The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Rudy’s Diabolical Game 5, LAC-DEN Preview, and Whether or Not to Call Dad After a Playoff Loss With Austin Rivers

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Russillo starts the show with his thoughts on the Timberwolves closing out the Lakers in five games (1:27). Then he’s joined by Austin Rivers to discuss why the Lakers had no chance in their series, why things become more difficult for Harden in the playoffs, and whether the Bucks need to consider trading Giannis this offseason (20:00). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle (1:06:28)! Is it bad manners to poop in someone’s house before the owners do? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Austin Rivers Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. On today's episode of the podcast, Minnesota in five. What happened? It was impressive. It was also sort of non-impressive, at least with last night, except for one man, maybe two men.

So we'll get into breaking that down. I have more on the rest of the playoffs, including Denver up three, two on the Clippers, Houston taking game five at home, and some of the other stuff from the East with our guy Austin Rivers. And we'll talk a little bit about his dad and that awful loss from Milwaukee ending their season. And we've got life advice.

That was impressive, but it kind of wasn't. Minnesota should have won that game by 30 points last night. Timberwolves close out the Lakers in five games. And they closed out last night because of one Rudy Gobert. Yeah, 27 to 24. You probably know that by now, but if you don't, you're like, what, for the series? No, no, last night he was a beast. For somebody that is not always beastly.

So let's get to my thoughts and why I thought I should have been 30. At one point, starting the fourth quarter, Minnesota was up one, 81, 80. And the whole second half, like they were up 10 at the point, starting the fourth quarter, Minnesota was up one, 81-80. The whole second half, they were up 10 at the half. I just expected they would finally start hitting threes. They pull away by 20, maybe a 20 plus point win. Not necessarily how I felt at the beginning because you never really know what Luko will get to his injury. You always wonder if LeBron is capable of doing something really special again like he had done earlier in the series. There's always the shooting variants part of it. But the first few minutes of the game,

I'm like, this is not a solvable problem. I don't believe for the Lakers. Minnesota's defense was really good. Their energy was terrific. I love whenever you're pushing. I just think transition is almost underrated, even though the math tells us that points per possession in transition, you know, granted maybe you're baking in a lot of just the turnover fast breaks with no defense whatsoever, but that kind of non-fast break transition where you make them chase the matchups, especially, you know, LeBron is not going to chase everybody and match up Luca who can just be absolutely lost out there. And if you have anyone of any kind of size and any momentum going

up against the small Lakers lineup, there's just a lot of points. So I loved the way Minnesota was playing despite the fact they were not making any shots. So back to 81, 80, after a couple of misses in the fourth quarter, these were the shooting totals. Randall, who we're going to give him some praise here later. 5, 11, one of five on threes. No, three at 10, two of five on threes, Nau, three of 10,

two of eight on threes, Nasried, one of four on the game. At that point, again, O-one from his one three-point attempt, Jaden McDaniels who fouled out and just has to be a little bit more cautious about how he's using his fouls.

I know he's super, super aggressive, but he not only like, look, Luca got a Brunson one last night, but then there was another couple of reach-ins that were just totally pointless. He hooked his arm on the second foul. The rebound one, he was just caught up with the arms and I know it's a battle out there, but he was two or three in the game, but zero one. I mean, only three shots for him because he was dealing with so many other different things. Conley, one of five from the floor, all three point shots. DeVincenzo three of 11, two of 10 on threes and four of 15 at this point, zero of eight on threes.

He finished zero of 11. So there were so many of these threes that were great looks too, because the Lakers had to double on a lot of stuff at the top. They doubled Ant a lot in the first half. I didn't really like it all that much because I think the more you do that, then Ant's going to be able to kind of figure some of these things out. And I wouldn't even say that I like the looks off of it, but it wasn't always as productive as you would expect, considering just how open Minnesota was.

And so you run through all this stuff. At that point, they were 16% from three. It had actually got worse. They finished seven to 47, 15%. Around that time though, the reason why they were still in the game despite their shooting numbers is the size and the rebounding edge and the field goal attempt edge.

Minnesota 74 to 61 in field goal attempts at the start of the fourth quarter. I remember writing that one down. And I also think it's Rudy, the best I've seen him catch a basketball in a game in maybe forever. I don't know. I haven't watched every single one of these. Rudy had 24 rebounds. The Lakers starters had 27.

So let's talk about Rudy because, you know, there are games within a playoff series where you can see something early on and you go, okay, well that might not be a good start. at 27. So let's talk about Rudy because you know there are games within a playoff series where you can see something early on and you go okay well that might not be something they can even do anymore. They may not want to do that. I remember thinking that with a Brook Lopez Atlanta matchup at one point and then it kind of worked itself out. You know look the Bucks are not alive anymore. I wasn't on the next day but the Bucks didn't

want to play Brook Lopez in the fourth quarter of these games. I think the first fourth quarter minutes he had played was, was in game five. Uh, maybe. So when I look at Rudy and going into it and we all know like the Luca Rudy hunting, that's going to happen. I don't, you know, sometimes the points per possession and I think some of the box score stuff on like Luca actually attacking Rudy, it, I think the numbers end up looking a little bit better than maybe the looks and opportunities

did in watching the game. I would say that over the course of this series though, that Rudy held up well in these hunting season moments and at least was still in the play. He wasn't getting worked like he would maybe against some of the smaller guys, even though we know Luca going up against Jaden and going up against Rudy last year in the playoffs was something you'd be worried about on the Minnesota side. But the reason I bring up any of that stuff is that it was pretty clear like Finch preferred not to have Rudy in the closing group at all, which tells you

what he thinks are his best five going up against the Lakers where if the Lakers are going to be small the entire time, you should want to be big or do you want to match their small because you're just not really that worried about it? And that's kind of how the series is playing out up until we saw what we saw from Go Bear last night. Game one up 16, Rudy out at 650 to go now. You know, they were up big, so you could make an argument there, but that's,

this is the beginning of what was a trend over the next four or the next three games. So games one through four, game two down 12 at three 52 in the fourth. Out now down 12 days, get rest. How about game three, though, up three? He's in the first like six and a half minutes of the fourth quarter. Then back out again, less than a minute later, it's one Oh three, one Oh three Minnesota closes on a 13 one run in game three, game four, he's out to start the fourth, they're down 10.

He comes in at nine minutes. Um, then they're down nine at that point. He comes out four minutes later, they're down six, they close in a 19-10 run. So in the first four games, it's clear Finch's preference of what he thought was best for his basketball team was to get Rudy out of there. And the numbers would have backed it up, especially with how Minnesota played in these fourth quarters against the Lakers. However, last night was totally different. And I think what we saw last night is we've seen in these fourth quarters as a culmination of just the physical task of trying to hang with a team that's bigger than you.

And I know JJ Reagan had talked about, look, we're not a small basketball team. We just don't necessarily have a center. They try to go even smaller times last night. The problem is, is other than Conley and the DiVincenzo minutes, Minnesota is a big basketball team in whatever version of their quote small lineup is. So just another example of all of these times where you can have something that looks so definitive in a game in a series and then it's the same team, same players, and it plays out entirely differently. And Go Bears performance last night is a perfect example of this stuff. I don't really know what the Lakers were supposed to do to solve this.

I mean, unless they were going to go nuclear from three, which didn't happen. They were 35% from three in the playoffs. That's 10th among the 16 playoff teams, not playing teams. Uh, you wonder about them with the free throws because of how good LeBron is with it, uh, that Luca is certainly going to live at the line, but there was nothing outrageous. They actually shot less free throw attempts per game, uh, than Minnesota did, because that's another problem when you're small is you're, you're

out of position a lot, you're tired, you're fouling, and you have a guy in Luca and LeBron at the stage of his career that are just not going to be dialed up energy-wise. That's another reason why I think when you watch these two teams play, you're like, which team's energy are you going to bet on to look better in the fourth quarter? It's not even a discussion. This also leads to the Lakers having the second worst rebounding rate of any team in the playoffs. All of that, then, you can look at these fourth quarters, what I'm talking about here, the net rating, Minnesota was a plus 40 net rating in the

fourth quarter in this series, which of course means that the Lakers were last in fourth quarter net rating, worse than Miami even. Although you could argue Cleveland was kicking their ass so bad, the fourth quarters didn't always matter that much in this series. I was thinking about the Lakers series. I'm going to ask Austin Rivers about this because he was on that Houston team in 2020. Remember 2020? Houston got game one after they went to seven games with OKC. But remember they were playing really small. It was the PJ Tucker center thing and then just a bunch of perimeter guys around it. So Houston won that first game by 15. And this doesn't happen a lot because I, like you, you see just one game of a series and how the two teams are going at each other. And when another team wins by a lot, it's like hard to go,

hey, I really like the other team. In that game, the Lakers are going to kill this team after they lost game one, watching it. If this is what the series is going to be, and I don't really know what Houston's other other options are, he's just going to get killed. So it reminded me a bit of that. I mean, Houston in that series, they win game one, they won the, excuse me, they lost the next four games by 51 points. The Lakers out rebounded them 227 to 163 in the series. So the small part with the Lakers. I'd suggest if you're arguing that Jackson Hayes could save the day, I would, I'd put a little more time in. Not that I'm right about everything all

the time, but like, you know, the simplicity of if Jackson Hayes had played a few minutes in game four, a few minutes last night, like JJ Reddick and the staff are doing it right. So JJ before the game was asked this question and it made the round, so I wanna play the audio for you now. He was obviously very upset with what was a fairly leading question. As you watch the film, what do you recall

about your thought process in the moment, sticking with the five you stuck with in the fourth quarter the other day? And is there an assistant or someone maybe that you'll lean on tonight maybe to try to get, you know, some other guys involved if that opportunity presents itself? Are you saying that because I'm inexperienced

and that was an inexperienced decision that I made? You think I don't talk to my assistants about substitutions every single time out? No, I just think there's a lot of coaches lean on their assistants in those situations. As do I, every single time. That's a weird assumption. Thank you, coach. Now, I'll start here. I like JJ. I wouldn't classify our relationship as friends, but I like him. And it's funny when he started on TV, we have a really good mutual friend.

