The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Wemby, Scoot, Harden, and More NBA Future Scenarios, Plus Pelicans Guard CJ McCollum and a 'Succession' Recap

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Russillo shares his thoughts on Victor Wembanyama's fit in San Antonio, the Hornets' decision with the second pick, where that will leave Portland at no. 3, James Harden's free agency, and more (0:45). Then Ryen talks with Pelicans guard CJ McCollum about the Nuggets' path to the Finals, what the ceiling is for the Pelicans roster, Zion Williamson, the future for Damian Lillard and the Trail Blazers, being the NBPA president, working on the CBA, and more (29:03). Finally Ryen, Ceruti, and Kyle discuss HBO's 'Succession' S4, E9, "Church and State", before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:12:31). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: CJ McCollum Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's episode of the podcast i kind of give you a little bit of a free agency primer off of the lottery being set and how that impacts the picks behind him how that could impact some of the trade stuff teams with cap space some of the best free agents, and the hardened problem in Philadelphia. That and CJ McCollum, not only are the Pelicans, but the Players Association president. We're going to talk Zion. We're going to talk Dame. We're going to talk about the West, specifically the Nuggets and how great Joker and Murray are. And then some of the CBA stuff that I love at the end as well. Life advice, succession recap, one episode to go. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

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

Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Because we had no games last night, I'm not going to do any Tales from the Couch type of stuff. You know, unfortunately,

the way it lands with the Tuesday, Thursdays is sometimes like I'll get caught in the same series and I'm not talking about the other one. It's just basically a scheduling thing. But after coming back from the combine, hanging out, talking to people after the combine,

I just wanted to run through a bunch of different things as we lead into what is going to be a really interesting offseason, but also limited in maybe some of the excitement. But as soon as you say that with this league, you know that's not going to be the case because we're still – we have no idea that the two or three things that are going to happen, that are going to happen, you're going to be like, oh, I didn't see that coming. And it kind of changes everything, but at least what we know, right? We know that Wimbanyama is going to San Antonio and I'll make

this quick because you shouldn't even listen to me on this one because of all the teams I was rooting for and rooting against, I was able to come up with more ideas of what I didn't want to happen with Wimbanyama for maybe valid reasons and maybe not so valid reasons. From a basketball standpoint, I did like the idea of him potentially with Detroit's backcourt with Cade, a healthy Cade Cunningham and Ivy. Obviously Orlando, not a great chance at it, but if they were to pull it off, then you'd felt like that could be something really, really special. But just from a basketball standpoint and doing things the right way,

San Antonio makes the most sense. And again, my point on San Antonio is completely, you should dismiss it. But to get David Robinson, Duncan, and Wim Banyama with the same franchise, a lot of that is also my angst, my college angst and how pissed off I was that they got Duncan when I thought

he was going to be going to the Celtics. Again, that's 26 years ago, so maybe I should get over it. That's the point. As far as taking every emotion out of it, San Antonio actually is the right spot for him because they'll do it the right way. One of the oddest things about San Antonio, who wasn't good this year, as we know, and every stat will tell you they were even worse, perhaps, in some ways. They actually were still trying to run an offense. They were trying to do real basketball things. And it was impressive. Towards the end of the year, I was like, man, they're actually

really still trying to do stuff. And I think that's going to be really important for him. I watched one by Nyama this past weekend. Dude's still playing. And the dunks, the shot making, small forward at 7-5 all the really cool stuff what he is defensively we've never seen before uh yes he's probably going to get hurt i think he's going to get hurt maybe multiple times if kevin durant got hurt as many times as he did would you still take him number one of course you would and the dude's been hurt a lot like he's had two massive injuries in the middle of all the other times that he's had to shut it down you would still take what durant has been with his injuries number one overall and i have my own working theory of the big players who move like smaller players in the

body just not being ready for that and i've read about his feet workouts and some of the stuff that he's doing because he is as you guys see that picture of him next to rudy gobert he made gobert like if you didn't know anybody's size you go no that guy's like seven one plus and i think his frame's actually going to be bigger than rudy's too so uh he had a play defensively where it was kind of a pick and roll where the role man it's not that he beat him, but he got behind him. And at one point I'm like, oh, did he get beat on this? And it wasn't that he deflected the pass to the role man. It's that the pass got behind him and looked like the pass was going to beat him. And he just reaches backwards. It's actually kind of hard to explain because when he did it, I just started laughing

because you don't see stuff like that. So defensively, I believe he's special right away. laughing because you don't see stuff like that. So defensively, I believe he's special right away. Offensively, he's capable of being special. I know I saw the Broussard thing where it's like if he's not a Keem or Durant, then it's a disappointment. That's just fucking stupid. Sorry. I like Chris, but come on.

But he's going to get hurt. He's going to get hurt. The point will be how many times will he actually be hurt, I would think. So if you look at what that means to the rest of it, I haven't talked to anybody out of the combine. It hasn't felt like there's any kind of surprises

here where it's obviously Wim Benyama and then Brandon Miller or Scoot Henderson. And it depends on where you are with Scoot. He wasn't as good. People weren't as excited about him this past year as they were the previous year, even though he played less two years ago. I like him. I could change my mind.

I'm leaving myself open as I continue to just do my cramming here before the draft and getting caught up on everything I need to get caught up on, but I'm a Scoot guy. I would take him second. The things I like about him aren't just that he's got some real juice to his game at 6'2". It was weird. I think coming out of high school, he was listed at 6'3". He was 17 when he entered the G League, did a two-year deal, 500 grand each year. People think he may have been coasting a bit this season. Not going to be shocked.

But there's some stuff that he can do. And this is the most important thing, the stuff that arouses me when it comes to basketball players. And it's a little Halliburton-ish. When you watch Halliburton in college, you went, okay, he sees the game in a way that the other nine guys on the court don't even see. He sees possibilities

they're not even aware of. And it's just the way Halliburton plays on top of his shooting and everything else he's done since he's been in the pros. But there was a real, not just vision, crazy Jason Kidd type stuff, but just the way he saw the game where other dudes just be like, whoa, I can't even believe you did that or why would you do that?

