The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Return of the Pro Lacrosse With Paul Rabil. Plus the RewatchaBulls: 1997, Round 1, Game 2, Bulls-Bullets With Bill Simmons and Joe House | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Russillo is joined by Premier Lacrosse League cofounder and player Paul Rabil to discuss the return of professional lacrosse in the form of a 16-day quarantine tournament (1:20). Then Ryen talks with Bill Simmons and longtime Bullets/Wizards fan Joe House about Game 2 of Round 1 of the 1997 playoffs between the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Bullets (27:28). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

okay big big pod for you today as you can already see that in the download tab you're like man this thing's massive yeah it is today's episode of the ryan rossillo podcast and the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like sports the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Navigating the unexpected is literally everyone that's trying to figure out how to get their league going again. But once it starts to happen slowly, which we're going to hear from Paul Rabel, who is the premier lacrosse league founder and also one of its stars, they're going to start playing games again. He broke that news on NBC yesterday, so we're going to sit down and talk with him. I've got to know him a little

bit, living out here, same neck of the woods. But that's what it's starting to feel like, right? Little things are happening here. And I've honestly not felt entirely comfortable just sitting here constantly talking about coronavirus, which I've done more with Bill than I've done on my pod. But it feels better, right? It feels better that some of these things are heading in the direction back to normalcy, but I don't know. I don't know if it means, uh-oh, here comes that second wave.

I don't have the answer for you. I'm sure there's a million other pods that will tell you they know the answer. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. So let's start off talking a little lax with Rabel. He's one of the best lacrosse players of all time. He's the founder of the Premier Lacrosse League, and he's a former neighbor. I don't get to see him as much now, but it's Paul Rabel.

What's up, man? How are you? I know I miss you at the gym and at the local grocery store. We both actually shop for our groceries at Target. That was a last-minute deal. We were both kind of like, what are we doing right now? Looking at their organic section now, it's pretty decent, but I haven't been in a while. I actually haven't been much of anywhere over the last six weeks. So the news broke yesterday.

You guys are coming back. I know everybody asked me all the time about the NBA. I asked baseball guys, you know, I was asking some of the hockey guys the whole deal. But you guys are able to do it. And for those that don't understand how your league works is that it's more of a touring league. The teams are not assigned to cities. You guys go and you show up. So take us through the process of all the things that you had to go through, the questions you had to ask, the research that you had to do on this to get the go ahead to feel like, okay, we can do a quarantine schedule of games.

Yeah. Well, I guess it depends on how much time we have. But I'd say that we are able to do this because of our size and our agility as a league. So where we have had endless deficits, when you go and you talk to networks and sponsors, and we were building this thing out, and you're building fan bases, when you talk to networks and sponsors when we were building this thing out and you're building fan bases when you compare yourself to the legacy leagues that have 30 plus teams like the NBA and the NFL have been around forever and their universal language at this stage.

But they're also really bulky and they have a lot more challenges in their trade association structure when you're in this environment and have to move really fast and come up with new ideas. So for us, we're actually a true single entity. So this is how MLS was originally structured, where our front office makes the decisions,

and that's empowering in a time like this. The second is we have power in fewer numbers. We have seven teams. So if you look at market-wide and medically, the environment and the approach for team sports league, different than individual sports like golf and tennis that can practice social distancing while playing. Team sports leagues, where there's groups of people on the same field or court contact, we're under a different microscope. under a different microscope. So for us, you know, and about 30 days ago in other leagues, it became a foregone conclusion that pro sports, if come back, will be fanless. And then it became about, hey, what's the difference on the pattern between a fan and a player to and from facility, practice facility back home? There's not. Your players have exposure. So from our perspective, the most medically safe way to

getting a team sports league back is to have a fully quarantined model. And that's where the NBA with 30 plus teams and even their playoffs at 18 teams, there aren't campuses that can house that many people and kind of get that full buy-in, even from a food and bed standpoint, practice facilities and locker rooms. So we have known early on that this was a viable option when back on March 13th, we were building scenarios for before we even announced the postponement of the start of our season. But as we got closer to April, it became very evident that this thing was going to not only extend through the summer, but through the year. And until there's a vaccination, it's going to be a meaningful part of

the new normal, and that being people wearing face masks everywhere and so on, even if a drug and treatment is FDA approved and provided at scale. So we just started focusing on really rebuilding our business for this year on this tournament model and the way it's going to break down. And we got proactive because NBC is our partner and said, hey, with the postponement of the Olympics in that two and a half week window, there seems to be a lot of green pasture there in way of television inventory. What if we created a tournament that could fall right in that window? Can we capture a lot of television programming? And that's critical for a sport like ours. They said, go out and get it. And we did.

And that's kind of the short of why. So how are you handling, I know with the NBA, it's about tests and availability to test. How are you going to be able to monitor all the players? Because obviously that's the core of this is making sure as long as they're good, then you have something to put on TV. Yeah. So by and large, the importance of a quarantine model versus everyone in the same geo is that it's pretty preventative to the extent of the number of tests you have to do, certainly on a daily basis. In other words, you have to have a really robust medical protocol leading into it. Then once everyone's in, no one's out and no one on the outside is allowed back in. So once you're safe and healthy and have passed your tests, you can begin play. The NBA is calling

it the bubble model. So that's the first thing. But related to the tests, we're not starting our games officially until July 25th and training camp will start the week before. And we are part of the white house sports committee task force with the other leagues. And we get information that primarily is around number of tests per day, day over day, Delta to number of cases per day across the country and where the hotspots are in certain States, you know, a path to a drug or treatment in 2020, if possible.

And then the more important piece that all leagues are looking at is what they're calling point of care testing that's available nationwide. So right now it's available in LA. And that's a big piece because if we were playing next week, you would face a ton of backlash. And this is what the UFC and NASCAR and PGA Tour are looking at, comms around is our COVID testing and their COVID testing is preventative. And you don't want to be in a place where you're pulling thousands of tests away from people who are symptomatic. So what we've learned is that by June 1st, that point of care market is going to change materially across the country.

And that's a good thing for sports leagues getting back because they'll no longer be in a position or likely not to be in a position where they're pulling tests from people who preferably need it. So us being in July, and then when we look at our medical protocol, we have a pre-quarantine phase,

we have a pre-testing phase, we have a testing on arrival phase, and then a testing at a, uh, at a, at a midway point through the, through the tournament. So just break it down to this most like layman terms then where are the guys going to be staying, right? Where are the guys going to be staying access to the field, all of that stuff, coaching staffs, officials, like how are you going to be changing that because of everything you're trying to prevent? Yeah. So we haven't decided on our location. We have three proposals in place from three different locations that want to host us.

And we're taking a little bit of time because we want to understand in the three regions the way that they're evolving. So we're looking at a location in the southeast, in the midwest, in the mid-Atlantic. But let's take our training camp from last year as an example, IMG Academy. That is a campus that we would, and this is our approach, where we buy out the whole thing. So you have practice fields and then you have your game field. You have dorms, you have a hotel, you have dining halls. And so teams will have their own quarters, their own access to dining hall, their own practice facility and locker room, all within a walk, all secluded from the rest of the community that surrounds Bradenton, Florida. So that's like

a hypothetical example of the locations that we're looking at. So testing our arrival, once you're in, it's like an Olympic village. Everything is there. And that's what makes the quarantine model. Okay. This league is really impressive when people understand it. And I think what you've done here is really incredible in that people can talk about players and rights and all these different things. And this league is about the players. I mean, it really is. It's more than just a branding thing. How did you decide to kind of be able to execute this where, you know, yes, you and your brother,

Mike, are the founders, but that this league belongs to the players playing in it? Well, yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I'm still a player. So we kind of joke around and feeling like Jackie Moon from time to time. A lot of people still, probably a lot of people listening to your show

have never even seen lacrosse before. So an instinctual reaction is like, I haven't seen that stick ball before. Therefore, it's not a sport. And therefore, that person is not a pro athlete. So we face that stuff all the time. And I think previous to the inception of the PLL, I played pro lacrosse for 10 years in a league called Major League Lacrosse. And the average wage was 8,000 bucks for the season. No healthcare, guys had other jobs,

and it was a bit of a ragtag experience. And what I've learned about sports and being obsessed with them and kind of view sports in a similar way that you do, I think if I didn't play, I'd try to be involved in sports marketing or sports business to some extent. You have to invest in your athletes. Otherwise, why even do it? If you're not going to invest in the product, it ain't going to grow. From our perspective, in the modern era at least, we've got a sport that's been around for a thousand years on the cross. It's Native American roots. It's been a part of the NCAA since the NCAA's inception in the early seventies. So it's around and there are fans and there are players, but we have an opportunity to commercialize this thing in 2019. How would we do it today? And it's different than how

Major League Baseball was built in the nineties and accessing radio and print, how the NFL was built with television as its medium. And we've used social media as our medium. So we do things differently. And it can feel a little bit kind of non-traditional to a sports fan. But it doesn't mean that we won't evolve into some of the traditional city-based models down the road. But right now, we just view the importance of accelerating our league. So we were able to get a network deal out of the gates with NBC and a bunch of games on television because we're tour-based. And the reason why we went tour-based is we didn't own any freaking stadiums. If you don't own stadiums, you can't book your schedule with your network partner and

pervert windows. So we just took a really objective and practical view to it. And we're like, all right, let's not mess with the product on field. Let's not mess with the competition. We got the best players in the world. We'll get them to come over because we'll pay them well. We'll give them health insurance and our players have stock options. We see that trend in the NBA, be it players retiring and becoming owners, or you see players taking equity in a company instead of a sponsorship compensation and dollars and product so we uh we've just done things differently and it's spun up some attention i think it's overall been uh good momentum for us were you pissed you weren't the first pick in the draft i i have that internal piss and vinegar in me, to be honest.

I had a shitty season last year to my standards. And so I'm ready to rock this season. One thing is honestly, this self-quarantine across the country has felt like an ultimate neutralizer for me to all of my peers or my competitors. to all of my peers or my competitors. Like when I was building this with Mike last year, we were flying all over the country and board meetings and sponsorship pitches and network meetings. And I was basically working out of my hotel,

working out in my hotel room, doing body weight work. And then I'd see you on occasion at an Equinox in the South Bay and you lift more than me. You're stronger than me. And so now all of a sudden, everyone's doing

the same shit i'm doing and uh and i feel like okay maybe this is a chance for me to make a big comeback jordan docks expire is is uh inspiring me too that guy he's 34 years old he's the best player in the world hey has there ever been um a guy that's reached out to you like a big time athlete celebrity type that uh is in another sport asking you about what you're doing here because Cause I really, you know, it's no bullshit, man. I think what you're doing is really groundbreaking. And I'm curious if other guys have been like, Holy shit. Like I didn't realize what you were doing here. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, I think, you know, I've been lucky to build a lot of relationships, different athletes when, uh, even I was playing in the other league because of sponsorships that I had and, to ESPYs and going to other events.

