The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Knicks Should Trade for Mitchell Even If He’s Melo 2.0. Plus, Bob Ryan on a Potential KD-Jaylen Trade and Comparing Eras.

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Ryen begins by explaining why the possibility that Donovan Michell will join the Knicks is reminiscent of Carmelo Anthony’s move to New York, and why that’s not necessarily a bad thing (0:30). Next, he’s joined by Bob Ryan to discuss different generations of NBA stars (12:00), learn about his early days as a Celtics reporter (40:00), and hear his best Larry Bird stories (52:00). Finally, Ryen closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:04:00). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Bob Ryan Producers: Steve Ceruti and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm in a great mood for a bunch of different reasons. We're going to talk about Donovan Mitchell in today's open. Then we're going to talk to Bob Ryan, who puts me in a good mood. We're going to talk a little bit about captain your boat at night and then life advice. Enjoy. I want to talk about Donovan Mitchell to start today's podcast. Maybe we thought we were going to be a little bit further along. Mitchell had some tweets. It kind of felt like there was some momentum picking up last week that Mitchell was going to be with the Knicks. On the Utah side of this, none of this is surprising. Whether it was Bill and I talking sometimes on this podcast,

just in the way when you're checking in and you're asking a team like, hey, what do you think about this draft pick? Or, hey, what do you think about that trade or whatever? Whenever you brought up names of who the next pissed off star is going to be, Mitchell was always at the top of the list. And I don't know that that's necessarily the case here. This isn't the demands that we've seen from other places. It just isn't. But it's a pretty telling thing that I would say for a couple of years, like, who do you think the next guy could be that decides that he wants out? And Mitchell was always brought up.

I don't know if that's a Utah thing. I think the Jazz and the new ownership have tried to do a lot of things to make Mitchell feel like he's the guy. I've heard it described as there are certain players who you have to kiss their ass, you have to give've, I've heard it described as like, there's certain players who you have to kiss their ass. You have to give them the keys to the franchise and do everything you possibly can for them. And I think Utah has even tried to do some of those things, but it's Mitchell is Mitchell in that tier. And that's what I always think is kind of interesting about where this goes.

Cause I've said it too many times, but it's worth repeating. Once again, the job of a GM is to have your team positioned for the next guy that's mad. Unfortunately, for a lot of markets, even for the next guy that's mad, he's just not going to want to go there. Utah is one of those markets, which is a massive disadvantage. It's a disadvantage for too many teams in the league, but that's just the reality of what it is. The next thing was always some connected deal where you know leon rose comes in ca guy you know mitchell's represented by austin brown who's terrific everybody raves about him there was a kentucky louisville connection there on the staff where you kind of wondered you know some of these franchises that would give the keys to running it thinking this is about relationships like how often is that actually really paid off well it hasn't paid off enough to make you think this

is the only way to build your team with agents running the teams and different people with different connections. But it's kind of about giving yourself maybe a chance. And whether it was Carl Anthony Towns that was brought up in the past or Devin Booker before Chris Paul got there, Mitchell was always somebody that you thought, like, I could see him probably wanting to bounce at some point. So I don't think it's a secret that he would maybe like to play somewhere else. And I also don't think it's too much of a secret that if Ainge is moving Gobert for draft picks, and then you bring back Conley, Bogdanovich, and Mitchell, like, do you have enough there to even be out of the playing group? Do you have enough there in a stacked West to be a top six? You don't likely don't and then it's like cool we made it in the playing game and then what right and they haven't

been successful and they've had some pretty good basketball teams over the last couple years uh not so much this year really going back to two years ago right so whenever somebody like mitchell isn't available because you know the moving target of which players think hey i'm worthy enough to decide that i need to go somewhere else because it's not working here. It's felt like that move is reserved for the top, top group of the NBA. And Mitchell's really good. He is really good.

I am a fan. I feel like I've defended him for most of his career against some other players. I'll get to some of the things that are a little bit concerning later on. But if the Knicks were to grab Donovan Mitchell, that's a good thing. If I have one sentence on this, I am for the Knicks getting Donovan Mitchell. I don't know what the price will be, but we all know how this works. Now, I think not just in basketball, not specific to this trade, but the way these things are talked about, I think there's a lot of us walking around that like to offer up problems for not even solutions, just things that are presented, right? Because what I've heard,

and what you will hear if Mitchell were to end up on the Knicks, or maybe, you know, I don't know if something else could happen here, but it would be immediately met with, well, you're going to win a championship with Donovan Mitchell? And the answer is no. The answer is no. All right. There's no guarantees whatsoever. But I've always felt like as you get a little bit older and you'll talk to people like, oh, I'm thinking about doing this or I'm thinking about doing this. There's too many people that their first instinct is to think of why the thing that you're talking about won't work. And there's still a really good chance. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. Again, if we stay with basketball, when I've seen debate shows talk about players and say the one

guy really likes the player and the other guy isn't as high on the player, the other guy is always going to win the argument by countering by saying, does that player guarantee you a championship? Think about what you're asking. That means the guy defending the player has to say, yes, I am guaranteeing a championship. Winning is fucking hard. It is really, really hard. So if the criteria for any transaction is that it has to win a championship, then the guy that calls it out gets to win the arguments all the time because it's a really easy argument to make and the odds are always in your favor.

Something that's similar, but not nearly nearly as important but kind of similar. I remember when I first got started, I was an insurance consultant, which in itself is a hilarious story. Didn't last that long with that. It was not my fault. The company was breaking the law by letting me be a consultant because I never actually sold health insurance. It's a shocking little thing. because I had never actually sold health insurance. And it's a shocking little thing. The state of Vermont wanted people who were insurance consultants to actually have at one point worked in insurance. I actually think that checks out, but yeah, it didn't work out. So the guy that I was going to work for was asking me about my deal because it was a good enough question. He was like, you know, what's your deal? You bartend, but you went to a good school and you

graduated a couple of years ago, but you're still sort of hanging out. Like, what did you do? I was like, well, you know, I did do an internship at this TV station. I don't know if I'd want to be on the air, maybe work for a team or something like that. He's like, well, there's no money in that. Like his first instinct was to tell me why the thing that I was thinking about doing was a stupid idea because there's no money in it. And by the way, like the general part of that is okay. Yeah. You're probably right. I did say to him, not if you're awesome. And he was like, what? Like that was my counter. I was like, well, not if there's money in it, if you're awesome at doing it. So I don't like a lot of the TBD conversations that will happen with Mitchell because this isn't

about guaranteeing a title for the Knicks. You're the Knicks. Like I know what the brand is supposed to be. I know what the city, but I think Knicks fans know, like this has actually been a comically bad run for a team that's supposedly a storied franchise and all it guarantees you getting, it just makes you better. And that's kind of the point. Like I'll never forget one time working with Bob Ryan, who's joining us later. We were doing some debate show, Comcast, after a Celtics game, and there was a trade rumor. I don't even remember who the player was. And they were asking us if the Celtics should trade for this player. And the host was like, is it a championship move, though? Is this a championship move? And Bob Ryan's like,

championships? Win more than 45 games. It was a down period for the Celtics at that time. And it was a great point. He's like, I'm not looking at anything with the standard of, does this trade mean that it's going to be a championship? I'm just like, hey, are you guys going to be better? And the Knicks would be better. Again, depending on what happens, do they get to keep Barrett? I think Barrett improves. Barrett's somebody I really liked this past season. And the other thing, NBA players are not like Russillo. They don't like to be alone, right? They don't like to do this by themselves. So if you add Mitchell and then maybe another guy decides, hey, I'll go there, now you have a place at the table. And that's really what all of this stuff is.

Whether it's tanking and hoping, it doesn't guarantee you anything. It gives you a chance. It gives you a chance at something, right? something, right? If the Utah Jazz end up tanking, which is probably what they should do, especially with somebody like Wemba Yama, who's coming out, which by the way, an aside, I cannot wait for the story that is written. If Utah were like a disastrous record this year and the Wemba Yama stuff were happening, someone will write, well, you know, they did have a French center and it worked out really well and he made a ton of money. And it's completely irrelevant.

Be like, Victor's going, you know, I was on the fence about this Utah thing, but the Gobert deal really worked out. It has nothing to do with it. Like, there's no – but someone will write that. All right. Rant, mini rant over off of that. Pivoting back to the Knicks, Mitchell's going to be 26 in September. All right? He's a borderline third-team all-NBA player.

He can shoot the ball 36% from three. He gets to the free-throw line, makes his free throws. He gives you about five assists. But the more important thing, the thing I can never get off of him while I defend Mitchell, he's 28 points per game in 39 career playoff games. That's fourth active right now, only behind Luka, KD, and LeBron. That first round series against Denver in 2020, he went for 57, 30, 20, 51, 30, 44, and 22 in that series. In the 2021 2-0 lead that they blew to the Clippers once they went small and just worked Gobert, Gobert couldn't do anything back to a Clippers small lineup defending him. He scored 45-37, 30-37, 21-39. He can go.

And I love those guys. Now, the concerning part is, what happened with you defensively? You're not the tallest guy, but you're stout and you get a 6'10 wingspan and you're not old. Are you bored? Are you not competitive enough? Because there's no other part of your game that tells me that you're not competitive. But why did the defense look so bad against Dallas in this past playoff series? And it did.

It looked like it kind of gave up a little bit, which is concerning. I would say there's also times where he forces the issue a little bit. I've called it Westbrook-ish, Westbrook-lite, which is also a little concerning. But he's still young enough and still dynamic enough and a true number one get me buckets playoff score, like a real one. All right. Not I need something else to happen. I need there to be spacing.

I need other else to happen. I need there to be spacing. I need other shooters around me. I need a, no, like he kind of can do it on his own, which can lead to those times where he's also forcing it too, which that's that fine line of figuring out how to be as a player, but turning 26 this fall and being on a new team, like I'm all for this kind of transaction, which I know guarantees nothing. One little addition to this. Does it feel like it's a little bit like Mello coming home? Remember that?

Mello finally gets the Knicks, tells the Nets, if you trade for me, I'm not signing. Gets the Knicks to, which is always kind of a weird debate. What was better, LeBron just leaving in free agency or Melo demanding a trade the whole time and then also demanding a trade where the Knicks had to give up probably a lot more than they would have or they could have just waited a free agency. I mean, it's just kind of a funny historical thing to kind of go back and look at. Was it better that Melo was like, I'm not staying here, so you might as well get something for me. And the LeBron thing, the public just didn't know how to process all that stuff 12 years ago. And the LeBron thing, the public just didn't know how to process all that stuff 12 years ago. And now the desensitization of the entire thing. I don't know if that's the word, but to be desensitized to players demanding out. Nobody really cares about it anymore.

