The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Urban Meyer’s Mistake, Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk on Building a Young Team, Trae, and "the Trade." Plus, a Rambling NBA Roundup.

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the situation in Jacksonville after Urban Meyer's strength coach, Chris Doyle, resigns amid backlash to his hiring (1:30). Then Ryen talks with Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk about some of the team's struggles this season, point guard Trae Young's growth dating all the way back to his days at Oklahoma, the 2018 draft-day trade, Rajon Rondo's impact on the locker room, and more (10:00). Then Ryen shares some (solo) NBA thoughts, including about the impressive Utah Jazz, Zion Williamson and the Pelicans, Luka Doncic hitting his stride, the Celtics' struggles, and more (32:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:00:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

great podcast for you on a monday post football but we're going to take a look at the urban meyer situation in jacksonville and explain why this happens also the general manager of the atlantic hawks travis schlenk on the roster of the future and some Trey Young Lucas stuff as well. And I'm just going to rattle off a ton of NBA stuff and life advice. Big show today. Urban Meyer was hired as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jags. And last week, he had all sorts of controversy because he hired Chris Doyle, who's the former strength coach at Iowa. And if you know that story, he left Iowa after a settlement after being accused by multiple former players of mistreating black players on the football team.

So Urban hires him. And how does this happen? I'm not going to justify the hiring. I'm going to explain how something like this actually goes down. Now, I can't believe that Urban made the hire for the first reason. And I can't believe he made it for the second reason, considering like, hey, how'd you think this was going to go over? reason. And I can't believe he made it for the second reason, considering like, hey, how'd you think this was going to go over? And people asked Meyer at the press conference when he announced it saying, hey, we did a good job vetting that one. We all know what happened. Doyle gave his

version of events. It was good enough for Urban. Urban hires him, done and done. That's the vetting. He's known him. He wants to give him the job. Okay, fine. We get that part of it. But why would you even expose yourself to the kind of criticism that they went through? And then again, Doyle resigns on a Friday night. This is not a justification of any of this. This is simply an explanation. I have been to all of these college football campuses. I have been to a ton of college basketball campuses. And when they are these small, at times disconnected from the rest of the country, these environments, and I don't mean that like they don't have internet and that kind of stuff. What I'm telling you is that when you're a winning coach in a small place like columbus

or in tuscaloosa or you know coach k or roy williams in the carolina when you are this good for this long you are beyond like just a normal person you are detached from reality in this way because you're a god to these people so then when the national people jump in to be like, hey, what are you doing here? The Coach K type is going, why are you questioning me? Look what I've done for this community. Because every time, whether he's going to the grocery store or just anything, that guy is beyond what us mere mortals experience through our life. So that's kind of what's going on here with Urban. Again, not justifying any of it. And Urban, ironically enough, already stepped into it on a national level

with the Zach Smith saga, one of his assistants who had all this terrible stuff out there on him. And then Meyer knew, didn't know, Meyer knew, and then Ohio State to try to make it look like they were really worried about all this stuff. And look, I'm not even turning this

into criticizing Ohio State. It's not really what I'm doing. But Meyer had already gone through something like this being suspended for three games because of the way he handled the Zach Smith stuff. So that part is like, oh wait, you actually did deal with this in Columbus, even though most of these guys don't. It is the biggest difference between college and pro. It is, it's, it's a reality that you're, if, if Coach K ended up coaching the Lakers,

he'd go, wait, why are you guys questioning me on this stuff? You're going to ask about rotations? You're going to be mad about a play I ran? Like this stuff doesn't happen to me. Like, what are you doing? Here's Coach K, and this clip made the rounds

where Coach K was asked about a loss and then he had this response to, I guess, a student report. Hi, Coach. I'm just curious as to what the next step forward here is for the team as you guys move into another week of basketball. Yeah, why don't we just evaluate this game? I'm not into what our next step forward is right now.

We just finished the hard-fought game. I don't know if – what's your major? What's your major at Duke what's your hardest class okay so say you just had the toughest econ test in the world and when you walked out somebody asked, what's your next step? You see what I mean? You have some empathy. Just give us time to evaluate this game and then we'll figure out just like we always try to do. Now, to be fair to Kay,

he did apologize after the fact. But this is a tone. We have this a lot. Here's another one in college basketball fan mccaffrey who's the head coach of iowa who i like fran he's really really intense but he's had some moments this season after games where you're like wait we can't ask you any of this stuff you guys are unbelievable you want me to play the bench so i played i give the you know the bench is in there because guys are in foul trouble. Then you want me to take them out.

How are they ever going to get any better? How are they ever going to improve? It's a ridiculous question, Mark. You should know better. Do you remember the Rick Pitino stuff? He had a weird seven, last seven years at Louisville, okay? Whether it was the Karen Cypher scandal, where he, at one point, I believe,

admonished everyone for having an interest in this story. Like, Hey, Rick, we get it's annoying for you and it's not a great thing to talk about, but you brought this on yourself. This is the job you signed up for. So now if you're going to be involved in multiple scandals, people are going to ask about it. And Patino was beside himself, like confusion and anger. Like, you know, this is, this isn't right. And there's students and all this stuff.

And then on the Louisville deal where he ends up losing his job because of the whole Adidas thing, where he's told everyone who's been willing to listen that he knew nothing and had nothing to do with it. You're like, look, sorry, Rick, if we don't believe you. And he's almost looking at us going, how dare you not believe me? Nick Saban, who I love, has his moments. He was asked about his signing class recently and said this to a reporter about math. Today wasn't a very busy day for you guys just in terms of signatures coming in.

Is that what you expected? And how do you feel like you addressed your remaining needs? Do you guys take math? Do you have math class? Not anymore. Did you learn how to add when you did have math class? Like 22 and three make 25? I mean, what's that? No, I know. But is that what we expected? Yeah, we only could sign three guys. That's what we expected based on math.

I could do this all day. I could do a hundred of these. I was searching through all these different dabble ones, but I'm like, okay, what do I need to do? 10 clips here. I could do this all day. I could do 100 of these. I was searching through all these different DABO ones, but I'm like, okay, what do I need to do? 10 clips here? I'm not going to do that. I've made my point.

But what you have to understand is that anyone like Kay, who's what, 74 and has been at Duke for 40 years, Saban would have 100% approval rating as governor tomorrow of Alabama. All right. I've interviewed almost all of these guys. And when you challenge them, there's a look that you'll get sometimes. I thought Harbaugh was going to tackle me once. And he wasn't even

one of these traditional Southern schools. He was at Stanford. We were at like a mall outside of Palo Alto. And he looked at me like, why are you even asking me this? The college guys consistently are like more defiant because I think they're so insulated. And that's going to be interesting with urban if it doesn't go great. And it probably isn't going to go great out of the jump. And a guy that's not used to having things not go great, a guy like so many of the other guys we just named are not used of the jump. And a guy that's not used to having things not go great, a guy like so many of the other guys we just named are not used to being challenged. And when they are, they freak out because most of their lives, they're just not challenged because they've been so successful. Again, it's not a justification of any of the behavior, just an explanation of why so many of these guys act the way they do. Travis Schlenk was named general manager of the Atlanta Hawks back in 2017.

They had a big offseason. We're going to talk about everything. Trey, the Luka trade, and where the team's at right now. Coming up. Travis, you guys had a big offseason, and there were expectations and all that kind of stuff that I want to get to. And I know the recent stretch hasn't been great. So I appreciate you joining us anyway, because sometimes guys will cancel.

But how is this overall season? Like as far as your vision and with Coach Pierce and everything, how have you felt about the season so far? Well, it's been a crazy season, obviously, going through the pandemic that we're in right now and all the different rules that we have on the road and, you know, going into gyms with no fans. So just to start with that, it's been crazy. You know, for a team like us, we're still a young team. You know, our core group of guys are still, you know, all in their early 20s. You know, as you mentioned this year, we sprinkled in some veterans this year. For the first time since I've been here, went out and, you know, tried to get some guys to help make us more competitive. You know, certainly the push for us is to try to get into the expanded playoff picture. You know, but with so many new guys,

so many young guys, the lack of practice time, I think you're seeing that around the league, not just us, you know, where teams, you know, one night look great and the next night, you know, not so great. So the lack of inconsistency, I think, has been one of the key things. And that just comes down to practice time. You know, we're playing games every single day, every other day, you know, four games a week sometimes. So it just is really, really limited what we can work on and how we can improve. I don't know if it's a Golden State thing or just a today in the NBA deal, but you've talked in the past

about having multiple, multi-dimensional players, multiple positions, big guys that can switch. I think when Golden State, you know, was rolling and you were obviously there, I mean, look,

it's not like anybody didn't want the players you had and you only had them because they were multi-dimensional. But how much of that was basically a goal of how you put the roster together not only because of the switchability part of it but also with the challenges of a

season like this yeah no certainly that's uh one of the big emphasis that we've stretched um here certainly it was one of the things we stressed in golden state as well you know when you look at today's modern nba you know it's really the way every team's playing that, you know, some, some games, you know, the centers, there isn't a center in the game anymore. You know, it's five guys on the perimeter with ability, you know, to put the ball on the floor, get to the rim, make shots. Just the way the games, the way the game's gone, you know, I've jokingly said a few times, you know, the ideal roster would be,

you know, a bunch of six, eight, six, nine guys out there on the floor. And, you know, that that's, you've, would be a bunch of 6'8", 6'9", guys out there on the floor. You've got to be able to guard teams like that, and you've got to be able to play that way in today's league. But you guys have actually tried. I'll look at some of the patterns and stuff. You've put Clint and Collins out there. You can argue, hey, Collins is a power forward because he's so skilled for a perimeter.

