The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Tales From the Couch: Timberwolves, Clippers, Suns, Thunder, and Magic, Plus Jon Krawczynski on Minnesota's Ceiling and Best Ant Stories

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

As the NBA season heads into All-Star break, Ryen has his eye on the top teams in the West in Tales From the Couch (00:40). Jon Krawczynski, who covers the Minnesota Timberwolves for The Athletic, joins him to discuss how the Wolves have made a major leap this season, Anthony Edward’s leadership, and Rudy Gobert finally fitting in with the team (28:02). Plus, Life Advice! One guy was chastised for not tipping properly (56:06). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Jon Krawczynski Producers: Cliff Augustin, Steve Ceruti, and Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast a lot of nba a lot of life advice little tales from the couch run through four games and john krasinski who covers the timberwolves he's been doing it 20 years is this team a real title contender that That Clippers win was nice on Monday. And we have a ton of feedback baked into life advice. So it's a long one. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost,

almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We start today's podcast, little NBA tales from the couch. We'll be sprinkling this in a little bit more. All right, we start with really a tale from Monday night's game, and that's Minnesota's win at the Clippers. We'll have John Krasinski on, obviously, later to go a little bit deeper into this,

so a little bit of an overlap on some of the thoughts I have here that I'll ask him about um they've gotten LA twice now uh when you go back and look at the season series you have to double check and be like who was playing who wasn't playing Clippers for the most part were healthy in both these games the length on the perimeter is a real thing when you look at how McDaniels is assigned defensively to Kawhi you've got Ant on Paul George. Alexander Walker's been a better defensive player. If you're not going to have perfect matchups throughout all of it, then you can put one of the tall guys if you want to on Harden. There's just a nice set of guys. Then on top of everything else, you just have length and bodies. There's value to just being

big at times because when the Clippers are rolling and they're getting their side-to-side action, and then all of a sudden it feels like the paint is just there for him and Kawhi doesn't even need that much room because he's so much stronger and how well he's played this year. Kawhi gets that shoulder into you and then does the little step back and it just goes in every single time. You could tell it was like, oh wait, this is going to be a lot harder. So I thought that was incredible as far as that win, how dominant it was. And that kind of happens throughout the course of the game. It's like, oh, wait, I thought everybody liked the Clippers.

It's like, all right, well, they lost. They lost a game to what looks like a pretty good team here in Minnesota. So some of the things I was looking for, I actually watched Ty Lue's press conference after because I thought, is this one of those matchups? Is this one of those matchups for as great as the Clippers have been? Or it's like, man, if they actually have to play Minnesota earlier in the playoffs or in the Western Conference finals like do you have to pick Minnesota in the matchup so we know that the Clippers don't pass their last in the NBA and passes per game uh they're eight less passes

per game than Dallas touches per game their last which was a correlation of the passes anyway, which you'd expect. There's 370 touches per game by the Clippers. Sacramento, just a little comparison, number one in the NBA with 432. But in the two games specifically against Minnesota, Kawhi's 22-7-3, 47-50% shooting splits. We're talking from the floor overall in threes. But Paul George, 17-5-3, 29-29%. Again, small sample of just two games. Then you've got Harden at 16, one and a half boards, seven assists, 33 from the floor, 29% on threes. You also have the Westbrook part of this.

His energy in this role, now that he's accepted it, now that he had to go to a million different teams in a very short amount of time, some of this Lakers stuff with Westbrook that still gets brought up, at least out here, constantly on whose fault is it. Look, sometimes you have to get it kicked in a few times before you accept where you're at. If Westbrook had been more accepting of who he was at that point with the Lakers, maybe it all works out a little bit better and maybe the LeBron stuff was really tough for him to deal with and I could even be sympathetic to Westbrook on part of that.

But you've seen through this run that Westbrook's energy has these moments, despite, look, I'm never going to love his game, so we can just put that one to bed, but he'll have these moments where just the other team can't match his energy, even at a later stage of his career. You can never question Westbrook for how hard he wants to try in a game. And the way they've filtered him in, where he's actually played with the other really good players,

it feels like a little bit more and more on some of the rotation patterns. But against Minnesota, what you're trying to do is find a way to have Gobert play against a small lineup, which we've seen be borderline disastrous in some playoff series. But yet what you have is then all of a sudden, it's like, well, nobody's going to guard him. They're just not going to guard him. So now you have five defending four, and they'll live with Westbrook who has played 29 minutes a game in both games against Minnesota, who shot 32% overall from the floor. He's actually hit threes at a really nice clip at 43%, but if it's three and a half attempts per game, Minnesota can live with that. So the question we have after these two games is like, wait, does Minnesota kind of kill that small lineup? The Clippers seem to go to it a lot. Look, they should go to it a lot. When you have the three guys with Norman Powell, or if you want to go with Coffey and however you want to align Westbrook with the starters or only one of the other starters, the Clippers should definitely unveil that. But if that's one of their, hey, something's going wrong here. I've seen it with Phoenix.

Hey, we don't really like how we are right now. You know what? Let's try to, they try to go to close small against Atlanta when they'd lost down there. We'll get to the Phoenix lineup against Sacramento here in a bit. But they went with KD at the five. You'll see teams go to it. And then, of course, we crush it when it doesn't work.

But I wonder if Minnesota's like, cool, go small and go small with Westbrook and you guys can do whatever you want, but we're not going to change. We're not going to be worried about it. And now on top of everything else, you're going to go small and everything's going to be clogged up because we're going to absolutely ignore Westbrook in the small lineups. So that might be something Ty Lue has to look at. The other side of the going small against Rudy Gobert teams has been that it's not necessarily what happens to him defensively with a smart point guard or just an unstoppable point guard and switch. And look, Rudy's had so many switches this year against small perimeter players where he holds up and you're just like, God, that is so impressive and how much better he is this year defensively. But the problem was you weren't getting the benefit of him being big against your small lineup on the other side because you just didn't really trust him all that much of the ball. And I don't. I don't. I think he's one of the worst players in the league with the ball in his hands. But against the Clippers, it's not about post moves

and dribble, drop step and all that stuff. It's's man I don't there's nobody here for me to worry about you're not going to get a play run for him necessarily but he's 16 and 14 in those two games and is 28 8 and 7 53 percent shooting from the floor he hasn't hit many threes but it gets the free throw line against the Clippers more than he does over the course of the season nine against the Clippers six and a half which feels kind of low for Ant. Look, and I also love that Minnesota brought it in the fourth quarter last night against Portland. It was kind of a weird game. It's kind of one of those schedule losses. You beat LA in LA, back to back, you go up to Portland, you don't take them seriously. You know, you're still feeling yourself after beating the Clippers, which has been the best

team in the NBA for two months. And then they put it on Portland in the fourth quarter, 37 points and Ant goes for 41. And I'm telling you, they subbed him out right after, like he got down in a defensive stance up 19 with like three plus minutes to go where you would have thought the game was tied against Boston. You know what I mean? Like you would have thought, okay, this position means everything right now. Defensively, we need to stop. It's like, no, you don't. You're up 19. I love that from him. By the way, little love for Scoot, 14 and nine. He'd missed a week. Maybe, you know, maybe some things slowing down for him a little bit. Felt a little bit better about him. Didn't love the Banton ISOs when Cook, or excuse me when it felt like scoot was cooking a

bit more it kind of worked for him he had 10 free throw attempts but my god can you imagine being like anthony simons going what we brought this dude in who doesn't really play anywhere and now he's going to initiate a ton of offensive possessions let's go to phoenix they outlast sacramento last night it was supposed be, and it technically still is, Booker, Beal, and Katie's 22nd game playing all together. But Beal played five minutes, left with a hamstring. He's out tonight. Everybody's optimistic.

They're always optimistic in the beginning. A lot like relationships. Sacramento's up 87-85 in the third. Booker had an awful start to this game. Two of 11 for 7 points when he stepped to the free throw line. Then he started to go off. Sabonis, the numbers are incredible. I mean, he just keeps stacking

these ridiculous numbers. Third straight triple-double, 35-18-12. Sacramento's killing Phoenix in the paint, getting deep at the rim whenever they want. And then Vogel had the Duran at the 5, Nurkic decision where later in the fourth quarter he tried Duran at the five Nurkic decision where later in the fourth quarter, like he tried to ride it out without Nurkic for a while. Phoenix hits a three-point barrage that

also had a weird stretch where Herter was getting yelled at by Mike Brown around 10 minutes left to go in the game because of being late on whatever defensively they wanted to do. I think it was just as simple as showing or staying with the screener. And I don't think he didn't even come back into the game. So anyway, Phoenix is hunting Herter first, then Monk, and then bringing Sabonis out and switches. Durant was definitely looking to do that more, which leads to the other side of the Sabonis coin.

