The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Roommate Self-Scouting Reports, Unanswerable NBA Questions, and Mailbag Questions With Steve Ceruti | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Russillo evaluates himself as a roommate (1:45) before he is joined by his old producer Steve Ceruti to discuss having roommates, working in media, and some NBA topics contingent on the 2019-20 season being canceled (14:15). Finally, they answer some listener-submitted mailbag questions, including on navigating office politics, dating coworkers, internet dating, and more (1:00:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like sports the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected i think think going into it, hey, would you rather watch NBA players play video games against each other or watch NBA players, WNBA players play horse at their respective homes? I would have thought more people were going to like people watching people play horse, but it was unexpected that more people were like,

actually, I think I like the video game thing a little bit better. That's kind of how it played out. I'm not knocking horse. I think everybody in ridiculous circumstances is trying to figure out a way to put some stuff on TV. I'm not criticizing it, even though, yes, I don't think it was necessarily

something I would ever want to watch, but I applaud people for trying to be creative and come up with some kind of content right now. Shout out to those people. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. All right, here's what we got. So Rudy, back on the show. He has some career stuff that we want

to talk about a little bit. I do think the feedback has always been that you guys like when we do some of the inside ESPN stuff from time to time. I probably still do it a little too much, but I think everybody sort of likes it. We always get great feedback on it. So you know what? Just every now and then, we'll start telling some stories from all that kind of stuff. But we have a mailbag, which is chock full of good stuff. The average mailbag age may be 20. And I'm being a little sarcastic, but man, this show trends young. But that's what advertisers want. They want your young, bad decision money, except for State Farm. They're amazing. No, I'm just kidding around here. But I do want to talk a little bit about roommates because I have not had a roommate forever. So I'm going to do my own roommate

self-scattering report. I'm going to give you a breakdown of my roommates. I have not had really steady roommates since I had one roommate in 1998. Oh, I had another roommate in 1999 for like half a year as I was finishing up school. He was a great roommate, but I'll lock in on like the last time I had multiple roommates and it has been over 20 years. I haven't had a roommate in a really long time. I'm a no roommate guy. I'd rather be broke. Even when I couldn't really pay for anything, I still lived in a place by myself in Boston because it was just really the only way I was going to operate. And I knew I was watching a million games and there'd be weird schedule stuff.

I'd be in and out all the time. So roommate wasn't really going to work out. So I think in times like now when everybody is stuck inside together, for the most part, it'd be nice to go over the roommate stuff. So Rudy will do that maybe a little bit later with us, but I'm going to go ahead. Kyle, are you down with this? You have roommates, right? You must. Oh, yeah.

I've had roommates forever. I roommates forever many different ones are you a good roommate i've gotten much better i've gotten much better i'll tell you i had an apartment when i was 19 uh not even a college thing like i was out of college just you know that was bad and then college was really bad and you know i kind of worked my way up to right now which i'd say i'm i'm pretty good i'm pretty good now what are your strengths what are your strengths as a roommate i'm not really phased i'm a heavy sleeper i'm that you're never gonna get that uh volume text from me i'll just ride it out even if it does bother me a little bit i'd be like you know i really don't want this flipped around the other way golden rule sort of thing so i you know i'm not i'm never like dude can you please turn your tv down it's just i

i'd rather not not do that also i guess if the cleanliness ebbs and flows if the other dudes like really not caring i'll be like all right well i'm gonna i'm gonna ride this for a little while until we both start to care again and it's tricky man i've never actually lived alone so yeah some people just aren't built for it. Some people really want roommates. When I moved out here to Manhattan Beach, a couple of guys were like, hey, do you want a roommate? And I'm like, why?

So I can pay for a nice place so you can live with me? Like, no way. Like, I don't want a roommate. Are you kidding? Like, no way. That's not happening. We used to make jokes.

Like, a bunch of guys that we went to school with stayed together in a house until their early 30s. And guys made fun of them. These guys all have good jobs, and they still have roommates over 30. What the hell's wrong with them? I'm thinking, can I move in? Let idea that it still existed from one circle of friends. I'm going to go ahead and shock you guys. I wasn't a great roommate early on. I think I'm a very loyal, caring friend. I'm somebody who you can... I got your back. If I like you, I've got your back. I've always felt that way. But I definitely was not... It wasn't just being immature, okay? Because that part of it was true i just wasn't real house broken you know i was the oldest of five and my father was a real whatever guy like with

with growing up you know if if we were making peanut butter sandwiches we'd have a knife he'd stick his finger in the peanut butter and then make a sandwich and hand it to you and you're just like you know back to back to whatever you were doing um i actually think he kind of got off on that a little bit and so i i just didn't like understand certain things i wasn't a mess i wasn't always dirty i wasn't clean i wasn't gross but i just i don't know there were little like things that i just didn't quite understand uh that i wish i had had like an older brother or just somebody to go, Hey, this is kind of how you do this stuff. Like you need to understand

these things. Cause it was the first time I'd ever really been away from home and living in the dorms is a little different than kind of get an apartment with everybody. But the first time I'd ever had an apartment with anybody was, was when I was 21 years old. So I was loud. I never went to class ever. I don't even know if that makes me a good or bad roommate i could have my whole bags packed up and ready to go and um i would the second i would hear like the first little buzzer of sega hockey going off i'd be like oh are you guys are you guys gonna play like yeah like what are you doing i'm play? Like, yeah. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, I don't know. There's environmental law class. Like, I'll probably get

a C. I'll be fine. Didn't. And I would just sit there and play. So I don't think that makes me a bad roommate. Money was always an issue. Real peaks and valleys that last year where I was in school where sometimes I'd be flush with cash. Other times I would not be. And so if you handed me a bill to handle, there was a really good chance. It wasn't like I was stealing from my roommates. I just wasn't going to send the check in on time because it didn't bother me. People that were, hey, the first of every month, write out all of your checks. Let's all sit down and hammer out these bills and be like, why would we do that? X-Files is on. That's what I mean by immaturity. It wasn't just I didn't know how to do things. I just didn't even's that's what I mean by immaturity it wasn't just I didn't know how to

do things I just didn't even understand why they were important um one of my real bad traits like everybody liked that I had music and was loud when it was fun but when other people didn't want me to be loud but you could say hey can you not be loud and I'd be like all right yeah no problem like I wasn't a jerk about the whole situation uh I think one of the things I did that really sucked now is I would leave wet clothes in the washing machine. Now I do it all the time still, but it's just my place and it's my washing machine. What I didn't understand is, well, wait a minute.

If my wet clothes are in the washing machine and there's nothing else in the dryer, why can't you just throw my stuff in the dryer and then throw your stuff in and there was a real kind of mason dixon line of beliefs in our in our house on that one where the guys from mass were like yeah just take my wet clothes throw them in the dryer hit start and then you're good to go and like let me know it's like no i'm not going to put your clothes in the dryer i'm going to take your stuff out leave it out wet let it get moldy and stink and then you're going to have to wash your clothes in the dryer. I'm going to take your stuff out, leave it out wet, let it get moldy

and stink. And then you're going to have to wash your clothes again. And your towels are probably ruined because you don't wash them enough anyway. So that's something I did. And I think there could have been a little bit of help. And now I can understand why people were so annoyed. But if I run through my full scattering report on me late with the bills, don't put me in charge of a bill because it's going to be even worse um loud but friendly and loyal not clean but not gross and just down to hang if guys are hanging i miss hanging with dudes so much it's pathetic that I'm this age. But when I get together with like a couple buddies, I'm like, oh, that's right. Like people hang out with each other and it's so much fun. And I forgot how much fun, like it could be the slightest thing. It could have been the

slightest thing. And if three of my friends were on the couch being like, yeah, we're going to sit here on the couch and talk about last night, I'd be like, day off. I'm going to take the rest of the day off. Totally in. Can't wait to just sit here and talk about stuff. And that was my deal. All right, so I had one roommate who was scared to death to order anything on the phone. Okay?

And this is still like we had internet in the house and we had a guy that had internet and it's still, we just, in the house and we had a guy that had internet and it's still we just i remember one night being on a message board where one of my roommates got real deep and weird on a message board but for the most part um it was it was not like people didn't have laptops out we none of us had cell phones so it's all pre that and this this one guy just couldn't order food. He'd be like, hey, do you want a pizza?

I'd be like, yeah, you know what? Let's get a pizza tonight for dinner. We'll split it. Okay, cool. Here, you call. And then I would do like, well, maybe I don't want pizza now. No, you just said you wanted pizza. It was insane.

Everything else about him was, I'm not going to say everything else about him was normal, but he just, if he wanted food, he would try to get somebody else to want to go in on, hey, do you want to go on a two dozen wings and split them? Do you want to get subs from wherever? Do you want to split a pizza tonight? Okay, fine.

Let's all figure this out. And he immediately, as soon as you said yes, he would hand you the phone. He would hand you the phone to be like, you order it. That's insane. Okay, I had another roommate, Chris, who I'm still very close with now, who was a big time sleeper would stay up. No question, four or five in the morning. And it wasn't like he was drinking. He just would be up three, four, maybe, um, never before two ever. And if he did go to class, he'd get up and go and deal. Cause he actually really tightened his ship up there because he wanted to run his own business, which he ended up doing. So he, towards the end, really was

impressed with him with his dedication. But a lot of it was just trying to make up for all the time that he'd missed for screwing around his entire senior year. But he would sleep in like no one I've ever seen in my entire life. When he decided he was going to sleep in, he might miss a day. That's the kind of sleeping in we're talking talking about to the point where it's still one of our favorite stories right around five o'clock eastern was about the power hour guys would get their dinners kind of out maybe a pre-dinner thing who knows we'd all sit around and watch reruns of seinfeld and there was one time i think seinfeld maybe back-to-back episodes back then and i for whatever reason it feels like it was the 5.30 episode. Maybe we're exaggerating for 30 minutes just for effect.

