The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Stubborn NBA Power Rankings. Plus, Eddie Johnson on the State of the Suns and Moses Malone Stories, and Life Advice With Max Homa.

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Russillo shares his midseason Stubborn NBA Power Rankings, running through his top 10 teams based on a few key factors (0:26). Then Ryen is joined by SiriusXM's Eddie Johnson to discuss the state of the Phoenix Suns amid injuries to Chris Paul and Devin Booker, stories from Eddie's long NBA career, and more (14:28). Finally, Ryen is joined by PGA golfer Max Homa to answer some listener-submitted Golf Life Advice questions (54:45). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Eddie Johnson and Max Homa Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have a doozy for you. It's a long one. We do an hour-long life advice with Max Homa on mostly golf. Eddie Johnson, Phoenix Suns broadcast, NBA radio. What's up with the Suns? And a little Moses Malone story time. And I have my first edition of the Rosillo NBA Stubborn Power Rankings. 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 and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We have a lot to do today, so let's get to it.

This is our halfway installment, just past the halfway point of the NBA season. These are my NBA stubborn power rankings. It's my own formula. If you were up last night watching San Antonio, Brooklyn without Kyrie and Kevin Durant, then maybe I'll hear an argument from you. If you were not, I don't want to hear it. It's based

on my own formula of health bets. Who has the best health? Almost nobody. Faith is part of this too. And I'm not saying it's a higher calling, but we're going to run through this. All right.

NBA stubborn power rankings. Number one, Boston Celtics. I don't really know that there's really any discussion for who else would be number one. Does it guarantee them anything? No, of course not. It doesn't guarantee anything. If you're counter to any of these, they won't win.

The odds are in your favor. The point here is that Tatum and Jalen Brown play games. And I know Jalen's dealing with a groin injury right now. These guys play. There's another conversation to be had that was pretty interesting. I was talking with a league guy last night. We were going through kind of like how the top twos and how we were always conditioned to the top threes. When Miami was running through the league and going to four straight finals, it was because you looked at their big three.

And then big three. And then big three almost became mandatory for any team that was trying to compete for a title. And Golden State had theirs. And then they added another guy named Kevin Durant to make the most absurd big four probably of all time and arguably the most talented five-man roster I think I've ever seen in NBA history. So then when the Lakers added Anthony Davis, then it became kind of mandatory to be like, well, who's going to be their third guy? Well, I guess it was Kuzma, maybe playoff Rondo, but that's not what we think of when we think of a template for a big three of an NBA team. The big three model, it's great if you can try to do it, but a lot of times we're just kind of naming the third best guy,

and it's not the same as what Miami and what Golden State had, although we were conditioned to believe that's what you needed because that was really an arms race there for a while in the league because it happened for like 10 years. So Boston's top two guys play a lot. They're really good. Rob Williams completely changes who they are. And I don't really know that there's any debate on that. I'm going to keep Milwaukee at number two.

Their last 15 games are seven and eight. They're 28th in offense. Why do you have them number two? Because of Giannis. And I know he's missed 10 games this season. Drew's missed 11. Their health bet is a little weird because I still expect Giannis. He's going to be there and ready to go

and he's kind of the best player in the league. Maybe some pushback from some KD people when he was rolling. I was a KD person as far as the versus Giannis thing. I'm no longer that. I'm sorry. But Middleton's missed 38 games. He's supposed to maybe be

back this week. The stats aren't going to be very good. The weird thing about them is when I wasn't loving their depth, the angles part of it, he was great last night against Toronto. He's just really important because he can run your offense. He's great with pick and roll. He's a decent defensive matchup with some size against other players. So when they're back and healthy and because of the Giannis thing, I don't know that you can have Milwaukee much lower than number two. Number three, let's go out west. It is Memphis. Memphis jaw. What's their health bet? He's only

missed seven games, although I think he's going to get hurt every time he lands. Jaron Jackson, who's on another planet right now defensively, if you look at some of the rim numbers, he's missed 16 games and Baines missed 20. So you're like, that's a lot of games. Here's the other part of my health bet formula. If you're younger and you're like, that's a lot of games. Here's the other part of my health bet formula.

If you're younger and you're hurt, I like that better than being older and being hurt. Will I contradict myself on that? Yes, I will. So I have Memphis number three. The defense the last 15 games is about two points better than the number two defense in the NBA over those

15 games. And who would that team be? The Brooklyn Nets? Don't worry, we'll get to them. Number four, I'm putting the fucking Warriors there. I don't want to hear it. They're a seven seed. They're only four games out from the three seed. They're a couple weeks away from being a three seed and everybody

going like, wait, why were we worried about this? Now, is their health bet a good one? Steph's missed 14 games. Clay's missed 10. Draymond's missed four. Wiggins has actually missed 17. And as I just said, if you're younger and hurt, I like that better than being older and hurt. I just think it's going to be a huge, huge mistake

to think that if this team doesn't put together two months where they have all these guys together, that you'd be writing off. And I don't know if anybody's necessarily making that. I just think we're so visual at times when you just see an 11 or a 10 or a 7 on the seating next to Golden State when you look at the standings every morning. You're like, wait, so I'm going to have them four.

That might be too low. Where's Denver? Don't worry about it. We have them fifth. They're the one seed today. Am I really wrong to have them fifth? I'm not. I don't think I am.

That's why they're the stubborn power rankings. Jokic has only missed four games. Murray's missed seven. He's back. We're good. Aaron Gordon's been awesome. Touched on him already. He's only missed four games.

Michael Porter Jr.'s missed 14. That's a really good four. I like their five. I like their six and seven. I really like the team. Defensively, they're 17th on the season. They're number three in their last 15. Are they actually now going to be good for a long stretch defensively? That would change everything, and it would change the way I look

at the Nuggets. I think they're a good health bet, knowing that Michael Porter Jr. is going to get hurt again. He will, but as long as those top three guys stay relatively healthy, and just because Murray was out with the knee for such a long time, that doesn't mean it's the same as maybe some of the Durant concerns a little bit later on alright you want to get weird let's get weird at number 6 I have the Phoenix Suns they're not even in the playing game right now they're a half game behind OKC

it goes OKC Portland Phoenix they're your 12 seed Suns I could do missed games Booker's had two long stretches it's bad Chris Paul's had two stretches stretches, it's bad. Chris Paul's had two stretches, it's looked bad. I'm not having him in my top 10 because when they're healthy, although a worse health bet because of the Paul part of this

than some of the other teams, when they are healthy and Booker being a top 10 player, which I think at this point is kind of a certainty, and even when you looked at the standings, when they actually had their guys back and Paul wasn't even playing that well, this was a really good record team in the NBA to start the season. So I'm putting them six

and we'll get to the rest of this. At number seven, I have Cleveland. They're the five seed today, but number two through five in the East are separated by one game. That's Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Cleveland. Mitchell's missed five games. Garland's missed nine.

Garland's have been kind of fluky. The eye thing in the beginning, and then he gets scratched again. Mobley's only missed two. Jared Allen has missed seven. Remember last year when Jared Allen was out for that long stretch? Again, a better health bet on Jared Allen than some of the other guys. They were a completely different team

defensively. The numbers, it was like two totally different teams. Certainly when Allen's there, a lot better. Where's Philly? Well, they're next. They're at number eight. It seems low. I know how much I like the roster before the season gets started.

Yes, there's some history stuff with Philly that you never feel like is a great thing to bet on necessarily. Here's some good news. Harden's 40% from three in the last two months. He's only taken 15 shots a game. He had 13.6 in Philly last year in just like 20 plus games. He's at the lowest

shot attempts per game since the OKC days. He's starting to make threes after a weird stretch of multiple seasons where he was just way below that number. I didn't know if it was the foul hunting. I didn't know if it was being out of shape or whatever. And so it was good.

I mean, Embiid's missed 11. Harden's missed 15. Maxie's missed 19. They got a really nice win against the Clippers last night where they pulled away in that game. I would say the Maxie minutes without the other two players, as great as he is and as excited as you should be, it was way too much.

Man, he was just doing his own thing for that entire substretch there without the other guys. And then Embiid is just impossible. Now that he's hunting for fouls on top of everything else, good fucking luck with that. I would say this is alarming. And the eye test backs it up. Because when I watched Philly, I go, why do they seem to screw up, though, a lot late? It's because they do.

Turnover numbers in clutch time so score within five points last two minutes of a game nba.com has this one number one in turnovers in those situation in clutch time beal number one number two is hardened number three is mb not great bob not what you're looking for could get sorted out could be the injury stuff maybe it feels too low i think it's a history thing having him down here at eight. Number nine, Brooklyn. I went back and forth on this forever.

I had Brooklyn eight, I had Philly eight, I changed it. Probably not that much. I had other stuff to do. KD's only missed four, but he's going to be out a month. Kyrie's missed 11. Simmons has missed 11.

Their defense has actually been number two in the NBA the last 15 games. The KD uncertainty part of it is the tiebreaker where, look, Embiid and Harden are back with Maxie, and they're playing. If it were reverse where Durant was still playing right now, if Durant were still playing and we didn't have another knee injury thing here, I might have Brooklyn at six. But this isn't so much the physical health bet as it is the bet on will the Simmons-Kyrie

thing be fine. I think Simmons is going to be fine. The physical part of it maybe could be a question for him because he's had stuff in the past. I just think with Simmons, it's going to be matchup stuff in the playoffs where he's going to get completely exposed again because we're starting to be matchup stuff in the playoffs where he's going to get completely exposed again because we're starting to see some of it in the regular season.

Kyrie sat out last night. All right, so who's got that 10th spot, Russillo? Who's got it? Is it the Knicks? The 6th seed today? Is it the Miami Heat? Who are a 7th seed now? Creeping up a little bit.

They were a shot away from making it to the NBA Finals last year. Butler's missed 14 games. Bam has missed 5. Hero has missed 12. Lowry doesn't even count anymore. The Heat are playing defense. What about Dallas, Ryan? They're the 5th seed.

Did you forget about them? No, I didn't. 9th and 6th in their last 15. They can't stop anybody, though. They're 27th on D in the last 15, 25th for the season, and that was after a massive turnaround, changing their identity as a team last season, being seventh on defense last year.

That was like, oh, wait, remember Dallas kind of had this almost Boston-ish two versions of the same team in the same season story. That's what they did. And now they're not defending anybody. And I'm just not that impressed, so I have them out. Wait, Sacramento, you forgot about the Kings. Light the beam.

They're the fourth seed. They're the number one offense in the NBA in the last 15 games. When did you think you'd hear that? The 25th on D, last 15, 24th in the season. Kind of a problem. Like the way they play. It's not them. I'm going to put your third seed Pelicans at number 10 in my power rankings.

They are, in their last 15, 21st on offense, 10th on D. Zion's missed 15 games. CJ's missed 5 games. Inger's missed 29. He's supposed to be back any day now. That seems to be getting a little contentious. 8-7 in their last 15.