Fucking LeBron just left a free agent. People lost their minds. But I do wonder. Melo got to the Knicks at 26. The coming home deal. It was a big deal. The problem is nobody came with him. Amari had one good season left in him and he was done.

They got Baron Davis' last season of his career out of him. The Jeremy Lin run where Mello was like, yeah, I don't know that we're running our offense through this guy. You had a fun couple of weeks. I'd like the ball back. J.R. Smith was in there at one point, second leading scorer. They won one playoff series with Mello the entire time he was with the Knicks. And I defend Mello because I think most of the time when you look at who they lost to throughout, whether it was Denver or the Knicks, they usually lost to better basketball

teams. People knock Mello for his playoff record. I'm like, look at who they play. How many times are they supposed to win that series? I think there's one in there that's a little disappointing, but most of the time he always lost to a better team. But nobody actually went to go with him. That was the part. But like I said, there are no guarantees. I'm not guaranteeing that the Knicks win. I'm not guaranteeing that the next superstar says, Hey, I want to play with Donovan Mitchell, but he gives you a much better chance of what your current roster is. The best way to introduce him is just to say the legend Bob Ryan joins us on the podcast,

which stuff that I want to talk to. How's it going, man? How's your summer? Okay. Always remember print the legend. Okay. Summer's going fine,

you know, but like everybody else, uh, you just do number one priority is trying to stay healthy. And, and summer two is trying to stay cool, you know, but,

uh, uh, so far so good. The reason I want to talk to you, there's a bunch of things we'll get to, and I'm sure some far so good. The reason I want to talk to you, there's a bunch of things we'll get to, and I'm sure some things that I didn't expect to get to. I think it's both fair and unfair to compare prior eras to today when we're talking about basketball. We could talk about any sport, right? Because the simple part of the science is the evolution of man

would tell us that, you know, this is the way it works. People are faster, people are stronger. If you took a guy from a time capsule from the 1960s and plug him into today's game, he's going to struggle. I have a joke where I think of Eddie House played in the fifties and sixties, there'd be statues of Eddie House outside of every gymnasium in America, right? Like they would just be like, this guy's unbelievable. But it's also incredibly- This is going to be a good discussion. I can tell you right now. Okay. All right. But I also think it's incredibly unfair. And, you know, I know J.J. Reddick, who I love, caught a ton of crap for the plumbers and line. And he's almost comically dismissive of previous generations.

And I know Jerry West went back at him, who has one of the all-time great statistical profiles of anyone that's ever played the game. So what do you think is fair and and where do you think it's unfair when we start talking about generations we have to separate they're not it is not a universal um given the sports are all different and there's one sport that above all about this where this uh discussion uh where this assumption that modern is automatically better, and that's football. And that's, it's much different than the other sports. I mean, I grew up in an era when linemen were 220, you know, 250 was a big guy, you know, and all that. um you know and all that and and and there were no there were no linebackers running you know ridiculous 40s and and and weighing 255 or 60 or more and and and you know the the the average

i mean come on he decides just alone this is here's one for you and i i'd look this up and and you can check you can double check it. In 1976, we had indoor plumbing, remember? Tower TV, you know, we had those things and we had some amenities in life. The height of the steel curtain era of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the vaunted Steelers. In 1976, you check it out, the entire National Football League listed zero players weighing 300 pounds. Think about that. Folks, not you, but folks. OK, so football is absolutely there are specimens of playing football. Six, five wide receivers. We're in a golden age of two things in sport, in my opinion. Short stops defensively and centerfielders and

wide receivers. The wide receivers today are ridiculously talented, frighteningly so. Okay. But now that's football. We're not here to talk about football. I have made basketball, this myth of athleticism being a product of the 21st century and that the modern, the old players of the 60s and 70s would not be capable of being stars. Now, the average player, no. But I am telling you right now, and I've said this for years, I wrote this in my book in 2014. 2014, I can give you a list of a 12-man team of NBA players, each of whom

spent at least five years in their career in the 60s. A 12-man team. I put up against anybody you want to play today. First of all, I got the centers. You don't have them. I got Wilt. I got Russell. I got Kareem.

I just picked one of them and I got better than anybody you got today in the pivot, period. End of story. And anybody who doesn't know that, they're just ignorant with a capital I, both face italics, okay? You don't have people like that anymore. They don't wear them anymore. They don't breed them anymore, okay? So you start with that. I got Oscar. I got Jerry. I got havlicek i got barry i got i got i got sam jones i got the busher i got pettit oh thank you very much there were athletes you know athleticism being defined as running and jumping there's other things look at bird who was not the greatest runner or jumper but he's but hand-eye coordination was off the charts

there's so much that goes into this. Instead of just pure athleticism, which we have to even be sure we define properly. So you see where I'm standing on this. So you think if you took any 12 guys from the mid-60s to the mid-70s, you would put that group of 12 up against? No, I said I can give you the creme de la creme of the 60s and 70s yeah that's what i mean like i mean i i mean i'm saying and here's the thing i'm making say you have to play five years on this i'll give you the five years of this quarter career was spent in the 60s and on everybody that i named and and i would put that team up up very comfortably against any 12-man aggregation, any all-star team you want to give me today. I'd put that team up.

I'll give you an example of the guy who's fallen through the cracks of history, not necessarily in my hometown, Boston, but everywhere else, that people don't realize. They don't realize how great an athlete John Havlicek was, who was the last guy cut by the Cleveland Browns in 1962, not having played football since high school and having tried out by the Browns as a wide receiver when his high school career was a quarterback. And he was cut in favor of Gary Collins, whose name probably means nothing to the ignorant people of today, but he was an all-star, all-pro wide receiver. John was the last guy cut by the Browns in 62. That's how good an athlete he was. So, I mean, it's not to mention there's nobody like him. There's never been a two-position player. Don't give me Scottie Pippen.

Don't give me anybody else. He's the best mid-sized two-position player of all time. And that's that. And there's nobody like him. To have a check today, he had three-point range. He would have worked on it. See, this guy's this whole nonsense about the three-point shot, and these guys couldn't shoot it. Of course they didn't shoot it because nobody wanted to shoot it was a stupid

shot why would you take it all right well now they're giving what's put a value on it that's the name of the game today these guys would have gone to the gym and they would have worked on it but there were some that had that range Havlicek being one of them and you know what would have been an incredible three-point shooter it wasn't you know but he didn't get credit for it Jerry Lucas Jerry Lucas was made for today's game. Of course, people say, who's Jerry Lucas? Only to one of the handful of big college players of all time. But anyway,

these guys would have worked on their game. They would have broadened their range. That's all. They would have gone to the gym. No problem. Nobody wanted to because it was the stupid shot to take. Why would you take it? Please. J.J., please. Who would win one-on-one? Havlicek or Kobe?

John wasn't a one-on-one player. Kobe would win. John was a off-the-ball player. John developed those skills to the point, and he ran a team. But I would say, I'd have to say Kobe. Yeah. So what? Let's play five. That's a nice little...

By the way, here's the nice thing about that, by the way. I don't know if you know this, but I'll stick with Kobe would win. When the NBA instituted a one-on-one contest in circa 1972, remember that? Are you aware of that? I don't. I remember the Akeem one that was supposed to happen when I was in college. Okay, so you covered it. 1972. Who won? First one. I don't happen when I was in college. Okay, so you covered it. 1972.

Who won? First one. I don't know. I don't know. Bob Lanier. Bob Lanier won. And who did he beat? JoJo White.

Neither of them. I mean, so who cares about one-on-one, ultimately? It was so boring, by the way. It was so boring. And it didn't command interest if it had commanded interest we'd be doing it today just like the dunk contest but you know we'd be doing it today but no it didn't have any interest it's it's not so yes kobe would be john havlicek one-on-one more than likely although i'm not so you know sure given the fact that the first

champion was bob lanier how about about that, ladies and gentlemen? I'm like, I can't wait to go look this stuff up. Because I remember how excited I was about the idea of this was going to come back in the 90s. And then we started to go for a million dollars. And then the reason it wouldn't happen now, I don't know if the money would be right for it. I don't know. But if you were of a certain status, you wouldn't play in it. Because you wouldn't have really that much to win. Like LeBron, in a million years,

would not play in this. I remember it was a stunning... The name will come back to me in time. There was a mediocre 6'7 forward that went very deep into the contest that nobody would have believed in a million years would ever have gone. It just upset all

preconceived assumptions about it, the whole thing. Anyway, to answer your question, I'll give you a copy of the John 101, but as a basketball It just upset all preconceived assumptions about it, the whole thing. Anyway, yeah. So to answer your question, yeah, I'll give you Kobe of a giant one-on-one. But as a basketball player, and Kobe's in my top 10. Don't worry. He's in all-time. I'm not here to knock Kobe at all.

I didn't think it wasn't – and somebody listening to me asked that question, maybe like, what are you trying to do, just have Bob on today and rile him up and see if he's going to pick havil check it's just that you would you would think about it more than anyone else that i could ask that question to because you're so you just spent time talking about havil check but also that his defense and you're right one-on-one isn't everything here but i think people would listen to me even suggesting a question is maybe one of the dumbest basketball uh proposals ever and i knew that you would at least you know discuss it as if it were a thing where i don't think anybody else would well the point is it ultimately isn't relevant it's a nice conversational piece it's a

fun little subplot it's a way you know it's fine it's great i enjoy talking about it you know but in the end it doesn't mean anything it does truly doesn't mean anything and and and evaluating how good any player is in a historical context you know it doesn't mean anything uh you know i mean he might lose kobe might have lost to elgin baylor for that matter for all i know i don't know he might have lost to archie clark all right yeah who knows god knows i mean it doesn't matter but but if you're going to play her if i were to put my money down on kobe versus john knowing the kind of player john was and the kind of player was, I'd put my money on Kobe, on one-on-one. Maybe the better way to do this is to kind of do the reverse part of it. It kind of reminds me of the Ted Williams thing.

You know, anybody that spent time reading about Ted Williams, I certainly was influenced because of my father's love. That was my father's first hero. And you know it as well as anybody, except for maybe Lee, you know, that when you really break down like who Ted was as a hitter and how absurd the numbers are with him missing as much as he did to service time and what the overall numbers would have been. And the, the way his eyesight helped him as both a pilot and a fisherman and like that, this was like almost a superpower for him. And then I'll hear somebody say, well, you know, with the bullpens down,

everybody throwing a hundred and different cutters and all this kind of stuff, it kind of gets your three point thing. Like, I don't want to hear about certain three point averages of supposed shooters. Like some people bring up Larry Bird's three point shooting and going, do you really think of Larry Bird didn't want to prioritize three point shooting? He wouldn't have been a guy hitting 40% of his threes. Of course he would. It's just not the way the game played.