But he came out, hair disheveled, boxers, scratching himself, shirt off. And he walks into the living room. He's like, hey, you guys, serious? I'm trying to sleep. And we're like, dude, it's almost tomorrow. Are you kidding us? Like, keep it down. Do you have any idea what time it is right now?

And then he went back to bed. He was pissed. Then he woke back up at like seven that night and then apologized. He's like, that was pretty weird, huh? He's like, it was pretty late. One buddy we're still close with, narcoleptic, fell asleep all the time. People cover him in a blanket, take pictures of of him kind of mean now looking back on it um another roommate who was just easy to get along with everybody there's no real negatives with him at all he wants to come on

the podcast it's still probably not going to happen and then the last roommate his power move was he would if he wanted to get up and use the bathroom he'd put the remote control to the TV in his pocket so that when he came back he'd still be in control of the remote control that's nasty it took us a while we were like hey change this up

who's got it I don't know I think he pulled it off for like a month or so and then finally like one day he sat back down we're like wait a minute you get up and you take the remote and stick it in your pocket when you go to the bathroom and we're just at the mercy of you because you don't want to give up the remote when you come back and he was like yeah pretty much he's like wow sinister all right let's talk to saruti but first we're all stuck inside right now trying to keep calm and carry on while figuring out ways to stay healthy and connected.

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That's right. A little Glastonbury time for me. Shout out to Sayulita, which are they doing it to go or what? Oh yeah. So they've got, we've done it several times. They've got your fajitas, but the best thing is they've got the to-go margaritas now with, with tequila or without tequila. So they'll give you a mason jar. I think they make like eight or so. You bring your own tequila in there. It's been a lifesaver through this whole thing. So they got you hooked up. That's good. Because they were so high-end Mexican food that they wouldn't even do takeout. They did it for me once. And they were kind of like, it was almost a scolding of, just so you know, we don't really do this. I was like, oh. Did you drop a, do you know who I am? do this i was like oh did you drop a do you know

who i am no they did know who i was they were like that's the guy that comes here and reads and highlights articles by himself in a booth and eats like 60 for the food and it's always sitting him by himself um all right well cool that's good to know because it still is the craziest thing in the world that the best mexican food i've ever had in my life is in glastonbury connecticut right sorry it's it's true and people are going to scream from Los Angeles and say, oh my God, you're an idiot, whatever. I'm like, all right, fine, whatever. You go to Glastonbury, get back to me. Okay. So I went through my self-scattering report as a roommate and then broke down some of my roommates. I haven't, you're now a roommate for life. That's what being married is. Yeah. Yeah. So my guess is you were a

good roommate. I'm a great roommate. I mean, I don't think that's surprising to anyone. I'm clean. Uh, I'm not loud. I, I feel like I'm respectful of other people's space. I'm a big video game guy. So it's not like I'm walking around making a ton of noise. Like I'm kind of to myself a lot. Uh, that doesn't, that doesn't annoy my current roommate, which is my wife. She's not super pumped about all that, but like, I don't think you could, if we're talking, I remember small when you used to always say that she was like the wedding date, like the perfect wedding date. Right. I would argue that I am the perfect roommate. Now I don't know if like I'm 31, I don't want roommates again, but if I had to,

I feel like I would be the perfect roommate. Like there is really is no flaw in my roommate. Whoa. So you're, you think you're kind of like a LeBron James. Like you can't, what are the downsides? You car, right? Maybe arrogance is the only negative. Yeah. Leadership could be a problem. If we're talking about like camaraderie within the things, I'm a little bit of a loner. I don't know if I'm a natural born leader, but I will say like the negatives, like the talent is there. Like I'm going to sit here and I'm going to, I'm a good cook. If you need to, I'm not going to a good cook. I'm not going to eat your food. I'm not going to drink your drinks.

I'm very respectful. Like I said, I'll do my laundry on time. I don't leave food in the sink, which is my biggest pet peeve. So I don't know. Like, you know me. I'm not a super confrontational guy. Like I don't, you know, I don't let things get to be super. Like I've had a couple of roommates and I got to share two stories with you that are

unbelievable, just horrific roommate situation. But me personally, you're right. Great don't I think saying the LeBron James of roommates is not out of the question so you don't have any negatives come on I mean you know me like what would be my negative like I don't I seriously I there isn't I can't think of one off the top of my head um If there were a confrontation, because there's always confrontations and you're not confrontational, would you be confrontational in your non-confrontational way? Would you say, hey, Doug, I disagree. I don't want to debate it anymore. Where instead of a house meeting, you would just be like, I don't want to have house meetings.

I have one. I am a little bit of a control freak. So if there is like, if we're picking out colors of walls or like what music we're playing at night or something, whatever, like I am a control freak in that way, but I feel like I'm always, I'm always right. So like, it's not like I'm down for what I'm trying to, I'm a crowd pleaser. Like I'm not sitting here trying to like take ownership and be this guy who's an all about me type guy. I am, I am about the team. We're talking about a roommate situation, but I do like to have control of the situation. So maybe that is why my one downfall is that I'm not good at like, you know, letting other people have their say in things. Wait a minute. So you just said, you just said, I'm always right. So if it's late night and you throw on Bon Iver, that's always the right call.

Yeah, but it wouldn't be super loud. That's the thing. So you're respectful of neighbors, even at a young age? Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Never been a loud music guy. Never been that guy who's making a bunch of noise you got to call the cops on. If anything, I think people would say I'm a little bit too myself too much. Maybe, you know what, it doesn't play nice with others type of situation. It's more of just a a is only likes to be by himself in his room potentially playing fifa or listening to music that might be my one down so not he's not there yeah a lot of isolation plays but you're saying they're still efficient you're like look my iso right definitely very efficient definitely very efficient I will say there is no, there would be no like J.R. Smith situation

in the 20, what, 17 finals where I'm forgetting time, situation, score, or whatever. Like I'm always, I know what the deal is. I know when trash day is. I know when we're supposed to feed the dogs. Like I'm all on top of all of that stuff. Bills as well. So you don't have to worry about that

would be whatsoever. Bills also, you're on top of bills. So you have a day that you set aside and go hey today's bill day well the thing is now with my roommate situation being my wife she typically takes care takes care of all that but beforehand yes i was on top of all that stuff very much like the team leader of the bill situation in the house this is all true i know the only thing right i mean the only thing i'm thinking could be a negative is that you're a liar because it's so good but i know you're not a liar i know you're not a liar okay all right there you go uh roommate scouting report from suri on that one okay let's talk about what

what is yours real quick because i feel like you loud loud yeah i mean the dj equipment now would be a little aggressive but i don't know how much you even whip out the DJ equipment anymore. I don't know. No, but I had dual CD pitch control JBL monitors, and I had it in a bedroom. But see, the thing is that Burlington used to do these things where they would pass, as I explained somewhat earlier, they would pass these 24-7 noise violations, and they did it this summer before we came back for a senior year. And they do that when the kids aren't there to vote. Not that a bunch of us were going to get out and vote, rock the vote, uh, local elections and ordinances. So it was always this weird tag because it's this beautiful town, but it's still more locals than it is college students. But basically half of the downtown is, is empty

during the summer. Although some kids would stay and live during the summer then they pass these things so we came back up i remember i just put rage against the machine on when i was taking a shower in the middle of the day and it was incredibly loud and somebody called and um i came downstairs in a towel to a cop giving me a hundred dollar fine female hey i like bulls on parade too but you got to tone it down a little bit she was kind of laughing at me and i was like look you know i don't know what i don't know what to tell you you know one time i got in trouble because i went guys this happened to me twice showering i was showering in the dorms and one of the other guys um that was just in the mix came into my room and turned everything all the way up and then left

like thought it was funny and then i came back and there was cops outside of my dorm room and i'm in a towel again i didn't even realize the correlation there twice in a towel interesting and they were like yeah big shower guys can't stay loud but clean as hell and they they uh they're like what are you doing and i go what, what do you mean, what am I doing? I'm like, I wasn't even in there. They're like, you put it on and you left. I go, no, why would I? I was like, why would I do that? And obviously, you know, the time when I was older

and I had a house when I was running out with all the guys that I ran through, that one made sense. But no, like another guy. And then I got in trouble for that. He's like, hey, sorry. I was like, so you just went in my room and like cranked it up in the dorms and left?

I'm like, you weren't even in there. That brings up a great question, though. Would you rather have a roommate who is loud and dirty or clean or no so yeah i know what you're trying to do here yeah loud and clean clean or dirty and quiet wow that's first take may have a new b block embrace debate dude yeah uh i i'm look i'm gonna i'm gonna go i wasn't either though i mean i wasn't like aggressively sloppy i just i was in the mindset of not caring kind of kind of clean now i'm a freak like i don't like anything anywhere like people come to my places now and they go, there's no pictures, there's nothing up. And I go, I want Japanese minimalist. Minimal, exactly.

