The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Would You Rathers and the Worst Home Field Advantage in Sports, Plus Life Advice

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Ryen finally took the long trip over to SoFi Stadium to catch the Cowboys-Chargers game this past Monday and walked away realizing the disadvantage the Chargers have playing in Los Angeles (00:38). The NBA season is looming, and Ryen and Ceruti are back with some Would You Rathers (11:22). Is Victor Wembanyama worth an entire franchise? Plus, Life Advice! Should one guy tell his fiancée about his recent financial woes (44:37)? The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Producers: Cliff Augustin, Steve Ceruti, and Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast we have for you uh a thought on the chargers after i actually went to an la chargers home game that's a tough deal for them a bunch of nba pre-season fun questions with saruti life advice and our pick for Thursday Night Football. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Before I get started on some of the NBA stuff that we want to do, just some of the fun topics before the season gets started, I want to tell you about my experience recently. I finally made it to SoFi Stadium here in Los Angeles. Not that far away, but in LA, things can be far away. But it was great. It was an awesome stadium. I know it seems weird, but whenever there's a chance to go to one of the games,

if it lands on a Sunday, it doesn't really work for me because then it takes me away from the rest of the games that we're watching. So we can do those big Monday podcasts. So I went to the Monday night game against Dallas, Chargers-Dallas. Chargers have now been in what,

kind of year three of like, man, I really like that talent. It's a good team. Herbert wasn't very good, by the way, wasn't very good. Like there's a couple throws every game. You feel like a guy's going to miss. He felt like he was missing more and then seeing it live on some of the stuff, you're like, what's going on here? So to continue to monitor the Justin Herbert conversation, right? But I knew it wasn't great. I knew it wasn't great i knew it wasn't a great home field advantage for the los angeles chargers i had no fucking idea how bad it was that might be the worst setup for any pro franchise in this country in sports now before we start listing off other places that aren't

in sports. Now, before we start listing off other places that aren't super passionate about the home team, we could run through teams that don't have great local support. The Tampa Bay Rays would come up, watching playoff games, being like, empty seats? I mean, that's been going on forever. The stadium's terrible, and it just continues to live there. It still breaks my heart that Montreal doesn't have a baseball team because that city cared about the Expos. But there's something about the Canadian experience. Once the strike happened and they were denied this amazing team, it's just like, screw it. We're not interested in baseball anymore. They stuck to their guns. Whenever I think about the fan ownership relationship, it's a lot like the CBAs where the owners are going to win the CBA. It's just a matter of how baseball anymore they stuck to their guns like whenever I think about the fan ownership relationship

it's a lot like the cbas where the owners are going to win the cba it's just a matter of how bad the players lose well there's no real cba for fans because you're not even really allowed to negotiate anything and the fact is we all care about this stuff so much the owners know and we're just going to lose little pieces here and there along the way but the Expos fan base was like no no we actually are going to do the thing that nobody does we're going to stop caring about a sports franchise and it will become untenable for them to continue to exist in Montreal I do wonder if a couple decades later they could figure that out and rekindle that passion I would hope so because you know Tampa's put together this incredible roster. They find a way to reinvent themselves every single year.

They're competitive all the time on a lower budget. They're a miracle in baseball. But what the Chargers are experiencing, I cannot express how rattling it must be to be on that team, and it's third and seven, and you're in Dallas' red zone, and the place sounds like LSU on a Saturday night. There's a lot of NFL stadiums that you go to, and you're like, all right, this can be a little bit of a letdown. I clearly like the Saturday experience in a stadium more than I do the Sunday experience.

Both can be really rowdy. The NFL gets kind of weird rowdy. I don't know if it's the Cowboys fan element because that'd be unfair to just them. There's other fan bases too that are pretty rowdy, but walking through there, because I did a whole lap of the whole place and so far you're like man is this place about to become unhinged and then of course there's the handful of fights that you see on social media after any of the football games if you're looking for it so there's that part of it but that's not even that's that's not specific to what i saw on monday night the number of times where it was Dallas needing a big defensive stop, and you would have thought you were in Dallas. If you didn't know and you were in the stadium, I cannot emphasize enough how loud it was. They're playing 17 road games.

And yet, because the NFL is a television business before it's an attendance business, which is a massive departure for how sports kind of started out, you know, it's becoming like a real viable thing a hundred years ago, reading about baseball owners when radio became commonplace and baseball owners are like, why are we doing this? We're going to ruin our intent, our attendance. You know, vendors are going to be hit because people are going to stay at home and listen on the radio. They actually thought radio was bad for business and then the evolution of things and we adapt and there's more people and none of that really matters but for the nfl it isn't about the stadium experience really i mean it's cool when the owners can build these palaces and they have the highest upgrades and the newest technology and all the different stuff that goes into building

these places be like oh you can even do this when you're at the stadium. And to be fair too, I've been to Saints games where it feels awesome. For whatever reason, the intimacy of the Superdome, which doesn't seem like it would make any sense for the way it's been built, but it just works. It works in there and it's Louisiana, it's all mixed up and it seems to feel a little bit more intense in a college way. And look, I haven't been to Green Bay. I'm sure Kansas City is terrific. So I don't want to just start feeling like I'm leaving out awesome NFL experiences because I haven't been to them, but I'm aware that they exist. But what I'm telling you, what isn't an awesome NFL experience is to be on the Los Angeles Chargers and play your home games in a stadium

that's actually another franchise's stadium. And it feels like when you're at the games, everybody takes a trip to LA to root on the visiting team. Because if you really run through it, like who has a worse situation than the Chargers? Hell, I still think I slip up and say San Diego like three or four times a season. San Diego shouldn't have lost these guys. All right. I know that the history with the ownership and the stadium and all these different things. And it's like when an owner can't actually get a stadium, you're like, wait, aren't you supposed to just give us one of these? What the hell's the deal here?

And to the Rams' credit, they did a lot of this on their own in comparison to other stadiums that are built. But think of this. The Rams come back to town, and there's plenty of Rams jokes about how important or not important they are in the hierarchy of LA sports. The Lakers thing is SEC football. It's Yankees, Red Sox. It's 365. It's as intense as anything I've seen in this country when it comes to pro sports. The Lakers thing is very real. The Dodgers thing is very real, and they have a real reason, despite the playoff

disappointment of this year, to continue to feel excited about not only a great franchise, the history, the stadium, all of it. It's all awesome. The Kings thing is incredible. There's a real like kind of the hockey ownership of fan fandom is kind of cool and unique in its own way. You feel like, yeah, I'm actually more of a Kings guy than I am Lakers or whatever. You know what I mean? Like there's that in Boston with the Bruins, the whole thing. Chicago, same deal.

You get it. Those of you that are hockey fans that are in hockey towns. So the Rams have their own issues and it's a city they already have history. The Chargers didn't even start here until the stadium was done. And now they're here.

And whatever Rams problems there are, multiply those by 100 for the Chargers because then whatever Rams problems there are, multiply those by 100 for the Chargers because then whatever Rams jokes there are, the Chargers jokes, they just stop making them. They're not even in their own stadium. And when they're playing at home, it feels like everyone is rooting for the other team. I left that game still confused about the Chargers and the talent and the lack of wins

but it's not I would never go as far as to say like hey you know the Chargers aren't as good as we all think they are because of the stadium setup but it's not helping it's not helping I would challenge you to think of something based on that timeline of, hey, LA, which still is a little football challenged, is not going to get one, but they're going to get two. And the second franchise is going to be from San Diego. And yes, I'm sure there's some of you that are still San Diego Chargers fans, right? Get it? That drive up for a couple games.

