The Ryen Russillo Podcast - OKC’s Dominant Win, Should Minnesota Be Embarrassed, and Julius Randle and Jonathan Kuminga Offseason Decisions With Anthony Slater

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Russillo starts the show by breaking down Minnesota’s second straight Western Conference finals loss (1:21). Then, he’s joined by Anthony Slater to discuss the Thunder’s dominance, explore how the Pacers or Knicks would match up with OKC in the Finals, and look at the futures of Julius Randle and Jonathan Kuminga (19:40). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle (47:29)! Should I fight someone over $35? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Anthony Slater Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. com oklahoma city to the nb a finals not necessarily the breakdown of how they did it they did it press passion how embarrassing to be so i'll go through a bunch of thoughts and

some offseason stuff as well on that one we, we've got Anthony Slater with more, and then he'll also go back and touch on some of the regular season Thunder matchups that he saw, specifically the last game that they played against the Pacers without getting ahead of ourselves too much, maybe talk a little offseason market, and we've got life advice, live from Bally Neal. Whoa.

Whoa. Oklahoma City to the NBA Finals in a dominant game five close out of the Minnesota Timberwolves. So let's take a look at a couple of numbers and we'll talk about the game and some of the stuff with the summer. So at the end of the first quarter, it's nine points for Minnesota.

That's not very good. Fewest points in any postseason quarter in Minnesota playoff history. They missed 17 shots in that quarter in Minnesota playoff history. They missed 17 shots in that quarter, went three to 20. I think they were three to 21 even too. It was 65-32 at the half. That's not good.

Minnesota had 14 turnovers in the first half. That's the most in a half of any game all season for the Timberwolves. With their 14 turnovers, they had 12 made shots. So again, 14 turnovers in the first half, they made 12 shots. They got down 39 points in this game. Minnesota's largest lead was three when it was three nothing. So let's look at a couple of plays here. Jane McDaniel's not crisp to start this one. He was 0-6 and you look at the start of the game.

One of the things I look for, again, when the teams already played this many games against each other, you're like, okay, what does the other team want to give up tonight? What are they willing to give up? And the stuff they were giving up in game four, where they still were able to pull it out when it felt like every Minnesota guy that they were fine leaving made every one of those shots.

That's the only way Minnesota stays in these games and they needed it again and they did not get that. McDaniels was 0 of six, four plus minutes into the game. 0 of six, like he had six shots up because there were the right looks for the most part. I think he had one drive, maybe a little questionable. But those were the right shots for the most part. And Oklahoma City was thrilled he was taking them

and even happier that he missed that many. I mean, if you're not even sweating yet and you're 0-6 from the floor. There were turnovers all over the place, as we mentioned. Late rotations, some of the SGA angles to try to defend him for the second defender, terrible. Randall had one where it was like, how could you be this out of,

how can you not be a little bit more locked in? Because he did have one where he was like, okay, I'm sick of this stuff, where he just attacked the ball handler for the Thunder and then kind of mis-timed his steps and he still got the layup, but because it wasn't a dunk, I think he was just either tired or sort of was just like counting it wrong and like how much he was gonna need to get to the rim.

But there were just all these other plays with Randall where, and plenty of the guys had these, where you're looking at it and you're going, how are you not more like in tune with anticipation knowing what's coming your way? What else? We had Ant who came out really aggressive, was searching and seriously,

like some of the drives were so incredible because he just was of this mindset where he's like, I need to attack, I need to get to the rim. But it's very hard to do that because it's so exhausting and it's even more exhausting against this Thunder defense. And you could tell that some of that like max effort stuff that he was trying to do in the first quarter where he was just like, I don't care

how many bodies are there. I'm gonna try to work my way through it or around it. And then he started settling for threes and it was a terrible three point shooting series for Ant. He shot 28% from three in this one. Cause there was a lot of threes in this game where it was like, I'm kind of open. It's like, yeah, you're also kind of like a 20 feet away from the hoop. Um, at 23, nine, I thought this play kind of just said it all.

Minnesota goes back to the zone as they were searching for any kind of defensive answers against the Thunder. SGA is at the top. Wallace is on his right side. So he's not like entirely, you know, he's getting ready. It looks like maybe a corner three setting up for it, but he's not like totally settled in what he's going to do and where he's going to set up offensively. Hartnestein's on his side. So that's really like, if S what he's gonna do and where he's gonna set up offensively.

Hartnestein's on his side, so that's really like, if SGA goes right, it's gonna be three players on the right side against Minnesota's zone. And so what they do, and I thought it was really impressive that Wallace points it out, it's a really simple thing. I mean, this is not a new concept. It's like if SGA drives, then the corner defender will probably come to help off of Wallace,

but if Hartnestein's man is here defensively, he can probably get into the play defensively and contest whatever it is. And so Wallace, the least experienced playoff guy out there for the Thunder, and that's the part that I like, is that he's waving Hartenstein and be like, no, go to the other side. Bring, try to bring some attention on the baseline

away from me. SGA sees it, he drives, DiVincenzo comes up, helps off of Wallace because you need two to SGA on the other away from me. SGA sees it, he drives, Di Vincenzo comes up, helps off of Wallace because you need two to SGA on the other side of it, because now Rudy shifted a bit away from that side of the drive. It's just a really, this is not some awesome, super complicated play, but that Wallace saw it, it was like, no, you're on the wrong side.

This is what you need to do. Granted, second defender comes up, Wallace is wide open, knocks down the three, makes it 26-29. So I don't know what point differential means. Well, I do know what it means, but I think you understand the point that I'm trying to make here in the podcast. I don't know, like we can look at point differential right now. You know who's number one in point differential in the NBA playoffs? It's not OKC. You know who's number one in point differential in the NBA playoffs? It's not OKC. It's Cleveland.

That's how bad that Miami series was. That Miami series in the first rounds, I don't know off the top of my head, if it's the worst series I've ever seen, there's probably been worse. That was awful. Not a good series. So if we stay with the point differential theme here,

Not a good series. So if we stay with the point differential theme here, OKC in nine home games is plus 24.7. Their only loss was the Aaron Gordon three in game one against Denver, where they blew the lead late. This team is killing everybody at home. And the crazy thing about this Thunder team is one of the best shooting teams in the NBA this season.

They're not even shooting it that well from three in the playoffs. They got better against Minnesota, 31% against Memphis, 32% from three against Denver, and they were over 37% against Minnesota. But on the entire playoff, like season games that we have here on the entire playoff season games that we have here, on the whole, there's 33.6% from three, which is 13 out of the 16 teams that played in the playoffs. This team doesn't even need to make it from three to kick your ass. And that might actually be the best way to admire this Thunder group. In 2025, in this version of the NBA that we have, where so many series is like make or miss league,

like shooting variants. Oh, well, they're not gonna do that again, right? Whether they missed a million or they made a million. I don't know, the Celtics did it again. But in this version of modern basketball, where so much of the story, like you can point to all these things, did they help, did they run this screen? What were the sub patterns? This version of modern basketball were so much of the story. Like you can point to all these things.

Did they help? Did they run this screen? What were the sub patterns? All that stuff that I probably excite few of you about and bore others to death about during the regular season. This team isn't even like, they don't even need it. They don't need to rely on the thing that basically every other team needs to rely on.

And that's fucking scary. Minnesota last year was more disappointing because Dallas is more gettable. I thought they could win that series. And there's definitely a few moments and some of the late game stuff against Dallas where it's like, I don't know, something this goes this way. This goes in, this one goes out. No turnover here. No, maybe Minnesota's playing for an MBA title last year.

And if that had happened and then they lose to Boston and then now they're out in the Western Conference finals, it's like, oh, is this franchise going in the wrong way? Uh, which again, I'm assuming a lot of different stuff here, but I guess OKC once the games actually started. And again, I thought Minnesota could be more competitive. I thought they'd lose the series because of how impressed I've been with the Thunder all season long for good reason. But they were less competitive than

I thought they would be and yet they lost to a much better team. So if you're going side by side, 24, 25 Minnesota Timberwolves here, where is this team going? Because by the standards, they're usually far too basic. It's like, oh, they made it back to the Western Conference Finals, so everything is good. I think on the whole, this entire ownership group, the front office coaching staff, I know it hurts today, but I think the Timberwolves should feel good about what they did this year considering the changes and that it did take a little bit longer. But you could certainly make the case too.

