The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Bills' Statement, Burrow’s Ceiling, and Rating QBs With Albert Breer, Plus Fake NBA Trades With Kevin O’Connor

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Bills' victory over the Patriots (0:41). Then Ryen talks with The MMQB's Albert Breer about the Cardinals' loss to the surging Colts, Joe Burrow's incredible day in the Bengals' win over the Ravens, how to evaluate Trevor Lawrence's rookie year amid all the turmoil in Jacksonville, 2022 QB draft prospects, rating the midtier NFL QBs, and more (9:13). Then Ryen talks with The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor about the Warriors' continued dominance while they await the return of Klay Thompson and James Wiseman, the Jazz, the Bulls, the Lakers' loss to the Nets, fake trades, and more (49:55). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:27:54). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Albert Breer and Kevin O'Connor Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

we have a long podcast today i'm going to talk a little bit about the bills when it gets the what that means kind of how to change my mind but sort of didn't change my mind we'll touch on that game and mcdermott's thoughts both after the monday loss and this win he spoke with albert breer so we have all sorts of nfl stuff from week 16 with burper and a look ahead and McDermott's thoughts both after the Monday loss and this win. He spoke with Albert Breer. So we have all sorts of NFL stuff from Week 16 with Bert Breer and a look ahead of the quarterback stuff and a little over under properly rated with five quarterbacks in the NFL today and KOC breaking down the Christmas contenders. Golden State, a huge win.

And then we'll do some fake trades at the end and life advice, which is probably a C- today. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winner is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? which is probably a C minus today. get almost almost anything delivered with uber eats order now alcohol and select markets product availability may vary by region see app for details i want to start this week with what i just thought was a monstrous win and that's bills going into new england and beating the pats all right that's that's pretty obvious but i want to tell you a story about how 10 years ago or so the same thing kind of happened leading up to the first matchup in new england going up to Buffalo before we kind of knew that the weather condition was Armageddon.

Although, what was that other movie with Dennis Quaid and everything was frozen? Day After Tomorrow. Shout out to my guy, Joan Hall. That's right. It is the day after tomorrow. Good, not great. Don't really remember, to be honest with you, but I'm pro Joan Hall on anything, so I'll say good. No problem. Things worked out out that didn't happen i always feel like the end of the world people you just like you know i get picks wrong but draft picks sometimes like you guys are just

oh forever on that all right we brought that up before so back to how i felt about buffalo and new england you know new england with that win streak and now two straight losses i was like okay this is this is a really good team it's it, it's, it's a really good team. You've got a really good defense. Um, you know, the coaching staff can find different ways to be multiple, right? In your approach to football. And Mac looked like he was a guy that was steady enough in comparison to some of these other young quarterbacks and even older quarterbacks that are mess all the time. And that Mac wasn't going to screw it up for you. but I still felt like they were somewhat opportunistic with the teams they were beating because if you kind of look through the win streak now win streak like what New England

had in the NFL is just hard to do in general as we watch these ridiculous results every single week that we don't expect to happen Houston over the Chargers anyone so any kind of win streak like New England had is ridiculous you know it just it doesn't happen that often. But I just felt like Buffalo was better. And I understand their flaws, and we can get to those. But I just felt like Buffalo was better. And then New England goes in there, runs the football down their throats the entire time. They gave them seven on a botched special teams play as well. And Buffalo still had a chance in that game. but I left it going, all right, I went in thinking Buffalo would win and now New England has them. And that was kind of the conversation leading up to the rematch in New England. And that even though I felt a certain way about Buffalo, I go, maybe New England just is in their heads. Maybe it was like, hey, this thing was supposed to be done. This run is over. Josh Allen's going to be the QB for the next two years. It's a good team. Although at times I think I've overrated Buffalo. My

expectations for them are higher throughout the season. So maybe I'm more critical in parts where that Colts loss, you're like, what is wrong with these guys? But they figured it out and they get this big win. And the whole point of this is that a lot of times I think we can make mistakes when we see a result and then we let other stuff start to kind of like influence our thoughts on who these teams were. And the best example I can ever use is LSU Alabama. When LSU beat Alabama and Tuscaloosa, I was there for it as a 9-6 game. It is one of the greatest games I've ever attended live just because the anxiety level at that game. It was weird. It was night. It was cold in Alabama. And I remember just a bunch of us were there lucky enough to be on the

sideline watching that game. I remember Kenny Stabler was in attendance, probably just got out of a grand national. It looked like he owned seven dojos in the greater Birmingham area. Tom Rinaldi coming up next to me. He's like, man, Stabler, the snake, or solo you and the snake, forget it. He just kept saying it over and over again. It was very weird, but I'll never forget it. Just Rinaldi every, every hour. I'd be like every hour be like hey c stabler i can't imagine you and you and the snake out on the town and i'd be like look all right we got it anyway love rinaldi but it was an overtime win for lsu and it was just one of those deals where i go do not forget how you feel right now about these two teams because if they play again in the national championship which is exactly what

happened don't let lsu figuring out a way because LSU and Les Miles, especially, you know, before the end, LSU would just find ways to win these weird games and be like, they did it again. I'm like, but Bama's a better football team. Bama is the better football team. Do not allow this result to influence your opinion on these two teams when they face each other again. And I guess what happens? Lucky enough to be part of the national title game coverage. We're in New Orleans. I'm

just feeling the vibes left and right. And I go, you know what? LSU is going to figure out a way. And they didn't cross the 50 forever. The Bama smoked them. It wasn't even close. And I go, you know, I let it get in my head. We were out later that night, name dropping. And Chris Fowler had one of the greatest lines ever, where he's like, what'd you think? And I go, you know, I thought LSU was just going to figure out a way, because they have all the time, even though I thought Alabama was better. And then Fowler just looks at me and goes, the voodoo get to you? The voodoo, the whole thing down here, the voodoo?

You know, you land thinking Bama. You're here a couple of days. You're walking around. You're taking it all in. The voodoo starts to seep in. You pick LSU. I was like, yeah, I guess I think that's exactly what happened. what happened he goes yeah me too um i think that's what he said i think he had also felt the same way even though when you watched the first game that lsu won in tuscaloosa it felt

like alabama was the better football team i don't know what to make of the ridiculous weather game sean mcdermott's comments that we're going to get to with burt breer who uh talked to him after both games had a great piece on Monday Morning Quarterback this morning. So to see Buffalo pull this one out after I was like, you know, I think Buffalo is better, but then what happens in that night game? And maybe New England just has their number. Maybe they're just in their head.

Maybe this is just a continuation of the 20 years that we saw, just the names are a little bit different. And it's not the case. It's a week 16 result. But I feel like after watching it again, you're like, Josh Allen's just better than everybody else. I mean, think about that drive. You know, the game is still in the balance.

It felt like Buffalo was the better team throughout. It's a 75-yard touchdown drive. Buffalo's only up one score at that point. The third down throws to McKenzie. The fourth and one where Allen beat three different guys. The Dawson-Knox flip touchdown at the goal line. And I leave this going, all right, look, I still respect the howl out of New England.

You have to because of who they've been and what they've looked like this year. But my biggest point, especially with guys back home being like, New England's winning the Super Bowl again, dude. Like, I don't know. I mean, this is really impressive. It's amazing they've turned it around this quickly considering what they felt like last year. Some opt-outs, but yeah, the quarterback situation again, dude. Like, I don't know. I mean, this is really impressive. It's amazing they've turned it around this quickly considering what they felt like last year. Some opt-outs, but yeah,

the quarterback situation wasn't ideal. You're just not going to win many games in the NFL when you feel like your quarterback is holding you back. And Mac Jones, like I said, throughout this, you feel like he's the mistake-free guy.

You know, I watched that Trevor Lawrence game yesterday against the Jets, and yeah, he's a rookie, but that spike on third down to stop the clock when they could have just run a play and still had time to run another play after that.

I mean, what is going on? I mean, some of the stuff that I see throughout the week, guys going for a first down when they need the clock to be stopped. The Arizona game had all sorts of mistakes. Yes, they looked bad. We'll get to that with beer. You know, guys are running out of bounds with the control in their hand at seven years old, and some of these guys can't figure this out.

And so I don't think Matt Jones, I think the best part of him is that he doesn't do a lot of that stuff. But my biggest concern was I think New England would have to win a shootout at some point, and I don't really think that they're built to do that. And now we've seen back-to-back New England games, and the Colts game, they were a mess. They still were in it despite being down 20-0, so it wasn't like they got stomped.

But you're asking Mack to do something that it doesn't feel like this offensive staff feels comfortable in him doing. It's just winning a game, throwing the football all over the place. And a New England defense who'd been one of the best all season long got trucked by Buffalo. So, I guess the lesson in all of this,

and it's just tough. We're all on the couch trying to figure out the mental state of all these football teams. I mean, even those of us that do it for a living, we're no different than you guys that are watching it on the couch unless you have contacts all over the league. But the lesson in this really is that

sometimes you're just going to stick to your guns because when you start letting outside the mental part of it, there's really no chance that you have a great grasp or understanding of the mental toughness of the guys inside of the locker room. Despite the ups and downs that Buffalo's had all season long, I thought this was a monumental win because now you can't really say, well, New England's in their head. Maybe if they play in the playoffs again, the Pats pull it off. It's certainly not

impossible, but that mental block that I basically just started to create and buy into completely altered my understanding of these two football teams. And that's why I just can't say enough about that win. I know the O-line for Buffalo isn't great. If you take Josh Allen, 600 rushing yards out, you don't love them running the football, but they actually have really good rushing totals and yards per carry because of Josh Allen. I mean, the guy had 380 yards of offense against one of the top three or four defenses in the entire league at their place.

So huge win, not only in the standings for Buffalo, but to kind of erase some of that doubt that some of us may have had about this specific matchup. Albert Breer, the Monday morning quarterback, must read every Monday morning. All right, so there's a million things I want to get to. My open was pretty simple in that whatever doubt I had about the Bills, especially in regards to the Patriots,

I feel better about the Bills because I felt better about the Bills before the first matchup, and then it just went sideways. And the McDermott quote, you talk to Sean McDermott, give me a sense of who the Bills are in comparison to the Pats and then kind of what we've learned or maybe this, you know, I don't know. I feel like this is the right result.

Uh, I know Pat's fans aren't going to like that, but I, you know, I think Josh Allen kind of proved that superhero shit yesterday. Yeah. I actually think like from both sides, it's fine.

You know what I mean? Like, I actually think like it was always going to be sort of a two year rebuild. And the goal for the Patriots is always going to be to be rolling when you're going into the second year of Mac Jones's rookie contract, which is when the Rams hit it with Jared Goff. It's when the Chiefs hit it with Patrick Mahomes. Like that's the goal is to be able to maximize, you know, the rookie contract for the quarterback.

And so like, I think expectations with them got a little out of control there. Yeah. And I think another thing that got out of control was this tendency we all have after nights like that Monday night in Buffalo to act as if Bill Belichick broke someone. And I think that there was some frustration on the Buffalo end with that idea in that like, wait, we've been building this for five years now. Like we were making the playoffs when Tom Brady was still in the division. You know what I mean?

Like, so like this idea that like the whole thing was coming undone, which like they've been in the playoffs for, there are going to, we have to make it this year before five years in the playoffs. I think that was sort of like a frustrating thing for them. So yeah, I think you,

like you said, the, the super, the, the superhero stuff from Josh Allen yesterday. And, you know, I think stuff from Josh Allen yesterday. And I think we knew we were capable of it. I think what we found yesterday,

and this is something I talked to Sean about a bunch when we talked after the game, was sort of like him striking the balance between making the right play and then knowing when to put the cape on. You know what I mean? So early in that last drive, the back-breaking drive in the fourth quarter, makes the routine play a couple times. Isaiah McKenzie moves the chains. mean like so like early in that last drive the back breaking drive in the fourth quarter makes

the routine play a couple times Isaiah McKenzie moves the chains well then what does he do later in the drive on fourth and one puts the cape on on third and ten puts the cape on right so like I think like Josh Allen's like he's always had the ability to be a top five quarterback I think so much of it for him has been like trying to find a way to strike the balance between just playing the position and doing what the play tells you to do and then knowing when to put the cape on. And I thought the fourth quarter yesterday was a great example of him figuring it out.

And it's a great sign for where the Bills are going because I think dealing with expectations this year was a different deal for them than where they had been their first four years that Sean had been there the first three years that Josh had been there where it was sort of like you're ascending you're ascending you're ascending now they're kind of up there and other teams are trying to knock them off and I think like the last month has kind of taught them how to deal with all that a little bit you talked to Sean McDermott after this game and a lot of it's been the clarification of the comments after the Monday night game where we basically say hey let's not give Bill Belichick more credit than we need to

and of course you know we're so um used to never getting anything good from anybody and then it's like oh you lost it's bitter and then I kind of understood his point though like in a way it's like hey we lost this game but you know this isn't they didn't they didn't invent the forward pass tonight uh what did you get from that because again you talked to him because he talked about but this isn't, they didn't, they didn't invent the forward pass tonight. What did you get from that? Because again, you talked to him because he talked about it both then and then with you just in the last 24 hours. Yeah.