You love your team. You've loved them forever. You can't quit them. You can't divorce them, even though they divorced you. And I give you credit. I commend you for still being able to do that. But if you're a player on that team and there are bad franchises, they're bad owners, they're bad situations in all the four major sports, but nothing's worse than this. And seeing it live and feeling it, it completely changes.

It's not like, oh, this is why they aren't good. I'm not going that far with it. I'm not going to reach for that conclusion of all of it. I'm just telling you it sucks. Get ready to start the NFL week off right because right now all customers can get a no sweat same game parlay for Thursday night football. Just place a three leg same game parlay

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Max refund $5 unless otherwise specified. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com before the season gets started in the nba and uh check out me bill house we did a massive massive over-unders nba preview pod i think it's in three parts. So we taped that one on Monday and they've all, all the parts are out now. So I'll retweet those, uh, at Ryan Aversillo on X.

So let's, uh, let's bring in Saruti. Let's have some fun with this. We're just going to want to throw around a bunch of questions here. Um, there's, there's kind of like,

there's not a great title for this other than just NBA preview fun stuff. So yeah, just stuff. Cause I love these questions right I love all these debates so all right so Rudy lead the way here yeah so you know we we did last year I think we did it early last year not before the season but like in the early part of the NBA season we just like pinned two players against each other and said hey which one would you rather have right now and I want I think the biggest disagreement last year there's a breakout

video about it was uh Booker versus Tatum and I think you know i know you i know you have a little i don't have that again this year because i think we i don't know if we've moved off of our positions maybe we have but i've got a bunch of sort of would you rather have this guy or this guy for this year than this year alone um and i've got a couple like foreseeable future questions some of those involve wemby some of those involve like some of the young guys that haven't quite clicked yet and then i've got one wild card question as well and then we got some i think we're going to do some duo stuff um potentially some league pass like who we want to watch on league pass and all that so i guess where you want to start you want to start with the just like the pinning two guys against each other do you have do you want to do you want to mention

anything about booker versus tatum again because that was the big one last year um i do want to mention something about it but i don't think we need to lead with it all right um i'll explain it later because i i ran through a bunch of numbers again this morning and basically there's like a couple different opinions that i feel like i'm on an nba island but the way this works if we do a breakout video of me saying like hey why are we doing this then i immediately it's like oh you think this guy, it's like, oh, you think this guy sucks? It's like, nope, I don't think he sucks. But I do have a couple of players. There's the Tatum Booker thing. And then there's a bit of an SGA thing where I feel like I'm on my own. And I might be wrong about both, by the way. But I don't want to make those like the headline or

breakout things because then it takes on this weird ownership that may not even be, it's you saying it, it's your show show and then the way the breakout lives outside of all the other stuff that you said i don't even want to do that because i know i still actually might be wrong and you know we'll get to whatever conclusion i'm trying to filter through my head here anyway so all right let's just go with what you have yeah all right all right so again these are just like in my so i've been looking at all the esbn had the rankings i saw cbs had rankings like at bleacher they everybody does the juice we do them we have the i was looking at last night the ringer i think michael pina put that out um i think it was voted by a bunch of

people but i saw pina retweeted it so basically like i'm just gonna throw two players actually you tell me who'd you rather have this is the first one this one i thought was interesting it's like two old heads who obviously are former teammates kind of totally different vibes but would you rather have step Curry or Kevin Durant? Now, this is regular season and playoffs. And I'm just going to assume they're healthy. I don't want to talk about injuries. Just assuming they're healthy for the whole season in the playoffs.

You get one guy, Curry or Durant, who are you taking? So that's the key here. Because if it was the rest of the way, you'd pick Curry because of Durant's injury history. Which I know you don't want to do injuries. but I think it can even get a play into some of the guys for just a year. I think it's the first time where you can actually feel like saying Steph's the better player is okay. Because even through all the Steph love, everybody knew Durant at his peak was probably the better

player than Steph. But now that I look back on it, I'm like, is that even true? Because Steph had to defer more. You go through those finals runs where it was ridiculous and Durant got to kind of take it to another level there. But right now, I think I'm going to go Steph. I think I'm going to go Steph because despite me expecting Durant and Phoenix to be real, I don't know if the regular season is going to be this amazing run for them. There's still kind of a bad taste in my mouth a bit from the playoff series against Denver. So I want there just to be more cohesion.

I want everybody to kind of understand their roles a little bit more, and I think they're going to have to figure it out with three dominant on-ball guys, with Beal being the third one there. With Steph, I know exactly what I'm getting. I'm not worried about any of that stuff. Even if Pete Durant, the feeling could be that it's still, I don't know, it feels weird saying it now in 23, 24, that peak Durant is still better than peak Steph.

But I understand that position four, well, five and six years ago. Yeah, I think Bill asked in the overrunners pod, you guys did, like, would you go over under 18 months of Durant being Durant? I think we're really at that point where is he... I mean, you and I were pretty much on Durant Island like two years ago, I think before the Bucs.

It was before the Bucs title, I believe. We're like, no, I think KD's still the best player in the league. And I don't think you could say that. You definitely can't say that anymore. And it just does feel like there's some drop-off there where Curry, I don't feel like the drop-off's as big. So I think you're right. I think it is Curry.

Isn't it crazy, though, to think, like, you know, Curry's going to go down as the better player. He's got more rings. He's, you know, all the time, he's just going to be higher than Durant. But at the peak of their powers, like, Durant was the guy. It's such a strange sort of situation. Like, Durant is such a freaking unicorn.

So that's why I'm just hesitant because, like, if Durant is Durant, he's maybe the most terrifying guy, you know, in the league still offensively. Well, right. I mean, the Giannis belt was taken from Durant. I was reluctant to give it up as quick as I should have. I don't feel bad about that one looking back on it there's other

ones where you're like wow i can't believe i thought that but yeah when the all-time stuff is done steph's at this point going to have the better resume but i also think steph there's there's more to steph than just his numbers there's there's just something about having him on your side where it's it's steadier look, Durant had to go to him. You know, Steph had had two really nice years without him before he got there. And that, unfortunately for Durant, you know, I know it drives him crazy and then he tries to pretend

it doesn't matter to him at all. But yeah, I'd take Steph for the year in the playoffs. All right, next one. I want to test how bad that Mavs and Luka season was and where we view Luka now Luka or Booker okay well we know that I I feel like I'm the Booker guy now uh because of the Tatum arguments and you're right CBS ESPN Ringer like every single place that has a ranking out I never see Booker higher than Tatum so then I'm like wait am, am I wrong on this one? If we keep it specific to Luka here,

the anti-Luka shift is happening. It's coming off of last year. The unexpected Western Conference finals run, which I really like. If you're a top five guy, you have to be able to carry your team. It doesn't mean you have to win a title because nobody can do it by themselves, but you have to be the number one guy on a team that makes some real noise in the playoffs for me to look at that list and go, okay, the top five guys could all do that. Luka did it. Luka did it in the Western Conference Finals. As much as I love Booker, I still think there's a L Luca element where you need to bail us out of all these bad possessions and, and Luca can do it, uh, in a way that, that we've

seen very, like what he did against the Clippers, those back-to-back years. And it's, you know, it looks not like Booker doesn't have some awesome playoff resume stuff as well, but I'll give the slight edge to look Luca. And I, I think it's like the first time there's a little bit of like public negative momentum around luca going into this year what about luca or mb'd uh i'm gonna say luca because i'd rather have a dominant guy with the ball in his hands than a big guy and yokich is not categorized as a big guy even though he is yeah he doesn't count like if

he's your point guard but he's also your center that's not the traditional big and I think that's part of Embiid's problem for somebody who feels like he doesn't have I know I brought this up probably too many times but it's kind of a compliment to Embiid that it just doesn't seem maybe it's happening more in Philly but hey can you actually win with guy? It would happen to other players with Embiid's profile more often and with more venom than it does with him, which, you know, again, I'm not rooting for like, hey, we need to shit on this guy more, which is something I always like bringing up.