It's like, Hey, the Lakers were not that good, massive public overrating and golden state, even if they'd had Steph, you know, who knows, but they don't have Steph. So that was a walk and it was pretty simple. So there's also an ant conversation because when you're propped up, promoted, not sure if that's really the right term, you're like, oh, the league wants this guy. Yeah, sure. The league wants a lot of guys to be stars. Is he, we hit over the head with ant coverage all the time or is he so interesting and so dynamic and just he's visually so appealing. Like that's the kind of way I think every kid

would want to play basketball to play like ant. And I know it's Stefan making threes and all that kind of stuff, but like Ant stuff is still cooler than everybody else. It's really about who he is and what is possible for him at this age and that, you know, he's a generally accepted top 10 player in the NBA. So we know that when you lose and you have some disappointing outcomes here and it looks like

you're just a level below SGA and you're just basically an it guy in today's NBA, when you lose like this, people are going to dump on you. First take is not going to do is Jalen Green actually overrated segment. Maybe they did. I don't know. But you understand the point. Like Jalen Green losing the first round, Jalen Green is notrated segment. Maybe they did, I don't know. But you understand the point. Jalen Green losing the first round, Jalen Green is not presented to us the same way somebody like Ant is, because Ant is a lot better, and he's the number one option

every single night that he's out there. So yeah, I think there's some real disappointing moments in there, but I'm not gonna sit here today and dump all over the guy and feel like I have to reassess what I think is possible for him, because that part of the coverage I can't stand. Like really good player, a lot of promotion, a lot of people are behind him. That guy gets eliminated in playoffs like almost every other star in this league.

It's like, man, I thought this guy was good. Guess what? Breaking news, I still think Ant is really, really good despite, again, some of my disappointments with him in this series. Minnesota's off season, what do you do with Randall? After the first two rounds, I talked about like, Hey, Randall off the ball when all the attention's on Ant, the fact that he can dribble and create. And this was the idea of what Randall was supposed to be a second on ball guy. You could trust to find a way to get his own because Minnesota didn't really have

that, um, and then you have this Randall series where you're like, Hey, when you find a way to get his own because Minnesota didn't really have that. Um, and then you have this Randall series. We're like, Hey, when you set up 35 feet away to back down dribble, it's probably not going to be as successful against the thunder as you were doing it. What like inside the three point line against the golden state warriors. He was benched in game two and game four. He's got a player option for 31 million. Can you pay him 30 mil a year? Can you do like four for 120 for him? Do you want to do that? Is 30 million actually in this market a bargain for somebody who's still a very productive player

despite another playoff disappointment? Does he opt in because nobody has any money? You know, there's not that many teams, cap space. I don't imagine the Brooklyn Nets are like, all right, first order of business, let's get Julius Randall in here. Probably not the case. Maybe he opts in, maybe they come up with some other number where he's got the guaranteed money and it's not about him.

Cause I, you know, look, if they were, if he played really, really well, then we look at it and saying, oh, he's, he if he played really, really well, they were looking at insane. Oh, he's, he's opting out and there's all this money waiting for him. There's the rest of the league go, Hey, he's a nice player, really talented, big guy, but there's a lot of stuff there. They don't really like there was a play last night in the second half. Sorry to do this, but I have to, I told myself it wasn't going to shot goes up.

Randall doesn't necessarily give up the offensive rebound, the ball bounce at like a bad angle, but he was like really frustrated. And he just goes over to the thunder player and hacks the shit out of them. Cause just, and it was like, well, you gave up the offensive rebound and now you're just going to foul the guy and great to look the game had been over for a long time. Um, there's just, there's just stuff. And the fact that he was benched, right.

That he was benched by Finch, that Finch was like, I actually like our team a little bit better. And then you think, okay, do you bring that guy back at a huge number? But then again, we can keep doing it over and over again. What's the market for him? And how much does the Randall decision impact the Nasreed decision?

Because I would think Nasreed, with a player option of 15 million, I would think he's easily a non-tax payer, mid-level guy at 14 plus million a year. And if it's a non-tax, I think it goes to four years. So does Nas go, that's, that's good money there. And Minnesota's like, Hey, we're bringing Randall opted in. We extended them so we can't do that. And then Nikil Alexander Walker,

who's a really nice rotational player. Great game four, really bad game five. But he's an unrestricted free agent, so there's no way you're bringing back all three of these guys. And then I think there's some bigger decisions about Rudy. Can you have somebody be an absolute zero on offense unless he's playing the Lakers?

Can you have him be a zero on offense and play 30 minutes a night against the elite playoff teams? Because we know what he can do and what he does for your defense and the moments that he will have. And I don't think he was like somebody who's getting cooked defensively in those switches that we've seen before in the playoffs. I need to go back and look at those numbers. But again, visually, it wasn't like, oh, Rudy's getting cooked by a super dynamic on ball guy and they're looking to switch into this all the time. I don't feel like I saw a ton of that in this series.

The problem is in such an offensive-orientated league, it's really hard to survive three rounds when somebody is never a concern when they have the ball, and even more importantly, when they don't have the ball. Uh, another question. I love my Connelly. I loved having him on the pod. He's had a great career. What was your favorite Mike Connelly playoff moment?

I'll wait. So those minutes, like, can you really run him out there? If you think you're in this neighborhood of like one of the three or four best teams in the West, can you have him taken out there if you think you're in this neighborhood of like one of the three or four best teams in the West? Can you have him taken up 20 minutes in a playoff game against the really good teams? And we're not talking about, you know, some of the first round matchups, especially if you have a higher seed. So look, Minnesota lost the best team in basketball.

That is established. And if people were on the fence about the Thunder, I think, I think they're no longer on at least today. It's also late May. So I would hope by now you believe in this Thunder basketball team. But, you know, when you think about the decisions of what Minnesota has to debate internally, I mean, today's probably not the best day to be, like these guys are going to be definitive about how they feel about the roster.

Although as I asked myself that I was kind of writing this out, I was like, Hey, look, common sense tells you, you're not going to get all emotional about this today and having that impact, how you want to look at your off season. Or did you see enough against a really good team that wasn't the Lakers with just no center options? It wasn't the Lakers with just no center options. It wasn't the Warriors without Steph Curry. Did you see enough that you're like, actually the concerns we had about some of the guys on this team were emphasized.

Those doubts were emphasized against Oklahoma City. Vandals turning your bets into bigger bets with a parlay profit boost. That's right. Build the same game parlay or parlay and you can boost your winnings by 30% with a profit boost. You pick the teams, players, stats, all of it. Fandl just adds a little fuel to the fire. Okay. We're going to make it simple.

A game for winner. The total was 221, Pacers won minus two. So we've got that one for you last episode. And I think that was what game three was the only game that was under the 2 21. So this one's a 2 23. So I liked the over again in this, um, because you've got the Pacers, you've got extra possessions. And I would much rather bet this as an over game than I would an under.

Now the fear is if it gets one sided, you know, like last night with Minnesota and Oklahoma city, it's kind of tough to get that over if the game is out of hand, but I'd expect the Knicks because it was alarming as the gap felt like after Minnesota and Oklahoma city, you know, wherever, if the Pacers were closest one out tonight, I don't know that I'd be like, man, the Knicks really have a lot of catching up to do, um, you know, series can be close this one out tonight, I don't know that I'd be like, man, the Knicks really have a lot of catching up to do. Series can be close even at five games, but that gear that we talked about with Slater,

that's just a gear I don't think that the Knicks can match with the Pacers when it's really flowing for Indiana. And it feels like there's just a better attacking plan against Kat and Brunson as opposed to the go-to stuff that the Knicks want to attack all the time and who knows the Knicks maybe have the home crowd emotion all that kind of stuff but I would rather take the four points here with the Pacers and go with the over I would hate betting an under in this

series just because you very early on you might go like this this isn't happening so it is Pacers plus four over 223 plus 245. So that is the play. Whether you're betting three pointers, home runs, goals, or birdies, Fandual's got markets across every sport in every game. And the best part, when you win, you'll get paid instantly. So go check it out.

Fandual's where your parlay gets paid even bigger. Head to fandual.com slash Ryan RYE. And to get started, Fandual, America's number one sports book, must be 21 and older in present and select states or 18 plus in present and DC, opt-in required, bonus issued as non-betrable, profit boost tokens, restrictions applied,

including any token expiration and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fanDuel.com. Gambling problem, call 100Gambler or visit rg-help.com. Good to have him back on the show. Anthony Slater of The Athletic covers the NBA. I know that he's done a lot of warrior stuff with us in the past because he spent time with them, but he was also with the Thunder previous to his Warriors run. And he just basically, you know, doing national stuff as well.