But then Sabonis on the other side is just destroying everybody. Just camped out at the rim. Offensive rebounds off of misses, great assist. His numbers, you almost feel guilty being like, yeah, he's pretty good. It's like, man, the numbers make this guy a Hall of Famer

when you look at them all. Royce O'Neal coming over has a huge three late. Booker over the stretch of closing this game out after the slow start, he had three ISO mid-range pull-ups. I don't know what to do with Booker when he has it like that. He's one of my favorite players in the league. That iso mid-range pull-up thing, when he gets to his spot, it's basically unstoppable. Then Durant throws in a few of those. So Phoenix is pulling away here late. Despite a weird turnover from Durant where he didn't pay any attention to what was happening

behind him, Fox knocks it loose. They get a three. Now it's a one-point game when they were up on the possession and score. But ultimately, the O'Neal three was such a big shot. So basically, we're looking at free throws, and they're trying to stop the clock and get guys to the line. Something happened last night that does not happen very often. Booker's fouled by Sabonis on an inbounds, And Sabonis, or excuse me, Booker loses the basketball. So live, it's like, oh, wait a minute.

Was it even a foul? Or Booker turned it over? Like, let's challenge it. Sabonis looked at the bench and was shaking his head, going, don't challenge it. And as we saw in the replay, he clearly hacks Booker's arm. We don't see that very often, where the player is telling his own bench in a huge spot. And he's like, no, don't even do it. Don't challenge it. They didn't. Offensive rebound on a missed free throw. And that's game. Phoenix has won 13-17. Now we have a Beal question again, who's missed basically half the season. Sacramento, 23-14 to start the year,

7-9 in their last 16 games. Phoenix is the 5 seed, but 4 behind Denver. And that's kind of where we're at right now with them. Let's talk about Boston and Brooklyn. They beat the Nets in Brooklyn last night, up 16 to start the fourth quarter. This game got to 111-105 with 249 left. Derek White hit basically like the biggest three after this big Nets run.

Tatum had 31 at the half. He finished with 41. So the late Celtics stuff, I hear about it all the time. I'm borderline obsessed trying to figure out what it is or what it isn't. I know what my eyes tell me. Then I look at the numbers and I go, there's just not as much in there as you would think unless you want to talk about settling. So Let's run over some stuff because we get a lot here. Fourth quarter net rating for Boston, third best in the NBA. It can be a little weird at times. Utah's second. You could also have blowouts where the other team comes back and then it screws up your net rating in the fourth quarter,

but if that were the case, then they wouldn't have the third best in the NBA. The offense in the clutch for Boston, right? You're thinking, oh, it probably dips down there a little bit. Don't love what I see all the time. They have the fourth best clutch offense in the NBA. Okay. There's too many isolations. Is it that? Whoa, wait. They have the fourth most isolations run over the course of a game. I don't know that I always love the isolation tracking number based on the totals, but this number exists for all 30 teams.

So how does Boston match up? Fourth most, are they efficient on those? Well, they're seventh in points for possession on the ISOs. What about drives? This is something else I've looked at. Do they settle a little bit too much? Maybe we have something here,

finally. They're 27th in drives per game and they're 20th on free throw attempts per game for a team in the NBA. So are we getting closer to trying to figure something out? Let's look at the shot charts. 40% of their shots are threes. It's the most in the league, but they're seventh in three-point percentage. In the fourth quarter, 47% of their shots in the fourth quarter are threes. That's number one in the league. It dips down to 10th, but it's not necessarily disastrous from three points. Now when I start looking at it, I go, well, let's look at their free throw frequency. Let's look at the free throw rate on some of this stuff. If you just go pick and roll ball handler, ball ends up with the ball handler.

They have the third worst free throw frequency of any team. You're going to be running a lot of high or just any pick and roll in the NBA. You're going to be running a lot of that, especially with guys like Tatum and everybody that can initiate kind of their own offense, keep the ball. Wait, they're not getting to the free throw line very much. Does that mean they're just taking a lot of threes off of that? There could be the correlation to that. So when I started looking at threes, they have the most shots from 25 to 29 feet and the fourth fewest shots at the rim. So that's why we have less free throws. But here's what I thought was maybe the most informative part of trying to

figure this all out. Are they not taking enough free throws in games overall or late in games? And that's what's leading to just something we don't like, feeling like they're not aggressive enough, feeling like they're settling. How about this number? If you look at isolation possessions in the NBA, top five players, it's Luka, Embiid, Tatum, SGA, and Ant, ranging from Luka having 7.3 isolations. Again, this just ends up being like a purist definition of isolation. Not necessarily like, I mean, clearly Luca has more than seven possessions a game, but by this standard, Luca's first, his free throw frequency is 18.5%. Embiid's is 17.6. SGA's at 21. Ant, who everybody thinks doesn't get any calls,

is at 13.5. Tatum is last at 11.7. He's third in these isolation possessions in the NBA for player, and he's not even close to these other guys in free throw frequency. I guess what I'm saying here is that we just need him to flop more. He needs to cheat the game a little bit more because we'd start baking all these numbers together, and you're like, yep, and they're still winning 75% of the games, so it may be these moments, some lingering playoff stuff that isn't accurate, but there aren't these staggering numbers. Yeah, they settle for a few too many threes, which leads to not getting enough free throws, and that's fine.

But if you look at this number in comparison to their number one option all the time, he just doesn't get to the free throw line enough. And maybe that's part of a solution to what is still kind of a minor problem on the scale of problems for teams in the league this year. We close with Oklahoma City's win at Orlando. Shaq on the call with Stan Van Gundy, which is kind of funny if you think about the history there. But it's cool. Older guys end up working out everything. Here's the point. Younger teams, both teams looking ahead to the future. Oklahoma City, obviously better this year, a little bit more of a sense of who they are. So it's still early for the Magic, but it's 127-113. SGA had eight points at the half and only two free throw attempts for, like he was three of 11. So you're like, man, they're down. And that's what's happening with SGA. But Jay Williams, the good one, Jalen Williams, excuse me, he had 33 over the course of the game, stepped up when SGA struggled. By the way, SGA was fine. He ended up with an absurd final tally

on this one because he went off in the second half. So really, this kind of comes down to something that's really, really easy to look at. It's just the three-point shooting. Oklahoma City shot it better from three. They were 41%. Orlando was 31%. Orlando's 29th in the league, three-point percentage. It's a massive problem for a team that I think a lot of us really enjoy watching because of the players on it. And there's another part with Oklahoma City that I just love. I love what their staff, I love what they represent, which is so rare for a young team. And that's just kind of understanding how to get open looks. And SGA is the anchor of it

because you're worried about him in this mini Giannis Wall defensive thing that you have to deal with with how good he is on his drives and how good he is at getting the free throw line. And on top of everything else, he can shoot.

But if you watch them on drives, the off-ball offensive players are really good at moving around and just resetting their positioning. And it's my favorite thing. It's the easiest thing to do at every level of basketball. Everybody should be doing it. Just because somebody else has the ball and they're driving doesn't mean that now the position is over for you. And I actually think it's a great habit to get into. And it also is going to lead to open shots in the playoffs. Instead of some of these teams, it's still even in playoff games. I'm like, oh, I don't have the ball. I'm just a stretch three now,

and I'm going to stand here in the corner and never, ever just reset left or right 10 feet. Make the defensive player have to move a little bit. Maybe you're bringing him further away from a potential offensive rebound chance. Oklahoma City, for a young team, watch them. They do this really well. So that led to a bigger picture thing where we're going to bring in Cerruti. It's our monthly bum-out Cerruti segment. So I'm looking at it, and I'm going, you're going to hate this.

Top four players on both teams. And this is also understanding SGA's been around a lot longer, okay, than Paolo has, than Franz has. So this is unfair. I'm saying that it's unfair.

But I was up for this game. I know you were up for it too over a decade of not being on TNT. Magic, baby. Magic basketball. We're doing it. We're back. But

tell me when I'm wrong here. Okay. Top four players for both teams. SGA is better than Paolo. Yep. No debate. No argument from anyone. Jalen Williams one better than Franz.

Yeah. Yep. I thought I might get a little pushback there. No, I wouldn't. I mean, if you wanted to say, I mean,

there were plenty of people last night saying that, Oh, you know, should Jalen have gone? Was he the best player in that draft which i just i just hate that because i really like jalen and it like makes me like kind of not like him because if we're going to compare him to paulo like they're just doing two completely different things they're being asked to do to if you put jalen if you put paulo on this on this thunder team like do you think he wouldn't be freaking awesome do you think like as the number two guy maybe even number three on some nights because they have chat that like Paulo wouldn't be more efficient or wouldn't be a better or look like a better player?

I mean, it's just a better system overall. Paulo's being asked to do so much more than Jalen is. And somehow we're still having this debate because Paulo's not the most efficient player in the world in his second year as the number one option on a playoff team and an all star that all of of a sudden this guy who's a second maybe third option on the thunder is better than him i just hate the conversation but if you're saying it's franz versus jaylen i wouldn't argue with that no jaylen's better you're upset we haven't even got to all four here so uh look paulo last night had one possession where i looked down he was kind of baseline about 12 feet out there he was being triple teamed and so it was up to palo to go all right i'm gonna have to hit some hero shots here because sucks cooled off franz was bad i mean franz and

palo were both really bad in the first half and sucks was the only one that kept it going you know and then you had one point where isaac decided to put it between his legs and try to take it off the dribble from the three-point line and i was like all right so that orlando doesn't have enough shooting and they can get really bogged down. And when you look at the Palo efficiency stuff, I'm just telling folks we're on the same page here. Look at how hard some of the shots are when he's like, well, I guess I'll just do this. And the crazy thing is for those two weeks that we talked about, end of December, end of January, a lot of times it was even working. So I always feel like when somebody hits you with the efficiency stuff on Palo, I'm like, I don't know that you're watching enough of this to see how tough the offense is for him and he's turned into bailout positions. Anyway,

Paolo defensive rant over. We're on the same page, SGA. We're on the same page, Daniel Williams, Franz, although I think there's a chance that one could be closer later on. Franz had a really bad game last night. He didn't shoot it well. He had a bunch of turnovers,

but let's not forget like he scored a 34 plus in three of the last four games and they've won i think all of those games so okay let's not forget that then let's not forget all right okay so if we're going third best player on the thunder against third best player on the magic it's it's chet sugs hey you gotta take ch got to take Chet. Got to take Chet. Because we could have done Giddy Suggs and then Chet Wendell. But either way, would you take Giddy over Suggs?