So I think it's like his big thing was really, he understood why people took it the way he did. And I honestly didn't think it was a great moment for him because I think, and he didn't see this at the time, but I think his biggest problem is going to be with his locker room after something like that. Because if you're not saying it's Bill, if you're saying it's not Bill, then really what are you implicitly saying? You're saying it's not me, right? Like you're saying it's not, if it's not the other coach, you're saying it's not you

either. And how does that project on your locker room? It's like when a coach says it's execution, not play calling, right? Like where the locker room might take that the wrong way. So I thought that was a tough moment for him, but I understand now what he was doing too, which is he was trying to project to his team, look, like this isn't the big bad Patriots coming in here and taking our lunch money. This is like more so like there were a few key places

in that game where we were set up to succeed where we failed. And let's put this on us. And let's just call this what it is and say, if we had played better, we would have won the game. I think the message he was trying to convey to his team and probably failed in the moment to convey was that this was really all under their control. And they were good enough to win that game in the moment. And it was, they had to take ownership of that. And I think over the last three weeks they did,

you know, I think coming back the way they did in Tampa in the second half of that game, even though they didn't wind up winning, I think they really sort of found something, take care of business against Carolina. And then, you know,

I think you saw them make a lot of the plays late in the fourth quarter that they weren't making that on that that Monday night a few weeks ago. Colts win against Arizona. I want to get to the Arizona part of this second. But the fact that they went in with missing, what, three offensive linemen and then Fisher goes down on top of that. There is Leonard. Who are the Colts right now?

Because they're putting this together with nice wins against New England and Arizona in their back-to-back weeks. You know what's hard, Brian? Can you imagine if Andrew Luck was the quarterback right now? What that team would be? And it just sort of feels like that's hung over them for the last few years. And I think that's why a lot of people have missed. What a good team they've built. You look at the offensive line was a mess three, four years ago.

It might be the best group in the league. They have skill position talent and guys like Pittman and Taylor and Jack Doyle and, you know, and Mo Alleycox, T.Y. Hilton. And then on defense, they've got studs, you know, like I think Quidipe is going to be a really good player up front. They've got DeForest Buckner up there. Leonard and Okariki are really good backers. Kenny Moore. I mean, Julian Blackman was going to be one of the best safeties in the league.

He got hurt, so he's been out for the year. But they've just really drafted well and put that team together well. And I think it's one of the more complete groups in the league. Now, I think the question is going to be, like, what version of Carson Wentz do you get when you get to January and February?

Because I think anybody who watched that game could see it. He started off okay, then he really hit a rut in the middle of the game and didn't look very good. And he was able to sort of bring it together at the end and play really well at the end of the game and going on that drive to put the game away. The question I think is going to be like, can they consistently get that sort of performance out of him?

Because I think so much of the rest of the team is right. You know, and like you assume eventually like you're going to get Quentin Nelson back. You're going to get Ryan Kelly back. You're going to get the pieces that you were missing on Saturday back. I think Saturday they showed a lot of resilience and dealing with the absences. But it's a talented, well-rounded, deep team that I think is going to kind of ebb and flow between, you know, are they a wildcard team? Are they a conference championship team?

That's going to be based on how their quarterback plays. On the Arizona side, I'm now in the Kingsbury camp, so I'm a Cliff guy. So, because I just felt like the reaction to him being hired, it wasn't about who he was, it's just people were pissed he got that head coaching job. Oh, yeah. No, that's definitely true. He got the head coaching job because he develops quarterbacks and they wanted him to develop a quarterback and they've developed

Kyler. Maybe it's Kyler's immense talent. But here's what I don't understand is why was last year the fall off in the second half because of Kyler's shoulder, but this year the fall off in the second half isn't Kyler's ankle or Hopkins being out. It's that Kingsbury sucks as a coach. I think what this is is people that had a lot of stock into Kingsbury's terrible. He shouldn't have this job. They had to wait three months, and now they're ready to go. Look, that game on Saturday was a mess. Special teams sucked.

They were stupid. They made a bunch of dumb penalties. I think it's a really hard thing when you're down those two scores. You're trying to figure out, do I go for the field goal now and have more time to go for a touchdown, or do I time to go for a touchdown? Or do I try to go for a touchdown? You know, even bill.

And then like at the end of that game, it's like a shot in the dark situation anyway. Right? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's just like, I mean like,

what are you going to do? You need to get an onside kick either way. You know what I loved about Belichick two weeks ago in that Colts game was in, they were like, why are you kicking it? Or what are you doing? And he goes like,

you know what? I just didn't really love, I think it was a fourth and eight or something. And he goes, I didn't really love our chances on fourth and eight you know i know what the score was i get it no but i love bellatrix answered just being so simple because when he gives you that answer there's no dispute to it's like hey i didn't like us on fourth and eight are you all right with that yeah i mean this part of it to me like you know what it kills me and like i don't

want it to come off as like anti-analytics guy right like but like people look at like the numbers and like this happens when you do this and this happens when you do that and they don't consider like these guys are like like these guys are taking into account like the human beings they have on their team you know what i mean like like bill did that the reason bill did that against the colts was because he has a rookie quarterback and had a top five defense. And you know what failed him? Was that top five defense gave up a 67-yard touchdown run to Jonathan Taylor. If they get the stop there, they get the ball back with a chance to win the game.

So Bill was betting on his defense in that situation to get one stop, and the defense couldn't do it. And it's John Harbaugh in the situation on the fourth down, right? Like it's all right. Like, well, am I going to bet on stopping Aaron Rodgers once or twice? Because there's 42 seconds left on the clock. If I, if with Tyler Huntley, a quarterback with backup tackles, backup corners, backup, backup, everything, you know what I mean? Like, am I going to be able to beat Aaron Rodgers twice?

Or do I want to go for it for two here where I'm only going to have to beat Aaron Rodgers once? So much of these decisions comes down to what these guys actually have on hand. You know what I mean? Like, and I think so often these arguments lack that sort of nuance. You know what I mean? Like, so much of it's like what you've got. I've already and then whenever you do this it's like well you guys hate the numbers it's like no I mean they should have been going for fourth down the fourth and next numbers are overwhelming almost no matter who you have um you know having it deep in the opponent's territory going for and fourth down and be rewarded with great field position I'm I'm for all these things I think a lot of the things are funny because we've looked at the league being like you know you guys are doing actually a lot of the shit wrong but when it's fourth and goal and I'm giving you the context here it's 20 to 7 in the fourth quarter New England at the Colts a couple weeks but when it's fourth and goal and i'm giving you the context here it's 20 to 7 in the fourth quarter new england at the colts a couple weeks ago and it's fourth and seven or excuse me it's fourth and goal but it's from the sevens the same thing yeah they kick the field

goal and they make it 2010 i don't think there's any emphasis ever put on and i think this is the two-point conversion stuff that'll happen at times the chart will say this but then you go you know if this doesn't work out on the back end you've now exposed yourself to maybe lose by a field goal instead of having them tie for a field goal and in this case to make a 2010 even though you're going no no you need you need the two touchdowns to just throw it in the end zone it still almost worked and you would have needed a field goal later anyway so you know you're looking at it going okay wait a minute we got the touchdown now we're only two down three like i don't know if there's enough projecting out of – there's one two-point conversion scenario where every time it happens,

I go, okay, but this is the one where it actually bites you in the ass when you think you're getting the extra point. Because if you don't get this, now you're exposing yourself to a loss as opposed to a tie. But again, we don't have to do any more on that. We can talk about Cliff. Yeah, back to Cliff. Go ahead.

What do the NFL people talk about Cliff? What do they say? I actually think Cliff has earned a lot of respect over the last three years. And I'm with you in that. And look, Urban dug his own grave. But I think it's sort of similar in that way that there were a lot of people invested in the demise of Urban Meyer. You know what I mean? And again, Urban did so many things wrong and deserved his fate, but like, I think it made it worse for him at the end because there

were people that were invested in seeing him go down. And I think this happens with college coaches in general. I think people were invested in Chip Kelly failing. You know, I think people are invested in Matt rule failing. Um, and I, and I, and I think that that exists without question with cliff, like that there were people that, were people that had a certain opinion of Cliff and haven't moved off of it. And look, Cliff put together a really good coaching staff. And his program was strong enough where when you took him out of the equation, they won a game in Cleveland, a crucial game in Cleveland. They won without their quarterback this year.

I think what you're seeing and what you've seen over the last couple of weeks might have a little bit more to do with the age of the team. I remember talking to Cliff about this in the summer where one of his big things coming out of last year was we aren't mature enough. We don't know how to win in the critical situation. They brought in A.J. Green and J.J. Watt and Rodney Hudson and James Conner and all of these pros, right? And that's great.

And I think it's a big reason why they were off to the 10-2 start that they were off to. But I think sometimes older teams, you see it at the end of the season. I think you're seeing it with the Patriots' defense to some degree now, where when you're relying on guys who are – you have guys in key spots who are 29 30 31 do they still have the juice in December and January and so for Arizona like you you look at some of their key players again like AJ Green Rodney Hudson I know JJ is not up there out there but that's part of the equation he's hurt you know he's older

he's hurt Chandler Jones is older so um you, I think that that's part of it with Cliff where you look at the makeup of the roster and sort of what got them there might be stinging them a little bit, but I mean, they're like, look at Cliff like he's some buffoon now because they hit a little bit of a rut, you know, in December. I mean, this guy has effectively turned around what was the worst roster in football three years ago, right? Developed a quarterback and they're in a much better place. I mean,

we can ask big picture questions about cliff in a different context, but to talk about him, like some people were talking about him three years ago, I think it's asinine. Oh, by the way, there's zero debate on the college guys coming in and the NFL community trashing all of them.

Yeah. I mean, like people talk about chip now, like he was an abject failure. He won 10 games, two years in a row. Like he wasn't, it wasn't terrible. Like now I mean, like people talk about chip now, like he was an abject failure. He won 10 games, two years in a row. Like he wasn't, it wasn't terrible.

Like, no, I'm not saying he's like, I'm not saying he's Vince Lombardi, but like 10 and six, 10 and six. And then the wheels came off when he got too much power. Yeah.

You know, I think Brandon Staley is smart and that he knows, and you, you knew this. Yeah. Anyone that covers the league, like they were starting to go, Hey,

check out this Brandon Staley guy. Some of the shit this guy's doing all right and that was kind of building and then all of a sudden he gets the gig and it's funny that like the chargers we know the roster especially with the injury like they just seem to lose their top guys all the time defensively um yeah it's weird and they're a 500 team right now, okay? And the world loves Brandon Staley because he owns Pressers. And I would say that there's nothing anti-Staley, but just being involved with social media the way we have to, if I ever had a leadership role, I would know exactly what to say to get everybody on social media to love me.

I would just go up there, say this soundbite for 30 seconds to a minute, and I'm not even saying that he's doing it and that he's fake or any of this kind of stuff, but then people fall in love with that, and then you look at them and you're like, you just lost to the Texans. Again, it's a week 16 snapshot through all this. You have, though, a very interesting point from your column that everybody would have told you you were wrong the first half of the season, but Burrell throws for 525.

He had 299 in the first half against the Ravens this isn't even an anti-ravens thing it's not even fair to be critical of the ravens at this point because it just it finally caught up to him um so there's nothing anti-baltimore here at all but burrow tears him apart you would take burrow over justin herbert that would have been an impossible statement i'd say about week four or five i would um and that's nothing against justin herbert but i feel like at this point over Justin Herbert, that would have been an impossible statement, I'd say, about week four or five. I would. And that's nothing against Justin Herbert. But I feel like at this point, if you watch the highlights, you take Herbert.

If you watch the game, I think you take Burrow, if that makes sense. And I think, you know, what Joe Burrow has done in lifting that team up, how he's masked their offensive line issue, how he's been able to win with receivers that are younger than him. T. Higgins is younger than him. Jamar Chase is younger than him. Joe Mixon, I believe, is right around the same age as him. To do this at that young an age and to sort of change that... And I've talked to him a few times about this over the course of the last couple of months.

And it's interesting the way he talks about it. He basically has said more or less to me a few times, the over the course of the last couple of months. And it's interesting the way he talks about it. He basically has said more or less to me a few times, the old Bengals are dead. That doesn't exist anymore. Right? And if you think about it, it's sort of like what he did at LSU, right? Like when he went to LSU, what was LSU? Defense first.

They can't get out of their way offensively. Even when they're really good, they just run the ball. And like he got there, he had one pretty good year. Year two, it's a rocket ship. And they're breaking every record, right? He changed what LSU was. And I know they had great players other than him.

Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, Clyde Edwards-Alaire. Awesome, awesome offense. But if you talk to people who scout that region, they'll tell'll tell you and been in that building say like that guy was the culture changer. And I think you're seeing it again in Cincinnati and just the way he manages the game, the way he kind of has an awareness of situations, the way he plays when it matters most. I hate to, I hate to make this comparison because this is the one that kills. I mean, there are so many guys that have gotten this one

where it's just not accurate and not fair. There's some things about him that remind me of Brady. I mean, just the way he carries himself, the chip he has on his shoulder. The story is obviously a little different. It's a six-round pick versus a first overall pick. But I just think some of the traits that you see in Burrow really sort of remind me of Brady and kind of the way that he has an ability to kind of affect people around him

reminds me of Brady and so I love Justin Herbert I think eventually he's going to get there he's still he's still got in there's still some inconsistencies in his game like I think if you actually watch the games you you can see that. Um, to me, I like look at burrow and it's almost like, it's almost like the, the Tom Brady,

Peyton Manning argument, you know, 17, 18 years ago where you really had to look to see it with Brady. But once you got it, it was like, yeah, like this guy's going to win a lot,

you know? And so I just, I don't know. I mean, like, like watching Joe burrow, I'm not sure there's a quarterback 25 and under that I would take over him and maybe Trevor Lawrence because of the contract, you know? Um, maybe, you know, I, I, like, I, I, like other than Trevor Lawrence, I don't know if there's one that I would even like think that much about, you know? Um, I think Bur think Burrow, because he's kind of hidden in Cincinnati, a lot of people aren't paying attention to what's happening there. These are a bigger question, though, as I know as a Buckeyes guy.

Why is Ohio State so bad at understanding its own talent on its roster between Burrow and J.I.? Your Jameson Williams tweet, because I was like, oh, here we go. And it was very on point. It was like, hey, this guy transferred out. He was the fourth receiver behind Alave, Wilson, and Jigba Smith. And so you're just going, oh, wait, it's Smith and Jigba. Sorry.

But you didn't make the point. Buckeyes fans made the point, which I then later stored away for annoyance, was that he would still be the fourth guy. Whatever he would be, and as great as those other three guys, he wouldn't be the fourth guy on Ohio State's team. He wouldn't be the fourth receiver watching other three guys run around at this point. I'm just kidding because, look, they had Fields coming in, and they have those three guys,

and they all might be first-round picks for the Buckeyes anyway. Your Lawrence love, and it'd be unfair. I gave him a hard time because I can't believe they spiked the football. I can't believe somebody wasn't in his helmet saying, hey, we can run a play. We don't need to spike it. We have time for two plays because considering third is not going to be an end around here. Right. Yeah.

Give me what people are saying about what they've seen from him because the stats are terrible. It's been a super challenging year for any quarterback veteran. Forget the number one overall pick. I'm not even close to writing him off, but it hasn't been good. It's been bad. What are people saying? This was sort of an anecdote I can give you from a couple weeks ago.

This was right after Urban got fired. I was talking to a head coach, you know he was talking about like you know jobs that are going to be open and everything else and he said jacksonville he's like that's still the best opening and it's like they don't have the quite the resources that they did last year right like last year they had a ton of draft picks this year they just basically have their slotted picks um they had a ton of cap space last year they still have a lot this year but it's not quite as much as they had last year. So like, you kind of like look through the resources and it's not quite what it was last

year, but this coach said to me is like, it doesn't matter because you have Trevor Lawrence. And he said to me, I'm almost more impressed with him now than I was when he was coming out. And that sounds crazy. Cause he hasn't played very well. Right? Like you look at the numbers, you look at moments like what you mentioned against the Jets there, Ryan.

There are reasons why people might not think the same of Trevor Lawrence as they did 11 months ago. Here's the comparison he made to me. This head coach said to me, he reminds me of Troy Aikman in 1989. How Troy Aikman, like when you saw Troy Aikman with the Cowboys back then, how he handled everything. How he was able to kind of process all of it. And how he still kind of was very much like that could still look like a lot of guys get beaten down in those situations, right? Like still projected himself.

Like Troy could still project himself as the face of the franchise. Like Troy, there were personality traits with Troy I like and look I was nine years old then so I don't remember this but like talking to people who do remember is like you could tell like Troy like there was reason to believe he was going to make it as poorly as he played that year as poorly as the Cowboys played and there's Troy Aikman traits in the way that Trevor Lawrence is handling everything with Jacksonville. And you look at the way he handled like, you know,

the last couple of weeks of urban and how he was able to stand up there and take the heat. You know, I, I think he's going to be fine. I think it's going to be a matter of getting him the right coach. And I think it's going to be a matter of, you know,

and I don't know that we can trust Shad Khan with this stuff at this point, but getting the right coach, getting the right GM, using the resources the right way. I just think a guy who has had so much experience and at 16 years old, had camera crews following him around, was a quarterback of a national champion at 18 years old. He's so prepared for all of this and he's so talented. i have to think that eventually he's going to figure it out and when he figures it out like his physical ability is so superior it's hard for me to believe he won't wind up being one of the five or ten best quarterbacks in the league all right that is still a strong endorsement uh you also were big on davis mills the on the other side of

that win for the texans against the chargers um talk to me a little bit because you talked with them so is this somebody who actually could be the guy behind center here for the Texans? Not that the Watson thing. Like, I was looking at some Watson numbers this morning because I was going through Kansas City's offense. Like, the yards per play for Houston just last year, I think they were number one in the NFL.

And you're like, God, like Deshaun, like what he's doing carrying that franchise offensively. So anyway, back to Davis Mills. You want to jump in, so just kind of take it. I'm not saying Davis Mills is going to be Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson. I don't think you were saying that. Yeah, I mean, when Deshaun Watson comes back,

whether it's in a Dolphins uniform or Panthers uniform, if the legal stuff is cleared up, I think he's right back there. I think he's going to be the guy he was before. I think what Davis Mills is right now is... And you follow this stuff, so I know you know. He was an elite recruit coming out of high school. Got hurt a bunch at Stanford. And Nick Casario is basically betting on the come.

And he's more physically gifted than some of the guys who were drafted ahead of him um in April it's just a matter of like has he played he hadn't played very much and um you know so when I when I talked to him last night it was like I asked him about like do you view yourself as a first-round pick do you think you would have been a first-round pick? And he's like, yeah, I'm as good as any of those guys. I just had some bad luck along the way. And so I think with him, there's obviously a lot more unknown, but he's played a bunch.

He looked competent early in the year, comes out of the lineup, goes back in, looks better coming back in. So there are a lot of good signs there. And I sort of look at it similar to how I look at Jalen Hurts in Philly right now. And I know they're much different players, but here's what I mean by that. Those two guys, Davis Mills in Houston and Jalen Hurts in Philly, at least give those franchises the flexibility

where they don't have to go do something stupid in the offseason. Where you can just say to yourself, like if you're Philly, if you're Houston, and you know what, like the trade market is out of control for quarterbacks and you don't want to spend that much, you don't have to. If you don't want to like, if you feel like Kenny Pickett or Matt Corral is a reach in the first round, you don't have to reach for him. That's what I think Davis Mills and Jalen Hurts are for those two teams,

like where there could be some high end potential there. And maybe they are your answer for the next 10 years. I wouldn't bet on that, but maybe they are. But at the very least, they give you some flexibility where, you know, when you're building, when you're putting your team together and you're Houston, maybe you can use that top pick on Aiden Hutchinson or Kayvon Thibodeau and not blink and not worry about having to fill the quarterback now. Maybe if you're Philly, you can take those three first round picks and get a lot younger on the lines of scrimmage,

which you need to do and not worry so much about quarterback. I think at the very least, you've got nice stop gaps there where you don't have to force it to quarterback position in an off season where I think the quarterback mark is going to be pretty bonkers okay let's uh do one thing and then we'll just do an overrated properly rated um thing with quarterbacks uh i've been saying this throughout you're already hearing i think ravaport even had the first hint at it where as much as we think this is a bad quarterback class give it time get the guys in have people watching them have them be the only options and you're still going to end up with somebody going high um you know i think it'll just start pushing up um do you get a sense like you you touch on a little bit because you

always do these awesome draft things at the end of the money mortar quarterback deal do you get a sense of the jockeying here still at the end of 2021 on kind of like do you hear a team say Matt Corral's easily the guy do you hear a team say Matt Corral's a total joke like how how wide is the variance on some of the early returns on teams that have now started digging a little bit more sure so like Kenny Pickett I think is probably the I think Mac Jones helped Kenny Pickett um like in that like I don't think Kenny Pickett's gonna wow wow you physically, but I think Mac Jones' success at least opens the door where you say, okay, maybe we don't need somebody to look like Josh Allen

or Justin Herbert or Patrick Mahomes to make it work. So Kenny Pickett, I think most teams would view him as a middle-of-the-first-round pick. And I haven't made all my phone calls yet, so I'm sure not everybody feels this way. But yeah, I think he's probably the one that's probably got the most solid, the least volatile

stock. Matt Corral, you talk to some teams and they think he's a backup. You talk to other teams and they think he's Zach Wilson. So I think that there's going to be more variance with Matt Corral. Sam Howell is an interesting one because he didn't play very well this year. He had a much better sophomore year than he did a junior year.

Again, he's one of these guys that might get overdrafted. Some teams are going to view him as a backup. And so I think this sort of, to me, this sort of sets up 2013. And I remember that year where everybody was sort of like, well, somebody's going to need them in the first round. And what ended up happening? EJ Manuel was a reach in the first round. Geno Smith went in the second round. Matt Barkley, who people had been talking about, he's going to be a top 10 pick, wound up going in the fourth round.

This feels to me a little bit like that year, where you look't like you, you just, you, you look at the group and it's like, if there are options like Rogers, like Watson, like Wilson out there and you see teams like the Niners and the Rams flipping

out quarterbacks that they saw as two average and golf and, and grapple to go get Stafford and, um, and Lance in that world are you still going to see teams like like four or five teams reaching for quarterbacks in the first round that don't check every box maybe it happens history tells us it probably will at least happen to some degree but it's just i think it's a tougher sell for teams this year where i think you know can he pick us the one that's i think there's at least a little bit's a tougher sell for teams this year where I think, you know, Kenny Pickett's the one that's, I think there's at least a little bit of a consensus on him.

And he's not seen as elite by anybody. And then the stock on the other guys is really, really volatile. Malik Willis is another one that's, I think, you know, going to be an interesting one just because he's seen as so raw. And when he had to level up and play against a better competition, he didn't play very well. So, like, again, like, I think that, you know, those guys are going to kind of be in this mix. had to level up and play against a better competition he didn't play very well so like again like I think that you know those

those guys are going to kind of be in this mix there's like about a half dozen quarterbacks that are going to be in this mix and I'm not convinced that it's going to shake out where we're going to see like four or five of them in the first round like we normally would okay is your transition to the guys right now because you're already put together this list of me because you're just sitting

there going and it's the same thing like it's really and i've talked about this is if you look at the group of like 15 to 20 quarterbacks in the middle so not the terrible guys and not the five elite guys or whatever that number is then if you don't like or love any of those guys you're going to be right at some point like some mondays you're going to be wrong some mondays you're going to be right you're going to feel good about it. Let's put together a list here because now people are down on Stafford again. Is Stafford over, under, or properly rated? I think we're getting to the point where he's properly rated. That sounds funny, right? I think

maybe he was underrated in Detroit. I think over the last nine months, maybe he was overrated in Detroit. I think over the last nine months, maybe he was overrated in LA. I think we all talked about him like he was a top five guy. I think he's probably in the six to 10 range, somewhere in there. And I think after we all went through the ups and downs of watching him play, you still see some of the flaws from Detroit, but you also see what a better environment has done for him. I think he's probably properly rated

because I think most people see him like a cut below the Mahomes, the Allens, the Bradys. Yeah, so I think he would probably be in that 6-10 category. Okay, Lamar then, because Lamar is really, really interesting. Like a separate category almost, right? He's like his own category because

this world is Chris Pullian and Booger McFarlane said maybe you should try something else, which was also said about Tebow by Mel Kiper Jr. And that has turned into like the hoodie that says not bad for running backs is hysterical. Like it's a really good thing.

Like everybody's been cool with it. Like he's been really good. And then this year wasn't as good. And the playoff part of it isn't as good. I just think it's funny that anytime you now criticize Lamar, it's like, what are you doing? You're Paulian. You're one of those guys. And I've been on you know

I've been but uh I don't know yeah it didn't been great in the middle of the year but again that team is such a mess I don't know what's fair of being critical of Lamar so I mean I like I think it's hard because it's like it is like a separate category because like and I've talked to him a bunch about this like He really does. He's worked so hard at it to become better as a passer, become more evolved as a passer. He's changed some of his mechanics. I think that you saw them earlier in the year when they had more of a full deck.

He came from behind a few times. And so I think Lamar is probably... Maybe a little underrated just because I don't think people take into account the ways that he can pressure a defense that aren't considered traditional quarterback things and the stress that he puts on a defense. And it's like, oh, well, this set up this way, so he's throwing to this guy wide open over here. Well, yeah, that's because that's the stress that he's putting on the defense. That's part of the package with him, you know? And so like,

I think to, to get the most out of Lamar, you have to play offense a certain way. And I think he went to the perfect place and that John Harbaugh invests in his players that way. And Greg Roman had this sort of packages that, that, that worked for him.

Um, I think like, you know, if, if you're saying to me that he would be a top 10 quarterback in any offense, no, he wouldn't be. You have to set things up a certain way to succeed with him.

