The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Revisiting 30 Years of NBA Ring Chasing, Plus LeBron Is Back! (Kidding) With Mike Trudell

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Russillo opens by going through most of the big NBA ring chaser moves of the last 30 years and how Dame Lillard to Miami might stack up (0:37). Then he chats with Lakers reporter Mike Trudell and jokes about LeBron announcing he’s returning next season, discusses whether Anthony Davis found the best version of himself last year, and tells a great story about Austin Reaves (19:40). Finally, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted life advice questions (51:57). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Trudell Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast we're going to talk with mike trudell lakers reporter just love having the guy around he's really good on stuff but lebron's not retiring um not a surprise with that one but more so ad the offseason is this really the second best team in the West? Ring chasers. I'm going to go through about 30 years of guys that left and try to figure out the three that perhaps are the most egregious and deserve the most pushback and life advice. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope,

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Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. I want to start today's pod talking about the ring chasers. Maybe we'll throw a little Z on that for the kids. We spend a lot of time looking at dudes forcing trades. Sometimes it's in free agency and you're like, I don't like that. But some of them we should be like, that's fine.

That's totally cool. I don't have a problem with that. I went back 30 years. I looked at a lot of them. Did I look at all of them? There's probably a couple that I've missed, but I have an extensive list here and I want to go through it and talk about some of the ring chasers and how that relates to Dame potentially going to Miami because it still feels like Miami is probably going to get their way. It's just Portland's like, hey, it's July. I don't like the offer. We'll see what happens. I have some rules here. Rule number one is the player has to have some kind of stature, right? I think that's pretty self-explanatory.

Two, the move has to be potentially annoying to someone. Not necessarily me, because a lot of these, they don't annoy me, as I was going through and looking back at the history of the transaction. And rule number three is refer back to when I say I'll probably miss a couple because I go back 30 years. I have three categories. I want to start with the older guys. The older guys. We'll start with Shaq.

Now, if you want to go the full Shaq timeline, when he went from Orlando at LA, he was just looking to build something. So that's nothing. When he went from LA to Miami, let's take a look back at who he was because he was in some decline. was because he was in some decline. He'd taken 14 shots per game that season, which actually was to that point of his 12-year career, the lowest shot attempts per game that he'd ever had. He was 31. And remember the Lakers, that was about kind of going into phase two of Kobe. Kobe was sick of Shaq. The Lakers having Shaq in-house weren't exactly sure they wanted to give him the $100 million extension. So they trade him and they move him out. By the way, Miami's like, we're cool with giving you $100 million, which should give you some reasoning into the Dame pursuit being like,

well, you don't care. We'll figure it out. And it worked out for Miami. He got the ring, but then he ended up in Phoenix after three and a half plus years in Miami. That wasn't ring chasing at all. Phoenix, that whole thing was kind of over at that point, and it didn't fit from a basketball standpoint at all, seven seconds or less, or let's bring in aging Shaq, but that was new owner syndrome, absolute 101, first day of that course. Robert Sarver being like, no, it's just cool to have Shaq. I remember him going crazy in his courtside seats.

I remember being at ESPN that night being like, wait, somebody actually traded for Shaq at this point? Phoenix did. He had one year left on his deal when Phoenix sent him to Cleveland. There was a lot of hype for that, but really that was just getting rid of the money because they traded him for Ben Wallace who they waived and Sasha Pavlovich who they released later on in a second rounder. Shaq gets to Cleveland. He's on the cover of Sports Illustrated with LeBron.

It says, look out, I think. There's a lot of hype because of the star power of it. From basketball, most of us, most of you listening to this now are like, yeah, I don't know that I ever really took him all that seriously other than LeBron ascending into the best player in the world because Cleveland did lose to Boston in six,

but Shaq was fifth in minutes for Cleveland in that series. Then he ended up in Boston in 2011. He played 12 total minutes in the playoffs for the Celtics during 2011. So maybe some would consider that ring chasing towards the end. I really don't think it was all that egregious, and he started just kind of getting dumped because of some financial stuff. Let's stay with the Lakers here because Gary Payton's a good one. started just kind of getting dumped because of some financial stuff.

Let's stay with the Lakers here because Gary Payton's a good one. Gary Payton and Karl Malone teamed up in 2003, that's right, 2003-04 season to go to the Lakers. Gary Payton had already been traded in Milwaukee in the Ray Allen deal. He signed a one-year deal for four, actually it was a two-year deal, but the first year of the deal was around

$5 million. He, in that disastrous series against Detroit, he had been really good, I thought, through much of the regular season, but disastrous series against Detroit he had been really good I thought through much of the regular season but that series for against Detroit everybody's numbers like just not what you'd expect or hope they would be at three and a half points per game against them did free agent sign with the heat and then won his title but to me that's later later stages he took a massive pay cut I think Portland was going to pay him like 10 million a year and he took half to go to the Lakers speaking of pay cuts Carl, and he took half to go to the Lakers. Speaking of pay cuts, Carl Malone, 18

years with Utah, signs with the Lakers that same season. It was Carl Malone's last season. He's 40, signs for $1.5 million, by the way. He had made $19 million a year before with Utah. He was hurt much of that season, missed actually one of the finals games, and I think he scored like 20 total

points in that series. Not egregious, kind of in that, as I said in the beginning, the older guy category. Let's continue. Zoe, Alonzo Mourning. Remember, he was traded to Miami in that Glenn Rice deal. I'm not going to go through all that stuff. He signed with the Nets, but then was traded to Toronto. He never played a game for the Raptors.

He was waived, gets back with the Heat in 05, wins with the second year with them, but then he was kind of done. So that was towards the end of his run. Mitch Richmond, another Laker. He was 36, a six-time All-Star in his last season as an NBA free agent. So not exactly forcing trades here,

as if you're paying attention. He played four and a half minutes total in the playoffs. That might be one of those where he has a ring, but nobody ever puts him down as like, well, he's got a ring. Like, yeah, you got it. And I'm sure that was fun for him. And we don't exactly like spend a ton of time debating where Mitch Richmond is historically,

but that's almost in its own category of like older guy that you're like, oh, that's right. He does have a ring, but it changes nothing about the way I remember him because I forgot that he was even on those teams. Staying with that theme, Chris Weber, 33 years old signs as a free agent with Detroit.

He was kind of toast at that point. He had only played in half the games for Detroit, and he ended up retiring a year later. David West, 36, goes to Golden State, two rings. He timed that right, 17 and 18. We go Nash, LA with that group there where it was like the four dudes. They were all going to show it. Well, Nash, at that point, he was 38-39 the last two seasons with the Lakers. He had missed 20 games in his last season with Phoenix. You could just see the declining numbers. He only played in 15 games in his last season there.

But again, this wasn't the headline forcing. Now let's get to the questionable category. This group is the one that may have some moves that could annoy you a bit. Well, let's go through it and see how we feel about it years removed. Michael Finley, he left Dallas for San Antonio at 32 years old. But he was actually waived using the amnesty provision. He was owed $52 million, 51.8 if you're keeping track on the luxury tax. So Dallas saved a ton of money by waiving him with the amnesty on the tax bill. So even though you look back and you're like, man, Finley went to San Antonio, won a title in 2007, Dallas waived him just for the tax savings.

So that's not like forcing in the hand. That's not demanding anything. He wanted to stay. Dallas wanted to keep him. But then San Antonio completely benefited because they didn't have to pay him all that much because he still made all that money. So you could say it annoyed you if you were,

let's say, a Dallas fan by watching it happen, but you get a side with the player on that one. What about Clyde Drexler? Let's go back to his Portland days. Portland had traded Kevin Duckworth, and Clyde says that Portland said they wanted to rebuild, and he was like, I want to relocate. He asked to be traded.

He goes to Houstonston who had already won a title in 94 uh in the finals for houston he averaged 22 10 and 7 big time numbers for a guard uh like clive he gets his long-awaited ring that feels like it's a more defining one and feels a bit more ring chasey er but with portland that point, how about this crazy number two? In his career, he made $21 million of his career. He made $31 million for his career. $21 million of it was with the three years

that he was with Houston. Two-thirds of his earnings were in those three years with Houston on top of everything else, which is pretty crazy. But if the Clyde one happens today, we might give him more shit for it. All right, another one that at least can be questioned, Ray Allen leaving the Celtics for the Miami Heat. The weird one with this one is that he went to Miami for less money,

like significantly less. It was like three years, $9 million, where Boston apparently offered two years and $12 million. Miami had already won their first title with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. There's certainly a Boston element to it of like, wait, Boston's still trying to fight with Miami to get out of the East, and then you decide to go there, and you go there for less money. still trying to fight with Miami to get out of the East, and then you decide to go there, and you go there for less money. I never really had as much of an issue with it at the time. And I also thought that the Ray Allen-Rondo stuff, and there was a real disconnect there, and that Ray Allen was going to be somebody who was going to be more of a specialist at that point, and that he went to Miami.