Yeah, I don't want anything. I would probably go clean and loud. I would be less pissed off if you were loud than if you just left dishes and dirty laundry and shit and have eaten sandwiches around. I also think loud is more fixable. You'd be like, hey, can you turn it down? if a guy's dirty it just means that he grew up in a situation where he's like the youngest sibling or he's such a mama's boy like you can see you can see patterns of how

like screwed up a kid is with the way like rules were applied or not applied like that's the real learning experience in college. I mean, obviously the degree helps you get a job and all that stuff. But when you start to go, oh, wow. So basically everyone picked up after you, your entire life, and then you were 20. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I learned in college that like, I learned what self-awareness was and how important of a quality that was for some people and how some people just had no idea what that even was or had no idea what they were doing to other people. And to me, that is the most important quality in a person is self-awareness these days. And I did, you're right. If I learned anything in college, this is how important

self-awareness is. There you go. Okay. So let's talk about your career because people know Cerruti is a longtime producer, was on the show for a while, went to Mike. Mike came back, was straight up the main producer for the show, and then was also the main producer for the will cain show left to be on air and here we are yeah so uh i was at what was that asbn for eight almost nine years as you said and i i loved it i didn't i didn't want to leave because i didn't like it there it was great there i but i always say i was fortunate enough to work with people like you and like will and I'm, you know, Scott and other guys who were super dedicated and helped me out and taught me a bunch of stuff. So it wasn't a situation where I was like, I couldn't, you know, I want to get out of here. It was a really tough decision

for me. And, uh, it was sort of presented to me to be one of the sort of lead hosts of a new MBA sort of podcast show, the intercom was thrown together. It was like a digital type show, something that they were trying, something that was new. And we did it. I did it with Brian Scalabrini. I did it with Kendrick Perkins. I did it with Ryan McDonough, the former Suns GM, Karam Butler was involved, a bunch of people. It was a lot of fun. And I felt like it was something that I couldn't turn down, something that I had to do. And you know me, Ryan,

like I know there are a lot of people behind the scenes, producer, people who think that they should be on air, think that they are just like basically waiting their time until their future talent. I don't, I never really thought that way. I never really looked at it as I can't wait for my opportunity for my moment, right, to do something, right, to get out of here and be the star. I kind of always liked my role. And I was always appreciative of you and Will for sort of letting me have that sort of on-air thing that sort of evolved as the years went by of me being a producer. So I left, which was a really hard decision. I left Will's show, what was it, in the last summer to do this new show, to do this new show, Scallop House, the NBA show. And unfortunately, it didn't work out.

I'm here. Intercom ended up having some struggles and laid off a bunch of people and I was one of them. And, you know, it sucks. It sucks for a number of different reasons. It sucks because obviously here we are in the middle of a pandemic and I'm sitting here going shit, like what the hell am I going to do? So that sucks. I didn't get to reach because, you know, it was basically supposed to be a year project and we were supposed to go through the entire NBA season. Unfortunately, without NBA basketball and the future of what that is, they had no idea when they were going to, you know, going to come back. So they kind of had to just pull the plug on it. You know, everybody's losing sponsors. It feels money is a big issue for pretty much everybody. So they had to pull the plug on it. So it sucks. I'm obviously really I'm obviously sad about it. It's obviously a pretty big bummer. But I look at on sort of the bright side of this I got to I got to hang out with Kendrick Perkins I got to hang out with Brian Scalabrini I got to hang out with um with Brian McDonough like guys that like legitimately know hoops and talk hoops with them every single day and for you I mean Ryan you and I know I mean you're like my main guy to talk hoops with so it was definitely stepping

way out of my comfort zone and so it sucks that it didn't work out and it sucks that I didn't get to see it necessarily through. And obviously, I know people during the time we're going through way worse situations than I am. So I have some perspective on that. Yeah, no, but nobody wants to lose their job. Yeah, exactly. But I'll end by saying this, I, you know, as much as I would have liked to have seen it through and have it succeed, I'm still happy I got to do it. I'm still happy, like with your guidance of sort of trying to help me navigate my career and different paths I'm still happy I got to do it. I'm still happy like with your guidance of sort of trying to help me and navigate my you know Career and different paths i'm going through so it sucks that it didn't work out. I'm here I'm now officially a free agent. So i'm not one of those people too ryan, you know me i'm not like a oh

You know everything happens for a reason like I think bad things happen and shitty things happen That's just life and you just kind of deal with it But I am excited to see whatever's next, you know Whenever we kind of as a society get through this whole thing i'm pumped to uh to try something new and do something else So, um, i'm doing all right, you know, whenever we kind of as a society get through this whole thing, I'm pumped to, uh, to try something new and do something else. So, um, I'm doing all right. You know, I'm sitting here, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, hanging out a lot more free time at home. Not sure that my wife's pumped about that, but, uh, I'll be all right. And it's, uh, it's something that I don't regret. And then I'm happy that I got. Yeah. You had to take the opportunity when we were talking about it. It's like, look, go see if you like it. And I don't know now you just want

to be on air. If you want to do some some hybrid thing kind of like what you're doing before um you know what i would think is is interesting because back you know when i if i lost an on-air job and really the only one i've ever lost is is when we were laid off back in sporting news and they just got rid of the entire lineup i mean they ended up just selling out time to like religious radio whatever so like the station was over. Um, but the way they did it was so dirty because of, they gave me like a fake contract extension where I turned on other stuff. I've been over this before,

but, um, you know, that was it. You just didn't know. And now when I see people lose jobs and I'll just keep it to sports media, like the move is you go right to Twitter and let everybody know. And that's really probably what you should be doing. So I'm not criticizing it. And I'm thinking like, look, if I lost a job and

I'd have this vehicle, but I, I guess it might be a generational thing where there's still part of me. That's like, all right, look, you buy all like, you got to figure out, get the word out there, let people know this is a way of networking. So there's far more, I would say it's like 80%, 90% positive, but I'd admit there's probably a 10% part of me that goes, I wonder if I lost my job, if the first thing I would do would be to tweet to everybody, Hey, I lost my job, but I can't really tell the person that they shouldn't do it. It's probably the thing you should do. And you didn't do it. No. And I, I sort of struggled with how I should say this because, you know, obviously when I got the thing, it was like, Oh, I'm going to go over to Twitter and tell everybody. Cause

I want everybody to subscribe and listen. And I want everybody to be pumped for me. So shouldn't I also with the highs also sort of acknowledge the lows of right. Like, all right, it didn't work out. I should be transparent about that. So I did sort of struggle with that. But at the end of the day, I'm just like uncomfortable with, I was, I was, I guess I'm uncomfortable with like the sympathy that comes with it. And not, and not that I don't appreciate it, I'm just like uncomfortable with, I was, I was, I guess I'm uncomfortable with like the sympathy that comes with it. And not, and not that I don't appreciate it, but it's like, I don't want to be like this pity party thing of everybody being, and listen, if you, if you lost your job and you went on Twitter and you said that I'm, I'm not like judging you or mad at you.

It's just not, no, it's honestly. Yeah. Right. I do think it's a person because it's really the right move. Like if you're sitting there, you're like, I need people to know that I'm available and I'm trying to get another job. You kind of have to do it. So I'm not knocking it,

but I just, I hope people listening to this can understand that. Yeah. There's a small sliver of, cause I would probably kind of be the same way. Like I have this really good news and I haven't tweeted about any of it. And I know once it gets out, it's going to be like a love fest for,

you know, a few hours and look who, who we can lie into. Like, it feels kind of good. You're like, this is awesome. But I also think there's part of it too. Like, you know a few hours and look who who are we lying to like it feels kind of good you're like this is awesome but i also think there's part of it too like you know whenever i see like the sports media thing and it's and it goes oh you know this is like this job is hard the numbers are bad there's all these people graduating with journalism degrees with all

these amazing schools and the fact that you can just launch anything on your own now and then kind of be a credited person which i think does sort of change the, you know, if it took you 10 years to really make any kind of mark, then you'd look at it differently. And now if it takes a month to be on the air and have some sort of recognition with a few followers on Twitter, then I don't know that you look at the career the same way. But I guess the point that I'm making is that when somebody goes, oh, you know, this is the point that I'm making is that when somebody goes, oh, this is the worst, I can't believe it. It sucks to lose your job, but it's also the numbers are really bad. I would never tell anybody to not chase their dreams, but the math

on it doesn't work out for the amount of available jobs. And that's not even taking into account what's going on right now. Well, I think it's funny. The people that I, and I graduated college in what, 2010? The people that I graduated with that were in communications, like shout out QU 2010. I would say more than 50% of the communication school didn't go into anything that they studied, right? Because it's just, you're right. The numbers don't really add up. And I think to your point about any sort of person can start up their own thing and, you know, have their own podcast or their own YouTube channel. That is true. But I think in a lot of it in sports, I think you still do need like the backing. I mean, it's not, there are outliers. Like you can certainly make something on your own and make

something of your own. I've got a lot of ideas that I want to throw forward and, you know, some of those, you know, come to fruition, but I think you, it is, it is still helpful to have the backing. And I learned this through this experience. It is still helpful to have the backing of a company like say the ringer or say ESPN or whoever, one of these ones that's pumping people out and giving you publicity, because I think a lot of times you think, Hey, yeah, like people like me, like, I think I do a good job. I can go out and do my own thing. But I remember when you, when you left, I'm trying to think, when you left ESPN, there were still people that didn't even know you left. They didn't even know you had a podcast, right? That are still like big fans of yours, but they maybe don't have Twitter. It's amazing to me that you think

everyone is in your own bubble and that everyone's following you no matter where you go. And that's not always the case. Sometimes you need the publicity of some major company that ends up helping you out. So that's always been sort of my thing. And I think I learned that a little bit through this process as well. Yeah. Very few people can just go, okay, I'm going to start this thing up. I'm going to buy my own deal. Like I thought about doing it and I went over all the numbers. I looked at the whole thing, but to pursue the stuff that I wanted to do outside, like I looked at it as a small business. Like if you're going to do your own advertising, hire your own people, do your own thing, and this is the only thing you're doing, then you've got to really set a five-year mark here of, okay, now it might be something that I can sell.