And he goes, you know, JJ and you are a lot alike. And I thought, well, um, let me think here. Other than the basketball accolades, the looks, 118 million in career earnings, a head coaching job in the NBA, a degree from Duke and the hair. Yeah, I'd say maybe the exact same guy. The question I thought was really, the tone of it was fine, but it was very clear that it was kind of a fuck question. Like, hey, you need to talk to your assistants this time around, you know, as if when JJ was playing the entire same five for second half that we've never seen before. Like if you're going to be, you say this all the time,

but if you're going to be different and lose, you will have only lost because you were different for no other reason. So you're better just with the way people react to everything, you're almost better in life being the same and wrong as opposed to being different and wrong. So JJ does something different He thinks it's it's only out throughout this entire series. It doesn't work. So a lot of this I think locally in LA It's gonna be a big discussion I'm sure nationally becomes the main talking point because the way JJ

Handled that ends up being like, you know, that's an assumption I understood why he was upset because I do think it's a little like, hey, you're going to check in with anybody. Because if his assistants the whole game, like, do you want to talk to him? Like, why would he talk? What is he doing? He's his own man. He won't listen to us. Clearly, these guys talk all the time and he thought it was his best, best scenario and it didn't work. And by the way, if they had played Jackson Hayes like a little bit more, like there was, I don't think there was any sub pattern here that was going to solve

the problem. Now, if you want to get on JJ's case for needing to handle it a little bit better, because when I saw it and saw the video the first time, like they better win tonight because if they lose, then this will be part of it. And this will be like brought up later on because they just don't see the time. So I think part of the job is even though I would agree with JJ feeling slighted by it, part of the job and the seasoning is handling the questions that you know are kind of stupid. All right. What do we do with LeBron? Honestly, I just feel like anything he can do at this point should be extra credit and that we shouldn't be looking at a series like this and looking at his fourth quarter and going, well, we need to need to have a real honest discussion about who LeBron is or isn't.

Look, my guy, Curry hasn't been great the last couple of games. Uh, he's got to figure out something with the men. Thompson will get to that game with our guests. So it's not going to be in the open, but you know, Curry has, has another bad game. And like, you expect me to sit here and be like, you know, I had him 12th all time, but I think I'm going to move him to 18th after games four and five against the Rockets. Um, you know, I did wonder if LeBron was saving something for this run. I think the answer is that there was just not enough there. Uh, you know, he was aggressive in the first half.

I looked at the shot attempts again this morning. I'd say the first two attempts in the second half, early in the second half, he had a really nice baseline cut. He had another one for an and one, and then he had about a stretch of six straight possessions where it was pretty clear he was either willing to defer or there were shots he didn't necessarily want to take. So I think the tank was pretty close to empty and maybe it was after that 38 point game and he just couldn't really get it back. And I know that Luca with his injury, by the way, I thought that Di Vincenzo thing was nasty, but not like ejectionable. So you want to call it a flagrant one, whatever. I don't know that it would have necessarily changed the outcome of the game. If it was

called different, certainly it could have changed the outcome of the game if Lucas back wasn't hurting him as much as it was in that second half. I think Devin Chinza got elbowed in the face, then he was pissed and was going to hit somebody else. Unfortunately, it was Luca and Luca landed really bad, but Luca was terrible on defense before he had gotten hurt. He was really bad again. Also just the lack of positional awareness on rebounds going up in the air. If somebody else is near the basket and you're behind them, but it's the other team, you can actually are allowed to step in front of them. And Luca just doesn't have a ton of interest in this stuff. And so, if Luca hadn't had the finals run of last year or the Western Conference finals run of a couple of years ago, you would start to

hear more and more about those deficiencies getting in the way. But then when they're in the finals, it's, and maybe there are, maybe there are players you're like, this still needs to be better and it clearly needs to be better with him. So it feels a little unfair because the back thing was obviously a factor, but it wasn't a factor in the first half when he's lost and can't figure out who he's supposed to defend.

And then when he's closing out, he's completely upright, he's not quick enough laterally and he's just getting blown by left and right. It's a problem, but you'd still do the trade 10 out of 10 times because it was a great trade for the Lakers. So I don't think, like I'm not sitting here today thinking all of these disastrous thoughts about the Lakers because I just thought Minnesota was a lot, they had less public momentum, but I thought they were a lot closer as far as their accomplishments

and who they were the last month of the season than the Lakers. So there you go. By the way, a little love for Randall. Randall kind of saved Ant's ass last night. Now if Ant, I looked at it prior last night's game, I think he was seventh in the NBA and fourth quarter scoring. So we've seen him put together these fourth quarters. He looked like he was searching and so frustrated about all of the

misses from three that he wasn't a hundred percent confident. I mean, it's weird to see that dude not confident. I would tell you the close last night's game, that was not a confident basketball player. Doesn't mean this is something that is now going to continue to the rest of the playoffs. I imagine he's going to reset and have another huge moment in the next round. But it was a little alarming and good thing for Ant is that Randall was ready for the challenge.

I thought he was great. I thought they could have hunted Luca even more. Ant even settled a couple of times and it looked like he had Luca on a side where it was just he and Luca. I'm like, why are you pulling up for three? But Randall was not like that at all. Randall was attack mode, attack mode, and the possession that maybe is the biggest shot of the entire night, 93-88, Minnesota's up, who knows? They get a stop, like their score, we're right back in this whole thing, and had the ball. And Randall just kind of got it back from him. He was like, I got this. He scores, and that kind of was the game. But it was a really interesting moment and certainly important for

Minnesota team that needs that second score and the confidence Randall has coming out of this series is probably through the roof after what he did. And again, shout out to Rudy Gobert on a huge night. The Ryan Russo podcast is brought to you by FanDuel, the NBA playoffs are underway. So don't miss your chance to bet on all the clutch shots and legendary performances with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. FanDuel is the best place to find all your favorite player props, and now you can make a heads up play with player performance trends.

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playoff action. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. So just visit fanduel.com slash Ryan RYE and to join today. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C. First online real money wager. Only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued Let's dive a little deeper into the playoffs. Austin Rivers joins us off guard podcast with his guy Pasha. They just finished up so you can check that out on the Ringer Network of Pods.

All right, let's get into last night. Minnesota eliminates the Lakers. Was the Minnesota problem solvable for LA at all in this series? It's a great question. Man, I don't think so. Ah it's a great question. Man. I don't think so. They lack depth for one just being for comparing team to team.

They lack size obviously they have Jackson Hayes I mean this is who were were were. Drawing thin here we're, we're, we're, we're drawing thin here when we're talking about center play. I mean, obviously Mark Williams had his laugh last night. That was a really strange thing for him to do. I don't really understand that. But, uh, and I, I like Mark, but it was just a weird, I don't know what the purpose of him posting that's like, you failed the physical you're still, and you're still in Charlotte. There's nothing, there's nothing good over there. And you're still in Charlotte. There's nothing good over there. Anyways, so I don't know.

Rudy Gobert having 27 and 24 in a closeout game is diabolical, and I love Rudy. Rudy's a Hall of Famer. But to have that type of impact and not make any adjustments, I think they could have made some adjustments. I don't know if anything would have been solvable. They're outgunned and outmatched from a deaf standpoint. They don't have a deep team. They don't have a lot of shooting surrounding Lebron, consistently at least. I thought the series would be more competitive. 4-1 was a shocker,

I'm sure to you, as it was me. I had them winning in six. Just from what I saw Luca do last year in the pick and roll versus Rudy Gobert, I thought they were gonna do the same thing. I thought Jackson Hayes, if anything, was gonna play way more minutes. Actually, the complete opposite. I thought he was gonna be one of the leader in minutes. Just due to the fact of him rolling hard to the basket

and what that does to a defense and what a guy like Luca and his teammate LeBron can do to manipulate a defense and what a guy like Luca and his teammate LeBron can do to manipulate a defense by having a hard roller and the collapse of a defense and how they're able to find the open man consistently nine out of 10 times. They didn't go that route, but JJ alluded to them having problems scoring

with Jackson Hayes on the floor. He said it without saying it. So I don't know if they had the man strength to come up with another option to beat this team. They clearly were drawing, I mean that lineup they ended with the game last night. The second half, I've never even seen that lineup. It was Dorian, Finney Smith, Luca, LeBron,

Gabe Vincent and Hachimora. It was just like a random collection of players around LeBron and Luca where Minnesota had an actual team on the floor where guys complimented each other from size to shooting to which one plays better defense than the other. They had five guys that could play on both sides of the ball. No, I don't think the Lakers were currently built to beat that team. I was wrong. Yeah, I mean, when they're running Maxie Klieba out there for five minutes, when he hadn't even practiced and hadn't played in the game in a long time,

like, you know, that they're searching. I'm totally fine with Jackson Hayes not playing. I mean, I think it's, it becomes one of those labeling things where if Jackson plays a few minutes in the second half of the last game, you're like, Oh, you know, they, they tried it. I think JJ and the staff knew what they do or don't have with Jackson Hayes, and they had to just light it up from three, and that wasn't gonna happen as well. So, you know, as I was watching this series play out,

and I was in person at game one, and you got 48 points from Nas and Jay, which was, you thought, okay, well, if you're gonna get that, which you're not gonna get every single night, you didn't get anything close to that and you had the Rudy game. So all these games were different, but at least in person, it was like, man, I know JJ likes to say how they're not a small team. They just don't have a center. I was like, yeah, but Minnesota is just as big as they are.

I mean, other than the Connly matchup or if Di Vincenzo is coming off the bench for him. And it made me think about your 2020 series with the Lakers when you were with the Rockets, because you'd beaten OKC, right? You'd beaten OKC in seven. You won game one by 15. Did you think you were like, we got these dudes? We're small, we don't have a center, like we're gonna run around like crazy.