The Pelicans would be a lot higher if Zion were playing. I might even pick them to win the West if Zion were playing. I know it's new. It kind of goes against my Sacramento rule, having them out. Nice story. Not picking you in the playoffs, most likely, because it just feels a little too new, despite how great that group, that top five or six group has been with Sacramento. But yeah, I'm putting New Orleans in my stubborn rankings at number 10.

Just as an aside, last 15, here's some numbers for you. Oklahoma City's 10 and 5. They have a plus 5.6 net rating, which is fifth best in the NBA. I did not debate on whether or not I should have OKC, today's 10th seed in the West, in my top 10. They're my rankings, so deal with it.

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forward slash sportsbook. Eddie Johnson joins us. Phoenix Suns analyst. Also NBA Today on NBA Radio 4 to 7 every day. That's Eastern Time with Justin Termini. I listen to you all the time, Eddie.

So, going through the resume here, all the years in the league, can we say NBA legend? Well, I mean, some people might not think that. So, it could be a little too much. I mean, you know, I did retire from the league. Like, I think top 30 all-time in scoring. But that wasn't enough. Right? I went through about three all-star breaks where I was averaging over 20.

You know, team was doing well. That wasn't enough, getting to an all-star game. So, you know, I think you can go less than legend. Okay. All right. Yeah. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Obviously part of the Suns team. And that's where I want to start, Eddie,

because I don't know how much you know about my love for Chris Paul. I like this team. I like that he got there. You know, the finals run was disappointing. Last year was even more disappointing. And now we have a team that has health questions like everybody else. But what's going on? Give us the state of the Phoenix Suns.

Yeah, well, you brought up the health part. And you're right. Like, it's no woe is me. You know, players and teams have dealt with this over the last number of years. I thought the Suns took advantage of it over the prior two years by staying pretty much healthy as they could be. You know, Chris had missed some games Devin had missed some games but both of them rarely out together they normally had a lot of their role players still in hand like campaign the year that Chris was hurt campaign plays

spectacular basketball but this year is different man like I think and I'm one on the radio show I'll say hey you can't, like, make excuses. You got to show up, put your uniform on and go out and play. But what the Suns are playing with right now,

in all due respect to these guys that they're playing with, these are role players. These are guys that probably never played more than 20 minutes a game in their career

up until this point. And Mikael Bridges is not a guy that you count on to go get you 20 every night. He's being forced to do that. DeAndre Ayton is playing on a gimpy ankle. And so it's been really messed up. Like I said, I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me.

I mean, this is the nature of the game. I've been around it too long. But they're beat up. When I tell you they're beat up, they're beat up. When you don't have Devin, you don't have Chris Paul. So that's your two best players. All right. The Andre's missed games, as I said.

You know, obviously campaign, the backup to Chris has been out. Cam Johnson got hurt early in the year. The Jay Crowder situation. When you look at this team, man, this is not the team that was 64 wins last year. This is not the team even that started at this team, man, this is not the team that was 64 wins last year. This is not the team, even that started out this year, had the best record in the West for a couple weeks. So it's work in progress.

But you know what? Around the corner, these guys are getting healthy. And I think healthy, they'll be okay. I feel like we could do way too long on going through each individual, and I don't necessarily want to just go 30 minutes just on the suns here, but we'll start with Chris Paul, a big time defender of him. You know,

the game seven against Dallas. I can't, you know, my friends give me a hard time about it. I don't have anything to say. I can't say anything to him. I go, yep,

you got me, but there's nothing I can do. But I still thought, I still thought he brought so much to a team. You know, I feel like he's always like the funny thing I say is he's the ultimate winner who hasn't won because when we look at what he does

and how he impacts your franchise over the course of a season, it's a completely different team and that's what he did and really kind of saving this franchise in a way. But when I watch him this season, and I don't know if it's unfair

because of the two different injuries that we're talking about here this year, I felt like some games I get scared because I'm like, uh-oh. And I don't know if that's the inconsistent

minutes sometimes where it looks like he gets stuck in spots that I'm not used to him seeing. He is shooting it better. I think the Toronto game, despite how bad that loss was in the eight-second violation, it was very clear that there was another level that Paul... I was like, okay, wait a minute. He's moving a little bit better. So I think

big picture, if he comes back in healthy, is this the beginning of the end or is there another round here for Chris Paul? I think it's another round without a doubt. You know, training camp, to me, this is the worst transition from training camp to the start of the season that I've ever seen. And we've seen it in what?

We've seen it in the scoring of teams, scoring a ton of points, teams losing by 30, no matter how good you are. All the great teams at the top have lost by 20, 30 points this year too. It's just been inconsistent. And I think the players this year started this season, man, none of them was in shape. I didn't expect Chris Paul to show up in pristine shape.

He didn't have to go through two days in training camp to a high level. The Suns have been very careful with him. And then it's been a gradual process for him at the beginning of the year. But you know this because you follow Chris Paul. Chris really is not a guy that's going to go out and just be automatically 100% aggressive, especially on the offensive end. He's a guy that's going to try to get guys involved. He's going to try to dictate the game.

He's going to try to control tempo. And I think when you're doing that and guys aren't 100% in shape running with you and you're not, you tend to struggle and then you tend to look bad. And that's what I sense with him. But being around him the last few years, I'm telling you, Duke takes care of his butt. Duke's in the gym. Duke's a vegan. He's eating right.

So it's not like he's abusing himself. 37. 37. He's 37. And I think that's the key. And you got to try to condition that. But before he got injured this last time, I thought he was playing well.

I thought he was getting back to Chris Paul. It's unfortunate, though, he had the injury. Yeah, I would agree because I thought the second stint, I was starting to see more things. And again, even though the Toronto result isn't what you wanted, I didn't care about the result. I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm starting to see him press it a little bit more because the first stretch that he played,

I'm like, he's coming off of that screen in the mid-range and he's off like things are just off and it was weird I don't even know that there's a lot to say about Booker other than I think big picture I'm just really impressed and proud with him and that you know he it shows how much he means to this team now without him where you know I'm not saying like they could get by without a Devin Booker, but in the past it proves that not only you guy putting up huge numbers, you're a winning basketball player. That, to me, is the biggest jump. There's

plenty of guys that get numbers, but now Booker to me is clearly in that top 10 group and a guy that leads to great results. That's what we've seen from, despite the playoff exits the last couple years, that's a we've seen from, you know, despite the playoff exits the last couple of years, that's a big transition from just a guy who gets buckets. And then Ryan, look, you hit it right on the head,

but I wish people had realized that and noticed that over the last two years. Because all people have given back is pushback on Devin. Oh, he's not the best player on the team. Oh, he needs to do this. He needs to do that. Now they're seeing. Now they're seeing how valuable he is. Now they're seeing that he legitimately should have been in the running for MVP last year at a higher level than what he was.

That dude makes the game so much easier for everybody else on this team. It's ridiculous. The pressure that he takes and puts on himself to be able to navigate double teams, navigate getting knocked around, to be able to go out there and produce every night on the offensive standpoint. His defense has gotten better. His leadership has gotten better. All those things. But you know how it is in this league.

People fall in love with certain people and they don't believe in other people despite whatever they do. We've seen that in a large portion with Steph Curry, right? Even though Steph Curry is a two-time MVP, people still want to doubt him. I don't know why, but they do. And so I think Devin falls into that category. And now even the players on this team now realize the heavy load that that man has had to carry for them because they're having a hard time winning basketball games.

They're having a hard time closing basketball games. The Suns could have made it through this tough stretch if they had somebody that can actually close games for them. They've had a number of games during the stretch that Devin has been out that they could have won. You know, they had 28 turnovers against Toronto. I mean, they couldn't miss like three or four layups down the stretch to win on the road. They could be still around 500. But Devin Booker not in that lineup has really hurt them. And I think people are now going to start to realize how good that dude is.

Yeah, that's how I feel because I always feel like that jump is – like it's – man, dudes can score. Like if you're getting the shots, if you're getting the buckets, and I look up and I see some of these stat lines, I'm like, okay, that's incredible. And then you see the team and you go, all right, would I pick you to beat anybody? And again, the Booker transition has taken place over the last couple of years. But that also then leads me into Aiton. I know he's not perfect, but when you look at the math, as you understand, in the league, you don't want to lose the asset for nothing. He's still young enough. I think one of the cool things about him is that so many of these bigs get played off

the floor is that he can still stay out there to the close of the game and be competitive on some of the switches. But it feels kind of like 50-year-in, this is it. This is going to be pretty much what he is. All of us hoping that there was this next step, but not like wondering if it's just a, I don't know. I'm not around him every day, Eddie,

so I'm not going to assume I know who DeAndre Ayton is, but you just wonder if he's wired that way or if I should stop asking that question and going, hey, this is who he is. He's a really skilled guy, really talented guy, but he's not going to be able to carry a team and he's not going to be confused with somebody that would be a complete franchise changer. Nice player, young, maybe expensive, but this is what it is. He can carry a team,

but it's up to him to understand the workload that goes with it. I play with a lot of great players and I always said that those guys, they get a leeway on a lot of different things because I see the hard work that they put in and I see the stress that they have to carry in order to carry us and make things easier. And I just don't know if DeAndre right now at still a young age of 24, does he understand what it takes to get to that next level like you know he can finish his career and be a double double guy that's what he is now uh 16 points a game his career 10 rebounds uh yeah that's gonna put up very good numbers for you you're gonna make a ton of money because people are gonna keep taking chances on you or do you want to get to the next level?

Like you're playing with a guy in Devin Booker that wanted to get to the next level. You're playing with a guy in Chris Paul that wanted to get to the next level. Are you willing to do that, or you just want to stay down with the class of, yeah, you know, that guy's pretty good. He'll have a long career. He'll make a lot of money, but we're not going to count on him to carry our team. And I see that a lot in big guys. You have to. Big guys are very slow to mature as basketball players. And he's caught right now in the middle of that. And he thinks probably the numbers he

puts up, oh, I mean, why are they upset with me? I had 24 and 15. Yeah, but you know what, DeAndre? It should have been 35 and 20. Like, it's a number that we look at that we know you can get. And you're being satisfied with that number. And I think that's what Monty and James Donald and Chris and Devin, Mikael, all these guys are trying to push him to, where you're only as good as your last basket. You're only as good as your last game.

That's it. So reach for a higher level. And I think with him, it's work in progress, man. And I just think he's a gentle giant. I think he's tentative and not want to hurt anybody out there. And I don't think it's unusual because you remember Wilt Chamberlain even said that. He said he was tentative as a dominant player because he felt

that he killed somebody on the court. My message to DeAndre, get between them lines and if you have to kill somebody, so be it, even though you won't. You know? That's the mentality Shaq had. That's the mentality Charles Barkley had. That's the mentality Charles Barkley had.

That's the mentality Karl Malone had. They will hurt you. And so he doesn't have that in him right now. And hopefully it will grow because if it does, I think he can be a tremendous player. And that's why I always love Giannis so much because I know no matter what, he wants to take people out.

