The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Rasheed Wallace, Plus Making “Adjustments” in a Playoff Series

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the concept of making adjustments in sports, particularly in the current Round 1 playoff series (1:45). Then Ryen talks with NBA champion Rasheed Wallace about his philosophy on being a good and effective teammate, his time with the early 2000s Trail Blazers, dealing with Shaquille O’Neal on the Lakers, being traded to the Pistons in 2004, the 2007 Cavaliers-Pistons Eastern Conference Finals, his new position as head coach of the NC Good Better Best Academy, his new podcast ‘Let's Get Technical’ with former teammate Bonzi Wells, and more (16:30). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (45:30). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Rasheed Wallace Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm sitting in my chair after the game. I got an ice bag on both my elbows, both my knees and an ankle. Right. And, and Cliff just, he starts looking at me laughing. And I'm like, man, I'm like, yo, big fella, man. He like, I know. He like, you gotta look at this, look at it like this. She, he said, you got to look at it like you're in a marriage and you're not going to win every argument and you got to pick and choose your argument. Other than that, you know, pretty much you got to roll with it. So he said, it's the same thing. He said, you're going against

guys. Cause I wasn't the biggest, the power forwards or centers, you know, I had a thin frame and he said, you're going against guys guys that's outweighing you every night by anywhere between 50 to 65 pounds and he said after a while that takes a total so i never thought of it like that and he was like you know once in a while instead of trying to bump and bump and post up he said you know face up step out in the corner take that's when i started taking more corner three he's like step out in the corner and take it three you know that'll help loosen it up into whatever where you won't feel it in the fourth quarter so from then on that's when i started doing but i got that life lesson from cliff robertson and derrick coleman so i wasn't i don't

put myself as the first uh stretch forward but i think it's them two that was rashid wallace talking about his days in portland a great sit down with a really fun guy to talk to. We have that. Double teams, adjustments in basketball, and the cushion incident from Life Advice. We have a confession. This week's Open is going to be about adjustments. That word, adjustments.

I hear it a lot when things aren't working out for one team. We say, hey, where are the adjustments? It happens in all sports. But for me right now, locked into the playoffs, it's happening in basketball. So I want to go over some examples. Because if you look at the Mavs-Clippers timeline of events, Mavs go up 2-0, can't do anything with Doncic, although they just wouldn't miss. And then guess what happens?

They miss some shots. Clippers come back, and it's like, all right, Clippers figured it out. They're driving at will. No problem. Kawhi's back. They're doing some better things defensively. Dodgers can't keep shooting like that. Not a big deal. Now it's all Clippers. And then guess what happens in game five? Luka goes for 42-14 and eight rebounds. That's 17-37 shooting. So not beautiful there. He actually was one of seven, I think. One of seven in the fourth quarter, yeah. And he had a big turnover that was late. That'll be a forgotten turnover because the Mavs went ahead and won the series. Now they're up 3-2 and nobody likes the Clippers anymore. So that led to a lot of like, what do you do with Luka? I don't know that there's a lot you can do with Luka. And there's a problem because some of these players are so good right now in the playoffs. And if you watch it, you go, I don't really know what you can do. So let's run through some examples of this. Game one, when Luka was going off again, they decided to double him to close the game. And it was still a game that was in the balance.

Hardaway hits a three against the help. He's wide open. And then they kept two up on Luka so that he had initiated his pass further away. He found Hardaway for that old Draymond Green kind of free throw line area outlet pass. And then Hardaway makes the play and it's Przingis running baseline and dunking because all of the defenses moved up towards the ball and towards the outlet pass and they've lost him. So there were more examples of it, but they were hard, aggressive, further out doubles in game one against Luca and it didn't work. It didn't work. They got burnt. And I also think there's times where we look at the result and go, hey, the double worked.

There's times in the double you think it works because the guy missed the shot, but that's not really the case, and we have a couple of those. So let's look at last night's game with Doncic because the Clippers wanted Zubats, and I'm not saying it happened every single possession, but there's drop coverage,

and drop is very simple for the big guy. You have to kind of show against the perimeter ball handler but you still have to kind of drop back towards the rim and have responsibility for a pick and roll right it's it's kind of like the trey young stuff that we see with clint capella we saw it with james harden clint capella and if donchich is doing i mean everybody does this and we can look at these fives that we really like and then they look terrible as if they're being exposed left and right defensively in all these matchups. It's like we're actually asking him to do something here that is very, very difficult. Let's make a decision between two probably of the best players. The ball handler, who's probably,

if we're talking playoffs, one of the best players in the world that has all these different decisions and options that he can make, depending on the help, or the big guy that's rolling behind you may dunk on your head from behind. So Zubac drops against Luca and Luca, by the way, can keep everyone on his hip because he's enormous. He's six, nine, all of this mass.

So if he's not met with a double up there, he's going to get an angle, get side to side. If he's even, he's, he's Slovenian. Um, and then he's going to be able to drive.

So that's what he did in this, in this series of plays here in the, uh, in the third quarter, it was drop against Zubac, floater, free money. Okay, we have to make an adjustment. Next play defensively for the Clippers. Doncic has the ball again. He works himself in, and Zubac stays all the way up on him. Hard, hard double. All right? So they were like, hey, don't drop now this time. Meet him at the ball.

Go and meet him. Let's get a double on you. And then what does Luka do? Because he's enormous, can also see over everybody, fires a pass to Dwight Powell. Powell dunks it against a small defender who was caught in kind of a rotation scramble, and everybody's running around and trying to figure it out. So then you go, okay, so we doubled him, and it didn't work, just like you mentioned in game one.

There are other times, too. We had nine different people defend Luka last night, nine different people. Kawhi can't defend him. Kawhi is not the two-way player he was. I'm not saying he's bad defensively. I do think he floats at times a little bit, but Kawhi has no chance against him. I mean, Kawhi's defensive stuff at this point is a little bit reputation, but I'd also argue, I don't know who's supposed to do anything with this guy

right now. We could also make the mistake of looking at numbers and saying, okay, well, if Luka went one and five against this guy, but four for four against this guy, have the one for five guy guard him more. There's an adjustment. Okay, but did you see the five shots? Were they quality shots and Luka just missed them? Were the four shots impossible to make? That stuff can be misleading. Whenever I'll look at some shot stuff and I'll go back and pull up synergy and go, let me look at these contested, uncontested stuff. A lot of times, some of the tracking doesn't even match up to the stats that we'll get handed the next day, but none of us are going to do that every single time for every single player to double check everybody's work on all of that. Okay. So we had the Clippers switching like crazy. It didn't work.

Mavs are up 3-2 and they were talking about double teaming them after the game. And I'm like, I don't know if that's really going to work because we've seen it not work multiple times. And the more you double, the more you get comfortable with it and the more your teammates get more comfortable with it. And then everybody starts scrambling around and helping you more offensively. Let's look at the Knicks and Trey Young because Atlanta eliminates the Knicks. Shout out to the Knicks. Successful season. I'll say it again. Successful season. Atlanta's just better than you and way better than you. And we said it before the playoffs, and a few of you Knicks fans get a little chesty

about the talent disparity not heard from you since. However, game two, the one game the Knicks won, the Knicks have no one who, you want to talk about no one who may be able to defend Doncic, the Knicks physically don't have people, whether it's Derrick Rose getting smoked or Bullock who basically got him way more. And it's funny that Reggie Bullock went from Reggie Bullock in the playoffs.