A guy that big, he's got all these perimeter skills, but I've actually been kind of surprised and not critical of it, but just, hey, they're trying to play two bigs together, then you'll split them up as well as you kind of figure out the rotations. Yeah, no, certainly those two guys start for us. You know, as you mentioned, John's got the ability to space the floor, you know, he's right around the 40% three-point shooter, so, you know, when Clint's in the pick and roll, rolling to the rim, sucking the You know, he's right around the 40% three-point shooter. So, you know, when Clint's in the pick and roll, rolling to the rim, sucking the defense in, John's got the ability

to space the floor. And then obviously as we, you know, start going through our rotation, Gallo comes in and then John takes that roll-a-roll. As we all know, John's a great finisher

in a pick and roll. When a GM finally gets this gig, like you did a few years ago, you know, we can talk about, well, these are all the things that I want to do, but sometimes too, it's just based on the availability of who's out there for your roster.

Like, where are we drafting? Who actually wants to sign here? What trades will someone say yes to? So you can have a vision and plan. And I'm wondering how much of that has been influenced by all the different people that you've been with, going all the way back to like a Chuck Daly,

Riley, Spoh was an assistant when you were down there. You also had Chris Mullen, Don Nelson, and then all of the guys that were great with Golden State, whether it's ownership or Bob Myers. Have you picked little things, the lasting impressions, things that have always been something you've kind of defaulted to as a basketball guy?

Yeah, I've been, as you just rattled off all those names, I've been unbelievably fortunate in my time in the NBA to work with really some of the best basketball minds that the NBA has ever known. And certainly I try to take pieces from everyone, going all the way back to the coaches that I've worked underneath. So picking and choosing, for Pat, it was just the attention to detail. You know, everything is just down to a T, every I's dotted, every T's crossed with him. You know, and then, you know, working for a guy, as you mentioned, Don Nelson, who's the complete opposite side of the spectrum. Yeah, I never really thought of it that way. That's a pretty good way of saying it. Yeah. But yeah but you know obviously both guys extremely successful um so I think the biggest thing that I've learned is you've

just got to be yourself you know these players these players can tell when you're not genuine um and as long as you're honest really just with people in general people can accept about any anything as long as you're honest and upfront with them it's when you know people think you're trying to get over on them that's that's problems come. So I think that's the biggest thing I've learned is just to be genuine with people. What do you see when you see the fourth quarter struggles? What's the one thing that jumps out to you when you look at some of the problems right now? Yeah, I think right now it's just a belief right now. You know, we were playing a game last week, the Toronto game,

and we actually won. You know, we have a 10-point lead, and, you know, they hit like back-to-back threes, and all of a sudden, you know, the 10-point lead is down to two. And it's just you can just see it on guys' face. Like, hey, we're okay. We're still ahead. You know, there's four minutes to go.

You know, we'll be fine. And I think that's what people don't understand is how hard it is to win in this league. As I mentioned, still in those situations, we've got three guys on the court usually, four guys on the court that are just their second, third year in the league. Just having that confidence that they're going to be to get over the top consistently is part of the process. But that's kind of where we are now, where we get to that point and just having the belief that, all right, we're in a tough situation. We've got this. Look, I don't know if it's happening this year because of everything that's going on. And I'm not making excuses for you by

any means. I've seen so many teams have these awful two-minute stretches to close a game. And it happened with Minnesota against Toronto again. Beasley ended up going out of bounds on an inbounds. You're like, how does this happen? There's a game with Chicago where guys weren't inbounding. There's a game with the Knicks where everybody forgot fouls and the time differential.

And it just feels like maybe with the rush of the season, I don't know, maybe I'm paying more attention to it. Maybe it's the recency part of it, but I feel like this season so far, I've seen absolute collapses or situations where teams, I'm like, how did this happen when two minutes ago this game was wrapped up? Yeah. Again, you know, things can change quickly, especially with the three-point shot. You know, you make one mistake and, you know, With the three-point shot, you know, you make one mistake and, you know, turn it over, a bad turnover. Like, leagues evaporate very, very quickly just the way teams rely on the three-point shot.

But, again, I think a lot of that comes down, comes back to, you know, just the lack of preparation that teams are able to have this year. You know, it's extremely hard to have shoot-arounds because you have to have all your testing back before you can get your players on the court. So, you know, one of the things that we're not having this year is shoot-arounds just because it's just tough to do logistically. So, you know, just those little preparations that, you know, we've had is with limited practice time, no shoot-arounds. I think that's what you're seeing late is just those attention to details that normally get covered. Okay, so I'll ask this because it's been a topic that I've brought up and it became an issue earlier in the year with Trey and the free throw attempts.

When Kyle Lowry jumps back into somebody chasing him over a screen, do you cheer that as good basketball even though you're on the other side because you feel like you have to because of Trey? as good basketball, even though you're on the other side, because you feel like you have to because of Trey. Listen, Trey didn't invent it, but he does have an unbelievable knack for drawing fouls. I'm not going to say that I'm a huge fan of it, but it does benefit us. I appreciate you laughing because I've had a long history now here with the Trey story. And I've just come clean on all of it. The backing into the guy in the crab dribble, I don't have a problem with because you're right.

He didn't invent it. Chris Paul's been doing it forever. I hate it when Chris Paul does it. I hate it when anybody does it. I just don't like when you have to chase. The one that drove me the most nuts was when Trey's coming over the screen and, and his initial defenders chasing over the screen. And then you jump back into them and you're like, okay, so now what am I supposed to do? Just go under against Trey. I can't do that. I can't, I can't just go under against him. Um, you know,

I'm not going to worry about the call thing. Cause I think the Trey story is, is really important because that summer league, you know, you make the trade that summer league went bad and he became kind of a punchline. And then he's 35 points, I think in his third game in his career, he makes the all-star team last year. I kind of understand Trey's attitude. Even if I don't always love it, I can understand the attitude because it was like, look, you guys made fun of me this whole time and I can ball and I'm going to have a long career. I'm going to make multiple all-star games. How did you see that all play out from the trade to the summer league to the beginning of the career to where he's at now?

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think you have to go back even before that to Oklahoma. You know, when he gets on campus and they start the season, whatever, 10-0, you know, they weren't ranked, I think. And it was really, I think it was up in the Nike event. They had the Phil Knight Classic that year where he really kind of stepped in and the team stepped onto the national stage. And then all of a sudden,

he was putting up such huge numbers in college. You know, you'd turn on an Oklahoma game on ESPN and next to the score, they'd have his stats up there. So the pressure that that puts on an 18 year old kid to be that much in focus um is is is a lot and as you said you know being part of the the trade that happened and you know that was from his first preseason or first summer league game as you said like bust not gonna make it you know uh I'm going to get fired. Like that, that was the whole storyline. But by the end of summer league, you know, we were playing, I think it was the Pacers, you know, and I think he had 12 assists or something like that played

really well. So you saw, you saw that progression. And then, you know, as you mentioned, the pressure that he felt to keep up with Luca, you know, we tell him all the time, like, listen, you don't, it's not a competition between the two of you, you know, and they both, they both had crazy careers when you think about it for being two and a half years in the league, both of them, what they've been able to accomplish. And they're always going to be linked together. There's, there's no denying that, you know, fair or unfair. But he's, you know, he wants to be great. He accepts that. And he's, he's been in that spotlight, as I said, all the way back to Oklahoma after the

first 10 games of the season. Was there ever a moment where the trade almost didn't happen? You know, the trade. Is there any story about the trade that you can share with me that isn't, you know, something you feel like is going to turn against you here, basically? No, I mean, you know, when we, after the lottery, you know, we ended up third, you know, we let it be known that we would be open to sliding back. You know, we had made the decision as a franchise that we were going to build through the draft. And, you know, as I've said before, the more picks you get in the lottery, you know, the better chance you have of getting good talent. So, you know, we were open to sliding back a spot or two. We liked, you know, five, six guys in the draft thought they're going to be good players.