But I'll tell I guess two people most recently that I've looked up to on the sports business side is Adam Silver, who I spent a decent amount of time with. And he's been helpful for us and hopefully us to them during this phase. And I was at the All-star game with him and I met him at a Bloomberg luncheon a couple of years ago. Then on the athlete side at the Super Bowl was Peyton Manning. I'm trying to convince him to join us as an advisor because before he started getting these massive contracts to call games, the ownership side in sports was interesting to him. So him and I were talking about it. And in particular, what the PLL is doing. His brother Archie's son plays lacrosse

and they came to our game in Atlanta last year. So, you know, you get all different things. Steve Nash in our neighborhood, he grew up playing lacrosse. He watches us and I check in with him on occasion. But I think that's just a really awesome vibe that you get uh across sports when you when you get older yeah uh that's that's always the cool thing especially out here this area you know living out here and just every day you kind of like run into

somebody you know back when things are normal and you'd run into somebody and be like oh like i didn't know you're out here i'm like what are you doing well i'm working on this i mean it's it's really a very motivating. People talk about Los Angeles. Oh, I don't like this. Yeah, there's stuff that I don't like about anywhere I could potentially live. But this place can be really inspiring

because of just the company that you keep and the people that you run into that are all. I always kind of joke with my buddies. They're like, oh, do you like it out there? Everybody's full of shit. I was like, yeah, but at least they're interesting. At least they're interesting and there's the hustle right like everybody's kind of hustling some way yeah they're hustling the thing about california and it's obviously never lived in texas and texas

a bit hotter but when you talk about states that don't face the inclement winter weather like you're basically a year-round athlete that That was my biggest thing when I moved out here over a year ago. It was like, holy shit, I'm living on the beach. I can work out in the sand one day, I work out on the turf the next day. There's never bad weather. And if you just think about time and effort, a lot of athletes in the Northeast in particular have got to figure out ways to train if they're not playing basketball. If they're playing basketball, figure out even if you're playing outside when it's raining or snow on the court, how to get it in.

And so if you think about it, man, like athletes move out to areas where there's good weather year round. So you can train a lot of Olympic athletes to live out in Manhattan Beach. Yeah, right. I mean, it makes all the sense of the world. I mean, the whole volleyball crew is just all like, wait a who's this guy you're like oh he's the number two beach volleyball player in the world you're like what yeah yeah i've never walked into a bar with so many tall people i'm like where the fuck are we no kidding man it's not uh when you talk about the long-term

viability of of the pll uh yeah the part where i would i would wonder if other leagues like you know wnba stuff is debated all the time where you know the nba is like it's it's a delicate thing because the thing doesn't make any money but then the wnba will say well we're not promoted enough and then it's like well wait a minute you're not promoted enough because you don't like that whole thing becomes very cyclical the irony of that one is always kind of funny in my business where if somebody doesn't do well with a show like the go-to will be wow they didn't market it the right way we're like well maybe your show just wasn't good you know like maybe that that's what happens um because that's usually the answer more so than

we didn't run enough commercials for you but for you to go grab the players this enticing package what what's the goal of growth versus revenue because those really they could be the same thing but really for you guys it feels like it's two different things. Yeah. Well, especially in this case right now, and for all leagues that are planning to get back, you're conceding tickets,

you're conceding merchandise on site, concessions, parking, local sponsorship activation. I mean, the NFL are building out a lot of scenarios right now. It's a late start to the season, ban list scenario. I mean, I saw the Miami Dolphins announcement earlier this week, and I'm like, that seems so hectic and also preemptive.

Now, granted, now it's their schedule. So it's like, you know, the net of the NFL is that they actually, despite their, I don't know, six and a half billion dollars a year they get across networks for their media rights, they depend on tickets. Even though they're only playing eight home games, it's eight massive concerts. You look at a company like ABI and Bud Light, how much they spend with the NFL. You go to an NFL game, it feels like you're at, you know, an ABI amusement park. And so without fans, that's off the table and all those dollars come back. So using that as an example for now, we are investing, especially this year, on that longer term distribution and opportunity to capture

new eyeballs and capture new fans by maintaining the core principle of the league and offering it while conceding some important revenue streams. We are a single entity in the long-term growth so that we can move fast and make changes and position ourselves for where we believe the path to success is in sports. When you talk about the WNBA and the NBA, I think it's critical in any business,

and whether it's a media company or not, is understanding what your goals are. And if the WNBA's goals are to achieve revenues at the size of the NBA, then there's always going to be stress and conflict there because people are going to, why aren't we growing that fast? And it's the same reason why no one's ever going to be the NFL. And it's the same reason why no one's ever going to be the NFL. They're an anomaly. They struck. They hit television in the 60s. They have an impassioned, hereditary fan base. They are a helmet sport for the better, for the owners. So they're not going to have as much, albeit the Tom Brady-Gronk solution was the first version of what I've seen take place in the NBA over the last 10 years in free agency and power to the players or the power to the owners. But for the most part, the power is in the market and that is preventative to the two or that that's protective, I should say, for long term league growth, where most sports are a lot of your asset value is in your players and your personalities. So when we think about our league, there are a few phases. We've got to get our sport in front of as many people and we're going to find out whether or not our podcast is good. Some people don't like surfing. Some people don't like lacrosse. Some people don't in the quarter million club, you're getting 250,000 people

to tune into a live broadcast that's not on a main network. So take it E2 or NBC Sports. You're a pretty healthy media rights business. You want to get over the 100,000 viewership club. Times have changed because social media is huge. So where we've been accelerating is just social. We're looking at continuing to grow our ratings, and that's around getting good inventory,

getting good lead-ins, being strategic, and you think about it from a business standpoint. And then on the sponsorship side, because we're a single entity and sponsors such a big bucket in sports leagues, we do things differently. So we offer our league IP, our team IP, and we give access to our players, to league sponsors that come in. Where in a traditional league, you have to pay seven times over to get access to all of what I just said. So trying to simplify the system and grow that way, we're not trying to be the NFL, but we want to be the next UFC. And what the UFC did was essentially commercialize MMA. And we feel like lacrosse has roots and it can be

commercialized well, and we've got to build our care, our players and the characters and personalities and see if it hits. This may sound stupid, but, um, I think things are easier to execute when there's maybe less at stake. So in the beginning for you guys, because there isn't as much revenue to fight over, is there an argument to be made that the more you grew financially the more things would come up where it's not as easy to execute these things where it feels like hey we're all on the same page here we're trying to grow this new league where i don't know my history has always been like once more money gets thrown around then people actually become more difficult yeah no doubt i mean right now we've, uh, you know, when we

first launched, we were in competition with the previous league and we were, you know, getting in small tussles over players and worrying about, you know, endemic media coverage and quabbles around like who's, who's got a better player and all this shit. And, uh, and then we were getting our endemic sponsors to come over to us because we had an NBC deal. We had the best players and we accelerated pretty quickly. And then we start bringing on national brands like Adidas and Gatorade and Capital One. And all of a sudden, because we play in the summer, we're in competition with Major League Baseball and MLS. Because all of a sudden you start talking to Home Depot and Lowe's and they've got a budget committed to one or the other properties. And if they're going to move over to you, they're going to shift.

Like there's not a, brands don't have an endless allotment of dough for sports properties. So a lot of that's people-based. You have your directors and heads and VPs of marketing that have an affinity for a particular sport, and then some of it's solution-oriented. But you're right. There's always problems and more challenges that take place. I mean, Mike and I are pretty thin-skinned, I would say. And one of the things that I reminded Mike of is like, hey, once we get bigger and as we get bigger, we're going to have people starting to mess with us in the media. And they're going to start picking out issues and blind spots that we have

that otherwise weren't picked out. And we've got to be open to that and converse around it, provide logic and admit guilt. And that's also going to come with it, provide logic and admit guilt. And that's also going to come with it, right? Like, I'm not LeBron James. It's probably fucking really hard to be LeBron James because he's criticized with every left-footed step he takes. And so, you know, there's a give and take for any athlete in any sport. Well, I'm really excited.

I love the sport. It was a big part of my experience at uvm i mean because we didn't have football so that was kind of the thing and and all my you said you hung out with lacrosse guys and uh in the fraternity yeah i mean i lived with them all i mean there was a there was a two-year stretch where everybody thought i was on the team which was great for me but then uh you know uh then the people were like you're never you're never playing you're just you're just drinking at these games uh and that was practice yeah yeah i uh i gotta tell you though like the guy who's not on the team that wears the gear four years you know just because it's your roommate that's

that's a little tougher to execute you're like okay dude we got it but i mean yeah wind pants mid 90s this guy over here mean, it's on lock. Hey, look, man. I really want to see this work out for you. And so we'll have you on again once the season gets rolling. So that's games in July. We've got games in July. That's right.

And we've got more announcements. And I think stuff that you'd be interested in would maybe increase your appetite to watch. So I'll share that with you offline. And then maybe you'll have me back on. But thanks, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.

And if you want to follow Paul, it's, uh, at Paul Rabel, R A B I L. Okay, cool. During this time of social distancing,

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Today, the Rewatchables 1997 first round, the Bullets at Chicago down 1-0. The Bullets were a team that we thought, hey, wait a minute, this team's going to really do some things. The Bullets had not made the playoffs since 1988. They went 40 wins, 31-30, 25 wins, 22-24, 21- 39 and 43 and 95, 96. And then the eighth seed,

they get in as a 44 and 38 team. The problem is, is after they lost this series, we were like, man, that team is on the come up. They won 42 games, then 18 and 32 in the shortened season, 29 and 53, 19 and63, 37-37, 25 wins. They didn't make the playoffs again until 2004. That's how fleeting this stuff can be and how scary it can be where you're like, wow, we are the team of the future. Or

you're going to miss the playoffs for seven straight more years after missing it over the last seven as well. Let's talk some Rwatchables slash bullets. Rewatchables episode. I don't know how many now that we've done. And this is really important because it's not only the rewatchables.

It's also sort of the rewatchables before they were the Wizards. That's house. He's got his pennant in the background. We're very excited to see him. Bill Simmons may have heard of him. He's also on this podcast as well. So this team, this Bulls team won 69 games. They'd won the title the year before.