But, you know, that's what happens a little bit more notoriety in national televised games. Bullock had no chance. So then they go double in game two against Trey. We talked about it. DeAndre Hunter got two incredibly good looks from three. He just missed them. Bogdanovich missed two threes. This was four missed threes, I believe, in about a minute and a half

at the close of game two when it was still in the balance. The doubles kind of worked, but they also didn't because, yes, you got the ball out of Trey Young's hands, but Trey made the perfect read and his teammates didn't make the shots. That's really the only reason they lost that game. And there was also a second unit moment there where it felt like Nate McMillan left the second guys out there. But none of it matters.

But the point is, you can hard double Trey if you want. And I'd love to see what it's going to look like with a little bit more size. Philadelphia going up against a smaller player. But if you learn more and more now the last couple of years, specific to Trey Young, strength is penalized in this league. And a smaller, slighter frame is rewarded. It just is. So the thoughts that two huge guys defending Trey is going to shut it all down. He already understands the foul game as well as anyone in the league. He's going to find a way to get fouled. So even if you double him, because the Knicks were incapable of having somebody stay in front of him. And I don't know

if that's quickly. I don't know if they should have played quickly more. You can sit there and say, oh, they should have done this. They should have done that. They're just not as good. Knicks just weren't as good. And Trey Young figured it out, whether you doubled them. And if it were single, he was going to find a way to get to the hoop. And if it's not a floater, it's a lob. Game over. All right, let's look at the double overtime game with Portland and Denver. Dame, what do you do? Okay, before I get to that off of Dame's 55-point game on only 24 shots in double overtime, and that's only with 10 free throw attempts, so it wasn't like he was in the free throw line all night long. The Trailblazers tried

single coverage on Jokic for game one, and it kind of worked, right? We're like, hey, they won the game. It must have worked. His assist numbers, Jokic just had two weird bad assist games in this series. And then after game two, you're like, okay, they figured it out. Jokic is good to go. He knows what they're doing. It's fine. This game has gone back and forth every single time. And even after Portland won game four in a blowout, they were the betting favorite. So then we go back to Denver. We've got a double overtime game. guess what happens the whole like single cover thing with Jokic that seems so brilliant in game one it was doubles it was double teams against Jokic the whole time because they're thinking like maybe we go back to just trying to shut him down

the problem is as we saw with that incredible pass to Michael Porter Jr. in the corner it was a half-assed double which is what's happening with Portland a lot and the other problem is Nurkic has fouled out of three of the five games so far. And when you look at the plus minus for Yusuf on the court, off the court, Portland's far better with him on, but it also is countering the fact that they've got to run Kanter out there for a few minutes, which is a disaster, or Covington, or Mello, who gets caught with Jokic at times. But what did they do? They're like, all right, Jokic is out of control here. I joked that I don't think he made a bad decision for an hour of real time sitting there watching that game as Dame's going nuclear. Don't worry, we'll get to him. But with Jokic, you're watching

him make every perfect read, and then he waited for this kind of weak double, which doesn't really matter because he was still going to make the right pass, floats it over Covington, into the quarter, 133 left, Porter Jr. hits the three, 143, 140. Now, when are you going to get to the doubling of Dame Lillard? Here's where the double makes sense. The sellout, I don't care if somebody has a layup, and in this case, they needed a three because if you go to the end of regulation where it's 3.7 left, Portland has the basketball, they're down three, only a three can hurt you. Mike Malone apparently never wanted a foul, which I don't entirely blame him for

because I think Dame is clever enough that he's going to read you in a way where he's going to anticipate your foul or, you know, meaning keeping it on the floor. And then he's going to find a way to get the shot off and then you're going to feel really, really stupid. I also think no one has done this yet. I would do this if I were a

coach. Have two players scream and yell towards the guy with the ball in his hands and yell foul. And as you're running towards him to foul him, just stop yourself. Don't touch him because the offensive player will probably spaz and then think he's going to initiate contact anticipating your movement. But if you stop and he doesn't see it coming, he may just get off this awkward, terrible shot flailing because he was going to try to just get the foul. Go ahead. Feel free to steal that from me

if you want to go ahead and do it. That time 3.7 left. That's the sellout double where it's not about concept. It's not about game flow. It's not about all these different things. It's about straight up.

Hey, we're going to double team you because we don't want you taking that shot. That's the part with Malone. You go, that's not just an adjustment. That one seems fairly obvious. Although I don't really blame him for not wanting to double Dame the entire time, because we're still talking about other very capable shooters out on the floor, especially when Portland is small. The other weird negative thing though, about Dame going like that for that long and hitting all those shots, because it was

one of those absurd historic playoff moments. I mean, it's going to be one of those things where I'm not going to forget where I was, even though it was a game, game five in round one. It kind of shuts everybody else off. It's like the faucet goes off offensively for all the other players because they're just sitting there watching this guy put together one of the all-time runs of three-point shooting we've ever seen.

So I think sometimes when those guys get the ball, they're like, hey, man, I've just kind of been just watching you throw flamethrowers for about 20 minutes here. So I'm sorry that I'm not super locked in. And we had a big McCollum miss in that game as well. So to finish it all off, when you hear people talk about adjustments, it's because I think we want to believe that they're there, right? I think that's kind of how we are in life, that whenever we see a result, we want to think if we had just done this differently, then we would have had a completely different result at the end. I don't think that's really the case, at least when it comes to double teaming in basketball, because it's been exposed so many times once teams actually do it. I'd also

just, I sometimes I defer to the guys that are working in the NBA that I don't think they're all just really bad at their job and stupid, but it is a human nature thing because if something's going on, um, I think after the fact, once we see the result, we love suggesting that there was some other option that would change the result. I think we do like doing that. And I also think we like to be involved in the conversation. And I'm not even talking about the guys sitting at a desk in a post game or somebody in front of a microphone like today, this happens. Like how often do you hear a conversation about a topic you're not comfortable

with and say hey you know what i'm just gonna lay out i don't really have any opinions i'm just gonna lay out list you guys because i'm not educated enough on the topic and that's what always comes back to like whenever i hear a guy i mean like oh they need to make more adjustments or adjustments i'm consistently throughout my entire career incredibly underwhelmed by what adjustments actually are we had chris long on the podcast for entire football season and i was like consistently throughout my entire career, incredibly underwhelmed by what adjustments actually are. We had Chris Long on the podcast for entire football season. And I was like, hey, maybe finally I'll get to the bottom of this adjustments thing. Because how many times you've seen a football presser? We're like, I made an adjustment. They made an adjustment.

They made better adjustments. All these different adjustments. You're like, what were the fucking adjustments though? Is it okay? Can you give me a specific adjustment? Can you tell me one thing, one thing that you did differently that I can understand? So I'll understand the outcome a little bit better. And it's just, it's so consistently vague and non-informative. It actually shocks me. And I asked Chris Long, I go, Hey, what do you guys do when you go in there and you make halftime adjustments? Like, what do you guys do? And he's like, honestly, dude, almost all the adjustments are the backend. He's like, I don't really even know what they do back there.