I just felt like he was timing it right as the Boston thing. They weren't going to play in a finals series again. They didn't. They had that weird series with Miami where they went up on him, but I still didn't think Miami was going to lose that series. Another one, Chris Paul to Houston. If you go back to 2017, everybody thought Paul was going to be re-signing with the Clippers, but this one was really financially based.

Chris Paul was 32. The Clippers thing had run its course due to Paul. Now, Chris Paul was 32. The Clippers thing had run its course due to Paul's injuries in the playoffs and then Blake's injuries. You go back through all those playoff series, you're like, wait, what did the Clippers do? They just couldn't get out of their own way because one of the two guys always seemed to get hurt. Houston had won 55 games the year before, but had lost in the second round. But there was a $200 million extension that Paul wanted, but there was hesitation if you go back and look at the reporting saying that they didn't want to give him that fifth year, which I understand.

The Rockets were like, we'll do it. So he opts in, forces the trade to Houston. They win way more games, and they give him after that final year, they give him a four year $160 million extension the next summer. Because remember, he was a free agent. You were like, wait, are they going to do this deal and only have him for a year? That was not the case. So he still ended up making close to the $200 million that they originally wanted. By the way, that contract was massively backloaded, which is another reason why the price was so high to move him at the time. But people thought he was going to be declining, goes

Oklahoma City. That's a whole different story. That one felt way more about just making sure he could maximize those five years of earning power than it was where Houston's this loaded team. I want to go there already. Another one that's at least questionable is Kevin Garnett out of Minnesota. The package back for Kevin Garnett was pretty bad. The fact that McHale couldn't get Rondo out of that one on top of everything else. It was pre, here's a million picks. Al Jefferson's a nice player. Garnett, though, at that point, if you want to look at it from the Boston side of it, they were actually tanking.

So it wasn't like they were loaded, but then they had had Ray Allen. They were also tanking by sitting Paul Pierce, one of the only stretches that Pierce had missed time in his career with Boston. The Garnett rumors had gone on for like three years. And then originally, once it was getting close, he didn't even want to go to Boston. He wanted to go to Phoenix. But then Boston said, we're going to give you a three-year extension on top of the two remaining years. And that made him a lot happier.

So that one could be, that one's probably a little bit more on the, hey, question it. I'm sure it annoyed the hell out of Minnesota fans, especially when the package back didn't seem like it was as competitive as something else. But look, Phoenix could have found a way to do it. They didn't. And then Boston made sure the extension was going to be fine. What about Pau Gasol? Now, the history on this one's a little iffy. If you go back, he was

27, man. He was in his prime. The Lakers had only 42 and 40 the previous year. They lost to Phoenix in the first round. The trade was super controversial for a couple different reasons. One version of the story goes that Michael Heisley, the owner at that point, told Chris Wallace that he wanted to trade Gasol instead of extending him because it made the team more desirable for the next owner, which is something I never understand. I actually don't believe it.

I don't think it's true. It's brought up all the time where it's like, oh, well, the owner's trying to sell this team, so he wants to lower payroll. It's like, actually, isn't the team way more valuable? Look at some of the four valuations of NBA teams and how different they are when a star is there, when the star leaves. So I've never believed that. Gasol at that point is terrific, 27. The other thing that was controversial about that trade, Popovich even said that it should have been voted down. He said there should be a committee to oversee trades and vote these things down. Of course, if something works out for him, I'm sure he doesn't hate it as much.

But the reason people were really pissed around the league is they felt like Gasol actually wasn't really offered. And that it just was a straight up Memphis hooking up the Lakers because of the Chris Wallace, Jerry West relationship. Do with that what you will. I remember when the trade happened, and it was when I was first starting to talk to teams pretty regularly. Other teams were like, we didn't even know he was available. You've got to be kidding me. And it was the best thing that could have ever happened to Kobe Bryant because they were a completely different team after the fact. Now, did Gasol ask to be traded? Some people say yes, and that he was demanding the trade. The other side of it is if he had just gotten the extension, he would have been happy to stay there and all that stuff. But it worked out basically for everybody because Marc Gasol, who none of us thought were ever going to be any good, and I'm still shocked that he was this good considering what he was as a prospect, as a throw-in into the trade, what he ended up turning into. But I don't know that that was as forceful as some of the more modern stuff that we're used to. ended up turning into. But I don't know that that was as forceful as some of the more modern stuff that we're used to. All right. Charles Barkley. Got to bring it up because if you're a newer

player and you're watching Barkley diss you on TNT for trying to get your way all the time, you have pretty good ammo when Barkley decided that he wanted to leave Phoenix. The Philly one, the place was a mess by the time he wanted to go to Phoenix. So that one doesn't bother me as much. But Barkley's saying, all right, Houston's won a couple titles. I've lost to him in the playoffs. Maybe I'll just go to Houston. And then it just didn't work out. And then he ended up getting hurt.

And pretty soon after that, retiring towards the end. That one at least is in the questionable category. Other ones that could be questionable but are in their own different subcategory off of this, the big three in Miami. It's definitely ring chasing. It's definitely coordinated. It's totally different than the one guy demanding to go to somewhere else. And sometimes you go, hey, free agents decided to get together and just did it.

People hated it in 2010. If it happened now, I don't know that it would be treated with the same harshness. There is a way that we become desensitized to stuff that just happens over time, just like anything in life. Same thing with NBA transactions. We're like, oh, that's not the greatest. Same thing with the way you parent your kids. The first kid you're going, I don't think I want you watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because of the violence. And then your third kid, you're like, hey, do you want to watch Porky's again again right it happens you become desensitized to it however if you look at the heat three the nets three because you could also throw kawaii and paul george going to the clippers kind of in this subcategory if the nets

three or heat three doesn't really bother you then the kawaii paul george thing should never bother you that's fair i'm not even sure what the nets thing is i don't know if harden belongs to even be brought up in the ring chasing with this because when he was leaving Houston, he was definitely ring chasing to go to Brooklyn. And when he was leaving Brooklyn, he was ring chasing to get to Philly. But I guess it doesn't feel as egregious because on the way and Donchic all decided to align their free agencies coming up here in a year or two, and then all signed with the same team, would it be like, Hey, this is awesome.

Or would we be like, that kind of sucks. And I think I get it. I think I get why people would be like, it kind of sucks. Even if it's their right to go and do it, just like the dudes did in Miami over a decade ago. Yeah. I think it'd be okay to say, Hey, this kind of of sucks and the reason why most fans would be saying it kind of sucks because then you'd be like wait this might be really hard to beat this team

and it's going to cost my own happiness because my team's going to have a tougher challenge so the last category is tougher to defend it's a good transition here because the Durant stuff is just tough for a guy who likes Durant as much as I do, I don't think there's anything worse in 30 years of forcing your way to ring chase than him going to Golden State. It didn't bother me as much at the time. And oddly enough, it bothers me more in retrospect because I just get it. I get why nobody liked it. I think I defended it because I just was happy for him to get away from Westbrook. I think he wanted basketball happiness. And I don't think there's a lot of basketball happiness when you're arguably flirting with being the best player in the world and Westbrook plays the way that he does. I was rooting for

that. I know that he said that when the Warriors lost in 16, blowing the 3-1 lead against Cleveland, that opened the door for him to do it. I'd heard so much about him going to Golden State prior that I just, I don't know that I even believe it. I think it's a very convenient thing to say and it derails the idea that he just wanted out of Oklahoma City. Some people disagree with me. I'm not sure who's right with it, but you add that to the Nets ring chase, which again, I don't have that big of a problem with, to then, hey, I'm going to go to Phoenix and only Phoenix after I wanted to force a trade out this summer, then came back, then played, then got hurt. And you know what? Now that Kyrie's out, I want out too.

As a Durant fan, it's probably the worst of any of the scenarios that I'm going to throw at you. The last one I have for you is for our man, Sir Rudy, Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic. This thing was so fucking dumb. I remember doing the daily radio shows. It was like a daily update topic there for a little while. You had Stan telling the assembled media that Dwight wanted him out. Dwight comes over like, hey, what are you talking about?

And it's like Stan just letting it fly and Dwight having like, he is an extra laying of awkward, you know, like a cake with extra frosting on the top. Dwight finds a way to add this extra layer of awkward to the whole thing. And then to put it all to bed, he opted in to the last year of the deal. And then was reading the quotes. I could have gone all day on this. He had one quote where he's like, loyalty is the most important thing to me. And then guess what? It was not the most important thing.

