The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Pelicans EVP David Griffin on Zion’s Future and the Team’s Turnaround, Plus the Celtics Go Up 2-1 and Talking Finance With CNBC’s David Faber

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

Ryen opens with the Celtics taking a 2-1 Finals lead, Draymond’s terrible Game 3, and the Warriors' inconsistent shot creation (0:32). Then, he chats with Pelicans executive VP of basketball operations David Griffin about the team’s drastic turnaround this season and what the future holds for Zion Williamson and the franchise (13:12). Next, Ryen talks with CNBC’s David Faber about covering these complicated financial times, how he got on TV, and his new ExxonMobil documentary (39:31). And finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:17:04). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: David Griffin and David Faber Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The podcast is stacked for you today. I was at Game 3 last night, SeltzUp 2-1. Some thoughts on Game 3. David Griffin from the Pelicans, the future of this organization that turns some things around and the future that includes

Zion Williamson. And David Faber, CNBC. We're going to talk finance, just a bunch of stuff. How's your 401k doing, kid? And life advice. Game three in the books. I was in attendance and we now have an unprecedented personal Warriors finals

record of zero and three. Like I said, the Celtics should have me on a private jet to every one of these games. But back in LA. So, don't worry about it, Warriors fans, for game four. Thoughts. First of all, the remake of the entrance into the garden. I hadn't been since they've done this.

Very, very Braveheart-ish, man. Drums going up the escalator. Just wild crowd. Very, very cool. You know, I didn't feel like I was going to attack England, but if somebody had blue face paint on, I wasn't going to be surprised.

As far as the game, a bunch of different things that I want to get to here. Boston's offense, on top of the lack of Golden State defense, I thought was a story very early on here. Jalen Brown goes off for 17 points, including three threes in that first quarter alone. 17 points in that first quarter. It felt like a constant layup line, whether it was just up fakes and being able to dribble around the perimeter defenders and the lack of resistance

at the rim. I had Golden State scrambling. Golden State's lead was 2-0, and then it was pretty much all Boston, even though the end of the first quarter was, you know, double digits, felt a little bit closer, what, 33-22. But that felt like kind of the story. 68 points in the first half by Boston's offense and plus 10 on the boards at halftime. They were plus 10,

I think, like really early on. Still was some time to go in the first quarter, I believe, kind of looking up at the scoreboard. So it felt like, you know, my rule on these games is every game has its own personality unless one team is far superior to the other one. That size looks like a problem in some games,

and then other times size looks like an advantage. And it's just kind of how the game is going. I don't know if there's a real specific rhyme or reason, but we're very quick to kind of just go, oh, well, that's not going to work again, or they can't play this guy or can't do any of these things. And I know it felt like maybe a little bit more Rob Williams and Horford split, but I'd have to kind of go in and look at all the different substitution patterns over those three games. I know that was something that Simmons and I talked on Sunday, where I just don't like the absolutes of these two can't play together

or this guy can't play in this series or this is something they can't do there. Coaches have shown us for the years that we've all spent watching thousands of games that they're just not as quick to bury guys as we are. I mean, it happens with baseball all the time. Somebody's just not getting it done in the lineup, and they're like, oh, you're going to sit him. You're like, what, and put in the guy that doesn't play most of the time, just hoping that that works out?

So there's more faith with players and matchups than I think. Now, it's also teams can be really stubborn. Some coaches never want to change anything. But Rob Williams, who spends most of the night looking like, oh, is he hurt again? It's unbelievable. I'm not calling it Braxton Miller. For those that remember the Ohio State quarterback, Stanford Steve pointing this out to me that every time he went down, it looked like it took forever for him to come up. And then once you start paying attention to it, you're like, wait, yeah, he does go down. And then it's kind of like this thing. And football guys hate that. It's just like, hey, you got tackled. It hurts to come up. And then once you start paying attention to it, you're like, wait, yeah, he does go down. And then it's kind of like this thing. And football guys hate that. It's just

like, hey, you got tackled. It hurts. Get up. Next play. That's not necessarily what Robert Williams is doing. But when you're watching it live, there's so many of these moments where you think, oh, he might be done now. You know, this could be it. Like smart landing and it was knee earlier in the series. You're like, oh, that could be it. So even if he doesn't look as spry, he felt like the defensive story in this game. I know it's four blocks, and it's funny, too, because this game, like Gary Payton, who hadn't played as much in this series,

we know he's come back from injury. He tried to take him. Nope. Nemanja got stuck in a matchup with him where normally he's not left to be a shot creator, but the shot clock, the play had kind of dissolved. It was sort of a scramble. Those plays where everything kind of falls apart and ends up in the wrong guy's hands. He gets it blocked.

He had the block on Steph in the fourth quarter. I don't know if that looked like a goaltend on TV live. It was just a volleyball spike into the crowd. And that felt like every time Golden State thought they had. So there was one with Clay where it was like, I can't even believe you tried that. That felt like a huge part of Boston's story in limiting who Golden State was at times, other than Steph growing crazy. Golden State was up 2-0, as I mentioned. They were down 82-73, and then the rare seven-point possession, which you don't see a lot.

Steph hits a three. It's called the flagrant, so they get the free throw. That's four points. I hated the flagrant call. Again, the replays in the arena are always different. I need to go back and watch the game again. And then Porter hits kind of a scramble, 3-2 at the end. So now all of a sudden we're talking about 82-83.

Steph hits a three, gets 83-82. That's the only other time they had a lead. 83-82 and then 2-0, I believe. Golden State scored 11 points in the fourth quarter. Clay was 0-3. Draymond didn't take a shot. Steph only made 1-3. His numbers for the fourth weren't great.

And actually, Steph was awful for the first few minutes of that fourth quarter. He had three turnovers. One, you could argue, was just a bobble pass to Draymond. There was another pass early that fourth quarter. He had three turnovers. One you could argue was just a bobbled pass to Draymond. There was another pass early that was terrible. Then he tried the cross-court pass, and Rob Williams ended up with the basketball on all three of those turnovers that ended up, I think, being credited to Steph. At least two, but definitely three. Steph had a three, and then he only took, really, you could say he took three real shots in the fourth quarter for Steph in a quarter where Golden State scored 11 points total Golden State did not score another point in the fourth quarter

after the 319 mark that's it they had 100 points at 319 didn't score again Steph's fouls I know there was a debate on the television broadcast about keeping him in with the fourth foul and you could see that Kerr changed the step rotation stuff around a little bit. He took him out before the third quarter was finished so that he could bring him back at the start of the fourth. I have a belief that if you're a guard and you have foul trouble, you can play around it. Bigs sometimes get caught on help late.

You know, the instincts are good up to challenge a shot. I always feel like the bigs being in foul trouble is much more of a concern. That is when we used to like bigs in the NBA. Then a guard. A really good guard. Granted, Steph can be a dumb fouler at times. There was a

fouler, but I'm not going to get into which one wasn't or wasn't a foul. With four fouls left and you're a guard, you should be able to survive. You're doing the other team a favor. I guess Mark Jackson had said, I'm scared to death. And then of him being in with the four fouls, I think Jeff VanCutty said, I'm scared to death of not being out there. Because Golden State vacillates between what we saw in game two where you go look at all of these shot creators. I've talked about it now for years. Look at how

many different players does this team have on offense that can get their own offense going and it's not a stretch? And when Golden State is right, it's like, man, they kind of have like four of those guys, if you include Wiggins and Poole. And when it's bad, and Klay was better in this game too, by the way, but not in the fourth quarter. When it's bad, it's, well, do they have anything other than Steph? And the Celtics, once again, defensively just stepped up to this game that felt like, oh, the Celtics are up again. Oh, here comes Golden State. Celtics are up again. Here comes Golden State. Celtics answered

every single challenge. And I don't know if that's being at home. I don't know if it's just the energy or a night where, and we're falling for this again, where it's like, oh, Boston's now figured things out. It's probably their series. We've already done this. This will be the third time. Game four will likely have

a completely different personality again. But Williams at the rim, the rebounding edge, Jalen starting him off hot, Tatum finishing, the two drives that he had in the fourth quarter, especially the one where he shook Wiggins

and finished to the right side of the rim, was an incredible play in person. Smart hits two huge threes. And then you factor in the Draymond part of this. He was bad last night. And when it's bad for him, it's bad. Although when he has the single singles, you know, seven points, eight assists, nine boards, two blocks, whatever,

and they win, it's like, man, he brings some energy. And when they lose, you're like, he doesn't do enough. But he got caught up in it last night. I don't know if that derailed him. I think he's mentally tough enough that the crowd chanting F you Draymond and Draymond Green sucks, which you knew was going to happen. He's the focal point of this stuff. He wants, I guess, the smoke, as the kids would say, and he gets it.

So I think he understands that part of the deal. But on the sixth foul for him where Smart definitely sold it and then Draymond's explanation after the fact was that Horford was on Steph and then Smart was there and he's trying to push him out. I just think he wanted to shove somebody at that point in the arena because they left it up on the jumbotron the entire time. So I'm not sure how the broadcast handled it. He went at that ref as much as anyone I've ever seen not get a technical. I can't believe he didn't get a tech. Now, maybe the rest going, he's already fouled out. It doesn't really matter. And with Golden State, even a 10-point lead with a couple minutes left, you're still fearful. So I always feel like techs are selfish. Sometimes coaches, I can kind

of get why it happens. Maybe it's a star player in a big moment in a series where it's early on to try to set some sort of tone. But for the most part, I feel like technicals are a really selfish play. And it's like Draymond wanted to get it last night. He stared down that official after he screamed at him the whole time after the sixth foul. And then he stared him down like a guy would stare somebody down for cheating on his wife. Or I guess probably a guy wouldn't get mad at the other guy as much. Let's rephrase that. He stared down a guy as if his wife had cheated on him

with the guy that was the ref. All right? I think that's a better explanation. And then he still let him go, and then he went back to the bench. You know, FU explodes the whole deal. And I'm thinking, like, back to the Van Gundy thing. He goes, and he's absolutely right about this.

