction when you're, but when you know, you're in the wrong and the gut reaction is to like, all right, what can I do here? But you're right. That it's like, it's not just like, Oh, I crashed into your car car. They're saying we have $5,000 worth of stuff. And yeah, I think, I think it's right to want to help. And I think you'd be wrong to not end up giving anything. I think, I don't know, especially, I think renters are usually like, I don't know, just, especially if they need like to store stuff with, they probably don't have as many, it's probably not like, oh shit, I hate that that happened. Like they're probably actually like really suffering from that. So yeah, it's good that you want to help.

And I think honestly, I wouldn't say anything other than what you said, which is just like, try to see if you can get a little more verification from what the stuff is. And yeah, like if you say you're going to go to your insurance, it's probably not going to happen. I feel like insurance wouldn't even do that if your shit got stolen or whatever. But let alone somebody else's but um yeah i think it's worth just like at least asking for that and under the guise of i'm going to talk to my insurance or whatever so i think that's that's good and so wait when you handed all your cash how much was it to the head on collision that was probably i just picked up my

check uh from the restaurant from the melting pot so um but i didn't cash it so i didn't have that so i actually what i mean to to say is probably pretty low. I think I probably had like a hundred bucks. And was that it? Or did they follow up with you later on? Um, they followed up with the insurance. It was bad. Um, I was, yeah, I was in the, it was, it was Christmas day.

I'd actually moved out, um, in my apartment. And when I moved out, my dad was like, you're not using my car. I was like, oh, wow. I actually thought I was going to be able to. Shit. Okay. So I was taking the bus up Route 9 to Modell's and Melty Pot. And he was like, you know what?

It's Christmas Eve. He's like, as a present, I know you want to go get your check. You can take the car and go get your check. I was like, wow, really? So it's my first time driving the car in like seven months. And I'm going. And I'm going to take the, I'm like at the median there. And I'm going to the left turn lane. And I just, I'm driving an 06 Malibu, Chevy Malibu, not the greatest in the snow. And I just jammed on the brakes and I went over the median, head on crash into some two,

two guys that were like going to work. They were like laborers or something and just totally destroyed their car. My car actually wasn't, my dad's car wasn't totaled, but we sat in the gas station for a while. The cops took, cops were there for like 20 minutes talking to those guys. I'm standing in the gas station waiting for them to come to me and they never, they like were taken forever. So I just called my buddy, he picked me up and apparently that was fleeing the scene. But I gave him, I gave him all the cash in my pocket. I was like, I was like 18, 19, so I don't know. How mad was your dad?

He was like, what the hell's wrong with you? You can't just leave. I was like, sorry, it was my first big crash, Dad. I don't really know. Didn't really know what to do. I saw the cops. I said, hello. I was like, I'll be in here.

I was like, what are you guys doing? So they talked to the other guys. The other guys left, and they were just standing there. So yeah, I just left the car at the gas station. Strange. Yeah, I actually feel so bad after this story. I don have a ton i don't have a ton more i don't know so rudy no i just i think i think you gotta at least do your part like if you can if you can pay the five grand or at least get close to it i kind of think you have to do it like i remember you know we broke a buddy's futon like

this isn't a situation where it's like a low-end thing like we broke a futon off of craigslist and end up buying a new one for $200. That's not that big of a deal. You do that because if you're in the wrong, then you should solve the problem. Five grand is a lot of money. I would say if you have the means to at least get close to it,

I would try to help them out. Because at the end of the day, it's your fault. You're the reason that they don't have their shit. Yeah, it's not hard to draw a line from this fuck up to you. It's really not. You don't have to do any gymnastics to get there. It literally is a line to you. It is a line to this fuck up to you it's really not it's not you don't have to do any it literally is a line to you it is a line to the fuck up and you that's it yeah i can't even imagine what the insurance would be on this because first of all the insurance is going to

tell you like no a couple times right and then if you were to say well i have homeowners so we should cover it but then they say okay well what exactly happened and then you go well it's a rental property now and they put their like i mean to me negligence is the number one thing right i have i have a i have a strong belief with the insurance game that there might not be the most accommodating you know crew on the other phone on the other end of the phone so i've never gone through this before but is there a way can you i'm not trying to like scam insurers but like can you try to claim some of the stuff if we were you know we were gonna try yeah but if we're i mean kyle flood the scene we're scamming insurance people you know we're trying to help people but like is there a way that like if there's a tv on

there so i don't know can you can you say oh this is actually my tv i don't know i'm just trying to throw shit out there for this guy to help him out because maybe the insurance would be more likely to cover the problem the problem is is the insurance company has anybody there with a brain which they do they're gonna go okay well the company threw your stuff out well we want to talk to them and then as soon as they say that then the guy's gonna go oh we had this notice on the door for weeks yeah we had the notice on the door put it aside i i honestly so fucking dumb though the The mistake, right. The mistake sucks. But the thing that's tough to handle is that there's a,

there was a better way that this could have been handled. And whoever is in charge of the storage unit stuff, like that guy's got a sick end table right now. You just know it, right? It wasn't, it wasn't thrown away. It wasn't a goodwill. He's like,

