The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Tim Duncan, Old Big East, and Denzel Washington Stories With P.J. Carlesimo. Plus, ‘A Tale of Two Seasons’ and a New Internet-Based Segment

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Washington Wizards' recent winning streak as well as the Lakers' recent struggles (1:30) before talking with longtime basketball coach and broadcaster P.J. Carlesimo about the "Old" Big East, his time at Seton Hall, deciding to leap to the NBA, working with coach Gregg Popovich on the Spurs, Tim Duncan stories, coaching Denzel Washington at Fordham University, and more (18:00). Then Ryen introduces a new internet-based segment (1:12:00) before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:23:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's show we'll take a look at a tale of two seasons for nba franchises we're just going to talk some nba pj carlissimo is also going to talk some nba with us we get a little story time out of him including one thing i'm not sure i want to share with everybody yet because we were efforting towards it. A little life advice in a new segment having to do with the internet. This is something I want to do now as we're more than a third way in the NBA season with a shorter season. We're actually getting closer to halfway at this point. So there are teams that are putting together runs that are opposite of what we've seen from them in the past right and the wizards i would say lead this right now so if you did a tale of two seasons

let's look at who the wizards are right now now i'll admit um in one of my deep college football nfl hotbed positions that when when the westbrook deal happened i was like man you know they'll have a chance. I think they won't be a top four seed or anything like that, but I thought they could make the playoffs. And I overestimated what I thought they could be, ignoring some of the other problems. But look, Thomas Bryan only played like five games for him this year anyway. So the fact now that they're a game and a half out of the play-in game when they were 2-8 and 6-17 at one point. They're now 11-17. They've won five in a row. They're actually two games behind the AC Bulls. If this sounds like

I'm super pro-play-in, I'll remind you that I'm not because, I mean, look, the Wizards were two games out of the play-in before this win streak at one point. So that whole stretch of that east, the bottom of the east, is really weird to sift through, but let's try to figure out what's going on with the wizards. All right. Because they've won five in a row. And a lot of times it's just, okay, who are you as a team now in February versus January? Is it just the schedule? Is there a personnel thing that has happened? Is there a massive rotational change where you've unlocked something? Or could we see that it's just this weird stretch where you won a bunch of games and it really didn't mean anything. And then you revert back to who

you are, right? So that's kind of the essence of the tale of two seasons. Cause we try to figure out if you actually are somebody different and we need to pay attention to you in a new way, or if it's just a stretch, because look, there are just times your team is going to go one in four and you and your city think, okay, this is a huge problem. But a lot of times it just sort of happens. It'll just sort of happen. Most teams have a really bad three or four game stretch, even the great teams, except I think the Warriors, I think the overall season here for the wizards they're 22nd in offense 109 points per hundred and 114th on defense we know that defensively they struggled big time so that means 114 109 that means their rankings they were the 22nd best offense they are right now in the nba and they're the 25th best defense. So what happened during the streak? The offense still isn't that good because the beginning of February was so bad. So if you look at the total February numbers, the offense is actually even worse in February than it was

in January or compared to the overall season, but they've won five in a row in this month. That's really hard to do. That just means how bad they were at the beginning of this. During the streak, they've been 12th on offense, and for whatever reason, this defense that was so bad, and there's really not some major personnel change.

I've gone through it. A little more Robin Lopez, but not dramatically more. A little less Mo Wagner, a little less Garrison Matthews. Troy Brown still doesn't seem to get to play as much as I thought he would play. They missed about a week of games, it felt like, when they shut everything down. They were like five or six games behind everybody else until some other teams started losing games. They hadn't even played anybody in the West and their record was still that terrible. So there was a very solid argument for this team being the worst team in the NBA. So I don't know how the hell they're playing the fifth best defense since February 14th, but they are. Now, most times, whenever anybody's trying to figure out some of this stuff, they'll be like, oh, wait. And I don't know why we don't do this more often. Be like, let's look at the schedule. Who are they beating?

Well, they beat the Celtics. They beat the Rockets. They beat the Nuggets and Trailblazers and the Lakers. So you can't just go, well, you know, they haven't played anybody because they have. They played, you know, what we would expect to be really good teams. That Boston loss is the worst loss of the Celtics season, considering who the Wizards are. And if you watch the game, it was just terrible. Now you could say, how come you're not giving the Wizards more credit? Boston shouldn't lose that game. They

shouldn't be down to the Wizards by 20 immediately in a game. I don't care who the Wizards are in the beginning of their resurgence. The Rockets had a weird stretch where people were trying to talk themselves into them again. And it's just not there. I mean, they're a mess. The Rockets had a weird stretch where people were trying to talk themselves into them again. And it's just, it's just not there. I mean, they're, they're a mess. The Christian Wood injury completely screwed it up. I still can't wait to see where DeMarcus Cousins goes. So a new fan base talks themselves into him for about a month or so. And then they're going to be like, wait, maybe Priscilla was right. Um, because whatever you think of Cousins before, and we could have disagreed, he's even

worse now. They beat the Nuggets, back to the Wizards here, in a close one. But the Nuggets aren't really that good. I think there's a little bit of people missing. I think between Portland, Denver, and San Antonio, there's a lot of confusion. If you don't check the standings a lot, you're like, wait, where's San Antonio? What's Portland's record? Hey, what's going on with Denver? And then they beat Portland by seven, which was a really fun game. And then they beat the Lakers last night in overtime. So I could make the argument that beating Boston isn't that big of a deal because Boston's the worst they've been all season. The Lakers are easily the worst they've been all season. That game, Westbrook put up big numbers. I'm going to get to some of the Westbrook stuff here in a second

because I was trying to figure that part of it out. I was like, wait, has he been better? I don't know. Not really. But he was terrific last night in the Lakers game. 32 points. Can't make his free throws though. He's at 56% now. He was 6 of 12 last night in that game. And also, if you're inbounding and you're up one and they have to foul you with no time left on the shot clock turned off, why Denny Advia is inbounding to Westbrook? I can imagine it's because Westbrook takes care of the kid and is a great teammate to Denny as a rookie from everything I've heard. Westbrook does that, and that's why a lot of his guys love him. But you got to come

up with something smarter there than throwing it into a 50% free throw shooting guard. But I don't know if that's just Westbrook being like, hey, this is what I do, and I get the ball in there. All right. So the rotations aren't necessarily different in some dramatic way. Yes, me not watching every single Wizards game start to finish. I know there's some things that I'm probably missing on some substitution patterns. I know Breton's lit it up the other night. But I was trying to figure out, has Westbrook been a little bit better?

Westbrook right now, his month in January is really weird because he shot higher from three-point percentage than he did overall. He was 41% on threes. But watching it, he had some weird stretches where in the beginning of February,

he just decided he wasn't going to shoot. And I know he's talked about his health, and he said he's healthier now and everything's good to go. Because I was trying to figure out, maybe is he taking fewer shots? He's taken about two less a game. He's at 17. He stopped taking threes this month.

Not entirely, but you could tell. Back with Washington, he's like, I'm going to find my three-point shot. I abandoned it in Houston. I never hit it. I didn't have to take it. And he actually turned into a really terrific regular season player for about two months. But he's at 14% from three in February, and they put together this stretch. He hasn't hit a three during the entire winning streak. He hasn't hit a three

since February 10th, and that's after he had only taken nine shots in back-to-back losses. They lost to Portland by one, Miami, Charlotte, Toronto, New York. So it's been two completely different months record-wise, but Westbrook, it's not like he's lighting it's been two completely different months record wise, but Westbrook, it's not like he's lighting it up all of a sudden. And honestly, the team during this stretch, the Wizards are 28th and three point shooting in February. So I don't have a great answer for you other than they've had 11 different stars in February. Maybe it's just nice that they're all playing games together. And maybe they're a little bit more rested because I looked on some of the

defensive stuff where in February, you know, you have, you have some of these leaking defensive numbers because defense is just getting worse. Guys are getting more tired. The effort just consistently around the league. Isn't that great?

I would run baseline cuts, weak side all the time. I would run opposite side, just cut slashes to the paint. I know no one likes that stuff anymore, but guys just don't want to follow you. Guys just lose track of you. I can't believe how many NBA players just stop looking at their man. The whole man, you ball deal? Nah, ball. I'm over here. Where's my man? That seems to be applicable to some of the stuff that we're seeing.

All right. So real quick then, tale of two seasons. Let's do the Lakers here really quick. And I know I don't have some definitive answer, but I'm just trying to dig through all of it for you. I'm trying to understand the Wizards. Some of you guys want Wizards Daily. No, don't do that. I respect the fact that you try to keep it alive. but to respect Wizards Daily is not to ask for it when they win. It's not really even ask for it

when they lose. It was about the people. And I love that people want to keep Wizards Daily. Some of you guys listening now are like, what the hell are you talking about? We did a Wizards Daily segment once a week or so, which kind of made it funny that we called it Wizards Daily. It was Van Pelt and I. And they just had an incredible roster. And there was always all this stuff floating around, different news. And we would just update the people on what they needed to know, Wizards-wise. And when they win a few games, people are like, oh, it's time to bring it back.

And you're like, it was never about the winning. And your words hurt. So, you know, just remember that. Real quick on the Lakers. They were due to start losing some games if you were watching them this month. All of this, let me preface it with, none of this matters at all.

They're the only team in the league I give the benefit of the doubt to. There's no Anthony Davis, no Dennis Schroeder now, too. So, they're a mess. They can't shoot. They were, they were due to start losing some of these games, you know, Pistons, Thunder, back-to-back overtimes, another overtime last night when they lost to Denver, that seemed like it was, it was overdue. The Nets game, the Nets are rolling right now. So, you know, I don't know

if anybody's going to beat them the way they're playing right now and that's still without the ramp which is horrifying to everybody else but we'll see what happens the lakers jazz but yeah the lakers have lost four or five they're actually trailing the one team they beat in this stretch is minnesota who despite firing ryan saunders i thought this was the most competitive t-wolves basketball that i've seen from them them all season long. And then they fight. Not to say that Saunders deserved to say, I'm just saying clearly, Gerson,

the man behind everything in the front office, he didn't want Saunders. And Saunders was just aligned with everybody that mattered because of his dad. It happens. And Ryan, by all accounts, is an awesome guy. But you kind of knew this was coming. But I thought they were actually fighting and playing harder

at the end of close games. They just had a bunch of close games. But look, if he's not your guy, he's not your guy. And you're going to move on and hire somebody else. And the oddest, one of the weirdest deals is you hire an assistant on another team that's competitive. That doesn't really happen all that often. Okay, this Lakers thing is going to be a lot quicker.