We give the offenders more rope in the league than we do the mild manner guy like the Kyle Anderson stuff we saw like pretty pretty even keeled most it's actually even keeled he'd be below whatever that is and for Draymond he runs so hot the whole game that there's almost more rope with him. Cause I guess they understand that part of it. So, uh, to sum this all up, I'm not yet convinced that something has been discovered. And maybe that's my own stubbornness with how I look at games and how now a

really good team in golden state is down to one. They have a little bit, maybe they have pressure on them. Maybe the experience doesn't matter. They're not going to feel the pressure as much. They're used to this kind of stuff. And when Golden State is rolling like they were in the third quarter, you're like, okay, they're going to figure this out.

But I thought Boston's defense and just the presence of Rob Williams, not only the blocks, the presence of him being there and Tatum having a couple of really nice finishing moves there ended up being the story for the Celtics. So they're up 2-1. We'll see what happens Friday. The NBA Finals are here and so is your chance to score big on FanDuel Sportsbook. Throughout the NBA Finals, FanDuel is giving new customers $200 in free bets guaranteed

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1-800-GAMBLER.NET West Virginia. He's somebody we've spent some time with in the past and always happy to catch up. David Griffin, who is the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations

for the New Orleans Pelicans. So, you know, we caught up at the Combine a bit and your team had a great story this season. 13-25, the injuries, certainly the noise and the criticism to being a team that showed us something in the playoffs. So, what was this season like for you? We started the year, obviously, a new coaching staff. They're learning our players. They're learning each other.

And at the same time, we were besieged by injuries. It wasn't just Zion. Everybody was in and out of the lineup. So by the time we were 3-16, the coaching staff many times was taking rocks to a gunfight. I mean, we just didn't have our players available. And Willie and his staff never changed throughout that process. They were the same throughout. And because they were so authentic in the way they approached it, once we got healthy, everybody really understood what their roles were. I think they really enjoyed being with one another. They believed in Willie and had a trust there that made it so that there

was really not an impediment to things getting significantly better once we were healthy. And I think that happened. And then obviously the trade deadline period where we bring in CJ McCollum, that radically changes the nature of the season in a positive way. And it sort of continued the growth we were already showing. What's the scattering report on Willie Green as a coach? I wish I had been an athlete just so I could play for Willie. He's the kind of guy you want to play for. He's authentically himself every day.

There's absolutely no BS involved. You know where you stand all of the time. And he challenges you. And I think he gets this from Monty Williams. I think his verbiage is, we don't call you out, we call you up. And he challenges you to be a better version of you every day. And I think you're seeing the value of that in a former player, Nime Udoka, right now. Guys know that he's walked the walk. And he's authentically himself.

He doesn't make it about himself. He makes it about them. And I think that's the significant thing. The coaching landscape or whatever kind of shifts that we see, which all feel temporary, but at least right now we're in a mode of some of these life assistance, not a huge player resume. These seem to be the personalities that resonate. I'll explain.

It's like when I talk to a different team and I'll ask about how an interview went. One team explained it to me really well. They're like, if a guy shows up and he's a Hall of Famer, Borderline Hall of Famer, he can just sit down. He can just sit down and interview with you

because everybody knows what this guy's deal is. But if you look at an EMA or you look at a Moe's in Orlando if you look at an EMA or you look at a Moe's in Orlando, you look at all of these assistant lifers, they come in knowing they don't have that same first impression, that same presence about them in these coach interviews. And that it's, I've just heard how impressive it is, how overwhelmingly prepared a lot of these kind of lifer assistants that were waiting for their chance and how much they made of it. Because it's almost like, I'm not taking any of this for granted, like maybe a former player with a massive resume would. Not to be negative about

them, but that's what it's this shift. You can feel this momentum about these life or assistance that just make sure they're ready when they get a chance. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned Mo's because we were together in Cleveland before he moved on to keep adding to his coaching resume from an assistant standpoint. And Mo's has always had presence. You feel Mo's when he walks in a room. And he's always done the work. And I think to a huge degree, despite the fact that he didn't have an NBA career that guys related to, they relate to him on a human level. that guys related to. They relate to him on a human level, but it starts with, they have presence. They command a room. Even guys that walk in that may not be as prepared, you can feel their vibration. There's a frequency to them as people when they're meant to be leaders. And Willie vibrates at that frequency. He walks in a room and he's commanding the room. And I think that's a really meaningful thing for players in the form of a player who paid his dues,

who did the work as an assistant. They know he's prepared. They know they can trust what he says because he did the work, but he also lived in their shoes. And that's a really powerful thing if you couple that with just guttural presence. And I think we're all the same. All human beings are the same. This isn't unique to athleticism. There are certain people you

inherently like being around. There are certain people you inherently want to listen to. And when you find one of those who has paid his dues, it's unique. And I think it's not a surprise that they've been successful thus far as well. What did the CJ trade do for the organization? Wow. I think to a huge degree, CJ's presence while enormous on the court, and he's tremendous as the player.

I think his body of work as a player speaks for itself. What he's done for us off the court is every bit as big and maybe bigger. He has a presence to him. He has a professionalism to him. He's been in the playoffs multiple years. He came in here with a leadership voice. I think he encouraged Brandon Ingram to use his voice more. And all of that was really made possible by the fact that Brandon is receiving. He's a superstar who is receiving of other players and wants guys to be inherently who they are.

I've likened it to when Steph Curry was receiving of Kevin Durant. That only happens because Steph is open to the experience. And Brandon really was excited about CJ. And that gave CJ all of the runway he needed to be the full expression of himself. So it's a tremendous fit. But you're talking about the president of the Players Association who could do my job tomorrow better than I can, quite frankly. Walking in the door, making it very clear I want to be in New

Orleans and I believe in the vision of this team. And that's a very powerful thing. And it really, frankly, on the heels of the momentum we already had, it dovetailed really well with where we were heading. And I think it probably gave everybody the confidence to continue to be bought in. And when we hit the playoffs, you've got somebody who's been there eight straight years and played at a really high level in them it's helping guide you it's powerful and it's really it's impossible to overstate how important that is and not to be ignored in the cj trade larry nance jr comes along like it reminded me some of that like when he can just be allowed to be him and then he's closing some games for you it was just a nice reminder of why so many teams have been in pursuit of him and now you

have him under contract for another year as well. Yeah. So Larry was a huge part of that deal for us. And I think it went really under the radar in the beginning because he was injured. So he missed six weeks with a knee injury. And we kept talking about the fact that once we got him back, we'd be a better version of ourselves. And we hoped we were still playing meaningful games when that happened. So we really benefited from the fact that his versatility on both sides of the floor was able to come to the fore. And we're excited that he's as glad being here as he is. But he was a really, really underrated piece of that deal. And I'm glad you brought him up. Ingram is an extremely talented perimeter player. You come in as a number two pick with the background and everything,

but it's always that kind of like, if it's not immediate, then there's kind of those unknown years where you're going, all right, what's his ceiling? I know he didn't shoot it necessarily as well as he would have wanted to from deep this year, but the assists, you know,

the attacking style, I think he's far more aggressive than it's almost he gets credit for. I don't know if it's a visual thing where people look at his face and don't think he's, he's always aggressive, but I I've always, even back at Duke, I'm like, this guy may be skinny, but he goes, he, he, he attacks. How have you, you know, now that you had more time with him, how do you look at like what he can be? Well, I think, you know, initially, right when we made made the trade he came in and had enormous success

and made the all-star team I think was a guy that everybody understood his talent level where he's made enormous strides is in his leadership and in his being accretive to winning I think CJ was a big part of that he didn't have to carry as big an offensive burden, but I think that helped, and it helped him have more energy for the defensive side of the ball. And when we acquired him analytically, he predicted as an incredible defensive player and had been very good defensively in LA. And he had to carry such a huge offensive load for us. It really wasn't where he put his energy. And I think because he's continued to pay the price in the offseason, working as hard as he does, gaining weight, gaining strength, he's now fully growing into his body. He understands what he's more capable of.

His offensive game is almost boundless. He can truly do anything. And the fit with Brandon and Coach Green and the system that Willie wants to run, the 0.5 mentality that he's instilled in Brandon has really brought out a lot of the best in Brandon. His passing ability has always been there, but it's trusting teammates enough to get off the ball and doing it at the right time. And I think Brandon's learned to do that

and he's growing in that every day. And frankly, I think CJ is going to get better on the floor because of the fit improving over time with Willie and that 0.5 mentality. When you haven't played that way, it's challenging no matter how talented you are. Brandon's just starting to scratch the surface of what he can be.

I'm just really grateful for him that he had the success. He had three 30-point games in the playoffs. Those types of things so that everybody outside of here understands what he's capable of because we've seen it every day he's been here. His work rate is unmatched. The things he does on and off the court, it's really unparalleled here. So it's exciting. People start to see it. Okay, let's get to the main course. Zion has played 85 games in his first three seasons. You have a big decision.