Did you think you'd beat that series? We went to the locker room with the highest of highest confidence. I remember going back to our little dorm room, wherever we were staying down in that bubble, and calling my friends like, but we better sweep this team. I was so confident that we had them figured out how that first game went. I thought James, I thought we were the smartest team in the world. I was like, the small ball, they can't keep up.up nightmare for them were slicing were dice. We're spreading the floor

we have shooting everywhere and Then we couldn't win a game after that In fact, we weren't even really close to winning any games after that the last they won four straight the last two being nasty So here let me jump in here then because the way see it, like I think sometimes there's just a physicality, there's a physics part of this that's left out. And we saw it with LA and Minnesota is that you can like your guys or you can say, Hey, if this works tonight, it goes in our favor. I just think it is a very overlooked part of this, the physical task of playing night in and night out against a team that is so much bigger than you. And you were, you physical task of playing night in and night out against a team

that is so much bigger than you. And you were, you know, you were seventh in minutes on that squad, PJ's trying to hang in there and it just, it feels like it becomes too daunting even if you think you have some style or scheme advantage. Yeah, 100%. I think it's only possible with a few undersized bigs in the league. I think people see Draymond do it and just get like the idea that any undersized big can do this for totality for a seven game series.

Like you said, it's one thing to have a game where you have success in it. After adjustments are made, is he still able to do the same thing? Are you still able to have that impact? They couldn't box out Rudy last night if they tried. He wore them down. Not to mention you've been asking this from LeBron all series long, considering they haven't really played Jackson Hayes consistently. But then he also has the daunting task of what he has on offense. They were worn down, like you said. PJ was worn down. PJ, by the end of that series, when we played, we had

him and Rob Covington down there boxing out Dwight Howard and Javel McGee. By the end of the series, I remember looking at Rob Covington, he was like, I don't ever want to play this positional role again. I want to go back to playing small forward, shoot the reason, just do my thing. I can't do this. Cuz it's just, people do underestimate to your point, the physicality of our game. And with some of these larger size guys, centers in particular, and the impact they have on the game.

Dreymon's the only guy that I know consistently that can just do it for a whole series, go out there and guard someone double his size. Everyone else, I don't see that happening consistently. It's all about makeup. The Lakers don't even have that. So that wasn't gonna work. Like you said, I think they were drawing straws there at the end. They went with shooting because they didn't have the confidence in Jackson Hayes.

They didn't have enough shooting. They weren't going to win this series. That's definitely probably task number one, I would say for the summer for them is to go out and get not now because he's older, but for us, do you remember when we had Clint Capella? He picked, he rolled, he ran the floor. At one point, he was dominating in the NBA as a big, just from having that relationship with James. You see what James has done to Zubok this year,

just getting a decent size big, and Luca has been proven, I mean, look at Derek Lively. Again, we haven't seen in a lot a lot of minutes with him without Luca, but there's a difference. So I think people had hoped that Jackson Hayes could do some of these things. Obviously he was limited in the offensive aside, but yeah, no. Okay, let's pivot. Trust me. No, I'm really glad. Thanks for bringing that up, Ryan. I did have my head high after game one and I did think I was gonna win my first championship I was that delusional after beating the Lakers and then we lost four straight I appreciate so all of you guys were that delusional about it brother Russell was talking remember Russell's get into a Rondo's brother

Sit down mother get diggity. I mean talking all type of crazy shit where we're in there like man This team can't score with us soft as my vote. We all win this where we're in there like, man, this team can't score with us. This soft ass motherfucker, we're going to win this. And we were in the bubble. We felt like we could steal one. The title that year felt like if you wanted it the most, you could get it. Because half the people in there didn't want to be there. The Clippers lost just purely off them not wanting to play basketball anymore. Lou Will was eating hot wings. Remember Paul George said he's having mental stuff. Half the team didn't even want to live in there anymore. We felt like we had a group that wanted to be there. We are living and dying on this small ball thing. We just beat OKC. We beat this team

by a good margin, game one, like you said, I think 15 or something, whatever it was. We have a good win. We're talk of trash. Yeah, we went to the locker room thinking we're going to win the championship. That's what we thought. And we are looking at the East at that time, which there was nothing over there. So we were like, if we could beat a couple, we got a couple more series and then we're in the finals, we're running through the East. That's how we felt. Obviously the tides changed quickly. Pete Okay. So this is a good pivot though, because I want to talk Clippers Denver. I thought the Clippers, you know, sometimes when I think about Minnesota and LA, I felt like Minnesota had no public momentum, no national momentum and they finished really strong and they were the

healthiest they had been all year. And it felt like LA had all this national momentum because they had that 18 and three stretch. And even if they felt like they weren't the same team to close, it's like, okay, but we saw the best version of them and we saw how good their defense can be with preparation and all these things. And then it's like, okay, well that, that didn't work out. The Clippers, you know, I picked the Clippers. I didn't think Denver had enough defensive stuff on the perimeter to match

up with all the Clippers options. And yet I'm sitting here going Denver's up's up three two and you could make it as simple as Jokic maybe in game four but Murray reminding us of his playoff ceiling in game five was a big part of it. I mean they were dominant in game five. I think it was bad defense by the Clippers but I also think it was incredible shot making and so it wasn't necessarily the superhero Jokic game

that basically his baseline is a superhero game but like it was a little extra in that game for are you surprised Embers up three two in the series. I am I am I thought they'd be outmatched on the perimeter again we just talked about depth with with the Lakers when you look at Denver and the pieces they've lost over the years whether it's been you know KCP Bruce Brown obviously Jeff Green's older now but he was a big piece there a couple years ago they They've lost valued experience to playoff play guys. And they've inserted kind of young, whether it's Peyton Watson, P Watt, Christian Braun, these guys who I haven't seen that consistency of play through, I did question them.

I also questioned Jamal a little bit. We haven't seen the same Jamal consistently, to be honest. Although Jamal is a different player in the playoffs, this year he's actually had a solid year. But like we saw last year in the previous play, even the Olympics this year with Canada, I didn't know what we had left with Jamal. And I'm looking at this team on totality and where they're at. And I'm like, I don't know if they have the perimeter scoring, the perimeter defense, to be able to keep up with a Clippers team as low as they are on the perimeter with Powell and obviously James and Kawhi. Not to mention, I thought Zubok, as good as he is, you know, again, we know no one's going to stop Nikola,

but that's about as solid of a center as you can get. Who's gonna be able to kinda navigate through the game with Nicola and guard him. I had the Clippers winning in six or seven. Obviously a couple of these games that could have gone either way. I mean, Nicola shoots an air ball perfectly to Aaron Gourney dunks it they win before they're going in overtime. That could have gone either way.

Crushing lost, a couple of the first couple of games could have went either way. The game Westbrook took over and had some moments that could have gone either way. It could easily be three-2 the other way. We could be still talking about the Clippers winning. It's the beauty of the playoffs. But yeah, I think Jamal Murray really surprised us last game to your point.

The Clippers actually, as bad as they were defensively, were having a great offensive game. They kept the game within nine. Like most of the game. I'm glad you said that because they had like 60 at the half. Yeah, they played their ass off. It's just so funny, like when you're losing, then somehow collectively everything's wrong.

Yeah, right. And I'm watching it going, hey, they're actually, and sure, you'd love to see Kawhi have a moment, and we can get to, I wanna get to James here in a second, but there was enough there offensively, you just can't believe the Clippers being this good, having this kind of defensive profile against what feels like, you know, I know Yokocho is still going to pick you apart. The offense in that game was not the issue.

I was shocked to see them that bad defensively. That's that's what was blowing my mind. And when they went into halftime, I think they were down nine or 11 points. You even heard Charles Barkley say, I don't mind where the Clippers are at right now. The Nuggets have had a coming to God shooting game here. Jamal Russell Westbrook started the game like, he's like five for seven, hitting threes, all type of stuff. They're only down nine. I had the Clippers still winning that game due to their offensive play being still so high.

And I felt like a lot of times defensive things can be adjusted. It's hard to turn on the offensive button when it's not working. When you're not hitting shots, it's not something you go to halftime and by nature switch. The defensive end is something that can be adjusted. It's not like they're in a bad rhythm of defense. It's not like guys are hanging their head and lacking confidence in the defensive end. It's a strategic thing. So with the defense of having guys like Dunn and Derek Jones

and even Kwai, like all these guys who can defend and play both sides of the ball, I was shocked just to see the impact that Jamal was able to have. And it wasn't just some of the shots that Jamal was hitting. Jamal was like a couple of those. He just like came down and fired a three. No one even picked him up. Like there was just defensive laps after defensive laps

and their offense is so good on that team that they were able to stay in the game. But then obviously, you know, they weren't able to slow them down. The Nuggets just kept going. I yeah, I'm shocked, man. I thought the Clippers had just more of a total team. I'm done underestimating Nicola. Every time I do or his team, they just figure out a way. But I think Clippers are the more total team here.

I don't think anybody would disagree with that. They have a much more deeper team, especially in the perimeter, obviously, it's not even close. I'm shocked to see them down. Yeah, I had them winning in six. I'm surprised to hear anyone that had ever played with Yokochi ever doubt him. It's not doubting him. It's just the squad that's been placed around him. I don't like the makeup of their team Personally, they still do have that starting core. It just doesn't look like the starting core of two years ago

The one that won And that's a lot to do with you know, Jamal Um, all of them have kind of taken a light step back besides Nikola Nikola has continued to just, I don't know, Nicola's having a better year than his MVP years and is not going to win an MVP, ironically enough. It felt like every single other player has kind of taken a little step back and then them losing Bruce Browns, them losing KCPs, them losing kind of the makeup.

They've been mad and consistent during the season, the firing of their coach a week or two before the playoffs, all of these different things. Who's the voice there now? Is it, is it? Because Mike, you can say whatever you want about Coach Malone. He was one of the heavy voices in that locker room, maybe too much, I don't know. These are questions I had to where I'm looking at a Clippers team

that is fully healthy for the first time and quiet looks fantastic. And I'm looking at the overall makeup of their team and how many guys can play team and how many guys can play defense and how many guys can play on both sides of the ball. They have shooting, they have scoring, they have everything that you could possibly want. They even got to pick up players like Bogdanovich and all these like talented scores. I just thought they would overwhelm Denver with their talent. It wasn't a Nicola thing as a team thing, but they just.

Keep finding a way. OK, this is going to be a bit of a setup. Okay. James playoff shortcomings, well documented and at 35 years old with Harden, there's probably a stage for him now in his career where like, I'm not expecting any of the prime Harden stuff. I don't look at the bad moments as damning because he's not necessarily like the clear number one, like he's been in other spots and really more specifically Houston. He was great in game one. He hit some huge buckets down the stretch in game two. Game three is fine. I think game two, he had had the slow start and then had a couple of nice ones. In game, game four, you're like, all right, whatever.