Jordan, kind of the full return here. It's weird because they'd lost a few at the end of the season, and people kind of felt like they were vulnerable. And the way I remember this series is that you have a 23-year-old Juwan Howard, a 23-year Juwan Howard a 23 year old Chris Weber Rod Strickland aka the Pod Strickland is also their main you know their third score with this and the whole thing the story afterwards was how vulnerable are the Bulls now because the Bullets gave them kind of a series and man how many titles are the Bullets going to win like that was one of those things it was one of those first round young team groups that we go, man, in three years, the rest of the league is going to be

trying to catch the bullets. So let's actually start with house. Cause this is your squad. I have to confess as we get going here that there was no moment in either game one or game two that I thought that the bullets were actually going to win the game. But I was just so happy to be there. The bullets had not been in the playoffs since the eighties and the trajectory for this team was greatly improved shockingly by the addition of Rod strickland over the summer of 96 they traded she'd and you know she was uh obviously very promising at the beginning of his career

but they had uh juwan and chris there and they're like let let's get somebody who can facilitate those guys. It was a good move for those bullets at that point in time. Now they started off that 96, 97 season at 22 and 24 and got Jim line. I'm fired. So I don't know, maybe not the best kickoff, but then they went on a nice run. They finished the season, uh, 16 and 19 and seven in March and April. They won the last game of the season, got into these playoffs and Strickland was really important to that run. They were running the offense with him in the low post. And we'll get to this when we go through the whole breakdown. The one thing they couldn't do with strickland against the bulls was put him in a low post because mj closed that shit off that trade the trade of strickland for rashid is a trade that

just is trapped in that decade there's only one decade in nba history where that trade happens and it happens for all these like that's the's the too fast, too soon, too much era or whatever, whatever it's called, but the rookie scale, it doesn't exist yet. And you have these guys, you're terrified. They're going to leave after one year, two years, three years. People have opt outs in their deals. They traded Rashid. Here's the trade.

July 15th, 1996, Rod Strickland and Harvey Grant for Mitchell Butler and Rasheed Wallace. Rasheed had only been in the league a year and, and was good. Yeah. And you know, I think part of it had to do with the, the, the Jawan and Chris and Rasheed. They're basically all the same position, but that's just a trade. Nobody would ever trade a really good rookie after a year. Rosillo, with that, in 2020, it's never happening ever because you have this guy on this contract for five years, especially if he's good.

That's like the best asset you would have. Back then, this trade actually made sense. And you mentioned how good Strickland was this year. He was second team all NBA in 98. And this is ahead of like real guys. Like that year, the guards were Gary Payton and Jordan. Second team was Tim Hardaway and Strickland. Third team was Reggie Miller and Mitch Richmond.

So Strickland was a top 10 player in the league the following year. It's a defensible trade, but man, Rasheed was really good too. There's a few things going through all that stuff because Cause I got caught in the Weber wormhole of all of his transactions too, which kind of overshadowed the Rashid thing. The fact that you had Juwan Rashid and Weber on the same team that close where they'd all been drafted, you know, within years of each other, it doesn't make any sense. But as you point out, Bill, how NBA owners actually allowed this to happen, where you could opt out and become a restricted free agent, that's the whole reason why Weber was out of Golden State.

Now, granted, Weber didn't like Don Nelson. Don Nelson, after they traded the penny pick and three first rounders, one that went out to seven years later, I remember reading a quote where Ainge was like, that's the most insane trade ever because it's penny and then it's three first rounders and then because as you go through it like weber's like i'm gonna opt out like think of trading three firsts for a pick that could then opt out because they didn't have that rookie scale like this isn't 1940 i can't believe like have you done more work on this bill on how this actually I imagine the agents just got over on all the owners and people didn't really feel like they were that unprotected

where in fact no it's a stern 90s was nuts with this stuff it's it's a stern fuck up the early 90s whatever deal they had in place they just didn't see it coming and and the rookies coming into the league, we're just making way too much money and had way too much leverage and they didn't know how to tilt it. And it wasn't really until the 99 lockout that they were able to, uh, reset it.

But think about some of the stuff that happened. Weber, after one year at golden state, after all they gave up for him was able to force a trade. Alan Houston in Detroit was there three years and became a free agent and went to the Knicks. He was like, you know, if you're Detroit, you have him in Grand Hill. That's the foundation for something really good. And he's gone. And then, you know, house a bullet, no pun intended that you felt like you dodged, but in retrospect, maybe you didn't.

Cause I really want to have the, are we sure Juwan Howard was even good at basketball conversation in a second, but remember Miami almost tried to give him a hundred million dollars and there was some sort of tampering or something illegal about the contract. He ended up staying. You ended up keeping Juwan for a lot of money and then trading Rashid for Strickland, you actually might've been better off losing Juwan, keeping Rashid. And then instead of Strickland, just signing some point guard, right?

Like the fact that you got stuck with Juwan in retrospect, actually suck for you. And, and ultimately that Juwan contract was, um, part of the reason that they ended up trading Weber. They concluded that Weber and Juwan were playing too much of the same position.

They'd already sunk the money into Juwan. And then that made Weber like, you know, expendable so to speak. And, and, you know, there was other stuff going on that made Chris Weber expendable.

But that money point is a problem. Rosillo, when they get Weber, when they trade Googs and they trade the three first round picks, wasn't that the trade? Yeah. Yeah. And House loved Googs. Let's be honest. Like that was Googs had a very similar game to House, ironically. So.

Who was better though? House. So Googs shows up in DC and he's got, you know, he's like, you're not sure if he's a small forward or power forward. He's got this weird little 18 foot post-up game. Very similar to House. So House was very connected to him.

They make the big Weber trade. They have Juwan and house. And I love the fab five. I mean, absolutely love them. Talked about them constantly. And the door was open for Jalen. It was sitting there. Remember Jalen was like floundering in Denver. And I remember us talking about the mid nineties and you're like, man, Jalen sitting there. We can, if we get Jalen, we it's the fab five. We bring it back. This could happen. And then Indiana ended up stealing him.

But I think Jawan stock, let's just have the conversation now. It was so, it was so high in college and he made so much sense as like a college center, like his game. But then you think about him in the NBA, like, what was he? They say it in this telecast. It's like, well, Juwan's not really a post-up player. Well, what was he? He was like an 18 foot jump shooter, which we now know 20 years later is the worst shot in basketball. He's, if you look at his stats, he's 45, 46% every year, basically couldn't shoot threes. Couldn't post up. Wasn't a really good rebounder. Uh basically couldn't shoot threes couldn't post up wasn't a really good rebounder uh couldn't defend the rim it's like what was he what position was he i think he's on eight teams

in 10 years juwan definitely benefited from being around later so it's like we kind of get to remember you differently but you're right like that contract ultimately becomes like wait a minute this guy's not good enough to have gotten this contract yet everybody wanted him and i'll remember even back to the draft and there's multiple guys from the same team. I remember when Florida had all those dudes, and it's almost as if somebody wants to make the zag point that you know just isn't true. It's like, you know, Corey Brewer actually might be the best group, best out of this entire... And they're like, there's no way he's better than Hal Horford. There'll never be a version of Corey Brewer

that's ever better than Hal Horford. And it wasn't better than peak Joachim Noah. And there was a lot of Juwan stuff that, you know what? He actually might be the guy and in just glimpses of this game, 20 something years ago with Weber, Weber's so insanely talented. It's embarrassing to ever think that anybody could have said anyone else on that Michigan team is better than him because Weber has flashes. He has like four passes in this game to keep in track of him going. I can't believe this guy is even doing this. And that's the part of Weber that you're like falling in love with that young

version of. Yeah. He was like Harlem gold shatters. I, the Juwan, the big thing for Juwan was the year after Weber left the 94 year when they were still really good in Michigan. the year after Weber left the 94 year when they were still really good in Michigan.

Juwan was 21 and nine that year for Michigan in 40 minute games. So when he came into the week, I thought he was a sure thing. I thought he was going to come in and just be like a Carl Malone type power forward. And then when, as house started watching him and I remember us talking about him and house just being like, I'm not sure Juwan's that good. I'm like, really like member house. You were so frustrated by him.

Well, in retrospect, looking back, it feels like, um, he's kind of like a poor man. LaMarcus Aldridge. Um,

yeah, exactly. Great, great face up game. Um, now LaMarcus has a little post up, but I will say this in Juwan's defense. He arrived with a professional demeanor.

He arrived with a commitment to his craft. He arrived and was immediately effective. And he was a net positive to the team as a rookie right away. And in that era, that, you know, he essentially validated what we saw out of him in that 1994 season. And so making the investment in him and buying that good guy who averaged over 22 points at the time that he, uh, resigned, you know, after David Stern, uh, blessedly stepped in for basketball reasons and fix that trade and sent Juwan back.

You know, he was averaging over 22 points. So like an effective face up scorer, not a top banana. And the problem that you mentioned, Bill, you got paid like a top banana. And that's what what puts you in the worst kind of position. Well, and he also Rosillo had the 95-96 season. He makes the all-star team 22 a game. He's playing with Rashid as a rookie. The one great George Mirosan season.

George Mirosan, 76 games, 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds. Yeah, Mirosan was actually okay, which is scary because in this game he isn't. And he runs. No, I think he's beaten up. Yeah, when you're watching him in this game, you're like, how does he not just break, like fall over in half and break, and they have to come in with like a stretcher and pick up pieces of it. It's a great point.

I'm only going to interrupt you for one second. He did not play game three, and he did not play one game in 97-98 because the summer after those playoffs, he went to film my giant with Billy Crystal and Billy Crystal ruined his career. Right. It's true. And the bullet wizards missed the playoffs. Right.

Well, then you go the 95, 96 season. One of the reasons Juwan looks so great was Weber only played 15 games. He got hurt. one of the reasons Juwan looks so great was Weber only played 15 games. He got hurt. So you never really got to see like the Juwan, uh, Weber Wallace thing. And they trade Wallace after that year.

We never even really got to see the three of them together. It never happened. I don't like, would it have worked? Would it have not worked? I don't even know. Cause Rashid was, uh,

you know, basically a perimeter forward who could post up. Juwan's a perimeter guy and Weber liked being in the perimeter. I do feel like there's some world in which you could have played the three of them together, right? Yeah, 2020. Yeah, 2020.

They would have figured it out because they all love to shoot threes and Rasheed, especially Weber, can both pass and Juwan falls into my second-year theory guy because people will listen and go, oh, you guys are really beating up on Juwan. Look at these numbers.

But the thing that always scares me is a high pick, his second year, is that his best year. And it is his best year. As you mentioned, the Weber injuries, he's 22-9, or excuse me, 22-8. He plays 41 minutes a game. He starts 81 games. So he plays a full season, is playing 41 minutes, puts up and he never, he doesn't touch on those numbers again.

The scoring goes down from that point on. And what will happen a lot is when the team has that clear number one that they hope is that number one, they run the offense through them. They give them far more opportunities. It'll happen with later picks too, where you'll look and say his best production was his second year because the team's trying to figure out if the guy can actually play and then there's so many players that from that point on the numbers decline because they go you know what we actually can't really run our offense through him so to paraphrase dennis gray green eventually juan became what we thought he was which was 18 and 7 every night didn't you couldn't really go to him at the end of games. And you had like Dallas makes the big trade for him. Eventually he doesn't put them over the top after a year.