The franchise has a big decision, ownership. So how does Zion's ability combined with his lack of availability factor into how comfortable ownership in the front office is with a new Zion contract? Yeah, I think it's not a big decision. It's a pretty easy decision. The kid's historically good when he plays two different ways. So he played a season being historically good as a back to the basket big, and he played a season being historically good as point Zion. So this is a max player. That's easy. What becomes significant as a team that's a small market team and a team that can't make mistakes in terms of injuries over time, you have to identify yourself in some way for that. And that's fine. But the decision of whether or not this is a max player is a very

easy one. It's really going to be about if you are all the way in with us, this is what it looks like. And we're all the way in with him. And I think we always have been. It was really comforting when he did his media availability postseason and said how much he buys into this. I saw him be gutturally moved

by Willie Green and his staff and this team, quite frankly, during that playoff run. So we feel really confident he wants to be here and we're equally confident we can come to an agreement. Okay. So this is where we all come in from the outside, but then what happened this year? Was there ever a disconnect? What's fair about trying to figure out the timeline of events? I know the different stuff that I had heard, and again, we caught up at the combine and it felt like a lot of stuff to me outside was inaccurate, that there wasn't this disconnect. So what, what can you tell us to kind of just

try to set it straight on, on where the relationship is? Cause it felt like it was, at least the public perception was that it was a very damaged relationship. Yeah. So I don't, I really don't begin to understand where that comes from based on the kid's own voice and the things he says. So what happens ultimately, because you don't control the narrative by speaking to the medium, more of the narrative runs away from you. And I think that happened to us relative to Zion to a huge degree. He's with us in training camp. He's at the first press conference where we announce he's injured. He's been told all the same things by his doctor that we've been told

by his doctor. We say he's going to play. He says he's going to play. And then things continue over a period of time where his bone healing just wasn't what you wanted it to be. And we announced that he had had a regression in bone healing. We announced that his rehab was going to be set back, but he was never speaking during any of this. So it lends fuel to the complete nonsense of social media, which is there's got to be some huge problem going on that he's not playing. He's intentionally hiding himself. The kid's bone didn't heal. He couldn't have played basketball for any team on the planet because he wasn't healthy. And so we tried our best to sort of

make that clear. And then when we sent him away, we didn't send him directly to Portland, but we put him in a position to try to replicate what he had done in LA the previous offseason. He was in the best shape of his life and had an incredibly successful offseason when Stan Williams, one of our strength and conditioning coaches, was with him every day in LA. And prior to getting injured, he was in a really good space.

So what we tried to do was replicate that situation. And we knew he couldn't do it with us, traveling here and there and doing the things he needed to do. He had to focus just on himself. And because he's a good teammate, he wanted to be around the team. It was making the process much more difficult. So when we sent him away, we sent him away together.

It was our idea to send him away. He chose Portland, which we were very comfortable with. And he was there doing what he needed to do. And we were interacting with the people he was doing it with. There was never a period of time where he had gone rogue and was doing this on his own. But unfortunately, he wasn't speaking to you all on a regular basis. And so you couldn't continue to hear his voice. You heard all of the alleged noise around him and just ran with it.

Every time he's spoken, he said he wants to be here. his voice. You heard all of the alleged noise around him and just ran with it. Every time he's spoken, he said he wants to be here. Every time he's spoken, he said he believes in what this team is doing. And unfortunately, there's just too much airtime. There's too much dead space that gets filled with the loudest, most, I think, insidious voices and the ones that think there's definitely got to be something afoot. And that's just the nature of the game right now. Until he plays and is a creative to winning, this is going to be the perception from the outside. And that just can't govern anything we do. We're with him. He's literally here in our gym every day right now. So none of the outside noise can interfere with the way we approach this.

So just so I follow, you're saying at no point this season was there a disconnect of not knowing where Zion was or what he was doing? No, not at any point. We knew where he was, what he was doing. We were interacting with the people he was doing it with. There was never a time that we were in the dark on Zion. Now, it is true and it is fair that the public was in the dark on Zion because we gave very few medical updates because it wasn't progressing in the way we wanted it to. And there's really no way to explain regression and bone healing in a way that makes sense.

And it's not a finite thing. It's not he's hurt, he's healthy. There's a lot of room in between while he's getting healthy. And unfortunately, there was never a time that he could have played skilled basketball and was cleared by his own medical people, the people that we worked with from a second opinion standpoint that are literally the best in the planet at this. They never cleared him from contact until we announced it. I think it was right before I saw you in Chicago

that he was cleared to begin to prepare for next season without any limitation. That was literally the first year, first time all season it was true. So there was never a time this disconnect existed. Now, whether or not there was a time he was unhappy with me, I can't speak to that. A lot of people are unhappy with me, but there's never a time we didn't know what was going on. That in itself is an interesting topic because it felt like the criticism of you became, I don't

know if it was personal, David. And I, you know, I've looked, I wouldn't, it's not like we're that close. We've met years and years ago, your with phoenix the cleveland years but i don't know if you're gonna like it but it's almost like you were getting kind of the david khan treatment there for a little while see well i'm glad you like that analogy where it was like you know who is this guy and you know you've been in the league a really long time. What was that like where it felt like it was almost as if you were to blame for everything and people wondered about your own job security? Yeah. I mean, look, frankly, that's fine. I mean, when you're not winning, people are going to vilify the people that are losing. It's how it goes. And you're going to try to come up with the reasons for why you're not winning that are

different than we're a young team and COVID hit for two years and we didn't have practice and I made multiple coaching changes. And it's got to be something sinister always. We weren't winning. Our results were not what we wanted them to be. So they're going to be compared to a lot of people that aren't successful. And that's fine. It sort of comes with the job. But we've been awfully successful for a really long period of time for everything to be so negative so quickly. And again, I think a lot of it was just the silence on the part of the people that everybody wanted to hear from, and nobody was speaking. And so that just gives a lot more fuel to the people that have an agenda that are pounding that agenda as though it's facts without using any facts. And so, yeah, it was... Look, you'd always like people to say that you're

the second coming of Red Arbok. But if you're not winning, it doesn't matter. It's sort of irrelevant. So the beauty of our business is we're always judged by our results. And we're really grateful that we've been able to right the ship a little bit and win more here than we had. But yeah, it was odd to be as successful as we had been for as long as we had been to be in as many big situations as we had been. And then all of a sudden, the bottom falls out and we've ruined everything. That was odd, certainly. But it wasn't factual. And we knew that. So when we did our post-season presser, one of the things we talked about was,

unfortunately now in the age of social media, everything is what's above water and nobody sees the work being done on the ship below it. And until everything rises and you see the actual ship in its splendor, you think, wow, they really don't have any idea what they're doing. But that's because people don't have any idea

what you're doing or how you would be going about doing it. So narratives are going to be wildly inaccurate no matter what, whether you're being said you're better than you are or worse than you are. Well, Herb Jones alone maybe gets you some equity back with the public.

And that was something you know as we were going through the season and i would i would watch kind of where you were at the second half of the season and then you know cj just having an adult like cj around and not to take anything away from the young guys on the roster but it's just there's just something reassuring about having an nba adult on the team but i you would look at the drafting and you're going wait a minute like you know they're playing three rookies in playoff games against the phoenix suns it was just something that kind of like you may have felt good about it you know everybody kind of likes their own players that they drafted but how did you feel about the foundation of what you were doing to

supplement the best version of this team which would be be a healthy Zion Ingram and CJ and, and the taste that we got of that in the playoffs. Yeah, it was certainly gratifying to see them be as successful as they were. But again, you're, you're talking about kids that are, is committed to this,

you know, and I, again, I'm, I'm in my fifties now. I use the word kids way too much, but the, the young guys that we have here that are putting in the work they're putting in in, they're in the gym now. I don't know if you hear it, but

they're putting it in now. For them to receive the benefit of winning while they're in the process of working that hard was really a joyful thing to get to watch. Willie and his staff did a remarkable job of bringing them along. In the case of Trey Murphy, slower than people from outside the organization wanted him brought along. But they brought him along in a way that made perfect sense for what we saw going on here every day. And to see their expression of their greatness take place in the backdrop of winning basketball games, that's what you want. We're here to win meaningful basketball games. So it's different if they have what's perceived as a successful rookie season and you're not winning. But for them to be highly accretive to winning playoff games, and for Jose to become an irritant to one of the greatest point

guards in history, and a first ballot Hall of Famerer for him to establish himself on that level for herb to establish himself on the level he did it was a lot of fun to watch and i think the vast majority of the credit goes to willie what did herb do in college why did you know you were like okay we're pulling the trigger on this when you draft well bryson bryson graham who runs our draft process saw him quite a bit early on and we we've seen a lot of the Alabama program. We've got a pretty good connection there at this point. Bryson had seen him a goodly bit. And one of the things that hurt, and people really don't understand the detriment that COVID was to basketball and to teams in general.

Certainly, society as a whole was damaged by it. But the impact it had on basketball was really profound for a couple of years. And very few people got to see him play in the way that we got to see him play. And so I think we had an advantage there. Bryson knew him very well from the beginning. Trajan was very high on him from the beginning. And I loved him from the beginning that I saw him. And so we were fortunate in that the thing that scared people off was his shooting. And because of the presence of Fred Vinson, it's the one demonstrated skill that we've shown over and over again that we can impact in a positive way. And

that's a huge credit to Fred and what he does. But we weren't afraid of his one deficiency. We were much more impressed by his strengths. And fortunately, he worked so incredibly hard and put so much time into it. His deficiency really wasn't a sore spot for us. And we could just lean into the strengths of Herb Jones and we benefited from that. Last thing. I didn't love New Orleans until I learned about New Orleans.