All secondary stuff. And I was like, okay, we're getting there. We're making some progress. Look, it's, it's just worth reminding yourself because as all these individual players

have these phenomenal performances, you may have a moment. You're going to hear someone say it, but you have a moment. You're like, why isn't this guy doing this? The double teams are there. They're actually happening. They're just not really working. We can talk about concepts. Utah has a concept defensively against John Moran, and it worked. They're also better. That's the other concept. The Celtics could have a concept. The best adjustment for them is to just sit back and

enjoy the beating and watch greatness around you. I'm kidding, but there wasn't like, you know, I could do an hour on the Celtics, but I did it yesterday with Ainge and Stevens. I could also do 10 seconds. They're not healthy a lot and they don't have a top 10 player. End of story. There you go. But next time you hear somebody saying, oh, well, you got to do a little this, you got to do a little that. It's cool. I'm all for trying stuff. But trying something

different doesn't always mean it's a different outcome. Really been looking forward to this for a while. You get a chance, obviously, to watch him throughout his entire career at UNC as well. He's got a chance, obviously, to watch him throughout his entire career, UNC as well. He's got a new podcast, Let's Get Technical, with his former Blazers teammate, Bonzi Wells,

coming out every Wednesday. Their first interview this season is going to be Penny Hardaway. And listen wherever you get your podcasts. It is Rasheed Wallace with us here. So, Rasheed, I'm just a guy who grows up as a fan of the NBA, fan of college hoops, and then I start working in the business, and then I start to get to know some of the guys that played, you know, the time all the years at ESPN. And I'd always ask about like their favorite guys. And you were brought up and I did this with legs.

We had Tim Legler on recently and I said, all right, give me your best Rashid Wallace story. Everyone loves you as a teammate, which I think if you'd ask people that didn't know, they think like, oh, that guy's probably tough to get along with, you know, when you're younger, combative and all that stuff. What do you think it is about you and your personality? Because I'm sure you're aware of it and why you're so beloved by some of the guys you played with. Well, first and foremost, thanks for having me on this morning. But to answer your question,

it's just I'm all balls out for my teammates. You know, they're my brothers out there. I feel as though when we're out there playing the game, you know, it's that warrior's mentality. So got to make sure that everybody around me is in harmony. You know, we can't have disgruntled guys and this and that. So, you know, I never was one to start up a ruckus or, you know, try to continue a ruckus with any type of teammates. Never gotten to know beef with any type of teammates from high school all the way up to the league. So, you know, they just know I want to win, bottom line.

So, you know, if you can trust someone that you're in a fight with and you don't have to look to your left, that means you trust me wholeheartedly. And, you know, that's the same type of feeling that I try to give back to my teammates. Who was your favorite teammate? Oh, man, I had quite a few over the years, man. My rookie season, it was my man Bob McCann. At the time, he was a veteran power forward, had been through the CBA and in and out of the NBA.

But he helped show me the ropes as far as what to look for in these coaches that, okay, you love this basketball thing now, but ultimately you'll see it as a business. And so he just gave me pretty much a lot of life lessons. So I always thanked him for that. And that was always one of my best teammates damon stoudemire bonzie wells uh walt williams j rider chauncey you know ben tay i play with a lot of great guys man and a lot of misunderstood guys so i guess we all in the same bunch

yeah because i think would it's would it surprise you or frustrate you when when people who were close to you would be like, why does everybody think? Because when people get to know you, they're like, oh, you know what I mean? Like, people are like, I don't know about Rasheed. And then it's like, oh, now he's in our circle and the whole thing. Like, did it ever frustrate you at all? Because I think the perception of you was very different from the realities of a guy. Well, no, not really.

It didn't. As long as my teammates knew who I was, as long as they knew, again, like I said, I got your back when we out there in that foxhole. So playing with them, OK, cool. Now, when I'm playing against other guys before, some of them might have became my teammate. Some of them might not have liked me because on the court, I'm not trying to be your damn friend. You know, I'm out there to win this game.

That's my job, to win this game. So by any means necessary. Now, I'm not going to cheat, throw friend you know i'm out there to win this game that's my job to win this game so by any means that's now i'm not going to cheat don't know no blows not like that but by any means necessary we're going to win this game so when i got traded to different teams and they see this in practice and you know we just sit down and barn they're like all right damn you are cool you know you're not the asshole everybody said you was was there a time was there one player in particular, once you got traded, that you had to have that conversation? No, I mean, everyone pretty much expressed it to me,

especially when I got to Detroit. All right, give me that story, yeah. So I get to Detroit, and after being traded from Atlanta, I went from Portland to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Detroit. So, you know, I'm at the press conference and everything, and a couple of guys are there. So, you know, it's like, all right, in the back, we talking. And, you know, when you playing against guys,

you know them one way, but when you're their teammate, you know them another way because now it's a chance that they'll become your friend. So, like, I've, you know, made a lot of friends as just playing against them over the years but never hung out so you know had a chance for the first time to hang out with the guys in detroit after probably like about you know a month or so of us playing together and ben was like man he said he said yeah you

seem to be all right dude but for real man i thought you was an asshole. And all I could do was laugh. I said, yo, join the club, man. But it's just funny that everyone, you know, gets that perception of me, but you know, I don't mind it. As long as my teammates know what type of person I am. That's an amazing story in itself, by the way, the 2004 trade, because you'd been with Portland now for a while and you guys had some ridiculous teams i mean there was that one team i think you guys were like 10 11 deep where you could throw all sorts of guys what what actually happened there like why did that not work out we know the lakers game in that series but i'm trying to think like some of those loaded teams after the fact if you look at those rosters you could have played

five or a different five and still been a really good team why do you think there was that team just came up short well i think what it was it had a lot to do at the time with um trying to win that championship because if you look at it um they were just in the finals what 91 92 i think against the bulls or something like that yeah it was just in the finals a few years before i got there so i guess they were were trying to get back to that winning status, that hype of, okay, we're competitors now and we're always in here. So as you mentioned, yes, we've had great teams in Portland, but I think the fact of L.A. being L.A. with Shaq and Kobe and the success they were having coming out of the gate,

we felt as though that we could do that too. But that management, it was either, hey, it's like the old saying goes, Super Bowl or bust. Well, for us, it was the NBA finals or bust. And, you know, they felt as though that, okay, this year, yeah, we're good. But let's see if we bring this person in or that person in, which is all part of the business. You know, I wasn't mad at it.

Still got to go out there and play the game. Just so that people understand here, because I remember this team. Well, the 59 and 23 team is the 99, 2000 team. And it was Greg Anthony. Well,

the leading scores. I mean, Anthony was like the eighth leading scorer on the team. Rashid Pippen, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudemire, Arvind Sabonis, Detlef Schrempf, Brian Grant, Greg Anthony, Bonzi Wells, Jermaine O'Neill, Stacey Augman. I mean, that's 11. That's 11 right there. And that's why I always look at that team and go, like, they don't make teams that deep anymore.

And granted, at the time, Portland ownership was like, we don't care. Like, you guys had a salary structure at that time. We're like, we're going for it. As you point out too, you're running into the Kobe Shaq Lakers there for three straight years. And that's probably your answer. And the good thing about it, if you look at that, as everyone you just mentioned on that list,

myself, Bonzi, and Damon, we're the youngest. Yeah. So that's, that's what I think that's what also made that team great was, you know, we had a lot of veteran leadership and and we we were getting all of this knowledge from different aspects of the game you know with detliff being from overseas you know with pitt uh winning the championships that he's did that he did in um chicago you know with steve smith being one of the best killer two guards in the league and one of the few guys in the NBA to ever have a move named after him.