All right, so the Lakers in January were 10th from three at 37%. In February, they're the second worst three-point shooting team at 30%. They're only better than Cleveland. And by the way, Cavs fans, you want to talk about the tale of two seasons? This is a Cavs team.

It was deflections. Look at the guards and look at Sexton and all that stuff. Every good number, they have shattered in a race to be awful. Every number for them has had a massive, massive decline after a surprising, nice little bump there where, again, when that first impression at the beginning of the year is like,

you know, Cavs are kind of doing some things. And you're like, or they're terrible again. All right, so let's impression at the beginning of the year is like, you know, the Cavs are kind of doing some things. And you're like, or they're terrible again. All right, so let's look at the rebounding rate. In January, the Lakers were fifth in rebounding rate. In February, they're 20th. The offensive numbers, the Lakers were never an offensive powerhouse. We even saw this from them last year. Their offensive efficiency

in January 15th and February 21st, their defensive efficiency second in the NBA behind only Memphis in the month of January. Weird thing from that, those defensive numbers that I was talking about a little bit, Memphis was number one in defensive efficiency in January and they'd played a league low 10 or 11 games, I think it was. And I just was like, wait, is that because they barely played and they just had more effort? Is that what's going on?

Because the defensive numbers, when you go January to February, you're just seeing like, wait, this number was 10th and now it's fifth because everything, the offense is just scoring more and more. And some of it,

the offense is getting better month to month. Some of that stuff was a little surprising. Defensive efficiency is held up February, January for Lakers, second, January 3rd. So basically what we're looking at here is we are seeing a team that cannot shoot and cannot rebound in today's NBA. And what we're really looking at that isn't a number,

this team appears to just want to throw the ball to LeBron James without Dennis or Anthony Davis and say, you fix this. Last night against the Wizards, it was brutal. He looks exhausted. He is exhausted. But now he's on some kind of campaign where it's like, nah, this is what I do, and I'm never taking any rest. And he used to rest.

He used to do that break, but I think he felt like that was held against him all the time and maybe cost him an MVP or two, which I don't really know that he was supposed to win any of the MVPs that he hasn't won in the last eight years. And Simmons and I went over this on the Sunday Pods. Sunday Pods are back, by the way. Check it out, download.

But I don't know if he was stung from the criticism of that, that he's like, now, all right, fine. You guys say I can't play at 82. I'm going to play 82 games. I'm a little worried about it, except he's just so superhuman that maybe it shouldn't matter. And none of this is even a knock on him. I would say the one thing, but we saw this trend before

where his field goal attempts by distance and how this is brought up. So at the rim, the numbers are pretty steady, but the three-point percentages have crept up three straight years, where he's now at 35, 36% of his attempts are from three. Now, he did this while he was in Miami a couple times, so it's not off the charts bad, but I feel like when I watched him, and he's like second or third in the NBA in fourth quarter shot attempts. I do think I have that one. I'll pull it up not to bore you guys to death, but the Washington game, it was very clear. Hey, we're going to run something. Okay, and look, he's going

to control everything because he wants to, so some of the pace and slowing down was very clear. Hey, we're going to run something. Okay. And look, he's going to control everything because he wants to. So some of the pace and slowing down is all because of him. But I think he looks tired, but he's really on this thing to be like, never rest, no days off deal. When, you know, it probably wouldn't be the worst thing if he got a little bit of time off. But maybe he doesn't need it. He looks like he needs it right now.

But this team can't shoot, they can't rebound, and it doesn't matter because I'm not worried. I love this guy because even though my affiliation was always St. John's first, I love the Big East dearly. I miss it all the time. I was watching St. John's DePaul the other day. That didn't exactly throw

me. But that Seton Hall run by our guest, PJ Carlissimo, is one of the weirdest runs for me because there was never a time I was a Hall fan. And Hall was, you know, they were just off the radar in comparison to the Johnnies, my Johnnies, Georgetown, who, you know, I kind of loved in the tournament, hated when they played St. John's. UConn, that was a walkover until they weren't. Earl Kelly was, you know, a big part of that. And Calhoun. BC would always have dudes every now and then. My family's attachment to Providence College. But that Seton Hall run with Mark Bryant, who every time I see him at some function, which is rare, PJ, and I'll be like, you, like, God, I loved your game. And then Bryant looks at me like I'm a fucking crazy person. I just, my father and I

love talking about it. We love talking to Andrew Gaze. We hate those Ramil Robinson free throws. So how are you? I'm great, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Mark sees three. He sees the red in the veins and he still, he knows you're a Redman. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but when we go to the old Big East, we can use the old nicknames for St. John's. Marquette wasn't in it, but they were a different team then. Money was a big part because you've talked about this before. When you're leaving Seton Hall, and I think the thing that people can forget about coaches, you're all wired to figure out, can I be the best at this? That's how you even made it to that point. But I assume it was money, but were there reservations about you going from college to the pros at that age?

Because you were 45, right? When you took over the Portland job, which is crazy. That sounds right. Yes, exactly. It was crazy. It was a much harder decision when we had the great run.

The two years that started it, and then we were lucky. After that, we started getting good players. We had Terry DeHair and Jerry Walker and all those guys. We were probably even better at times, but they never accomplished what the Final Four team did. It was harder to leave to go to Portland than the decision when, like, Kentucky came calling and some of the opportunities that were there early

because we had just turned a corner and the school had been loyal to us for a long time. It took us four years to have a winning record. Then we finally got the NIT March junior year and March senior year. We got to the tournament for the first time in his school's history. I couldn't leave then. Later on, it was funny because Mark was in Portland and Ramon Ramos had gone there and of course had the accident, wasn't playing anymore. But Portland was different because most of the guys that had left college for the NBA had bad jobs. They were expansion jobs. There were jobs you couldn't win. Portland,

it was an old team. I mean, it was still Clyde and Buck and Terry Porter and Jerome. And they wanted to flip the team over, which we did in three years. All those guys were gone. But it was a place where you could go right away and win. It was a ton of money. I mean, it was a lot more money. Paul Allen was the owner. I think, as stupid as it was, I think Riles was the only coach making more than me the first year. How crazy was that? And I thought all the NBA coaches would resent. I didn't know the mind process for the coaches in the league, which is they want somebody, the next guy to get more. The more somebody else gets, the more they're going to get. It was almost kind of Dave Gavitt convincing the teams in the Big East,

whatever was good for some other team in the league was ultimately good for you. And it was the same process. And I went, I love Portland because of the affiliation I had already had with Nike for a lot of years. So it was a city I really liked. It was an owner, obviously, who was great. At the time, everybody forgets, Brad Greenberg was the acting GM in the interim because Jeff Petrie refused to fire Rick Adleman. So he left. So they were kind of without a GM. And Paul had in his mind he wanted a college coach. I really think he wanted Larry Brown. I forget where Larry was at the time, but LB didn't want to go. And so I think he had in his mind, I want to get a college coach. The NBA is always Rick was Ron's score, was a player's coach. They always kind of go opposite. Okay, no, we want to get a guy that's more defense oriented and is more a

hard ass. So I mean, you know, they always kind of flip the other way. But I just felt if I was ever going to go, that was the time. And I struggled with it for a little bit. And then I said, you know, let me try it. You know, I never even thought about it, right? You and I've talked about this a lot. Maybe if I stayed at the hall and continued to have some success, because we had really good players, you know, I might get a sniff sometime with the Knicks and the Nets because I was a hometown guy. But I never even thought of or wanted to coach in the NBA. I was real happy doing what I was doing, but it was just an unbelievable opportunity.

And I took it and I don't regret it. You know, it's gone a whole bunch of different ways, but I've really enjoyed both. It was 23 years in college and 17 in the NBA. So it's been, you know, I'm happy. It was a good run. Yeah. There's no part of you that I should think, and obviously in your voice too, that you should go, oh, you know, I wonder if it went a different way. I always think about, you know, you and I have talked about it. I didn't really want to be in the media. That's what happened. I would much rather had put this much time into caring about a sport that you were actually working in the sport. And this may sound cheesy to people, but I think there's a real value in, in a healthy part of your life where if you're actually rowing in the same

direction as, as people and trying to fucking win. And, you know, sometimes I'm like, why do you watch this much? Just to have a good Thursday podcast. And it's it frustrates me when I know that there's just another level of understanding of the game that you guys have because you're all around the best minds. That's all you do.

But it's the only thing you do. I still miss that. It's not certainly good news, but every time I go to a shoot around or a practice or cover a game, you know, particularly if it's one where, you know, guys open the door for you, like a San Antonio or, you know, some of the guys that have been in the league a long time treat me differently. And I miss that. I miss the meetings. I miss exactly what you're talking about. One thing's over. You're getting ready for the next one.