I think the first time there, like a lot of young kids right after college, I did my weekend. I was like, all right, get me out of this place. And then once I started going to the LSU games, meeting people from the area and understanding all of it around it. I think it's the most unique place in the United States.

It's like being in another country at times, but it's not always for everybody either. How, how do you use that? Like what's the personality of, of the player, of the person that you find is, is more accepting that you can sell New Orleans on? Because we know what the rules are in the NBA and where the destination places are, and it is unique and at times can be challenging. But I think if it's appreciated, you can end up getting the kind of personalities that are the right guys you would want on any team if they can understand how special a place can be. So I think in one sense, you know, CJ McCollum loving New Orleans in the way he did

and the conversations we had before we made the trade with CJ about what it looked like. Well, CJ is an adult who's able to understand the full expression of a city and not pass judgment on a city before he gets here.

So him coming in and enjoying the city and being as vocal as he's been about enjoying it here and loving our team and loving our town helps because he's got currency within the player community. So that's a start. That's something that helps. But I think one thing we've done over time is we've leaned into players from the South, players that are international players. I think everybody internationally has always really enjoyed this city.

And I think it's, you're right, it's not meant for everybody. But winning here is going to mean a hell of a lot more here than it's going to mean a lot of places too. So we're looking for people who care about that. We're looking for people who care about this community in a way that's different.

And I'm perfectly comfortable that there are going to be people that come here and they're like, look, Griff, really appreciate it. We're not going to be part of it. Okie doke. That's fine. That doesn't change the fact that it's going to mean more to win here. The challenge of winning here should mean more to people. And so it's not a mistake or an accident that we've invested in highly competitive people that are about the process as much as they're about the results. And that's what New

Orleans is. This is a really, really resilient city. It's a place that's full of people that are incredibly competitive every day of their lives. And they want to see a team reflect that. And so we're trying to build a team in the image of the city. And if you don't want to be willing to overcome adversity, then you're not meant to be here. I'm happy for you. I'm happy for the staff because I think people started to see like, wait, these guys have gotten a lot of this stuff right at a time where it

felt like everybody thought you were doing everything wrong. So, I love the city and I'd love to see you guys put together something consistent and hopefully we'll see a bunch of healthy guys out there at the start of the year. So, enjoy the draft. Thanks, Greg. No, I appreciate it very much, Ryan. Thanks, man. This is really fun for me. This is somebody who I think a lot of our listeners, a lot of maybe dads

back in the day, I remember when I'd be working, painting some guy's house in the vineyard and I would roll in in the morning. I'd be like, why is this old guy who was watching the show? It's David Faber of CNBC, who's not only an author, a documentarian, he's got a new thing coming out and just a terrific host. So thanks a lot for doing this. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Pleasure to be with you, Ryan. Really. I got to tell you though, the tone took a downturn when I saw you finishing up this morning on Squawk where you were like, I'll go on any show right now to promote the Exxon documentary. So I was kind of like, wait a minute. I thought this was a great get.

Uh, that's, uh, yeah, it was, listen, when I, when you made the request, I was like, I'm all in. And that was long before I was sort of committing to try to promote this thing. But you know, this, when you got something, you got, you got to try to get some viewers. So, um, no, no, uh, I'm very happy to be with you and we'll see who else shows up. Hopefully the Today Show. You know, hopefully we can get some of my own NBC family interested, but we'll see.

Well, let's try to get some momentum off of what we do here. I always love weird paths. I know you went to Tufts. I know a lot of these interviews all seem to start the same way. Somebody memorizes your Wikipedia and then you just kind of go from there.

But as somebody who went to school, never thinking he was going to be on TV, never thinking he was going to do any of this stuff. And you're talking about like looking at classifieds, getting into journalism. How did you did like, I think a lot of us that end up on TV deep down, we kind of wanted to be on TV. How did you kind of navigate like, wait, am I actually capable of this? And then making it happen? What was it like seven years after you graduated? Yeah, that's about right. I was in print journalism for around seven years in financial journalism.

I mean, the strangest leap for me in some ways wasn't actually the TV as much as it was being an English major at Tufts, never having taken an economics course and deciding that I wanted a career in journalism. And the only place you could really find one was in financial journalism because they would hire anybody. 1987, financial journalism was expanding. I mean, nothing like what we have today. And so if you were able-bodied enough and willing, at least where I started, they gave you a job. So that was seven years and then making the move to CNBC. So when you kind of pitched it to the people at CNBC, because you weren't brought in right away to host and anchor, correct? No, no, no.

I mean, it was the early days of the network. Even when I got there, we were only four years old. It was sort of, you can do anything. There was not a lot of great organization. Very few people were watching. But you're right. I was not brought in specifically to be like, host a show. No way.

So how did that work? Did you pitch it to them or did someone see you and go, you know what? We like this guy. No. You said some people who end up on TV always wanted to be, I, I ran into a friend, a college buddy, uh, not a buddy. I don't want to say that somebody I knew from college recently on the street and I hadn't seen them in quite a long time. And we had taken a class together, I think. And he said, you know, you watch now and he said, you know,

you remember when we were in college, you wanted to be the broadcaster for the Mets. And it kind of hit me for a second. I said, oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that, that that was actually something that I thought about or even talked to other people about. Of course, ridiculous, you know, you're whatever, a junior in college talking about that. But I guess I did want to be on TV. And obviously, I was in print for quite a few years, finally felt like I had a clue as to what was going on, and knew how to be a reporter. And this fledgling network on TV had started. So I was the one who initiated that conversation with CNBC, sort of saying, could you ever see this as a possibility?

with CNBC, sort of saying, could you ever see this as a possibility? And they sent me for like a tryout almost to a coach, I remember, before they hired me. And I guess sort of wanted to see if I had anything going on in terms of where the camera. And then brought me in, Ryan, really not for an anchor job or even a reporter job, for this weird network that they had that was a closed circuit network for money managers where they would go and tape an investment conference, again, 1993, before the internet. And then on this closed circuit network, you could sit in your office as a money manager instead of having gone to the conference and watched the presentations. And I was hired to be the host of that. It was called the Private Financial Network. All right. That's pretty good. You know, if I go back further though, because I know what it was like for me when I, I think guys

can be really tough on each other, as we know, for a bunch of different reasons. But when you're the guy in the group that's like, you know, I kind of could see myself maybe being the Mets broadcaster and you're so embarrassed by having that. I remember when I'd be bartending and I would watch these late night shows. And I was like, I think I could probably do that. And they'd go, cool, good for you. And you don't want to tell anybody. And I actually always feel like that's the first part of your own path of going,

I'm going to be unapologetic about having some of these goals. So even though it wasn't the Mets for you, that you would even allow yourself to have that thought, I think it'd be kind of the foundation for a lot of people who end up on TV and having these successful careers. They're just being like, I'm going to be the person that's not going to apologize for having some sort of weird goal for myself. Yeah. I mean, you're right. I think you're right. And it didn't take too much prodding for me to remember. Of course, I wanted to potentially try to be on TV. Sometimes I think you start off and you got something going and you kind of push that aside to a certain extent, but it never went too far for me. make the point that when I went to CNBC in 93, it wasn't exactly like people were going, wow, that's amazing. I mean, nobody watched this network. Most people had no idea. What is that? By the way, that's still the case to a certain extent. But back then, it was nothing.

I mean, it was about five years before we started to really gain a lot of traction when the dot-com boom started. But in 93, man, we were a backwater. So here you are now, and maybe I pick up on it a lot. It wasn't like I was anchoring SportsCenter, but I did anchor some things. I host the daily talk show. So I think you do it long enough, you start to pick up on stuff. Like with Mike Tirico, I knew he was great. But then once I started doing the job, I was like, oh my God, this guy's a magician.

Like some of the stuff that he's doing. And I really think that you are this combination of, of comfortable, but then you'll play the anchor role. You lay out, you let the guests go, you challenge, but then you're also, because the journalism background, you're kind of this hybrid. And you've talked about this before about breaking stories, big mergers and all this kind of stuff. How do you balance having the amount of information that you have with also what a lot of television people would not want the host? You're this guy armed with information, but you're also the traffic cop. And that's a rarity. And I would say, and more so today, not allowed. Yeah, it's both. You're right. And it's an interesting balance. I mean, through my career arc here, I've sort of emphasized certain things along the way. Breaking news, certainly when I got here and again, back to these early days of 93, what I really knew how to do was pick up a phone and try to find something out. And there was not a culture of journalism yet at CNBC. As I said, it was very early days for the network. Just getting a signal up was an accomplishment. I mean, I can truly remember our first live shot and everybody applauding the fact that somebody out there did a live shot with a truck. You remember these things. But for many years,

for me, it was about picking the phone up and being known as the guy who was the reporter and the guy who could break a story or add in a lot. And I still do that. I still do it here and there. Not nearly as much. It's become more as I've gotten older, particularly the last few years. much. It's become more as I've gotten older, particularly the last few years. So to get to that level where you look around a room and you're like, I'm the oldest guy here by far. And when I'm with a CEO now, I'm like, okay, I'm older than you are. And then that happens over and over again. So I've become a bit of a different, it's a different type. I mean, I still go for the reporting. I still try to know as much as I possibly can. But now I'm kind of that old guy with a little bit of wisdom who's not unwilling to sort of say, what in the world are you talking about in a way

that I might not have even five or 10 years ago. There are a lot of similarities, I think, to covering the market and covering sports. One is, I would argue, far more important. So I'm like, why are you getting mad at me? I didn't give you bad stock advice if I get a game wrong. But there always has to be a reason. I remember when I used to do postgame for the Celtics and some games I would be like, hey, they lost or hey, they won. But for content purposes, there has to be a reason. And sometimes if the market's down, a friend and I will kind of go, I can't wait to see what the headline is. And our favorite one is like Dow dips based on fear from China, as if there's just this generator and it's still a TV product. So how do you, kind of knowing you, I don't know you, but I think I do watching you

all these years. How do you go like, hey, maybe today this just happened and there's no reason because not having a reason is bad television. It is bad television. And you do have to come up with a reason, but I'll tell you, I mean, you're raising a good point. A lot of days, nobody knows. And I'll talk to any number of guys who make, I don't even know how much money a year. And they have no idea, no idea, but they'll use some big words. And I mean, I'll give them shit about it at this point. I'm like, yeah, that's great. You put together a really impressive string of words that still mean absolutely nothing. But you're right. There are days like that. Now, I haven't, I don't love reporting on the markets. I never have because there's not an answer.