Look at the size in that front line of that 86 Celtics team. That's what the game was. So whenever I would think of how dismissive people could be of other people, Ted Williams would have figured out 2022 baseball. He would have figured it out. Well, thank you very much. I agree. No, no, really.

But the point about the bullpen explosion and the fact that every so many teams are bringing out not one or two but the half a dozen guys that go 98 not forget about 95 uh now you know um and and it would have been he used to what he talked about the biggest change in his career which went down from 1939 to 1960 was the uh advent of the slider and he said the slider was the biggest uh uh, uh, you know, uh, threat to batting averages during his time. Um,

that wasn't a popular pitch. And then when he started in 39, it became more popular. And of course, somebody has got to explain to me the difference between a slider and a cutter any day, by the way. Uh,

but, uh, but I think it's, I think we've gone way too far and pretending that they know what's going on with all the, with all these radar guns and not the radar guns, but the spin rates and all that nonsense. You know, anyway, anyway, yes. Thank you. And he's not the only one. Stan Musial, he was a 331 lifetime hitter. Same thing.

And then Mazes and the Irons and the Clementes of the next generation. Same thing. Yeah. The great athletes. And by the way, Bird, let me just, Bird was, his use of the three from the beginning was strategic. He used it as a weapon, a dagger at the end of a game or certain strategic moments. And he was against the three at the time. He said on two purposes, on two things. One, he said in those days, they called too many, the referees kept miscalling whether a two should be a three or vice versa too often which now of course we know we can get it straight thanks to replay and the other one was he said if we're ruined by two points late in the game you shouldn't get beat by three he philosophically didn't like that that it offended his sense of how the game should be played but he used it as a weapon and by the way on one road trip in 1986 he went 25 to 34 on threes so uh please folks, when you talk about all-time great three-point shooters, don't forget to include the name of Larry Joe Bird.

Yeah. Cause the overall number, like I'll see lists come up and he's like, you know, he rounds up to 38%. Look at all these guys ahead. And you're just like, all right, he took less than two a game. It was weird. Cause out of the gates as a rookie, he shot over 40%. And then he had a stretch of, I think, four seasons where he was in the 20s. And then at the end, he was using it a little bit more, and he was making 40% in his last couple of seasons when he was still hurt. I mean, he was done at 35 years old. I'm never going to say that the time machine game would be challenging for a lot of older players. challenging for for a lot of older players but when you look at the style of play and you go okay well if you came up in this era and you were somebody like bird you you would just shoot it

better you just would because you would prioritize the game you would prioritize your game around the way the game is prioritized today i mean absolutely that that's to me that's a better that's common sense but you know yeah that's exactly right but the idea of the athleticism in general, I think clearly there were, as I said, I believe we're in the golden age of shortstops and centerfielders defensively. Never been so many great defensive shortstops. So if you win a gold glove at short now or in the outfield, you should be very, very proud because the competition is enormous. I can tell you that. And basketball athleticism of big guys, you know, there were no, just again,

I said there were no centers like we had in that era. No, nor were there any Kevin Durants, you know. There weren't any Kevin Durants. There weren't any Jokic's type of players. So, you know, you're right. But pure point guards, you know, we haven't advanced anywhere. And really, the know, you're right. But pure point guards, you know, we haven't advanced anywhere.

And really, the job description's the same. We haven't advanced that and changed the game there at all. I mean, I don't think necessarily. I think Isaiah Thomas plopped into today and I'm not the hugest fan of his, but I admire his skill. He plopped

into the game today as is. No better, no worse. He'd be a dominant point guard, period. Dominant. Dominant. Isaiah actually is underrated as a player. He is. All the other stuff got in the way of us appreciating him.

Yeah, it did. And I'm probably a contributor to that. But yes, you're right. He's not going to get his proper due as a great player. Because that team, I mean, I get Dumar's role, and that's when I was starting to really pay attention to everything. But you would be looking at him as a player who, in today's game, you go, that guy needs more help on offense. That's what we'd be saying about that roster. And granted, when Aguirre came over and you know obviously they had to actually i still think that that's the gold standard of the three three-man backcourt production

that uh that the warriors challenged have now challenged with the advent of pool but you know but vinnie vinnie dumars and you know don't forget vinnie the microwave he was a unique phenomenon truly a phenomenon and you know how he got the nickname he got the nickname from danny age after a game in which the celtics beat them but vinnie went off as he usually did and and after the game uh danny said if they call that guy in chicago the refrigerator they should call vinnie the microwave because he heats up in a hurry and that's how he got the nickname and uh uh he was a phenomenon and and i think that was the best three-man backcourt ever until right now, because I got to say that the backcourt the Warriors put out there now was never anything better in history, I don't think, offensively than those three guys. So, all right, if we're moving things around here then, what do you think the 2017 Warriors would do against the 90s Bulls?

At the time, I wrote that column at the time when they still had Harrison Barnes and DeFord Durant. So that when they first won. 16. Yeah. Yeah. So I wrote that column. And of course, I gave the Celtics beating them. And of course, you know, what do you expect?

And if Mark Spander out in San Francisco or Bruce Jenkins wrote, they would have had the Warriors beating the Celtics. You know, we're all buddies. That's fine. OK. The 85-86 Celtics were the greatest frontcourt of all time. That is an absolute, unarguable premise when you consider the fact that the trump card on that team ultimately was bringing Bill Walton healthy off the bench. And changing games in a way that games were never changed before or since. Because the tradition of a sixth man is a two-position player, usually a guard forward, but sometimes a forward center, such as McHale was, to change the game. He was a pure center.

But when he came in with Bird, it was unfair. It was unfair. It was ridiculous what they did. He changed the game. It was the greatest one-two center punch ever with Parrish, a Hall of Famer in Walton, who played 80 games that year, most he ever played, and was the sixth man of the year. And that team was adaptable. You know, you talk about, all right, whose rules are we going to play by? Okay, if we play by the current rules,

you'd say automatically, well, the Warriors with that three-point shooting, you'd have to favor them. But Bird was a three-point shooter. Danny once led the league. Wedman was a three-point shooter. Dennis Johnson could make it. He's one of those guys, you know, he made some. He wasn't automatically one, but he could make it. They had guys who could make threes, and they would have adapted themselves. Let me ask you a question.

Who's going to guard McHale? Draymond, not you. I have to tell you right now, don't get any hopes up, Draymond. You're not guarding McHale. Well, if you are I have to tell you right now, don't get any hopes up, Draymond. You're not guarding McHale. Well, if you are, you're going to get embarrassed. Who's going to guard those guys? Really? When Barkley says, and look, McHale's array of moves, nobody cares about that stuff anymore, but it's hard to describe to a younger person like you were helpless. When Barkley says he's the toughest guy I ever had to deal with, and it's a bad matchup a younger person, like you were helpless. You know, when Barkley says he's the toughest guy

I ever had to deal with, and it's a bad matchup for Barkley because of the height size alone, but it just, McHale would set you up with one that led to the next one. And then you're now guessing at when this guy's going to release it. The arms go forever.

The shoulders go forever. You're worried about an elbow and all this stuff. I think the Warriors would just say, okay, fine, we're going to trade twos for threes. Yeah, no, of course, that would have been, no, I would, wouldn't we all who love basketball love to see it, to see what would happen? Whose will would prevail?

Whose style could prevail? It would, it would be a fascinating, it is the ultimate fascinating matchup of this discussion you could have, the 85-86 Celtics against the best Warriors team. You know, give them Durant. All right, let's give them Durant. What the hell? That's only fair. And that Warriors team against 85-86 Celtics,'s give them Durant. What the hell? That's only fair. And that

Warriors team against 85-86 I'd love to see it because you're right. It's going to be two different like they're playing two different games. Two different games. And that's why like, look, when people talk about, oh, there's so much spacing now today. And I do think that a lot of

the 90s stuff, like if you're, and look, I've never argued against Michael Jordan. I think going through the pandemic and watching all those games again, when Bill and I started doing those podcasts where we watched, like, I don't know if it was more than five, less than 10 games. And it was something I was glad I did. I went through that exercise to appreciate it again more 25 years later. Because there really was that unidentified thing about him where you're like, this guy just has this weird extra little gear to him that when everybody else is out there dying, he figures out a way to provide. He figures out a way to get this done. But I do think it's always kind of overstated as if everybody was getting clothesline going to the rim the entire time. There were lazy defensive plays.

Even when I watch some of the playoff games in the 80s, Bob, I see guys that aren't even picking people up in transition. They're just backpedaling in packing underneath the three point line, playing defense that way. And I'm like, man, if you did the time machine thing, the first time they would see guys hitting trailer threes from 27 feet out, they'd be calling timeout going, who, what is this? Like we have to is this like we have to guard all we have to guard this far out the entire time so yes there's less contact because there's more spacing but i've constantly felt like the way that people argue for the 90s are overstating the physical nature because they see clips of hard fouls from the pistons in a 60 second cut up on twitter you hear you hear that from certain of the other players and totally hear that from advocates of the Pistons. Absolutely, you do. I'm not disagreeing at all. You know,

it's kind of funny as you were speaking, I was thinking the official first three-point shot in NBA history made was by Chris Ford because their game started earlier than the other games that night. And you know what it was? He came down on a transition and he ran into the corner and made a one, basically what him was a one, I down on a transition and he ran into the corner and ran into the corner and made a one. Basically, what him was a one. I called a one and seven eighths shot. It was it was almost a two hand set. It was it was a one. It was a one hander with a minimal lift. That was Chris's. But that was a right corner three pointer on in transition. So that so let the record show that the first three point shot shot was actually you know had a modern tinge to it so all right when i think about jerry west though because they lost so

many times in the finals and and you know if you've read any of the history you lived it you were covering it i'm i'm reading it years removed from it you start going wait what did he score again like what did this guy do again and i think that's one of the examples of like, if Jerry West grows up in today's world, like he's, he's one of the leading scorers in the NBA. Like if you add all the training and nutrition, all that kind of stuff, like to just suggest that he would be some 12th man on the team now is where I think that's where the generational stuff gets almost, you know, it's borderline. It's, it's totally disrespectful, but I also think it's ignorant. Well, it's, I don't care about the disrespect. I do care about the ignorance. And when J.J. Redick, who ought to know, I kind of thought he was intelligent.