No. I don't really get the Giddy thing. You don't. He's fine. I kind of think he gets a little bit like maybe maybe he'd be better on another team like if he because he doesn't really need the ball ton they've got a bunch of other ball handlers so i don't know i just don't i'm not the biggest giddy fan in the world and yeah there's no way that i would take giddy over sugs i mean sugs last night you know sugs well he

started off three for three from three he was playing great defense and then you know when the shot starts falling and other teams teammates aren't playing super well like he's not i don't know that he's the one that's going to carry you for a full game like that. He could do it in stretches. But, you know, I will say to the chat thing on that, though, there were some times when Chet was getting kind of bullied by by my guy, Mo Wagner. Like, that's the worry. If you have a guy who could just post him up like he's going to it's going to be a struggle for him. But if he's able to just kind of play a health defense and just be a monster and, you know attack guys that are coming to the basket he's he changed the game last night but there were

a couple times where i'm like this is how you beat chad yeah i don't care about how bad somebody looks in the post because nobody's going to run enough post offense in a regular season game or an nba playoff game where you're like oh we're susceptible to post-ups it doesn't fuck even when you have the massive advantage there's still going to be three guys running around that want to take three pointers even in the most intense playoff game. So you can be weak in the post defensively and it's still not be a problem. The problem is, is when you're going up for rebounds

over the course of a game, you're late in the fourth quarter and you've been getting your ass kicked on box outs because as much as we all love chat, I'm really surprised they couldn't figure out something else. This might be another lesson, by the way, The last couple of years are going, oh, there's always a spare center. There's always a spare second or third rotational big that you can add at the trade deadline or you can add in the buyout. And yet there's all these teams that I

think should add one and then they don't. And so it might be something where if you're a GM going into next year, you're like, hey, we're on the smaller side of things. Let's stop just banking on the other. We're just going to get one for free for like two second rounders. That's good enough to be in a playoff rotation because Sacramento is light up front, okay? Golden State was disastrously light up front in that Lakers series last year. It's going to happen here with Oklahoma City

where there could be a time where you go, I really like this team. I don't care about the age part of it. Offensively, I think what they do offensively is pretty bankable in the postseason, but it's not Mo Wagner dropping a shoulder. I pronounced that name a little weird yeah no yeah i just wanted to correct myself keep it in keep it in yeah um just holding myself accountable i mean

mo can drop the shoulder right into him and knock him back and like man chest game but you just okay cool what are you gonna get six points on post touches here tonight i know i tweeted i tweeted that out a couple people were like cool A couple of people were like, cool, dude. And I was like, you know what? You're right. Maybe that wasn't my best tweet. I just got really excited in the moment because we were, you know, the magic we're winning at that time.

And I do like when Mo plays well, because he's such like an aggressive asshole sometimes in a good way when he plays that I got a little caught up in the moment and had a tweet that I that I did that I kind of regret. But I gave credit to Chet later because he did completely change the game defensively after that. The magic could not. Fran specifically, they were just going at him and he was just blocking shots and it was a disaster but to your point about the big stuff that's why that's why it confused me when like Wendell Carter jr was on the trade block because I'm like I don't think people realize how valuable that guy is like he hasn't had the best

season we don't just give that guy away at the trade deadline he's a he's a four slash yeah he was getting talked about like he was Daniel Tice and you're yeah like sure if i'm trading him for like a like an actual foundational piece all right maybe he's expendable i'm not gonna trade him because like it's just a i don't know we could just let him go it didn't make sense to me the sugs defensive thing maybe gives you the sugs giddy argument but i still think giddy's the better player offensive even though Giddey's shooting from three has fallen off a cliff those last two months. And Sugg's been fantastic in three. Yeah, yeah, I know.

But if you go through all of them, you know, that's really the only number. But then the defensive side of it, like Giddey's not bringing that the same way as Sugg. So let's leave it at this. If you go strictly the top four guys versus the top four guys, it's a sweep for Oklahoma City. But if you want to go big, Chet, Wendell, and then you go guard, guard.

Well, no, it's not a sweep because you asked me Giddy versus Suggs. So I said Suggs over Giddy. Yeah, but here's the problem is Giddy's actually the fourth best player on the Thunder. Okay. So if we're going rule top four, top four, the only thing I was doing there was a positional thing, but nobody would take Giddy over chet at this stage no if you're asking i mean i think if you're asking me like i

didn't think coming in this game the magic were even on the thunders level i yeah that's that's also totally like i'm not going hey man we got to rethink this whole magic thunder thing because yeah they just they're deep they have they have they're better or shooting like they're just they have the better i mean shay mighta might be the MVP of the league. Like, it's... Shea... Man, like, he was... I don't want to say they shut him down in the first half.

He didn't shoot a ton. Two free throw attempts for SGA and a half is awesome. That's a win. And then you're still down. And then the third quarter, it's like he... Like, they couldn't do anything with him. Like, I thought Suggs was still playing decent defense. He got a couple of dumb fouls that I thought were pretty questionable they had franz on him for a little

bit nothing absolutely nothing that guy his his game he's so fun to watch and that's the thing too about jalen's so fun to watch as well williams like i don't dislike him but i just don't like that argument but he was killing it last night as well but i think you know they're it's so clear that they have they their infrastructure is better They have a better system. Whatever sets they're running are better. And yeah, some of their players are better too. All right. That was more than a minute, and I think we're good. Tales from the couch.

Check it out. Still feel good though. We're fine. In line to be a playoff team. Continue to feel good. We love that. Love hearing that. It feels like every show we're just kind of updating different things that we like from teams in the West. And Minnesota's win against the Clippers earlier this week was super impressive. And we're going to bring on a guy that I've been a big fan of.

I've read him for a long time. He's covered the Timberwolves for 20 years. It's John Krasinski. And also part of the television package. It's one of my favorite television broadcasts with Jim Peete, obviously, going back years, and Mike now with the team. So thanks for doing this, man. How are you?

I'm doing great, Ryan. I've told you before, I'm a huge fan of the pod, a huge fan of you and Cerruti and Kyle and everything you do. So thanks for having me, man. Let's have some fun. Yeah, Kyle loves the Timberwolves, as you know. So, okay, here's the thing about Minnesota's basketball team. And I can see this as it plays out.

And again, social media isn't always the best indicator of how everybody feels. But it's a team that last year, you're like, oh, okay. You know, and with the Ant stuff kind of early through his career, I'm like, wait a minute. I want to watch him more than maybe anybody in the league, not named Steph Curry. No expectations last year. You get off to this incredible start.

All the defensive numbers are off the charts. Everybody that was mad that they were getting criticized with the Gobert trade is now saying everything's perfect, everything works out. And then I don't like necessarily using the term of the goalposts moving because that makes it seem like it's some invented thing that's unfair. I think the reality is, is when you have this kind of record, you have some of the stats that they have as deep as the top of the West is.

Now we change the conversation about whether or not this team can actually win a championship and any hesitation with that is met as if you're somehow doubting them. And'm tough it's tough for me when it's new especially in basketball it's tough for me to assume that it's going to work out over the course of four series so you're with them every day you've been with this franchise a really long time so the long intro is basically to set up the question of who is this team man it's a question. We've been trying to figure it out the whole season, right? For the first two months of the year, you said this team absolutely can get to the finals, can even maybe win the finals with the right matchup, the way they play defense with how connected they were. Then they got into January and it was a swoon and you were starting

to see some of the fourth quarter numbers, all of these turnovers and mistakes that they were making. And it was starting to kind of dampen a little bit of the expectation and the spirit around the team. And Ryan, man, Minnesota Timberwolves fans, Minnesota sports fans in general are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And okay, when is the gut punch coming? And so when you saw them lose leads against Chicago, against San Antonio, against Charlotte, now you were starting to wonder a little bit more, is this team legitimate? I think they've stabilized themselves now

over the last couple of weeks. And I do think right now, looking at what they have talent-wise in the starting five and the way they play defense, I think if they get the right matchups, they can go to the Western Conference Finals, maybe even deeper. But they can also, if they get the wrong matchup, lose in the first round. I mean, that's just the way that this team is right now. And they have a lot of work to do offensively. But overall when if you ask chris finch and tim connelly at the start of the season hey you're going to be in first place going

into the all-star break and you're coaching the western conference all-stars they'd take that every every step of the way okay so what's a good matchup for him in the playoffs like do you have i mean watching your team every night gives you a complete different level of understanding of who they are or who they aren't. As much as I watch them because I love Ant so much, I don't pretend to know every single nuance with them. Whenever I'll look at season series stuff, it gets harder and harder going like, oh, hey, they have a 3-1 record against them, so it's a good matchup. It's like, okay, now I've got to go back and double-check who played or who didn't play. The Clippers were at full strength, essentially,

except for Zubac in the first matchup. So you look at some of those numbers that I spent time on in the open, you're like, okay, maybe is that a good matchup for a Clippers team that's looked like the best team in the NBA now for two months? So can you give us, like, do you have an assessment of who you think, hey, this is a good matchup for them in the playoffs, this is a bad matchup? Yeah, I'm in maybe the minority. I like the matchup against the Clippers because the Clippers have a bunch of guys that like to play isolation, half-court offense. And I am

telling you, man, you line up Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Nikhil Alexander-Walker against perimeter guys in the half-court in isolation, and they want to sink their teeth into them. And so I really like the styles of play in that series for the Timberwolves and just the way that they can get after all of those great Clipper scores and really put them on lockdown. I like them against Oklahoma City. I just think that there's going to be too much size for the Thunder. I think it would be a great series, six or seven games.

