The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Ryen Was Wrong About the Heat and Is Picking Against Them Again, Plus Jeff Van Gundy and Andy Cohen!

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Heat's Game 7 victory over the Celtics, Boston's inability to combat the zone defense, Caleb Martin's incredible series, how special it is that the 8-seed Heat have made the Finals, and more (0:52). Then Ryen is joined by ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy to discuss head coach Erik Spoelstra's impact, why Joe Mazzulla shouldn't be blamed for the Celtics' exit, the NBA coaching carousel, Nuggets-Heat, flops vs. fouls, and much more (20:26)! Then Ryen talks with Andy Cohen of the Bravo network about his years working as a producer before his on-camera career, the 'Vanderpump Rules' situation between Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss, dealing with talent behind the scenes, why 'Below Deck' is the perfect reality show, and more (1:10:05). Finally Ryen, Ceruti, and Kyle discuss the 'Succession' finale, before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:36:32). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Jeff Van Gundy and Andy Cohen Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's episode of the podcast we are absolutely loaded the heat are in the finals i am surprised i will go over it all they take on the nuggets my pick for the finals as well jeff van gundy on everything playoffs on mi and Spoh and their run, comparing it to the 99 eight-seeded Knicks and a lot of other stuff in there as well. We go long with Jeff Van Gundy. A bonus interview today. Andy Cohen, Bravo Network. I've been a fan for a long time, both of his

career and who he is on the camera. Very different kind of TV dude so we'll get into that. Maybe even talk a little Vanderpump. Did you expect that after Game 7, Heat Celtics? You did not. You're getting it. Life advice, succession recap, and security detail at the Frolic Room. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.

Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine? That's no. A bottle of wine? Yeah. And a snow day,

again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. The heater in the NBA finals, and I'll admit, I'm a little surprised. Yes, I'm very surprised. I'm shocked this happened. Going towards the end of the regular season, we'll go over some of that stuff again. I just did not see it. I did not think it would happen.

I think Boston losing this one at home in Game 7 actually makes a lot of sense if you think about this team. As frustrating as they've been, I've pointed out times in the past, it's like, okay, but this group actually has gone through some of the battles and come out on the other side. So how could they look like they've never been around this before? It's not like it was a team that won all these games out of nowhere and it's their first run together as a young group. That's not entirely true, right? It's just not true. But them losing and losing like they did last night, I actually going into it wasn't all that surprised. Again, I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what was going to happen. Normally, forget Boston or even Miami, if a team were the better team, the higher-seeded team, the team that I believe to have more talent on the roster, which I know some people are sick

of hearing about, if that team has come back from a 3-0 deficit to tie it at three and it is going home, I'd probably always pick that team. My respect for the Heat and my questions about Boston, specifically offensively when things get tight, I could see Miami actually winning this thing. I'll admit, I didn't know. I feel like any result wasn't going to be all that surprising. I feel like any result wasn't going to be all that surprising. The Heat are smarter than Boston. They're tougher than Boston. They're more connected than Boston. They have a better coach. And these are all the elements of a basketball team that would scare you, except history tells us that the things that really scare you are having a couple All-Stars, having a bunch of them.

So when I look at the game, I could go through the game recap stuff, but I don't know that it's all that significant other than the number one thing that I would take from this series is that Boston sucks against the zone. Before this series started, I'd made the point that Miami had run more zone sets or more possessions zone defensively than any other team in the NBA in 19 years. So if you're Denver and you're preparing for the finals now, you could say, all right, the number one priority is focusing on trying to figure out a way to beat this Miami zone that

extends really far out, screws you up. And even when you think you have open shots, at least for Boston, and we'll get to their shooting in a second, it never felt comfortable. The zone, you're supposed to figure out at some point and then get really easy looks from three off of it. Or if they sell out to guard against the line, there should be all sorts of space, and then you're supposed to be able to out-rebound the other team. There's problems. There's reasons why teams usually won't default the zone all the time, because once it gets broken, it's kind of over. And Boston can never really break it. Although, thinking of Jokic against the zone, I like Denver's chances a little bit better

than Boston's. If you're on the Boston side of things, you can get into the Missoula conversation and we could talk timeouts, substitution patterns, rotations, what's he doing here, and all this kind of stuff. Them not understanding how to break the zone at any point is the biggest knock against Missoula, but it's also on the team because, you know, is it Missoula's fault that Jalen Brown can't dribble again in the playoffs for

a second year? Jalen Brown is one of the weirdest players ever because there's this one thing that's super important for a wing player to be able to do and that's, I don't know if you've heard of it, dribble, and he can't. And once the other team figures it out, it happened against Miami, specifically that Game 3 game last year where I was like,

oh my God, this is getting really bad. Like now they get it. As soon as he puts it on the floor, go to attack him. It's not even about right or left like Stan Van Gunn, he was pointing out last night. It's just straight up having to dribble in traffic. He can't do it. It'd be like somebody in the UFC where it's like,

is that fighter any good? And you're like, he's actually pretty good, but he's terrible against kicks. But what do you mean? You just kick him. Well, he must suck then. No, that's the weird thing. He's not like the best fighter, but he's still pretty good. You know, but you can just kick him. Yeah. He's got this one major flaw. You just kick him. He never, he never checks anybody's kicks. It's, it's just super easy to kick him. Well, he must suck. No, he doesn't, though.

That's the weird thing. So that's not Missoula's fault. And the three-point shooting. Look at some of these numbers here. Jalen Brown, we'll get to him. Tatum turns his ankle on the first possession. That's a factor last night. I don't know why anyone would think it isn't.

It was. He shot one of four on threes yesterday, which was actually an improvement for him against the Heat. Because against the Heat, game 6-0 for 8, game 5-1 for 6, game 4-4 for 9, game 3-1 for 7, game 2-3 for 10, game 1-1 for 3. He shot 23% from three against Miami. Now you could say, well, it's the playoffs. We knew this. You say it all the time.

The playoffs are different. But Tatum, the previous two years in 29 playoff games was 39% from three. Jalen Brown, who again, can't dribble, shot 16% from three against Miami. He had one game in this entire series where he made more than one three. He shot 52% and 43% from three against Atlanta and Philadelphia. Al Horford was number two in the NBA from three, 45%. Only Luke Kennard shot it better from distance than Al Horford did. He was under 30% in the playoffs, 28% against the Heat. So there's a part of the summary here where you could say, well, Boston just didn't make enough threes to make or miss league. That is not what I saw. I saw them missing them, but I saw them missing them because of the Heat's defense. And that even on catches, Horford always looked

rushed. Jalen always looked in between decisions. Tatum had a lot of moments where you could tell, do I drive? Do I step back? Am I settling too much? Do I need to be more aggressive? And that is all because of the heat and how uncomfortable they make you. But at some point, you're supposed to get comfortable against the zone, and Boston never did. I'm actually almost glad Boston lost in a way because they were so certain that they were the better team last year against Golden State. Which again, rarely do you have athletes at this level, competitors, start giving everybody else credit. Nobody actually thinks anybody's better than them.

Remember, what was it? The quarterback stuff of Robert Griffin III at one point. I think he was a backup. He was like, yeah, I still think I'm the best quarterback in the league. It's like, okay, maybe you shouldn't say it anymore anymore at that point i think he might have been with cleveland so he's still going to be the starter where he got hurt again so i don't like take offense to it when teams will say oh you know we let that one get away i mean i think that's a lot of these guys are wired but they came off of the golden state loss in the finals last year like thinking it was just kind of

a break here or break there and maybe some of you would argue that. I saw one team in Golden State that knew what they could do offensively and were always comfortable, where another team in Boston was very uncomfortable and scattered offensively and not really sure what to do. But they were better defensively than they were this year, so they could always kind of default back to that. So this is year two of this team, despite the talent, despite the 57 wins in the regular season, some of the offensive numbers that would tell you this offense should carry over that we also saw in previous series, not only this year, but previous years. Whatever their mindset is, whatever it is that they're trying to do, however they're built collectively, and I'm not saying tear it down and trade everybody away because this group still gives you a chance, which is the whole point of putting together one of these rosters. There's just something off, and maybe them losing to the Heat like this after losing in the finals last year will get them to kind of collectively admit to themselves they need to be a little bit different. So the Heat are the most unlikely finals participant of my NBA lifetime. Why? Let's review. They have a negative point differential. The last team to make the NBA

finals with a negative point differential, the 1959 Minneapolis Lakers. When I look at teams and whether or not they can win an NBA championship, I'll ask a simple question. Who are your two guys? And when I say two guys, I mean scoring guys, not Donovan Mitchell and postseason accolade Rudy Gobert. Who are your shot-creating players? Who are the guys that are going to bail you out of tough postseason possessions? it has to be a top 10 guy. And none of us really thought that that was even Jimmy Butler before the Milwaukee series. We'll reevaluate that. And even if the Heat were to lose the finals going into next year, Butler's going to be on everybody's top 10 list. So that's fine. But it wasn't a certainty. And really, you kind of need one of those top four to five to six guys, depending on how deep you think that first tier is in any season in the NBA. So there's the Jimmy part of that. The Bam part, who as much as I love them and every team should want a BAM on their squad, none of us are calling them a superstar. So you're

like, all right, so wait, Miami, do they even have a second superstar? I think the simple answer to this is no. And then you go, okay, well, if BAM is their second best player, all-star level accolades, just missing out on third team, all NBA. If there had been a fourth team, I would have voted him for that. So let's give him his credit. But I think we're all on the same page. You're like, okay, is he really one of those dudes who's going to be able to carry you offensively at times? I'd say more often than not in the playoffs, you start to kind of question yourself of how much you could bend it on offensively despite certain nights where he's going to go off. So who's your number two shot-creating guy? Is it Caleb Martin? I guess it is.

I guess it is. Now, you could also go back 12 years and talk about Dallas and Dirk being the number one guy and then asking who the Mavericks number two guy is. The point is that actually that's how rare it is. It's been over a decade, and the number two answer for that Mavericks team isn't super easy, but they also were a 57 and 25 three seed that won the title against Miami

in 11. So Caleb Martin to review was an undrafted dude out of NC state, Nevada. He was a 24 year old rookie. He was waived by Charlotte in 21. He's always hit threes, but has so far been a net negative in the box score plus minus for three of his four years. He had an 11 PER this season. And even though I liked him, we're talking about somebody that scored 11 points per game in

the first and second rounds of the playoffs. Against Boston, he was 19-6, 19 and 6 boards there on 60 and 49 shooting splits, 49% from three. This guy was so good. Jimmy Butler led the team last night with 28 points and won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. But I thought Caleb Martin last night, his shots were the biggest shots. Anytime Boston felt like they were even getting any kind of sniffle momentum, any kind of comeback in the second half, Caleb Martin was hitting the daggers and he hit him every single time. But if that's your number two on a roster, an undrafted dude who to this point has been a nice player, I'm probably not going to think you have the depth at the top to do what Miami just did. He had 135 total points in the

Eastern Conference Finals for Caleb Martin. That is the most points in a conference finals or NBA finals by an undrafted player since the modern draft era started in 1966 and 67. So I know now that the Heat are in the finals and I was wrong, I know what's supposed to happen. I'm supposed to repent to the audience. I'm supposed to beg forgiveness for my sins. I'm not going to do any of that shit, okay? Because the point that I need to hammer home is that this doesn't happen.

Okay? This doesn't happen. I know there were one seed last year, and maybe some of you are, well, they were always kind of this good, and they didn't really care about the regular season. I'm not going to do that. Okay? Hey, what about the

Knicks? They were an eight seed. You're going to have Van Gundy on. You're going to talk to him about that. Back in 99. Yeah, they didn't beat the Spurs, but that was an eight seed. They were only six games off the one seed in a labor shortened season. They had the highest payroll by a pretty wide margin in the league that year. That team was actually pretty talented when you go back and look at it. Because this next part is not about Miami. This is about every team ever moving forward with the way that I'll watch this league. The next team that's 25th in offense, 27th from three, has to rely on an undrafted player as the number two go-to scoring option in the playoffs, doesn't have a top 10 guy.

Again, we'll revisit that with the Jimmy story that ends this year, however it ends. That loses the play-in game at home to Atlanta by double digits, has a point differential that's closer to Utah than Portland. I'm never picking that team, ever. I'm never going to look at that team with that resume and go, yeah, I can see it. I'm never picking that team. But this point is about Miami.

I bring this up not to be negative about them, but it's so that we all understand how special this is. This is an historic group. This is one of the great stories as far as overcoming the odds. So that's one of the things that I kind of battle with here. It's like, wait, this is so special and it's so special it's because it should never be expected. I'll never look at a team with

what they did this regular season. Even after being a one seed last year, it was a 53 win team. It wasn't like there was some juggernaut. I'll never look at that and go, yeah, that team, that team right there, that's the one I'm banking on. So that's where Miami deserves all the credit you can give them while also understanding that this doesn't happen in this league. It doesn't happen. Now, are we in the early stages of looking at roster building and saying, oh, it can all be different? No.