Maybe you should have done it, but I had different offers to do something where I was going to be the headline thing and then farm out five other podcasts. But I have other stuff i want to do i have other stuff i go this is this is an opening up a business here and um you know lucky enough to be with bill where i know that i benefit from being hooked to that it's rare the guy that could just say i'm starting this on my own on this thing like you can be hooked up with one of these podcast companies but there's still there may not be the site like and it's crazy because i'll still get instagram dms whenever i look at them because usually they're pretty pointless but imagine a guy that is savvy enough to instagram dm me to even pull that off.

And then his question is, I miss you on the radio. What have you been up to? I'm always dumbfounded by that. And there were so many people in following the Twitter feed of the show when you were at ESPN or whatever, who would tweet at me or something and have no idea what you were doing, despite the fact that you had been doing something new in a very public form for many many months like it's i it's it's always amazing i don't know but then the right the podcast numbers never like you and i how many hours we would spend going over all the numbers and all the reports in the monthlies and we would look at everything and be like what is real like what's going on so like if i were to look at it so at ESPN um Zach Lowe always had the number one download and then fantasy would crush during football season so I would always felt like I was the number two download

which also sucked because I didn't get to keep my feed from 10 years of SVP Rosillo and Canelo Rosillo it got shifted to something else and I started started from zero. And then within six months, I was the number two podcast there. But whatever that number was at ESPN, it's not even close to the number that I have at the ringer. So I can't tell if the ESPN number is weird because I know the ringer number is awesome. And thanks to everybody to listening to this whole thing. And I would argue for whatever I'm doing right now, as absurd as this is, like 15 hours a week on a simulcast for 10 years for radio TV, I feel like I'm reaching more people now. Or maybe I'm doing better. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

But I don't feel like post-ESPN, I would have never thought like, hey, I'm as big a deal now as I was at ESPN. But that's what it feels like with the success of this podcast. as big a deal now as I was at ESPN, but that's what it feels like with the success of this podcast. Yeah, but it's also, you know, and I think you land in a spot that fits you super well, but also I think everybody uses different metrics, right? It's like, it's literally, I mean, that's a stupid phrase,

but like, it's like kind of the Wild West in a way. We use different metrics at, you know, doing my show, pure downloads. Some people you have to listen to this much of the show or a certain percentage of the show. It's all different. And there's no um official way to measure that yet which is why some people i think kind of are able to take advantage of it but i mean well dude i mean there's there's nothing funnier than when something happens right away it's like oh half a million downloads last week like absolutely there's no way a half a million individual people

sat and listened to your podcast last week. It's just not true. It's just not true. And so, I mean, we're getting a little inside baseball here, which is an awesome phrase. It's not used enough. Justin Checkers. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's not about the Jimmys and Joes. But it's always kind of one of these weird things is we're still like, we're going to look at right now

and in a couple of years ago, remember all that stuff that we thought and like this was the next thing and this is the future. So I'm not worried about you at all. Like we're going to figure something out with you. That's a lock. But it is...

We just got to get through this. As a society, we got to get through this little pandemic issue we got going on. Yeah, yeah. We'll get through yeah yeah we'll get through it we'll get through it some places are opening up china's numbers are really positive i don't know if you read those yeah they're playing baseball in taiwan now too so shout out to them like what's up with like fake people in the stands so i think the dumbest i think the dumbest i may have ever felt is when i read some some numbers from china like a month ago was like oh this is promising i was like wait

a minute what are you doing like these aren't I felt like I was early on that. Were you? Because then I read a thing this morning about Russia and it was like, Russia, China's mad at Russia because they're withholding numbers. You're like, wait a minute, what? You guys are mad at each other? You have the World Health Organization, correct me if I'm wrong, literally sent out a tweet that still exists that said that like they're, they have not been able to show, or it's not, there's no animal to human interact, whatever, or transmission, right? There's literally that they said that they tweeted that out. So yeah, I remember that. Then China is, you know, telling us, oh, this is the numbers and they're going to go back to playing in the CBA and the basketball association pretty soon. And

I'm sitting there just going like, why is anyone believing this? And I feel like it's because it's, we all want to, we all want it to be true. We all want to, we want, we want the positive news to be the right, the right news. When in fact it's not usually the right news. And especially when it's coming from China. So when the CBA, like, and they're like, Oh yeah, we're going to start up in the beginning of April. I'm just like, yeah, I'm going to take the over on that one. Almost immediately. There's just no way. I just don't. And that's why,

like I've been probably super pessimistic about when sports will start up again in the States, because I think a lot of the projections people in the back of their minds are it's wishful thinking. They want it to return. They want baseball to come back on July 4th. They want the NBA to come back in June. Like Mark Cuban's out there saying, hey, I think we can get this thing started by what was it? Was it late May or something? we can get this thing started by what was it was it late may or something i think we want that to be true and it's this great like unifying thing for the for the for our you know for our country but i just i mean maybe maybe that's my bad roommate grade it's like i'm a little bit of a debbie town but i just consider myself a realist and that's what i think i just think it's going to be a long time i know i'm actually more positive than you are on this one and i don't think it's based on our personalities i just think throughout this whole thing the guy's been like man you've been really positive this whole time like that's me super positive right it's based on our personalities. I just think throughout this whole thing, the guy's been like, man, you've been really positive this whole time. That's me.

Super positive Ryan. It's a new guy. The times have changed you. All that stuff, though, the negative Ryan thing, I get... I love it. I wouldn't say pissed, but I just always feel like, yeah, I would get upset about things that weren't good.

And I would let people know how I felt. Yeah, you would get upset about things that weren't good. And I would let people know. Yeah. You would get pissed off when people weren't like as invested as you, which is going to be most people. And you know, like most people, like it's your show. So like when something would go wrong and you would get mad, rightfully so people would be like, Oh, Ryan, impossible to deal with. I'm like, well, no, you just sort of screwed up like the intro to the show. Like I'd be pissed too. Wouldn't you be pissed if it was your show? So yes, you got got a little bit and listen i'm your guy so of course people like oh screw you just you know back in this guy rossillo which is what i get all the time which i think it's i think we disagree far more than people like to lead it on to like i remember i disagree way more like well

ryan ryan said this so of course he's gonna be on it i'm like i don't know man i think we did disagree on a lot of things sports wise but i think we sort of see the world the same way but you're right you got you got a bad rap because everybody thought that your passion and you wanted to do the best possible show that you could when somebody would screw up and you would be mad about it, that that was somehow some negative trait from you. So I don't know. I think that's why we always sort of, I don't know, we're in line. And that's why I always think it's funny too, because if you screwed up twice, I'd be like, okay. And then it's like,

Oh, so we're just going to, we're just going to keep fucking this up every time. Like, what do you think you get 10 in a row before I go, Hey, can we stop fucking this part up? And now you know,

right. And I wasn't ever really corporate, you know, I was very construction site rules of just say, yeah, you just go, Hey, what are you like? You know? Cause I'd be like, Hey, what do you not get about what's going on here? But honestly, like you and I both know there'd be stuff, there'd be mistakes made because somebody just didn't care.

Like, that's it. It's just, Hey. And then it's almost like, how come you want me to care this much? And you go, what? Like it's ESPN. We're ESPN. Like we're supposed to be the best, the most buttoned up. We are the standard. Don't you want to kick ass? No. Okay, never mind. You know what? We got to stop ourselves. Let's do some of the NBA questions that Serena and I were talking about a little bit earlier before we do that. of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today looks pretty different. As the original Light Beer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together

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things are alright? I saw a guy the other day, the grocery store, case of Miller Lite, six bananas in his left hand. That's all he bought. I was like, this guy's not the hero we think we don't deserve, but the hero that's in need i get that right sounds i followed i followed okay more with saruti okay before we do mailbag i wanted to go over a

list of things bill and i had done a little bit of this on if we don't have any basketball like what are the questions that we can't have answered? And I mentioned Houston. Houston doesn't really have to answer the question about how viable their small ball approach is in the playoffs because I still think it's a very good question despite the great results they had right after it happened. Philly's another one with Brett Brown, and if they were to have an early playoff exit,

even though I could still probably make an argument for Philadelphia's surprises to people in the playoffs, despite the disappointment that they've had the regular season, you had a few too, that I wanted to get to. Yeah. So I, so, you know, what's funny about this is I had this sort of idea about like, probably right when a couple of days after the Donovan Mitchell thing went down or the Rudy Gobert thing went down and I saw you and Bill did it so I was like you know what it's the same idea um I promise I'm not I know I know how sensitive people are to stealing ideas especially on this show uh so I I was like let me give it some time so actually I actually wrote down a list of things that I had that I

was concerned about and I was planning to do it on our show months later because I was hoping nobody would know that I was basically doing the same segment that you and Bill did but I'm glad I'm able to do this and actually finally use this. Do you want me to just go through my entire list? Yeah, well, let's do a rapid fire on it and I'll tell you good one, bad one. Alright, I'll just go through the whole thing. I've got them on my phone. First one.