But I think over the long haul of a series, the size of the Timberwolves would wear Oklahoma City down. And they would be okay in that matchup. Denver, I know everyone said, hey, they played them really tough last year. And I think they do defend Jokic and use Rudy on Aaron Gordon to roam as well as any team in the league. So I think it would be a good series. I don't think I can pick them against the Nuggets right now, but I like that matchup. The one that I really don't like, Ryan, is New Orleans. New Orleans, for whatever reason, just really gives these guys a hard time. Brandon Ingram is not bothered by Jade McDaniels. Zion Williamson looks like Charles Barkley

when he plays against the Wolves. And so that's one of those matchups that is, I think, scary for the Wolves. But a lot of the ones near the top of the West, I think that as long as they're healthy, as long as Mike Conley is rested and ready, I think they match up favorably. Were they mocking the Clippers?

I saw the story, and I mentioned it a bit in my open too. Was there anything real to that, or was it just something that, I don't know, one guy on the team said and nobody really cared? It was a little half-hearted, Ryan, but it had history behind it. In the first game of the season that the that the uh that the Wolves played the Clippers uh Rudy Gobert airballed a free throw and um and the whole Clipper bench could be seen laughing like uncontrollably Westbrook was really they they had a fan that was kind of uh filmingbrook during that's right. Rudy was Hagan.

He was turning his head away and kind of mocking Rudy that way. And then the the Wolves did not take kindly to that. Rudy Gobert did not take kindly to that. And so this last game in L.A., there was a report that that someone heard a few wolves saying these guys are old. And during the first game against Kawhi Leonard, almost called him an old man a little bit. And it was kind of a playful jab, but I think there was something behind it. These guys have now gotten to a point where they don't like when other teams make fun of Rudy Gobert.

He's their guy now. And so they are pretty united. Rudy Gobert. He's their guy now. And so they are pretty united and they do believe that they are younger and that the Clippers are too old to keep up with them. And so, yeah, I think there's some real trash talking going on there. Anthony Edwards kind of usually leads the way in that regard. The Gobert 180 is pretty incredible. I still don't like the trade because of the assets. And at the time, you didn't really know what you were getting with Gobert. Cause I think there was an argument to be said that it was going in the wrong direction and he was expensive and you have the lack of flexibility moving

forward on the finances for Minnesota. So I think there's a lot of parts of that, but when you're just looking at the player and who they are right now, it's really worked out. And if you go back to not even a year ago, he's punching Kyle Anderson in April. And the thing I saw is it felt like people were on Kyle's side and not on Rudy's side. And I kept thinking, I don't think the Utah guys loved him. I don't think he and Donovan

Mitchell loved it. He wants to touch the ball more. Mitchell was just over it at some point. And now you have... Winning solves a lot of things, John, as we know. But how did this turn into something where it feels like this team now has his back in a way they didn't before? Yeah, from last season, the frustration, the tension was palpable around the team. And it wasn't that they hated Rudy Gobert. It wasn't that they just didn't get along with him. But bringing Rudy Gobert into a new situation when he was used to having everything surround him and being built for him in Utah was an adjustment for everyone involved. And it was very unconventional what they were trying to do with Gobert and Towns

in the front court. The first couple of months of the season, Ryan, last year, it was a real grind. And the offense was difficult. Transition defense was slow and plodding. And Rudy had come off of international play going into last season, and he was a little banged up. And so he did not play well. He was not moving the same way that he did in Utah. The turnovers and things are always going to be there.

But it was an ugly game to watch. And I think that there were players that looked around and said, we gave up all of this for this guy. And he's not the defensive mastermind that he has been purported to be. the defensive mastermind that, that he has been purported to be. And also on offense, he's been, you know, a real tough watch in terms of catching the ball in terms of converting at the rim and all of those things. And so they struggled, they went through it and, and they were being asked to do something that most teams were not used to playing. And, and I think that talking to Mike Conley about it, about both with his time with Rudy in Utah and then now here in Minnesota, he said that it takes a full year for a team to

figure out how to play with Rudy Gobert. And Rudy has talked about it as well, the adjustment of leaving the one place he had ever been in Utah, in the NBA, having an entire organization built around him, to having to assimilate to a new setting with established players here that weren't going to just bend over backward and change everything that they were going to do for him, I think that was an adjustment for Rudy. And there were times last season where he was a little on the stubborn side about what he wanted to do defensively, needing the ball offensively, all of those things. And the numbers

really supported it. He was not the impact player that he was used to being in Utah. And I think all of that kind of bubbled to the surface with tension. And you saw it with that Kyle Anderson confrontation right before the playoffs. Flash forward to this season, Ryan. I think there's been a little humility that has been involved with Rudy. He went into the summer knowing that everyone thought that he was washed up and everyone thought that he was not worth this huge price that the Timberwolves paid for him. And he got himself in fantastic shape. He came into camp healthy, and he came into camp willing to compromise a little bit on some of the principles that had always been

important to him defensively and offensively. And so once the Timberwolves saw him give a little ground, I think they were willing to give a little bit of ground too. And now he is back to being an absolute monster defensively and dominating that way. And so now there's just more respect also that has been won over within this team. They see how impactful he is game in and game out.

They see how much they're winning. And that has helped a lot of the, you know, thaw a lot of the ice that was there last season. And it's a whole different environment. Towns and Gobert get along great. Ant has really kind of accepted him and is now becoming one of his biggest cheerleaders. And I just think everyone has relaxed a little bit. And so they've found a way to meet more in the middle rather than kind of dig in their heels and want to do things their way specifically. It's made a huge difference. Yeah. When he is rolling, I mean, the thing about

Rudy that I've always been incredibly impressed with because everybody wants to touch the ball because everybody wants to touch the ball, and it's just not going to work with today's game. And I would also argue there's probably too many times where he gets the ball where I'm like, well, what happened there? But he moves so much for a center, the amount of times he will come out, screen, re-screen, he will come way out to the ball, and he'll roll.

He stays as active as a big guy as there is in the league without any of the rewards. I'm not saying he completely abandoned that last year, but when you're not having fun, when everybody likes you and all that kind of stuff, you're a little less likely to run out to 30 feet to set a screen in the third quarter of a game when you're tired, when you're like, this isn't fun and no one likes me.

So it's, it's been cool to see because I think it kind of starts with Ant, which is where I want to go here. We could talk about the moves, how unstoppable he can get at times. The first quarter last night against Portland, he gets his 40. I even wrote it down. At three-something minutes left, they're up like 19, and he's getting in a full defensive stance against the ball handler. And I'm like, what is this?

And that's just all of these things that I love about him. And I think beyond his game or matching his game, because it's probably better to say it that way is his personality that you come in and I'm sure cat wasn't like, wait, now I'm deferring to this guy. Like, look at my resume or at least my numbers. And, you know, same thing with Rudy. And of course, Mike, I think is just really good at any of this kind of stuff. And I think, you know, Jaden probably would like to take a few more shots, but Ant has to balance not only what the team needs from him from a statistical standpoint, but what the team needs from him to be the face of this franchise. It's such a young age for a team that has real expectations. That's very hard to do.

The fact that he's pulling this off, I think, is as impressive as anything we've seen in the league this year. It's it's such a delicate balance and you hit it, Ryan. I mean, we have seen it not work when Jimmy Butler came in and was supposed to share the spotlight and be co-stars with Carl Anthony Towns. That did not work at all. The two personalities didn't work. Jimmy wanted to do things his way. Carl wanted to do things his way. And it just totally imploded. But the emotional intelligence that Anthony Edwards has is really off the charts, Ryan. The way that he makes everyone feel like they are the most important person in that locker room while he knows he's the most important person in that locker room, while he knows he's the most important person in that locker room,

has changed everything for the Timberwolves. I mean, this, I can't tell you how many times we heard over the last couple of years, whose team is it? Is it Carl's team? Is it Ant's team? And that kind of conversation can be really divisive, and it can really get into the heads of certain players who pay attention to that sort of conversation can be really divisive, and it can really get into the heads of certain players who pay attention to that sort of thing.

