The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Trade Trae Young? Plus Tales From the Couch: Christmas Day, and Life Advice

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the rumors that Trae Young could be the next NBA star to request a trade (0:34), before running through the NBA Christmas Day games in Tales From the Couch (14:51). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (38:39). Host: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

okay the plan for today because we were doing this sort of last minute it was going to be a tales from the couch but we were doing a lot of football midweek and there was basketball's christmas man so tales from the couch and what i think about this latest Trey Young story, which you can probably guess. And then we'll do a long life advice that we've already taped it. There's some lows and then some highs. So, enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now.

Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Before we get to Tales from the Couch, I want to talk about Trey Young. Okay. There was a quote this week. Chris Haynes had it. So I haven't been on

since the quote came out. Said, quote, Rival execs are of the belief that Atlanta Hawks star point guard Trey Young could be the next player on a rookie max extension to request a trade. Okay.

Let's get a couple things out of the way. I've talked about Trey Young a lot. It's very clear I'm not a huge fan of watching him play, even though I think he's immensely talented. He is. We'll get to all that stuff. I'll revisit the timeline quickly so everybody can get up to speed.

I'll do that a little bit later on because I'm going to go here for a bit. All right. When I saw that quote, I was like, if I were Atlanta, I'd actually trade him. I'd trade him this year. I'd just get it over with because I think that's where this is ultimately going to go. Now, some people could hear this and go, wait a minute, if it's rival execs, aren't they doing that just to mess with Atlanta? Wouldn't that be giving the rival execs their wish? Yeah, maybe. And if it truly is the rival execs, then you can dismiss a lot of what

I'm going to say. But I've been around a long time. And this doesn't really feel that way. It feels a bit like it's a message that somebody wanted to get out as a warning to the Atlanta Hawks, and if that's what it is, that's why I would say trade. Now, I know there's so many of you that love the Hawks, love Trey Young.

He's your guy. I get it. He's the face of the franchise. You're sick of hearing me talk negatively about him. That's fine, too. I get it. If you were my favorite player,

I wouldn't want to listen to me either, but I can tell you this. As much as this could come back and I'll get it wrong and everything will work out in Atlanta years from now. All right, fine. But that's not how I feel. That's not how I feel like this is going. And then there's always the automatic defense of, oh, you're just doing this for your attention. You're doing it for clicks. I don't need them. The podcast does really well. I'm not trying to be a dick about it. I'm just stating the facts. There wasn't a day where I go, man, things are slowing down. I better talk about the Atlanta Hawks again. It doesn't work that way.

So to further continue on this quote, I also have been around long enough to know that I just don't know. The Hawks aren't much of a threat. So even if you think you've convinced yourself that it's other teams just trying to mess with Atlanta, which in my gut tells me that's not what this is, I've talked to enough people over the years that it doesn't really happen that much where a guy from a competing team's like, hey, here's a little nut, and he completely makes it up thinking that team's going to be a mess now for the next couple months. I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it is that. My instincts tell me that it isn't. My instincts tell me that this is kind of a warning from the Trey Young side of things where it's like, if this team doesn't get better, then I'm going to look to move on because

that's the way this league works. And it's so funny because just the other day, Brian Winhorse and I talked for an hour on this podcast and being like, man, who's the next guy? Because he's coming. It just seems like it's a little bit more quiet, right? And there's always the next guy. When you think there isn't going to be the next guy, there's always the next guy. So maybe it could be Trey. And again, maybe the quote is from the rival exec who's just kind of messing with the Hawks. I just don't feel like that's the way things work, okay? So if this is a warning to the organization, let's go over my timeline.

When Trey first came along, he gets picked high. The Donchik trade looks like, what are you guys doing? Summer League's a disaster. So I actually had, I felt bad for him. Like in Summer League, it looked like he couldn't play basketball. And that was not the guy you saw at Oklahoma. At Oklahoma, you saw a guy who was an incredible passer, didn't have a lot of talent around him, took a lot of bad shots because I think he just felt like I have to do this on my own. And so his success as a rookie is you're like, okay, this guy's going to play. He's going to play for a long time. So the summer league horror show, like that was just a blip.

It wasn't even real. You didn't have to worry about it. When you watch him, you're like, okay, the passing is incredible. There's unlimited range. You know, you kept getting like, is that really a good shot? And even if it wasn't good enough shot, they were kind of going in enough to justify him taking some of these, like, look at me, 30 footers. Right. Um, the way he's officiated, which drives me fucking crazy is a benefit to his game. He's mastered it. He's mastered all the little movements, initiating all the contact because

he's smaller and his body's going to move in a way off a bigger body the refs just go for it all the time again i hate it good for him it works a lot but there was something that i noticed and i'm pretty sure i was the first national guy to ever point this out i don't think any local guys were because all of you i saw all the stuff you would say and how pissed you would get when i pointed out i noticed something in his rookie year that you just don't see very often he was so ball dominant as a rookie with some guys that have been in the league now for a while that if he took a bad shot and then they were able to get a stop at the other end, defensive rebound, they wouldn't always get the ball right back to him. He'd be looking at him and be like, hey, I'm the point guard.

I'm going to bring the ball up. And you could see it. And I pointed it out on the Woj pod and people lost their minds because they were looking at counting stats being like, this guy's really good. He's getting like 20 games a rookie year. Then you go to a second year and he's 30 and nine you're like holy shit okay he's made a couple all-star teams gets the 2021 eastern conference finals they beat the knicks who look were overachievers in philadelphia who completely fell apart as an

organization in that series uh yet to trey's credit, the thing that I, despite my concerns and not loving him as a player, I had to give it up for him and that guy's the least scared dude that's out there. And that's something I always appreciate about any player.

It's like, hey, are you scared? Do you want this? Do you have those things inside of you that makes you, in big moments, you're up for it? And I think Trey actually has a lot of that. So that run was very empowering. They also got rid of Lloyd Pierce.

There was a mid-season deal there when he lost his gig and Nate McMillan came in. Nate's part of the run to the Eastern Conference Finals. I remember reading a piece in The Athletic and I was like, man, this feels like just a massive anonymous source hit piece. Again, I'm pro-anonymous source. If we didn't have them, it'd all be a lot less interesting. Okay. And we can say, oh, that means that people can just say whatever they want. I'm just telling you the way it works. All right. We wouldn't have any fucking trade rumors ever about anything if we never had anonymous sources. All right. It just

wouldn't work that way. But in this case, it was like, man, they're really laying into Lloyd Pierce. And then you would heard other stuff about like playing with Trey, this case, it was like, man, they're really laying into Lloyd Pierce. And then you had heard other stuff about playing with Trey. But look, it was Trey's team, so nothing was really ever going to change. They change out the coach. They make that run. And it feels kind of like the next step. Like, oh, look at this young team. They get to these conversations.

But I've worn different fan bases over the years. It can be really fluky. I think last year's Dallas run is kind of fluky, especially when you look at where the Mavs are in the West. Portland, when they got smoked by Golden State, even after Durant went out in 19, was like, okay, you made it to Western Conference Finals, but I don't know that's the neighborhood

you're going to live in. Denver against the Lakers, not that long ago as well. Like, hey, this is the next step. Or maybe it's a flirtation with a neighborhood you're never going to live in. And that's how it feels now, a of years removed for the Atlanta Hawks. I like the roster, but when you look at the rest of the East and how much better it's gotten,

you don't look at Atlanta saying, Oh, they can take out any of those four teams in front of them. I don't, I don't feel that way. So they get rid of, they get rid of peers. It seems like the Nate thing isn't going to work out. Travis Schleck, who was running this whole organization, steps aside or is reassigned.