If the season doesn't end, is it more or less likely that Giannis stays? If it doesn't end, so that means we get to see what version of this Milwaukee team and what they can do. I don't know that it's...

My quick thought is it doesn't matter either way. It just doesn't matter either way. Because I think we do that a lot. Like, oh, if he wins, he can leave. Like Kawhi, right? Like, oh, he went to Toronto,

he can leave now. But if he had lost the he what he went to toronto he can leave now but if he had lost the warriors he was going to want to stay in toronto to prove that he could win here's what kawaii probably knew the day he got traded to toronto i'm not staying there it hurts but it's true yeah and i think yannis today right no right now knows what he wants to do. And yes, winning the title makes the breakup a little bit easier because you now have this thing that belongs to the city and belongs to the franchise. But I think these guys know. Here's the way I would put it.

It's probably like 9 out of 10 guys. It has nothing to do with the success or failure of the team. It's their own personal preference of which city they want to go play in. Yeah, I think I'm with you. And I think first and foremost, almost everybody you talk to, right? You would know more than I would. But it seems like he's staying. He was staying no matter what, basically.

The only thing that I could think of is if they had played out the season and they flamed out, say they lost, I don't know, say they lost in the second round or the conference final, right? And it was bad. It was kind of like it was last year. Would it be more likely that he would leave in that scenario? So that being that if the season never actually officially finishes, he would be more likely to stay.

I'll give you that. I'll give you slightly. Yeah, I think it's a fair question, but I guess I'm still too married to the idea that most guys just... He's not going anywhere. No, I wouldn't go that far. Although, when he mentioned the Lakers in that passing comment, he was theorizing. Local radio here in LA lost their minds for two days.

But by the way, that's what you have to do. You just do it, and then you start going like, okay, but if Giannis is... How do you fit... What kind of actions are you running with LeBron, Giannis, and Anthony? They were breaking down whose ball it was in a close game. They were that far along. That's incredible. Hey, listen, shoot your shot.

I respect it. All right, next one. And this is the one that you had. I know you had. What is the future of the Rockets and the small ball situation? Because everyone I feel like you would talk to, the D'Antoni thing, everybody thought D'Antoni was done. He was so tired of the whole situation,

whether it was ownership or barrel or whatever. It seemed like everybody thought he was gone. And if the season doesn't end, I kind of feel like wouldn't D'Antoni and those guys be more likely to come back and try it because they never actually got to finish it? Yeah, I would agree with that one. Because I think Maury and D'Antoni

are aligned on this one. You just look at the contract situation with D'Antoni and if it had been an early bounce like I think this saves everybody but yeah I mean I've been over this one an unknown and incompletes a much better grade than an actual grade for the Rockets because they could say hey look we'll just we don't know yet we don. And you know, what sucks is I was hoping, even if we did finish the season and say that they say that they flamed out in the second round, I think they would probably win in the first round, but say they lost in the second round or whatever. I, I was hoping they would bring it back again, like add, add a backup center at,

like you, I don't think the idea is so stupid that they shouldn't even try it again. Like, I don't think in one season, even if it ends poorly that you can say that it was an abject failure. I think you have to tweak it. I was hoping that either way, win or lose, that they would try it again for a second year. I'd like to see it again. When you think about different characters

in a movie or something, I want the Rockets to exist. Yeah, because they're the only team that plays different. I wouldn't go that far, but it's extreme. Just really what it is, is it's not... I think it's a great analytics, old-school debate. I think it's a regular season playoff debate.

I think it is all those things that we actually really like, even though we get really heated about it all the time, because for all of the success they had immediately with it, and really that has more to do with Westbrook, who just turned into a completely different player. Itlocks him he was awesome for like two months after having probably the worst two-month stretch of his career going all the way back to maybe being a rookie i mean he was dreadful in the first half and then he's amazing and a lot of this stuff unlocked him but then the thing i always get back to was like rebounding rate and then certain matchup stuff but more often than not when they had a big that was going up against small ball thing it was

screwing the teams up because they didn't know how to attack it or they get weird with the way they attacked it so it wasn't it was almost like yeah whatever our size disadvantage is we have this mental advantage over you because you're just not used to it seven game series i think my guess would be it plays out a little differently and the rebounding rate numbers were pretty bad i was kind of hoping that they would play okc in the first round because i would probably pick okc in that series but um because when the season ended houston was the sixth they would be playing denver i think they could be dead i think they could be denver i was just never a true believer in denver even though i love yokich but um i was sort of rooting for that okc houston one but we'll see how it goes. I'm a believer in Jamal Murray now.

Well, obviously, yeah, what's up? This is probably my favorite one. Are the LeBron homers and the LeBron fans, the super fans that don't actually have a team, they just like LeBron, in 10 years, are they going to give LeBron half of a title and half of an MVP for this season? Wow. Did you just go Buker on us?

I'm asking the question. Will they, will fans look back and go, Oh yeah, well, you know, in 2020, the season didn't finish,

but LeBron would have won the title. So you got to give him a half one there anyway. I guarantee people would do that. Yeah. Like the worst people. I don't know. I think there would be a lot of people that would do that. I always want to give him a half ring for 2007.

I'd be more okay with that than I would this year yes i would i would yeah yes yeah i think the like you know what it is is it's this one percent lebron crew that argues this stuff and then the jordan twitter accounts that are the most insecure feeds of anything in sports because it's like no your guy's the best. He's considered the best. Even if somebody tries to argue against it, they kind of know that they're wrong. They're arguing with the 1% LeBron sycophants.

And it's just, I don't know. It's like watching a side stage battle in a great war where you're like, this actually doesn't, this isn't going to do anything. Okay, do you believe this? Because I heard't, this isn't going to do anything. I, okay. Do you believe this? Cause I heard Bill said this on a Colin show, right?

That he thinks that the Jordan doc was got the green light because, and too many MJ people were like making the comparison. Do you believe that? Yeah. Bill's brought that up. I, I don't know if it's the full reason for it, but Bill's position when we were talking about it,

and I think we've done it on the air too, was just too much time has passed. He's been out of the league 20 years. You have an entire generation. With Kobe's passing, today's players are like, look, Kobe's our guy because we grew up with him. Sometimes I have to remind myself like how young these guys are now in comparison to how old i am and the amount of games that i've watched that they've

never watched and so was it all strategically by mj and mj's team to remind people how good he was because he gets sick of hearing about lebron i don't know that it was the number one motivating factor but it's not a terrible idea because i think that's what belichick's done i think belichick as he enters some of the last i don't know how much longer the number one motivating factor, but it's not a terrible idea. Cause I think that's what Belichick's done. I think Belichick is, he enters some of the last, I don't know how much longer he's going to coach, but he's been really accessible because he's such a historian of football. It's almost like he wants people to have more access to him.

So he holds up better historically and can show off a little bit. I think it's ridiculous to think that you're gonna make any lebron super fans you're gonna change his mind you're just not gonna change his mind right like those guys are just they're firmly and the mj people are firmly and i mean maybe you're maybe you're like i don't know maybe you're affecting the people in the middle a little bit but i both of those sides aren't moving either way so i don't i mean maybe that's true that's one of the reasons that it happened, but I don't, I can't see that actually having any impact on who the GOAT is for doing that talk. Okay.

But I'll admit this is a guy that wasn't always the biggest MJ guy. Like I would try to find arguments against it. I'd be like, well, wait a minute. If Russell is 11 and O with 13 years of like, why, why is MJ the greatest at six?

No, but Bill Russell isn't even brought up if we're going hey 6-0 in the finals but bill russell's 11-0 doesn't count like that's that seems good well because because i've gone back and watched the two of them and there's also part of this where somebody physically athletically like stuff isn't going to hold up so i don't like dumping on the previous generations because i think it's also not fair that they didn't work out the same way. They didn't work on the same skills.

They didn't have the population numbers where it's that man sharpens man thing that later generations go through because you have to start playing at such an early age against older guys, you know, dropping your rural kid off at inner city playgrounds so that he's just going up against more athletic and more, um, intimidating people.

You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff. So I don't like just dissing every previous generation, even though when you look at the video of the whole thing. But I would say, because I've gone back and looked at MJ stuff a little bit more the last few weeks because we've done some rewatchables and I watched some of the Pistons Bulls stuff to see if anyone was murdered and they haven't been murdered so far.

I'm still working on it. Yeah, your passive-aggressive about like the defense in that era is some they're not even on twitter they're not even passive anymore they're just aggressive i'm just too repetitive because it's like it's almost hey do you guys want to keep saying how hard the defense was back then because imagine if there was a website where you could type in these games and you could actually watch them instead of just retweeting everybody else's stuff it's g o o it's two o's g l e and you just type in any game and almost all of them are there for you to watch them it's amazing and none of you guys want to watch any

because you want to just keep going on and on so anyway i'm railing i'm really making this point my point is going back and watching mj these five or six games the last few weeks there's little reminders of just even with me would watch this stuff going oh my god so i do think there'll be some lebron guys that have probably been talking lebron up the whole time that have never watched any of this jordan stuff and they're gonna watch in this documentary they're gonna have like a real moment there's gonna be an awakening where they go oh wow like this guy was what did i get myself into? Yeah. What did I sign myself up for? All right, next one.