But Anthony Edwards has done such a good job of making Carl, making Rudy, making everyone feel like, hey, I have your back. You are important. He always deflects questions about himself publicly toward the other teammates. You know, we'll ask him about, hey, you scored 40 tonight. Well, yeah, Nikhil Alexander-Walker was the player of the game, you know, and it's that kind of a thing. And so he does not give any impression that he is trying to take this team over. And I think that Towns has really appreciated that. Gobert has appreciated that.

You cannot get mad at the guy. He is this super charming, very genuine young dude from Atlanta that just disarms everyone with his sense of humor and with his approach. And people just laugh and chuckle, um, all the time. And he just bring, puts everyone at ease that way. Carl Anthony Towns told us a, a story a little while ago where, um, they're in the, you're, they're in a, in a tight game at halftime and they hadn't played well. Um, you know, Finch got into him a little bit and they're walking out to the court and

trying to figure out what, what they have to do. to him a little bit and they're walking out to the court and trying to figure out what, what they have to do. And, and aunt just looks at Carl and says, Hey cat, why do they call you big purr? And, and Carl just looks at him and just like starts laughing. Like that's the kind of like energy that he brings to the table. And, and, and it's just like, nothing is too big for him. And, and he also, he wants to take on the world, but he wants everyone to do it with them. And that's, that's been a hugely impactful leadership quality for a 22 year

old kid. Any other great aunt stories getting to know him? All right. Yeah. This, this is my favorite one. So we, you know, we see all of the funny stuff and we see all of the, the, the stuff on the court that is jaw dropping and all of those things. And anyone can see those things. But to me, when I started to understand that Anthony Edwards might be different as a player that might actually be a player capable of putting an entire franchise on his shoulders and carrying them farther than anyone ever thought possible was his rookie season.

It's the COVID year. All of the interviews are done via Zoom and all of those things. Later in the year, the Wolves are in Miami. And Edwards was not around for the Jimmy Butler stuff. He was not around for the soap opera and all of those things, but he had gotten to know Carl for, for a lot of that season. So the wolves go down to Miami and they lose to the heat at the end of that game. Carl and Jimmy Butler are going at it verbally. And,

and Jimmy's really getting into Carl, you know, you're a loser, you're this and that. And Carl is, is, is going right back at him. And you could see it on the TV screen. It was it was very palpable.

Everyone knew this was going on. So at the in the postgame Zoom session, Carl, Anthony Towns and Ant sit down together to do it. And if you know Carl at all and you watched him navigate that Jimmy Butler mess when it was happening, what Carl wanted to do was stay out of it publicly at all. He was not going to engage in the back and forth. He does not want to be sort of in the middle of those soap operas and kind of see his name in those kinds of articles and things like that. He just doesn't like that part of it. It's not in him. He wants to avoid it. He wants to rise above it, all those things. So I asked Carl,

hey, Carl, can you take us through what happened with Jimmy at the end of the game? And Ant is sitting right there. He's 19 years old at this time, 19. And he steps in and says, they're just grown men, dog. This is just two grown men going at it. It's no big deal. And I just, I followed up and said, yeah, and I'm just trying to figure out everyone's under trying to understand it. And he squashed it right there. And then, and so he understood in that moment, the history between Jimmy and cat. He also understood that cat does not want to engage publicly in these things. And so he's like, I'm taking the bullet for him. And you could see how much Carl appreciated that in the moment.

And it was such a high emotional IQ type of moment for him. And I looked at it and said, okay, like this kid is on a different level that way. And for a young guy to understand it and, and to really step forward and take it and just diffuse the whole situation, I said, there's a real chance for this guy. Every time I, I look at Kat's numbers, I go, you should love this player. And I don't. I look at some of the drives, and then I'll look at the points per possession on drives, and I go, pretty good number.

Wow. There just seems to be this disconnect that I have where I go, what I see and then what I look up after are two different things, and I feel like, I don't know, maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe, you know, I'd like to think I can trust my eyes enough at this point. So sell me on Cat. Yeah, I would say this. You know, look, one thing that we've discovered through nine years now is he's not the number one overall pick that can just by himself take over games and win games and win playoff series. That's not who he is. He's not on the LeBron level that way, not doing things

that way. But I do think that for those who don't see him every day, I think there has been sort of an unfairness in the way that he is viewed because the amount of turnover and turmoil that he's been through in Minnesota has been real. I mean, you're talking about, I think the number is seven head coaches and five general managers in his nine seasons. And untold number of teammates come through that have not been very good and not have been around him. Every time he has a talented team around him, they go to the playoffs. Now, he hasn't had success yet in the playoffs, but this looks like maybe the team that can break through. He's hyper-efficient offensively. I do think he has done a very good job this season of acclimating to a new position, to a new star that has come in and essentially taken his spot at center, and how

many all-NBA level players would step aside willingly and allow that to happen and just also be the guy who passes Rudy Gobert the ball more than anyone else. So he's a good teammate that way. Now, over the last couple of weeks, we have seen him up his three-point volume, which has helped the offense quite a bit. And I think that he's always just been a player who wanted a group to stick together, stay together and be together for several years. And he has never had that stability. And so if he can be in an environment with Chris Finch as a head coach, with Ant as his running mate, and keep that group together for three, four years, I think you're going to see a different Carl Anthony Townsend.

We've started to see that this year. He's playing better defense than he ever has before and doing it at the four. He is looking for others and getting others involved and he's still remaining really efficient. He's not perfect. He gets too many offensive fouls. He turns the ball over too often in some high leverage situations. We see him get excited and have difficult nights. But I think overall, he's a much better player than he's gotten credit for over the years just because of all the turmoil around him has made it difficult for him to realize the full Carl Anthony Towns. I'm a huge fan of Tim Conley and Matt Lloyd and Finch and this group that's together. Obviously know how I feel about Ant.

And look, what Alexander Walker has meant in spots, what Nas Reed has meant, and even though I think Jaden's offense can drive me a little crazy and some of the offensive numbers, they're late in the fourth quarter. The efficiency is 27th in clutch. It's better. It's 19th. The great thing about the Clippers game is it didn't get into clutch time. It just didn't matter. So it still concerns me. But I think, I mean, this is what you want to hear when you think you're competing for a

championship. But I think the win in all of in the year one of of this version of this team with these kinds of conversations the fact that this is where we're at with this team if they don't win it's like okay but you've elevated into that now look the playoffs if it ends up being disappointing that people are just oh they're frauds and all the stuff that goes with all that kind of so there there's a moment here already that's happening that I feel like is a win for a franchise that hasn't been in this neighborhood for a really long time. And that's why I think everybody should feel really great, but not necessarily content. I'll end with this. Do you actually think they can beat anybody and win an NBA championship this year? I do. And that sounds just mind-blowing for me to say, given the 20 years that I've covered this team

and all of the dysfunction that has happened with them. But I do think that one of the... Their faults right now, I believe, especially offensively, are addressable. They turn the ball over too much. You know, the shot selection later in games, ball movement, it gets really stagnant. I think over these last 30 games that they play, they can get better, not maybe top five in the league in offense, but I think they can creep up into the upper half of the NBA in offensive efficiency, which when you couple it

with the defense that they play, I think that's a good recipe. I also just look at their starting five, and I just see a team that very rarely is going to go into a series or even a nightly matchup where they have a talent deficit. I think that they just have a really good mix of high-end talent that is starting to figure out how to fit together offensively. And if they address some of their offensive issues and clean those things up, then yes, they can absolutely win against any team that they play in the playoffs and go to the championship. Can they win that? Who knows? But just to say those words, Ryan, in these parts is completely

mind-blowing. Now, it is also a team that could lose in the first round. That is where they are at right now. And because of the lack of success that they have had over the long term, they don't get the benefit of the doubt. You can't just say, oh yeah, everything's going to be fine. They're going to figure it out. They have to actually show it. But this is the first team that I've covered that I believe actually has that potential. And it wouldn't it wouldn't stun me to see them playing Boston in the finals in June, which is, again, like a it reality is distorted. It seems like when you when you when you put timberwolves and finals in

a sentence together i loved what i saw from him on monday i've loved what i've seen from ant throughout i love the defense and you can tell this team really likes them uh likes each other a lot uh john awesome job ready for years you can read his stuff the athletic john krasinski covering the timberwolves now for two decades. Thanks for the time this morning. You want details? Fine. 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. LifeAdvice, RR, at gmail.com. That is the email. Get them in. Couple follow-ups. Couple follow-ups. We had one guy checking in saying don't have a question but tell kyle if he wants to ask a life advice question he could submit an email

like the rest of us you know noted i wouldn't do that to you kyle thanks any update on that today's the day by the way happy valentine's yes happy valentine's everybody um not yet but she's going to pick them up at the airport and I'm going to run out and grab something. What a couple, a couple reeds. Uh, no, but, uh, I dunno. I like the idea of a Rose bear. We're going to, I almost guarantee she's going to have nothing for me. Cause I've been with her the last couple of days and she has not made any, uh, secret runs to buy anything. So I think I'll be the winner of this one, but I don't think I'm going to go crazy.