But yeah, I mean, Luka, he's going to find a way to get the hoop or get a really good look. There's multiple things he's going to be able to do with the ball. So Luka's comfortably still like a top four player for you. Yeah. Ish. Yeah, but I don't love when it's off the charts usage rate stuff. I've done the history on that.

Some people it works, some people it doesn't. But I don't know how you can win a title being that dependent on one person having the ball all the time. And I know that they're supposed to have Kyrie and they'll split it up and we'll see the better version of this, but we'll see. I have another provocative Luka question coming, so we'll get to that in a second. All right, this one, this one, I sort of wrote him off, I think, beginning of last year and was probably wrong. What about AD or Embiid?

One season. I want to test the Embiid thing. Coming off the MVP, because it does still feel like, you know, we talked about this, about how, I don't know how you could possibly still, even though Embiid won the MVP,

think that he's better than Jokic. We talked about that a couple of pods ago. But the AD resurgence has been there. And I think, you know, we had a guy who said he was the best center in the league in the GM survey survey like i it's just i think it's an interesting debate again yeah that it's interesting is remarkable for ad but because everybody you know was writing him off and the funny thing is i feel like i defended him longer than than most

and then i finally kept watching him fall down all the time going and it wasn't that i thought he was going to be a bad player i was like like, I just expect him to be hurt again. I just expect that he's going to be hurt. And bead story is pretty crazy. When you think of a guy that big with the health issues and then not playing a game for two years. But we also realized that was part of Henke's design that he's been for the most part.

Well, look for me personally, he's been way more consistent health wisewise than I thought he would be with how scary some of the pre-draft stuff was. But whatever, with another organization, he probably would have played at some point. Then he barely played even in the third year. Man, I still think it has to be Embiid because he feels more like a known thing despite the AD resurgence. Now, I never would have. A few years ago, I still would have been AD, AD all the time.

But nice little resurgent run here for AD. I'm glad that he's actually back in these conversations, but I can't have so much momentum for him. I mean, where are you on it? So correct me if I'm wrong. Both guys have gotten to the second round on their own never made a conference final on their own um and beat obviously as the mvp i would give the slight edge to mb still i don't really love either of them like as the guy like i just i just there's i'm just not going

to pick the sixers with an mb led sixers team against boston or milwaukee really ever i just have to see it to believe it. And I think without, we've talked about this many times, without LeBron, it just feels like AD kind of is more comfortable being second fiddle, even as much as LeBron wants to say he's the number one option. And maybe there are at times, but I think you have to still give the credit to Embiid. He won the MVP last year. His stats are incredible. He's in kind of a terrible situation in Philly with the Harden stuff.

I don't think that roster is that awesome. And yes, he's had some playoff shortcomings, obviously, but I think, I don't know, I think he's just more of an alpha. I know that's kind of a stupid thing to say, but I think he's giving me the damn ball where I think AD sometimes shies away from that. So I'll slightly give the edge to Embiid.

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong on that at all. And the funny thing is I'm like thinking back to like, could this be the year with Embiid? Like if he doesn't get out of the second round where people start going like, yeah, cool stats. He's probably not going to. But you know what's funny though about it? Is that the real reason why is like,

we only have so much time for stuff. And because the Philly, like their entire organization has had two major problems that aren't Embiid problems, that those have been the headlines. The Ben Simmons thing went on forever. The Harden thing's now going on for a while. So he's been able to kind of draft behind

more of the negative attention being on his teammates, not being able to get their stuff together. Yeah, which I think is fair. All right, let's do a couple more quick. This one's near and dear to my heart. And I was surprised to hear Bill on the over-unders pod. He was selling some real estate on Mobley Island. And I've just been saying I like Mobley, but I just think specifically Bill has been insane about what he's talking. He's talking that he's the next Kevin Garnett and all this stuff. I just don't see it. I don't see it. I think he's in a pretty great situation for what his skill set is. So I want to do Evan Mobley

versus my guy Franz Wagner. For one year, I'll take Franz because he's better. He's better at giving me something like, hey, I know what I'm getting. And maybe this is the year with Mobley. I mean, he's only two years in. Okay.

Maybe this is the year with Mobley where we see something offensively only two years in. Okay. Maybe this is the year with Mobley where we see something offensively where you're like, okay, that's a real problem. Because right now it's all, it's all complimentary stuff. Like, yes, he has his moments. He had that one regular season game where I was like, okay, this is happening. And some of his instincts are incredible. Some of the passing stuff that he does, just the way he moves his footwork and then you throw in the defensive stuff so if you're telling me if you're offering me franz for mobley and i'm cleveland i'm probably still saying no but for one season and the playoffs right now franz is so much more of a finished offensive product yeah and again i can get called the homer but i just think you know if you're saying i think one of those guys you can give the ball to in crunch time and feel pretty good about yourself.

I think the other one is going to struggle to create offense for himself. And I hate to say it, but like, you know, Mobley just feels like an awesome two. Like, and unless he sort of figures out more offensive moves or, you know, is a little bit more assertive. The other thing too is, and this isn't even really like a knock on him, but I just think he was drafted into an incredible situation. He gets to play with these two really dynamic guards. And I know he didn't, he hasn't had Mitchell for both years, but he has Mitchell now. And he gets to play next to Jared Allen, who is also an incredible, you know, rim presence defensive player. So Mobley can like do all these really specific things and kind of be this sort of Swiss army knife defensively. And he's incredible. But I

just think, you know, if you put that guy and gave him his own franchise and said, hey, here's a bunch of, you know, you know, B minus C players around you and you're the guy I don't. Are we still are we still putting Mobley in, you know, that like next that's quote unquote future star category? I don't know. I don't know. Well, you know, the thing is, is like opportunity to like there's certain players that put up numbers. So if he was on a worse team, he might have better overall numbers, but it doesn't mean anything about being a better player. And I forget who it was. It wasn't an NBA team. I think it was a trainer and he had hit me up like a year ago. It was like, what is wrong with you guys at Mobley? And I was like, well, look, I go, are you talking about what I'm saying

about or what Bill's saying about him? He was like like you guys are way too high on him and the stuff he was saying like was really specific and he was you know he's a trainer for other nba players and uh it was it was like alarming it was a little alarming for somebody that's like in the gym with all of these guys all the time and he was kind of like yeah i don't i don't really see it the way you guys do with mobley um and again i was like i don't think i compared him to duncan and the funny thing about him being a two like you could argue garnett was better off being a two offensively despite how incredible he was but his personality was still a deferring personality but he also was essentially like he could play point guard it felt like at times and that's not what you're saying with Mobley, despite some of the passes that he makes.

And I'm like, this guy is another level for a big. But yeah, this is feeling like a bit of a prove-it year for everyone still wants Evan Mobley on their team. Totally. But it's the idea of, should he have been the number one pick? Can you build your team around him? And then it gets back to some of some of the perimeter big stuff that I think we've all moved towards the direction of

just give me the guy with the ball more so than somebody else that has to be set up with the ball because it's just not the way the game is played anymore. All right, let's do two more real quick of the either or. Jamal Murray or Donovan Mitchell? So I never would have picked Murray prior to this year. Murray's the pick now. I wasn't sure if Murray was in that elite tier.