I don't think that's going to happen at all. We're going to look at some of these big three results and say, well, everybody chasing all these stars. Miami proved that you shouldn't do it that way. They proved this season that in a special season, it's possible, but let's not lose our minds about how GMs are going to start looking at how they want to build out their team because guess what's going to happen? The next awesome dude who's available, the two guys that get mad this summer, decide they want out, a bunch of teams are going to want them. They're not going to go, hey, there are any undrafted 24-year-olds that we can two-way

that'll score 20 a game in the Eastern Conference Finals. And I keep repeating that so that it is understood that this should be appreciated, never expected. Spoh was a little emotional last night when they were doing the ceremony. He also may have been just exhausted. But I think the reason he was emotional was because basketball coaches are crazy. They're crazy because when they watch the film, they'll see a guy not try. They'll see somebody just not give that effort.

The coaches want this effort that kind of never exists. They want to watch game film and see everything executed perfectly. And I don't know that that's ever going to exist in a basketball game. You can come close to it, but you're never going to get it perfect. And sometimes the coach becomes really annoying because he keeps thinking that perfect exists. But what you want is you want to go into a game like last night thinking you have a chance because your guys can actually fight

and that you can trust them. And if they don't make enough shots, the other team gets a couple looks or a couple bounces. Either way, you lose the basketball game. You at least know when you go back to watch the film, hey, our guys fought.

And that's why I think Spoh going to the East with this group and acting the way he's acted, which again, I'm complimenting him here, being confident, being exhausted, being relieved, but knowing, hey, at least I know my guys are going to show up. Having said that, Nuggets in six. Make a fast break to FanDuel during the NBA playoffs because right now, new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000.

That's $1,000 back in bonus bets if your first bet doesn't win. Okay, here we go. Nuggets favored by nine, nine and a half right now on FanDuel for this one. The total's around 220. Looking through some of the player props in this one, the eight rebound number, I'm looking at a game one here where Jokic over eight rebounds, what you're laying there doesn't make the value all that great, but you can basically make it even money by going Jokic over eight rebounds and Porter Jr. over eight rebounds. And Porter Jr.

has been a rebounding force, especially in that last series. And I think the biggest problem for Miami, I'm just kind of thinking about the size, not the traditional center part of it with Jokic against Bam, but the fact that Gordon and Porter Jr. And Porter Jr. at times, you'd wonder if he actually applies that size in games. And he was against the Lakers team, which is actually going to be bigger than Miami. So you can make that one over eight rebounds for both kind of even money. So that's what we're going to go with there. So a little dicey.

But you're in it to the very end. Just hoping somebody's scrambling and grabbing those things. I also was looking at the Jokic even money over under on assist, 10.5. That's a lot of assists. I wonder if they sell out against Jokic first. You know, if Miami were to lose game one, say, right, and they try something in game one that they completely abandon in game two,

I'd imagine that Spoh's going to get really aggressive with some of the stuff that he's going to try here. But I was looking at the over-under on that one. Ten and a half for even money is kind of tough. And then the value and eight and a half and below that, I just don't think it's worth risking that kind of bet to get the payout on it. So, there we go. Rebounds.

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Or visit mahelpline.org forward slash problemgambling in Massachusetts. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 1-877-8-HOPE-NY. Or text HOPE-NY to 467-389 in New York. 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia. Jeff Van Gundy on the call of the NBA Finals joining us again this season. Always appreciate his time and we're ramping up. We're getting ready for Game 1, Denver and Miami. Let's start with the Miami

part of this off of the win in Boston in game seven. I think Spoh's great. You probably see an even better understanding of what makes him great. What are the things that he does in a game that makes you think he's special as a head coach? Well, I think to me it goes back to it starts at the top and that everybody talks in basketball circles of how they want to emulate what San Antonio has done or what Miami has done. But both of those organizations are committed to continuity in the coaching position.

And so that doesn't mean you're never going to have a bad stretch or a bad year. But that doesn't mean you automatically pinpoint the blame at the coach and change coaches to appease certain entities. And so I think the coaching stability allows Eric to have a coaching confidence and a conviction that, you know, he's not coaching for his job on each and every possession. Like some teams and some coaches are put under that pressure. So I think that allows him to really do whatever he feels is best in that moment, in that season. And I think what they've done is they've established a baseline of standards and habits that they can always fall back on despite what their roster looks like in any one particular year. And then I think because of those two things, they have the habits,

they have the standards, they have the continuity. He's able to try to diversify and do more things and institute more things like their zone defense, like playing a little bit differently on offense. Sometimes they're heavy isolation out of bio, just off the, you know, in the mid post and facing up and using his quickness. Sometimes they isolate Butler. Sometimes they exploit the terrific off-ball cutting of Struess and Robinson. So I think they have ways to cover and they have ways to win more ways than a lot of teams in the NBA without compromising their basic habits and standards.

What works with their zone in a way that maybe other teams haven't figured out? with their zone in a way that maybe other teams haven't figured out? I think, first of all, they play it hard. A lot of zones, there's a huge drop-off in intensity from the man-to-man to the zone, and they're just chill. Miami, I think, they'll start very token 2 2-2-1 back to a 2-3. And I think the things they do differently are they'll put two bigger, more active guys at the top of the zone. And then in the high pick and rolls that they see, they cover them with their two guards in almost a switching manner versus allow their center to be brought into the action. Because of that, they're able to play Bam out of by a really low.

He has great basketball anticipation and awareness to both personnel and to scheme and attack. And then they'll put their two wings, which oftentimes they're using it to try to cover up for Duncan Robinson they'll play Robinson and say Lowry in the back line but if you notice their stance they're very high up with their backs to the sideline so that they can take away the quick you know slot to corner pass while still seeing if there's a back cut out of the corner. So I think the design is unique. I think they expected to play it hard and well, and it's anchored by a highly intelligent, great anticipator in Bam Adebayo. I think everybody growing up with Zone, you knew the benefits and you knew the flaws.

And I always felt like with zone eventually, especially at the NBA level, the flaws were starting to get exposed a little bit more. And you'd find those in-between areas to either take threes or you would figure out how to get it to the free throw line, get it to collapse, then kick it back out. And I remember in game six, Missoula had Rob Williams in. They went to zone to close it like 3.30 left. They put Horford back in. And you think Horford is the kind of decision maker, the vet, the guy that's been around for a while to catch it. But just the pass, the entry passes were hard. I don't know the NBA you could ever overload it the way you'd see it in college or something like that. That doesn't necessarily seem to work. I guess I was always surprised that the more Boston saw it, that

they never actually got comfortable. And even if they had looks, they were in between decisions on whether or not that was the right look out of it. And to see a team get bogged down like that so many games in a row and knowing that the effort thing is a real difference for Miami, I guess I'm still surprised an NBA team with that talent didn't

have more possessions where it felt like they looked more comfortable against something that I was seeing consecutive games in a row. Yeah. Well, I think it speaks to the rarity that you see zone. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I bet you Miami plays zone twice as much as the next team in the NBA. To interrupt, the number that I had from NBA.com going into this series, they played more possessions of zone this year than anyone had in 19 seasons. Okay. So, I mean, they play it more. Boston faces it probably less. And I do think the five-out initial alignment that so many teams are operating out of fits perfectly into playing a better zone. I think if I was to come back and coach, the first thing I would do against the zone, not that you wouldn't run pick and rolls and all that

but i would quickly morph from five out to one three one and i would have a guy uh a talent in the middle of the floor and have a lob threat along the baseline because i do think the moment that ball gets there and you have a lob threat, if you get it into the middle, as you said, and have a lob threat, you can really expose it. Having that second guy inside.

I think a lot of teams don't feel comfortable with that because they're so five out oriented and particularly four out oriented. So even if they get the ball to the middle, they still have, you know, four guys behind the three point line and they had some really good looks. And there was times in both game four or five and which game didn't they play it at all. I forgot what game Miami didn't play much zone, but I thought at times they were really getting the ball inside more against the zone. And I think last night they had some reversion or reverted to a less decisive feeling against the zone. I think, Ryan, what the zone coaches that you see even in college,

right, that it's a different rhythm, it's a different flow, it's a different feel than it is against man-to-man. And I think sometimes you go to that just to make sure that there's not that same man-to-man feel. And I think Miami, again, combines a great scheme with alertness, aggressiveness, assertiveness that you don't see in many NBA zones. So I think it's by far the best zone. And I think, like you said, I think Denver, because of their willingness to move more without the ball, and they have a fulcrum in Jokic, if he gets in the middle, he's going to make all the right plays. I think it's going to be a much bigger challenge to zone them effectively.

I think you're the best in the game right now when it comes to breaking stuff down in a game, okay? Because you're always pointing out stuff that I may not even notice. And I think you're the best in the game right now when it comes to breaking stuff down in a game. Okay. And cause you're always pointing out stuff that I may not even notice. And I think of you as the coach, as if you were coaching and looking at what the other coach was doing. So you'll say, Hey, how come this guy hasn't been subbed in on the free throw box out for the second free throw in a big possession? You know, like these little things you're constantly calculating. Why are they doing this? The inbounds? Oh, they changed the inbounder. You, you are better at that than anybody else that's doing basketball. So I know there's a million things that you've noticed. You could probably talk even more if you wanted to. Help the Boston fan base understand who they have in a head coach after one year of

Joe Mazzulla and then watching the series. Well, I was thrust into a very similar situation as Joe Mazzulla back when about the same age, right? So I came in as an interim coach and Joe, I think, took over three days. They started practice maybe three days after Imei got suspended. And so I think he was thrust in unprecedented circumstances. Not only did he have little to no preparation time, he had very little NBA experience. I think he had four years of NBA experience. He had never sat on the front of a bench. And he didn't have his own coaching staff. He didn't have a chance to pick his own staff. He had a staff member leave during the season and Damon Stoudemire going to Georgia Tech. They had the Robert Williams injury, which kept him out of a majority of the games. And still they achieved the second best record in the NBA. And I think it's a heck of an accomplishment.

I think sometimes we just assume winning. I think it was a six-win improvement over last year. So a heck of a regular season. And I think to me, when people want to, to me, cavalierly almost call for a coaching change, it does a disservice to like how much coaches grow just like players do over time. To think that he's going, Joe Mazzulla is a finished product. I think he did a miraculous job. And if this was a college season, they'd be celebrating going to the Final Four. But because they had such a great regular season, he handled himself so very well. He got his team to play at a high level. There's this disappointment that Miami, who probably didn't achieve what they

wanted in the regular season and who nearly didn't qualify for the playoffs, down three with 345 to go in a second play-in game at home after losing to the Hawks at home. They come back, they beat the Bulls, and now you see them in the conference finals. And they just didn't play well. And I think you can either focus on the short term where you're not happy with the first three games or the last game and think that you'd be better served like going in a different direction i think that's does a disservice to how good uh joe mazula is going to be um if he's given the same support that someone like eric spolstra has been given throughout his career.

In 99, you took the Knicks to the finals. They were the eighth seed. I still think this Miami run is more unprecedented just because it was a shortened season then. You were six games out of the one seed. The talent on that team, it's funny because you look back like, oh, the plucky eighth seed Knicks. I'm like, I was looking at it again this morning. I was like, this is a pretty talented team. It's funny because you look back like, oh, the plucky eight-seat Knicks. I was looking at it again this morning. I was like, this is a pretty talented team. I could ask it this way. Did you think you could win the East then? And your answer is probably going to be yes. But did you think you

would win the East when you started that playoff season? Well, I agree with you. Miami's accomplishment is even more impressive than what we did in 99 because to win a championship, they're going to have beaten the top two records in the NBA in Milwaukee and Boston. And then they're going to have to beat the top seed in the Western Conference if they're to win a championship. So an incredible, incredible thing that they've done. Going to our 9-19, we had major injury in that shortened season. Sprewell, who we just had traded for, you know, very few practice days, he got hurt, I think, and was out like maybe 12 to 14 games, which in a normal season is just okay. You know, you deal with it, but in a 50 game shortened season, it's a huge percentage. And then obviously

well-documented Ewing was hurt. So while we were the eighth seed, we coming into it, we're playing exceptionally well. And we were probably, if it would have been an 82 game season, we would have probably ended up third, fourth seed, right? And so we were a really good team. And Miami was unfortunate that they were the number one seed. We had met so many, prior, the two years prior as well. And, you know, it still came down, you know, to the last second of the last game, but we certainly thought we could win that series. And then from there, we played a little bit against a banged up Atlanta team. We swept them, played an excellent Indiana team, and had probably one of the greatest road fourth quarters that you could ever have in game five in Indiana.