I'm looking right now. Not that big of a deal. Game five was alarmingly bad. And it's not just the shooting. I was looking at it and it was like, okay, these are these little mistakes where it seems like as slow as he likes to play, sometimes I think the speed and the pace,

as smart as he is, cause he's obviously a brilliant player in the way he can read certain things. And I would never deny him that compliment. But I'm just wondering, as somebody who's played with him and has watched this play out, why do you think it gets harder for him,

somebody that has had this kind of production, and again, a season where he was basically the only guy they could rely on until Kawhi could get back. Why do you think the playoffs are hard for him? Man, I think a lot of his games sometimes is predicated on everything being pretty, if that makes sense. I think momentum, rhythm play a huge factor in how he runs his offense and in the playoffs the game slows down. Teams know everybody's plays. They know every set.

There's adjustment every single game. Every new game, every game in the playoffs, it's like a new life. It's almost like, I don't want to say it's a new team, but it's a team that is watching film of all the things they didn't do last game well, and they come and adjust. James is playing the same way every time.

He likes a pretty game. He likes his style of play. He likes space. He likes rhythm. He's a rhythm player. Everything's with rhythm. And the playoffs usually tend to be about breaking up rhythm and adjusting and making plays. I think James dominates one way. So I think sometimes when you play this way and teams make adjustments to it, it's very hard for a player, even as great as he is, to counteract that. And I think when it happens, he just, again, I can't speak for him, but I've seen it. He'll take a step back with his aggression. He shot nine shots last game. You know what I mean?

Like my best player or second best player, last game. Yeah. You know what I mean? My best player or second best player, whatever you want to call him, from an aggression standpoint, I need more. I'd almost rather him go three for 18 than three for nine. It's like an aggression standpoint where when teams make this thing, where things aren't flowing right, the offense isn't, he's not finding his spots. It's when it's not pretty, when it's not perfect, when it's not flowing, he tends to just, I don't know. And we've seen it time and time again.

I know what you're saying though. It's almost like he's now decided, okay, I'm taking, it's like he takes himself out of the game before the opponent does. Yeah, he'll take himself out, I'm gonna let it unfold this way, because this is the way the game's going. And I don't know if he's too calculated.

James is one of the smartest basketball minds I've ever been around in my life. So it's hard for me to understand these things because I know he sees things. I know he can... There has to be adjustments in his head that are coming to him to where he can figure out ways to be successful. I... Like, if you take away one thing with Nicola, it is instant that he'll find somewhere else to pick a team apart. It's not even, it's not even like a, do you know what I mean?

Like James, I'm not comparing them as players or tutored and players, but in terms of mental dominating and running a game, I don't know too many more brighter than James. It's like in my career, James, Chris, uh, prime Chris and Nicole, Chris came in, Chris came in, Chris came in, shout out to Chris came Prime Chris and Nicole. Chris Kamen. Chris Kamen. Chris Kamen. Shout out to Chris Kamen wherever you are. Yeah, Chris, Paul, James Harden and Nicole have all, they've made players like me or anybody else like, oh, I thought I knew how to read a game.

And then you see them pick a part of games. So that's what troubles me with James and these playoffs because I see him doing it. He'll like take himself out. And it's not like he can't play or he's not a clutch or he's scared or all these things people try to like, I don't know what it is, he'll just do it. Like he had nine, I'm looking at the stat sheet right now. He was three of nine.

Three of nine, man. It's like, they still scored 115. So I need him to, that's one of those things Three of nine, man. They still scored 115. So I need him to, that's one of those things where, I don't know, Ryan, I don't know. But we're aligned here. And again, I'd be harsher if you were 30 and he's in the MVP conversation. I've been harsher about this in the past.

So the reason there was the longer setup for this, which could have just been a much simpler, efficient question, but as we're talking about, I was like, I didn't want to come off as like, oh, here we go again with Jim. Cause I don't expect as much for him. I'm not holding him to the same standard that I was before. And he's had some good games here. So you could just chalk it up to,

Hey, they were at Denver. They got down, you know, and Denver's not missing and whatever. But I just thought beyond the three for nine, there were too many of those moments. I'm like, oh, this is, this all, this looks's not missing and whatever. But I just thought beyond the three for nine, there were too many of those moments. I'm like, oh, this is all, this looks a little too familiar here.

Let me shift to Houston, his former team here. Do you think they have enough to pull off two more games against Golden State? I don't, I don't. Why not? I think from the depth standpoint, they do. I'm trying to use that word depth. Good God, I've said it like 10 times on this pod.

I think they have a deep team. I think they're talented. I think the inexper 10 times on this pod. I think they have a deep team. I think they're talented. I think the inexperience plays a huge part. It's hard for me to see Jimmy, Steph, Dre, and I'm putting Steve in there. I know he doesn't play, but it's hard for me to see this team losing three times straight. Just from a manipulating standpoint

of how those two play, Dremon and Jimmy, they're gonna mess the game up like they did. And what was it? Game four? They made it a circus on defense. They made it, they took the entire flow, the track meet out of the game. They junked it up and they made it a, the game almost got out of control at one point. The rest were reviewed like 10 possessions straight.

They kept reviewing stuff. They play to a level and they manipulate stuff. You have two Draymond on the court. You have him and Jimmy out there. They're going to make adjustments. And I do think they're going to, that game got away from them early. Also, Steph and Jimmy not scoring in the first quarter pretty much. That's not going to happen. It's just not, I don't have it happening. I also don't have the confidence in this current Houston team that if they go in an environment like they're going to go into tonight or was it tomorrow, whatever it is, that they'll be able to figure

out a way to muster through to get a win there and then go back to Houston and get another win over the same exact team. I don't know how much they have left in the tank, Jimmy and Dre and stuff. I don't know how far they can go. I do have them closing out the series. I don't see that happening. Just from an execution standpoint on both closing out the series. I don't see that happening. Just from an execution standpoint on both sides of the floor, I don't have Houston having that experience

and know how to do that these next two games. I don't see it now. I wanna ask you a tactical question on this. So it's 93-64 in the third quarter, 550, Steve Kerr waves the white flag, and they got it all the way back to, I had it written down here, but I remember there was a possession where it was 111 97.

I mean, your man Braxton Key was in there just missing around that poor guy. So the question I would ask, do you think, like I think I know the answer to this because I think Kerr is going, okay, they blasted us in the first half. I've got older guys, they play tomorrow night. We're just going to focus on this game six thing.

I'm not going to try to fight and claw back with older players here. But I think sometimes I'll see teams like stay with their starters late. You know, Tibbs is notorious for it. Um, you know, I think your dad's done it over the years where everybody gets mad and like, Oh, there are 14 and there's two and a half minutes left. I think teams will, will wave the white flag earlier, hoping to trick the

opponent into doing the same thing. earlier, hoping to trick the opponent into doing the same thing. And in this case, I'm wondering if it felt like Steve, maybe it was just a bunch of young guys that were psyched to get minutes with zero pressure on them. But when you're on the sidelines and you see the other team wave the light flag and your coach is not matching with the backups, I know you could simply say the coaches are afraid of doing that, but I wonder if the opponent does it sometimes to try to invite the other coach into doing it earlier than he wants to. Maybe in a regular season game, in a playoff game, Eme was going to, they got to win it.

You know what I'm saying? In a must-win game, I don't think they would have cared what lineup was out there. I think they were going to try to finish the game. But again, I thought you were going to ask me, do you put the guys back in when they bring the game close? At that point, it's hard to do that. Well, that's probably a better question. So go ahead. I wouldn't unless it's something realistic.

You're talking about two minutes. How much time was left when it was 97111? There was like four minutes, there was like a four minute point there where I'm watching going, Hey, this is, it was one 14, one on one. And then they had a pat Spencer missed a three that would have cut it to 10 at four 24. And that's when, um, key had the offensive rebound and then he missed and then they had the Dylan Brooks play with Spencer

getting ejected with the headbutt. That was right around there where I'm like, if they get this to 10 and it's four minutes, I think you could tell looking at Draymond, Jimmy and Steph, they were not coming back into this game. No, they're done. Yeah, they were done. Those guys were done.

With that team, I'm waiting for game six. You can't even risk one of them going back in there and something happening. Otherwise the series definitely shifts the other way. I still feel like they have the momentum. When you're up three, one, you get a little bit of cushion. They won at home, congrats. Now we get to go back.

That's the other thing too. It was on the road. They chuck it up as an L. You got Jimmy back somewhat healthy already. Let's not force anything and press anything. If anything, you just encourage the young guys for continuing to play hard and making the game close, but a lot would have had to go right and wrong

for Houston for them to even win that game with four minutes left. After the guys haven't been playing for 30 minutes, including TV timeouts and everything else, maybe even more, I think you leave them on the bench. If you've got a three-one lead going back home with guys already battling some injuries, Steph's got the thumb, Jimmy's got the pelvic injury,

all these other stuff going on, you're already not deep as is. I would have sat him down. Yeah, because I think the other side of what I was talking about before is a 7.59, Golden State cuts it to 17, and then E-May's like, okay, Aaron Holiday, Jacques, Jabari, Reid, Eason out. And he goes back with the five starters.

But at that point, like I can also understand why they would do that. Yeah, yeah. I get on the other side too. He may say, we don't, we gotta get this win. We can't play any chances. You guys, you're gonna close, get out the game. We gotta win this game here.

So it just depends on what situation you're in. What did you think of Kyle Anderson's comments? And it wasn't nasty. I think it was played out when you just look at the, when you look at the quote, I thought it was nastier. Then I looked at it, I'm glad I looked at it because he was like, look, I'm not trying to be a dick. Yeah. Right.

But that Cleveland's better without Darius Garland. There may have been a little bit of protecting Hero there because Hero and Garland and all these guys are getting into the back and forth about. 100%. 100%. Is there any truth to that? Cause I don't think you can do anything with these numbers. This was such a ridiculous mismatch

in the way it played out. No, I don't believe so. I believe maybe first a Miami team where they're already outnumbered and there might be some truths to that. Maybe first a Miami team where they're already outnumbered and there might be some troops to that. When they play a Boston or an OKC for that matter and you need scoring and playmaking not just from one guy,

Garland is gonna be monumental in those series. And again, I love Ty Jerome. I love these guys that they have coming off the bench. He's not Darius Garland. All right. And when the teams that they're going to be playing against, a Boston team, you have games where like Tatum don't even play well and they still won by 20. They have five to six guys who can play off the catch and dribble and make a play.