And the health thing completely derailed any of the momentum that he had had. And now with the ring and everything, he's in that group. I'm not going to put him at a staff or something ridiculous like that. But he's in that group that he's sought for a while and good for him mitchell i've always felt like is is more dynamic you know maybe it's your eyes falling in love with the visual of mitchell at his best versus murray because it just looks cooler when mitchell's going mitchell has always had a little sliver of of this concerning element to his game where it gets a little westbrookie where he's like right, I'm just going to force the issue here.

I would ask this though. Like Murray can't ever have situations where he's forcing the issue and making ridiculous decisions because one of the best decision makers we've ever seen is his teammate and the best player in the world. So Murray never has to really be in those situations

because they're probably still going to get a really good possession because of what Jokic is. If Murray were on a bad team completely by himself, yeah, he'd put up a ton of numbers. But I think Mitchell with Jokic, even though he might be more stubborn than Murray because he didn't grow up with Jokic the way Murray has in his NBA career. I would expect that you wouldn't have to see Mitchell have those games where he can't hit a shot, he's making bad decisions because he's just forcing the issue because his use of his talent and his athleticism getting him out of any of the problems.

He'll force the issue a little bit more, but the way Denver runs their offense, they don't have to force as much because they're just really locked in. Their offense is good. The stuff that they do, they're always going to get a good look.

Mitchell hasn't ever played with a guy like that. I think if you put Mitchell in Denver, you'd see a more efficient, a better decision-making version of the one that kind of scares me at times,

even though I really like him. I know he sucked coming off the playoffs and the whole deal there. I'll say Murray with that excuse. All last uh last either or this is a this is a duo's one would you rather have one season this season luca and kairi or mb and harden oh my god uh probably harden and bead because harden needs to get paid and Kyrie got paid I think I'd go the other way and I and I hate it but I think I think I would go the other way

I would just want Luka yeah that's fine like I mean if I could just get one like I'm basically just taking one guy give me luca i don't know when you have to pay kairi because you're worried about him being like like hey if we pay him what his market would actually pay him which would be below what we're gonna pay him you know then it could be a real problem it's like okay say that out loud again yep say say what you just said say it out loud to yourself. And then ask if you think this is a good idea. All right, a couple more here. Let's do these rapid fire. We're changing categories here.

This is going to be like the foreseeable future category. So this is like, you know, let's hypothetical situations for the next like two, three, four, five, ten years, whatever. A couple of Wemba and Yama related ones. Would you rather have Wemba and Yama or the entire OKC roster, not including the draft capital? The goal is to have a player you hope at some point that is one of those five guys who can be the number one on a team that's at least competing to be in the NBA finals. And really, that list probably isn't even as long as five in the moment it's actually happening.

And the idea is that Wemba Nyama can actually be that guy, right? So I think it becomes a Shea Gildress Alexander question because I'm on two different islands. The one is the Booker over Tatum thing, which we can run through those at the end if you want me to. And then is Shea Gildress Alexander this unimpeachable top 10 player in the NBA? And the reality is that when I look at all of these rankings, I don't like when it's like, I can't believe you got it. You had this guy 41 and this guy 36. Like who gives a shit you know like a lot of its momentum some of it's a little too reactionary with this one but if you look at gilgis alexander's numbers he was 31 a game last year on 11 free throw attempts and the weird thing with him when i watch him sruti

his free throw attempt thing is strictly because of his skill. Other guys are officiated where it's really annoying. I don't find it that way with him. His finishing package isn't what Kyrie's is. It's not as dynamic as Anthony Edwards or even a Donovan Mitchell and some of the other more like just ferocious finishers. But what he's so good at is getting you in a bad spot as a defender. He gets you deep into the rim, deep in the restricted area, and then he'll kind of take off one foot where actually is slower than the way you can actually move. Cause I remember watching him live for the first time was like, Holy shit,

this guy floats around the court. Like this guy's incredible. So whenever I push back on like, Hey, is he actually top 10? It sounds like I don't really like him and that's just not the case. The free throw part of his game, his free throw rate last season was at 54%. So his usage rate, despite being like, we can already picture when you watch OKC running their offense, how often he has the ball, his usage stuff isn't as egregious as other players. You know, Westbrook has the all-time year with 42% in the MVP season. Kobe's highest was like 39%. You know, Giannis was number one last year at 37%.

But, you know, his usage for Shea Gilders, Alexander was only like 33%, which, you know, I think was eighth in the league or something like that. So it becomes that conversation. And even the best version of Shea, I don't think you would still think it would be Wimbanyama, but they have enough things around it where you feel like you're actually building towards something where it would be better to keep their roster I'll say their roster I know that was way too long but I'll say their roster and honestly if you're going through it like who says no to Wimbanyama for the roster Denver says no Boston says no Milwaukee

says no Golden State would say, hey, we're going to ride out the rest of this thing. They would say no. OKC might be on the no list. I would listen to an argument against what I just said because the idea is the one player is still more important than all the other little pieces you have. But it really becomes like, who do you think Shea Gildress Alexander is going to be? Is he going to be in three years part of the, you know, when it was Curry, Durant, Giannis, Jokic, LeBron, that kind of thing.

And it still feels a little quick for me to see his ceiling be there, but it feels like more people are heading in that direction as I maybe resisted a little bit of seeing him in everyone's top 10 thinking like do you think he's actually going to be a top five guy because if you do then you definitely say no to the women yama offer so that's a very thorough answer but there it is of all the non-contending teams yeah I think okay see is the one that says

we'll take our our setup any other nose for you um I think philly would say yes philly would say yes uh you know phoenix did we say phoenix you say phoenix phoenix might say no no because there's also another element what's that they would say no because they still have booker like that yeah i i think there's a window here for you know at least hopefully two years uh that's probably it okay i like the question though love the question uh i don't know if you like this one or not would you rather have wemby going forward or in an alternate hypothetical universe a dedicated in shape zion williams which guy is like the better guy to build around i do like this question actually and i think it's really easy because it's one man yama so even a healthy zion we know what he has in him meaning you seem to

not respect the opportunity enough and but i'm saying like if you get like if you get like happy duke zion where like things and like you where things are going well or like the Zion that dominated the league for like, what was it, 20 games? And everyone's like, holy shit. I don't know. I think is it – I kind of feel like it's closer than just saying no, it's definitely Wemby because that was – But then you're asking me to imagine a world where the Zion personality is like perfect. Because so far, and again, it's early here with Wim Banyama.

This guy's incredible. Like the way he carries himself, the way he answers these questions, that thing he did with Wim Horst, the way he is looking at this is like, I have this once in a lifetime opportunity, so I need to maximize me being a professional. That's why San Antonio probably was the best fit as far as like long-term bet of of it all working out and look i still think he's gonna get hurt but i can't imagine a world where yeah it's healthy zion but so no i i don't it's not hard for me it's not hard for me despite me still uh holding out hope we're gonna get one all i'm asking for is one healthy, distraction-free Zion season.

That's all I'm asking. I just want one. That's all we're asking for. I just want one. I have four things. Let's do these really quickly. Let's save the duos and maybe the big three talk and whatever. Let's do the big three later.

Right. Because Saruti and I want to do this. How many teams can actually say we have a big three? Because it's an endangered species, especially after I think Bleacher Report did their top 50 ever and like Korver was in one of them. I love that article.