It felt like he had been on the hot seat for like two years from this ownership group. So Trey is getting his way. And we had that moment this year too, when Trey didn't want to show up to the shoot around, said he was hurt, which he was obviously hurt. But then it was pretty clear he wanted to try to show up Nate by not showing up to the game. And that became a whole thing. And you know what? There weren't that many anonymous quotes coming to Trey's defense. I don't remember hearing it. Right. So then they bring into Jante Murray, which is something that Trey wanted. But I also thought the team, the front office did this to try to balance out this basketball team a little bit more instead of becoming the most predictable offense in the NBA

which is what it is. But they split them so much when you watch the sub-patterns, it's pretty clear like they're trying to do more of the Chris Paul James Harden stuff with DeJounte and Trey and letting them run it until they start together and then close together. And then it kind of turns back into what we see, which is a ton of high pick and roll for Trey to figure out what he's going to do. This front office has done a good job with this roster. So the Travis part of it, I was like, okay,

but he's actually done a good job. Picking off Bogdanovich, having this backcourt, DeAndre Hunter, who I still wonder developmentally if it's the best spot for him because he just doesn't get to initiate any offense on his own. He has moments where I'm like, I think I like him. I like the double bigs that they can go back and forth with, with a Kong Wu and Clint. Collins, who isn't perfect and I haven't always loved and feels like he's been available since he was at Wake Forest, is not a guy without talent. A.J. Griffin looks like a steal.

Now, he went late because he's always hurt, but it's clear that once he's allowed to have the ball a little bit more, which is rare, but even rare actually at Duke because all the talent they had there, that there's more to him than just sitting in the corner hoping to hit an open three. And Jalen, who to me was a no coming out of Duke, looks like a player who might be a maybe. So there's actually some depth here. I'm not telling you he's the best roster in the East, but I thought they've done a good job. But we all know what's going to happen here because they're not good enough.

So Nate will end up losing his job. They're 19th on offense this season. They run the most pick and roll ball handler in the NBA. They're 13th on D, which is actually a massive improvement from 26 last year and 18th the year before that in the previous two seasons. This offense that is this predictable is 26 in free throw attempts, despite Trey getting his eight to nine attempts per game, which is down a bit from his peaks. They're 27th from three.

And so you can talk about, well, Ryan, you're pointing out that this coaching staff isn't doing a good job and that they are super predictable. It's so obvious what they're going to run every single time. Now, to Trey's credit, he's so good and dynamic in the lob game that it's almost impossible to stop him on it. He's mastered it. He's fucking awesome. So it's a comfort default, right? It's something that he defaults to because he's so good at it,

so comfortable with. It sucks for everybody else, the other three guys that aren't in that play. And I just don't know that you can play team basketball this way where you feel like you're sitting around. It's not fun. It's not fun. Where is the quote where one person's like, I'm actually having a blast. This is fun.

This is great. When he drags it out and we all stand around wondering if he's going to pull it from 30 feet or lob it to one of the two bigs. And I know the counting people are going to come back at me with the assist numbers. I'm telling you, I think he's a great passer. I'm also telling you, I think when you have the ball as much as some of the guys have in the league today, assist numbers don't really tell you the full story. I would submit the Westbrook triple-double season from 16-17.

Submit the Westbrook triple-double season from 16-17. So the other thing is that Trey clearly wants to play this way. So you can bring in the next coach. It's supposedly going to fix everything. This reminds me a lot of the LeBron stuff. Now, LeBron's a much better teammate than Trey Young is. But LeBron, they bring in athletes. You've got to get out and run with this guy. Look at him.

No, LeBron wants to slow it down. Look at the pace numbers from all the peak LeBron years. He wants to dictate everything that's going to happen. And by the way, it always worked. So why would you argue what LeBron wants to do? The player, the star player, the guy who has the ball and is making the decisions most of the time, if he's that good, he's going to decide, no, this is actually what I want to do and how I want to play. Trey wants to play this way. So you can all dream about how different it's going to decide, no, this is actually what I want to do and how I want to play.

Trey wants to play this way. So you can all dream about how different it's going to be with the next coach, the third coach, or the fourth coach. I don't think that's necessarily going to happen. So back to Trey. He turned 24 in September. Two All-Star games. All NBA third team last season.

You don't trade a guy like this, right? I know the shooting sucks this year, but he's not a 30% three-point shooter. It's not going to happen. But he's a small point guard who's running the most predictable offense in the NBA and becomes even more of a problem in the playoffs, as we saw with Miami. I think 2021 was a fluke. He's always a defensive liability. But Atlanta will never do this until it's too late.

And this is all predicated on if this is actually a warning to the organization more so than just a rival executive board in Las Vegas. Because he's their guy. He's the guy that sells their jerseys. He's the face of the franchise. He's the guy that's in every promo. He's the guy that's on the cover of the media guides. He's the sellable thing because his fan base loves him so much.

And trust me, whenever I do these rants, you remind me every single time. Maybe he figures it out on the third or fourth coach when he's 27 or 28. Because that's kind of sometimes once you've made your money, once you've got your individual accolades and you're like, you know what? Losing all the time kind of sucks, though. It's like that Celtics team in 2007, 2008. All of those guys had done individual things. They were old enough,

and they were collectively over it enough to go, okay, we all need to buy in a little bit here. And again, this Atlanta team is not that team. But this is a good roster. And for what you'd get back, because another franchise this early in the Trey Young story would be like, wait, this guy's actually available. Let's do it. I think you'd plug in those pieces to the roster that you'd already have. And I think you'd have a better situation.

You might not have that marquee item, but what is the marquee item really getting you, especially if he is going to get to the point where he thinks all of these failures are on everyone else, front office, coach, and teammates. And I'll ask it one more time. Where are any of the anonymous quotes that support playing with him? I'm not going to argue with some of you guys about this. I'm just not.

I'm not going to argue with the counting stats people. I watch it enough to know that it's not fun. And if he's going to be miserable while also being empowered, that's a brutal combination. And again, if he's totally happy and thinks it's great, he's there for the long haul and wants to make some adjustments, then fine,

keep them. And they're going to keep them anyway. But if this is coming from him, I wouldn't wait three or four years to find out if this is going to be solved. Okay, let's pivot Christmas tales from the couch. We start

with the Knicks and Philadelphia, both teams that have been hot lately. RJ Barrett, since I said, you know, I just want to see that next step, the progression from where he was last year. He's on fire. And then Harden really got it going from deep. 108-98. Niang hits a three.

Philly had been down 14 points. The Philly zone really messed up the Knicks. Then Brunson left the game, so that adds to it. Then he came back, but it wasn't. You could just see. I know everybody thinks Doc is terrible. There actually are some adjustments that happen with Philadelphia

on a night-to-night basis where I'm like, oh, that was pretty cool. Randall kind of felt like he was forcing it. It just felt like a ton of individual Knicks guys being so stymied that it got really ugly offensively for them. On the other side, the Knicks had a brutal time dealing with Harden at the top because they were running this switch. And this actually happened a lot without Embiid, who's been on an absolute tear again.