But being in the right place, I think some people underrate just how much stress he puts on a defense and what he does to you, kind of like how he can get good coaches out of sorts with everything that he brings to the table. So the thing is, it's just so hard to judge it now because, like you said, they're such a mash in and around him. All right, we can go a little quicker with these last three.

Matt Ryan, whose QBR is actually a career low and very low, but I can't believe Atlanta, when I think about this team in general. I mean, look, I know they pulled that one out. I mean, they're 7-8. I can't believe Atlanta's 7-8. Yeah, Arthur Smith, Coach of the Year. He's done a great job if you look at it, right? Calvin Ridley, no one talks about that.

Like, walked out on them in the middle of the year. You know what I mean? Yeah, we forgot about it. I mean, Tomlin, if we're going by the standard of who you are as a team, Tomlin to me would be right there with Smith. As far as, you know, look, the kind of, I can't believe these teams have this many wins

when you watch Pittsburgh all season long and you've watched Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah, so I think Matt Ryan, I think he's a little underrated just in that, like, I think most people think he's done and I don't think he's done. But I think you have to be really good around him. You know, I think he's sort of like where Breeze was. And, you know, it's interesting because their new GM, Terry Fontenot, was in New Orleans with Breeze.

And so he was part of building around Breeze that those last five years where they were really bad. In 15 and 16, they were really bad. And then they had a couple of draft classes where they just knocked it out of the park when there was the one class where they drafted Ramchick and Kamara and Lattimore and Marcus Williams and Trey Hendrickson.

And so I think that that's the phase of career that Matt Ryan is at right now, where he needs a lot of support around him. And I think the same way I mentioned with Hurts and Mills, how they give their team some flexibility to wait on the quarterback, I think Matt Ryan does that for Atlanta too, where they can draft a Kyle Pitts last year, right? Like if they're not just sold and over the moon for Justin Fields or Matt Jones,

like he gave them the flexibility to go in and bring in a player who's probably going to be an all pro for the next decade, right? So yeah, I mean, I think Matt Ryan, like I think you can still win with him if you're really good around. Okay, let's finish up these last two. Garoppolo.

Oh, I think Garoppolo is underrated. I think he's taken so many, and God, I sound like I'm kissing ass now because I'm saying everybody's underrated, right? But I think, like, Jimmy is more talented than people give him credit for. I think Jimmy is a better quarterback than people give him credit for. I think Jimmy's a better quarterback than people give him credit for. I think Jimmy could go to a Cleveland or a Carolina and be a perfectly competent answer next year if those teams wind up striking out on Watson or Wilson. He got the team to a Super Bowl.

He's got ability. Is he going to be your answer for the next 10 years? No, but could he be perfectly fine as a two-year, three-year stopgap? Absolutely. I think he can win with Jimmy Garoppolo. Yeah, I totally disagree with that one. I thought he was overrated.

I thought he was overrated in New England. I thought everybody talked him up like crazy. Think about the pricing. So you think he's a product of the coaching then? That's what you're saying, right? I can't. Look, you're sitting there saying he'd be fine in Cleveland. I hate to see what he'd look like away from Kyle Shanahan. Are you kidding me? Like talent, fine.

Hip thrusters, that whole thing that Lynch used to talk about when they gave him that stupid extension that was ridiculous. And then they bragged about how the extension was brilliant because they paid him so much money up front and that they would have more room later on. And you're like, why? Why would you do this? The team told us what they thought about him.

They traded up from 12 to number three and threw in two firsts and a third. Think how ridiculous this pricing is. That Garoppolo, despite at the time, in the moment, me thinking he was overrated, gets you a second, but yet we already saw that he could sort of play the position. In a very limited span with we already saw that he could sort of play the position.

In a very limited span with New England, we saw that he could play the position. That cost you a second rounder. For Trey Lance, who played one fucking game his last year in college, it cost the 12th pick, a first and 23, a first and 22, and a third for a guy that played one game in a year and had never played in the NFL. That is insane pricing. That's a whole... You know what, though?

What's interesting about it, though? Ryan, this is a different discussion. That's the Mahomesization of the NFL. discussion, that's the Mahomes-ization of the NFL. That is Kyle Shanahan having outcoached Andy Reid for three and a half quarters in the Super Bowl and Andy Reid having a quarterback that made it all not matter, right? That's Kyle Shanahan recognizing like, all right, over the next 10 years, am I going to be able to compete with Josh Allen, with Justin Herbert, with Patrick Mahomes? And I think that's the way a lot of these teams are thinking now. It's the way the Rams were thinking, right? Like when they flipped out

golf to go and get Stafford, it's can we level up and compete with the Aaron Rodgers of the world with what we have? I think you're going to see more teams doing that this offseason too. I think Cleveland's one to watch. Like Cleveland, it's not that they hate Baker. It's more than anything. I think it's like, can we level up with Baker?

Are we willing to pay Baker $40 million a year? And if we aren't, like we can we level up with Baker? Are we willing to pay Baker $40 million a year? And if we aren't, like, we've got it budgeted, who are we willing to pay $40 million a year? What do the Browns look like with Deshaun Watson at quarterback?

You know what I mean? Like, so, I think that that's sort of, like, what you're talking about, I think, is as much where the league is going. It's like the Mahomes-ization of the NFL,

where I think, like, there's, like, sort of this super elite class of quarterbacks now that have just this outrageous physical ability. I think some other teams, there's just concern there. Are we going to be able to keep up with these teams

that have these quarterbacks? I think that's why you see the Rams bail on Goff and go to Stafford. I think that's why you see the Niners bail on Garoppolo and go to Lance. Okay, let's just finish here real quick. Kyler Murray. I think for the time being a little overrated, I love Kyler. I think Kyler, I think he's got the right sort of way about him.

I do think that there are some things in Arizona that have been sort of way about him. I do think that there are some things in Arizona that have been sort of perfect for him. And I just wonder, when he gets into a playoff setting, what that's going to look like. And when he gets into a setting where these one-off games where a defense is game-playing for him and him alone, is he going to be able to take over the same way that he has?

And is he going to be able to win from the pocket? Is he going to be able to win without DeAndre Hopkins out there? Like there's just, I really liked so much about Kyler's game. And I think like, again, like I think he's the right kind of kid. I think he's just,

I like, I just, I, there are some things that we haven't seen yet that I need to see. So I hear some people talking about him as if he's a top five quarterback already. I don't think he's there. That is Albert Breer, the Monday Morning Quarterback. Check it out, si.com.

Thanks as always, man. You got it, Ryan. Let's talk some hoops after a Christmas slate and some Sunday results as well. Kevin O'Connor, host of The Mismatch. Great stuff on The Ringer as well. He's with our guy, Verno, on The Mismatch. Okay, Golden State beats Phoenix. That's kind of what I want to focus on here in the beginning.

Looking at those top three teams in the West, because it's pretty clear, even though I really love watching Memphis play basketball, it feels like it's those three. The record with Utah, the point differential. Phoenix's point differential, not quite what you'd think it is. Golden State, even without Klay, I thought that was a monumental win. I kind of went into it feeling like, you know, I like Phoenix against Utah, but maybe I like Phoenix against Golden State.

With the Aiton part of it, Kevin, when you look at Aiton's numbers, he averages the most points per game against Golden State of any team he's played more than once. But it didn't feel like it was a problem for Golden State on Saturday at all. And even with Booker missing some time. So sometimes you look at the record, you're not quite sure what to do with it. But the point is, is now all of it's irrelevant, as I've said the entire time, because they're getting Clay back, they're getting Wiseman back. And now it's like, I can't believe how good golden state is without those guys and i thought that win on saturday

maybe just goes just kind of scary for the rest of the west in a way i mean the fact they have the number one defense in the nba right now pretty by a pretty good wide margin right now i mean there's teams you know that are catching up but this team on the defensive end of the floor where everybody talks about what clay is going to bring offensively but it's that defense that stabilizes them every single night and i think with ayton he at times did feast inside but isn't that what golden state wants sometimes when they're switching those screens and they get gary payton the second sticking to devin booker isn't that what they want they want that interior guy getting those touches because this team that they they not have that size, but they will get Wiseman back eventually. But Golden State is going to beat you when they're spacing that floor with Draymond at the five, forcing you to go inside or having Looney out there sometimes.

But I feel like with Golden State, Ryan, it's that defense that has really driven them through this early season and kept stabilizing things even on nights where maybe um offensively they don't have everything yeah i guess i feel like there's moments i still have an outdated thought of of bigs and what they're supposed to be but you know a lot of it too isn't just the points the rebounding and they've been able to kind of control eight again it's just the three regular season games his rebounding numbers aren't crazy the points are good though eight is missing more free throws this year, which is a little surprising. And not hitting many more jumpers either yet. Yeah, his scoring is up,

but the free throw part of it is down. So who knows? Maybe it's just a weird, fluky few-month stretch there. But the reason I've always loved what... Well, I shouldn't put it that way. Aiton has been frustrating to me at times, despite the gifts. And then I think he kind of turned that corner last year.

But we just know like as a big even as athletic as a is you're just not going to be an option so even if you have a physical advantage over the opposition it's not like anybody's going to just check it into the post a couple you know like 10 times a night you're not going to get 10 post isolations there's a couple times they got it to him it looked like he finished really well i think the great thing about ayton is that he's a big that you never worry about having on the floor. Like he's not going to get exposed like some other bigs that you're worried about and some switching of teams go hunting for you at the end of the playoffs. So as much as I like that Aiton is a guy that can play the full 30, 36 minutes, say in a playoff game, he's like 31 in the regular season. It it didn't really it wasn't that big of a deal. Like it wasn't even an issue at all on Saturday night or Saturday day,

depending on when you were watching. Yeah, I mean, I think that's really the issue Golden State is going to present. They have the ability to play any single style at all. And with this team, I feel like, I'm curious about your thoughts, Ryan, because we see Kaminga starting to get minutes. Gary Payton obviously has been sensational for them. He's actually shooting the three-pointer very, very well for them, standing in the corner a lot of the time, spotting up. I just think with this Golden State team, I mean, Phoenix and Utah are also sensational.

To me, Golden State is a level above them when you factor in what they're going to be when Klay Thompson returns with the amount of options they have. I mean, they can beat you if you have a big guy who plays in the interior. They can beat you if they need to go small. They have so many different lineup configurations that they can use different combinations. And that's only going to grow more and more as coming. It gets better over the course of the season as you'd expect to happen if Wiseman does get better over the course of the season now in the second year with clay coming back I just look at Golden State they have the personnel just to play any style of basketball against any type of opponent and to me that that's what gives them an edge over the Suns and

jazz even though both of those teams are also tremendous in their own ways. The Kaminga minutes have been a lot of fun because it's the opposite of... I know you spend a lot of time on this, so I'm curious your thoughts on it, but this version of Kaminga is the opposite of the version that we saw in

the high school stuff and the G League because it was all kind of freelance. That's been my Wiseman point, is that when you show up to Golden State, you don't get to freelance like some of the other top draft picks that are with bad organizations. And even though that's frustrating and then it makes you think like, wait, is this guy any good? There are Kaminga moments that are just, you know, Wiseman had some of these too, but there are Kaminga moments where it's also within the construct of what they're actually trying to do. And so I don't know if he gets to Scott Anderson's minutes, who's fluctuated. I don't know where those minutes are going to come. And as they start ramping up and really worrying about it, I'm like, I look in a playoff game is coming to be out there in the fourth quarter of games.

I doubt it, but there are glimpses of him. But I don't want to overstate this and say, hey, there's glimpses of him but i don't want to overstate this and say hey there's glimpses that this guy's going to be really really special but the glimpses are positive let me just leave it at that no i mean a hundred percent and that's the thing you mentioned is he going to be playing fourth quarter minutes maybe not but maybe maybe there will be a night i think that's the luxury steve kerr is going to have this entire season, where if Kaminga is having one of those off night where he looks like a rookie, he's making defensive mistakes, missing rotations, makes a couple bad passes. He can go to Toscano Anderson, a guy who is more reliable, maybe doesn't have the upside of Kaminga. I mean, you don't have Jordan Poole in that game against the Phoenix Suns.

Otto Porter is the guy going off. pool in that game against the phoenix suns auto porter's the guy going off they just have so many options and so many guys that they can turn to where if one guy is having an off night or is injured or is in covid protocols whatever it might be they just have so many different guys that they can turn to and then clay thompson still isn't back it's just outrageous that they're off to the start anything on utah um because you know the numbers with Mitchell, Conley, and Gobert, there are almost 120 points per 100 possessions. Hey, by the way, can I ask you this? Because I think I've been guilty of it.

I've probably seen you. When somebody writes about a lineup and then says, hey, this lineup with these five guys scores 121 per 100 possession which would be the highest ever in nba history you're like yeah but they don't play like they aren't though and then or it'd be like this group is you know 94 points per 100 which would be the worst ever in the last 10 everybody does that over and over again and I actually think it's like incredibly misleading because you can take snippets of any of these minute allotments and then go, Hey, this would be the best ever. This would be the worst ever.

