The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Notre Dame OC Tommy Rees on Staying, Plus an Early Look at 2022 NBA Free Agency With John Hollinger

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Russillo is joined by Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees to discuss learning that head coach Brian Kelly was leaving for LSU, deciding whether to stay on as OC, Notre Dame’s new head coach, Marcus Freeman, and more (0:32). Then Ryen talks with The Athletic's John Hollinger, former Grizzlies VP of basketball ops, about his recent article on the Thunder and an early look at 2022 NBA free agency, and his top 10 candidates (23:58). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (59:20). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Tommy Rees and John Hollinger Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode on a friday we have tommy reese we're gonna go inside the plane the decision to stay at south bend and not go to lsu and john hollinger uh he had a really good piece on previewing free agency let's just do it, really early and a little bit on OKC and what their actual plan is. We have a statement, an essay, and then life advice. Enjoy. He is still the offensive coordinator of the Fighting Irish from Notre Dame. It's Tommy Reese.

Really fired up to have him on this podcast. You're staying with Notre Dame. There was all sorts of stuff. We'll try to figure it out, figure out if there was ever a chance you were going to leave but did you decide to stay at Notre Dame and not go with Brian Kelly because he benched you back in 2012 uh yeah then not playing in the Bama game from 12 that was the that was the final straw give me give me the timeline though give me the timeline of when you knew Brian was going to LSU, kind of where you were at with it, and then just let's work from there.

Yeah, I think the wild thing was, like, I was with Coach. So we played Stanford Saturday night after Thanksgiving. I was with him that night for a while, and then all day Sunday. So he had – there was a group that plays – we always play the last game on the West Coast, and we stay out there to recruit because that's when the recruiting period starts. So usually that Sunday, Coach will play golf. He'll bring one or two staff members with him.

I got the call this year to go play. So we played San Francisco Golf Club, which was awesome. And it was like him, some of his buddies, some Notre Dame people that are members there, and me. So I was in his group. I was with him from 9 o'clock in the morning till 11 o'clock at night that Sunday. There wasn't a word about it. There were some rumblings. My agent texted me saying,

Hey, have you heard anything? I'm like, I've been with him all day. Not a word. We're at the turn. It's one of those courses you can't really have your phone out. We're at the turn. All the news about SC and Lincoln Riley was breaking. And looking back on just the timeline of things and some conversations, I probably could have put it together. But I just wasn't there. We were just finished. We were 11 and 1. It was a beautiful day. I was golfing. We were having a blast. And then we were at a nice dinner that night at Yai's house. Nothing got brought up. And then the next day we go recruiting and there were some things that were just off. You know, there was a stop that wasn't made that was supposed to be made. You know, we finished at a kid's house and that's when everything started happening.

That's when the news started breaking out. I was in a car with him and two of other coaches. And that's when it started coming. And at first he kind of shrugged it off and then as the night went on we got to the plane we got to the fbo he stepped outside he got on the phone i think that was the final agreement you know because after that he came on the plane and told us what his plans were um they was gonna drop us off in orange county and he was headed back to south bend so um you um, you know, the moment that happened, you know, I found out very shortly after like, Hey,

I'm going to have a job at LSU. And so like, I knew I was safe. Right. Cause at that moment you don't know, you know, do you have a job in Notre Dame? Like that's completely up in the air. And like the hardest part is probably the assistant coaches that just don't know if they're going to have a job at LSU, they're going to keep a job in Notre Dame. They're in complete limbo. But for me, I knew I was secure. So I was okay.

I was on a plane with a couple other guys that weren't in the same boat. And so it was a very awkward plane ride. And then from there, like Tuesday, you know, I talked to our athletic director here on the phone. He says, hey, we need to meet in person. How does Thursday work? Like Thursday is going to be too late. You know, like I don't have two days to,, I'm going to, I have a plane to go

to Baton Rouge. Thursday is going to be too late. So I ended up flying back from John Wayne's to South Bend, like to Minneapolis and down, got in at like 10 o'clock at night, was at R.E.D.'s house that night at like 1030 was there until about 12 30 in the morning and then that Wednesday was kind of decision day so you know I had about 12 to 16 hours to kind of hear both sides figure out what the deals were going to be and then make a decision of where I wanted to be okay I want to get back to Wednesday here um but I had done an open on the podcast it was kind of like look I know people don't like the way business is done with college football, especially when it comes to the coaches. This is somebody you played for. This is somebody you've been on staff for since 2017. And I know you well enough to know that it's not like you're going to sit here and tell me exactly how you feel about

everything. But I mean, is that okay with you? Does all of that sit well with you? I imagine between not knowing and Brian can't say, I guess, he can't tell you where he's leaning until he knows that it's done. But then on the recruiting part of it and then other guys in the plane, like how do you feel about how it all went down? Yeah, I don't. Look, I listened to the opening and I agree with a lot. Like, I don't think there's an easy way to handle it, right?

Like, I don't know what the best way to do it would be. I guess he could have just flown back if he knew it was all going down. But if the deal falls through or something happens in the last minute, then he's staying at Notre Dame. I guess he could have flown back and knocked out of the recruits' house and seen the team first. I guess that'd be the only alternative. But I don't think the deal was done yet, you know,

when all that was going down. So, like, I was with him. I know for a fact, like, he was upset with how things got leaked and came out. Like, he – I mean, that's just the way it is now, though, right? I mean, and I know he wanted to get in front of the team and tell the team and shoot. He flew through the night, essentially.

I mean, he probably left Orange County at 9 o'clock, which is midnight back home. He probably got back 10 minutes before he met with the team. It's not like he was sleeping in and doing all that. He was trying to get there as soon as he could to get with those guys. So I don't hold any negativity towards the whole situation. I think he made a decision where he felt like it was best for him and his family and where he wanted his career to go.

But no, I don't hold any, any, anything against him for that. As far as all the criticism, Ryan, where it was like, well,

he should have done this. And then you had guys on the team issuing his text as a statement. And then it was the meeting was 11 minutes and then it was two minutes. And why are you having kids come in at 7 a.m. for a meeting when you're leaving and all this stuff? How did you feel about all that? I was a little disappointed that like our guys would leak stuff, to be honest with you. That's our business. We're a family here, and I wasn't pumped about that.

I truly believe Coach wanted to meet with him as soon as he could. I don't think he got into South Bend much earlier than that meeting. I think there's a lot going on for him, too. He had a lot of things that he had to get going, so I assume he wanted to get it as soon as he could. And that's why the 7am call happened. Look, I know that like when you,

when, when you step away, like, I know that he was in the right place, like in terms of like what his intentions were. Like I know for, I was with him and I had a lot of conversations with him. Like I know his intentions

were in the right place. If he looks back and could he have changed one or two things, I'm sure he would admit to that. But I don't think... Again, there's no handbook on how to handle that situation. There's no way that... There's no precedent that's been perfect, I don't think. And so people are going to criticize him regardless of how he handled it. You know, I just think, you know, at the end of the day, you probably just fly back and get in front of the team as soon as you can. But again, I don't think the deal was done. So I don't know, you know, if he felt completely confident doing that.

What was your Wednesday like then? Hard. Yeah, Wednesday was one of like a lot of pacing. Peloton a couple of times to try to take the mind off of it. No, I mean, I was up till probably like 4.30 or 5 in the morning Tuesday night. Like I got back from Jax or AD. I just sat there and poured some bourbons and just sat there with the fire going. It was like, what the hell is going on? You live alone. So it's just me. And I literally sat there. So I probably fell asleep in the chair. And then I woke up to my doorbell ringing. My dad's on staff here.

And no text, no call, completely unannounced. Just shows up at my house like 930 in the morning. I was like, weirdly had a headache um and i was like so we talked through some things i didn't want to like go out in south bend because i don't really want people to know i was there to be honest so like one of our gas brought some breakfast and stuff over and talked through some stuff um and then i kind of kicked everyone out and i was like okay i need to figure this out you know and look a lot of it was i didn't have all the contractual information yet. I was waiting for stuff to come back so I could make a decision based

on facts. I need to know all the information. And so then once all that came in, it was probably like 5, 6 o'clock. And then I knew. I think I knew that I wanted to stay and I was just waiting for it to be compelling enough to stay. If that makes sense. All the pieces to align the way that we had hoped or planned for them to. But I think deep down, my gut kept telling me. There was one moment after I worked out, I took a shower and I got out of the shower pissed. And I thought I was gone. If there's about a half hour stretch where I was like, screw this. I was pissed about a couple of different things.

And just, I was like, I think I'm going to leave. And then I kind of calmed myself down and had another conversation. And then the information started coming in. And then I realized, okay, this is where I want to be. And I knew right when I saw our players, like I knew that I made the right choice. So there was a window where you were going to take the LSU job. There was a couple where you were going to take the lsu job there was a couple windows yeah like i think initially like when you have the conversation the first one you're like hell yeah

this is exciting as heck i think i texted you you know we were texting when i was on the plane um just like hey what's it like down there you know i got on the phone with joe brady i got on the phone with all these different people looking for advice. And I was excited. I mean, look, it's an opportunity. Go coach at LSU at a new opportunity at a level that's SEC and you're playing against Saban and A&M and recruiting against those guys. As a competitor, that's exciting as hell. I mean, that's what you do this for.

I think... And you don't know if you have a job, right? Like this is the only job I have. I'm not guaranteed anything here. So, you know, as you get further away from that initial conversation and realize Notre Dame is going to become an option, you know, what's that going to look like? What's, you know, contractually, leadership wise, like what is all that? Like the further you get away from that initial conversation, you start realizing maybe i do want to be where i'm at um but i would say like the majority like monday night i was gone the majority of tuesday i was gone and then wednesday it kind of all flipped

and you know i use the analogy like one i felt like notre dame was the Alamo and like it was under attack. Everyone was going to die. And like, I want, I told you, like I wanted to fight for Notre Dame. There was something inside of me. Like, and I've never felt that before. It was just a new sense of like allegiance or, um, you know, respect. I don't know what it was, but I was like, this is where I want to be and I want to support Notre Dame through this time. Like, look, we just essentially went under attack or had our world completely flipped upside down.