And then, you know, Allen Houston just dominated game six. It was just, it has to be the best game he ever played as an NBA player. So, you know, just like anything else, there's certain things that get in the way of you winning, like injury. And there's certain things that help you, like all-time performances. And yeah, so I agree with you about Miami. It's even more unprecedented what they're doing right now. So then you get the Spurs in 99. And because, you know, look, I think Denver is the better team.

I think they've been so impressive through this Western Conference playoff run. And, you know, whatever, I'm just kind of defaulting to kind of how I felt about Miami, even though I'm incredibly impressed that they're even here. What was the coaches' room like? What were the meetings like in preparation for San Antonio with this Knicks team? Well, obviously Ewing had gone out in the Indiana series and Dudley was, and Johnson got hurt in the final game of the Indiana series.

So we were sort of patching it together inside-wise, but I just wish pop was load managing back in that day, because I remember Duncan being on that floor, like 44 minutes a game along with Robinson. And they just, you know, it wasn't just their, their ability to score inside. We held up defensively. We just found it really, really challenging to probably score around the basket. And when you look back, you probably should have taken a more home run approach, shotting a lot more threes than we did in that series. Really, I mean, we were a good three-point shooting team, but we weren't as high a volume as maybe some of these teams today or obviously these teams today.

And I think that's also an interesting question is do regular season analytics correlate at all with what wins in the postseason? I think that's a fascinating topic as well. But just getting back to then, like our team, we played well. We just didn't have the answer to Duncan and Robinson. You know, they were dominant at both ends. It was funny. Well, it probably wasn't funny to you, but I used to still listen to some New York talk shows, which is not always the greatest resource for local talk shows

to get real reason takes on how a team is. But when Ewing goes down in the Atlanta series, right? Indiana. Indiana in game two. You play two games against the Pacers. He goes down. We won game one, and we lost. We had a bang-bang charge call that should have gone our way so you know as

much haranguing as the pacer fans did uh about the larry johnson four-point play if they reflect back onto the charge that should have been called against uh one of the Davis brothers against Canby, we would have won both home games. We may well have swept. So anyway, not that I remember it play by play, but I sort of didn't. So Ewing misses a 17-footer at the buzzer off a great long pass from Charlie Ward. And we lose game two. And he had, just to talk about his toughness, he had partially torn his Achilles in the game, and he played without complaint. And then after game two, they MRI it,

and he's out for the rest of the season. Well, the reason I bring it up is that, you know, the results can really mess with the evaluation of the season. Yeah. Well, the reason I bring it up is that, you know, the results can really mess with the evaluation of how you got there. And because Ewing goes down against the Pacers and then you're in the finals

and Camby's playing, I think a little bit more is just about a necessity because I think the first series you didn't play him as much, you know, because and then it kind of because they'd had Ewing around for a while, it was very unfair to Patrick Ewing.

Because first of all, to have that body to go up against the Spurs, Twin Towers is one thing. But then to look at the result and be like, hey, they still went through the East without him. Are the Knicks better without Patrick Ewing? That became a really common theme from just a basketball standpoint. Even if you were over him not being at his peak anymore it's it's an absurd statement i believe at the time and

certainly historically just going body matching wise why would you why would you ever think you'd be better without a patrick ewing against those two guys from San Antonio. Yeah, again, and that's your job as an organization, as a coach, to cut out the noise. Now, the noise has just expanded over time, and I think it's one of your jobs now and was then too, but it's even a bigger part to make sure that the noise doesn't impact the decision-making and that you don't give in to the Twitter mob and have that clutter your players' minds or your coaching minds.

And so back then, yes, he was morphing from a first-option go-to guy as more as a third option. We were going more through Houston and Sprewell. But Ewing came up big game five against Miami when he could barely walk, made the two free throws that cut it to one so that Houston's last second shot would be the winner. He was great in game one against Indiana. So that notion that we were better always was silly to us as coaches, but it does hurt feelings, and it does change outlooks.

feelings. And it does change outlooks. And my thought to Patrick was, don't let the vocal minority cloud your thought as how you received here. The quiet or silent majority understand your great impact here. They understand your greatness. They here they understand your greatness they're thankful for your greatness and i think you know you see it today somewhat like should they not sign jalen brown now like what are like really like this recency bias is real from a playoff perspective you see see it with the coaches changes, you know, the, the, you almost forget history. And I think you have to be very careful in all decision makings, not to confuse the facts,

not like the one that got me is the Celtics played better because they went to top golf after game three. I'm like, okay, maybe it helped. They were still down six at half in game four. So did top golf kick in in the second half? Or was it more they made 19 and 16 threes in consecutive games? So I think what often is confused in evaluation is correlation versus causation. And I think it's up to the coach to keep a clear head and a clear mind and not to confuse the two. Before we get back to the finals, I have one question. What's your favorite coaching hire of this offseason cycle?

Well, I'm really happy for Adrian Griffin. I was able to coach him, and I think he is a stand-up man who made the most of himself as a player, has done the same thing as a loyal and trusted assistant. So I'm super, super happy that he gets a good team. Because most times assistants get lousy teams and thus lose, and it's very hard for them to get second opportunities so really happy for him now that being said as far as i'm happy not one of the coaching changes has made sense to me not one okay why well i think specifics I think they're all being impacted by thinking that they have a better chance to get to, quote, you always hear this, the next level.

Instead of considering that the next level may be one level below you, where you are right now. Everybody assumes with change comes improvement. I'm not like that. I've seen many coaches changes that have led to a team getting worse, not better. So I think the way we judge coaches game to game, opposite of what Miami does, opposite of what San Antonio does, opposite of what the Utah Jazz historically have done, usually does a disservice to those organizations. And so I think a lot of them are emotional, illogical decisions. And I'm interested in what comes next. And does any of these or all of these or some of these lead to improvement or not? And I think oftentimes we

don't really follow up and ask the right questions on the why. Now, my pet peeve, not to sort of take you off topic, Ryan, I hear all the time questioning coaches, particularly in basketball, he doesn't make adjustments. I love that one. Very rarely is that term used with a specific that they think should have happened, a specific adjustment, right? It's just the term is a catch-all now. He doesn't make adjustments. Maybe the coach actually has, and you're not, not you personally, but people aren't in tuned enough to pick up on a small tweak. Or maybe after evaluating, as like Darvin Ham said, when they were down 3-0 in their matchup with Denver, there's a difference between a schematic adjustment and improved player performance. And sometimes we conflate the two. We think adjustments lead to better performance, or instead of better performance just leads to better results. And I think sometimes we think there's

this infinite amount of adjustments to make and that always making change is a sign of good coaching versus what I see like a Miami doing most times is staying the course. They made those decisions initially for very logical reasons. And they have to be convinced like they were with Martin over Love that a big lineup change is warranted. So it brings me back to one of my favorite statements that I heard on a TV show, Blue Bloods, Frank Reagan, head honcho sitting around the dinner table, Bluebloods, Frank Reagan, Head Honcho sitting around the dinner table talking about

the unknowing, saying most critics fit under this banner. Rarely right, but never uncertain. We have great certainty now without always a lot of knowledge to back up that certainty.

And so when it comes to labeling guys, he makes adjustments or he doesn't. It's always tight. You never hear someone say about a coach, he made good adjustments and they lost. Or I didn't like the adjustment of either playing player X more, playing player X left. You never hear, hey, I don't like the drop coverage. I think they should be up higher. It's always left as a nebulous term of adjustment. And I think it does a disservice to our game. It does a disservice to our coaches. And I think the media groundswell, though, does impact decision-making of ownership. And I think that's why I want to continue to call for more responsible coverage of our coaches because I think the coverage

has a real impact on the people who are making these decisions, whether to change coaches or stay the course. Yeah, look, I i agree we've talked about this in the past i you know as a non-player it's always hard to go like well hey i think this or i think that and then you know the trump card the ultimate trump card is always the will you never played in any game so who gives a shit which is fair i don't think that's fair either though but but i'm getting it back. I know what you're saying. I'm getting it back to, and I've done this on the air, so this isn't new. I'm blown away by how many ex-players

will sit on a TV set and then talk about adjustments and never once give me something specific. Never once. I know I have a hard time noticing something like the pre-switching or this or that, or you'll point out stuff in a game. I'm like, oh, shit. He's right. Not that you'd point out something that was the wrong adjustment, but I think that's the part where I'm like, if I had played in the league and then I had one of these spots, I would,

I would make it my goal to be like, I'm going to say this, but you're right. It just becomes this really vague deal. It's all results based. Nobody likes anybody's like the thing that drives me crazy is every time a team wins with a different substitution pattern, it's he changed up his rotations. It was great. When you change up your rotations, your sub-pattern's in a loss. It's you're scrambling. You're searching for answers. You're uncertain. You don't know what to do. And it's like, we don't even look at what happens. We look at the numbers and then we go, these were good things. These were bad things. And I totally agree. I know you probably could go longer on that.

Just with this time, I want to get a little more final stuff here. What did you learn about Jokic? What did you learn about Denver doing those games as often as you were doing them that maybe you didn't understand before? Well, I'll tell you. You can watch him on TV, which I've done. I didn't do a Denver game this year. I don't know how many times they were on ESPN,

but prior to the Western Conference Finals, I had not done a Denver game. And you don't need to be live to understand his greatness, but I do think you have to have a consistency of watching him that allows you just to see the impact he has on his team like the his game is a giving game but the psychological impact it has on their cutting like there's teams that cut but no they're not getting it back because not because of selfishness but just they're not they're not as skilled as passer when a denver nugget cuts he knows if he has even the tiniest window the ball is going to be there he also knows in

transition if you get out and run and he's leading the break, he's not going to hold And the way Jokic plays the game, to me, brings a peace and calm to them because they know they're going to be rewarded. They don't have to hunt shots. They don't have to overly try to create an action if it's not there just to squeeze the trigger once. They know they will be rewarded for their efforts because that's who he is. And I think that translates in all facets of their game. Because he's willing to take the blame and disperse the credit, it gets buy-in at the defensive end of the floor. And I think they have done a brilliant job. Michael Malone and his staff and the management there has surrounded Jokic with the right type of players so that they

accentuate each other's positives and cover up for each other's maybe non-strengths. And I think what Jokic has done for them doesn't just make him a most valuable player in any one year. He is just, to me, the most valuable person that a franchise could have right now because of the giving nature with which he plays and conducts himself. We've talked a little bit about the zone with Spoh in reference to how it would match up against Denver. I think everything's on the table here. I don't see how it possibly works as well against Denver with Jokic as it did against Boston.

But what do you think Spoh is devising here? What do you think he's going for options-wise on maybe moments of selling out against Jokic, other moments of playing him straight with Bam, which puts him in a tough spot. I don't know that they have the depth behind him with Zeller to maybe even get away with that, because then once Bam's in foul trouble,

that really takes a big part of their offense away, where he can initiate it outside of Jimmy and Caleb and the point guards, and those guys can do stuff off of him, which is what I really like about Bam's game. But if I'm trying to get in his head, and you see it better than most of us do, the options list that Spoh's going over for them defensively against Jokic. Well, I think it's not in vogue as much now, but making the post catch hard,

making the elbow catch hard and extending it. I think that gives you at least a fighting chance to push their offense out a little bit more so that shots created by him are one further more step out. I remember this when we were preparing for Serbia in the World Cup when I was working for Coach Popovich and USA Basketball, he was saying over and over and over again, you can't double team him when he can see you coming. You have to time it up so that if you are to double him, it has to be to a blind side or at the exact moment where he has briefly turned his head. Because if he sees you coming, he will pick you apart. And the more I've watched Jokic since hearing Coach Pop tell our team that, the more and more it made sense.

And I am in total agreement. Just the double team from in front of him, they may not make the shot, but they're going to create a great shot if he can see the double team coming. So I think you have to have well-timed double teams. They have to be at the moment he's blind for just a second. And then you've got to, like in any situation where a team is highly talented like Denver is offensively, you've got to understand what you're willing to live with. You can't take away everything from a great player like Jokic, but you do have to take away something. you mentioned out of bio is so important and there's such a drop off from out of bio to their next best center that they also can't afford him to be in foul trouble so he is this terrifically

versatile player who you're going to ask to front i would say make the catch harder play him one on one as much as possible and stay out of foul trouble because of your importance at both ends. That's a tall task. Which game do you think Kyle Lowry will be charged with a misdemeanor assault? I got to say, I'm not a fan of embellishers in general, right? It's well documented. Okay. I hate it. I think more should be done to legislate it, punish it, shame it, post a scarlet F on their Jersey, all of it. Okay. I'm for every last one of them. But for Kyle Lowry, I'm going to make an exception.