You know, to your point, there's not really... I can say, well, maybe it's this or maybe it's that, or you should keep an eye on this. I've always enjoyed reporting a lot more on companies because there I can focus on a potential event, whether it's going to happen or not, tell you if it is. I can focus on the fundamentals of the company and sort and question the

execution. There's just a lot more to grab hold of. It's a lot easier to answer the question, to say, this is happening because of that, as opposed to the markets, to your point. If you're a China, sounds good. Let's go with it. Do the ratings spike when the market's getting crushed? Yes, they do. Fear is probably the largest motivator of viewing. Yeah, I think that's true. And so when you look back, financial crisis, particularly, I mean, that went on for a long time.

08, 09, very significant increase in rating. 2020, March, April, when we were all like, what in the world are we dealing with here? Numbers went up. That said, Ryan, the biggest numbers we ever had though were actually during the dot-com boom. 98, 99, 2000. And that was not about fear or anything else that was the greed part all right let's go back to that because you have um as you know been

around dot-com boom bust uh the worldcom stuff which is always funny once like i remember just being a guy right out of school i ended up somehow with WorldCom and then I saw my bill and I was like, what is this? Like, how am I paying $420 a month for a phone? And they were like, sorry, that's just the slot that you got assigned to. And I was like, oh, that's just how it works. I just got assigned. Like, does anyone get assigned to a good slot? And so I remember these bills coming through from WorldCom and that might've been one of the early parts of my limited financial education where I was like, this doesn't seem like a great business plan. I got assigned to the $400 a month plan. Okay, cool. You've got that part of it. You get the housing stuff, obviously, you've written on. And it's kind of the uncertainty with a bunch

of different things that I'd like to get to today with this one. When you see... Looking back on the dot-com thing, it's very simple. You go, wait a minute, it doesn't make any sense that all of a sudden everything with a dot-com at the end of it was a valuable company because people were so new to the internet. Also, the internet opened up investors that never had the path to understanding how to invest or just, you know, it was just easier to do it at home once you started understanding all these things. Do you see parallels? Like whether it's, the housing thing is obviously built differently for what happened,

but do you see any parallels to today because you've been around this cycle now with some of these other companies and these just disastrous stretches we've had in the last 20 plus years? I do. There's absolutely parallels and there's also a lot of differences too.

I mean, to your point, the dot-com boom, we truly, we, the capital markets were funding businesses that had absolutely no chance of ever making any money. I mean, it was a level of speculation, I think, because it was so broad that was therefore just bigger than anything we've seen, I think, in this last period, a period that we're now on the other side of, conceivably. But, you know, like there are parts of the market where I, without a doubt, this fact stuff, I don't know how closely you followed that, right? The special purpose acquisition corporations that were being, going public all over the place,

conceivably, and then announcing deals to buy some company and take it public and having numbers for years that were absurd. That is somewhat similar. Crypto. I'm not commenting here. I'm not nearly studious enough to know the broader, to answer the broader question of crypto and its importance. But I will tell you the level of speculation involved with certain parts of that evolving ecosystem is reminiscent for me to a certain extent of the late 90s. So there are aspects of it right now that are reminiscent.

And then the collapse of some of these stocks, you know, now back then you had a lot of things that went down 99%, 99%, right? I mean, they went out of business goodbye, but you got a lot of big growth companies, so to speak, uh, that are down 70%, 80% from their high. I mean, it's been a huge destruction of value. Do you look at it differently though, in that maybe, you know, the.com stuff was, was maybe a little bit more similar to people in tech today where it's like, how can I hit that one? And back then it was like, you didn't even realize what the reward would be

in a way of like, okay, if we can get this early, like what's going on.com. Oh, that sounds smart. Like, let's do that. Um um where 08 was almost banks kind of investing in individuals the wrong way and you know obviously it's a little more complicated than that but then it's cycled back around with just feeling like a whole new generation just wants to get out west and be the next startup where i've argued at times it feels like some people just want to be able to put ceo and founder on their social media bio and have the lifestyle and cash burn, have everybody else pay for it. And then you got Kramer on this morning being like, it's over, like it's over, which seemed a little dramatic when he suggested everyone was going to move to Atlanta from Palo Alto. But Jim, Jim be dramatic.

I mean, yeah, you know, that never happens, right? It just feels like even if it's packaged different, it's just the cycle that we inevitably hit on every 10 years. Listen, I think there is some of that. You're right. Because the prospect of whatever it may be entices a lot of people. And there are going to be great successes that come out of this period. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, is that why it'll always happen? Because there's always going to be great successes that come out of this period. Yeah, that's what I mean. Is that why it'll always happen? Because there's always going to be successes that keep it going. It'd be dumb to go, oh, that all venture capital is stupid.

You're like, well, no, that's stupid. That's why we're going to always have these cycles of people just burning out all the time. Without a doubt. I think that's right. I mean, there's going to be some great successes. There already are. There have already been fortunes made, some to a certain extent lost as well. But there will be the winners from Web 0.3, whatever we call now the digitization of

all things financially related and currencies. But there will be. And the same way that during the dot-com boom, yeah, I mean, pets.com and we can go through, I got hundreds of them that we'll never hear from again, companies that went bust. But Amazon hung around, Netflix hung around. Soon after that, Facebook, Google all sort of come about as a result of it. I mean, you throw a lot of capital at a lot of things and yeah, a lot of it ends up being wasted, so to speak, or doesn't ever see a return. But some of it sees an incredible return.

Incredible. Which is what fuels these things to begin with, I think, yeah. Do you think, and I'm not even sure who's right with this, but when you'll talk about a company, and like an Enron is different because so many people were gutted by that.

But if it's private investing in a company that it doesn't work out, I don't think you're wrong to come off as desensitized when you have a panel on the show. But we'll be talking about billions of dollars in losses. And it's just like, oh, okay. Because you're in it. Do you feel like you're desensitized to the actual money because you're just in it and you've been in it every day for this long? Yeah, I think that's probably a fair point. I do. It's just numbers. And when we talk about market caps, that's just a number. That's not a loss, right? I mean, some people who aren't in the financial press will say, oh, they lost. Well, no, of course, they didn't lose it. But investors did. Some along the way certainly watched the value of whatever their holdings were go down dramatically.

But it's not as though the companies lost that money. But yeah, you get desensitized to it. I think that's a fair point. I try not to, but I don't talk to a lot of individual investors. I end up talking to a lot of asset managers who manage large pools of capital. Most of them are, you know, they've been through ups and downs. And so they don't get overly emotional about it. So it's hard for me to get overly emotional about it. The people that you talk to, how fearful are they of what's ahead or the unknown? You know, it's a weird time. I think a lot of people are confused. I wouldn't necessarily say that they're that fearful,

but they're certainly more confused than they've been in a long time in terms of trying to understand the direction, not just of the market, but the economy. You all know we've got, obviously, a lot of inflation right now. We've got a fed that's trying to normalize for the first time and i don't even know how long raise rates reduce the size of its nine trillion dollar balance sheet which is again something we've never seen got this war

this horrible war going on in ukraine which is impacting not just oil prices, but food, supply chain issues. I mean, you go on and on. It's a lot to layer on. It's a lot of stuff coming at you from different ways. So I would say people are more confused than they are scared. I don't know what indicators you go on. And again, I can look at stuff, I can watch, I can read. I still don't know what kind of conclusions I come to. But you see the rates go up and you think, okay, well, home prices have to go down. And then you're like, wait, home prices went up last month? I think there was an average that you guys ran.

And then, of course, you have somebody else come on that's like, I think we're headed for a mild recession, but it'll be a quick recovery. And you're like, that sounds like the most optimistic bullshit ever. Like, okay, that's your opinion. Do you have indicators? Do you have true indicators like true indicators, whether you're looking at bonds or anything where you go, okay, this is something that I feel like historically is a good indicator of what's ahead. I mean, you know, I know is the answer. I wish I could tell you that at the same time, I will say that I do tend particularly in periods of great volatility, to look more towards the fixed income markets. I do come back to my own experience covering the financial crisis. And the stock market was so late

to that. But if you were talking to people in the credit markets in 07, they were getting really worried. And so I do go there. It doesn't feel like that right now. This is not, and I may be missing it. I may be missing it. But it doesn't feel anything approaching sort of that level of crisis we had back in 07, 08, even 09, first of all. But that's where I look. You look to the credit markets to really see if there's signs of concern because that's when it gets really, really dangerous. We'll have stock market corrections. We're having one right now.