There's been some Rose Bears at 7-Eleven lately for really a lot cheaper than you'd think. Rose Bear from 7-Eleven, you know? Well, how is she going to know? It's not 7-Eleven brand, but 7-Select. Just check it. It's not 7-Select. For some weird, you know. There could be some weird...

Check it for fentanyl? No. I got you a fentanyl bear. Just spreading awareness. I bet you could get that for a nice little price this afternoon, late this afternoon. They're like, who else is buying a bear? Day of.

Probably tomorrow they'll be the big markdown yeah i will say i've asked my wife multiple times hey you didn't get anything for me right like or you didn't get a card right i just wanted to make sure multiple times to have it on record i did buy my wife flowers yesterday two days ago so i kind of feel like you know we're not she's she's pretty low maintenance in general, but I think I'm good there. Oh, so you're going nothing. I got her flowers yesterday.

Oh, yeah, yes. Flowers, flowers. I picked up some groceries. I picked up flowers on the way. There you go. Nice little rose bouquet. Okay. So, Kyle, you do not know what you're doing tonight yet still. You don't know if you're hosting a party. You don't know if you're supposed to like... dinner's got to be off the table here unless you want to go at 5 30 or no i think we agreed on the um christmas story you know take out chinese

all that so i think that's that's probably what we'll do tonight okay cool all right sounds good uh okay what are you doing ryan uh i'm going to see tool that's right and the funny um no i the funny thing is is the guy uh who's bringing me is bringing his significant other so i was like okay and yeah i've third wheeled it i think there's a pretty good chance they may think i'm not even into women i don't know uh because i've hung out with them four times and uh i just i don't know i mean like i don't know how many women i know or like do you want to go to primus tonight do you want to you know like i just went to fish and i

went by myself and then i i went to this other tool thing that was awesome and actually a couple buddies came to that with me so that was fine and then my brother was in town it was his first concert ever and we checked out this les claypool thing uh and i was trying to explain to my brother because we were backstage and i was like just understand like this is not normal like what you're getting access to is is really cool my brother you know concerts are sick yeah yeah yeah he's like is it normal just to walk around and like high five guys and stuff and be on the side of the stage be like nope it isn't so uh i had sent out a couple feelers about the tool valentine's ticket and guys were just like what what are you fucking from outer space man like there's no way so i don't i had no extra tickets i had the extra

ticket this morning which i didn't really quite realize so i did a couple more feelers don't email life advice or dm me asking for the ticket because i'd rather i'm not bringing a stranger and it's no longer my ticket anyway it's gone it's gone so so you have no mental block of of third wheeling some people are like I can't I can't be the third wheel but you've said you've done it so many times it's not even a hang up it's just it's a small consideration remotely well yeah there's some there's certainly some people that if I didn't know them I wouldn't want to actually go third wheel it, but. Right. But it's not even a thought. I got invited to, I got invited to Vail this week to hang out with a couple. And I was like, tempting, but probably a no. You know, I don't know.

So I don't, I don't do it out of like a necessity of engagement of like, oh, I have to. I don't do it out of like a necessity of engagement of like, oh, I have to, but there's also certain people that I'm so close with that. I don't think it's, it's a big deal. And by the way, this other guy bringing his to give another two tool,

this isn't going to be romantic anyway. So me standing near them at tool isn't going to, yeah. They're like, I don't think they're going to want to cuddle and be like, I can't believe he's here. I was going to say, because I think Sarah Walsh has talked about this before.

When you're the third wheel, you're not necessarily the third wheel. When you're with Matt, sometimes Sarah's probably the third wheel. She's just the one being like, cool, guys. You're just going to hang out and talk. I'm just going to hang out here. Just because you are dating one of the other two doesn't mean you're the third wheel she's just the one being like cool guys you're just gonna like hang out and talk i'm just gonna hang out here so yeah just you know just because you are dating one of the other two doesn't mean you're the third oh so maybe you created some third wheels interesting well full transparency the colorado couple were sarah and matt they were like

for the weekend and great yeah i don't know maybe she was like cool i can shop and hang out and hit up the high-end places in cherry creek on the way out and you two idiots can talk about you know i don't know whatever it is you guys talk about she was fascinated by us because i'd be like do you want to just go to the mall and then we come back we neither of us have bought anything she's like what do you do like we go to game stop we ask what's new for rpgs but we usually don't buy anything we look at sneakers but you know if you're going to if you're going to those spots you're not getting the you're not getting the hard to get stuff maybe there's a food court stop you know uh we have an email about abercrombie by

the way but the reason we did it was simply just to feel alive like we just wanted to remind ourselves of when you were younger and you'd be like all right here's the plan like gotta see you with the new sneakers like dude these durant's i think i'm gonna move faster than these you ask the game stop guys because they're just incredible to talk to i still i miss doing that i wish but i don't there's no service like a passionate GameStop employee. That's true. Yeah. Like, well, what are you into?

Yeah, right, right. Hey, is this game any good? Do you want to hang out with losers for 12 hours where a story goes nowhere? I forget which game it was. Was it something of Colossus? Kyle, look this up. Shadow of Colossus, buddy.

I think I already know. Is it Shadow of Colossus? Incredible. I think I already know. Is it Shadow of Colossus? Incredible. Maybe like 07, 08, and you rode around on a horse, but if the horse ran into a mountain, you would get stuck just riding into this mountain over and over again. Yeah, a lot of glitches in PS2. There was a ton of glitches. And I remember my friend who didn't like video games randomly liked this one.

He also likes the worst television shows ever he sucks to watch tv with sucks i cannot emphasize that enough every fucking ghost show in the business he's on it his name is what was that right and you know you'll be watching like a game a playoff game could be on in the commercial break we're like let's see what's going on with these ghosts real quick and you know next thing you know 15 minutes later you're like dude we're missing real action like oh don't worry about it don't worry about it so anyway he didn't even like video games but randomly he was like i was like dude you got a ps2 he's like yeah i mean he goes i got this game the guy was telling me it's incredible it's

worst worst video game i've ever played anyway the graphics were incredible for the time i'll leave it there i don't i don't know i don't at the time i think that was pretty good what are you calling it? Shadow of Colossus. And you were riding around on a horse. It was a lonely game. And then you'd find one of these big fucking Titan things. You had to climb it up and kill it.

Yeah, it's pretty lonely. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't like it more. But I had more friends back then. Abercrombie is all caps back. No comps. Stop using my Peloton. Oh, stop. He stopped he stopped yeah but there's no past tense on this so i think that's what he meant using my peloton as a clothes hanger

one two times a month i see what he's saying there stop all right he jumps on the bike a couple times a month yeah yeah thank you sorry teddy santis founder of, what is this? Amy Leondor got involved with Abercrombie a few years ago and they've been back ever since. Okay. So shout out to Abercrombie. That sounds like a $45 gift card perhaps for Cerruti coming. Maybe that's what, maybe that's what his wife got him. I got a tweet about a sick waste management open t-shirt and it looks great. I almost bought it. And I was like, wait a second, what am I doing?

I'm going to consider it. And I like, and I'll come back with a clear head, but my immediate thought was by that shit. There's really some, some nice, some nice collabs that they've got going. I know.

I, I feel like I might have to go to waste management one more time after this Armageddon session. Yeah. What happened? I saw they stopped serving alcohol or something. I saw some guy just covered in mud stumbling around. And then they kind of turned it into a kind of cool social promotion thing too.

Like that was their actual account that tweeted that like we're cutting off sales because some people don't know what it means to drink responsibly. It's a wild time, but I went two years ago. So I went in 23 when the Super Bowl was in Arizona. So it was super easy so i've never been able to go and the only two times i've gone are when um and look i even brought somebody to one so this uh this whole deal let me think now yeah i don't know i feel like i need to get one more run at it although we were really really tame Like you see how wild it is around you and your instincts are almost like,

actually, I don't want to fall down in these sick white slacks and do all that stuff. But we had a good setup, but I may have lost my in at waste management to be hosted as an influencer. Although I don't know that I did a ton of influencing maybe you pump out the boat content and we'll get you back into the good graces i don't know yeah why why is it real quick why is that the one where people just pull the ripcord what is it i asked a bar a party town like i tell people we've done it on the pod like you're 30s 40 maybe you want to meet somebody but still like the nightlife a little bit like you get a little coin in your pocket i would just say we've just got still just why is that the open why is that the one where people are like we're just like every golf is pretty tame normally right it's usually like

there's very unwritten rules people understand things they dress nice and what the fuck happens when this thing happens every year i don't understand i will say i i think golf in general has become a little bit more of a party scene like even the one that's in connecticut it's uh the travelers like it's a good time they call the east coast waste management maybe that's what yeah i haven't heard that but maybe uh but like i know dudes that just go there and just get hammered it's fun i mean it's not like you know mardi gras like it seems like waste management is but it's a good time i just think i don't think you do that the majors necessarily necessarily, but like, I think a lot of