This guy at 37 years old, and I love watching him play the back line of the zone and how they play the back line of the zone with the backs facing the sideline. So they put their more disruptive guards up front, Duncan Robinson, Kyle Lowry in the back of the zone. And when the ball is shot, I focus only on Kyle Lowry. His blockouts last night were some of the most beautiful pieces of contact I have ever seen. Like, he stood people up. He has diminished as a player, but his competitive spirit is one of the best I've ever seen. I have such admiration for him and his competitive level and how he's gracefully gone to the bench, accepted a lesser role. A lot of guys,

when it comes to that time, continue to fight that they're the same player as they once were. Kyle Lowry doesn't. And so does he have some bad games? Yeah. Is some of the flopping irritating to me? Without question. But I overlook all of that because he teaches me once again, what I've always known is that mental and physical toughness and intelligence and competitive spirit is a skill we do not talk about enough, value enough in our roster building. Miami does. And so I think they've got the right guys. And I hope I get to say to Kyle Lowry, if there's a chance meeting in the NBA

finals, just how much I admire how he goes about his game, how he fights and competes. He's one of the great competitors our sport has seen. You're absolutely right. I mean, I can't stand it most of the time, but there's no denying,

especially as he ages into this stage of his career, because it's not about making shots. It's about him thinking he has a chance to win every possession. And you've always pointed this out, and you're right. The small guy gets away with murder against the big guys on those plays.

Gets away with it. Oh, it's unbelievable. They're never going to call it. And credit to him for doing it and still wanting to and trying and caring because I think that part, I never bring that up with Lowry,

but I think anybody that would ever listen to me would know that I would understand and respect competitors. It's just the stuff. When he stops on the baseline cut on offense and just stops

and break tests the defender behind him, I just don't understand how a baseline official falls for it a second time. That's the part. And that's why when you, Jeff, during these finals, I know maybe people are getting to you a little bit. It felt like you had to make a public statement there during the broadcast of why you get on officials the way you do or why you like, just know that I'm at home cheering on Jeff Van Gundy. I'm not cheering for Denver and I'm not

cheering for Miami. I'm cheering for Jeff because you're fighting the good fight. You're fighting the right fight that all of us that care about the sport and the future of how it looks and where it goes and who's rewarded for the right things or the wrong things. I'm home cheering. If I could buy your jersey, Jeff, I'd buy it. So don't let the people get to you because there are many of us out there that are at home nodding with just a proud look on our face? Well, I would say this. So when I got into broadcasting, right, I was told like three pieces of good advice. The first came from Mike Breen.

He said, find someone that will tell you the truth about your performance. Because what he said was most people will say good job good job good job you're fired there's no like critique like and as a coach you're used to giving feedback and so you know it's part of it but he said don't expect it it It doesn't happen. Okay. And I was like, okay, that didn't make sense to me. It makes sense to me. Then he said, don't use the word great when you only mean good because you have no place to go. And I was like, okay. And so then my producer, Tim Corrigan, shout out to him.

He said to me that no one ever complains after a game that an announcer talked too little. And I think that's really good when you're in a three-man booth, right? So Tim, after the game, what I thought was an awful flagrant foul call against D'Angelo Russell. I was then sarcastic in the next, like one of the next plays, when the foul came against Jokic, right? Yeah. And Tim rightfully crushed me for my use of sarcasm. Because when I heard it again, I'm like, I was so angry. I should have just gone with anger.

Sarcasm, yeah, that wasn't well placed. So I did want to say why I feel so strongly. I think officials should be played more, and I think we should stop trying to promote the fallacy that how a game is called has no impact on the outcome. All three teams on the floor, the two competing teams and the officiating team, have a huge impact on the outcome of the game. And we have the only sport where you're penalized and you can be removed from a game for a certain amount of fouls. And they all are important. So I think the official should be paid more. And I think we should talk about officiating more. And I think what we end up always trying to do is cover for

them. These are just like players, coaches. There's nothing wrong with pointing out a coaching, I mean, an officiating mistake. I don't understand where we've got to in this point where we try to diminish their value. I want to up their value. I want to pay them more. And I want to talk about their real value and impact on the game. And unfortunately, the league office doesn't see that as how it should be. And I think the NBA is the same as all sports. I think the NFL probably doesn't see it, want their broadcasters to talk about it. Not that I've ever been, you know, there's never been a gun put to my head or anything like that. And I think I've had great support for telling what I think the truth is. But I think in general, there's this reticence to talk about officiating in a realistic manner on the impact of the game.

You know, I hate the review process. I would have been a straight A student if I graded my own work. And please don't recite the two-minute report. You don't think there's bias in the two-minute report? Just because they confirm what they said was called is the right call? I disagree all the time with those two-minute reports. I disagreed with the initial call, and I disagree when they come back and confirm it. So I don't understand why there's this reticence to, I think they should eliminate the two-minute report, by the way. I think they should eliminate the reviews. I think the only thing that review should be there for is shots at the end of the quarter

and whether it's a two or three. Other than that, play ball, live with the infallibility of the officiating process, and let's keep the game moving. Right, and I think three flops, ban for life. Three flops in a season, ban for life, I think is fair.

I'm with you, but I don't know what happened. We used to, there was an improvement for a while. It was. There was a finding of $5,000. There was public, like this person was fine, warned. Now we've taken all of that away.

I think probably because the players were upset by it. And I think sometimes you can't worry about what upsets an agent or a player. You have to do what's best for the game. Look at how hard the game is to officiate. Compound that with guys exaggerating and embellishing. And I want to make sure I say this so Monty McCutcheon doesn't come from my head again. He tells me that he's the director of... Yeah, no, he had him on. He had him on. I tried. I tried. He told me I was wrong about it.

Of the phishing. But he said to me, he wants me to make this clear, that the embellishment of contact or the flop itself does not negate the illegal contact. And I always argue it should. The embellishment should negate the illegal contact. And I always argue it should. The embellishment should negate the illegal contact. So if you try to verbally flop with the screen or you snap your head back, it should absolutely, and it used to, it used to not be a written thing in the NBA officiating. The officials would just give you the stand up and play ball, right? We know what you tried to do. You're trickster. We're not giving in. And because flopping works, because there is no punishment during the play or even after the play anymore, why do you think it's ever going to be corrected? If you don't punish them for flopping as the game goes on

and exaggerating and embellishing, and then there's no penalty for after when you review it, and it's an obvious flop, there's no fine, there's no acknowledgement of it, why would these guys change? And so what it does to me is it puts the officials in a terrible spot. These guys are professional actors now. They're unbelievable at making innocuous contact seem like flagrant. And that's why they're all grabbing their head on every, they're trying to entice the review, they're rolling around. They won't stand up. Like, listen, when a guy goes down, don't let him writhe on the floor. Like take a timeout or get up and shoot your free throws. We're not going to be enticed into every time there's a basketball play. Not every time a guy gets hit in the head

or gets swiped across the face, is it a flagrant foul? We all know what a dirty play is. Like, let's just keep it to that. And so I think the way they've gone away from punishing the flopping is making a hard job of officiating even harder. And I don't understand it for the life of me. Jokic flops like crazy

actually too, embellishing contact. So I can't wait. I can't wait for the finals. This is going to be a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. Hold on. Can I say something? LeBron flopped in the last game and then Jokic upped his flop on the very next play and fell out of bounds when James fronted him.

I'm like, if two all-time great players resort to it, you know it's wrong. If they know it works well enough that they will do that, then you know it's wrong. And guess what? They're both so smart that if you just let it go and didn't give them the call, they would learn, I'm not getting that call. I'm going to stand up and play ball. That's always

been my point. Just let guys fall down for a full game or a half a season, even. If you did it for a half a season, by the time February rolled around, the guys would be like, hey, they're not calling anymore. I know we went long here, but we have breaking news. Bob Myers stepping down as president of the Golden State Warriors. Your thoughts? He did a great job.

They inherited Steph Curry. Like most organizations that win, as much as he did or they did, it's anchored by the greatness of one player. I think Curry has never gotten his due. They always try to lump him up with a big three. He's the big one out there. But Bob Myers, and first, like, with some of the draft picks, Steve Kerr, their ability to stay together

through some terrific highs and hard defeats. I give them a lot of credit, and I hope whatever he decides to do next, he's as successful as he was in Golden State. Jeff, can't thank you enough again for everything throughout the season, and I can't wait for the finals. So looking forward to game one.

I am too. Take care. Big fan of our guest here for a long time now. Watch him on television. Obviously, he's been successful both on the camera and off. But it's Andy Cohen, who's also a best-selling author. His newest book, Daddy Diaries, is out now. And I think he's kind of on fire with the end of this Vanderpump season, which I did not watch a

ton of. And I had people reaching out saying, you've got to see the end of this season. So I'm caught up, Andy. I'm ready to go. And thanks a lot for joining us. How are you doing? Well, I mean, it's a fake caught up. You like watch the end. That's, I mean, you half-assed it, Ryan. I'm actually pretty proud of myself during the NBA playoffs to have gotten caught up and feel like I could jump back in. Fair point.

You have other things happening. Well, 4 million people watched, or over 4 million. So it's great. I want to get to that, but I do want to start with your story. And this is why I've always been such a fan is that I knew you were behind the scenes for such a long time. I imagine both being a producer, vice president of programming and all the decisions that you're making. It was right when it started because back when it was Atlanta, New Jersey, I was super locked in.

My girlfriend and I, that was my concession I would make. I'd be like, oh, I'll watch this. And then after like three episodes, she would catch me watching him on the DVR before she would get home. And so when I first watched you, I was like, you know what's great about him is that you are the perfect television host because you're not a traditional television host. And so all those years off camera, did you know that you were kind of molding yourself into somebody that would be in front of the camera? And did you know that like being different was your greatest asset? I think being yourself is your greatest asset, mainly, unless you're a horrible person or have a terrible personality. But, you know, it was something that I wanted.

I really wanted to be in front of the camera. That was my dream. But the longer I was working behind the scenes, it just seemed very unlikely that that would ever happen. And I was, you know, in the middle of a really successful run as a producer. So I had pretty much given it up. When it happened, it was a very exciting and organic surprise to me. Did you have anyone early on say, you're not a front of the camera person? Oh, yeah. you're not a front of the camera person. Oh yeah. I mean, I, I, my first, my, my first job out of college was at CBS news in New York. I was a producer at CBS news for 10 years.

I could probably win a trivial pursuit nineties edition because I had a front row seat for the entire 90s. And so there's a gentleman at CBS News who's still there, and I've told this story before, but I sought him out and I said, I really want to be in front of the camera. What advice do you have? And he said, oh my God, it's never going to happen because of your wandering eye. He's like, you are very cross-eyed.

And I, you know, did what any other person does in that situation. I left the lunch and called my mother. And I said, am I cross-eyed? And she's like, that is ridiculous. But then when I finally did get in front of the camera, you know, it took about two minutes for all the trolls on the internet, my new friends to say, you are horribly cross-eyed. So, you know,

yes, I, I've, I've beaten the odds. There should be a afterschool special about how a kid with terribly crossed eyes made it. Because, you know, again, I was, I was doing TV in it because you know again i was i was doing tv in a you know in a sports way but i wasn't an anchor and then i'd come on and you know give my two cents on a topic then i'd get out of there but then our radio show will simulcast 15 hours a week so i would get a lot of you're not really a tv person right and i would get it from all these different people. And the funny thing about TV, and I remember a producer at ESPN was like, just because you want to be on TV doesn't mean you get to be on TV. That is something that I've said to a few housewives when we've let them go, when they've talked about... I remember when I talked to Vicky from Orange County,

who's one of the most famous housewives. And I was like, Vicki, you've been on television longer than Angela Lansbury was on Murder, She Wrote. Like, this is an incredible run. And I said to her, we don't all, you know, it's not in our, in our, when we're born, we don't get a contract to be on TV. Like, it's a gift that we get to be on TV. And I know that someday my time will come too.

All right, that's a perfect segue because I have a bunch of things that I want to hit on here. But going back to the early Housewives shows and I became a huge Below Deck fan and I don't know how much you were involved back then or day-to-day now of the casting of it, but it is a pretty crazy dynamic when you think about it. Because the Housewives, you're selling luxury Vanderpump, you're getting people at a younger stage, so they're not as established. But what this show can do is provide exposure that then turns you into something completely different. How do you balance going like we're giving you this opportunity and we know there's a direction that you can take it, yet you still have some responsibility to the show? You can't be such a big star that all of a sudden the platform that we gave you becomes ignored or disrespected. Well, and by the way, good question. And I will predicate that

by saying, you know, Vicky never kind of disrespected the platform or there's nothing. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, look, that's the balancing act. I would say on one hand, I would say there is no guidebook to becoming famous, especially when you're putting real women who are living their lives on a now hit show around the world and making them super famous around the world. I think that most of the smart ones realize that the platform that Bravo gives them is so valuable to anything they're doing that it makes no sense to kind of go. And so many of them have tried to get spinoffs and have their own shows. And I just say, you're on a really big hit show.