We may have a recession. I don't know. Nobody knows. And that would impact earnings. But if the credit markets hang in there, none of us are going to be wondering about the value of money. None of us are going to be having those weird conversations we had in 08 about, well, what is this piece of paper really worth? And that's when things get really concerning. sort of setting up a point and it's not like a negative thing. It's just observational, right? So I don't think I'm like the next big short guy who's like, man, I saw these because I don't know.

I'm not educated enough to come to a conclusion that I feel good about on this. But if you think about different stories of just, I remember traveling towards the end of the pandemic and every place I would go to would have a help wanted sign, entry-level job stuff that I would, kind of jobs I would have both during college, out of college. And I'd ask like, what's going on? They can't like stimulus. Nobody wants to work. Well, nobody's aggressive, but you get the point. And then you would look at some weird things on like, I'm going to use a really silly example, but the secondary sneaker market, you're like, wait, everything's up double while people aren't working. And you're like, oh, okay. So extra income. And I would talk to some people that I do to, you know, family of living check to check. And I go, how are you doing? How's everything going? And they'd be like, you know, I've actually never done better. And I'd be like, what? Right. And you would hear stories and be like, wait, how much did you get? And then you kind of have to pay it back, but you don't have to pay it back. And then combining that with the printing of money and all these things, it feels like how... And the fact that the stock market did what it did and recovered so quickly and then had so many gains at a time with so much uncertainty.

It just felt, again, these are observations, David, and I don't know what it means, but I just feel like it's one of those things where you'll look back and go, none of that made any sense. And that's why there could be whatever it is ahead and jobs may have good numbers. And again, this is just me watching the shows and stuff. It just seems unfathomable that it's all going to be cool. Right, right. Well, first of all, I think those are all valid observations. Right. Right. Well, first of all, I think those are all valid observations. Like don't, don't question your own, uh, uh, ability to sort of understand what's going on. Cause we're all, we all do the same thing. And I mean, you're right. I, I, I remember seeing the same things and remarking on the same, taking a trip up through new England and everywhere you went and see help wanted, help wanted, help wanted. It it was not last summer it was the summer before summer before yeah i mean the time is but um and so it is again back to what i was talking about i mean it's a very difficult time to sort of try to get your bearings in part because of that we went through this weird period with incredible stimulus from both the fed and the federal government we had savings rates go through the roof.

Remember, for years, we were always talking about the anemic savings rate in the United States and it's such a concern, and then suddenly it went like this. And now it's obviously coming like that. So it just adds on to this unease. You're not wrong to have that, I don't think. At the same time, you know, maybe there's a way the Fed is really going to make this work.

A lot of people doubt that. We spend an awful lot of time talking about it on TV every day. But maybe they can figure out a way through this. And we kind of get to another side that's okay. You know, even if it means we do have a recession, so to speak. It's like we used to have a recession. People hear recession, they's like we used to have a recession. People hear recession, they suddenly think of 08, 09. It doesn't have to be like that. It can be kind of soft, so to speak. Yeah, maybe I've just been around through it, not as anybody that's involved with investments occupationally,

but just if you're a certain age and you go through a couple of these and then you go, I feel like it's the, that scene in the Adam McKay direction of the big short where everybody's, you know, having a blast and they're shopping and the iPhone's coming out. And it's like, you have no idea what you're waking up to. And I'm not trying to be super pessimistic. I just, I'm asking from a standpoint of like, not understanding of going, how could all of that just be cool? And how could it all make sense? So when you have somebody come on though, this is something I want to kind of transition to. I don't know.

I'll admit it. I feel guilty. But when you have a CEO on and their stock is absolutely getting destroyed that day and they come on and tell you everything's awesome, it's kind of like sports again, where, you know, the manager can't go, we're not that good.

You know, an NFL coach can't go, you know, I really just think our quarterback's probably in the bottom third and, you know, we're lucky to go nine and eight. How do you handle that? Knowing he can't really do anything, he or she can't do anything differently than continue to sell you on the company's mission,

but knowing like, man, you're standing in front of a horribly red chart right now. Yeah. Uh, that's, uh, those are, listen, I like that by the way, when a CEO is willing to come on with bad news, cause most of them are, are afraid most of them won't come on on a bad news day. They're very promotional. They only want to come on when they have something good to say, and then they're going to stick to their talking points, a lot of them, because they've been overly schooled by their PR people or their general counsel is telling them to stay away from anything. So I applaud CEOs who will come on on a bad day, but it does

make for kind of sometimes a weird thing. I mean, Chuck Robbins, who I happen to like a lot, CEO of Cisco, for example, you seem to watch pretty regularly, came on a few weeks ago after they had not a great quarter, but also he said some things that were pretty alarming about supply chain and China and things are getting tougher. But he came on and we asked him all those questions. I kind of like when they try to defend. What I don't like is those weird times that happen where, to your point, the CEO seems to be living in another world entirely. And sometimes, not to our great credit,

nobody even asks them, like, wait a second, your stock's down 14%. Doesn't that upset you? I try to do that. I try to make sure to do that, especially like they come on during a deal or something, which is my area of expertise. And they're talking about the great prospects for this merge company. Somebody's got to say, okay, but the market doesn't seem to agree

with you. And they always have the answer. Well, it's the readjustment. If they're using stock, it's, well, they're shorting our stock because they're setting up the merger. I mean, they've been advised, but yeah, those are weird, kind of weird times, but almost better than when it's just another CEO, it's good news, great. And it's just talking point after talking point. Yeah. And if I wanted to be fair, I don't want to be too fair. It could be the day, you know what I mean? It could just be the day. And sometimes you'll think you'll read and research and be like, oh, this is going to be too fair. It could be the day. You know what I mean? It could just be the day. And sometimes you'll think, you'll read and research and be like, oh, this is going to be great news. And the market just reacts completely opposite, which is part of the game. Who do you think is more full of shit though? The CEO trying to continue to sell the message of the company or the fund

manager who still has all these positions and he's on there going, no, no, we're great. I don't know who you had on. It all kind of gets lost, but you had somebody, and I didn't think you were doing the interview, but they were just like, okay, well, you're down 20% in this one. And then you're like, the guy was 0 for 8, and he had to sit there as the manager just explaining he had probably one of the worst years of calls he'd ever made. Yeah, those are tough, man. Yeah. Those are tough, man. I'd rather have a CEO from my perspective and be able to actually talk to them about their company and maybe find something where they're not being honest, frankly, and really be able to... Just one thing that I can hammer them on. The fund manager, you can just tell them they suck. And they're like,

you're terrible. Like, why don't you leave? I've never done this, but I should probably. Are you going to do it? You should just leave the business, man.

Just get out. I'll save that one for my last week or something. But, you know, everybody's selling and everybody's selling all the time. That's what they're doing. And it's our job as journalists to try to knock them off a little bit. Sometimes we do it and sometimes we don't.

I had one couple more things before we finish up here. I know you remind the audience of it all the time, but what are you allowed or not allowed to do from your own personal investments? I can virtually do, I can do almost nothing. And my wife can't, even my kids can't. Can't own stocks,

can't own or buy options, can own ETFs and mutual funds. Right, so you can have retirement funds. Yeah, I can own, right. I can own funds. I mean, the proliferation of ETFs has given people like me who are very restricted a lot more ability to at least have a broader portfolio. So I can own the S&P obviously, but I can own a lot of any ETF because we can't impact an ETF typically. I can't even own bonds, I don't think.

Individual corporate bonds. So we're pretty restricted. The only stock I can own is my parent company's Comcast, which hasn't been great to own, unfortunately. Well, maybe we'll edit that part out. That's okay. I say it on air. I don't care.

No, I know. I know. When you look at Bitcoin and you said you don't care no i know i know um when when you look at like bitcoin and you said you know you don't pretend to be a crypto guy you know i don't want to speak for you here um can you own that you can't own that either right you know what actually i think we can i think we can yeah because i think we can own currencies i'd have to check i'm pretty sure again because you're not going to impact certainly i don't know if they've updated the guide, our restrictions, but you could own the dollar because nobody's ever going to do what I do and impact the movement of that currency and

or it's really the perception, right? We want the viewer to believe that we're not sitting there somehow trying to influence things for our own benefit. But you can own crypto, I think, if you'd wanted to. Obviously, I've never owned any of it one way or the other, never shorted it, never been involved with it and not passing judgment on it. So many smart people, I think, are involved that you've got to pay attention and try to understand it. But I'm not passing judgment one way or the other. Are you surprised that Bitcoin hasn't done a little bit better as a hedge against inflation?

A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. But gold hasn't either. That thing seems to have broken down a little bit too. Gold's been okay. Not a bad place to be, but has it moved the way you would have expected during previous inflationary periods, particularly when you had an 8.3% CPI print a month ago? But Bitcoin is still a new kind of new thing. And I'm not quite sure. Again, I'm just trying to learn and watch. Yeah. All right. One last inflation thing, and then I want to promote the documentary coming out. Okay. All right. One last inflation thing, and then I want to promote the documentary coming out. Okay.