There's a couple plays from Scoot this season where he catches it and he's already making the pass before he lands. He has one in transition where it's defensive rebound. They get it up to him. And instead of like most guards, especially somebody who's projected to be the second or third pick, would just take it and go, all right, I've got it. We're off kind of the break here and let me just see what I can do attacking the hoop. attacking the hoop. He already was making a pass to a guy ahead of him before he even lands. I find that to be special because you actually just don't see it very often. And the other thing that I really liked about him is that so many guards, especially with his profile and all the notoriety, it's like, okay, now these are my possessions and we'll see what happens. Doesn't mean he's not going to pass, but he doesn't just bring the ball over half court, go, okay, cool. I'm the man. Let's see what we can do here. It is, I've got the ball after the defensive rebound.

I look ahead and see a two-on-two or a three-on-two, or I think somebody's open at the three-point line. If I get it to them right now, they're going to have a wide-open look off a push here. Let me do it. I don't just need to bring it over half court, even though I can get away with doing it all the time. And that's the stuff about him beyond the, there's some, there is a little Chris Paul there. So now I've probably ruined my credibility on him with everybody listening. But there's a lot of stuff about him that I like, but that specifically, which is rare for a young player. where if you're in the room, Mitch Kupchak, and you're thinking about it,

you're going, okay, it's a tie. Does the tie go to Brandon Miller because we don't really want to do anything that would look like another guard, although a combo in Scoot, where that would get in Lomelo's way, or that would feel like we're doubling up on anything. My number one rule when you're not very good is don't worry about fit, need, and all that kind of stuff. Take the best players. That's where you start screwing up.

But with this, back to the original question, would it matter to have Scoot with Lomelo? I think Lomelo can play with a lot of different people. I also think Lomelo needs to figure out beyond the injuries, which is unfortunate, but there's another level that he's going to need to get to if they're ever going to win any kind of games. And I'm not just talking about

stats. I'm talking about all the other stuff that I don't think he does a very good job with and probably hasn't been accountable for it for a long time, or at least when he's tried to, he hasn't expressed a desire to lock into some things that he needs to do. But I do think LaMelo can play with a lot of people.

So the scoop position thing, I wouldn't look at it as a huge problem. There also is another tie where you could go, all right, well, what if Brandon Miller, you know, digging into everything that happened off the court with Alabama, where I feel like teams are fine with it to

a point, but what if Charlotte's thinking, okay, we were still dealing with this Miles Bridges decision. Do we actually want to do this again? Now, if they like Brandon Miller and they think he's the better player and they're okay with their own research and investigation and what he is and the interviews and all that kind of stuff, I personally would think it'd be a mistake if they

like him second best in this draft to pass on him because Miles Bridges situation. But that's not super realistic because you never know. The stuff that we don't think about as fans and even in the media at times is like, what if Charlotte's actually surveying the community and, hey, how do you feel about the team? Granted, your win or lose is probably going to be your answer, but would there be anything where it's like we need to bring in somebody that we feel like has a cleaner rep coming in because of the Bridges situation, because of community, because of sales, because of different advertising partners, right? These are all variables that you would have to weigh far more than we probably do day to day. So if Miller were to go second, what does that mean for Portland at three? Now we start talking about some of that positional stuff that I think is a rule you would hate to break, but sometimes there's the exception. And for Portland, if they still have Simons and Lillard on the team, exception. And for Portland, if they still have Simons and Lillard on the team,

I don't know how you bring in another small guard. Simons and Lillard, if they're together still, you're never doing anything in the playoffs. You're just not. That backcourt defensively being that small, as much as I like both players, they likely need to be split up. And I don't know that it's really going to be up to Lillard more than it's going to be up to anybody else in this situation. So then you start entering the conversation of if another team loves Scoot, other teams have Scoot number two on their board, do they start looking at Portland as a real opportunity to make the trade there?

And is there a team that's actually like already good that has the veteran good player where they want to reset the deck? And I'm not saying Middleton for Scoot Henderson, but that kind of deal where you feel like on the fly, you're adding a prospect you really, really like to take your next chance at this because Milwaukee. And again,

I'm that's not based on anything other than just trying to use an example of plug in a veteran player that Dane would feel good about. He's sticking around because Middleton's its own decision that we'll get to a little bit in a free agency primer. But those trades are really hard to find. Which team is good, willing to sacrifice the good vet and maybe downgrade their chances of a title going into next season or at least competing along that top four seating area? Which team has a piece like that that's ready to go, that satisfies Portland, that satisfies team Lillard, and is enough of a price to pay for somebody in the

number three pick if Scoot were still there. Now, if it were to go Scoot two and then Brandon Miller three, who knows? Maybe even Brandon Miller's not going to be enough for Lillard. So those are some of the things at the top that people were talking about coming out. I did love that in one interview, the team wouldn't tell me the player. The guy was like, what do you think about some comps? And the guy's like, I think like KD. Seems like anybody else.

He's like, nah, KD's like my floor. The team did not agree that KD was his floor. And they wouldn't tell me who the player was. We know it was a guy in this year's draft class. That's all I can tell you. That's all I know. So let's talk about cap space. The projected cap for the upcoming season in the NBA

is going to be around $130, $436 million. I have the top six cap space teams here. Don't hold me to the dollar on this because some of the projections I was looking at were around the trade deadline, then updating some of the decisions the teams have made. A couple buyouts here and there. The lottery picks and how many teams with multiple first round picks in general could change the cap hold situation for some of this. This is not to the dollar. It's a rough estimate, but puts you in the ballpark of who has some cap space to work with. Houston has between $56 and $60 million. They've got a KJ Martin decision they have to make. I imagine maybe they'd want to extend them there. Maybe they don't. I don't know. Romeo Langford has a cap hold as well as a restricted free agent. So San Antonio is kind of in that $40 million to $48 million range. Utah could have anywhere between around $30 million to $45 million, I believe. Jordan Clarkson has a player option for $14.3 million. He will opt out of that.