So after opting in to show everybody that he was cool with it, then he wanted his trade. He gets his trade to LA at 26. Then you've got the deal where he lasts a year there. Because Kobe's like, wait, this is not the dude. And then, you know, Dwight has a few transactions later on. I don't know where Dame would hold up here historically for this stuff. Max Guy got every dollar, did the extra extension, only wants to go to one team,

wanting to go to a team that was early in the NBA Finals because part of the equation of this is feeling like, is this guy going to a team that's already loaded? We seem to have less of a problem with the guy that's already there than the guy that's showing up. But this is closer to the tougher defend category than it would be to just an older player trying to find his way. would be to just an older player trying to find his way. Huge news last night in the NBA world. LeBron James not retiring, so we needed to get somebody on for this absolute 180 from the end of the playoff run.

Mike Trudell, Lakers reporter, knows this team, is an employee of the team, just so we know. We've got to be a little careful with our questions here. I imagine you're pretty busy today after, I mean, you and the front office having to plan out a new season. Yeah, exactly. Well, first of all, guys, uh, Mike Trudell, five, nine, one 70, uh, about a four, five, five 40, uh, in college, uh, made the, made the wall mostly with the football players

and the shuttle run of 40 yards and a vertical jump also. So we're proud of that yards and vertical jump also. So, I'm pretty proud of that. Thanks, guys. Wow. Do you have a player comp? Well, now's not the best time probably to talk about Northwestern Athletics. In fact, when you texted me, I thought that was what

this was going to be about. But, yep, LeBron is returning. So, I guess that's the main point. When it happened, I mean, I got his point of, and this isn't why I wanted to have you on, just so everybody's aware. when it happened, I mean, I got his point of, and this isn't why I wanted to have you on, so everybody's aware. Nobody really thought he was retiring.

I know that he has this idea in his head that if he kind of puts pressure with a decision on other people, that'll make ownership and front offices respond. I just don't think the Lakers would pretend to be like, eh, I don't know, let's mail it in this offseason. It's like, uh-oh, he might retire. But he was also at the end of another long season where he's been incredible in an age we've never seen before. If you go back to that night in the Game 4 loss against Denver,

I can't imagine anybody actually thought he was retiring, right? No, I took it more as he had just played 48 minutes. And I don't know many times in his career where he had played one of his best games like when he actually got to the arena and said all right like tonight my team is going to win tonight other than maybe those matchups against the warriors but in that case you know the talent level once kd got there uh was it was it an all-time difference so i think that it's it's tough to process that kind of thing for somebody like LeBron when you go in with a certain mindset

and the result doesn't come. And that initial reaction may have just been like, all right, well, if I'm going to do that and the team still loses, and in fact, they did get swept as tight as that series was, I think that was more what he was speaking to. And then, you know, the next day

and in the coming weeks, he mentioned the ESPYs that, you know, the next day and in the coming weeks, he mentioned the ESPYs that, you know, watching his sons play invigorated him. But I also think that he recognized that the Lakers were pretty good once they made the trade and the team that they have coming back

with the continuity, a couple of changes that they added as well. I think all of that stuff was always going to settle in. But the night that he said that, you know, that was to me more from what it was coming from, as opposed to him trying to make some kind of a message to the team. Because I think they've all been on the same page pretty much the last several years.

All right. So what do you think about the offseason? They did what I think they should have done and wanted to do, which was maintain that continuity. And I think from a numbers standpoint, you like what they were able to get guys out. I think that allows the continuity to potentially go moving forward. And they have a really solid, complete team. The one gap that I think is still there is kind of behind LeBron and AD in the front court. Because I think we have to think of LeBron more as a big in terms of what the, like defensively, in terms of what the roster is giving you, even though he's going to have the ball a lot, obviously, on offense. So if LeBron or AD misses

20 games, who's going to play that kind of spot behind them? Who's going to be able to plug and play to keep their regular season wins high? Because in a playoff series, we saw you can basically get by with LeBron and AD and, to an extent, Rui Hachimura playing some semblance of center defensively. That still is a position to me, though, now. And if you think about what the contracts are and what the salaries are, that they could go get at some point, kind of like last year, they made a couple of key trade deadline type of deals.

I think that that's the one position type player that could still really take them to that next level. But, you know, they should be very good. They should be very good just with what they have now and the continuity. And that was pretty important, I think, going into the offseason. Did anything change with Anthony Davis in the second half? I know the simple answer is yes.

But last year is the first time, despite defending him, loving his talent, would want him on a team. And last year, this past season, I finally had, after that Memphis game, I think it was at Memphis where he just kept falling down all the time. I was like, I don't know when he's going to get hurt again, but it feels like an inevitability. And yet he doesn't. He's terrific again.

We also know there's a contract part of this. I'm just wondering if anything changed just from a physical part of it, or maybe him just taking the knocks and playing through it toughened him up enough to avoid the injury that always seems to happen every other month. Yeah, so this season to me went more like his first season with the Lakers, except that he didn't miss as many regular season games that time where he played throughout that full bubble run and was pretty consistent. He shot the ball a little bit better from the perimeter, but his opportunities there changed this year as he was playing almost exclusively center on offense and he was around the rim more.

So I think that, yes, AD has missed many games in the regular season in the last couple of years, but his playoff performances going back to New Orleans, certainly starting with the Lakers in the bubble in this year, have been very consistent. He did have a couple of games, as we talked about last time I was on your pod, where you went to the pregame press conferences, and it was Taylor Jenkins and then Steve Kerr. And the first thing that they mentioned, without even asking, was about planning how to deal with Anthony Davis. And that's on offense. So we think about him as this all-world defender, which he is. I think right now he's probably the best defender in the world. But the defensive game plan was essentially to send two at him. First it was Jackson, then it was Draymond Green. Denver did it a little bit differently because Jokic more just takes up a ton of space. And they're kind of, hey, if you want to take those mid-range floating type shots that he hit in game one, go ahead. mid-range floating type shots that he hit in game one go ahead but his play um when he was on the floor i think is actually much more consistent than we give him credit for and i know that you

and i have talked about that before but like if you're if you're trying to win a playoff series to me um ad is going to go a lot higher in that draft than i think some might some might think if you're just listing off hey who are the top 10 guys that you want and i think some people wouldn't take him in their top 10 uh i I think that would be silly, especially after what we've seen in the actual playoff series that he's played in. Yeah, look, you don't have to sell me on who he is playoff wise, because, you know, Cal Hurts just decided from the jump, like he didn't like him. You know, I'm talking like going back, he had like this whole Kentucky theory that I think is proven that it wasn't really

accurate. And then he was like, isn't he just Rashid Wallace? And when he had made that statement to me at the time he had said it, I was like, the top three in PER and playoff history are Jordan, LeBron, and Anthony Davis. So you can say PER is flawed for bigger guys. It definitely heavily favors them and all that kind of stuff. But at some point, you have to look at that and go, okay, you've got to be kidding me. I know he'd resisted playing center all the time. It almost felt like the Lakers kept the center around to make him feel better as if he wasn't going to play center. And then when it mattered, it's like, hey, you're actually going to play center. But do you think that's what's led to his shooting woes? Because the best version of him still is the guy that scares you from perimeter

like i remember that nugget series in the bubble before just shots that made you have to defend him in a different way uh whereas now you know this has been a bit of a drought on some of the outside stuff where i just wonder if we're ever going to see him get back to that yeah see this is where i'll i'll zag i mean i from what said, I like him more closer to the hoop. Yes, you want to hit some jumpers, especially because you try to have a little bit better spacing with LeBron on the court, which he almost always is. And teams are always going to just pack the paint on LeBron.

Go ahead, shoot if you want. Take some threes. But AD against Denver averaged 27 on 50% from the field, and he only took one three-day game. I think he took like four in the whole series. Yeah, he was two for four in the whole series from three. So he can clearly shoot it, but he is so good around the hoop. And not only if he doesn't actually hit the shot, he's good on the offensive glass.

So I'm as versatile as he is. And I love that on the defensive end. I still like bigs closer to the hoop than not like take Jokic versus Embiid. Now Jokic made a ton of threes this postseason run and was tremendous, but he still did the majority of his damage inside. And that's what killed defenses. I would love Embiid to get closer to the hoop. I think overall and stop all of the face up from 20 feet and kind of settling

for the jump shots. But you know what that takes? That takes a ton of, of just like mental and physical toughness and a ton, because you're going to get pounded a lot doing that more. And I think that Jokic, this playoff run was just about all that contact every game. Like I didn't see him let up once basically for the whole playoff run.