Like, I wanted to be there to help fight through this and, you know, give the program some life and some energy that everything's going to be fine. We're going to right this ship and we're going to keep things going in the right direction. When you texted me, you wanted to fight for Notre Dame. I knew there was no way you were leaving. Yeah. Yeah. And probably like deep down, I probably knew that. But again, I didn't know what the, like,

like I didn't know what the opportunity was going to be. Right. I mean, there's, there were very few opportunities at Notre Dame that would have kept me there. You know, like the head coach had to have been somebody that I knew and trusted or else... I'm not staying. I didn't want to be part of an arranged marriage because those don't

often work out. You're going to bring in some coach and say, you have to keep this guy. That doesn't work out. And so there was a relationship here with me and Marcus. There's a couple other coaches out there. There's a relationship there where I would have trusted it. But this was one that I I trusted and this was one that I signed off, like not signed off on, but they knew that this was going to be a way that I could stay. And so, yeah, I guess probably deep down, I always wanted to stay, but I didn't know if that was going to be an opportunity or not. So, I mean, I zillowed Baton Rouge. I was all, I was all in, I was figuring it out. You know, my buddies were all in, all in. I mean, I zillowed Baton Rouge. I was all in. I was figuring it out. My buddies were

all in. I mean, those guys were more fired up than anyone. One of our GAs was all in because he's single. Girlfriend was actually all in. So there were a lot of pieces that were there. But then Wednesday hit and Notre Dame we figured it out. We figured out a way to keep everything intact. Once it was Marcus then you were in. Yeah. There were other parts of the deal.

I'm sure you got a raise. It's not about the autonomy. Coach is an offensive guy. Was he in here every day? No. Was he a big part of all that stuff no but there were still things that like I wish I could have had full control over the last couple years and now I'm gonna have the autonomy part of the job was as important as anything you know the the sequence of events with market like I met with the Jack Tuesday night Marcus

met with him Wednesday so like even when I met with Jack Tuesday night and said hey this is something I'm good with like I still didn't know if it was gonna happen because Jack hadn't met with Marcus yet you know like that had to come second where okay like you're sitting there Wednesday like okay I hope it's going well you know like I believe in Marcus and I trust them but at the same time you know Jack could say hey you know're going to go in a different direction, which I would have done a plane of bad news the next morning.

And so there's a timeline there where you had to kind of wait and figure out what was going to happen. I don't know that I want you sharing with everybody that we were texting about this and having everybody in LSU,

the alums, think I can't close you. So you're not doing me any favors. We can edit that part out. No, I'm keeping it in. I'm keeping it in. Look, I reached out. I mean, I was trying to gather as much advice, information I could, right?

Like, you're somebody I respect. I know you have a ton of ties to LSU. You've been down there a bunch. I wanted to know what it's like. I talked to Joe Brady on the phone. I've talked to Coach Fitz at Northwestern who's dealt with, do I stay at Northwestern or do I leave for all these other jobs? Right?

So he's a guy like Mike Tirico is a guy that's called our games for the last however many years. And he's somebody that reached out to me with advice, like all that stuff. I wanted as much information and facts that I could get. So I could like, look, this was a big decision for me. I wanted to be able to make it with facts and information. I didn't want to just go off a web. I'll tell you, and as I said, and I'll share this with everybody, there've been two or three

moments in my life where Mike Tirico has given me the best advice of anyone I've talked to. And granted, my thing is more aligned with what Mike does as opposed to what you're doing. But he's an incredible resource if you're lucky enough to call him a friend. Talk to me. Tell me about Marcus Freeman. Yeah.

Look, for me, the decision ultimately became how much do you believe in this guy? Because you are putting your trust into him as a head coach. Right. And I'll tell you, like I couldn't be more like full steam ahead with him.

You know, I think first of all, he's a great person. Like, I think that's the first thing that I try to find. Like, is this somebody that like morally is he in the right place? Like,

is he someone you can trust? And like, without a doubt, that's a yes. You know, he's very competitive, which like him and I see eye to eye and a guess um you know he's very competitive which like him and i see eye to eye and a lot of things in that sense um and he just relates to our players and recruits in a way that's different right and i think that's what ultimately i believe he can help take

notre dame to the next level because of the way he is with our players and the way he's going to be able to recruit at a high level like He's completely player-driven and player-centric, which I believe in. And I believe that's ultimately going to bring the best out of this program. And so he's going to continue to raise the level of our recruiting like he has the last year. I mean, even like he was defensive coordinator, just the way he recruits as a competitor on offense,

I needed to raise my shit. You know what I mean? That was something that I knew. I'm not going to let somebody down the hall outwork me. So just the way he attacked it every day, I was like, no, no, no. Okay, we're doing it. And we're going further in this than we have. And I think that he's going to have that impact on the whole program. And so I'm all in. That was the decision. How much do you want to put your... I know what I'm getting from Coach Kelly. I know what LSU is. That was actually the safer of the two decisions.

Crazy enough, I knew what I was getting into. Staying is a little bit more unknown, albeit I know Notre Dame, I know the players, but this is a new regime. And so I would not be here if I didn't believe without a doubt that he's the right guy for the job. Your love for Indy. You went to high school in the Midwest, right? Right outside of Chicago, right?

Yeah. You know, you go there, you play right away, you deal with, you know, I remember this is when we first ever met. You know, I was just like, after the fact, we had met, I don't know how long you were if you were just out of school i know i didn't meet you while you were in school i'm not that pathetic um but i was just like you know you got yo-yoed all over the place you've got the 2012 deal where you're benched and then you come out against purdue and the whole place boos you right i

got arrested i wasn't benched i got arrested but yeah i was boos you. I got arrested. I wasn't benched. I got arrested. I was trying to help you. You got arrested and you were suspended from the Navy game in Dublin, right? What was that like to be a college kid looking forward to that game in Dublin against Navy and they'd be like, hey, you can't go because you resisted arrest running away

from a college party? I thought I was going until like a couple weeks before. So like, I had never been out of the country. I guess I went to Mexico on spring break, but never really been anywhere. Yeah. The funny thing is we were supposed to go last year and then COVID struck. So I'm over two on Ireland trips, you know, so like we supposed to be going twice college. Like I, I ended up, my girlfriend went to Auburn at the time. So I flew down there, and I watched the game from there.

Like, I was just at Auburn for a weekend. So hanging out. Wait, did anyone recognize you on campus? I don't remember. Probably. I mean, they all knew who I was. So, like, they're like, hey, why aren't you at the game? I was like, well, you know, some things went poor.

Okay, all right. So you're not in Dublin for Navy. Everett's starting, right, against Purdue. You're at South Bend. And then did you get – I don't know. Do you think you only got booed because of that? The turnovers didn't help probably. You know, the interceptions.

I think I was like 20 and 12 the year before um like nobody wanted me to play like there was always something better right and i get it but at the moment i thought i was the best guy like if i wasn't the best like coaches don't play people because they like them like their livelihoods are on the line they're gonna play whoever gives the best chance to win and keep their freaking job so So at times, I was the best option. So it's not my fault. You know what I mean? And so I get it. Look, I'm coaching. I don't want me as my quarterback. I want better. But to answer your question, the love for Notre Dame, I grew up north of Chicago, where everybody is pretty much a Notre Dame fan. I hated Notre Dame growing up.

You know, my dad hated Notre Dame. My grandfather hated Notre Dame. My grandfather grew up 30 minutes from here and was an Indiana fan. And it was like a Bob Knight disciple. So I grew up like, like it was UCLA for me. Cause my brother,

my mom, my dad were all part of it. And I went to a bunch of Northwestern games. I could not stand Notre Dame. And then I got here on a visit and I just felt at home. I don't know. It felt like where I grew up. It felt like the Midwest. I love the history of football. I'm a football junkie. The history of it, grew up with it. That all was very appealing to me. And so I got here, knew it was where I wanted to be committed you know went through a tough four years like you alluded to it like there was

upstairs downs you know there were times you know after school I'm like I'm never going back three years later I was back and there's been tough times as a coach and it's up and down but like the allegiance is about the people and the guys that have the players the people that have impacted my life like people that are that care about this place in the right place like I think a lot of the negativity comes from people that aren't really a part of the school you know and so this was the first time right I don't know like I told you like there's something that compelled me that overtook me to like hey you want that

this is your spot you need to go support it And it was pretty cool to have that feeling. You know, it was something I hadn't felt in a while. It hit me hard, and it was something that I knew was right. Like I said, when I made the decision, I knew right then and there it was right. Your speech to the players coming back was awesome. You were referencing that earlier. Hey, once I saw these guys, I just kind of knew. What was it like conference championship weekend

knowing that there was an outside chance if the pieces fell the way they did that you'd be in a playoff but Brian's down in Baton Rouge? Yeah, look, I think Coach was very much like the CEO of everything. So both sides of the ball were running. We're good to go. Some things are going to change, obviously, with how things are run from the top down. But I think a lot of us felt like, okay, we have an extra chip on our shoulder. Let us in.

Let's see what we can do. We have all this energy. We have all this momentum. Let us in and let's see how it goes. And so I was in Chicago for the weekend and I was watching it with some buddies and stuff. Oklahoma State falls early, and you're like, holy crap, this is going to happen. And then Bryce Young does what he does, takes care of that one. I didn't feel great about the other two upsets. You kind of felt like, okay, State could lose, Bama could lose, and then you're in. To me, that was always the path.

I didn't see Cincy or Michigan losing those games. I really didn't think Bam was going to lose either. I just thought the quarterback mismatch was that high. We were hopeful that the defense could figure it out and take care of them. Look, we had a great year.

11-1, Fiesta Bowl. Could be worse, obviously. We'll be back in the playoffs soon enough, I believe. So, it was a weird day watching ball and just trying to figure out, like, hey, all this game's packed us. You know, I'm sitting at a bar eating lunch. Notre Dame fans, they're, like, looking at me on every play. I'm like, yeah, I got it, you know.