Darius Garland is going to be needed for the Cavaliers. It's ridiculous. Darius Garland is needed. He's an all-star. They need him to play well, along with Donovan Mitchell, as well as all their other counterparts in that team, to compete and win a championship. Versus a team like Miami, where they're already vastly better

than, a team that they're already deeper and have everything, you could sit out a Garland so they don't have now anybody to pick on. Maybe that was the one guy they could pick on defensively and score. Now you get him out and you put someone else in there that could play defense. And now that's eliminated the one thing they've had. It's a matchup thing. But overall, like in totality, do they need Darius Garland to win a championship? Damn right they need him because the team that they have to get through to

go to the finals or even beat, you know, whether it's OKC or whoever, but let's just look at the East, a Knicks or a Boston specifically, bro, they got seven, eight guys who make plays and put up numbers and do things. Cleveland has hung their hat all year on having depth and having multiple guys make plays. You can't take the second or third, I would say he's a third best player in that team personally.

You can't take the third best player of that team and say they're better without them. But I understand what Kyle is doing there. Kyle has an opinion about it, obviously. There is truth to it. That's why the comment was weird. Listen, let's be honest. The comment Darius Garland made in the beginning was weird because it's just like, right message, wrong messenger, man. They do pick on Tyler. Tyler also has 35, dog, or 32. He's been doing his thing. Let's not act like Tyler hasn't been kicking y'all's ass. His team is just not that good. And Darius, you're not a good defender. Let's not act like last year, we didn't see Boston play you guys and they weren't just killing you in the switch. They made, they'd get you to switch off on

a Jalen Brown or a Tatum and they kept putting you up there. We saw it with you. So like, and I love Darius Garland. I'm a fan of his game. He's so talented, herky jerky, has one of the best handles in the league, all nine yards. But you're not a great defender. You've definitely improved and you've made steps this year to make yourself not as a liability on that end, which you got to give him credit for. But like it shouldn't have came from you. You shouldn't be calling out Tyler Hero for being picked on a defense when he's literally when you play Boston in about a series of two, they are going to do that to you. Tyler, it's like, that's why you don't say these things. That's why Kyle had the,

the nerve to come out and be like they're better without them. It, there was definitely something there and him sticking up for his teammate. It's not true though. But yeah, that's my take on it. I'm with you not having a second on ball creator when shit goes crazy deeper into the playoffs is a death sentence. And so if you take him off of that team, yeah, like there's some splits, there's splits defensively that defend the position that Darius is not like none of us are sitting here talking about him locking dudes down, but no, there's too much

upside on the other side of it. You know what it does? If you take Darius out, it turns Donovan into a player you don't want him to be anymore. Donovan is might taking a step back statistically this year, but it's been for the benefit of his team. He's got multiple guys coming in and contributing. If you take Darius Garland out the game and put the ball always in Donovan Mitchell's hands, he's going to go back to that Donovan Mitchell two, three years ago where he's just going to score a whole bunch of points and it's going to be like a thing where he doesn't have enough help. It go back to that Donovan Mitchell two, three years ago where he's just going to score a whole bunch of points and it's going to be like a thing where he doesn't have enough help.

It goes back to that. You need Garland out there. You need the ball out of his hands. I talk about this in the Magic all the time. I love Paolo and Franz. It's in their hands too much. They need someone else to be able to navigate and make a play. You can't just take Darius Garland out the series and expect them to be a better team.

No. Yeah. I have two things before we finish here. Do you think Boston has a preference between New York and Detroit? I love that series, by the way. Love that. It's incredible. You know why? Because first off, with the exception of maybe one game, maybe Pistons have outplayed this team. Most of the series, they just haven't been able to close games prior to last game. And Carl has been incredible. Some of the shot making that Carl, some of these shots that

Carl's are hitting, like people aren't even, he's a center barely jumping, shooting from a half court, hitting these shots. I love the physicality of the series. I love how close these guys are matched up. I love the fact that I don't- Would you, if you were our, if you were our, sorry Thompson, sorry to interrupt you. With some of these calls Brunson gets,

would you contemplate retirement this off season? It's tough, man. Good God. You know, it's crazy. I'm such a JB guy. I love Brunson, but my goodness, man. It's the amount of times he whips his head back or he comes off a peg. I'm my goodness, man. It's the amount of times he whips his head back or he comes off a

pick. I'm just like, man, it, you know, I thought the opposite was going to happen. When you look at the physicality of the playoffs, I thought they were going to stop calling all those things. I thought they're, because you look at what they're doing with Steph. I mean, Steph's getting knocked every time he shoots a three. Half of them they call, half of them they don't. They've been pretty consistent with the whistle with JB. Yeah, it's tough, man, because Thompson's obviously one of the better defenders in the league. He's done a great job trying to keep him in pockets.

There's two or three a game where, I'm sorry, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. Yeah, there was a couple last game that were brutal. I mean, they've been every game. Yeah, there's a couple every, you're right. There's a couple every game where you're like, that can't be called. It just can't.

Especially sometimes it's like time and place. They'll call it pivotal possession of a game. Pistons are fighting on a run. JB comes across half court and like whips his head back and they're calling a foul, putting it like Thompson and foul trouble or something like that. It's just like, why? It's hard to watch.

But you were going somewhere else with that. So hopefully I didn't derail you too much. Oh no, I'll answer your question. I would rather play the Pistons than the Knicks. I'd rather play the Pistons. Just because of the high level closing offensive options, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just closing a game versus Carl Towns and Brunson and even guys like Mikael Bridges who have finals experience, OG, all these guys. I would much rather play an inexperienced Pistons team that hangs their hat on getting contributions from like vets like Malik Beasley or Tim Hardaway Jr. You know, I mean, again, they're doing a great job, but I'd much rather play that team than this star powered starting lineup of a team that Knicks have personally.

Last thing, and we're going to make it personal. How long do you wait to talk to your dad after that last game? I've never seen a loss like that. And it's been a while. I've never been so emotionally drained and charged up at the same time after a game. I don't even know how to explain to you watching that game unfold. The thing that pisses me off the most is following the loss. I see comments of people like, oh, that's Doc. The fuck was Doc supposed to do in that position? I went back and watched that game purposely five times again,

just the last three, four minutes of the game, just to see if there's notes. I usually I'll write down notes and adjustments I would have made, maybe some subs, maybe a player or two I would have looked at or a player matchup, just to see if I could have. When Giannis hit the euro step and went up seven with 40 something seconds left, that game could only,

if you replay that game 10 times, it wouldn't have happened that way. And it was hard for me to be hard on Gary Trent because he was fantastic the past couple of games. They were only in the game because of him. He lost the ball through his legs. I mean, the ball just went right through his hands, man. Then he gets trapped in a corner, but he could have just dribbled to his left.

He picks it up, throws it the opposite way. Nemhard hits a three. They give an N1 up to Halliburton. Every possible mistake that a team could make in a minute was made. I've never seen something like that in that way. I don't know when I could talk to him. I talked to my brother who's on staff, Spencer Rivers, does player development,

he sits right behind my dad on the bench, and he had nothing. I mean, I called him and I was like, he said Austin, I have never felt this way after a loss in my life. I've never, and he goes, and we know, we don't know what we had after this. We don't have Dame with the realistic chances of us going back to Milwaukee winning and then going back to Indiana

winning a game again aren't high. It's just, yeah, I don't, that was brutal, man. Now the question turns to something else, which we all are wondering, like what's next? I don't, I talked to my brother for an hour about this. Selfishly, my answer is different from what might be good for the team. I'm not thinking about the Bucs. I don't give a shit about the Bucs. I care about Doc Rivers. That's who I care about personally. I have my thoughts on what would be beneficial for him.

I don't know if it's the best for the team, but. Do I dare ask the follow-up? Yeah, I mean, listen. You have to honor what Giannis wants to do at the end of the day. He's earned that, he's won a championship there. He's one of the top players on the planet still. If this guy comes to you and says, I wanna stay here, I wanna keep rebuilding around me, then you do it. Because that's what you do with a guy like Yannis and he's earned that.

But if there is a hint, or if he starts having conversations with you, like, I got to look at other options, then you look at other options and you get a haul for him. He's so good that you could get a restart, a full restart with him. You could take him to Houston, not saying Houston would do it, and you could get a, they don't even use Cam Whitmore. Put Cam Whitmore in the dunker spot. Have him watch film with Aaron Gordon. Tell me Cam Whitmore can't do some

of those same things athletically. Go get you a, I don't think they're gonna, Thompson's not going anywhere, but you could get a Reed Shepherd who they're not using yet. You go get a Jalen Green, who's probably one of the best startup two guards in the league, if you're talking about potential and project. He's only continued to get better. Couple first round picks, second

round pick, all for this one guy. That's already a startup right there. You still have other guys on the roster that you could move for other pieces. That's a good startup. Go coach. I personally, if you're asking from his son, I miss him coaching the heart and hustle magic. I wish him doing more with less. I'm tired of him putting himself in these positions to where they either win and it's a good job or if they lose, fire dock. He's been in pressurized coaching situations for the last however many years. And I don't know if you're looking around the NBA, the teams who are winning are startup teams who have held together and started from within and just built their way up Sons all these projects where you're putting stars together. The shit ain't working. It's it's not working like that You got OKC got Cleveland. You got Boston. These teams have not made changes They have started from the ground up and just built up Go coach some basketball without stress for a year or two. My god, dude, you keep you just did it with Philly

You were on a team that wasn't built to win But if you've, you get fired. He got fired for losing to the Celtics, who won. It makes no sense. That's what he keeps putting himself in these situations to do. I'm just tired of seeing them in these positions where every time they lose, they bring up his 3-1 record or this bullshit with him. It's exhausting as a family member.

