The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Warriors-Celtics Finals Pick, Van Lathan on CFB Recruiting Jealousy and Life, Plus Going Abroad

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Ryen opens with his pick for the Warriors-Celtics NBA Finals matchup and goes through the categories of confidence whenever people make predictions (0:27). Next, he chats with Van Lathan about why Texas A&M is the G-Eazy of college football, Captain America vs. Black Panther, and his new book 'Fat, Crazy & Tired' (17:09). Then, Ceruti hops on for a Champions League edition of Going Abroad, before Ryen recaps the F1 Monaco Grand Prix (30:07). And finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:03:53). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Van Lathan Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast i go through a history of trying to pick the series and give you my nba finals pick we're going to talk with van lathan just about anything and he's got a book out and we'll do a little life advice and we go abroad. Soccer F1 style with Saruti. As we all get ready for the NBA finals, trying to figure this whole thing out, right? Trying to figure out which way I'm going to go with this, which team I'm going to pick. And I'm going to run through a couple different things. And I want to talk about the categories of confidence when you go ahead and picking stuff. Now, 20 years of doing this, I've had to pick a lot of games, some success, some failures.

Some I saw coming, some I never saw coming. And that's just the way it works. That's why we keep coming back, because it's sports. One category is the masses or assets. You'll hear a lot of people say, if you go with the mob, you end up being wrong.

And that's definitely happened a lot in sports. If you look at the biggest spread in Super Bowl history, that's Super Bowl III, Colts, Jets, Namath guaranteeing a victory. The Colts were favored by 18 points in that game. Everybody was picking the Colts. I don't even know if Joe Namath was really picking the Jets.

And the Jets pulled one of the greatest upsets in modern-day sports history. Another big Super Bowl, the eighth largest spread ever, more recent, Super Bowl XLII. Pats undefeated, playing the Giants in a rematch from the end of the regular season. The Giants end up winning that one. I was working at ESPN at the time, so I think I had a good sense. I don't remember anybody picking the Giants. You may have a friend from Yonkers that always saw it coming, who also summers in Newark, who is a lifelong Giants fan that never gave up hope.

I'm not super interested in that guy's predictions. All right. So when that was happening and New England loses that game, the one indicator that maybe we should have had in hindsight, but it is playing the results, is that because the Giants had played them so closely at the end of the regular season, that that had a lot of value if they were going to match up again in the Super Bowl.

So New England, who's still that team, I would argue is one of the great football teams of all time. You're just not allowed to do it because they ended up losing the Super Bowl and they lost as a 12 and a half point favor. Sometimes the masses are right, you know, because you can't sit there and say, wait a minute, does that mean every time there's this thing what everybody thinks is going to happen, it never happens? Well, no, it has to happen enough for us to believe in it happening again. And the Chicago Bulls are probably the best example of that, at least in my run of paying attention to sports. I mean, even Alabama's lost games.

The Chicago Bulls in their six finals, by the way, they were favored in all six. They were minus 200 for the series against the Lakers, minus 250 against Portland, minus 240 against Phoenix. for the series against the Lakers, minus 250 against Portland, minus 240 against Phoenix. They were minus 950 against the Sonics for the first of their second three-peat, minus 200 against Utah, and only minus 115 against Utah in the rematch for Jordan's last ring. The Bulls were actually dogs in games one, two, and six for that series. So like we said, there's plenty of times where the public is just wrong collectively, but

there are also times too, which we don't really, you don't have a lot of people after everybody picks something to happen and then it happens. You don't have a lot of people being like, hey, credit to everyone on this one. Really good job. Everyone got this right. I don't hear those segments a lot. I have personal clarity history, as I'm sure

you do, where you're just seeing things a certain way. And maybe it's a favorite. Maybe it's a dog. Probably my most famous one is seven years ago with the Warriors when they were down 2-1 against Memphis and everybody wanted it. It felt like a lot of the former players. It was new. People didn't want to believe in the Warriors. They, for some reason, didn't think they played any defense because they just didn't, I don't know, want to look it up that they played well defensively. And I said, print the shirts. We printed shirts. The Warriors ended up winning a title, which, you know, some people look back and say Cleveland

would have won it if they had their guys are healthy. I'm not going to tell anybody that they were wrong about that. But Steph gets his first ring and many shirts were printed. But I cannot emphasize this enough. Being around former NBA players that we had, when I said Prince of Church, Chauncey Billups was in the studio with us. Because Chauncey was like, oh, they're getting into these guys. There was just this idea that if you got physical, pick them up full court. You were going to solve this Golden State riddle. And that didn't really happen because I felt like they had figured something out in that series. in that series. Another one, because I'll just never forget, because I don't usually, I'm usually not this dismissive of an opponent, but it was college football, January 1st, New Year's Day bowls, the whole deal. I decided to fill in for Mike and Mike that morning just because whatever, I wasn't doing anything. I was in Connecticut and I like college football and they were like,

well, you host like a college football kind of whole deal on Mike and Mike that day. I was like, yeah, no problem. So we were running through the New Year's Bulls. I think it was Brad Edwards and Trevor Maddich with me

who were my game day co-host for college football for radio. And we were going over the different Bulls and I just remember the Outback Bull. Yes, Tennessee was an eight and a half point favorite. They were number 23 in the country going up against number 13 Northwestern.

And I said, if Tennessee doesn't beat Northwestern, then I literally know nothing about college football because I'd watched enough of the games over the course of the years. I just can't fathom this Northwestern roster beating Tennessee's roster despite the rankings. And obviously Vegas felt the same way. And it was a bloodbath. It was 45 to six. There's also personal cloudiness, right? Where you are watching all the games.

You think you have it figured out, right? And then you watch it happen and you go, oh, this isn't going to work out at all. A couple of my favorites, and I have plenty to pick from. The 2009 Easter Conference Finals. Cavs, magic. We're looking at a situation where LeBron is going to face off with Kobe. I remember running into Bill Simmons on ESPN's campus a long time ago. And I was asking, hey, are you doing any of the World Cup stuff? He's like, what are you, nuts? It's going to be Kobe LeBron in the NBA Finals. He's like,

you would want to miss that? I go, well, I wasn't invited to the World Cup. I'm not saying. I think that was right around, I don't know, the World Cup 2009 doesn't sound right, but there was something going on where the heavy hitters from ESPN were all going somewhere. And he was like, no, there's no way I'm not going to be here for LeBron, Kobe in the finals. And that's how everyone felt about it. It was just kind of understood, hey, LeBron's going to get there. He's going to get back to the finals two years after he had no chance against San Antonio.

It's going to be Kobe. This is going to be unbelievable. There was an ad campaign around it. It was already happening. And then you watched the magic wing players against the lack of size in the backcourt. Was it Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson? You're like, wait, this is a bad matchup for Cleveland. This isn't going to work. Another one, when I bet a ton on the Packers against the Broncos in that first Super Bowl, I was like, oh, Packers D-line? I'm looking at average weights

of the D-line against the average weight of the O-line. I'm like, they're just going to push them around. And then you watch the game, and you're like, wait, this isn't going to work. And then, of course, Kentucky, when they made their run to the final, they lost to UConn, where I was like, you can have that team. I said that on Cowherd's show

because I felt like Calipari felt the same exact way about his Kentucky basketball team. They had a close game, I think, with Wisconsin there where it would have been an earlier exit. Then they're all the way to the finals. Then I had gone on vacation and somebody wrote about it in a Kentucky newspaper that I was supposedly on vacation, but I was likely just not showing up to work because I was so despondent or ducking it. I don't know. That was sort of weird. Then when I came back from vacation, there was somebody who was like, hey, how do you want to handle this? I'm like, handle what? I picked against Kentucky and they went to the tournament final. It's going to happen again, man. I'm going to be all right. We're going to be okay over here. To different stuff.

There's this other category that I am now facing. As I try to figure out who I want to pick for the NBA Finals. Where there's no clarity. There's plenty of cloudiness. I don't know if it's personal or not. We can look at some of the lines on this. Golden State's favorite in the first game. Minus three and a half.

92% of the money is on Golden State for game one. 81% of the public bets, not public money, because there's a difference between the number of bets on a side and then also the handle. But the public bets, 81% are on Golden State, who are now minus 160. You can see that on FanDuel for the NBA Finals. It was even lower than that, and then it moved to 160 pretty quickly that night as

Bill and I were doing the pod on Sunday. So it seems like a lot of people, even though I don't know that we're talking about this in the basketball sense, but I'm just wondering how many of you have friends that are just going, oh, it's Golden State. They're going to figure this out because they're still having like a 2015 to 19 Golden State hangover. When we all realize those of us that have watched it all, this Golden State team is really, really good, but it's not that team. And that's not an insult to not be that team

because that team, especially with the rant, I still think is one of the three best teams we've ever seen in NBA history. Maybe the best, but I don't know how to win that argument. So the public likes Golden State, but the analytics love the Celtics. I did the analytics rant about the Celtics when the stuff first started popping up.