So we were open to that. But, you know, we wanted to make sure that we were going to get an extra lottery pick, not a pick in the teens or something like that. lottery pick, not a pick in the teens or something like that. So the deal with Dallas really didn't happen until about, I don't know, less than an hour before the draft. You know, we'd had conversations all along, but we didn't, the deal didn't get done until just before the draft started. You know, the scary thing about that, you know, is you don't know what's going to happen with one and two. I mean, everyone kind of knew, but somebody could have come in and traded, you know, above us. So, you know, that was kind of the, I don't want to say scary part because we were comfortable going back to five,

but, you know, from Dallas's side, you know, something could have happened with one or two and, you know, that's just the way it goes. So that, that, that, I guess is the story of it. You know, we, we knew where we're going, but to say that we knew exactly what was going to happen really at two, everyone knew what was going on at one. But you know, what Sacramento was going to do at two, you know, we didn't really know. I love DeAndre Hunter. I really think that his, his jump from, you know, I don't know what your evaluation of him was,

but you know, sometimes you'll go, okay, is this guy really going to take a step where we can trust him to create with the ball in his hands? Is he going to be kind of just stuck in the corner? What's going to happen? You know,

I think he felt good about maybe projections for him defensively, but him not being with the team during some of this stretch, you know, maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like that's maybe the most important thing that's overlooked. If you're not locked into Hawks games all the time and you're like, hey, what's going on with those guys? I think Hunter not being there is part of the problem, which is a credit to how great

he's been this early on. No question. His injury has been a big setback. We're not going to blame anything on injuries, but, you know, he was having a great season for us. As you mentioned, you know, the way he's progressed from last year to this year with his ability to create his own shot to get to the rim was a big advantage. And, you know, I think we'll continue to see that to improve where he can start to create for others as well. But, you know, a two-way player, as you mentioned, obviously a good catch and shoot player, but his ability to create for others as well. But, you know, a two-way player, as you mentioned, obviously a good catch-and-shoot player,

but his ability to create his own shot now is going to be very valuable. And, you know, he's so strong. You know, you need guys that can get in the lane and not get bounced around to have people bounce off them when they get in the lane, and he certainly has that ability. What's Kevin herder's deal because i i get a kick out of him like non-stop and i thought there were even moments where i was like oh man he might be out of this rotation and then it was not out of the i shouldn't say it that

way but the closing rotation you know because you're bringing some of these other bigger names and that guy just won't go away yeah i think what people um i don't want to say, don't give him enough credit for, but I think, you know, he gets stereotyped, you know, white spot up shooter, right? But, you know, he has the ability to put the ball on the floor and to create for others. He has the ability to get in the lane and he's got that little pull up, you know, and it's not really a floater, but, you know, he gets, you know, two or three feet away and he's got good size at six foot seven. You know, he never gets that shot blocked. So, you know, I laugh sometimes, you know, he might not look the most grateful going in the lane, but, you know, he gets in there and he's effective in there. Yeah, there is a difference.

Can you, how quickly can you figure out, like, the difference between wing guys that after two dribbles are lost versus like because sometimes i think people be surprised and it's not just because a herder and in the stereotype of it but there'll be times you're like oh wait like this guy can do a little bit more do you is that a challenging part of the perimeter evaluation for you with kids out of college um no i don't think so i mean you can see that i mean in college as well um you know that's one of the things that that we liked about kevin coming into the draft is and watching him at maryland was just you know coming off screens ability to get into the lane hit that pull-up shot um So you can see that with their games. You know, I think the harder part of it would be a guy like Hunter

who at Virginia, that's just not, you know, he just did not do that. You know, maybe he'd get a one or two dribble pull-up, but, you know, never going to the rim. So, you know, the fact that he's been able to add that and get so good at it in such a short time is really encouraging for his development. How has Rondo impacted the team? Rondo's been great.

So it was our third preseason game. We played in Memphis. We got back to the hotel and he got the whole team together in the ballroom we had. And after the game and they watched the game start to finish, you know, led by him. and after the game and they watch the game start to finish, you know, led by him. So just to have in that sort of presence with our guys to, you know, show them that, you know, this is more than just showing up and, you know, playing the game, you know, in practices, he's, he's, he's feels like he's the coach, the official and playing like, you know,

he's just got a, he's got a big personality, but he's got a ton of knowledge, and all the guys respect him. So not having him around of late has hurt us well, but hopefully we'll get him back the next week or so. I know Coach has been a little frustrated, which is to be understood. He had a long rant about having other teams feel us. It was the Pacers game, and it was really an incredible rant

because it was just full of all kinds of detail. What do you think he... I want to frame this the right way because it's not like I'm... But whenever I watch you guys, it's like they're still trying to figure out the rotation. And look, a lot of teams have these challenges with their injuries or protocols or some of these things.

But we're a third of the way in, and it would be great to kind of know, like, all right, how does everybody fit together? We know it's new, but it just doesn't seem like it's there yet. And I imagine that's maybe the biggest frustration as opposed to maybe some of the fourth quarter and defensive numbers. Yeah. as opposed to maybe some of the fourth quarter and defensive numbers? Yeah. Again, you know, we've had – somebody told me this earlier this week or I guess last week now. We've only had one two-minute stretch where Clint, Gallo,

and Bogdanovich have been in the same game. You know, just with all the different injuries. You know, Clint started off injury, then Gallup sprained his ankle and missed a few weeks. And obviously Bogdanovich had the knee injury. So when you think about those are, you know, three guys we thought that would be in our top eight, top nine, obviously in our rotation. And there's only been one game and it was for a two minute stretch. All three of those guys have been on the floor together. So, you know, trying to j the floor together. So, you know,

trying to juggle all the different pieces, you know, people missing time. I think that we're becoming more consistent with our rotations now, but certainly, you know, guys start off playing a little poorly, now are playing better. You know, just all those

different things, I think, has been what Lloyd's been trying to work through. I don't know how the mandate happens or this is the last thing that I want to do with you, because when I think of teams rebuilding and having a chance with the roster, I really think you guys have done a terrific job in a very quick amount of time. I mean, it hasn't played out the record. It's not exactly what you want, especially in the East. I get all those things, but when I look at the possibilities of the roster i'm like you know this is really quick and and you've put together options where like hey maybe this guy you know even if this guy doesn't work out we already have this guy like i honestly believe that so when i hear about

a mandate and i don't know how that works is ownership pull you guys aside hey you have to make the playoffs you have to make the playoffs it shouldn't be about a play-in game it shouldn't about a seven or eight seed maybe a sub 500 record where you lose in the first round. It should just be a bigger picture. What does our roster look like now compared to where it was three years ago when Travis was brought in? And that part to me is a success. So I don't really understand this mandate. Can you help us understand it better? Well, I think the big thing that we want to do is to start establishing the expectations of success with these young guys. I think what you want to avoid is, you know, losing is okay. You know, you want to set the expectation that you want to have a winning culture, a winning environment.

You know, these guys to understand how to win games, which is where we are now. You know, we feel like, you know, we're close to being in that tier. Certainly not a championship tier yet, but that's the ultimate goal. And the next stage for these guys is to get that winning environment to where that, that is the every game expectation. And that's what we're trying to implement here. Well, I've enjoyed the growth.

I really have. I know that that sounds like, Hey, what, you know, but I mean, this was a team that had a bad record last year. And,

you know, I think Hunter is, is a huge part of the setback recently. So, you know, hopefully things Hunter is, is a huge part of the setback recently. So, um, you know, hopefully things work out for you, man.

I really appreciate the time. No problem. Thanks for having me. I'm going to do some basketball stuff here because that's all I've been doing for, I don't know, a couple of months. And this is going to ramble.

You big Led Zeppelin guy, Kyle. Uh, I like the t-shirts. and this is going to ramble. You big Led Zeppelin guy, Kyle? I like the t-shirts. Like the t-shirts. So when I said ramble, I was thinking about ramble on. I could just see you high school. I know that one. Right, like wood paneling in the basement at somebody's place upstate New York,

and you've got a couple. Maroon carpet. Yeah, and you're just in the back with a cigarette going, ramble on! And people are like, man, Kyle really likes Zeppelin. No? I went through a phase where I was like, you know what? Classic rock is it for me. And none of it ever absorbed

to where I learned the history or the names of the songs. But start playing it, and I'll be like, yeah. Fuck yeah, this is the one, man. Okay, slight detour, because I'm super interested in this. Classic rock. Give me your go-tos. Well, I mean, shout out WPDH and Poughkeepsie. That's where I learned all my stuff.