Um, so he's been covering the Thunder has a piece on their dominant run through the Western conference finals. So going into game five last night, like you could talk me into a million different ways. I still didn't think it would be as embarrassing as it was last night for a Minnesota team that I think at times has shown toughness. And as I covered in the open, this was ugly and it was ugly immediately. So was there anything that surprised you about last night? Yeah, Minnesota's lay down, which you just mentioned. I think when McDaniel's,

remember he misses like two straight left corner threes and the second one, I felt like he was already hanging his head before it had even hit the rim rim and I think it made him one of 10 shooting early and it was like okay so this is how it's gonna go. You know I remember there's the Nikhil Alexander Walker like it looked like he had a layup but he's spooked by Hartnestown maybe he tries the floater. Just to interrupt you I can't believe that like I have both of these in my open of all the bad plays that I ran through with Minnesota, like again, the audience has already heard this from the beginning of the podcast,

but the fact that you're pointing out two of the ones I decided to even use, it just, it speaks to like, when Nah short arms that one, you're like, uh oh, these guys are just defeated. And then look, you got the nausea off the knee, you know, just some of that stuff. That that part of it is probably like, look, it was a thunder coronation. But again, I think probably as you're mentioning, they didn't prove to us much

like, hey, thunder blew a team out. What was this like the 61st double digit win? I think it was an NBA record that they've they've they've won 61 games by 10 or more points. So that wasn't the surprise. I just I kind of thought it was going to be competitive. They pull away late type of game and it was not that. So 68 wins for this team. And now this run through the West

and maybe it's the Denver series. I know Golden State ran into some of this in 2015. And I say it all the time, we have a really hard time with new, but it feels like last night was the first moment the rest of the NBA world woke up and went, oh, I guess this team's awesome. I know what the rules are. I know that they have to have a title. They have to have somebody that's perhaps has a title from somewhere else. Like we need those things to really sign off on. But this team felt like, not to say we could guarantee they were going to win a championship this year, but it felt like they deserve more of a sign off, I think throughout the regular season months, uh, then they got in that

that we're obviously getting now. Yeah, I went out there in late March and did a, I think it was like a Sunday Tuesday where it was Pacers, which is interesting considering the potential finals matchup in bowls with the Josh Giddy return was actually the story of that, that game. Um, but like claps, it was like super, it was one of it. Cause I had been to the De'Aaron Fox return. I had been to the Jimmy Butler return and I had then the giddy one all in like a three week period. And it was like, there was some venom in the first two. There was absolutely none in the, in the last one.

Cause giddy was like, Hey, I kind of got what I wanted. Right. And potentially might get the contract and the thunder. Like don't worry. We got what we wanted to. But anyway, that's irrelevant to the point of those two games. I remember the first one was against the Pacers and Chet was out with a hip issue. Jalen Williams, the big was out with a hip

issue and heart and Stein left in the first half with a hip issue was very weird. All three big guys were out. And so they just went super small. A lot of Kenridge Williams and they against the Pacers team, right? That that's can be up and down. And they just blew them out by, you know, at one point I think they're up 30 in the second half. And that's the game Rick Carlisle who's, he doesn't heat praise, you know, very in rosy ways.

Post game came out and said, that's the best team on the planet. It was kind of like the highlight quote of that night. I remember. And then they won't go play the Bulls. Uh, two days later, all their big men are back and they're trying to test out the double big cause they played it so little and they went ultra big protected the rim, blew the Bulls out by like 35. Uh, and it was at a point,

I think if they had won like 13, 14 in a row at that point, it looked like, Hey, like 70 wins is potentially within reach. And that was, I guess my moment seeing the way that like in two nights apart, how differently they play and how it didn't matter, they just blew these teams out. Yeah, that's one thing that I've liked about this team all year long. And, you know, I was listening to Winhorse talk about this

and you know, it's been said, right? We sit there and worry about depth of the regular season and then you get to the playoffs it's like you're really only playing seven and maybe there's an eighth guy that you like maybe if you're a deeper team and it's an eight man rotation but if you're trying to do more than that it's probably getting in the way and so depth at times in the playoffs maybe maybe it becomes underrated. Uh, maybe people just become a little too dismissive of it. And the funny part of this conversation too, not to be too dismissive of the

Knicks down three one is that's a big asset for the Pacers, but when you see OKC play a certain way against Denver, and then all of a sudden it's like, you know, we're going to throw Kenridge Williams out there now who is a rotational player in the NBA. I mean, he used to get big minutes before this team got better and you never felt like, Hey, this guy's terrible. Like, what's he doing out there? You're like, yeah, he's all right. And you give them this entire different look. And then when Minnesota takes Rudy out, they take Rudy out in the non-SGA minutes, start the second quarter. Cause they're thinking, all right, maybe we can get away with resting Rudy here, because even if you don't like Rudy, it's clearly more of a detriment to SGA's plan offensively,

just to at least have him in the paint, for obvious reasons, because of his defense. And so, okay, so he's like, all right, fine, you're gonna go small, now we're gonna go small. So this may be the rare case where, usually if you have a team that's this good, it's like here are the seven guys and we do the same thing all the time. I feel like they can play three or four different ways and it's all really scary and I wonder if playoff history made people overlook that because

usually it doesn't matter. Yeah usually you'd get to the end of the regular season you'd look at like five man line updated and a team that won8 games, as you mentioned, like ridiculously healthy. And they have like this five man unit that's played 200 more minutes and just crushed teams. And that's just not what it is. You know, you mentioned Aaron Wiggins, like is deep, deep rotation. He had like 40 point games this season. The, the bigger Jalen Williams, the other Jalen Williams on the team, he, I thought he was good in the Denver series, you know? And he's just completely out of it now. And it's just to me, like they had adversity this year, right? Shed Holmgren, I think they played 32 games only heart and side missed 20 something.

I think they were hardened in those experiences. They played a chunk of games without the center. I was at the game. Shed Holmgren breaks his hip. There were nine in one or 10 in one at the time. And heart and side had the thumb issue. And there was like real concern like, hey, the thunder about to go on like a slide here. They don't have a center. Like that was like the talking point of that week. And then they just rattled off like three,

four straight wins. Caruso was playing some center. Jalen Williams, the smaller, the wing version was playing center. And they proved a lot within that. But also I think, you know, and they talk about this, they, you know, how many pitches that Mark Dagnall can throw basically is the way they like to term it. And he, yeah, he's like, basically, you know, like a seven pitch pitcher, you know, he's got the

knuckle ball, the fork ball, the, you know, 95 mile an hour fastball, all of it. And, and that is in the playoffs. It isn't, Oh, we, while you're 11th man's better than their 11th man. It's just like, tell us how you wanna play and we will beat you at that style. Yeah, right. Like how many teams would be this good, almost win 70 games, have a starting lineup in what game four was it against Minnesota? And then they switched it where they went with Chet

and Caruso, I think, to start the second half. They're like, you know what, we just, I don't know, I could be getting one of the games wrong, but it was a double big starting lineup. And then it was like, now we're actually gonna just split, split them up and then we're gonna come out with Caruso because we like what we think we're gonna see you in the next 12 minutes.

And it's just, it's stupid that a team that has the MVP that's this good can still tinker. And you never feel like, oh, why are they playing these five guys together? It always feels like it's the right approach based on who they're going up against. And that's another good example, Caruso where I remember being there mid season

and he was out again, he had like several ailments this year. He missed a lot of games, but it was a lot of management type stuff. And I remember in mid season, kind of having a conversation with people like, is this a concern? You know, it was kind of one of the big acquisitions of the summer. It was more like, no, this is good. They're preserving the body. This

is very good for him. He'll be there when he's a, he's a playoff player. He, he, he feels very comfortable on this team because unlike Chicago, he doesn't feel he needs to play 30 minutes a night every night and try it into like, you know, help them, you know, basically improve their seed as much as possible in the, in the playing playing bracket and that has proven itself out, right? He's been unleashed in the playoffs on a nightly basis And I think part of that is because he was able to sit one out of every three games this year, basically Now your time with the Warriors coincided with the rank going from OKC to Golden State. Yeah, so Golden State Already had one they had the great

2016 regular season they lose in game seven of the finals. We all know the deal there. Is there any correlation? Was there any moment in your time when you had access to the thunder where you were just like, this reminds me of the warriors and it's not so much a style of play, but was there something where it wasn't hard to figure out how special the 16, 17 Warriors were gonna be, but those times where you're around these people that much and you're like, this kind of reminds me of this or this is something that's similar or there's just maybe a mental approach

to the way they carry themselves. Yeah, the seriousness of like specific roles, you know, in the Warriors, it was probably a little bit more veteran driven on the bench, right? The Barbosas, the Livingston's, the Iguodalas, all that. a little bit more veteran driven on the bench, right? The Barbosa's, the Livingston's, the Iguodala's all that. It was like time of their career where they were like, okay, it's time to accept that,

that I can be the perfect eighth man, the perfect seventh man. Whereas with the Thunder, what's been interesting is it's like, you know, a lot of young guys doing that, not all young guys, obviously Caruso, Hartenstein, that they're, they're more vet, but like Casey Wallace is a great example. Uh, you know, I'm, I actually sat down recently with Dork Caruso Wallace, because it's like they're, they're three man trio and, and Caruso and Dork are two of like the, I don't know, eight players ever to be undrafted and get all defense. Um, but Wallace is not the type of guy that's had to grind himself to the league.