golfers are sneaky. They're sneaky closer to NASCAR races than you think they are. Wow. Great take. I like it. That's just always been, I don't know, like the true origin story, if it was just understood, but there's also this group called the Thunderbirds that kind of like run the whole thing. And it's been explained to me but i'm still not 100 sure how it works and there's like passwords and then one year i had a password and i think i got the asshole password where the guy like laughed when i came in and i was like what does that mean and he was like oh that he's like i'm not supposed to tell you but that means we're supposed to like

not give you the you don't get a wristband yeah and i was like cool who gave you the password whoa that's cool prank um we're not gonna bring that up okay because sounds like you might have already said too much if you want to get back in i don't know yeah so i don't know if these like big swinging you know what that just sort of run all the shit in scottsdale made sure that this was an absolute party because then these guys like walk around and they have like this it's not like the it's not like they're wearing robes or like pagan shit but they have these outfits and again i'm not i'm not educated enough on it but then when i was there the second time they were like are you are you with the thunderbirds are you in no i was like i don't to, I don't know what happens

if you say that you're one of them and you're not. You know, I could still be there right now. Who knows? But you'll see them kind of like walking around. So I don't know if those guys or with the PGA just said, hey, or maybe it was just the 16th hole

was wild and that was kind of the wild thing and then it just spread, you know, like contagion. I don't know. I don't know enough. All right. we haven't even read an email yet not one crazy oh we'll make them quick 5 9 160 40 years old i lift power block dumbbells in my basement i love that don't know my i have power blocks don't know my max on anything but i do chest press with 45 pounders basketball comp is matt bonner you would never pick me in three on three, but I can be valuable in a five on five game. I saw an

ad in an email this morning from IHOP that it was National Pancake Day. You get a short stack of pancakes. That's three pancakes for the uninitiated for just one dollar. Since my wife is going to be working late, I told my kids eight and six. We'd be going to IHOP for dinner. Everybody was happy. We walked into IHOP at 530. The server comes

to our table, asks if we want to get started with drinks. I say that I'll have a water and ask the kids. They also say water. It was the morning. If it was the morning, I would have gotten coffee, but it was the evening, so I didn't want the caffeine. Totally understand. Kids taking pre-workout at 6 o'clock, not understanding why they can't

get to sleep until 3 a.m. That's not in the instructions. Trying to help you out. she asked if we're ready to order i point to the national pancake day sign i tell her we'll have three short stacks remember they're one dollar each who's in the mood for a stack of pancakes right now just reading about them right now it's got me thinking about it yeah pancakes are just the best and then when you make them at home you're kind of like why am i not doing this every day? Okay. So I ask three short stacks. Remember they're a buck each. She asks if that is all. I say, yes. She asks if I want to keep a menu

in case we want something else. I say, okay. A few minutes later, the server brings us the pancakes. She asks again if I want anything else. I say, no. We start eating the pancakes. Server comes back over two more times to ask if I want to order anything else. She finally understands we're just there for the pancakes. My kids eat two pancakes each, so I eat the remaining five. I ask for the check. She brings it. I use the IHOP app to pay.

This guy is fucking locked into IHOP. I tip 20% without thinking about it. It ends up being a 60 cent tip. The total bill is less than four dollars my friends are ripping me apart for under tipping the server i say hey i tip 20 they say i should have tipped a dollar amount unrelated to the cost of the meal i say red straw tipping is based on percentage of the meal cost is there a minimum amount what do you all think um yeah there's a

minimum amount it's above 60 cents you might might as well give zero. That's worse. Forget is better. You might as well don a ditch at that point. I'd have more respect if they left. Yes, because the problem is this is her Black Friday as well, right? That's the other issue. She's just getting mobbed with people like this all the time, and she didn't even say anything to you,

so that's nice on her. But yeah, your friends are right uh i i if you're just going to various restaurant chain apps to pay uh maybe you maybe it just slipped through the cracks if you're just like if you go boot up the buffalo wild wings app or the tgi fridays app and you just streamline this whole thing and you're 20 i bet a lot of times that's you're one of the better customers but uh you you fell through the cracks on this national Pancake Day. And I don't know. I might even have gone back. Like, hey, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry, Lisa. There's still time. Here's a 20. There's still time. Yeah. This is one of those gray area things where the non gray area people on this be like, whoa, look, that's their promotion. And I tip 20%. And it's like, yep.

And you're a fucking dick. Okay it sorry to swear but but i just you know and you may not have thought about it or whatever and i'm not even calling the email or this name but i'm almost preemptively arguing with the people that would make that point and be like yeah exact i know the math i understand i understand your point hey if they didn't want why should i be paying ihop more or whatever it's not about ihop it's not about profitability it's not about a boardroom it's not about a ceo it's about a girl that's working at ihop okay which is probably not her final destination as far as her career goals no offense to anybody hucking pancakes we get it right um johnny cakes but you got to do better than 60 cents.

And your friends should be making fun of you. And you shouldn't be thinking like with a dinner going, hey, I came in under four bucks for a dinner for three. Sick. Two kids here. I don't know if you feel bad or don't feel bad or whatever, but I don't think this is how we should operate as a society because you're thinking about her making 60 cents on a table.

And yeah, I know the turnover is a little quicker at IHOP than it is at SW Steakhouse. I understand these things. Carbone, there's a bit more of an ambiance to the entire experience when you're dining in Vegas. But I don't think there's anything else to be said here. And I'm not even, like I said, when I was getting more tuned up here, it was about the emailer that will say we're wrong for saying he should tip more than 60 cents.

It's not even, I'm not mad at the emailer. I'm mad about the imaginary arguments that I can predict that will be coming. I just did a little research. The short stack regularly is $8.49. So you get three of them, round up. It's like $5 tip, you know? Like that's at 20%. So all you had to do was give $5.

That's it. It's not that you were wrong. I'm sorry. It's not that. If you just forgot in the app and you screwed up, it is okay. on like i'm sure it happens it doesn't mean you're an asshole this means you're an asshole i'm sorry yeah if you're like if you get a huge discount at the bar that you go to or something you don't tip on the ten dollar bill when you know you've had fifty dollars worth i wish we did i wish every i wish there was a bartender summit where it was like hey the whole

point of hooking each other up here is to not then pay way more based on the tip thing that we all have to do with each other but i remember we were all like can we just stop tipping each other absurd amounts knowing that it's all going to even out anyway like all we're doing is stealing right john taffer's going out of his mind right now uh i don't call it stealing when when ownership is friendly with other ownership and it's all understood if i owned a bar i would be like hey i get it i would rather you you know work it i will monitor it and then i feel like you're killing me i'll never forget like one place i worked at and again the guys that bought it ended up being like really good friends of mine i was like look we all kind of have some parameters that we work with here how do you want me to do it and the guy was like i want you to

keep doing everything you've done if you give guys dollar drinks give them dollar drinks if you knock off something on a tab whatever just keep doing the exact same thing and we're going to monitor every one of you guys and then after a month we're going to be like you're out of fucking control or you're fine and so you know so you don't like it when john taver is like you know last night these people gave away 5700 over a month it's it's 100 000 over a year it's two million they're killing your family the bars that they rescue there's no possible way they've given away 5700 worth of value in a night i've seen those dumps there's no fucking way so that i mean look it's a tv show it's all exaggerated you know that i philosophically have some issues with some of the

changes made during bar rescues um but i i remember working in a different place it was more like a nightclub resort thing and i was like what's the story and again i was so young too and this female bartender that used to aggressively hit on me she was like hey uh it's not our liquor we don't own the liquor and i was like so you don't ever give somebody a drink and she's like that's stealing it's not ours to give and i was like fucking lame-o you know and yet there's people kind of back to our ihop thing that don't want to live in the gray area that are very rigid with 20 forever right and look you start getting into tji fridays where you have you're pouring through a counter and everything's

absolutely what are your liquor costs and everything and this is how much going on i don't know um i was brought up differently with it so whatever i just would know that if my dinner bill were three dollars and 60 cents before.60 with tax that I would probably... Wait, it would have been even less than that. Say 10% tax on this. So what are we talking? $3.30, 60 cent tip. Leaving five bucks was not going to ruin your financial planning. Okay. Moving on. Can I tell my daughter's boyfriend to man up and not be the B word? to man up and not be the B word. Hey there, 6'3", 250, late 40s, Midwest dad.

Hoops comp was Luke Longley. As a dad, rock fan. The recent comps to Jeff Tweedy of Wilco hit home. Oh, and as a dad of, okay, Jeff Tweedy. All right, there you go. This one is probably more for Saruti and Kyle, but I need your advice. What?

My daughter goes to a Big Ten school in the state we live in she's a senior she has a boyfriend who's generally a pretty good kid i can tell he's not a total dick by the way he acts they have dated for maybe two years but i may have been the last to know all right okay sounds like it's pretty serious they probably didn't immediately tell you right away um we you know i should say 2 a.m last night you're gonna love it um we you know i should say 2 a.m last night you're gonna love it was that 50 cent drafts on wednesday made out with a dude dad well how was your day uh all right as graduation is approaching she's been accepted to a graduate program on the west coast he's been offered a job at a major midwest city at a big five accounting firm from what she

has told my wife she does not 100 want to break with him, but is looking forward to being a part and having some time to herself after graduation. Over Christmas break, he started hinting that he could turn the job down, move west with her and find a job. She said that is not what she wanted. Since then, he seems to become an ass. He told her over the weekend he was not making Valentine's plans because, quote, she was just going to dump him in a few weeks anyway. I kind of respect that.