I like this one too. Is the uncertainty around the Sixers a blessing or a curse if the season doesn't finish? Because I think you could make the argument that it actually hurts them because their timeline then gets pushed back because everybody wants to trade Simmons and Embiid, right? And if it had, say they lost in the first round, they had a first round flame out. I think they were like, obviously that would be super loud to be like, all right, you got to get rid of one of these guys. I feel like kicking the can down like another year is actually not good for the Sixers. I argued that I think the best thing for the Sixers this year

might have been losing in the first round because it would actually incite some real change in the organization. But maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I'm not saying a first round because I still liked the way they were matched up even against the Celtics. Hey, did Scal think the Celtics team could win it? And did he mean it? Or was he just making sure he didn't say anything negative because he's doing the broadcast?

He said he gave him a very low. I think we did like a what's the broadcast? He said, he gave them a very low, I think we did like a what's the ceiling type thing, and he gave them a very low percentage chance. But yeah, he said they can win the title. Okay. All right. So, but if it's low, it doesn't really mean it. But yeah, I'm with, I don't want to repeat all my Sixers stuff. So if you have more on that, but I agree on that one.

No, I just think like if they, if they lost in the first round or if something went bad, I think like, I'm not saying, I'm not an anti-Brett Brown guy, but I feel like you probably do need a coaching change in there. You need to change something. So if we don't get the finish of this season and they bring back everybody next year, like, I don't know what the situation is going to be like with Horford.

Maybe that just isn't going to be fixed and he'll have to be traded. But if you bring back, like, most of this roster and try to just go at it again next year, I'm not sure why it would be any different than it was this year. So I think the worst thing that could happen is that they don't actually get that terrible finish to a season or that flame out, because then it's going to give them the sense of false hope of saying, all right, well, we get a year, everybody's healthy,

we'll, you know, continuity, quote unquote, we'll bring everybody back. Because I still don't think the Sixers are that big of a threat in the Eastern Conference next year if they bring them back. I really don't. Look, if they get bounced again, why would we pick them to be a threat in the Eastern Conference next year if they bring him back. I really don't. Look, if they get bounced again, why would we pick them to be a threat? Like, if they, you know, the argument, the best thing that they can ever argue

is that Kawhi's shot cost them a chance at winning in overtime. You know? I don't know. And then they're going to go through Milwaukee. i don't know i feel like milwaukee's had their number they're worse this year they there's all this evidence that suggests that both of those guys are better when the other one is not on the court and i mean you

could split the minutes as much as you want but at the end of the day like in crunch time in the playoffs in a game situation in a must win they're gonna have to figure it out and i don't know maybe it's a brett brown issue maybe it's maybe it's maybe it's not just the two of them as a fit maybe it's like a we need a coach from here that could figure this out but nothing is going to change if the season doesn't end and I feel like there's going to be some sort of false hope that they're going to fall into and bring the whole thing back next year which I think would probably be a mistake just to save you for some of the Sixers people because there are arguments that Simmons and Embiid are fine together that it's all on Horford uh I've dug through those and I think you think you can probably actually find more analytics

that prove that they're better together. But I don't know. When I watch it, late possession situations, I go, I don't know. And that was the thing I kept getting to so much of this year. Their offensive rating in the fourth quarter was abysmal for a team that we're supposed to take seriously. Yeah, but every year their net rating on the court together has gone down. I mean, you could say that their team maybe has gotten worse as well, but I don't know.

Yeah, I've seen that one too because I use that in an argument. I'm just saying that it is very political. You'll find the number that argues you should split them up. It's there, and you can find plenty of numbers that are like, no, they're actually, those two are awesome together. Everybody else sucks. I just think that there are two guys that are a bad matchup for each other, which is what I've always said. We'll get to mailbag. But first, if you're like me, you probably start thinking about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch. I love food. And that's why I love using Postmates. They deliver food from every restaurant I can think of right to my door.

This has been really kind of one of those deals where you go, okay, what's going to work here? What isn't? You know, whether you're going to the grocery store, you're probably thinking about it. And I'm sure with the food delivery deal. But honestly, just go on the app and go leave it at my door option, which I've been doing. And you just, they leave it at the door. They take a picture. We're like, hey, your food's here.

So you don't have to have any interaction if that's something that's bothering you. But all the Postmates people that I've had show up, masks, gloves, you know what I mean? All sorts of stuff hooked up and it helps keep some of these local places going, which is really hard for these local restaurants. And there was one near me that just opened up and I'm like, oh man, you know, so if you have the means and the desire to do so,

check it out on Postmates. Postmates doesn't just deliver burgers and sushi. They actually make my life easier with grocery delivery and whatever I can think of delivery to convenience stores, clothing stores, you name it. So no more trips to the store, no more late night fast food runs. I don't even have to worry about where to grab lunch anymore. Just download Postmates on iOS or Android. Find your favorites. Get anything you want delivered within the hour. For a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. To start your free deliveries deliveries download the app and use the code rr show that's code rr show for 100 off free delivery credit with no minimum purchase for your first seven days when you download the postmates app how about that deal you were you were on some of you were on the fence

and now you're in anything you need anytime you need it post made it um This is topical. By the way, everybody sends these in and says, don't use my real name. So let's go check in on Cole in California, Saruti. Hey, Ryan, I've been going through a difficult situation with my girlfriend of about two years. We go to the same college, but live quite far away from each other, about two and a half hours.

So as you can imagine, we're both upset we got sent home. Hey, kid, it's a virus, all right? It's a pandemic. Yeah, sorry about your yes she was she was taking the news harder than me calling me every day in hysterics about how much the situation sucked i made plans to go see her soon and we got home after we got home which uh consoled her a bit he goes here's where it hits the fan a few days before i was supposed to make the trip to go see her she calls me crying and tells me about how she was being forced to get tested for covet 19

i thought this was odd because she didn't tell me about any symptoms. She swore that it was ridiculous and her family forced her to get the test done over some minor symptoms. Also, she lives in a rare area of the country where they have ample COVID-19 tests, so she said it was plausible that she was able to get it done. After calming her down, I had a tough decision to make because the results were not due to come back for about a week. She promised, all all caps that she felt fine and didn't need to get the test she twisted my arm and without going into detail said some disturbing things about why i needed to come i begrudgingly took her word for it good writer here so far cole i begrudgingly took her word for it and went on the trip welp i got to her place later event inches away from her

face and she says, quote, I really don't feel so good and haven't for a while. She had a low-grade fever, loss of taste and smell, fatigue and body aches. I could hear the, quote, it was at this moment he knew we fucked up soundbite in my head. At this moment. The following few days are some of the most stressful in my life. I kicked myself, or excuse me, I kidded myself to keep me sane because I'd already been highly exposed. Of course, the test results came back positive. The ensuing two weeks are not a lot of fun to me to say the least. I was extremely foolish

to have cared for her and stayed a learning experience at this point in life. I suppose I'm completely okay now, thankfully. So I ask you, Ryan and Kyle and Saruti here, is this a forgivable or salvageable situation? I never got a genuine apology. She asked me when I'm just going to quote, forgive her already. So basically she said, I don't have it.

My parents are making me get tested. I'm going crazy. I miss you. Come visit me. And yet she was highly contagious, likely had it and begged him to come. And then he also got the virus. Wow.

A lot to chew on there. I would say, I mean, listen, everyone's going through some shit, right? And then he also got the virus. Wow. Lots of, lots of shoe on there. I would say, I mean, listen, everyone's going through some shit, right? So I guess you got to cut her some slack for feeling the way that she

felt. But I mean, what are we doing breaking social distancing here? Isn't that like the whole point of this thing? Like, I know it's a difficult situation, but the whole point is that you don't go in and drive and see each other and hang out together.

So I don't know, man, I kind of, if she hasn't apologized either, that would probably bug me. I don't know how I could prepare this. I really so i don't know man i kind of i if she hasn't apologized either that would probably bug me i don't know how i could prepare this situation i really i don't know if you could i don't know if i'd want to do this in the future kyle you want to chime in here man i would just i'd hate to have to be in that situation you know you'd love to be able to just like think about that part and be like well that sucks that we have to be apart but you know i would just hate to have to like be in that mess so i got nothing man sorry that sucks as far as the social distancing goes though like people are

actually still like i don't know i'm not saying throw a party but if you had a girlfriend and she came to your house i don't really think that's that crazy i mean your people are still going to the grocery store you're still pumping gas and touching a pump. And you can wear a glove. You can wear a mask. You wipe your hands down. I understand if all of us were in these silos individually wrapped, that would be the safest version of it. But it's not realistic.

So I don't know if it's a serious girlfriend. She wants to see you. Here's the problem, though. She lied about not really having it when she knew she had symptoms. The reason she got the test is because her family thought she had it. And then at the end, it's like, eh, get over it. And there's obviously some other stuff being left out. Here's the problem is that it may not be about this.

And we're glad to hear that you feel better now, Cole. But what she's doing is she is giving you a preview to what she is going to be like the rest of her life. Okay, this is the person, this is the girl that you date. And then you take a break and she bangs your best friend. And then you're like, hey, you know, that still really bothers me. And then she says, I was doing the best I could at that time.

And any girl that's ever said that to me is horrifying. Because it's like, no, that's not an out. Like, I'm doing the best. I was doing at that time the best that I could do. Like, that's your best? That's your best? Seriously? Is that the argument here?