He was a point guard in college, right? He's a lottery pick and to see the. He was a point guard in college, right? He's a lottery pick. And to see the rarity of his mindset coming in where, you know, a lot of young guys would like want to stretch their legs and, and, and, you know, do some of the point guard stuff and scoring stuff that, you know, he's probably capable of. And certainly if you put them on a bad team, I think he would be, you know, he would score and assist a lot more. But, you know, he is just like laser focused on like what he can do best

to help this team specifically win. And you just when you are around the thunder, like, I think if I just put a few quotes on paper, you're like a cliche quote here, a cliche quote here, you know. But it is just impressive to see the way and Sam Pressley has done this purposely, the type of of guys he's brought in, just how you know zoomed in they are on the day to day task and you know it's like that is the type of stuff that leads to winning when you can get rotation player one through 11 that

is like completely accepting of their exact role on any given night. Let's talk about the Minnesota side of this. Last night's awful, we get that. You know, it's probably better to remove ourselves a couple days from it and being like, okay, they made it back to the Western Conference Finals. You have to feel good about the season. Obviously, you're not gonna feel great about the series, specifically last night, but to get back there

and then to have the changes. But all the looming stuff with the off season that I touched on in the beginning with Randall, obviously with Nas Reid, Alexander Walker, who was a bargain for this team at like, I think $4 million this past year. Some things do need to change. I don't know how much you could change with the Rudy part of it. The Connally minutes were tough and they pulled the plug on that numerous times throughout the series. But looking at the Randall part of it, like I was wondering if he might just opt in because it's still 30 million and then see what's available next year, because

I don't think they want to move on from him, but we know that there are some limitations and why he's been on a million different teams here already. So I wonder, look, that's a really good front office. So I don't think they wake up today being like, Hey, however I felt on Monday, now I feel entirely different, but they're going to have to, they're not going to be able to bring back all these people. And I, I don't know if there's a larger move for them. Yeah.

I mean, I wonder if Reynolds like the opt in and extend where maybe he threatens, you know, an opt out threatened to try to leave, just to try to get 30 and then build off 30. Because, you know, I don't think he's gonna be one to walk into, you know, a walk year essentially. But everything's about extensions. Now. I remember the conversation I remember being at game one of these West finals and Randall was coming off that warrior series where he was probably the best player on the floor. Draymond Green was going on his podcast basically like accepting the fact that he got, you know,

barbecued basically for five games by Randall. And there was a lot of conversation pregame. And even at halftime of game one, I can actually remember because I think Randall had 20 in the first half of like, oh, he's opting out like, you know, best free agent on the market. But you make a fair point. Sometimes we forget like when you're, best free agent on the market. But you make a fair point. Sometimes we forget like when you're in the heated, like the West finals and you've seen Julius Randall look like the best player in the West for 10 straight days. You're like, who's, where, where's the money?

You know, I'm looking at it right now with obviously, you know, trying to track this Jonathan Kamega situation. Brooklyn has cap space, but they have dreams of the big fish. And if they don't, it sounds to me from what I'm hearing that they're probably more conduit to like three team deals, try to gather assets and work as a vehicle. Detroit's got a little cap space, but it's very hard these days to just clear 42 in a room and just add a max free agent. So to me, you probably are talking about it and opt in and extend or, you know, through

negotiations now you can do like the trade and extend off that. But Randall might be something more looking at something where he's just extending off that number, which by the way, that's, it's probably fair, fair, fairish value. You know, I'm not sure he is your full super max veteran level guy, but like in the 30s and 40 million in this current salary cap, I think that's fair. Yeah, I don't know why. Let's stay on this though,

because you have this piece up on Kamingo where I'm sure he sees his value at a certain number. And then I was looking at like, is he a non-taxpayer mid-level player? You know, that number is just over 14 million. Like that seems to be right. Or there are teams out there that are going to, Hey, look, he didn't fit with what Steve wanted to do.

You and I have talked about him in the past. He actually has some incredible postseason moments. You know, some of the scoring that he had early in the series against Minnesota. And yet it was funny, cause I was watching that game, I was like, he's hitting every single shot, but he's also doing stuff where you're like, this is why Steve doesn't play him,

but he has to play him in this series. There was one play where I think he switched in to a worse way to fend, he had a matchup, he runs pick and roll, switches into a defender, it's like, why would you pick him? And then he decided to attack. There was another play against like Rudy, where it was like, oh, hey, I saw Luke could do this

against Rudy in the Western Conference Finals, like now I'm gonna cook him. And it was like, no, you're not. And then he just gets so far deep that he's like then screwed, but he hit every single shot. So it's now like, hey, Kaminga made himself all this money. So the market for him, if it's, I guess I look at it as like maybe there's one GM out there

that goes, this guy was misused. We love the talent coming out. We're reminded of it at times with his size and athleticism and his age. But I still don't know how that number, like who does three years, 60 million for Jonathan Kaminga? Yeah, that, well, you know, know again because of the limitations in the market out there will be interesting but also like he's got a tough situation here

where the Warriors are not just letting him walk and so they're gonna extend the qualifying offer and that means he's gonna have to find a sign and trade but the sign in trade mechanics are very difficult for the Warriors. And nobody wants to get too deep into the, you know, the CBA minutia, but it's called this base year compensation rule where let's say a team wanted to give him a 26 million as a starting salary. They're absorbing it as 26, but a sign in trade means it only counts as half for the

Warriors. So they're bringing 13 million back. So how can they find requisite value at 13 million? And if they, you know, you could, you could technically take 125% of 13 million, but let's say they took 14 million back. Well, then you're capped at the first apron and which is, you know, really handcuffs the warrior. So again, I don't want to get deep into the weeds, but it's just seems really hard for the warriors to find a proper sign and trade situation. And it looks like coming is going to have to leave via sign and trade because again, in Brooklyn, and I have not heard that they're ready, readying an offer sheet at Brooklyn's

not going to offer sheet. And which by the way, the Warriors just might match for asset management anyways. It has to be via sign and trade in that market. From what I'm hearing, it just looks pretty bleak for the Warriors. So to me, what it looks like is the Warriors maybe, you know, having to swallow the pill, bring him back at a number that that is it's almost interesting. Because you're right. The smaller number, sure, the better the price. But also part of the reason to maybe bring him back is to then trade him at his

full value come summertime. And the bigger the number, the more spending power you have. And the, like, he is the warrior's biggest ticket item to, you know, kind of reform this rotation the way they need to while they try to chase down another title over the next couple of years. And like in some ways, the more money he makes, you don't want to go too much, but the more money he makes, the better it might be for them. It's weird. Yeah it is weird because I was looking at it was like was it worth it to go through all this hassle if you do a sign and trade with him to hook up Kaminga with the contract and then first ape in yourself well that doesn't

make a ton of sense and then it's like okay so who is somebody that's available that makes 14 million that the other team wants to actually trade so if that happens it's like that player probably isn't that good. And then you could have the headline of like, I can't believe Kaminga was traded for this guy. It's like, yeah, that's not really how it works. And I didn't want to go necessarily into like the full Kaminga thing,

but it's just better to understand. Like I led you there, so I'm glad we did it. But my purpose of doing so is then to look at like Minnesota's options and some of this stuff. Like Nas, I would imagine even however you feel about Nas Reed this morning, he's a $14 million a guy. I would imagine he's a full non-tax payer, mid-level player. That's going to be really tough for Minnesota with the Randall decision to be able to afford him and bring everybody back because I mean, part of cat moving out was how aggressive

that contract was going to get. And then obviously part of cat moving out was how aggressive that contract was going to get and then obviously part of the cat conversation was because they did the Rudy deal in the first place and then extended them at a lower number but it's still so much money. So whenever I think about all these potential moves this summer, I'm like okay but where are the landing spots? Where are the landing spots where Detroit could probably make an argument of let's do it like Orlando and use the space now, but then Orlando resign so many of their own guys. Detroit may say, let's get this next player in here

before we lose the cap space. But then you're thinking like you have four guys you're gonna wanna resign and Cade's number is gonna go up now too. So it's a really interesting circle of, well, this guy's a free agent. Okay, but where's he gonna go? But then it's like, yeah,

but the rest of the free agents suck. So like somebody has to go somewhere. And I don't know what that means for Randall or Kaminga. Let's move it to Ant. I had said in the open, like, look, I get it. Like I know how it would be covered. open, like, look, I get it. Like, I know how it would be covered. Like, oh, this Ant guy, thought he was supposed to be good.