What is your cocktail party explanation for the Fed? Because I know a lot of people that you talk to probably hate the direction the Fed is going with this. Other people would say, look, it's long overdue. They had to do something at some point. What is your educated explanation and maybe minor projection of what you think is happening? Long overdue. I'm more in that camp. This whole idea, this thing they invented, I love the language. I love the language of Wall Street, the Fed put, right? You've heard this. Market's going down. You got the Fed put. They're always going to have your back. That's bad. Got to reintroduce the idea of real risk. Let's people make better decisions. So I'm in that camp that says this makes more sense to try to normalize things a little bit. And I can remember back again to the earlier days of being here. I was able to put money in something called GE Interest Plus. This will make

sense, but GE owned CNBC for many years. We were allowed to invest in this money market thing called GE Interest Plus, part of GE Capital. But I remember the rates were 7%. Do you remember those 7%? Like, you know, just almost a bank account, not really a checking account. And so, and we had ups and downs, and we had up markets and down markets. When did we all decide, when did it suddenly become, oh, well, we have to have 0% rates at all times. So if we can actually get back to a more normal interest rate environment, I can't help but think that that would be ultimately a positive. The thing that comes up a lot, and nobody seems to fully know the answer, is that balance sheet of the Fed. Ben Bernanke, the Fed chair two ago already,

came up with that whole thing of quantitative easing, where the Fed bought billions, trillions in securities of all kinds, mortgage-backed bonds, all this stuff. And now it's a $9 trillion balance sheet, and now they're starting to reduce it. Nobody fully knows how that's going to go. So I keep an eye on that. Yeah. I have nothing to add to that one. All right. This is a good way to end it because we never covered gas. Um, yeah. Which everybody can relate to. Yeah. Um, your documentary is coming out ExxonMobil at the crossroads. Um, you've done a great job with everything you've done in the past. So what's the, uh, what's the story in this one? You know, the story here really is first of all, getting inside ExxonMobil, which I'd always wanted to do. As you said, I've done a lot of documentaries for CNBC. I haven't done one in a few years.

But one I always wanted to do was like, what makes this company tick? Wouldn't it be amazing to... Everything we do runs on energy, right? And yet, do we really understand where it comes from, how it gets to us, how it all works, how it happens. But Exxon was this closed company. They have arguably the most relevant company for the longest period of time in our planet's history. 100 years, this company's been important. And not just important in America, but important around the world, really. And yet, nobody's ever really gotten in there and seen how it works. So they became a little vulnerable. They had this big proxy contest they lost about a year ago.

And I got to know the current management a bit. So just getting inside. I mean, that's the first and maybe most important thing that we're going to show people who ask, well, I don't really understand. What does ExxonMobil do? How do they do it? You'll see that. And then we're catching up with them at this incredible moment where we're transitioning to a new carbon future. Hopefully, for the planet's sake, one that has a lot less carbon associated with it. And so we really question them hard on their... Do you like the answers? You know, we're still, we almost done writing.

I was just watching sort of some of our early, we're getting ready, but we're still editing. Yeah, I think I'm pretty happy with what the viewer will see in terms of trying to answer that question and what we give them. Because we ask it hard. We ask it a lot of ways. We have obviously the company and access to all their executives. We have people you'd expect to be on the other side. And I think it will try to answer that question with people like, are these guys serious? Or is it just telling people what

they want to hear? I can't thank you enough. It's just been a lot of fun a lot of fun trying to learn and watch and uh you carl and and everybody does such a great job early in the morning so i know i speak for probably a lot of people to start their days with you thanks for all the work man hey i really appreciate it anytime i've really enjoyed it and thanks uh thanks for watching too You want details? Bye. 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. All right, loaded podcast today. Hope everybody's enjoying it so far. Shout out to the wives and the girlfriends only listen to this segment speaking of wives and girlfriends tristan thompson seriously dude so disappointed how are

you guys doing i'm doing well how are you doing sir i just got back he just did had a the longest flight ever and got back last night just the time to work late night. And here we are again. Yeah, I got stuck in Chicago for like four hours. Classic. Shout out to American. O'Hare? And then what? O'Hare? Or Midway? Oh, yeah, right. O'Hare. I know, yeah. So I just posted up. The spot. Was watching some YouTube

videos for about four hours. That was a good time. And then got back. Hopped on Bill's pod late last night after the game was over and then back at it again today. Kyle and I, though, got some drinks, finally got to the frolic room for the first time, lived up to the hype. A little smaller than I thought.

It was like a little spot, but it's right on Hollywood Boulevard. It was kind of wild. And it was a theater night, and it was late. You were supposed to come up during the day, but you're in meetings all day, big shot, so we had to wait till late night. Different crowd late night.

Yeah, so Rudy, you dick, how come you couldn't drink in the middle of the day? I was thinking more like four or five but it turned out to be like eight nine so what can you do all right you want to do some life advice here we're going to do a Kyle advice so

send in your emails to our life advice rr at gmail.com and in the title for whatever the title is add Kyle advice and Kyle is going to be the lead on a life advice here very shortly. We'll just play off of him. All right? Because I think that's what people want.

And I want to give it to the people. All right. Here we go. 5829, big fan. I know you don't like talking golf, but I think this question may apply to other scenarios. I'll spare everyone too many details in my game, but I typically shoot around 80-82. Not bad. Not great.

It's pretty good, dude. But I get it. If you're playing with better golfers, they're singles. I went to the driving range the other day to a public golf course. The guy next to me looked to be in mid-40s, but continuously slicing the ball. This wasn't too much of a surprise as I saw him partially lifting his front foot on each swing. Hey, there's a golf tip for the audience, too, on top of everything else. Marriage.

Do you want to loan your buddy 300 grand? Get that left foot down. I guess in this case, his front foot, left foot, most righties. I'm not an amazing golfer. All right, but you're 80-82 here, man. And have plenty of bad shots myself. However, I know if I had given the guy the tip about his foot, he'd have a better opportunity, a better shot. I chose not to say anything.

This has been on my mind lately. As I know, I personally would appreciate someone giving me a tip on my swing. But as someone who isn't a professional by any means, is it right of me to have given that advice? I imagine this could apply to practicing for any sport, lifting, etc. Would you want someone telling you how to do a lift better? Let me just summarize. No. Hopefully, you can give some insight.

Thanks and love the pod. This is always a dicey one with guys. We're not very good at this stuff. Women are better at this than we are. It really depends, I think, on the guy. It's not so much you being wrong. It sounds like you could fix this guy's swing. I remember golfing with Van Pelt once

and he told me to do one thing differently and the rest of the day was like one of the best days of golf I'd ever had. And I was like, that's crazy because you're not a great golfer. He goes, nope, but I've watched guys swing that are really good for most of my professional career. I picked up a had. And I was like, that's crazy because you're not a great golfer. He goes, nope, but I've watched guys swing that are really good

for most of my professional career. I picked up a few things. I was like, that's amazing. He's like, I just can't apply them to myself. I think this also falls into geographical parts. I'll just tell you straight up in Boston, Massachusetts in general, a guy would rather slice the ball every time

than have had someone else fix him. That's just what I know about where I'm from. I would rather continue to suck than have to admit that a stranger helped me. So if you're in Chicago, I like your chances. SoCal depends on the vibe. Yeah, Texas, I don't know. I don't know how that works. Florida, age appropriate here.

I do think most people don't want help. The gym thing is always really dicey. Like I've said, the only time I ever will say to somebody, hey, give this a shot, is when I see a really young kid going really heavy on military press, dumbbells or otherwise, and because I screwed myself up and it still is like a forever thing that I'll have, just take the incline bench. Don't sit in that one that's fixed, that's a 90 degree. Just take the incline bench and take it all the way up except like one down.

So it just eases the pressure. So it's not straight down on your shoulders. The behind the neck thing, I always am like, go ahead. You guys can do it. Great. I know it looks good on the Instagram videos. But if a young kid is doing that, I may say, hey, guy, come here. And he's younger, you know, same age guy.

No, you can fuck your back up i'm not helping uh and i had a female trainer who's now a friend but she saw me squatting and she was kind of like which i kind of knew you know what i mean like we're not over here doing a show a shoot for rogue she was like try to place your foot kind of here and i was through but she's really cool and i like her and she's nice and so i was like okay i'm okay with it but when i had another guy try to place your foot kind of here. And I was thrilled. But she's really cool, and I like her, and she's nice. And so I was like, okay, I'm okay with it. But when I had another guy try to help me with squatting once, I was like, you can get away from me. So, yeah, I mean, I think the general rule of thumb

is you're probably better off helping no one in life when it's men because they hate it. I agree. I just went to my second golf outing as an adult on Monday. Back was a little sore because I don't think my swing's exactly where it should be. So I'm in that phase of looking for tips from guys, especially I'd take a tip from you, pal.

It's not like you're shooting 80. That's great. Maybe I can link you up with this guy. You guys can do some videos together. How does the golf mess up your Nigerian workouts? You know, it's so funny. I saw him the other day.

He was like, I'm going to start, uh, I'm going to start working out again. And I said, that's great for you. And we laughed so hard. We laughed so hard.

So we're never, we're never doing this. Like, dude, I'm so happy for you. Your Nigerian workouts are like my first script. Like, how's that going?

Uh, I updated final draft. Five years in the script. Like, how's that going? Ah, I updated final draft. Five years in the making. I updated final draft. Like, I don't think I like the ending. Did you start the beginning? Well, no. I mean, anyway. Sruti, anything to add?