You know, we soaking all of this knowledge up with these guys. Arvides Sabonis, with him being the Olympian and the great European player that he is, a Hall of Famer, you know, got him coming from overseas. All of this knowledge we're soaking up. And I think that's what made us a formidable foe against them lakers but it was just man that big man in the middle he changes everything bro all right give me your best shack experience on the floor just because it was it was superhuman you know what i mean like people can watch clips and all that kind of stuff i can't even like you guys had game plans i'm sure how much did it suck because you guys actually had a lot of bigs like you would try a bunch of different things from what i remember those playoff series like i would try this or try this or that like

how frustrating was that for you oh it was it was real frustrating you know that was that was like asking a new york knicks player or fan how was it with michael jordan um but it was it with Michael Jordan? But it was real frustrating because, I mean, Shaq is Shaq. At the time, he was the most dominant athlete on earth. You know, here he is, 7'2", like 340 pounds, 335 pounds, and mobile

and can jump. And, you know, some of the things that I've seen a big fella do, I say to myself, like, damn, I'm glad I wasn't in the way. But I would say the most surprising thing I've seen Shaq do is the way he dunked on David Robinson. And my man, I hate to say it, my man, Kelvin Cato. Both of them, I think he jumped at his peak and stretched out. And like, do you know how much force that's coming down

with? Why the hell are you going to try to block that? Get out of the way. That's the best thing, to get out of the way. Or you're going to be in that poster. I always sneaky kind of like Kelvin Kato. He had a nice little run there for a little while. Oh, yeah. That's my man. He did a lot of great things at the

basketball, too. He writes children's books, as well. Oh, no kidding. I never even knew that. All right, so I derailed it a bit. Just because that 2004 transaction is really, I want to ask you what that was like. You get traded from Portland. You go to Atlanta. As you mentioned, one game.

I still think it's the funniest jersey ever when I see a guy in a Rasheed Wallace Hawks jersey. Do you still have a Hawks jersey? Or are you like, man, you do. Yeah, it's in my mom's closet. You end up in Detroit. We know the Detroit run, but take me through that stretch of like, did you know,

you probably knew you were getting traded, but did you know what the hell was going on with everybody trying to figure out this deal? Because basically Atlanta grabbed you to flip you, which they did. Yeah, well, the funny thing about it, Mo Cheeks was the coach at the time out in Portland. And, you know, the younger guys, you know, we were more a little riled up, like,

okay, we got a coach who can understand this more, who's a little bit more savvy, you know, not knocking Dunleavy or nothing, but we felt like we could play more for Mo Cheeks. So, all right, boom, everything's going good. So then at the time, Bob Whitsitt was the GM. So, all right, boom, everything's going good. So then at the time, Bob Witsit was the GM. So Bob Witsit stepped down as Blazers GM and moved more on the football side, dealing with Paul Allen and the Seahawks. So in comes, oh man, what is this guy's name?

It was just on the tip of my tongue, but I forgot the GM's name at the time. It'll come to me. Oh, John Nash. So John Nash is the GM. And as, but I forgot the GM's name at the time. It'll come to you. Oh, John Nash. So John Nash is the GM. And as soon as I find out he's the GM, I'm like, yo, I'm out of here, y'all. I'll see y'all later. I'm gone.

So guys like, man, what you talking about? I said, yo, they going to trade me. So, you know, I'm going and going. And boom, ends up trading me. So I go to Atlanta, down there, and the GM there, he was straight up with me, what I love. He said, look, he said, since we acquired you,

there has been many phone calls, so I have to do what's best for the Atlanta Hawks, not Rasheed Wallace. I said, hey, let me tell you this. I totally understand, and I respect you more for telling me about this, because he said, hey, let me tell you this. I totally understand. And I respect you more for telling me about this because he said, if a deal comes up and it's good for us, then we're going to trade you. He said, but if not, then, you know, you'll be here. I said,

no problem. So one on practice that week, my teammates was Stack Five, Steven Jackson, Jason Terry, Boris Diaw, Joel Prisbilla. Who else? It was one or two guys I'm missing, but that was my team. So, boom, we practiced, fly up to Jersey. Now, this one, they were the New Jersey Nets. You know, this one, they had Kenyon. They had Kenyon, Kerry Kittles. They had Jason Kidd.

They had a pretty good squad. That's the squad that won the championship. So I'm like, all right, we up there. We play that one game. Then we fly down to Miami. So, boom, we get to Miami. So we go to the bar grabbing some drinks. Agent hits me.

Yo, I hope you ain't unpacking your bags. I'm like, wow, what's up? He said, you know, you just got traded. And then the GM of the Hawks hit me. So I was like, all right, cool. So the next day I was on a plane to Detroit. And get to Detroit, you know, had a press conference, meet Joe, meet Mr. Davison and the whole crew up there. And it was it was a marriage made perfect sense. It really was. I mean, it was perfect. I think it's one of the most impressive balance of five you could have on a team, you know. And I always thought the crazy thing about your success was was great.

You had like guys who could all make shots and you get Ben Wallace anchoring it defensively. But there's just not many teams where Chauncey Billups could get caught in a switch and then defend a post player, and he was fine with it. You guys, we talk about Golden State at their peak switching everything, teams that will try to switch everything, and it can be advantageous, sometimes it's disadvantageous. When you guys switched, it didn't matter. And that screws up everybody running all of your screens it's like all right you think you got us in a mismatch but ben can guard a guard and when chauncey can guard a big so go ahead like that's what i thought was brilliant about your five yeah for sure everyone hung their hat on defense um and you know at the time we were all supposed to be misfits and problem

trials, but everyone hung their hat on defense. And if we did switch, it was either depending on a player, we had a scheme or, you know, you just got caught up in the pit. But other than that, you know, we came from that era. Hey, that guard is going to get over. If he's a good shooter, he's going to go under. I'm going to give him room to get under if he's a good shooter. He's going to go under. I'm going to give him room to get under if he's a bad shooter. But you're going to stay with your

man. I'm going to stay with mine. And we're just going to lock this shit up. Can I ask you about well, I'm going to ask you about it. 2007. I still can't believe LeBron and that group of Cavs beat you guys. And I remember

being on the radio because I think you guaranteed you're going to win like after every loss remember that you're like yeah we got this don't worry I guarantee the guarantee and it didn't happen uh what happened in that series um no young fella won on a tirade in the fourth quarter that was um I think what was he put up 27 or something like that 30 or or something. It was some astronomical number. In the fourth quarter in overtime, right? Yeah. Yeah, that no other All-Stars has done on that Portland,

I mean, excuse me, on that Detroit team. Yeah, man, he was hitting shots that we didn't think he could hit, and he got to the hole. So it became more of a process like, look, all right, we still got to stick with it. He's going to have to beat us. You know, at the time, it was the other guys that was hitting all of these big shots.

So it was us trying to force LeBron to hit big shots and he hit him. Because I think that was the series when he kicked it to the corner right to to donyell and people were like giving him grief about it and which is ridiculous because you look at his career and the way he sees the game i mean that's the decision that you have to make did you though at that you know he's only like four years into his career i mean he's incredible it's still i think one of the greatest playoff performances and it doesn't count because

it didn't lead to a ring and they get swept by the Spurs and all that kind of stuff. But that was like his coming out party. Did you have a sense of who he was? Did it change at all after that series or anything like that? Because there were people that still, look, until you've done it, people doubt you and people think he was a little apprehensive and all that stuff. Kind of where were you at with LeBron and what did that series do to kind of how you felt about him? Where were you at with LeBron and what did that series do to kind of how you felt about him? Well, I mean, it was we always looked at it as he's a good player. You know, he's a one of the good young players here in the NBA. And we've always looked at him as that. It wasn't no disrespect to the point of he can't play this and that. You know, when at times when we leave him open for jump shots, his jump shot has gotten better. His handle has gotten better from the times when, you know, I was in NBA when he first came in.