I miss exactly what you're talking about. One thing's over, you're getting ready for the next one. And that journey you have with your group, the players, the coaches, that group of 30 or 40 people, you can't duplicate that. So I miss that a lot, but this is the next best thing for me. I didn't want to do 30 minutes of Emory Lane, but I actually love the story so much. So when you're at Fordham as an assistant, you said you're a local guy and it's a good point you brought up. Like if you just

stayed at the hall and put together this run, although I think sometimes the college thing, maybe the best version of coaching is to be connected to a college community. College communities are the best when they're the right ones to be a K to be, um, Roy, you know, or to be Dean or, you know, even Bobby Knight with the Hoosiers run. There's something that's different than that, than even any NBA success. But did you, did you ever think like at 45, you make all this money with Portland and I've heard you tell the story, like Paul Allen just was like, Hey, here's the check. And you're like, okay, I'm not an idiot. Like I'm out of here, Seton Hall. Sorry. But are you at that point just a

grind? Like you're at Manchester, New Hampshire College. You're kind of at the Hall as an assistant for a long time. Were you kind of just happy to be around it or did you know, okay, deep down, like I'm alpha enough that I have to be in charge of my own ship here at some point? I was lucky. I mean, after the four years at Fordham, I mean, I got, I got my, I went to Manchester, which no one understood. Now you see all those commercials for Southern New Hampshire University, man. That's New Hampshire College of Accounting and Commerce. We used to call it NACAC when I got there. I mean, it was a NAI school. We went division two. I was there. I thought when I went up there, I was 25 or something. I said, look, I'll go here for a

couple of years. We have some success. You know, I'll get a better job and hopefully work my way up. And Wagner opened up and Wagner was so crazy. They were division three and they'd had like eight or 10 straight losing seasons. And they got a new AD and he said, I want to go division one. And he had in mind a profile, like if somebody had gone to a Division I school and had been an assistant at a Division I school. And people forget in those days, Rye, you remember there were no leagues. The Big East hadn't started yet. So we were all in that ECA metro. It included Seton Hall, St. John's, everybody.

The only league was the Ivy League. Before that, the Yankee Conference had been there for a little bit up in New England. But then the Eastern Age started and Rutgers left. And when they've started the Big East, I mean, people forget how different that was than what was going on in the East at that point. So I got a chance to go to Wagner and no one else. Rick Pitino was a young assistant at that time. Gary Williams was. And I think they were probably smart enough to say, I don't know about that job. And I'm thinking, hey, it's a head job in New York City.

This is great. And the same thing. We won our first game, their first game in Division I. We played Lehigh. And Brian Hill's the head coach. And Frankie Sullivan's his assistant. Brian went out. Brian Hill, Orlando.

Orlando taking teams to the finals, Vancouver. And Frank Sullivan, who had a great run at Harvard for like 20-plus years, later on was one of our assistants at the Hall. That's our first game. We beat them in Sutter Gym. I think a gym packed like 1,100 people in Sutter Gym. And we won. I'm saying Division I, like, what's the big deal?

We can handle this. It's no problem. We ended up 2-24. We won our first game and then lost 23 of our next 24, I think. And it took a while, but we got it turned. And then, you know, six years at Wagner and then 12 years at the Hall. Yeah, I was lucky. I was an assistant for four years, and then things just broke for me, and things broke for me in the league.

I wasn't an assistant again until I worked with Pop for five years, and he just kind of dragged me along. That was a good five years, and did three rings, and think this is pretty easy, too, coaching in the NBA. So I've been lucky. Who was the best player you went up against at the Big East? Probably Chris Mullin Patrick with a slash because I'm talking to you, even though you're wearing blue.

I got to say Chris Mullin because he was the one we couldn't do anything with. We never beat Syracuse. We had less success against Syracuse than we did against anybody. We never won in the Dome. Finally, toward the end, we beat Jimmy a couple times. But Chris was the one you couldn't do anything with. Patrick dominated the game more than anybody. But, you know, you could sometimes deal with Georgetown a little bit.

When Mully had it going, there was nothing we could do with St. John's. And I think people sometimes forget just how great a player he was. I mean, they don't understand. And the league at that point was just chock full of them. I mean, Villanova had great players. Syracuse had great players. You know, Billy Dee, people forget Billy Dee's run at Providence, how good Billy was playing for Rick at Providence.

So it was just a great time to be in the league, but Mully was the one we could do the least with. You know who else was unbelievable, lit us up for four years? Malik Sealy. Malik Sealy was a hell of a guy. He was a good pro, too, before he passed. But they were good times, right? All the games were good games. I mean, you look forward literally to every game, whether it was home or away.

I bought a pair of the Garnets because the tongues inside of them said, For Malik. How about that? Look, I, you know, big man shoes weren't exactly the first shoes I wanted to play in the year those came out. But, you know, the Malik Sealy news was, he was just so well-liked on top of being an incredible sl and player. And then,

you know, the irony is that he was kind of underestimated as a, as a prospect and then really put it together in the pros. Whereas, you know, Walter Berry is probably my second all time favorite St. John's player. And that's the original truth,

by the way. Exactly. And it didn't work out. I mean, exactly. You know, Felipe was another one felipe was a hell of a felipe got worse as he stayed at saint john so you could see his best

his best draft stock ever was as a freshman and then it got increasingly worse as you knew that he couldn't shoot and zendon became the better prospect and i thought the better player at the end and i'll give it to felipe like he actually probably stuck around a little bit longer than i thought he was going to in the pros too. We were trying to, you know, we were there,

we weren't going to get, but we were right there. And we kept saying, Hey, if you go away, we were telling him Seton Hall was away. Like he'd get away a little bit from everybody in New York and he would laugh.

I still love seeing him all the time. He said, he's doing a lot of good stuff, but you remember how good, when he was like a sophomore, junior, senior at Rice, he was the recruit in the country for like two years. It was incredible. No, I was so excited about him.

For St. John's to get. I was in college with no cable in my dorm room, and I would get those CBS games, and guys would be like, all right, we're doing something or whatever. And not that I was afraid of going out in college or anything like that, but if it were Johnny's, Chuse, or Georgetown, I'd be like, look, this is what I'm going to be doing. So I don't want to do anything else.

I don't want to go to the mall. I don't want to day drink. I'm not missing Felipe on the scene because we're back. We're back, motherfucker. And it wasn't. And so I remember asking Mashburn about St. John's too and going, how come you didn't go? He goes, my mother wasn't going to let me go there.

And then the thing with the Johnnies that I think is at least now we can admit is they had some weird housing thing where they were basically – Yeah, they were allowed to give you money in a way a school wasn't. They and Temple were the two schools because at the time, allegedly or truthfully, there were no dorms on campus. And since there weren't dorms on campus, you had to give players money to live. And the going rate in New York or Philadelphia was a hell of a lot more to rent an apartment than it was other places. So they could give

these checks to the players legitimately. And a lot of them lived home. Some of the guys even lived home, didn't even bother. You know, there was nothing said you had to go live in the apartment. So guys lived home with their families. Some of them were helping their families out with the money. And it was a cafeteria wasn't open weekends or wasn't open nights. So they were at Dante's or the Surrey. I used to kid Louie all the time.

You know, we'd go out to dinner. I'd go, would you tell the kids they couldn't come here tonight? Because we knew that the guys were eating all the time. We'd go out to dinner. I'd go, would you tell the kids they couldn't come here tonight? Because we knew that the guys were eating there all the time. By the way, he's still going. Yeah, happy birthday the other day. Yeah, Louie Kanaseka. He's still just as sharp. He's amazing. I got to meet him once at the Hall of Fame.

I did a radio show for an induction there. But yeah, everybody's always confused. But it was, I was, those first two sports memories my most impressionable moments were the 82 83 sixers and in chris mullen because i went to all the big east games and i just like you know i'm seven and i'm going how come the heck guy's good like this doesn't make any sense and you know you're right to say that about patrick because even with even pearl washington who deserves to be mentioned in that first tier of big east players um and what he did with Cuse and the balance they had with Cycle.

And I always loved, you know, Derek was unbelievable. And even John Wallace was an incredible run in the mid-90s. Billy Owens was great college. Billy Owens was a Felipe. Billy Owens was the best player in college, high school, for two years. When they got him, that was like, wow. So what happens now then i didn't mean to even go down here but i don't think any of us talk about it anymore what happened in

new york city basketball like all of you guys are fighting over these players because cuse is getting in the mix the johnny's still at that point think that they're owed everyone yeah you you're getting guys because you're trying to get them out of the city a little bit. But what turned us around? Yeah. So how we got three all city players, Darrell Walker was first team CHSAA to Catholic school league and Gerald Green and John Morton were first team PSAL. That was, we had gotten good players from the city, but we had never gotten the first teamers.

Mark Bryant was the first Jersey all-stater. So that opened the door for Terry DeHair and Jerry Walker and the St. Anthony's guys. But the city guys, Mike Brown got those guys for us. And, you know, I still kid Mark Jackson. Mark Jackson and Felipe kid me all the time. You know, they always go, I said, you know, you guys, I wasted three years of my life recruiting Mark.

Nobody knew how good he was, honestly, at Laughlin. I'm watching the Oklahoma State game last night, and I'm going to say his name wrong. Is it Mike Boynton? I didn't, honestly, at Laughlin. I'm watching the Oklahoma State game last night. I'm going to say his name wrong. Is it Mike Boynton? I didn't know he was a Laughlin guy. He's Bishop Laughlin. Franny Fischel is talking about him and he's going, he's a CHSA guy from Laughlin. But I kid Mark all the time. We recruited him for three years and Louie comes into the Monsignor King tournament on the linoleum floor in Brooklyn, I think, to see John Sally. And he sees Mark and talks to his parents. And it was over.

It took like four and a half minutes. And he was going to St. John's. And I told Mark, three years of my life down the drain and you go with Louie, you know, in one trip, one time in and sees you. And that's the end of it. But you couldn't, it was hard to get guys out of the city. Everybody was coming in and seize you. And that's the end of it. But you couldn't, it was hard to get guys out of the city. Everybody was coming in from everywhere else.

And you're right. St. John's felt, if you were one of the best players in the city, you should go to St. John's. You owed it to them. Yeah, that's not the case anymore. How about the wins

that Mike's getting though? No, they're... Mike's got a good run. Look, they're aggressive as hell. You knew they were going to be that way with Mike. And I know that Molly tried a million different things and I liked his staff. I mean, they were, they were getting guys from all over the country. So I know they were trying.