No, I would just say, if you're going to do it, make sure it's not around other dudes. Like, I think what makes it worse is if, like, you go up, like, if he's in, like, a foursome or whatever, and you whatever and you're like the group behind him and you're like hey man like let me give a couple corners on your swing here do it by yourself and then he still might not like it but at least it's just the two of you he might be less embarrassed but if you do it in a crowd guys don't

like to be shown up by other guys in the crowd unless you really know them like Van Pelt doing that for you like you guys are friends so it's fine but if you're a rando you can't just show up another random guy and be like hey switch your hand placement like you know move your hips this way in front of a bunch of other guys because he's going to be embarrassed he's going to hate you right away so you have to do it kind of a one-on-one situation i'd lead i'd lead no if this guy's been golfing a while that's all i'd say but i don't know much you got second time as an um yeah you know it sucks because the emailer is is he's right like you know maybe we're setting the wrong tone here you know maybe maybe we should start we should try to make a change here by saying yeah dude's helping dude

i just look at certain guys in the gym be like like, oh, there's no way I would say anything to this guy. And I would be like, if that guy ever said anything to me, I remember so distinctly the last guy that like tried to come over to help me. He like ran across the gym because he was worried about how much weight I had in the squat rack. And I didn't know him. And I'm not exactly like, worried about how much weight I had in the squat rack and I didn't know him and I'm not exactly like again I'm not ever the big guy at the gym but I'm not small and I thought like what do you think this is my first fucking day see these knee braces was he bigger or smaller than you way smaller and that's this is the Russillo memes meme already I can tell I don't know what it's going to be yet but this is going to be this 30 seconds right here no but I don't know I don't

know how to tell the story without sounding kind of like it, but I'm just being honest about it. No, I got it. But I wonder maybe, you know, this is always like part of, could he have been a guy who watched the show? You know, it was back in Connecticut. Could it have been somebody that watched the show? Yep. And then I got it done without him, and then he was just like you know I just wanted me I was like what are you doing you know

yeah I'd rather hurt myself I'd rather hurt myself and I will happily alright seeing a retired athlete I fought again I'm just going into this one blind. Let's see where it goes. Please don't use my name.

All right. Slight going abroad flavor this one, giving that the protagonist and I are Australian. All right. While studying in early 20s, I played poker to support myself. One night I was in a poker game with two retired Australian rules football players.

One of them was a legend of the sport. The two footballers were by this point drunk and had lost almost $20,000 in the game. Can we get our currency guy on this? Yeah, how many euros is that, pal? Well, anyway. It was Australian, right? That was the Euro joke from last episode.

Keep up. Yes! Wow. A little jet lag, Kyle. All right, my bad. No, no, Kyle. That was the Euro joke from last episode. Keep up. Yes! Wow. A little jet lag, Kyle. All right, my bad. No, no, Kyle. That was brilliant. We might just stop the pod.

Okay, so Legend of the Sport. Let's call him Fuckface. That's not it. It started to get progressively angrier as he was losing. Drinks weren't coming quick enough. Everyone in the game was emotionless, etc. Fuckface at one point looked at me and said, Look at you. See you see you whoa whoa we should go out to the car park wait okay um

well no i yeah it's you know aggressive just want to make sure it wasn't too aggressive on the podcast probably a little too but you know reading this reading this blind i was going to take i wasn't going to take a shit as i myself was losing that night so i said okay fuck face let's go we went out to the car pace uh car park and uh we're just going to swear a lot i guess in this email uh fuck face hit me once before then a casino security intervened he was 100 going to kick my ass if security didn't intervene okay all right because i was a little curious i'm like you just beating up legends of australian rugby like who are you this guy he's just playing late night poker drinking and beating up rugby legends so apparently this guy punched the emailer in the face security intervene our emailer is admitting

he was going to get his ass kicked despite witnesses speaking on my behalf i was banned for six months from the casino. Welcome to celebrity life. Fuckface was only asked to leave for the night. He even played in the game the next day. While I've always held a grudge, I moved on with my life. What's that like? Fast

forward about 10 years to today. I recently moved interstate for a job. I bought an apartment in a nice building near the hospital I now work at. During my first week living in the new building, I was in the gym in In Walk's fuckface. I talked to a neighbor and found out that he lives in the building too.

People say they find him approachable. Shudders. Yesterday during some small talk, a colleague asked me how my new place is going. I mentioned that fuckface is my neighbor and my colleague told me he donates and volunteers every month in the children's ward of the hospital we work at and we likely see him around.

That's where you can catch him in that parking lot, pal. He's coming out of the children's hospital. This is an email we actually wish we'd had your lifting stats. Correct. I doubt he'll remember me, but what do I do here? Do I confront

him? If so, in our building or at work, can I tell my neighbors and colleagues the story? Should I stop casually telling women I meet in bars? I once fought a retired athlete. I think you should tell everybody you stopped fighting him. It doesn't sound like you really fought him. You just got punched by him, which is still a good story.

Like any of these, you have to ask yourself a very simple question, which doesn't always have a simple answer what do you want out of this is there closure for you if you say something to him now um as somebody that like last night there was a couple hammer guys in front of us and we were talking all day golf drinking red red faces from not being covered up showed up to the game late everybody's got a couple cape cod is going double fisting and guy in front dip in the whole time dip spit all over the place in his row and i'm sitting with my friend very tame and uh the guy turned around

and punched me in the stomach maybe four different times during the game to celebrate. Happy punch. Never met him before, just punching me in the stomach. And the fourth time I grabbed his wrist a little to be like, okay, I'm over this. Some would be like, I can't believe that didn't happen the first or second time. I personally probably have a higher tolerance for people doing stupid shit around me just because of the way I came up, whether it was bartending or also being somebody who during his younger years guilty of doing some stupid shit sometimes. In this case, I would go, all right, if this is how he always was, but if it's the one interaction, maybe there's a moment, not while he's donating to the children's hospital or speaking. That's probably a bad time for this. Just wait it out. Be prepared. Know exactly what you want to say because it sounds like you're not going to have closure on this, which is fine. But I would just go, hey, I want to tell you one night, and the chances are this guy, if he's been around and this is kind of his speed, he's just automatically going to go like, oh no, before you even explain to him what the

story was. And he'd be like, yeah, you punched me after a poker game once. And just see what happens. He's probably not going to punch you again, especially if it's earlier in the day. And that way you can just kind of i don't know see what he says get some closure and and maybe you'll end up being buddies maybe he'll want to do something nice for you because he'll feel bad you know maybe he was a little rowdier when he was younger and still playing rugby all you know australian rugby pro that checks a lot of boxes kyle uh yeah originally i was thinking he's not going to remember you and this is going to be pretty embarrassing for you he's not going he's not going to remember you and this is going to be pretty

embarrassing for you uh he's not going he's not going to but then i was like you know if he doesn't like if he's not like one of those fighter rugby pros like if he's not like one of those athletes that maybe has this story a hundred times over um i don't know it sounded like the way he was talking to him he probably gets into fights so maybe he wouldn't remember you and that would be even more embarrassing and then maybe he'll just be so embarrassed you try to fight him again and get your ass kicked i just mean if yeah if you're gonna do it i could see maybe doing it in the gym like somewhere to like if you live in the same building as him somewhere to be like he has to like approach he has to like at least approach you as like a guy that's in his building or something so i thought maybe maybe you could

do it there in the gym but uh i don't know. I probably honestly wouldn't, but I don't know. This guy needs to. I think he needs to, and that's why he's asking. So he's going to have some kind of interaction with this guy. But it was 10 years ago, and this guy was of the speed of, hey, after a poker game or during a poker game, I'm going to challenge a stranger to a fight and then actually punch him in the face first. This is probably not the first time this guy has ever done this. For whatever reason,

and I'm even afraid to bring it up, I'm blocked on Twitter by Ty Domi. I have no idea why. None. I didn't ever get punched by him. But do I say something to Ty Domi if I ever run into him? I have no idea why I'm blocking.

I don't know. That's more curiosity, though. I understand why you would ask him about that because that's fucking weird. This guy knows the deal. I don't understand. The closer is like this guy. You said he was going to kick your ass, too. You were going to get your ass beat, right?

And chances are the guy, this rugby player, is not going to be super pumped that you're approaching him about something that happened 10 years ago that you're still upset about. It's not going to be a friendly conversation. And he doesn't give a shit about it for sure. Only you do. And you're going to be bothering him during his day. This just doesn't end well for you. Listen, I'm not in the situation. I understand. You don't understand closure unless you're the one that needs closure.

But I just don't understand what the positive in this is of you going up to him at all. No, it's a great point. Other people are way better at closure about your things than you are. Definitely. Yeah. Yes. Like, just get over it. Which is, by the way...

I know it's stupid to say, but like, he obviously can't, but there's just no win here for you. Yeah. But the one thing I would say is maybe you could just be like, make it very brief or something. I mean, you're probably not going to get any closure that way. But if you're just like, yeah, we got into a little scrap about 10 years ago. I just haven't seen you since. I used to watch you all the time or whatever like i don't i mean you're probably not going to get any closure that way but if you're just like yeah we got into a little scrap about 10 years ago i just haven't seen you since you used to watch all the time or whatever i don't i mean that that could have like if that's the kind of interaction you want to have but i don't see it going well if it's anything other than that or nothing or you could just be like hey remember me from 10 years it's go time

and then just fake jab step adam and then be like I was just kidding I was just a quick head fake good to see you pal I would just the key here is picking the right time so there you go alright thanks to Kyle and Steve life advice life advice rrgmail.com the Ryan Russo podcast please subscribe ringer and

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