Of all people that make such a stupid supposition. Anyway, Jerry West. Jerry West averaged 40 points a game in the 1965 finals in a losing effort against the Celtics. In 1969, I don't know what the final average per game numbers were in the seven game series but I do know in losing game seven by two points he had a triple double with like 43 you know 13 12 something triple double I saw lots of

Jerry West Jerry West would have easily said okay if they really want me to shoot from 25 feet you know instead of 20 to 18 20 it was a mid-range shooter they all were you know for the part, he would have done it. I don't have any thoughts about that. The guy who would have been having the heart would have had the hardest

philosophical transition to the new game was Oscar because Oscar Robertson's whole thing with the ball, it was to get the easiest shot possible every single time. And we used to kid about Oscar. He would back people in. If he had a 20 footer, he wanted a back people in. If he had a 20-footer, he wanted a 15-footer. If he had a 15-footer, he wanted a 10-footer. If he had a 10-footer, he wanted a layup. And this is when he wasn't dishing out and needing to lead an assist every year.

And Oscar's thing was consistency. He didn't go 40 one night and 15 the next. It was a steady stream of 28 to 35s every night, every night, every night. Anyway, Oscar would have had trouble because his concept of the game, this idea of bombardment from downtown would have been so alien to his philosophical feeling about how the game should be played. I think he would have had the hardest time of those guys. All right, this is what I got to do. Jerry would have just done it. Yeah, Oscar had a hard time.

He got pissed at me because I was doing Mike and Mike. I was filling in. He came on, and we were like, what would you do with Steph in your era? I thought he was really dismissive of Steph. He's like, we just pick him up full court. I was like, do you really think nobody's thought of just picking up Steph full court? He's just going to – with a guy with a great handle, you don't want to pick him up full court. Right.

Because – and then it was a very weird thing because then he was like, did you ever hear of – and then he named a teammate of his who was like a good shooter. And it was really weird. I don't know if it was Jack twyman or something like that well he was a you know he was he once scored 31 points a game in 19 twyman six seven forward and was he talking about arlen bachhorn is he talking about even od smith his backcourt mates um all i know is he brought up a name of a guy he was like do you have you ever heard of and i was like no i you know i haven't heard of that guys that were started you know we're you know players of his time od smith was one of the last guys that take a two-hand set in the nba i know that and uh um but arlen bach one was a six-four guard uh maybe him but twyman of course was an all-star player of the

day and and once i said scored 31, he got very famous for being the guardian of Brie Stokes, you know, in the movie and all that. But he was a terrific player and he was an announcer for years in the 60s. He's the guy

who was interviewing Bill Russell in that famous interview in 69 when Russell can't speak. Oh, wow. Russell's still overcoming emotion. Then he's wiping tears after game seven

and then he can't even gather himself to speak and he's never... Jack Twyman had the unfortunate circumstance of being the interviewer. Well, he didn't mention Bevo Nordman. He did not.

He was not referencing him, but if it were Twyman, if it were Odie, if it were one of the other guys, it was kind of like, all right. Yeah. Sorry.

Like he got me. I haven't heard of that guy that played in 1962 for Cincinnati. And I still don't think that that guy is Steph Curry. And it was like, Oscar was so protective and dismissive. So maybe that's what this all is. It's a lot like high school. We got to put Oscar on a separate. Oscar is the ultimate guardian of the old days.

He was always, you know, interesting, put it that way. You know, I hadn't, you know, I didn't have any ups and downs with him, but we all know you got to be wary of Oscar. But in that regard, you know got to be wary of Oscar. And now we go ahead. He's the old school guardian at the gate. You're a steward of the game, Bob. You really are. You can think of it, I know the New England thing where it's like, I don't want the attention of praise, but you deserve it.

What was it like for you early on? Did people understand your passion for this game so that they were more open to you? Or were they, who's this young guy who thinks he knows the game? That's a good question. I took over the beat in 1969 at age 23. I had not had any, and it was without any preparation in the terms of preseason. It was on a Wednesday I was told I was going to have the beat on Friday. It was opening night, and I had no NBA experience, no exhibitions.

I hadn't met the new coach, Tom Heinsen. My orientation had been college. I was a huge college basketball fan. I grew up as a huge college basketball fan. Went to Boston College when Koozie was coaching. We were very good for those four years. And that was a real good education for me getting to know him. Anyway, my enthusiasm was obvious to people. And I think it was the biggest asset that I had was that I really was eager to learn about the nuances of the NBA as opposed to college. And Tom Heinsohn was a rookie coach and he needed, you know,

it didn't hurt him to have the Boston Globe guy, you know, as an envoy. And because we were by far the most important institution, communication outlet in New England, you know, TV didn't matter then. Local TV wasn't covering anything when we were the big paper. So anyway, and I think I knew the game, you know, I prided myself. I thought I knew the game pretty well. And so I think it was a combination of I showed them I knew something, but I'd certainly, you know, maybe I asked good questions. And I certainly wanted to know, you know, things.

And it took me, you know, it worked out, you know, I mean, it worked out for my basketball, made my, you know, so-called career. There's no question. And, you know, I love baseball as much, but my opportunity came in basketball and I took full advantage of it, I think. And I'm grateful for it. I saw the NBA grow from mom and pop store and the double headers and the changing flights and, you know, store and the double headers and the changing flights and, you know, and Chicago as opposed to charter flights and a whole bit, you know, I saw it grow and went from 14 teams to where it is today. It doubled in size over. And so, yeah, but I think people recognize that this kid really loved the game. Who did you end up having the closest relationship among the Celtics?

loved the game. Who did you end up having the closest relationship among the Celtics? John Havlicek and Paul Silas. Havlicek, I did his book, and that was my first as-to-do book that I did. Silas, I thought I felt very close to. And Paul Westphal, the late Paul Westphal. The minute he joined the team, we just hit it off. He was a rookie that year in 72, 73. You know, he for sure. Anyway, I've considered myself to be a personal friend right to the end.

You know, and the other guy, you know, that I love and I'm not the only one who would claim a good relationship with him. That was Dave Cowens. I'm not the only one who would claim a good relationship with him. That was Dave Cowens. And when people ask me, as I get speaking, who's your favorite player to cover? And I say, well, the best player was Bird. And 1A was Alachek. But the most interesting personality was Dave Cowens. And it was a combination of Hall of Fame skill.

He's in the Hall of Fame. An electrifying style. And he was the most intellectually curious person that i covered and by not to say he's a raging intellectual quote unquote but he had a curiosity about life and about the job he would ask me questions about the job nobody did that uh he would he just was fascinating guy every day to be fun to be around and he gave me one like one thing a line for all time i've been 38 years later there's never been a better line for me 48 years anyway the line was the day they beat the bucks in 1974 and on a sunday afternoon game seven in milwaukee we are flying home we the whole contrabass are're flying home after the game back to Boston and we

are of course commercial and we are you'll love this you'll have been changing planes in Chicago you know from Milwaukee we didn't have a direct flight from Milwaukee to Boston that day so I had not specifically spoken to him after the game for whatever reason I don't remember why well Mike I go up to him at the airport and I said Dave Dave, we didn't get to talk. I said, now you did it. This is, you know, you, you, you won the championship. Well, how's it feel? He said, to me, the fun was in the doing. This is simply something from my portfolio of basketball experiences. I've been waiting for that. No line. That's the line of my career.

That's Dave Cowens. That's only, but that's a part of Dave Cowens. Not the whole story, but that's part of Dave Cowens. Cause you know, I look, I I've been around enough to kind of know some of the history of like,

you know, the relationship was different than, you know, you became friends with these people. You're around them the entire time. I close bars with them routinely. I'd go up to them on the road in the locker room and say, okay, where is it? Where is it tonight?

Place X in Chicago or Milwaukee. I used to know the name of it. It didn't matter. I'm going to close the bar with them. That's where they went. Now, of course, they go back and play video games. No, I'm serious. Or whatever else they might be doing, I don't want to mention. But I think the drug era is pretty much over, I think. But anyway, but no, we went out and we went to dinner on the road. After practice, I might go to lunch with them here. It was totally different. Okay. But here's the thing. Like you had to have been accepted. I can't imagine that every reporter was invited to last call, right? Like you had to have been, there had to have been some people that are the players are like, Hey, I don't want that person around.

Right. There weren't that many of us. Remember? True. It was weren't. And so you were just all invited no matter what. I mean, I think I was in that ultra, you know, that inner sanctum category for the most part. It's a way of life

that you can't, you tell somebody today, there's no way they can comprehend the way it worked for us. And even the fact that we went to practice every second of practice, you don't get to do that today. You're lucky if you walk in the last five minutes when they're shooting free throws, then you got to go scurry around, get your interviews.

I used to go to practice. I'd get there about an hour before practice i'd go in a locker room no notebook just sit there and shoot the breeze and and talk about whatever the game last night or whatever the hell anything and and i knew all their wives names and and and kids names and car they drove and everything else and and because they knew i knew their life with high school they had gone to as an addition, obviously, to college. And then I was curious. And then I'd go speak, sit with Heinsen for 10 minutes before practice and talk about what's going on. Then I go watch the whole practice. I knew their whole offense. I'm not making that up. I knew the whole offense. So when they called a play, I knew what the play was coming. I could watch the other teams, see how they reacted to it.

I could find out who guys, defensive guys were stupid with defensive guys who were smart on other teams. That doesn't exist today. There's nobody going to practice every day that knows the team's offense. And I'm not saying because I'm so smart. There's an opportunity that doesn't exist anymore. Was it difficult when you had, I mean, granted, it's the Celtics, so there weren't a bunch of critical years.

I know the Tommy stuff at the end wasn't exactly, you know, a treat for him because he's one of the city's sons, if you want to put it that way, as a Celtic and everything that he did for them as a player and then winning early as a coach. But how hard was that for you to have a far more intimate relationship with the subject, knowing that your job is still to be critical? Because you've never been afraid of being critical, but what was that like? Well, when did you know you had to get ready for this circumstance i had an issue with jojo white that resulted in kind of getting upset um that i knew from my the play other players felt that jojo was being coddled by heinsohn that he wasn't coming down hard enough on jojo to shore up his defense and the change aspects of his offense

tommy's defense was i'll worry about the defense we need his offense i don's defense was, I'll worry about the defense. We need his offense. I don't want to discourage him, blah, blah, blah. And anyway, I wrote some stuff that Tommy didn't, you know, reflected the viewpoints I knew from the veteran players as opposed to his. And that started, and he didn't react well to that. I thought he would have a more professional reaction to that. He didn't. And that started the beginning of a problem for the two of us over the last three years of my coverage. He had like an annual meeting where he would tell the team not to talk to me. And I would have the reports of the minutes of the meeting reported to me

in about 20 minutes by one of the players. So, you know, they thought that was crazy. You know, and they never paid any attention to that and i'm not making that's this gospel truth so our relationship deteriorated to the point where in 80 76 finals we weren't really talking after i wrote a column after the first game uh in which he had he was angry because he had something he had read in the paper he said they're giving away our whole game plan for 25 cents, you know, whatever the paper, really.