I thought it was overwhelming. Not just that the analytics ended up being right about the Celtics getting them to the finals, but I just never quite understood how they were such heavy favorites in comparison to other teams. I think they were twice as likely to make it than the Phoenix Suns. And it ends up playing out that way. I just didn't understand how it could be projected that way. And at one point, I think Golden State, before we were even into the playoffs, was eighth. They were behind like six or seven other teams. I was like, that seems a little dismissive because I was looking at some of the 538 stuff and they had like the full roster rating and then the current roster rating and golden

states was almost equal when i felt like i don't know that this is a true reflection of full health golden state so 538 has the celtics has been floating around like 80 and 81 projected to win the nba finals which i would say both the public money seems absurd and the projection of 80% seems absurd to me because I think this is a really tough series to figure out. If we want to just look at some of the matchup parts of this, Boston size options, I feel like that's going to be a really big problem for Golden State because if Rob Williams is healthy in the Horford-Grant-Williams thing, and hell, they could even throw Tice out there, but I don't think they need to,

that's a lot for Golden State to worry about when they really only have Kevon Looney. That's why I was even saying, like, Bialysa might just be out there as a big body to just kind of hang out for 10 minutes a night, just to throw a body at the rim in some way. I also think Smart on Curry is

probably something Marcus Smart is looking forward to, because I would say against Butler, Marcus Smart didn't exactly look like defensive player of the year, but it's maybe just a bad matchup for him. And against Curry physically, even though I think this is the best driving Curry has ever done to the basket, that this might just be a little bit easier just from a physical standpoint. I would think that's a pretty safe assumption. On the other side for Golden State, Boston hasn't seen an offense like this that keeps playing the entire time.

As overwhelming as Giannis is, you know what's coming. As great as Jimmy Butler was, you knew what was coming. These are predictable things where with Golden State, you're never quite sure where the attack... I shouldn't say never quite sure, but you understand they're attacking you from different angles and they play out the entire possession. It's not facing one guy with the basketball, wondering how you can build a wall against him.

And then the turnover part of this. Jason Tatum throughout this run has turned it over 77 times in 18 playoff games. That's 18 more turnovers than anyone else. The number two guy. It's 18 more turnovers than the number two guy in that. I worry about Boston's late offense when teams will sell out like Golden State will to shut down Tatum. You would think that Golden State's watching the end of game seven against Miami Heat saying, we need to do some more of this stuff because Boston doesn't seem to have a really good counter when they come off of this.

You could say maybe Smart hits a couple of those threes and it doesn't really matter, but that's another part that bakes into me trying to figure out who I like. The final part of this that I think is funny is the has anyone played anybody? Because this is such a new group in the NBA playoffs, at least non-resume teams collectively, where this group, there wasn't anything necessarily to buy into. And especially that's because Milwaukee without Middleton. So it felt like we were very even at the top for like six of these teams, where you could talk yourself into any of these teams maybe winning an NBA championship.

But that turns into a, well, Golden State only beat Denver, and other than Jokic, they're not very good. Okay. And they beat Memphis, and Ja was missing for the second half. All right, that's fair. And then Dallas, maybe that win against Phoenix was a little fluky. It turns into a college football argument. You do the same thing with the Celtics, right?

Brooklyn, be sure, but they're a mess and the Kyrie stuff and Durant trying to do it by himself. Okay, no Middleton, covered it. Miami, I still can't believe that series went seven games. And part of game seven, maybe it's a complete over maybe it shouldn't matter i don't care about the collapse because i think you play to the score and boston kind of stopped playing and the next thing you know they're about to lose the series it's alarming maybe it means everything maybe it means nothing i don't have the answer to that

but it's very college footballish because we'll do it all the time in college football depending on where you're at geographically. This year, hey, Bama, whatever, they don't even deserve to be in. They haven't beaten anybody. Well, they beat Georgia. Yeah, but Georgia's not any good. Wait, Georgia's undefeated and they're not any good? No. Really? Yeah, they haven't played anybody. Yeah, but they're

destroying these teams. Yeah, they haven't played anybody. So they're not any good? No. So we're like a thousand games into this season. Has anybody played anybody? Actually any good? No. So we're like 1,000 games into this season. Has anybody played anybody? Actually, no. No. Really?

No one's played anybody all season? No one's played anybody good? These teams that are going to play in the playoffs, they haven't played anybody. No, none of those teams have played anybody good. Has that happened before? Oh, yeah. Actually, I don't think anybody's played anybody

in like five or six years. So it's fair and it's also unfair when it's really hard, okay? It's still hard to get to the NBA Finals. My pick is Golden State, and I hate it. The NBA Finals are here, and so is your chance to score big on FanDuel Sportsbook. Throughout the NBA Finals, FanDuel is giving new customers $200 in free bets, guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Bet the money line, point spreads, player props, and so much more.

Plus, you can combine your bets for an even bigger payday with same-game parlay. Okay, here we go. Options for Game 1. As of right now, Golden State on FanDuel, minus three and a half. First basket, Jalen Brown actually has the lowest payout here because of the expectation that they would run it for him. Steph Curry, if you go first quarter points, the total on that one's over under eight and a half points

in the first quarter. I take the under there, and there's also a series payout where if you get the series score, right, right. Depending on how many games, which side wins, if you wanted to go golden state and seven, the payout on that one's still pretty good. Kind of plus 400 area for that. So you also could do a Rob Williams block shot deal to record two or more blocks. Rob Williams minus 170 and that one Draymond's plus 200. So there you go. A couple different options for you

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467-369 New York, Tennessee Red Line, 1-800-889-9789 Tennessee, or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET. West Virginia. I hope to be happy, but more healthy. Collasso! Collasso! Collasso! Continued economic responsibility demands restraint in government expenditure. And last year we achieved the largest ever recorded reduction in the budget deficit, 1.5 million. That's right. Real Madrid.

I always forget how much I love this stuff. So, Cerruti, we're going to start there. An incredible win by Real over Liverpool. I'll start by saying I think I'm to blame for the loss. I didn't know who was playing, and I forgot how much I like this stuff as a real casual. Good application of the word there. And I ordered the Liverpool Harachis months ago,

not because of Liverpool, because I love the old Harachi that came out when I was a kid. It was a big deal if you could get those. And I threw them on that day to work out. And somebody was like, ah, Liverpool. And I was like, oh, shit. And then I was home doing draft stuff. And then I saw everybody complaining about nobody being able to get in on the Liverpool

side and there's tear gas and I thought oh the game hasn't started yet tear gas this is a positive for me because I forgot the game started because I wasn't really paying attention and then there was a massive delay I threw it on I watched it it looked like Liverpool

should have been up 4-0. And Real wins this one. 1-0 in the Champions League. So go ahead. Yeah, I mean, of course, just to start off with the delay, I mean, it was like a 30-something, 36-minute delay. Camila Cabello was mad because

the fans were singing during her performance. It was just a complete shit show. Is that who did that thing? Is that who did the pre pre-game yeah she got after it that was that was impressive yeah i wasn't really the all-in on that i was trying to figure out on twitter like what the hell was going on outside but apparently there were like fake tickets that i think liverpool fans had had were you know obviously trying to get in with not real tickets there were a ton of them and also people from like the local area in paris that tickets. There were a ton of them. And also people from the local area in Paris. That also wasn't apparently a great area in the city of Paris.

So you had locals just kind of jumping the fence, getting in. But it's classic. It's any soccer governing body. They just don't have anything figured out. This game was actually supposed to be in St. Petersburg, but obviously that got moved because of the Ukraine situation. So not an awesome start. Tampa St. Pete?

Not Tampa St. Pete. Honestly, though, you could argue that Tampa St. Pete probably would have had a better lockdown in the situation. So not an awesome start. Not Tampa St. Pete. Honestly, though, you could argue that Tampa St. Pete probably would have had a better lockdown situation. That would have been a better event overall. One of these years, we've got to get a Champions League. It'll never happen. We've got to get a Champions League final in the US. That would be awesome. But I'm surprised. So you watched the whole game? Because it wasn't

actually a great game. You're right. Liverpool should have been up by... I mean, Liverpool were the better team. I talked about this with Paul Carr on the gambling pod pod beforehand you got a new pod by the way right yeah what's up uh well one off there but we're trying to do more soccer content for you going forward but liverpool in every single measure every single statistic you can even go like like position by position liverpool were the better team other than probably the midfield because real madrid have a legendary midfield but But the thing about Real Madrid this year was that they beat so many unbelievable teams in such improbable ways.

So you got to just go through their schedule. Obviously, they make it out of the knockout group. They lost to this team called Sheriff, which I don't even know what country they're in, but they've never even been in the Champions League before. That was the first game they had in the group stage. They lost it to this unknown team that probably should be playing in the Conference League, which is three divisions below that. So they lose that game,

but then they end up making the knockout stage. They beat PSG, come from behind faster, which was kind of great because PSG had been, you know, rumored to, Mbappe was supposed to go from PSG to Real Madrid, which didn't end up happening, which is kind of bullshit. We can get into that later. So they beat them.

They beat Chelsea, who are the defending Champions League title winners. They beat Manchester City, who are the reigning and now current champions of England. And they were probably a favorite to win the Premier League and the Champions League again. And then they beat Liverpool, who was probably everyone's darling and everybody thought was the best team in the world. So you could argue that Real Madrid had the most improbable and hardest run in the history of the competition. And they win their 14 Champions League title, which doubles up the second most ever. So they are they are the Champions League team.

What's up with that goalie? Is he really that good? He's really good. He used to be at Chelsea. He said after the match, he was all mad because he was like, oh, I don't feel like I got the respect in England. And so he goes to Real Madrid. He's really good.