I referenced that article twice a year. All right. This is, maybe this one's an easy one too, but I don't know. Everybody loves Anthony Edwards. He had an incredible summer. You know, he's the next,

he's the star boy, quote unquote unquote would you rather have him as the center of your you're building around a franchise and you're setting stuff up your next five ten years and edwards or sga is it is it is it close it is for me i'd rather have ant i know everybody's gonna say i'm wrong i think i'd rather have SGA. More will agree with you. Yeah. All right. Fair enough. This is the one.

This is what I love near and dear to my heart. So if we're going to say I think Franz is the best player of the 2021 draft. I think Moe is probably two. But there's a lot of guys that are kind of like TBD or like, you know, in the mix that we like or whatever. So I'm going to throw four guys at you and you tell me which ones you would want to build around. Cade, Jalen Green, Scotty Barnes, or Josh Giddey? So when I answer this question, the only way I'm going to answer it is,

who has the actual chance to be a number one on a good team? And for all my Scotty Barnes love, he's a complimentary player. The best version of him is still going to be a complimentary player. I think we all love Giddy, but would Giddy in any world ever be the best player on, and I'm not even talking about a championship team. I'm talking like a pretty good team, 48-50 wins.

Would it be Giddy? I mean, maybe. Jalen Green, a little early for that kade to me is the only one the only option out of this where i was like i could see kade being the best player on a pretty good team now if you want to use the injury thing against me it was significant enough for him to sit out the entire year uh but i i like kade and kade's my answer i've sold none of my kade stock and i think uh 15 to 1 for combat. What is it? Most improved player. I think he's going to have a nice year. Assuming you say it's healthy. All right. Two

more. Would you rather have Chet Holmgren or Scoot Henderson battle the number two picks the last couple of years? I'm going to go Scoot. But you're right. Chet's been completely overlooked. When we were doing the Wimbledon thing, you know they have have chat too, right? I can't wait to watch him this year. I cannot wait. I'm with you. I can't wait, but I'll, uh, I can't do that to my guy Scoot before he's even played in the game. I know Chet hasn't played either, but I think you're right. I think Scoot's the answer, but man, I just, I think Chet, I think I'd rather watch Chet, even if he's in like a complimentary role where Scoot's going to have the ball all the time. All right, last one. This is, you know, the disgruntled league. And I think both of these guys have fair gripes

with their organization. So I want to ask you, the next, you know, two, three, four, five, six months, maybe even a year, who would be more justified in asking for a trade, Luca or Embiid? Oh, man. So it would be the reaction, the public reaction, where there are certain trade requests where you're like, okay, I kind of get this one. Yeah. And then there's others where you're like, are you serious?

one yeah and there's others who are like are you serious um i think after the simmons hardened drama and bead where he's been in the league now what he's played seven seasons he's been in the league nine i just think the longevity part of it were for luca unless you're going to hit me with the well they went and got kairi and if kairi has like a weird kairi season which is certainly on the table um could luca have more of a beef with the front office for doing that i'd also have to know like to what level luca signed off on the kairi thing he had to have enough you know like if he was like i want nothing to do with this guy then they would have eaten the resources so i think he's a little culpable in the whole thing and i'm sure at some point mb'd love the idea of having hardened too so uh i think people would have more sympathy i think there'd be less negative reaction to a trade request from mb'd than there would be dotchage because they

would just package all the simmons hardened stuff together where the kairi stuff hasn't really just hasn't been an issue yet. I'm just going to do it selfishly from like how would I react to it? I think the Mavs suck. I think they have bad players. I think they have been one of the worst organizations that Bill kind of touched on this in

the over-under spot. I just think they've been run terribly and they don't have a lot of great players. So I think you're right like Embiid has had to deal with Hardin and Simmons and all that crap. But I still think the Sixers like have some nice like Maxie still of great players. So I think you're right. Like Embiid has had to deal with Harden and Simmons and all that crap. But I still think the Sixers like have some nice, like Maxie still a nice player. Like I think they've made some nice moves. They've got some guys.

I just, I can't believe how bad this Mavs team is around Luca. You've had, you've had years to build something and you've got nothing. You've got Kyrie Irving. That's insane to me. So I actually think it would be Luca. I might have played

the longevity thing too much because the way you just mapped it out, look, they haven't done a good job, but they were a weird build around Luka because, you know, and this will be part of the Luka story if there's no playoff success the next two or three years

if he moves on. Like, I already know what the conversation is and the conversation may be accurate about it too. It could be, okay, but what do you do with Luka the same way you looked at like what do you actually do with harden because if you're telling me okay you're going to come in here but you're never going to have the ball in

your hand so that means i need shooters i need multiple defenders but then i need some sort of big option that i can play five out or i can match up with another team because like in this this rush to never have any good centers like you still need somebody if you're going to be going up against Anthony Davis you're still going to need somebody physically imposing enough to just restrict some of Jokic's movements you're not going to prevent him from 30 points and a bunch of assists he's going to get it but you need to make those possessions harder on him so I think you'd need some multiple option big where it's like if we need to play big and more traditional we at least have somebody who can size match with somebody else. And they, you're right.

They haven't gotten a lot of it right. Even though like there's a couple of picks that I sort of like, but again, they moved Dorian Finney-Smith in that, in that Kyrie thing, where it's like, as soon as he was traded, it's kind of like other teams are calling and be like, oh wait, can we pick this guy off? Because he's just a really nice role player. So it's going to come down to a lot to like, how much is Luca willing to change what he's just a really nice role player. So it's going to come down to a lot to how much is Luka willing to change what he's doing, knowing that despite how ball-dominant it is, and we've already touched on this before when we talked about the usage rate stuff, he would have to get to a point where it's like,

I need to maybe adjust to what I'm doing a little bit. And it's going to get nasty for him. It's going to get nasty for him if the only playoff success is that blip where it was against the Warriors when really they didn't have any chance. All right. That's it. Good stuff.

That's talking ball. That's Humpty Hoops for you. We'll be back next week. 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. Life advice. Life advice email. Life advice rr at gmail dot com.

What's good to both Steve and Kyle? Yo. Wednesday in LA. Been out on the west coast this whole week. In for Bill's pod. And I think Kyle and I are potentially hanging out later tonight. So, we'll see how that goes.

Yeah, tonight. I was pushing for today, but he's like, I just can't do it, man. A lot of you guys just can't do it. What was the request? I think we both know what the request was. Come on up.

I told him I'd come pick him up. Hit the frolic. It wasn't about... That wasn't it. That wasn't it. It was a timing issue so kyle you invited saruti to the frolic room yesterday and he couldn't go i invited him sensing yesterday for today and he was just like yeah i don't think like three o'clock's really my

time i was like well i mean it's the best time so what do you really have to do and he couldn't really give me a straight answer i just think he isn't like into isn't into the three o'clock stop in but i don't know i told him i'd pick him up we'll see what happens so the invite was for three o'clock on a wednesday at the frolic slow wednesday to be honest let's be clear it's a slow wednesday slow wednesday and so rudy you you couldn't go drink at a dive bar in the middle of the day at three o'clock on a Wednesday because why I mean great question I flew 3,000 miles you know on you know on the Spotify dime on the ringer dime like

I'm gonna go to the office I'm gonna see people I got I don't know what my day is gonna be like I got I'm just saying if people are saying what are you doing today you could be like well I got a thing at three but you know maybe after so you would suggest the Cerruti. Kind of joking, but not really. Well, that's, I think, what we're trying to dig into here. Are you joking or are you serious? Are you seriously wondering? I'm just trying to help you, Kyle, on this one.