I kind of like this guy. She said he was kind of an ass at a Super Bowl party when he heard she was doing Galentine's Day with the girls and he stopped by her apartment anyway. Psycho move. Bad move. As I said, he is generally a pretty nice guy. It seems like he's being a little bit of a dick and is going to preemptively cause a breakup. That is not what my daughter wants.

I have his number because he's texted about sports and stuff. Can I tell him to stop being an asshole? I think I have his dad's email somewhere. Can I email that guy? Can I try and hunt down a buddy on Facebook or something and ask them to do it? I don't want my daughter to be miserable for the last months of school and he seems to be doing this. Thanks.

By the way, Kyle, your moveentine's should be surprise breakfast at home get bagels or egg sandwiches or something it's like one-fifth of the cost and looks like you're being thoughtful a little late for that but damn too late sentiment shit tabling that until valentine's 25 uh have you talked to your daughter has he talked to his daughter i haven't mentioned sounds like you're just like secondhand yeah it sounds like yeah it sounds like that conversation well maybe he's like they've chatted about it but this guy wants to get real involved thoughts i think i wish he had said if he talked to her now because isn't this where you just like sit her down and you're like hey everybody goes through this this is basically like high school

heading into college all over again. You just, you break it off and you might as well just do it now. Why are, why are you going to drag this out? I think that's the best advice you can give her instead of hunting down this guy's dad's email and be like, Hey, I haven't talked to you since the fantasy fantasy league,

whatever the fuck it's just, we did the squares. The email already knows like the Facebook part of his, him just kind of making fun of himself. Right. So i think we realize he's got his head in the right they're 100 headed for the rocks right they're gonna break up and so i think somebody needs to talk to the daughter you don't you don't accost a boyfriend you know and uh and and say like hey you know you're being an asshole you got to get get away from her or whatever because he's going through this weird thing where this girl that he's pretty sure doesn't want him he's on the he's on the

feeling bad side of the relationship so you got to get the you know the daughter's in control right she's got she's the one who's leaving and he's denying him you know coming with her so that's why you got to tell her like hey this is a band-aid ripoff situation just do this now i don't think you you don't want to this guy's already don't kick this guy when he's down he's he's having a he's ruining super bowls and galentines and um yeah you got to get your daughter's head straight yeah i'm not i'm not like blaming the daughter for this but she clearly wants the best of both worlds here she sounds like she wants to have him as a possibility but also like not rule anything out when she gets out to the west coast which which plenty of people have done throughout the history of college

and relationships and whatever. I don't think there's anything really wrong about that. It's just this guy's in a shitty situation. I kind of agree with Kyle. I don't think you kick him while he's down. I think you just kind of let it ride out and see how it goes. There's a chance it's going to break up anyway and it's not going to really matter in the long run.

And is she really not... If he's such an asshole for these last like what month or two like maybe that just speeds the process along a little more and she just ends up breaking up with him because she's just tired of it so i i don't think you say anything i definitely wouldn't recommend emailing his dad that's that seems like an aggressive move hey your son's being an asshole don't bring any third parties leaving and there's probably a cheat on him when she goes to the West Coast. So you're the asshole. So, yeah, I kind of wouldn't. I know it sucks because as a dad, listen, I am a dad.

You want to do something, but I just I don't think there's really anything reasonable you could do here. Well, if you're going to do something, you have to at least talk with her about it first. OK, that's fair. OK, give her some sage advice. Yeah, the dad to dad stuff's not going to work because he's going to take his kid's side most likely you know and then it just turns into something that you didn't even want to do like we're on the emailer side here by the way except how hilarious it is that one line being like whatever we're just going to

dump dump me in a little while anyway but like look clearly this guy's a little too dependent and your daughter's more independent and this is where relationships can get really weird with this stuff. I mean, luckily I went to a school where nobody ever wanted to marry anybody else. So I didn't have any friends that were necessarily in these conflicts. Um, even though, you know,

later on a couple of them reconciled and everything was good and everybody lived happily ever after. But you know, the fact that your daughter is like, Hey, look, I need this stage of my life to be a little figured out. And you know,

you hate being on the other side of hearing the if it's real and if it matters, then we'll find our way back to each other. And for some people, you're just not going to be I know back then I'd be too immature to be like, oh, you're just going to hang with some other dude for a little while or multiple dudes. And then now three years later, you're going to come back to me or whatever. But that's just kind of life. Some people are incredibly mature about those things and it doesn't even sound like that's necessarily what her plan is like i need to get away from you it's that i want this next stage to be about my career and this awesome opportunity and this guy's starting to sound like finn from the sopranos where it's like so you're just going to do everything because of what she's doing you know

and then you're going to say dumb shit like you're just going to do everything because of what she's doing you know and then you're going to say dumb shit like you're just going to dump me anyway um so he might be self-sabotaging anyway to try to somehow process getting through this and making it feel like he has more control uh than your daughter does but if you feel so compelled to do this and understand too we don't guys don't listen to anyone during this phase of their lives they don't fucking listen to anybody okay i mean some of the best advice i ever got was back then i was not hearing it i didn't want to hear it i wasn't going to listen to you and fuck about your theories on life at 40 something years old you know just so yeah well you already and you already know that so you could have the best intentions you could have like a a soft sign-off

from your daughter on this if she were like yeah he's really driving me crazy and all this stuff's kind of bad he's like hey man i have a decent relationship with him could i just be like hey look look we gotta he's not gonna listen to you you're a you're a fucking dinosaur to him okay even though there's nothing hotter than a wilco slash luke Longley type guy in his late forties in the Midwest. They're just, you're, you're entering into a conversation with somebody where you just go,

the kid is not going to be like, sir, excellent points across the board. Do you think you'd be interested in a mentor situation? I'm no longer emotionally charged about this. And I'm'm gonna look for opportunities here back at home and if c'est la vie you know it's just not gonna happen you're basically getting dumped effectively by her and him and the dad yeah both of them are

being hey dude there's a tag you tone it down like it's gonna come to an end here i will say this is totally separate from from what the dad is asking but from the guy's perspective who's basically being broken up with, it would suck, you're in college, for your last two years of college, you date this girl and you think that it's going somewhere and then she just basically is kinda like leaving you once you guys graduate.

That is pretty shitty. That sucks. Such is life. I know it's life, but it sucks. That would suck. Yeah. What if the guy, Which is like what we've been doing the last two years.

What if his advice could, maybe he could just give advice on how to break up maybe it's like i'm wondering if the reason this is you're still going on because you just you're not you don't have the stones to break this kid's heart and maybe i could maybe you can give her some ways to get out of it because that could be the other thing it's just easier to not in these situations it's easier just not until the moment where it's like i'm getting on a plane so maybe you could just be like give her some tips it's like you could go the you know my plane. So maybe you could just be like, give her some tips. It's like, you could go the Kyle way. You could just start a pick of nasty fight and be like, well, then let's just stop.

Let's just be done. And that way you don't have to be like, you know, I'm really not into this anymore. Then you just, it's one flash in the pan and it's over and nobody knows what happened. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. It doesn't sound like she does totally want to break up with him. She just doesn't know. Maybe she's saying that because she doesn't want to have to fucking do it that's what everyone would say that doesn't want to do it you know she's all right she's her breadcrumbs are what that uh i'm gonna go no you shouldn't

come you should do your thing uh we'll be fine it's all good like that sounds like we're just kicking this can until it's like well sorry i think plenty of people in this situation have have been like i want the comfort of being able to go back to something. And if I get out there and realize that I definitely don't want to be in their relationship, that's great. But they still want the fallback plan. So I don't think that's out of question. That also sucks too, man.

You got to get to the bottom of that. Well, I think those first breakups are the hardest breakups. Yeah. Because you haven't gone through it yet. And you kind of are talking to yourself into the fact that you think you're being an adult. And especially if you're somebody who wants to move and you already found the person in college that you want to marry. That's a really hard. So to the dad, this is probably the first time this guy's ever really going through it.

There's this element of you've experienced comfort in a way that you've never, ever experienced before. I mean, unless you were one of those guys that has like the super serious high school girlfriend, but that's such a smaller number than the college experience or that very beginning. Like those, like, think about this. We got guys out there with three kids, the wife leaves because she just has been watching the housewife shows and wants a different life okay and now all of a sudden your kids are being watched by some guy jeff five days a week all right and you're writing a check every fucking month that's going to go on for a really long time and that guy's handling a breakup way better than some like 23 year old dude yeah sure okay that guy's defeated

yeah that guy's like all right i've already had some shit happen to me so hopefully this jeff guy's into sports catch with my kid but when i'm on another business trip trying to cover this fucking check so you know for the 22 year olds that are out there getting dumped, think about that guy and this guy Jeff hanging out with his kids. All right. I think we got it. Thank you to Cliff, Kyle,

and Saruti. We are back on Friday with what are you doing? Friday Feedback? No, we got Denny Hamlin Friday. Oh, Denny Hamlin. You're home for NASCAR. The Ryan Rosillo Podcast. We're here at Spotify. must be 21 and older present select states fanuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem?

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