I would say he's probably a top five keeper in the world. The irony here, and I'll probably get some shit for this, I actually think Liverpool's keeper is better. If you gave me a, if I'm building a team, I would take Alisson from Liverpool because he does a lot more with his feet. He's not quite the shot stopper that Courtois is, but Courtois is a top five

keeper in the world. He's incredible. He plays for Belgium, and that was genuinely one of the best goalkeeping. That's up there with Tim Howard. Do you remember 2014 World Cup against Belgium? I think Tim Howard had 16 saves in a game that the U.S. should have had no business being in and ended up basically taking Belgium, who was, you know, one of the most talented teams in the world, down to the wire, to the wire, ended up losing that game

because Wando missed a sitter late in the game. But that and the Tim Howard matchup, those are the two of the best goalkeeping performances I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, Courtois, like some of the saves he was making, the one that hit the post that he got off Mane, that should have been a goal. He had two Salah saves.

One of them was a tight angle that he just completely closed the gap, got his body, saved it with his leg. It was like, that's the thing too. It's not quite like hockey where like, you know, you don't ride a hot goaltender necessarily in soccer, but I think goalkeepers in soccer are actually a little more underrated. They're getting more like probably more credit nowadays than they used to.

But he put on basically a performance for the ages and won the player of the match. So he fully deserved it. I said he should have won. He should have won like half of the title money on his save performance alone. Right. But that wasn't going to happen. Hey, so Marcelo, what was his deal deal they're showing him a lot of the end this is he's just a revered old school guy is it like jeff green he's been there for yeah he's slightly

better than jeff green i mean there was a time when marcello was the best left back in the world he's probably a better system right yeah definitely the system uh but he so he's real madrid's captain quote unquote but he doesn't play so he's not capping them on the yeah i noticed i was like i don't think i can agree i wasn't super locked in i was watching the ohio state guys the draft um i felt like man this guy's getting a lot of camera time i don't remember seeing him run around and he didn't play well you have to understand so they won this is what their fifth champions league in the last couple of years uh a lot of those guys they've won five which is the most of all time and marcelo has been there through the entire rise so he won four of them as a starter you know in the last decade or so a lot of those with cristiano ronaldo with uh with gareth bale who was still on the team

but wasn't playing because he just is kind of indifferent at this point in his career although i'm still team bale i still i still have i'm holding that hope for him but uh marcelo is brazilian left back he was probably the best at his position in the world for about a decade straight he's just old now man but it was good to see him like because this is this i don't know if they announced it before the game or after the game but this was his last game for real madrid he'll probably go back to brazil and play kind of in his home country but it was a nice send-off for a guy that kind of was like one of the cooler real madrid players of the last decade hey that's awesome you would like him he's flashy he's like one of the cooler Real Madrid players of the last decade. Hey, that's awesome.

You would like him. He's flashy. He's like one of those. He's like a left back. So he's technically a defender, but he's like very offensive minded. One of the best free kick takers in the world in his heyday,

but he doesn't have the legs anymore. So those guys, like once you kind of lose your legs in that situation, especially as a fullback, you kind of can't play, especially against Liverpool. He doesn't do a ton of defending either.

So there was no way he was getting any game time there, but send him off on a high. Okay. There you go. What's your team? Do you pick a team yet? Are you still Tottenham or no? You've got a bunch of Tottenham gear. I don't know if you've picked an actual team. I feel like you need to pick a team.

Yeah. Tottenham did reach out, which is very nice. We have a connection to one of the head guys over there. He was like, hey, you got to get on the Totten thing. And I just haven't. I haven't yet. So, you know, we're efforting.

We're efforting. Just going to get through the NBA draft and we'll start. We're going to make all sorts of lifestyle changes. I'm going to just make a statement. You should be a Nottingham Forest fan. They're coming up from the Premier League first time in, I think, like 20 years. They've won two Champions Leagues in the past, they kind of hit on hard times they just got promotion on Sunday or Saturday or Sunday um and uh they're they're gonna be a fun team to root for I think

you should be a Nottingham Forest fan I'm calling it wait they just they had been relegated and you want me they just got back you want me to pick them yeah but they're back and they're like historically a massive club like they're one of the bigger I mean they're what's the town clubs in England any waterfront I can't tell you a ton about nottingham not gonna lie not haven't been there before i feel like that's inland based on the books it's definitely i think it's it does seem like an inland town um i mean there's like half of the entire premier league is in london so like you could just throw a stone you pick a team in london if you want to do that but i like how you said stone yeah so i don't know i think you should be not plus they have sweet gear too they have really good gear good solid red color yeah no doubt

I mean the gear part of it alright so yeah I mean we couldn't be it's almost dead center yeah I'm just just northeast of Birmingham Birmingham so alright okay cool

good stuff we're going to do a little f1 just doesn't feel the same without kevin but he has the f1 ringer pod so you know there's a crossover appeal there you go uh monocone generally can get really boring it felt like this one was going to be boring there was rain delays forever it was the same exact thing delays and all the announcers complained the entire time i don't know i thought it was raining pretty hard there and then by the way there was also clouds coming in. So it looked like F1 just was like,

hey, we're going to hold off on this whole thing. So you're thinking Leclerc going to pull it off. And then there was a bunch of pit strategy, tire strategy stuff that kind of cost Leclerc because he came in, they were doing double pits. And they were like, no, don were like no don't box don't box as he was pulling into pit lane and so you were just like all right now he's sort of screwed and then you kind of had this fun close to it which is another thing i didn't realize that there was

such a delay instead of going i think the full 72 laps at monaco they're just like all right 30 minutes left just keep going and you had perez in the Red Bull you had signs in the Ferrari Verstappen Red Bull and then Leclerc and so that's kind of how it finished up and after the fact uh you had Verstappen's dad Yos I think is how you pronounce it J Joss. I'm not sure. Joss Stone, I think here in the States, but I think over there it's Yos. Not 100% sure. And he was mad about the tire strategy and prioritizing a win for Perez,

which, you know, you're supposed to kind of do. But Monaco's not really that kind of race. And with a Ferrari in between the two of them, it wasn't like Perez was just going to pull over like he did earlier in the year. So I think for Perez fans, this was a huge win. It's Monaco, the history, and he was in a situation where it wasn't like Red Bull was going to be able to let Verstappen pass

to go ahead and win this thing. But after a dicey start for Verstappen, leads the points race over Leclerc by nine, and that's with two finishes out of the points because he had DNFs. Leclerc only had that in Spain recently. So, if we're looking at this strategically here, I just think it's a

massive turnaround where after the first three races, it was like, oh, Ferrari is going to win the Constructors. Leclerc is going to win the World Championship. And you're like, nope, that's actually, it's still pretty close with a lot of work here to do. A couple side notes. Russell's been the better man for Mercedes so far over Lewis Hamilton.

Lando clearly, dude, Ricardo now is 11th in points. He's finished in the points twice out of now seven races. So that's about the depth I can give you on that one. There's not a lot there. Are you watching it yet or no? I am not. I am not watching lot there. Are you watching it yet or no? I am not.

I am not watching it now. Maybe over the summer. I did. I did watch one. What was the qualifier where it was at night? And was it Hamilton that didn't even he didn't even place? That was a couple of months ago. I did watch that one.

It's pretty exciting. Yeah, I know. Was that Saudi Arabia? Maybe I feel like that. That does sound right. It was actually pretty pretty sweet look. We're not super locked in on this yet. Kevin is sort of our go-to guy

in some of the tire strategy stuff, so I'm not even going to embarrass myself. Guys are going from wets, intermediates, and then hards, and then it was like, now what do we do? There you go. All right, that's it. That's talking international sports

here on Going Abroad. He's one of our favorite guests to have on the show. He's got a podcast with Rachel Lindsay here. And we know he's got a book out now too. Van Lathan joins us, Fat, Crazy, and Tired. It came out in April. I want to get to some of the book stuff, but I just want to start with kind of where we're at right now. Cause last I heard from you, you're all over the place.

You're very busy. You're promoting the book. I know you're working on other things as well, but I get a text from Vance. It's like, Ryan, what the fuck is going on? And I thought it was like just a general check-in and it wasn't, it was, and I was doing something I think that day. So I wasn't super texty. So I apologize. You love the SEC stuff that happened a couple weeks ago. Oh, my God. Come on, Ryan. You know I do.

You know I do. Of course I love it. I love it when the quiet thing gets said out loud, you know, especially coming from a guy like Nick Saban, that was just popcorn material right there. Well, here's the thing. Like, I was surprised Saban, I mean, Saban screwed up. Saban screwed up. Like, whatever you think about Saban, I was surprised he went there.

But I also think it speaks to, okay, as an LSU guy, LSU is considered tier one, right, in SEC football. I don't think this is any debate whatsoever would you say that I don't know if you'll admit this but do you have a problem when Arkansas gets a really good recruit no uh yeah yes you do yeah I do and I'll tell you what it is it's not even I don't know why I said no. Of course I do. They don't deserve it. Pig suey out of my face. This is for the blue bloods. Look, I am a man.

I am a man of the people. I am a bleeding heart that believes in equality across the board, except for in college football. You have nots, can't come into the club. I remember when, remember Robert, how did you say his last name? Ndike, remember his name? Ndike? Yeah. Remember, he was like a super

stud. Forgive me, Robert, I forgot how to say your name, and I'm sorry for all the people at Ole Miss. When Hugh Freeze put together that recruiting class at Ole Miss, I was like, yo, man, send somebody down there. I want to know how they're doing this. This is not – they don't go there.