This is the best you could have done? What the fuck is worse than that? So my point is, whenever people give you a little, when you're younger and you're getting a little, and it's hard to understand it when you're younger, even in your twenties, like I didn't know any of this stuff, but when people show themselves,

especially when you're talking about like somebody you may really care about, and it's tough to do this, but I'll add up all the things is if you're a third party and go, she did what? Like tell this story to yourself as if it's your friend saying it to you about his situation. And then let me know how quickly you would bail on that situation. And that's kind of what your answer is. So there you go. Yeah, I would say that's like the people that say, you know, I'm a self-sabotager or whatever

saboteur. You're like, no, you just are a terrible decision maker. Like you just blame it on this thing that things haven't worked out in your life because you self-sabotage, like, do you like look yourself in the mirror? Maybe you're just not doing things the right way. So I always hate like, Oh, I don't, I can't help it. I'm a self-sabotage. It's like the same people that look at horoscopes and say, yeah, I can't help it. I'm a Libra. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. The self, I can't, I mean, we all know what we're, most of us know what we're supposed to do or not do. You know, so there you go. Okay. Well, check it in here.

We'll call him the P man because he doesn't want to use his name either. All right. Here you go. You may not pick my email. Oh, wait, I remember this one now, Kyle. You may not pick my email because of an immature tweet i sent to ryan uh around 2014 2015 without rehashing the whole exchange i essentially called you a fucking noob on twitter because you forgot to add an attachment to an article you wrote or

something like that the reality is those sorry ass attempt at being an ultimate ball buster potentially sparking friendship all right a few things before we start here i don't remember that i definitely don't remember your tweet from five years ago about me not properly doing attachment. There's a very good chance I didn't know how to do the attachment right on Twitter, especially five years ago. But there's a really good chance

we probably weren't going to be friends anyway. All right. Anyway, what I appreciate most about you is how you get to where you are. All right, there's a lot of compliments. These are really nice. I appreciate it, but I'm not going to read all that stuff. Anyway. Just right. There's a lot of compliments. These are really nice. I appreciate it, but I'm not going to read

all that stuff. Anyway, yeah, yeah. Just we'll, we'll, we'll DM each other and hang out. What's impressive is you reach your goals

at ESPN without selling out. I mean, I'm sure they're compromised, but overall seems like you maintained your identity personality despite a rigid corporate environment. What I'm trying to say is how do you work through

all the corporate bullshit to reach your goals? For example, I want to be a sales manager now and a vice president five, 10 years, but I'm stuck as a territory business consultant and have been for the last four years. Yes, I know what you're thinking. I do not suck. Oh, so he's good at his job. All right. That's good. I like that you got that out of the way. I actually put up big numbers consistently. Oh man, we got like an Eddie house on our hands here. One president's club. For those that don't understand President's Club,

I have a friend in pharma who it's basically like you're bringing in serious, serious numbers. They fly out to like Maui, and then you get to pick out blenders and all sorts of shit. It's almost like the Wheel of Fortune. We used to be able to shop the showcase, and they just dump an entire showcase on you the whole time. So it's sick.

So this guy's serious if he won President's Club. Constantly looking for ways to lead. What the fuck am I doing wrong? I guess what's, I don't know. What is he asking me? Did he just brag about his sales numbers? Yeah, no, I think he's asking you like, how do I succeed without selling out?

Because this is something we talk about all the time, like playing the game, whether or not you play the game in the corporate environment. And as much as I hate that whole idea of like, you know, buddying up with your boss and laughing at the bad jokes and doing all that stuff and meeting people without actually any agenda, just to chat and like, you know, show face things that I never did basically in my entire career. It does work. So you kind of have

to do it. I don't know, like Ryan, you, you're like a little bit of an outlier. So I feel like a lot of people who do it your way are not the ones that are the most successful, but like, if that's who you are and you feel uncomfortable kind of being fake in that way, then unfortunately, man, that's just life, dude. You got to figure it out. Yeah. Look, I regret it. I like, I remember one time being at a late night espn thing and it was you know a looser vibe because it was out in la and it was in a post espy sting and it's seriously you know everybody that chases those nights and tries to find like the best party the reason we keep doing is because every now and then a party comes together where it is that epic and it's

kendrick lamar and it's lebron i mean kendrick lamar is performing for lebron it's where i met miles teller and his goon friends and they were all awesome and it was just one of those unbelievable nights but also part of that was connor shell who was about to like have a really important position at espn i was hanging out in the back with him there's a little bottle service deal and then i realized he was surrounded by like five on-air people and i went oh i'm like i and i just was like there to hang and i ended up like kind of hanging out with his buddy a ton and i was watching it i went oh like i saw bob eiger at the nba finals and i was still technically with espn at that time. I'd never talked to Bob Iger. I don't even know if Bob Iger knows who I am. But I saw like three people that are on air

go right up to him. And just like they were going to exchange those pleasantries. So yes, I didn't do it. But I also have admitted that I should have done some version of it. Here's the only thing I can say. Let's get back to the P-man here, okay? What you need to do if you're not going to play

the corporate game is you still have to find a way to play. You can't just say, I'm not going to play at all. Okay. Cause it's not, your numbers are great, but especially in sales, like you've got to figure out that face to face thing and make it harder on people.

The human interaction, our nature is as soon as there's some sort of human connection, decisions go better for you. They just do. And that's the thing I regret probably about ESPN the most because I just didn't do any of that stuff. But do it this way. This is what I would have done. And I think you can do this in all businesses. If you know it's kind of like the corporate BS model and there's going to be people you don't like that you're

working for, you may not respect them. You may wonder how they got there, but you're going to have to find the guys that do have, um, you do respect. You can't just hate everybody. Cause then maybe it's on you a little bit. Right. And what you do is, and you can't,

you probably can only do it like once or twice, but just say, Hey, look, this is how I operate. These are my numbers. You know,

I want more. All of us are in this game because you want more. If I'm good at sales, that means I also want to reach vice president, all these different things. I know I'm not playing the game. Do it that way. Disarm them. I know I'm not good at

playing the game, but I want to know how I can still fit in to this structure. But I want you to understand where I'm at. It's not that I don't like people. It's not all these different things. You don't even have to say like, hey, I'm not an ass kisser because then it means you're kind of calling her your co-workers ass kissers. And that doesn't really go over well in the corporate structure. We start zinging people left and right and saying how great you are. But just be real straight up and go, I feel like one of the things that holds me back is that I'm not great in the corporate structure, even though I'm so good in the sales thing. I want you to know that. And I want you to tell me how I can be better at these things. Even if you don't even believe that question,

let that person that's in charge think you believe it. Even if you don't even believe that question, let that person that's in charge think you believe it. And then you may figure out a way to kind of BS the BS. Like make a negative a positive. Be like, I know I'm not good at playing the game. You know, I'm just really concentrated on my numbers, right? I mean, show that you have great numbers. Be like, look, I'm kicking everybody's ass, but I'm spending all my time on that. But I do want to let you know that I still like, you know, want to, you know, you know, show a good face and, you know, be good, be a good team player. Like use all the stupid BS analogies and, uh, and just use your, use the negative as almost a positive for why you're such a great worker.

You do have to show the idea that you can just put your head down and do good work and then be rewarded. Like, that's just not, it's just not realistic. It really isn't. Yep. Okay. Let's do two more. Okay, this is from Kev. By the way, almost of the thousand or so emails that we got immediately here, I don't know if anybody's over 30.

It's unbelievable how... But there's also... South of 25, you probably need a little bit more advice kyle knows what i'm talking about okay this is a weird one kev says i have a co-worker that continues to hit on me to the point where others at work have made a giant deal about it sounds like something their quarantine would solve but i've been working about 60 hours a week for the duration of this coronavirus deal the The company I work for sells disinfectant UV

equipment to hospitals all over the world. So we've been nonstop for a few months now, although it's been great to work through the shutdown and also provide equipment to medical centers that limits exposure to the virus. There are a few negatives. First off, truly jealous of the quarantine. There's a zag for you. You didn't expect that, but if you're working 60 hours a week, I guess I can understand that. I should be more appreciative, but wearing a mask 10 hours a day in a warehouse with no air conditioning is less fun than you'd expect. Sounds like all of you just can't handle being home all day. Hold my beer. Huh? You know what? Little wake-up call here from the outside. Maybe making a good point. More importantly,

I'd like to solve this coworker dilemma while we're around each other constantly. It's not a get away from me deal. She is attractive and easy to get along with, but dating somebody from work just doesn't seem right to me, especially if it doesn't work out. It would surely damage our working relationship. She works in sales and I take care of the shipping department, so I work with her directly throughout the day. The just friends move seems like it could backfire.

The I'm seeing someone response doesn't make sense, admits the shutdown, needs some suggestions. Longest thing I've written in 10 years, but I love the pod. See, that sucks because my first thing was to say, just say that you're with somebody for the time being. That way, in the future, it keeps the door open. She's still kind of interested, but she kind of knows maybe to back off a little bit and it helps you, but it doesn't hurt you in the short term. So the fact that I still think that's an okay way to go. Like why would just, just say that you're taken for now and then she doesn't have to know if

that's true or not or know who the person is. And then it totally leaves the future for whether or not you want to, maybe you move to a different job and she's kind of cool and you actually do want to go out with her. I don't know. I feel like that opens the most doors for the future and helps you out the most. I get the sense he doesn't want to date her at all. Okay. So we can start there. Um, whether it's his own options or that he's not

attracted to her and was trying to be nice in the email, or she's sort of attractive or whatever he was trying to say, like you want to, none of us are that complicated male or female. You either want to hang out with somebody or you don't. And the person kind of, the person that either want to hang out with somebody or you don't and the person kind of less likely it is yeah the person will that you want to hang out with is is more often than not going to let you know i mean i sometimes i'll hear these stories about guys were like i just he just kept asking me out and you're like how why would you ask someone out like 10 times it doesn't make respect right yourself you know like pass the ball so uh the quarantine thing does suck though for him because he can't say hey and by the way like there's guys listening to this right now that are out of work being like there's a girl at work that's interested in you as far as

the dating somebody at work i mean i've done it and sometimes you just have to like did you really think that i was going to work that many hours a week and work in Bristol and then be in Hartford and then not date a coworker that lived in my building? Of course I was. That was a layup. And yes, it blows when you're not dating that person and you're at work. It's the worst. I hated it.