I just think it's hard for the big East to sell the program other than Nova's run right now. I don't know how you walk in to a top 10, 20 recruit and not feel like you're almost, look, trust me, this pains me to even say out loud, but it feels like mid-major stuff for some of the programs because they tried to salvage just as much as they could, but college football ruined it. The people that were running the Big East back then messed with ESPN on the old TV deals on the football side. And then ESPN's like, all

right, screw it. We'll spend money somewhere else. There's a real different timeline of events for Big East football that was directly connected to keeping Big East basketball as the premier conference. And look, depends on where you're in the country. It's usually an ACC Big East argument. But I would say for 20 years, when you were looking at the pros that were going into the league, the pro league, the league that prepped you the best and had the biggest depth I thought was the Big East. And now it's just, you know, sometimes Van Pelt and I used to make a joke about like, you forget who's in it sometimes now. I'm like, I don't even want to say that. So don't, you know, it's true, but you know, it's good. They've, they've resurrected it in a really good way because now the schools have a lot in common.

I had Creighton Villanova for Westwood. I'm doing a lot more college now in the beginning and then pick up the NBA. I've only done in person remotely six NBA games so far. But I did Creighton Villanova, and Creighton is a little better than I thought they were. They're legit. They could do some damage in the tournament. No, those schools are good. Yeah.

Anytime I sound negative about the current thing, it's only being upset about what it was in the past. So anybody that's a Big East person, you have to understand this is me being upset about it because it really was... Van Pelt and I used to argue about Big East ACC all the time, and I know with the Blue Bloods and UNC and Duke, anyone from down there is like, why are you even talking? Where I'm going, do you remember what the 80s were? Do you remember what happened there when it was just pro, pro, pro and whatever? So look, the reason this is actually a good setup is that

now you've been around this game for decades. You haven't coached in less than 10 years, which actually doesn't feel that long ago, except the game itself looks like a completely different game. So when you watch now, have you gotten to the point of resisting what you think it should have been? Because I think all of us had a hard time, but then also I think there should be slight resistance to accepting that this is what it's supposed to be now as far as NBA basketball. Yeah, I still don't like they've gotten so far with the officiating. I hate the fact that you can't touch a guy. I mean, it's really difficult to guard anybody right now, which kind of gets you into the Brooklyn thing a little bit. Like everybody's, yeah, I know how good they are, but can they defend anybody?

These last five or six games has everybody confused now. Nobody knows what to do with them. They're not defending well during the stretch, by the way. They're not. They're just so – I mean, without Durant, this is horrifying for everybody else because they're not defending and they're still beating everybody. Yeah, it's scary.

And DeAndre has a couple of good games. He played really well against the Pacers before they left, and he played lights out against the Pacers before they left and he played lights out against the Clippers. I mean, I'm more concerned with their rebounding than I am with their defense, to be honest with you.

I think if you have, you can't change what you are if you have that. To me, Milwaukee and Philly are built pretty good to play against the Nets because they're decent defensively or even better than that

and they rebound well. And that concerns me a little bit more up front. Trying to outscore them, you got no shot. The Phoenix game was so entertaining. Even without, I think that was out without both Kyrie and Kevin. It was. That was two teams just trying to score a million points. It was an unbelievably entertaining game.

But, you know, I don't think anybody can beat them in seven trying to outscore them. I think you got to either really beat them up on the boards and hurt them down there and, you know, score some points yourself on the boards and run good because of it. Or they got to turn it over because forget about the off. The three of them are on the verge of 50-40-90, right? If you look at their stats, all three of them are are on the verge of 50-40-90, right? If you look at their stats, all three of them are knocking on the door of 50-40-90.

I think Kyrie's already there. But I mean, it's so hard to figure what the hell they are because they've missed so many games. I still want to see them together for a longer time if it ever happens where they got the three of them on the floor and you watch that a little bit um i i don't like um that i still think i love the lakers winning last year because they won with biggs i'm astounded if you told me you know javel and dwight howard and rondo were going to be major factors which which i thought they were uh and and la was the best combo team in the league last year in terms of offense and defense.

You know, just reinforced to me, as did Toronto, you still need to defend to win. This is going to be interesting because if these guys don't pick it, you know, they don't have to be a great defensive team. They've got to be better than they are right now. But it's going to be interesting to see whether somebody can win with this maybe as good offense as ever has ever been on one team. It's ridiculous how good they are offensively.

Yeah, statistically, and we brought this up before, as everybody gets better statistically on offense, it kind of raises the entire league. And, you know, when you go back and I've made this comp, when you look at that Suns team with Nash and D'Antoni, those offensive numbers, some of them wouldn't even be in the top 30 right now because the entire league has changed. If Pop and San Antonio weren't so good then, Phoenix would have gone further. They win the title. There's one title in there. It would be a lot more legitimate.

Same thing happened to Houston. Mike had Houston cooking for a while, but because they couldn't ever get it done, people look at them differently. People always go, yeah, but when you talk about Phoenix. But I'm telling you what, you tried to guard them. You tried this. We couldn't like Spurs didn't win because they outscored them.

They just, you know, they took certain things away. We basically said you can't stop Amari, can't stop Stevie, and you stop the three-point shooters so we could beat them 110-106. But again, it was because the Spurs could play offense and defense. If somebody's going to beat Brooklyn, they better be able to score a lot of points, and they better be able to do something creative to slow them down a little bit. Because otherwise, I don't think you can outscore them. See, I like this, too, because I am so impressed with the depth of stars, the talent

alone. I mean, Zach Levine's not even mentioned as a superstar. I'm not saying that Zach Levine should be a superstar. There are shots he makes on certain nights where I'm like, I don't know who else makes that shot in the league. Maybe a Kyrie. He's our local here. I'm still in Seattle. He's from Bothell. It's going to be interesting to see. I think he's got to make the all-star, but it's going to be close. I think, I don't know whether the coaches are going to be interesting to see. I think he's got to make the all-star, but it's going to be close. I think. I don't know whether the coaches are going to look at it the same way because that's what it's going to come down to unless it's Adam putting him on to replace somebody at the end. I bet he ends up making it even if he's not named as a coach

because I think you're going to have a couple guys with some late flus here that have got a weird opt-out, which the league probably doesn't want for the own, like, look, can we trust every guy with time off to make sure that he's following all the protocols and odds are there's going to be somebody actually I'm surprised it's not worse. Um, so credit to the NBA players for, for being responsible about this. But I saw a number of the other day that Houston led the league in transition threes. Um, not every transition three is created equal. There are transition threes where

I'm like, you had a layup at the rim and you still kicked it out to the corner. It wasn't even a contested layup. It was wide open. And now, I mean, guys, poor Steven Adams, I can't tell if it's the Westbrook thing, but he gets an offensive rebound where all he has to do is turn around and he kicks it out to somebody. And so I wonder if you would just kind of give up. If you were coaching now, if you would know these are fights I would have fought 10 years ago, but right now I'm not going to fight this for like the greater good of how you have to allow offensive freedom because so many of these guys are capable of making shots. No one would have even taken 10 years ago. I think

10 years ago is probably extreme. It could even be six years ago. Yeah, I agree. And you know what convinces you of that, even though philosophically I would like not to, you can't defend them. When you're there trying to defend a team and they're as unpredictable, it's probably the bad word.

Creative is probably a fairer word. They're so creative and you can't tell your guys, well, they're going to do this, they're going to do that. Yeah, you can still do a ton of scouting and get the plays at the end and no tendencies. But that's the hardest thing about defending nowadays, just not knowing what kind of shots guys are going to take or what people are capable of creating or making shots.

I mean, people make shots now and people create with their passing. People create stuff for, I mean, even like Jokic, him standing still, Jokic is doing it standing still. Forget about the great guards that are doing it on the dribble, you know, the Kyries or even KD, you know, putting it on the floor and finding other people. Jokic is doing most of his passing standing still, and the cutting in the league has gotten so much better now because guys are passing the ball. So I think you know you can't defend what's going out on the offensive end.

So if you've got players that are that creative, you've got to let them loose a little bit. I always thought that was one of the things Pop did best and didn't get credit for, because yeah, he was pounding it into Timmy and David, which he should have done. But Pop gave Manu and Tony Parker a leash to play that other coaches wouldn't have done. There were a lot of times, particularly earlier in their careers, he'd pull them back and he'd get on them. But he walked that line between letting those two

be creative. And they just did stuff that wasn't in our playbook. A lot of the things that Manu and Tony did, but he realized, hey, you got to let these guys go because they're going to make good things happen. And they're going to make us harder to defend. Look at the way he's playing now. It's unbelievable. DeMar DeRozan's averaging over seven assists a game right now. He's become a different player playing for the Pops. Look, Rudy Gay, who didn't decide to go small as he got older, he got bigger.

He's huge now. And he's productive. This is probably a little misleading because some of the defensive numbers, I'll look to see how they'll track a contest or I'll look to see, did you get credit for essentially like a miss on that and you're like, that wasn't a closeout.

This guy took a horrible shot and now you get credit for that. Now you could argue it all evens out and all that kind of thing. But Rudy Gay at one point had the single best defensive impact rating of any player in the NBA and I was like, wait, look, they're good again. And Pop, the greatness of Pop, and i want you to

expand on this because you were next to him five six years is he evolved every time he didn't he didn't evolve when it was like i'm gonna lose my job and all the players are mad like how would you guys now 0207 you know i don't know what the pace was and all that kind of stuff but i felt like you had to tempo it up to keep pace with phoenix there a little bit would you have say an off-season dinner where you and him would just theorize on hey you know what we need to do a little bit more of this hey we need to positionally start thinking this way we need to kind of get this guy more shots like how would those conversations evolve with you and pop deciding on what kind of team you were going to be each well i mean we please throw, please, throw in Mike Brown.

Everybody loves Mike Brown. Mike Booth also. Yeah, right. Brett Brown. I mean, look at the people that he had. He loved those kinds of conversations. It was, could we still win playing the way we were, or what did we have to do?