I would like him to go do it with a lot of these guys, but E-MAY is doing. E-MAY went with a young team and we're going to start here and we're going to build our way up. You get a longer, you get job security, you get a longer runway, you have more control, you have players who will listen, young players. You don't have a, you know what I'm talking about. Look at Bud just went through in Phoenix. Like don't stop, don't take that job.

Don't stop doing these jobs. I told him not to take the Philly job. He took it. These are things that I have been outwardly outspoken about. So that's why I feel comfortable saying this on your part. And I, that's my personal feeling. You know what I mean? Obviously you would never want to trade a Giannis because Giannis is the top two or three player in the world, but you don't have anything to win there with him right now because Dame's out all next year. You're pretty much locked in with that. They're not going to get any better with that.

That team is not going anywhere. It's the hard reality. So I'm nervous for him and what is expected of him with this team with Giannis and what then then next year, if Giannis is there and they're not winning, it's a circus now because now everyone's like Janus wants the Janus got to get it. But unless he wants to be Dirk Nowinski, if you want to be somewhere and just win one title there, which is fine because you've earned that and you want to ride it out there, I've told nothing but respect.

That'd be great. But for my dad and selfishly, if you're asking what I would like for him to do, yeah, I'd like him to get a startup team, a young team and build that out. Go coach. Look what he did with the Clippers team after Blake and Kristen and left. They took a warrior's team to five, six games with, with the rookie Shea and Pat Beverly and Lou Will. And everybody was raving about Doc's coaching ability. Then somehow I guess he forgot how to do it, but they got Paul George and quiet there and they fired his ass when they lost the bubble. I'm just, that's the way it works when you

get those types of rosters in front of you. So I don't know. I imagine the three one jokes make you just furious. They make me really angry because they try to, this is a man who's on the verge of being the most winningest African American coach in the history of the sport. And they continue to put his legacy in a box of him losing three ones, but don't have any context around it. With the exception of the Houston one that I happen to be a part of,

we'll take ownership of that one. The blame that's placed on him for the three one loss in the bubble is confusing to me. Considering half the team didn't want to be there and his best players were playing like dog shit. So I don't know why he gets the blame for the 3-1 loss there. The other 3-1 loss, when they lost to the Pistons, who won with a TMAC team that had no business being up,

he's been a product of his own overachievement. Well, that one, I may look. The last thing I've always, I'm never gonna sit here, and you know how I feel about your dad. I really like your dad. He's always been awesome to me. I've known him, you know, casually off and on.

I remember working out with him almost 20 years ago when you were a kid and he was telling me about you. Like we were working out together in the gym at a hotel for a road trip and he was talking about you. I mean, it's just really cool. Like you might've been in sixth grade and he's like, he's going to be in the NBA. And I was like, damn, really? Cause I remember he was talking about your brother and he was like, he's like, yeah, but he's like, awesome. He's like, he's the one that's going to get it done. So I don't want

to sit here and be like, well, I think you're wrong about this. The one we agree on emphatically is the Orlando one just as another one you get to add to the list that's totally, totally unfair about it. The thing I think I'd ask is, you know, when he was done in Boston, he didn't want to rebuild. He wanted to go to the Clippers. He wanted that pressure.

You may feel that way. You may feel this way. Everything you've said right now. Yeah, that's my question. No, he does not. He has chased that high. I personally think he's chased that high since winning and being on that mountain top as one of those coaches.

He wants that and nothing else sometimes. That's what I've heard. His mind could change, but from what I've seen and the decisions he's made, Ryan, he wants to be in the cooker. He wants to do it. That's what he wants. As a family person though,

we feel for him when things go this way and then like they're throwing it at him and they're saying the 3-1, he sucks, he's overrated all with Doc's there. You know Doc and Darvin Ham... I see the jokes. He sees them. It wears you out a little bit because I'm like, you're a fucking great coach, man. I don't hear this with anybody else that loses. Steve Kerr and these guys can lose every year. Nothing. The Doc loses jokes. 3- one jokes. They're just jokes on jokes with my guy. So yeah, I get a little defensive. I get a little irritable with it. I would like him to go coach basketball where he has actual voice and control over things again and gets the bill within. I don't know. But he likes, yeah, man, you're right. At

the end of the day, I feel this way. That's not the way he feels. He likes being in a win or bust season. Like those are the things he keeps putting win or bust. I'm just like, God damn, that's a lot of pressure. You got to win it all for it to go right? You sound like a son. You sound like a son who cares. I am, I am, I am, I am, I am. At the end of the day, so.

Hey dude, this was great. Thanks as always. It's always great visiting with you. And again, check out our guy Austin with Pasha on off guard part of our Ringer network podcast. It's out every week and they're on fire during the playoffs. Thanks man. I appreciate you, man.

Have a good one. As you know, by now we've been tearing through the playoffs, some nice nights with our partners, Vanduul, America's number one sports book. You can check out the latest odds and pricing. I've got a three legged for you, four if you're feeling a little spicy. Again, you can see that at sportsbook.fandl.com. We've got Denver at the Clippers.

So the totals, we know this was an underfest in the playoffs here quite a bit. And I think that number gets jumped up a bit with the game five results where Denver could not miss a shot. So I'm going to go under 212 just expecting the Clippers. Yes, I said the Clippers to fight tonight. From a talent standpoint, I still feel better about Los Angeles, but it doesn't mean that

they're going to win and picking Yancey Okich feels pretty stupid when you're down 3-2 on your prediction on this one, but get some right, get some wrong. Anyway, so I'm going to go under 2-12 hoping that this game grinds a bit more because it's close and the Clippers are fighting and you're going to get max effort because they're trying to stay alive in this whole thing. Kawhi, 20 or more points. I like that over. Jamal getting right 20 or more points. So that under 2-12, Kawhi 20 plus,

Jamal 20 plus paying out at plus 345. If you want to add a little yolkage sprinkle on this thing over one and a half threes made makes it plus 444 plus 444. He's two or more made threes, three of the five games only hit one in the last one because he didn't really need it. So a couple of different you again check it all out sportsbook.fandal.com. You want details? Bye. I Drive a Ferrari 355 cabriolet What's up? I? Have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids. I am liquid

So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay everybody, it's life advice. Gather your women. This is the segment that they like. Probably didn't love the Minnesota Open, but maybe run it by them. You know, expand the horizons. Kyle is here, Wargon is here. Good to see everybody. Kyle, you golfing today? Because you look ready. First time in a month. Super nervous. Ordered two boxes of balls. Just ready to lose them.

What kind of balls are you rolling with? I'm still not buying cheap ones now. I got, I think I got Titleist Super Soft. Got my initials on them. Nice. Was up late last night. Just put my initials on all of them. Really excited for today.

Morgan, are you a golfer? I played in high school, but haven't played in like probably 10 years since I graduated college with... Like played in a high school team? Yeah, played in a high school team. Wow. You know what's interesting? Me, Kyle, and Saruti are like the same dude. We all worked at like a sporting goods store in high school.

Me and Seruti were on the golf team. It's just a lot of, a lot of through lines. Did you guys get thrown out of college too? Let me think. No, I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. I was asked to tighten it up. So Kyle and I, some similarities there.

What kind of, where were you sporting good wise? I did Dixon Sports Authority. Kyle, what were you? I was just Modells the whole time. There we go. Do you have a department? Like I was, I was the sporting, I would say I was the heart of it

because I was sporting goods. There's like a guy over on footwear and there's a nice old lady who, you know, put tags on the apparel, but you know, I was the heart of it because I was sporting because there's like a guy over in footwear and there's a Nice old lady who you know put tags on the apparel, but you know I was the sporting goods was my domain Yeah, when I was in sports authority I did like the shipping for some reason if you ordered sports authority They shipped it from the store not from like a warehouse Yeah, but I was there when they went under which was which was fun. Oh, yeah, did you get a little nice little package? I was I was throwing stuff up in the ceiling come the last day go up there take it out 99% off Hell yeah, I see 99% off not free 99

But 99% I got it. Yeah Smart man, no tension, right? Between us. No, I don't think so Okay All right. I'd like to put this one to bed after this, but we'll do one more on this. Interesting fact on Gorilla Skin. Love the show. 39, 5'9", 70 kilos. Player comp Anthony Bennett. I score in every fifth game. Good day from Down Under. That makes sense. It's kind of a theme going on here today with the Oregon shirt. Did you get that in Melbourne?

Got that in Melbourne. Yeah. We went for food news like a year ago. That's right. Great gig, that food news. Great gig. Oh yeah. Crazy. What are we talking about? They send us to Spain two years ago in Australia last year. We go, we eat the food and we come back. Is that American Airlines? United, United.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Dude. What a great gig, though. Shout out to them. Yeah. I still don't know what you're talking about, by the way. I barely do. Julia Libman and Jacoby do a podcast about food news.

So yeah. And then they get to go places. What kind of plane seats are you getting there? We're business class. Business class? Yeah. So jealous. Very nice. Nice job by you. It's a good time. I regret asking a couple of follow-ups because that's not going to go over well

that I didn't know that. But hey, playhouse locked in. All right. I want to share some interesting facts that may make things a tad more complicated on the Gorilla versus 100 man scenario. One of my friends is Zookeeper. That's a great friend to have, Doug the Zookeeper. As you guessed it, he looks after gorillas. He mentioned if the remaining 30 men were able to blind the gorilla, that would be their best bet.

However, morale might be down after watching 70 men turn into paste. The most intriguing point he raised, which I wanted to share with you, is the skin of gorillas is quite tough, and even if you try to punch the gorilla, you will be the one to get hurt. They simply don't feel pain like we do.

Their skin is too thick. After doing a quick Google, it appears their bones are also thicker than ours. I figured the bones were thicker. I did not know about the Kevlar skin going with it. But my point still stands. You got to want it. You got to want it really bad. If you read about Sparta, they basically just boys in cages and wrestle each other to the death. And so maybe you have a hundred people growing up that way.

I don't know if this conversation is an examination of, of Gen Z. I don't know if it is, you know, we're not making them like we used to. It just sounds like a bar conversation to me. I it's like, I can't believe it's getting so much traction. I feel like dudes have had this conversation for years with various animals and whatever, so I'm just surprised it's caught on so well. It's like, you know, it's just a Wednesday afternoon at the frolic if you ask me, but, uh, I love that everyone's so into it.