They come here. Treadwell, right. The tonsil, the safety. The whole class. I'm like, no. That doesn't happen there. It happens here. Go see what they're doing over there.

All right? Send someone. I want a guy with a fedora and a briefcase and a trench coat to go over to Ole Miss and figure out what's happening. You know, blue chips part two. Send Al Bundy over there. So, yeah, no, I'm definitely like that. And the thing is, in the SEC,

it's getting annoying. Arkansas is really good. Ole Miss is really good. It's getting to a point to where, like, LSU has next season, they play nine power five teams. We are the dogs, basically, by the computers. We are looking at losing to all of those teams. Now, we won't, but all of those teams have legitimate squads.

So the have-nots are bullying their way into this conversation, and it bothers me. Yeah, and I don't think Texas A&M is, you know, they're not a have-not, but they are in comparison. I don't even know how to phrase it the right way. A&M isn't Alabama. So I don't know if that's where this was coming from. And the NIL has made all these coaches crazy, which is I see some people saying like,

oh, finally now that the players have some sort of benefit. And I'll think like, do you never pay any attention to college football? Because this has all been going on. But I think I don't know if it's a power shift as much as it's so unpredictable. And the NCAA kind of just saying, we don't really know what the rules are. You go by the state policies, make them up as you go along. And then the NCAA announcing a few weeks ago, there was a piece that said they may go back retroactively and penalize teams. So I think that it's

not just about the player-coach dynamic, which I think is really popular on social media. That's part of it. But I also think the unknown and how absurd this whole thing has been implemented has driven a lot of these coaches crazy because they're control freaks. Yeah. You know, here's the thing about A&M.

I want to talk about them real quick. They're like the G-Eazy of college football. You know? They're there. And they're legitimate. But you don't ever really expect them to be the best, right? So if we're having a conversation and, know it's kendrick lamar it's drake it's you know all of these other guys that are at the top of the heap it's nba young boy for the

kids who only listen to rap on youtube and all of that stuff if someone was like i think actually the hottest rapper the best rapper is g easy Everybody would be like, G-Eazy. I mean, he sells a lot of records and we know who he is. He's got some tradition, but we don't expect him to be the best. But what happens when G-Eazy threatens to become the preeminent rapper in the game? There are going to be a lot of other rappers who go, wait a second. That can't happen. All right, wait a second.

We can't have G-Eazy, who is somebody who's nice. We watch his games. We dig him. Every once in a while, he gets a big-time bowl. He wins it. We dig him. But if one day we're talking about G-Eazy as the guy, we got to send the guy in the cap and the fedora down there.

We didn't sign up for that. You can't call A&M a white rapper. That's who's who they are no you can't who they are no because nobody ever nobody has ever a and m can win a title no one has ever said that in five years guys are going to go in top five rappers currently and including g easy but well here's the difference though there are some white rappers that have been there. Eminem has been there, right? We've seen Eminem. Right now, Jack Harlow is arguably the hottest rapper in the game. It's just that A&M can win a title.

Has A&M won a title? When's the last time you remember celebrating A&M winning the title? Well, I don't know that I would have celebrated, but it's possible. It's impossible for G-Eazy to get to this status. I disagree. I think that it can happen. We've seen it before. McLemore.

McLemore is kind of like the Oregon, right? He got all the way there because of Phil Knight and a really amazing scheme. He was there for a couple years. It can happen. It's just I don't see any reason why it should happen to A&M, except for the fact that now, the NIL situation, and this is,

the NIL situation is going to make A&M a behemoth. And everybody is salty about it, including Saban. You know, he doesn't have the, I'm sure that Alabama probably has some billionaire that runs Camper World or something like that. I'm sure they have a couple of billionaires, but they don't have the Texas oil money.

If it can go like this. A&M is about to be the Yankees, Texas, too. It's going to be nuts. So. So I think that part of what happened, part of what's going on is, you know, and I have a lot of respect for A&M's fans. No, I'm not. Why am I going to do that? No, I don't. You can do it. You have nothing. I don't care at all. But I was about to go straight up politicians. I have a lot of respect for them over there. I don't care if they would never win another game ever. I hate them. never win another game ever. I hate them. But the reality is that anytime the privileged in any situation are threatened,

you're going to have a death rattle, and that's what you're seeing right now in college football. You're seeing people coming to the table and saying, wait a minute, that's not how it goes. And with the Saban, Jimbo, Deion Sanders things, it's not like anything that Nick said wasn't true. It was true. He just got a little too personal, a little too pointed, and maybe a little too intimate with his criticisms. And now the quiet part's been said out loud.

Right. Is it racist for me to have hesitation with every new white rapper? For you? Yes. Oh, my God. You just got invited to the Juneteenth party. Yeah. It's definitely racist.

I mean, I don't know if it's racist. It's racist for me, perhaps. For you, I don't know what it is. That's why I'm asking. I don't know if it's racist. It's racist for me, perhaps. For you, I don't know what it is. That's why I'm asking. I don't know the answer. For you, it's peculiar. I would think that a white rapper for you would be like a black president for me that you support at all costs. You know what I mean?

It's like whatever happens, it doesn't matter. You support. You know? But look, I know mad white boys who can rap. is like whatever whatever happens it doesn't matter you support you know so but uh look i know mad white boys who could rap they just this is it's just the ones who could really like jack harlow could rap i actually respect jack harlow the album wasn't that great but he could actually rap it's just that the white boys who can really rap never end up getting to the point besides m&m that they should the white boys who could really rap,

I don't know, it turns people off for some reason. But there are a lot of white boys who can rap. Hip-hop is a universal thing. I need to stay on some version of this topic now because whenever I watch movies because of something you did, something you did, and I'm going to tell you what I do

and then I'm going to tell you why I do it because of something you did. But when I watch movies now, I'll watch things and be like, oh, that's kind of fucked up yeah right when you were hanging out with your buddies watching black panther and you were showing the guys running towards the battle yeah that video was so fucking funny i sent it to so many of my friends can you explain it for the audience better than i can what happened and when this this this epiphany of of a flaw in the storyline in the action scene of black

panther so here's the reality i have a friend his name is nick may nick may hates on captain america the whitest thing about me is that i love captain america he's kind of boring man that's all right jesus. Oh, Jesus Christ. You know what? You know, if you hate the country, just say it. How could it be boring? What's boring about it? He's an acrobat with a shield.

Wow. This is how you talk about people who fought in World War II? I'd imagine you just going up to veterans and just kicking their canes down and watching them feebly fall over. He was, wait, how's it different? He's a World War II veteran. It's the same thing. There's a different criteria

to be like a superhero for me. Like I appreciate everything you did, but you know, this is different, but you're in a movie. Okay, so look, number one, he's got, at least in the movies he's got metahuman strength he's got a metahuman healing factor he can do all these things and also let me be really cool because you realize they had to add that stuff because he was as a comic

book character you were like all right go ahead as a comic book character he's let me tell you what captain america's superpower is real quick okay Thor who is an Asgardian god once said that the only mortal that he would ever follow into battle is Steve Rogers okay and the reason why this is true is because Captain America's actual power is his determination his battle moxie the fact that he in the face of whatever odds is not just scared is willing to go the extra mile his humanity ryan is his superpower his humanity his blistering unwavering aggressive humanity he's there for you and he's a brilliant military tactician knows all of that stuff expert hand-to-hand combat fighter with a vibranium shield he's the man all right so i'm talking to my friend nick nick is talking about the fact that uh you know captain

america is whack or whatever and i was like well captain america has better jets than black panther he's like no he doesn't have better jets than black panther i was like i have i actually have proof and what i put on was a scene in avengers infinity war where we're in wakanda black panther who i love to the depths of me. Obviously, I love Black Panther, right? As you said earlier, you have to. Have to love Black Panther. Okay? They'll kick my ass right out of the culture. How would a Black Panther on more reflection a bit overrated?

How would that tweet go over for you? Well, I've tweeted that before. Oh, you have? Oh, no. The movie itself is about the character. Oh, okay okay all right oh this is this is a storyline about me i gotta keep it real but anyway um black panther is the greatest this is the greatest right but he's if you watch this scene from avengers affinity war he clearly starts running first he's in the front of the attack party because he is the king of Wakanda. And then all of a sudden in the back, you see some beard and some floppy hair.

And I'm like, oh, my God. Who is the white boy? And before you know it, Cap has sucked up Black Panther. Boom, walked him straight down. Think of the great walk-downs in the history of the NFL. Think about Don Beebe walking down Nate Newton. Think about what was the – A.J. – what was his name? The other boy from Ole Miss.

Remember he ran the boy down? The big receiver. D.J. Metcalf. D.J. Metcalf. Oh, all right metcalf think about dj metcalf walking down that's what cap did to him cap the cap showed him ben watson champ bailey the champ bailey think about what happened he showed him who the man is in that situation ste Steve Rogers is the man. I got to be honest with you. Oh, okay. Well,

just straight up, that's your evidence that Steve Rogers is faster than Black Panther. I mean, what do you mean? What else do you want? It happened right there. It's fair. Yeah, it's like, what do you want? It's got it right there. It's the whole Usain Bolt running the last leg on a 4x100. I need to pay attention. That's the whole point. It's the whole Usain Bolt running the last leg of the 4x100.