I mean, it's just who he is at this point. Mitchell Robbins getting in foul trouble, kind of changed momentum a little bit there too as well for the Knicks. But the Knicks offense, again, everybody watch the game just falling apart here late. But, you know, look, the Sixers are doing something really simple at the top. They were running, you know, a high screen roll Harden

and Niang made him pay like every single time. And they would send two to Harden, which makes sense. Niang hits a three. They left him. Then they ran it again and they decided to like just switch it. And then Harden got Grimes to just peak a little bit. And then Grimes still almost contested the pass, got it back to Niang, and he hit another three. And that was it like harden was just you know had had the puppet master

thing going he just knew where everybody was going to be placed and he was he was terrific here uh the elbow jumper stuff that mb was doing he was doing it last week against somebody too like it was against drop coverage they just adjusted to what they were doing it was just a free throw contest for mb i mean these teams are going to drop against Embiid this much and leave them with a wide open elbow jumper. Forget it. Might as well forfeit. It was a 21-4 76ers run. Still Maxie's out. We mentioned Brunson leaving at 359. Niang hits four threes in the fourth. And like I said in the last one,

they tried to make an adjustment off of that. They were like, no more two staying with Harden off the screen. And they still got a three on them. And that was kind of the story of the game. All right, LA, Dallas, this was so boring. Dallas was missing everything at the beginning of the game. They did mic up Jason Kidd. They were going to give us some real audio. A side note on the

audio this season in the NBA, it feels like we're hearing more and more stuff. It does. Whenever there's a timeout on the floor, not even the timeout, or just a stop in the action, and then the guys are talking, I'm all for it. It's great. I'm hearing more

things this year than I've ever heard before because I feel like the audio is cranked up a little bit. However, with J. Kidd, he said shit twice I think in for it. It's great. Like I'm hearing more things this year than I've ever heard before because I feel like the audio is cranked up a little bit. However, with J. Kidd, he said shit twice, I think in 90 seconds, but they were kind of like cool the way he delivered it.

So I'm not sure people quite realized what he had said. And I don't know that it was ever addressed in the broadcast because usually people get really, really weird about it. It was a really fun LeBron game in the first half.

He was kind of doing whatever he wanted. I also noticed in the middle of this that Green Bay on third and five ran it up 23-20 to settle for the field goal with 26-20. Now the score with 2-0-2 left. I thought, is that because they're so not afraid of Tua? Granted, Miami didn't have any timeouts, but you're kicking off at 2-0 202. You weren't going to try to go up the two scores there. Nope. I liked it. There's that. That's number one for

NFL 5 things. Number two for NFL 5 things. I'm a little worried about the Bills again or maybe the Bears are just good against the best teams. Number three would be maybe Tom Brady should just play in the fourth quarter. Number four would be you thought you had a bad time last week, Pats fans. How about coming all the way back? By Cincinnati, when they were up 22-0, I'm going, this is the right score. This is a score that

reflects who these teams are, where they're headed, and how we feel about them. And there's no complications for any of this. We're good. And then finally, Russell Wilson, number five, complications for any of this. We're good. And then finally, Russell Wilson, number five, is so bad that he might get Baker Mayfield a big-time contract next season. Okay, moving on back to tails from the couch. Those are your football five things for the weekend. A 22-point swing on this one. Lakers, this current Lakers version, to have Beverly just try to annoy Luke into a bad game doesn't seem like a great defensive strategy. The Lakers are a mess again. And it's kind of funny when Dallas is missing everything like they were in the first half.

When their offense is bad, you'll look at it and be like, okay, who are the other initiators? Like, what else do you have? Now, Kleber's out for a while. No Kemba, which is going to be hit or miss all the time. Josh Green's missing a few games. Finney Smith's out as well. So they have Frank Milakina

not available. So a lot of guys are missing in this one for him. But when Dallas is bad offensively, you're just like, okay, other than Dinwoody, who's that second creator? Like Hardaway sometimes, maybe. But a lot of it is like spacing it out. But then when it's good, you're like, oh, this is amazing. Look at all the shooting. It's spaced out the whole way.

And they had nothing for Luka. Like nothing for him when he decides he wants to get going. Okay, so Dallas wins that game. That was the most boring game of all of them. Let's get to the Celtics hosting Milwaukee Bucks. So watching Giannis defensively on the assignments and as a voter now, this is something I'm going to pay a little bit more attention to,

just constantly keeping track of the matchups because at some point I would be like, you know what? I need the best defensive, one of the supposed best defensive players in the league. And look, I say supposed as if this is negative about Giannis, and I get that the defensive assignments, a lot of it's like over the course of the season,

we don't want Giannis chasing around Jason Tatum the entire time, but he's on Rob Williams, He's on Al Horford. He's on Grant Williams at times. He did pick up Jalen in the second half. We're going to get to kind of the spot here where I think it's important to focus in on, but it's something I'm noticing more and more where even Jaron Jackson,

who we'll get to a little bit later, in that Memphis-Milwaukee game, Steven Adams is on Giannis, and probably the hope is there to beat him up, and also because Jaron Jackson can't stop fouling out of games or getting into foul trouble. So we'll address that later when we talk about Golden State's win. So the other thing that I've also been looking at this season,

because I feel like I'm seeing it more and more, it's the decision on who you want to switch into. There's so many possessions that don't make any sense to me. I watched a Brooklyn-Toronto game a couple weeks ago where I was like, wait, you want to switch off of Siakam into Scottie Barnes? That doesn't make a ton of sense. I mean, it's not as egregious as switching out.

But at one point, the Celtics did it a couple times. They switched Tatum into awful Wes Matthews into Giannis. I was like, wait, Wesley Matthews is on Tatum. And now you're running a screen with the guy Giannis is assigned to. And now you have Tatum against Giannis. Like that doesn't make any sense. And then the next time they didn't switch it and Tatum took Wes Matthews one on one and scored. And then they did it again.

But then I was looking at, okay, maybe this was something where Tatum got to switch onto Giannis, but then he swung the basketball. So maybe the goal was now that Giannis has switched onto Tatum, he knows he has to defend me to 30 feet out. And that's bringing Giannis away from the rest of the action. So there's a justification for it there if that was originally the plan. But the first time they had done it in this three-play sequence i was like wait this doesn't why would you actually want to do this and i see teams doing it all the time like that brooklyn toronto game like finally there was a

time where they're like oh wait why aren't we switching into fred van vliet like why are we screwing around with the siakam barnes decision like let's if we're gonna switch this let's switch it to the other guy especially when you're talking about Durant with the basketball going you know once you get that first switch in any kind of gap and Durant is so good too and Jalen did this yesterday too against Giannis where it's like okay if somebody is hesitating on the screen a second like I'll get into my shot attempt even earlier and Durant's pointed this stuff out in the past where he'll be like well if I see a defense doing something where the two guys are coming up off of the screen to staying with me, I may decide to just get in my shot a little bit earlier. It's almost like shot prep for yourself

mentally. So just something to look at there. It just happens to league a lot where I'm thinking, why would you switch into something that clearly is a worse situation than what you previously had other than the switch? Actually, actually you know the argument would be hey just any kind of actions getting somebody to switch and then there's some movements and now all of a sudden there's it's not so much confusion but now you're forced to make you're forcing defense to make some kind of decisions but again if you switch it and now you back it out and you're trying to iso it against a way better defensive player that to me will never make any sense all right halftime 62 61 boy that was a long screen rant.

The Celtics were 9-21 from threes. Milwaukee was only 4-16. So at 62-61, you're thinking, is this going to be a problem? And then we had more Drew on Tatum. Then Giannis was on Jalen. Giannis in the mid-range stuff, when he starts forcing the issue,

it's incredible. He starts hitting some of these mid-range shots, which makes you wonder why he's not a better shooter than some of the other areas. He's never going to give up on the threes, even though the threes always feel like a defensive win. The numbers are just not there to back up, justifying how much of a bailout it feels like.