Just be happy. This is the mothership. You know, I call it the mothership. Like you're a part of it and you're in the opening credits and you're one of the stars of the show. So enjoy it. I'm Vanderpump to catch my sports audience up here. Guy named Tom Sandoval. And the thing is, I wasn't even locked in this year. I've already apologized. And people were like, are you seeing what's happening with this? Because it's funny

because I live in Manhattan Beach, but if people come out to LA or people that we had friends, especially female friends from back in the East, be like, is there any way we can go to one of those places?

And I'm like, yeah, just go get drinks there if you want to go get drinks there. And they're like kind of looking around. And I'm like, I don't think the show's filming right now, but yeah, we can get another round of drinks. But it's an attraction, but it's also like a different lane of maybe more relatability with the characters that are on the show.

And so Sandoval cheats on his girlfriend, long-time girlfriend, not just a casual girlfriend, 10 years they're living together with another cast member. We saw them get together nine years ago. So we all have history with these people. Right. And I'm glad you emphasize that point because this isn't just the, oh, a guy on a TV show cheated on his girlfriend. There's a long relationship. There's a relationship that you have with these characters. How do you balance that knowing these people this long and having this absolute bomb dropped on the storyline were real feelings.

People's lives feel devastated right now. Well, I think my, you know, I worried. First of all, it's obviously fascinating content for the show. As a producer, you have to recognize that. And then, you know, you're concurrently, you know, I'm just kind of – as people become outraged, there was a level – there still is a level of outrage against these two people that's so intense that one starts to worry about their mental health, you know? And just, you want to make sure they're okay, basically. So, I mean, those were kind of the two initial things that came to my mind. There have to be times where you're like,

I care about this person and I really dislike this person, but you still have a job to do on those reunion shows and behind the scenes. How do you do that? You just do it. I mean, I don't have to love everybody. I have to love their role on the show. I think that there are people

that I wouldn't want to have dinner with, but that I respect the fact that on these shows, they are excellent and they play a part. And if they're certainly, if there are people on housewives, I, I would recommend for all of them, I would go to the mat and say, well, this is why I think they're good on the show. I noticed during the first episode of the reunion, James, um, starts kind of motioning

towards Tom and keeps threatening him and say, he was going to kick his ass and it knocks your cards everywhere. Um, your line going, my cards was, was some of the best content that I've seen. I just love it. Did you know? You know, and it's so funny because after it happened and I was on the floor picking them up and I just, I felt a little kind of humiliated.

I felt like the nerdy guy that's like on the floor, like got picked last in sports, in gym. I just felt like, no, my cards. I just, I just, I felt a little sad and I was sad because by the way, it's a big stack of cards. And if they get out of order, it's just, it's just a time waster. And I hate wasting time in general. And so I was just annoyed. But let me say, I had to get out of my chair a few times during that reunion to stop fisticuffs from happening. And I thought my response time was excellent. That's what I thought you were going to say.

Okay. I'm glad because that's where I was going. By the way, shout out to your director for getting the close-up of you then trying to organize your cards later on. Great instincts there from your director. But James, who I think said one of the lamest things I've ever heard another guy say to another dude prior to not actually wanting to fight him because clearly he was just trying to put on a show. to fight him because clearly he was just trying to put on a show but his quote to tom was basically i'll kick your ass i'll kick your ass and his his confirmation of his belief in himself was he said quote i'm way more ripped than you are well that's why we love james kennedy because he is still very childlike in his emotions and proclamations. And I mean, they all kind of are, which is what makes them still interesting television. I mean, these are, you know, it's funny. Bravo has built, um, part of the secret sauce of Bravo is on all the non-Housewives shows, and I mean everything from Below Deck to Southern Charm to Summer House, Vanderpump Rules, there are these guys who I consider to be kind of Peter Pan types who are like approaching 40, but who are still acting like they're in college. And I don't know why there's something. I love interviewing them because I can give them endless amounts of shit and

they'll take it. But, um, there's something fascinating to watch about these guys. There's, it's like, there's still, they're still in college basically.

Uh, but your response time was terrific. I kept waiting for security. I kept waiting for security to show up, and it was almost as if they said, Andy's got it. He's got him sealed off here. He's not going to let James get to Tom. And you had to do it like three times in just the first episode.

So, yes, I was impressed by your instincts and quickness. Thank you. I appreciate it. I asked you for that compliment. Let me be clear. It was coming. Thank you. I appreciate it. I asked you for that compliment. Let me be clear. It was coming. It was here in the notes. The hybrid thing of your role, right? We've talked about programming and having the vision to say, okay, this is what's going to work. And then these are the tweaks that we can make. And yet, I'm still going to be able to have this on-air presence to everything. But there's a business side of this, right? There's a business side of your own production company, Radio Andy, all of the books. Do you think your Midwestern

sensibilities, the goofy Andy, do you think it's actually a great asset in your personality because it's disarming? Because I imagine you have to be a bit of a, I don't know if shark's the right word, but there has to be an edge to you in business that also allows you to be this successful. I think that, you know, what was the question? I was enchanted by, it was a complimentary. So I was in, it was a bit of a ramble, but no, like you're saying, I can't, you're saying I can't just be some nice kid from St. Louis. I have to kind of be an asshole sometimes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And yes, I can.

And I think that there's a great gift in being direct with people. And if you're able to speak directly and clearly with people about your expectations or your opinions or, you know, I had a conversation today with a housewife who wanted to know why she wasn't cast on something. And we had a five minute conversation. And I was like, I'm going to tell you exactly how this all broke down. And I was able to tell her and I was able to get off the phone with her without her in a puddle of tears, just because I was very direct and I was clear. And I view that as a great strength in business. I also think being a quick and clear decision maker is a gift that I think I learned from my time at CBS News, because I faced when you're cutting a piece against a clock, when you're cutting a piece and you know you have an air date and you have to feed

the piece to New York at a certain time or get it on the air at a certain time, then you have to make a lot of decisions in the either two hours or 10 hours or whatever the situation is leading up to getting it on the air. Or if you're screening a piece or if you're screening a cut of a show. And so I do view being confident in your decisions as being a gift, knowing what you're doing as being a gift

and being able to communicate directly. I think those are things. So yeah, sometimes the decisions may be unpopular, but I try to be gentle about it. And I think there's also a lot of successful people who are just dicks. And I think that winds up coming back to you. And I'm sure there are people in my universe who think I've been a dick occasionally, and I probably have. But I try not to be because I also can be a bit codependent and I care what people think of me. And I don't want to be a dick. It's not my goal or pleasure. Do you want to still have cast members reach out to you to complain about their

role on a season what do you think i i actually my first thought would be i don't want to do this anymore i'm a dad i don't i don't want to do this but at the same time i can also imagine like these are kind of your shows right you? You were the face of the show. So I don't know the answer. The answer is it's part of my job. So and I love my job. unless it's either really a big deal to them or um or it's it's just you know something that they're going nuts about and hopefully i can talk them off the ledge quickly you know so yeah it doesn't bother me but it doesn't happen as much as it used to because i think i was more in the

more in the day-to-day trenches that you know that makes sense because if you provide if you if you if it's a newer cast member too but somebody who thinks like oh I just have a direct line to Andy all the time then it's like right so most of the newer people don't and most of the people who've been on the shows for a longer amount of time

I you know I have relationships with and I come to expect it. Is it harder to write the first book or the other books? I think the first book was definitely the hardest. I've now written five. I really know my voice. I love writing.

Knowing your voice, it's like we talked about in business. I think making fast decisions and being a clear communicator go so far in getting ahead. And in terms of writing, the hardest thing possible is just being able to sit down and start. And if you know your voice and you feel comfortable with it, then that's a huge jumpstart. The first one was great because I just think it's a combination of all of these different things. But I imagine as a first-time writer, there was a bit more of a sell job. Now, you had the platform, so maybe it wasn't that challenging for you. But I imagine now when you

talk to a publisher, you talk to your agent or however the process works for you, the first one is like, okay, tell us what you're doing. And then the fifth one, they're like, cool, don't even tell us. Yeah, the first one was more, I mean, I shopped a proposal to publishers. And I remember I had like nine meetings, and I got eight offers. And it was so fun. I love the book, the process of writing and selling books. And I landed at Macmillan Holt, which is where I still am. And I have an imprint there. And I went there because I just had the best connection with the people. I just said, well, these are the people that I want to be in business with. And that was the editor who's going to edit my book. And that's, you know, she seemed incredible. So that was the beginning of a long kind of relationship.

The second book was a diary, which now I've written three. This is my third. The Daddy Diaries is my third installment in my diary series. And I remember after I turned the first one in, my editor said she loved it. And she said, this is great. And I said, great. I was like, do you think you're going to want a sequel? And she was like, you know, I don't know. And in my mind, I said, oh, they're going to want a sequel. So I just started writing the sequel without them knowing. And then it sold like gangbusters. And I said, oh, good news. I'm working on the sequel. And they said, great. No problem. Right.

Daddy Diaries out now. Okay. A couple more things before I finish up here. I don't know why I ended up liking Below Deck so much. Because it's the perfect reality show. Okay, why? It's the perfect reality show for a straight guy. So it's, you know, there you go.

Double bullseye for you, Ryan. And it is a perfect reality show because it is a workplace drama. It is aspirational and beautiful. You want to be where they are. You can relate to the workplace aspects and half of them are fucking so what's not to like my favorite part of each season is is like by the third episode where the cast is they all do the same thing they all eventually start to think the boat is theirs. Right.

It's like the same beats where it's like, this would be an awesome job if it wasn't for the guests. And you're like, yep. And the funny part that I always kind of like is the captain dynamic. Cause the captain's still trying to like the amount of training, amount of certifications, like all the things that you have to do to have that position,

to be responsible for this massive item of luxury. And yet it's like, Hey, cool rules, Captain Sandy, but like, we're still doing a TV show here too, which I don't know. Cause then I think the captains actually start to like the love, maybe not all of them to the same level. Maybe captain, I think captain Lee likes to downplay it a little bit. Then he's on a tweet storm out of nowhere. So I think as much as you would think every character you'd be able to guess like this person's into the attention this one isn't it feels like everybody always likes the attention more than they would like to pretend i think the captains certainly'm like oh they've been reading feedback on Twitter you know like they're they're modifying who they were last season

based on you know what what they're getting from the viewers which is interesting yeah because when I when I think back to all the cats, like I would have, uh, we were, again, this is kind of funny. Yeah.

It was just a bunch of guys and we all loved the show and we were drinking one night and we had a below deck draft where we were trying to figure out like, okay, what would, what would be the best boat? And Joao went unpicked. We all hated Joao so much with a raging passion. He was even worse than the reunion

shows and then we hated the captain captain sandy fell for it but then i started thinking like andy should just have him move to west hollywood and get him a door job at vanderpump because sir tom tom like it he was perfect for tv because he was so easy to despise. Yes, yes, yes. That happens sometimes. Okay, a couple quick hitters and we'll let you go. Were you surprised that She by Sheree wasn't a bigger seller? Who wrote that question for you? I did. It was my...

Because what I loved about some of the early seasons was like, you could see a cast member would come back into the next season being like, okay, this is the season. I know. I know. I love it. I mean, those early seasons were just gold. It was the Wild West. People didn't know what they were really doing.

They didn't know what they were dealing with. And it always wound up kind of exploding in their faces. Yeah. No, but it didn't. So they had the release party and unfortunately it didn't work out for that scent uh all right i we originally at one point i don't know what your your representation is now we were in the same agency but it's so massive it doesn't matter but at i was in the the sports department there and then i looked you up and i went oh wait

i was like can we get him on espn and the the agent was like, that's a great idea. And in the beginning of Watch What Happens Live, when we were watching, I was like, I feel like they got to find the rhythm here before they start getting to the higher end guests. I was like, I think this would be perfect for me because I'd had it down cold back then. I was like, is there any way you can reach out and I can come down from Connecticut, New York City and do a show and nobody else wants to do it. And the agent was like, that's such a good idea. We love that for you, which you have to get a little bit older and working with agents to realize the translation of that is we're never fucking doing that or putting any time in. So I'm not asked to be on the show because that's annoying. I don't like when people do that to to me is there any way i can put you down as a reference as just a door guy to sir tom tom like one night a week get myself in the mix away from

the beach i'm not asking for anything other than if i put you down as a reference is it going to be if they call you you you want to pick up a couple shifts maybe just one i am kind of yeah great great all right yeah i didn't want to be on the show. I've had plenty of attention. I'm good with that. I'm not trying to get in there. Yeah, you're nodding. Yeah. I think I can help you.

All right. Sounds good. That's on my to-do list for next week. I know it's Friday, so this was very cool of you to find the time. Congrats on Daddy Diaries. Congrats on everything that's going your way, and we're big fans. Thanks, dude. So you're in L.A.? dude. I hope to see you.