So he's definitely matured his game in that fashion. And hey, it was a hell of a ride. You know, that made that battle interesting from that point on with Detroit and Cleveland. Yeah, no, it definitely did. And it's rare that someone can have a moment because it was against you guys. I mean, you guys ran the East there

for a really long stretch. All right, so you end up having to deal with Boston in 2008. And then later, did you get along with KG when you weren't teammates with him? Yeah, KG was cool. Up until Boston, never really hung out with him too much outside of All-Star games, but that's when we always would meet up.

But no, I never had no beef with him. He was one of the younger players that I respected because he's versatile. And I see him, and I've told him this myself, I see him as a mirror image of myself, except I'm a better shooter and he's a better rebounder.

But we're both hellacious defenders. I've had a theory about you, and obviously this is the first time we've ever talked, and it's called my Rasheed Wallace theory. I named it after you. Because I think a lot of us, especially guys like me, you know, we get paid for our opinions. We talk, we talk, we talk, but you have always been a player that people were like, incredible shooter, incredible defender, the perimeter

skills for big, but he should have been better. And then I'm like, if I'm Rashid and I got a ring and I made 160 million, why the fuck am I listening to you? So that's my Rashid Wallace theory. We're like, okay, I'm supposed to be better. And do i need to run the resume over again because if i were you and i would hear people say like oh you should have been better i would drop those two stats on somebody and be like all right thanks man thanks for your input um i'm sure you've heard it though like how do you respond to people saying like as great as you were you should have been a better player well i'm you know i'm not taking that in a negative way because I'm more of a team player.

I feel as though that I could have got my numbers and even when I was playing in Portland and that team that we had, I was averaging like maybe 15, 16 points, something crazy like that. I could have had my number. I could have averaged the 20 and 25

like KG and like Tim Duncan and the other good power forwards playing in that era. But I was more team. I would rather sacrifice those four, six, eight points for my teammate to get them. So now that's making us better. And that's stalling more confidence in him. So when we are in that doghouse, yo, I know I'm good with you. I know that I can count

on you. If I get double, I can count on you to knock this shot down. I can count on you to make this layup without no problem. But if you're that player and I'm taking shots and shots and shots and shots, and I throw it to you one time, well, damn, you might not be used to me passing it to you. Oh, I caught you off guard. Now your shot is all messed up. You know, you might travel going to the hole. So my thing is to get everyone involved because I feel as though, you know, when I look at it like this, you got five fingers on a hand, right? So with the five fingers, say to the face, slap. So these five fingers are all individual. But when y'all come together, you got that fist. And it hits a whole lot harder and it's more of an impact.

So that's how I've always seen the team theory with it. Would you rather play in today's era? Because you would be better. You'd be taking six threes a game. You'd be playing a five. Unless you hate the idea of playing a five. As great as you were,

you were built for today's era as a big shooter. and your numbers would just be better because there'd be more spacing and you probably wouldn't get shit for taking threes. People want you to take more. Oh no, I wouldn't though. I'll be right down here in the post. I go opposite because now the way that is this game, you know, they call it every ticky tack foul. Hey, come on, dump that right down here in the post, no matter who it is.

And then the threes would be more in transition. So you got to go opposite of the game. You know, then when I played, and a lot of people think that I was the one, as far as, you know, the stretch four, or, you know, the shooting power four, but I wasn't the first one. I got the life lesson, believe it or not,

from the late, great Cliff Robinson. He said, and going back to Sha from the late, great Cliff Robinson. Uncle Cliff. Yeah, man. Uncle Cliffy. Going back to Shaq, you know, it was one night after a Lakers game, my first few years in Portland,

and I'm sitting in my chair after the game. I got an ice bag on both my elbows, both my knees, and an ankle, right? And Cliff just, he starts looking at me laughing. And I'm like, man, I'm like, yo, big fella, man. He like, I know. He like, you gotta look at this, look at it like this, she. He said,

you gotta look at it like you're in a marriage. And you're not gonna win every argument. And you gotta pick and choose your arguments. Other than that, you know, pretty much you gotta roll with it. So he said, it's the same thing. He said, you're going against guys. Cause I wasn't the biggest,

the power forwards or centers, you know, I had a thin frame. And he said, you're going against guys that's outweighing you every night by anywhere between 50 to 65 pounds. And he said, after a while, that takes a toll on them. So I never thought of it like that.

And he was like, you know, once in a while, instead of trying to bump and like that. And he was like, you know, once in a while, instead of trying to bump and bump and post up, he said, you know, face up, step out in the corner, that's when I started taking more corner threes. He's like, step out in the corner and take a three, you know, that'll help loosen it up into whatever, where you won't feel it in the fourth quarter.

So from then on, that's when I started doing it. But I got that life lesson from Cliff Robertson and Derek Coleman. So I don't put myself as the first stretch forward, but I think it's them two. The Cliff one is great because I got to see him a bunch of UConn and he completely transformed his game. I mean, when he left UConn, people were like, yeah, he's not going to be a pro.

You know, he's a skinny five. And we'll see. He doesn't go very high in the draft at all. And then he just goes, all right, I'm going to find a pro. You know, he's a skinny five. And we'll see. He doesn't go very high in the draft at all. And then he just goes, all right, I'm going to find a way to survive out here. And he ends up putting together this incredibly long career by completely changing who he was as a player, which is incredibly hard to do at that age.

So a ton of respect for him. That's a great story. I want to ask you about the new gig because I know you coached, you were on Detroit staff in the NBA for like a year correct and then you also coached in high school but this is new news uh that I just found out about so congratulations Rashid's going to be the new head coach at North Carolina Good Better Best Academy and what was the motivation behind uh taking on a new challenge

like this um the kids, to be honest. I was, for the last two years, I was coaching at Charles Jordan High School down in Durham. And it's just the whole thing of getting the kids into college. You know, a lot of kids have, and especially in North Carolina, they're like, you know, every other hood, every other area, urban area across the country. But, you know, they just don't have the big names, but they got the athletes, they got the players. So along with myself, Pat Cole, who went to North Carolina Central, and we have other two guys on our staff that are great as well. We just want to get the kids in school because that'll give them a better opportunity,

not only to become better young men, but to become better ballplayers. because that'll give them a better opportunity, not only to become better young men, but to become better ballplayers. And we always tie life lessons into basketball, you know, dealing with teammates, because your teammates, here it is on a basketball court, it is something you're doing for fun and you possibly got the chance to get paid for it.