They're like, okay, we're good. They flip them for grateful friends. Remember Orlando signs him as a free agent. No three to put them with TMAC and they go one in 10 doc rivers gets fired. Then he's in the,

uh, Steve Francis TMAC trade. He ends up in Houston for four and starts bouncing around, but it makes sense when you look at his stats, because if you're just looking at what his career was, knowing what we know now in 2020, those are the type of guys you really kind of didn't want to pay big money for the 18 and seven guys who they didn't give you great defense.

They can't stretch the floor. Like what are they? And speaking of questions house, what happened in 95, 96? You had both price brothers. You had the Dell Eccles. You had Robert pack. You had Chris Whitney, Jim McElveen one year before Seattle, like inexplicably overpaid him.

You had Kevin Pritchard's on that. They had 21 guys that year. Great, great, great era I will only say this about the Price brothers The better Price Mark Price, I think, played one game He played less than 10 games for the Bullets Seven games

Yeah, they traded for him And then found out he had plantar fasciitis And it kept him out almost the entirety of his time with Washington Didn't you trade somebody good for him and then found out he had plantar fasciitis and it kept him out almost the entirety of his time with Washington. Didn't you trade somebody good for him? Now I'm going to look this up. See, this is already way bigger of a deep dive than I was expecting. You traded. Oh, my God, house.

You traded a first round pick for him. It was a pick. That's exactly right. It was a 1996 first round pick. You played seven games. Classic. Was that Wes Unseld? That was Wes Unseld.

Yes, it was. All right. Yeah, I could go on Juwan. I could go for a Juwan conversation all day. I never, it's almost like you look at some of these guys from that era. Antoine was another one. Antoine made so much sense in the late nineties. And now you look back at his stats and stuff,

and you're like, wow. Yeah, Juwan, and by the way, Juwan was less of a problem than Twan was. Yeah, totally. Juwan knew who he was. Twan went completely unchecked as a one, wondering why this Pierce guy wanted his shots, and Patino was like,

as long as you help to rotate defensively every now and then, I don't care if you take pull-up transition threes or your feet aren't even set. Like, go ahead. And you can see with Weber in this game, too, the guys from this era are unchecked, to use your word. They're just, Weber's just, Gukas, Matt Gukas is inexplicably

the lead color analyst for NBC this year. And he's talking about, well, that's the thing with Chris Webber. Matty Gukas? You don't like him on this call? Yeah, he's the number one guy. I don't know where his credentials are. See, that's you. That's why Monday Night Football has problems,

because guys like you. It's guys like me. Yeah, you need superstars, and you can't just listen to the analysis. I thought he's fine. But he's like, well, Chris Webber, you know, one day, one play, he'll have a great behind-the-back pass.

Next play, he'll throw it into the third row. And I was like, that's kind of the perfect summation of Chris Weber. Every once in a while, he'll just throw it into the third row. And he just kind of never figured that part out, how to be creative without being reckless. He was always reckless.

Do we do the Weber thing now? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, because it's totally fair. And it's kind of like your Juwan point, where if Juwan ends up on that many teams by 30, isn't the NBA kind of telling us exactly what you've said here in the beginning, that you get him and you go,

oh, wait, I thought this guy did a little bit more. And here's Weber, where I think his career is salvaged historically far more because of that Sacramento team. And we feel like, man, that Sacramento team really, they probably should have got one. If we did a what if of the last 20 years, they're probably one of the five teams you go, you know, that team probably should have won a ring.

But Weber has 17 points in the first half he loves the perimeter in this game he's awesome first he's awesome Rodman's on Juwan I believe in this far more and Rodman's a complete non-factor in the first half of this game he comes off the bench he's got the big knee brace he goes in the back and then he gets a couple rebounds a put back and he's completely energized for a very short stretch uh I don't know that he single-handedly turns the game around but he's a completely different guy for a stretch in the second half because Rodman's a total non-factor in the first so it doesn't really have anything to do with the Weber deal but I do feel like Weber I don't you know if I don't know if it's an overrated underrated thing but I guess there was always

like a little thing that was off for me with Weber. And I think there's a hint of it here in this game, too, where he's got a wide-open three late. He's loved that shot the whole game. And then he kicks it to, I think, Chaney in the corner. And they're both wide open, and Chaney misses it. And then at the end of the game, nobody has the bullets. That was the biggest play of the game, FYI.

Right. And for whatever reason, the bullets still don't understand what to do when foul at the end of the game, nobody has the biggest play of the game. FYI. Right. And, and for whatever reason, like the bullets still don't understand what to do and foul at the end, which is great to see the pros 20 years ago, still didn't know what to do with the clock and when or not you should foul. But there's a bigger thing with Weber for as insanely talented as he is. And maybe that's why we'd all hold them to kind of the standard. It just felt like there was just something that was a little off at times. And I don't know if you guys think that's fair or not.

So having lived through that era and as a season ticket holder in that era, at that point of his career, Chris Weber was immature. He was both life immature and basketball immature. I mean, Bill made the point a little bit ago. He missed 65 games of the previous season. He ended up playing for three coaches in his first four years.

He had Don Nelson. He had Jimmy Lynham. He had Bickerstaff. And he's still, you don't see a great leap from the level he was playing at at Michigan to this point where we're watching this game, the same kind of indecision, the same kind of inclination to float, to sort of like, you know, jump out to the three-point line. Some of it has to do, I think, with concept.

Like Washington had dug in deep on the idea of Strickland as playmaker and Strickland as playmaker and Strickland, honestly, as the lead scorer, like the primary scoring option. And the Bulls took that away in game one immediately by putting MJ on Strickland. And the Bullets didn't adjust in either game one or game two. You see a lot of Strickland catching the ball below the free throw line

in this game two. And, you know, there is some effective moments for Weber as like the point center, point forward at the free throw line as a distributor. And the passes that you mentioned, Rosillo, are, you know, beautiful. Like stuff other guys don't do. That's right. Like Tracy Murray is inbounding baseline and Weber catches it with one hand and volleyball taps it back to Murray as he comes in

bounds. And you just, I remember those and seeing it again. Now you're going like, what the hell is this guy going to be? And that's why I think some of the Weber stuff, Bill can feel a little unfair being more critical of them, but it really has more to do with certain glimpses that he gave you going. Is this guy going to be, as I always like to say, is this guy going to be a version of something we've never seen before? House and I did a book of basketball podcast about Weber that we haven't run yet, that we taped like 10 months ago. I actually forgot to run it.

I forgot to run that one and Dr. J. So I have two pods that have been done for a while. Both of us have such a complicated relationship with Weber. I think ultimately he's a huge disappointment. I also think he's a Hall of Famer. And I think both things could be true. He was a first-team All-NBA guy, I think in 2001, and was one of the best five players in the league there for a couple years

during an era when Duncan and Garnett and, and, and a tail end to Carl Malone. Who's the other great forward Duncan Garnett. I'm missing somebody. There was one of the early Duncan Garnett. Who's the third awesome forward. I Rashid's in there.

But to be first team all NBA in that era really matters. And the Kings really almost won the title. At the same time, all the things that drove me crazy about him are on exhibit in game two, 1997 against the Bulls. He does dumb shit. He floats. He should be down in the low block. He's not.

I feel like he could score on, especially Rodman's playing on one leg. He could have scored on any bull. And Rodman isn't even on him, honestly. He's got you on most from what I remember. Right. He's got like Luke Longley on him and they throw up Brian Williams as guarding him at some point.

But to me, the defining moment of Weber in this game, Jordan blows by him on a drive and Weber reaches around and pokes it out of bounds. And then they cut to Weber and he's doing that Chris Weber nodding thing. Like, yeah, I'm a fuck. Yeah. I fucking don't pull that shit on me with Jordan. This is a game where Jordan scores 55 points. He's murdering them. The entire game is it's not like he gets hot. It's 26 in the first half, 29 in the second half. The entire game, he's killing them.

He beats Weber this drive. Weber pokes it away from him like as a last gasp. And then does the, yeah, don't bring that shit in my house. It's like, you're such a loser. Why are you doing this? You just don't get it. This was the whole 90s for Chris Weber. This series also, he established a mark that has not yet been matched.

Do you know what I'm talking about? What? He fouled out of every game in this playoff series a mark that has not been matched in 38 years. Dumb fouls, too. He was the master of the dumb foul. Well, he also didn't get the benefit of the doubt. And there were, there was an element of that. Like there are touch fouls where they could have let it go. He's not treated like a superstar. Yeah. He was the master of this guy is at the free throw line with two minutes and 20 seconds left. And it's a three point game.

And I know he's going to miss the first free throw. He was the master of, we want you to have the ball at the end of the game because you're our best player and we have to score on this possession. And he makes technically the right play, but he throws it to Cal Chaney who can't shoot for a wide open three that has no chance of going in. Cal Chaney can shoot. How dare you? That shot wasn't going in. You weren't watching that going.

That shot's going in. Weber's wide open on it too, by the way. He was totally comfortable taking threes earlier in the game. And this one is like, can't wait to spin it quick enough. It wasn't the wrong basketball play, but that was the thing with Weber. It's like most of the time he did make

the right decision, but he never seemed to understand like you're the best guy on the floor and take the game over. House's point of him not getting're the best guy on the floor. Take the game over! House's point of him not getting better the entire decade is so true. If you go back and you watch him as a freshman at Michigan and a sophomore at Michigan, and you watch him in 1998 on the Wizards, what is better? What improved? How do you not get better in eight years?

You're the most gifted power forward we had. That's frustrating to me. So I'm going to bring up a point here, which is something that I've, I've always thought about because it was accurate where it's Garnett in the middle of his Minnesota run. And I don't know if there was some rumor about Weber ending up on the T wolves or something like that.

Like, who knows? I mean, Weber was, was another one, not so much with the Sacramento thing, but I mean, he'd already been what that was going to be his third team in the Mitch Richmond deal. And then he ends up in a bunch more teams after that too. Like that we kind of lose track of you had a line in a column about,

I actually want to see Weber and Garnett play together so you, they can both pass it back and forth to each other and get a shot clock violation on possession. So it's a very good one. It's, it's a very good one because I've always had kind of this thing where there's certain players. I don't care that he has 25 and 10, those last two minutes. Like if I can tell you don't really want the ball,

like it just tells me something about you and you can kind of see it when you watch it enough with certain players, but Garnett to be fair about Gett like thinking of garnett now there's not one part of you that thinks well this guy's completely about winning he has a dog and i mean look he's got more of a dog in him than i think weber does but garnett did have this this thing at times where you go wait are you like you're this tough guy. You're swearing at everybody. You start with anyone. Well, certain players and you're, you're all about it. But is there a part where it's like, I really just don't like taking this shot right here. You have to pull it out of them.