Is he going to do that again next regular season? I don't know. Is he going to do that again next regular season? I don't know. Is he going to do that again next postseason? Probably. So for AD, it's like I actually admired that he was not going to just settle for that jumper as much, and he was going to go take some more hits and try to finish around the rim better. So it's a little bit of a zag against what's the traditional basketball that we grew up

watching and everything being done in the paint. Hey, big man, go score in the paint versus hey be more versatile now encourage the other team uh to to have to deal with you on the perimeter so that the lane opens up for other players i'm more thinking about anthony davis just like what's best for him and i like him a little closer to the hoop maybe than some people uh i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say you're wrong but you know in reference to memphis with what was left of their roster and then Golden State just by design, we're talking about two teams that had no chance. They just weren't going to have any chance to deal with him with the Memphis injuries. And again, Golden State having essentially one big to play and then trying to get by with the Draymond stuff there.

So against them, I'm completely in agreement. But I think the best version of him still was like, oh, damn, you still have to go all the way out there. I mean, a couple of years, what, 34% from three, 33% from three, 33% from three. And then in the last three years, it's 26, 19, and then 26 again. And he's basically stopped shooting. Yeah, sample size is super low. And so with that said he doesn't want to take them though that's the other

point so you can say it's a lower attempt but the lower attempt is a byproduct of him not having confidence in hitting the shot and so this is the so whether or not he wants to take them I guess it would be what I would say is up for debate because I think that he would be he would be fine taking some more jump

shots but the way that the offense was structured with him only playing the five, he's literally setting screens almost every possession for either Reeves or LeBron or Russell. And then, yes, he could pop out to three, but the offense still funnels better overall when he gives them the rim pressure. Because they're not necessarily going to get that from some other big, unless they're doing inverted screens with LeBronbron or with rui so it's probably somewhere

in the middle ryan like yes i think it would be good for the lakers if he hit some more jump shots i just don't want to me that's more of a mindset thing and if you if you get into that hey take more threes get into that mindset then i've seen ad settle more like as as the regular season will go on as a playoff series will go on, I liked that he was not settling as much and he was looking to attack. That basically required all three teams they played against to focus on him as that number one option on

offense. The reason I probably already spent too much time on this, so I appreciate you playing along with me on it, is that they have a decision to make. Again, to remind the audience that you're a Lakers employee, there's only so much you can tell us with this kind of answer, but whatever. I've always worried about him bulking up. I think you and I agree on that. I think he gets so sick of the guys on TNT, calling him soft all the time that he came back and was like, hey, I want to be huge.

And I really hope he goes the Duncan route and gets smaller so there's real longevity. For again, I love this guy as a player i always have and this year i was like i just don't know if i could do it again and yet he still almost got him out well i can't say almost out of the west because i just thought denver was that much better than them but it's going to be a weird conversation of like what the next version of this lakers looks like because it could look really different really quickly with the lebron part of it or maybe because the lebron part of it and whatever he decides to do means that it's like,

well, you're going to build it around somebody and David still ends up getting his money, even though that's obviously a long-term risk as he gets into his thirties. Yeah. So for AD, for me, like I,

I thought that just in terms of where he should rank amongst NBA players, when he's on the floor, I do think that that's higher. And we've, we've discussed it plenty at this point. I think the key for him next year is more the way that the Lakers are structured. They now have brought in

all of this skill. And so that happened at the trade deadline with Russell joining Reeves, who bumped up into the starting rotation and is playing a lot. I think everybody realizes now his skill level. And so if you've got those two guys on the perimeter, now bring Gabe Benson in, another guy that's got some skills, even if he can defend a little bit as well.

So a lot of the defense is all on Anthony Davis. And that's the thing that I was mentioning when we started here with, okay, is there going to be another guy that can come and just take some of that load? Because that's for the 82 games to me where my concern level would be, where you've got these two studs in LeBron and AD, but since you've got this other skill around them, as opposed to how, say, like the 1920 team,

the one in the bubble, was built, where it was a little bit more rugged and some more, like, you know, Caruso types, right? And, like, that to me is what they have to, is what's going to be the challenge in getting through the full regular season is because Anthony Davis can do a lot of that by himself. He can defend the rim, and he can defend defend the perimeter and he can shut down teams.

Again, he just did it. Other than Nikola Jokic, who that's a whole nother thing. You spent plenty of time on him. I've never seen anybody have that kind of effect, even on Anthony Davis, who defends him better than anybody else. And Jokic, it just wasn't enough. Jokic was too good. So take Jokic out.

AD can stop teams by himself. And what can they do to kind of help supplement that so that the load isn't so high that we're then also worried like, oh, wait, why did you only go seven for 18 today? You know, and why was it your three ball going down when you're doing everything? Because even Ryan, when you go play pickup basketball right now, I bet it's harder to hit shots

when you're actually trying on defense every possession. And that's something I always try to bring up to people. Like just, dude, do you play both ends? Even at your gym, like at your age, like it's not easy, even for NBA players. Shout out to Juan Toscano Anderson, who was at the gym the other day shooting around, and he didn't ask my brother to move from the bigger and he shot at a side hoop. Oh. I think that's like... He's a very nice guy.

I mean, that blew me away because when Mozgov's in there, he and I looked at each other and I was at the good end and he kind of looked at me and he was working with a kid and I've seen them in there a lot and he looked at me and I looked at him and I was like, I know you have work to end and he was kind of looked at me and he was working with a kid and I've seen them in there a lot. And he looked at me and I looked at him and I was like, I know you have work to do.

And he, in Moscow gave me like a very appreciative, like, okay, cool. I'm glad you get it. Juan Toscano comes in my, my little brother shooting at one end, the cool end. And I was like, oh, this will be funny. And Juan never said anything. And he just did his drill on the side while my brother just went bananas at the open side of it. So I would say just as... Right. There's a lot there. The other thing I loved about Mozgov is they put on straight up... I don't know what channel that music was from.

I didn't understand any of the words, but they had the out loud Bluetooth speaker going of just Eastern B block jams. Again, don't know what it was. I was asking Shazam, what song is this? And they were like, we don't know, dude. Well, you didn't answer the question about your defense, though. Like, how hard are you trying on defense these days?

I'm just curious. Depends on how mad I am. And usually about halfway through every game, I'm pretty mad at myself most of the time. Let's see here. I want to ask you about the collective of it, which you've already touched on here a bit.

Because there's a lot of excitement about, like, look how... And this front office and what they did mid season to reinvent themselves was incredible. But you know, a lot of the mystery is solved. It's like,

Hey, Anthony Davis is actually back playing again. So you can look at a record at this point, even to last year, I would go, wait, if you've got normal Anthony Davis for, you know,

65, 68 games, you're, you're just going to be a much better team. But I can't tell if, if it's a little too much or if it's just such an appreciation with the financial restraints that they were able to add this many pieces of guys

that feel like real rotation players. And that's, I think, the collective of what they've done is like, wait, every one of these guys would be a top eight dude on most teams. Yeah, I think that... So the biggest part for me is about Austin Reeves. And like a real playoff guy that you don't have to take out off the floor. And as you know, Ryan, like every series from the first round and second round of the conference finals, and especially the finals,

that number of guys that you can play dwindles. And to me, like having a guy that goes undrafted that you develop through a two-way, through summer league, preseason, the whole thing, like they did with Reeves, that's the biggest thing, I think, that turned them into a team that's contending versus a team that didn't have the right pieces around the two guys that clearly showed that they could. So that's number one. And they get credit for that, right? They drafted

or not drafted, but they sign him and they develop him. So that's the first thing. The Rui trade, to me, the way that he fit around LeBron and AD. So Rui Hachimura in Washington did have some moments, but they basically used him as like, hey, Rui, here's the ball, go score.

And that was it. There wasn't much around him. Sometimes Beal would be giving a little bit more energy and effort than others. But when Hachimura is out there with LeBron in AD and you have to put your third athlete on him, that's going to be a problem. Because Rui's huge. You see

him in person. He's not quite Mozgov level, where you see him at the gym. You're like, dude, this dude has to be a professional. But he's huge. he's about as big as LeBron so that's established there and then you know you get with the trade you get Russell coming over you get Vanderbilt coming over in the whole Utah trade

and you know Beasley is now gone he didn't have a great playoff run like those are two other actual NBA players that survived very well in the first round got a little bit tighter in the second for Vanderbilt, and especially in the third. D'Lo had some big moments against Golden State

and then against Denver, right? That was kind of the series where his impact with the way they played was not going to be felt as much unless he hit shots. So that's the order of it. A lot of those moves that were, like the Lakers certainly did those themselves, but that's the Reeves being a real third guy to me,

which some teams don't have a clear third guy, and to get them at what they're going to be getting him at for the next four years, that's the thing that I think gives them all this flexibility now, where what is that next piece where they could actually beat Denver, beat a team in Phoenix that I think is probably a little better than what the collective understands right now after what they did. What do they have to do to beat those type of teams in a playoff series?

And to me, they're close, but maybe just one kind of versatile big aside from being able to be in that combo. Give me your observation of Austin Reeves in the beginning where he may have thought he could play with everybody, but there's going to be a massaging of like, I'm that dude to now being that dude.