I'm getting texts from all over the place. I'd just been being quiet. Was it just started with a guy? Cause I, the cool tweets start lowercase. Okay. So I don't know if that falls into this category because then you can see like one of your friends thinks he has a, just a banger and you know, he starts to maybe lowercase I, you know, like, uh, seven, seven retweets.

This one didn't, this one didn't hit. I may promote one. I may just spend a stupid amount of money, write it off, which, you know, again, doesn't really, really do the wonders that you think like a Seinfeld episode, but I, just a terrible one. And that'll be the joke. It'll be an expensive joke, but we'll see. Totally worth it. Totally worth it. Van Pelt and I did something, could you fight a wolf? Could you beat a wolf if you had a bat and catcher's equipment? So you have the full chest protector, I believe the mask.

Oh wait, was it without a bat? Yeah, because with a bat, I think it's not really much of a conversation. Most people say yes, right. So I think it was you would wrap your arm in the chest protector and whatever. And granted, ultimately that turned into one of our most popular segments very early on.

So dudes fighting animals. Formulas all the time. Tell us all the time, yeah. This isn't new. All right. On the hook for two pontoons. Fellas 570, whoops, 510, once I was gonna say. You might wanna research that pontoon a little bit more. You just got to tie them together, dude.

What the? I know, 5'10", 170, don't max, but rep 185, nine times on the bench, all right. Don't play basketball, but on the softball field, I can be any iteration of Trevor's story at any given time. Maybe a little Ben Zobrist. I write this in anticipation of an upcoming bachelor part of the groom to be, let's call him PJ, invited groups from different backgrounds, any given time. Maybe a little Ben Zobrist. I write this in anticipation of an upcoming bachelor party

that groomed to be, let's call him PJ, invited groups from different points in his life to spend a long weekend at a lake in the Southeast. 17 people are going, so it's a big group. I have five of those numbers saved as contacts, so it's safe to say the group I'm in is the smallest sect of the overall group. Well, you know, I don't know that you know that

because if we're talking, let's say 16 with the bachelor or if he's in it, so all right, say five, a seven, there could be a couple of singles in this thing as well. So, is it deterred? Do we already know that there's a group of nine from a previous run? Making the groups combine as we all know can be dangerous. We're a couple of weeks away from the trip and a buddy today texted started talking about renting a boat. One guy, name unknown, number not saved, mentioned that he rented two pontoon boats for one day. I was sent a text outside of the group about how two boats was maybe overkill. Okay, so this guy emailing was sent an inquiry outside of the main thread, so an off ramp of questions. And then another text

about how everyone will be expected to pay. I'll answer my first question. Is it a bitch move for me to preemptively go to the council about how to handle this instead of just sending a text to the big group? Yeah, probably so. Remember, all these conversations about the boat concerns are happening with a small group of guys who don't know the majority of the guys. All right. So if we're going based on this information, then maybe it isn't four sex, it's five, the bachelor, and then it could be 12 other dudes. Second question, if we get there and everyone is expected to pay for the two boats, what's your thoughts on that? No one is saying it would be sick. No one would say it wouldn't be sick to spend a day out on a boat. I think a couple of people would have just liked

a discussion before being expected to pay for a decision they had no part in making. Let me know your thoughts. I was concerned that this email alone could hurt the group dynamic. I texted PJ and Avin Rasillo listener what he thought about me emailing. He said he was all for it. he said he was all for. I'm just wondering, do you not like the potential boat cost? Do you not like the idea that there's two boats? Or do you not like that decisions have been made? And you know what I mean? I'm not saying you have a problem with authority because that would be a massive assumption after a few sentences. So I'm not saying that, but I am wondering it just in general because I haven't been through the game

before, I just know there's always a few guys. It's like, why are we doing that? Well, guy, it's a bachelor party. So we're gonna fucking do something, all right? And money is going to be involved, reservations planning, like we could do none of it. We could do none of it, then get there and be like, what do you want to do today? But there always feels, I don't know that I would go turn into something as excessive as like the alpha thing, but I just know there's always a few dudes out there that want to ask questions just because they don't like the decisions were made without them. Now, if we're talking about a financial part of it, like, okay, sure. But, you know, how old are

you again? Our guy, he didn't say how old he was. The zookeeper friend was 39. You know, it's a bachelor party. I mean, there are going to be costs. So you kind of already know what you're signing up for. And yes, because you probably have in your sect or your current role, the least amount of juice. I mean, you can go in and start asking, but then there's going to be another side text about you guys. They're like, Hey, how come Rhode Island's fucking telling us what to do?

So I just don't know that you have the delegates. So I don't, I just, I, we come Rhode Island's fucking telling us what to do? So I just don't know that you have the delegates. So I don't, I just look as I get older and maybe I'm speaking from a position where I don't have to really worry about any of this stuff anymore. You know, again, I kind of default to like, you knew you were all gonna have to like kick in for certain things that you would have to do. So what's the hold up here? I'm like, just get there and have a good time and don't worry about any of this stuff.

But younger guys like to worry about really pointless shit. Yeah. And I think this is an example, man. Yeah, I've only been to one bachelor party, which was my own. And I'm not sure how many I'm gonna get to go to. A lot of dudes kind of skip that whole part. We're on kid number two.

I just don't know when he's gonna fit in that bachelor party. We're on kid number two. I just don't know when he's going to fit in that bachelor party. If they're married after a couple of, I don't know. So, uh, I got hope for my guy, Tate. Hopefully that works out. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know how many times I'm going to be in this situation. What was the group's relationship? This five person group. We don't have that info. We don't know. Cause the one thing I noticed at mine, it seemed like dudes were like, both felt like they were the more important group. Like the one guys I knew for like 15 years, you know what I mean?

The other guys were like, well, we were roommates for like three years straight and we probably know a lot more about him than you do in that point of view. And it was sort of like, uh, you had a real Kyle off. Yeah. Yeah, for real. And, and, and we didn't, like you said, we kind of woke up, dudes were like, should we go back to secrets? Like there was no plans, you know?

Like I think they open at eight. Should we, should we just go there and have like some orange juice and figure out what's next? Um, so it, it, it sort of reared its head in that thing where dudes were just like, you know, well, there's four of us that don't want to go there and there's whatever. So I wonder if it's like, I think continuing the side texts and riling each other out probably is going to take away from the final product of the hang. Um, and again, I didn't really have to pay for anything, but my flight to get there.

So, uh, I don't really know how many extra fees came up and I didn't really hear dudes bitching about it, but, uh, afterwards, once the fun was had, I heard about all the extra fees that some dudes didn't want and all that stuff. But I think it could just get messy when you blend the groups, as you talked about. And I think you just try to keep it all in the main... the main chat, you know? Or say nothing and just, like you said,

it's a bachelor party. Expect to spend more than you want to. So, I think you could totally complicate it more if you guys five stew about this thing, the extra pontoon boat or whatever. I say just get on the boats, dude. I feel like what my friend group does is like, here are the activities, everything's like a la carte.

If you wanna come, here's the cost. If not, we'll figure it out. But I went to a bachelor party. Sounds very efficient. Like December, yeah. In Tampa, we rented two boats. Not a good time. Not a good time. It was super cold out, we were just drinking on the boats.

It's way colder on the boat than it is on land. I know I'm not breaking news here, but we were just sitting there drinking beers. And at one point my one friend goes, is anybody having a good time right now? Not fun. Yeah, you guys checking out the boat cars? It starts to sting at that point, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We would have had way more fun just sitting in the dock on the boat drinking. Didn't need to take them out. Probably a different price. Yeah. Don't got to refill them at that point. If I knew the town, you know, if you said, hey, we're going to Miami and the guy rented two boats, I'd be like, okay, that might be, that might be more than everybody else wants to chip in. Yeah.

If we're talking like George, maybe it's a little bit. Right. So we're looking at this guy. I mean, does the guy have any experience with this? Does he know the area? Has he done it before? Does he know that 17 is actually like two smaller lake kind of pontoon boats?

Like, does that make way more sense? Dueling boats, boat races, both on. Yeah. Think about all the activities. The duality of that. Uh, there's, there's a really great version of all of this happening. So sure.

Maybe the guy who's making the plans is unhinged and getting ahead of himself, but you're going to a bachelor's party. I know you're already spending money on travel and accommodations and all that kind of stuff, but the whole point of it is there's actually supposed to be some things, unless you guys want to sit around and talk about your feelings, which I don't think happens at many of these. I think you just have to suck it up and I would advise you would advise you to, you know, don't be a disruptor here. You know, it would be funny is if they were the second boat was to spill over for just

them and all five guys that didn't want to be on the boats or just in their own pond do but pontoon boat and the bachelor's over there with those guys. 12, five ratio. Yeah. You guys are like, I don't know. You're just stewing in the, in the other boat. I hope that's not the case. Sometimes two boats can be the move. There's still this story from the college buddies.

Could be the move. Yeah, I think it was in the Keys. I don't know, I forget. I had a long stretch of not being invited to anything because everybody knew I couldn't afford anything. So they were just like, what's going on with that guy? Like, I don't know. That's never fun to say.

And you had to say it so many times in a row. That sucks. Yeah. No, I mean, I would be like, dude's going on with that guy? Like, I don't know. That's never fun to say. And you had to say it so many times in a row. Yeah. No, I mean, I would be like, what did you do? Just like, oh, you didn't hear about the trip last month? I feel like I did not. I did not hear about it.

And again, there was no social media. So it wasn't like you had no chance of feeling left out unless it was like an actual phone call from somebody. So I knew, I just was, and we've covered this, but I was always like, I'm not really even, you'd like to be asked, but you know, you keep saying no. I mean, this is the other lesson that we've tried to tell people. You keep saying no to all the stuff from your core group in those formative post-college years. You're going to end up, like I had to like work. I'd like put time back into being like, I'd like to be a friend again.

Yeah. I mean, you know, there's still, there's still one wedding. I think it was like the first weekend I was doing college football. And again, we're all from the Northeast for the most part. So guys would just, they never thought a fall wedding was a bad idea. And so I was just like, I can't, I can't do this. It was a, it was a college roommate. It sucks.