Right. And so Garnett, like he was arguably before the Celtics thing. It's just crazy to think like, actually that guy's not a winner, right? He's not wired that way. And then to see him in Boston, like who's actually wired any better than this person, as far as being competitive every single game. I wonder,

I wonder how much of it is. I can't really blame the Sacramento thing. Cause the Sacramento deal was a really good team, but I actually think these two guys were on very similar paths and based on situation health, Garnett's the better player too. I don't think we're going to argue that one. But there were some very similar Garnett-Weber criticisms that seem impossible now when you

look at the second half of both of their careers. Well, Garnett shed some of that in 2004 when they made the playoff run. That was the first time where it was like, all right, take over at the end of these games. And he actually started doing it. But even with the Celtics, and you saw it throughout the OA playoffs and the Atlanta series was a good example of just like, just take over, dude. You have Josh Smith on you. Just shoot a little more.

Just shoot. Just take the game over for us. I think the fundamental difference between those two guys is what House said, the immaturity thing. Garnett, at every point of his career, even when he's like 21 on the T-Wolves, was this fucking maniac competitor. And everybody who's ever played with him is glowing. Everybody. I remember Paul Shirley when he had that little run when he was writing stuff, when he had just finished playing, and he was talking about how if Garnett and Duncan switched places, Garnett would be remembered

the same way Duncan is. He would have all the same things would have happened. Just what an unbelievable competitor he was. He came to Boston, same thing. Guess who we didn't talk about that way, teammates and coaches? Chris Webber. There's no, like, like spending hours talking about oh man chris weber man these practices that dude just wanted to win like it just was not part of the

conversation with them it's a fact i mean that that's that's the the takeaway um and the immaturity thing is what led to him being traded it was the off off-the-court stuff. He was busted for DUI, marijuana. He got pulled over for speeding. He and Juwan were both named in a sexual assault complaint. That got dropped. I know. I'm just

saying they were named in it. But it was for the bullets slash wizards. They were not able to figure out how to pull this guy along developmentally, and they decided to cut bait rather than try and make it work. House was crushed when they traded the Mitch Richmond part. You were so bummed out because it was like, Mitch Richmond was great, but you're getting Mitch Richmond like after his peak, it was clear.

And all the quotes were about this guy's a professional. You know, we got to bring professionals back to the bullets and all this stuff. It's like, well, that's great. But we just traded, you know, an iconically talented power forward who hasn't tapped into his gifts yet. And this is probably a bad idea. We're not winning the title with Mitch Richmond. Yeah, Richmond was 33 years old when he played his first game

as a wizard. Wow, I don't remember it being that. Wow, he's so good. He was good when he was 33. It was the end of his career. And then they signed him to a four-year, $40 million contract, which made him the highest-paid

shooting guard in the National Basketball Association. He made more money than Kobe Bryant and Ray Allen and Reggie Miller at this point in time. Yeah, but you know what that shows? That shows that that franchise takes care of its vets, so other vets will

want to go there as a free agent later. I just love it. I love when teams overpay somebody and then their media like the media that covers just the team be like no it's actually smart because it just gets the message around the league that they take care of their own that's a rich man of the wizards not a bug richmond goes from 19.7 a game his first Wizards year shooting a hearty 41% from the field drops down to 17.4 a crisp 42.6% from the field then 16.2 in his third Wizards season down to 40.7%

and then ends up on the Lakers in 0-2 for the classic kind of cheapy ring where he gets the ring, but it's like, eh, you didn't really play. Like, this isn't really how you wanted it, but hey, at least you got a ring. Hey, by the way, I went and looked up the 2000, 2001

while you were talking about it with the other forwards. So Duncan, you know, again, who was actually a power forward still then before he was a center for the rest of his career. He and Weber, first team was Shaq. The guards are Iverson and Kidd. Second team's Kobe and Vince. Wow, that's a great first team on NBA, by the way. That's nuts.

And just think, Garnett's not, he's not first team on this. So who's second team? So it's Kobe, Vince, and then Dikem is the center the forwards are garnett and mcgrady yeah but that's that was the one i could remember there you go he's like 30 plus a game that year and beat him out you got ray and gary payton david robinson's the center and then dirk makes a third team here with carl malone do you think? All right. So let's, let's try to make the case for Weber just quickly. So he's on that. Good job not doing it.

Well, so he's his own worst enemy, right? He's on that Warriors team. That's a really fun Warriors team. And it's got Chris Mullen. It's got early Sprewell, who was a force of nature back then.

Hardaway gets hurt at, I think that year, but he's going to come back the following year. And I think they had Billy Owens, but it's a fun team. He's got Don Nelson as a coach for the skills that we knew he had as a pro. That was the kind of the perfect coach for him. They just clash, goes to the bullets. All hell breaks loose for a couple of years. But then when they get Strickland, you know,

he's a ball dominant point guard. And as we found out with Weber in later years, like the best kind of offense for him was run the offense through Weber, have guys who can play off him. When he gets to the Kings, that team they built around him was the perfect Chris Weber team with Vlad is another passing big guy, white chocolate, then baby guards who can play off him, uh, some shooters.

And that was the recipe. And, and unfortunately for him, it took six solid years for him to get to the right team, which sometimes it happens. That's why house. And I, we just feel like if you do his career 20 times,

this is probably the worst version of it. You know, where you get his knee injuries, the wrong teams, the wrong era, everything about it is just the worst version of it. You know, where you get his knee injuries, the wrong teams, the wrong era. Everything about it is just the wrong thing for him. The bummer is if you could have taken Juwan's professionalism and approach and, uh, you know, did a body swap with, with Weber that that would have been the perfect, uh, power forward at that point.

Yeah. I'm listening to Rosillo now. And now he's like, you know, a pretty prominent commentator. And it's funny to hear him calling out guys for things that afflicted him when he played, you know,

he's talking about bad decision-making or professionalism or blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you are the worst example of this. Yeah. But what's he supposed to do? Not pointed out.

And he's also 47 now, I think. So he's, I get it. It's just weird. it it's just weird right but you can't you can't do that that part i'll push back on only because you can't be in an analyst and go well i made bad passes late in games early in my career so i'm not gonna bring it up once a year once a year you would like him to say it once a year be like hey man i get it i threw some passes into the third row and acted like a dick. I do want to interject that 96-97 season, he was a 20-10 guy.

He was 20 points, 10 rebounds, 4.6 assists, almost two blocks, 1.9. He was great. And almost, and 1.2 steals, 52% from the field, 40% from three. That's good. He was excellent. And we should also

mention how ludicrous it was to watch this game that Bernie Bickerstaff's like, I'm going to play George, Juwan, and Chris together. He gets George out of there quick. This would be a good idea. I'll get these three guys.

Are you guys ready to do the game then? Let's do it. I'm sorry, Chris Weber. I'm always going to be disappointed how it turned out. You were so fucking talented. Yeah, that's, I think this is more because you love him,

not because you hate him. We love the five. No, but this is going to turn into the go. Those guys trash Chris Weber and all this stuff. We know what's going to happen. I'm holding him to a higher standard, right?

I think he's honestly one of the most talented forwards I've ever watched in my life. I'm disappointed it didn't work out better. Right, and he's behind all those other guys that we mentioned. He's just always going to be behind him when there's a chance that you thought, oh, by the way, that Golden State team that next year going through and looking at that.

Mullen only played 25 games, so that was part of the problem. Their record stunk. They had a 24-year-old Luttrell, 28-year-old Hardaway, 31-year-old Mullen. Daniel Marshall a 24 year old Latrell, 28 year old Hardaway, 31 year old Mullen. Um, Daniel Marshall was only 21, his second year and cycling still only 29. Chris Gatling,

AKA all Jersey, all 30 Jersey, Chris Gatling. go to the year before though, because they win 50 games the year before. Yeah. Weber's rookie year. And then they have that series with the suns your guy barkley who

took it personally because weber made fun of him in a nike commercial or or they showed no it's weber it's when he dunks on a nike commercial yeah and barkley scored 56 on him in that series but go read the guys from the from the 50 win team um yeah it's Alexander out of Iowa State I'm just Latrell Billy Owens full season Weber plays a full season Avery Johnson plays a full season it that was his breakout year as like kind of a decent guy Mullen you know Mullen was that's how Mullen ended up on the pacers because he was always having a hard time staying healthy here yeah uh he'd admit probably not super locked into the nutrition phase right uh 50 wins in 94 is is like not bad because the league was

really deep that year it was that's an impressive deal Demps is on that team. Oh, wow. How about that? Learning how to build a bad roster. Let's do the game. More on the Rewatchables here in a second, but we're all stuck inside right now trying to keep calm and carry on while figuring out ways to stay healthy and

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and you watched this game to be like, who's this Michael Jordan guy? You'd be like, okay, he's really good, but apparently the second best player in the world is Calvert Chaney, because early Calvert Chaney is unstoppable, and he's big, and he actually, like, at certain times,

MJ doesn't look like he's doing like it felt like the Bulls are a little bored so that's part of it too but Calbert Chaney looks incredible and then my other favorite part is Tracy Murray coming in who is an incredibly talented scorer who's got this weird huge small forward power forward body but you're probably screwed if Tracy Murray is setting up your entire offense the whole time and he treats Kukoc like an injured dad yeah they had to get Kukoc out of there yeah like they take Kukoc that's what's really great about this bill is some of the early things where you're going oh this isn't going to work okay we're going to

change this assignment although house you're right they never seem to kind of give up on Rod Strickland trying to post in this. And there's a couple even possessions late where you're like, look, this is just a bad, it's a bad Rod Strickland game, unfortunately, for our guy. But you're just, you weren't going to be posting Pippen and MJ in a playoff game. House, did they, watching this game, I was just stunned.

Why didn't they run high screens with Weber and Rod Strickland? Why wasn't that the play every single time down the floor? What am I missing? legendary, uh, Michael before the game, enjoying a cigar. And there's some question about whether he was sitting on his black Lamborghini as Juwan and Chris came off the bus, or if he went into the bullets locker room, but either way, the facts are he went in, he had a cigar. He said to Weber and, and Juwan Who's checking me tonight They Rather than telling him to go fuck himself Threw Cal Chaney Right under the bus

And MJ looked up And gave him a little laugh And said see you guys later Gave him a little chuckle So disrespectful And going backwards, because they cover this in The Last Dance this weekend. When MJ, after the 95 season,

when he's filming Space Jam that summer, and they build him that little Space Jam bubble, and the NBA player, he brings in all these NBA players to start working out with them. And it's just game after game. And this was the birth of NBA players coming to LA and starting to all play pickup basketball together. But one of his guys was Juwan.

And apparently, Juwan lived with him that year or that summer. And he was like really close with Juwan, which means he was close with Weber too because they were close. So he had a relationship with those guys. So for those guys to throw, to be like, hey, we're going to throw Cal Chaney at you tonight. It really is like covering Cal Chaney in blood and sending him out into the wilderness to get eaten by coyotes.

Why would they do that to Cal Chaney? Who was going to guard him? Because Weber wasn't going to, Juwan wasn't going to stand for him. I think you just double him. You have to double him. You let everyone else beat him. It's unbelievable they didn't double him.

I think the first double comes at 47 minutes of game action. And it's Chris Weber just kind of veering toward him half-passedly. And he scores. And he just goes by both of them. By the way, yeah. He turns away from everybody. He turns sideline and then comes back to the hoop.