But like ACDC, is that classic rock to you? Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. It's old enough, right? Yeah, big ACDC. Yeah, and I think those guys hold up in a way that's cool and never gets cheap. Yeah, like when you say rock, they just fucking rock, dude. I don't know why we do this to people so but i've done it too bon jovi is not classic rock by any stretch but i was in grade

school some of those early formative music years where you know bon jovi comes out with slippery wet saw him at harvard civic center 10 years old no big deal. And Cinderella opened. Cinderella brought it way harder than Jovi. I'll just tell you that right now. But then Bon Jovi staying alive, and I'm saying not physically, but staying in the mix and trying to find new ways to market themselves. Who are any of us to go, yeah, you know what? We're done with you. We really are in a rush to have people be over with their careers. Um, whereas ACDC, the whole point that I'm making here is that ACDC, I just don't feel like they ever did that. They're like, this is what we do. This is how we dress. This is what we're going to always do. And we rock. So there you go. No apologies. So ACDC, what about the Allman brothers? Uh, yeah, exactly. Like that

was one of those things where I didn't know the band or the name of the song, but it plays for 20 seconds, and I'm like, yeah, this is one of the ones I like. These are one of my guys. So you don't really know the names of the bands? I mean, yeah, no. Clapton, love Clapton. Big fan of... Slow Hand?

What's that song? It's like my favorite song. In the white room... That's Cream. That's Cream. That's not Clapton, but it is. Yeah, it is Clapton. You've got a good voice. Thanks. You want to do more of that? I'm actually a little surprised. You hit every note perfectly there right in the beginning of that line. Did you care to do that again? Because now I'm fascinated.

No, I'm not going to do that. Have you ever sang before? Oh, totally. Big shower guy. No, but I mean, like, were you in the choir? No. I'm going to say no. No. Because those are all nerds, right? I was in the chorus because I didn't have to learn notes in middle school. Yeah, I think everybody's

in chorus, though. Well, no, it's like after middle school, after the seventh grade, it's like, well, you can stick with your band instrument or you can just memorize these songs. So I went the chorus route after seventh grade. Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you maybe were going to be like, actually, I'm going to grow somewhat of a mustache here and stand behind the school. So I don't want to do that.

I don't want to do any of that stuff. All right. So you like Cream. Big. Guns N' Roses is cool. Guns N' Roses. Yeah. Hendrix. so i don't want to do that i don't want to do any of that stuff all right so you like cream big uh guns and that's a great call guns and roses yeah hendrix i'll get down with a hendrix uh solo check out any any band of gypsy stuff with hendrix after the experience yeah check out the bandage yeah band of gypsies is better it just is it's better Hendrix, but it's basically what I do is I go spot. Now I go Spotify, classic rock drive. It's a playlist and it's just like,

Hey, let me just see what people say is the right stuff. And I'll listen to that. And look at you. What a company guy. You're like, Hey, check out Spotify.

That wasn't, that wasn't even a read. What would be better than if this were a three minute Spotify read and we were freestyling. And then people thought we were actually talking about music. All right. Look, a couple of things in there. Impressed that Kyle likes cream impressed with your voice, the limited sampling we got of it and impressed with your ability to, uh, to be a company guy. So that's, uh, all those things. Check, check a lot of boxes. All right. Ready to talk some hoops? Yeah, I totally derailed the segment. Go ahead.

You didn't. I derailed it because honestly, I think more people, a lot of the feedback that we're getting, people would just rather me talk to you than maybe rattle all this NBA stuff. So this NBA thing is just going to be a stream of consciousness here. We're not even going to call it the flagrant three. Not sure if I'm loving that name. I don't know. Incidental content was one of

the other ones we were throwing around if you can really name something great then people were like hey that's a great idea simmons and i were coming up with this potential stock thing that we were thinking about doing and i wanted to name it the big dort and i could tell i could tell that he and it really lou dort didn't have a ton to do with it so he i could tell when he's not interested in something he was like oh you know or no response and i went okay pass that's a pass down some good names before that what was the thing you guys had last year i thought was awesome you called it pod strickland no you call the piss break and i thought it was hilarious and he was like i didn't want to do it oh so neither of you like that fine Fine. No, I didn't want to name a segment on the podcast piss break.

So, yeah, that one might have been. I think he wanted to do it and I didn't. Well, it didn't get done. Would you do that? That's all I know. Yeah. I think it was one of those. I was like, would you name a segment on your podcast piss break?

So, anyway. All right, here we go. Basketball talk right now. All right all right jazz let's talk about the jazz 22 and 5 they've won seven straight remember the jazz were four and four i know bill and i did a pod very early on but we were kind of talking about west contenders and just a secret on how talking works for a living sometimes you just leave out stuff and you just left it out because you left it out and it wasn't because of any other reason. But I think the Jazz, look, I picked the Jazz to win the West last year because I was trying to be a little different and I liked the way Conley fit

in as a non-ball dominant player, but gave him another option who could set up the offense, play off the ball, let Mitchell go. So part of me feels like, hey, but this is beyond. What they are doing to teams right now is incredible. So seven straight. The Lakers are still the best team in the West. And the Lakers losing finally to Denver, not a huge shock. Part of it, Anthony Davis limping off. And as much as I love AD, I feel like half of his career has been me at home watching his games,

seeing him limp off at some point. But the Miami Heat's the best thing that could have ever happened to Anthony Davis, because in that series, you go, all right, well, there's absolutely no chance. So this is not a negative anti-AD thing. It's just the guy limps off a ton. So we'll see what the update is with the Achilles. But if you've been watching the Lakers closely the last couple of weeks, they can't shoot at all. So I don't know what's going on there. But again, they couldn't shoot last year in the bubble don't know what's going on there but again they couldn't shoot last

year in the bubble and then they won an nba title so you know when they restart i'm like man this team is awful from outside and then you're like and they won a championship so there you go uh but none of that is a surprise they had three overtimes in a row they were screwing around lakers have this incredible record they're barely off the jazz pace and they feel like they're coasting so as i talk up the jazz i I'm just mentioning that, you know, on paper, it's still going to be tough to pick against the Lakers. But what I see from the jazz is total connectivity basketball wise where like, oh, okay, we don't have the shot going. All right, we'll crush you in the paint. Oh, you're going to, you're going to be off of Gobert. Gobert,

I think is as engaged as I've seen him in a really long time, which is a difference from last year where I think he was pissed off a lot. Last year was just kind of a weird year for everybody, so you can't just use an excuse for your team. But the Gobert dynamic seemed to be different. Maybe now that he's paid and everything's good to go, but his blocks are career high. The screen assist number that he's always near the top of the league,

he's there again. And if it's not Mitchell playing, and Conley's been out this whole time, I mean, look, they over the stretch here, the jazz beat Miami. They were crushing Milwaukee. Giannis had, I think 29 points.

He didn't know. I don't care what his final numbers were. And look, they didn't have drew either, but again, Conley wasn't playing for Utah. They toyed with the bucks and they beat them up on the inside. And they did a really good job defending Giannis, who I think through the course of the game, did he have nine maybe in the first

half or something like that? He ends up with this huge point total, but I think there were like four dunks in the last two minutes from Giannis after the game was. So looking at that one thing and that Giannis played well, no, they did a really good job defensively on him. And then you'll have Ingles come down and set up the pick and roll, and then he'll see what you're doing. He's so smart. Bogdanovich has had some big point games. They can go double big with Favors and Gobert

if they want to play both of them at the same time, which I think at least gives them a chance having a Gobert if they have to play the Lakers in the playoffs. They beat the Celts. That game wasn't really all that interesting because the Celts, we game wasn't really all that interesting because the Celts, we'll get to them

a little bit later. And the Pacers, who had kind of a nice run here lately, winning some games. So the Pacers are a good team. That's a good win too. So that's not like

four bad teams that they went through. That Milwaukee game, you're like, man. So, okay, stat profile for Utah real quick again. Offense number four,

defense number two, net rating number one, the best rebounding team in the league, and their fourth overall from three. quick. Again, offense number four, defense number two, net rating number one, the best rebounding team in the league, and they're fourth overall from three. They're connected. They're confident. They're multiple. Ingles can set up the offense. Conley can set up the offense.

Mitchell can set up the offense. Bogdanovich is more than just a spot-up guy. They can have the double big option against a bigger West lineup in the playoffs. And the Lakers don't have that lightning-quick point guard, unless we're talking about Dennis, who maybe they would rely on to get them some just break down the defense off the dribble type things. You'd hope that Conley could hold up against that.

But they are totally... The only negative is that it's February, and they're this locked in, and they look this good. Another thing I want to bring up, Zion. Now, Zion is, if you're a Pels fan, I think you'd admit there are moments of frustration with him. He's still not in shape. I don't think he works real hard. There's some grownup that has to go, not a bad guy or anything like that. I'm talking about dedication to becoming a professional athlete. I still, his gate when he runs scares the shit out of me.