That's why I think I was a little reluctant from just some raw basketball skill stuff where I go, there's still other guys that are better than him, but I joke about not even the title against your team, but the next year against Boston where I just had so much admiration for him because that's what I always want. I want the opposite. That's why I always have a hard time with the Ben Simmons because I just go, you're not one of those guys. You're just not. You can lie to us.

You can pretend. You can post some cool shit on Instagram. Right, right. You mentioned that the big guys think it is the old adage. Anybody in the basketball world, you're like, big guys normally don't love basketball. It's huge. Everybody says you have to play basketball. That's why the guards are the grinders because they they're all small, and they have to

fight with each other. They have to get through it all. Who was the best teammate that you had that was a big guy that understood mentally, you know what, maybe it's not a love, but the stuff that we're talking about that we don't always see with the big guys? I had a plethora of them. So it's hard for me to say one in general. But

I will tell you the first one was LaSalle Thompson. He's a guy who played 15, 16 years in the league and he would knock your block off. Mark West knock your block

off. When he got between those lines, it was personal, right? Lonzo Mourning, personal. It's guys like, they understood it. Akeem, personal. Like, Kevin Willis, personal. These big dudes, right? Like Kevin Willis, personal, these big dudes, right?

I mean, they will, they approach the game with a way that it puts fear in guys. And that's what you have to do. Like, look, basketball is a simple sport, okay? It's not dangerous, so to speak. And we're not out there driving race cars. We're not jumping out of planes. You know, yeah, you can get injured, you know, but more times than not, you'll be able to come back from that injury,

okay, and a lot of times you can get up and keep playing. So, you know, you go out there, you play. You're going to get popped in the mouth. You're going to get hit. You're going to break your nose like Josh Okoge did the other day after playing well. All those things are going to happen. Dislocated shoulder. Sam Mitchell took my shoulder

out of him. I was trying to post him up. I'm back in two weeks. It's that kind of guy. It's not many of them. It's not many of them. Right now, today's game, MB

is nasty. He's nasty. He will hurt you. And then tell you. Your kids will hurt you and look like he's oblivious to what just happened. You know?

It's like they understand, man. And once you put that out there, then these little guys, they stay away from you. They don't come around. Like, I didn't go around Patrick Young. I didn't go around Charles Oakley. I'm like, Charles Oakley once told me, he said, Eddie, if you hit

me one more time, because I was popping him, right? Because he's stronger than me. He said, if you hit me one more time, I'm telling you, you're not going to like it. I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Charles. Literally, I said, I'm telling you, you're not going to like this. I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Josh. Literally, I said, I'm sorry. Okay?

Okay. What's one of your favorite memories of, because I mean, man, you played, and I look it up, I go like, he wasn't even done that long ago. 99 was your last season. What was it like to go from young guy, second-round pick, and you're getting buckets early.

And it's like, man, everybody's wrong about me. To then knowing how to survive in this league as long as you did and transitioning into knowing your role in each and every one of your stops? Yeah. Cotton Fitzsimmons conditioned me. I miss him dearly. I grew up in a single-parent household. I didn't have a dad in my life, so coaches always took the place of my dad. Cotton took the place of Lou Henson, who had me in Illinois, and I transferred to him. That tells me that God knew exactly where he wanted to place me, because I wanted to get drafted by Boston.

I was right there, and he was thinking about doing it. I mean, man, if I got drafted by Boston, you'd be sitting here saying Eddie Johnson Hall of Famer, okay? Because anybody who plays in Boston and played with Larry Bird would have dated, right? So, but I think Kansas City was the place for me, and Cotton was the coach. But I think Kansas City was the place for me and Cotton was the coach.

And he conditioned me mentally, pushed me, forced me to be that guy. And then after that, Pete Newell, my second year, I begged to go to his camp because Purvis Short and Kiki Vanderway was lighting me up. And I just couldn't understand how with their footwork, how they were getting past me and abusing me like they were. Because at that point in time, right in my career, early when I got to the league, I was known as a guy that can defend. And so I'm like, these dudes abusing me. And Frank Hamlin, who's not here anymore either, obviously coach on a lot of those championship teams with Phil Jackson. He's my first assistant coach in Kansas City.

He said, I'm hooking up with Pete Newell. And he said, Purvis and Kiki goes to that camp. And I went to the camp and I stayed there for two weeks and lo and behold, Kiki and Purvis worked with me. They worked with me, man.

They saved me. I'm telling you. If I had nine points a game my rookie year, I could have got cut next year. I went from nine points a game to 20 a game in one year. Based on footwork. And to me, man, they save me. What were you doing wrong? What was it about your feet?

I was just trying to do it with energy. I've always had energy. I can run all day. Never got tired in an NBA game. That's why I laugh at these dudes talking about they're tired on back-to-backs. I mean, I once played back-to-back-to-back, and I played 48 minutes in three different time zones. That is a true story. I played the entire game back-to-back- to back to back and I was not tired.

OK, so I laugh when guys today to my top. So I was just trying to do it with energy. And I tried to copy a guy, Michael Brooks, who went to LaSalle University. And Michael Brooks used to run all day. He's playing with the Clippers. And I said, do you ever get tired? He said, no. He said, well, where are you out by the fourth quarter? So I'm going to keep running. So I took that to heart, and I used that, but I didn't have footwork. And once I incorporated that, man, it was over.

Like, it was over. My game just shot up. And most players today don't have great footwork. They try to do it with the dribble, and they waste energy in doing it, and that's why they do fatigue. I know how much we all enjoy debating the top 10 stuff. And then that can make us hate debating the top 10. You know,

I kind of have in my mind like a tier of the first group, that second group, there's a couple of names that, that always, they always bought. They always feel like you can tell if somebody knows the history or doesn't or you know whatever the bias is who's more underrated now historically hakeem or moses moses but i think people don't remember him you know further ahead we get people forget sure hakeem i think you numbers up there, you know, he's like as a defender, block leader.

I mean, you know, and just, you know, he was able to last a little bit longer, obviously. He was he was there after Moses, but he still played a long time. And I think people just remember just from the University of Houston, like Moses didn't go to high school, went straight to the ABA. So I would say Moses, Moses man Moses was no joke man you talk about you bring up big guys that would hurt you he'd get a rebound and look at you because I was an offensive rebounder

I liked going in and steal rebounds he looked at me one time and said I'm going to tell you right now come in here again because I got one on him I like tipped it in he looked at me come on in Because I got one on him. I, like, tipped it in. He looked at me. Come on in again. I got something for you.

I look, I love Moses. I love everybody. You got any other Moses Malone stories for us? Other than, man, I think he was just a, people didn't understand. He might have been quiet on the court, but he was a mentor. I remember having conversations with him, whether I think on a player's trip or just after a game, standing around. I just remember him giving me influential words. And he was a jokester. He was always cracking jokes.

He'd be looking at people and making fun of them. And you wouldn't know that about him. It's sort of almost like the Tim Duncan situation where people thought he's just ultra quiet. But what I've heard about Tim in the locker room, he was a jokester. He was a guy that liked to have fun, but not in front of the media. And Moses, I think, was that kind of guy. That's what I remember with him is like always greeting me with a tremendous smile and just asking me how I'm doing and that to me man is just very impactful

I just loved it because it wasn't as impressive you know aesthetically it wasn't what some of the other great players were doing and then you would watch Moses over the course of a game and you would just go like, he's getting every rebound. He's not the quickest. He just had to have been the strongest. He is understanding of angles. There are some numbers that when you go back and look at him where, you know, it's funny because people think of foe, foe, foe all the time.

You'd be like, does this guy even talk? And yet he was probably one of the smartest big men I know, at least when I first started watching in, you know, again, 1982, which is why I kind of loved Moses early on because of that 82, 83 Sixers team. Whenever I see somebody kind of going through their list and putting stuff, I immediately look for where Moses is knowing I'm already going to be upset. Yeah, exactly. And look, he was the one guy that was able to convince Dr. J

it was okay to be number two. Because George McGinnis couldn't do it. You remember George McGinnis came there first, and it didn't work out. George McGinnis was a hell of a player. But they didn't match. But Moses going to Philly, he made it okay for Doc to think that he was number two. And what did it get?

It got Doc a championship. And I think that was the beautiful part about him. And he didn't care. He didn't brag. He wasn't one of those boastful guys. He just said, look, he was just straight gangster you. Totally straight gangster you, man. And you ready to fight? He'll fight now. It was no hesitation, but people just respected him because they knew when he showed up,

you had to work. And you had to work in that paint. And he was relentless. Do I think at times he threw the ball off the glass to get an extra rebound? Probably. I know Dale Harris got mad at me one time. I interviewed Dale Harrison. He didn't do that. He can do it because he could do it. And Dale, I

reminded Dale too. I said, Dale, back in that day, we wasn't making a ton of money. And how did we make our extra money? Bonuses. Bonuses. Okay? I had a bonus in my deal.

If I average, I think, is one and a half offensive rebounds for the season, I got an extra 10 grand. You don't think I'm in there fighting my teammates for offensive rebounds? the season, I got an extra 10 grand. You don't think I'm in there fighting my teammates for offensive rebounds? Yeah, I was. I'm not going to deny it. I'm going for it.

I'll tell you. Everybody knew that he was going for every rebound, man. After a while, this guy out of his way. He had multiple seasons where he averaged seven offensive rebounds a game.