But in real life, nine to five, guess what? You're on a team in that office. You know, you gotta make sure you perform, carry your weight, so then that way, project in that office is going to go smooth. So, you know, we always try to tie life lessons into basketball and man, it's just great. I'm blessed. Got a bunch of kids that are great kids and who are hungry and want to go to that next level. I am always, um, I guess I should say disappointed when you'll hear about stories

or you'll talk to somebody younger who will be like, well, I didn't even know this was an option or I didn't even know that this is how this was done. How much of that is you reaching out to people and sharing your story and then realizing like, look, okay, so maybe you're not going to go to North Carolina,

but there's real opportunities out here. You just need to push. You need to push in the right direction. I mean, how often does that happen where you can just see the light go off in a young person once they realize that maybe there are more opportunities out there for them than they realized? Yeah, they can't bitch complain because everyone wants to go D1. Everybody want to go to Duke or Kentucky or Carolina, Oregon. Everybody want to go high D1. Yo, it's not going to happen. I'm not going

sugarcoat it. I'm going to tell you 100%. You can't complain with the path that the most high put in front of you. If you get to the NBA, okay, fine. You might have to go the long way, which includes traveling to a couple different continents to play basketball to get noticed. You know, that's that's what happens. And then it could reroute you back to the NBA and also vice versa.

Some guys start out in the NBA and hack and, you know, they spend their lives playing ball overseas. So I just let them know you can still become a professional. It doesn't necessarily have to be basketball. You could be a professional at anything. You could be a professional CPA. You know, to me, a judge, any professional, master your profession, master your craft. And that's our main goal is to get these kids to master their crafts. So that takes hours and hours

in the gym, hours and hours of ball handling, hours and hours of foul shot shooting. So now you will be in that NBA. You will be ready to play against all of this other big stiff competition in the world. Because you're not the only kid working out.

But when we work out, hey, that's what we're going to try and install in you, that drive. So when you meet that high-level competition that you play, you won't be scared, you won't be nervous, and you'll know how to play this game. Before we let you go, I want to talk about Let's Get Technical, a new podcast with Bonzi Wells, your guy, your teammate.

What are you guys hoping to do with it, man? Because I can't wait to listen. Oh, man, we just teamed up with Ball is Life, and I'm real happy about that because, you know, they bring a lot of the funny side and a lot of the amazing side to basketball across the world. And Bonzi and I, man, we're here. We just want to, one, tell our story about how it is now,

but we were always misunderstood as players. So we just want to get it out there, not only to our fans, but the people who misunderstood us. Like, yo, we're everyday guys. You know, we still go through everyday shit like everybody else. And we enjoy life, man. You know, now you can hear it

straight from the horse's mouth. Because people always read about us. Oh, she, Wallace did this attitude. So now you got a chance to see us and see what we're about up here on this podcast. Well, let's get technical so the world can hear us. Make sure you check it out. Let's get technical. You guys gonna

hit up Kwame Brown, first guest, maybe? Man, that's my man. They better leave that kid alone. They better leave Kwame alone. That's my man. They better leave him alone. That's what you guys gotta do. You guys gotta have him on early because then everybody

will check it out. I mean, look, people are going to check it out because it's you and Bonzi anyway. But as a guy who's been doing my thing on my side for a while, if I'm your producer, I'm like, all right,

if we can get Kwame Brown on, let's get him on now. Yeah, that hot topic. Yeah, he's a content factory right now. Hey, Rasheed, a lot of respect. Really appreciate it. And hopefully we'll catch up again.

All right. Oh, no problem at all. Anytime, man. Just send out the invite. I'm here. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay, folks, we have a final chapter in the cushion incident that we're going to get to on the second Life Advice.

Again, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Kyle, they're coming in. People are really opening up lately, huh? Yeah, big deal. Tons of emails coming in. Okay, here we go. Ryan, 5'10", 250, BenchMax 290. Is it really 290?

I'm just asking because if you're at 290 and you're a certain age and you've never gotten to 300, I don't know if you've gotten to 290. It's just me thinking out loud. Sorry, we're getting off to a bad start here. I've been working my tail off to get over to the 300 hump.

Oh, okay. All right. Hopefully by July. All right. He's on our way. All right. This guy, full recovery. Should have kept reading the full sentence.

Do that from time to time. My apologies. I'm writing for advice in handling my current situation. I've not been the best husband over the span of 13 years of my marriage i'm in a profession where i'm constantly interacting with females it's like i worked the door at a strip club my wife doesn't seem to like it i don't know what her problem is i'm kidding um so the opportunity for female distractions has always been a problem for my marriage recently after being gone out of town for training for four weeks and many late nights with the fellas, my wife told me no more. Honestly, the four weeks were just us throwing

back Miller Lights and good bourbon, no females involved. My nights consisted of me being back in my room every night by 10 to talk to my son and wife via Zoom or phone calls. I'm confused over the timing of my wife wanting to split because she's had plenty of reason to do it in the past but i thought that after all the therapy we've been through our last three years were good because there weren't any boundaries crossed so the other day i went through her phone okay and notice she's been talking to this guy who i know can't whoop me some would say it's odd that you went there first. I think it's pretty natural that the first thing you thought of is, okay, if my

wife is talking to another guy, would he beat me up or could I beat him up? It's the first thing I would think of and I'm just going to admit it. The concerning part is there's conversations that have been deleted. I tried to feel her out the other day saying like, hey, is there anyone else in the picture? And if so, it's cool. She said, no. Do you think I'm justified feeling jealous? Should

I reach out to the other guy? Me and the soon to be ex-wife have mutually agreed to physically separate by July 1st so we can get our finances and some other things worked out. Should I just not worry about anything other than my son and finalizing the details and everything? Do you think I should leave as early as I can? Thanks. Do you think P.S. Wait a minute. P.S.

Can Kyle and Suri throw up 300 of the bench combined? Hmm. I don't. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. Kyle on his own? No. That's actually insulting.

Like one of us on each side? Like a big bench? No. One arm each? Like two arms each side? A queen size bench? Two arms on each side like a big bench no one arm each like two arms queen size bench two arms on each side side yeah i think we get i think well that actually is way harder than what he's proposing i'm just saying like if kyle can do 185 then all steve has to do is 115 yeah i i can do 115 that might be pushing it but one yeah i could do 115 i think i have you by the way have you ever like have you ever tried i don't i'm not a bench guy uh

so i know i don't fit in a ton here but i think is kyle a bench guy 35 once i i reluctantly do bench i had like shoulder separations ac separations like they're called so that like it really fucking hurts and like i risk embarrassing myself but i do it because it's a gym thing when i go so i just know i was never good at it so i don't want to embarrass myself you've never tried conscious yeah i was always self-conscious because i knew you know if i wasn't putting up 135 i didn't want people looking at me being like are you serious like what are we doing right now hey look i get it man i mean if you can't do when i was in high school and i couldn't do 135 and you're putting on 25s and you're just going

like like what do you get a car axle back there what do you you know i i totally look man but we don't make up a clothing line that says worry about your own reps i'm gonna sell them on instagram it's good yeah it going to be a hoodie. Worry about your own reps. So let other people do one or excuse me, let other people do 95 pounds. Worry about your reps. And so Rudy would feel more comfortable.

I want this to be safe. Okay. So let's go back to this guy. I think we just needed to get that stuff out of the way before we answer this. Um, all right. So we got a lot going on here.