I mean, I think he's terrific. I really don't think there's that many holes in his game. I'm not quite sure what his ceiling is, if he's this good this soon. But I know he competes. I know he's tough. He can handle. He can shoot. He can make good decisions.

He can be trusted as a teammate. I think it was pretty clear. LeBron was looking around the roster being like, holy shit, I feel like I can trust this dude more than I can with some of the other guys with a much longer resume or a higher profile in this league. Give me your kind of overall character arc of Reeves as a Laker.

Yeah, so just starting at the end, you know, against Denver, 40 minutes a game. That's the first thing. The shooting was ridiculous, like 55% from the field, 56% from three, 100% from the free throw line.

He actually made every free throw of the series. He was 21 and five with just 1.8 turnovers. So like that, to do that at that level against a team that's that good, I think just built upon what he had already done.

But with Reeves, I got a little bit of a cheat code with him. So Jesse Buss, who is the director of scouting, assistant GM now for Palenka, has been around for a long time. Grew up, lived with his dad for a while, and was like, where do I help this team somehow? Oh, college? And he just got obsessed with the college game and built his way up, up, up, up.

And he's been responsible for a lot of the guys that they've hit on. The Kuzmas and the Josh Harts and the Jordan Clarksons, on and on. So when they signed Reeves as an undrafted guy, I'm like, I've never heard of him. What's he about? And he's like, dude, you're going to love this guy.

He was at Wichita State first, watched him there but then he went to oklahoma like he really enhanced his game he's great on the basketball but he can also play off the ball like he defends he scraps he's smart so i i kind of so once i got to summer league in las vegas i'm like hey can i sit down with austin reeves to our pr guy um and i i started asking him all these questions and you find out that he he won three state championships in Arkansas. He played against Malik Monk's team. Monk was the stud going to Kentucky. So I came in sort of with this, hey,

this guy could be a guy. But then, of course, you have to actually see him do something. And he plays in summer league and he was good, but he's one of those guys where if you put good players around him, it's going to leap exponentially because of the basketball IQ. So that's what happens in the preseason.

All of a sudden, he finds himself in a game next to LeBron and immediately pops. Like in LeBron, this is where we sometimes I think we go too far with the basketball computer. And like after the game, hey, LeBron, what'd you see on that play? Or what'd you see 10 years ago from this guy in the AAU game? But like it is there for a reason. He does recall things like this. And there was a moment in the

preseason where he just sort of, like Reeves made a cut off the ball and got it to him. LeBron got it to him for a backdoor layup. And every time that his playing time increased, the efficiency stayed the same or got better. And that to me is always a good sign in the NBA.

So that's, that was the start of it. Um, I, I felt like it was, uh, it was the big thing when everybody else noticed was when he, his playing time actually got up after West,

after Westbrook left, like, because he had had games, the regular season finale of the year before against Denver, where he had like a 30 point triple double. And you're like, ah, I don't know. Denver didn't need the game. You know, yes, it finale the year before against Denver, where he had like a 30 point triple-double, and you're like, eh, I don't know, Denver didn't need a game. You know, yes, it's nice, but

in hindsight, you think about that, oh wait, give this guy more usage and good things will happen. And Ryan, I think you might have said this a couple weeks ago on one of your pods, like, they probably could have given him more usage in the playoffs at times, and even had LeBron off the ball a little more

going into the year 21. So there's the long story about Austin, but the player has been there. The Lakers identified it. And you just have to kind of convince coaches, hey, play this undrafted dude over the guy that's either a first-round pick or a second-round pick or a vet that you signed to the mini-mid.

Like last year, it was Lonnie Walker. They sent Lonnie Walker to a mini-mid level. It's hard to start Austin Reeves over him from day one. It's hard to start him over Russell Westbrook, even though clearly, you know, maybe in hindsight for some, but he was better, obviously, than Russ last year, just period, as a player. But you have to take, like to have him go in two years

to get to this spot is still pretty quick relative to what most undrafted guys have to overcome just by not being a guy. I'm going to ask one quick Westbrook follow-up. I went to a couple games. I, over the year, had heard stuff. Seeing it in person where he was disconnected from, I would say specifically LeBron at other times. And then

when he's out of LA, Utah, then Clippers in Utah was just part of the trade world. Stories came out that he wasn't great around the team. I don't know that I was shocked, but then he goes to the Clippers and everybody kind of loves him. He has this playoff series against Phoenix where I think it was a good reminder of what he's capable of. I would also argue from just a basketball standpoint, once he's your only option, then he can be really good again because he's just that determined and still absurdly athletic at his age. What's fair about his tenure with the Lakers? Because it feels like very divided camps as if one can't believe the other is true. Yeah, I think it's easy to criticize, especially once the guy's not there. So I'm just going to keep it to the basketball. And the fit of him next to LeBron

and AD based on what his skill set is, is just not a great fit. Think about how the difference between even D'Angelo Russell and Russ and it's skill from Russell side shooting, right? The handling some, the passing and Russ is more of just a, of a hammer. Like he's got the fastball and it's only fastballs. There's no curves. There's no change up. Even if you tell him, Hey, this dude is waiting on your fastball. He's just, he's just going to swing at your fastball and he's going to hit it hard. I don't care. I'm still throwing my fastball. That's my best pitch. That's Russ. And for years, you know, that worked to a certain degree. I do think that that style has a lower ceiling in the postseason, though,

especially, and in just like a serious game, because teams are going to adjust to that and they're going to play it a certain way. Most recently, it's just by not guarding. And like that was what was partially impressive in that Clippers series against the Suns, like where it's just by not guarding. And that was what was partially impressive in that Clippers series against the Suns, where it's like, all right, fine. Then his defense all of a sudden was better.

I don't know that that happened as much when he was with the Lakers. So just bottom line, the basketball fit, I don't think was great as a compliment to LeBron and AD. And that to me is the biggest reason why it didn't work. D'Angelo Russell signs the extension. Quick question. Is he still renting?

You know, Ryan, as somebody that I want, I don't know if you know, or people say exactly where you live here. I heard you just said move. The great thing about buying real estate here is that it just goes up in value. So I don't know how,

what his long-term plan is, but I think the plan, especially if you have that. That's what they said in 07, by the way, but go ahead. Okay, sure. I mean, look, I did get lucky with the time that I purchased out here.

But you, I think that you, I think you definitely buy. And then regardless of what happens for the rest of the career, it's good investment. So that's what I would say. Okay, that was very strategic. I think we're on the same page. That's just a fact. That's good investment. So that's what I would say. Okay, that was very strategic. I think we're on the same page there.

That's just a fact. That's just a fact. That's what I believe. That's fine. But for him to sign the extension and then allow, I imagine part of the tax was like, we'll give you a number

that you were probably more so expecting. We'll give you the extension here, but like the trade restrictions because he's the piece. He is the outgoing piece. If there's any way, and I don't know if, if LeBron can pull that off, you know, is, is 80 going to be good enough?

Like he'll have to be healthy the first half of the season. Cause the rest of us from the outside, I know you can't even answer this, but we're all waiting to see, is there still that one more move that could make them like a legit threat to anybody else and coming out of the West. Because even though everybody loves the offseason and they had the great run in the playoffs, you could argue the games are close against Denver. Yeah, I guess in a way, but I just think Denver was better. And I don't think that's some brave statement after a four-game sweep.

And the fact that Jokic is at this level, they just don't have anybody that can match him. So the point of it all is that I feel like the West was really messy. I don't know what to make of it. So because the Lakers had a good offseason, that they're the number one contender. Denver, I think, is a bit of an overstatement. We still have to see how some of these other things

are going to play out. But Russell's contract, it has to be the one piece if there's even an option to feel like they can improve who that third guy is. So you can people can do this on their own. You can bring up the actual salary, like sport track or whatever the hoop types one. Like, I don't think it's the only salary, right? They've got a decent number of midsize contracts now that if you're just thinking like that that could be moved for a

potential type of a player but like they don't to me now they don't need to do like what phoenix did and and getting a third max type guy but if there is there a player out there um that that ideally complements again where i started this podcast with you another sort of big that you can you can save some minutes for LeBron and AD and take some of their load off, which is to me where the Denver series flipped some. Because like there, is there a third guy that can battle in that way against Jokic

and sort of that can really hit that team where it needs to be hit. But with Russell, like this is where now, I don't think this is even a zag. It's just like Russell was better for the Lakers last year than I think many expected. Regular season, he was plus 12 net rating. Now,

Russell also has his issues. No, go ahead, please. No, that was it. That's all I had to add to it. I watched him in the playoffs, and it was the least surprising thing ever. Okay, but you watched him in the Memphis clinching was the least surprising thing ever. You watched him in the Memphis clinching game, right? So what did he have? The Golden State game where he had 31.