And it's not even... I would have been arguing in the huddle which guy should we double off of and just leave wide open alone, Luke Longley or Dennis Rodman? What do you guys think? Let's not guard either of those guys

and put three guys on Michael Jordan. I don't know why anyone guards Rodman ever in these games. It's one thing to make sure you have a body on him. You got to pay attention because he's just so great as we know anticipating the rebounds but Rodman does this this kind it's not even pinch post because he's further out on a lot of the catches where he just is waiting to hand it off to somebody and there'll be a guy that stays up on him I can't believe this is happening in the night they wouldn't even defend that guy now you would

sag off you would stay back. I guess you could say, well, the legal defensive rules, but there's at least a way where you could chase a cutter and hard double and ignore him as opposed to getting caught for some sort of illegal defense call then, and they'll keep a guy glued to Rodman. That's the part I don't remember well enough about the late 90s is what the exact illegal defense rules were because

you could chase this you could chase the cutter on those handoff could Rodman hands it off every time I mean look the funny thing about all the Rodman stuff is you forget how dumb some of the offenses with him where you catch it wide open at the hoop and you whip it out so the crowd cheers it's so stupid like just go up and and make the layup he has another two-on-one where he has a wide open layup lane and he throws it to longley and longley's like what the hell are you giving it to me for and you could tell that rodman's like what am i doing because then the next time he actually rodman drives of the hoop it's the only time he actually tries to drive the hoop the entire game but he would get these rebounds and he would throw it back out. And then everybody would cheer like crazy.

And you're like, or you could have just turned around and made the basket. It turns out Bernie Bickerstaff might not have been a world-class strategist. No, you made the key point about Cal Chaney. If you only like, if I grabbed somebody at the ringer,

who's like 24 and we, and had never seen a basketball game before. And it was just like, watch this game. Which guy in the Bullets made seven all-star teams? They'd be like, it was Cal Chaney, right? The guy's amazing. He's, he's, he could post up. I'd say Tracy Murray.

Yeah, or Tracy Murray. He had Cal Chaney and it was frustrating because House and I both, House basically passed Cal Chaney to me He rooted for him for five years We'd talk about, oh, Cal Chaney He's so fucking frustrating He just disappears

I wish he was more of a man Like, step up, Cal Chaney And then Patino ends up signing him And I remember going to an early Cal Chaney game And being like, wow, this guy's really athletic I didn't realize he could post up And then he would just suck for like a month.

There's really nobody like him in the 90s who had more gifts. Are we saying Cal Jeff Green Chaney? Oh, is he the OG Jeff Green? That's an insult to Jeff Green. It might be. It really is. Kyle Chaney had,

this was the conundrum with him he made the game-winning shot for indiana and then had the ball in open moments in these playoffs with the potential either a game tie a shot that would make the game very close or the game-winning shot in game three and didn't knock him down and both of them now he says in game three, he was fouled. Uh, and there is a hand near his elbow, but the game two, three was, was wide open. The,

uh, you know, I want to, uh, say some nice things about him. He was super athletic. I mean, this is what we're all reacting to.

He could keep up with MJ. I would say the funny thing about MJ is 55. It was a very quiet 55. Like Marv doesn't even really get excited until they start showing the graphic of where this game ranks in all of his playoff performances. Marv's at the point with MJ in 97

where you almost have to play with Marv's prostate just to get a rise out of him. Like there's no other thing you can do in the bedroom with Marv with MJ where it's like, just give me the shocker. That's the only way, the only way you're getting a rise out of it. MJ is like, and Michael Jordan, 37, he's 13 for 18. Like he's just right.

It's like, he's Rossello is the, I give all credit to Rossello. He's the first person to notice this. Marv is so unimpressed at all times yeah it's it's my favorite part perhaps of going back and watching all the rewatches where if this lived in some version today you think people are anti joe buck and that joe buck thing is passed the amount of people that would be so mad at marv going this is the next guy whose team couldn't get past like that's what would be said. I'm not even saying that's the truth. You're right. He is so

consistently unimpressed. He'll have 30 in a game and it's beautiful and there's still an entire half to go. It'll be like MJ responding to a lackluster game two where he just couldn't hit anything.

You're like, why are you still bringing up game two? He just scored 30 in 20 minutes. He goes for 14 straight in the fourth quarter here. When you start going from like, Hey, he's going to have 40 to wait a minute. What is this guy going to end up with? And then you see it,

you know, 63, 56. There's now a bunch of 55s. Yeah. This is like the fourth game we've done where they've thrown up the greatest scoring performances of all time in a playoff game and

Marv's just like and there's the list MJ's 63 there's Elja Baylor like it's like it's like he's really bad even then too like he mentions Barkley's 56 and he goes and Chuck with 56 you're like do you see that MJ's every other name now on this

list and like there's only two other guys that aren't jordan and house you're right i don't i don't know if it's us expecting it to be 50 all the time i mean we're picking certain games for certain reasons we're not just running through every mg game that's the most points but like this is the part where i feel not that i want to do a huge LeBron-MG deep dive, but every time I watch another one of these games, I go, you know, it's almost kind of silly that we even do this because there's so many hidden clutch shots

at like a minute, at 50 seconds left. Like, hey, that's the dagger. It's always the biggest shot of the game. It's always the biggest shot. It almost always goes in. And these are lost in the archives because they're not buzzer beaters. And yeah, I'll admit, like, after this one, I feel like I've just been beaten over the head. It wasn't like I was saying LeBron was better than MJ.

But the more you go through these, the dumber even suggesting it feels. And I will say I was struck by how unimpressed I was with the rest of the bulls. So MJ, the bulls, bad Pippen game. It isn't, but that's been the theme of these. I don't know what's well, we had the one we did Tuesday. He was actually great in that game. So at least we got one in the, the bull scored 23 points in the fourth quarter. MJ had 20 of them. Now the other three. 14 straight. Yeah.

Was a pip in three. That was a huge, meaningful pip in three with like, what was it? Two minutes left? Huge shot. Yeah. Huge shot. The MJ closer, the Bullets cut it to three. It's 50 seconds left.

They run clock off. And Bernie finally is like, hey, we should double them. the bullets cut it to three. It's 50 seconds left. They run clock off. And, and Bernie finally is like, Hey, we should double them. I should double MJ, get the ball out of his hands. They send a terrible double.

MJ just immediately breaks it, which he does over and over again. In these games, we watch where it's, he's almost insulted when you double them. Just gets by both. He's like, it's almost like a special teams gunner when they put the two guys on him. And he's just like, Oh, cool. And just gets by both. He's like a, it's almost like a special teams gunner when they put the two guys on him.

And he's just like, Oh, cool. And just gets by both of them. And then does this double clutch bank layup to basically end the game. The crazy thing though, they show the shot chart. I put it on my Twitter today where he makes 22 shots.

He only makes one three and it's all mid range stuff. And I think just for the spirit of the rewatchable series, we should mention like his game had evolved. Now he's, he's not really doing the going to the rim, blown by people, changing hands in midair layups or layups and traffic or little floaters. These are all like kind of what the,

the part of MJ that Kobe would really end up stealing. These methodical 18 footers and, and Cal Chaney, who was really good defensively over and over again, like he's jumping and MJ had mastered that thing at this point where it looks like he's going to shoot the jumper and the guy jumps and he's just got complete control of the basketball and then shoots it a second later. And just these tricks. And it's really interesting watching this game, this one, he really reminded me of Kobe,

which I, or I should say, Kobe reminded me of MJ because MJ did it first, but it's all the Kobe blueprint that he would steal for the mid late two thousands. Yeah. And there's a stretch where you're going, okay, well, MJ's just kind of keeping him in it. Not a shock here. We saw this a lot. Washington shoots 20 free throws the first eight or nine minutes of the second quarter to zero for Chicago. Right. They show the graphic. 20 free throws, zero for Chicago.

And they have 65 points at the half, which is a pretty big number against a Bulls team. Again, it's a 69-win Bulls team. Probably should have won 70 again. Had a little bit of a leak in there, a problem. I also thought there was a moment, too, where, and I didn't want to go back and read the injury report on it or anything like that, but Chaney kind of pushes MJ

on a putback early in the game, and MJ lands awkwardly, and he's pissed, and he's pissed because cheney does push him but it's one of those things that easily is missed because you're looking at other things and he gets them lower in the back and mj kind of lands and anytime nj takes a step that isn't the most graceful thing you're ever going to see i was like oh did he do that thing where you land weird and you're back it's not like i can't play but now i have this little tweak thing the whole time. And then he scores 55 points. So, cause you know, it's the same thing with Rodman. Like you're

watching and you go, Oh, he had this knee ligament thing. He missed, I think the last 13 games, he doesn't start game one. He's terrible in the first half. And then you go, okay, but now he's running around like crazy and he's totally engaged. It's just always trying to figure out the magnitude of what something could be. And you know, again, I overreacted to watch that clip and thinking about it. But it just didn't matter because you're right. Maybe that's why he wasn't driving. I don't know if there was ever anything talked about that he potentially hurt himself there a little bit because he just methodically beat on this Washington team.

And it turned into a game where all other – when he scores those 14 straight in the fourth quarter, everybody's watching him, and he's still just doing it to everybody. It it's not like a ton of cuts it's not like he's coming off of screens it's not like you know there's certain stretches too where you could see once bj armstrong comes along bj is setting up a lot of the offense on some of those earlier teams and it's weird to watch mj off the ball after he was so ball dominant in 91 and then with harper there's different things but this game it's just like look i'm going to veteran you to death and there's really not going to be anything you can do. And I do think that's a little difference of, or the great example of the gear that we know exists and the bullets not knowing that that gear exists. So that that's a great point that I want

to pick up on that applies equally to the team defense that Chicago played in the third quarter when they effectively won the game. It is the difference between a veteran team that understands how as a group to ratchet up the pressure that has a coach that trusts them, that they all know their roles. They get slightly more physical. This is the era. And I got pissed watching this in the third quarter when the bulls got the, a lot of benefit of the doubt. Now you, we talked about the free throw discrepancy in the second quarter, the rest make up for it when it,

when it becomes winning time for the bulls, when they get themselves back in it, but it's really the defensive intensity. The bullet shot six of 22 in the third quarter scored 15 points in the third quarter. And that's because the bulls were in their underwear the entire quarter house. And I talked about this. We did, uh, we did game two Orlando 1996 on my podcast on Tuesday. And we were saying like the most underrated thing about this bulls run, both the first three. And then the second three was their ability to, for an entire quarter,

just completely destroy a team defensively. And they could do it. It's really underrated how well they did it in the early nineties too, because I think especially the 91 team, that team is so young and athletic and Jordan and Pippen are, or, you know, they're just at the peak athletic powers. They were able to do this in 96 and 97 specifically where those guys could summon it for a quarter. And I said to house on Tuesday, it was honestly like watching two Kawhis, you know, like if you clone Kawhi, you were just like, if you clone Kawhi and you're like, Kawhi, for this quarter, just see how many steals you and evil twin Kawhi can get.