So, it was fun, though. I mean, we don't get to watch those games very often. So, just being able to watch football that Saturday and Sunday I'm happy for you man so good luck against Oklahoma State we'll talk again soon all right yeah man I appreciate it we have him again this is exciting John Hollinger the athletic who did something recently I think it was the end of last month where he did a preview of free agency. I don't know, nine months out. And the thing is, you could do a 2024 free agency preview,

and I would check out some of that stuff. But before we do that, you have a piece up about the Oklahoma City Thunder, the roster. They didn't look all that great against Memphis not that long ago. I think it was a little tongue-in-cheek. So it felt like the rare writer sticking up for sam hinkey retroactively because i know sam had very few writers in his corner as i am just as sarcastic as your piece stick it up for two sams at the same time

jm's name sam huh but uh yeah that was a tongue-in-cheek piece saying Colangelo should take over in Oklahoma City, which obviously is not a thing that anyone believes. But they did lose by 73 points to Memphis the other night. The thought behind it, though, because you're in front of Memphis, as everybody knows. You still have a ton of contacts. What I always thought was interesting about Hinckley is if you talk to other league execs, they would hate it because it was basically like this guy's judging a completely different scale.

Sam has the equity. Sam has the equity because of what he's done and what he's built in the past and his draft record, especially at the top end of the draft. How different do you think the two are consumed inside of league circles? Very differently because it doesn't feel as revolutionary, A, because Hickey already did it,

and B, I mean, Oklahoma City at least had the year with Chris Paul where they made the playoffs first, so it's felt a little less overt, I guess, for lack of a better word. Now, we'll see how long this goes and how much, you know, because really they're still playing Campbell Walker's money until 23,

so this goes on another year and a half, then people are going to start kind of looking at their watches and being like, okay, when does this ever get better? What do you think he does? I love talking with people about this because you look at all the assets and all the picks um you know you're not going to trade for whatever the

equivalent of a paul george in a year and a half left is to throw him with this group and i don't mean paul george specifically but a transaction like that like hey we've got a you've got a mad star all right we'll bring him to a place he's not going to resign in oklahoma city and give up these picks um you can't use all of the picks is it just a matter of maybe Sam once he's decided okay I'm all in of just maybe changing what the price is to move up in the draft for the right guy like paying a surd tax I definitely see them pulling those picks to move up in in drafts like year after year I mean that's the most obvious pathway I see to him using that. I mean, he may selectively try to use some of them. If there's a young player he likes that becomes available, you know, maybe, maybe he, you know, diverts one of the picks that way.

If there's a trade opportunity for a particular guy who is signed for a few more years and can be part of this foundation, you know, another Shea Gillis Alexander, you know, sure. Maybe he uses the picks that way. But most likely, I think you're right. He's coming into draft day and he's trying to trade up and get the best, you know, get the best outcomes each year from one or two picks rather than drafting like six guys. You can only roster 15 of them at the end of the day so you'll you'll just never be able to get the full equity from all those picks uh unless

you use them to move up see this is what's really interesting though because it in a way this is just not how this league operates so if you're the gm and depending on you know how confident you are in yourself or your own job security which is is probably more rare, I think there's certainly less than 10 GMs that have so much equity built up with what they've accomplished in their ownership that they can do whatever they want. Yeah, absolutely. any towns and Christoph's Przingis and you like Przingis a little bit more, you still take towns number one, because you would just go, if I, if I get towns wrong, I'm going to be better as if I get Przingis wrong, everybody's going to want me fired. Right. So yeah, that's what happened with Odin with Odin and Durant too. I think it was a perfect example. Yeah. Just the fact that if you, if you picked Durant and, and we're wrong, you were definitely getting fired, which is why we've seen a lot of revisionist history.

But at that moment, I think every GM was taking Odin, or pretty much every GM was taking Odin one, just because being wrong, taking Odin and being wrong wasn't nearly as risky as taking Durant and being wrong. Right. Another great example, although it was always interesting years removed from that, how many people I'd hear from saying, well, you actually had Durant won. I'm like, yeah, okay. And by the way, Odin was insane in college. I mean, he was that good. If he were healthy, he would have been a terrific player. He wasn't going to be Durant because we're not going to have maybe 10 guys that ever play this game that are going to be Durant.

So the reason I bring all of this up is that let's look at, and people have to understand where we were in the time. If you go the Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram draft, and you're the Celtics at three, and it's Jalen Brown, which was a surprising pick to many, but it felt like it's this first tier, and then the next tier starts at tier three. There isn't even a tier two based on the projections of these prospects.

And Jalen Brown has shattered that. He's been incredible, but don't apply today's, not you, but everyone listening, today's thought of who Jalen Brown is in comparison to those other guys. So if you're Sam Hinckley in that kind of draft at the third pick does the GM go oh cool I get three extra firsts to to move out of the clear number one tier to a total question mark at pick three again the league has never really operated that way so he can have all of these assets but I am again afraid for him is dramatic but I don't know if it's actually going to go that way so he can have all of these assets but i am again afraid for him is dramatic

but i don't know if it's actually going to go that way because we've never seen the league do it where where where he's going to be using those assets is probably more like to trade from 14 to 8 but not you're not trading from five to one i don't think even with those assets people just aren't going to give up one or two. They're just not. There'll be rare exceptions. You know, maybe, you know, we did see it happen with the false Tatum trade. But most likely, it's not even a question of the price being too high. There's just not going to be a price.

Teams just aren't going to want to do it. And so the most likely scenario is that, because a lot of these picks are coming from other teams and then, so they're going to end up in the middle or late part of the first half of the first round, Oklahoma city's counting on their own picks to be the ones that get them the next Durant, right? The, where they're, they're, what they're trying to do with the picks from the other teams is pile enough room together that they can do a move up scenario and get hopefully another late lottery pick out of it each kind of each draft cycle yeah i'm glad we

talked about because i just don't know that that's understood but then you're also exposing yourself if you move up when you look at the track record like 14 to 8 and you know i understand the value curve and how it shifts down away from the top pick all the way through. I think the picks have actually become sort of overbought in a way. Oh, absolutely. No, trading up, definitely. The history on trade-ups is teams are totally overpaid. Just in Oklahoma City's case, it makes sense to overpay because you're going to lose more value by making the picks just because you can't even keep everybody. It's impossible. You can't even keep everybody like it's impossible

even you can't even keep everybody through the end of their rookie contract if you look at how many picks they have it's insane so so this is the way they they for for them to work it to their greatest advantage right unless i don't know anthony edwards in three years goes i want to play in oklahoma city and it's the only place i want to go. You know, I just, I can't, I can't really, you know, the, the one, like the guys you could see that maybe that happening with are like guys with roots in Oklahoma, right? Like if Blake Griffin got talked about back in the day, uh, true, you know, Trey Young's on super max now, but like, you know, five years down the road, maybe he, you know,

gets thirsty for something different. But that's the only scenario you could even imagine, right? Like somebody, some random NBA guy who grew up on the West Coast or something isn't going to be like, you know what? I really want to sign with Oklahoma City. I just don't see that happening. No. And the final thought on the Thunder here, them being 2-11 but a minus 61 point differential over a three game stretch

does that destroy modern analytics as we know it? Ryan's using my own tweet against me here yeah it's pretty interesting did they call off Sloan? It's pretty interesting. Did they call off Sloan? I think I would still go with, for predictive value, I think I would still go with them being a below-average team and not an above-average team.

So I'll go with the point differential still. We'll track that. We'll see how that tracks the rest of the season okay uh an early look at free agency i love this stuff it is just apps i've never had crack but man um all right that was a segue i know i know okay let's let's start with the nets guys so harden um could have opted into his 44.7 million salary for next season and then added 161 um but now is eligible for a five-year 279 million dollar extension so we're talking about harden potentially being a free agent or banking 280 uh it hasn't looked great it's looked a little better i still always kind of go to the default

rule of those players still always get their money even though teams are like yeah these five the numbers five years from now are horrifying by then the tv deal will will kick in and ease some of this but give me a sense of of what the hardened reality is, even though we may not know that answer today in December. Yeah, I would probably question more if he's going to get the full five and all that money just because of how he's looked and where that curve seems to be heading at his age. And the fact that the N nets could probably give him four and it's still more

money than it slightly more money than anyone else can give him. I don't, I don't know if there's another team out there that even gives him a full four. If you think about, first of all, there's like nobody with room. And second of all,

those, those, even those teams that have room or like San Antonio, you know, one of Detroit. I can't even remember if it's Detroit or Cleveland. It's teams that are not destination markets. So what, he's going to do that? No.

So I actually don't see him ending up taking the full five. Maybe they do something with partial guarantees and what on the fourth and fifth year and whatnot. That's more where I see it ending up. Him getting the full five guaranteed the way this year has gone in his age, I have a hard time seeing that happening. That feels like the right answer. And you're right, by the way, it's Detroit it's detroit and you know practical cap and and what the real cap will be you know also can change here um with moves but yeah uh i you know i always think planning with cap space you know is is a really really tough one that's usually always a letdown um okay so you don't think the full five i do think you know look what if what

if they have a decent playoff run? You know what I mean? There's a version of this story that ends where it's like, oh, no, he's actually going to get the full five. But then again, maybe the Nets benefit here with both of their guys because there's not like nine teams that have been lining up for this the way maybe people were targeting Giannis or LeBron going back to 11 years here. Kyrie then so Kyrie has uh a player option um but he could opt out on that one and he would have been in position to sign a five-year 242 million dollar

max that's a tough full max for somebody that is Kyrie Irving I think that I think that one is really in question just because I just don't know what they – do they feel like they can count on him at this point? And what's the mood on him within that organization, within that locker room right now? I'm less sure of that one. And that, to me, is the one that's really interesting like harden harden i my assumption going in is that maybe he doesn't get the full bag but it will get worked out at some number that is relatively okay for both sides kairi it's more the question of do they even want to go down this road and so i that that's the one that i could really see

getting interesting and maybe other teams get involved but then other teams are asking themselves the same question too i think that's why you're going to see kairi's name still come up in trade discussions too because if he can't play the rest of this year when the nets are really all in on the present uh you know that's something that Brooklyn has to think about too are they good enough right now with Kyrie ineligible to beat Milwaukee in a playoff series yeah I don't know uh so I think if they turn Kyrie into a third star I think it's much more easy to answer that as a yes. So again, looking at Kyrie, he has one more year after this. Again, it's $36 million player option.