I can't keep reading that this would be the best lineup ever or the worst lineup ever as many times as I have in the last 10 years and think it fucking means anything anymore. And I think we as the NBA community that covers it, we need to stop doing this. Like, I want to know what the numbers are. I don't want to know where they'd rank historically because it's like 120 combined minutes so far in the season. I think we all have erred in that. Oh, yeah.

I mean, we've all used that lineup data. And, you know, I mean, sometimes it's fun to look at. I think those early season samples are at least often interesting to think about. Like, oh oh maybe they should do more of this but like looking at it from a results perspective when there's only like i don't know 45 minutes logged like there could be a one minute stretch in those 45 minutes that turns it from a plus 25 net rating to a plus eight like that that's all it can take with those small

samples that change things so much um but i like looking at those the lineup numbers in terms of who's actually playing together and not really from a results perspective but from a process perspective like who who is the coach putting out there more often what is what are they not doing enough of what should they experiment with that they're not doing now and like with utah just to relate it to them it's like rudy gaze played 27 minutes at the five 27 minutes and they're like a minus five minute rating in to them, it's like Rudy Gay's played 27 minutes at the 5. 27 minutes. And they're like a minus 5 net rating in those minutes. But it's at least interesting that they've experimented with not having Gobert or Whiteside out there for a short amount of time. I mean, so that's just little things like that are what I look for when it comes to lineup data, at least at this point of the season.

And we know that lineup data for those three guys uh for utah is terrific but i mean it feels like it keeps landing on the same place like hey utah awesome record really like this group i love donovan mitchell i thought steven a saying that donovan mitchell's most talented jazz player was not even remotely controversial i i was like wait people have a problem with this um because i understand the stockton malone resumes and the stats but um malone can't do the shit that donovan mitchell does i mean this is i don't even know i have to say this out loud uh so he said talented not greatest that was the word he used right yeah he said talented yeah most talented right okay that's fair yeah keep it moving um

is there anything when you watch them where you can buy into them coming out of the West? I mean, like I said, I think the Golden State Warriors are on their own tier right now. With Utah, you'd have to have a lot break, right? They're going to have some of the same issues against Warriors amplified even more than they had against the Clippers last year. And I think with Utah, I reported a story on Gobert earlier this year

that started last season, and you talked to the people in that organization. They believe had the team been fully healthy, they would have beaten the Clippers and advanced in the playoffs. And who knows? Maybe they could have went all the way to the finals, and maybe we'll see how things could have been different, but they weren't healthy. With this team, I feel like they're missing something. I mentioned Rudy Gay playing the five.

They've got to have that option to turn to in certain moments of games. Gobert, I feel like all the knocks on him are way overblown. Gobert is a sensational talent. He can't stop all five guys on the court when teams space them out. But they do have to have that option that that lineup to turn to where they can go to the five and reliably create buckets and get stops but when they've done that they've just been so small getting pounded on the board so I'd like to see them have a little bit more lineup versatility kind of the

opposite of what we were just talking about with Golden State they have so many options so many combinations that they can turn to with With Utah, the reason why you got people like John Hollinger at the Athletics saying Gobert is an MVP candidate is because they're so reliant on him on both ends of the court. He is the defensive system. Offensively, he is critical to what they do with his rim running and screening. If you pull that out, it changes who they are, and they aren't anywhere as good. So I'd like to see them have another alternative with those non-Gobert minutes that's highly productive for me to feel better about their odds in a postseason. Yeah, I've read that.

We like John. He's wrong. If I'm not remotely scared of you with the ball in your hands, you can't be an MVP. I'm sorry. I'm with you there, Ryan. Those are the rules. All right, let's look at the East. Brooklyn's still

finding a way. We'll get to that Lakers comeback. Brooklyn still held out with no Durant. The Bulls game and a half out there. This Bulls story's been terrific, but then you look at what Milwaukee did against Boston, which isn't remotely surprising, really, I don't think.

Milwaukee, I think, is 14-2 with their three guys, Giannis Drew and Middleton, who missed a little bit of a stretch there in the middle of this month. So let's TBD the whole Brooklyn part of it, which I still think is really impressive that this team is 22-9 going through all the stuff they've gone through.

Cleveland actually has the best point differential by a pretty healthy margin as a fifth seed right now. But when I look at Chicago, as much as I love the rotation of the guards, everybody, I don't like their bench. And I worry about in a playoff series, who guards Durant and who guards Giannis for Chicago? Where are you with Chicago? Like, basically, here's the deal. Chicago better than everybody thought. Congrats. It's awesome. It's fun to watch. I like the numbers. Now we want to start talking about you in the big boy neighborhood. That's a problem for them, I think, that might not be solvable. I mean, they have pretty much all the championship ingredients except what you just mentioned, the stopper, the guy who can bother Durant or Giannis or at least try to without Patrick Williams missing at least the whole regular season we don't know yet if he's actually going to be back for the playoffs they said all of the regular season in all likelihood but having a

guy with size they've used derrick jones jr for 70 possessions in their matchup against the nets earlier this year giovante green for 31 possessions against KD. They haven't faced the Bucs yet, so we'll see how they defend him. But they do need a defender with size and bulk to defend the Giannis' or the KD's of the world. But with that said, though, Ryan, I mean, who were the Bulls entering the season? When we talked about Chicago before the year, it was, this is going to be a team that's going to win games with their offense, not their defense. The defense has been better than expected despite some of those missing pieces DeRozan ever since his first year in San Antonio has been one of the best

isolation scorers in basketball a great pick and roll shot creator we saw in that fourth quarter on Christmas turning you know the ball over to Zach Levine giving him an opportunity to be the guy down the stretch those guys can take, but also play together without getting stagnant on offense. So, I mean, this offense is going to continue to be really the fuel behind their success. It's going to be the reason why they go deep into the playoffs. They could go deep into the playoffs. But you're right. At some point, there will come a time where not having

that defender with size and length could be problematic. But is there a way for them to get that within their roster? Is it Patrick Williams? Is that enough? Is it too much to ask for a second year guy? Or should they be thinking about the trade market and maybe even including Patrick Williams to find somebody? Should they even be going all in this year, or should they be playing it slow? They have a lot of ingredients, but they are missing that. My favorite game is the National Broadcaster Zag game where all of us kind of generally agree on something

because it's true, and then National Broadcast comes in and has the game with the team or the guy that you think a certain thing and then they tell you that it's not true when you're like what the fuck are you talking about so this past week we had uh announcers telling us that carmelo anthony was actually an underrated defensive player um we had the defense of javel mcgee's basketball iq and this is another one that i've heard that jalen brown and jason tatum there We had the defense of JaVale McGee's basketball IQ. And this is another one that I've heard that Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, there is no issue in their super talented guys.

Hey, we know they're super talented. I would have pushed back. I have pushed back for a couple of years in the idea that you have to worry about Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum playing together. I've said this too many times, you know, in a vacuum, two extremely talented mid-20s, not even mid-20s for Tatum, wings that can defend, that can dribble, that can shoot, that can do all these things. That's the foundation of what you would want, and you can't mess with that. You got to figure it out. You got to figure the pieces out. I think they're 500 in their last 100-something games. They continue to be a team emotionally that I just don't think answers the bell.

I thought they were soft last year. I've seen nothing to change that. I tracked. It was 3.30 to go. They were up 109, 105 on Milwaukee on Saturday. So I go, you know what? I'm going to keep tracking the plays here. Six of the next seven plays, they ran isolations.

People could give me a hard time and say, well, actually, there was a switch, and they were hunting George Hill. It ended up in an isolation. So if you want to make it the standard of an isolation where a guy brings it across half court and nobody else is even involved, that's fine. But it was isolation. They ended up with four points, Jalen Brown bucket and two free throws from Jalen. There was one kick out in those seven plays that I said, OK, fine, I won't count that as isolation. I am now open to the idea because I've watched now long enough and I just don't like the

personality of the Celtics team led by the two guys. Like I liked Tatum. I like Jalen. I'm now open to the idea that maybe this isn't going to work because we've had a lot of evidence that it doesn't. And Milwaukee and blowing that lead, like anybody that's watched the Celtics, you almost knew that was coming. But when and for what? I mean, that's my biggest question with breaking up. Okay, let's start at the first part. Let's start at the first part.

I'm not even saying, hey, do it. I'm just now open to the idea that maybe these guys just, you know, whatever it is, whatever the vibe of this team, maybe it doesn't work with those two guys. So I'm not saying, hey, let's make this happen before February. But do you agree with the first part as somebody who's covered this team? I mean, I think those two guys, they aren't necessarily as a duo in that untouchable duo category. I mean, you're at least thinking about it. Like if you're in that Celtics front office, Brad Stevens brings everybody together for a meeting

and you're talking about all these theoretical ideas. It should be something that's at least in discussion for, hey, what could happen over the summer? What if this opportunity becomes available? I think you're really doing yourself a disservice as a franchise if you're not at least talking about those things and those potential paths forward. Because with Tatum and Brown,

that fourth quarter against Milwaukee that you mentioned where it was six or seven plays with isolations, it's just so stagnant. And in some ways, you can't necessarily say, oh, the Celtics should have kept running their stuff because Milwaukee was switching everything. That's what Milwaukee does defensively to get you out of your stuff. But the fact is, and Celtics fans got mad at me

for writing this recently, but Tatum and Brown just haven't been efficient ISO scores. Tatum's been one of the worst high ISO volume guys in the league this year. Yes, this year and for years, for that matter. He got a little bit better towards the end of the 19-20 season, but the last year and this year have not been as good. I mean, if you look at the second spectrum data, 51 guys going back to last season have logged at least 300 isolations brown is 43rd

in efficiency tatum is 40th in efficiency and brown has been much better statistically this season but it's like we talked about with lineup data earlier ryan it's only on like 70 total possessions and i mean we'll see how that works itself out over the course of the season but neither of those guys for years now have been anywhere better than below average in terms of isolation scoring efficiency or in terms of isolation playmaking. And those are the skills that you need to have in order to excel on those end of game fourth quarter situations to excel in those game sixes and those game sevens. And they just haven't had that. with that said though brown's 25 and

tatum's 23 and that's why i think with boston it should at least be in consideration that you split them up because if you do split them up you're getting a massive return and back for them you can change the the complexion of your roster and build around one of them with the other guy that you're getting back but i do think there's other stuff that you should at least try doing around the edges of the roster, like finding a point guard, finding somebody who can handle that in those end-of-game situations to get them easier shots, to alleviate the amount of pressure that they have on them to have to create everything for the offense.

They just haven't had that. Yeah, I'm open to it in a way I've never been open to it before, but I don't have the solution. And obviously it's not Ben Simmons because if you're the Celtics, you're not going to do the Sixers the favor and go, okay, you know, like honestly you'd have to throw in something with Simmons to get Jalen at this point. I mean, Jalen Brown would be fucking perfect.

You're like, hey, problem solved. Plays defense, gets it, can shoot, can handle. But again, as you described Tatum and Brown individually, you would always say I always want those guys. That's why I've always fought back against the idea of this. And I don't know what you've heard too. I heard they get along fine. That this isn't some personality thing that they just absolutely don't like each other. I know that there's different reporters that feel differently about that from what I've heard.

And I feel pretty good about it. And it's like, dude, it's fine. It's not even an issue. They get along, but maybe the leadership isn't there, as you mentioned earlier, in the way that it needs to be. And the hanging out thing, you expose yourself as a guy that doesn't understand the NBA world, where you're like, well, those guys don't hang out that much. That's the way it is in the league. It's almost not cool to hang out with the other star. You

have your guys, and you hang out. And then I think players are a lot older, and they get over it individually and understand sacrifice. Then the teams actually can be a little bit closer when the guys are a little bit older in a different way. But usually younger players that have a certain level of status, a lot of those guys actually just do their own thing, even if they like the other guy who's a star. All right. You know, it was funny about that, too, because I was looking at like last late shot clock possession offensive efficiency numbers because i was i was just sorting a bunch of

different bosses stuff over the weekend and it reminded me of the number that came up because because mb missed the shot against atlanta and it was like mb's one for 18 now five seconds to go game tied or down one so game winners less than five seconds to go i'm like man one for 18 they're like it's the second worst game but who's oh for 25 i'm like my god that number's so bad and i go you know what though that number is so bad and when i really think about it less than five seconds to go in that spot's really hard i'm like what are the rest of them and then micah adams i believe who used to be at espn yeah Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah, so I was like, oh, great. And another guy who was with the Bucs started showing me some of the data that they had.

It was like, everybody's terrible. Like, almost everybody's really bad. Jokic had some really good numbers in that spot to emphasize how impossible a situation it is. So then I started looking at league-wide, less than four seconds to go on the shot clock, at least for this season. So if you look at, I don't know, the best offenses are like 115, 117 per 100 possession.

The Lakers are number one in the NBA for a team less than four seconds to go on the shot clock. It's 63 points per 100 possession. And I'm losing. Even KOC is like, dude don't know not even that much i'm not interested in this anymore um detroit's last at 44 points per 100 then it's orlando and then it's boston so the third worst team in assorted stat that could totally change it may not mean that much later on but i i looked at those numbers and you know again it caused me a bunch of shit because i couldn't believe Westbrook took 27

threes. He had even more attempts. Six of 27 and then people were like, it's a better percentage than Lillard. I'm like, yeah, but the whole point is that Westbrook who can't shoot threes has taken 27 threes with five seconds left in that spot throughout his career and he's not good at doing it. So

that transitions us into the Lakers game. Down big, they come back. Everybody that was us into the Lakers game. Down big. They come back. Everybody that was paying attention to it, because I'm always looking for it late. A bad Westbrook defensive decision. He gave us one. It's like you order it and it shows up to your house. I always do it.