He's three years younger than SGA. SGA has the much better team. I didn't like Ant's second half in game four. I think on the broadcast, they seem to like his game four more than I did because of him making the right decisions in the first half which I would agree with them on that part of it but I kind of just chalk it up to like you know he has he has a lot of the attention and whenever any of these younger players with this much attention without a ring get eliminated then it

turns into this reevaluation of who the player is, which I'm just not going to do. Yeah. I think he is learning lessons in these playoffs, which he should, like the last couple, in the deeper stages that you go, typically you do. And I thought one of them, this of them, this series was, um, like the, the off ball defense, you know, like, like, like the minor ways you could still impact, uh, winning even when either you have an off shooting night or a team, this is completely taking you out schematically. Um, there was, there were some small, nice moments I thought in, in, in the few

games where they use him off the ball a little bit and like, you know, nobody's going to say, Hey, you know, become Steph Curry and learn how to, you know, do, you know, all that type of stuff. But I think that, you know, he should look at a little of that film and realize ways that, you know, when a team is just going to straight double or, you know, try to take you off the ball, you can still find points other ways slash like, you know, he could be devastating slasher, uh, you know, in, in certain situations. It's what for years, everyone begged Westbrook, right? It was like, Oh, if he could just figure out how to be the off ball type cutter. And

it was like, okay, like he just because he did it once and you can look at a film of like, man, look at this, you know, downhill guy. It's like, you know, his instincts are not that. And I think that's probably like a problem with Edwards is a lot of his instincts and, you know, off ball defense, off ball offense are not great, but I do think maybe, you know, as a guy who seems to want to get better every year and, you know, improve on certain aspects of his game, maybe that is the one, but that is also the toughest stuff to work on in the summer, right? You know, you can say, Hey, I want to work on my two dribble pull-up. I want to work on all my individual stuff. It's tough to be like, you know, let's get 10 guys out here and I'm going to

work on, you know, basically cutting at the right time from the dunker spot. So we'll see. Uh, but yeah, I agree with you. Like, look, they ran into a buzzsaw, uh, that we've, as we've talked about, everyone should have kind of knew was a buzzsaw and you know, he, he wasn't his best, but it's not you know he was he was second team all NBA I mean he looked like a seventh eighth ninth best player in the league and sometimes those type of guys go down in the West Finals that's fine

looking at the East now I do think these teams are close I thought it'd be a competitive series. And you know, look, the Pacers are up three one and, you know, the way they looked in that first half, a game four, you know, then they get it to like 20, the Knicks make a push. So there's some stuff there with the Knicks where I'll have moments where I'm kind of like, all right, the Pacers just have this other gear, right? And they clearly didn't like the pace of game three.

And that's why you could hear Carlisle yelling game for pace, pace, pace. They brought it up during the broadcast and they get out and they start flying around. And it's really fun. And I think the Pacers, like that's the part of them. Like if we can get so many more possessions just by pushing the pace constantly

and having Hal Burton navigate this ship is really impressive. So that might be the key, like that extra little gear the Pacers have, that might end up being the story of the Easter Conference finals that that's a little different, that the Knicks just can't match that. We can get it a bunch of other factors that would all be relevant to the outcome of the series here. But when I think about the NBA finals, if I just think about the paces part of it first, like SGA in that group, like they would probably welcome it a little bit more. And they know, cause we've, we've seen the top and center lineups as they've

been searching for somebody behind Turner, uh, and then going with Bradley over Bryant here, which you probably don't feel good about either of those options. Sometimes it's the OB Siakam frontline. When I think about OKC going, oh, okay, fine. You want to play Toppin and Siakam at your frontline? Maybe we'll go big and beat up on you or maybe we'll just have Kenridge Williams surrounded by four shooters and and we'll run right there with you even though you know that's obviously the Pacers are the best I think team in the league at what we've seen from

pushing the tempo here. Yeah I think like game one of any theoretical finals between those two they're probably going to go like 10, 11 deep each you, do the whole like experimentation by the second half, try to find some answers of what works in the series. I may like regret saying this, but it does feel like the Pacers are almost like the AAA version of the Thunder, right? Or, you know, that maybe that's putting it too harshly, like the B, B minus version of the Thunder. And maybe again, like I went to that pacer thunder game, the thunder beating both times this year. And, you know, Halliburton was having a tough time creating

separation, right? And you know, the type of waves of just Bulldogs that they're going to be able to throw at Halliburton that he just has not faced in the East finals on a consistent or in the East playoffs, I should say on a consistent basis. The rim protection that sits behind there. I just, I think Indiana is going to have a little bit more trouble scoring than they're used to. And I think that'll snowball.

But again, you know, maybe, you know, the Knicks can threaten. I shouldn't be, you know, previewing a series that isn't for sure yet, but I, coming off the Minnesota series, there was a Minnesota second round series where they won. I think there was a lot of buzz. But you know, I think at retrospect, you can look at the Lakers laid down.

The warriors were just like without Steph, like, you know, we're just inadequate. Um, and Minnesota was not as threatening as I think the world thought they might be. And I, we may be having that same conversation about the Pacers in like 10 days, 11 days from now. Yeah. And just to, first of all, when you're saying a team is like a B-minus version of a 68-win team, it's good to gather what they've done. That's not necessarily an insult, although Pacers fans will take it as an insult.

And to be fair to this series in the East too, like, would you actually think if the Knicks could pull off this incredible comeback that they would be a better matchup for the Thunder with the Sun? Yeah, right. Especially because that would be like a seven game, like, you know, emotional war. I can't imagine MSG's partying on, and then, you know, you got to walk into Oklahoma City

and probably just get, you know, boat race one and two. So no, to answer your question. If you want to read Slater's piece on Kamega, check it out on the athletic. And yeah, there's a lot of like, it's just tougher and tougher to talk about all the transactional stuff. I feel like every time I do a segment with Bill, I get a couple of texts from Bobby Marks being like, well, there's a thing with like, we need you on speed dial. Thanks man. And enjoy the finals, all right?

All right, thanks for having me. You want details? Buy. 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. On the road back in LA tonight, but yeah, finishing up at Bally Neal. Little golf. Saw that. Yeah. What?

Isn't it great when you hit a drive and everyone that's with you goes, whoa, that's what keeps me coming back. Yeah, this is the best golf experience I've ever had in my life. I mean, I just started playing again, what, a couple of years. So I've been invited to some cool spots. Um, but this whole experience, it's, I'm almost Nebraska, I think, uh, it's in the absolute middle of nowhere. And a friend is a member and he talked about inviting a bunch of guys up.

So it was like four of us that were college roommates. I had a roommate again for a couple nights. Oh, were you in like a cabin? What kind of, what are they called? It doesn't look like a cabin. It looks like maybe a B&B. But unbelievable design by whoever set it up where the beds, you don't have to look at your other buddy.

So like I was off to the side and then he was, he was over there. So he never really had to talk to each other. It's great. Great way to catch up. Um, but yeah, this is, uh, an all time, all time golfing experience. So, uh, and I played well yesterday. So for me, you know, considering how I played, uh, made it that much better. I was due for a nice round. So, uh, again, I'm not great. Yeah, I'm not great.

I was about to say, what does that mean if you're a dude? Yeah, right. If you're not very good, like if I were to tell you my score and I go, well, you think that's good? But yeah, for me at this course, I was happy. And I think some of the people that lost money to me were not based on our handicap. So anyway, let's get into some life advice.