Um, and defensively, I would say it it's looked better the last couple of weeks. I'm sure you could find plenty of plays in there that you don't love, but I thought it's been better. At least his fight, his want to has looked a little bit more engaged than it was at certain times, beginning of this year although i really didn't like the pels in that most recent loss against detroit i think that was last night and you know they were down nine but there's still 140 to go and even the the pelicans uh analyst was like hey what are you guys doing and they were defending they were off everybody and i think detroit hit a three and that was game but it was almost like new orleans

you know down 9 140 we're already All right. So we got all that stuff out of the way. Zion is arguably the most difficult guy to deal with one-on-one without ever needing to run a play for him. He'll get you 30 without one thing being designed for him other than it's over. Yeah, it was Detroit. He had a play on the left block, but he's extended out a bit. So he wasn't set up on the block. He faces up and Josh Jackson's on him. All right. Josh Jackson, wing undersized versus Zion, but quick. Zion took one step and was gone. Jackson couldn't get in front of him. Couldn't stay in front of Zion. And Zion goes up at the rim, three guys there hammering him.

And Zion hangs the air and still gets off like a really good shot, gets the foul, but almost an end one. The physical stuff, not that this is breaking news to Zion, but if you're not throwing more people at him one-on-one, you don't have a chance. You don't have a chance.

They'll let him bring the ball up on some plays and one of their wins, because I know in the Luka game, and we'll get to Luka here in a second because he had 46, but Zion had 36 in that game against Dallas. The only shot he missed was one he took from three. He made every other shot. I think he was 14 and 15, so 14 and 14 inside. Made his first 10, I think. And you're watching it going, this is hysterical because there's just, he's so physically gifted. That second jump is mutant level impressive. And there's, none of it's like in the flow of things.

It's like, hey, go get a bucket. And yeah, sure, they'll run a screen, it'll come off, something like that. We don't even need to do any of that stuff because it's so physically impressive. He had a play, like I said, yeah, he brought it up. It was before the Dallas game. It was earlier in the week.

And they let him iso dribble from the three-point line out and he got to the hoop and it was over so maybe you have to have him initiating more of this stuff with the ball but the problem is the Pels have Ingram who you know terrific but then the guards they've kind of a mixed bag and a lot of those guys you know handle the ball they're playing of a mixed bag. And a lot of those guys handle the ball. They're playing Kyra Lewis more, who looked like Dennis Smith and Josh Jackson both wanted to fight in the game last night. So most of this is a very complimentary Zion thing. Because if you just sit back and go, let me just enjoy the Zion parts of this, where he's doing stuff nobody else. He does stuff no one else can do.

No debate. And it's so impressive. Luka, real quick, by the way, after that slow start, he had 46 in that one. He had a great closing game against Portland where Portland didn't score forever to close the fourth quarter on the Sunday night game. And then they were going Lillard hunting the last few minutes

where all they were trying to do was get Lillard onto Luca. And honestly, Portland allowed it to keep happening every single time. They weren't pre-switching anything. They weren't doubling. They just let Luca get Lillard, and then he just went to work. However, as Dame will do, and check out Portland's record, by the way, as they are now the five seed in the West. But Dame hits a step back that is just so filthy.

There's nothing you can do with that. Yeah, Blazers right now, 16-10, 1-4 in a row. Look, they're only a game behind Phoenix, who's on fire right now in the four seed. So, Luka, quick number recap here. Luka is now 32-7-9 on 46%. And here's the scary number for everybody else. 40% from three on seven three attempts per game in February. Yes, he had a slow start to the season.

It was like five games. I think he shot 9% in the first month from three. He missed everything. He admitted the start change where he thought it was going to be later. Messed him up at the start of the season. People were making some Luka MVP jokes. He's not going to surpass LeBron, Embiid, Jokic. I know Curry was getting some love there because Curry's numbers,

but I mean, look, the team's just not going to be good enough. And every time Golden State wins a game and you're like, all right, are they actually going to make a run at this? Then there's some other nights where I go, how the hell is this team going to make the playoffs in the West? We're going to get into some East-West stuff here, but all love. So don't worry about that. But yeah, Luka, Luka bad star, incredible, incredible run right now. Okay. Boston, not an incredible run. Let's talk about this basketball team. That loss to the Wizards

yesterday was bad, real bad because the Wizards yesterday was bad. Real bad. Because the Wizards are arguably the worst team in the NBA because the Wizards haven't played anybody in the West. The Wizards have played the least amount of games against the West. Six games against the West where Boston, Miami, and Philly, second least amount of games against the

West. And again, this is all important for a little bit later. They've played eight. Boston is 13 and 13. And when you look at this season, important for a little bit later. They played eight. Boston is 13 and 13. And when you look at this season, Kemba had missed 15 games. He hasn't been good. He's a little bit better in the Wizards game, but they can't just give up on him. So for everybody that's frustrated about Kemba, you can't just bench the guy who's like a max player because Kemba being better is what gives you a chance here. Because Tatum and Brown are so good.

Tatum's missed are so good. Tatum's missed five games and now Smart has missed nine. But this is a pattern, and it's just something I talk about with my Celtics buddies about this, but we feel like we're on year three of watching Boston and not really knowing who they are as a team because just the inconsistency with who's available in the lineup. And Boston's not the only team dealing with this. Again, it's closer to me because I like talking to my dad about the Celtics,

so I'll watch more of the games. But this is the third year. When you go back last year, Kemba missed time. And then when he came back, he wasn't great. He was terrible in the playoffs against the Raptors. Hayward missed 20 games. When he did have stretches where he came back, it looked good. But when he came back for the playoffs, his confidence looked like he was shot.

Jalen missed 15 games. Then three years ago, that 18-19 team that I despised watching, even though they were 49-33, Kyrie missed 15 games. Hayward's trying to figure it out the whole time. Horford missed 14 games. Now, look, there's a lot of teams. Remember, that 18-19 team was the team that had this great record without Kyrie, and it was like, wait, was this real?

And at first, I'm like, I'm not sure if that's necessarily true, but it seemed like the team was so miserable because of some of the Kyrie. And it was like, wait, was this real? And at first I'm like, I'm not sure if that's necessarily true, but it seemed like the team was so miserable because of some of the Kyrie stuff that even with the good record, and that was the team that was like, Hey, don't worry about us. And I made fun of him the other day, but it was, you know, once we get everybody together, nobody can beat us. It's like, none of you guys have ever done anything collectively. Yes. Kyrie has his own individual accolades, but the rest of you guys don't even have those for the most part in your group. It is extremely offensive. It should be offensive to all of us when a team is like, look out for us. You're like, when? This group has never done anything in the playoffs and they

got smoked by the Bucs in the second round. So you go two years ago, last year, and then this year, it's this ongoing thing with Boston where you go, what is the team? And right now they're 13 and 13. And this turns into some of the Brad Stevens stuff where you go, all right, what do you actually have? Now, Brad Stevens is a really good coach. All right. And I'm never one that leans towards, hey, let's fire everybody. It doesn't really solve the problems that I think. I think it's just change for change sake. So I'm not going there. But I also think because of Brad's personality that it becomes frustrating, especially in a town like Boston.

Same could be said for like New York, Philly. We get it. The intense Northeast cities that when the team doesn't look like they're locked in, and they were awful against the Wizards, right? That was just an awful, awful loss. They were beat from the jump and never got back in. When everybody makes a run and usually gets back in,

no matter how many they're down. When Brad is passive talking about the team after the fact, and he's not a reflection of the, the misery, maybe misery is the wrong word. Angst. How about just anger? Fans get mad when their team looks that bad.

And then when Brad's not mad, it's like, Oh, now I'm super mad at this guy. And the biggest problem for Brad is that he was sold a certain way to Celtics fans. It's this just guy that could fix everything because for the longest time, it's like, man, this Celtics team wasn't even supposed to be competitive. They were kind of rebuilding on the fly. And now they're the

one seed. Now, granted, it was a one seed a few years ago with Isaiah Thomas when they won 53 games. Think about that. A one seed with 53 games. That's how bad the East was. It's how bad the East was when the Celtics made it to the conference finals that year against Cleveland in seven games. I mean, Cleveland went seven games with the Pacers. Remember that, that playoff year? So that's four years ago. So people would say, well, you know, he's never going to another Eastern Conference finals. I think the only team you should argue that they should have beaten, and it definitely wasn't Cleveland the year they were the one seed, they shouldn't even have beaten Washington. I'm not surprised they lost to Cleveland in game seven with guys like LeBron and Tatum being 15 years old.

can really get on their case about. But even then, it's not like they were upset by a clearly inferior team. The bam out of Bayou pick and roll just crushed them and they couldn't do anything with it. So this isn't an anti-Brad thing, but I understand the anti-Brad part of it because you were told at some point this guy was that much more valuable than anyone else. And those dumb things that I've brought up in the past about, well, Brad Stevens, how many players did you take before you took Brad Stevens? Like maybe four? Like how about 40? Okay?