It's 1974, maybe it was 25 cents. And he came into practice and started yelling at Howie McHugh, the PR director, basically yelling at me through Howie, which was not fair to Howie at all. And I wrote a column saying that Tommy Hutchinson and I concluded by saying

it's like a teenage kid who's spoiled brat his father took away the car keys. And that was the end of it for us. We didn't talk the rest of it. So when we got to Phoenix for the finals, I stayed at Paul Westfall's house. I didn't stay at the hotel with everybody else. I stayed at Paul Westfall's house. Now here's the story out of that one you'll love. So Westfall has a pool, naturally. It's in Phoenix. I can tell you his address, 552 Westbury Ridge Lane, anybody wants to the pool. We're sitting at a pool. And there was another guy who used to come sit by the pool because he was free and had nothing else to do. He was the 12th man,

the 13th man on the 12-man roster. He was the guy left off the roster. Pat Riley. So that's anecdotal stuff that not everybody has. Whenever I hear a different story about Pat Riley, though, I'm like, who is this guy? Because as a player, you go, all right, well, you know, fine.

And then you think like, did this guy see something in the mirror no one else did? I just finished Robert Evans' autobiography, The Legendary Producer from Paramount. Have you ever read that, by the way? Have you read that? Read it. You're going to love it. I like that world. That's good. Thank you. I couldn't recommend love it. I like that world. That's good.

Thank you. I couldn't recommend it enough. I'll get a copy out to you. But in one moment, he's kind of telling some story because he had this Hollywood Hills deal. And it was this unbelievable French-themed garden in this pool. So there was a bunch of weddings that he had hosted. He had seven, eight weddings hosted here. Patiley is the best man at one of them so like pat riley just lives this world of like there's another level to it that i think even those of us don't truly understand

yeah all right no interesting guy the whole background you know son of the minor league lifer manager who was a tough guy right away on the on him. By his own admission, I mean, you know, I'm going to say admission, but he claims to have been a borderline juvenile delinquent in those days.

You know, he claims that he was a tough kid, street kid from Schenectady and all that. Goes to Kentucky, plays for Rupp, you know, goes to the finals,

as we know, in 66. Anyway, he's a Kentucky legend to this day, one of the all-time Kentucky icons. You know what he did? This is the kind of thing, this is part of the fascination of Pat Riley.

When they won it in 72, which is his first championship, remember, he succeeded, he took over from Westhead, and they got beaten in 71, you know, by the Rockets, and the Celtics beat the Rockets, but they come back and win it in 72 over the 76ers. And at the conclusion of the final of the playoffs in 72,

he writes handwritten notes to several of the media, thanking them for their coverage. I was one of them, but hardly the only one. Imagine that. That's who he was then. That's long before he became Roy Lee. That's long before, you know, Wall Street, long before, you know, greed is good. Long before Michael Douglas is fashioning himself after the look of Pat Riley, which is what had happened, as we all well know. And before he became this other guy, there were different, many facets to Pat Riley. You know what he was? And in between playing and becoming Chick Hearn's partner, he was a carpenter.

He made a living as a carpenter. Jesus was a carpenter. Very true. Also, I remember on the 1959 baseball card for Elroy Face, I always remember that. You see the little things at the bottom of the baseball cards with little tidbits

about the players. Elroy's an off-season carpenter. Every time I see carpenter, I think of Elroy's face. Who went 18 and won that year? Okay. I have two more things before we finish up. I want a bird story because I don't know that you've probably

told them all. You've now been on the beat when he shows up for over a decade you figure you know you you have some kind of status and i think there are certain media members in cities that it's almost like you have to almost come to me uh which is not exactly larry's personality but you're a little bit older what was that dynamic like when when this guy comes in that red was able to wait to you know figure out how to get him in green. My very first encounter with Larry Bird was to write an interview with him for a story in the summer of 1979 for Us Magazine. And now the funk Us, which was, you know, the knockoff of people.

And I don't know who published the publisher was, but Us Magazine was a magazine in existence. And in order to get him to interview, he would only do it if i went to bob wolf's house his agent not his own house they were right around the corner from jay at that point he was very wary of the media maybe wolf had even talked him into doing this interview i'm not sure what town was he in newton mass this is summer after he signed before training camp and and uh maybe maybe after rookie i'm not sure where in conjunction when rookie camp which was in august anyway so i do the interview and during the course of the interview uh you know the conversation that we had he says that he's going to fulfill his media obligations but um

nobody's ever coming to his house you know he's going to be very careful about his relationships with media and i thought okay fine that's how that's how it's always start first day during the course of the season, you know, we hit it off fairly well. I think he appreciated my enthusiasm. He actually told people at the end of the season, in an interview, he thought I could be a coach,

which was very flattering. I had one coaching experience in my life in the summer of 1966. But no, I know I could not. Let me say it categorically. No, I was not qualified to be a coach. But that was very flattering and nice of Larry to say it. So we hit it off in the beginning.

Now you want a couple of stories. Here's a couple of Larry Bird stories. You know, that promotion, it still exists where if someone at maybe a college game, they get somebody out of the stands, they have to make a layup, they have to make a free throw and maybe make a three pointer.

And then from mid court, and if they do it all in 25 seconds, they win whatever the prize is. Okay? Sure. So I'm at a BC basketball game. I don't know, sometime in the mid-eas. And I do it.

So I make the layup. I get to the free throw line. I miss the first two because I'm rushing it. I'm thinking about it. Then I calm down and make the first three. I don't know. Anyway, I don't think I made the three. I mean, I did it. I competed.

So I was telling Larry the next day at practice about it. It's just after practice, he's still shooting around. I was rebounding for him. I mean, this is what he did. So I said, Larry, here's the deal last night. So he looks at me. We're standing under the basket. I have the ball. He said, hand me the ball. He said, time me. Lay up. free pointer swish midcourt swish 17 seconds so but that's not the

punch line he then he says if i were doing it for real i would try to bank the first three-pointer because if i missed i could get the long rebound and have another shot. Larry Bird. My second Larry Bird. We were in Chicago before the game one night. Height of Jordanism, you know, I guess. Anyway, we were in Chicago. Are you still going out with the team at this stage of your life? Yeah, he loved playing in Chicago.

No, but are you still? I'm now back on my second. I did the thing from 69 to 76. I got off. I came back in 78. This is my second st I did the thing from 69 to 76. I got off. I came back in 78. This is my second stint. So it was early. Yeah.

And I did a third one at 85, 86. No, not as much only rarely, but still, but I still friendly with Larry. Okay. So I said,

Larry, five bucks says you can't make a left-hand three pointer. Let's just have a head on my top man. So me, the first thing he does is he runs to the corner naturally, smart. Second one, swish. Left-handed. So I hand him the five. He sticks it inside his sock.

And to this day, I pray to God, I want to believe he played that whole game with that five in his sock because that's what Larry Bird would do. Okay, you mentioned him saying that about you being as a coach, was there ever a moment where a team asked you about working in a front office? No, no. That's the most flattering thing of that nature anybody ever said, but no. And you know, in another life I would have been, you know,

it would have been interesting to be on the other side to some degree. But I was in the right place at the right time. That's for God's sake. Oh, my God. Was I ever. You ask about way back about how my enthusiasm and knowledge or whatever helped. I hit the NBA just right. It was ready to move.

And I was so lucky. I hit the NBA just right. It was ready to move. I was so lucky. In Boston, the Celtics, the turning point for attendance was Cowens in 70. That's when people really... All those years with Russell and they won 11 championships, they would only sell out

on the playoffs routinely. They didn't. It took three years. Even in the birdie, they didn't. And I, and it took like three years, you know, and even in the bird area, they still weren't selling out until the, until after bird was proved who he was. Yeah. It wasn't a basketball town. It was a hockey town. So I had, I, I kind of, you know, helped, frankly, I don't think that's being a modest. I think it's being helped create some coverage by the globe and the globe.

Let me loose. They let me, you know, they let me do what I wanted to do they let me go to places let me do stuff i mean i'm very grateful for that and uh so i i was absolutely in the right place at the right time all right last thing then if you were a gm would you trade jalen brown in a package for kevin durant for the celts emphatically no they just went through no they don't need't need Kevin Durant. They can win. I'm not getting, there's no guarantee if they make this move that they're going to win anyway, because they have now messed up the depth that they've just created. There is no guarantee. That is true.

Bogdan and Gallinari, they have rectified a situation. They have a team that came within two games of winning the championship. They have a star named Tatum who knows he didn't play well, who will be very motivated. They've got Brown, who had proven how good he is. They got the core group of 28-year-old smart, 27, you know, 25, 24.

They don't need Kevin Durant. I mean, I know how good he is, but no, this is, I'm not saying unalterably, but I'm firmly opposed to this. Leave things alone. Let Amy work with these guys. I want to win with this group. Now, I'm speaking here as a fan, not as some alleged pundit right now.

I'm speaking as a fan. And I want to win with these guys. I like this group. I don't need, I don't, and I'll say too, I'm a little wary of Durant. He's not as, he's not in a, Irving's in a complete other category of unfathomable human beings.

You know, in the history of the league, there's never been a package ever, like Kyrie Irving, a talent of that level, who's so strange and unfathomable. And he is. Durant isn't all reliable upstairs anymore either. I don't know where he's coming from. He's never gotten over the criticism he received for going from Oklahoma City to Golden State.

He's never gotten over that. And he's wary and defensive. And I don't know. I just, I don't need him. I don't need him. So I'm praying that this is a, you know, falls through. I want to go to come back next year with that group, with Brogdon and with Gallinari.

I'm going to promote something you did, but is there anything you need to promote here before we say goodbye? I have a book, a baseball book called In Scoring Position with Bill Chuck, I have a book, a baseball book called In Scoring Position with Bill Chuck, in which we mine 1,400 games in 44 years' worth of my baseball scorebooks dating from the 1977 baseball season, in which we have all kinds of interesting historical things and oddities and sign pages and anecdotes and things that baseball produces. Yes. So that's what I'm huckstering right now. I mean, I'm proudest about it.

That is, yeah. I mean, if you're having trouble dating, pick that one up. But if you're really serious and it's easy, now here's what, there's a lot of good baseball books on the market. I've read them. I know them and I'm going to read more, but ours is unique. And that's a proper use of that word, which is abuse. There's no other book like it on the market.

I know that. And I'm having some fun with you because you know, first of all, when Boston won the World Series 1903 is one of my favorite baseball books ever. And so, you know, that's been out for years. Check that one out. But the book that made a big impression on me. And the reason I always love books is you never know quite how you're going to feel after you're done with one. For the most part, you're like, Hey, cool book onto the next one. But when I read 48 minutes, uh, that you wrote, you know, decades ago, uh, that was with Pluto, correct?