Are you seriously wondering why Cerruti couldn't go drink at three o'clock on a Wednesday? Well, I mean, drink is sort of like an ancillary to just, you know, catching up. Yeah, it's like a catch up, you know, late lunch if you will. Yeah, you know, I'm not, it's just, I, you know, I've got to show face. I've got to, there's other people in the office, like I haven't

talked to Fennessey yet. I mean, you saw what Monday looks like. You saw what Monday in the office looks like. It is Wednesday. I've heard Wednesday's popping. It's going to be, if there was four people, you're going to maybe double that, I think. But, you know, I could be wrong. You let me know what happens and we'll talk. Listen, if it's a dead zone and I if there was four people, you're going to maybe double that, I think. But, you know, I could be wrong. You let me know what happens. And if it's if it's a dead zone and I'm there sitting by myself, I'll call you. Just speaking from experience here.

That's all. OK. All right. I'd hang out. It's nothing about you. It's not about you. We're just sorting through it all. We're just sorting through it all.

It's a big week. Big week for the gang. You know, i ate bad food last night i had like a cheat meal to end all cheat meals and now i was like i'm glad i didn't make any plans because i feel i think i'm more hung over after a bad meal than just being hung over yeah so speaking of uh my mom thinks i'm an alcoholic hey fellas 5'9", 175, 27 years old former college frisbee player so I'll spare you the list of basketball comps

alright that could be a fake alert probably club team yeah you gonna leave with that? he might be fucking with us too I was also on a frisbee team in college I didn't tell people though what do you mean you were on one in college? yeah we had an intram a Frisbee team in college. I didn't tell people, though. What do you mean you were on one in college?

Yeah, we had an intramural Frisbee team. But I would be like, hey, I'm Steve Cerutti, 5'10", 160, like, you know, college Frisbee player. You didn't have a Quinnipiac Frisbee shirt? I did not. I did not. And I was one of those guys that played Frisbee but didn't like telling other people I played Frisbee.

I just did it because my other buddies did. You know, there's like a stigma that comes with it. I'm going to be honest. And honestly, that stigma can be a little deserved at times like when you showed up right right when you got to UVM early and you saw the guys that were like really into ultimate frisbee the first week you're like wow that guy really likes it you know so you had to play it cool you had to play it cool a little bit like that looks like it's fun like I don't know decent athlete might be okay at that i like the idea of frisbee golf too idea of banging chains banging chains i've never done it i've never done it and i gotta tell you i'll i'll watch those videos i don't close out right

away those yep yeah some guys like he's in the middle of the forest and somehow it's like curving around trees and he just bangs chance yeah i love the idea that you can buy multiple discs right based on the shot like off the tee you just got to get one guy willing to put that thing in his car and go find a field i mean that guy i hope i hope that i hope that duty changes otherwise you're just the guy with that ridiculous thing in your sedan somehow yeah there was some girl that was like trying to get a big following on instagram with it and i'll just leave it at that but just the videos were really funny okay there you go uh family wedding this weekend in tulum i live in brooklyn uh it's for my older cousin very exciting for the family first big wedding and the destination wedding should make for a great trip my mom lovely woman

is paying for most of the trip but the bride bride's suggestion, my brother, cousin, and I paid for the all-inclusive package on top of what my mom booked. All right, so bride said, hey, the rest of you guys should do the all-inclusive. There's only one problem. Since I was in high school, my mom has been convinced I'm an alcoholic. To be fair to her, there were some nights in high school and college breaks that I might take back, and she never missed an opportunity to stay up late waiting for me to get home, but I most certainly don't have a drinking problem but she's a jewish mother who's a bit dramatic and enjoys micromanaging her two adult sons i'm the only one that she's uh that's picked up this rep though so now we're going to be with family for five days at an all-inclusive i'm not worried about getting

shit faced or anything like that but i can already hear that you're going to get another one from across the table when i order my second beer at dinner. It's a small resort. We have a small family, so lots of time will be spent together. All that said, my mom is a fun hang and is going to be a great time. But any advice you have for how I can make it through the weekend, picking up the least flack while still enjoying Tulum to the fullest is greatly appreciated. Love the pod. Anyway.

Okay. Yeah, tough spot for you. Tough spot. It's your mom. She's going to worry about you. You probably did some stupid shit when you were younger. Um, and then she's never going to let those go. You know, older people are, especially when it's like, you know, look, who cares about you more than your mom and your entire life. So even if you think, Hey, when I came back from spring break and get shit faced,, I remember one girl, those first parties during Christmas break when you're away at college

and you come back with your high school crew, those things are unhinged. Those are as wild as anything that I would ever have on my own resume. And then it's like, you're this zombie, but you think it's normal because it's what your weekend deal is when you're at college.

And then you give your family a little sampling of that up close and personal when you're a fucking zombie, the whole like time, like those Thanksgivings on those Thursdays when you're young and you're coming back home for the first time. And like my family was ridiculous about it too. Like they would, they'd have dinner so early, so early to the point where I was like, I don't know, you know, whatever. So I get it. Um, the only thing I could do is what I did to my dad. Once I did it to my dad and it was, uh, you know, it's, it's always felt like if your mom's not from a drinking family, like my family's not a drinking family. My dad doesn't drink. My mother doesn't drink. Um, it's not because they've had any, you know, issues that just, they just didn't, they just didn't do it. And so I'm being the oldest. Um, we had a setup where there was like a little, little like, um, a weekend spot

at home. Okay. It wasn't like a whole nother house on Martha's Vineyard, but it was this thing. And I helped renovate it when I had no money and, you know, I was, I was able to live there for a little bit. All right. So later on the place still existed and you know my sister would use it or whatever and then we kind of just kind of get rotated around a little bit and during my like late 20s years i would come back and it'd be a martha's junior weekend i'm living in boston and it was on it was on from the minute i stepped off the boat okay because i'd be seeing my buddies from home i'd see other guys that were summering there it was an incredible like weekend now in my world a guy in his 20s going okay cool we're gonna tear it up all weekend and this is what we're

gonna do and i was only gonna get like one or two of those all summer and so i think after the first one my father i was like hey can i get that can i you know i think i'm gonna come back again in august he said what do you do you get drunk go out with your buddies the whole time and i was like yep and we're gonna talk to girls and we're gonna see how it goes and then if it doesn't work out on friday we're doing it again saturday because that's what we do man because that's what we do i go it's not every night it's not every weekend but i bust my ass and this is the only thing i could really even afford and i'm fired up to see my friends and going out and seeing my friends and trying to have an epic night is what we fucking do i'm almost 30 so i don't know what to tell you anymore he was like oh okay he

shrugged and that was pretty much it. That was pretty much it. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take it anymore. Granted, like anybody that's been in the game, you're going to give your parents a couple nights there where they're going to be like, what the fuck is this guy's deal? Because you're the only person that they care about.