But I still wonder with Giannis, because I'm so impressed with him every time I watch him. Is there going to be a part of his career where he actually figures this out later on? Having Rob Williams in the lineup does a couple things. One, we know defensively what the numbers were for Boston when they had them, but he just makes it hard to rebound. And there are counting rebounding numbers, and then there's also watching somebody destroy your plans around the rim where he might

not get the rebound. The team might not get the rebound, but it's just an absolute pain in the ass when this person is in there. Anderson Veragiao was always somebody like this. Robin Lopez is somebody like this. I remember when this first dawned on me, I'm going, I like guys, it's not, hey, he has 12 every night. It's that he's fighting for 40 of them every single night. And when Rob Williams is in the game, it changes what the other team thinks they're going to be able to do around the rim just on the defensive glass for the other team. So Rob, at one point, volleyballs an offensive rebound,

gets passed up to Tatum. He goes right at Giannis and finishes. That wasn't the dunk. That was another drive. The fact that Tatum is now in a position where he's going at Giannis is incredible. And it was clear from the first night that Tatum's drive package here was going to be different this season.

And everybody that talks about all season, they're right on point about it. It was a problem. His path, he would allow the defender to derail his path on drives. He was always like when you're constantly driving away from contact, there can be this epiphany as a basketball player where you're like, wait, I'm big. And I can just kind of go into the other person. Now against Giannis you're never going to be bigger than him. But the fact that Tatum sees Giannis and is like, no, I'll still just

drive right at you is such a mental win for both the player and the team. Tatum 20 points in the third. We mentioned the Rob Williams part of this. Grant Williams hits a three. They're up 1-16-91. They go up 1-20-101.

Jalen starts to go off again. And then Giannis, you're like, wait, is he going to bring them back into this thing? He hits his first three. He was only 1-5. But that was not the case. Boston ends up winning this game. There was a little dust up there with Jalen and Giannis.

I really thought it was nothing kind of on both ends, which is usually the case. Then at 337, Milwaukee subbed everybody out. Let's talk Golden State, Memphis. Pick it up at 756 in the third.

72-61. There was a take foul call on this one that was so impossible. Because now the take foul, which is a good thing because we want fast breaks, this should have never happened

to the point where we were just, everybody was taking take fouls. And I think a lot of players, half the time they were doing it because they saw everybody else doing it. It wasn't that great. They had a foul where they were going to start hacking Adams

and the pass from Ja actually went backwards and they called it a take foul. it. It wasn't that great. They had a foul where they were going to start hacking Adams and the pass from Ja actually went backwards and they called it a take foul. Now Mark Jackson tried to pretend that he knew it. He pulled the old Theismann where, you know how off camera in an NFL game, the official that threw the flag will go to the referee

and be like, hold on 71. And then Theismann be like, I think this is going to be a hold. It's like, cause you could always see the guy doing it was hilarious. Like once you figure it out, you're like, oh, and Mark Jackson was like, yeah, take foul, take foul. And then Van Gundy's losing it being like, that's, that's not even what was happening on this.

Like guys were back. Morant passed it backwards. Like, you've got to be kidding me. Kerr lost his mind. So Bain is back. Second game in. He's 6 of 26 from the floor, 2 of 15 from 3. Whatever. Not going to worry about it.

But he looked like a guy who hadn't played basketball in a long time. Klay had some moments, too, where I continue to be a little scared. Granted, John Morant's going to fly past everybody, but he got him on the baseline at one point where I don't even think Klay moved. Like, he hadn't even processed to react yet. 83-77, and a lot like the Celtics part of this where Golden State's 15-30 from three and Memphis is 5-23, I'm going like,

man, Golden State feels like they should be up by more at this point. The Golden State rotation, when they really started putting together a run, was Clay Thompson with Kaminga, with Ty Jerome, Anthony Lamb in there for a minute, Moody in there. Wiseman had had a really big game against the Knicks the other night. He only played eight minutes last night. Ty Jerome will always be one of my favorite players. I just love the way that guy plays basketball. His pace, his decision-making when you think you have them and you don't. I'd love to see him stick around in the league for a long time. He's always going to be one of my all-time favorites watching him back in college. So Poole and all these guys are starting to feel themselves. They're starting to cook. They got 11 straight. There's a timeout. Place is going wild. They're up 91-77.

And so this is the thing with Golden State. I mentioned it last week with the Curry injury. Like, could there be this silver lining that Klay feels like he has to step up his game? Draymond certainly has offensively. Poole has had some big nights. Maybe the younger guys will feel like we just have to, even though it feels like your job's going to be a little bit harder because there's just not going to be as much space because Steph makes everything easier for the other four guys that are always out there um and as i'm watching golden state feel themselves and go through all this stuff i'm also thinking like hey this is cool

you're at home on christmas doing this but don't lose by 30 to the nets and almost 40 to the next like don't be 3 and 16 on the road like i know you having, I'm not telling you to not have fun, but you shouldn't be that bad on the road if you can do this against Memphis at home. Let's talk a little bit about this Jaron Jackson play because this was insane.

So he picks up his fifth foul in 10 minutes on a screen where he grabs Wiseman's jersey. The officials call him for this fifth foul and Klay had the ball and the action, and then Clay went up to take the free throws. He takes the first one. The Memphis bench is freaking out. Want to know why? Because they're right. The foul was on Jackson near Wiseman.

There was no point of where he was touching Clay. They huddled, talked about it, and then let Clay take the second free throw. That's not why Memphis lost the game. But I'm watching this going, wait, this is so obvious what happened. And then the officials who, you know, I don't like to be on social media constantly going like, oh, these guys suck, these guys suck. You know how many times we all think they screwed up the play and then we see the replay and we're like, oh, they kind of got that right.

My bigger problem with officiating is them philosophically allowing things to happen and evolve and develop over time, where we're just heading in a direction where it's awful. That's a bigger, it's a macro issue, not a play-by-play foul here, foul there type of thing. This was absurd. I don't know that I've ever, I'm sure it's happened where they missed it,

but Memphis was calling it out, they huddled, and then they just let play take the next free throw. I'd also sign up for more Kaminga defending Ja. You're helpless against Ja, right? We get it. But Kaminga seemed really tuned up for it. Poole then got ejected. Bain kept missing shots.

Then there was like a 109-94 stretch, seven minutes plus to go, and I thought, wait, is this going to get weird? And Memphis had gone on a little bit of a run. Yeah, it was 106-86, and then it went to 105-94, but then it was over. It was so over that they threw an alley-oop to Klay Thompson, who finished with a layup on that alley-oop attempt. You don't see that a lot. The alley-oop back, and Clay was like, what the fuck are you doing here?

I don't know. Like, with Boston, the Milwaukee result, ooh, this means emphatically that Boston is better than Milwaukee. I'm not. Look, Milwaukee would have to be 11th seed before the playoffs started for me to even write them off, right? I know that's impossible. No Middleton in that game.

I like Boston's depth better than Milwaukee's. Ingles is going to come along at some point and start hitting shots. I think it's another big body to deal with wings. He was somebody that was always defending bigger players when he was at his peak with Utah. But when Joss says to Mal andrews in a sit down like who do you watch who do you think you have to go up against he says boston and she goes well what about the west he goes i'm fine in the west and if you're watching it you're going okay this is him being like we're good with the west we're not afraid of anybody

and there's part of it look if you're a memphis fan you're like cool cool, what's confident. And by the way, congrats to Ja, signature shoe. You'd want to talk about somebody who should always have a signature shoe, who's that much fun, who kids would love, who's in a city that loves him. The personality alone, congrats to him. Because when I think about like signature shoes and the fact that Kyrie got to have one for as long as he did and that relationship, he wasn't awesome with Nike at all. I think Ja would appreciate it a little bit more because Kyrie got it because of the LeBron thing, pretty much. I thought that was a lame quote. Like, you need to have more of a playoff resume.