So you're in LA? Yeah, I'm in Manhattan Beach. I moved out here. I was in New England my whole life. And then I moved out here like five years ago. Lucky you. Think the Cardinals are going to be able to turn it around this season? Man, they stink again, huh?

Yeah, badly. You guys were so lucky because every year your pitchers would be like, what's going to happen here? I mean, I know I'm going back to duncan and everything but forever i never worried about your pitching staff for like 20 years and now we also had yadi which which but it shouldn't be this big of a deal yeah no it's uh it's it's rough yeah well you had a you know i know i had a little sports talk on the ringer yeah you did we'll have you on the baseball podcast here soon um well thanks man thanks it's great to meet you great to meet you finally you want details bye i drive a fer 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. I feel like we have a couple things that we have to hit on here

with so many events coming up. But before we get to life advice, succession finale. So, Rudy, you can start. I was extremely satisfied. I thought I just really liked Tom this whole time. And I thought the meeting he had with Mattson was everything that you need to know about Tom. And I'm just kind of happy for him. And I think at the end of the day,

this is like one of the Kendall siblings not running the company is the right call. Like in our heart of hearts, like Shiv doing that at the end, even though it sucked and it was really uncomfortable. I mean, she's right. Even though I think she was probably,

she's obviously biased in that because she wants to, you know, have some sort of power say with her husband running the company now. But I just thought that that felt right. And I'm happy for Tom. I'm also happy for Greg for still being in the mix. I thought putting the tag on his forehead was just an incredible little scene there, like a little note there. So, like I said, I know some people, finales are hard.

They're hard to nail. And I think there was a lot of pressure, obviously, on this one to get it right. And I think that they did. I thought it was kind of a logical ending to what was a great show. Finales are really hard, especially when you're one of these number one seed

shows where it's, what are you going to do? And then I don't know what the goal is of the writer's room. But if you try to get too weird and then you kind of fuck it up, if you try for this really aggressive move that nobody saw coming

or you have something really unexpected happen and it doesn't go right because you took this huge swing, then you're not going to damage the show because the show is so good. And I just love the scenes. Like that's the thing about the show is that just all the scenes are great. I thought them going to visit the mom was great. And in the middle of that,

having the mom's new husband's buddy, throw him a pitch and they were, I wouldn't say rude. They were beyond rude. Like they, and granted they're going through something much bigger and it's ridiculous of her and that relationship is super strange so they don't necessarily owe him any kind of audience for something that's that poorly timed and insensitive to what they're dealing with but i thought it was a great a great like example of rich rich i'm talking like crazy rich like the kind of people that we don't really ever meet But I thought it was a great example of rich, rich. I'm talking like crazy rich, like the kind of people that we don't really ever meet,

kind of rich, where being that rich, you can just leave that table. You can leave that table and feel no remorse, even though the other person's doing something wrong. But I do think with a certain level of wealth, there's a comfort in just going, yeah, fuck this. I'm not doing this and I'm walking away. And then they have that scene in the kitchen that I thought was really cool. that they were tying up and leaving kendall devastated uh all those things worked i'm with you on the tom part of it the tom madsen scene was really weird that like you have a guy basically saying i want to bang your wife and tom's like i'm up for the job cool yeah like i'll take the job and i always thought the car accident thing would come back at some point as some added storyline uh not maybe i thought it'd be more significant i thought was

there a chance they're going to go visit the mother and she's in england and then kendall's going to get detained as roman tells on him as roman's kind of having this mental breakdown journey of his own um and shiv's getting screwed over left and right the only thing the only thing i kind of was like just they're going around the boardroom vote by vote the music starts and Shiv just all of a sudden is like nah I'm out the argument scene was incredible Romans like your kids are randos yeah you know uh and then really some revealing like deep roman issues where he's he's he's causing himself pain with the cut above his forehead which you know is a whole other thing where it just started exposing more and more of like roman's real issues but with shiv the dramatic

the dramatic point just being shiv going i'm out i don't know. Maybe it's because I hold the show in such an impossibly high regard that I thought it's something that happens here where it's a little bit more unexpected. So it's not a criticism. It was just something I was thinking about because I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. But that's I think the problem with these shows. It's like even with the end of

Mad Men, I'm like, oh, now he's just chill. Yeah. It also shows how delusional Kendall is too where he like all that happens and he like kind of collects himself. You know, he's just chill yeah he's also it also shows how delusional kendall is too where he like all that happens and he like kind of collects himself you know he's completely like out of it walks back in the room he's like hey can we get like maybe a recess maybe pick this up tomorrow and frank no dude dude no yeah when he starts telling his shivan roman that he made up the death of the driver it's like i made no it's not true just connecting how about now now we good can we go do this yeah no it was great it was great how did hi forget how did roman

describe i'm blanking on like the term he used but when he was like we're we're nothing or something at the end remember when he was all bullshit it's all bullshit yeah like it's just and it's again it's true like it's that's why i think it works so well because it's all bullshit. Yeah. Like it's just, and it's again, it's true. Like it's, that's why I think it works so well because it is all true. Like I think in some ways we, we did like these terrible characters and, you know,

we're interested in one of them, maybe potentially taking it. But at the end of the day, yeah, that's right. They're all bullshit. Uh, yeah.

That's a great observation by you because it's, it's, it was a really cool landing point of of like hey you know what like well who are we like what is it that we do but you know look dude you could do that to anything you could you could kind of do it to anything but to have them say it or have roman admit it uh was was a good way to kind of have some closure although i didn't want like full-blown closure you know like i'll let kyle go here too but it also kind of is like a little call back to when logan in what was it that like weird you know karaoke bar that they were at was like you

aren't serious people like he truly didn't want them to run the company i don't think you know that's why the kendall underlined or crossed out thing like he said he straight up said you are not serious people so yeah right from like the most serious dude ever anything else I didn't like it at the end I mean I didn't like the Sopranos ending either but I remember like

I just kind of turned to my fiance I was like what the fuck and then I was like before I say anything let me see it it's like oh everybody loves it I was like all right I guess I'll find a way to love it whoa uh i don't know i was just like wait i was like there's gonna be something after the credits no no i can't i must be wrong if everyone thinks this way but i was just like i remember saying like what the fuck no way and then i just was like all right maybe something after the credits but that didn't seem very succession like to have like another thing after the credit iron man i was like yeah i was

like i guess that's it uh i don't know i didn't like the sopranos ending either but i've watched that show now for like five times and i'm like yeah fine genius i guess i don't know so um i thought the episode was good i just want to end it i was like i guess it was supposed to make me think about it more after it just cuts to black so whatever that was fine and then my other thing was i felt like i got transported back to that porch in ocean city maryland when tom and greg went to that bathroom uh that was uh that was pretty fun that was pretty fun i was like i wanted to tweet about but i was like i don't think enough people know what i'm talking about and i don't have the right words but i did feel like i wanted to be like greg's definitely from poughkeepsie but uh those

guys smacked each other way harder than than tom and. I thought there would be some sort of connective tissue there, but I couldn't figure out the words. Greg wouldn't make it a week in Poughkeepsie. You know that. Okay, speaking of altercations, before we get to life advice, a video surfaced of live footage from outside of the Frolic room. Kyle,

can you help us understand what it is that we saw? So yeah, I wasn't there for that. I just was getting told about it. I was like, wait, is it on video? So basically there was some prankster who was going around asking people for money and kind of harassed them a little bit.

But if they gave him the money, he would give him like a thousand bucks. And needless to say, my friend Austin did not get the thousand bucks. He was basically, he was like, you can't solicit here, get the hell away from here. And here and the guy was like you know it's like a classic prank thing he's like no but i just need like you know what do you want which way should i go and he was just like i don't give a fuck you gotta get out of here and then he takes off his belt and he whips the

guy uh apparently the the somebody who was there told him told me that uh the guy got whipped like maybe six times or something before he with his? Yeah, just took his belt right off his body. You don't see that a lot. No. Does he work there? Yeah, he's the bouncer. That's what it looked like, but I just was double checking. Some kids were pranksters. They were pretending to panhandle outside of the front door of the frolic room. Door guy, who's

an enormous dude, had a cowboy hat on too and everything else going on. He doesn't look like a guy you would fuck with ever. The kids were fucking with him a little bit as you pointed out the dialogue like no cool no it's cool it's cool and then he just whips his belt out and starts he just saw he wasn't getting anywhere and the kid was stalling she's like okay here we go so i don't know he's uh he's he's i i've never seen the belting before but yeah he's like you know it's you gotta sometimes deter people usually it's it's not like a harmless prank or something, but sometimes it's, you know,

it's other crazy people or guys like wielding sticks or something. So he's always on edge on the outside there. So, uh, I just thought it was, I thought it was funny. I couldn't believe that it was actually a video out there. Apparently the video on YouTube has got like, I guess this prankster was pretty, pretty, uh, popular. I asked him, I was like, Hey, do you mind if I like, you know tweet this out just because i think somebody would care about the frolic stuff and he's like dude the video already has like 1.3 million views i don't give a shit i was like okay that's great that's great what's his mindset is he just like i you know i stand my ground kind of thing he was like

basically stay the fuck away from my job and we'll be fine i think that's what he said yeah the prank the social media prank people. We talk. I talked about gym culture guy. We talked about gym culture guy. We've talked about like lifestyle hardo guy that, you know, the six different days

of six hour increments. The prank guy, social media person is up there with some of the worst human beings on Earth. Yeah, we've seen so many bad ones, too, that, you know, it's like you almost get lumped in with

the people that are licking ice cream and putting that shit back in the shelves it's just like that's that's your you know that's your lane even if that's not what you're doing so i don't think people are generally upset about anything that happens to people unless they're seriously like injured or killed you know so i think if a prankster gets like you know whipped with a belt or smacked in the face or whatever as long long as it's not serious. Everyone's like, yeah, all right. Just sort of a shrug. Yeah, look, I think in the future,

maybe 100 years from now or whatever, we'll just have a huge draft and there'll be like 10 categories and just be like, all right, I'm going to go live there. Like, that's the only way we're going to figure it out.

Right? Like, I'm just going to live there. You reach like 16 or 18. Right. Like, you kind of figure out who you are you're like all right i've decided it's like being sorted and slated into one of the hogwarts houses like all right this is where i'm at yeah yeah we may need to go to that i don't know i don't think it's around the corner but it may may help all of us and i would like one of the areas to be prankster island where like you guys could just fuck with each other all the time we don't run any boats there's no bridge send supplies but it's airdrop stuff right

that that kid who went into the dude's house in england he's just like what bro what bro you know like oh yeah right yeah sorry dude sorry i'm bummed out that you're walking around my house with kids in here and then he like took over a train. Then I saw some other one where the guy's prank would see would jump people at ATMs, but like not hard, just kind of jump on their back and be like, give me all your money. And I don't know how old or new this one is. So I apologize. But I think I just saw it too.

He got his nose. He got his nose broken away. He had a hole in his face and he's bleeding all over the place. Cause another guy punched him in the face. He was like hanging on to the dude that was at the ATM. So another bystander comes by thinking he's coming to the rescue. And he busted this kid's face up so bad that he takes the towel off the front of his face.

And there's literally a hole. It looks like a bullet wound. There's a hole in his face bleeding. And the kid's like, is it bad? And the guy's like, nah, yeah. And he goes, I don't think I'll need stitches. It's like, you're going to need a mirror first. So, um, I would, yeah, the frolic room video, that person is a serious person. Logan

Roy would have liked that guy. Yeah. I, I, I like it. I think it grows his legend and he deserves all the flowers and he'll be at the wedding. So if anybody wants to pop off some shit, then, uh, you know, they got to deal with that. Oh, that guy's he'll be at the wedding so if anybody wants to pop off some shit then uh you know they gotta deal with that oh that guy's gonna be at the wedding oh yeah now i'm not worried about my wedding got two bouncers at my wedding and the wedding's what saturday uh it's next friday not this friday next friday next friday and the beef is squash so i mean i've just been i'm walking up sunshine right now i'm just feeling so good and you know i did find i got got the bill, the final headcount bill. That's a little higher than I thought. But, you know, everything else.

How much is it? Great. So, just through the caterer stuff, it's like 17 grand. Through the open bar and stuff like that. But there's all these staffing fees and like, oh, and then here's 20%. The 20% gratuity is like $3,500. I'm like, wow. All right. I'm pretty generous tipper. I guess 20% is whatever, but the staffing fees, like five grand, it's like, I'm paying the, aren't you guys supposed to pay the people to work? Why am I, whatever? I don't care. Obviously I don't know what I'm

talking about, but it was a little bit higher than I thought, but there's not going to be any fights. And, uh, I've got, I've got screenshot text prompt, like confirmation that we're all good. So that was really what was making me sick to my stomach. And I'm good now. Whoa. Okay. Well, she's supposed to pay for that. That's the old, right?