They're not comparing you to every one of your other friends who goes out every single weekend. They're not comparing you to the guy that's in your friend group who's like, that guy's going out wednesdays by himself and drinking gin like what the hell's going on so there's no like there's no person that's ever going to be held to a less of a standard than you are and the only way you could really handle it is and by the way kyle i don't think you're drinking gin on a wednesday So just no one thinks that it's a Wednesday, Wednesday joke, millennia style. You may just have to one time tell her, be like, Hey, it's bothering me a lot that you keep doing

this to me. And it's going to impact my fun here. I understand why you're worried. I did fuck up a couple of times. I don't know what else to tell you, but just you need to back off. And then you also need to not get shit faced at any point where then she can be like, you told me you weren't going to do this. And then she ends up. So like the anxiety of thinking you're going to judge the whole time can lead some people that end up drinking even more. So I'm just telling you maybe a stern rebuttal to mom in a way that it hasn't really ever happened before will get her to just sort

of go like you know what maybe i am calling this person out a little bit but then don't give her any evidence at 27 that all of her concerns are warranted so it's kind of a you guys are going to be dueling all weekend yeah i think get in front of it go ahead kyle think drinking problem or not overbearing mom or not you do have to clock yourself when it's all inclusive that's just something i'm going to say outright i think you should just just keep keep a small tally in the back of your head about what is going on uh because it just sometimes it just feels like it's all good but you don't know what you look like on the outside whether you you know it could get the best of even the best of us

is my point but i think maybe i would treat this more like smoking cigarettes at home on the holidays. I think not that you don't do it. People kind of get the idea, but it's not like, all right, I'm going out for a cigarette. I'll be back. You know, maybe I'll sneak one with Aunt Janice when she's in the driveway or something. But I think like, it's more like you don't have to not do it, but you know, you don't have to get up from the dinner table to do it either. You know what I mean? So I think like, I think you're going to have enough time where you're not with your mom all the time, especially if it's wedding weekend, like there's, you know, stuff's happening. So I think it is a wedding, right?

Is that what it is? Yeah. Yes, it is a wedding. I think you could totally like, you don't have to sneak it like you're 18, but I think there's, you know, you get the idea. Maybe do have one with dinner. How long is dinner, bro? And then be like, hey, after dinner is when me and, you know, the cousins are going to

go out and do it. You know, so I think I think I think that's probably easy, too. And then and then I think if it still is not enough, then I think you you you do Ryan's deal. But I think you could take that approach where it's just like, don't throw it in her face. You know, you know, it's not even like you're doing anything wrong, but she does think you are. So just like, you know, treat her like a mom and just, you know, circumvent that if you can. It's a big resort, right? Big hotel. You find your own place to smoke a cigarette. So I think I think that's probably the best course of action. And then if it really doesn't work,

try to, you know, maybe not while you're sampling the drinks, maybe say something to your mom if it's like, you know, Wednesday and this hasn't it hasn't worked out. so i come from a a family where you know if you're you turn 16 in a family party and like people are just looking the other way and you know that's cool it's everyone's safe it's fine like it's not it's just not that big of a deal so there's not really that stigma my thing would be so i say that to say that i don't have a ton of experience and like having to sort of deal with this um not that my parents like like to get after it but you know my dad was a big bud light guy just like drinking you know whatever just like that's what he does um i would say this could be an opportunity for you though because just don't be the worst person at the wedding sit at the weekend right great call somebody else like let

another cousin be a disaster give her a cop and then by comparison she's like oh okay actually he's not that bad that's what it looks like i think i just just don't be the don't be the most blackout guy you can get after you can have fun but do not go above that threshold let like let your cousin john be a disaster and that's the that's and she looks at that and goes oh my god at least my son isn't that guy so i think that's the play yeah Yeah, that was great, Cerruti. Maybe see if John needs anything when you're going to the bay. You need anything for the bike? But I mean, it sounds like he does want to get in front of like being harassed the whole time.

Like you're telling, you know, Cerruti, you're telling me that the people look the other way with your 16th birthday. I'm telling you, my family looked at me twice at 46. And I don't even drink with them like ever we don't our family functions no one has ever been drunk at one of them ever okay nobody like it just it's just i didn't grow up with it so when i hear about these other families i'm like oh you have easter be like oh this is gonna be just a march and i'm like your easter's gonna be what it's like yeah we all get shit-faced like you know two uncles fight and then i gotta go to work and it's the worst i'm hung over that i'm like because the easter like you guys do that on easter like what

and then you know and then i started realizing more often like as i got older i was like oh wait we're we're different we don't do this so i can understand like not wanting to be judged the whole time because uh there's no comp you know so i love the comp idea i would start firing like just start asking people fireball and then oh oh he shorted us one sorry you take it you take it yeah no you get me on the next one or whatever and they'd be like oh i actually have i've got to do an insulin thing later so i can't take it easy wait what okay all right um that was that was really good that was really good okay so let's see uh this one sucks do i tell my fiance about the 80 loss i took in my roth ira well not telling her is not going to be great either so 36 510 about 175 no impressive gym stats in the moment mid-20s i ran both trt and hgh for a few years and got up to a lean 190 pressing 225 15 plus times you could squat okay

got it a bit of a dilemma here. Six years ago, I began accumulating shares of a small biotech firm that had come across doing some big things in the wound care space. I began investing extra funds in a brokerage account. And then as the stock began to climb, I began to accumulate shares in a Roth IRA, thinking that when I eventually sold, I could avoid paying the taxes on the capital gains hmm i got to the point uh a few years back where i basically the entirety of my roth ira funds in this stock well nobody's everybody's just going to tell you what you should have done but that's what everybody does after the fact when you lose uh that it was all in this one thing and then the price took a nasty turn based on a few bad quarters of revenue, and I held it all

the way down. To date, I've lost about 8% of the money I've invested along with about 70% of my entire retirement portfolio. However, this is all on paper as I haven't sold. Of course you haven't. The stock is actually planning to go public via SPAC before 2024, and it's turned around the past few quarters. It could bounce back the next six months i'm getting married in early 24 and my fiancee i've had a hell of a oh jesus i've had high level talks about finances but haven't gotten into the nitty-gritty other than the this roth ira debacle i'm perfectly fine financially as i have a 401k that i contribute to as well as a 50 000 in savings to cover house down payment etc her and i both make over six figures And while we live in an expensive metro, major metro area,

we live within our means and our line and how we spend money. However, she's recently made comments about wanting to dig deeper into our combined finances as we begin to plan for a family house, et cetera. My question is, do I tell her about this Roth IRA debacle now,

knowing that it will most likely come up in the near future? or do I wait and see what the stock does after it goes public this year or is this my cross to bear entirely and do I avoid burdening her with all this unfortunate circumstance while I know she won't be happy there's a one percent chance this ruins the marriage plans well look you're not married yet and I know you've been talking about my advice may be atrocious on this one and everybody's gonna have some people are gonna agree with me now i i wouldn't i mean you're not married yet getting married pretty soon you know the finances thing can be weird like i remember one of my friends

pretty successful guy was dating a lot younger girl and she was gorgeous and we were like man what a score and then i thought they were engaged and where they were going to get married and they broke up and i'm like what happened because goes she had all these uh student loans in default credit was shit he's like so we were never going to have an easy go of it for years and years and years i'm like so you broke up with her because of that i don't think i would ever do that even though it would make sense and it makes sense for somebody else to do it i don't think i would do it um you know if she came to me and said hey i fucked up on this biotech thing. Look, I've done this, by the way, ton of money in one thing, one little piece of bad news,

somebody arguing something that's pandering that's not really going to happen. And all of a sudden, this one sector is getting worked and everything's guilty by association, and you're losing all this money on paper overnight. Like it's an awful, awful fucking feeling. And then you can get really stubborn as you are, as I did, where you're like, well, I'll just wait for it all to come back. And in my case, like one thing came back and then another thing I was forced to sell because I had to do something else for somebody in the family.