Because it's always the players more so than it is the coach. And as much as people want to get mad about Ainge, I don't know how the bench ended up being worse. That seems impossible, but it is. And even though they have nights where a lot of guys are hitting shots, they're 14th in field goal percentage, but they're six from three.

Like Grant hit shots, Semis hit shots, Tice hit shots, but their last seven games, Boston's 23rd in the NBA in offensive efficiency. And then some nights they just suck on defense too. So if you want to take it

to the next step, the Ainge has screwed this whole thing up. I still think knowing that Tatum is the pick over Lonzo or Fultz is worth 10 misses in the late first round. I think being the one team that probably was taking Jalen Brown third, as opposed to screwing up RJ Hunter or Patrick Young, I would rather have the guy get the stuff right at the top than making sure he's always great. He hasn't been great on some of the other ones. The Neesmith, especially with Sadiq Bey

going for 30 against him, doesn't look good either. But I think on the bigger things, he's always done better. And that's why you're not going to hear me say, hey, fire Ainge, fire Brad Stevens. But this team is now on three years of this run where you're like, what is it? Now, on three years of this run, we were like, what is it? Philadelphia, they've lost three of five. They've lost their last two. And Philly still is number one in the East. But when they were really rolling before they had to play anybody,

there's talk like, hey, Philadelphia, absolute contender. Maybe. This isn't an anti-Philly. If Philly comes out of the East, not going to be shockingly surprised, but it was just worth at least mentioning that Philadelphia at that time hit the easiest schedule. We mentioned the East-West thing and how they haven't played a ton of teams in the West, and now they're playing them. We'll see what happens with Utah tonight.

So it's not knocking Philly, but it's just important to point out that some of this stuff with the weirdness of the season and who you catch when you catch him and the east-west discrepancy, which is massive, sometimes we can talk ourselves into some of these teams. I'll never forget, remember when the Suns had 48 wins a bunch of years ago and Jeff Hornacek was the head coach?

And I couldn't believe that team had 48 wins. Going into the year, I was like, they're not going to be any good. 48 wins, they don't make the playoffs because it was so bunched up there at the end with how good those teams were. And Hornacek ended up getting fired, I think, fairly quickly, I think the next year. And I asked him, I go, hey, how did you guys win 48 games? And it was the most honest answer I've ever gotten from a coach. He's like, yeah, we weren't that good. But, you know, we ran into a bunch of teams on second of a back-to-back and some guys were missing. We just, it was one of those scheduling years where we just sort of hit it. I'm like, all 82 games, you just kind of hit it right. And he was like, yeah.

So instead, most other coaches be like, you know, we really had a focus. In the beginning of the year, I said all these things and I mapped it out this way, you know, but, and then this coach didn't work out and this player quit on me. The survival mode of coaches in sports and Horn's like, yeah like, yeah, we just kind of get lucky with the schedule. All right, so final thing here on the standings. Oh, by the way, positive for Celtics fans. Drew Gooden, when Taco Fall checked into the game, Drew Gooden, he does Wizards games.

He was like, Taco Fall, he's a problem. So that should help you feel a little bit better on that one. Okay. The East is so bad at the bottom. We've talked about this before the season started, where if you go through the bottom teams in the West, I thought Oklahoma city would be the worst team. Shout out to the thunder 11 and 15. Nice win last night. Um, they had a fight off Milwaukee the entire time. Oklahoma city has grown on me in that. Hey, I like that guy coming off the bench. I'd like that guy coming off the bench.

Shea Gillidge is Alexander. I didn't play the last couple games. His stats are off the charts. I'll admit he I was as scared as he looked in the playoffs. We'll just chalk it up to him being young, being given a pass. I didn't like that, though. He looked like he wasn't really built for it at that time. His numbers now, though, the jump up, incredible. And they have all these guys, Diallo, who I've mentioned at the beginning of the year.

I'm like, man, I kind of like him. Williams bust his ass. Roby bust his ass. Jackson hit a huge shot. They just, they constantly, Baisley, you know, you could see a version of Baisley where you're like, I wouldn't mind having that guy on my team out there running and finishing transition. could see a version of Baisley where you're like, I wouldn't mind having that guy on my team out there running and finishing transition. And George Hill hasn't played 12 games and Horford's actually missed eight as well. I can't believe they're 11 and 15. And I think they have the second worst

offense in the NBA. But shout out to the Thunder because I've been impressed with just how hard they play. And if you're not ready to play them, even as a much more talented team, they're not going to take any nights off. Speaking of, shout out to the Spurs as well. You're six seed, 16 and 11. They've won two in a row. You want to talk about that east-west split. The Wizards have played six, as I said. Boston, Miami, those teams have played eight.

Makes a little bit more sense. They're in the east. San Antonio's in the west. The Spurs have played an NBA-high 22 games against the Western Conference. Final standing stuff here because I want to do this again. Memphis is out of the playoffs right now. Dallas is out of the playoffs. Sacramento is not a joke. I mean,

they were 12 and 11 a week ago. They've lost three in a row. Houston won a bunch in a row. They've lost five in a row. They're probably not making the playoffs. The Pelicans have lost three in a row. They're 11 and 15. Minnesota actually has the worst record in the NBA, but I just don't like the way they play, but the Thunder should be behind them. I mean, roster alone, that's kind

of crazy, but those are the teams that you're facing on non-playoff opponent nights in the West. That's a huge, huge difference from Chicago, Orlando, Cleveland, Detroit, the Wizards, except unless you're Boston. The Raptors have worked their way back in. The Pacers are the only team in the East with a winning record on the road. The only team. Everyone else, I think there's one, the Bulls are 500. So it's not like there's, I'm being a little tricky with the way I phrase this.

There's seven teams that are 500. No, no, no. Everyone else has a losing record. 13 of the 15 teams, oh wait, 12 of the 15 teams have a losing record on the road in the East. And the final part of this, there's only five teams over 500 in the East. Pacers, Nets, Bucks, Sixers. And the Pacers won 200. They were below 500 last week.

That's, I mean, this is ugly. This is pretty ugly. You have three playoff teams in the East. The Hornets are the sixth seed. You have three teams in the playoffs right now in the East that are below 500. So it's just important with the oddity of this season to dig through it all

and try to figure out scheduling-wise that can scheduling tell us a little bit more about these teams than just a record. You want details? Fine.

I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So,

now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay, we got somebody checking in here. Somerville. What's up, kid? Alright, 28, recently married, bought our first home, a condo in Somerville, Mass. I like the purchase, by the way. Expanding Bostono in somerville mass i like the purchase by the way expanding boston footprint somerville uh i don't know i lived there for a couple months

top two floors of an old house we're eager to make some upgrades my wife and i are fortunate enough to have a very solid finances combined 303 whoa 300 350k annual income kyle that'll make you want to get married. Yeah, that's great. I remember one of my friends in college was like, this is amazing. He's like, being married is awesome. He got married right after college. We're like, why? Why is it so awesome?

He goes, because we have two incomes. I was like, you know, people have talked about this before, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he also said too, he's like, we have sex all the time. Oh, nice. I was like, really? I was like, I've not heard that he's like i just i get to have sex whenever i want to and i was like that's great man that's really great i don't want to hear about too much of that stuff and then guess what happened divorce now it's half the money

no they didn't get divorced but he definitely was like yeah doesn't, that doesn't hold up. It's like over, over time. Um, it's not the case. It's like a radiation decay. Yeah. I don't know.

Half-life. I like what you just did there though. I was always fascinated by half-lives of, uh, of stuff like plutonium. What? All right. So our guy here is like,

can you keep reading my email, please? We're generally cautious with spending. So as new homeowners, we want to start, be smart about investing in the property, which brings me to my question. What is your advice for having a good working relationship with the guys we have coming in to do work? Have experience in the field. I thought you might have a few do's and don'ts. I want to be easy and reasonable to work with from the contractor's perspective. So I'm not getting in the way of good work getting done, but obviously don't want to come off as a pushover and let someone waste my money time.

We've all heard horror stories. Right now we're lining up an electrician to come in for a few upgrades and wiring, an insulation guy for air sealing and blowing, a window guy to replace four old drafty single pane windows, an HVAC guy to put in ductless mini split system. So we're going to have a lot going on and be smart about it. Look, I'll just tell you right now, I'm not your HVAC guy. I'm not your, your wiring guy insulation though. That was always fun. That was back in the day where you're just cutting that stuff, cutting that stuff up with a utility knife and then tacking away at it. Uh, all right. This is a really good question. I don't know that there's, there's ever a perfect solution to this because the chances are like one of the four is going to suck. Maybe it'll be two of the four. Maybe it'll be a nightmare or maybe it'll all work out. It sounds like you're just going to go independent contractors and you're going to organize all this stuff. So now you don't have a GC overseeing the whole thing, which I'm not saying that you need to.