As much as I like Memphis, respect them. I don't even give a shit that they lost this game. You need to have more of a playoff resume before you start saying, quote, I'm fine in the West. We finish late night in Denver, Phoenix at Denver. The Suns have a brutal stretch, 10 of their next 12 on the road. Cam Payne out, Cam Johnson out. If we could get the camera off of Cam Johnson

while it's an inbound alley-oop dunk to Aaron Gordon, that would be appreciated in the future. There was some weird stuff on the broadcast. They were talking about how Denver was better on defense. They're not. I mean, they're 15th in December, so maybe that's good, but it's 24th on the season. But they have their guys back.

They've got Murray back. They've got Michael Porter Jr. back, who right now is in the just-getting-back phase of jumping and not knowing what he's going to do. He loves jumping and then going, now what am I supposed to do? But when he's right, he's really tough to deal with offensively. We know that. And Murray clearly is getting to a point here health-wise where it's different.

But Booker goes out of this one. So now you're wondering what's going to happen. And yet Phoenix got up there late. or what's going to happen. Yet, Phoenix got up there late. Aiton misses a free throw towards the end of regulation, which makes it a two-point game instead of a three-point game. Denver runs a really nice handoff, Jokic to Murray, who dunks it to tie the game up. It was a little weird because Aiton wasn't screen. He was playing behind Aiton. He had a chance to go over to help Murray at the rim. I can understand being a little freaked out about ever leaving Jokic. But at that part of it where I think like Paul was at the elbow

and it was another undersized guy in the corner where there wasn't going to be much resistance. I just think it's hard. I just think it's hard for players. It's even harder for the bigger guys to be like split second. Wait, and then it's like the second you hesitate, Murray dunks it, they tie it up. Then Phoenix got called for an illegal screen on their possession, where it was basically just a collision with Bridges and KCP off a Paul screen. I think it was kind of the right call. It was just this collision. Anyway, then Murray got

blocked on a three. He said he got hit in the mouth. He didn't get hit on the contest hand from Bridges. He just blocked it. And honestly, Murray got himself kind of stuck on that three-point attempt at the end of the regulation. So, when Denver's seven or eight deep and they have their guys, you're watching them being like, hey, this is the

first seed right now in the West. I'm not sure I'd totally buy it because the defense thing is I've got to see a better stretch of defense from him before I can buy into it. But God, that's a really nice 7-8, even though as much as I like Bones Highland, if he's your 7-8, that's pretty good. It's just that it can be a little erratic at times.

Phoenix in the beginning was trying to run some 8-roll man stuff. I think Chris Paul got sick of passing to him at one point. After being down, they traded some threes. Phoenix was down 127, 125.

Chris Paul hit a jumper there. But Paul's shooting was bad last night. He's 6 of 17, 0 of 3 from 3, and 5 of 10 from the free throw line. Yes, I need more time with the Chris Paul thing. It's not just the numbers. He's had a couple big scoring games here,

and the shooting percentages have started to go up after being just dismal to start the season. But it's not the numbers with Paul. It's him. He looks like he gets stuck more in certain actions where it's like, okay, he's coming off, and he's not turning the corner on anybody. I don't even care about his numbers. I care that, well, again, the three-point shooting for two

years now has been an issue, but missing mid-range stuff, he was missing those kinds of shots last night. He just kind of looked defeated. So I'm working with the older guy that misses as much time as he did with the heel. It's taking a little bit longer. I don't like writing off anybody because of injuries. It's just stupid, but I'm very concerned. Granted,

they lost Booker in this one and they still had a chance to win it. But Denver's your one seat. We've covered the defensive stuff. The dunks from Aaron Gordon were terrific. I praise the officials for on the Shamit charge, changing that one because Shamit moved. That should never be a charge ever. Everybody was missing free throws at the end of this one.

But yeah, I mean, Denver's your one seed, and maybe they are. Maybe they are the best team in the West. It is clogged up there at the top, and I just think it's going to kind of cycle through all of those teams unless we have massive injuries coming. Booker not being available for this one

obviously changes a lot of what you can do offensively because I was kind of shocked Phoenix was even up and in it as late as they were because it looked like a grind for them. That's Tales from the Couch with a pinch of the top five things from the NFL weekend. 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 can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. All right. Life advice.

Life advice. RR at gmail.com. How was your Christmas, Kyle? Good, man. I just been drained since Saturday morning. That Pat's thing, 10 a.m., beer and coffee at the same time. I just, I think I was some sort of elixir. I just been really, I can see it in my face today even.

I'm just, I'm still working back to working back to leveling out. You don't look great. I don't feel great. Yeah. It was a Merry Christmas though. So it was a Merry Christmas. You get anything cool? All that.

Not really. Not really. Um, didn't actually get a lot of physical stuff. So, uh, I basically got gifts of, of money from like close people in my family that I then used to buy gifts for other people in my family. And then when I told them that they were like, like, I wasn't supposed to do that. I don't know. I just apparently that's not what you're supposed to do with gifts. But, you know, budgets, budgets to budget.

So I don't know. I thought they were going to be happy that I'd be like, hey, yeah, thanks. I really use that. Really, that money really came in handy this time of year. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, I guess that's fine. So I guess don't say that to your grandma. I think the parents understood. Grandma didn't so much. You gave your grandma money? No, I got gifts for people with money that she gave me. And her idea is like, oh, take your fiance out to

dinner. It's like, yeah, no, actually, I was boxing shit up and sending stuff out with it. So thanks. I really needed that. You really helped me out there. And she was just like, oh, I guess that's fine. So I don't know. Yeah, I would keep that to yourself. I thought she was going to be happy that she helped me out, but I guess she wasn't into that. No.

Didn't see that one coming. That's not going to work. Nope. I bought somebody in my family a laptop, brand new laptop, a couple of years ago. I was really excited. Felt like, hey hey this is gonna be great and then came home to visit like two months later and somebody else in the family had

repossessed it oh wow i was like that wasn't really the plan and then went to the other person was like hey what and guy was like okay ruining christmas yeah uh all right well cool let's uh let's do let's do some emails here i've got a lot of youth sports ones for some reason okay middle schools uh middle school girls basketball 24 years old 5 10 160 i've been lifting steadily since i began high school but i haven't maxed since i was a senior because i feel bad asking strangers to interrupt their workout to spot me. And definitely not because I'm worried my barely post-pubescent 18-year-old self could outbench adult prime of his life me. Okay. All right.

Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. A coworker of mine has a friend who teaches at a local middle school, and apparently the school is looking for someone to coach a 7th, 8th grade girls basketball team. I spent the past two years teaching at a local middle school and apparently school is looking for someone to coach a seventh eighth grade girls basketball team i spent the past two years teaching at a different middle school in texas all right so we got some we got some so we got some real pedigree

here i now live in the midwest so my co-worker asked if i'd be willing to help out i think i'm going to do it based on my past two years of experience i feel pretty comfortable being around kids that age i was actually an assistant coach to the boys basketball team at the school I taught at in Texas. 0-2 record in year one, but we had a comeback story for the ages during my second year. I won our tiny eight school district championship. I'm also not sure if there's

ever been a coach to lead two middle school basketball teams that have different genders and occupy different states district titles before the age of 25. Yeah, man, I haven't kept track of that lane either so maybe you are the only one that's like my models youngest manager thing it sounds right like you won't get any argument from me i'd love to get somebody from corporate at models they're done though right uh they're definitely done in poughkeepsie i think they're

around i think there's probably one in new york city yeah there's got to be one in new york city why would i even say that right well looks like we're probably not getting a sponsor for them or maybe we will okay um I'd love to get somebody from corporate Models be like how to refute that no not to refute it to back it up again we've been trying to track him down actually we've got this black we've got this black we've been trying to give this is this amazing stroke of luck thank you for reaching out to us we we had different apartment addresses and nothing came back okay so by the age of 25 so i feel like this would be a cool way to cement my legacy in the pantheon of part-time volunteer

coaches so my question for ryan as a basketball savant kyle is someone who i suspect has spent his fair share of time around middle school girls what the fuck is that i don't know what that's about i used to work for a school district maybe you want that's what you meant and i'll just pretend that's what you meant fucking weirdo yeah this better this this email better land strong how do i ingratiate myself in this group when i legitimately don't know a single student parent faculty member at the school? Okay. Yeah, I mean, you're going to be the weird older guy. You know, you're 24. You're a fucking hundred to the

seventh and eighth graders, right? How can I turn this group of teenage girls I've never met into a powerhouse capable of making 12-year-olds across northern Indiana shudder at the thought of stepping foot on a basketball court? If it helps, while I put my MBA comp in here, he says a great value.

Trey Jones. I like Trey Jones. I'm not above giving a bunch of preteen girls buckets in practice. If it translates to wins. All right. I would start with never saying the second line to anyone ever again. All right. Like I get what you're saying.

It sounds like you're going to take this really seriously. Okay. And I don't know, like the middle school thing. I wouldn't say no one take it seriously, but I think the first thing I would do is get a sense of what the roster is and figure out if it's going to be a competitive year or in a lot of these cases, a fun year. I would also,

who's the cool teacher at the school? Likely female, right? That relates to the girls at this age a little bit better than maybe the cool guide teacher does. And ask her about the dynamic. Ask somebody, try to get some kind of scouting report on the group that you're going to be coaching, which again could be misleading and you could say, hey, everybody starts with a clean slate and all this kind of stuff.

But kids are always smarter, I think, times and we we give them credit for it you know they're gonna know if you're a phony immediately so you know the second line i know you're kidding around about giving them buckets but i don't think you want to be like hardo guy day one when no one knows you and you have no resume the hardo high school middle school coach and again it does exist in middle schools like ones that take it really seriously right like i had one coach i think for an eighth grade team where he was like he was one of the toughest guys ever it should get easier after that okay and i'm not talking about my dad um if you you have to like that person, if he's

going to get away with that stuff, the parents are going to buy in, there needs to be a little bit more equity. And you at this point have none, right? Like I'm still not a hundred percent sure what you said when you were talking about your resume as an assistant. And I can promise you, no one's going to care about that in an area that's multiple states away in a completely different region of the country. Right. So I would I would like my goal would be my first impression as the coach in this situation would be I want. I want to relax. You know what I mean? I want to relax about being too intense from the jump.

Because if you're out of control in the beginning and you're new, you get a couple of girls that turn on you, they're telling the parents, and next thing you know, it's like, hey, the kids are running and they're going a little too hard. We don't even know who this guy is. If you'd been there 10 years and in the town, in the community and you know next thing you know it's like hey the kids are running and they're they're going a little too hard we don't even know who this guy is right if you've been there 10 years and in the town of the community and everything then they don't have to worry about that kind of stuff so my major concern not to deviate from however your vision is as a coach and all stuff

you want to do i'm not telling you give who gives a shit roll the ball out there never run any plays and never get the conditioning up i'm not telling you all of those things. I'm just saying, I don't know as the newest guy, like my major concern would be, I don't want to lose this group immediately for coming on too strong as a coach. Right. And he's, he's not the assistant anymore.

I thought, I mean, maybe this email was just, maybe I got clouded by his middle school girls thing by me. And I've just, I don't want to give him any advice. But I think I understood what he was saying, maybe when I was in middle school, or I don't know.

But is he going as an assistant coach, or is this a head coach job? Well, it's a great follow-up, because the way I read it originally, I have a friend who teaches at a middle school, and apparently the school is looking for someone to coach its seventh, eighth grade girls basketball. Right, so he's the head coach right right but in the same paragraph he says so my co-worker asked if i'd be willing to help out um so i'm gonna assume he means head coach because that's how i've answered this the whole time because i think that first sentence tells you

that also could be kind of a like a vibe, too, on where this program's at. It's like, hey, we're just looking for somebody to help out. You're that coach. We just need a guy there. Yeah. Yeah. If the team's too big, we need to have another person for chaperone. But the team's small enough that we can just, as long as it's you or your buddy, it's fine.

I'm saying this about boys or girls, by the way, okay? If this team stinks, use this as, you know, maybe you'll beat Coach K one day. I don't think you want to prove it week one with this group, is the sense I'm getting from the limited facts that I have here. I know some people in youth sports that are coaching or maybe listening to this being like, why are you being so soft about this the whole time? That's fine. Whatever. But I can only go based on what information, limited information. Again, we have in the email here that if somebody's like, there's no coach interviewed when I was like 23 for an eighth grade boys coaching job. And you want to talk about prepping. I really wanted this. I was really fired up when I went in and believe it or not, as much as I can make fun of myself for being a fucking idiot for a good chunk of those years, I could be good at that. Like I knew what to say. And that was like, you know,

look, I played basketball my whole life, obviously nothing that any stage that matters, but I, you know, remember, I'm not that far removed from remembering what it was like at those years, you know, and you're also dealing with the developmental side of, of kids, both physically and mentally, you know, like seventh to ninth grade, that jump of like who you are as a person, you know, parents listening to this right now, you know, it's like, wow, that, that, you know, that is that, that kind of big jump. And you have to understand that as much as you have to understand coaching and basketball and all that kind of stuff. So I was excited just about, I didn't think I was going to understand coaching and basketball and all that kind of stuff so i was excited just about i didn't think i was going to go in and start out coaching everybody because i watch a ton of nba

there's still plenty of shit terminology and all that kind of stuff rules help rules like they're even talking about help rules and you know at the top level i'm sure you are but it's it's as much an experience for you in the beginning as it is about any of the kids and that's kind of how i would look at this. I would look at it as, all right, you want to be a lifelong coach. You want to do all these different things. You can start winning state titles, high school, whatever. Okay, you're 24.

You've never had coached before. You haven't ever been in this community before. Find out about the kids. Try to get in with the community. Try to get in with some of the staff a little bit. But if they stink, if they're awful, use this as your learning experience of how you want to be as a coach and try to still make it as fun as you can be for

everybody. If again, based on this, it sounds like you're not exactly dealing with a bunch of D1 recruits. Yeah. Cause that's the age and that's the age too, where you're not really sure. Like for, for me, it was football. I played football from seventh grade till I graduated high school, but I did it. My mom was just like, yeah, we're not doing the pop Warner. It's money. It's we're not doing it. I wanted to, I felt, but I was like, I was one of those guys who showed up at, you know, seventh grade, the first year I could, you know, suit up for pads and whatever. And I'm like, uh, I think a lot of these guys have been playing pop Warner or whatever the other league is. And I just remember my coach was really good about it.