With Terry Pluto. And by the way, in both cases of 48 minutes and an unscoring position, I owe the very life of the book to my collaborator. It was Terry Pluto's idea for the two of us to work on that book in 87 to score one. We stole the idea. I should use the word appropriate. It's a better word than steal. That's a more polite word. From Daniel Okrent, who wrote nine innings on baseball, one game between the Orioles and Brewers back around 83. And Terry thought the idea, we can maybe do this for basketball. And we picked the game between the Cavaliers and the Celtics, January 16th, 87, the defending champion Celtics, the up and coming Cavaliers with the rookie Brad Doherty and Mark Price and Ron Harper's senior. We didn't know he was a senior then. He was just Ron Harper. Yeah, he was just Ron Harper. He was just Ron Harper. Play on Ron Harper. Hot Rod Williams. And he was on that team.

And anyway, so thank you. No, but 48 Minutes, Bob, it was one of those books that I remember reading it and going, I want to understand this game better. And it was, you know, that's the great thing about being an author, the reward, I think, not only the accomplishment and all that kind of stuff, but knowing that, you know, however well a book does or doesn't do, especially for younger people, you're going to be reading this book and you're going to, you're going to, you know, there's, there can be some real influence there. And it was for me. And that's why I always love that book. It's, it's, you know, look, I, I've been reading for years. My dad and I talked about it for years. We got to work together, you know, like we, you already know how I feel about you, but I just like to remind you that, you know look i i've been reading for years my dad and i talked about it for years we got to work together you know like you already know how i feel about you but i just like to remind you that you know there are things that you've done you may not even realize and that book for me was a was a

serious moment of me wanting to be better at understanding basketball well thank you and i'm gonna pass that along to terry too because as i said without terry terry was the mover to get this you know to think about it and get it done. And he was fun to work with. And that, that book is one of the, it's really funny you mentioned that, that book and the current book I have were the two books of all that were fun to produce, you know, fun. I love, I love the process. I'm going to read it. You know, I'm going to read it.

So, um, that, that goes without saying. So we look forward to that coming out. So thanks for that. Uh, we'll talk to you again soon. This was awesome. Thanks, Bob. Okay. I hope the roster's intact. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required life advice life advice rr gmail.com

uh i gotta tell you it's still a little buzzed from last night not for many beers but the The adrenaline rush of my first night venture out on a boat, learning the radar, that is fucking nerve-wracking. Was it a lesson? Were you solo? I don't know what happened. No, I wasn't solo. No, I was with a trained captain. But it was just something to kind of do the night certification. And it's awesome, but it isn't't i don't know i mean you know

boat captains get it but it's you know i went out while it was still light and then the goal was you know to wait for it to get as dark i was going to get and then you know bomb up maybe an hour up the up the coastline so i went down into the redondo harbor and then came back up at night and those first few minutes coming out behind the rock wall and you know getting your bearings and remembering there's some sailing buoy with no lights on it like that you pass on the way in it's like hey let's make sure we look at our waypoint and stay outside of this like one little buoy. You're just not going to see. You're not going to see. And so you throw on your lights, you change the radars, you dim the screens.

You know, the thing looked like Hunt from Red October in there. It was tight. And all the screens are red. Yeah, all the screens are red. And then you're just like, okay, so just drive that way and I can't see anything. I can't see anything. And you're like, yeah, no, that's, that's the deal. So what do you do?

You just follow the coastline and you just kind of, I mean, how are you even supposed to know the buoys there? What you do is you hit the reverse waypoint on your, your navigation. So, you know, um, most of the time you go autopilot cause it just makes better sense. The autopilot is going to stay in the heading better than you are manually. It saves gas. It's, you know, it's's there's a million reasons why you would do it but it doesn't mean like you're not going to have to grab the wheel or something if some the real issue is other boats show up that are also on radar so that's good so you kind of see something coming up if it's in your heading and you're like, all right, well, what's that?

You know, is that, and it was like, is that a bow? Well, no, that's actually not a bow. That's this. And you're like, okay, well, you're going to change the filter on what the radar was picking up. But yeah, and then your eyes do adjust. Your eyes do adjust a bit where you're starting to at least see a little bit of the swells in front of you. where you're starting to at least see a little bit of the swells in front of you. And then I had a spotlight up, which is a bit like your high beams, but it's not like it's lighting up everything in front of you and you're just good to go. One of my friends suggested,

do you invest in night vision goggles? I was just going to say, I'd be so badass. Do I want to start pricing out night vision goggles? Yeah, probably. But do I want it? I don't, I would have imagined at some point they were like yeah we actually all all of us the other thing is you don't put yourself in a position where you have to be driving around your boat at night all the time it's true yeah so or if you have night vision goggles and you'd only be driving at night i mean the real concern i think is you're coming back into your own marina you are constantly what are you afraid of hitting like i mean obviously you see you're gonna see boat lights right if a boat's coming at you you see the light afraid of hitting like a like a seal i don't like i don't know a

rock no i think it would be a wave first of all there's a wayward wave no road wave i don't think you have to worry about that that much. If there's a log, you're just going to hit it. There's nothing. You're not going to see it. You're just not going to see it. I think there was a story recently because the guy had told me there's another friend of mine that did the night lesson. And he was like, I'm never doing that again.

He's like, if I ever do this, I'm not doing it. I'll just be day guy. I'll be day guy, maybe a sunset within a very short driving distance. So there's still some sunlight post sunset, like 30 minutes of light. And I was like, no, you know, how bad was it? He goes, dude, there was Coast Guard boats with their lights off chasing somebody. And they both like buzzed us like on both sides, quiet, stressed out, nervous, looking straight ahead. And then just two coast guard boats buzzing

the tower i was like were they trying to fuck with you or something he's like i don't know because even the guy giving the lesson was like dude what was that yeah that was awful then they almost hit a floating bait fridge that was just floating in the water all right as you do okay right you know whatever happened somebody maybe hit a wave and lost their bait fridge or, you know, I don't know, maybe it was from a million miles offshore and it just sort of worked its way towards the coastline. And then there's always like near the marina that I'm out of, there's always like a sailboat or two that are anchored. There's one guy who I think just lives on a sailboat. There's no mast on there's one guy who i think just lives on a

sailboat there's no mast on it he doesn't want how far out it's right there on on the exit and entrance uh into the marina so you know there's no lights on it so it's i think a lot of it is paying attention to like what you see when you go out and then going all right look for that on the way back look for that knowing the coastline. Look for that. Knowing the coastline helps a little bit too. But, uh, the last thing I want to sound like is like, Hey, I've got this, but it was, it was a completely different experience. Cause you're just kind of going off of the radar. And, you know, I can't imagine what pilots do when they're learning to get their license. The instrument training is so intense and so specific, um, that it's, it's not really the same for boating.

It's just kind of like, hey, this is what you have and this is what you go off of, but there are no guarantees with flying a plane. I would imagine the guarantee level is a little bit higher on that. So there you go. That's the instrument training segment of the show today. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that we need to spend more time on it, but it was just a fun experience getting out there, experiencing things, challenging yourself.

There you go. Being better. Yep. Yeah, being better. Win the day. Go Ducks. Or the night. Or the night.

Even better. Well done, Cerruti. We have a ton of Rosillo follow-ups here. So the guy who sent in the original Worcester thing wanted to clarify a few things oh good okay it's thanks for reading the email uh and the advice about portsmouth been there a few times loved it didn't even think about it and so that was actually really good advice so he's looking at a portsmouth now he's fired up i would also say this uh as somebody who does like to look at you know as i've said this before i think people love Zillow because they just go, hey, what if I lived here?

All my bullshit, like, will my life change? And the answer is no. But that's why Zillow is fucking awesome. Because, like, you pretend for a moment as you look at the backyard of this other house in a different town that, like, everything's going to be different. Nothing's ever different. Should I buy a house in Charleston? Yeah, why not? Look at this.

I can afford this. So yeah, it's like a little bit of an escape. I don't even think it's about the real estate most of the time. But from a real estate standpoint, I have never seen price cuts in some of these areas that I've looked at like I have in just the last two weeks. What does it mean? I don't know. If I actually knew the answers to these things, I probably wouldn't be podcasting. But I'm just saying, is my advice, hey, everybody hold off for two years because we're still called it? No, I'm just saying I've never seen price cuts on houses

in certain areas, in the areas that I've looked at, just because I want to educate myself on it. The way I looked at houses in Manhattan Beach for, I think, five or six years before I even moved here. I've never seen price cuts across the board on so many properties like I am now. All right, moving forward. He said he felt the need to clarify a few things, and it's his fault for not being more clear before. As much fun as it was getting roasted about Worcester, clear before. As much fun as it was getting roasted about Worcester, I included it as thinking out loud thing. It was the bottom of my wife and I's list, and we have zero plans to invest in a property there. Nothing against Worcester. Rereading the email, I can see how it looked like that was my top pick, so that's on me. I think that it was even mentioned was

fascinating, and that's what led to the countless responses. We're also looking to make this purchase as a long-term investment to pass along to our children one day, along with our other properties. This guy's putting together quite the portfolio. And we won't be buying for at least another year or two. Again, should have included that in the original email. Beautiful family he's got here. He sent in a picture. The kid might not even be one. So they are thinking long-term. So that does change's got here. He sent in a picture. The kid might not even be one. So they are thinking long-term.

So that does change the equation here. He wants kind of a family deal where this is going to be a generational house, which I think is, you can pull it off, man. The New England estate, as we'll call it. Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm all for it, obviously. If you could pull it off. The only problem was getting like how if i remember correctly it was like how often are you actually going to get there in the first few years and if that's not a problem for you then

i guess you just answered your own question yeah so like you know if it becomes easier five six seven years from now you've just been running it out for that long and even if you're just like breaking even on it it seems kind of like i mean it's probably a little bit of a hassle but if you're gonna have this thing for like 20 years and your kids are going to go there and, you know, who knows, maybe your kid goes to college up in the Northeast and they have this house that they could stay at. Like, there you go. Like, this sounds like a pretty great life.

Um, but it's all about the finances. Yeah. This guy's a planner. It's like when, when Dignan breaks his buddy out of the psychiatric ward which isn't really it's voluntary uh and bottle rocket and then they're on the bus and he's going through this loose leaf notebook of like the next five years the next 20 years the next 50 years and if you pause the movie you can read what they wrote it was like travel travel internationally like establish selves and community.