Yeah. In 78-79, where he led the league in minutes, he also had almost 18 rebounds a game. And this is all while going for 20. I mean, the dude was out there with the Spurs at 39 years old. Granted, when he was with the Spurs in 94-95, he looked like he was 59 years old. He was 39 because, as you said, didn't go to college,

had the weird ABA story coming into the whole deal in 74, 75. But the dominance that he had without being the size of Shaq, without having the quickness and agility, maybe agility be wrong, but the quickness of Akeem. Because again, Akeem, once people start doing some of the all-time center stuff, I go, well, how come it's taken so long to get to Akeem? So I think for the modern stuff, Akeem gets overlooked a little bit too much. Because if you were talking about who could I have of the

game's players, the history of the entire league, I wouldn't get like Akeem wouldn't be outside of the top 10 guys that I would pick. Now granted, if we're playing by today's rules and the way centers are left out of everything, which is, you know, let me actually transition to this on the Embi thing i love mb as well uh if you're doing i was kind of doing a top five top seven players in the nba thing last night with a guy from the league as we're just kind of

going over and bs and whatever and it kind of came down to like we could figure out our five and then it was mb or tatum for six and i went i love mb but with today's game i don't know that i can rely on the center anymore to get me a basket at the close of a playoff game so i may defer to a wing who can handle a little bit more which is the opposite of what this game was for decades right it is i mean obviously the analytical aspect of the game now has changed the view of players uh in that regard but we've seen in all sports right like the running back like teams aren't able they're not willing to pay running backs like they used to because they think they got a short shelf life so they're not going to turn to them and and i think that's the way with the big guy but i would tell you if if i had a choice and you know i love tape i mean what

he's doing like he's on one right now like every player that's played sports they can pick a year where they can say they're on one like for me it was 88 89 that's the year i won the six man average 20 22 off the bench I went through that whole season in a daze. It didn't matter what I shot. I shot 40 from three, and I wasn't a three-point shooter, but I shot well from three. I always shot well

from the line. I shot well from the field. Everything. I didn't care who guarded me. You were toast. That's where Tatum is right now, but that's also where Embiid is. And Ryan, I will say this. The reason I would go with Embiid is because, yeah,

the game has changed, but Embiid will get Tatum to the bonus. Like, what Embiid's doing right now is what Shaq used to do, right? He gets you to the bonus. Like, now you can get to the free throw line without having to shoot because that dude is getting you to the bonus early in

quarters. And to me, I think that's when you win. I do. Like Golden State's freaking nature. They didn't have to do it, right? They've been able to persevere and do it i get it uh but to me man that big dude in bead man oh no okay you know the reason the other reason of my notes here where i was going on the elijah on rant is because as we were talking about your your last year you only played three games in 99 right um but you were there for the the barkley Pippen Akeem experience yeah uh what's give us I look I'm a big Barkley guy I was desperately hanging on there's some parallels there between the Chris Paul faith that I desperately want him to have a ring one day I wanted it so bad for Barkley uh I'm lucky enough to have gotten to know Charles through ESPN and interviewing him

and running to him a couple times he's my favorite athlete of all time what's your what's your best story from that Houston season where it clearly wasn't going to work out despite the names uh well here's the thing this is why you know I don't know if you see me on Twitter you'll see how much I protect Scottie Pippen. And I protect him even more because he did become a teammate of mine my last year, and then I saw why he won championships.

First one in the gym, last one in the league. Spending time with all the young players. Coutinho, Mobley, Michael Dickerson at the time. Always a kind word, always in shape, stretching, just getting himself prepared. I saw it.

Like, it's like, okay. You know, and I went to four Western Conference finals, and even then, understanding how tough the road is and I said all roads even tougher and just watching him so he came with the mindset that he was going to do what people were saying that Michael did for him right like he is Scotty yeah he was six and old but Michael drags you right although statistically in finals, Scottie led in probably more categories than Michael did. Okay?

But people don't know that. All right? So, other than the scoring, obviously, right? But, I mean, they were right there. And so people don't know that. And Scottie came with that. Charles, Charles went to the finals against Michael. Charles is one of my, probably, he's one of my top five teammates ever.

Okay? And it's for his leadership and a lot of things that he does off the court as well as on the court. And I just think they butted heads because Scotty wanted something to prove away from Michael. Right? something to prove, a way for Michael, right? And Charles, obviously, near the end of his career, and Charles has a way of doing it his way. You know? And you can't second Charles on it because I'm telling you, I've seen that dude, like, walking up and down the street,

like, three hours before a game, while I just woke up from a nap, and he'll get on the floor battling against Karl Malone and have 18 rebounds. I just say, you know what? To each his own. Everybody has their own method to do things. And I think they butted heads a little bit because of that, because I think Scottie perceived Charles maybe as not being all in, but Charles was all in his way.

And so, yeah, but it wasn't as bad as what people thought. Those guys still hung out, man, and had fun together. We played cards together on the plane. You know how things seep out and people say, oh, they didn't like each other. I just think they just weren't compatible. They didn't like each other. I just think they just weren't compatible. Right, but once Pimpin said,

Michael told me not to go play with your out of shape or fat butt or whatever he said about the whole thing. I think Scottie, because he has to deal with so much stuff, he's a great player. And I don't know what's fair or not fair about where his standing is in the game. I think some would argue it's way too low. I think when I went back and watched the last dance, the way they captured that, I was like, man, you guys are selling Pippen as if he was in the argument for best player in the league, and that's just not what it was.

But 55 games after Michael left, a crazy foul that I thought was not, maybe could have gotten him to the final. Yeah, incredible. But I don't think that Pippen was, for multiple seasons in the conversation, is one of the best players in the game. And I thought that was what the documentary was selling a little bit.

So I can understand both sides of the frustration. I think that's what we see from Pippen every now and then, where it boils up again. And he just goes at dudes because he's thinking like I'm not looked at as as being in that group um although like I said the docs seem to do it quite a bit um all right let me let me finish with this because I have two things that

I want to do and the reason I brought that up and I'm glad you brought up Michael Dickerson because that guy could go uh that second year after he went to Vancouver he was incredible when you were older and you saw, you know, I don't want to turn into an old versus young thing because that's far too predictable. It's cyclical. It happens in everything all the time. It'll never stop.

I have frustrations with some players today because I feel like they can be bad partners with the team. It's like, you know, what do you want to do? This is really hard to begin with. And now you want to make it harder on the coaches and the teammates in the front office. You want to make it even harder. and you're a really good player but now things aren't going your way and all these different things was there did was there moments

where you had you knew it wasn't about points and rebounds for you anymore it was about being on the roster and trying to get the next generation of players to understand the cycle like you're going to get your points you're going to get your. But don't wait until year seven or year eight before you realize, oh, maybe I want to win some games too. Yeah. Well, you know, look, and most athletes, some won't admit this, but I don't know why they don't. Basketball puts you to a level of depression.

I suffered that. And it was all based on basketball because I loved the game so much. The only thing that I craved, Ryan, when I, it was my minutes. I wasn't a guy that fought. I probably could have made more money than I made, but I wasn't a guy that was always fighting for more money. Like basketball was my love., the only thing a coach can tick me off about is to take my minutes. That's it. Because I felt if I get my minutes out of school,

I'll do what I'm supposed to do. And so, yeah, so I went through levels of depression in the game. And at the end of my career, it returned. Because I knew it was the end. And Rudy Tomjanovich knew it was the end of my career, it returned. Because I knew it was the end. And Rudy Tomjanovich knew it was the end. But Eddie Johnson didn't. And I had to fight it, man.

Like, I had to truly fight it. I had to, like, separate myself at times away from the team. I've always been one to work with young guys, lead. I've been a leader on every team I've been on. I didn't have to lead as much with that team because we had a King, we had, you know, Scott, we had Clyde Drexler, we had Scotty, we had Charles, we had Kevin Willis. You know, we had so many Mario Alley. We had so many guys that could lead. Mario Alley. We had so many guys that could lead. But you have to do your part. And I found it increasingly difficult because I wasn't myself. And I felt myself not helping young guys more as I should in my last year. And that's why I retired. Because I got to that point like,

I can't do it. And I had offers to keep playing. I was 40 years old, and I had offers to keep playing, and I did not do it. So it's very difficult, man. I'm telling you, it's extremely difficult. And I think sometimes people don't understand that.

And so what Kevin Love said, DeMar DeRozan, that stuff's true. They just came forward. I will tell you, right now, today, in today's game, I'll probably tell you 30% right now suffering depression. And so it's a tough thing to deal with, man. And so, yeah, it's tough for older guys because, yeah, it's the end of the road.

So it's extremely difficult. Okay. I want to take that, and there's not a great transition out of it because it's serious, but I want to close with the Phoenix part of this. As I said in my open, I did these kind of stubborn power rankings.

I don't care what the record is. The health bets are all over the place. Chris Paul, part of it, makes the health bet a little dangerous. The Booker, if you're younger and you're hurt, I'm just going to assume you're going to come back and be Devin Booker again at some point, despite that it's kind of twice the same thing.

I'm not writing this team off yet. I'm just not. Where are you with them as far as the playoffs? I'm laughing I really am because on Twitter people like to get on me and I'm very fan base would love to go at me and I have fun with it

and I hope they don't take it personal I'm laughing some of the time like a few weeks ago I said that the New Orleans Pelicans had a sound machine in their arena, that their crowd can't be that loud. That just went national. You know, but I still believe it. I still believe they enhance their sound. But I don't care. I care if you do it or not. Who cares?

The Suns will be fine if they're healthy. We had the best record in the West about a month and a half ago with these guys. This team can win. This team knows how to win, and they will win if they're whole. I'm not saying totally whole. I'm just saying Devin Booker, Chris Paul, and that lineup, they'll win. Cam Johnson's been out most of the year. Jay Crowder has not been around,

and he's an integral part of our team. So campaign backing up Chris Paul was huge. Early in this year, campaign was off to his best year until he got injured. So no, no, if this team gets healthy, I feel sorry for the Denver's and Memphis's at the top that they're going to have to face either a Suns team, a healthy Lakers team dealing with LeBron and what he's doing now. OK, a Clipper team that probably doesn't care if they're in the play in because they keep wrestling guys every game. OK, so it's a lot of teams down at the bottom right now.

Golden State's at the bottom. How would you like to beat Denver, and you're watching a play-in of the Suns, the Clippers, the Lakers, and Golden State? So this is going to be interesting. And for me, I'm loving it. I'm loving it, man, because I'm looking at it two ways. If the Suns don't get hold and for some reason they fall into the lottery, then I'm telling you they're going to get Wim Mignogna.

So, hey, take your choice, NBA. Do you want us to get in it or do you want us to get him? Well, we know they don't trade their picks there in Phoenix. So that's Eddie Johnson. It was a lot of fun. And I listened, again, for those who want to check it out on NBA Radio, 4 to 7 Eastern, he and Justin Termini, and, of course, part of the Phoenix Suns television broadcast team as well.

So, Eddie, thanks a lot for doing this. My pleasure, man, Always. I listen to you all the time. Please. You're tremendous. Thanks for that. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Special guest for today's Life Advice, PGA Tour member, Max Homa. What's up, man?

What's up, Brian? I'm very excited about today. I will say this is an honor of the highest merit. This is my favorite segment on all the podcasts I listen to. This is number one, life advice. I learned that Kyle is a writer of his own sorts. I've learned a lot from this. Well, when you're here for the Genesis, we have to get you to the frolic room because I don't go, but it's closer. It's closer so you can meet up with Kyle, which is now what everybody's doing is they'll come out.

I'll see him at some point. I'm like, what did you do this week? We're like, I went up to the frolic room. And so it's just, it's hanging on me. Okay. I normally would be more prepped up on the intro. the intro so i don't want to turn this in a smart list where i'm like we have four kids be like no i have zero we're like oh no wait i have one okay um you're now 16th in the world yes does anything happen with that like do you get a shirt oh that would be sick every uh your highest ranking always catches her or we should just constantly be wearing that shirt so everyone knows uh that actually is a good dumb idea um yeah no nothing at all happens i uh i just try to slip it into conversation here and there

because the other thing i was looking at um when i was reading a couple articles with you, why is there no market for tour polos so I can wear a Homa polo with all of your ads on it? How is that not a thing? Now, granted, you'd be the biggest loser ever at your club if you played in that regularly. for the gallery to have is the equivalent of a jersey where it would just be you know his thursday homos homos thursday polo or whatever or the closing polo we've tried to do that a bit with foot joy where like at the waste management last year we had these uh uh like exclusive for this event a bunch of cacti on a shirt that i would be wearing. But the jersey thing would be awesome. But then you get into that weird, I don't know if it'd be weird.