I need to pay attention. That's the whole point. The reaction of your friend, the general disappointment, everybody going crazy about it. I was just dying laughing watching the breakout video, the whole thing. I want to talk about the book. Sure. How long did it take you

to do this? Give me the inception of the idea until the completion. How about this is how long it took you to do this? Give me the inception of the idea until the completion. How about, this is how long it took me to do the book. When I wrote the book, I was writing a book about the weight that I lost. By the time the book came out, I was fat again. That's how long it took me to write the book, okay? I'm sorry to laugh, but that's an incredible,

like, are you telling, the editors, like, we love the pages. You're like, okay, but I'm 290. I'm telling them, I'm telling them right now. I'm saying to them, I'm starting to laugh. That's an incredible, like you're, are you telling the editors, like we love the pages. You're like, okay, but I'm two 90. I'm telling them, I'm telling them right now. I'm saying to them, I'm saying, uh, it's during the pandemic. Right. And so the fact that I've gained weight again is, is funny. The reasons why it might not be so funny. Right. I was very depressed and I got on this medication and the medication plowed weight on me. And I chose to be able to sleep and function throughout the day rather than have the sexy body that I had. And so I'm writing a book. Forget about that. That's a drag. So I'm writing a book and I'm

talking to the people and I'm like, we got to pivot. And they were like, what? I was like, I'm getting portly again. And they were like, oh, wow. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. were like, what? I was like, I'm getting portly again. And they were like, oh, wow. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like looking at it in the past tense is not going to work. We have to make this book a little bit more holistic in terms of health, what it means to be healthy, what it means to love your body and what it means to transform. Now, I'm going to lose weight again after I do it this time. I'm not doing it again. I don't care how much weight I regain. But the reality of the situation is my body and my mind and my psyche, they have to be okay. I have to be okay no matter what case I'm in. And I think I learned that this past time.

And the reason why I learned it was because I lost weight in 2007. Like it was a memory. What did you weigh before? What did you weigh when you were at your best? When I was at my best, I was probably about 225, which is, you know, I'm 6'4", so that's a good weight for me. No, you're a big guy. Yeah. I'm still not back to my highest weight by any stretch of the imagination because my

highest was 370 pounds. When were you 370? I'd say probably like 2005, 2006. Best Buy van? Huh? Best Buy van? Best Buy van was probably around 310 uh the weird space in between best buy van and coming to california is when my weight really shot up because i was at home i was depressed you know so did you get to la at 370 i got to

la at about 340 i gotta tell you getting to la at 340 shows incredible determination and fuck you to everybody approach that you have to have to be successful in any of this stuff but like to go hey i'm close to the worst i've looked now i'm going to la that actually is inspiring but you know what the funny thing about it is is that it's a it's another it's another one of those weird aspects of my life. I didn't know. I was so country boy ignorant to everything. I come out here and I'm like, oh, I'm looking around. I'm like. I don't know. People look nice. I'm looking around the gym is packed. could in in baton rouge they're actually slow days at the gym when you go to the gym and there's nobody there you know you're like oh my god you're

playing basketball waiting for somebody to come hoop with you you're like is anybody gonna come play you're doing super sets on the machine nobody's there like it's like there's no one there i'm going to i'm in la i'm like yo every time i step in this it's packed in this bitch like i see people jogging people jogging with their dogs i had never in life seen someone jog with a dog till i got to california well no bullshit a dog is something in a yard that is meant to kill people in baton rouge like it doesn't matter how cute the dog like he's got an eye patch. He's a war veteran. He's ready to kill you. I see people jogging with the dog. They're riding

on bikes. The dog is next to them. People would like to have fun and get their heart rate up. So after a while of my friends here asking me to do active stuff, it's like, man, what do you want to do Sunday? Well, what I want to do Sunday is drink four gallons of Minute Maid Punch and watch the Saints. That's not what we're going to do. We want to watch the game. Then we'll go play softball. We'll watch the game. Then we're going to go hike.

We're going to watch the game. Then we're going to go to the beach. I'm like, oh, I'm ill-equipped for this. So I do what I always do. I become equipped. Go to the gym. Shout out to LA Fitness over here. I walk in.

I was down on myself. And I'll never forget the guy at the front desk. I talk about him in my book. I can't remember the guy's name. If you guys can't tell, I'm bad with names. But I walk in to the front and he looks at me. He goes, you want to fix this, don't you? And I was like, yeah, man.

And he was like, it's not gonna happen overnight. And I was like, cool. And I was broke, yeah, man. And he was like, it's not gonna happen overnight. And I was like, cool. And I was broke at this point. Didn't have very much money. And in order to afford the gym membership, I had to be a Southern California resident. And my area code obviously says 225. So he changed, he fudged my actual area code

to help me get the discount. And he would check on me. He would come by and I would get on that scale before I left. He'd be like, what's up? I was like, down two pounds. He'd be like, okay, two. I'd be like, down five pounds. Okay, two.

And then one day he got transferred to a different gym. He comes back. I didn't see him for a long time, but I'm back on the basketball court. He comes back and I'm on the basketball court and I'm catching lobs. Like we're just, we're just like, we're, we're just messing around. I'm catching lobs. I'm boom, bang, boom. And we're playing. This is after the game is over. And he's like, fam, is that you? I'm like, yeah. He's like, how much weight have you lost? I was like 130 pounds. And he'm like, yeah. He's like, how much weight have you lost? I was like 130 pounds. And he's like, and he comes over and he dabs me up and the whole nine is, and it is it, and it, it felt great. And I changed my lifestyle. And until the pandemic, I, I, a good way for me is

actually two 40, two 25 at this point, two 40 is actually a good, a really good way for me is actually 240. 225 at this point. 240 is actually a really good way for me. I looked in. I feel strong. I can perform and do all that stuff. 240 is actually a good way for me. good. I stopped sleeping and the way came. And so the book is really about all of that stuff because, you know, I don't think that it's... I think that now I'm to a point to where I can start focusing on the aesthetic and what I look like and all of that stuff because, you know, getting older and stuff.

But I don't think that I should have really beat myself up above my weight as I was burying my father, you know, as I was watching people around me die of COVID, uh, and it was hard not to, but the book is about accepting the reasons why I am who I am, but also, uh, being gentle with myself and why more people should be gentle with themselves when it comes to your body image and who you, what you look like and who you might want to be.

when it comes to your body image and who you what you look like and who you might want to be yeah i read the excerpts that i had and then i i had it um at the bookstore and because i i wasn't ready to read it does that make sense but i wanted to support you and buy it yeah um but i noticed that it was a very and knowing you know, it's not like we're best friends here, but getting to know you, I love the way you kind of ended it where I think self-help books in a way, like just the, the premise, not that this is a self-help book,

but the premise is so arrogant. I know what to tell you to do to make yourself better. Yeah. It's a fucking guy in a tight shirt and he's on the cover his arms are crossed and it's like the eight steps you're like i gotta just buy this book for 25 bucks and memorize these eight steps and now we're good to go so anybody that would tell me that i'd be like why would i listen to you about anything because it's not that easy um but i liked that with everything that you're going through and you're going through a lot and we can touch on some of

it it's just that at the end you're like hey I don't have it fixed I don't have it fixed like I think the chapter is what I'm still fucked up yeah having said all that I'm still fucked up like there's no fix there's no fix well wait that sounds awful there's no fix

what do you mean by that Ryan how can you fix we're living in society like living in society means that there's only so much you can control you know what i mean like you can what you can do is try to understand what you're so you mean the word the definition fix to is you're looking at it like well fixing you feel like fix the word the definition is actually an impossibility is that what you're saying so it's not an impossibility well number one how about put you like this to me it is but you have to define it for yourself like i had fixed my weight issue fixed it like it was it

was done right it was finished i had fixed it 15 years uh of of having changed my body. The pandemic comes. Now I have to deal with all these other things. So what I'm telling you is what you can do and what everyone can do is decide what healthy is to them

and make the decision to have a set of rules and parameters in their life that allow them to live as happy and peacefully and free as best they can. See, it should never be to fix it. It should always be to do your best, to do your best to be mentally healthy,

to do your best to be physically healthy, to do your best, whatever you want to demand of yourself, do your best to get there. But also remember that in times when you can't, you can't. Like in times when you just need to fall apart, you got to be able to fall apart.

You just can't stay broken up. You have to get back up at some point. And you also cannot do one thing that a lot of people are doing now, which is ask for somebody else to put you back together. The reality of the situation is you can ask for help, but all the trauma that I was born with, all of the disadvantage that I was born with. And it was prodigious. At some point, it's up to me. Doesn't matter how fair that is. At some point, there's up to me. Now, what is my goal in life? My goal is to create a community that I can rely on. A community of people that change the dynamic of what my existence is and what my, um, and what my reality is, but fixing it is, is, is probably not the answer for me. Negotiating it is like for right now, I just weighed myself this morning. I'm 295, right? 42. So a good way for me now where I feel good, why I can, because I'm, look, by the way, I'm still doing my thing out here, bro. I was cooking somebody on the basketball court this

past. I was thinking to myself, God damn, you know how worse this would be if I was myself? If I was myself, I would be eating you up. But right now this Al Horford game is working for me. But if I was myself, I'd be destroying you, child. I'm that old bitter man at the basketball court now. You guys with your fancy layups, your weird hair. You're trying to dunk everything. I'll file the hell out of you. I don't care.