And then we had a thing at ESPN after Steve Phillips went crazy, where we all got yelled at for dating anybody. And you're just going like, okay. But I legitimately met my girl. I felt like people were looking at me. I'm like, we're not full-time employees. We just started dating and we live in the same building. It's not a big deal. We work in completely different apartments. And I couldn't have been more respectful. But after, I mean, I never said anything about it, but it sucked. It sucked. So that was a little different situation. Yes, the breaking up at work is way worse than the dating at work, unless you're just PDA couple. And then it's like, everybody's going to want to get you fired. They're going to pull a Toby Flenderson and put some basil in a plastic

bag on you. But I just think what you got just think what you're going to do is say, Hey, it's a quarantine. We're all to blame the quarantine. Can you, is that, is that, yeah,

that's a good call. Just say you're not emotionally ready to do something because the quarantine's got you kind of worked up. I, that's listen, no, one's going to push you on that one. I think it's,

I think it's a fair, that's a fair excuse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, there you go. We just solved his problems.

I like this guy. Okay right um all right last one last one and then we'll say goodbye on today's pod dating uh the subject itself i always got to check the ends of these to see to make sure that they don't say because like i'll read the name and then read the email, and then at the end it'll say, please don't use my name. Put those at the top. This is Craig. I don't think Craig cares. Craig's rowdy.

He's just out there. So Craig's question for us is, hey guys, I've been talking to a lot of girls on dating apps the past few weeks. Shout out, Craig. With all the downtime, it's nice to keep my flirting muscles loose. Normally after a few days of good conversation, I'll ask a girl on a date and go from there. Since that's out of the picture for at least the next few weeks, what can I do to keep things going with the right girls? Is a FaceTime date corny? Can we schedule

a date TBD, or do I have to keep boring small talk going for a few weeks? Thanks for the help. Stay safe, man. Do you know what I was thinking? Once this thing is over and people are starting to be able to go out again, and it's like open season at the bar, like hooking up is going to be the easiest thing ever. Like it's like, it's, I mean, it's going to be insane. So I would say I would wait it out as long as possible, because I feel like if you do a FaceTime thing, you're more likely to maybe show that like, she's not that into you. Whereas if you wait this thing out, yeah, it might suck in the short term.

But the long term, you're going to be meeting all these people and doing all these things because people are going to be so desperate for any sort of human contact interaction. That's to me. Go the long play. Wait this thing out.

Don't do a FaceTime date. Kind of keep her at arm's length as much as possible. And then once this thing is open season, just get after it. Yeah, I can't even fathom what it would be like to be in a major city in your 20s, no real cares. You're going to be hitting it on Tuesdays. You'll be like, who's up for a couple of G&Ts? The productivity, you think it's bad now?

Wait until your entire 20 20 something staff is just hung over every day for the first month coming out of this thing so uh i got i got a couple additions to that i wouldn't be a little afraid of a facetime but you better have your material prepped and your exit prep too because you don't want to set some sort of bad example where like maybe she's really into the facetime and then you're like i want to cut this short but then if you're face time and you're going to worry about the angle like i'm not real photogenic so you know i've always going to be thinking about that stuff um i mean i'm not in that world anymore but it's just you know it's just something that you're going to think about you're going to think about your backdrop like

you can't have a bunch of spitters in the background or something you know because a girl might be like who's this dude i met on this app? And he's doing some sort of like, what's his story? Does he want to be a cowboy? I think there's a lot of things that you have to make sure you have right. I'm not against it, but don't do the let's get something on the books thing, because then you seem a little desperate, a little psychotic. Slow play the hell out of this, because then you seem a little desperate a little psychotic slow play the hell out of this is like you said saruti it's going to be it's going to be coachella mixed with ecstasy which it probably already is um for some of these these higher densely populated areas for young people i don't don't do the hey do you want to june 3rd get sushi don't do that because it makes you look like a loser even if it makes you feel like you're locking something down you know what's weird too is too, is I feel like going out to a bar, like if you're going on a first date with somebody that

you meet on Tinder or Bumble or wherever, and you go out and you maybe get a meal or whatever, a couple of drinks, like he says in G and T's, uh, I feel like that's easier than FaceTiming. FaceTiming is hard, man. FaceTiming is real personal. It's like face only. You're kind of looking at yourself to make sure you look okay the entire time. You're right. You got to make sure of the backdrop. I honestly feel like a FaceTime date is significantly more challenging than a real life in-person date. Yeah, totally. Because it's just on you. There's no waiter that you can make a joke about. Shout out to the waiters, but you're going to get used as a pawn in that kind of scenario where if you do something that's a little off, then, you know, Hey, what about this guy? You know, that gives you a little more material. There's things you could play off

observations that you can make. Like you're going to just lock in on somebody else's eyes for 30 minutes that you just been on a dating app. Face timing. Give me a break. Yeah. You can't talk about the environment that you're both in, make jokes. And that's a good thing too. If you're fresh out of college and you've got a wall full of empty beer cans, try to avoid that wall as the backdrop for sure. There's just too many variables, I feel like. Too many things that can go wrong. Plus, you've got to imagine she's probably doing it with somebody else too, right?

She's probably also FaceTiming other dudes. You've got to take that into account as well. This is probably not just a one-time situation. Yeah yeah no doubt um that's one of the dumbest things you could be like wait a minute you know and then uh it's easier to track down though you know wait a minute but you're not talking to just her either so everybody's got the same set of rules here just be ready to do it is all i'm saying just be ready to do it if you're going to do it and probably don't start right up and be like can you believe people knocking trump god he's doing a great job just like start it right in with the politics be like like you know i can't believe it's seen it sucks huh really giving him the business

yeah and that's that's just an observation okay we can follow you where surity uh i'm at surity not for yeah most people think it's surity like i'm some sort of you know night the round table but no it's c-e-r-u-t-i and i don't even know what my instagram i think it's just at steve underscore surity on instagram what's up gotta put some more content out there boom um you're the man we talk all the time let me know and can't wait to see what's next and i'm gonna help you however i can all right we'll figure it out thanks man appreciate it good times wow an hour and a half and we didn't we did it a little differently today so i hope you enjoyed it we got some draft stuff dilfer's is booked to go we're gonna have mcshea on so i'm not quite sure how the days on this whole thing are going to work out because these guys are actually legitimately busy,

whether they're working with players or doing all the reports and all that stuff, but we'll probably NBA draft or NFL draft NBA draft pods. Probably not crushing right now, but yeah, we'll do some NFL stuff. And then, you know,

there's some flyers out there, feelers for some famous people to come on in different fields. Mike Jones. We will, uh, Mike Jones. Yeah. The Mike Jones thing did not go as well as I know. I gave up. people to come on in different fields mike jones we will uh mike jones yeah the mike jones thing

did not go as well as i know i gave up it'll be a nice surprise if it ever pans out yeah mike jones um mike jones night did not work out it was uh it was well a story to be told maybe in the book one day. It's actually not that dramatic. It's just there was a big confusion, and to this day, I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about right now. I guess the point is that there's a mystery of – I don't talk to anybody now because of that night. It's a bummer.

Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. I still think I'm right, so of that night. It's a bummer. Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah. I still think I'm right. So there you go. All right, everybody. You stay thinking you're right in your head every day. All right? I'll leave you with that.

Good luck with that one. Some of the married guys are like, yeah, it's going to last about 30 seconds. Please subscribe, download, rate, review the Ryan Russillo podcast on The Ringer. Check out all of our other stuff. Bill and I, every Sunday, going over old Bulls games now. The Rewatch of Bulls, which was so much fun to watch.

Kind of not prime magic, but just awesome magic still in 1991. And then MJ's going, okay, enough of this. I know everybody else is tired. I'm tired too. I'm better. I'm going to win this game. Game three, 91, his first ring. And Bill and I are going through.

I wonder if he's's gonna let me pick one my guess is he's not i wonder too he'll probably let me get one maybe if i say something on the pod like hey can i pick one of the six he'll be like yeah of course but like the first one i wanted to pick i was like hey should we do the celtics 63 point game he's like no like he goes it's kind of overrated I was like oh but then he made a couple good points you know as to why it was but I go yeah but that was like the first moment for Jordan because watching the broadcast and how he's talked about along his timeline it's always a reminder of like oh wait he'd only been in the league a couple years and

this was like his coming out party nationally and then even though it wasn't a loss because that was the same thing in the 91 finals, is that Marv is kind of giving him a hard time. Byron Scott's mad that Jordan looked back at their bench when he didn't miss a shot for like an hour in game two. And you're still talking about Jordan as a pre-six rings Jordan. He's a pre-one ring Jordan. So it's also, I think, fun to consume it

from the way his story has been told up until that point, as opposed to the 20 years of information we would have after, say, that 63-point game. So anyway, you put some work in today, Kyle. I'm sorry. You probably didn't think you were going to be here an hour and a half with Cerruti and I in a mailbag, but there we are. All right. Talk to you this week. you