Phoenix was the king of you've got to adjust. I mean, for years, when Pop first got there, way before I got there, beating Utah was the big thing, trying to beat Carl and John, but he evolved into beating the Lakers and beating Phoenix. And without question, I thought people realized it, but they didn't. The beauty of San Antonio was they could play both ways. They could play fast, maybe not, you know, as fast as anybody in the league, but they could outsc ways. They could play fast, maybe not as fast as anybody in the league, but they could outscore you if you were that kind of team. And if you were a team that

just needed to be slowed down and beat up in the half court, they could adjust to that. So they convinced me that the combination teams won. In my opinion, Golden State was a lot better defensively than people ever gave them credit for. Toronto clearly was. The Lakers were. Last year, Lakers were so good defensively for most of the year. It was incredible. I think Pop's versatility, the fact that he could play both ways, and he would do that, and he knew, hey, we need more three-point shooting. Remember a couple, He would do that, and he knew, hey, we need more three-point shooting. Remember a couple, like back when, probably when he got to the two finals, maybe even the first team that lost to Miami,

the way they passed the ball, it was unbelievable. Remember, they were spread floor, moving the ball. It never stopped. Unpredictable offense. Again, he's a little bit ahead of the curve in opening the floor and playing that way way even though they still they had Timmy for a while but when Kawhi was there Kawhi really turned the corner and everybody

said damn this guy's a little better than we thought he was in those two years no one thought he was going to be even the first good yeah no well I don't think RC or Pop knew he'd be this good they knew he was really special I mean I don't think anybody thought he would be arguably the best player in the league or MVP player. I was talking to Coach the other day.

He's an assistant. And we were talking about my pursuit of trying to always figure out philosophically. People say, oh, Quinn does this. What does he do? What does Quinn Snyder do? How does he set the tone for this? And I can kind of figure out some of it. I keep rewinding everything every goddamn time.

Okay, they like initiating their offense with different people, which is incredibly advantageous if you have the personnel where you have like three, maybe four guys that can kind of make decisions for you. I mean, Joe Engels on a pick and roll. I like him. Engels is great. Engels is one of the guys that can kind of make decisions for you i mean joe ingles on a pick and roll i like i like to say ingles is great ingles he's unbelievable enables him to do that exactly yeah and so what i loved about pop in this i don't know part chapter three of who the spurs

were and this was after you know you would you would moved on but them repositioning themselves around the perimeter when those miami Heat final like that no one ever thought that that team was going to have another run built around Duncan and they were repositioning themselves it's an incredibly simple concept but teams refuse to do it if you make everybody guard you for 24 seconds you're going to end up having open shots once everything breaks down and now there are still so many teams and I think younger players unfortunately like every game winner has to be a three i don't know when that rule was passed um where once the play is over okay everybody get out of the fucking way you know and it's like no man the spurs and then really that was the i think the seed that was planted with kerr and when he took over the

state and it helps to have stephen clay steve say he took a lot from Chicago also, but he'll give the credit there for sure. It's just so why do you think it's challenging to make sure the five guys that are out there is it is as much as having your star buy into what the coach wants to do, because especially now with how guys are just lapsed defensively, which I understand COVID and no practice and the the short game turnaround. So much bigger than people realize. I joke that I'd run baseline cuts

weak side all the time because everybody loses everybody now. Because it's like, ah. So how can you get your team to buy in? Because it feels like as great as the talent is, there's maybe less of a buy-in than I've seen from certain guys.

And again, this season is a bad year to kind of use some of these examples, but it's happening. But you said it. You said it right there. You kind of slid it in the middle of your thing. It's your best player. If your best player buys in, everything takes care of itself. Then the coach can be demanding or say, this is what we're going to do. And, you know, there's certain things.

You don't need a hundred rules, you know, but you need to, you need to play defense. You need to give in time and score, get the ball in a certain place, or you also need to be able to define what's a good shot and what's a bad shot. You know, people need to be held accountable and people don't mind being held accountable when the best player is accepting of that, or the best player understands, oh, that's what we got to do to win. I mean, LeBron, to me, Jerry Sloan for years was enabled in a good sense by John and Carl, Timmy and David and the other players that came after them enabled Pop. LeBron is enabling Frank Vogel right now. Frank's not doing a good job. He's doing a great job, I think.

But it's because LeBron understands these are the things we got to do to win. I don't know if AD's learned that yet. And I respect AD. He's a great talent. But the best thing that ever happened to him was getting to go to grad school and play with LeBron for a year or multiple years and say, oh, this is what you have to do to win. You got to do this day in, day out. And then, you know, when it comes to the end of games, we're going to do the correct thing. So it starts with the best player because that enables the coach to be, to hold players accountable. And if they're willing to be held accountable, to hold players accountable.

And if they're willing to be held accountable, then the talent takes care of it. Give me the best example of understanding Duncan as your lead guy. Because, I mean, did he ever get pissed at anybody? Did he ever do any of the in-the-tunnel stuff that maybe we don't know? No one ever seems to have a bad word to say about him, which is exactly what you'd want.

Well, he was a great teammate. The thing about Duncan Duncan, to me, the many things that separate him, I'll argue with anybody that he's the best foreman to ever play the game, but he was a great teammate. Great person, too, by the way. You know him. He's a private person. He's similar to Pop in a lot of ways. There's so many facets to his personality. And he's such an intelligent guy. He's such a funny guy, which people don't see.

But if you talk to his teammates, they see the humor. They see all that. When he got on, guys, it wasn't often, but he would get pissed. During timeouts, like before we would even sit down, there was a time when the league was pretty hard about, you know, the coaches waiting for the media two and a half, three minute timeouts. You'd be sitting out there talking about what we're having for dinner. What are we going to do? I mean, there's only so many things you can talk about before a timeout. And it was a time when Brett was still player development. So he was kind of behind the bench.

He wasn't outstanding with the four of us. And he'd tell you after a game what went on in the timeout before you got there. And Timmy would be saying, you know, this to this guy. Hey, you better start playing. Where the hell was the weak side help? That was a bad shot. Every timeout, every game. No, of course not.

But when it needed to be said, he would say it. And he would just say it like that. You know, he might be a little agitated, but guys would just shake their head. Or when we'd lose a playoff game, you know, maybe the next day before practice or in a film session, he was right there. And he'd argue with Pop. I mean, they had their moments. That was what was great. You know, he'd say something to Pop and the two of them would really get animated. But Pop loved that. Pop loved guys who would stand up to him and would, you know, say what they thought. He was just so special in so many ways, right? I mean, he was the guy that, you know, there weren't cliques. I mean, there were always guys that want to go out to dinner together and stuff like that.

I mean, there were always guys that want to go out to dinner together and stuff like that. You do that, you know, you'd be sitting in a hotel lobby, the coaches would be waiting to go out. There's Timmy with a guy that's up on a 10-day contract or something like that. He's got that guy and Bruce Bowen and they're going out to dinner. I mean, he was just so different and such a good teammate. You know, I think if you talk to Manu and Tony in particular, what it was like coming in there as a young guy and Timmy kind of showing them the way, not necessarily long meetings or anything like that, but this is how you do it. And respected Pop, accepted the criticism, accepted the coaching. And Timmy just reinforced that so much more than was evident from the outside. I love the guy. I loved his game. I loved how boring everybody thought he was because

all you want is, hey, does this guy impact winning? And I can be blinded by it. If I like a player, I can go, well, look at this stat, look at some of this stuff. But then it really comes down to understanding winning plays and losing plays. And look, I'm not trying to beat up on DeMarcus Cousins here twice in the same podcast, but it just, if you can't see the difference between his numbers and somebody else, not saying that anybody's arguing Cousins better than Duncan, but there are winning plays and there are losing plays. and I don't know if there'll be a player, a big man like Duncan, that has as many little

winning plays. Making sure on that handoff on the block that he makes sure that he just makes enough contact to get the trailing defender to be behind. You know, guys will just go through the motion on that screen. Shit, they don't even run it anymore. Nobody's running that handoff and baseline run.

I love that it felt like every moment he was out there, he was impacting the game in a positive way. And it's really hard to find somebody like that. No, it absolutely is. But it was funny. Jimmy Lyon, to me, was a great coach and was a great mentor in college. And when they came into the league and you'd be saying this and it'd be going like how so-and-so doing, you'd say, you know, some nights. And he looked at me, goes, what are you, stupid? Don't you understand? That's the difference.

That's the definition of a good player. They're good every night. Timmy, you knew you could be so confident because you knew exactly what you were going to get every single night, more so in the playoffs and in the big games. And these other guys that have talent, you're sitting there just like hoping, which guy am I going to get tonight? DeMarcus has had some unbelievable games, but which DeMarcus Cousins am I going to get? Duncan, you knew what you were going to get 100 times a year. You know, the preseason games, the 82 games, and more importantly, the 20 or so in the playoffs, the consistency. That's what the great players are.

Night in and night out, they're predictable. What you're going to get from them, you know that. And all these other guys, they're talented or they wouldn't be in the league, but I'll be damned if you know what's going to happen from one night to the other with a lot of this so-called really talented players in the league. Yeah, and other times I like my cousin's position as an example. Like D'Angelo Russell right now is somebody that, you know, once he comes back from whatever surgery this was, you know, you just watch and you go, okay, losing play, losing play, losing play, losing play.

Oh, you had 28 and 8 so now i'm supposed to think you're good like so um again this is a this is new with you and i talking about it i'm too repetitive on it at the time and it's not even fair to compare cousins to duncan which i sort of regret but anyway to make the point two last things was there a moment where duncan loved going up against shack like i don't know can you give us any insight into where duncan's perspective was on that one? Because you win the first title with David in 99.

Again, you're not there. You think you're Golden State at that point. And he calls him San Antonio, Queens and all that stuff. And there was obviously a factor of Shaq looking at no man

that ever was his equal. But yet Duncan was getting him early. Then we know Derek Fish, the shot that got you guys a few years later, which probably still feels like a title you should have had in there. All four, exactly. Yeah, but was there a Duncan angle

on that where it was respectful of Shaq, but almost like, you know, who's this guy I think he is, kind of acting as if you were so much superior to me when, yeah, you're bigger and more physical and dominant and all that kind of stuff, or maybe I'm just wrong on all this. don't know he didn't timmy didn't allow pop might know he didn't i never could figure that he never let me in there or what he was thinking it was more he was so much more into we can beat them that you know like it didn't become obviously

we're playing L.A. We better know what the hell Kobe's doing. We better know what Shaq's doing. But it wasn't like Timmy could care if he outscored him or out-rebounded him or whatever. He knew he had his hands full playing against him and vice versa. I'm sure Shaq would admit he didn't look forward to playing against TD either. against TD either. But he was just so, so much not a stat guy and so much not a me against him guy that I don't know.