I imagine Talon Horton Tucker will pick up his $11 million player option, and Rudy Gay likely to pick up that $6.5 million player option. So that's the wide variance on their projected cap space. Oklahoma City has between $30 million and $35 million, depending on waiving some guys that I was looking at. And I don't know that it's that significant or will matter. Detroit, they could have, I would imagine, around $30 million here. Alec Burks is a $10.5 million player option, or excuse me, a team option for $10.5 million. I would think they'd want to pick that up and just keep him. He contributes. He's been around. He

knows what he's doing. And you could pretend, oh, we'll have even more cap space. The problem with cap space is you have it, and then you have to use it. And then you probably want to use it on somebody like Alex Burks, and it might actually be more expensive that when you look at this free agent class. So there's that part of that. The pace is around $28 million. Let's get weird with Orlando. Orlando could have a projected $20 million cap space offseason or up to, I believe, $58 million. Now, part of that's the Jonathan Isaac decision. Only $7.6 is guaranteed of the $17.4 million. So they could waive him and pay him $7.5 million or they could just keep him

and say, well, look, let's just add the $10 million. Take one more look at the guy in case he actually turns into the player that early on in his career looked like he would be defensively. The problem there is he's played 147 of the available

473 games over six years. Markel Fultz is actually only $2 million guaranteed on this deal of the $17 million he's owed next year. Fultz is good. I'd imagine they'd want to keep him. Then they've got a Gary Harris situation

where he's actually 0% guaranteed of his $13 million than Bull Bull as well. Here's the point with Orlando. They would have to, like all teams, know that they're actually a destination

for any of the available free agents to go ahead and make some of these decisions. It's more likely that Orlando right now is not that destination because they're not good enough, despite what their future looks like. I think I'm as excited about their roster as any of the ones that we think are developing here. And maybe that leads into the trade and taking on somebody else's contract

into that. So it'll be interesting to see which decisions they make with this because it feels like everybody's just coming back and they'll add a piece here or there as opposed to that big, big fish. That means they kind of already knew their answers or the risk was too much to just start moving on, especially from Fultz, the guy who's a contributor who they probably feel really good about. So those are the teams with free agent money. Let's look at the free agents. Depending on which rankings you want to look at here,

I even saw Russell Westbrook like ninth on somebody's list still, which I was like, congrats to that man. Harden is the number one free agent. Kyrie's number two. I'm not going to rank these. I'm just giving you names. Fred Van Vliet has a player option at 20 million. Jeremy Grant's unrestricted free agent. Kuzma's a $13 million player option. Draymond Green's a $27 million player option. I'd imagine they're going to try to figure out a way,

maybe have him opt out and go longer years and shorter money, but probably still in the ballpark. Josh Hart's a $13 million player option. I would think he would opt out of that. Vooch is available unrestricted. Przingis has a $36 million player option, which maybe he declines knowing that the Wizards are going to pay him less,

but longer with his own injury history. Middleton, as you mentioned earlier, $40 million player option. I would think Middleton be working with Milwaukee and trying to work on like, hey, let's all stay on the same page here unless Milwaukee finds some other route here that makes a lot of sense for everybody. Cam Johnson's a restricted free agent. If you threw him some money, what would happen? Would Brooklyn match it? Probably. Yaka Purtle, unrestricted

free agent. So why am I talking cap? No cap. Why am I talking about all these things? Because the biggest thing out of the combine as far as free agency was concerned was James Harden. And I don't want to get Paul George here, slam magazine.

But whenever I'd ask, you know, hey, you're just bullshitting. You're like, hey, what do you think happens with Harden? I didn't have anybody say like, oh, I think he's going to Philly. Everybody felt like he was going to Houston. I didn't talk to everybody. I didn't talk to every single person there. Clearly, I don't know everybody there.

And sometimes I do think when it becomes the talking point, I wonder if everybody's just repeating the last guy they talked to, and then it just becomes that gossipy. And then every now and then I may ask specifically, okay, what specifically makes you think that? And I never really got that many specifics. And there was one team that said, you know, look, if they bring in D'Antoni,

that could be a real game changer here. The problem is Philly's in a tough, tough spot. So I bring all this up going, all right, there's teams with cap space. The most important being Houston. I don't know that Harden be interested in going into any of those other

places without the history. It doesn't make sense, right? If he's going to leave, he's going to leave for Houston. I imagine. There's also an Austin Reeves conversation where the Lakers can only offer him like 50 million,

but they can match. But the problem is if Reeves gets four years and 80 million, that means the Lakers with the way the cap works are going to get hammered on the back end where his contract is going to be like 27, 28, 29 million on the last two years. But if heroes four years, 120 million, RJ's four years, 170 million, Poole's four years, 123 million, Brunson, who Austin Reeves is not, Jalen Brunson, four years, 100 million, Anthony Simon's four years, 100 million. Brunson's a little over that.

Where do you think Reeves is? Well, he's not 50 million. If those guys are all over 100 million, is he a $100 million guy? Well, I might not think so, but this is what happens as a cap space is you have to find a way to use it. So that brings us back to the Houston part of it. This is the math that sucks for Philadelphia. Houston can offer four years, $202 million. Normally in Philadelphia's case, you'd be like, okay, well, we can pay our guy more. Yes, the raises are higher, 8% each year than a new team's contract. But because of the over 38 rule, which Harden would be 39 on a five-year deal, Philly can technically offer Harden a five-year deal, but it'd be the same number as the four-year $210 million contract they can offer him. So, right, that doesn't make any sense.

You're like, what are you talking about? That's the problem with the over 38 rule for Harden and for Philadelphia is you'll see people saying they can't offer him the five-year deal. Well, technically they could, but it doesn't mean anything because the way the math works is you have to figure out how that last contract fits on the books to prevent guys from retiring. Cause there used to be an over 35 rule and over 36 rule. And now it's the over 38 rule. Shout out to Chris Paul. What would Philly do here? So they don't have that extra year. Now, would anybody want to give James Harden that extra year?

That's really the question. And all you need right now, if you're Harden, is that second team to be real. So is Houston leverage? I don't think it is. Because they have all of this cap space and no one to use it on and they can bring back a fan favorite and i mean this like my harden stuff over the years is well documented all right you know who gives me the most shit about Harden? My takes, although I don't quite understand how you feel like, fuck Rosillo, can't believe he's dogging this guy still.

Like, you like your position better than mine on this one? All right, so moving on from that, you know who sticks up for him the most? Rockets fans. Like, overwhelming. Philly fans are going to trash him and agree with everything anybody who's ever been negative about him on the way out. Because that's what Philly fans are going to trash him and agree with everything anybody who's ever been negative about him on the way out. Because that's what Philly will do. Houston has defended him despite what Harden did on the way out. Yeah, trade.