It's a bad habit, but it's a habit that I'm just like, hey, I'm going to see what Westbrook does here where he freelances and does whatever he wants. He gets caught up in a switch, decides to sort of help when he shouldn't. And Patty Mills, who's fucking got the nets on fire, he leaves them wide open in the corner. It's the biggest shot of the game. And Westbrook didn't know where he was. Just decided to do his own thing once again. And it's not worked. I thought even for the regular season, Kevin, that there was a Westbrook part of this.

I thought his energy would help them get through the lulls. I'm still a little open to the idea, and I'm rambling a bit here, that I'm not ready to totally write off the Lakers like some other people are. But you said that the Lakers need to explore possibly trading him. Is that even realistic at $47 million next year? There's not many options out there, that's for damn sure uh there's probably what one two three teams that you could even come up with some hypothetical for russell westbrook i mean really the truth is that this is this is on rust to evolve it's it's on him it's on him to become a guy who's going to lock in defense it's not going to happen it's like never going to happen it's probably not it's probably not ever going to happen but but why not to take a line from

Russell Westbrook why not become a guy who's going to say to yourself before you get in the court with you know a minute 30 left when you're switched on to Patty Mills why not be the guy to say you know what I'm going to lock in here I'm going to focus I'm not going to leave Patty Mills who has 31 points and is like like you, as the nets on fire. Like, why not do that? Why not be a guy who's doing some of the dirty work? Like Carmelo Anthony for years, people were saying about him. Oh, you know, he's always going to play his way. He's always going to take mid range shots.

Well, he's become a guy who's taking more shots within the flow of the offense, becoming a better three point shooter, a more committed defender. Dwight Howard for years is a guy who is posting up, posting up, demanding post-ups. Now he's a guy who brings energy, who runs up and down the floor, who rebounds, who rim runs, who sets screens and rolls. He doesn't demand post-ups anymore. Westbrook isn't at that point of his career. He's not at that point of his career where he needs to become a role player. But why can't this be a transition phase where he's doing some role player things in addition to the stuff he does as a guy who energizes your offense as a pick and roll shot creator

as an ISO guy? I just don't see how it's unreasonable to expect more from a great player. He's one of the 75 greatest players in NBA history from the NBA 75th anniversary list. Why? I don't see how it's unreasonable to expect more from a guy like that at this stage of his career on a team where he's teammates with lebron and ad i just don't see how it's unreasonable well the theory isn't unreasonable the the thing you're it's like asking a waterfall to go in

another direction it's just is it is it though it is i can it is people can change ryan players we do this we do this shit with quarterbacks like year seven fourth coordinator and we're like you know if you could just figure out a way to eliminate some of the mistakes i don't know there's just too many guys that we we give all this and we just i think the best way to say it's like it's like hope like you go oh like why would you think that this is going to change at any point? If you're doing this, I don't even need to keep going because I've gone forever. And then it turns into this thing. It's like, it sounds like it's personal.

Do I believe in him too much? Do I believe in him too much? Is that thing? Because people with that tweet, they say, oh, you're a Russ hater, blah, blah, blah, this and that. Do I believe in him too much to at least have a sliver of hope? For you to have an open mind that all of a sudden he's going to change his approach to basketball, I think is absurd. So yeah, I'm not trying to be mean about it.

I don't think so. I don't. I still think there's a chance. When you're playing with LeBron James, fit in or fit out, Ryan. Did you come up with a trade? Because KFC and I are going to finish it here. How about Westbrook for Wall? That was such a great...

Yeah. Westbrook for Wall. That's like the one that makes any sliver of sense for LA. I'm not sure it makes sense for Houston because I put that on my article on Monday on The Ringer and Houston Rockets fans are like, hell no. Wait, Houston people said no? Houston fans are like, hell no. Keep them away.

We like John Wall being inactive. I don't know how accurate the information is now. Because sometimes you'll get information on something. You'll be like, hey, what's going on with this? What are people saying? And then by the time you talk about it, it's a month removed. So I don't think this is the newest stuff. But when I talked to somebody about wall which is

like you know because i think you and i and a lot of people understand it's like as bad as contracts have been you look at them and say never fall for that and think that it's impossible to move some of these deals but the irony of the wall westbrook storylines that they were traded for each other it's a lot like the uh richard lewis gilbert arenas trade you know you're like how are you ever going to get off of these contracts you're like oh well we'll just we'll trade them for each other you go okay all right problem solved um the fact it's already happened once would be weird for it to happen again but the intel which i don't know that it's changed all that much it's like look at least westbrook's playing like the wall market is non-existent because you don't even know what

you're getting because you might not even play. Although I did read one wall trade destination thing where somebody was like, hey, here's five places you go. It's one of the worst things I've ever read. None of it made any sense. And as soon as you start saying like Wall's leadership would be a valued thing, you're like, I don't know about that. Even though, you know, there have been times I kind of liked John Wall in the past. So, all right, do you have a couple realistic trades then? Because I put together at least like two grown-up.

I don't have a Ben Simmons one, although the intel I'm getting on Simmons is this feels like it might be like a Brett Favre deal, where it's about going from point A to B to get to C. So I don't think the Ben Simmons crew feels like they have the same influence on calling their shot. I think at this point, the first goal is get him out of Philadelphia and then pick it up again maybe later on. Because I've heard some trades with Ben Simmons where people have shot him down. I'm going, I don't know.

I think at this point, he'd be open to just getting out of there. So whatever you have here, let's finish up with these um how about uh fox and bagley from sacramento to indiana for sabonis and lavert as like a foundation for a trade you know you had some picks whatever but something like that get get sabonis to sacramento a team that has a mandate to make the postseason have some balance on that roster halliburton that recent four game stretch he had ryan without fox oh my god he was unbelievable he had like 100 plus touches per game he was dominant for sacramento granted they were still dropping games but something like that uh is one that i'm into how about if utah wants to wait wait wait wait we're gonna stay on is sabonis the best piece in this trade or Or where are you with the Sabonis thing?

Because I think there's a real... I love Sabonis. Okay. Do you think a lot of people love Sabonis? Or do you think there's some anti-Sabonis-isms? There's anti-Sabonis people. There are. I've talked to some NBA people.

There are. They complain about how he holds the ball. Like he doesn't whip the ball. He doesn't make quick decisions. That he stagnates the offense. He certainly can't be your one. And you't make quick decisions that he stagnates the offense. He certainly can't be your one, and you've got to make sure you keep him involved because he's still a little old school and some of that stuff.

I think Brogdon does a really good job on his drives because Brogdon's drives is one of the weirdest players I've ever watched. You're like, oh, there he is again at the rim past everybody. I don't know how he got there, but he did. And then Sabonis comes over off the help. The Fox thing, I feel guilty giving. I feel like Fox is Colin Sexton, but cooler. Sometimes I worry where I'll be like, all right, this guy can do some things. Look at, hey, he hit 35 the other night.

Ooh, a triple-double. This is cool. And you're like, ah, the team loses all the time. And Darren Fox at the end of games. I don't know how many seasons, but this season cool and you're like ah the team loses all the time and darren fox at the end of games i don't know how many seasons but this season i don't know what the latest numbers were but at one point this year the numbers were absolutely atrocious um on some of his his finishing moments in there i almost like that deal better from sacramento if you keep laver i'm just not a laver guy yeah and i'm sorry he's okay all right um okay give me your utah one how about uh let's say utah wants to trade some offense for you know a better defender to just to throw this back to the them playing some more small ball boy on bogdanovich for jeremy grant and again just a baseline of a deal probably adding something else in that because grant can provide some offense for you not in the same way

bogdanovich provides knockdown shooting but he he's a far superior defender. You could play him at the four next to Gobert or Whiteside. You can maybe even play a little bit of small ball five with him. And that to me is the intriguing thing for Utah. And another guy to think about, maybe Thad Young, a cheaper option for Utah. But if I'm the Jazz, my priority between now and the deadline is finding somebody who can give me another strong option with those non-Gobert minutes because it's not always going to be white side. If you have to rely on white side in certain playoff series, I think you're in trouble. So granted, he has not been bad. But in a postseason series, you got to have an option out there to go with a four and a five who have versatility. Wow, that's a really good one

really good one because i got to think about it and i was not the biggest jeremy grant guy i thought he was actually pretty overrated and then he got to detroit they let him take 20 shots a game but you did i mean to be fair it wasn't just the stats you saw a rounding outness to his offensive game that you just hadn't experienced before because he was never really allowed to do it i don't love that he could just disappear rebounding wise for for some stretches, but it would feel like Utah would just have a completely different flexibility thing there, although I'd be a little worried about... They use Bogdanovich, again, in some of the bigger-bodied

wing matchups, and they just shoot the hell out of the ball. I'd almost be like, I don't know, am I afraid? He's good. Yeah, he doesn't get enough credit. He's important. He's very important. They use him so much off screens and handoffs on offense. he's the guy that when you know it's not working with mitchell and conley they can he's an outlet for them run it by age yeah shoot him a text that's your guy see what danny thinks all right i have two quick ones for you charlotte who how about

borrego the other night bench Bench and Lamello and Miles Bridges in the comeback against Denver. But you could see, honestly, if they had a serviceable big, Charlotte's a completely different team. I mean, they're trying with

Plumlee. You know, there's a couple other guys that run out there. What if they did PJ Washington because they're going to make a financial decision on PJ and Miles Bridges. I don't think you'll be able to do both. You throw in Kai Jones and then they're going to make a financial decision on P.J. and Miles Bridges. I don't think they're going to be able to do both.

You throw in Kai Jones and then Plumlee to make the money work for Miles Turner. But you'd have to hope that the Pacers like Kai Jones, or maybe they counter and say Booknight, and then they go, you know what, we're getting rid of Sabonis. P.J. Washington is a nice player. The fluctuation there is a little weird with that,

but he can shoot the hell out of a ball for a guy that size. give me your thoughts on that i mean i would love miles turner with lamella that would be a fun pick and roll pairing having him also protect the the ram on the defensive end that'd be fun with indiana uh you said they would have to like kai jones i wonder how much can they get for miles turner i mean what i don't think it's that great honestly dude we know this a lot of teams don't love him he's been available for like three fucking years team teams don't love turner they don't and i mean you know look everybody's available to a certain degree i've heard turner's name come up like oh

you know we kick the tires on this you know whatever like real stuff other than oh yeah we would take a call on anybody okay let's just do a dumb one then i i had i thought two real ones whatever we'll keep it that i think charlotte's trying to figure out a way to get a big um i always mess around with trying to trade siakam and is there any i see here's the thing if you were to ever try to do a zion trade and by the way the people saying that like maybe zion will be the first guy that turns down the rookie extension i believe that day exists that somebody's going to do it why would zion do it considering his health problems and i i think it's now to the point too where um the zion part of it is so bad that the locker room's kind of over his shit which is like the worst thing that can happen it's cool the

front office and fans get upset, but when your own teammates are like, all right, cool, dude, this is a good time. But I can't really add anything to Zion's 10.7 million this year that makes it work. Like I was thinking, hey, is there a Zion Siakam deal? Like if you were Toronto, do you do that for the upside part of it,

feeling like you're a better organization or do you go no we can't we can't do this because you know the biggest concern was zion was he's hurt and again this is all bullshit hypothetical it's not based on any source of this work how many first round picks does toronto have to give up in addition to siakam is it like four is it five oh you think so yeah i mean i mean you don't think it's that many but here's the problem at this at this point like if david griffin seriously were to consider trading sign which again hype all hypothetical talk here i wonder how much it takes in return i bet it's still a significant amount for the exact reason you just said ryan it's the upside factor the

fact is that this guy at 20 years old last year is still one of the 15 best players in basketball. He was sensational after late January when Stan Van Gundy put the ball into his hands. I mean, the injury concerns are real. He could go down the Odin path, but he could go down the Embiid path.

That's still a possibility. So you think you'd have to throw in four firsts on top of that for zion at this point i don't know the other problem for new orleans is they don't have a lot of fodder uh you probably end up having to throw in another decent younger player you still like i mean saddler ransky i guess you could say jackson hayes because he seems to be out of favor again um because valence eunice does more of the stuff that he was maybe trying to do i don't know all right i feel like we ended on a poor note there

with my fake Zion thing because I tried this morning and it doesn't really... You can't be adding stuff to Zion that you actually like just to try to get the salary to work for a bigger player. I just wonder if New Orleans would go.

We'd rather have something that's steady that's pretty good and maybe isn't peak Zion. But as you pointed out, I think this is true right now. The highest points per 36 in NBA history is Zion pointed out, I think this is true right now. The highest points per 36 in NBA history is Zion last season. I think that's the right number. He's absolutely

amazing. That's KOC. You can also check out the mismatch and The Void, which is in the same podcast feed and all of his great work on TheRinger.com. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari.