You basically admitted that you've been cheating on your wife and then you stopped. She wants a divorce. You're getting divorced live first, but you're worried about this other guy. Now, the easiest thing for me to say is like, you have no right to be mad

because of everything you've done, but you're going to be mad. All right. That's what a lot of people do. I don't can only, I can only speak for the male experience on this, but I can, uh, admit that, um, going back a long time ago, you know, when I was in my twenties and I wasn't always the greatest dude ever. And if you kind of judge yourself on like, Hey, are you good to other people? Do you care about their feelings? Do you want to make sure that, um, you know, are you a selfless prick

that when you're bummed out, everybody else is supposed to stop around you? Um, you know, if you grade a person based on those things, I would not get very high grades. Not that I wasn't caring towards, you know, family and all that kind of stuff, but like, I just was so wrapped up in my own thing and my own failures that I kind of let that get in the way of like really worrying about how other people would feel about decisions I made. Right you are married and you're in a situation where I kind of feel like since you've cleaned up your act, that it's almost this fresh slate, our clean slate. I don't know how any of us could be with somebody else. I admire the person who can be cheated on in a

marriage and then go, hey, therapy, we're good now. We're in a good place and I can forgive you and move on and never have the resentment. Because I don't know if that 100% clean slate exists in that situation. Some of you that are married that you've screwed up, you got caught, you worked it out, everything's good now. I've got to imagine your wife still has like a little bit of 5% hate about it. 10%, you know, unless there's some real new age stuff. It's like, Hey man has the desire and you know, whatever. It's that's cool. I mean, I guess, look, there's always, there's always some kind of weird option out there. So really, I mean, you can, obviously you're going to be annoyed because now you're finding out that your wife was talking to somebody else. You went through her phone. She's clearly not comfortable telling you who it is, even though you clearly know who it is now. you're going to be jealous. It doesn't matter if you're justified or not. I mean, you're not,

you admitted that you've done all these things wrong, but you're still going to feel this way because we don't, we don't do that. Like you can do something terrible to your girlfriend or your wife as far as cheating on her. And what you'll do is you'll make all these excuses for maybe like why it's okay. You know, I think we've been over that timeline before where it's kind of like, all right, well, you know, we're not engaged and it's like, okay, well, we're not married. And it's like, okay, we haven't had a kid yet. And then you just keep pushing it down further and further where it's like, okay, this is fine. It's like, well, you know, I was on the road or I, um, you know, we never really were official, official and kind of coming up all these qualifiers that really are doing one thing and trying to make you feel better about what you know deep down

is the wrong decision, but you're, you're rational, right? We're, we do this with a lot of different things, but, um, in this case, you've, you've probably thought like, well, I was on the road, I was around these women and I did it and now she found out. And so I came clean and we went to therapy and everything's fine. Whereas you're probably going to look at this bill. Well, this is worse because I know the guy and he lives in the town, if that's the case here. And we went to therapy and we cleared, cleaned up everything. And now we're good to go. And now she's doing this. Like you, you don't really have a right. Like you can be mad, but you don't have a right to be mad. So I would just...

You don't even sound like you're that upset about it. I think you're more mad about the guy. Seriously. I feel like you're kind of looking at the idea of being disrespected. And I would focus on the kid. I would get out of there soon. I don't know. Why would you stay another month?

Because if you're going to be around the kid, there could be some blowups. and arguing in front of kids sucks. So I would, I would move on. I mean, you can feel however you want to feel, but I think at some moment, a little bit more removed for it.

You kind of have to realize you kind of get what you deserve here on this one. Word. As a child of divorce, I would say like, yeah, make dad's house cool. Like get a clean break and like,

you know, just try to co-parent as like normally as you can try to be a team even though you're totally fucking not a team anymore yeah i just i'm not i mean you know this is where people have a problem with this portion of the podcast and like you're not married and you don't have a kid you're like all right but i also know what it's like to grow up in a situation where the parenting part of it isn't super stable. And a lot of people are like, hey, stay. I don't even think that's what the guy's saying. Like, hey, should I stay together for the kid? I think he's just saying, should I be worrying about my finances and my son and finalizing everything? I mean, what are the options here? Worry about your son and finalizing the deals or worry about some guy that your wife is with and you screwed around on her. I can tell you right now, when you say it out loud, it's a

pretty easy decision to make. You're like, I should just focus on my kid right now. And the cool thing about, seriously, this will happen. It's super easy for any of us to sit here and tell the other person like, hey, just stop worrying about it. You're not going to stop worrying about it. You're going to have a moment. You're driving the car and you're going to get really mad and you're going to get pissed. You're going to be like, maybe I should say something. I don't know why you want to confront the other guy.

Unless you're friends or something. Unless you're like, hey, this guy's completely out of line. I don't know. I mean, you didn't include that part of it. But when you can have something else to distract you from something, that's when I think is, you know, that's always like whenever I remember when I was in Trenton again, 2002, worst year, a bunch of different reasons. I was really, really upset when I got to be on the air for three hours calling a baseball game. It was the best because I kind of had the distraction.

So I think what you need to do here is all the things that you're thinking about with your wife and the failed marriage and the part that you should feel guilty about, the other part that maybe you don't want to feel guilty about. I think you going, all right, cool. Right now, my focus is my kid, getting him through this, getting him through this transition and being the best dad that I can be and me moving on from this because I deserve some of this. Maybe I don't deserve all of it, but that's a good distraction. I mean, this is the part where selfishly having the concern and responsibility of a child can help you get through something like this. So, and getting a 300 too. Come on.

Yeah. Yeah. He's definitely going to get to over 300. Well done. Cerruti. That's a revenge 300 right there. Good for you. Yeah.

That guy's, that guy's going to be pushing up serious weight by the end of 2021 here. Okay. The cushion incident conclusion. Here we go. So by the way, the amount of people that emailed saying it was his wife, it was his wife, it was his wife. Did I share his follow-up email? Yeah, you said it wasn't his wife, but he didn't have to get together yet so he didn't do the knives out thing right find out all right so rudy because so rudy said it too so rudy suggested my wife could be a suspect interesting notion not a chance in hell

she's a clean freak the other day we had pasta i got a little splatter on my sauce in my shirt she literally stopped eating and made me strip mid-dinner who so we could go bleach the stain i told her to wait till after we ate but she refused so i think we brought that up if we didn't we just needed to do it again i i believe him he was so defiant in that follow-up about the wife's role in all of this that i but so many people are like it's the wife it's the wife it's the wife all right so here we go evening we held dinner party number two tonight so i think, I think he fired this off right after the dinner party. A couple of weeks removed from the incident. I'd started to lose hope that

I'd ever know what happened. It's like the first 48. At some point, the case just goes cold. All caps. Boy, was I wrong. Tonight, we found our culprit. Ryan, I took your advice and started the evening stain side down. I haven't replaced the carpet yet. So there's a decent size stain under the chair, which was a good icebreaker. Some people asked about it, but nobody fessed up. Oh my gosh. This is amazing. You know, it would have been great if one of the couples canceled because then you'd be like, now we have a suspect. We have a strong suspect, but we can't confirm anything because they didn't show up to the party. So everyone was in attendance again.