Trade for Chris Paul. Not trade for Chris Paul. Well, they did, actually. Yeah, bring Chris Paul in here. Okay, cool. Now they don't get along. All right, get this guy out of here. Chris Paul was thought as a diminishing asset. to oklahoma oklahoma city oklahoma city because and they have to give up

picks to make it happen they get together that doesn't last they bring in another coach and hardens decided he's out and they still defend him all the time so maybe it's leverage or maybe it's actually where harden wants to go he might just want to go there does it make a lot of sense to have Harden after we just saw what we saw again and we can talk about the highs of the playoffs the problem is those elimination games those are too predictable what's he going to look like in four years and he's not exactly Jeremy Scott out here you know posting the IG IG workout videos, right? We saw him box a couple years ago at Westbrook. So I actually wonder if he'd just prefer it. The city, I think, would be fine with it.

One of my favorite pieces of content from this entire week was Paul George calling Jalen Green the king of Houston. Already? I think he'd have to do just a little bit more than Jalen Green has. And it almost feels like the tide has gone so against Jalen Green, but I don't know. I don't know if he's just a really high-staff player

on a bad team, and he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, and maybe there's some bad habits in there. If you watch him against Boston last season, you're like, wait, why is anyone doubting this guy? He can get wherever he wants on the floor, and there's some really good stuff there. I know Rockets fans are hoping that it's going to be all the good things, but right now it's kind of TBD, and he's certainly not good enough, or the organization, the roster is not set enough where you go, no, no, no, this is good.

This is good. The Harden thing might just be, hey, let's get some juice back to the franchise, but that's a really expensive tab for some juice for Harden, who four years from now, we make well over $50 million. But all you need is two teams competing for the same guy, and that's where Philly could maybe go to four years and $210 million,

but that doesn't seem to make any sense except they're screwed. There's problems with their draft capital. There's problems with trading a first round pick that could trigger some of these aprons. There's sign and trade. None of these things are impossible, but if they get real desperate, the mechanism for them to then figure it out moving forward could be even more complicated. But I do think it's worth bringing up Daryl Morey's history, which I respect this part of his game quite a bit. He gave PJ Tucker a player option at 39 years old, 11 and a half million. People are like, what? Other than Chris Paul, I don't think you're like, what did he do? you're like, what did he do? Daryl usually will just say, fuck it.

I'll give the person the extra year, and I'll worry about it later. When he signed Omer Asik to a three-year deal at like 25 plus million, you're like, what is he doing? That doesn't even make any sense. He signed Jeremy Lynn and he was basically doing this with restricted guys because it was, I'm going to make these contracts so weird that you're not going to want to match him. But in the process, people were like, why is he doing this? He signed Jeremy Lynn. He signed Oshik. The back end of

those deals, no one could quite understand it. But Darryl's whole thing was like, I don't care. I'll worry about it later. To get off of Lynn, he had a trade of first, but then in the deal to the Pelicans, he got a first back, he got a Riza. So it all kind of went out in the wash. So this is a much, much higher number that we're talking about Harden four years from now, 38 year old season, what he'd actually look like. But what do you tell him be? What if Harden four years from now, 38-year-old season, what he'd actually look like. But what do you tell him be? What if Harden's like, hey, I'll stay if you do the four years 210 because

I'm getting the four years 200 from Houston. I think most GMs would be like, I don't want to do that. Hell, the ones that may sign him to that would say, I don't want to. Darryl could be like, I definitely don't want to do this. But I have to. How do you tell Embiid you're going to waste a yearl could be like, I definitely don't want to do this, but I have to. How do you tell Embiid you're going to waste a year? Embiid, who by the way, health-wise,

has been way better in his career than we probably all thought. At least I thought at the beginning when he didn't play and then played 30 games in his third year. And he has his hiccups every now and then. I actually think he's been way healthier than I'd imagined that he was going to be. He even had a clause in one of the extensions where it was like a specific protection against one of the injuries. So those numbers don't make a ton of sense, but the free agent class isn't good. The cap space options,

like some of these teams are going to just have to spend some of this stuff. And Houston, what's the point of having $60 million in cap space if you're not going to go for it, even if I wouldn't do it? And imagine Darryl, imagine if Harden did leave. It's like, man, I tweeted all that nice stuff about you. I met you at the private chat.

We got back together. And you're going to do this to me now? But I think it's all on the table. Make a fast break to FanDuel during the NBA playoffs because right now new customers can get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's $1,000 back in bonus bets if your first bet doesn't win. Okay, so looking at Miami at Boston on FanDuel right now, Miami getting eight points.

The total right now looks at, it's 215. So let's try to do something a little more aggressive. The last one was lining up perfect with the Murray, Aaron Gordon stuff. And then it wasn't so great because then Murray went bananas and then still covered the over, which he was, I think only on,

he was, he wasn't even close to the pace. So, all right, sorry about that one. One thing I noticed with what the Celtics did at the start of one of the games, they decided to try to go Marcus Smart post early at the start of game three. So if you looked at first basket odds for the Celtics and he combined here,

Tatum's the favorite plus 350, so there's still value there. But I wonder if they could try to get Jalen Brown going. So, yeah, that's it. Plus 500, Jalen Brown to score the first basket of the game because he hasn't been going as good. And I'm not talking about Jalen necessarily from what I've seen there, but that they tried to go smart post, and then I think they had Jalen post at the start of three.

Jalen has struggled. Will they run something for Jalen? First play of the game. So there we go. Jalen Brown, plus of the game. So there we go. Jalen Brown plus 500. First basket. FanDuel has tons of promotions every day on a safe and secure app. And when you win, you get paid instantly.

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Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com forward slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com forward slash RG. Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia. 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. 1-800-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9WITH-IT, Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana.

Call 1-800-327-5050 or visit mahelpline.org forward slash promgambling in Massachusetts. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY to 467-389 in New York. 1-800-522-4700 in wyoming or visit 1-800-gambler.net in west virginia cj mccollum joins us now in the worldless pelicans uh excited to talk about a bunch of different things with you let's just start with the west the nuggets are ahead of the finals um we knew they were good, but they have been special during the playoffs. Is there anything about this

that's remotely surprising to you at all? No, I don't think it's surprising, mainly because of how consistent they've been throughout the year. You look at a lot of different teams and the ebbs and flows of a season where you have great wins, terrible losses. Outside of that point in which Malone

had to challenge the team publicly because I think they just started taking regular season games for granted where they got blown out of home a couple times, they were the number one seed. Outside of us being number one seed in December, January, they were the number one seed the entire season. They were relatively healthy the entire season. Joker basically played every game until the end of the season

where he kind of rested. He had an injury, but it was more strategic rest to make sure he was ready for the playoffs. were relatively healthy the entire season. Joker basically played every game until the end of the season where he kind of rested. He had an injury, but it was more strategic rest to make sure he was ready for the playoffs. Jamal played majority of the season. The only people that were in and out of the lineup were Porter Jr., right? Like he was in and out of the lineup throughout the year, but that's a plug and play because of how they play, right? Like Bruce Brown can come in and run some point. He can come in and score a little bit.