So whatever. Um, you're on a two way contract with your friend. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Like we can't keep tending them. We're going to have to guarantee this or cut them at some point. But, uh, yeah, I guess the story is there was a bunch of dudes in the keys. And so it was all the of dudes in the keys.

So it was all the guys that were the guys for the most part, except someone had an older brother who invited friends, but they actually did all of the boat stuff. I mean, this is just kind of how terrible all of us were in our 20s. But my guys got to the boat ahead of time, even though they didn't rent it out. And then people were like, should we eat? And they were like, no, there's food on the boat. It's like, yeah, food on the boat for the guys that rented it and actually are adults and put down credit cards and had food ordered for their fishing group. And when my guys showed up, they ate all of the food. He's like the first time in history that my group would have been early to something.

They all of the food, the older brother showed up of one of the guys with his few friends for like a real adult fishing trip. And my guys were already banged up from the night before and about to make even bigger mistakes that day and night. And they ate all of their food. And so then a guy came up with an empty tinfoil tray that had coconut shrimp in there and he was like, hey, is there another tray of this?

Oh no, the beginning of the downhill slide. So look, I think Kyle brings up a great point. If there's a 12-5 split, maybe you can fight back on the cost a little bit. Okay, how about this one? Should I tank a job reference? Player comp, Greg Osterteig, stick me in the paint, let me rebound and get in the way defensively, but keep the ball out of my hands. I have a guy I work with who hasn't been the happiest in his job. We have a great friendship mentorship. This is his first job out of college, so he's not in the exact field he wants to be in, which is mine. I guess to the point of the emailer, the guy wants to be in the emailers field.

We work in different areas of our organization. I'm working on moving out of my role in the next couple of years and want him to take my job when I transition. He's been interviewing at a different organization, but I don't think he's been in the same field. We work in different areas of our organization. I'm working on moving out of my role in the next couple of years and want him to take my job when I transition. He's been interviewing at a different organization, but I don't think it's a great fit for him. I don't really think he does either. I just think he wants to switch job areas that I ultimately think it'll end up being a mistake for him to make this move for a variety of reasons. It triples his commute and our field often has to work late or show up really early. Depending on the day,

this new organization has different views and goals than our current one, and I know he aligns better with ours. How should I handle this? Should I tank the reference he asked for? I obviously think he's great and has tremendous potential, but I'm not sure he could make this move or should I just let him make the move and learn from the potential mistake? I also want to be the mentor I wish I had when I was his age. Just tell him you like him already, dude. I'm just kidding. Yeah, like,

why could, has he told him this? Couldn't you just tell him that and then give him a glowing reference like you would a friend? Just tell him. Just tell him how you feel instead of like, What's going on? Just try to like Michael Scott this whole thing

with whatever these like gymnastics, mental gymnastics you're doing. You could just tell him if you're the mentor, he probably values your opinion and just say, I think for these three incredibly simple reasons, this is why I think this is not good. But you know, I got your back buddy. That sounds like everyone can sleep at night.

I don't know. It's just the most obvious answer. Like what are we doing? Like, just have a simple conversation with this guy. Like, hey, I'll write you this if you want, but don't just take this guy's chances. It sounds a little crazy when I said it and then you said, it sounds crazy. Yeah. Can you just read it? Can you forward him this email? Mine is the, should I take his future at this company thing? Here's why you don't want to tank the reference.

Because if it's all under the same umbrella and it seems like everybody wants to stay here and look, even if somebody ended up moving laterally to a different organization, but in the same industry, you just don't want that out there. I mean, not to go an episode of the office here, but when Michael thinks that he's potentially going to lose some power to Jim by being co-managers, but didn't realize that he was actually going to get himself a promotion. So he didn't want to get in his own way. So he sort of tanks Jim to David

Wallace. And then David Wallace is like, yeah, but we were going to move you up to sort of like oversee stuff in a region and less day to day. And Michael loves it and then starts trying to sell David Wallace on Jim. And it's at that point, David's like, yeah, but you just said he's a bit aloof. I don't know how Jim was getting promoted anyway. You want to talk about looks bias. Dwight took the job way more seriously than Jim ever did and then Jim fucking gets a haircut and a couple banana republic suits and he's good to go. Pam alone would have would have made me think. You realize they stole a baby? Anyway, look, I just don't know that you want an officially tanked reference on this guy's record, especially when it seems like you think he has all these great qualities and he's a friend. I mean, I would be furious with you if you did this.

Like who the fuck you think you are? Bane? Yep. That four-year-old good thing does not play as adults, I think. Like I did it for your own good. I don't think you can do that anymore when we're all adults. All right, I guess we have time for one more here. Mover pooped in my new house before me. 6' 195, no impressive team stats.

Basketball comp, Malcolm Delaney, very forgettable, but I can make the occasional mid range jumper, I like Malcolm. After years of saving and navigating the crazy real estate market in my large Southeastern city, who knows, you got any leads on any pontoons down there? My wife and I were finally able to buy our first house earlier this month, by the way, congratulations.

The first time through, it's terrible. And guess what? It's also terrible every time after that. The only thing, it's a lot like getting older, buying a house and everything that goes with it. Am I gonna get it? Am I not gonna get it? All that different stuff.

After you've done it a few times, it doesn't hurt as much because you already know how much it's going to suck going into it. The first time, I mean, I was like, this can't possibly be the way it's like yes This is the way what should have been one of the happiest weekends of our lives quickly turned south after our refrigerators water filter Malfunction and flooded nearly an entire first floor luckily insurance was able to cover it completely so we're getting new floors soon Shout out to State Farm. All right Glad they could do that for you. Sounds like you guys are a good team.

Additionally, we still had a month on our lease at our current apartment, so there's no rush. All right, okay, cool. Near the end of our lease, we decided to hire movers to get the majority of our apartment contents moved over to the house. The movers were a company that are real to recommend it and didn't think twice.

Come the day of the move, they call us to let us know. They'll be arriving in our apartment two hours late. Two hours becomes five hours. They get to our place at 7 p.m. and clearly working in a rush to get home. I don't need to bore you with the details of the rest of the move. We eventually get to my house and one of the movers decides to immediately poop in one of my toilets without asking. Mind you, he picks the one bathroom that doesn't have any soap. I'm upset because he was likely touching my stuff with poop fingers, but I also felt slighted as a man that I didn't get to take the first poop in my new house.

I really don't love this content, but we're going with it. Right? It was too late now. I told my wife how I feel about this. She thinks I'm overreacting. Is there no code when it comes to doing this in another man's house? I feel like movers are sort of like mercenaries, you know, like those old timey, like old period piece movies when you got to bring in the mercenaries, everyone's just like, we need them, but oh shit, they might start a fire

or something like they're certainly a necessary evil. If you're trying to like, you know, high-profile, yeah, but sometimes they'll poop in your toilet first. I think that's honestly on par. It's like par for the course. I think with, with movers, you're certainly certainly rolling the dice. I'm sure there's some absolute A-plus movers out there that are super professional and efficient when moving stuff,

but I haven't seen them. Unless you're gonna hang up a sign outside the bathroom like, hey, I haven't pooped in here yet, please hold off. I don't know what they're, how are they supposed to know? Do those signs exist? You gotta make them. That seems very specific. It's a handwritten note. You gotta make them, That seems very specific. It's a handwritten note. You gotta make them, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The staples, 89 cents a page. It's a handwritten note. I totally get how you feel. I mean, I had sort of the inverse when I was moving out, guy showed up late. Right, first thing he did, so late, so hungover. I mean, I could just see his face. I was like, this guy was on one last night.

And then just, it was the smallest apartment. The bathroom was right in the middle of the entire thing. The hearth of the home, if you will. Right, right. The fireplace would have been a better choice. And he just destroyed the whole apartment after being late. And then, you know, again.

At least you're moving out though. Right. But then they got my floors muddy when I moved into the new place and the guy was like basically demanding tip, but in his fingers looked like, I mean, it looked like he was dating steel wool. So, um, look, I totally get where you're coming from, man. I totally get it. But Kyle's 100% right.

Movers do not conform to societal norms because it is one of the worst fucking jobs of all time. And the reason it sucks, I don't know what it is about moving. I don't know what it is about the emotional part of it. Like I've moved out of places I could not wait to leave and yet there's some finality. It's a very obvious point on your timeline.

And I don't know what that shift is because I personally like moving. I like moving every few years. I need change. I need to move to new cities and I, you know, new jobs. Like I usually, although I'm oddly enough, I think I've only worked professionally, like sort of two and a half places. But look, the job for them though, like when we're done, my last move was terrible because I didn't have deadlines. So it just dragged and it lurked and it hung over my head like an appointment. Or if I've been younger, like a paper, the worst paper that could ever possibly be due and I've done no work for it. And every day it's one day closer

to being due and all I can do is think about it. I'm just consumed by it. And every day it's one day closer to being due. And all I can do is think about it. I'm just consumed by it. And so that's kind of how I think about moving sometimes. Imagine if when you did it professionally, you just, it was never over. Now they don't have the emotional attachment. There's no finality to it. It's just that, hey, all of these things have to be moved from here to there. And then tomorrow, then we get to do it all over again. Also, if we finish this one early enough, we got to get to the other one. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, let's go faster so we can do another place. Uh, so you're totally, I think you're fine. I don't even know that you're necessarily overreacting. Some people may say, Hey, you know, nature's nature that you get to go or whatever, but I'll tell you who doesn't care. Is that mover?

He forgot. He's done this so many times. He didn't even remember your job. Well, for your second house, maybe you just, the day you get the keys, just, you know, just so you could have it on the record. Yeah. When you tore it, get in there early. What if there was, what if there was like an underserved market for that sign?

Probably not. Shark Tank, here we come. We should have a Rassillo store just for niche signs and t-shirts. I know, when I see a place that's empty, you just, whenever I drive through a town and something's empty with like a good location, I'll be like, we won't work in there. And be like, none of your ideas, none. All right, thanks to Oregon, thanks to Kyle,

thanks to Jonathan Frias for help on the video as we are a video podcast now on the Spotify app. Yeah, we are. You listen and now can watch. You can also subscribe to our YouTube page, the Ryan Rosilla podcast, Ringer Spotify. They were gonna name me Michael Jordan. My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it,

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