It's so damn funny and why Bottle Rockets is like my favorite movie ever. And then obviously Luke Wilson goes, man, you really thought it out, man. So this guy's a thinker. The New England thing, though, I forget what that website was. Was it what white people like or something? Wasn't there some website like that? And was it what white people like or something wasn't there some website like that and it would just be like north face and then you're like yeah patagonia yeah checks out uh naming houses yeah it's definitely like that's a level of money

you're like i just want to be rich enough one day to name a house and then yeah you know you tell your kids if you have them like oh, oh, are we going to break water this summer? We're going to holiday house? Yeah, there you go. Okay. All right. So it seems like a no brainer to me. Listen, if it's going to be 20 plus years, you're not going to take a loss on it. So I don't know. Real estate's never a terrible investment to make long-term. That's what they say. That's what they say. That's what they used to say before the housing crisis. They're like, it just keeps going up. Like, so it's never going to go down. They're like, no, I know it's not the same thing. So that's not what I'm saying as a counter to you. I just Donovan Mitchell do. That's not what I'm doing.

I just always thought it was funny that like a shit was falling apart or there were signs that shit was falling apart, but most of us didn't know. They'd have some guy on and be like, well, housing is just housing. What are you talking about? Yeah. Be like, okay, I'd like a little more depth, but I guess that's what housing is. Okay. Let's get to a couple here. I think we spent enough time on Worcester. This guy checks. Yeah. Good luck, man. Let us know. Name it. 6'1", 195. Don don't lift anymore play hoops three four days a week having a bit of an issue explaining my sports fandoms to my friends and people i get into sports conversations with i've been a huge basketball fan since i was a kid

and never really had a favorite team i'm from north carolina was a senior in high school and i chose the miami heat as my favorite team he says post lebron that's weird just love the wade drogich dang and iso joe run wow that's you didn't get to enjoy the good part of that who was like i really enjoy watching luau dang and joe johnson yeah this is even i mean but honestly i kind of respect that because joe johnson played 24 games for them. I made an impression, you know, he sure did on this guy. Honestly, though,

I respect that though, because you know, everyone's going to call you a bandwagoner, which kind of sucks. Like that's what happened to me. And then we'll, I'll let you finish off the email, but like I'm a Niners fan,

right? I'm like kind of less of a Niners fan now than I'll give us the full resume. So Rudy. Yeah. So I'm magic 49ers. I guess I kind of grew up a Red Sox fan but I was you know I mostly played baseball I didn't really I don't really care about baseball now and then I like do it and a watcher I like Everton in the EPL most of my teams kind of suck although the Niners

are good but the thing is like everyone when I was growing up when I would tell them I was a Niners fan they'd be like you're such a bandwagoner like that's lame and I'm like well okay but most of my life the Niners have sucked you know I I had like the Jeff Garcia era, which was great. And then I went to Tim Rattay. And then it was Alex Smith and two and 14 seasons back to back. And I'm like, yeah, all right. They were good in like the 80s and the early 90s. But I was six.

Like, are you going to really hold that against me for my whole life? So I kind of respect this guy because I imagine people probably call him like a Homer bandwagon guy, but he's really not. Well, if the heat thing is true congrats i guess i just have a hard time believing that after they were in four straight finals and by the way he's saying this all happened he liked hoop since he was a kid but he decided his senior year of high school that hey the 37 and 45 heat that's my vibe i get it though it's tough i mean it's probably the bobats at the time probably weren't the most exciting draw. Maybe he was looking for something a little more exciting.

South beach is fun. You know, I don't know. Yeah. Uh, that, that group, he wasn't,

he wasn't super into Gerald Wallace. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't quite, I don't quite get that. Oh, it's one thing when you're a kid,

like when somebody has a weird fandom, cause they're super impressionable as little kids and something just sort of happens you know like i the first team i ever loved was the 82 83 sixers because it was dr j and moses malone and it was the first time i started watching games the first time i was paying attention to stats any of the stuff i was seven and my dad's like what the fuck is going on? We live in New England. The Celtics are the Celtics. It's like the best, other than the absurd 11 title run, it's one of the other great runs from 81 on for the decade. So I timed it horribly.

Although, I've noticed this about me. When I show up to your city, big and rich, I've noticed this about me. When I show up to your city, big and rich, I talked in the open about guaranteeing titles. I guarantee titles. When I'm coming to your city, your teams win titles. It's unbelievable. Show up to Boston, actually live in Boston, Boston, 0- 02, Super Bowl, two World Series, 04, 07. Curse breaks, yeah.

Three more, three more, well, three total Super Bowls. So I planted and then 08, Celtics win. So that was all while I lived there, the span of like- Was the Bruins title in there too? No, but I obviously had planted the seed for Rosillo culture. Bruins knew you, they were like,

hey, we gotta get winning. Bruins were like, hey, we got to get one in. Yeah, the Bruins were like, we, you know. So then I moved to Hartford, UConn immediately a title. Yeah, yeah. Real quick. Because people were like, hey, where's the Hartford one? Don't worry about it. We got a couple in there.

I show up, you start winning titles, UConn. Move out to LA. Yard Goats, by the way, came to town, I think, when you were there as well. So not only did you bring championships, you literally brought new teams. LA, Lakers, Rams, Dodgers within three years. Sparks get one in there? Let's do a quick Google. How about that Sparks story, that Cambridge? Don't know much about it, but the story's pretty wild.

Yeah, the story is pretty wild. Check that one out. As far as 2016, you weren't quite there yet. No, but I was thinking about it. I was on Zillow. Yeah, they knew. Honestly, there should be sort of Chamber of Commerce. Cleveland should be reaching out.

Can you move to Orlando? Any thoughts on buying some real estate in Orlando? You and Kevin Clark could split it. No taxes. Yep. You could claim residency there, save a ton of money. You have two boats. They'll get you somewhere else, yeah.

Although you could move to Iceland and never have to worry about driving your boat at night. Yeah. Iceland will win the World Cup when you get there. There you go. Yeah. I almost got you a jersey on the way out. I was like, am I going to buy Cerrut a hundred dollar puma icelandic national team jersey and then the sizes were all screwed up because the xl looked like it was going to be snug on you and the thing is like

icelandic people not every icelandic person is watching walking around like thor that's a bit of a misconception uh but yeah i would have thought if there was one country that sizes weren't going to go on the smaller size of things. I wasn't in Florence, man, smoking cigs on a scooter outside and it's some sort of medium Henley. All right. Did somebody send an email? He did. That was about an hour ago. I still can't get over the Joe Johnson 24-game thing. I find it hard to believe that as a senior in high school, that was the team. So whatever.

That's what he's saying. As cringy as heat culture in the Middle East can be at times, I love the idea of my favorite team valuing winning and being consistently competitive. All right. Well, they also live in a great market. Attractive to free agents. It's pretty easy. It's much easier than Charlotte.otte yeah let's let's remember that line i chose the heat before the season ironically they played the hometown hornets in the first round of the playoffs i actively rooted against the hornets and got a lot of flack from my friends charlotte's obviously

a bottom tier franchise in terms of winning so it's not often you meet charlotte fans even where i'm from which is not very far from the team so usually it's not an issue but i now have season tickets i've had season tickets for two seasons. My Hornets friends, my Hornets fan friends give me shit for going to games and occasionally wearing, wearing Hornets jerseys geared to games. Well,

if you're buying season tickets, you are supporting the team. So I guess I'm not, I don't know. I was also confronted by an aggressive group of Hornets fans for wearing heat gear at a heat Hornets game. So wait, are you wearing Hornets gears to the games, not against the heat? And then you wear heat gear? He's going back and forth. I mean, I mean, people are going to have a problem with this. So I root for them whenever they play anyone else,

but I'm all into my team and have been since I jumped on the wagon. So you are kind of a Hornets fan too. You care enough. I mean, season tickets is a massive, massive investment, unless your company just pays for them and gives you a few. All right. I'm also a Packers fan, but that's more of a family thing. I know Cerruti can relate minus the heat aspect. So what's the best route to take? Tell them I'm not tying myself to a shitty organization because I was born in this state or just tell them to fuck off. I like who I like. Ooh, aggressive. We'd like to hear what Steve has to say. So I think we already covered the Steve part. Here's what I would never say to your friends anymore, that you love the idea of your favorite team valuing winning and being consistently competitive. That sounds like

something that would be like on a heat culture Reddit thread. You don't value it more than other teams do. You think you do. I love the SPO part of it, the Udonis thing. I think there should be a massive pivot towards a couple older guys that know they're not going to play, that are around to help and can speak to players in a way coaches can't. I think there should be more Udonis Haslams on rosters in the league. Now, having said all that stuff, this is just what you signed up for, man. I mean, it could be worse.

You could be a Duke, Yankees, Cowboys, Lakers fan, which I think is pretty much – Yeah, I think Duke is still worse because you can kind of, you can go with, I think there's more people that dislike Duke basketball than Notre Dame football. I do believe that. I know Notre Dame football is not everybody's favorite either, but that's just what's going to happen. If you're going to be one of those guys with the going abroad fan resume, you're just going to get shit. You're just going to get shit. So I wouldn't even bother arguing about it. I just wouldn't. But I'd have more sympathy for you if it was, you liked Alonzo Mourning when you were eight and there was something cool and you

liked the jerseys and they were different and all that stuff. When I meet somebody and I'm like, why do you like them? I don't care anymore, by the way. But maybe when I did care when I was younger, then somebody just goes, well, when I was a little kid, dot, dot, dot. And it's like, all right, well then that's cool. You kind of picked a team when you were a little kid, maybe it was annoying your family. I got off the Sixers thing after Barkley, you know, then I was like, what am I going to do? Root for Tim Perry here? Like this is getting stupid. And then I took a couple of years off of caring about any team. And then I was like, all right, I'm sort of into the Boston thing again. you know i'm not i'm not captain 617 like other

guys are i don't have the skyline tatted on my back permanently that we know about i'm actually a pretty big i'm okay if you even if you're from a place if you pick teams that are not from that place but you can't be the flip-flopper so it doesn't sound i'm not saying you are the flip-flopper because it's not you you are a heat fan but i understand why hornets fans would be like dude you're gonna show up to arena like wearing you know lonzo bald or a lamella ball jersey you know one night maybe lonzo one day maybe lonzo who knows maybe he's gonna be a bull's jersey just don't i would say just don't just don't flip flop back and forth like don't be one of those guys that like gets a 50 50 jersey where it's half whatever, half Hornets, half Heat.

And it doesn't sound like you're that guy, so that's fine. People are going to give you shit, but as long as you don't change, I'm okay with it. And for me, ironically, if I had just liked the teams in my own backyard, I'd probably be a much happier sports fan than I am now. But I kind of went the same route, and you kind of have to stick with who you stick with.