But yeah, I just wanted to shout out Balli Neal because this is staff, whole deal. Our caddies, incredible. Shout out to Sully. Although I did pull, well, maybe I'll leave that for another time. No, no, there's nothing wrong. People hate when you do that. Just so you know

Absolutely hate that Well, I think it's just a lifetime of teases don't know what to tell you. All right Let's see here guy wants to fight me over the Knicks. All right, this is long and there's a lot to it But we'll we'll see Morgan you're a Knicks fan, right? No, not really. I'll root for the Knicks just because the whole city's behind them,

but I'm not a huge fan of them. You're like a community guy. Yeah, let's put it that way. All right, it's cool. And by the way, if they lose, they end up losing in the easier conference finals. It sounds like you're going to rebound pretty quickly. So that's good to know.

All right. 5 11 2 10 pickup comp is Boris DL without the athleticism. So I have a fantasy league of 10 guys that have been masked of high school to college buddies. Naturally a few have fallen off throughout the year. So a few other connections, uh, I do not know, uh, have been added. One of them has become the quote villain of the league. He's that guy that's offering you the worst trades of all time.

It takes it as personal offense when you tell him, no, this man baby, we can call him Matt, using real names, I don't care. Uh-oh. He's now threatening to fight me over constant needling from myself. The genesis of my needling started at the end of March Madness. This year, instead of having a flat buy-in from everyone for the tournament, we thought it'd be funny to have a random amount do wherever you placed.

At the end of the madness, I was victorious and the bracket went to collect from the fellas. Everyone paid up within a week except for Matt. His excuse for not paying was, quote, "'We all never agreed to this idea,' so I went back and did some digging. The text conversation and his words were about the idea. This is such a stupid idea, but I'm in.

Most everyone else liked the message or did not acknowledge at all The amount that he owed was a whopping $35, but as a point of principle, I did not want to let this slide Resorted to your most basic of name-calling. I you're broke. That's why you can't pay you aren't funny No one enjoys your presence in the league That last one didn't feel super basic Yeah, no one enjoys your presence in the league that's I That last one didn't feel super basic. That one felt, yeah. No one enjoys your presence in the league.

That's, I mean, you're not really friends, but that's kind of like you're never gonna be friend. That's an ender. Fast forward to these past couple weeks with the Pacers-Nicks series, he's been openly celebrating their run, this playoff so far, and rightfully so. They haven't been there in 25 years.

See, even that's a dig. Now when they start to lose, I take it as a chance to bother him as I find it annoying that he still hasn't paid his debts for March. I make a few memes, one attached below and crack jokes about the Knicks. Then he goes on a full on meltdown saying

he's going to hit me, quote, really, really hard. Now we all have an annual meetup to do our fantasy football draft in person. So I'll be seeing him in late August. He is much larger than myself, probably at least four to five inches and God knows how many pounds this guy emailing in said he's five 11 to 10. So it sounds like this guy's enormous. Um, my question to the brain trust of dudes is, do I need to stop needling him to have a peaceful weekend with my friends? Do I get in tremendous shape so I can actually fight him? Does he deserve to be kicked out for being soft as baby shit?

Uh, any and all thoughts would be appreciated. Uh, he also wants to talk more about soccer. Um, so he sent the memes, you know, the guy with the two buttons sweating, Any and all thoughts would be appreciated. He also wants Rudy to talk more about soccer. So he sent the memes, you know, the guy with the two buttons sweating, remind Matt, he owes me $35, remind Matt that Knicks are down 3-1. Wow. And then he sent some texts.

This is from his guy. You can take me out of the group chat. I'm telling you right now, I'm done with you and your shit. I will knock you the fuck out. So either read the room and be normal or do what you want to do and go keyboard warrior. Um, this guy's not going to fight. This guy fucking hates Matt hates him.

Hates him. He's going to hate him even more after this email. Uh, and then he was, Oh, I don't know. Let me kind of peruse through the text here. I mean, nothing's like a egregious, but I always try to, um, I'm telling you, if you keep coming at me, um, I will real life hit you. You're doing this because of $35. You poking at me after every Nick's loss is irritating as shit. I imagine it life hit you. You're doing this because of $35. You poking at me after every Knicks loss

is irritating as shit. I imagine it is pretty irritating. So again, it's your decision of whether or not you wanna keep going after me or how you wanna go about it. And then the email responded, well, maybe if you paid your bets, I wouldn't be as annoying, exclamation point.

And then he said- Loved to see his face when that one came through. Yeah. I guess they both got removed from the group chat because they're rooting it. Yeah. All right. I'm not going to read all these texts, but I think we get the gist of it here. Um, look, if you went back and you honestly found correspondence where he said he was in on the March madness bet and he didn't pay it, right? Nobody likes that. Nobody likes dealing with that. But now he's not going to pay you because you're

annoying him so much. And it sounds like I understand why you're doing it, but you may be crossing a line here. And now it could be not that it's going to be a physical altercation, but you have to understand. If if this guy's that big. And again, I don't know your history. Like, have you been in scraps? Have you not been in scraps? The idea that you're going to train for three months before you see this guy in August. Yeah, his second option was like a rocky training montage.

Yeah. Right. Is that really going to do anything? Like, are you going to like, what's the training going to be? Push ups or getting punched in the face by other people? So, I don't, if he's really the bigger guy and you're admitting that, he's offended that he can't, that you can't understand that in the hierarchy of things,

even if he owes you the 35 bucks, he's wrong. He owes you the $35. Like how far do you really want to go with this? And you're right, Kyle. Like, I don't know if it's actually going to lead to a physical altercation. And I think the other part that's important here is if you guys are going in this hot and you don't let up or you don't try to resolve this some way, then it is actually a pretty selfish thing where you're screwing up an annual meetup of all the

other people worrying about this tension between two guys over $35. And that's something that, again, I'm at this golf trip right now, I get along with everybody. Imagine if there was somebody that had this 30-year vendetta with, and then we're both in the mix, and then everybody has anxiety about it. And then I decide to let that override that everybody doesn't get these many chances in life to have all these, you know, you get older and older and you don't have as many of these opportunities and you're gonna fuck that up for everybody else because of $35.

And I'm not saying you're wrong to want your 35 bucks back but I kind of feel like the email are like, you might wanna just dial it back. I mean, what are you doing? The one thing that concerns me a little bit about the possibility of the physical altercation coming up is how level-headed that text was, where he mentioned, like, it wasn't misspelled

or didn't sound like a drunk guy on his sixth beer right after the next loss. It sounds like a guy who's been thinking about this. To my point, is it sounds like you got $35 worth of reactions out of this man already. It sounds like you certainly got your money's worth. You're finding a new way to estimate value. It's a new global currency. Yeah. Stress coin. But I think the one thing that that like you have on your side is this guy, it's not a bet that he didn't pay, right? This is his dues for the league where he placed, right?

This isn't a bet he made in March Madness. This was randomly by where you placed, right? Didn't he say that? Yeah, yeah, it is, but he said he went through the text and found him saying, I'm in. Yes, but I'm saying the money that he is owed isn't a bet that he made off to the side with this guy. This is from the league, right?

Yeah, but he won it. It's the March Madness thing. Okay. So he won the pool. So he owes him the 35 bucks. Yes, yes. So, I mean, it sounds like, what is it? There's 10 guys in this league.

It sounds like maybe he should be like, someone else should be like, hey man, in order for this league thing to work is like, everyone just kind of has to do the thing. So maybe that's a conversation. If it's a popular league and you could just slot them out, cool, sounds like you're a part of the core and he's been an expansion team.

But I leave alone- It seems like both these guys are on the outs right now. Yeah, I leave alone the- It seems like the rest of the league is just done with their shit. Yeah, just focus on bringing back to sports, man. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard for the bigger guy Just focus on bringing back to sports, man. Yeah.

I mean, it's hard for the bigger guy for us to side with him when it's like, you've decided you want to pay 35 bucks this guy clearly because you already can't stand him, but if you're a huge Knicks fan and they blow game one and this guy's needling you minutes after that game. Like the big guy's not going, well, I do own the $35. So I'll take it. He's, he hates you. And it sounds like you kind of get off on this a little bit.