Everybody showed up. People in the sky must be really popular. All right. After a few drinks, we sat down for dinner. I played it cool until this point, focusing on being a good host. Everyone was getting loose and it felt like a normal evening. I made my move midway through dinner. When someone asked if I was busy on Saturday, I replied, yeah, I'm ripping up this wine

stained carpet. So anybody here want to help? Awkward silence. I wish I could describe to you the look my wife gave me. And some uncomfortable small talk about stain remover. So our man just looks at the entire dinner party. He says, yeah,

I'm ripping up the stained carpet. He says, after some uncomfortable, small talk about stain remover, my friend, um, let's call her. Well,

I, let's, I think we're all in the clear here. Let's call the friend, Jess, uh, the husband named Rob finally jumped in and confessed that he'd spilled the wine. So Rob, husband of Jess, his explanation that night is removed from the living room to the

dining room for dinner. Rob bumped into the side of the table, which caused the wine glass to fall over and spill on the chair. He had a few drinks by that point. He said he panicked and quickly flipped the cushion over before anyone saw. Then we sat down and ate dinner. After dinner, when we moved back to the living room, he made sure to sit in that chair so nobody would notice the stain. They've been married less than 18 months. So given the pandemic, we hadn't really socialized with him that much. I guess he wasn't comfortable speaking up and worried about ruining the party. He apologized, said he felt terrible, insisted he pay for the damage. It seems sincere, but he would never have said anything if I hadn't thrown party number two very good point emailer total dick move but what can i do but move on well i served

his next drink in our three-year-old sippy cup it felt good this is a great example of life advice fucking working good job by you but like it's almost like nothing is going to satisfy this guy he's still not happy about it he's still you know wait you're anti-emailer here he's totally happy no no he's giving him a sippy cup like he's i feel like this guy he's got to let it go just like the last guy we were talking about let it go man the guy admitted to it you got what you wanted i just feel like it feels like he's playing this out too long. And I totally understand the guy had a couple of pops. He's not really, you know, he's super embarrassed and want everyone to see that he spilled the wine. I get why that would happen.

It's awesome that he fessed up and just move on, man. I don't know. And he's going to pay for it. So that's great. Would you, Kyle, would you not want to be friends with this guy because I think that's what this guy's hitting at because it's a fair theory to propose here it's like if I never had the second party this guy never says anything I think that the email or actually contrary to what Rudy says handled it perfectly I thought the sippy cup was funny I thought it was really funny and it's over

now like you don't have to worry about you know your doors open and did they steal the fucking batteries out of my remote you know who the fuck did it he just said it he was a little embarrassed and then you you zanged him back with the sippy cup i think we're even especially if he wants to pay like he didn't say he was accepting for him to pay for the carpet maybe it's a stanley steamer job maybe it's not a carpet rip out i think actually the stakes are kind of low and he can fucking sleep at night now this works out this is why i say life advice at its best right here okay you just said something did you routinely steal batteries from remotes no it's like a joke no it's like a a joke it's like uh you know the front door is open or

something and you don't know like what is missing and you're're like, well, is it the fucking remote's dying? Did he take the batteries from the remote? Like, you just don't know because you don't have any closure. Now he has closure. Okay. All right. That's fair. That's fair.

I'm big on giving people a pass. You hadn't really hung out with them. Now, you know, you're never going to forget it. And I think the email is right to be like, you know, if I didn't have the second party, then none of this would have ever happened. But I think I am forgiving with certain incidents, not only because of all the years of bartending, but also all the years of being a bartender who was allowed to,

whenever you're a bartender in a small town, you guys just get to do whatever you want. We all know this is true. So I would say, look, you're going gonna file it away and if you start hanging out with these guys regularly and he does something else like this he's going to be done but you don't need like we don't need to constantly you know be checking out like whenever it's like oh you know if you do this to me then i'd be really mad and i wouldn't want to be friends with you anymore okay that's fine Don't be, find new people to not be friends with.

In this case, it seems like the two nights went really well. The guy choked. He freaked. Anxiety. Doesn't really know you. Didn't know what to do. He was wrong. He admitted it, by the way, in front of everybody.

You know how embarrassing that had to be for him? And then he offered up the financial backing. That's probably the wrong way to phrase that he was ready to throw down the credit card better way to say all right so problem solved not the wife we did have some people accusing the whiskey thief guy they were like there's no way that's true um what what part they're like there's no way a guy would get wasted and get showered up and then change clothes and go back out and i'm like well then you haven't what part? They're like, there's no way a guy would get wasted and get showered up and then change clothes

and go back out. And I'm like, well, then you haven't met a ton of guys that drink for a living. So we had a guy who emailed in and Kyle sent it over. He was like, if the guy were that drunk, he wouldn't recognize anybody he'd be throwing up. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. That's not always the case, man.

Yeah, some guys don't throw up. Some guys, you can't even believe they're standing but they still haven't thrown my favorite drunk story of a friend is like it was i guess you kind of have to know this guy had these legendary stories i mean it was kind of like he really there was no governor there ever like if he were gonna go he's gonna go we all rented a house together and the weather got really rough so guys were just getting after it like left and right the guy girl ratio was totally thrown off the host of the setup lied about it and there was like a crew of guys that just basically gave up on being contributing members of society at all.

Like, all right, there's no girls to talk to. There's no activities. We're literally going to drink and play video games the entire time we're awake. All right. And so they were almost like banished to another part of this house because a bunch of guys are staying at this house. And this one guy was just great, though. He's fun. All though. He's fun. All right.

He was fun. He did like to get after it, but he was a lot of fun. So I want to make sure that's the case. So I think he'd had a couple like nap sessions in between video game and drinking sessions. And he was like, yeah, I just don't care. Like, I don't even care

that we're going to go out tonight. And he ends up going out with us, with the rest of us. The rest of us had gotten a table. You know, the guys that had girlfriends us had gotten a table you know the guys that had girlfriends with them got a table making it a big night big celebration and he was like all right i'll make my way down there and the thing is people were like i kind of want him to come to the party come to this thing that we're doing but i don't know how he's going to last

like there's no way he's going to last. And it's, it's very early in the night, you know, like nine or 10 for this, this club. And because we've gotten this table and we got there early because they were like, look,

you have to come early, have to come early, whatever, fine. And the bartender was like, Hey, have your whole party and your whole group that's celebrating this thing. Like come up to the bar.

We want to take care of you for a round or whatever. So we were really young. I think we were 30 and some idiots like Jagermeister. I was like, oh man. So everybody does a shot of Jagermeister, including our guy that's been passing out off and on all day for like two days. And he takes a shot of it and it looks like he just snorted diesel gasoline, right? Because the look on his face, he's like, oh, and I can still see it to my left now. It was the look on his face and he was already disheveled to begin with. And you're like, oh my God. And he looks at me, he's like, I got to go home. He's like, I got to go home.

I got to go home. That tasted so bad. That tasted so bad, man. He's like, I shouldn't have gone out with you guys. I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it. And we were like, yeah, man, whatever you need to do, whatever you need to do. But we were like 20 something deep. So nobody was really keeping track of everybody. And you're just meandering. You're meeting new people and you're inviting them over. Cause you know, we had this, this whole section and you know, sparklers are going off.

Everybody's excited. And we're trying to rally everybody up to go back to the house at like one 30, you know, sparklers are going off. Everybody's excited. And we're trying to rally everybody up to go back to the house at like 1.30, you know, trying to get out of there a little bit before the closing time, closing time, you understand the routine, right? And we look out, we're like, hey, who do we have everybody?

Do we have everybody? And then guys are like, well, where's so-and-so? Like, oh, he went home. He's gone. Like he, after the first shot, I think he walked back up to the house or got a cab or something. And they're like,

somebody else goes, or he's in the middle of the dance floor having the best night of his life right now. And we look and he is all sweaty, hands over his arms, little Tiesto going, and he's just on 11 loving it. And he, he just made it.

He made it the whole night. It's one of the great efforts I've ever seen from a man. Still blown away by it. Getting a little misty. Just thinking about his chubby little red sweaty face. Huge smile. He made it. Enjoy the weekend, folks.

Please subscribe to the Ryan Russillo Podcast. Spread the word. And Bill and I will be back on Sunday. And I got Luke Wilson next week. A very efficient Luke Wilson interview. Thank you.