So you pick the Heat, that's great. Good for you. They're definitely a better franchise than the than the hornets but i i don't blame hornets fans for getting mad at you for showing up to the arena two different jerseys all right uh we did have somebody sending a uh picture of dog shit with a sock in it okay any reason no context no i just thought we'd be interested because of the dog eating sock email we are not interested we are not interested refrained in the future i don't think that's the solution yeah sorry thanks for that didn't yeah no i mean i get that he was like hey i'm part of this now and i'm

gonna be involved kyle forwarded that one to me and uh i opened it and it was it was really gross but there was a sock mixed in it and And so, yeah, just a PSA. Appreciate the effort. We got it covered. Yep. Okay, this one's pretty heavy. It's not going to bum anybody out because you're going to laugh, but it's a problem. Okay.

23 years old, 5'10", not very athletic, but most of this email isn't about me. It's about my dad. For background, my mom has been out of the picture for a long time for reasons not worth getting into. My dad is a good solo parent to me, but we were definitely not close. We're both introverts, not very emotive people. He's very focused on his work all the time. What's that like? Our conversations are pretty surface level, but I love him and know that he loves me. All right. When I was a teenager, my dad sold his company for a lucrative sum, and he still works in the industry in a leadership position today. This made us

a more wealthy family than my upbringing was. Almost two years ago, my dad met this younger woman. Let's call her Stephanie, who's in her mid-30s. They've been dating ever since. Stephanie probably appears to be a typical trophy partner because she's much younger and works as a yoga instructor, and on a physical attractiveness alone, is hilariously way out of my dad's league. And aside on this, we all like what we like. We like different things. If you are an older guy who can provide and a younger girl likes that setup, good for both of you. And if you're an older guy that has a younger attractive girl that maybe some people are going to roll their eyes at, fuck them and good for you. We're're all we're all negotiating with each other

in some form or fashion so i always think it's kind of weird when it's like oh look at that guy look at her uh what a joke or whatever it's like okay but you know what like she decided to prioritize certain things and he provided the things that he she prioritizes and she provides the things that he prioritizes so everybody seems happy here. Yeah, just get the fuck out of everybody's way. All right? Rant over. Almost two years ago, as we said. All right, so while this may sound easy to critique,

I can strongly say, see, even he was kind of going like, I know people are going to say whatever. I can strongly say Stephanie's been an amazing positive influence on my dad. She's generally a sweet person, makes him laugh in ways I've never seen before. And their love seems really solid.

They've made passing comments about him proposing, and I think I would be, and I think not but, and I think I would be supportive of that. Even though she's closer to me in age, I would welcome her as a permanent member of our family. A few days ago, Stephanie started talking to me about these elaborate plans she has for his 50th birthday in a few months, which will be a surprise party with all of his friends, closest colleagues. She wants to make 50 cupcakes, 50 of his favorite sliders, 50 mini cocktails of his favorite drink, get 50 candles, 50 balloons to decorate. You get the pattern. Yes, we do. We get the pattern. I think for my dad's 50th, he would prefer to go fishing. I know this because that's what we did on his 50th birthday back when I was just starting

high school in 2013. My dad is turning 59. Not 50. He clearly has lied to Stephanie about his age. Granted, since he sold the company, he's invested more in his appearance, dyed his hair, is in better shape, and even had a facelift. I attached a photo of him from last year, as you can see, but he is not the age she thinks he is.

He doesn't look 50 in the picture. Now, could he be 50? Yeah. Have I looked at his, could he be 50? Yeah. Have I looked at his picture and read this email? Yeah, going, oh, wait. So I'm not acting like I can just nail everybody's age in some picture. So I'm probably playing the results here a little bit because we've already read the email. But yeah.

All right. So unfortunately, I am in all caps, terrible liar. And I'm already paranoid that Stephanie gauged my confused reaction about why she's so into his 50th theme for his random birthday party, but just told her I was tired and confused. The idea of keeping up a lie for a few months makes me really nervous, especially during the night of the party. What should I do? My dad and I have never talked about relationships of any kind before. And the idea of confronting a lie of his, it's not the first way that I want to do party. What should I do? My dad and I have never talked about relationships of any kind before and the idea of confronting a lie of his is not the first way that I want to do it. Also, I really don't want Stephanie to be turned off to him long-term by this lie and I think he's

the type of person who maybe isn't aware of how big a deal this is or thinks nobody would ever find out. Please help with any advice you can. This is so well written and so good. I'm the concern fraud meter. It's ticking up a bit yeah but we're going we're going with it uh i would probably say something to him i know you said it doesn't sound like you're all that close but i would go hey what's the plan here i wouldn't get in the way of this you know if she wants to believe that he's 50 and they're getting along and everybody's in love i i think the age thing is like you have no idea how the other party is going to react. That's what I think this is. It could be, oh, that's funny. And we're in love and I don't care.

Or it can be you, our relationship is built on a faulty foundation of lies. Like I, it's all about how that person processes these things.'t know that I probably wouldn't care. Although I know if I were dating somebody, she's like, I'm actually like 55. I had some clues. Yeah. There was some hints along the way. Yeah.

Fucking, you kept getting discounts at hotels and theaters. ARP kept sending you out a mail. Yeah. Well, I thought the ARP, everybody says you filled it out. So, you know, even though you're not really close with him, I think you should say, hey, what's the play?

Like, okay, clearly she thinks you're turning 50. So you lied. I'm not going to do anything because I don't think it is your right to do anything here. I'm not going to do anything because I don't think it is your right to do anything here. So that's like if there's one strong piece of advice, it's like this is not your thing to rule on here. The fact that she looked at you a little weird because you were like, what the fuck are you talking about? This 50th theme. That could be you getting your own head.

Who knows? Whatever. She's never looked at a driver's license. She's never had to fill out anything when they're traveling somewhere. Maybe he's the guy paying for it all, so he's booked everything the entire time. I guess two years. I mean, yeah, sure. Anybody can pull stuff off if you really want to.

I imagine on a marriage license at some point, don't you have to fill that stuff out, Suriti? You do. Because I was trying to think about this. If I lied to my wife, Maddie, about if I was, say, five like five years older would she find out the answer is yes because she does like most of the clerical stuff you know and there's there there's no way i'd be able to hide that i mean like medical information whatever but sounds like that would be awesome she'd be like i knew he was like 17 when i met him yeah yeah five years exactly five years younger uh but she would definitely find out so i don't i mean maybe he's just pulling all the strings here and she's kind of long for the ride and that's fine.

The other question is, do other people at this party are going to know that he's not 50? That's a great point. And it was worth it too. So you're fucked. Yeah, you're absolutely fucked. This party can't happen.

No, it can't. Because I mean, unless everyone's just going to be cool with it, I highly doubt that. There's no way. There's no way in a room of all these people drinking and this thing being absurd. And if they're all of his friends, somebody is going to be cool with it? I, I, I highly doubt that. You know, there's no way, there's no way in a room of all these people drinking and this thing being absurd. And if they're all of his friends,

somebody is going to fuck up. So this party actually can't happen, which is, which is a better point about all of it. Um, and what he'll need to do is tell her he doesn't want to party at all, uh, which may lead to them having to address it.

And I have no idea how to, I don't know that you, he has to tell her, you know, you could, could you could place if it turned into an argument you could be like so wait there's a number on her happiness you know play one of those bullshit lines but the party itself is going to be one of the most awkward things ever if it's a bunch of 60 year old guys being like dude he told the yoga instructor he's 49 or 47 when they met and now they're having a fake 50th birthday party and she doesn't know that could actually be the part where she would have way more justification for being upset not about the lie but then to feel like she's being humiliated at a party that she's

throwing with a theme for a guy that's a decade older yep it'll be way worse i wonder how i wish i knew how old she was is she like in her no she said mid-30s mid-30s okay well 30s yeah all right that's yeah i mean 10 god 10 there's a big difference between 50 and 60 you know i know 60s but 25 so that'd be me dating a 22 year old or 21 year old excuse me yeah 2021 i don't you know granted there's a lot of stuff on Instagram that's fun. I can't. Now, again, when you're 59 and it's 35, somebody has some life experience in the yoga world, you're meeting people. So that's a entirely different vibe than, you know, if I was dating somebody and I'd be like, oh, you have midterms this week. That sucks.

I don't, I don't know. There wouldn't be a ton of, I don't know what there would be to talk about. I mean, the interesting thing too is like, so he definitely had no plans of telling her ever, I would imagine then. He was just going to, like they were just going to live out the rest of their lives and he was going to die 10 years older

than everyone thought he was, or that way she thought he was. I mean, at some point, at some point you're going to get caught in this lie. And I think this guy has to tell his dad because but the problem is too and then like if it like if it gets back to her that you know you know this guy basically put the kibosh on the party she's gonna be mad at you too like there has to be some sort of explanation like she eventually he is going to have to tell

her that he's 10 years older than she thinks he is because there's no way to lie your way through that zag does she go holy shit this guy's actually a decade older and he's loaded? And she's more pumped about it. Yeah. She's like, he's even better. Yeah. Closer to the settlement payout. I don't know.

Who knows? Maybe there's a life insurance thing going on. I don't know. Not nice to say. Had to be brought up. Yeah. That's what it is. You're right.

Party can't happen, but it's not on the guy emailing. The guy emailing can't initiate any of this. Well, no. He's got to tell his dad, though. No, no. I'm talking about with Stephanie here, the yoga instructor. Yeah, but that's it. I got wind of this. It's a problem. You got to figure it out. Yeah. Party can't happen because it's going to be humiliating for her, and somebody's going to screw it up. So if you're going to have the party and she's adamant it's happening, you got to tell her, uh, or you have to try to, but like, you know, it's like we're making 60 cupcakes now. 59.

Yeah. Okay. That's life advice. Uh, email us life advice, rr at gmail.com. Thanks to Steven, Mike in for Kyle today. And we'll be back next week. We got some football stuff we're doing. So we got a full week next week.

Uh, and then the Icelandic travel pod will be out the week after that. So, um, there'll be a bunch of people asking about that. Yeah. Yeah. No,

it's, it's done. It's done. I, you know, I guess if you like me, you'll like it. I probably would turn it off halfway through only because it's me talking for like, you know, five or six parts for like 50 to an hour, 50 minutes to an hour.

I mean, it's so maybe we'll do a little audio breakup, a little reset, maybe some Icelandic music. We'll throw a break in there. You know, we'll do a little fade in, fade out. Can we do, what kind of Icelandic music? Do we have any cleared Icelandic music? Eurovision? Maybe. Yeah.

Isn't that where the, yeah, that movie happened? Anyway, we'll figure it out. There'll be a life advice in there too. So we'll have stuff for you

even though we're taking a little break in this six-week window that we have at the end of basketball before football. Okay, thank you as always.

Ryan Russo, the podcast for your Spotify. you