355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. All right, We're throwing a couple follow-up cleanups here. LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com

Did Doris Burke on the broadcast say for the Golden State Phoenix game, did she say that the strength guy said that Steph Curry is doing single arm curls with 100-pound dumbbells? I heard the 100-pound dumbbell.

I think I missed the curl part. Can we get research on that? I'm just checking right now. I'm going through Twitter to see it. I don't see anything yet. All right. I didn't hear the single-arm curls, but the email Kyle sent to me

because he just was like, do we need to check on this? And I said, I think we do need to check on that. There's no way in hell 100 arm curls would rip dudes rip dudes elbows apart so it's not uh there's no way that's true and i don't i mean you know tom platt's more of a leg guy you know i don't know i don't know i don't know who i would say like who could do one i'm sure probably somebody's done it all right moving on i don't think we can spend more time but if it did yeah bummer yeah i don't know i feel like she said something else about 100 pound

dumbbells i don't know that it was curls but i know we're gonna get a million responses no matter what to this. All right. This guy wanted to know how I ended up at Benihana Solo at Disney World. You must be a new listener. The NBA pre-draft thing has two events. One's in Portsmouth, Virginia, the PIT, Portsmouth Invitational. I used to go to that all the time. It wasn't about the players. It was about the contacts, but now it's a little harder to get around. So I don't go anymore. And then it used to be Chicago. And then it went to Orlando because the facilities at the Milk Center, I believe, were incredible. So you could have a million courts going. And then everybody started pulling out. So you didn't need a million games going on at the same time. Right.

going on at the same time. Right. So, um, and then all the NBA personnel people, and apparently coaches complained or like, at least in Chicago, I get a steak and hang out Chicago where in Orlando you end up at Benny Hanna by yourself. So that's what happened is I would be there by myself working anyway, trying to make contacts, watching some draft picks. And so I don't know, it was like five or six years, maybe. I don't remember how many years I went in a row, but I went a bunch. And that's why I ended up at Benihana solo at a joint grill with a bunch of newlyweds. So, I didn't go like, hey, you know what? I got a long weekend. Let me bang out a Disney World trip by myself.

So, yeah, I've actually stayed at the resort multiple times. I've never gone on one ride. I didn't go to any of the stuff. So, there you go. I know Saruti. Because people are like, how come there wasn't more of us? So there you go. I know Saruti because people are like, how come there wasn't more of us? You guys already know, like Saruti's known he's, he's heard about that forever. So, uh, we also had some follow-ups in the fraternity story of, um, our house being stolen 20 something years ago. And a guy researched where I went and the house, and he said the same thing happened to his house at Yale from the same national fraternity.

So shout out to those guys for picking dudes' houses off left and right. He also wanted to ask Sir Rudy's favorite. When you went to Quinnipiac, what was the amount of Yale socializing? A good amount because, you know to bars actually. Toad's Bar, which is my favorite spot personally. Most Quinnipiacs in the town outside of New Haven. Yale is obviously in New Haven, but everybody would go out in New Haven. Actually, the overlap

was pretty great. You'd have people lying about which school they went to. It was kind of weird. Southern Connecticut State was in there a little bit. There's U New Haven. There was a bunch of schools in the area and everybody would just try to meet the Yale people, even though the Yale people weren't that great at partiers, like shocker. But yeah, it was actually a good amount.

A lot of cross pollination at Toad's Place. Wait, Kyle, you had a comment in there once you heard about the fake Yale guy. It seemed to be of interest. I don't know. I went to easily the third or fourth school in the four school radius and I never lied about which school I went to. Could have said, ew. I don't know. I went to easily the third or fourth school in the four school radius, and I never lied about

which school I went to. Could have said I went to St. Lawrence. Could have said I went to Clarkson. But no, I'm at Potsdam. I guess SUNY Canton was the worst one, but what can you do? Yeah, I think it was maybe to impress girls. You throw on a Yale hoodie and you walk around the haven. You go to a bar or something and see what the scene is like.

None of my friends did that, but I knew it was a thing, which is kind of weird. Sounds embarrassing. It really actually is. I don't know, Kyle. I could see you as an awesome fake Yale guy. You see me, dude. You've got your Potsdam hat on now. I could see you just sort of hanging at a toe. It's being like, yeah, whatever.

Molecular biology. People would be like, when that guy goes to Yale, I'd be dude crazy math guy the future president right there no big deal did you ever get into it with any slew dudes um one of my friends was like i think probably the toughest guy it's at slew so not really no toughest guy at slew is saying something yeah probably those guys were the halfbacks halfback and lax guy. Yeah. UVM looked in the mirror and saw a certain thing about itself and its ability to hang and get after it. And then anytime there was any cross-pollination with UVM guys and SLU guys, which was not very often, but every now and then.

And I just always felt they were cut a little bit different. I always felt like they were like 10 years behind us in a horrifying way. You know how when you show up to college and people be like, oh, 10 years ago we used to be doing this. So I don't know. Although I don't know if the SLU guys looked at the UVM guys and didn't think the exact same thing because you'd get this like alpha off. And then again,

what I always remind everybody is with no football team at UVM whatsoever, you're never that worried about being an idiot because you were all the kind of the same guys um although slew always felt like it was just at a slightly different level um and sometimes i'd run to those guys in the summer at some place you'd be like hey what's up with them like i was saying lawrence guys so that was always i'll ask my guy alonzo let's see what he thinks yeah yeah let him know let him know we're super curious in the 802.

Okay. I don't know that we want to turn it into fraternity corner, but we'll do one more. Because this is an actual question. And then I think we're going to put this one to bed. Because I'm going to feel like a loser after I read this email and tell the story. Alright guys, six foot shoes on, 175,

running in after Ryan's fraternity stories. I graduated this path. What's that, Kyle? No, he's six foot shoes on. That's funny Ryan's fraternity stories. I graduated this path. What's that Kyle? No, he's six foot shoes on. That's funny to me. I don't know. Yeah, no guys. Hey, look, round up in life. Why round down? Right. Um, writing in after the fraternity, I graduated college this past May. My senior year was totally derailed by COVID. All right. So he graduated apparently on time here, but, um, the social part of it,, you know, that sucks for a lot of you writing in. I mean, you know, it's just a completely different experience considering those are sometimes four to six of the most amazing years ever. All right.

So online class admin preventing, oh, police admin preventing much in the way of parties until halfway through spring semester. Fast forward to this fall. I'm still in the town with a short-term job, getting ready to apply to grad school. A big reason for staying in the same town was because a lot of my closest friends, including my roommate, took gap years because of COVID and are now seniors. All right. So he's still in the same town. He's working. He actually graduated.

These are all your buds. They're still there. This includes several guys from my year in a fraternity. I've been by the house to see my friends this year and have stopped stopped by for some of the bigger parties like we had a rivalry football game please don't share on the air okay that's fine this one guy for my year happens to be a treasurer still because he took a gap year

and he's been pestering me for months trying to collect dues from me $700 I've tried just blowing him off that'd be $700 for the fall semester I believe I can't imagine that's definitely going to be what it is I've've tried blowing him off, but he won't get the hit. For context, I haven't attended any of the formals or other events that cost the house a lot of money, and our fraternity has a long tradition of welcoming alums at any event, no questions

asked. All the guys from my year that I've talked to say, why would you pay dues? You graduated, quote, end quote, which I totally agree with. I completely agree as well. Now this guy sent me a Venmo request for fall dues. That's right. So 700 for the semester over the holidays. And I have a feeling he's going to continue making this an issue. If I stopped by the house in the spring, is there a way,

is there a way for me not pay dues while still being able to stop by the house? Or is it time to grow up and stop drinking at a fraternity house? Even my friends live there. I'm not making, making very much of my university job while saving for grad school. And this is not an insignificant amount of money for me. Would appreciate perspective. Big fan of the pot. i could not be more on your side on this one

this is actually fucking ridiculous and honestly the solution is you get the other guys that are still in the house that are your friends and you you make this an issue and then put it to bed and be like look he lives here he's not in the fraternity he's one of our best friends he's our fucking roommate just because he graduated on time and we didn't. And he still lives here, works for the school. He can't come by without getting a bill. And you're not even going to the higher end stuff, which you still should be able to go to anyway and pay it out of your pocket if you wanted to do it. The other problem is I brought this up before. When you turn that 22 or 23 right after school and take it from a fifth year guy who was around for a lot longer than the fifth year, was still living in the town there is this weird um social barrier that you put up

because you feel like all right i graduated it's over i can't be around here anymore um because now i feel like a loser the the speed and some of it is admirable to be like okay i'm done with school i'm putting that behind me i'm turning the page page and I'm ready for the next point in my life. The thing is, is when you look back on it, you'd be like, why did I have such a hang up about being 22 or 23 while other guys were 21 were my friends. And yet I felt like I had to create this barrier socially where I can't hang out with you. I'm telling you that is the biggest waste of time. Even in the moment, if you feel like, oh, dudes are judging me.

Oh, you're still around. Again, you guys dealt with something unprecedented. A pandemic completely screwed up the whole class ranking. Well, not class. I would say class affiliation, not ranking. So you're still there. These are your buddies, and you should be able to stop by. And honestly, there's no way anybody should be charging you for anything.

And all you have to do is pull a power play and get enough guys that agree with you to address this. Next time there's a meeting that you probably don't even go to have it brought up. And maybe when you're not there and have the guys be like, hey, why are we why are we charging him dues? Now, unless you're not telling me the full scope and you're there eating all the time and constantly crashing and you're just in place all the time. But it sounds like if other guys in the house were like why would you have to pay dues then just get those guys on your

side to bring it up and tell that guy to fucking delete his venmo request now i can tell you as we've touched on the financial motivations of some of these houses that some guys get really um motivated by like oh hey head count whatever like when nationals would come all the time they'd be like hey brother up 20 more guys they'd be like why these guys suck they want to do the same you know like what are you talking about and then all they cared about was just oh this is 20 more guys writing a check every fucking semester right they don't they're not around they're not the ones that have to hang out with them and live with them um so i remember this is super embarrassing so i'll just get it out of the way my fifth year uh hard for pete and i got an apartment in a like grown-up community in the

next town over because we were thought we were staying in one house we get kicked out of it which we totally deserve to we've been over that before on the fake lease that didn't exist um and then we he was gonna he was gonna move out west or something or maybe down south i don't know i was gonna stay because i was managing a bar and i still had this one stupid english course i needed to take and um which we've told before that ended up being badminton um and so right at the end of that summer after the end of my fifth year i was like shit well um what are we doing and he's like i'm not moving let's try to find a place and we had a week to find a place we even asked the place to extend after we told him we weren't. We're like, hey, actually, we're good. We try to play dumb. We're like, no, no, we're good. We're going to stick

around. They're like, yeah, we're good. You guys aren't great fits for this adult community. There's old people here and kids. You guys are not great fits. And we were like, okay. So we move out our stuff. I throw all of mine in storage, which again, And we were like, okay. So we move out our stuff. I throw all of mine in storage, which again, CD crates and ski jackets. And Pete ended up getting a place, a sick apartment, but it was a single. And so all of a sudden I'm like, oh, well, I needed you.

And now I'm trying to find a single. I couldn't find anything. So enter the house where I go to the guys. I'm like, look, there's that basement room. That's absolutely horrifying. I go, can I just throw some stuff in there and a mattress and then run a cable wire down so I can watch games? I'm like, I'm not going to be home five nights anyway because I'm managing this bar. And they were like, totally.

And the younger guys are cool about it. I hated it. I started making rounds with my buddies that were living in the city and be like, did you hear Rosillo's living in the basement right now? So this is a sixth year guy with no place to live. And I had like basement access. I wasn't hanging out. living in the basement right now so this is a sixth year guy with no place to live and i i had like bait basement access i wasn't hanging out um i felt like a fucking loser i can tell you that do that to you dude that seems like a bummer well you know hard for behind your back and got a got a got a studio to himself yeah well he had to do what he had to do was about survival at that point and you know the apartment that he got even though looking at it now, I'd be like, oh my God,

you wanted to live there? At the time, it was a very desirable location and set up. I think the rent was like 250 bucks a month. It was a studio. But he was good. He was very good at maximizing every square inch of an apartment or room. And so I had nowhere to go. i'm trying to find a single last minute and there's just nothing so i had to move into this basement room i think there was a fight

one night a bunch of guys came downstairs were like hey there's a fight upstairs can you help and i was like you know you're like sober and you know but again i'm 23 and i feel like i'm 33 and you're just like all right so i last i don't know i lasted like maybe six weeks or something like that until somebody else let me move into their place and then somebody went abroad and i took that so it all worked out but the point is this is that the guy before he stole our house was like he's living here he's like great that's another head count charge him full room and board and they were like no we're actually just trying to help the guy out he's not having to live he doesn't eat anything he's never around and i wasn't because i was working all the time

and now he's like nope and so they tacked it on they just threw it on man they just threw it on and the guy like the national guy again they stole our house so fuck that guy but um that's just what they did and that's you know that's that's the dark side of the finances. So, well, I feel like this and again, having not been in it, maybe I'm an idiot, but it gets back to the is this a pyramid scheme for friends situation? Like these guys are just looking for money. They're like sharks out there. Like when they see blood, they're like, I charge this guy 700 bucks. Like that's that's a bummer to me.