You get into that weird mode though, where you catch somebody wearing it, not at a golf tournament. Like, like I have some Dodgers jerseys, but I would never wear them not at a Dodgers game. And I feel weird even wearing them at a Dodgers game as a 32 year old adult. So I don't know. Golf is uncool enough.

I don't think we need to be promoting, Hey, wear a polo with a bunch of logos on it. But if you'd like to support, you know, my, my sponsors, that would be awesome. But I don't think you need to do that by wearing them on your chest. It is great. My best friend, Pete, he has a bunch of my old golf clubs and some of my clothes I haven't worn.

So it's got the logos on it. And he is the most parking lot professional in the history of the world. If you saw that guy get out of his car and you'd never met him before and you knew you were playing with him that day, you'd think you were in trouble. And he makes a few golf swings and you realize that he just has a friend who has all that stuff and he's giving it to him but uh so i don't know there's a market for it but i just

think it's a real small market okay i'm just you know we're just workshopping stuff here uh all right i just think whenever you say we can't make it any dorkier i'm like i don't know i mean i think it's so i mean we can right but it's and it's so far gone that things never be fair about your the market thing i realize that there are people uh my dad included who wear golf shoes to golf tournaments because it's uh i think they think they're going to come in and hit a shot like a celebrity shot. I've never really grasped that one at all. Maybe, maybe I can get behind it if it's pissing rain and it's super muddy. So you can have cleats, but even then I'm not a huge fan of that. But if, if people do that, then they would wear a golf Jersey of some sort. Uh, doesn't matter what it looks like. Uh, yeah, the, the golf spikes thing, I never quite understood either.

But then if you say something, it's like if it's going to rain. Big week for Pete, by the way. Best friend Pete, as I read the golf.com article. Oh, he's everywhere. Yeah. When they had you take the picture behind the cactus, did you ever think about saying no? I only think about saying no, but only think about saying no but i'm such a people pleaser i just decided well i've already held these balloons like i'm gonna fly away

uh so might as well just go talk about can't get dorkier just just keep it going see how dorky i feel like if i can make it the maximum amount of dorkiness it would almost become cool like a full circle like i get back to square one. So yeah, no, all those things you feel, so many things you do in life, talk about life advice, you feel look really weird. And then you realize later, oh, I was just like making that up in my head. But that one was definitely looked about as weird as it felt. So it's cool that they made a reel out of that. So I i could relive uh peeking behind a cactus and um yeah that was i'm not gonna say it's a low i've done much worse but uh definitely my very weird smile from behind a spiky ass cactus uh in a golf photo shoot that's a

not a highlight so for the audience uh max and i did meet up in phoenix to go to a cardinals game the past cardinals game monday night football and then what a game well it was kyler's out within two seconds we're sitting there we had a good i thought we had a good i thought the conversation was strong despite the game uh but i had told mac max has been nice enough to say look if you and i have two obsessed fans, you know, who are my college roommates who aren't just golf fans, they're huge Homa fans. And so they were like, you know, and Max had offered if you're ever in the area. And I was like, I don't really golf anymore, but I probably think socially I should pick it back up. And so he's agreed to playing when schedules allow.

And my friends are super annoying about it. So they were like, are you actually going to play or are you going to show up not having played in multiple years? Because usually I play like once a year in Denver and I feel like a superhero. So I love playing up in Colorado. So I was like, look, you know, I'm going to get new clubs and I'll come and I'll get a few rounds in and then I'll play. So it's not terrible, but it's not going to be great and I'll let you play with them more than me playing with them because the guys are great. I wouldn't do that to you.

We're in the car and I tell Max, I was like, so I just ordered a bunch of PXGs and he's like, you're such a fucking loser. Speaking of parking lots, they're sick and what is hilarious about it is I was playing at the par three because i am getting i'm getting them dialed in i'm trying to there's a little par three next to me and i got put with three other younger dudes white claws zins the whole way through and they were great and i could

tell immediately i'm like these guys are actually pretty good and they were like yeah we're all from valencia and i was like where's that and they're like, yeah, we're all from Valencia. And I was like, where's that? And they were like, Max Homa. We're all Valencia guys. And I'm like, oh, I actually saw Max a couple weeks ago. So now they're looking at me like trying to figure out. They didn't know who I was. Not that they were supposed to.

And they're like trying to figure it out. And as I said, that hit the best sand shot of my entire life to, I think, save bogey. But yeah, the Valencia guys are strong, man. A lot of pride for you. Yeah, it's a nice little small hometown. Glad to hear they were good at golf. It means that city doesn't have a ton of... We got some athletes, but we don't have a ton.

We're not like, you know, the Florida football scene or the Texas football scene. So it's cool to know that the golf bug is rubbing off on them. I'm glad to hear that you're playing more golf because I would like to play golf with you. We had a blast going to that Cardinals game,

the car ride, the four hours of driving, guessing our way through. You literally coerced a man to let us park in preferred parking without dropping your name. You dropped other people's names. But you got us in and it was a blast. But I would like, you know, you always learn the most about somebody when they're playing golf.

So I'd love to get to see you play golf. I want to see your boys play golf because, you know, if you are a fan of mine in this game i would love to see that person play because you got to be a little bit deranged in the head and i i enjoy watching that okay so how do you want to do this do you want to do all golf or do you want to do a little bit of the non-golf stuff also dude i'm a passenger i'm actually in the back seat you you're driving kyle's kyle's in the in the in the sitting shotgun and i'm'm actually in the back seat. You're driving. Kyle's in the sitting shotgun, and I'm in the back right. I'm here if you need me.

Okay. All right. Here we go. We got a bunch here. All right. This one's great. Fitted clubs. Let's start hot.

Six foot 160. Just got a Peloton, so not going for bulk. Going for tone. Office reference. Good job. Question for Max. Would love his genuine advice, so not your fake advice. I also love the sport of golf, but didn't grow up playing like most of my friends. I picked up a cheap set

of top flight clubs in high school and casually played maybe once or twice a year. Every year since then, I'm 27 now. Within the past three years i've tried to play more and get better however i think my equipment might be holding me back that's what i said uh to explain after i outgrew the shitty top flight clubs i bought a used set of tailor-made irons and wedges from a dude on facebook for like 120 i did basically zero research on what goes into making a club fit a golfer and how different shafts, lengths, grips actually affect your swing.

I literally just saw the brand name tailor-made and figured they'd be great for my game, also cheap. The dude I bought them from was probably 6'6", 220, which from my stats at the beginning of the email, I am not. These clubs I currently use are an extra inch in length, extra stiff shafts. My question is this. I want to get fitted clubs, but they're obviously very expensive. As a guy who shoots between 105 and 115, is dropping that much money even going to make me better, or will I spend nearly two grand to still suck? I really want to get better at golf and not be the friend who's constantly searching for his ball in the woods and be miserable when I play with my buddies i consider myself an athletic guy so just want to know if

i'm playing with equipment that actually fix my height swing speed and more it can make me shoot in the low 80s or excuse me 80s low 90s not low 80s 80s low 90s with consistent practice instead of where i'm at now so basically he's blaming the clubs or wondering if he should i love that it's always the club's fault. Here's the deal. I'm glad he said his handicap, what he shoots, because that means a lot. It makes a lot of this. If you're like a 5 handicap, 10 handicap, and you feel

like you've plateaued, I would immediately go to getting fit for clubs if you haven't been because it does make a big difference. If you're shooting 105 to 120, you will not notice. I would work on getting better. It seems like this dude's got a serious passion for the game. And I think he needs to... Once you start getting down to those 90s, I said, get to the 90s first and then go get fit. You're going to make so many leaps and bounds if you're

practicing at it that your golf swing is going to change so much that you're going to drop a bag for these uh for these fitted clubs and then you're going to realize in you know a year's time or less that uh now your golf swing is completely different you need to get fit again uh so i would hold off on that one um but i i i like where his head's at um i would put some some ownership uh back onto your own short game putting and hitting. You'll learn how to hit with clubs that are a little long. But that is not where I would start if you're shooting scores quite that high. So wait, are you going to be nice today? Is this what we're doing? I need to ease my way into it.

I didn't. If he was a 90 to 100, when you're 105 to 120, man, I'm just happy you... I never understand how people can play this game that aren't really good at it because it drives me up the wall. So if someone can sit out there for five and a half hours and hit 120 shots in one round and they're still considering,

hey, I might go do this again tomorrow without breaking all 14 of my clubs, I'm really impressed. So I'm giving this guy a lot of leeway. You could do what Ryan did and just decide what the most expensive version of golf is and go straight to it and

decide that's what's going to fix it. I'm proud of this man for not giving up the will to hit a golf ball again. Keep going, brother. You got this. Those PXGs look sick though they're fucking sick the black fucking better well the best thing is yeah but now i'm like you have to go okay that's actually not the worst okay if that is what's driving you to go then yeah

i guess maybe drop drop some money on that but in this case, my six-foot, 160-pound Peloton friend, I mean, just enjoy getting better. And yeah, just save that purchase for later or find some kind of sugar mama to get it now and then re-up on it in a year. Okay. All right. Here's a college question. 63180.

100 push-ups a day. Good for that guy. Max, we went to school together. I graduated 2013 as well. We may have crossed paths. Big school. Who knows? My question is a member of the advisory council.

How do you answer the question of where you went to school when other tour players ask or people ask? Cal or UC Berkeley? Also, with the emergence of you and Morikawa, along with Cal signing one of the top classes of the nation last fall, is it time for Cal to enter the golf U conversation? Oh, by the way, he's a 9.2 index living in new york city with no ability to practice how does he cure his chipping yips so a couple things there jeez a lot of things um i love how i'm supposed to know who that is off 63 180 um i feel like do you want to name what's that no that's all right because that'll be more embarrassing if i don't know so i'm gonna go with the idea that i uh i would know if i knew his name. So I'm going to go with the idea that I, uh,

I would know if I knew his name, but you're not going to tell me, um, man, uh, I say, I feel like this is a decent answer. If I think that person watches a lot of sports, I say cow.

And if I feel like they read a lot of books, I say UC Berkeley feels fair, right? It's actually the best. I can't imagine a better answer than that. Okay. Thank you. Uh, the chipping yips um shit man uh that's a that's a tough one i don't the yips in general man is a

is a touchy subject i don't know how to fix them i need see it, but I don't want to look at it. So I'm going to put that one on him, on my old friend from Cal slash UC Berkeley. I don't like to associate myself with anyone with the yips. It's too, I feel like they can get contagious. Okay. Well, maybe I'll take this one. I remember I was golfing with Van Pelt once years ago in Connecticut. He watched me chip a couple times, and he said, hey, however short your backswing is, make sure your follow-through is all the way. And it changed my life. However short? All the way? Do you finish all the way above your head? Yeah. He said, just take the follow-through.