I know that's the old way. I died. I'm sure that's the old way. That doesn't happen anymore? I mean, I know the old, old way would be like a couple goats in a wheelbarrow but i yeah a couple acres i don't think anybody does that anymore yeah no um it's definitely helping a lot so we'll see we'll see where we haven't sent him the final number yet uh because bill said he might come so i might have to adjust my thing um so uh we'll see might have to adjust the

final head count but uh after the celtics loss and i i sent him i put up the pod really quick last night and he was just like the last thing he said was like i might come to the wedding okay so uh will they won't they here we go wow all right a lot at stake here a lot at stake okay all right let's get with me let's get to a couple emails here life advice rr at gmail.com. Remember we had the Harto alert. We need some kind of sounder for that from now on. Maybe we'll do it on the Friday feedback that will launch once the summer starts dialing up here.

But remember the guy said he called us woke and simps about the Taylor Swift tickets. He responded. He followed up. I bet he did. He said, yep, shouldn't have sent that. Painful to reread that I sent it. All right. I like this guy.

A few brews in maybe? Yep, pretty much. There's more to it. It's just one of my favorite emails of the month. He was like, yep, pretty painful to hear that. After the fact. Sometimes you just need a little dose of reality, get knocked down a peg or two.

You check yourself. It's a good thing. Everybody needs it. We also had the concerned parent about Ja Morant. Guys, thanks for the advice about Ja. I may have even undersold how much my kid loves Ja, so it'll take some time to clean up, but as long as we don't walk around the mall in a Ja jersey, we'll

make some progress. We live in Houston and there aren't a ton of inspiring current Rockets jerseys. Uh-oh, bro. You want to talk about follow-up emails? Let's just say that I agree the proclamation of Jalen Green is the king of Houston is premature. I think even Jalen

Green might have agreed with all of us on that one. Paul George, man, he is just a fucking space eater of content. However, I appreciate Ryan's suggestion of rooting for Anthony Edwards and so did our friend who heard the pod and works for the Timberwolves.

Wow. She took it to heart and sent him an Ant-Man care package with a stuffed animal mascot and jersey included. So you're looking at the newest four-year-old Anthony Edwards fan. Long way to go but a great first step shout out to the show and the Timberwolves for making it happen a really cute kid hooked up wow some ant facts here so yeah shout out to the Timberwolves changing kids lives

one jersey at a time okay what do I want to read here which selections do we have uh yeah let's let's do this one okay 32 married an explorer of 32 countries you know real magellan uh which is the stat i am most proud of what's your guys favorite stat about yourselves uh we weren't prepared for this so we'll get back to you i got a pretty impressive beers per hour stat i think i don't hate the question i don't know yeah i just wasn't ready and i just like to think of like what is it that each of us do where you would say i'm ranked highest i'm the All right, let me put it this way. Of the billions of people on Earth, what is the one thing that I do that I'm the highest ranked in?

Tinfoil measurement. We've been over this. Yeah, it's true. So do you think it's tinfoil? I hate to say it. Mine's probably FIFA, even though I hate the game. What's your rank, bro?

Where are you at? I don't know what my rank is, but I do play a lot of weekend league. You well i i'm better than probably the average person listening to this pod i would assume i that's what we're talking about here right what's your tagger bro i'll smoke you i think i've said this before it's embarrassing i'm imagining you're really good at fif. Now, you know, a million views on Twitch good. Yeah, I'm not like one of those elite pro players who has a YouTube channel and gets hooked up by the game.

But yeah, I play weekly. I play Weekend League, and it's a terrible thing for you because the game sucks, like I said. But I am all right. Yeah, I guess the question is, what's your best stat? Not like, what are you better at than anyone in the world? I'm better at anyone in the world than tinfoil but like the best stat yeah your best stat could be fifa that doesn't mean that you have to be the best in the world

i get it all right yeah all right cool just something to think about boating no fixing a boat but doc no it's not i would say it's even fixing is not even, I'm not even like, I don't qualify for that. Uh, just because something would go wrong. And then I'd be like, Oh, I remember when that went wrong the last time. Now I know what it is.

It's not like I'm down there with wrenches and a fucking hand towel. So, uh, that would not be it. Boating's no, I don't, I don't, you know,

there's guys that are so good at it that grew up with it. That's not even a category. Again, I wasn't prepared for this. Getting off the plane early maybe? No, I'm catching way too much heat for that. People put me in the group of getting up and sprinting. Now I'm just one of those guys

simply because I said eventually when you're in the aisle you have to stand up and if the stand up to box out like i'll stand up to box people out yeah i don't and then sometimes it's a really long flight yeah when it lands i'll i'll get up and get my shit i might even sit back down but uh eventually you do have to stand up people yeah the reason the flight attendants will say hey we're going to try this thing because you know i've heard people talk about this it's like no one's going to get up we're going to go row by row by row but really what they're doing is it's

not so much anti-standing it's the anti people that fuck it up for everybody else so like that's their way of controlling it it's not that again we've been over this yeah now i'm sorry no i'm just getting getting shrapneled a lot i actually have a follow-up question though on this because i want i want to know if this is the same thing i was driving the other day we hit some traffic and there was somebody who was blocking the breakdown lane so that people couldn't use the breakdown lane as an extra lane while we're driving and i kind of respected it i wouldn't personally do it because i just i don't know if i want that negative that attention because everyone's gonna hate you but i was kind of silently rooting for the guy like yes dude thank

you for because again it's one of those things where if you just let if it's if it's you know you let somebody do it then it just breaks the rules like everybody could do it and it's free for all it's not a lane to be driving in it's a breakdown so i don't know if that's the same thing as like the assholes that get up early on a plane, but I actually kind of respected the guy for doing it. I like it. I just don't, you know, I just wouldn't want to have like a pregnant lady, you know, behind me, like who needs to get to the hospital or, or some other thing, you know, some undercover cop or something. But yeah, I think for the most part, um, that, that feels good to watch those guys not get to cheat. That's all. Yeah. I'll tell you what, Kyle, make a deal with you. If it's a pregnant

woman that has to be rushed off because she's about to deliver a baby or it's an undercover cop that needs to get off the plane because of a national security thing i'll sit back down yeah hey you know my bad just assess the situation make sure we're all good and there you go no we uh we have discussed it and i may need to take a video of it one day although i don't know that's super safe but the exit out of equinox off of Isis Avenue. Yeah, that Isis. Got it. On to Rosecrans, where there's a strip mall that filters into this two-lane thing to go to a light.

But there's a keep clear area where you're supposed to keep it clear, but they have the stop sign. So when you're leaving the gym, you could pull up behind the car in front of you, but then you'd be blocking the clear lane to let the people that are coming in to Equinox or to come in and then go over to the strip mall. They need that opening to be there. And everybody instinctively at the stop sign leaving the strip mall sees the space and then they bring their car out. And there's two ways you can fuck it up. One, you can fuck it up where you just pull out and you cut the person who didn't have the stop sign which they're completely oblivious to the second nasty one is because it's two lanes they'll come across and then another one will come across and it'll block the right turn lane which is either blocked by the light or a right on red and so now you you're going left or straight and you've blocked the people that actually could have gone and gone right.

And that is every time I leave the gym, every day somebody fucks it up. And the person leaving the strip mall thinks they're not fucking it up. So that's a little different. They just think they're winning. Yeah. I'm surprised there's not a murder a week

at this intersection. Because the person that's always wrong is the person leaving the strip mall and they never think they're wrong. So the person that doesn't have the stop sign will be like, wait, so sometimes I'll just pull up. I'll be like, well, I'm going to block it before you are then. Like, I'll see you coming out. Like, okay, cool. I left the space for the

other oncoming traffic, but you're about to screw it up. So now I'm just going to pull up. They look at me like I'm the biggest piece of shit ever. And I just, I'm like, just like whatever you know massive yeah i can see how that tracks that tracks yeah with your airplane thing i get it hey so i think there was a question here right um all right maybe because i travel so often and to prevent getting ripped off i always ask the price of anything that price but i was wondering your guys. Example, if I order a drink that is not on the drink menu, I will ask the cost. Would you like two or three scoops of ice cream?

What's the price difference? If the server says the special is the price of a draft, the same as a bottle. Dot, dot, dot. Most of the reasons have to do with food and alcohol. So we often are out with others at dinner. When I asked the cost of an espresso martini last week, a few of the others in the group appeared to mock me by asking the waitress the cost of multiple items that they did not order. Oh, dude. I love it.

They really gave you the what for on this one. Others were laughing. It appears an inside joke was brought out in the open. open with you guys coming to new york city uh for the show it is more common here than in other cities i imagine and what you expected to pay or what costs can be are very different um wait you guys are from la so it probably happens there too excited for the upcoming show already got my tickets okay uh yeah i would say the international travel part of it 32 countries i can kind of understand it a little bit like just wanting to kind of know how things cost. If you're going to bars and buying rounds and you're asking the bartender what something costs, it's really annoying. Now, it could seem normal, like I want to know what something costs before I do it. That just isn't, though. You know, it's just kind of one of those things the way it works like i would never go to a bar and be like four cores lights or four heineken silvers and say how much do they cost individually what's my total what's my total gonna be um and some of you will say oh what's wrong

with that i'm just telling you you're wrong i'm just telling you you're wrong uh where i bartended again not exactly michelin star rated um although two places i did work out were kind of nice but for the most part i you know i'll never forget like an older guy being like you're not ready for the number one well i was like dude we open bud light bottles and fucking make jack and cokes like i think i got it um if you came up to the bar and asked us how much a drink cost we were gonna laugh at you or be rude, which we were really good at. We had a drink specials thing up. Again, Vermont had some weird liquor license stuff about pricing, so I'm not going to get into that history lesson, but it was just weird.

We had a specials board up that I don't know the owner ever changed for the entire time that I worked there. He just had a specials board, wrote some stuff, wrote prices. The prices were not specials. They were the same prices every single night. And that's all he ever did. If you came up to the bar and said, hey, guys, what are the specials? Which I don't think is as absurd as just asking for what the price is of drinks all the time on the menu. You would have been better off being like, hey, does anyone's mom want to have sex with me like we just would have made like what oh specials guy is here you know how much are your drafts how much is all this different stuff so we were rude bartenders but also it was mostly like a college slightly above college age bar that was that was just the vibe of it all not saying it's cool but just what

it was so yeah i i get your point but i'm just telling you that you are in the minority on this one you are doing something most people wouldn't do because if the espresso martini is 12 instead of nine are you going to say no you know i think it's just something with drinks where it's kind of understood they're on a ballpark range. And it's really about the venue more than it is the cost of the booze, which level quality it is. You know, you don't want an espresso martini with well vodka in there. So when you go to New York City and you're at a really, really high end place and you order a couple of vodka sodas and they're like 45 bucks. And I remember being in my 20s going, oh, my God, not gonna have like that's it i'm done like i can't i can't actually i don't have money for anything like how does anyone how does anyone live this way

like two vodka sodas what um it's kind of up to you to understand that you're paying for the venue as much as you're paying for the liquor cost. So if you're cost conscious, then know which places to go into and which ones not to. And usually you can kind of tell by looking at it. So yeah, I could see why you got made fun of. I'm sure it didn't feel great. The international part of it, I can kind of understand, but it's probably something you want to hide in groups, man, to be honest with you. Yeah. The groups, it's the groups. You're supposed to just get the bill and then ball your fist up. If you don't like it, you're not supposed to be like, and then this, and then that, because especially when there's people in a groups, you're like, Oh, this is the guy who's going to get weird about money.

Even if you're not, that's what everyone's thinking in the moment is he's going to be like, all right, he's counting his drinks and he's going to count how many pieces of the appetizer he had. And here we go. Even if that's not what you're doing, like if this is early in the meal, you're setting up people around you to be like, oh shit, here we go. So it's just, you know, I'd say just, you know, you just, you get something that you think is going to be in your price range. If that's actually what you're worried about, or if you just want to know, cause you're a genuinely curious guy, I would try to stop to do that. I would try to stop doing that because when you're, when you're in groups like that, people are just going to be like, Oh, here we go. It's going to get weird because of the weird

money guy. So, you know, I had a guy that was, that was like that. This was the cheese guy and he did it with everything. And, you know, it was the, uh, you know, how much is this? And we should get this kind because it's saving 25 cents and you know, whatever. So like, even if you're not that guy, you don't want to look like that guy. just yeah try to fight that urge and and you can't just be like sorry i just travel so much you know i've been to 32 countries so i kind of got to ask it's like all right but you know we're in ohio so cool it down yeah there's a good chance that you can just buy you know you'd make a rough estimation based on what the other drinks cost of what your whatever cocktail beer

is going to cost uh i mean i understand like the idea of like if you get burned like yeah all right maybe in the future you try to be a little more cautious like i remember ryan you're telling the story about ordering vodka tonics i ordered i think four vodka sodas vodka sodas i think i ordered four we were at lib it was for the miami show you were there but you weren't like part of our group i actually think sadano was there i think i actually bought so i was like no sadano's like hooked us up he got us into lib we skipped the line he knew somebody i'm like i'm gonna buy drinks like i'm gonna i'm gonna be this guy four vodka sodas was like 78 bucks i did not and that was at a time and that was at a time when i did 78 bucks for four drinks was not something that i was uh that

i was looking to be able to afford and probably couldn't expense at the time. But I just shut my mouth and I made the bed. I had to lay in the bed that I made. I wanted to be that hard-o guy and be a nice guy. It is what it is. Don't do that at a restaurant, though. You definitely can't do it at Live. But if you're at a restaurant, you can make an educated guess.