But so now I got to understand the expectations of myself changed. What is peaceful? What's a peaceful way? Is it 260? 260, I look fine. 255, I look fine. 250, I look fine understand the expectations of myself change. What is peaceful? What's a peaceful way? Is it 260? 260, I look fine. 255, I look fine. 250, I look fine. I'm a big guy.

So maybe getting back down to the point to where I'm all shredded up and my shoulders are bulging out and all of that. What's that for now? Like I'm not in Vegas doing the thing anymore. I'm not at rehab, stepping my feet into that disgusting pool. Understand what life is, right? Understand what it means for you to be happy. But that's going to change. And so it can never be fixed. That's a sliding scale. Peace is,

it changes with your age, right? I think that's, to be honest with you, a lesson that my father never learned. My dad was an athletic God uh a very popular man with the ladies and he held himself to that standard to the day that he died and i think part of what happened to him was that he just rode his body till the wheels fell off it was like if i can't be who i was in 1976 and i don't want to be and for me in order to have have a life that is not more meaningful than my father, my father had a very meaningful life. I'm sitting here as a result of who he is, but a life that is a little bit, that's in it for the long haul, should I say. He was 65 when he passed away. I got to make sure that I don't try to fix myself, that I try to pace myself.

Don't you think whenever, you know, you're down and you're like, okay, this sucks. A lot of things are happening here. Not my control. Um, that, and I don't, I don't, you know, everybody handles things differently, but that when you kind of get pissed enough that it inspires you and that when you realize, wait, I actually, I'm, I'm so mad about what's going on right now that like, look out that it, it's, it's a credit to the person. You know what I mean?

It's a credit to the person that you can still have that wiring where you can think is as much despair as you might be facing, that there's still things that you want, um, that you have to keep reminding yourself of that as bad as you feel. Yeah. I mean, look, that's how we are.

People just, and that's part of the book. The part of the book is like, look at all these really amazingly embarrassing things that happened to me that had to happen to me for me to just go, fuck it. I'm going to do this. I'm going to give my life.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to give my life. I'm going to give, I'm going to dedicate my life to something for six or seven months that then took me 15 years of my life, changed my life for 15 years. And now I got to do it again. But still like, look at this, look at what can happen when you dedicate yourself to yourself. Right. But not everybody's like that. You know, I have people in my family who, who, uh, who need a little bit more help and a little bit more motivation to, to change aspects of their life. They need to see somebody else can do it for me. Like during this whole depression that I'm talking about in this whole, uh, pandemic related brain fatigue, we got up and we made a movie and we won an Academy Award.

And I felt like I had to do it. So whatever had to happen for me to do it, we had to do it. We had to get it done. I still have goals and dreams. And I realized that sitting and not really achieving those things, it's not going to hurt anybody but myself. So I still got to do it. But I i have a a theory i don't think it's so much of a theory as a reality for me is that healthy societies are based around the c students they're not based around we like we always talk about what you can do and kid from North Carolina who gets cut from your high school basketball team. And you can go on to become the greatest player in the history of team sports. Yeah.

If you have a huge growth spurt. If you have a huge growth spurt. And you got caught as a sophomore which is not unheard of right and you gotta cut it right yeah it's not that big of a deal right so like you if you if you have a huge growth sport spurt and then you have this maniacal you have this maniacal mindset that every single time in your life you just remember everyone who ever fucked over you ever you you know? Um, but the reality is that's not going to happen for most people. So how do we engineer a society that,

that, uh, keeps in mind that specific achievement, um, individual achievement can't be the benchmark for driving everyone else. They have to be people who just go to work, want to have good jobs, want to catch a ball game every one now and again and come home. And how do we make that? How do we make sure those people are motivated not to achieve, but just to live? And how do they have options to do that?

So sometimes I do that by saying, look, I got through all of this. What do you have to get through? Figure it out and let's go for it. Fat, crazy, and tired. I got through all of this. What do you have to get through? Figure it out. Let's go for it. Fat, crazy, and tired. Tales from the trenches of transformation. That's Van Lathan Jr.

Higher learning with Rachel Lindsay once a week. And wait a minute. You guys doing that once or twice a week this time of year? We do it twice a week. That's right. My bad. Twice a week. And next time, if I ever do, not to say that I would, if I come come up in conversation just remember my take on captain america you can back me on that all right

yeah i will definitely back you on it but the reality of the situation is that you need to change steve fucking rogers he's from brooklyn that's an american hero? Look, let me tell you the last thing before I go. Steve Rogers, Avengers Endgame, Thanos, and all of the Outriders are back there. This is an alien with an Urusaur, double-bladed. He's just taking out Thor. He's just taking out

Iron Man. Steve Rogers is a human being. He's not a god. He has no suit. He sees Thor and all of the Outriders. You know what he does? He straps that shield on tighter. Let's go, Ryan! Doesn't do it for me. I read all the comic books when I was a kid. It just

doesn't. I'll be straight up. I think I've missed the last few movies. And if we can get one Spider-Man where Dr. Fucking Weirdo isn't babysitting him for 90 minutes, I would enjoy that. So I think there'll be a pivot. I think there'll be a pivot at some point. Marvel, Disney have done a great job with all of the stuff. But I just need a little less predictability.

All right, man. It's great talking to you, bro. Thanks, man. Peace. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Okay, let's do some life advice. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Also a little cleanup. It happens to your boy every now and then. From Sunday's pod, when we were talking about all the different things that happened, Marcus Smart missing shots, I made a mistake when I talked about him rolling the ball up because before two minutes are up, I'd forgotten that clock does run, but not the shot clock. So it's actually a very smart thing for Marcus Smart to do. I appreciate the 50 to 100 people that reached out to me about this.

We had a lot of emails on it as well. Yeah, look, that's me. I fucked it up. Again, I love when people can't blame anyone else except themselves, and then they want to be praised. I do not want to be praised. I need to be better, sharper, faster. We'll get there. But we had an email from somebody that said, hey, did you not realize what happened on this? And as I was writing stuff down, yeah, they ended up getting six seconds, I think, off the game clock. But then somebody else pointed out, hey, I went back and watched it and Kyle Lowry did it and they didn't start the clock

and it was still not to the two minutes remaining where they would keep the game clock off and they didn't start the clock when Lowry did it. My guess would be maybe it was so much earlier in the game that maybe they weren't really paying attention to it. I would also argue that if your home team is down and it's the home clock operator, it wouldn't be shocking for that clock operator to not start the clock to keep a couple liberties. You know? Yeah. I mean, it happens all the the time which is an unbelievable thing that you have this multi-billion dollar

product and there's still guys doing stuff that's weird with the game clock um based on where he works and where he's from for an nba game uh happens in college football all the time too by the way like it's like a high school football game yeah yeah right right let me just like sometimes if you really look for it you'll see stuff you're like what now some of it could just be straight up error uh which is part of it as well so yep my bad on that one uh but there's always a lot of especially when i did a little bit of the lowry rant this happens a lot and it proves on this one that people don't listen for the hundredth fucking time i hate when marcus smart flops like when he got that call on bam boxing out and he sort of grabbed his arm smart sold the hell out of it nobody else would ever fall down in that situation i don't like when that

stuff happens i don't like when there's something at the rim and guys are boxing out and next thing you know it looks like smart shot out of a cannon into the stanchion you're like wait how did that even physically like where were the physics behind that movement? And then you rewind it and realize he just ran through dudes and jumped. I hate that. I don't like when Chris Paul does the stuff that he does when he gets run over by somebody tailgating. All right. I don't think it should ever be called.

I think you should just let big guys run these guards over because they're initiating all the contact. So whenever I do a Lowry rant, people will say, well, how come you never say anything about those other guys? I always say stuff about those other guys. That's how great I actually am. I will have my favorite players and I will still point to things that I don't like about them. The problem with Lowry is this is basically like 75% of his game now. with Lowry is this is basically like 75% of his game now. And I don't think it's debatable. I think he's far worse with it. I think it's gross. I've said it a hundred times and that is the difference. It almost feels like sometimes this stuff, there's a demand for a press conference. We could do these press conferences if we want, just have breakout videos where we just have mock press conferences for something that seems to be to be addressed. But I felt it was worth it because I said what I said on Sunday, because I can't understand how no one understands how different it is with Lowry than anybody else.

That is my position. That is final is unwavering. And there you go. I don't know if there's anything we need to add anything to that. No, I mean, I think you're right. The Lowry thing. I saw a lot of people saying, like, if he even get a bucket, honestly, he can't get by anybody on his own. So why are you even giving him that call ever? You know, like at least smart, you know, I think smart stuff is egregious, too.

But like at least he can do some stuff and he can get past you and make some moves. Lowry has no no lift, no jump, no no acceleration anymore whatsoever. Every call he gets is like basically a bailout count at this point. I mean, the one where he just ran into Marcus Smart, was it? He wasn't going anywhere. He just dribbled right into him. And then it was like, oh, foul, cool, two free throws, they're on the bonus. That's just not how the game should be played.

I'm sorry. This is an anti-Lowry thing. I don't dislike him personally or anything. But it's just not fun to watch. It's dumb. And I don't understand why these refs keep getting conned into making these calls. It doesn't seem like it would be hard for the league to be like, hey, Lowry's a flopper.