He was like, all right, how many of you have never played before? And I looked around, a couple people raised their hands and he was like, all right, everybody stand on this line, stand straight up, look down. If you can't see your feet, your alignment, go over there. And I thought like that was, it was just, he broke it down in such a good, funny way that he also, I felt like, I felt comfortable that like, all right, I'm not the only guy who doesn't know what the hell's going on here. And you could also, you just want to make it so that, you know, your, your players aren't afraid to like ask you questions to understand better. That's what all I mean. It's just, remember, this is the age where some of them, this is the first time some of them

probably have played an organized sport like this, depending on who their parents are and how into traveling for organized sports they were. So I would just say, try to remember that. Cause that's something that always stuck with me. So you want to be one of those coaches, I think. Any football accolades, Kyle, in high school? Anything we need to share? A couple defensive player of the weeks. Yeah.

That's about it. Yeah. Got a pick that didn't count. I don't know. Call back? Yeah. They said my knees were on the ground. They weren't. It's all right. We saw it on film the next day.

Wait a minute. Your knees were on the ground? Like, yeah. They basically called it. Like, basically, it was like a pick, sort of sack pick, not really a fumble because he like threw it at night. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

And I kind of got, I grabbed it. And I, you know, before I touched the ground, there's no replay though, you know, in real time. So I just, I know it. I know I had, before I touched the ground, there's no replay though, you know, in real time. So I just, I know it. I know I had it. So did the team, but didn't, didn't count. Thank God. Okay.

That's all I got. This is a, this is a new one to me. Always looking for help on verbiage. Hi guys. Five, seven to five, nine, two 50 to two 70. Five, seven to 270. 5'7 to 5'9. I probably need advice, but I'm not asking. I love the pod, especially life advice.

Quotes are for emphasis, not to be a troll. So does my wife. I've noticed the use of the word female in the pod recently. I don't want to be the woke police, but in my experience, this word is taken condescendingly by women. I'll let you do all the research, but just want to highlight a possible misstep because I know you guys are good dudes. There was a question. We might not be good dudes because we're using the word female. You know, what's funny is I got called out for using girl a few times and then I just pivoted to female or women. So it's women.

I guess women's are safe word. I guess. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay think so. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for our life advice. Yeah.

I don't think I ever say female though. Guy. But if you're keeping the numbers, uh, send them over my way. Email her. We know if I've been doing it as well. All right.

Um, it as well all right um at least it didn't end with do better yeah that's a that's a yeah that's a great way to shut it all down right most emails that end with do better were bad emails. This has been my experience. When I, when I see kind of like a do better, we got one on the door, Dorchester, Boston thing that was like, it was so bad and aggressive and so fucking off base.

Um, cause I did more research on it after the fact. And it kind of came down to, yeah. Like what I thought is that people that like live in Boston, technically torture, you know, because i did more research on it after the fact and it kind of came down to yeah like what i thought is that people that like live in boston technically torture you know i'm not doing this whole fucking thing all over again technically got under your skin a little though did it no it was it was so nasty and then it went into a direction that it was so not even close to being for like why i would believe that or say it was the, the argument was that I actually didn't believe what I was saying,

but I was doing it because of a preconceived bias. And it was fucking insane. You're doing a performatively or something. Right. And then it, then it ended with like do better. And I just went, so,

I mean, honestly, I don't even know. The guy was so fucking mad in the email that I would be like, does this guy, do you listen to another ep? Can you get mad and then be like oh shit nfl stuff week week 12. if he still isn't it now it won't be after this one no but i did i did read it and i there was a real exhale at the end going, wow, this went in a direction I did not expect. Okay.

We got a prenup follow-up from our guy. Oh, I got married into money. I have a prenup. I just asked your lawyer to review the contract and mark up and send back try to take all emotion out of it and tell your fiancee or dad that you're going to have a lawyer look at it and send back comments so you mean exactly what we said and what happened in the email got it i'm feeling it a bit today yeah uh we just we have a lot of people that don't listen to what happens in the email like they go oh i can i can add a comment to this and you're like yeah that's pretty much exactly that is what we said

and what the guy was going to do right sorry man sorry the sort i had them all sorted this morning and now i can't find your fluster. You're flustered now. I'm flying blind on Kyle. Here's one that just says something terrible about Kyle. Do we keep doing this? What do we got? Kyle's terrible taking the phone advice. At least Kyle includes

he's in there though. He does not. Kyle does not sift through him to protect himself. I think looking through someone's phone especially for this girl who'd been burned before is a terrible idea i've had it done to me it can completely destroy the trust in the relationship unless you have one of her friends do it and only report something super egregious like cheating had occurred instead of just texting because what's going to happen is the girlfriend is going to see the text the guy didn't even solicit now all of a sudden the girlfriend is going to be like who the fuck is

angie this isn't the greatest written series of sentences but i get his point he's suggesting i'm not i'm not saying i think it's a good idea she what here's here's one of those let's read the email things again she she wasn't just like, feel bad for me. She wasn't like, she was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? Not like, hey, am I ever going to forgive this guy? Obviously not. She's just like, how am I supposed to be a person in a relationship again? And my point was like, I guess you just guess. I mean, you went to therapy with the guy about cheating.

Who's the guys maybe was she, he went to therapy with you and then cheated like in the worst way so i don't know it was just i don't know how you how you could have all that in your head you would say therapy's answer but like sometimes those guys will go to therapy with you that's all i'm saying all i'm saying was at the one year mark maybe just just maybe peak if you're gonna peak anyway because she had already peaked like two and a half years in my point was if you're gonna peak anyway maybe just at the one year mark when it seems pretty serious just peak that's all i said other otherwise i don't know i'm not a peaker i don't feel the need to but i could see why you would i could see why you would be like if i don't peak i don't know what the how am i supposed to sleep at night if i don't peak so i thought maybe if you could limit yourself to one

peak at the serious stage perhaps that's all i mean I mean. Sorry, guy. I didn't know you have PTSD from somebody going through your phone. But I'm just saying for our friend, the emailer, our woman friend, I don't know how she's going to ever get over it. No, I'm saying in response to the women. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't think we have any follow-up. I'll search the old machine there and see if there was a follow-up. Did you send me one? I don't think you did. No, I didn't think we have any follow-up. I'll search the old machine there and see dude but was one time drunk texting a girl checking in but no plans to ever physically meet

up should that be grounds to break up it sounds like the emailer likes a few yeah follow up what's going on drunk text with some people it sounds like it sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too buddy it sounds like you want to be able to drunk text but because you never actually had the chance to cheat you didn't so hey listen if you're doing shady shit, that's on you, Phil. I don't know that I've ever heard a woman see what we did there? Look what we're doing. Ever go, yeah, he just

every now and then he just drunk texts his exes and asks what's up. It's funny. It's usually around the holidays. It's no big deal. My thing with going through the phone is you're also going to see a bunch of shit that isn't your business right yeah right you're gonna see financial stuff you're gonna see con you're gonna see somebody like talking about somebody like it's just a massive invasion of

privacy it is and you have to go through all of those to find or not find what you're looking for. Maybe you could keyword search now in the new, the new phones, maybe there's a keyword you could just type in like, you know, one of those words that would be reserved for, uh, you know,

messing around. Yeah. Types in grabs or silos phone agent commission. Um, all right. We're, we're really, we are absolutely

i think i think the energy on this life advice has been bad because everything got fucking sorted wrong no it's really it comes down to the patriots losing on saturday i mean that's really i mean 10 a.m dealing with something like that i can't believe I even showed up today. Okay, we have... Somebody's asking us for breakup advice. What are our toughest breakups? I've talked about mine like three times.

I don't... If not, I've mentioned it more than three. I mean, there's another one, but there's too many people that know each other in it. And I'm not going to talk about that one. Yeah, and I'm a great breaker upper. I don't really have a hard one. You're in a good mood after it.