Jeff Green's a Swiss army knife. It allowed for Christian Brown, Brown or Brown, however you say it, it allowed for him to develop. And I think strategically speaking, that roster was built for the playoffs because you got home court advantage where you're basically the best NBA team at home. You got a guy who's unstoppable, who is the gravity. Everybody kind of plays through him. And then you got a guard who's, you know, phenomenal off the dribble. He's built for the playoffs because he can play in half court.

He can play in transition. He's got a mid post game, right? Which is what you need in the playoffs. You got to be able to shoot a middie and you can shoot the three with regularity off the bounce and catch and shoot. So the team was built.

You insert KCP, right? A championship DNA, tall three and D wing. And you look at the roster and you say,. So the team was built. You insert KCP, right? A championship DNA, tall 3 and D wing. And you look at the roster and you say like, I'm not surprised. I think I'm more surprised that people didn't talk about them more.

I had the Suns beating them, right? Right. And I'm just like the rest of the media where you look at the roster and you think to yourself, that's a really good team. But KD, Book, CP, A&M. And then CP goes out, right?

And then it kind of changes things, and then they just outplay him down the stretch to where I think they didn't get enough credit throughout the season, and now people are pretending to be surprised when in reality you should have seen this from the beginning of the season. Because the Phoenix series ended with such domination,

you're right, it was almost like, ah, they weren't any good. And I'm like, you still think, what Booker and Durant may have been doing it all on their own and it looked really hard to me to see what those guys it was kind of like possession by possession like i just have to create something and figure something out and that's like exhausting beyond just playing the normal 40 something minutes everything felt hard for those dudes and if they're still putting up the numbers i know durant wasn't as efficient as you'd expect. But I think, yeah, I think through that, it's that it was almost this dismissive series win.

When in reality, I think a lot of other teams still would have just ended up losing to Phoenix because of those two guys. Yeah, their depth, their ability to close games, right? You look at how that series started. They punched him in the mouth in game one, right? Just punched him in the mouth. Phoenix kind of responded. They go up too well. too well and then everybody's thinking like what's going to happen next and then phoenix comes back and shows like hey we're here book plays out of his mind basically shoots 65 it took him playing the best basketball he can possibly play for them to win

right like literally like i don't... Like anybody. Right. It doesn't get better than that. Like, I don't know what the next level is because that's a level that, like, it's hard to consistently attain 60-something percent shooting on high-degree difficulty pull-ups. Like, it took that for them to win two games, basically. And then they went and Denver did what they do,

went on a run, defended well, played through the Joker, and that was all she wrote. But I think looking at that series, you've got to give Book and Katie a little bit more credit because the Lakers couldn't get one game. Like, they didn't get one game. And it was three one-possession games that they lost, right? In the most recent game, Bron, he has the one-legged step back,

gets the possession where he he passes and then he has a possession where he drives and um kind of gets blocked maybe gets fouled who knows and then he had another possession game one i think he misses a three when they were down 21 points they come back and then game three they could have won but outside of that it was just denver just closing them out getting up riding the joker role players playing well. And I just think Mike Malone, I think the Denver Nuggets organization in general, they deserve to be credited for not breaking up the team, right? Keeping their core group of guys together,

plugging and playing some guys who would help, keeping their staff together. And I think it's a copycat league now. So you see Miami, you see Denver, probably going to make it to the finals, right? Boston still has a chance, right? But slim chance of winning four straight games. The mold is now,

maybe you can keep a roster together or a core together. You don't have to keep firing your coach. You don't have to keep swinging the fences at a superstar or two superstars, whatever the case may be. And you can build authentically through the draft and with player development, and you can get a couple free ages. But who wins this championship will determine what our league looks like for the

next few years okay i had a different question plan but since you said that what does that mean i think that means historically whenever something happens right the warriors for instance the warriors kind of change the way the game is played obviously the three-point shooting but dream on being a smaller guy that can play the five, but can pass, but can dribble, can anchor the defense. Then teams got away from playing two natural bigs. I got

drafted in 13. We started Robin Lopez and LaMarcus Aldridge. Two-footers. Obviously, LA can shoot or whatever, so that changes things, but he operated in the left block. We had Chris Kimmick coming off the bench. We were a post-oriented team the rest of the league when I got into the league you know was first when that I think they won the championship that year with Tim Duncan and then you look at what happened once the Warriors started winning

it changed the way the game was played now you're playing a small ball four that can shoot right not two post players fast forward fast forward you get the superstar area where teams are like well we gotta have two or three superstars to win a championship so then teams start rearranging the roster and going for that putting packages together giving up picks you look at teams are throwing picks at everything right like you know the anthony davis trade the drew holiday trade that's just just two trades that involved the Pelicans. But you look at each team, Russell Westbrook ends up going to the Thunder. Like there was a lot of situations where guys were going to certain teams because teams were like, we got to get superstars.

Now you look at the way Miami built it, right? They draft well, they get a lot of undrafted players, which sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you develop, but they have a culture. They trade for Jimmy Butler, draft Tyler Hero, draft Bam, develop, develop players that were within the organization. But they didn't go out and say, okay, we got to get a superstar. They'll get Kyle Lowry. Solid point guard, championship DNA plays in the right way. can close games, comfortable coming off the bench. It's just a professional. And you build that around veterans. You keep UD, and everybody's like, why are they keeping UD?