All right. I mean, listen, Van Pelt's the whisperer. I don't think I would have given you that advice, but whatever works. He is the whisperer. Yeah, no, he is. He is. Is there any chance with the Cal golf thing going on, if you had a Monday Night Football introduction, where you would say, like, Max Homa, short game you?

Oh, man, no. I don't think I could pull that one off with that would actually be pretty sick though if we did have the intros and you could listen to everybody's they would there would be a lot of georges uh and they would just call it football college football you um no i would probably just say mine really fast We've been really bad at mostly every sport in recent memory since Goff left, basically. So I'm not really like, I kind of cough when I say Cal at the moment. I'm not proud of that. But yeah, honestly, I'd say UC Berkeley, so that if you came at me about how bad we are at everything, I could say, yeah, but it's a really smart person's school. You wouldn't understand. We have to study. We go to class. Our professors do not care.

We play sports. So I would get kind of sassy immediately. So I wouldn't say short game you. I lean heavily on Colin Morikawa and all of his successes to give us some kind of street cred in the athletics world and he's been doing a great job but I kind of I sit in the shadows there when people are bragging about their their colleges okay all right next one we got a caddying beef

here legit or no you can call me Carl stats 510 181 max bench 345 wow there's some red flags what's your max max max i don't know i don't know i don't i haven't like put on the plates to the point where now i can't get it up you ran out of plates not enough plates at the gym no no there's plates there's plenty of plates in my house i set up the pins um you know i think i'm just convinced that if i really go hey this is pretty good and then it's like how much how much more hurt do you want to be that's fair yeah all right uh i don't it's not some crazy number i'm strong for a podcaster i'm not i'm far from the strongest

guy like when you go to a gym and you see other guys there's guys that are way stronger than me i always want to make sure that that's clear like every gym has like a handful of guys i look at and be like i don't know if i'll be as strong as those guys okay i just i don't say never because on this podcast we don't like to put a salary cap on our lives wow put that on your shirt there you go okay i don't i don't know 181 345 like why are you golfing also why are you not bigger yeah all right so this could be we'll see we'll just read it all right golf wise high 80s on average with a couple rounds in the 70s i caddydied a private club in New York that's pretty laid back and filled with very rich people.

Usually for a round, I make $100, $120 a bag. Usually $200, $240 for a round. Bigger events usually end up getting a little extra scratch. I caddied for two gentlemen for the club championship, which was a three-day event. Tipped well the first two days, $200, $250 each round respectively. Going into the last day, we won our flight. One of the golfers I caddied for was bragging about how he had won over 10K in side bets just for making out of our flight. About 10 other flight winners entered a shootout, which is two holes long. Long story short, we won the whole event and it was an amazing experience. The entire club was watching and my guys went crazy afterwards. I had no idea what to expect,

but other caddies were telling me to expect big money. It took over an hour for my golfers to get to me after the round, which is fine. I wasn't important to rushing them and realize they were enjoying the moment. Yeah, I think those are some good instincts there. I think if they won the club championship, I think an hour is okay to let them enjoy it. It would have been way cooler if he just bum-rushed them with his hand out,

like the dude from Home Alone. When they finally got to me, I was given a $300 tip for the round. On any other day, I would have been very happy and pleased with the generous tip. But after hearing what other caddies would have expected and one golfer telling me

how much he had won in side bets, I was a little let down. For the record that day, I was there at 8 a.m. and didn't leave until 6. So it wasn't your typical round of golf either. Oh, we're going time card on it. Do I have a legitimate beef with this golfer?

He was very drunk by the time he got to tipping me so it is possible he just didn't even realize what he was doing when it happened i was very polite and thankful and even though even though i was disappointed do i bring it up to him next time i see him or just eat it and kill him with kindness and focus on the positives um positives the experience and hope karma will be on my side in the upcoming season so there you go would you, you lead me away because I got a rant about tipping. I just think, man, like

they won the tournament. Yeah. And the side bet thing means what? I mean, it means that guy won the side bet. And I'm sure if you're a caddy and you're listening to this, it's not what's standard. It should have been this

and there's another price. I don't really think you have a play here if you're a caddy and you're listening to this, it's now at standard. It should have been this, and there's another price. I don't really think you have a play here if you're the caddy. Like, are you seriously going to go up to these guys that are members two weeks from now? Granted, you apparently benched 345. If that gets out, maybe they'll tip you more. I don't know. I don't really think you have much recourse here whatsoever.

Maybe the standard is just supposed to be tipped more in this situation. I don't know. I'm not a member anywhere. I've never won a championship. I'd probably be a little bit more generous. Maybe they were hammered and like you said, kind of just threw you some hundreds and weren't really thinking about it. But I don't think you have a play here. I don't think you're allowed to go up to these guys a couple of weeks from now, especially if you work at a club. Because then if they get pissed at you, you're going to lose your job at a decent club. Yeah. i look at i used to caddy in la when i was in high school and we we definitely made more money during the tournaments but i mean

he's already got a good gig with the uh the price point on his average round i think i would usually make like 50 60 bucks a bag uh and in a tournament if you know whether they did well or not it typically got up a little closer to 100. But my difficulty here is the side betting thing. I guess it would be courteous of that dude or nice of him to throw you an extra few bucks when he wins all that extra money. But you have to look at it as if he lost all those side bets, is he just giving you the flat rate of like 60 bucks? Cause that would piss you off way more.

I, I, I, you, you did the exact same amount of work. That guy just played better than normal that day. So I'm not, this is my tipping rant.

This country does this weird thing where we, we like, I tip my Uber eats before they pick up my food. And they not require it, but it says, you type it in. You say, hey, yeah, I want this now. And then it says, okay, would you like to tip your driver? And I'm like, I don't even think you've found one yet. But yeah, because you asked me,

I don't have the wherewithal to say I'll tip them later. And then it shows up and it's not, took way too long above expected time. Uh, they didn't bring my drink and I've realized I've already tipped you 20% and there's nothing I can do. That's like the culture we live in, in this country. So, uh, the tipping thing in general is weird. Uh, you did the exact same level of work and maybe you didn't do the best job ever. But if you tried really hard, you feel like you deserve more. I actually have a funny story. My wife got some stuff re-wallpapered in our house. And this woman came over and she was grinding. And she worked for

four hours. And my wife goes in there to look at it and realizes that it was cut wrong. And it's like, it's not straight at all. And she's like, I'm really sorry, but like, can you take this down? Like, I can't, I can't. She's like, I want to be nice, but I can't like look at this every day.

And the lady's like, okay. And so she takes it down. And then my wife being, I thought kind, you know, the woman had to leave. There's this whole thing. Long story short, she gave her extra money in a way of tipping, which to me was remarkable because literally nothing was accomplished. And the woman said something about how, well, I did take it down for you as well. And expecting a little extra scratch. And I couldn't believe it because I just said, imagine if you hired me to paint your house white

and I painted it blue, and then I charge you more to paint over it. Like it just, the tipping thing is just wild. Now, if you, if you try real hard, do I think, yeah, I hope, I wish, I wish the guys would give you more money, but if my advice, I would kill them with kindness and I would slowly look for a different group that, you know, if the other caddies are saying these other guys are tipping better, maybe just try to sneak your way into a new group. I don't know. I don't, I feel like that's pretty good pay. And I don't know if you, you, you should start betting the other caddy in the group then on the side bets. If you're, if that's how you're going to value the day and maybe you can make a little extra coin that way. Um, but I think 120 a bag, that's a good deal. Yeah. and he got 300 that day. Maybe it was the other

caddies. Maybe the other caddies messed them up or everybody's different on that one. Alright, this one might be this feels a little contentious. Fellow PGA Tour player with life advice for Max Holm. Hell yes. Okay, he's 6'1",

165, checking in. That sounds like a golfer right there. That was a sweet spot for us. Tall and skinny. So if this is real, this is another PGA Tour member. Okay. Late last year, I recently ran into my really good friends from college after not seeing them for a couple of years due to work and whatnot.

We caught up with a couple rounds of golf, and soon after it was a great time until I found out that this very friend, we'll call him John, ratted me out in a very public setting in front of other co-workers who were taking a language class in college for a language I'm fluent in. Back when we were both in school. Oh, I know who this is. Is it scummy? Yes.

Will I be the last one? Definitely not. The problem is that John is a pretty famous athlete, especially on Twitter. I guess we've changed the name, then you're John. That's actually my legal first name, so he didn't really change it at all. Okay. All right. We're finding out stuff here, getting to the bottom of it.

And now the story's out there. I've had random people come up to ask me about this class. I feel betrayed. I don't know if I can see him, again, with a straight face. Judge Kyle and Ryan, please give a ruling on whether John Max was right or wrong to do this or am I just being too sensitive and I should get over it? That's from Michael Kim.

Yeah, all right. Here, I'll tell you a story you can tell me. He lived in Korea until he was 12, came over to school at the UC Berkeley University. And one of his classes,

he was like my little brother on the team. I roomed with him every week. he would, he took a, like a Korean one-on-one class, like base, base, base level Korean as a fluent Korean speaker. And I would listen to him do his homework and you had to like read something and like record it and send it to your teacher. So it would be like, if it was in English, it would say, it would be like something like I walked my dog, but you'd, you know'd say it so simply. And he would do that.

And then he'd get on the phone with his parents and talk a million miles a minute. And I would just be, I would be dying laughing. So you tell me, is that scummy? I respect it, but it is still funny. Wait, was I not supposed to say his name or is this out there enough i don't know man everyone's on you i didn't say anything i was gonna leave that one i was gonna leave it but you said it so i don't have why do i not have an issue i didn't even think of this as a concept to have an issue with it because you don't speak two languages uh you don't know that i assumed you actually you speak one kind of weird language you spell your name with an e so your parents clearly spoke some sort of some sort of different language yeah i just for the record i was not consulted at the time i know i love what i love when people come up to me like

like why did you do that? Like, you know, most of us don't name ourselves. Do you think, as a company, you know, you do your ads in the pod. Has a company ever come to you and said, hey, do you mind just spelling it the normal way so that when you type it in, you know, you're a little like, hey, type in Ryan for a discount

and, you know, come back, whatever. Do you think that they've ever, have they ever asked you to just type it or spell it normal so that more people would be attracted? I'm going to be honest with you. It's never been asked. At times when it is the promo code, I go out of my way to emphasize the spelling on it. And I'll usually do it an extra time for the ad.

And at this point, I think we're all good with it because it's kind of like if you're listening to this and and uh at this point i think we're all good with it because it's it's kind of like if you're listening to this and you probably at this point understand it but i've always wondered like is that actually a better promo code than just saying rossillo you know wouldn't that make because the ryan thing may throw them off i've thought about it it's very as another podcaster uh like yourself it's a great question but i think at this point if that had been a major issue, we would have made some changes on the sale side.