Yeah. I think high school, maybe I was like, maybe I shed a tear once, but that was, dude, if you're a weirdo breaking up in high school, like, you know,

just move on to the next one. Right. I'd say that there was one, but then I think, yeah, all the other ones I'm like, what are we doing tonight, boys? Cause it's usually my, it was usually my was usually my my thing which you know in high school there's

going to be somebody else who likes you like it's it's really easy to move on same in college yeah yeah college it's a free fall problem is the stakes are all raised though okay all right we'll try this one blind blind how to get money how to get things how to get back my things and money from an ex hey guys 27 years old 6 foot 172 solid pickup basketball player have a good run in the palisades so let me know if you want to join sometime too far away i recently broke up with my girlfriend almost three years the breakup was in the heat of the moment was not unexpected we had issues we were fighting a lot. Since then, we have no direct contact, but there are two related issues that I have. Okay.

Issue one, after we broke up, she said I could not have any of my things back. Great. What an asshole move from the jump. However, via contact with a roommate, I've gotten back my childhood Christmas ornaments and some items of clothing over the course of the week.

But she seems to have opted to hold on to items including a sono speaker a nice air fryer my favorite pair of jeans and for some reason a dress shirt the only thing i had was a pair of airpods and i sent her a new pair a new pair all right so you all right we'll keep reading here but who the fuck would keep somebody else's childhood Christmas ornaments? Issue number two, we plan to take a three and a half week vacation to Columbia, not the university, and reserved a three week Airbnb in Medellin. She booked the Airbnb on a credit card

and I Venmo'd her my half, $6.55. She canceled the Airbnb and is not giving me my money back. Well, of course she didn't. You could have gone in reverse order here. Once you see her, the Christmas ornaments, this person's like, did you sleep with her mom? So anyway, we'll keep reading here.

Nor did she give me any chance to buy her out before she canceled. After 10 days, I sent her a Venmo request for the $6.55 with the memo Columbia Airbnb refund or actual amount, if not full refund, which was declined. This has been our only contact.

Here's some other relevant details and answers to questions you may have. Oh, yes, we have. She's very well off financially and has much more money than I do. So the 655 is not material to her. We often share expenses and periodically sent Venmo requests to square up. She owed me 500 to 1,000 at the time of the breakup, which I am writing off. Yeah, there's nothing that tells you. The air fryer and speaker were clearly

not gifts. They were at her place because that's where we spent more time. The Columbia trip was my idea, but we agreed to book it if she was all in on it. I'm still going to Columbia and my roommate is joining me. I never cheated on her, did anything of that sort. The same could not be said of her. Alright, she's just a terrible fucking

person. A terrible woman. Yep. Nice. So here are my questions. Should I feel entitled to the Airbnb refund or is it reasonable for her to keep the money since I broke up with her? What should I do, if anything, to get my stuff and money back? The total dollar amount will not have a major impact on my life, but the idea of her getting to keep

my things and money is frustrating. I do not want to let her get away with this immature behavior what do i do well it sucks i mean you're dealing with a fucking lunatic you know that's justified i mean again the child christmas ornaments who would want to keep those like we have ornaments my family my sister every christmas sends me a picture of these these ornaments we have from the muppets 1979 1980 and i remember like as a little kid, and I think there's also some Peanuts ones. Shout out, Charles Schultz.

Oh, you named him? Charles Schultz did. Where like those are, she sends me pictures of it because when we were kids, it was always like a fun thing. Like which one would you get to hang, right? And they've survived 40 plus

years and they would mean nothing to the next person so clearly like and as you're saying you didn't do anything and that she actually cheated on you i would look at it as what are we air fryer a couple hundred bucks jeans ornaments put it at 500 we're not going to do pawn what's that show not pawn stars the one where they bid on the storage bins storage wars man storage wars and there's like seven pens the guy's like this is 80 with the pens here yeah like who's doing your fucking three dollars a dvd really yeah still three dollars a dvd guy oh this this chest is 500 bro that's cardboard right all right anyway so air fryer whatever it sounds like our man's out a couple grand that seems like a very low price to not be with this person anymore i don't know what you can do i really don't like we could you could get weird

you get real fucking weird and harass her with venmo requests all the time. You could reach out to the friends, but it is clear that however she has been raised, she is detached from reality and how you're supposed to treat other people. Okay. So I don't know that anything is going to get through to her. Is there some moral win that you could have where you're not getting any money back that makes you feel better? It seems like a pretty grounded person. So I don't know.

Like writing out a bill, fake lawyer letterhead. Again, that might be fraud. I don't even know. But so don't do that. Is there a way to go about this? Like you can't sue her for this amount of money because you just,

you want to sue her, Kyle? No, I'm just saying he said he's plays basketball in the Palisades. That's this guy, right? You're in the town where all of the greatest court shows in the world are filmed. That's all I'm saying. This seems like, A, I would pick Judge Ross for this one, Boss Ross. But I would also go hot bench next.

Judy is only at a certain time of year, so I think you probably have to wait on that. at a certain time of year so i think you probably have to wait on on that um so yeah i mean i there's a couple people that i would would think are are front runners and who should handle this um i doubt she would accept but um i don't know she probably would if she's so like yeah she's so detached from reality the only way is to go on a fake courtroom to settle this i got 140 new followers after that show yeah that's that's what I mean. Maybe. Sometimes I look up to people after I'm like, what is that person up to? You will? Yeah, I'll see if I can find

him on Instagram. Like, what is that guy doing? You DM him. You're like, oh, you got boss Ross. I think it was the horns that you had. I think it was the horns that you put on your head that probably sunk you there, pal. Sorry. There's some strange folks on Ross. think i mean this is perfect that you guys live here that's all i mean yeah all right well um because it's so ridiculous otherwise you're

otherwise you're a weirdo and you're stalking and and you're right this person is so detached from reality they're just gonna like they might even call the cops on you be like this guy's harassing yeah that's what i mean it I'm just trying to get thousands of dollars back. Based on this, you're right. But the only recourse for you to basically be harassing her and now you're just spending more time and energy. You know, your time is your money and all of these things. And it's a number that sucks for you. The child ornaments thing, like that's all I needed to hear.

There's no reasoning with this person. Is there one friend in her group that you can still talk to? It sounds like there is, that you can just say, hey, look, can you help me with this? Can we figure out a way to get like, because I don't think the Airbnb money is ever coming back. You already know that she owes you 500 to a grand and you've already written that thing off. It sounds like you really like this air fryer. Um, and it feels a little bit more like this is all hoping to prove a point. I would say a lot like a breakup. Eventually you just be like, Oh, that sucks. Like, you know, breakups happen and people keep your shit. I have never wanted to keep anyone's stuff ever.

I remember I dropped off a box once outside of an apartment. I hadn't talked to the person in like seven months. I was like, hey, your shit's outside. I don't want it in my house anymore. And that was, I think, the end of that communication ever. So yeah. Yeah, man. You caught a bad one here, but you're not going to marry her.

So there's the win. That's worth more than a couple grand. Yeah. By the way, Judge Mathis, man. You caught a bad one here, but you're not going to marry her. So there's the win. That's worth more than a couple grand. Yeah. By the way, Judge Mathis, too. You could submit your case at judgemathistv.com, and you could probably just copy and paste what you sent us and just fill in your name and birthday. That was great, Kyle.

Great. Strong, strong finish. Okay. That's fine. Good to see you guys. Yeah. Podcast. Merry Christmas to everybody.

Thanks to Kyle, as always. Ryan Russo Russell over here. Thank you.