So this isn't fun. And it's weird. It's an awful mental hangover. This is going to kind of linger and it's going to make you sick to your stomach. And then you have to either not invest ever again or get so desensitized that you just see numbers moving around and it just doesn't affect you anymore. It's a bit like relationships or losing a job. We talk about building up that scar tissue. If you're going to be playing this game and investing a lot you need to build up that scar tissue to just get emotionless about these transactions but now you have somebody else kind of asking you what your deal is so I need to know like what the raw figure is like is it a hundred grand down to ten did she think you

had this hundred grand does she not know anything about it like I don't know I think I would I mean you're not selling yourself as if you're this multi-millionaire the rest of the stuff seems to be buttoned up a little bit here i'm just wondering like what were her expectations that you had this other money and if it was in a roth it wasn't like you know i don't know all the roth rules even though i have one um there's i i don't know that it's necessarily like her right to get super pissed at you about this even if at some point you get married and you're like actually I have way less money you know I would just present it this way I would be like as you get closer to it and you go like

just so we're clear financially kind of this is where we both stand and like I ended up losing some money on this one but I'm keeping the position because we'll see what happens. Because at this point, selling it for the loss isn't really going to make any sense anyway. I just don't know how much money that you have that's even in this account that's specific to this stock is still at risk with the whole thing. Because some of the people would be like, hey, give up. It's over. But none of us, I don't know what the company is. The other people commenting don't know what the company is.

So because you're not married, I think you have a little bit more leeway with this, but it's really going to be up to her how pissed she wants to be. And I would reverse it. Like if somebody did this where I was about to marry them and they were like, Hey, I actually, I'm coming to the table with like 90 less grand, but everything else is decent. And I have a good job. Like, I don't know. Like, I think I'd be a dick for being like, I can't believe you. I can't believe like people lose fucking money. People fuck up stuff happens. And unfortunately you're going through it right now, but I don't know that you have the same responsibility as you would say a couple years into the marriage or actually just being married. But I'm sure people are going to tell

me I'm totally wrong about that. Dude still has a 401k though, right? It's not like, boom, like he gambled all the shit. It's not like, uh not like boom like he gambled all the shit it's not like uh you know he gambled all the shit at the track or something like he's still doing the right thing they're both making six figures which puts it way above like a middle america not saying that's what you should shoot for but you're already like that's okay and i would honestly i don't think it's that big of a deal that you know wait till she brings it up again when you want to dig into the finances but i don't like i don't know i think you have to have a lot of fucking nerve to be like oh your second retirement thing isn't as great as it was and now i'm not sure about all this so uh i mean like i wouldn't be i wouldn't be jumping

to tell her but the next time she wants to you know really talk about it be like all right well here's what i got here's what i got this one took is dinged a little bit but it's not real till you sell whatever whatever you want to however you want to uh pitch that but i don't think it's that big of a deal i mean does she have a retirement are you guys putting together three or four does she have a roth and a 401k too like if you've got four things coming together you're already way ahead of the game i forget how old this guy is but if he's even if he's in his early 30s late 20s i think everything's going super well just because it's not going perfect i wouldn't be like is the wedding gonna be off so um you haven't done anything dishonest um and i don't think it's something you have to really hide maybe you'd want to get it out there

before the wedding but i'm sure if you guys are really planning a wedding this is going to come up anyway just like where are we at financially where are you at that's what's going on how's your college stuff going i think that's all going to come up and you can just be like i'm still waiting to bounce back but you know here's where we're at i don't think that's a big problem yeah i don't i don't think you uh i don't think you you you messed like if she's gonna break up with you or call off the wedding like you kind of have to tell her like i you don't want to like go through with the marriage and be like more right actually by the way and then yeah that's a disaster i think it's like a balancing act. How long can you wait until this thing goes public and then you can kind of see how it's doing? And is that close to when you're potentially

going to be getting married? What's the timeline there? You have to weigh those options. So I think you have to tell her before you get married, but I would wait as long as I can to actually have a real good grasp of what you're going to tell her or how bad or good the news is. And this topic will officially come up, right? Why, why are you, can't you just wait until that?

Well, there's a couple of things at play here as I keep thinking about this. One is this guy's such like a trustworthy person, you know, or his morals in the best place ever that he feels guilt for something others wouldn't feel guilt for. Right. Or is he basically hinting at us

that she might be a little difficult and that he already knows this could be a problem and that's why he's asking like how it should play out well i also wonder it's really low one percent is like anyone could have a terrible reaction if he said like 20 then i think that's a giveaway but one is the smallest number that you could say if there's a one percent chance that she could end this whole thing like that it's also the loneliest number but um if there's another thing too that i wonder like this might be an opportunity for like the soft sell of your story to her where you're kind of getting close to like talking about finances maybe she brings up the finances again you're like yeah well a lot of it depends on kind of how the stock is

doing like i'd switch over some stuff and whatever and she's like what do you mean what did you do now what i wonder is are you talking about what you lost out of pocket or what you lost on an imaginary app where it said a really cool number for a long time and then the number has just been slowly declining for months because that's a horrible feeling but is it what you really lost out of pocket or is what you lost in a pretend version where you're going to sell it at its absolute peak and nail it, which nobody does unless you just get really lucky and make the right call at the right time. So, you know, did you, let's, we're just saying raw numbers here. Did you have 10, 20 grand invested in this and you made it into 50, 60 and now it's back to like 10.

So you feel like you've lost that 50 grand. So there could be a way where you're saying, well, yeah, man, like I was really rolling with this one thing, but then, you know, it's kind of been on the decline, but it's going to go public. So we're kind of see, and you're like, you know, if it does well, if it bounces back a little bit, like we'll have a few more opportunities. And you can work together. Yeah. You're making it sound like, Hey, we've got this potential great positive news that's coming up now. If her first thing is like, wait, you lost 40 grand. And it sound like, hey, we've got this potential great positive news that's coming up. Now, if her first thing is like, wait, you lost 40 grand and you're like, well, I lost 40 grand on paper. But like that's how investing can work, where I pick something, it doubled and now it's back to where I bought it.

Unless you're totally in the red out of pocket and that's a different conversation. But I think you could soft sell a little bit. Now, if she really understands that the IRAs and Roth IRA stuff and the capital gains, the short term and the long term. the IRAs and Roth IRA stuff and the capital gains, the short-term and the long-term. And she knows all that stuff. But again, it depends on how long you were holding it for any of the short-term stuff to kick in. I don't know.

I mean, is she going to know? But wait a minute, it's one thing for you to have bought it and then done well, but then you transferred it in to avoid the taxes. She's like, what kind of idiot? Yeah, you weren't diversified at all. And this is a retirement account. And this is for both of us.

And she knew more about, then good luck, man. I don't know what to tell you with that. If you've got somebody just fucking hammered away at your whole plan there, because I'm sure a lot of people will listen to this, be like, well, you shouldn't have done this. You shouldn't have done that, whatever.

Okay, cool, right. Save that, by the way. Thank you for all of the advice after it happened. Save that. Yeah, I think there's a way to soft sell it on this one okay cool right save that by the way thank you for all of the advice after it happened um yeah i think there's a way to soft sell it on this one where it's not like you just lost 50 grand on the broncos right exactly exactly take your time so good luck man good luck thanks to kyle thanks to steve again we'll be live from manhattan 900 Club. We have a really cool guest list. Craig Kilbourne, Austin Reeves of the

Lakers, Richard Jefferson. We're going to take that pod and then release it, but not on Friday. We're going to have Willie Colon and Friday feedback on Friday's episode. Then that way, you're going to get extra tidbits of what happened from the live show. That way,

we don't miss any shows and you still don't feel like you're left out because the venue is very small. There are no tickets. First come, first serve. We'll see what happens. We will talk to you on Friday. We'll be right back. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona.

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