Maybe it works because they are already on the page. Spell it wrong. A few times don't get to use the promo code. So they pay full price anyway. So maybe that's the angle. I don't know what to do there. I don't know if we have to go back and edit out the golfer's name. No,

let it run, man. I know you can take it up with me. Okay. All right. I don't have a problem with it. I't but we appreciate the email okay it was i thought it was smooth personally but it is it can it can be smooth and and funny and something i can make fun of them for whatever plenty of us we had meditation in college you could take meditation yeah well you dudes would go and nap for 50 minutes yeah

i would take but that class was for people who wanted to meditate this class this would be like me going to first grade english what if you you know what some days i think i need to touch up on just some of my spelling that's fair that i mean you know what that's that's a fair point it could have just been him going i need to get to the fundamentals again just some of my spelling. That's fair. You know what? That's a fair point. It could have just been him going, I need to get to the fundamentals again. Just kind of go over it all. I'm getting rusty. Okay, quick one. Metal Game. Hey guys, just wondering if Max had any tips for keeping

negative thoughts out of his mind during tournaments. Booze. Next question. Okay. This one's a little weird uh let's see here okay this is a good one um because i had a different one i couldn't find losing too much money playing golf okay uh i played golf in high school wasn't that great played a lot more in college fraternity brothers after college with four kids at my best i was probably an eight and for a about seven or eight years, I was the best golfer of all my regular golf

friends. Like most casual golfers, we'd always been on the round, usually small stakes. The loser ended up paying out less than 20 bucks. Now I'm a father too, teacher. I coach my kids' sports teams on the weekends. So I only get to play about five times a year at most. Shooting in the 80s is now rare for me when it used to be guaranteed. Usually when I play, I play with my friend Matt from college. Matt

has a job where he's able to play three, four times a week and is a member at a country club in the area. He's gotten pretty good at golf and is around a three. My problem is Matt still wants to bet when we play. Not only is he significantly better than me now, but he also wants to play at his country club. That, by the way, even

me as being a member at a place for two years, how much better you are when it's your course it's hilarious it's the best it's such a great feeling when you played um but then i broke my hand trying to dunk so that was the end that's the most ryan story of all time and it wasn't even like a good pickup game that is is the most Priscilla story ever. And then one of the bar owners where I bartended was like, well, you're done. You can't bartend.

And I was like, I can bartend. I can dunk too. Yeah, because he was like a salty guy. And the other owner, they were both my friends. But like one guy was just always trying to find things to be mad about all the time. He was a very, very salty individual. The other owner's like, you know, he's like, like he'll figure it out and i shaved part of the cast so that i could hold the bottle and it would just be in there out of the well so it was fine and then you know he's

like what the what did you do i was like i don't know i tried to throw one down left-handed he was just like you're a fucking idiot that's what happens i was like well feel feel free to cover me with small business health insurance if you're so upset about it you must he must say you must have got better tips than him too so i think probably won out on that i feel like you got the sympathy tipping i would have done it as a as a as i mentioned before a uh very uh people pleaser uh uncomfortable with not tipping person i feel like i would see you in a cast grinding away, and I would give you more of a tip than salty side Ryan.

I don't know, though, because it was still a college bar, and I was the guy that was still in town, and nobody was going like, hey, this guy's really cool. They were probably more annoyed with me that I was still around, jamming up their deal. Okay, all right. So this guy keeps playing him. The other

guy's a lot better. So just to finish here, I get that he wants to play at his course since he doesn't want to pay greens fees at another course when he's already paying at his club. He offers me strokes when we play, but it's a pretty big hit to the ego to have to accept strokes from someone who I used to be better than. Plus, I would need a significant amount of help to

compete against him at his own course, maybe a stroke a hole. My question is, A, keep playing him without the help and just accept that I'm going to lose $30 to $40 in addition to the guest fees. B, accept that I'll never be able to play as often and compete with Matt and take the strokes. C, try to talk him into playing golf without a bet, which he's not going to go for. Dude, if you are not taking the strokes, you are insane. That's the whole

point. That's the beauty of this stupid, stupid game is that anybody could play anyone. That is outrageous that you're not taking strokes. That makes me... Come hang out with me. You could live at my house for a month. We'll play golf. No strokes though. Don't want to bruise the ego. And then we'll play for $100 a day for 30 days. I mean, that's the whole point of golf is you get the strokes, man. Who cares if you used to be better than him? You have a life and kids. That's fine.

The not taking strokes thing. Even I get that. That's the whole part of it uh by the way we had a lot of sandbagging questions which is basically how do you how do you handle i mean not that anybody can do it to you i wouldn't imagine anymore oh yeah they just sandbagging is like the most real thing that's the hardest part for me because i'm always giving strokes so you can who how does that work then if you're if you're what is it? Whispering Rock? Is that your home course? Yeah, Whispering Rock. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Why do I always say

Whispering Rock? I don't know. I don't know. All right. Sorry. Sorry to those guys. What happens to you when some dude, a local Scottsdale dude who's probably still rocking Ed Hardy t-shirts, maybe has a McLaren and he's got PXGs.

Nailed it. And he wants to play you for big money. How does that happen? How does it work? t-shirts, maybe has a McLaren and he's got PXGs. Nailed it. And he wants to play you for big money. How does that happen? How does it work? I have only done, so growing up, I have been around enough of these situations where you'd find like a guy come through, want to play like the high school or college kid.

You know, you'd scrap together some money as just in case you've lost and you started to get a i started to get a pretty good feel with my friends on like who was shady about it and who wasn't you try to get a little bit of like a like a background info on them to find out like from your friends like whoever got it suggested whoever suggested the game uh but you could find you can figure it out real fast if you've been playing long enough. I imagine it's like watching somebody count cards. You get tipped off pretty quickly. There's people who have good days, and there's people who have golf shots

that a seven handicap will have never hit before. So basically, you kind of have to tough it out for the day, and then you kind of pay them. Typically, you'll lose that. You pay them them and then it's just a never again. But so I try to avoid it now. I did have one game with a dude a couple of years ago. It was like this whole big setup. And I was honestly like pretty I was pretty sure I was going to get hustled. I was pretty sure I was going to get hustled, but I also, I live in a good spot in the sense that if I play really, really great, I can sometimes overcome, you know, the whole sandbagging thing, like the sandbagger. But this guy was straight up, he was a good dude about it.

But you just have to, you're going to run up against these guys. But the thing I can't stand is these people will be like, oh man, you know, blah, blah, blah. Is the such a sandbag or he keeps taking my money. It's like, stop fucking playing him.

Like he's cheating. Like that's the whole point. Like don't play with him. Teach him a lesson. He can't make any money if he doesn't have anybody to play against. So, uh, I don't know. I,

I keep my games to the people I know for the most part now, because there, there's a lot of guys that you want to be friends with people who have the vanity handicap. That's a lot of the athletes in the world. They all want to say they're a two and they're really like a seven. Those are the best people to meet. You do not want to play the guy who you know is missing a four-footer for bogey when it doesn't matter, so he can write down double.

So I would just keep your eyes open and then just legitimately cut them out of your group. Because that ain't... As somebody who has seen it enough times, it's not... The beauty, like I said, of this game is you get to make everything even uh from the jump and uh that person is just uh he's he's fleecing everybody and he does not deserve to have golfing friends wow okay all right uh this is a quick one i chirped max at kapalua appreciate it or knock it off you do you man i just i i the chirping thing for me is people will say something i'll hear them mutter to their friend like oh man he didn't respond like you could say whatever you want and

i can say or not say whatever i want if it's funny i usually uh i usually take it well if it's something i've heard 700 times i probably won't respond um i will say the greatest chirp I ever got, or it wasn't even really a chirp, but the greatest thing I heard somebody say to me once at Waste Management where all of the beauties show up, it's always Super Bowl Sunday. The Chiefs were playing the Bucs, I think, and I threw my ball to Joe, my caddie, and not to brag, it was a dime across the green. I mean, he didn't even move his hand. And I heard this drunk ass dude behind me yell, oh, Patrick Mahoma. I was like, all right. I turned around and I was like, all right. See, that's good. That'll get me.

But if you just yell like, I don't know, the normal shit, like hope you make the cut like i hear that a lot as much as i appreciate the support it doesn't feel genuine and um i don't know i've heard it enough times have you had one where it absolutely like rage might be extreme but where you wanted to just like let the guy have it because there's so many multiple give me give me one uh well my my favorite because i didn't do it was we were playing uh in the beautiful state of new york uh on long island uh beth page black for the pga championship um i love new york the fans uh are rowdy and I like rowdy. It's fun, but they're not particularly kind, which is okay. They can say whatever they want and I'm going to try to not say anything back. it. I'm semi late in the day and I am playing so bad. I was 10 over through 16. I am depressed. I am sad. I am walking with my head down just trying to get through the day. I was trying to make one birdie to break 80 because it's a par 70. And I was like, please, God, let me post the

number that has a seven in front of it instead of an eight. So I'm already pretty upset. And you know, they have this the sign sign guys who have your score on it. So it's very apparent that I am exactly 10 over par on the day. And there is a guy who has been screaming at me from like the 16th green till after I hit my tee shot on 17 and now 50 to a hundred yards of walking up 17 towards the green. And I mean, he is giving it to me. You suck. You're so fucking bad. Like, how are you 10 over? You're losing by like, uh, 16. Like, I mean, he has given it to me you suck you're so fucking bad like how are you 10 over you're losing by like uh 16 like i mean he has given it to me and i'm just wearing it and finally joe who my caddy who is the most calm person he doesn't get bothered by anything he snaps over to him and goes hey it's fucking hard out here and it and it honestly it cheered me up i started dying laughing i made birdie on 17

we shot 79 snuck in under 80 and it felt really good to hear it because i wanted to scream at him i get a lot of like the drunk guys will make fun of my last name and in the least cool way you could possibly do it and that sometimes makes me want to say something but i try to keep my mouth shut but um like i said people i like when people get out there and have fun with it. You can chirp me, whatever, but it's like when it's in, like when it's nonstop,

that's, it just gets, it just gets a little old, but that's kind of our job to deal with that. Okay. I want to do two quick ones. We'll do a non golf one and we'll call it a day. All right.

Uh, we, we've had a million emails on just picking it up late, you know, maybe athletic, whatever, twenties,, 30s, 40s. This isn't, you're speaking two completely different languages to somebody who's just deciding to pick it up now. Give me kind of the base, like the best thing that you can build on

if you're somebody that goes, you know what? I'm intimidated by the sport. It's really, it's the fucking worst sport ever to go out and play with when you've never done it before. I remember my first round ever was a bunch of guys in a car in vermont laughing at me drinking beers and then the guy i was with was kind of like a badass of a guy was like hey it's his first fucking round ever it's his first round ever like yeah what were you guys were all 80s out of the jump you know so that part of it sucks what advice do you have for those people?

Well, I like what that dude did. Don't be intimidated to go and learn. It's kind of like the gym thing. Like you said earlier, you know, there's people stronger than you at the gym, but you'll still go. Like I go to the gym and I'll see these enormous humans and I feel very out of place.