When his shot's going down and he's in command, he still can be an impactful player even at that level. Is he on the level of the guys that we're talking about? No. And I think that the contract is requisite to that. But you need guys to help you get through those 82 games.

And then if it's not the great matchup for him, you can play Austin Reeves and Gabe Vincent. But I don't think that it's the... I don't think that it was as bad as we're sort of discussing it at this point with Russell. But yes, that's acknowledging that there were times that he just didn't play that well. He wasn't impacting the game as much defensively.

And I think that that's like you've laid that out fine. I'm not going to quibble with that. Yeah, look, when I don't like a player, but a player that's as skilled as Russell is, whether it's shooting, getting to his spots. I mean, some of the stuff when it's really good, it's really impressive. But when I don't like the overall package, it doesn't mean I'm predicting the guy's going to have four points in every single playoff game. Just there.

I know we almost have a new co-host on the pod, so I have one last question for you. Are the Lakers the second best team in the West? So I think that Phoenix has to be given a little bit of respect for what they could turn into. I think that Beal has another level that he's going to get to than what he showed in Washington the last couple years. I'm not saying

that he was coasting, but I think that he's going to take it up a notch. And when you have three offensive options as they do with Durant, Booker, and Beal, that's going to save some of their legs for defense. And Frank Vogel, I think, is really good at getting that night-to-night energy on the defensive end.

I like the minimum signings they made. I think Phoenix has to be in that mix. Once you get down to a playoff series, then that's where we'll see where LeBron's at next postseason in year 21. We'll see where his legs are at. AD, I'm not worried

about in that context as long as he's healthy. The Lakers have enough support players now to fit around them that I think they have to be in that mix above teams like Sacramento, who literally had the healthiest roster in NBA history last year. And I think that's why they were three. I think they could fall some. Golden State, we'll see. To me, they're probably a little bit of a tier below.

Memphis, the whole thing with jaw Marcus smart, but like there'll be up there, but that to me, the Lakers, I wouldn't put anybody above the Lakers other than Denver and potentially Phoenix. Hey man, enjoy the downtime before we gear up again for the season.

Thanks Mike. I was great to talk to you, man. Have a good one. You want details? Bye. I driverari 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 life advice the email is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com and don't forget

Friday feedback email fridayfeedbackrr at gmail.com as well we'll do kind of a stand alone with the guys and maybe bring it up at some point as some bonus thing we'll see how it goes we just have all the stuff that we feel like we could get to so I don't know if it means an extra episode or what

but we'll figure it out. Still cranking out the content here. We'll always talk about like, oh, I'm going to bounce here. I've already had to change like two different trips already. So I don't know that I'm going anywhere anytime soon here, which I know I'll regret when that first game kicks

off week one of the NFL. Well, you're going to Vegas. Am I? I don't know yet. Well, you're supposed to leave today. So, wait. I'm supposed to leave in two hours. Yeah. My backup pretty fucked up this week because of the doctors yesterday. So, sitting for long periods is not awesome. So, driving

to Vegas may not be in the cards. And I hate missing the whole thing because you have a big Legends event too on Friday night. But we'll see. We'll let you know Sunday. Sunday you'll know whether or not I made the move. I'm the worst. I am the worst. I cannot even imagine somebody

being married to me. Well, it's funny because I mean, obviously I'd have to adjust. I'd have to adjust if I were married, but there's no way anybody could ever pull this off. I'm sorry, Sridhar, I interrupted you. No, I was going to say you, you, you're like, Hey, I'm, I'm, you know, Alison, like our different scheduling people have been asking me like, all right, you know, Ron's going to take vacation. Do you know when? And I'm like, I was like, we'll probably know a week before if we're lucky. So, you know, just fingers crossed. And you ended up giving me like

two weeks notice. You're like, Hey, I'm going to go to, you know, you're, you're playing some European vacation. And I, I only told Kyle and Allison specifically because I just like, there's a definite chance that this is not going to happen. And then I think about a week later, you're like, cancel the plans. I'm going to be here. I'm going to do a big trip in August. And I was like, all right, all good.

This is why we didn't tell anybody exactly what's going down. So we like to, you know, I know you like to keep your schedule fluid and, you know, we'll be all right. We'll drop the Friday feedback thing for the first time, like when you're off. I think we'll just tape that

and we'll do it when you're off. That was smart, by the way, keeping that under wraps because the ad salespeople just go into a frenzy when you're off. I think we'll just tape that and we'll do it when you're off. That was smart, by the way, keeping that under wraps because the ad salespeople just go into a frenzy when you're like, you just gave me the big thing and we told everyone not to sell anything and they're like, ah, false alarm. So good on you, Cerruti. By the

way, feel free to tell me exactly what needs to be done or not done because I don't want to jam up anybody. Well, no, no, no. What needs to happen is you need to take your vacation when you want to, but hopefully it's not two days before, two days after telling us. That's all. I think I have it mapped out now.

Something got thrown at me the beginning of this month that I was not expecting. There's nothing I can do about it. It just means I'm working more. You're grinding. It's on that grind. Iron sharpens iron. If we did Friday feedback, we could do an hour straight on Coke guy. The number of emails that we got, people were like, can you let us know what his company is so we can short it?

I hope his new company fails. We had a doctor say 84% of cocaine users experience heightened paranoia. He doesn't use just once a month. People were mad that we were more stringent with the guy who decided he wanted to start smoking i just had higher hopes for the smoking marathon guy so just what are you doing um people were mad we even read it like okay but that's that's the group that's your problem yeah what what do you think we're doing here so yeah that guy was in the top three i'm trying to

think who was in the up in the annals of the most hated it was probably the guy who was like wondering if he should let his girlfriend go on a trip with her college friend and then like there was another guy in there who's probably the guy who started like three fights in 10 minutes at equinox but this guy's this guy's up there in the in the uh in the mount rushmore or whatever whatever big four there is. The recent one of the guy who was like, am I too hot for my girlfriend probably didn't go over super well either. We had another guy that was like, am I too hot? He was inspired by the previous am I too hot guy.

So then he fired up and he was such a dick in the email that I was like, not even reading this one. Which doesn't mean if you're a dick in the email, we're never going to read it. But that was, and we'd already kind of covered that lane. You know, maybe if it had come a few months later, we'd be like, all right, let's go back to it. Football season, try again. Yeah.

It feels like a week eight revisit maybe with that. What I would say about, well, Equinox guy certainly hates us the most of anyone that's ever emailed into the show. I love that. Which is rare. I feel like hedge fund guys, unfazed. Unfazed. He may write in in September about it at Airbnb.

Like, hey, you may remember me as the Coke hedge fund guy. Get in a place in Tahoe. So I think he'd be on phase. Okay, here we go. Ryan, I have a job that is no, no bio at all.

Uh, I have a job that's higher profile in my community. I serve as a senior member of the staff, sometimes coworkers and external friends or acquaintances ask questions about what our president or other senior staff are thinking about a circumstance or how decision was made. Frequently, this is confidential,

but based on the way the question is phrased, sometimes saying, I'm not going to answer that does, in fact, answer the question. Other times, there isn't much I can say about the line of questioning. All right, so the lower-level staffers are questioning higher-level staffers' decisions about the place they all work at. Welcome to the world. I mean, nothing was funnier than when a guy would come out from the PA editing room. They're like, dude, why are we running baseball again on Sunday nights? I was kind of

that guy at ESPN Radio. Because you're young and you just think you know everything. And that was me. And now I'm mid-30s and I feel like, wow, that was a weird phase. But everybody kind of goes through it. All dudes go through that phase. But it's just like, you're abrasive to your bosses and you're like, I could probably handle

that a little bit better than I did. You even talked to me a few times about it, Ryan. We had one guy at ESPN who I would just blatantly tell him I think he's wrong when we're talking about future planning for shows. And you're like, hey, maybe next time frame that a little bit better. Don't necessarily do that to your boss and i'm like yeah whatever i'll be fine so i get it i totally understand like it is what it's like a

part of being a young you know a young adult big ideas guy what could you do like this is a rudy just walking down the hallway and be like did you get did you guys get an email from eiger the sbs are on thursday what the the fuck is with this place? Yeah. Now, there was this Saruti thing where I was like, hey, I can talk to that manager that way. And just because I do doesn't mean that you can. Okay? And I was doing it because I was protecting Saruti.