And it's like, well, because UD is the locker room guy who's going to keep everything together. He's the leader. He's going to tell Tyler Hero when he needs to do something. He's going to tell Jimmy Butler when he needs to do something, and they're going to respect it. And a lot of teams need that. A lot of teams need nurturing. They need a veteran that may not play,

but is going to make sure that the young players do what they're supposed to do. And you do need star players, but you need quality role players to win a championship. When I run through it and go, right, oh, the Clippers. Okay, well, that star building didn't work. All right, the guys got hurt. Brooklyn tried to do the big three thing that we were so accustomed to with Miami, with Golden State, and then with Cleveland again. And it's like, yeah, but maybe they just had the wrong guys for it. And my default is always, I don't think you're going to have teams go, oh, that guy's really good. Well, we don't want him because the star chasing thing hasn't worked recently in some of the other stops. And when I look at Denver specifically, is right you are about all the other pieces. You have this Steph Curry-like

centerpiece, not similarities in playing style with Joker and Curry, but the selflessness that the face of the franchise doesn't care about the wrong things. And also his playing style is to make sure everyone around him is involved and better, which is even different than what Steph is. And the Miami thing, to me, is such an aberration if they pull this off that I don't know that anybody would even follow that model. I think Joker for Denver, all the other pieces seem like the right pieces and the path seems like

the right way to construct a roster, but it's only because the one guy is so willing to share as a player. I agree with that, but the key to all of this is that if you look at the rosters

across the NBA, generally speaking, every team ends up getting a star caliber player through the draft at some point. You can go down the rosters from Eastern Conference to West. Look at New Orleans, right? Look at us.

I'll use this as an example. You draft Zion. You trade for Brandon Ingram. Draft Trey Murphy. You draft Dyson Daniels. Jose Alvarado, undrafted. Roger Marshall, undrafted. Herb Jones, drafted.

So if you draft well, there's a chance you could find, not necessarily a joker because that's a once-in-a-lifetime, but you can find a guy that has star potential. Right, your guy. Your guy. And then you just hope, like you said, jokers are once-in-a-lifetime. You're not going to find many star players who, first of all, are as good as him, impact the game the way he does, doesn't care about scoring,

selfless, knows when to lead. This is a team where they drafted Joker and Nurk. Shout out to my boy, Nurk. Nurk was my teammate. Joker got drafted. After Nurk, they made a decision. They could have kept both of them. They decided, nah, we can't keep both

of them. We need to get off one of these guys. And they rolled the dice choosing him, not knowing it was going to turn out the way that it did. But I say all this to say, you're right. This is something that you can't necessarily mimic or copy. But you can look at the fact that you do need to keep a core, whatever the core is. You need to keep a certain amount of players together to see what it's going to be. Because continuity and consistency matters. If you look at the lakers right i'm using them as an example because after the playoffs uh malik beasley said if we can keep our roster similar and go

through a full training camp together i like our chances next year the problem was they made a trade at mid-season beyond mid-season because the deadline's not at the halfway point. It worked. They got together. They went on the run. They played well together, but there were still areas they could improve on because of the chemistry that they didn't get a full season together. If you can get multiple years with one coach and call it three or

four, three starters and two rotation players, you build the chemistry to where if you're healthy, I think you have a better chance because of the Ability to play Together like when I was in Portland our court was Together for a while then it just became Dame and I Being like the last pieces right of the court

With NERC but we got to Play together so that makes up for some of the Talent deficiency that you may see on a roster Because you like each other you understand each other You know the play calls you know how to adjust There's a way in which you can hold your teammates accountable. And I think it's, look at Miami, right? Although that's the extreme case of culture, chemistry.

Spoh's been there 15 years. Jimmy's a great leader, a unique leader, right? Because he's not for everybody as we've seen. But Strewson has been there. Duncan Robinson has been there. Bam has been there for more than two years, more than three years. If you go back to the bubble, they were together. Basically the same team, right, in 2020.

More than two years without firing a coach and drastic changes to the starting lineup. I'm not saying that it's easy to do because sometimes change is necessary, but in order to win, you've got to keep a few of the guys together and see what happens before you build around it. We just had Larry Nance Jr. on, and I would tell the audience this, you put in the requests and they fall the way they fall. So this is Pelicans heavy two weeks in a row, but I'm cool with that because when you were the one seed early on and there was a debate about who has the deepest

roster, I was like, you know, I actually think it's New Orleans. Now that could be my own projection for what I think Herb's going to be, how much I like Dyson because I liked him so much before the draft, and then Trey having way more to his game than just sit in the corner. When you really dig into what he can do, given the opportunities, but as you know, there's some guys that are really talented. You're just not going to get the ball enough knowing if Brandon's healthy, you're out there, and Zion's healthy.

You're just not going to have many times to create off the dribble. Having said all of these things, even with, uh, Valanchunas, like there's a lot of guys like one through nine, one through 10. Um, even, even Najee too. Like, you know, I, I feel like I'm always leaving somebody out when I make sure I name everybody on the Pelicans. That's really good. Uh, what, what is this team?

Like, what do you think this team can actually be knowing that that's really good. What is this team? What do you think this team can actually be, knowing that there's always the big question mark with Zion? Yeah, I mean, I would agree with you. We're one of the deeper teams in the NBA when we're healthy, right? And I think that's a question mark for a lot of teams. The Denver Nuggets, if hypothetically two of their three best players get hurt and play 11 games together, are they in the finals right now? Yeah, you're right. I mean, there were six seed last year.

Injuries and the timing of the injuries can determine your success. And I think that's what is important to note. And I think we have a good roster. We have a strong roster. Obviously, there's areas we can all improve at individually. And there's areas that our front office will improve at in terms of tinkering and figuring out what we need and what pieces can be plugged in to make us better. But I'll say all this to say for us to be successful, we need at least two of our three highest paid players, three best players to play 60 plus games, right? At least two or three. Like if you look at every team from a success standpoint, two of your three have to play. If you have a big three or a big four, whatever it is,

they have to play a lot of minutes because it allows everybody else to get comfortable in their roles and to understand their roles. When roles change throughout the season and you get healthy again, it makes things a little difficult because I'll use our team for existence. For example, Trent Murphy went from coming off the bench, like you said before, standing in the corner to being utilized more, to having to start, to playing a lot of games where it was no BI, no Zion, right?

And then one of them comes back and that kind of adjusts the role. And then we trade for Josh Richardson at the deadline. I think people forget this. Josh started some games when he was traded, traded him off the bench. Then they switched. So like that was us trying to figure things out.

Our organization, our staff trying to figure things out. And that was a lot of changes going on. Jose gets hurt. Dyson gets hurt. No one knows this. Dyson missed like 19 or 20 games with the ankle sprain.