$36.5 million, right? He could opt in. He could opt in and make it a good point, I guess. He could decide to do that and play out next year and then show everyone how awesome he is. Hopefully, he's not restricted next year. We'll see how awesome he is. And then hopefully he's not restricted next year. I mean, we'll see how that all goes, right? Last two years in Cleveland, 53 games the year they won the title, 72 games. First season with Boston, 60 games. Didn't play in the playoffs at the end. 67 games. Then 20 games with Brooklyn. He just decided he didn't want to play, basically. And then 54 games last year, and he's 29.

So if a team goes, oh, he's 29, you go, okay. Look, even if everything else were normal, that would be a problem. My take with Kyrie has been, at least with other teams, is that say you're an absolutely stale franchise and it's been 10 years. Would you go, hey, we're getting him at 30, he's away from New York and all that stuff? But I also wonder too, and I don't know if you have any insight on this, so we're just talking out loud here a little bit,

how much do you have to worry about the KD part of this? Is the whole reason you have KD in Brooklyn in the first place is because of Kyrie, or is KD, like everybody else, has been exposed to Kyrie long-term, at least from the basketball standpoint, gone? You know what? Maybe I don't want to hitch my wagon beyond this. I think that is the most interesting question in this whole thing,

and I do not know the answer to it. But, yeah, I could easily see that swinging Brooklyn's decision. Are you surprised by the Bulls? Yeah, yeah. I thought they would be bad. I didn't like the DeRozan sign and trade at all. And instead, they've been really good. And DeRozan has been a massive part of it.

So yeah, the Bulls have shocked me. Okay. How weird is the Zach Levine part of this? Because when you look at his numbers and what he was eligible for, people thought if it went bad, he might be traded. Because it's a little bit more specific, but you have him basically ranked as your number one free agent. Yeah. I mean, if you look at his age, free agency is all about what is the future basket of years that you're buying, right? So you're getting his prime, you're getting like ages 26 to 30,

I think it is with him on a four or five year deal. So yeah. And his, his max, um, is, is going to be more valuable probably than a lot of these guys who are bigger names, but are getting into their mid to late thirties, especially on the tail end of a max deal. Whereas Levine, like you're basically getting the, what you would project out to be the best four or five years of his career, probably. And he's been on an upward trend basically his entire career since he got to Minnesota. So you can have some faith in that too. I think he becomes easily the top free agent. Now, it seems like the way things have gone in Chicago, that he'd end up back there. They can give again the extra year, go five years where other teams can't, and higher raises.

So that seems the most likely outcome. He'd never been really pushing to get out of there either. But, I mean, Chicago, you can see, I mean, part of their logic in trying to win right now was that they didn't want to lose Levine, and it looks like they're going to be able to pull that off. Yeah, the Levine part of this, too, and this is another aside that I want to lose Levine. And it looks like they're going to be able to pull that off. Yeah. The Levine part of this too. And this is another aside that I want to ask you about, because I actually asked a real cap guru. Were you considered a cap guru? You were an analytics guru, right? Those are two different things. I was probably more analytics guru, although,

yeah. I mean, they're kind of two different things. I did a lot on the cap side too i mean there is some overlap i guess but uh but i don't know if i would have been considered a a guru on the uh on the cap stuff i don't think a front office can have a cap guy that isn't a cap guru because it would just be weird to be like who's that like oh that's dave he's our cap guy is he any good nah like you can't be bad at being the cap guy right like here are the rules follow the rules yeah you do it is it is stressful that way you do you do really have to make sure you get everything right because otherwise you definitely get embarrassed so that that was one that was always one that you know wake up sweating 4 a.m like wait did i you know no but you're right i mean i used to have the old the old larry coon cba frequently asked questions printed out and i kept it in my apartment you know

this is going back 15 years and i would go over it and over i would read it at the pool i would go over it and i there was a time there where i thought i knew you know like hey what are the difference between bird early bird and you, the extension stuff, like some of the front end stuff that you go over, over and over again, you figure out. And what I realized, though, is that, you know, if you're a GM, you probably don't have to know that thing backwards and forwards, like you're a lawyer, because that's what your staff is for. You go in and you check, right?

And then maybe every now and then somebody finds this one loophole um yeah but but i don't know that i don't know that the top top guys obsess over it because that's what the staff is for correct a little bit yeah i mean you do have to know it so that you know what's possible and i think that's important like when you have somebody from another team on the phone just knowing what's possible is really important. And so knowing the cap is obviously advantageous for that, but there are different levels of knowing the cap too. I mean, and I really, I didn't really get that until I started working in the league, like, cause there are some very specific situations that can get quite complex. And that's when it's really helpful to have somebody whose job it is to just know that absolutely cold.

And you know, a hundred percent that that dude has it right. Or that girl has it right. That woman has it right. And you can proceed with your day, you know, and not wake up sweating at four in the morning. Okay, so this is good because I asked somebody that knows it cold

because on the Levine deal, Chicago can offer him the five-year. There's an all-NBA clause that you point out that would change it if he makes all-NBA from 207 to 242 on that part of it. You know, the fifth year was set up to give the home team the advantage. It felt like players were going short deals. They didn't care. They wanted the flexibility. Now they're basically saying, give me every last dollar in all the years and I'm just going to demand a trade. So just give me the paper. And now I don't care. I don't need the flexibility

on paper because I'm going to demand flexibility, even if the contract says that I just signed it for five years and it's only going to go in a stronger direction. I, you know, that's where we're leaking towards, but you know, whether it's the four or five, we saw it with Gordon Hayward. We saw it with Kevin Love. Like, are there just times where when you're in the front office and you think, all right, this is maybe it's fifth, it's stupid to throw in the fifth year, but the fifth year is a possibility. So let's just give them the fifth year. So everybody feels good about this. It's a little different, but still the same, where you have Phoenix with DeAndre Ayton,

who's likely just going to max up Ayton, but they just didn't want to do it ahead of time, whereas you have Denver now looking at the max for Michael Porter Jr. Hey, look, he's going to be one of our guys. You give him the five-year max, and now somebody with the worst red flags I'd heard from teams medically-wise in the back now has five years of guaranteed money a year before you ever had to give it to him. And I'm just surprised the ownership or that ownership in a CBA would expose themselves to a clause that really only has two outcomes.

Do the player the favor to make them feel better while also exposing yourself to a contract that you didn't really have to do until a year later anyway, because if he's restricted, you just match the offer sheet. Yeah. What happens is basically you're doing that to get five years instead of three is the way I look at it. Because if the player goes to restricted free agency, what he can do and likely would do is sign an offer sheet with another team that's four years with an opt-out after the third year. That's what Gordon Hayward did in Utah. And so Utah ended up losing him after year three, instead of if they had extended him, they would have had him for five. And so that's what Phoenix is facing now. That's the scenario Denver didn't want to run into

with Porter. The obvious drawback is you've committed that money a year earlier, as you point out, and stuff can happen in that intervening year. And in this case, stuff did happen. And when it's a max, you don't have any upside left in it, right? So it's a little different when it's Steph Curry's extension that you ended up with one of the most massive bargains in league history on, but that you signed below the max to begin with. And that's part of the reason where, whereas going, going full max on a guy, I, I,

I understand Phoenix's logic on Aiton that to commit to the full five on him right now maybe didn't make the most sense. It was close. When I ran all the numbers and whatever through my little machine, it was like, okay, he might be worth it. He might not like it was really close. Uh, but that is part of the logic you have to deal with. And the other thing I think you bring up that is definitely a real thing. Uh, having been on the team side is the fact that the team can do a fifth year creates an expectation from the player that the team will do the fifth year. And if not, the player will be upset and be more likely to take four years from somebody else rather than you.

And that's where the agent, that's payback time, right? So you didn't give my guy the five, so I'm going to get an offer sheet from a GM that I'm really close with that knows that it's going to be matched no matter what, but we're going to structure it in a way where it's going to benefit us. And that's the part of the game that a lot of us from the outside probably don't understand as well, right? Yeah. And I mean, there's usually going to be a team out there willing to do that. I mean, we'll see.

Again, there's not a ton of cap space out there this coming off season. But historically, there's always been a team out there willing to do that. They're rebuilding. They know they're not going to get one of the main free agents. They have the cap space sitting around. Okay, we'll do the agent a favor. Maybe this helps us down the line. But don't most owners in the Aiton situation go, okay, cool.

Thanks for your projections. We're a few mil below what it would be based on whatever value we want to run on this. We're going to match next year so just just get it over with um and yeah as i say that now the other thing too that's important going out the ayton michael porter jr comp is only on structure of contracts and draft class it has nothing to do with like how you feel about the two guys based on their health where ayton has never really been an issue in Porter Jr. This is why he went where he went.

This is why he went that late. And so there's other teams being like, yep, see, here you go. This is the whole problem with it. But I think more teams, more owners in the Aiton situation would just go, who cares? Just do it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think the majority of teams would would have gone ahead and probably probably done that one and and just to know that they had you know one of the franchise

centerpieces locked up because again when especially when if you're not new york la miami especially um retaining rights to players is a really important thing that I think gets undervalued. Like, just being able to hold on to guys becomes a little bit of a thing because you know you're not going to be able to get the A-listers in free agency. You might be able to get the B-listers

and maybe you luck into one of them turning into an A-lister, but you're not going to be able to... LeBron James was not looking at Memphis on his list of teams when he was in during his two runs through free agency. I mean, it just wasn't going to be a thing. Do you even make that call to clutch? I'm serious. I'm totally serious. Yeah, i know uh i'm trying to remember how we handled that because i i i don't

even think we we didn't have cap room in uh in that we didn't we only had cap for one time and it went disastrously um but i'm trying to remember how how we did that because i i think we might have just like made one perfunctory call i can't i'm trying to remember how how exactly that went if we i mean whatever whatever it was that we did we very very quickly had our had our preconceived thoughts confirmed like can we do a zoom you didn't have zoom back then we didn't have we didn't have zoom no no talk to me uh about my guy miles bridges 23 yeah the shooting has been improved i know he dipped a bit last month um actually the shooting's down now from where he was last year overall.