You know, it'd be great if you had friends in the area that had work done and could kind of steer you in the right direction. The online review thing is kind of a dangerous game because think about, yes, there are guys out there that are bad, don't do the work, want to get paid ahead of time, but it doesn't seem like you have to worry about any of that stuff. Just make sure you're not paying anybody for supplies like way ahead of schedule. There's a certain number, again, on a bigger project, a certain number that the homeowner has to pay up front. And then you hear horror stories about that. So I think if your insulation guy's like, hey, I need to be paid 75% of the job ahead of time, I would find a different insulation guy. I mean, it's insulation. So I don't think you have to worry about that. But whenever I hear like, oh, just go online. You could read reviews and somebody could be really good. And then it could be something that didn't work out with a homeowner and the homeowner blasted, like, think how crazy the reviewers might be more so than the guys actually doing any of the construction work. So that's not always great. Again, like I said, it's too bad that I guess you don't have any friends or family in the area that could at least steer you in the right direction with the work history from people that they've had work on their kind of stuff. So, um, I'd even say like if the electrician

sat down and started pounding meatball subs and smoking Marlboros, that that'd be a bad sign, but it might not be. So, you know, you have to change the way your first impressions, your judgment of, of guys that are blue collar that are laborers. Um, because some of the guys that may turn you off from the beginning are actually the right guys to do the job. So you can't judge a book by its cover, especially when it comes to construction and all that kind of stuff. But as far as paying up front, there should be a reasonable number. I would tell you to stay away from anybody that seems eager to get paid more than you would think you would have to pay somebody to start a job because that's where a lot of people run into it. The electricians are going to be slobs.

None of you can do about that. They're just going to be slobs. So don't get on their case. It's in their genes. I think maybe making sure, because you don't have a GC working on this, the scheduling part is going to be important. Make sure you don't have the HVAC guy there the same day as the installation guys. And, you know, seriously, and I'm probably coming to this from the different side, but like, I think you're already warning yourself that you might be a little too hands-on. That's just going to piss everybody off. So you can say you don't want to be a pushover,

but really what we're talking about is a pushover on pricing because you're not going to know if the electrician's not doing his best job wiring it. Are you? Are you going to have any clue what the hell's going on in the vents? No. So you could sit there and put your hands on the hips like Bob Vila and look up and point and be like,

hey, what's that screw for and all that stuff? But you don't know what's that screw for? And all that stuff. But you don't know what you're talking about. And they're going to know, you don't know what you're talking about in like two seconds. It's like dribbling a basketball, um, in front of other people that play basketball. So you don't want to like you pretending, you know, what you're doing is some way to like intimidate them from fucking you over. None of that's going to work. Cause they're going to know immediately if you know, or don't know what you're talking about. Like I have a guy coming to look at my house and there's, I think I'm okay with some stuff,

but you know, even though I'm good at like two things, decking and frame, that's about it. Oh, shingling. But that's, that's the easiest thing ever.

And somebody tells me they just do shingling like, Oh, so you didn't want to learn a skill. I'm just kidding. Shinglers. I'm just kidding. But, uh, although, you know, cutting around some of the light fixtures isn't always easy, but yeah, don't, don't be too hands-on with this because being hands-on, like what would you actually solve? What problems would you solve? What, what problems would you prevent in a skill here that you probably

don't know anything about so uh you know one of the things is probably not going to go right one or one or two of the things scheduling wise probably not going to go perfectly according to time so i would say have a little leniency with that and just be smart about how you structure the payments. Kyle, you ever do any construction? Um, I not construction. My buddy, my buddy's dad,

um, was in charge of like demolishing parts of, uh, Vassar hospital in Poughkeepsie. And, we got to, uh, strip the copper wires at the end.

Cause I know if you burn it, it's, uh, it's worth less money. So we spent pretty much a good portion of one summer just stripping copper wire in my buddy's basement, listening to 50 Cent. God, that sounds like an episode of The Wire

where those guys would steal copper tubing. Yeah, I don't think he was supposed to take The Wire, but I mean mean what were they going to do with it otherwise god nothing you do surprises me anymore well i know i was a kid it's like i think his dad was the guy who did it and it was just there and he's like hey if we strip this we can get like 13 cents a pound if we burn it we only get nine cents a pound or something like that should we expand life advice to one hate mail an episode? Cause now that's,

that's what Kyle's Kyle's sending me a few that he thinks are hilarious. And, um, we had, we had one guy get really mad about something, but I don't know. I don't really want to deter. I like how we're closing this off.

I mean, cause the crazy thing about this, when we started it, I was just trying to do something a little different and something to close the pod every week you know because closing i i swear to god canel and i tried 10 different things to close the radio show in that last segment because the last segment in a three-hour show just seems to get dumped on but if you can find a great closing thing and something people look forward to it keeps the audience a little bit longer and all that kind of stuff um the response on this segment when things are generally

kind of negative like it's overwhelming but every now and then we'll get one to be like really really personal um but i don't know we'll uh we'll see maybe we'll put it on vote you joining clubhouse at all you got in on clubhouse no no not doing that it looks hectic looks fucking chaotic there's a lot going on i've seen like screen recordings of twitter i'm like this looks awful people like hey hey man hey hey man hey hey let him talk let him talk that's clubhouse right where there's just like a bunch of people in there and yeah i did one i did one i'm on it but then i there's some restrictions that apparently I have, which is fine. But I, I mean, it is, I checked in on a couple of them.

I was like, this is wild. Guys are debating whether or not she's with you based on certain relationship details for Valentine's day. Like this guy was arguing that he, he was not, this girl was not as Valentine's and then girls are chiming in and be like, well, does this happen? He's like, yeah. She's like, that's your Valentine's then. He's like, man, this is intense.

Okay. Here we go. One more. Huge fan of the show. 26, living in a pretty big city with a roommate from college. Moved in last fall after living at home for the three years following college. So I was able to save a good bit. In the next few months, I'll have to make a decision to either keep my place with my roommate

and paying rent or look to buy a place of my own. A lot of family members and friends and relationships give me the whole song and dance that buying is smart and paying rent is a waste of money, but I'm single and not entirely sold on my job in the long run. Continuing to rent would give me the flexibility to keep my options open. So we're talking rent buy here. All right, the guy said, the kicker is I'm tied to my job for at least a couple of years. I'm currently going for my MBA and getting tuition assistance through work. So if I do leave my job, I would owe them whatever. I've borrowed in the last, oh, I would owe them whatever I borrowed in the past year. He says it's about 10 grand.

So they're paying towards his MBA. But if he quit, he'd have to pay them back. I don't know. This sounds like it's a pretty easy answer. My job is a large finance institution. So it has a lot of upwards mobility. My viewpoint could change in the future, but I haven't drank the so-called Kool-Aid and I'm three and a half years in. Do I continue paying rent and keeping my options open or do I look to buy on my own, tying me to my city hometown for the next at least five years? Okay. It doesn't sound like

you hate the finance job though. All right. So yeah, you may not buy the Kool-Aid. You can be a not buy the Kool-Aid guy and still go and cash their checks and make a nice living because it sounds like that's what you're on the path for. So none of this has any tone of I hate it here. I can't be here. So now we're coming down to a simple. And by the way, the fact that you're helping you with the MBA, why wouldn't you just before you make any decisions, you should still have them help you pay for that, get the MBA, and then you can start making some other big boy decisions. If you're not blown away, entirely happy every day at 26, living in a big city with this new job, you're not alone. Almost 90% of the emails are, I don't really like my job, which is unfortunate. It's too bad. I think maybe as things develop, more and more people are finding a way to find a path that works for them. I think there are more options professionally now than ever before. And a lot of it's risk-based. So I'm more, I wouldn't say I'm very risk-averse in my decisions, but I would say on this one, finish it up. You're three and a half years in.

You're only 26. You're not bringing up any other problems come to mind. So now you're getting the rent versus buy thing. Older generations are always on your case to buy. I took a little while. Look, financially for me, it wasn't even an option for a really long time. So I was renting and renting and renting, although I bought some place early on, but did one of those ridiculous arms where I wasn't paying anything. And I was paying like this introductory interest rate level that was going to balloon like crazy. So basically I did it only because I wanted to keep my expenses down because I needed to live by myself. Um, because I was, you know, starting this whole

career and I, and I couldn't, I couldn't live with some of the guys I was living with. So, um, it makes, it makes sense. Like, look, it sucks kind of paying rent, but at times I think like rent almost gets a bad rep, you know, because when you're buying, depending on the expenses of the move in, which is massive and they just keep piling up and then you keep ordering all little stupid accent lights in the first 30 days because you think you need all this stuff. And then you just like, why did I buy it in this stuff? Maybe that you won't do that. The property tax part of it, depending on where you're buying is a huge deal. You're like, oh wait. And so then you've got home insurance.