And he was six, seven, eight, eighth man at one point. Then Jose goes down and he doesn't play like down the stretch of the entire season. He was six or seventh man. And theni goes from eighth man to starting he has a stretch where he starts six games and averages 18 four and five

and nobody's talking about it and then he has to go back to playing nine minutes a night so it's like people don't understand what that does and part of it and what's important for us to realize is that we're pros and we have a job to do and that's important that you have good locker room to tell people like hey you have to stay ready we got've got a guy in Hernan Gomez, who's a quality big, who doesn't play for 30 games in a row. And then he starts and gives you 12 and 14 off the bench. Like, what does that do to your psyche when you know you're capable of playing, but then you got JV who's JV, right? A walking double-double in 22 minutes. So like, I agree with you in terms of depth and I think our team can be really good. But as I said before, availability matters. We have to be healthy in order for our

depth to properly be used because otherwise guys are going to be expected to do more, which is great for development. But there comes a point in time where you run out of steam. The workload becomes too much because you're supposed to do one thing, you're being active with these things, and your body or mind may not be ready for it. There's a reason why certain guys are getting paid what they're getting paid, right? Because you expect XYZ from them, and you expect your role players, for example, like the Denver Nuggets, to be able to win you a game in the playoffs, right? Like a Bruce Brown or a Contavious Caldwell Pub, where they were able to play a certain type of role all season, they got comfortable,

they're able to play above that role at times, but they weren't asked to do it for 65 games. No, but to see what those guys are doing outside of the Jokic-Murray stuff at its peak, which is still why they're in the finals, but those guys were incredible around it. All right, I want to get back to your roster one last thing here. You've been around a while now. A hell of a career, a lot of awesome stuff that you've done

with the Players Association. So I always look at you as somebody I would imagine as a leader on a team. Does Zion listen to you? I think that he does. I think that he does. That's a really good question. I think from a respect standpoint, he respects my approach. He respects my resume, although it's just consistent of winning, right? Not an all-star, not any of those things. I haven't been, but historically, I've won. Historically, I'm respected across the league. I played a game the right way. And I think one of the things he respects about me most is that I'm honest, I'm blunt, and I've never said anything to the public that I haven't said behind closed doors to him directly. And the things that I say to him directly are not sugarcoated the way that I was sugarcoated to the media or to you in a conversation. So I think he respects that and my approach to basketball in terms of every day.

He knows what time I'm going to be there. He knows what time I'm going to leave. He knows I'm watching film. He knows what I'm eating. He knows what time I'm going to sleep. They know that I take this game seriously. And by they, I mean, not just Z, the BI, the rest of the staff. And it's not like I have to preach to them. Like, this is how you be a professional. You get to watch me do it every day. So it's not like I'm asking anything that's that I'm not capable of or not consistently doing. And I think from that standpoint, absolutely. I think he respects me. And I think the difference is I've seen changes in him and his approach and how he's doing things behind the scenes. Obviously people don't get to see his lockers to the left of mine. Like I see him very often. He sits right beside me to the left of me on the bus. He sits to the right of me next to Garrett Temple on the plane. Like

we're very close and we very much so communicate often more than the public eye would truly understand. So I would say if you asked him, he would say absolutely. Right. That was a very open-ended way to ask you that. And I appreciate the answer. And I'm not going to press because there's certain things it doesn't make any sense for you to tell me. I'll make a statement then. I just hope that we're not somewhere because

i love his game everybody seems to really like him i mean i he hasn't even figured it out yet and he's insanely dominant you know what i mean like some of the stuff he does and then you look at the numbers you'd be like if this guy actually like takes it to that next level of like understanding uh which happens with the great ones i just hope we're not here five years from now going, man, I wish he had just had a different approach when he was younger. I don't know if that seems fair or unfair. It's projecting a bit, but it's more because I'm such a fan of him and I'm just worried about where it's going. I've had serious conversations with him on multiple occasions, not just me, Larry. And I said this to him, I've told him, and I'm going to say it to you. You can be as good as

you want to be. And that's not for everybody, right? Like there's a level in which I can, I can be the best version of CJ and it's to hear the level of the best version of Z is a level that everybody can't get to, right? Like, and I use the analogy of planets and stars all the time. There's stars in this league and there's planets. And you know, the difference between a star and a planet, right? Like Joker planet, Steph Curry planet, like things revolve around him. You could almost say that these guys are the sun, right?

Like they're different than a star. Like stars are great and they're important and they move teams. But like, there's only so many planets that we know of in our solar system i said you are a planet so you have to move like a planet you got to think like a planet you got to eat like a planet you got to exercise like a planet you got to sleep like a planet like your ceiling is unlike anything the game has ever seen but it's up to you to take full advantage of whatever that is like and, and I can't want it for you. Mom can't want it for you. Dad can't want it for you.

The staff can't want it for you. You got to want it for you. So it's up to you to decide what that looks like. And you are walking 26, seven and seven or seven and five or whatever it is at 60%. But what's the next level? Like, because there is another level that you can reach and we've all seen it and we've seen it in spurts in the 29 games he played last season. So I think it's not a matter of how good it will be because we don't know.

We really, if he plays 65 games in a year, like, what are the numbers? Like, I don't know. Like, I can't tell you the honest answer because when he gets into a rhythm, there's no stopping him. And it seems like he's always in a rhythm. He just hasn't gotten the chance to put together 65 or 70 games consecutively, right? It's always in spurts. So I say all this to say, I've had real conversations where it's not even a lecture. It's more like, you got to figure out what you want to do with this game because this game will go wherever you take it. Like, and that's's not for everybody like everybody doesn't have a chance for everybody doesn't have a chance to be top 75 like and i played with two i played with mellow and i played with dame and i played with

dame before he was at the peak of his powers right like before he was tapping his wrist like i was in the gym at 6 a.m with him so i know what it looks like so i'm not like i'm not a preacher i just tell him the facts that i know and i say like look i've seen what success looks like. So I'm not a preacher. I just tell them the facts that I know. And I say, look, I've seen what success looks like. And you don't have to do this version of success. It doesn't have to be Dame. You don't have to be Melo. You don't have to do the things that he did.