But I don't know. There's just something feels like it's more real with him. The minutes are up. And this is somebody who's done a great job developing himself into a really well-rounded 6'7 kind of swing guy. Yeah, and they play him as a small ball five even sometimes. He's done a lot more off the dribble this year. He's gotten more comfortable with his right hand.

I think one of the things, he's even shooting th more off the dribble this year he's gotten more comfortable with his right hand uh i think like one of the things he's even shooting threes off the dribble uh obviously he's always been a terror in transition and to pair him with lamello has been fantastic but he's going to be an expensive guy and you know charlotte had an opportunity to extend him before the season decided not to and i think they're going to end up paying way more now to keep him than they would have if they had done the extension before the season started. Yeah, because he would have been somebody who was like, hey, we need you to just come up with a number here. You're not eligible for the match.

You're not going to do that kind of stuff. Let's do a strong number. It would have been like $75 to $80 million over four, something like that. Yeah. And instead now's he's going to be get he's going to be looking at you know potential a lot because again these the types of teams that have room are the types of teams that are mostly rebuilding situations that are

looking for a 23 year old forward um i did point out too that he also uh went to college with jaron jackson and memphis is the potential cap room team so that could get a little interesting that said I mean I think Charlotte ends up keeping him because Charlotte ends up matching whatever offer he gets I just think it's going to be for a much bigger number than they could have done this past fall

just to run through this again he has Levine one Beal two Kyrie three Harden four and then it's tier two the major restricted free agents and that's where we get to Aiton and Bridges I guess I'll just ask you about Beal, two, Kyrie, three, Harden, four, and then it's tier two, the major restrictive reagents, and that's where we get to Aiton and Bridges. I guess I'll just ask you about Beal quickly. And this has played out kind of the way we've been talking about it here for a while now was that Beal was just never mad enough

to push the button that all of us kept thinking that he was going to push and that maybe it was about him opting out of $37 million next year and as a 10 year vet, that would be something where he'd get the full five year at two 42. So that's, this is all playing out kind of the way, like as much as the talk shows were like, Beal's gone,

Beal's gone. Well, no. And it might be okay. He might want out after he gets his two 42, but he's set this up really well for himself to then make the next decision. But again, Washington,

although dipping off a really hot start, which probably makes a little bit more sense that they weren't going to be the number one seed in the East. I don't know what the basketball part of this will be, but it looks like he's lined this up pretty well for himself. Yeah, I think it does seem headed toward the exact scenario you pointed out, get the bag and then try to figure out how to get out later if that's what he really wants to do. I do think he likes kind of being the guy there and having some sway within the organization and stuff.

And if he went to a better team, he also probably wouldn't be that guy. He'd be more of the number two guy. So I think that's something for him to think about too. And at the same time, it's a nervous time for Washington because there's really no point in him signing an extension right now. So you have to go through the dance of unrestricted free agency where he could end up leaving for nothing. So I do think that's a little bit scary for them. The one thing, again, the teams he'd be likely to want to go to would be sign and trade destinations.

So you know if you're Washington, you'll get something out of it. But still, to lose him after this year, I think, is still probably the worst-case scenario. Because I had argued in the middle of last year that the best way out of their situation was to trade him. after this year, I think is still probably the worst case scenario because I, I mean, I had argued in the middle of last year, the best way out of their situation was to trade him, uh, and to, you know, go maybe not quite full hinky, but, uh, you know, reset things there. And they opted not to do that. And it looks like they're going to be pretty good this year. I mean, they navigated themselves out of the John Wall contract somehow, which is unbelievable.

And so now they're in a position where they can at least be halfway decent. But I still don't know what their pathway is to being truly good contender level the way they're set up and it's going to be harder. I think with, with Beal on a full five-year max and starting to hit the early part of his age curve, you know, maybe trending downward, that it's going to get harder for them just to, just to tread water as a, you know, as a mid-tier playoff team, it's going to get really interesting in Washington still as good a job as they've done the last two years to get the team to where they are,

they still have a lot of work left to do, I think. It's going to be a nervous offseason there. You expect the market for Wall to pick up soon? I do not expect a market for Wall other than a buyout. If he got a buyout, there would definitely be a

serious market for him. I do think he can still play and still help teams. I just don't think he's anywhere near a $47 million player anymore. I don't think any other team thinks that. And the whole idea that Houston was going to hold that, hold them out and find a trade. I mean, the Rockets weren't going to give up a first to move off the money because they don't need to. So what trade was going to be out there? It's vapor. There's just nothing that

exists that is possible that doesn't involve Houston giving up a pick to move off that money. So buyout is the only way this can end for him to move away from the Rockets. Last thought here. You've been writing some great pieces for The Athletic.

The Allen Trust ownership in Portland goes, you know, this guy's really got it figured out. He's got the experience at Memphis. Let's hire him as GM of Portland. What do you do? Let's see. Moving to my old neighborhood first um as far as running the blazers you see here's the thing i mean they're in the same situation where trading lillard might be the best move they have left on the table but i just don't think there's

the organizational willpower to do that yet. And it's really interesting. The pivot to a rebuild, to me, it's a little bit like turning around an ocean liner. It's just not a thing that organizations do quickly. I saw that firsthand. They're always going to want to ride it out and try to be good for as long as they can and not really pivot to a rebuild until it is well and truly, totally obvious that it is over. And so I think that's what we're going to see in Portland. I think they have to see what the trade value is for Nurkic and for Covington. They're both free agents. I'm not sure either of them is going to be back. They're both free agents. I'm not sure either of them is going to be back. I think they have to look at a CJ McCollum deal, obviously. I'm sure they're going to look at Ben Simmons trades. It's hard because they're already encumbered on that Larry Nance deal with a future first. And so structuring that deal in a way that guarantees Philly actually gets picks is going

to be a little tricky. guarantees Philly actually gets picks is going to be a little tricky. And so they're in a difficult spot because really their trade asset is Dane, right? What else do they have that's really a trade asset? I mean, could you get a late first for Anthony Simons? Like maybe, but like, okay, then what are you doing with it? And who else is on that team right now that really has plus trade value? CJ maybe would if he didn't make $100 million over three years. I mean, I think that extension is really seen as a negative value by most teams. And so I do not envy the situation Joe Cronin has walked into because they don't have a lot of great options other than trading Dame, and that's the one thing they can't do right now.

John Hollinger, The Athletic. Check out the work. It is worth it, and great time as always. Thanks. Thanks for having me on the show. 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. No open today is you can obviously tell if you're at this point of the podcast, just because we had a lot of stuff because we have some stuff that we have to take care of. I first would like to make a statement. I would first like to not apologize for not knowing who Evanescence was off the top of my head.

I went and researched it a bit. And within five notes, I was like, oh, these guys. And that was not my shit ever. Ever. It just wasn't. Dude, that was like peak locker room high school for me, dude. That was some good pump-up music. I mean, it's terrible in hindsight,

but I just couldn't believe it. Everybody on Twitter was like, how the hell do you guys not know? But was it D'Angelo Vickers, right? That was the guy in the office? That was a dead giveaway. Yeah, I mean, that was... When you think about some of the small...

And I've mentioned it numerous times before. Some of the small, little, brilliant things that the office did at times. That they were like, okay, let's have a scene where D'Angelo Vickers, who was Will Ferrell in the office. Like, let's have him air juggle. And then somebody's in the writer's room going, yeah, but what would be the perfect song? And then somebody goes goes wake me up inside evidence and then you go okay this you know that's why i eventually will transition over to that at some point because uh all i can think about is how amazing it must be when you you do the thing in

the room and you're like that's great the other part of that that james little vickers character was that he wore turquoise all the time. His passion was the American Southwest. I don't even want to write comedy, but that part of the creative process and then to have that kind of result where it actually just hits, that kind of stuff just excites me. Anyway, I wasn't in a great mood the last couple of days because I had my own writing issues. I don't want to say I don't get writer's block because that's not fair, but I was in a very, I was in a huge rut. I was shaving and shaping. I was, I was putting the words through the lathe as they say, that was a real cousin Greg expression. I got way too much cousin Greg in me right now. And maybe we should do a cousin Greg press conference. I'll try to do that. Maybe I'll try to pull that off at a future date.

Cousin Greg is a coach giving a press conference. I don't know if I'm capable of pulling it off, but I might. But I wasn't in a great mood. It wasn't like I was walking around yelling at strangers or anything like that. But I couldn't figure it out. And I had a really, really long, productive two days where there was a lot of stuff. But it doesn't mean that I necessarily got anything done that's great. So we'll find out about that part. But the evanescence part, once it dawned on me what it was, I was like, yeah, I'm definitely going to double down on this and not apologize. And when I watched the Woodstock 99 doc, really well done. But there was this element of like, hey, this is every young, angry white dude in his 20s where I felt like, you know what?

You know who I didn't go see is Limp Bizkit with all my buddies in, in whatever version of jeans that were hot that point. Like that wasn't ever my deal in Evanescence. I don't know. I'm again, wasn't, I don't know what's going on in 05 for me to not like that. Um, 05, probably not much, probably not much. Just, uh, yeah, I know. I kind of know what i was dealing with but it wasn't emo rock so there you go i don't know what else is there more to add to that or we just get to the kyle show let's get to kyle okay can we get screens up for this one screens up we mentioned last week uh we came up again somehow and kyle had mentioned to us not last week last podcast that during his time at university he had to write an essay once again oh that's right I talked about

getting into it with the RA and the guy hammered downtown telling me he would take care of any noise violations or moving off of campus that did not not happen. But you had to write an essay. And I asked you if you could find the essay. You found the essay about the dangers of smoking weed to try to stay on campus, correct? Yeah. Well, it's actually, it gets a little funnier than that. There was a couple, the first one is we started slow. I had to write a pamphlet. It was 10 tips for successful communication because him and I would, I like disrupted a meeting that was mandatory and we missed it. It was like, it's not even important, but so there's a couple of things and I only have the drafts. I couldn't get into my college email. I actually sent an email to them trying to reactivate my alumni account because there's some gold in there.