Oh, I got that from unit 32. He's like, he put it on the curb for one second, so it could be goodwill. He's like, Oh, I got that from unit 32. He's like, fuckers. He put it on the curb for one second. So it could be free. And he was like, Oh yeah.

No takers. Hey, I threw your shit away. Well, I put a sign up. Yeah. Good call. There was a sign.

Yeah. Cause I mean, it honestly, this kind of storage stuff, you don't check on it very often. You just don't. I know exactly what it is. Cause I had one of,

one of my apartments and you go down there and it would suck if somebody else's stuff is in there i just think that there's a property manager there's people that you like when it's an apartment building that has this kind of facility there should be enough people in the chain of command that then can be like hey can we help a tenant out here yeah before we do this and no because knock on a door like don't just throw your first instinct should be to throw everything out yeah like this tenants or this this management company's like we haven't Like, don't just throw it. Your first instinct should be to throw everything out. Yeah. Like this management company is like, we don't have our email up yet. Sorry. All right.

I don't know. Let's get to this one. Speaking of living situation. Yeah, we're getting emails in 2023 to avoid this. All right, let's do another one here. Perhaps a more difficult subject for this crew, but it's called Gay Bachelor Party. All right, here we go. Hey guys. Stats. 35 years

old. 5'9", 185. Grew up playing sports. College athlete. Can do 10 strict pull-ups on a good day. Left out names and location. Dilemma. Oh, he's got bullet points here. This is good. Easy to read. I'm currently engaged to my boyfriend. We'll be getting married this fall. My straight high school friends including my brother want to throw me a bachelor party as the token gay guy in the group i'm not exactly jazzed about it for context i do

love this group we've kept in touch over the years and my sexual orientation has never been an issue i came out in my mid-20s so this gesture is a positive one uh but man i've hated bachelor parties because they clearly aren't for me this isn't to say I don't love the shenanigans and the lasting memories with the group it's all the extra stuff you guys know yeah we get it right I've been to a few straight bachelor parties

I get it and the gay jokes do fly when we all get together because it's their way of giving me shit I'd argue it's low hanging fruit but that's neither here nor there so what do I want for a whole weekend? I'm also afraid of the surprises that await me. I'm going to also offer up that reading that part of it about, uh,

the jokes, you know, that these are your friends. So you clearly, I don't know, you tolerate what you tolerate. Uh, the,

the, the position against that would be, Hey, these aren't your friends if they're doing that kind of stuff. I don't know. I mean, it's just kind of like, whenever I read some of this stuff, that's, uh, more serious issues. I just want to make sure that we're not getting a, all the emails that would say like, Hey, he shouldn't even be friends with these guys because of the joke. So we're just at least addressing that part. But look, this is the guy emailing. These are his friends. This is his perspective on it. He's clearly

doesn't feel comfortable about the bachelor party part of it. Um, which is more of the focus of the email. So moving on in the past, I've had to take one for the team, meaning just go on it. He clearly doesn't feel comfortable about the bachelor party part of it, which is more the focus of the email. So moving on. In the past, I've had to take one for the team, meaning just go with it, my French bachelor parties. But this is supposed to be for me. It does help that we're now all older and many guys have families, but it also means the thrill of one last banger weekend is coveted.

So as much people say this is about me, it's not exactly true. You are 100% on point on that last point. Don't get me wrong. I do have an ideal bachelor party, but it's definitely not with this crew. And I wouldn't want them to go through what I did with their bachelor parties either, which is a very good point. So get to the point. One sense, I want to shut down any notions of a bachelor party because I'm too old to put up with this stuff. And another sense, I know I can be sensitive and might need to take a step back here. A weekend with the guys, doing the things I want to do does sound awesome. Is there a way to play this out

with being the killjoy? Do I be up front about it? That seems to always make it worse in my opinion. Perhaps I can be proactive in the plans for the weekend. I don't know. I need help, guys. The clock is ticking. Well, look, this is your bachelor party, as you said,

but it's rarely on point that as guys get older, like as much as the bachelor party thing can be pretty repetitive and you're like, all right, cool. And depending on if you're a strip club guy or you're not, I mean, a lot of times I think guys like the strip club part of it because it's just another place to drink. And a lot of those places are a little bit looser with when they want to close and all that kind of stuff. And depending on which part of your crew can make it through the night, that becomes like the destination part of it at all. You know, we understand. Just throw it a pot and mix it. Right. planning my bachelor party and he said,

well, the three things that we want to do is we want to, um, you know, we want to volunteer and then we're going to clean a beach and then we're going to do a really nice mellow dinner at Cracker Barrel at six o'clock. I'd be like, you know, I don't,