We're going to do a full court press. See if you can get 10 steals. And they would just go and take the ball from people. And they did it in this game where it's just like, all right, we need to create some offense from our defense. And they just did. There's just never been anything like that specific tool in the shed that they had.

So, as House had said that third quarter, because I think you could, if you went along and did a rewatchable with us on this one, you're going, well, wait a minute. It's still like a possession or two-possession game late in this game. How could it be decided in the third quarter? I agree with you. Watching it, that's when it went, oh, wait, okay. Because it was nine or eight or nine straight misses by the bullets in that stretch.

And there's one position I write down where Weber gets it isolated with Rodman one-on-one. And I think Rodman gets too much credit for shutting down Weber when there's just not a sign to him as much as people remember. Like I, that's something I kept going and be like, oh, he's on Juwan again. He's on Juwan again. But Weber had drove on Rodman before and Robin got into him and just fell down. And it's just a car crash. Right. And Rodman gets called for the foul. But I think, I don't know if Weber's going, I don't want to do that again. And so then Weber doesn't attack at all on Rodman.

And then Strickland gets stuck in the post, trying to like left block Jordan, work him in the post. Jordan just swallows him. And Strickland's like, let me get it out of here. And you're going, you know, Rod's the vet, but that's the team that's not used to these possessions going, you know, that's what I always think about a great point guard, a great point guard goes, okay, we've had seven or eight shitty possessions in a row here. Who do I need to get can get rolling. And then

Tracy Murray's thinking like, I'm going to, I'm going to come to the rescue. And then that's a problem. You don't really know how to set up Juwan. This is not Apex Mountain Legs. Calvert's still not somebody who's going to break somebody. Well, Legs has an appearance in this one, and he's actually chasing MJ around for a little while, but he's got a massive knee brace on, and Legs has better runs than this one. But it's just a very tough offense in that moment to go.

Do you guys realize what's happening to you right now? We need somebody to step up here and make the right decisions. And once the Strickland thing can't go, their default is a major problem. And as you know, I mean, you watch all these games, but I was impressed that he was even breaking the press theme number of times that he did. I do think one of the things with this bulls team in the 90s, if you didn't have an awesome ball handler, they were just going to annihilate you. And I think the Knicks felt that with some of the point guards they had. You know, like when Phoenix, when like Frank Johnson comes in,

they're like, oh, Frank Johnson's in. Let's go get him. You know, and same thing with Orlando. Well, when Whitney comes in, in this game, there's a terrible possession, and then they full-court press Whitney, and he breaks it. But there's a couple Whitney possessions where you can see that Doberman defense. They just attack. The Doberman defense is a good way to put it.

With the Orlando game, House and I did, it actually made me think less of Penny Hardaway. Because I always thought, oh, yeah, he's 6'8 guy, could handle like magic. It's like, actually, no, he could barely dribble over midcourt against these guys. But I think that really made them so special, their ability to ratchet it up

like that. The Knicks stuff was the most alarming. And I don't know, you know, if anybody's kept track of it, it'd be kind of pointless. But the amount of trapping that they did against

the Knicks guards, that almost made me think like, hey, they're just, they're even less equipped to deal with us than other teams are. Because against Phoenix, they would kind of pick their spots a little. And I have to think that Kevin Johnson, better ball handler, and that Barkley's like a really good outlet ball handler for a bigger guy. But you could see with different teams, they were like, well, no, we can actually press more.

The amount of pressing they do in some of those Knicks games, I can't believe a pro team is doing it as often as hard as they are doing it in a playoff game. And that's why the 92 Cavs series, which was, you know, there's this feeling that the Bulls just ripped through everybody. You go back and look at that 92 Cavs series. It's really tight. It's really hard fought. Game six is in Cleveland. it's really tight. It's really hard fought game. Six is in Cleveland. Doherty got hurt. I think before game six and price was also hurt. And yet it's a tie game with 35 seconds left. Then MJ wins it. Um, but price was another guy that, you know, they couldn't totally do the Doberman defense on cause he was such a good ball handler. And then you saw it was Stockton in Utah, those two finals. He, that was

the one guy you're definitely you're don't press this guy. It's a mistake. So they would kind of wait until Howard Isley came in and then they would do their thing on that. You know how excited I am about this. We've got more rewatchables in a second here, but Todd Graves, founder of Raising Cane's, the best chicken fingers go on and the best chicken finger meals made from fresh ingredients. That's what they're serving up hot in their kitchens at Raising Cane's. Raising Cane's uses premium chicken breast tenderloins to make the most tender chicken fingers possible. And since the best chicken finger meals are hand-battered when you order, that's what you'll find at Raising Cane's. Don't forget Cane's special marinade, which the marinade tenderizes the chicken, locks in moisture

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about right now, which is the lack of seasoning in effect. The only two real ballers on this Bullets team in terms of guys who've been some places and done some things are Strickland and Tracy Murray. Oh, Murray. But like up to the moment, both of those guys, um, and watching it, I, I can put myself right back in this seat. I was like, we're going to lose, but I kind of don't even mind. This is a young team where all these guys are around 23, 24, 25 years old. This is the seasoning that I want for this young nucleus. I want these guys who I'm going to have this next, a nice five to six year run with to play the very best team at their very best level and learn these, these lessons and take the lumps and, and, you know, turn all of that into the positive for the next season,

and everything went to hell, of course. But that was the set feeling I had watching it. I didn't even really mind the beating that they were taking, because it was an important beating for them to take. Rosillo, can I make an MJ 55-point game point? Yeah. He goes 22 for 35. He takes...

They take 78 shots total. So he takes almost 50% of their shots. He also goes 10 for 10 from the line. 22 for 35, 10 for 10 from the line. I never felt at any point, and I watched every second, that he was either hogging the ball or taking bad shots. 22 for 35, 10 for 10 from the line. I never felt at any point. And I watched every second that he was either hogging the ball or taking bad shots. I liked every shot he took in this game.

There's a couple near the end of the shot clock where he just had to kind of had to get off a bad fall away, but it never, it never had that sense of, Oh man, fucking MJ's. The other guys might, might as well not even be here. The ball's moving around. It's just like it was always the best decision for him to shoot. And then the shots he was getting were just always good shots. It's really weird to watch a 35 field goal game

and think that the guy's not hogging the ball. But am I wrong? I honestly didn't feel like he was hogging the ball. I feel like we say this now after every one of these games, though. And now I'm wondering, did we process it the wrong way in the moment? Because that was one of the things like, oh, okay, well, how many shots did he take? There were still dissenters going, all right, MJ. I mean, this guy's got rings in his back pocket.

And we're like, whatever. He just gets a bunch of calls. And that's the kind of stuff that happens because not everybody's going to be 100% on it. But there's, I think, two or three shots that have no chance, but they feel like they're shot clock bailout deals where if you take those away, it's even more absurd. So, yes, when they say he scored 14 straight points in the fourth quarter, I was surprised. I went, wait, he has? He's just got all these buckets. And sometimes that can get slowed down, like with the free throws,

and you have to go back and be like, oh, okay, well, six points were on free throws, so it wasn't like shot, shot, shot the whole time. But he probably should be remembered more. Well, no one's going to call him selfish when we're winning this many games, but I almost feel like all of that stuff that was in it, we knew it was inaccurate back then. It's like even more inaccurate now. Like watching it now, it's just, it's constantly in the flow.

He's not ball dominant like a Harden or a Westbrook now where those guys are taking 35 shots, but it just feels like they're dominating every ounce of oxygen of the offense. I never felt, I, it sounds like we're just in the bag for MJ, but I just don't feel that way. How's, did you feel that way watching it? Um, for sure.

Part of it is because the bulls kick the bullets ass on the offensive boards. They get so many extra chances. And in a lot of the instances, MJ is not the first option. So the reason that it feels like, um, it came in the flow is because it came in the flow. It wasn't MJ dribbling the ball up, pounding it for 11 seconds, and then trying to make something happen. They ran their offense. They had a option a for whatever reason, option a got foreclosed. They took a shot offensive rebound. Then MJ scored off of that or, you know, option. They didn option A. For whatever reason, option A got foreclosed. They took a shot, offensive rebound, then MJ scored off of that.

Or, you know, option A didn't work. Option B was MJ with the shot clock, you know, winding down. And he definitely was in rhythm. I mean, the stroke was sick. There are a couple of those that go in that they barely touched the net. But that's why it felt so comfortable. I think we're still out. We didn't, we just got to do this really quickly. We should put a time limit on it.

You know, you and I are in the camp of the Rodman thing was way less interesting that it seems now all these years later, if you can make a nice little cool montage and documentary about it, we're talking last 25 years only. So 90, by the time he gets to the bulls on, you could feel it in this game. It was like, yeah, he fat, he got kicked out of the first game. He's playing with a bad knee. They interview Weber at the beginning of this game and Weber and Weber's like, just cause I don't care. He's a 36 year old man acting like a little kid. Everyone was already tired of the Rodman thing. And we're not even at the last dance season yet. I think it's really important

for people to remember this. I know it's cool. I know he went to Vegas and he, he got hair and he dated Madonna, all that stuff. But by, by the time we got into the second bowl season, we were all kind of over it. It wasn't fun anymore it really wasn't i'm telling you it was not as fun i i'm not going to debate with somebody that was zero years old about this i'm just i'm just not and uh like you could see rodman's he's just a non-factor and because he's on the bench and then he's mad and what like you don't understand is is how i guess i'm surprised people don't see it but like there are true thespians on the court right where every single like m uh excuse me lebron has a lot of that in him where every reaction because he's been on stage he's been in the spotlight since he

was like 14 15 years old that there's a little rehearsed to him or like every time lebron would get hit you know he would touch his face you know he went through a massive flopping weird I'm hurt phase but then as you get older you're like I don't want to waste all my energy on falling down all the time pretending I was fouled right and so Rodman had that it was this theatrical performance the whole time so when he felt like he was being left out he gets a technical in the first half and it's it's a stupid technical it doesn't really mean anything. I think technicals, for the most part, are incredibly selfish

because you know when you're going to get one. And I don't care if you get a few here or there, but when you want to get them all the time, it's like, okay, let's do this. Well, that one, he does the clap at the refs, which is guaranteed to get a tech every time. Right. And then he acts like,

I can't believe I got the tech. The woe is me. Look at me and the whole thing. Yeah, I just can't I can't argue with anybody that wasn't old enough then or just thinks that uh it just got tired like that's why it just did that's why the Lakers thing was a disaster because at that point it's like so what do you care about like what do you care about but I don't know I mean it doesn't we are in the minority on this one uh nobody, nobody wants to hear it from us. Clearly we're not in the minority in this one.