The problem was this manager just was not very good with people. He just got to the point where the more he was around people, it was like, what the fuck is going on here? And so once you cross that threshold for me, I'm like, all right, I'm not going to... Sorry, dude. I gave you a chance. I'll be respectful. I'll show up to work. I'm not going to cause any problems, but I'm also not super interested in anything you're going to say anymore. All right. So back to the email. I developed some strategies in navigating this, but would like to get smoother at it. I was curious how you manage this professionally. In your line of work, you have sourced

or off-the-record information about players and situations. You can't go on the pod and ignore a huge story just because you happen to know some of the behind-the-scenes information that you can't share. How do you go about communicating around the information that you know to still be insightful without blowing a source? Our jobs are very different, but I think your thoughts on this will be helpful or at least interesting to hear. I don't know. I appreciate you saying that. I just don't think it's similar at all. I think it's very clear with Bill and I, because we do, we're lucky enough that we've talked to people over the

years that will... If I know it's something I can't share, I won't even hint at it. But if Bill were to say to me, hey, I wonder if they would do this, and I'd be like, I don't know if they would. That might be the way I do something with Bill. But that's not really even important. And I don't even know it's that relatable because we're just a couple of guys talking about a basketball podcast. This is people worrying about that every two weeks and the future of the company but human nature is that there's i've never been anywhere i've never been anywhere where the lowest level employee all the way up goes man the guys run this place are fucking awesome and everything they do is smart it's just not it's like it's you know it's the it's the origin of humans again that we were able to

gossip and believe gossip you know which is which is a really crazy way of like getting back into like history if you want to go all the way back and i'm kind of referencing some of the sapient stuff here again which i just love that book much, but it was our ability to gossip was a great strength of evolving because information would be spread accurate or inaccurate. But at our origin, the first communication,

people were basically just bullshitting, which set us apart from the other things that were running around. That's why people love Bravo shows, right? Shout out to our guy, Andy. Yeah. So I don't think there's a place of business that exists

where there aren't going to be people questioning the people at the top. And whether that's a jealousy thing or maybe your company is just poorly run. So you're in a spot. It's a really tough spot because I think I understand it without being... Although, look, ESPN was a very corporate world. It was a very, very corporate structured thing. It just happened that some of us were on the air. But you don't want to be the guy that's telling everybody the stuff that you're not supposed

to be telling. But to have the trust of the people that you manage, you want to feel like you can massage it a little bit. All right? So maybe it's not about sharing the information. It may be about telling them, almost back to the bill example of telling them when you think they're wrong, which again, is going to get old for them and then maybe they're going to turn on you. But get the point. If somebody's questioning some decision made at the highest levels, you could say like, okay, well, why do you think they did that? And then they go through and they're likely not

going to know and they're probably going to be wrong because they're uninformed. And it's just the way, like again, I did it. Like, who's this fucking guy? How's this guy in charge? A lot of it is being younger too, to the the points Rudy was making. We could do it all the time. I think when you get older, the cool part about working at a place is you just go like, I don't care about this.

I'm like, all right, they did something I don't like. Whatever. Like, if it doesn't have anything to do directly with me, I'm not going to worry about this. There may be a way of just maybe that's a simple exercise of being like, why do you think they made that decision? And you, instead of sharing information that is important, again, it's not stuff you're supposed to be sharing all the time. You could tell them why their assumptions are wrong in the nicest way possible instead of being like, you don't want to be doing that to all these people because

you can keep telling them they're wrong all the time. But it'd be a way of giving them perspective without having to feel like you're sharing information. Again, I'm reaching here a bit, but I do like doing that every now and then when I know somebody's blatantly wrong about something, when they're saying it to me, I'll be like, okay, why do you think that? And then they list off all the things and I'll be like, okay, but not none of that's not why that happened this is actually what happened over there there's probably a way to pull that off yeah you know as a former manager of the of the sporting goods department at modell's i think that's exactly right no that was 10 years ago i don't know uh what do you think no i mean we do i feel like we've been a lot of management talk on the pot recently but are you

technically a manager saruti i don't even know what your title is. Big time. Technically, I am a manager, yeah. Is he on the fast track? No, it's definitely not a natural position for me. But I do enjoy it. But I always say the people that I manage are good people. And they don't really question things that are going on, typically.

But I always see my role as a manager is, how can I help people that are underneath me? How can I make your life easier? What's going on typically. But I always see my role as a manager is how can I help people that are underneath me? How can I make your life easier? What's going on? I'm not sitting here saying I'm going to like, hey, we're going to do this in six months blah, blah, blah. It's like, hey, what's your day-to-day like? How can I make your job easier? How can I make the path easier?

And I just try to basically be a helpful person to them, not necessarily someone who's hovering over them like a helicopter manager. It's just a different style for me. I don't really know how I would handle it if Kyle, for example, was just like, why the fuck did Bill do this on the pod yesterday? I'd be like, I don't know, man. It just is

what it is. I'm not going to question these things. I'm probably not the right management person to ask, but it is what it is. Okay. I just remember even the earliest days of construction sites it's like why are they framing out the stairwell we haven't cut the holes you know and it's just on and on and on and then the gc shows up it's like we're doing it because of this and then everybody's like oh wait it's a general contractor actually has to map out and plan like every single step of this

thing and i selfishly was annoyed that two by fours were in the way. Like, oh, he covers the pressure treated, but he doesn't cover any of the finish. And you're just like, okay, which actually would be a mistake. But I feel like I've been around it everywhere. Where no matter what the, whatever the line, the hierarchy of the workplace is, is that, I don't know. It sounds like Cerruti's managing a great team. And you know what?

I doubt you'd be telling us on the podcast, but there's just one guy I kind of suck to deal with. Yeah, I'm going to avoid that. But no, I kind of feel like I do that. You're the A team, bro. Yeah, I mean, definitely. It's definitely the A team. But I would say I do,

I am guilty of doing this a little bit to my wife sometimes. And I think that's just part of being married. Kyle, maybe you'll learn this. Ryan, who knows? But there's little things like when you get annoyed, when you're around somebody so often, you get a little bit annoyed with just every little thing that they do. Even if I still love my wife, it's not like there's anything wrong. But it's just like you like to like...

There's like a playfulness of this where it's like, why are you doing this? Why did you do this in this order? Like, you just like to kind of like, it's a cat and mouse kind of game. So I can't be guilty of doing that more. I think at home that I am at work, but man, like mid-20s me was just like, I was just asking why we were doing everything.

Yeah. I mean, with my wife, I mean, I found out big dumb guy over here because like we'll be out someplace. I'll be like, what? Look at that guy. Look at this. Look at this asshole.

Look what he's doing. And it's like, oh, actually, he had a total reason for doing that. And you just could have kept your mouth shut. But, you know, making conversation here. So we're like, oh, that guy's about to cut up like seven people off. It's like, oh, no, actually, he was just getting in the left lane. It was just there's a bunch of shit, like even restaurants. Why are they doing that? And it's like, I see in real time that that was wrong. It's like, thank God I only said that to her. And I wasn't in a group of people. So, big dumb guy over here when it comes to

things that I think don't make sense. And a lot of times they do. No, that's a really good point. I mean, because the same thing applies whether it's workplace or something else. There's just something about, and actually back to the Bravo drop from Cerruti that I didn't quite get at the time, but the reason reality shows work is that we

like to watch people be wrong to feel better about ourselves. The same way when you're sitting down at lunch at an outdoor patio and you're watching somebody cross the street do something like Kyle's talking about and you're like, what's this fucking guy doing? No one ever says, hey, look how efficiently that guy's moving this thing to that thing.

Wow. Right? I always say, Ryan, I think one of the reasons that we get along is not because we like the same things because we dislike a lot of the same things and a lot of the same things piss us off so we will just text and be like you see this stupid thing that somebody tweeted the other day and we'll just like talk about it for 20 minutes that's i think that's like a human nature thing like people like to tell other people about how stupid somebody else is doing something so i guess i don't really have a great answer, though, for the email.

I don't really know what there is he could do to make this better. I would just say, just be a nice manager. Try to help them out. But I don't think there's really any way you're going to solve their problems. Yeah, definitely don't sell state secrets. Don't tell them things you shouldn't tell them. But that's just part of managing people is there's going to be people that are upset underneath you that think everything's dumb dumb and it just is what it is

you could tony soprano just be like everything will be revealed to you in good in due time or whoever said they won't they don't i'm doing a real yeah but it sounds like that won't really matter yeah it was right well you can't be here if you're the emailers you can't be the guy that then the important people that are sharing the information with you don't trust. So I think the reaction to this will be the perspective that you're at right now. If you're working for someone, you're going to be saying, wait, you can't just tell me you don't know. You can't just ask me questions and tell me why I'm wrong. Okay, well, that's how you see it. But if you're at the highest level level you can't have somebody that's in that meeting running through the cubicles sharing everything all the time so that he looks cooler to the people that

work for him because guess what then you're not going to be in that fucking meeting anymore and you're going to be sitting all there with all the uninformed people wondering why you don't know anything anymore and questioning the whole deal so yeah look, I think that has a lot to do with kind of how we see the world through our own perspectives and rarely try to put ourselves in the position of the other person. But I would not risk being invited back to that room if that matters. That was a Jackie Jr. quote, by the way, not a Tony Soprano. You don't want to be like Jackie Jr. Oh, yeah. I don't know. He had a good run girls yeah yeah i guess so okay uh this one is that will never be related to anything else wife wants to name son grant williams

how do i stop it player comp tyreek evans with love handles oh i thought he was going to be like kevin love handles but actual fat. No. Look, back fat, man. It happens. That Love Handles shit is hard. I caught a glimpse the other day in the mirror. I was like, what the fuck's going on there?