He had to feel special about going up against him, but I don't know what that was that motivated him or what his outlook on that was. Okay, we're going to hopefully do something bigger on this topic, so I saved it for last year because we're going to have you on again. Do you take some responsibility for Denzel Washington's career considering you had to get him to Fordham and you coached him? Oh, not some, it's wrong. I think an enormous, an enormous amount. Give me the Denzel. Give me the full Denzel story, and then we're going to do it again. I will tell you there's no question that the two years, we didn't even call it JV.

It was right when they made the transition from freshman eligible to not. We called it sub-varsity. You didn't call it JV. That's worse. JV sounds better. We would have scholarship players play. It's funny. Frankie McLaughlin, the long time uh ad was digger's assistant our great year at fordham uh and uh coach at harvard himself and assistant at notre dame he just sent me a picture of one of denzel's teams i'm going to text it to

you when we're done and uh in fact i'll text it to you while we're talking, if I can. I throw it to Carolyn. You said there's a picture in the Frankie thing or my brother, Kevin said it. Yeah. But Denzel will tell you all the time before he went on stage or anytime he was doing a movie, the big scenes, he would always think back to that sub varsity team and the things he learned. He used to lie. One year he was doing a promotional tour. I think it was Johnny Carson. I can't remember.

That seems so long ago now for the football movie. Was it Remember the Titans or whatever the name of it was? Yeah. I don't think it was Milton Berle. So maybe it was Johnny Carson. But he's on the show and they're asking him like, well, how did you get into the character? You know, this football coach, this hard ass guy. And he goes, well, I modeled it on a guy I played for, at Fordham. And he's saying this with a straight face.

He's telling him and I'm getting all these phone calls. I didn't see the show. I looked at it later and he will do that. And I still see, I used to see him when we played in LA, he'd come a lot. I'd always bring him in the locker room. I'll tell you one Denzel story. It's true. We're practicing, we're, U.S. team is practicing in Vegas. Mike K's coaching. It's one of the early teams. Might have been, this is how silly it was. It might've been when I'm coaching the select team, which is the young guys getting ready to play, you know, to get these guys to scrimmage again. It's a Cherokee Parks action, something like that.

KD might have been playing for me. He played so well the year he was on the select team that they almost put him on the 12-man team. He wasn't even practicing with the big team, but he was playing so good and he played so well in the blue-white game, the scrimmage game that used to end, I hate to say it, the one PG got hurt in. Yeah, okay. All right right so this is early and denzel call i get a call in the hotel i don't even know how the hell he got my number maybe he called his cell phone um he goes hey i just flew he was finishing some

movie i don't know what it was like in india or halfway around the world he flies all the way to vegas because one of his sons was playing AAU. He had one that was a borderline NFL football player, I think a punter. But Denzel calls and goes, is there any way you can get us into the practice, the Olympic team practice that afternoon? I said, yeah, I think we can manage that. You know, not going to be a problem. Go talk to Mike Kay and Jerry Colangelo. But he comes in with his family. It's him and his wife and the kids. And he's watching the practice. And when he comes in, like he waves. And so he's going to me. Hey, the kids want to meet.

I think it was LeBron's team. Can they meet LeBron and can they meet Kobe after the practice? Meantime, like nine of the 12 players, including LeBron and Kobe, are going, hey, can we meet Denzel after practice is over? And it's like, you should see the practice. The kids want to go talk to the players. The players want to go talk to Denzel. I mean, it happened every time.

It was Mount Vernon High School. You remember that. He played at Mount Vernon High School, which people forget. Mount Vernon is big time. Yeah, how good a player was he? I always say he's an excellent player for an actor. He's not good, but for an actor, he's really, really good.

He's amazing. Was he a scorer? No, he was a player. He knew how to play. That's what he was. No, he was a player. You know, he knew how to play. That's what he was. He was a nice basketball player. You'd love him in a pickup game, games in Bristol or something like that.

He'd be good. He really would. I mean, he's a way better player than people think, but it's not like, you know, Hal Whistle or Digger, and then we're going, God, we got to put Denzel in the varsity. He can help us tomorrow against a Marquette team manager or something like that.

No. Was there any moment? Was there any moment where you were like, this is the last thing I'll let you go here, but a, this guy carries himself a certain way. We're not at all. Are we playing results here?

You know what he did? Siri, which people don't realize, you know, the campuses, Fordham has a number of campuses. people don't realize, you know, the campuses. Fordham has a number of campuses. The two big ones are Rose Hill, the old campus up in the Bronx, where most of us went undergrad, and the Lincoln Center campus,

which obviously is at Lincoln Center and has different majors and all that. And players that wherever you lived, you're eligible for the teams. It was regular to have a bunch of football players who played from the Lincoln Center campus. Denzel was at Lincoln Center because he wanted it. Now, when he did his theater stuff, undergrad at Fordham, Collins Theater was on the campus. He had to come up here. But he had to commute from downtown up to practice every time. And later on, like when we'd go see Denzel in a play on Broadway, you know,

and he'd leave you tickets and you'd go in. He knew then, he believed then that he was going to make it as an actor. And I don't, I want to say people laughed at him, but it was like, you know, yeah, he's at Lincoln Center. He's doing theater. You know, he's going to, yeah, he's going to be, he's going to be an actor. I remember when, you'd know the show because New England and Boston, St. Elsewhere. I don't think I ever saw the show, but that was like his first where he really started making it big. Didn't he have a pretty good role on St. Elsewhere? That's a little before my time, believe it or not.

Like I'm not, look, it was around. He was set in Boston, I believe. And, but I mean, like when you look back, he flat out believed that's what he was going to be. And he was motivated even then to do that. And he loved the basketball. It was a pain in the ass for him to come up, especially for sub varsity. You know what we're doing. I forget what time we practice, like early in the morning or late at night. He was always there and he's he's still friendly with all of us. Two of my brothers played with him.

My brother Kevin, who was a really good player. My brother Mark, who wasn't that good, played on the teams with him. They're still close with him. He's an unbelievable guy. Right, you should have him on. Seriously. I had him on years ago, and I'll end with this story. It was one of my first lessons in understanding fame and PR

and the tears that we're all in. And when Van Pelt and I were just getting started doing the show, he was promoting a movie and his PR people reached out to our producers. And first of all, Denzel's a no brainer. You say yes, if he has nothing to promote or hadn't been on TV in five years. By the way, St. Elsewhere's run start before my time. By the time it was still going in 88, I had different interests than, than network TV, but you're right in Boston. He was on at 82, 88. So good stuff. You're scattering. And I'm going, what's St. Elsewhere? I didn't even know what it was,

but he had kind of arrived. So, um, it, our producers are like, he's a huge fan of the show and not just Van Pelt. Like he thinks you guys are great. And I went, wow, he's a huge fan of the show and not just Van Pelt. He thinks you guys are great. And I went, wow, that's awesome. So he comes on and in a seven or eight minute radio phoner, which is impossible now thinking about the way we do interviews on more of the long form stuff. He blows it.

I mean, it's Denzel Washington. Makes you feel good about yourself a little bit. Reminds you that he's in charge and he's as big a star as anybody. And it's great. So fast forward, I don't know, later that calendar year, maybe we're at USC back when, before they got in trouble for the Hollywood atmosphere on the sidelines, those sidelines back then, I wish everybody got to experience that for a quarter because it would just be a free for all of celebrities at like one of the end zone pylons. And you would go like, I don't even want to stand there. Cause I don't

feel like I deserve to. Pete Carroll was born born to coach those things he absolutely i mean carroll was like more of that and then when they got in trouble it's like let's get they need to get back to that by the way um but they're so scared to do it and obviously it's not going to happen anytime soon so denzel's standing near a first down marker kind of by himself and he's you know black coat black hat you know he likes the black on black hat look and you know he's kind of standing a little wide you get a wide stance going and i'm like oh fuck it denzel my boy like i'm gonna say hi to him because we just like i'm like hey man what's up it's yourself and i like two huge guys are immediately on me like what the fuck what are you doing like? Like he was, he was given space

because everybody else had understood that if you go near him, there's going to be some security guy. And I was like, oh, hey. And he just kind of looked at me like, whoa, what's going on here? And I was like, all right. And I was lucky enough to figure out immediately

the transaction was not going to go the way I thought it was. So that's my Denzel story. That's because of our radio faces. That's the problem. That's the problem. When you have voices this sexy, they don't want the face to distract the consumer.

PJ, you are without question one of my favorite guys to talk basketball with. I hope everybody enjoyed this. Let's do it again at some point, all right? Absolutely, Ry. Thanks for having me on, man. Good luck. First installment of This Week with the World Wide Web. Do you ever say websites with www.anymore, Kyle?

We used to do that when we were kids. No, I don't think so. It's sort of like a parody if you do, right? Yeah. I'll tell you, if you do it now, look out. Some name calling coming your way. I always kind of like the jokes about, you know, on Twitter, where you'd be like, this website or whatever, and, you know, I can't believe this website's free. I thought everybody kind of like the jokes about, you know, on Twitter where you'd be like this website or whatever.

And, you know, I can't believe this website's free. I thought everybody kind of understood that. But every now and then, I've only done it a couple of times. I've only dared to where I would just be like, you know, the thing about this website. And then you get some dude, some ruffian, puddle him. They're like, man, you said website. Oh, wow. Even saying website is grounds for jokes now, huh?

Well, the joke is that you're saying website. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. I could get WWW, but. Yeah. So the first thing I want to jump on, I love this video. I watched it 10 times.