Cause I think a lot of the people that actually lived through it, we never asked house though house did, were you like just delighted by the whole Dennis Rodman thing by the time we got to these three bowl seasons? Cause it was on the one hand, the game we did on Tuesday, the 96 thing, he was awesome in that game. And I really do think he brought the best out of, you know, like he, the ceiling of him was just higher than Horace Grant. Cause he was just such an electric player and he could guard all these different positions, but you know, he also brought a lot of baggage too. And I did think it kind of overpowered the team every once in a while and not a good way. I'm just going to make the observation that I thought that the minutes he

played in this game in the second half were meaningful and that his impact in the third quarter was, you know, he, he was an important part of the defensive clamp down and the energy that they showed defensively and his physicality. energy that they showed defensively and his physicality. Uh, Russell, you mentioned it. Weber drove hard on Rodman,

got a, uh, a blocking call on Rodman, but it hurt. It hurt Weber to do that. And because, uh, Rodman made him pay the price for it because of his physicality.

And, and Weber chose not to do that again. He had, yeah, it wasn't do it again and he chose not to it wasn't even this hard foul either it was just that I'm gonna you're gonna I'm gonna let you run me over you're gonna get the call but you're gonna end up flailed out yard sale style here and it's gonna suck and you're gonna have to get back up and then you can see like Weber

and this is the part about Rodman that's positive. That's the competitive part of him where he's like, I know what I'm doing. And then he got right up and followed Weber around. And Weber just wasn't really like it was going to bother Weber for a few possessions. And Rodman knew what he was doing. So it was good. Not about that roughneck life. And as bad as the first half was, Rodman absolutely with his energy, he gets a couple rebounds. And you can see, all right right now I'm in it and he dives on the floor and the paint and they're they're all over the place

for the basketball and then he's getting up and that's the thing with Rodman like he needed to know it was almost he was being appreciated whether it was his teammates or the crowd and then you would actually get that version out of him that you needed but it's it's a very interesting Rodman game and that because he's so detached, he's mad, he goes back, he changes the brace. He's definitely not healthy, yeah. That's right. Right. But because of all of these factors and him not being a part of it, you can see this complete

180 turn with just his effort level and his emotion, and he's a big part of that third quarter run. The other guy who just keeps losing every time I watch these old Bulls games for me is Kukoc, who Zach Lowe is very pro Kukoc. Whatever. I think what we thought. What we wanted is such a dismissive whatever. Well, it's like, I think what we thought he was in our heads. He just wasn't.

He's a non-factor in this game. He was this magnificent. They have to get him out of there. Yeah. He was like, oh, man, he could shoot threes and he was such a wonderful passer he could post up yeah but he didn't really do that stuff that often he went 1 for 10 in game 1 too yeah defensively he was a train wreck

in the 96 playoffs he missed almost every 3 he took and you know I think his career post bowls where he should have been hitting his like peak. And it speaks for itself. Like he just was not really an impact guy.

I think he was very lucky to be along for the ride with this bulls team. Little, uh, like early nineties, Dario Saric. Oh yeah. That's it. Dario Saric is a good example though.

Cause he was in our lives on that Philly team. We're like, oh, that guy. And then he goes to Phoenix, and he's never heard from again. I got to mention one more thing to you guys that I had in my notes that's very important. There were multiple ads for the River Wild, which was showing on NBC that night. After Third Rock.

And if Marv had sold MJ's 55-point performance even one-tenth as hard as he sold the river wild this would have been a great youtube clip he's like the river wild an extraordinary performance by merrill streep it's like what are you talking about it's a fucking river wild why are you making this seem like it's an i saw that in the theater that's back in like kevin bacon we're like hey we need a weirdo what is is he? He's a raft guide. All right, Kevin Bacon. The best thing about these rewatchables games have been the commercials for me. Out of everything else, the mid-90s, the shoe commercials, the Shaq and Penny.

Halftime shows. Jawan Howard had a commercial. Did you see that? For reading. Yeah. He had one. Just like the early Subway, those ads. Some of the old beer ads. Beer ads were was great it was a weird era for nike they they they were it was kind of post mj they they were trying to turn all these

guys into characters and get way more creative it doesn't wasn't really totally working but it was it was just fun i really enjoyed it i had the pennies i had had switched over. I was in all in on all the pennies to play. They were my favorite shoes to play in. Even though I loved Barkley, it was just my game did not match Barkley shoes. Just. Remember how, remember when new balance put out those light ones and I was like the first,

first kid on my block with that super light new balance. I was so happy. It was my, my dream to have light basketball sneakers i had been passionate about it all through college why are these things so heavy why are they like boots why do they weigh 10 pounds i just never got it and then it was like oh my god these new balances they were so awesome now all those shoes those new balance shoes that's what the pennies time the pennies were light yeah The pennies were light. Yeah, the pennies were light, really light.

And I loved them. Like, I wore them out. Back then, it was the kind of thing where it was like, even though in school, you know how you end up, like, being broker in college than you are, like, when you were in high school? Like, that was legitimately, like, fair. I was so broke towards the end. I was selling CDs. I remember one time, like, I called home. I was like, hey, I'm not going to be able to ride it out the rest of my month.

My dad's like, I don't care. Figure it out. There's nothing coming from here. Did I ever tell you what me and House used to do for food? We would go to Papa Gino's. No, but I can't wait. Papa Gino's. You know Papa Gino's.

Shout out to, yeah. Are you kidding? Two different all-you-can-eat nights. One was all-you-can-e eat pasta, which I think was Mondays. And then I think Wednesdays was all you can eat pizza. That's right. And it was like $9.99 all you can eat, which I think House single-handedly ended. By like 91, Papagino's was like, we're losing like a ton of money on this all you can eat thing.

House would just keep going back and getting more and more pizza. He would stack it on top. He would get scolded by the Papa Gino's guys. Excuse me. Can you only take one slice at a time, please? Well, cause I dropped, I made one plate too tall and dropped a couple slices. They didn't like that. They were mad at me for that.

And then the pasta, they would just like, kind of, they would make it in bulk. So they would put like, what was it? Like MSG or chemicals. So we would all be in like a coma after. But yeah. They gave us small bowls. It was the all-you-can-eat era. In a tiny bowl.

Yeah, that was the thing. That's right. Because they would start, like we had the all-you-can-eat deals where it was pizza and wings at one place called manhattan pizza uh up at uvm and what would happen is you know they would be great they bring you over a full pie for your table buckets of wings different sauces the whole thing and by the once you were labeled as like a real rabble rouser or a guy trying to break the system they'd come over like two individual wings in your little wing bucket and then you'd eat those and you'd have to keep the fuck you wings

yeah yeah so it was like look we'll keep'd eat those and you'd have to keep ordering. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, look, we'll keep playing the game if you guys want to, but we're going to, we're going to start bringing these things out individually pretty soon.

What was the other place house? What was the place we went to that had the, all you can eat wings when we watched bullet Celtics and you had like 120 wings, the ground round. Yeah. The ground round was another one. Loved it. That's special. Actually the ground round, depending ground round was another one loved it that's actually the ground round depending on which one you would hit not a terrible experience great right fair fair great

wings at the shrewsbury ground round popcorn oh that's right popcorn thing and you could just get it was free popcorn old movies as soon as you hit the door, you can have popcorn. Like, I love a place where as soon as you walk in, you can start eating something. I mean, that's a lifelong. Also, remember the smell? It smelled like popcorn because the popcorn machine was giant. So we'd walk in and the house would go, oh.

It was like Robert Duvall smelling the napalm in the morning. It's like, oh, popcorn. Remember they used to have those old school drop-down screens, too. The original projector for the ground round. So that was huge for me as a kid. We used to watch basketball there. It was actually the biggest TV in the radius for us. Great times.

I could do early 90s. Then the funniest thing was House got a job at a pizza place in, was it Auburn? No, I didn't work at the pizza place. I worked at a industrial goods place. No, you got a job at a food place

for like two weeks. There's no way I'm misremembering this. I don't remember it. I don't think I ever worked at a good place for like two weeks did i there's no way i'm misremembering this i don't remember it i don't think i ever worked in a food place you worked out like a bad idea place i think that's why you quit because you were you kept eating i don't remember it but yeah no you definitely did do you block some stuff out of college sure i had to riscilla house lived, there was an Indian food place called the Annapurna in Worcester on campus. House lived on the top

floor over the Indian food place. So him and his two roommates, they just stunk of Indian food for his entire senior year. That's a fabrication. House not hooking up a lot during a lot of that stretch because it was like, oh, that guy smells like chicken tiki barcella. That that's false i did not smell like that food i i smell i didn't smell

like the food our apartment sometimes caught that but we were on the top we could open up to the to the to the you know the roof we had the rooftop access it was a rooftop access by the way was rooftop in Worcester yeah when when you moved out by the end of the semester you had to climb up the ladder wrong you know like when you have like a parent or a relative that has a dog that pees in their house and they can't smell the pee anymore and then you go in you're like your house smells like pee and they're like no it doesn't it's like all, I'm not making this up. I'm just, I'm not snatching this out of thin air for no reason. I'm not arguing that the apartment sometimes took on.

You got used to the smell. It was right, you were right above it. But look, it was the trade-off was worth it. This was something that a roommate of mine did. I never did this, but I had a roommate who would invite girls to come sometimes and then say, oh, let's go up to the roof we can go look at the stars at night and for girls in skirts my roommate would let them climb up the

ladder first he had to climb up a ladder and you know this was pre-me too i mean this was like in the 80s let's be i mean come on uh but yeah i did not do this this podcast i thought we were going to get a little dangerous some of the weber criticisms now i'm not even sure i want to be associated with this podcast anymore it's my own roof looks classic house yeah roofs roofs and decks were such a big thing in the early 90s i don't know if that's still the case but it you know there was we had no internet back then you get somebody have like nice little life talk on the roof. Remember at, at 20 Compton, I had,

we had the open the window and you could go sit on the roof. And that was like, that was a big thing. All right. Sorry for the tangent. We're still. No, that's great.

This is, this is, this is, this is new balances though. Yeah. I like the new ones. All right. I'm not proud of it.

Talk to you guys later. Bye, Rossello. Thanks, Rossello. Thanks for letting me crash. Okay, great week. The Recruiting Stories Part 2. You guys loved them. I knew you would.

As soon as we finished that Damian Woody one, I was like, okay, here we go. So I imagine we'll do at least one more of those. Make it a Part 3 Recruiting Stories deal. I'm not quite sure when because it isn't always the easiest to coordinate all the guests on the same day

and keep it all lined up without it getting screwed up for everybody. And see you times. We're going to do another one. And make sure you check out Bill and I, his Sunday night pod,

Bill Simmons podcast, where I believe we're going to do two of the Jazz Bulls finals games from 97. We're going to do two of them. So excited for that. Stay safe, everybody. We're going to do two of them. So excited for that. Stay safe, everybody. We'll talk to you Sunday. Thank you.