Stop calling stuff. He'll stop doing it. Done. Yeah, the end of the first half Lowry play, as it was coming up, I knew he's going to dribble right into a guy and fall down. Like at home, on the couch, I go, I already know what's going to happen on this one. He's going to dribble into somebody's hip.

It's the Derek Fisher thing. When Derek Fisher could not finish on anything in transition at the end of his career, he would just go into somebody's hip and fall down. And he got the call all the time. And I'd just be like, how can a ref let that happen to him and then be like, I can't wait to give him that call again next Tuesday in Seattle. You earned that one. Yeah.

He's going to do this. He's like, hey, hey, you know who burned me four fucking times? And that was Derek Fisher. I can't wait to give him that call for another three years. So I would always ask anybody this. If you're defending it, if it happened to you, if Lowry was on another team and it happened to you, you'd be like, petty player.

Love it. Love how smart he is. Love that he gets. So there's certain things that happen in sports where you can say, well, hey, it's just part of the game. Yeah, what if it sucks to watch? And then the league decides we have to do something different about this. I don't know what they would change about that one.

I just think it should be a pride thing with the refs where they have to go, you know what, I'm not going to let this happen anymore. And it's only going to get worse as he gets older. He can still come off the screen to his left and burn you on a three wide open. He can still do that. I will give him that. All right. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Yeah. All right. A couple of emails here. Kyle, what's going on? It's been a while since we said hello to you. So I just wanted to check. Yeah, I thought you guys were ruining life advice, but it was only six minutes.

So we're good. Let's keep going. It was only six minutes? Yeah. All right. Well, you know, there's a lot of people. It's called integrity, dude. You got to own up to some stuff.

You know, it is what it is. Right. Like I showed integrity in the first part of that and i pointed out the lack of integrity for lowry in the second half so this is a double win yeah the pod's about accountability that's all we could say okay long time listener of the day's svp show before ryan's name was added and he'd be solo 40 of the time so not only does he does he get the naming situation but he also gets the angst of ryan being mad about his name not being on the show this guy gets it yeah i was like well how's the show gonna work they're like well give it three months we'll give it three months and then we'll

revisit it for four years um so he's an american who's now living in sweden love that move i could see myself living in sweden for a year see how it goes uh a question to ask two weeks ago i booked a 9 30 appointment at a barber shop i go to the shop for two reasons you could book online it takes me 10 minutes to walk from my house all right seems pretty convenient people love to walk in sweden by the way so fits right in i was actually actually early to the shop at 9.15 and I only see one barber cutting one guy's hair. After I sit down, the barber tells me there's another guy that has come in for me.

I say, okay, but I have a 9.30 appointment. Barber says nothing. He goes back to cutting the guy's hair. After 15 minutes, the first guy's done. Then the barber sees it, tell me the other guy waiting had a nine o'clock appointment. They had double booked. To give a little backstory, the barber shop lies to people all the time what are these guys pilots oh

we had a lot of pilots check in by the way and the pilots let's be let's let's share this on the pilot's behalf that was just a joke but it's inaccurate um the We had numerous pilots check in sharing their own frustration of how bad the communication is to them. So a lot of times they're flying just as blind as we are. But a couple of pilots did agree with the idea that you should just tell the truth. Tell the truth.

Some others got mad about the whole thing. So all right, off the pilot. Mixed bag of pilots. Well said, Kyle.. So, all right. Off the pilot. Back to the barber. Mixed bag of pilots. Well said, Kyle. Well said. All right. So, this is a lying barbershop. He says it's a 10-minute wait when someone with a beard had just sat down.

FYI, it takes me 40 minutes to cut my hair and beard normally. 40 minutes. This is like a salon. What? I was a little tired of this barbershop taking advantage of the customer, so I kind of blew a fuse. Uh-oh. I told the barber, why don't you tell me the guy waiting

had a nine and I would have to wait? And I said to him, he did the exact same thing last time. The barber just looked away and denied doing anything wrong. So I stood up and told the barber to look me in the eyes because he wouldn't make eye contact. Jesus, bro. At 9 in the morning, we're looking each other in the eyes?

Great. Sweden? Way to be the ugly American, dude. Come on. What is this? Liam Neeson at the barbershop? Look at me. I know your hair's cut hair, but you lied.

You lied to me. Look at me. That's too early in the movie. I don't think the final scene could be at a barbershop where the guy's lying to people about wait times. Neither would I.

So the barber just looked away, said, look at me, and then the barber's only comeback was saying, what do you think? I'm Superman? Okay. You like that one, Kyle? I did. I'm just picturing that accent too.

Bewildered look on his face. Yeah. How would you say that with a Swedish accent? I don't even know. I'm not going to try. I can't even do a Swedish accent. Anyone want to try it? Take a swing at that.

Anybody got a little Swedish dialect they've been working on? Can you get in trouble for that these days? don't know that would be fucking amazing american pod makes fun of swedish people yeah no or the atlantic a problematic podcast about people from sweden we need to talk why are the after after the after the Oscars, why are jokes always about Swedish barbers? Alright. I told him, no, he just needs to not always overbook so people can

actually plan stuff out. And I told him his partner is a great and nice barber and he is a jerk. He doesn't say I left and I'm probably banned nor would I go back trusting someone with a knife when trimming my beard. Who was the jerk? Maybe he was a jerk too. Have any of you ever demanded other than a significant other to look you in the eyes? I don't know that a lot of guys are running around town telling other people to look them in the eyes during a confrontation. Can I say that I've never done it?

I probably, I don't know. I've probably done it. Be hard to pull that up in the archives. I don't know that I remember. Uh, yeah, I know.

I actually, I do know, but whatever. Um, this is pretty aggressive, man. You're not wrong, but you're also kind of wrong.

Kyle. Yeah. No, the reason I'm with my barber now is because the other barber that i that i first met used to do this and i just was like i told him once i was like hey listen uh i'm not i'm not i'm not a barbershop all day guy i get the appeal but i mean it can't be an hour every time it can't and then so i just stopped going to him and started going to his buddy and we're all friends now i just he doesn't get he doesn't

get my business anymore shout out to fern Studios. Thanks for picking up the Slack, buddy. So Rudy, how long does it take to cut your hair? A couple hours? Oh, I haven't got my hair cut in months. So zero at this point. No, I don't, I don't do anything. I mean, I used to get like the edge up

and it was kind of annoying and I used to like grow it out and then I'd cut it really short and the bar would be like, you again, great. So we're doing something different again for like the hundredth time this year. Cool.

But I've been going to the same guy for a long time. So he's like, he kind of gets the deal. I think, I mean, listen, I get it. Like the guy shouldn't be overbooking, but also you knew that this guy did this shit. So it's kind of on you for keeping, for going back there and like, yeah, it burned you this time.

I wouldn't tell the guy to look me in the eyes. I would just be like, this is, you're done. We're like, you're not getting my business anymore. I go Kyle and I go somewhere else. Find a new barber. Yeah. Find a new barber. Yeah. Find a new barber. You already knew it was over.

You were going scorched earth with this guy. If it made you feel better to tell him how you felt and you knew you were moving on, then okay, fine. But it's done. Don't think about it anymore. It's over. There's going to be no relationship.

He's not going to care. He doesn't give a shit. You're going to be the crazy guy from America that told him to look him in the eyes because his appointment was running really late. That's okay. Is there any concern, though? He's obviously in Sweden.

Barber's talk, I would imagine. they probably have conventions and stuff whatever the conventions friends you're you're the you're the american be like hey like keep keep a lookout for this guy like give him a shitty haircut and i'm just saying word spreads fast and it's not hard to tell an american in sweden especially if you've been a dick and tell people looking you in the eyes yeah take it for the dudes how about take it for the americans this time you know maybe just don't blow up i think the most you could have done has been like when he's like i booked another one at nine or i'm double booked i think i just would have said don't bother i would have walked out i never would have seen me again that because his day is already still full you actually are doing him a favor by not getting your haircut

so he's like fine cool whatever i'm still making he makes as much money as he could work in a day so his day is already full. There really wasn't going to be anything you could do other than maybe that weird thing that he'll remember that you told him to look you in the eyes. But I think I would have given him like just a one-liner on the way out.

The real dick move you could pull would have been like the long-term play where you just kind of let this one slide for now. You're not happy, but you keep making appointments that you don't show up to in the future. So you're kind of fucking him over. Wow. And you know what I mean? Like you're getting your haircut at a different guy's happy, but you keep making appointments that you don't show up to in the future, so you're kind of fucking him over. Wow. And you know what I mean?

You're getting your haircut at a different guy's spot, but you keep making haircuts. As long as you don't have to put any money down. That could have been the long-term play, but now if he sees you on the appointment log, he's going to probably know what's up. You could have a new name, right? Use a WhatsApp number, maybe? Google Voice number? Yeah, Swedish name. Is there a Swedish

derivative of your American name? Yeah. Sven Berg. What did you Swedish derivative of your American name? Yeah. But you're Berg. What did you say the other day? Did you say, but you're. Yeah. I like to say her name on purpose. She's from Iceland, though.

I don't know. It is now 945. I don't know. I think any good booking app worth of salt would not let you book a time without putting some money down. We don't want an international incident here. I don't put any money down for my booking guy. Oh, okay. All right.