I couldn't get that in time, but I did find the drafts in my old Yahoo from back in the day. And it's actually funnier because I have the rough draft of the essay and now it came back to me. It was actually why marijuana should be legalized and he got really upset at that. So I have that draft if you want to hear. It's not the dangers of smoking marijuana. It just said marijuana assignment for Noah.

So I thought that's what it was. But when I opened it up, I realized that I kind of flipped it on him he wasn't happy about that so i could read this i could still read it if you want i'll tell you my first instinct is i'm a little disappointed that we're not hearing the dangers of weed from kyle but the fact that his zoom right now has christmas lights that are not in the apartment but it's part of his decorative zoom screen yeah i you never really let us down so i'm open for anything saruti uh at this point i imagine you are as well right yeah i mean i think uh so you

basically ad-libbed on this assignment essentially like you or was it a user error like how did this work no i did it i did it because him and i were kind of we were like you know i thought i was yeah that's a great way to put it i thought i was like razzing him and like, you know, I think I made him laugh a couple times and he was just like, yeah, we still gonna have to do this assignment buddy or whatever. And so he was just it was like probably the third assignment I had to do for him. And by this time, I just was like, I'm gonna have a little fun with this one. I totally forgot until I had opened the the document because it just said marijuana assignment for Noah. Shout out Noah, the old R.D. of Noel South. Potsdam.

Brought my hat. Potsdam. Potsdam. That's a nice hat. Thanks. It is. All right. Take it away, Kyle.

Okay. It's short. You know, I didn't even get to the part three. It's just blank. So I hope I finished it. Title. Legalization of marijuana by Kyle Creighton. Position statement.

Marijuana should be legalized for both medical and recreational use attention getter. How many of you have heard of marijuana? Well, this, well, this United States government spends 6.7 billion annually on marijuana prevention. Credibility thing is empty body. There have been over a hundred000 people killed as a result of marijuana law enforcement, but there have been zero deaths as a result of simple marijuana use. Many people believe that marijuana is addictive, when in fact, many studies have been done on the addictiveness of marijuana and none have come back conclusive. Marijuana is not legal for medical use

because it's been deemed as having no medical benefit, although numerous cancer patients and people with glaucoma as well as eating disorders constantly report its benefits. Number five, the dangerous side effects of marijuana are as follows. Trouble remembering things, slowed reaction time, difficulty concentrating, sleepiness, anxiety, paranoia, altered time perception, and red bloodshot eyes. That's just its own thing there. I don't know. Marijuana has been used for thousands of years, regarded as a miracle drug used by the American Indians and plenty more ancient peoples right until modern day.

Transition, part two, the war on drugs. The government spends over $6.7 billion a year on marijuana prevention. Said that already. If taxed, that $6.7 billion deficit could reach billions in profit. It seems only logical to regulate marijuana instead of trying to exterminate it simply because it's so widely used today. Three, an enormous survey compiled at Michigan State University showed that 54% of people had used marijuana by age 21.

That's a majority. Wrote that in caps. Number four, I just said there. And then transition empty. Wait, there? Part four just says there. The word there. The word there.

Period. And then the sentence that never existed. No, that's it. That's all I got. It's blank after that. What was part four? What do you think part four would have been? Part three was, oh, sorry. It was part three three that's blank part three is steps forward and this says nothing

else just so i was basically saying why i shouldn't be in trouble for smoking weed rather than why i shouldn't be smoking weed you did switch it on him i think your deficit numbers may have been off but you know who knows hey this was like 2012 back then dude who knows okay i look it should be legal i'm not gonna sit here and uh go the other way on this thing i always thought that the pro weed because back when i was in school the pro weed crowd was a minority even though everybody's smoking weed i just felt like if your primary goal every day is to spread the word about legalizing weed, you should have other stuff going on, too. There are better hills. You can be into weed, but if you're so pro-weed, that's kind of your reason to get up every day, then I wasn't going to really ever hang with you.

And when that guy and whoever that guy is, this is an imaginary object, but the position of the zero-death thing, there's no way it's zero-death. I've heard the zero-death thing for 20 years and reported all right come on it's it's not we're not at zero we're not still waiting for the first person especially with the edible part of it where it looks like some people want to get out in the street and start bullfighting cars um i don't think it's zero so whenever anyone said zero i went i know it's way lower than alcohol and everything else um far more dangerous things but i always felt like you lost me when any anybody would argue zero so i don't know so rudy you have anything to add to that uh i i like how you

came out and you're like question and then fact and then you were just like dropping little nuggets in there like it was so well done but it was so dramatic that i think it was great it's almost like you wrote it as a comedy. But I'm interested. I think you needed to do something like, what's the next step? Like, you know, you throw all these facts. That was part three.

What's the next thing? That was part three. Yeah, that's what you need. You need like actionable things that like Kyle can do to make this better or to make it, you know, whatever. And I think it would have been an A plus assignment. I fired an email off

to the Potsdam alumni department trying to get into my old bear mail. So hopefully, hopefully they'll get back to me. I don't think they have been an A plus assignment. I fired an email off to the Potsdam alumni department trying to get into my old bear mail. So hopefully, hopefully they'll get back to me. I don't think they have too many of those requests, but I could be wrong. That'd be great. We could get the steps forward part. Well, there was a couple other ones too. And I found another one that was like, I mean, when you go back through stuff, when you're

like 18 writing emails, I'm sure, you know, people that are much older than me don't have this ability to go back. And I saw one that was like, hey, I need to take a weed class. I think you're the person I'm supposed to talk to. Do you think we could get this done? And I was like, oh my God, I'm an 18-year-old emailing a 45-year-old person who's just, this is their job. When I was looking through stuff, I just typed in P in my in my emails and there was only like seven or eight actual emails and just cringy a little cringy i want to read more though i want to read more there oh it almost reads like a trump tweet or a bailiff's tweet about lebron

like just out of nowhere like all caps like question all right. Life advice, life advice, RR at gmail.com. All right. We had a lot of people respond to the college professor thing, which I kind of knew was going to happen. Here's the first one. Hey guys, love the show. Felt compelled to email about this case for three reasons.

First about the college professor and the guy that we've had a ton of people write into like hey did this but it wasn't for me in reference to the d2 basketball player who wants to ask out his professor again he's 20 if you missed that episode on wednesday go download subscribe tag people blue check spread the word in the sake of being humble um i'm a 40 year old history professor and have been so since my late 20s the professor this professor is clearly teaching the humanities based on the writing course detail

y'all were right to note the different gender dynamics I've been propositioned by young female students plenty says hey what's up everybody's just the bragging continues let's go I mean we've got some absolute playmakers this week. All right.

He's making a point here. We're having too much fun with serious topic. But young college women aren't nearly as moronic as young college dudes. I definitely would agree with that. That is the most true fact. True statement I've ever read. It's almost always shy and never an outright proposition. In addition to being happily married, I've never thought of you in attempting to engage

with a student that way. I like my job, love my wife, and don't want to get fired summarily and never an outright proposition. In addition to being happily married, I've never thought of you in attempting to engage with a student that way. I like my job, love my wife, and don't want to get fired summarily and never be able to get another job in the field. Secondly, and more importantly, I'm a friend and colleague of many attractive women in my field. Hey, the humanities is chock full of attractive women. All right, if you're a high school,

don't know what to tell you. Maybe pursue the humanities. I can promise you they couldn't care less about a college kid romantically they're typically married to and are partnered with men or women who are accomplished attractive and in general way more interesting than 20 year old college student that is definitely true too um not that this guy needs my confirmation on his own occupation here but it just reinforced the statement here because he's kind of nailing this if it's the same principle as Steve mentioned

with reference to strippers. If this kid asks his professor out, she almost certainly would laugh nervously at him and then immediately report it to college administration. The women I know in this field get hit on all the time by their students. They think it's disgusting and despise that they have to deal with it. Thirdly, and very practically, it's that students

in general have no idea how important student evaluations are to humanities professors' advancement at their institutions and the profession in general. I'm positive that this professor is being nice to the kid aside from assuredly being a professor who cares because she wants to get a good evaluation. Having said this, I want to see this idiot

try and get embarrassed and lie to his friends about the outcome. Whoa, D2, you just got called out. this helps i'll keep listening great work um and he says he uses y'all because he's from texas it comes naturally i'm convinced now because i say guys all the time when i'm talking about general i don't know you know i guess at some point maybe i'll be told i can't do it i don't know uh my point is this is that i i get the y'all thing now although i do think it's co-opted on social media a little bit

for people just like the way it sounds. Yes. When it's read out in a tweet. Yeah, it's weirder that way. Definitely. Like, I will be on a date now. Alright. I don't know what else we need to add to that, right? I think

we had one other guy. I'm a college professor. i hear from female colleagues who deal with this misogynistic bullshit all the time do not do it did he consider that his professor who most likely worked their ass off to get their graduate degree and obtain work in extremely competitive volatile field doesn't want their accomplishments and skills and working with students to get distilled down to a fucking quote of i should ask her out game i bet this quote loved yeah i mean dude his buddies call him the love doctor so maybe i don't know maybe maybe nothing's possible yeah right um ask for a woman's number to bar and immediately calls to see if the number is real pathetic wow

he goes i bet this love doctor asked for a woman's number at a bar and immediately calls them to see if the number is real pathetic. Man, this guy's really fucking hammering this dude. Where's that from? I mean, you're right. But that part, I don't know. I'll tell you right now, when you call immediately. There's some haters out there, man.

We've just got some haters. We've got some lovers. We've got some haters. Right. We've got a wide swath. This is a big. The audience for this is vast obviously there's a power dynamic between students and the individual who controls their grade i.e professors that makes any sort of relationship like this unethical which you alluded to ryan but that's beyond the point i hope my own sons don't turn into an ass hat like the love doctor i just just love asshat. Really, it really bolsters any sentence. It is. Yeah.