So whenever you go on Zillow and you type in your dream home and then you say, this is what I can spend. And then you see that first monthly payment thing and you're like, oh, I could do that. And then you start adding all the other stuff. You're like, wait, this is a lot. So the fact that you can just not do any of that, not use the down payment on anything, maybe invest in a different way. Although, you know, stocks scare the shit out of me right now. And since you're young, you're probably not

going to want to do some long-term IRA with the money that you've saved up because you can't really use it for some of these other bigger decisions you'll be making in a few years. The renting thing isn't terrible. What I'd say to you, and again, the generational part of it is, hey, get a 30 fixed, pay it off, 30 years, there's your retirement nest egg and all that kind of stuff. That's not, younger people aren't doing that anymore. I don't know if the interest onlys are a bad product. For some, they are. For some, they aren't. Sometimes the interest only is like living above your actual means, which isn't always a great deal. But if you're buying in a place that's really good real estate wise, or at least you believe in it, although again, some of the

numbers where we're at now in certain cities compared to the collapse, although collapse is based on some different things, it scares you a little bit. You're like, how can the economy keep driving this? How can the stock market be where it's at with so many people struggling? How can real estate prices be on fire in certain areas around the country? And you're like, is it all just stock market related where people look at their portfolio and go, hey, all right, now, cool. I just feel really good about this big, big purchase because all these numbers that are kind of fake right now may be real down the road when I want to cash this stuff out. I don't know. All right, little economic rant there on the side. What I was trying to do when I was still living in Connecticut was I was trying to buy in Manhattan Beach to buy to rent out just to get in the game. So it might be something you want to think about. Finish the MBA. Keep having work help pay for that. It sounds like you don't hate the job. You're only 26. I imagine in a big city with your roommate from college, you're kind of living like, don't be in a hurry to grow up here and try to do all this big boy shit that everybody wants you to do, especially family. These are amazing years right now,

and it looks like you have kind of a plan. But if you really care about the rent versus real estate thing or the rent versus buying thing and the real estate game, maybe you can pick a place that you kind of like that maybe you could see yourself living at years from now and get in the game there with a down payment and then rent it out. And, you know, I would try not to pick a place that's maybe doubled in the last couple of years on median sales, but double is a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe doubling in the last seven or eight years. That might be something if you feel like from an investment standpoint. So in the way, if somebody else is paying you rent to pay your mortgage, you don't feel like you're just pissing away your money in rent. But renting isn't as terrible as people make it out

to be when you consider the freedom and a lot of the expenses that maybe you're not always considering if you haven't ever purchased a home. Shout out water heaters. And water heaters, Kyle. Water heaters. Okay, last one. I meant to do this one instead, because I think that other one was pretty self-explanatory uh ryan what's up good buddy getting married having a golf trip bachelor party sweet love to golf here's the thing i'm 40 and i don't really like to drink anymore all my friends on this trip are 37 39 and still drink like they're at a fucking frat you know there's plenty of guys that drink that aren't frats i'm just kidding aside from uh hey man you're 39. Maybe

the party's going to stop. How the fuck can they physically still do this? I also have two kids who are under age four. And if I get a hotel room by myself, guess what? I'm going to want to sleep in silence for the first time in four years. So the way I see it, I have three options. Go and say, fuck it, drink with them and feel like shit for four days and blow a couple grand on golf while playing terribly because I'm hungover. Go and go out but not drink and hate every second because being the sober guy while everyone else is shit-faced is god-awful and all I want to do is be back at the hotel sleeping, not in some shit-ass bar. Man, this guy really hates going out. Go and instead of going out at night, just hang out in the hotel room by myself and enjoy a solid night's sleep and be able to appreciate the golf because i'm not hung over however getting called names every five minutes because i don't act like i'm 20 anymore eventually someone's gonna get an eye

jammy i guess that's a punch in the face because you can only get called uh that by your bros i haven't heard that in a while i jam i don't think i like it as much as you do but that's all right people are different so what option would you suggest? Also, if you come up with a fourth option, I'm all ears. I may have the fourth option. I'll admit, like the guy hazing part of each other, that does suck. Like if you just don't want to drink and you don't want to be hung over, and it sucks because it sounds like you already have

pre-hangover anxiety before you're even hung over, which is a terrible thing to experience. Like right as you get off you board a flight to Vegas and you go, okay. But you really don't seem like you want to do it. And I'm not,

I'm not getting on your case about this. And I actually think it sucks when guys do this. Like we have a buddy who is, he's older than I am. And he doesn't, he doesn't get after it that much anymore.

But when he does, he really wants to get after it. And then I'll visit and he'll start ordering shots at like nine 30, 10. And I go, I don't, I go, dude, I don't want to do shots with you. And I don't want to do them now. And I it's think about this. I know what you're going to do. 1130, you're going to be shit-faced. You're going to get in an Uber. You're not going to tell anybody. And then you're going to text them more and be like, Hey, that was fun. And he's like, no, it wasn't, it wasn't fun because like we wanted to stay out all night because you know, it's one of those trips and you always are going to bail on us, but you rush it. You rush it to get to where you need to

get to. Cause you don't get to go out that much anymore. And then you just Uber home and then you're in bed by midnight. And you know, there's, there's, there's some math to all of this stuff. So there's a, there's a hazing that guys's some math to all of this stuff. So there's a, there's a hazing that guys will do on the drinking thing where it does really suck. If you're like, Hey, tonight's not one of those nights.

I don't feel like doing it that much, but I want to be out with you guys. And this is a golf trip. So I get it. Like, unfortunately, men and your friends, and this is not unique to you that they're just going to give you shit the

whole time. If you go out and you don't drink, you know what? They going to give you way more shit about? You can't go on this trip and sit in a room and sleep. You can't. I had a night, I remember, at a golf trip where the third night I was like, I don't want to go out tonight. And I remember we were taking naps and the guy I was roomed with was my college roommate. I go, what if I go, I don't want to go out tonight. I go, I've had it. I go, what if we just stay in? We just lock the door and don't answer the phone.

And he's like, there's no way. He's like, they're not going to let us do that. He's like, especially us too. Like we can't, we're the backbone of this thing. Like we can't. And one guy did stay in, but he was like staying guy. And we knew it. We're like, oh, so-and-so stayed in. Like that's the most predictable thing ever. So I may have a fourth option for you. You might have to go soda water lemon and just trick

everybody the entire time. Like get one. Now it sucks because you get to kind of like keep track of it. And then, you know, who knows if you do get, you start feeling good a little bit and you're like, ah, whatever, I'll stay out. And then you're hung over and then none of it really worked. But it's a little bit of the Roger Sterling Madman thing where he sits down, the English guy is going to pitch Jaguar. It doesn't work out, obviously. And Roger Sterling's like, here's what you need to do. Get him drunk so that he opens up to you so that you can use that against him in some sort of negotiation. He goes, so when you drink a whiskey, um, with ice cube with a little bit of water, he's like, order another one.

And they just keep dumping it into the water so that it looks like it's brown the whole time, but really you're just drinking water down whiskey. Now, this is a lot to do to hang out with your buddies and deal with this stuff. But if you go soda water lemon, when no one really knows what you're doing and you just milk that the whole time, then it'll look like you're drinking. And hopefully, this is ridiculous that it even comes to this at 40 years old, but hopefully no one else will really notice because they're all drinking. So you're going to have to play the game, but it sounds like you want to be locked in enough. Like the last thing you seem to want to be is be hung over, but you can't hide.

You can't quarantine yourself. Although you could, I guess, say you have COVID, um, right now. Cause I I'd still like to know, like which bars are they all going to, but I guess there's certain parts in the South that just opted out of the COVID thing months ago. So I would say, try the soda water lemon trick, you know, get maybe the first one, get a Belvedere soda lemon, and then just never put anything in it the rest of the night and just keep raising your glasses and the entire time, no one's ever going to pick up on it. It's just going to take some crafty work from you. Maybe you throw the bartender a 20 kind of wink and say, Hey,

keep these coming, lock it in that way. He takes care of the rest of the night. Everybody thinks you drink and then you can just wake up the next day and say, I feel great. You know, I actually feel pretty good. And no one will know why. Alright, this week, Richard Jefferson Vucevic is going to join us. We had some scheduling mix-ups on Friday, so the Orlando Magic Star will be with us

this week and some other stuff as well. So, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Please subscribe, rate, and review the Ryan Russell Podcast, Ringer, and Spotify Network. you