Yeah. It's got his own website. I wouldn't do that to my guy, but... I think we got it covered. I think we got it. I don't know there's much more to add. Okay, let's get to another one here. Friend in an open relationship.

26-year-old male, 5'7", 165. I know I'm not huge. Okay. 10 reps at 225. That's pretty awesome, dude. At 165? I almost don't think that's true. But if you're putting up that kind of weight at 165,

that's really impressive. 5K at 7-minute pace. Sounds like you're fucking awesome. Likes to have some banquet beers on the weekend. Alright, he's changed all the names. This past weekend, an old friend of mine got married, which meant all of my high school friends are back in town. Most of the core guys of my high school friends have remained close through college, and we've

all gone on to become relatively productive members of society. My wife and I got married back in December. I had about six of the core guys at my wedding, and all the significant others attended. Everyone got along just fine. Fast forward to last weekend. Myself, two buddies. We'll call them Greg and Dave. Sound like good guys.

Are having a great time at the reception. We go to bar with everyone after the reception ends. Greg, who was in the wedding party, suggests we go to a casino around 2 a.m. Dave and I agree. Love this. I love being in your 20s and being like, all right, now what do we do at 2 a.m.? All these good ideas. Yep.

They're just flowing. What do you want to do after the casino? All right. Greg's longtime girlfriend, Alice. What time is your flight? Seven. Not going to sleep. not gonna sleep okay cool you're not gonna be ruined for a week no probably work out bench or do a 5k uh all right so greg's longtime girlfriend alice uh who he lives with and my wife both say they're gonna go home uh but that we should go uh we're great wives so we hop in an Uber and head to the casino.

Literally as soon as Greg gets in the car he starts feverishly texting and sending Snapchats of himself in the tux from the wedding. When we get to the casino Dave and I agree this is weird

but don't think too much into it as we're having fun and we're all had a fair amount to drink. After playing blackjack for about an hour I leave the table to play roulette with Dave

who then reveals to me that he was in the bathroom and Greg had told him that Alice and he were in or are in in an open relationship now and had told him that alice and he were in or are in in an open relationship now uh and had been texting a girl he'd been texting a girl who he knew around the area about hooking up later we were both shocked by this news because they've been together about five years live together and generally seem happy together later we go uh to uber home and

right as the car pulls up greg who'd been planning to stay with me so what since i live so close to the casino this guy lives next to a casino. What a life. And his car was parked at my house. He quickly tells us he isn't coming with us, and another car picks him up. Dave then said that Greg told him it was the girl he was texting with earlier in the night. I'm not passing any judgment on their lifestyle choices,

if that's what they choose to do, but what makes me want some advice from all of you is that Greg has a bit of a sketchy past with Fidelian relationships. Dave and I genuinely like Alice and consider her a friend. So if Greg wasn't being honest about them really being in an open relationship, was just telling us that he could go fool around once she had left, then I feel

guilty not saying anything to her. Then again, if they are in an open relationship and Alice is cool with it, then none of it is my business whatever they do. So here's my question. What do I do and how do I handle it? Do I ask Greg about he and Alice being cool with it, then none of it is my business, whatever they do. So here's my question. What do I do and how do I handle it? Do I ask Greg about he and Alice being in an open relationship when he's sober? Do I leave the whole thing alone?

I'm open to any and all advice here. All right, look. What would I do? Nothing. Just off the top. I would do nothing about any of this. I could be super close with everybody. Nothing would happen with your boy on this one. You don't seem to thing about any of this. I could be super close with everybody. Nothing

would happen with your boy on this one. You don't seem to be wired that way. You seem to want to address and talk about this thing. I think of all the options that you brought up, asking your buddy the next time you're just hanging, hey, are you actually in an open relationship? Is your instincts

on that one, if you're going to do this, which I still think is a waste of time. If you're going to do this, that still think is a waste of time uh if you're going to do this that's probably the right way to do it but what's your goal what's your goal here do you like the wife better than your buddy does it bother you that he's a cheater you know i mean i can see being offended by somebody who's being unfaithful to somebody else that you care about. I totally get it. I totally get it. But what really is your role in that equation?

Unless you're much closer with the woman here and you feel like you have to make sure this is all in the up and up. Because you can't ask her, all right? Hey, just check it in. Was out with Greg the other night. Said he's in an open relationship, left in an Uber, never stayed in my house. Just double checking. Is that status? Is that where we're at with you guys?

And so that's not going to happen. I just want to know why you can't. Now, some might be listening to this being like, well, he cares because he cares and he's a good person. And if his friend is doing something wrong, he wants to know that. Okay, let's apply those rules to the whole thing. Is Greg going to tell you the truth? And if you're telling me like,

again, Greg, imagine, because that's where some guys will get away with this stuff for a little while, is they'll tell everybody they're in an open relationship and then it's like, oh, guess who wasn't in an open relationship. And then it's like, oh, guess who wasn't in an open relationship? That guy. So if this dude is so wired to cheat that he's also lying to you guys and you're offended by it, I guess I can see it.

But I guess as I get older, I've just been like, all right, if that's what Greg wants to do. All right. You know, if this is what Alice has agreed to, cool, that's their world. Let them live in it. But it seems like you want to get to the truth of it. So what if Greg says, hey, actually, I lied and whatever, we're not in an open relationship. Are you going to tell on him? And it depends on who you care more about in the entire relationship. And even then, sometimes a lot of this stuff isn't for us. I can understand if it's like lifelong friends. I can understand certainly if it's a sibling or

something like that, or if you have a history with the wife or, you know, like I think there have been times where I would go, uh-oh, but I don't know. I just think you're injecting yourself into something that's probably going to end up being a way bigger pain in the ass for you than getting some result that's chivalrous. Maybe you're right on this. Maybe you're the right guy to want to pursue it. I just find it to be probably a waste of time. Yeah, I think the simple answer is to do nothing because you zoom out and it seems kind of binary. It's like, well, if he lied, she needs to know. And everybody should be like, well, you did the right thing.

But then it starts creeping into like your other friends find out maybe you're a rat about that, which maybe means you're a rat about other things. Or maybe your other friends are doing that too. And then it's like, you think he's going to be like, oh, you're right. You got me. I really shouldn't have been doing that. If this all falls down and you're like Sherlock Holmes and you come and you figure it out, you had a hunch and like, yeah, that relationship's over. But now maybe your relationship with your friend is over. And then maybe your other friends feel like it's like it's it's just not like it's not good and evil. It's not binary. It's like that's why the answer is to do nothing. So I hope you can fall asleep at night knowing you've done nothing, because I hope that I think that's what you

should do. That's all I have. If you get to the bottom of this and you end up exposing this to the wife, then you have no friend and she's not going to be your friend either, most likely. You're out two friends essentially there. There's no win there for you whatsoever. The only thing is, I think it is fair to ask the guy, your friend,

and just say, hey, man. Are you lying to me? You said this. What's going on? What's going on? I'm not trying to... Come at it from the point of like i care about you and your relationship i don't want to see you fuck this up like i just want to make sure you're good this is true obviously i'm not going to tell her but like i just want to make sure you're on you're on the straight because doesn't it the way he's talking about this in email it

seems like it's surprising to him like i you know like this like he wouldn't have an open relationship with somebody i guess any open relationship for someone who is in an open relationship is pretty surprising. And everyone thinks it's probably like, holy shit, that's an open relationship. But I think it's totally fair to talk to your friend. But that's the only person you could talk to about this. I wouldn't bring it up to anybody else. And even if he says, like, actually, no, I'm not. This isn't some like gift for you then to go tell her and make things right.

Like, you just kind of have to be like, you really have to own it from your friend's perspective. And that's it. And if he doesn't want to listen to you, then that's his life, man. You got to let him live his life. Yeah, you don't even have to say if it's because like you want to, you know, I just want your relationship

to be okay. You should be like, hey, motherfucker, are you lying to me? Like, don't lie to me about stuff. Like it could just be that. It could be that you can make it not even seem that deep. So he's like,

what's this guy worried about? He should be like, but hey, pal, don't lie to me. I feel like you're lying. I'll ask you one more time. Look me in the eyes at nine in the morning and tell me that you're lying. Look more time. Look me in the eyes at nine in the morning and tell me that you're lying.

Look at me. Look me in the eyes. You said that you were in an open relationship with the casino. You told Dave. My information with Dave doesn't. All right, I'm going to stop doing that. Here's what I would also ask. Are you mad that he may have lied to you or his wife

because if you're mad more upset that he lied to you or you don't know the truth who gives a shit um and to to make sure everything's covered here if if the emailer is much closer with the wife and feels like he has to get to the bottom of it that's when you go okay all right i understand where this it's going to be mess, but I can understand where you're coming from because of your relationship with all that. The way this is presented, it seems like he was friends with the guy and is closer with the guy than he was with the wife.

Maybe the emailers, maybe we're missing all of this. The emailers going, how do I ask Greg about asking your wife about being in an open relationship? Whoa. He would have led with that. Yeah, I think so.

I don't think that's what he was doing. I don't. There's no more email here. Well, maybe that's why all the names are changed, pal. I don't know. All right. That's the podcast. Thanks to everyone.

And Sketchy Greg, too. Please subscribe to the Ryan Russo Podcast. Thanks to Kyle and Steve. We will be back on Thursday. Spotify ringer. Talk to you then. Outro Music