And what's the what's the rule? Are you supposed to when you when you're done, when you graduate, are you just out? You can come back to parties, but you never have to pay. That's the rule. Yeah,. And what's the, what's the rule? Are you supposed to, when you, when you're done, when you graduate, are you just out? You can come back to parties, but you never have to pay. That's the rule. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's supposed to happen.

You should just, that's the rule that you don't have to pay. If you graduate, then you, then you kind of get, get to skate by for free. Look, there's places that take it way more seriously than any experience that I ever

had, where you go back and maybe there's some sort of alumni thing that you do. You know, I remember again, we had a big screen TV. It was before I'd even been there, but it was there. And somebody was like, yeah, you know, one class bought this and then whatever. I remember one time when I was, was still like in normal timeframe years, it was like fake Oktoberfest because UVM shut it all down because it was out of control. And they were just like, this is such a liability,

how crazy that town used to be. And really, I think it was kind of like late 80s, early 90s, before I'd even gotten there. And so they tried to change it around, and they made it homecoming, even though we didn't have a football team. So I think it was like a homecoming soccer game, but then they combined it with Parents Weekend, because they thought like, all right,

even though this is technically still Oktoberfest, it doesn't exist anymore, it'll be homecoming, but it's also Parents Weekend, so maybe these kids will just not be out of control because their parents are around and that didn't work either um and then i remember just like hanging out on the porch and then some alums came by you know vests finance look great you know just like really got their shit together late 20s and And they go, are you guys doing anything for us? And we're like, yeah, I don't know. There's some stuff in the fridge if you want. They're like, you guys serious?

Like you didn't do anything? And they just looked at us like we were the biggest losers ever because we put together nothing. We put zero effort into anything for anybody coming back to visit. thing for anybody coming back to visit. So, you know, look, I'm not saying I understand all of it everywhere because geographically is super, super intense in other pockets of the country compared to where I was. But at least in this case for this guy, the hang up, like, I'm glad you don't have that hang up because, you know, I felt like the biggest loser ever. And my friends were kind of like, dude, what are you doing and i go i'm not living here like i'm fired up to live here and go into meetings and stuff like i i need a

place to put my shit i have i have no place to live so uh yeah there you go okay yeah any follow-ups um well i'd never been in a fraternity. Came close twice, but... Yeah, we talked about that. You're a treasurer, sort of, right? Weren't you like... Yeah, yeah, treasurer for the prospect group or whatever you want to call it. But I just, I think I would treat this like, you know,

you're not getting my fucking football jersey back senior year. You just don't have 57. I know that you could bother me about it. I know that the, you know, the head that the coach slash history teacher is going to see me in the hallways and ask me about it. And I'll tell him, I don't know. I'll look. My mom's supposed to watch it. I'm not sure. And I'm just going to keep doing that until I graduate. And then it doesn't matter. I'll wear it to the games when my little brother plays. And then, hey, remember that jersey? It's right. It's like, it is what it is. You've you just passed the time you've made it out congrats and that's money that you don't know like yeah i'm gonna get my 57 jersey

back sorry i can't imagine debt collectors calling you back in the day you know because it's you gotta build up that thick skin we just go like hey i know i know you're calling i know i know you're after something but i'm i'm numb shit. Yeah. And they get really aggressive. They can be super nasty about it. They just, they prey on your weakness. I had a guy text me about a real estate thing Christmas morning. Christmas morning, the guy cold texting me being like, hey, is that, and I just went, fuck off, it's Christmas.

That was my response. Nice. This title obviously jumped right out. So we had to do it. Living on Martha's Vineyard. Okay. Name is, we'll just say, I guess he's telling us to use his first name. Kevin, 27, from Ohio, 62, 200 pounds, played D3 lacrosse.

Sick. Strange career to say the least. In college, I was a fishing charter captain on Nantucket. This guy really likes the islands. After I graduated from a little art school, I went to San Francisco and ran a successful fly shop. All right. Fly fishing. I knew it'd be a temporary move because of my career and how expensive the Bay area is. So I knew I was, I knew leaving was a ticking time bomb. All right. Regardless, I met many intelligent people, started doing video, social media, seriously, uh, because some tech roommates

was pretty good at helping the company get a lot of new customers. Once the pandemic hit and everything shut down, I had a short stint as a yacht broker. Strange world. Yes, it is. And eventually my fiance and I moved to South Carolina. She has a remote job

and I will always try to make my fishing career work. Charleston is much, oh, Charleston, South Carolina, much cheaper than these super cities. So I thought it'd be an intelligent move. Long story short, my fiance hated the South

and wanted to come back to her roots in the Northeast. Fairfield County, shout out. Being from Cleveland and living in two of the most expensive places in the country, I was highly wary of moving to somewhere extremely expensive. So the parents made a deal with us. We can move into their Martha's Vineyard home and they purchased a new boat for me these sick parents yeah they're not even they're not even his did they give you a million dollars to yeah get you started and the dad said it was cool if i have an open relationship so all right uh they purchased the new boat 32 foot regulator all right um because he said his 17 foot skiff can't handle waistqueak all right uh it's always been my fiance's dream to live on

the island year round oh is it has she ever done it before the number of people that i've met that have told me that is their dream to live on martha's vineyard year round versus the number of people who are like i'm psyched i did this um so that's kind of my first concern but we'll keep reading the email so i'll do anything to make the fishing part work uh been working on my career since i was 18 he started a uh fishing club in college it's kind of regular rushmore over here. I know from past experiences in your podcast that making friends in the Northeast is challenging to say the least. Do you have any advice for me since I know you grew up there? I'm thinking about trying to help coach the high school hockey team as a volunteer to get involved in the community. Sure, you can drop my name. I don't know

who any of the coaches are for the hockey team. I can't even ice skate, but feel free. I don't know anyone there, so I can't really on the hockey side of things. With my new fishing charter, people will probably not like me since all they see is a spoiled brat from Cleveland with a $200,000 boat. I'd already been talked shit to a couple times at the dock, but I ignore it because I'm

not an idiot. I know what it looks like. All right. Some good self-awareness. Sorry for the long email. I love the ocean. I love Martha's Vineyard. I'm a little worried about making lifelong friends on the island i love the show and uh go bruins okay all right um i don't know i think you're actually doing all right here um if your biggest hang-up is meeting new friends you're still in your 20s um look the northeast part of this is not the challenge this isn't like moving to boston going hey everybody's not super friendly from the beginning this is what you know and i've told

you numerous times when you're from the boston area everybody i think philly has this too maybe new york just doesn't care enough but everybody kind of starts at like zero and has to work their way up to a 50 on the scale of a thousand on the likability thing um i'm just telling you you know the vineyard is gorgeous i appreciate it more now that i'm older but i also appreciate the fact that i don't have to live there i mean there's it's a weird feeling when it's february and you want to do something there's no highway um now it is very different year round now compared to uh when i lived there when i lived there like after seven o'clock in in the mid of winter if if you didn't have you know something to eat you know again you just grocery shopping it's

like you're walking around homeless but um you know you didn't really have any options you could come to the farm's grab chips and salsa like that kind of stuff like it's just weird it's just weird like we used to get the movies way later than everybody else you know months after and it'd be one it would run for a week and then it would be done and so that was like a big deal when the new movie that was super old would make it to the island on a friday and that was like an actual thing to do but again you're not going to be partying with high school kids so uh i'm giving my high school experience on this it is more year-round ish the the vibe uh especially this last time that I was just there seeing family. It is more year

round. I think the pandemic has a lot to do with that on top of everything else. So I don't know how sustainable that is. But if you're moving out to Katama and you get a $200,000 boat, then you're going to figure out a way to make this work. So you have the major parts of this ticked off, first of all. I just wonder if you're both really super built even though it is better year-round built for it uh the way so many people told me they were built for it and then they hated it because it's it's very challenging um i don't i don't know making friends on it you got a boat so you're gonna make friends right if you're really good somebody wants to be your friend yeah somebody you're gonna have some people that want

to be your friend so you're probably gonna have to hit up the ritz which isn't as fancy as it sounds um you know the places that i used to bartender clothes now anyway you know maybe just make make your way down to the wharf pub in egger town and yeah i mean you know it's not for everybody but some of it's going to be getting out there and being social and meeting people. And it's going to be up to you. It's going to be up to you to make it happen. But I would not have a hang up about the boat thing. All right.

I mean, look, you're not the only guy there with money walking around. And most people aren't going to give a shit. Like, I remember my father moved our family there the first time. And here he is just a humble tradesman. And he put up his flyer about, you know, decks, patios, additions, renovations, whatever, whatever. And it was this like letterhead. Then he started posting, you know, the general store, the gas station, the grocery store. He just started going around canvassing, trying to get his business.

And it's pretty ballsy, to be honest be honest he had no contacts just wanted to live there was a dream of his um and he he put this thing all over town and so then we went back to like the general store the next day and some local wrote full of shit and it was all it was, was him listing the services that he provided. And some guy writes full of shit. Like that was so egregious to say that he could handle renovations, additions, patios. I mean, it wasn't like he was making it up. And then my father like somehow changed it. I'll never forget. And it said, said full of shit. He crossed off full and was like he's good no shit like then he left it up so i i don't know why maybe he was running low on um letterhead yeah i don't know why wouldn't just put up another one but he got a kick out he thought that was really funny that he did it and you know eventually it worked but he wasn't a guy that was social wasn't like he was going out or doing anything like that so um i don't i don't have a ton of advice for you other than prepare yourself for the winter part of this and you're

not going to make any friends just hanging out with your fiancee the entire time um i'm not acting like you know this isn't going to be the shining because it's a far more active than it was when i was you know i was only there 15 16 17 and then some summers when i would go back and then i spent two winters there which i would rather not done but i didn't have any choice um but yeah i don't know kyle um yeah i mean i imagine there's multiple boat clubs again winter is different but um you know i i don't know i mean this is wherever you go you're gonna have to find new friends and like if you're thinking about like oh they're gonna think i'm a fraud well maybe maybe you seem like a fraud if that's all you're thinking about that's all just fucking be friends you got a boat and then go to the boat there's like clubs for people that are

your your style right which is like boats or rich in-laws or something maybe there's a regular club you can go to i don't know rich in-law club you. Maybe there's a regular club you can go to. I don't know. Rich in-law club? You think that exists? I don't know. That's just a country club, isn't it? Maybe he can start one like his fishing club. No, but I mean, if he likes hockey, there's going to be a men's league skate that goes on

or something like that. Is there a Bruins bar anywhere? A Bruins bar? I don't know. No. Sports bar at all? Just show up at a Bruins jersey? I'm sure there's a sports bar.

There'll be other Bruins fans there. You know, talk of hockey. You'll meet a couple guys. Maybe, you know, you get a number or two. It'll be all right. Yeah, the lookout. You go up there, watch some games out by the OB Ferry. Yeah, I don't know.

This poor guy's going to be walking around dropping my name, and he'll be like, that fucking guy hasn't been here in 20 years. That guy's full of shit. Guy's not even a native. Martha's Vineyard. 728 reviews on Google. 4.5 stars.

Nice. Who reviews an island? I don't know. It literally says it's an island. It says like Martha's Vineyard Island. 4.5 stars. I just cannot emphasize this enough it is not for everyone all right like the fact that the boat like you'll kind of drive around and it's gorgeous

i mean seriously every town it's it's incredible you know it took me a little while took me a little more settled in my own head and and that kind of stuff and the fact i could leave but when i would come back and you pull in on the boat ofyard haven and you're just like this place is insane like nantucket's more fun but martha's vineyard from a picturesque standpoint i think has it all over nantucket is it losing any land like is that a concern for like those islands or like is the water rising or anything um you know i haven't checked the charts lately no, mostly if you look at the way the currents work, it's drags one part of the beach and builds up towards another end on the South part of the Island. So, um, I don't know.

I don't know, like Chappaquiddick's the whole nother story. So I imagine some of the four wheel paths are different now, but again, I'm kind of talking to my ass a little bit cause I don't know. Um, so I'm going to stop, but fair. Yeah. But it was those winters, man. Those winters were – I took a semester off, worked construction there. That was necessary, but it actually wasn't necessary.

It was a terrible decision. So, Surity. What's the etiquette on throwing like a mixer like drinking party on a fishing boat is that can you do that are these people going to judge you because it's not like a nice yacht or something I don't know or at least just like a normal boat no you can do that I mean the thing is that you know

you can some of the fishing boats are basically party boats you know like oh hey here are your rods and here's you know 70 white claws and they're like oh we didn't catch anything you know oh another terrible time you know so i don't i don't really know what this guy sounds like he's pretty hardcore in the fishing thing i think we've covered this i think we've we've talked about this a lot so i don't have a ton more to add thank you for listening

to the podcast today and we will have a full episode on wednesday and please subscribe thanks to kyle steve Find us on the podcast or on Spotify. Thank you.