So I understand not wanting to be burned. But I don't know, man. Everywhere you go, that's excessive. Yeah, I mean, Live is an all... I'm honestly surprised it was only $74. It might have been more. I think I remember that. That was probably pre-tip, I think, too. Yeah, it definitely was. But if you're a Liv going... And that's not what this guy is saying, but it's all

venue-related. If you're finally, as a dude, by yourself, lucky enough to get the bartender's attention and you have no rapport with the bartenders at all, just a random connecticut dude just all full of fucking confidence you can't you cannot you cannot go hey what are your vodka sodas running tonight what are you guys what are you guys charging for those you just i know that may seem to people that don't go out like, what's wrong with that? It's just wrong.

Yeah. It's just wrong. You wouldn't do it. It's terribly wrong. Now, this guy's saying that he's sitting at a table. He's with other people. He's asking the server. Yeah, you're going to get in front of, man.

I'm just telling you. You might even be embarrassing them. You know what I mean? For you. So, yeah. It sounds like they really let this guy have it good they sound like good friends okay okay another email here high school guy checking in who senior in high school 62195 tyrese halliburton type player if he were a better defender

my buddy and i both been playing basketball for years but i always took it more serious player if he were a better defender. My buddy and I have both been playing basketball for years, but I always took it more serious than him. He still loves the sport, but his work ethic has always slacked. We're going into our senior year. I'm with it our last year of high school basketball. The problem is he isn't good enough to be on the team. He didn't make it last year, but he was on JV his sophomore and freshman year and always seemed content watching me and our other friends get big minutes and lead the team to our best season in years. With that being said, our coach has always been notorious for picking seniors who aren't good or dedicated enough or of our underclassmen who are. This happened to me my sophomore year. I've always worked my ass off.

So you can imagine how this killed my development, even hurt my self-esteem. Killed your development? Killed it? Sounds like you're doing all right. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, yeah. I don't know. I mean, yeah.

I mean, you had a really good season last year by the seam mill. So, sounds like things worked out. Maybe it motivated you. You know, MJ got cut from the side school team. I'm not sure if you guys ever heard that. But when he was shorter. He was also a huge asshole to his teammates, right? Maybe you should try that. Yeah. Well, I think? Maybe you should try that. Yeah.

Well, I think this kid may be trying that. So this year I can think of multiple kids in my shoes, particular one freshman who was very humble, hard nose grit and grind type of person who deserves it more than anyone, especially my friend. I don't want this kid to experience what I went through, but at the same time, I cherish my relationship with my best friend and don't want to be a dickhead.

Also, tryouts aren't until September, so I could see if this sorts itself out on its own. What are we suggesting here? Is this guy saying he's going to sabotage his buddy for a roster spot on the squad? What kind of pull does he have? Retroactive cut? What is he doing here?

No, so Rudy, you just said something that I think makes a lot of sense. Say it again. No, what kind of pull does he have? Like, is he actually going to be able to get his friend not on the team? Like, it sounds like the coach

is the guy that makes the decisions. He likes keeping seniors. So, yeah, if you say something to the coach and this kid, and he's like, yeah, you know what? You're right. And then all of a sudden he gets back to your buddy.

That's going to be a problem. Yeah, there's also a really good chance the coach isn't gonna listen to you because you're a high school kid no offense I think this kid the emailer is right though like I I side with him but I just think at this point like you know it's probably not gonna go the way you want it to go that's what the fuck guys

come on what are we talking about here trying to what do you want your friend you're trying to burn your friend because uh i mean it's his fucking senior year he wants to say he played senior basketball what the fuck man i mean i get it's not it's not like a football team where there's enough space you know there's only a certain amount of spots but god damn it dude this is this is ugly this is ugly shame on you guys shame on the everyone involved here that's trying to go down this road. I mean, I'm re-watching Sopranos, and I'm not sure how this exactly goes back in, but Junior's like, if you can't get your friend jobs, what's the point of having success?

You're trying to do the opposite. Your friend's got the job, and you're trying to sabotage him. This is fucking crazy. I don't know. Yeah, but it's also a show where if their friend is bad at the job, they kill him. Also true. All right. Well, Chrissy wasn't so good at the stocks, but they had him in charge.

You know, I mean, granted, he did get killed, but that was for something else. Yeah, but they had made their money already. So at that point, I think you're, to the emailer here, I think you're putting a lot of stress on yourself. This thing is going to work itself out. So yeah, if a roster spot goes to your friend because he's a senior, and yeah, coaches have been known to do that kind of stuff over a freshman who sounds like he just plays hard and isn't super skilled. super skilled, then maybe he would make the team. Or maybe he'd be on JV and then get brought up a little bit later. And that can happen too if your buddy still stinks and doesn't take it seriously. It sounds like you're worried about jeopardizing the season.

Yeah, I get it. First of all, you can't do anything. Kyle's right about this part of it. You can't jeopardize the friendship over something like this that you really don't have any control over and will most likely work itself out. All right. If I found out my friend, cause I wasn't as good, went to the coach and was like, make sure he's not on the team because there's a, there's a

humble freshman who deserves a spot more because this freshman that you're talking about, if he was nasty, he'd just make the team. If you're telling me just kind of like his vibe cares more yeah you give you seven gritty minutes setting some screens and boxing out off the bench now your friend hates you and that you might be fucking over that guy because that guy could be the star of the jv team instead now he's like you know he's a sub on varsity and it's like i don't know what's what's better a full season of like rocking rocking out on jv or you know a full season of just you know getting in where you fit in on varsity i don't know wait is a senior or freshman as a freshman because ben simmons did that he got called up to varsity and you know when he played his jv football games he was like you know bill be like oh ben got an interception ben got three sacks ben you know ben got a touchdown and then

he goes on you know he's on varsity and And then he goes on, you know, he's on varsity and he's like the third option wide receiver. And he's just basically getting exercise out there because the quarterback's not looking at him. And it's like,

I was like, God damn it. I mean, it's fun to say he was on varsity, but he would have been, you know, he would have, you know, stuffed the stat sheet on JV. So that's what I mean about,

you know, about these freshman guys who are like, good. Let him be awesome for one year. He's still got three years that he could be on varsity. So I wouldn't worry about the freshman guy something similar kind of happened to me my senior year of high school uh so i played football and i wasn't good enough to make the basketball team and i had was kind of over baseball at that point even though i played it most of my

life so i played golf in the uh spring semester nice and it's incredible you just play nine holes after school every day for free like it's you're outside. It's awesome. I was good, not great, but I definitely didn't take it seriously, and neither did my buddy. So senior year rolls around, and there's, like, younger guys on the team that are good, that are, like, really good. And, like, I was a fringe.

Like, if there was five spots to play in a tournament, like, I was probably, like, maybe five. But, you know, depending on, like, what our rounds were that week, because that's how it would determine the order one through five and the younger guys definitely didn't want me and my buddy to be on the team because they knew we didn't take it as seriously as everybody else did and they told the coach this too

and the coach before tryouts because we would try out every year and it was obviously you know whatever your scores are you whether you make the team or not he straight up told us to not quit our like job at the supermarket because he was telling us essentially like you're not gonna make the team like you're not gonna be the team but we ended up having great rounds and shot well enough right where he could not cut us and the guys the younger

dudes were so mad so we were because we couldn't play jv we had to be varsity because we were seniors but we did make it over some guys who you know were juniors and sophomores that were probably in our range but didn't beat us in the tryout. So the entire year, the younger group of dudes were just pissed off at me and my buddy. But it was actually incredible. It was such a great experience because we would constantly throw it in their face, so much we didn't care. And there were a couple of times where as the five spot in a tournament,

we actually did pretty well. So I don't know. I don't know what the point of that story is, but I kind of have a similar situation. So maybe i was wrong earlier like just enjoy your high school like if you're a senior you don't really give a shit about basketball yeah i don't know maybe just let your friend live dude the point of your story sirudy justice was served fuck those kids yeah you can that's what i mean you convince me let your let your buddy have a good senior year it's more important than like you know especially if none of you guys are gonna get paid for this in the

long run i mean it's just just fucking have a good time, dude. I mean, try your best. Hopefully you win. But, you know, if we're not talking scholarships here, just fuck off. What would MJ do, though? Cut his friend. Definitely. Probably cut his friend.

Cerruti dropped a few friendship nuggets in there. Learning more about our buddy here supermarket job which we're going to need to follow up on at some point didn't know that and how about Cerruti and you didn't mean to do this but our guys built different the pressure was on or maybe there was no

pressure hey we're cutting you no matter what you do today and then he goes out and shoots these awesome scores game of his life yeah tin cup here yeah what did you shoot do today and then he goes out and shoots these awesome scores. Game of his life. Yeah. Little tin cup here. Yeah. What did you shoot to make, what's the score that you shot where it was like actually we're going to be on the team? It was like high 30s.

I was alright. And we were a good golf, we were a decently good golf team in Southampton, Connecticut, shout out. There were dudes shooting like even par, but like yeah, I would shoot in the high 30s, low 40s. What's your best round ever for 18?

I think it was like three or four over. Damn. Yeah, I mean, again, I peaked in high school. I don't even really play golf anymore. Mostly because people moved away. Yeah, exactly. On to the next that was that's a joke no one no one's gonna get this joke but when i worked

in boston eddie annelman who's you know legendary talk show host doing it as long as anybody's ever done it he used to always say that he didn't golf anymore because he mastered it and it just fucking drive people mental because they take it so seriously because he didn't look at him going this is one of the great athletes of our generation and he would just go like ah and like i can't even do his accent anymore because it was such a it was just a it was it was such a it's a tough voice to pull off i haven't i haven't thought about it a long time but he would just in the most arrogant way but he was he was fucking with everybody because he knew how mad golfers got he would just be like i don't i don't golf it's boring i mastered it years ago it's easy solved it solved it all done yeah grocery store do we this is a pretty long pod already do we just what was the name of it were Were you a stop and shop? I was a stop and shop guy. Where were you? No, it was an IGA top supermarket.

Oh, IGA. We had one of those in Potsdam. Yeah, it was, uh, it was awesome because it was like one of those things. I think I worked like three or four days a week and it was like one of,

you pull the boxes and all the cans forward, like pulling stuff forward to make it look nice at the end of the day, your stock and shelves and stuff. Occasionally I did the register, but I really, that wasn't like really my main goal or my main job. Um, but what was your main goal? Our main goal working at the supermarket was to get free beer, to be honest with you. Like that's how we, that's how we got hooked up with alcohol, uh, in high school. So I'm not trying to, I feel like the statute of limitations to run out on

that. So what we would do is we would take, cause you would take the boxes out after like you, you stock the shelves, right? So we would put like a 30 of cores in a box of Poland spring water and put it in the back of my car. And we were, we had, we had beer for my entire senior year of high school because of that. So. Incredible.

I was, one of my goals was always to be in a, in a supermarket. Cause I thought like to work in a supermarket. Cause I thought you could just kind of get lost in there to disappear. Like, especially in a place like stop and shop or like price shop or the massive ones. It was just like, you guys just won't even see me i thought well uh it was never

could never crack that that uh you know couldn't get in though it was great too because it was me and three of my other like really good buddies and come on it got it was awesome to the point where like the our boss was like kind of a hard-o she she kind of sucked. Because you guys were stealing beer every week. You kind of sucked, though. What an asshole. We would just dick around a lot. There was a rule that we couldn't work together in the same aisle because otherwise nothing else would ever get done.

But yeah, we would steal gushers and beer. It was a great time. You guys turn into impractical jokers if you're in the same aisle. I like that we learned about one of Kyle's goals. And maybe one day that'll happen for you, man. Yeah, maybe. If I got the time. I would recommend.

Okay. Hit us up with any emails. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. The countdown to the wedding is on. We'll keep you updated on that one as well. Maybe even check in. Maybe a little live Zoom from it. Tape a segment of the wedding is on. We'll keep you updated on that one as well. Maybe even check in, maybe a little live zoom from it. Tape a segment.

Thanks to Saruti. Thanks to Kyle. As always, Ryan Russo, the podcast for your Spotify. Outro Music