Um, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. It's weird. I don't. I hate the guy who won. Otherwise, what the fuck? Sorry for cursing, but like, you know, there's some know. It's weird. This stuff is bigger than do I hate the guy who won? Otherwise, what the fuck? Sorry for cursing, but like, you know, there's some rules that are above everything

and that's like, you know, you gotta follow the rules of the thing we're all here to do. So I don't know, maybe someone else should ask him. I don't know if there's a commissioner that can speak to this, just be like, hey, listen, you know, before we meet up for August, we just gotta make sure the ledger is balanced, whatever. I mean, I can see the principle of it.

I think this was like a side bet where our guy is basically the commissioner of this March Madness bracket. Right, is that what you guys are getting? Yeah, it sounds like it's the same group. He organized the March Madness bracket, the emailer. Well, I don't even know that it matters. Clearly, this guy won and they set it up a different way and he has evidence that said that the guy was in.

And yeah, it's really lame to not pay the $35, but annoying the shit out of him and getting to the point where he's ready to beat you up probably doesn't mean 35 bucks is coming anytime soon either. Right. These guys have to be young. They got to be a bit younger. Yeah. I'd imagine.

I mean, you know, Hey, 55 senior vice president. Yeah, I'd certainly switch the annoying tactics, but, um, because we also know, like, we also know who this emailer is. Like we've all had a guy in your life where, like I remember I told you that dinner I was at Chicago a couple of years ago and it was a bunch of friends and then it was a guy I didn't know and he sat next to me and somebody had given me a heads up. He's like, he's a huge like listener and the whole deal. I was like, all right, whatever.

And then it was right before a game tipped off a playoff game. And he was like, who do you like? And I went, well, you know, I think the Celtics are better than Miami. And you know, that's kind of the way I look at it. If it were, they were up two or whatever it was. And he was like, cool. And then Miami just came out scorching, you know,

just one of those games. And then he was like, I faded you. He's like, as soon as you said it, he's like, I fated you. As soon as you said it, I was like, I fated you. And I was like, all right. And then he was kind of like gloating because Miami just, I had it wrong. And Miami was like going for it. And he was like enjoying it and kind of reminded me. And I just went like, and then finally I said something to him, like at the

table when people weren't really paying attention. Nice. And then finally I said something to him, like at the table, when people weren't really paying attention. And I was like, hey man, I was like, I deal with this shit like literally every hour if I want to, if I want to see it, it's there for me all day long. And I come out to a dinner, I meet you and you're gonna fucking, just you're just gonna fuck with me out of the gates. I've known you 10 minutes.

How'd that go? We got over it though. We worked it out. Yeah. It sucks when it's your buddy's friend and you don't really know him. Certain people, they just start off minus 10 points and they got to make that up. So I think when you're with your buddies and there's a new guy that some of them know and then he just comes out on the wrong foot, you're just like, God, I don't know.

How are we going to make it back? How can we do this? You're down 20 points, man. I'm trying, but you're not helping me. So, I don't know. Yeah, it was like early like laughter and kind of like looking at me and smiling, you know, like, ha ha.

The expert. You gotta kind of play along with the joke for a bit. Yeah. And on the inside, like I've never rooted harder for Boston. Right. So I was like, get back in this game. harder for Boston. Right. I was like, get back in this game. Okay. Let's see. What else do we have? I don't know that we helped a ton on that one.

I do know like I had secondhand anger for the guy that owed $35 reading some of that stuff. Yeah. But, but if you, but that was by design. Okay. We've got a training one here for war gone. Um, yeah, because maybe there's another one that we read here real quick. Um, long time Lister dating back to who's the jerk. All right, loved who's the jerk. Big fan of the work, live in Salt Lake City where fitness is currency, all right.

A lot of currency talk today, Kyle. I liked the stress coin call, that was funny. And Salt Lake wealth isn't measured in dollar signs, it's measured in powder days, vertical fee climbed by foot or bike, and VO2 max. Man, that does sound pretty good. I've been a daily runner since an injury pulled me away from the weight room. I'm in college 10 years ago.

I'm not a naturally gifted runner, but hard work and persistence year over year has resulted in several running specific achievements that I'm very proud of. None of the point of this email. As a non-lifter, after years of listening, I still have no idea what gym stats are worthy of my admission, or excuse me, of my admiration, that makes way more sense. In my humble opinion, you boys aren't as dialed in as you could be on what race times or mile splits

warrant the big time kudos, not a criticism, just my two cents. I think we all agree that getting after it at any level should be celebrated. But if you were to create a set of Ryan Russo presidential fitness standards to award excellence in the gym or on the track pavement, what would they be and why? Wow, I feel like Wargon's kind of our mild guy now though.

He's our split time guy. So I feel like that part of the pod has improved or perhaps Wargon I'm not letting you get in there enough. So from now on open invitation, anytime any kind of running thing comes in, interrupt me immediately. Theater and running. That's, that's your corner. Running.

I'm the theater running guy. I don't have much on this one. You know, like a sub 35 K is good for like a regular person. I think sub two hour half marathon, sub four hour marathon. And like, if you're like a real athlete you'll do it faster That was incredibly efficient. What about a mile a Singular mile. Yeah, I don't I don't know sub eight maybe That's bad

That's bad Yeah, one mile. I don't think anybody's going. Hey, dude Hey, a mile yet. Yeah, dudes are bragging about five minute miles these days, aren't they? I mean, I think you feel like a super app. Five and a half, I don't know. I think if you're under six for just a regular guy, that's pretty good for just a mile.

Yeah, now if you're like really good, I mean, I don't know what high school guys are doing, but you're trying to break five minutes. That was a pretty big deal years ago. I'm sure plenty of high school kids smashed through it. I'm sure of it. But yeah, I think the regular guy, if you're running under six, one mile,

that's probably pretty good depending on how old you are. And I'm not talking about like a guy who's like, I am a miler, I'm all about the mile. You're clearly doing much better than that. So marathon, what was the number there? So if you're like, hey, I'm training and- It's at four hours, right? Yeah, I think if you're like a regular person

and you're like, I'm gonna train for this marathon, I think under four hours is pretty good. Okay. I think eight pull-ups for a man. Eight pull-ups would be really good. And I'm not gonna be a meathead about the bench press thing because you could sit there and say, oh, you should have to do 225.

Now, I mean, it looks a lot cooler if you're at the gym, you can put four plates on and rep it. But if you're in there doing your body weight, I think that's pretty good. I think that's what everybody should, I don't know that everybody walking the planet should be like, I gotta bench my body weight, I gotta bench my body weight.

But yeah, I don't know, anything else, Kyle? Push-ups, 20 push-ups? Yeah, 20 sounds good. If we're talking eight minute miles, 20 push-ups would be fine. Four or five 40s? Four or five? We need to put together like a presidential fitness test.

Start sending out some medals. That would be great this summer, Ryan. I think you should do it. No one's going to mail them. Digital certificates. There you go. Mike, you have been awarded. Okay. All right. Like you have been awarded. Uh, okay.

All right. 24, five 11 and three quarters, one 95. I can get a good 10 to 12 reps with two 25 on the bench. Wow. And I just got a weighted vest. So I got that going for me. Longtime listener. Uh, I graduated college about a year ago, had the same girlfriend.

Let's call her Amelia for 14 months. We started dating around April of our senior year and she happens to live where my current job is. It's worked out well for us to be able to see each other on a somewhat regular basis. Things have been great and I really can't think of any major complaints or arguments we've had. We haven't been able to overcome yet, but this past Memorial Day weekend,

she said something that sort of shook me. We were going to breakfast, Amelia was talking about one of her friends is going to law school and how she would write my prenup for me. Oh right, the turntables. Now let's get this nugget out of the way. Amelia is very financially savvy and doesn't have any debt and it saves some money and invested much more than your average 23 year old woman. I wouldn't say she's sitting on a gold mine and I know she isn't sitting on some seven figure trust fund or anything really along those lines. When she brought us a prenup I I said, that's interesting. Haven't really thought

about it. I always subscribe to the theory of marriage that what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. And she said jokingly, well, I like what's yours is mine, but part of what's mine is mine, you know? She's just saying what we're all thinking. I mean. I sort of took that with a grain of salt knowing our humor and I didn't really think much of it. But after breakfast, it is literally all I could think about all day long. I really don't think. I'd want to sign a prenup because in my mind that is hedging your bets on the marriage and you're basically saying, well, who knows what's going to happen?