Asshat's a good one. I just think both these guys are too harsh. I mean, yeah, I probably agree with them and it's good to have a reality check like, hey, this is probably not going to work out, dude. And it's stupid. It does happen. It's not like it doesn't happen. It is possible that this guy is the luck

doctor and this could work out. And, you know, I don't know. It's up to the teacher if she wants to actually make it a thing or not. But I don't know. I just feel like they're being unnecessarily harsh because maybe the first guy, you know, no offense, but like he's talking about how he has so many opportunities to stuff. And maybe it's almost like he has some regrets. Does he feel like he like I could have done this, but, you know, this guy needs to be

better than that. I don't know. I just think that it's possible. It doesn't mean there's a good chance that this guy is actually gonna hook up with his teacher but you know you gotta know that you gotta know the consequences yeah it's a good point i mean to balance all because we get a lot of guys listening right now that are younger that are like whatever dude thanks glad i don't take your course um because it's not impossible but yeah there's there's certain things at a younger age. Look, there's plenty of stuff that I think back when I was younger, I cringe, but then I go,

what am I going to do about it? Am I going to worry about it now? Am I going to worry about it now? And again, there'll be something in a week that'll pop into my head and be like, oh my God, because it's just your approach to life. It's different. You think you're right. One of the things I've always thought is being young doesn't realize that you're wrong a lot of the time because you don't really get it and it doesn't mean you're just making mistakes left and right but there's there's a part of you that doesn't understand you're not removed from it it's kind of like the graffiti story that I told before where a guy in our house our senior year with fake snow wrote eat a dick on the back of somebody

else's car and then other roommates came in and we're like dude we're gonna take that down and the house was divided on it like people thought there was actually a good argument for leaving eat a dick in fake snow graffiti on the back windshield of a guy's car free speech in a neighborhood of people and like one of the roommates was like we got families walking around with kids to bus stops. And it says, eat a dick in our driveway on a car. And then guys were like, dude, relax.

I would have been a hot topic on my bus. I can tell you that. I can tell you that it was, it was, there's no version of that where that was cooled as you get older. I mean, did you guys bring it to like a boat? What,

how did it get settled? Um, well, cool as you get older i mean did you guys bring it to like a vote what how did it get settled um well because one guy who was clearly more responsible than everybody else was like i don't the conversation's over and he grabbed a towel went outside and then the guys that were pro leaving eat a dick on the car were we're like what are we going to do actually getting a physical altercation at 8 a.m on a thursday before we go to campus to make sure that eat a dick is still on the car like you just you know at least there at least there was enough sense even then to be like okay he's got this one but there was resentment there was real resentment dude and i think because the person that did it nailed it i mean it was perfect like the letters were like different shapes it almost

looked like it was like a ransom note yeah i don't know if it was the guy was in graphic design or what it's funny that you had a big a big thing about that like in the house like there's a i can only remember a couple college divisions but the stupidest one was about we had these these two guys that were like we would we would go to price chopper and try to try to get like stuff that we would share for the fridge. Like, you know, bread,

milk, eggs, cheese, and just stock up for the week. And we had two guys. Now that would be a stashing thing. That's your own stash. Fuck off with that.

That's not going on the big cart. But we had guys that were like, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have sliced cheese. They were convinced that the, the stores were ripping us off. So they would just get block cheese and we'd have to slice sandwich slices off of the cheese. And these two guys were convinced there was some sort of conspiracy that you were getting upcharged like 30 cents

to have the cheese slice. So they would just come back with this block cheese and we got really upset. It was like back one week we'd have sliced cheese one week we have block cheese eventually we decided to just get our cheese separate and it was just it was an absolute mess but it was just a strange thing to argue about sort of like the eat a dick on the back windshield of a car it's like i can't believe this has taken all this time what the fuck are you talking about no sliced cheese it was just i don't know but it just was a strange time and i didn't like the feeling inside i was like we're friends and we're arguing about fucking cheese bro it's not even about the cheese or somebody's spray painting eat a dick it's being unprepared for the first time in your life where you have this dynamic where you're being exposed

to the way other people live you know like we had a roommate who once the ketchup bottle was a certain level he put water in it to save money. Oh, and I go, look, I go, there's better ways of saving a dollar than ruining the half a bottle of ketchup. Like this is the dumbest. What are you doing? He's like, you guys don't put water in your ketchup. And the other five guys like this was this was just one of those deals with like the other five. We're like, where are you from?

You're asking us like we're the weirdos because we don't put water in our ketchup bottle to extend the life of it i get it that's the part not for ketchup like you're you know you're in the dorms then you get your own little apartment or maybe you have a house the whole thing and it's just this this rapid crash course in learning about other people in a way that you've never learned about other people before. And that's why, you know, look, it's overpriced and absurd as the college industry is. You know, there's something like it's not like you have to go to college. You're going to partner with a bunch of young people and learn how fucked up you are, how fucked up everybody else is. But anyway. All right.

Let's keep let's keep moving because we haven't even got to a life. Read our first one. I know. Well, they didn't get it open. So, you know know we beefed this part of the podcast fair fair former college volleyball player wasn't for me canadian big raptors guy all right 63 185 i'll get straight to the point i've been seeing this girl i went school with we even lived together during our last year group of six she treats me so damn good

cooks for me every day cleans my apartment for me Comes with me whenever I want company. She's actually a great girl, but here's the thing. She's not very physically attractive. Other than that, she's quite literally the perfect girl. I'm getting, oh, I'm a pretty good looking dude. God. Seven out of 10? Any question mark? All right. Pulling girls wasn't an issue. All right. God, you guys should have a podcast. All of you. This guy in the love doctor talks in sports, talking ladies.

But I've straight up never met a girl who treats me this well. I'm wondering if I should seek other things or if I should just really invest in myself. Am I wrong for having these reservations? Being 24 and wanting someone more because I'm getting afraid to be single, I'm thinking I might not find someone who compliments me so well, has me on edge about the whole thing. I'm just starting my professional career and think having someone around to help would be cool. I really don't know what to do.

Love the show and the segment more than I should. All right. Am I getting a laugh out of somebody back there? It would be cool to have her around or having someone around. That's funny to me. would be cool to have her around or having someone around that's funny to me yeah if you like having people around having around is cooler than not having them around okay this is not new this is age old um but specific to this i don't think you're wrong for thinking this way i think this is very normal you're 24 i would take a deep breath and relax here a little bit all right

because you're going to look back at whatever if If you marry her, you don't marry her or whatever, and then you end up with somebody else, you'll have a moment where you'll think back and be like, man, I really stressed over that and I didn't really need to stress about it. Now, I can tell you what to do. It doesn't mean you're going to stop stressing about it. Now, here's what I can tell you on that front.

We can sit there and say that the physical thing is the most important in the beginning. That's what attracts us to each other so you get it um i worry if it's a hang-up for you at this stage that it could lead to other things down the road a wandering eye perhaps um but maybe that's not your deal um you can feel a little shallow about it, but at least you're admitting it here. So again, I wouldn't worry about that because I think a lot of people feel this way. And this goes both ways, right, on it.

But, you know, some of my happiest friends that are married, you know, married because of all the cliches, right? Marrying your best friend, marrying somebody who's going to be the mother of your children and all those, like a lot of that stuff is going to be settled. And those are the important things. But for the health of your own relationship,

if you're prioritizing her physical attractiveness over everything else, you don't even think about that other stuff, then there's probably going to be some kind of problem. But I'll just warn you, if you cut it off, you're probably going to have a point where, you know, you maybe feel like you've upgraded physically and the attractiveness scale. But it doesn't mean you can't get everything that you want out of it. It's just all of us are like houses, right? There's a part that you have to kind of compromise. And not everything is going to fulfill your checklist.

But you can be haunted by these things too. And I'm not trying to scare you into getting married now to somebody you don't seem to be physically attracted to. But there is something about the connection of a relationship with somebody who just get along with, who you just feel like, not that annoying finishing each other's sentence deal, but if you feel like you found your person and you get each other beyond anybody else, or you can look at each other and kind of smile and you're talking without talking, all that kind of stuff, that is the rare stuff. Hot is more, is easier to find, I mean, unless you're repulsive, than it is that kind of connection. So I'm just telling you, like, there are a lot of happy endings, but there's also that kind of lingering, which I think is more common than people realize too, is people can be married, they can be happy, they can look at their kids and feel like, hey, the life checked a lot of boxes. like hey the life checked a lot of boxes but there are times you kind of look back and think about that one person that you had this kind of this you just vibed with in a certain way that you may end up missing and regretting later on i don't have a perfect answer for you i don't know you i don't

know your deal but to be 24 to worry about this and feel bad i think is a huge waste of time because i think it's very very normal and you're 24 man relax um i would i would i'm not going to go at length here i'm just here I would put it this way as a big Sopranos guy think about this think about how Johnny Sack his love for Ginny Sack and her 90 pound mole on her ass

I'm not saying that she's I'm not saying that your girlfriend's fat or whatever I'm just saying like conventionally unattractive but then think about Chrissy Maltesanti what a fucking mess his thing was do you want to be Johnny Sack or do you then think about Chrissy Maltesanti. What a fucking mess his thing was. And I guess you just gotta, do you want to be Johnny Sack or do you want to be Chrissy Maltesanti?

I think you want to be Johnny Sack. But it's up to you. But there is a middle ground too. I'd rather be Christopher and be killed. Well, don't think about the ends. I'm just saying think about the relationship parts. Who was like more miserable in their relationship? It was definitely Chris. He's buying failing record companies,

trying to get his girlfriend, just trying to keep her happy and everything like that. Meanwhile, Ginny Sack is just being so beautifully nice. And you hear, by the way, Johnny talks about Ginny. That's love. Chrissy's got Silvio rummaging, or who is it? Pauly rummaging through Adriana's panty drawer.