I'm all for clean beaches, but I don't want to do it that weekend. You know, like that's not exactly what I want to do that weekend. And it is, it'd be nice if they kind of knew that they didn't want to do it that weekend. That's not exactly what I want to do that weekend. It'd be nice if they knew that they didn't want to do this where it's just put you in the uncomfortable situation, but I would go to whoever it is in the group that has the juice, that has the most respect of everybody else, who likely is planning this stuff out, I would pull them aside and say, hey, look, you know what I'm about. You know what I'm not about. I don't want to turn this into some straight guy weekend where it's an escape for all you dudes

while I'm constantly uncomfortable the entire fucking time. And if you do start doing that kind of stuff or that is the plan, then let me know that. Because you already having, as we like to say, pre-anxiety about this weekend, like that sucks, man. You shouldn't have to feel that. And you've had to feel it so many other times, whether it's before you told your friends and certainly after, as you admit, that for you in your mid-30s, as you're approaching

another chapter in your life to now have to face this about something that's supposed to be about you, that sucks. And if any of your friends actually care about you, and I would say specifically the one guy that can kind of get the group on the same page and make this about you and have it be things that you want to do and not be experiment rhino getting a lap dance because it's just not your deal. I mean, you could very simply say to one of those guys and be like, Hey, would you be pumped if I took all of you guys to a gay bar? Like, do you guys want to do that? And if they said no, you'd be like, hey, would you be pumped if I took all of you guys to a gay bar? Do you guys want to do that? And if they said no, you'd be like, yeah, exactly.

Maybe I don't want to do the shit that you guys want to do. And if we're all still friends at this point, which clearly you are, which I think is great, I don't know why anybody with half a brain would resist that or push back. If some guys want to sidle off and get weird in their own way, let them do that. But I would say, let's go over the itinerary. Let's figure out the things

that I do and don't want to do. And I don't know why anybody who calls themselves your friend and is close enough that they would be at your bachelor party weekend would push back on that. So I would try to be forceful

and fix this one soon or just say, well, if that's the plan and it's about you guys and it isn't me, then I don't want to spend an entire weekend kind of bummed out and pissed off because you guys don't respect me enough and want to make it uncomfortable. There's plenty of weekends and stuff where I've gone with guys. I'm like, all right, this is going to be... I remember one golf trip and it was like, oh, cool, three straight 7 a. times. Cause you guys want to play 36 holes. You're like fucking A, but guess what?

It's not your weekend. It's that person's weekend. It's what they want to do. And clearly golf tee time is not the same as this, but you get the point. So I actually don't think it's, it sucks that you feel this way, but I can't imagine anybody that cares about you as a friend wouldn't be like, yeah, you're right. Like, let's take care of our guy here.

How does, I mean, like I said, never been to a wedding since I was 11. So definitely it was never of age for a bachelor party. How does it work? Do you not decide like where you go or do you still decide where you go, but you don't decide what you do?

Do you, are you like kidnapped? Do they put like a hood on you? And like, how do you, how does this stuff work uh kid i we've never kidnapped anybody at ours no not like a fun way to get it started no no there are guys that take it really seriously like really seriously there's like a team captain

that makes all the choices like how does it work i don't think there's like anybody has a c on their chest but it'd be the best man is usually in charge of putting together all the plans so that's a good way to decide that got it right it depends on the dynamic of your your crew the age thing is big because the first couple bachelor parties for our group it's just right out of central casting you know vegas vegas vegas you know i mean loser town you know so does he decide where you're going? Is he like, we're going to New Orleans or are you like, hey, I'd like to go here. And then he's like, all right, we'll figure it out. Like, and then where's the money come from? Like, does the guy is the is the bachelor not supposed to ever pay for anything?

Is it not supposed to pay for anything? OK, this is all new to me. I mean, I can tell you from like from my scene, we had a couple of Vegas ones. And then by the time I got married, my bastard party, we were all Vegas'd out and partied out at that point. And I was just like, hey, I want to be on a lake somewhere, water, alone, house ourselves. I invited Rosillo, didn't show up. Ouch.