I don't know, man. I can't say I'm a hundred percent anti prenups because every situation is different. But in my mind for us, I just don't seem to, uh, see eye to eye with Amelia. Am I overreacting or should I just eventually sign a pre-dump if I do in fact, marry this person and not think twice or is it something big enough to

warrant some kind of breakup or at least a compromise, but what even is the compromise to a prenup? Yeah, not getting married, I guess is one of them. them. I'm not sure if she would budge on this notion, so I'm really starting to think long-term here. I can't say I feel like I can budge on my stance either, but I can't say never. I'm going to talk to her about this tonight. Oh, that was last night. And there's a follow-up. So this is like living in real time with this guy's dilemma. So there will be more than likely a follow up.

Thanks for reading. Here we go. Follow up. We talked last night. It went about how I expected, unfortunately. Amelia was very adamant about having one for when she was married. And it did seem like I kept explaining myself over and over again. She said it makes her feel safe.

On my mind, why don't you already feel safe when we were married? I understand that anything can, well, what are we saying here? I don't think he meant that word. But I'd like to think that when I marry somebody, I won't be getting a divorce. I'm just skipping ahead here.

Is it a, maybe just rector, I don't understand what that word is. Is it a weird feeling because we've gone through other discussions and seem to either come to a conclusion or at least an understanding but this conversation went in the direction of me giving a lot of reasons as examples of why I wouldn't love signing one. Signing one and her just saying well I want this. Amelia said if we sign it it's just like insurance but why am I getting insurance on someone I want to spend the rest of my life with? She also said if we sign it's there. We don't have to think about it. But I do feel like it would always be just stuck in the back of my mind. Am I overthinking this? Is this normal or regular for couples to get or are my reservations about a prenup valid?

Well, look, you said something that I think is really important here. If she's 23 and she's already this financially savvy, which you use that term, and she clearly has some sort of a prenuptiality, she's already this financially savvy, which you used that term, and she clearly has some fiscal understanding that most people that are 23, they don't even prioritize any of this stuff, right? Or her financial literacy, I guess I should say, is advanced. And I think that's actually a great sign. There's a lot of stuff that I wish I had known or just understood when I was,

whether it was in college or after college. I mean, again, I don't know what my awareness would have done to change my habits, but maybe- No, I agree, man. If I could have not done the sewing course in my home economics class and we covered that, if I wasn't making popcorn in a fucking sauce pan, like, woo, I think we could have used that time

for maybe some financial stuff, pay your electric bill, stuff I could have learned earlier. Honestly, that should be just mandatory in high school. I agree man. Just mandatory. I'm just thinking of like the home ec, so we could have lost so much of that. Do you guys believe in the theory that it's by design so that so many people screw up and that they get into debt and The wheels keep on turning. Yeah, right talking credit card companies. I don't know man. Do not know

Hey, was there so on YouTube the other night? This would be my Rogan clip or yeah Here's what I would say I'm obviously pro-green-up now at this point right right it depends on where you're at different stages in life like if both people don't have anything. 2002, Ryan maybe wasn't thinking about it so much. I mean, she would have laughed in my face. Yeah, right. But I'll sign that right now.

Because then there's also the argument if you're divorced, it's like, well, we met here and then he, it's over that, I was with him during all that time. And again, I've yet to get divorced. So I don't know how all of those arguments go, but I do have some understanding of it with my own personal experience with my parents. But I'm like fundamental about this.

I think if the one person has made all of this money and the other person didn't, I don't know how the person that didn't bring anything to the table financially feels like they have a position where it's like, oh, I get half your stuff. Now I don't really know what's on the table here when you're both this young, right? So like you're not really, I don't think the emailer here is talking about this in like financial terms of like, hey, this person's really rich and if I were to marry them and then, you know,

I'm not protected down the road. Yeah, right. It is a principle thing. But what I would say is it's very simple when you're in love to wonder like, Hey, I'm in love and this is the person I want to marry. And that the love completely influences your thoughts about the things that are not emotional. And a prenup is not emotional. A prenup is we have this just in case.

And when you're getting divorced, all of those emotions that you let cloud your feelings about a prenup, they're all gone, man. They hit the switch, they're all off. Yeah, complete power outage. Yeah, so you can't apply the same process to, well, if I feel this way about you So you can't apply the same process to, well, if I feel this way about you and all of these things, like why would you ever wanna enter any element of doubt

into this thing? And it's like, well, that's the whole fucking point, man. That's the whole point. So if she wants to do it, and it sounds like she wants to do it more because of her, again, your term, financial savvy, than it is that she's protecting some massive nest egg that most 23 year olds don't have.

I mean, if she were worth a couple of million, it was a trust fund, I think she'd have every right to ask you for this. And the fact that she doesn't have that and she still wants it, I would admire it more than I would use it as some looming dark cloud. Yeah, I think there's enough anecdotal evidence out there. I don't really have any stats for you, but there's enough anecdotal evidence of people who were probably the breadwinners,

or maybe they weren't, just being exasperated enough to tell you what's going on with their divorce and how shitty it's been. Like there's just enough evidence out there. I don't have the 50% stat of you know what happens when people losing a divorce. I just think we all know somebody that's like had a rough one and I'm just like I can't imagine. I can't imagine like I have struggles now. I have some bad months now and I'm like I can't imagine if like half of my shit was gone and I was just trying to figure this out. So I can see why it would be something that someone would want

a relationship if not both people. And I think a prenup could be anything, right? A lot of times it could mean, you know, what we've had before we enter into this venture together is ours. But if we make money together, that's what we're splitting, right? Right. So if you're young and you're thinking about the future, I think you just, just, if you're not planning on anything going south and you're planning on doing your best, it should be

fine if you guys end up getting divorced. It's just, it's just, this is the way she's wired and she's probably really proud of what she's been able to put together. And I think that's totally fine. I think anybody that wants a pre-nup when they're talking about marriage should be able to say it. I totally get why people would not want to say it, even if they want one. So the fact that she even got this out there, good on her. She's assertive. Yeah, I think just,

you know, if you're focused on the right things, it shouldn't really matter. It's a, it's a great way of just like taking the logic and putting it in this, in this safe space. It's like, listen, if it happens and we're covered, If it doesn't happen, I'm not planning on it. Probably gonna have an expensive wedding. Why would I do that if I was planning for this to fail? So I think it's probably just a matter of perspective. And I'm actually a little, I'm proud of her that she didn't just buckle

because I probably would have buckled if we did the whole pre-nup thing. I can't say I didn't think about it. I just didn't wanna have that conversation when I got married. But so I think it's cool that she didn't buckle when you guys had a real talk about it. I'm sorry that it's not the way you want it to go, but that's how I feel, buddy. Right. You're like complimenting her financial savvy and at the same time, sort of being irked a little bit by her financial savvy. And then you got to remember,

no one is getting married with the thought of divorcing down the line, or at least the majority of people are, and it doesn't sound like this is your situation. So this is just a backup plan that you really don't have to worry about, like Kyle said, if you give it your all and try to make this work. Well, certainly people who don't want prenups might be thinking about divorcing down the line. Right.

Right. Yeah, if I had a ton of money and somebody didn't want to do it, I would be even more worried about it. Right. That's something you're writing a life advice about. Right.

Like I think there should be common sense divorce proceedings, you know, whether it's the man or the woman that's loaded. Like, but like some of the athlete divorces, it's like, okay, what were you doing before you met him? Okay. Or her.

Yeah, right. Then, you know, this person could have picked somebody else. Their available pool of marriage was larger than yours. Like it was easier for him to find you than it would be for you to find somebody that does this. And so here's your check, but like common sense is going to kick in here. And if there's no kids, like you common sense is going to kick in here. And if there's no kids, like you're not getting half, not getting half of his rookie extension.

Anyway, that'll do it for you. Let's get out, let's get out. And again, if it were the other way around, I would feel of course the exact same way. Like this is a very straightforward thing for me. But it is so many times not straightforward, especially when you don't have that prenup. So I wouldn't be so bummed out about it, man. And to Kyle's point, if you grow together financially, there's probably language in there that would put that in a different box altogether. All right. That'll do it for the pod. Thanks to Wargon. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Jonathan Frias. Check out the video portion of the pod on our Spotify app. Subscribe to our YouTube page.

We should just do a Friday Feedback. Friday Feedback, rrgmail.com. We'll have the three of us do it. We won't wait until Rudy. Yeah, there you go. As always, thanks for listening. Ryan Ristole, Podcast Ringer Spotify. They were gonna name me Michael Jordan.

My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it, so they named me Michael Jared. and naming Michael Jarrett. ["The Last of Us", by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The Bachelorette, by The B Must be 21 and older, present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support Massachusetts

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