They're not Love Handles, but I did get a little. Just to be clear. I'm not fat. Utah cashmere guys back. My wife and I are expecting a son next month, and she's decided on a name, Grant Williams. I'm a big NBA fan, as are my family members and friends, so they will make the connection right away and tease me for eternity

because they all strongly dislike this player. I do as well. The question is is how do i break it to my wife that i don't like the name because it's the same as an annoying nba player does bill wish he could go back in time and rename ben simmons he's the cooler ben simmons now i don't know i think you could oh do I know that no I don't think so I think I remember he was kind of he was kind of hyped at the time back in the day it was like hey look at this this guy at LSU he's gonna be awesome I don't know I don't know if that I don't I think he's having fun with this Ben Simmons thing uh he's like saying like the one that does play sports you know that's what he's talking about his son is like I think he's been

having fun with it yeah they tweeted it the the original ben simmons tweeted it bill after the lottery because it was like we tried to make it happen it was like it was the best the bill simmons nba ben simmons relationship ever was that was the peak it was ever going to be where are you going to go from there really right yeah he goes to the sixers it is crazy crazy that child Ben Simmons has played in more games the last two years than adult Ben Simmons. Which is hard to do because one's in high school. And playing football. Right.

There's less games. There's way less games to play in. But I don't think he does regret it. I think Kyle nailed it. I think he loves being able to say the one that does play as just a rerun bit. And it's just a line in, out, move on. Maybe I said something.

We all get it. Everybody moves on. So to finish the email, we have other names that we both like, so there are contenders, but she seems set on this one. I'm going to tell you right now. This is what you're going to do.

You're going to find the video clip of him at the free throw line, lining up for two at Cleveland. And when he turns and says, I'm going to make both of them and then misses both, just have that on a loop. Have it be your screen savers on your personal computers at home. Get a gift, send it to her all the time. Right. Right. Maybe just keep showing her that over and over and over again maybe even clockwork orange stop like not saying you have to do the eyelid thing but just get it in her head we can't have our son named after this guy although he is one of the vice presidents of the players association so he's a fairly driven guy and i do think he's a better player for all the shit that you know he took towards the end of the boston thing but maybe play some interviews

for a show of the Jimmy Butler thing. Jimmy Butler stuff. Although the Jimmy Butler stuff actually didn't even bother me that much. Yeah, I was going to say, I think people like that in hindsight. Well, they didn't like it in the moment because then Butler closes out the game or whatever. But the Celtics problems were far bigger than Grant Williams getting into a Jimmy Butler.

So yeah, I think that should work. I would think that would work just the free throws alone. No, I would just say, well, like, so we didn't, we didn't share, my daughter's name is Marlo. We didn't share that with any family or friends. We also weren't like a hundred percent sure on it either. Like we still kind of wanted to leave it up, you know, if it was like a month out and we're like, oh wait, we actually really like this name. So we didn't really tell anybody. But if you and your wife are open about names with your family, you have to talk to your family members and have them ask about it. And then they need

to be like, oh, no, you can't name your son Grant Williams. They also need to be participants in this because they will understand. And the more people that deter her or express to her how bad this name is, the more she's going to get off of it. And you don't even have to do it, do anything in that situation. Yeah. I think that's what I was going to say. It's just be like, you know,

you could even, yeah, that's probably the right way to like, cause she, she might not like, like basketball enough to see how much he sucks too. You know what I mean? Like she might not even get it like everyone else.

And she'd be like, I don't know what he missed a couple of shots. I mean, it happens all the time. You could be like, be like, like hey remember that michael jordan commercial where everyone you know he was showing up at the airport and the restaurants and was like oh michael jordan you could just be like listen the guy's just too big of like too big of a a name to have a you know to make another one on purpose like you know let's not let's just not so i mean

you could do that too like she you know if she if she doesn't know enough about basketball to see how like annoying he is you know for his in-game antics she might just be like hey listen he's like you know everybody knows this guy i don't you know he's gonna be a name that people know for a while you don't have to be like it's because he's so famous but you could you could play that up a little bit it's like come on you know people aren't naming their kids michael jordan around here uh so like uh obviously it's not a Michael Jordan-Grant Williams correlation thing here, but you could just try it that way and be like, let's just not do it exactly that. Real quick, not to be like the dick husband guy,

but I think women do this too, so it's not a big deal. You should be able to nix a name. If you don't want Grant, you should be able to... My wife and I, I had another name in mind. She didn't like it. It was off the table what was it is what it is uh it was what was it sophie sophia actually sophia it was too trendy i think you should yeah you might you might not be able to pick you might not be able to pick the name but you should be able to veto right like she's like we're just talking about it's years off but her names are all like ridiculous like

she she wants like you know like three syllable names and stuff like that. I'm like, come on. I don't know. Like, you ever see like a name where we were talking through names and it's like, Oh no, I went to,

I went to a girl high school with that name and she sucked. Like that's, that's a normal thing. Like, I just think that's a normal thing that she should understand. So you should be able to a hundred percent veto names. Honey. I just needed to tell you,

um, my biological father was murdered by a guy named Grant that would end it what if you said okay I can go with Grant but it's Ulysses S. Grant oh that would be sick U.S. Grant that would be incredible

Ulysses Grant Williams I'm all in now that should be that's the answer now i like it i like by the way i like sophie as a name did your did your wife be like noah sophie and it was like no way uh no so i i had wanted i had for like 10 years i was like i, I just really like the name Sophia, Sophie, you know, for short. But it's just gotten really, really, really trendy. And she is right. Like every, like, I think it's like a top five name now, which, you know, if you like that sort of thing, that's fine. But we kind of wanted something a little bit unique.

So she was actually kind of right. But yeah, no, it's a great name. But, you know, it is what it is. Ulysses, Ulysses Grant, actually, fun fact, his nickname back in the day, Unconditional Surrender Grant He's one of the most underrated presidents of all time I'll say it right now

You ever watch that history channel, Don? Hey, look You don't have to tell me He drank a little bit too much, but you know, it's alright That was alleged. Honestly, that was alleged. I think what a lot of that was kind of some jealous guys.

No, he had. Then he cleaned up his act, though. No, once it hit his lips, he drank the tank. Okay. Yeah, but then he cleaned up his act. He got shit done, too. No, he wasn't like drunk all the time. He literally could not taste it.

Right. And if he did, he was just going to be missing for like three days. Yeah. So he dealt with massive depression. And at one point, it looked like he had no chance at being anything of consequence whatsoever. He had no chance at being anything of consequence whatsoever and instead was an incredible leader. Some people like a usage rate on him and will say, well, he had overwhelming numbers at every fucking turn

and it wasn't tactically. I think that's completely diminishing his understanding of the opponent. He was incredible at understanding the opponent and i also think uh at his core when you read back through people historically you know his decency ranking would be a lot higher than other people and then there's financial stuff at the end that's super fucked up but i think it was people taking advantage of his office that it was him deviously you know manipulating markets and stuff he just he was a really fucking bad judge of people that were close to him but yeah the the drunk thing because when i was first reading the book

some guy at the beach like saw me reading the book was like huge drunk that's all he said i was like wait man that's talking to me are you talking about the book? What the fuck? Set your stance. Fucking lay off the Wyoming thing. Christ. It was one time. He had some contemporaries that were kind of interested in getting that narrative out there as well, though. Yeah.

I mean, look, anybody of this level of significance, if Nat Geo wanted to put together a three-part special on the mistakes that grant has made yeah all right no problem like you can do it you can do it um but i would say you know after you've read about 15 of these dudes that mattered from a certain point in time yeah to you know i i don't know i don't know what my i'm so glad i got you to do this just by giving you that little tidbit on on us grant i was like i was like because it was just to go down

a history rabbit hole it reminded me of the guy at the beach so badly uh and but then as you said that it was alleged and i was like well let's let's pedal back on that one a bit um just because that was that was his problems He literally couldn't taste it. It wasn't that he was drunk all the time. It's that if he tasted it, he was... Party time. Yeah, it was going to be one speed for a couple days. But it's only like once a month.

He tries to space it out. All right. That's right. All right. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. And that is our show for the week. I don't quite know what's happening Sunday,

but I can promise you this. I'll have two next week. I'll have a Tuesday and a Thursday. And if there's no Dame trade, I won't do anything related to the topic. And that's a promise. That's a Ryan Russillo podcast. Promise.

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