I'm just a lowly golfer 6-1-178 and uh but but like that's not the point like everyone's been this at some point if they've gotten bigger right so go go play golf if people are laughing at you they're they're the dumb ones uh i beat the shit out of them in golf so and i'll just laugh at them for you uh so go go do your thing my advice to you would be two things. One, figure out what you want. Do you want to play golf? Do you want to just bang golf balls?

Like, does the joy come from shooting a lower score or hitting a sick drive? Because if it's just about hitting a sick drive, then just work at that. If you want to shoot lower scores, short games where it's at. And if you want to play and not feel uncomfortable and you want people to play with you,

just play really fast. Like, I don't care what you shoot. I've played with the worst golfers. Uh, you could imagine I play with the best golfers. You could imagine, uh, I, some of the best golfers, uh, I can imagine are less fun to play with than the bad ones because they're so damn slow. So, uh, just play fast. Uh, my dad did a thing when I was a little kid, when we would play these groups every time, uh, time. We'd get joined up with two random guys. My dad would say they'd roll their eyes because they see a little kid, but my dad would have me hit the tee shot. Then he'd take my ball up to the fairway where his was

and just keep it moving because at some point, it is courteous if it's on other people's time. But don't feel embarrassed, man. In all sincerity, this is a hard freaking game. Those people are just laughing because they also suck and it feels good to finally be better than somebody. Great point. All right. Okay. We've got a bottle service one for you because I know that you're a big – you lay low, but you're a big – you hang out at Mint a lot, don't you? Yeah.

I just drove by there the other day. I'm like, God dang it. It's been four years and I unfortunately never been in there. Okay. I love the local references here. Okay, here we go. We'll do two non-golf ones. 6'1", 180.

I saw 16 foreign films last year. Sick, dude. I'd recommend Decision to Leave if you're interested. Alright, I'm going to write that down. So for my birthday last week, I got a table at a club in Los Angeles, and as you can imagine, it wasn't the cheapest. I just had

invited over a dozen people coming, so the split cost shouldn't have been too bad. Yeah, fuck, you're already fucked. Included in the invited people was a group of six or so let's call them the new friends that i've been hanging out with more and more lately they came to my party mixed it up at our table with other friends drank the alcohol we ordered everything was pretty normal until they ran into another guy they knew at another table they migrated over to that table and spent most of the rest of the night over there. Of course, I thought that was weird, but didn't care too much because I had plenty of other friends there. So it's not like the party was gone.

Fast forward to the next day. It was time to collect money for the table. I put it all in my card, so I began texting, asking everyone for their contributions. I texted the new friends something along the lines of, quote, hey, here's how much the split for the table is. But if you don't feel comfortable paying that send whatever you do feel comfortable with oh i hate that i'm gonna go i hate that hate that request it was too soft or too vague too too vague man i don't know like i would do the exact same thing and that's probably why i hate it because how do i how do i mean I don't know how to respond to that

okay I didn't hear back for a day until finally one of them responded with quote thanks for the invite it was a lot of fun and we'll definitely hit that spot up again they will not

they out they out vagued this guy. Yeah. Honestly, they won. It's a pretty less than ideal situation. I'm 25. So not exactly

making a boatload of money now. And I'm going to have to be in credit card debt for a while. Also, I had friends that I would have liked to have been there but couldn't invite

because I invited the new friends table maximums. I thought I was becoming friends with the new friends but I was clearly wrong so they're out were the new friends all well he's how old is he I'd

love it was like the new friends were all waitresses from this other place yeah the new friends have to be females like that or else this makes no sense no because they got invited instead of and then they went to somebody else's table man like there's a lot of stuff that happened here where we know you're fucked all right so his question is uh it was i wrong for thinking everyone

who comes to the table helps pay for the table yes you were yeah the women younger women, don't know. I don't know that I've ever seen that happen. No. That has never happened ever. I want to live in an alternate reality where these aren't women that they're trying to court. If that's the case, this is super messed up. But you also have a horrible taste in new friends. And you should invite your old friends. But this has to be women, and it did not work out, and they were never, ever, ever, ever

going to pay. If they would have stayed, you probably wouldn't have made them pay. So it feels like a little salty. I think he thought going into it, it was 12 people, 12 ways. Here's a message to the boys that are going to start getting bottles at tables. The dudes are paying for everything. Yeah. Okay.

They are. And I know that maybe some of the female listeners will say, well, that's not. Hey, don't argue exceptions. Okay. Like, yes, I'm sure there are a few that were like, I've actually chipped in. Fucking awesome. I wish there were more of you. It's great.

But there's all these kind of understood rules at times and one of them is that guys pay for the fucking bottle service all right and so if you thought now if it's 12 males which was the worst table of all time man yeah then i might have left that one too all right so he says that's how i've always operated and i guess i assume they'd feel the same what's the table etiquette uh i think we went over it all we knew i knew from the first sentence in once you said it wasn't the cheapest stop yeah i had just over a dozen people coming all right for future for future for future i mean look to your point there are exceptions some some some of the women when you go to a club, do pitch in.

I personally have not seen it, but I'm sure that that happens. But in general, no. So if you're going to invite 12 people, six women, six men, imagine that six men are going to chop up that 12-person bill. But like 20 like 2020 hindsight, do set that up before the day. So you don't have to send the text, Hey,

pay what you're comfortable with. Because if there's another one of your friends who is even more uncomfortable with the money and you know, you're saying you're 25, haven't made major, major, uh, your big bag yet

they are going to take advantage of that and you are going to be stuck emailing a podcaster on what to do and a fucking golfer you got to set that up before unless unless you're just cool with eating the whole bill like in my opinion it has to be set up if i if i go if i go to a a club with my friends the person who invites us i would imagine is going to pay and then we will throw in what we like feel is like deemed worthy of like how the night went i guess at that table but if we all decided to go to a club we are all splitting the bill like that's how it would be unless one of my friends chucks the card you do this thing and no no no, no, no, I'll get it. No, no, I'll get the next one, whatever. A lot of it's just the setup. And in this case, it feels like you invited them out,

and they are taking advantage of you. I'm not saying you should still be friends with a lot of these people, but that's what it feels like. Okay. Last one. And it's from Kyle. Damn, dude, I didn't think we're going to get to this. Thanks. Uh,

55 minutes and counting. So, um, wow. Hey, Max, by the way, um,

I, I've been out five times golfing, right? Never with my own clubs. Uh, I always use a spare. This one guy's got a bag of like garage sale clubs and some Goodwill stuff. So, you know, they're at least right-handed.

I've been out four times, I believe. I went and did a bunch of tour of the LA places, all the public courses. I haven't counted yet. I basically count balls. Like, you know, I'm losing 12 to 16 balls a day. And if I'm like, you know, we hit the turn and i'm like hey dude i still have nine balls that's like that's what feels good for me yeah so um so i love it love the day they keep inviting me the guys keep it like we're good friends i think i'm a good hang there but every once in a while there's an

like and i play fast because i i see how like i see the horrible shit people say about the guys they're waiting on and i just i don't ever want that to be me. So I'm like, I'm I think I'm playing like too fast, obviously. And I'm and everything everybody kind of gets it. We're all good. But then every once in a while, there's like another guy in the four who is like pretty good. And these guys are pretty good with the exception of one dude other than myself.

And every once in a while, there's another dude who like doesn't get it. It's like, what is this guy doing? He's not counting. Like, I don't I've never written down anything. I'm like, there's balls everywhere. I'm just kind of, I'm like picking up and go, like I'm dropping shit on the fairway with my buddy. Like your dad used to do with you. And I'm like, kind of liking it, but I kind of get in my head when then there's another dude who like rounds out the foursome who doesn't quite get what I'm doing because it seems like, what the hell am I doing? So, I mean, what am I going to do about this? I'm terrified of, of taking a long time. Uh, I don't know how I'm doing because it seems like what the hell am I doing? What am I going to do about this? I'm terrified of

taking a long time. I don't know how I'm supposed to get better at that point. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, I guess. What would you do if you're the fourth guy? What is this guy's deal? Who's just drinking Tallboys and just leaving his ball in the woods?

He's not even looking. Why is he here? I feel like this dude's problem is not yours. is he here? See, I feel like... I mean, this dude's problem, not yours. First off, huge fan, Kyle. Thanks. I would much rather play with the person who's making the day fun.

Now, if the setup was to this random guy, hey, we're going to go play a foursome. It's going to be two on two or whatever. We're going to gamble. And there's one guy who's like, oh, I'm not going to play. I'm not going to gamble. I'm just going to hit. Then would be different but in this case it's

obviously not how it's set up so i i don't know man i i'm in the camp like i've mentioned a few times on this golf is really freaking hard and it can be really not fun so to go make it as fun as humanly possible is the way to do it uh it's a growing game uh since covid a lot of people like to be outside they're just now learning the game there's tons of people uh who are just getting into it there is this very shitty um entitlement thing with golfers that they they they think they're better than the golfers they're better than like as people and they're better hang and they don't seem to grasp that they are uh making it not as fun.

So I would, I would just kind of earmuffs to that guy and let him deal with his, uh, his own frustrations, probably with his own golf game. Typically these things come out like right after he makes a double bogey and then he's like, can't play the fucking Kyle guys,

not even keeping score. You know, that's typically how it, uh, how it begins. It rarely happens after a birdie, uh, after a birdie, he's like, you know what? Let's cheers to the birdie.

Then it goes sideways. I would pay him zero mind as always like I said before. If he's giving you a hard time, just realize that there's a ton of professional golfers that would much rather play with you than him, even if he is keeping score.

I don't know. You have to have solace in that golf. So very, I don't know why it's not the most inclusive game in the world. Uh, but, uh, in the, in the fight to make it more inclusive,

uh, do what literally whatever makes it fun for you. If you've been playing five times, do that, do what Ryan's friend did and just yell at him and be like, this is literally my fifth fucking time. Like, leave me alone.

All right. I'm going to keep going. Thanks, man. Keep it going to keep going. Thanks, man. Keep it going. This was, uh, I hope you had fun.

It's awesome. We need to do it again. Maybe we'll do the non golf ones when we do it again. Uh, and hopefully I know the deal is different now with a new guy running around the place, but I'm not going to say Homa can make it to frolic room when they're here, but maybe we'll figure something out man thanks so much we're all rooting for you and you have a

you have a ton of fans man because you're just a great hang so thanks thank you guys very much this was like i said a a true honor this is my favorite thing going so uh keep it going and i'll catch you in la i will uh maybe uh maybe little man will let me sneak out, sneak out for the afternoon. I'm playing today too. I got to get those dialed in. You know, I'm going to start keeping notes because off the PXG,

it just is a little different ball flight. I've noticed. Yeah. Go on. I'll get you. Look, I got to take notes. I'll let you know.

I'll text you look I gotta take notes I'll let you know I'll text you later today thanks Max Thank you.