I can't stop watching it. Is David Pasternak of the Bruins after the Tahoe game where he lights it up. They dressed in 80s accessories and gear, full-blown Macho Man shades, fanny pack, the whole deal. The setting at Tahoe was incredible. I got to admit, there was like a 10-second jealousy moment where I was like, man, look at those guys. They're on a boat and they're watching hockey.

I got to figure some stuff out here. I got to take a little bit more time. It's been about a year and a half since I've taken any time off. I was like, wait, what? What the hell is going on? Hockey, boat, fleece, the whole deal. All right, so Pasternak says this when they brought him out for the postgame. Well, we were listening to Barbie Girl before you guys asked me to the media.

So I was kind of dancing with these glasses out in the locker room And then you guys ruined it and I had to go answer the question So I missed the Barbie Girl song And who knows what's going to be on when I come back Okay, that's the Barbie Girl song Late 90s, I think, early 2000s for me That's Venga Boys, right? Kyle? that's Venga boys, right? Kyle.

Yeah. You're not, you're not going to get the right answer out of me. I know what you're talking about, but, um, Oh my God. No,

it isn't. It's Aqua. I had no idea. I mean, I don't know. Honestly, I don't even think that's on me. I think that whole,

that whole genre was tough to keep track of, to be honest with you. But the Banga Boys, is it Banga or Banga? I don't know. Who cares? I think it's V, but I think there's like a hard, weird front end of the pronunciation there. So all I can tell you is that the song brings back memories.

But to see Pasternak and then say that the way it is, you just put him down immediately. Like, there's no way he's a bad hang. There's zero chance. I mean, he's Czech Czech Republic. I remember some of the Czech hockey players of Vermont because you always used to have this big combo of guys. You'd have the Quebecois. You'd have the kids from Quebec. Then you'd have guys from way west. By the way, after finishing a story, you guys have no idea how close we were to owning the entire Pacific coast. These United States of America, we were going to go all the way from Baja or whatever vancouver island all the way up keep going all the way to alaska but guys just got bored they got busy with other stuff and it was it was very

very close because that whole british columbia thing like great britain thought they were keeping all of that that they were keeping washington oregon trail all that territory they thought they were keeping all of it and it was was like, no, you're not. And I don't know, the 1812 war treaties that I've read personally, there's a lot missing. I always felt historically, as scholars can argue against that. But back to Pasternak, we had guys that were just straight from the Czech Republic. And you couldn't figure out what the hell to do with those guys. They used to have T-shirts that said, check me out.

And then one of the guys gave one to me because I just loved it so much I think I'm somebody probably stole it from me but I can't imagine the most disappointing thing ever would be for somebody to be like you know what Pasternak actually sucks sucks to hang out with bad time across the board all of it's an act so that would blow my mind the other thing I want to jump on quickly here did you see those Oklahoma kids fight each other? The Sooners receiver there, Holder, who apparently, I mean, it sucks that he had eye surgery. But two tall guys started with some shorter dudes. And the shorter dude turns and looks at his friend after he gets pushed and smiles with this smile that is, I can't wait to beat the shit out of these guys.

How much fun is this going to be? And then stops to slap the kid first with his left hand to kind of set up his right hand. And he takes him down into a just floor of piss. The guys in the urinal keep it moving. And then a guy's filming the whole thing. He's all over it. And then the other buddy tries to help his now football buddy who's getting mopped and he gets just swallowed up by a shorter guy. And then he ends up getting really the worst of it at the end because he gets smashed into a stall door. And then the guy just works them on the ground when he has no chance of, of coming back. The weird weird thing was is that the first version of it was reported by, I think, a Sooners athletic website, and that he was jumped,

and that it was unfortunate. He was the greatest kid ever. Yeah, and then the video came out. It was like, actually not a great move. He might be a great kid. Look, you're in college. You drink. You feel entitled.

You're on a football team. You're taller. You have a sick jacket going. And, you know, you've seen it happen where the bigger guy is not taking it as seriously and the other guy's a legit fighter. They're saying he's 10 years trained in MMA. Bit of a zag. I think his clenches were a little loose, but that might have been the urine. So I don't know. but that kid wanted to fight.

One kid really wanted to fight and the other guy wasn't really ready to fight and was just being a tall, tall dickhead about it. So, um, there you go. Your breakdown, Kyle, for the people. I mean, I think it's great that this segment is called, um, today in the worldwide web because the worldwide web really helped me appreciate the video i think it might have been big cat who was like uh the camera work it was like one of those guys in the chris long one of those content guys yeah it was just like

can you just take a second and look at this guy's camera work think about how small that bathroom is and how he caught every and then uh kevin clark i think was like this guy who's pissing in the urinal literally never stops and got rocked a full piss and got out of there like totally fine there's just little things it was just a fight video to me and then because of the people in our universe on the worldwide web i appreciated a lot more so it's a great segment because the internet really bolstered this video for me if i watched it by myself i wouldn't have appreciated as much yeah there was a lot of there was there was all sorts of chiming in on it i don't know that i saw full cauliflower ear the other friend who grabs the because the other dude's like wait my buddy's getting work let me jump in here and then the other small like it's basically two small guys

against two tall guys and the two small guys are ready to go and you know somebody had said like oh never fight short guys like that i don't know that was ever said that yeah yeah right like short guys definitely will i've seen short guys get super mad but then when i say oh he's got the short guy thing i've seen tall guys get really mad and be drunk and do stupid shit too so is that actually an anti short person thing to say, Oh, short guys get bad all the time. I think it is.

I think we need to reevaluate that conversation. Um, maybe the Atlantic can get on that, but I, I don't know that I saw full blown cauliflower ear. I saw a kid that starts the whole fight and finishes it. The tough kid. I saw a friend, i saw a guy look at

his friend and smile to be like we're about to beat the shit out of these guys and that's when you were like oh yeah that was movie like yeah yeah so i saved that yeah i saved that picture so i don't know i don't know who's i don't know what happened here using cowboy boots too what i didn't even notice that yeah i'm using cowboy boots but yes i meant to say this this is the last thing is when the second friend goes to hold off the other big guy and then he throws him big you could see his back there's like i know this is weird but there's a shot of his back in his shirt underneath it i was like oh okay these guys get a little of a cobra back going here and these guys are ready to go. You never want to fight wrestlers.

First sign of a cauliflower ear. It is usually true too. The guy that doesn't say anything is the guy that you want to worry about because we've all been there younger, stupid, in front of people and you just get mouthy and yelling and yelling and no one ever does anything. That guy did something.

It sucks because there's not many of those guys, but if you get one, it's the worst. And on top of that, oh, my wrestler buddy over here is going to beat up your friend too. I would transfer. I would think about getting in the transfer portal soon. Like, you know what? They don't have the right major. I've always liked tourism. And I just, you know, I don't have the right major i've always liked tourism and i just you know i

don't think i get to hold enough they're not using me i don't like our i don't like the system in the way we hold on kicks if you're a regular guy and not a part of a program this would go away a lot faster yeah that's a good point a lot faster yeah no it would just be a fight you're just some guy you wouldn't even say what school you're from if you were just some guy getting beat up in a bathroom, but now you're on a team. Life advice. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet.

What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. LifeDeviceRR at gmail.com. I want to compliment so many people that have jumped in on this

because I didn't think it would last this long, and now I don't think it's ever going away. You just keep coming up with... I don't want to do Lonely Hearts Corner here, but I just didn't know if it was like, hey, I want a job. Is it this hard? In my 20s, I'm lost.

Holy shit, I'm in my 40s, I'm lost. I broke up with somebody. But no, you guys are coming in with angles on this that make it great. So keep them coming in with angles on this that make it um great so keep them coming in again life advice rr at gmail.com okay our guy check it in shout out to kyle one of my friends is seeing this guy now uh i've never met the dude but he requested to follow me on instagram okay so our emailer is male, his friend is female, and she started dating a guy who the emailers never met, but that he did a request follow on Instagram after I hung out with her and her roommate one night. I didn't know who the dude was, but I saw my two friends followed him on Insta, so I asked them who he was.

This turned into a huge red flag to my friend who was seeing the dude. I think it's a little weird that he wanted to follow me without ever meeting me, but it's not that crazy, is it? So my questions are, is this a red flag? Did I mess up this dude's chances with my friend? Should I even care? She is my bro, not him. I think it's a little weird, but I don't think it's a major red flag.

What about, like exactly does anybody ever default that maybe some guys are actually incredibly friendly now it could be completely calculated maybe he is a like a crazy person yeah because it is it is kind of like i don't have an answer for you because i don't know the deal with it maybe he's just really friendly and was like okay fine it seems weird i would not do it Major red flag means she probably just doesn't even like him that much anyway. If she really, really liked him, she would be like, oh, that's cool. He'd love to meet everybody where the second she finds something else that turns her off about the guy, now she's just adding to that pile of stuff. And now this is in that pile.

So you probably jammed him up a little bit here. I don't know if it's something he can't ever recover from. Um, and you probably shouldn't care at all. Again, you've never met him, but the whole thing is, is really delicate. It just, it's, it's funny how you could be dating somebody and when they like you they could say oh you know i love that he's so independent and he goes on trips by himself and he you know he'll he'll just he's so spontaneous he'll just go to the store alone and i don't even know that he's gone and i love that about him and i love that about us and then as soon as she doesn't like you, she's like, selfish prick.