You know what I mean? Yeah, but that's not Chris's fault that Pauly... No, I'm just saying it came with the territory. The goddamn deal of meals? Is that it? Was that the line? I forget. I'm just saying, Johnny was secure and happy,

and Chris was pretty volatile. I don't want to keep going. Go ahead, sir. That's well said. I would just say Johnny was secure and happy and Chris was pretty volatile I don't want to keep going go ahead sir that's well said I would just say you're 24 I mean can't you just kind of get out of this by saying hey like I you know I like hanging out with you but like I you know I'm young I don't know if I want to get married this early have they have they determined boundaries like are they dating they sounds like it's just

sort of a hookup thing right now so that doesn't seem like you're really tied down anything so why don't you just see how it goes you know keep going at this sort of speed. And if you end up saying, hey, I actually do want to date this girl, then that's great. And if not, you know, maybe you kind of grow apart.

Maybe you meet somebody else. Like you're still 24 years old. There's still a lot of time to figure this stuff out. So I don't think you have to lock yourself down to this girl. You can still hang out with her. But, you know,

once she starts defining boundaries and she wants to push the envelope a little bit, then you probably have an issue. But it sounds like right now you're okay. Agreed. All right, let's just balance out the pheromones here. We have a female listener who we will not name, and she has a great email here. 33-year-old woman who could use some advice.

Between you, Kyle, and Saruti, I know I get the valuable intel that I really need right now. I dated a guy briefly about four years ago. I'm going to leave out some of the details she put in here. I'm going to make it a little bit more vague. He was an assistant coach at the professional level. We knew each other from our hometown. He knew my family well and had coached my younger brother.

We hit it off right away and really cared about each other, though he broke it off after a few months, indicating he wasn't ready for a long-distance committed relationship. So it would have been committed and long-distance, and this guy's traveling with a professional team. That's actually kind of, I don't know, I don't know what his deal is. You know, we're talking about one of the hottest assistants in the game, but yeah, you know, I mean, he might've been doing you a favor by saying he likes to be out on the road at 33 with a professional team. I know that's probably not going to make you feel awesome right now, but there's a much worse version of that as well. So she continues, it stung, okay? But he was always

honest with me about where he was at, the lifestyle, and that he didn't want to string me along. So that's kind of what we're just saying then. After the initial sting wore off, we ended up forming a great friend relationship, a great friendship. Over the years, becoming each other's best friend, talking basically every day, telling each other nearly everything about our respective personal and professional lives. Cut to a year and a half ago, we ended up getting back together. We had both matured a bit, mostly him notably. Our careers had respectively progressed. He was now an assistant in college. And as I mentioned, we were basically best friends. I'm early 30s. He's late 30s now.

This past year and a half was pretty close to perfect. He expressed regret many times about ever having letting me go and has continually reiterated that he wants to spend his life with me, have a family, and we've been shopping for rings, et cetera. Truthfully, I've been the one with the hangups this time around. Every time we get close to another milestone, getting engaged, I bail and say, I can't do it. Get scared. I've struggled being all in, telling my family and friends how serious we are and really letting my heart go.

I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this is the same man who now wants to marry me, was so willing to let me go. She said that sentence better than I just did. And let me be with other people. Risk losing me forever for years. Prior to a year and a half ago, I was truly resolved that we were just friends. This transition back has been difficult, especially being so clued in on to everything that we both did when we weren't together. Oh, so they've shared all that stuff too. Yeah, it's not always the greatest time.

But if you have to come, some people were like, hey, all right, we're getting back together. Everything you did, everything I did, get it over with um and then they break up again i'm just kidding um some people are really mature and can handle that kind of stuff i would be like what i'm like out i was out i was kind of out before now i'm definitely out um so give it to me straight is timing really everything they say it is for men? I don't know that that's just, Hey, sexist much? No, I'm just kidding. But I think timing can, you know, on this one depends.

Uh, do I just need to focus on the future and let other shit go? I can't picture my life without him and I love him more than anything. Help me not fuck this up for good. All right. Well, you just said the last sentence there, and I hope you understand we're having some fun with some of this, um, as your heart pours out to us. So now I feel like a dick, but I can't picture my life without him. I love him more than anything. All right. Let me give you at least an attempt at what his perspective was on this thing. If you're trying to be a coach, you're an assistant, and you're grinding, and you're in your early 30s, and you're going through

all these different things, and each sport was kind of the same with this. I know at least from my perspective, which did not exactly entirely work out, is that the goal was the goal and the goal at that time didn't involve anybody else. And there's a really good chance that this guy, who again, you only had to deal with like from him being early 30s to the late 30s. So we're talking about maybe six years, six, seven years, maybe five, whatever. Where his focus, unfortunately, wasn't about you, but it wasn't even probably specific to you. It was specific to what his goals were professionally. And I'm sure as hard as it is, the business that he's in, to now go through it, maybe reset his own goals, realize what's obtainable, maybe start to adjust the stuff that

isn't obtainable. Because when we're all young, we're thinking like, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be the best. I'm going to be all these things. And then life can kick you in the ass a little bit. And in a way for your own life to continue, where you feel at least happy and not say that he can't reach his goals and all that stuff. But you understand, he's in a very, very tough industry where he probably didn't want a lot of the other stuff to get in the way. I don't know that it was just about him having nights out on the town away from you. It was more,

I would hope, again, this is all guessing, um, that, that there was a real part of him where, whether it were you or anyone else, he was really connected to and cared with that.

That person wasn't going to be a bigger priority than his insanely competitive field. Now, you know, I'm guessing or making some assumptions here in the process, but the fact that he then goes through all of this stuff and realizes that you are the one person and you're saying you can't picture your life without him and you're mature enough to get over all the time away from each other. You really are because you just said you were together for a year and a half. I think you should both give without sounding like, you know, a guy in a late night infomercial here, give yourselves both a ton of credit. that you should both give yourselves a lot of credit because you were at this point and these hangups really don't mean anything if you ended up getting what you wanted you won and he was lucky enough to even have a chance to win again right so i would hope that some of it has to do

with where he was at as a younger guy in his 30s and a really tough thing where he probably felt like he didn't have time for something else because i know that and i've become a good example to an awful example but i would know that you know if i were pursuing working for a team or something like that or even you know what i ended up doing with espn is that you know which again is stupid isn't like you can't have a family working espn but um i just know that at least for me specifically my head was at a certain place where I was like, look, I can like somebody, but this is just not going to be the priority. And, um,

if you've just mentioned that this is, this is your guy, this is your person. Then I think all this stuff that you're bringing up here is, is really easy to get over. It should be easier to get over. Not to say that, you know,

you're wrong for, for having some hangups about this, but look, you kind of won. You guys are together and you are telling us you love him. So I think what he did was, even though

it's not awesome to hear about it, I think what he did was a really mature thing and now probably is mature beyond where he was at before. So, Kyle? I think this is awesome. It's a fucking Hallmark movie. It's the one who got away. The only thing that would make it better is if you guys split up before high school, came back at

30, he fucked off to go be a college or professional assistant, and then came back. This is everything there is for the story. I think it's one of the better written emails that we've gotten. I think it's just great. It's just great. It's the one who got away. You're his one who got away.

He's back. You're back. You love it. You'll work it out. It's fine. who got away you're his one who got away and he's back you're back you love it i mean you'll work it out it's fine you got it this is great good for you guys kyle's legitimately happy right now this guy's gonna go out singing carols to old people uh i i do think i mean it sounds like she's hung up obviously on on the past of what happened when they weren't dating right which i i typically think is is a bad idea as you said ryan like i've had my issues in the past of what happened when they weren't dating. Right. Which I, I typically think is, is a bad idea. As you said, Ryan, like I've had my issues in the past of like knowing previous relationships of girls that I've been with.

And I don't know, it's, it's hard to get over that shit. So that's probably what she's thinking right now. But I think it's actually a good sign for this relationship that just to jump in real quick, I had, I'm close enough with Saruti to know that he wrote somebody off.

He didn't even date because of a past. I was like, wait, what? I'm like, you don't even, you don't even talk to this person talk to this person he's like now i'm out anyway i get in my head too much on shit like that so i don't know if that's is that an italian thing i can't figure that one out that's what i hear but it might just be an immature it might be an immature thing it's probably a better way to put it that was probably more likely because i was definitely immature then

but um i think it's actually a good sign for this relationship that like kyle said all these years like you've still kept in touch you still have this connection and the fact that he's come around is like no you're still the one that's actually make you feel great so uh you know i get it's hard to get over the stuff of knowing that he's been with other people and you know he's kind of been traveling and doing his thing for the last you know five six years but you know he's it's not like it's multiple times where he's left you and then come back and left you. It was one time and it's clear that he was going through some shit and he was trying to figure his

career out. So it's actually pretty easily excusable. So as much as I think you think this is a red flag, I actually think it's a sign. I think it's like a green flag. Go for it. Yeah, he saved all those nights when he's like out after a game and you're waiting to text him and call him to ruin his night because he's got to go be calling you and then he's not gonna. So you're ruining this happens every week like he saved all

that all that stuff until he was ready to be able to handle it better so i mean he didn't tarnish himself in your eyes in through the lens of being in a relationship from him not giving you what you wanted so he came back when he's ready to do that this is solid good for you let's end it let's end it there then everybody feels great it's kind of like the end of the breakup. If Vince and Jen kind of got together. They didn't keep walking down that sidewalk. Who knows? Totally remember that movie.

Love it. Did we like that ending? Oh boy. I do. I do, but I... Here we go. I remember watching it the first time and I was like, wait a second, what? They didn't get back together? Spoiler alert? it's called the breakup yeah but you know what not everybody gets their hand held on the way out of the movie theater i like that every now and then like hey maybe maybe it worked out maybe it didn't i thought it was a great ending i don't know that i'd call

it brilliant um i mean it was them not getting together as opposed to getting together there's like two options there like hey like if we have them get together you're like how about we just leave it vague this guy's a genius you know so probably throw brilliant around a little too often i love the ending i just i love the ending i like movies that sometimes it's like yeah this is just sort of what happened and you don't get to tie it in some big fucking bow. Shout out to many saints. Speaking of Sopranos. I'm out. All right, Kyle. I'm out.

Okay. All right. Please subscribe. Rate, review. The Reimersville Podcast. Spotify, Ringer. Thanks to Steve and Kyle, as always. We're back on Monday.

We've got a big, big week. A couple confirmed guests for next week. It's going to be awesome. So looking forward to it. Talk to you then. you