And it was awesome because we were all on the same page. But I was the one basically dictating whatever I wanted. I didn't say, hey, I want this house on this place or whatever. I was like, hey, maybe somewhere in Maine on a lake or whatever. I was like, hey, like maybe somewhere in Maine on a lake secluded. Best man went out, found it, did it. And then we all kind of like got on the same page.

And I think that's probably what you should do. I will say, though, to this guy, there are weddings aren't always about the people that are getting married. Like I learned that a lot and met my wedding like my dad wanted to stag so bad

and I had no interest in having a stag whatsoever. But I did it because my dad wanted to do it. I know this is a little bit of a different situation. Like you don't want to like just rage with some of these guys because you don't feel like you have a lot in common with them. But maybe there's a best of both worlds thing where you can go somewhere cool, but you don't have to do all the dumb events that they want to do that you don't have to. Like maybe you can split up into two parties because sometimes in bachelor parties, there are camps of people that want to get weird and other people that kind of want to just chill. So maybe there's a best of

both worlds situation where you can kind of find a middle ground there. Yeah. I think the best way to do it, go to the one guy that's kind of putting it together. You know, this is what I want to do. This is what I don't want to do. You guys are in your thirties now. So I think that's to your advantage. And again, as we say this all out loud, it sucks that any of this sort of has to happen, but I think the best way of looking at it is the same rules apply. You just go, Hey, I don't want to be, I don't want to be the guy that ends up in the strip club and it's like some sort of thing that's funny because you know i'm not laughing you know right like i'm you know and if a guy wants you to in your friend group is like no no this is this is what we're doing well fuck that guy you know and if

those guys want to like suri said if they want to go and get weird on their own then they're also allowed to do that they don't want to sleep don't sleep yeah. Yeah. You can chill in the hammock, dude. Fine. Who gives a fuck what they're doing? Go ahead. Final question about bachelor parties. How close to the wedding is it? So are people doing all this crazy shit like a week before the wedding?

What? I'm just kidding. Oh, okay. Although I think... Maybe once or twice? I think it has happened. I saw something... I've seen guys have kind of like multiple things,

and I'm not that's that's very rare very rare but i'll i don't think i don't know how much i should share here but i remember there was a night before situation for that sounds crazy and let's take the hangover he was like he was he was basically taking it to the deadline of the vows, is my point. And guys were like, whoa. He was in rough shape? No. He was like, I'm not married yet. And we were like, what the fuck are you doing?

And he's like, I'm not married. We were just like, I don't know if that's the worst guy. Was that his mantra? He just kept saying it? It's like, everything's okay. I'm not married yet. We were just like, dude. Guys were like, what is going on?

Like, he's getting married tomorrow. And we were just like. Over under six months on that one. I'm not going to add anything else to it. Okay. Because they know what is going to happen is that I'm going to have college guys asking, wait a minute, and it isn't any of those guys.

It's a completely like unnamed moon satelliting. Satellites, not just this, it's this orbit that is so detached from the core of whatever. It comes in every like 70 something years. That's a comment is the best, best way to describe the guy because it was,

it was like, wait, I'd heard about this guy and he was kind of this legendary guy. And then some dudes were like, do you, do you know that he's in town and i was like yeah yeah and then it just was guys guys were guys that didn't know him were shook up the next day so outside of outside of outside of the haley's comet bachelor party like

how how is it because it's it's when i was it's months before really yeah wow because it was kind of a fucking pain in the ass getting myself together for this wedding that got canceled in 2020. And then it's like to then also have to get yourself somewhere else like a month or two before. It's like weddings are expensive to go to even. Kyle, are you still not invited to a wedding as an adult? Is that you still offer? Still offer as an adult. Correct. Apparently. So the guy who's wedding yeah i do have one coming up this summer

so fucking excited guys you have no idea but the wedding kyle wedding kyle kyle wedding season i can't wait to see what i'm gonna get a i'm gonna get a suit it's gonna be great i might even get get a vest i don't know but um knows? Yeah, vests are huge right now. But that first one that I was supposed to go to, they already kind of got married and there's a kid now. So he's like, yeah, we might have a ceremony, which I mean, I'll go to the ceremony, but it'll be two years later by the time I get to go to this fake wedding. So I don't really want that to be my first one. So I think my first one is going to be in August and I'm ready to go. All right. Look, and if you guys want to invite Kyle to to a wedding life advice rr at gmail.com southern california

but you know maybe we get a flight or a bachelor party yeah yeah i actually would rather kyle go to a bachelor party i get invited to stuff every now and then and i'm like i don't know you guys i didn't go to saruti's so you know what else you're gonna do all right that's life advice thanks to kyle and steve as always uh fun week really good week here for the podcast check out kevin o'connor's mock draft again on the ringer and please subscribe ringer spotify ryan rossillo pockets Outro Music