Went to fucking Maui with his buddies to surf. Like, he doesn't even ask me if I want anything from the fucking store and he comes back with like the wrong stuff all the time. You know what I mean? Like, it could be the same thing,

but it's just processed entirely different based on whether or not you're into the person or not or you want to be. So, if she really, really was into the person or not or you want to be so if she really really was into the dude she'd get over it um I don't I don't think she there probably just wasn't enough there

for her to go all right I want to overlook this because I'm still into him Kyle I agree little weird probably not a major red flag don't what's the weirdest social media thing you do um I guess I go way back like let's see you go back to 2015 on here you know that's about it hey you go back and look at somebody's profile and look at their earliest posts i don't think

that's weird yeah i i guess but i mean if you if you slip your thumb onto the like button then it becomes weird. And you know what? Sometimes everybody's doing that to each other. There was a point where I was like, you know what? Everybody says it's weird. I'm going to go the other way. A zag,

if you will be like, fuck it. Let's see what you say. 2017 sorority party. Like I love this move and I, I endorse it. I think it's smart instead of like hey i got busted yeah i got busted just want to see what you're about it's out there who's who's liking those pictures now i am nobody else yeah but it's funny though how that works it's like he went back and

looked like okay you're gorgeous and there's 400 pictures of you and we started talking and now i'm gonna look at a few of them what like it'd be weirder for me to be like well you know i can't i can't possibly like a photo from 2019 fall the thing that is always a little weird is the like blitzkrieg that you'll get oh yeah where you're just like okay so all right you want me to notice you you'd like 400 photos in a row like okay psychopath that one unfortunately that does it well it's a way to get noticed not in the way you're looking for but it's like if it's between never noticing you and noticing you that it definitely achieves the goal in some some aspect we get a richard je Richard Jefferson check-in.

People really like that pod. I'm going to do this just because I thought it was great. I know this isn't the purpose of this email address, but I have a Richard Jefferson story. I went to undergrad at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa,

2003 to 2008. My roommate and I frequently went out to the bars on Tuesday or Wednesday night, the dead of winter. Look at you guys. And like the drunk idiots we were one night, went to a Taco Bell for some late night drunk food after the bar closed. To our surprise, Richard Jefferson of all people was in the line ahead of us at Taco Bell. A guy that my roommate was friends with, I swear it was not me, began talking shit about Luke

Walton, Jefferson's former Arizona Wildcat teammate. We knew that here on the spot, but I appreciate you surrounding the story. I don't know why. I guess being drunk 20-year-olds is the only answer. Jefferson turned around and looked at the guy and said, do you play for the Lakers? No. Then shut the fuck up. The whole scenario, NBA player Jefferson in Iowa City in the dead of winter back in 0405, I think sounds ridiculous, but it happened. Anyway, I will never not think of Iowa City's head mall Taco Bell when I see here Richard Jefferson. What a legend. All right. There you go.

I like that. If the story was going to make Richard Jefferson look cool because he is cool, then that's what we're going to do. This is a good one. I like this one because it's not easy, but it makes sense. Okay. 32, touring musician. This guy's putting himself out there a bit, but I don't think he doesn't want to. Because if you're in that real tight music circle, he's a fellow Cape Cod to California transplant living in Oakland. Dude, I'm an island guy. All right. No need to change any details regarding the story in question that people involved don't listen to the podcast. Okay. No offense. It's just people involved wouldn't understand a Jason Tatum reference, let alone a Vitaly Potapenko reference that makes the

pod great. A couple of years ago, I met a girl that lives in Nashville, but it's from the San Jose area. Originally, we immediately hit it off, but due to my work and our distance, our relationship never solidified. She came home to the Bay Area for holidays and a few times just to see me. And I flew out to Nashville a few times to see her over the course of the six month relationship. But ultimately I felt like even though I was really into her and cared about her, the distance wasn't going to work for me and neither of us are moving. So I broke it off off we were never officially dating and i made it a point the whole length of the relationship about my apprehension about the distance and in the moment it seemed like we were on the same page when i broke it off she didn't take it well we haven't spoken since all right so again we were

never officially dating you know you never know what that means the official part of it because there's times like wait what i didn't know did we do where's the paperwork involved i didn't get anything i have the wrong address so he kept saying the whole time apprehension about the distance blah blah blah um but then he broke it off and he hasn't talked to her since okay fast forward a few months i have a friend john at one point i would regard as my best friends who lives in long island a fellow musician who was with me when i met this girl originally due to the nature of Okay, fast forward a few months. I have a friend, John. At one point, I was regarded as my best friend who lives in Long Island, a fellow musician who was with me when I met this girl originally. Due to the nature of our relationship, we often would go a month or two without speaking.

And after a few months of no word from him, I started noticing on Instagram that the two of them were hanging out in Long Island. Uh-oh. They don't live anywhere near each other. So I quickly realized the trip must have been planned. One Instagram story turned into a full weekend's worth. And then a week later, them hanging out in Nashville, still no word from John. I bring it up to some mutual friends. They confirm my suspicions. They are now dating.

It took about three months from when I noticed the Instagram stories, but John reached out to me to talk about it. And I didn't respond. I'm currently in a relationship and happy. Ultimately, what I'm asking here is, do I have the right to be mad or am I the asshole? They never would have met without the connection to me. And while I decided I couldn't be in a relationship with her, I still very much cared for her. I don't think I could fully ever trust John again

after a move like that. Oh, you think? Should I get over it and patch it back up with John or do I have a point here? Thanks for the pod and wishing you and Kyle the best. Okay, there's a few ways. I don't think you're being upset about this. You're not the asshole at all. Okay. You have every right to be upset, but there's only like a certain level of upset that you should allow yourself to get to and that you're really justified in getting to.

So some of it, and I'm not saying this is your ego here because you don't sound like a crazy ego guy in the email. I don't know. But a lot of times, the ego can get in your way where even if you're not with the girl, you're not bothered that you're not with her, but then you get really worked up about the idea of her with somebody else as if it's still like everybody else is supposed to back off the whole time. Some people are incredibly mature about this. Maybe mature is the right word, but disconnected in a way. I remember there was, just use examples, there was a girl that I dated, broke up, and I think a week later, I was in a situation where I was with her roommate and it was a week later after we'd broken up. roommate. And it was a week later after we'd broken up and nothing happened, but it was heading in that direction. And then she found out about it and she was like, well, whatever, it's not a big deal. We're broken up. And I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong with you? How are

you not mad about this? We'd been dating and we're still sort of talking. And a week later, I'm at this house and it's late and it's kind of going in that direction. And this is like early 20s stuff. But I couldn't believe that she was so forgiving or not even like she's like, well, look, whatever the technical term in her head was of dating and not dating, that once you weren't dating, it was a total free-for-all. free-for-all. So there's another part of it too, where you said they would have never met if it wasn't for you. Okay. I get it. I also had another situation with somebody that was very serious that I was dating that after I'd left town and look, I left town. I started to pursue my whole deal of whatever it was that I was trying to do. And I didn't ask the girl to come with me.

And I was a prick about it most of the time. And she couldn't help herself with like dated. Everybody she dated had to be somebody that like I knew it was a guy that also was like younger than me. I think his name even was my name and bartended at the same fucking place I bartended at. And I'm like, wait, she's dating this fucking guy now. Like what, how did this happen? And we never talked about it. And there's no way they would have known each other if it wasn't for me being, although, you know, whatever you bartend, it's not like people have to get a permit to come meet you. And then there was another guy that was kind of in the circle of friends, but not like one of my

main guys. But if we were together randomly having beers, nobody would have thought it was weird. And then they got together and I was like, okay, this, he never ever would have talked to this girl ever, ever. If it wasn't for me having around for a couple of years, but I was gone, man, I was gone. And so I didn't like it, but I had to accept some level of responsibility for it. And I do remember after the fact, they were like, well, you know, he said that you guys weren't really friends. And of course, I never let that go until years and years later, I was back up visiting and he was like, oh, hey, man, what's going on?

And I was like, oh, I thought we weren't friends. And then my buddies were like, are you seriously not going to let that go? You're still that pissed about it? I was like, no, here's the point is that if it was going to happen to me and your justification is that we weren't friends, but now we're going to be like, oh, hey, what's up? Really proud of you. Fuck off, man. Like we're either friends or we're not. And you decided we're not. So I don't want anything to do with you. And they were like, dude, you need to grow up and relax. So I don't always handle it well. All right. I didn't back then. And I don't know that I'd be great about it now. So I kind of get that part of you. And I'm not bragging. I'm admitting to you that it'd be great. Like when I have other friends that are just like, whatever, dude, like I'm not with her. I don't care.

I'm like, man, that's pretty cool. It's pretty cool that you're so detached from it all. I would, I don't know. I'd rather do that than have this. And you're not even like, I'm kind of going down a road that I don't even think you're at right now. So here's, here's ultimately, I think the most important part of the email. You're happy. You're you're at right now. So here's ultimately, I think, the most important part of the email. You're happy. You're in a relationship right now.

That's why Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a great movie, but it's completely unrealistic because Jason Segel's character's on an absolute tear post the TV girl. And a lot of us don't have that option after we lose our dream girl. We don't just get to go out and hang out with any other woman that we want

for the next couple of weeks. Now that part of the movie is like, wait, so this guy's going on an absolute sex bender and he's still depressed. Like what the hell's going on here? So that's the part of the movie where I'm like, um, they should have done that differently. He should have been a complete disaster by himself. Nobody wants to talk to him because most of us, when we're completely heartbroken, don't have the game. And he didn't have the game either. That was just a flaw in the movie. So you're happy.

So yeah, be annoyed. And maybe he could handle the different way, but what's the better way of him handling it? Immediately? Hey, what's up, buddy? It's John,

the musician in Long Island. I'm going to start reaching out and pursuing your ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to be straight up with you. Nobody would do that. She wasn't going to do that. And you can care about her and you can be annoyed, but you didn't want to date her and you didn't want to do a long distance deal. And it would have been cooler if she met somebody else that wasn't your buddy.

And yeah, I think the relationship forever with that guy will be a little different, but you know, if he's into her and she's into him, then you can't really stop it, you know, cause then you look like a prick. Just be happy that you have somebody else that you've met and you've been happy with.

And I would say, move on from it mentally. Okay. That's the podcast for today. Please spread the word and subscribe. And also later this week, hopefully some draft stuff again. We're going to just try to do a lot of draft heavy deal. And then I'm trying to tape with Max Homa here soon just to talk to him about his win at Riviera.

And everybody being excited about it for him because he was great when he came on the podcast. He's gone on. He went on with Big Cat and PFT as well. So I think he's crossed over to being a popular guy. So we were happy he got that win after choking on that putt at 18. I was like, oh, man, this sucks. And he admitted he choked, or I would have said that because I don't really like that word

because you throw it around a little bit too much. Okay, let's stop talking, and we'll see you next time. you