But there should be some similarities in your approach. Can I ask you a Dame question? This is weird because you're so good at this. And then you've done your own media stuff. But then you're an active player and he's a friend where I'll just ask it like, what do you think happens here? In my heart of hearts? This is it. This is me just making a judgment from the silence.

It's not like Dame told me this. I think based on whatever they're able to do at this upcoming trade, whether that's packaging three and whoever for whoever, if they're not able to accomplish something that looks like they're heading in the direction of winning, then I think, and this might even be his decision the organization may decide like you know what we can get a quality hall for him and they move them collectively like a decision that's made i think unless they can move and this is what i've seen on the record right like unless they're moving towards the direction of competing for a championship who knows what competing for

a championship looks like. Was that the eight seed? Is that the seven seed? Like, what is that? Like, that's a very broad statement, but we all know what a championship quality roster looks like, right? Like you look at it, you can say, they got a chance. If they don't look like they have a chance, I think they decide whether it's time to go young with draft picks and move him or it's play for the seven, six, seven, eight seed.

I hope we missed the play in. If I had to guess, I would say it depends on the market. I think the market will dictate the decision. I don't think it'll be like a Dame asking out type of thing or a Portland saying we want to move Dame because obviously he wants to stay and they want him there. If they're not

able to get what they think they can get for three and whatever, I think they decide to go young just like a pure observation of what is the like what are you what are you doing like what are you trying to accomplish is it make the playoffs and you cool with just making the playoffs and getting around 500 or would you rather be a little under 500 or you know like okc and maybe you make me get in a playing game maybe you don't but you have a chest or drawer full of assets and picks.

So if I had to roll the dice, I would say the market will dictate whether or not Dame leaves. Yeah, that makes sense. See how the draft lands, who's going to be there. You already know all this stuff ahead of time, what potential trades are there. Like does Scoot Henderson go too? Does somebody trade up and go get Scoot Henderson at two

to where he's not available from Portland at three, and then that changes what they can move? Like this could be done draft day, right? Like somebody could say, you know what? We want Scoot Henderson. And they put a package together to go get the number two pick because you know who's going one. And Portland has three, right?

Charlotte's two. The Charlotte trade back, and somebody says, we want Scoot Henderson. They let them move up to get him. There's a lot that could happen where things could really shift. Or does Portland just say, you know what? We want Scoot Henderson. Yeah, the Scoot one might be tough just because you're already,

and I like Scoot a lot i like scoot a lot i spent a lot of time talking have you watched him much i watched him i actually was in new york in the summer working out before he played that year with the g league ignite and so when he was 17 and i was like who is that strong and he was working with um was it kairi's uncle who's playing the league with crazy finishes jersey og played in the league, with Crazy Finishes, Jersey. OG played in the league, Strickland, Rod Strickland. Oh, Rod Strickland. Oh, yeah.

It's his godfather, right? Yeah. He was working with Rod, and Rod was telling me about him. I got Rod's number, and I was like, this kid got the goods. He was like, yeah, he's going to be a top five pick. And I said, I see. I watched him work out, strong handles. Obviously, the jump shot is, I guess he's continuing to develop it based on percentages, whatever.

But he was working. I work out early. I've been working out at 6 a.m. very often throughout the summer since I was 14. So I'm getting into the gym early in New York, which is everybody's late because of traffic. I get to the gym at 6.30, and I'm finishing up college it 7.30, and he's working out 7.30 every day. I was like, he's going to be really good. Yeah, I think he's nice.

I think he's, I was watching him again this week, and there's just, I don't want to repeat it to the audience because I already talked about him for five minutes today, and I'll do it again

before the draft, but there's just, especially with guards, guys, they have the ball in their hands. I want to see, because we don't have the traditional point guards anymore. But one of the great things about you coming out was, I think combo guard used to be a dirty word. If you were a combo guard coming out probably 15 years ago,

maybe even you a little bit there too. Now it's like a necessity. But then I think it's veered so far away from what combo actually meant, is that there were still some inherent point guard thoughts. Like, hey, maybe I get this guy involved, or maybe our possessions have sucked three straight possessions, and I need to force the defense

to make a slightly different decision. Even if the screen, it doesn't work out, we don't end up with an advantage. I just need to do something a little different. I think that part of the game has been gone for a while. I think you're actually really good at it. When I see it with a young player, I'm not calling Scoot Henderson Jason Kidd here, but

there was a couple times through the G League stuff this year where I went, oh, wait. Dude, this kid's this young and he thought about that already? That's the coolest part beyond how strong the juice. He's dunking on guys in traffic and all the other stuff that goes with it.

He's a monster. I'm a fan. Let me ask you this then as we finish up. Because you're the Players Association president, what is the biggest point of contention between? because we always hear about the owners versus owners stuff

what do the players what's the issue the players argue about the most that's a good question I think the hard part was information flow like harsh bits of information coming out saying we've agreed to things before it was actually agreed to in principle. And then that's when you get backlash

or players freaking out. What did we agree to? And it's like, yo, even when we verbally agree to something, because Woes and Shams said it, shout out to Woes and Shams, right? But they're piecing together what they're hearing. Full disclosure, the CPA is still being written out.

As we speak right now, it's being written out. We verbally agree to things and it's being written out. It has to be transcribed and lawyers go back and forth. So it's like when something comes out a month and a half ago and then you get Draymond and whatever, guys are tweeting. I'm like, look, man, respectfully, I get it. You have a right to your own opinion. Let me give you all the information first and then be mad or not be mad. Like, cool.

I can live with that. But like, don't read three sentences about a 800 page CBA and think that like, that's it. That's all we did. Like we didn't do nothing else. So I think that was the hard part is the flow of information where, think about it, if you're a team who's in the salary cap and all you read is that

there's a new apron where you'll be taxed and penalized and you think, CJ agreed to stuff against teams in the salary cap. Oh, by the way, I play on a team who's going to be very close to the salary cap or over the salary cap. The tax. Yeah, right. No, that's funny. Yeah, you yeah you can't win god that's so funny

it's like oh did cj push this through because he knows i hate the words like they look at me like oh you lost the words you hate them it's like no well if you think about this for a second look at our roster zion brandon ingram me trey murphy herb jones right you're gonna be you're gonna be Me, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones. Right. You're going to be paying a hefty bill there. That debt is going to be the expenses. Yeah, absolutely. So you think I'm just shooting shots at everybody else, not thinking of like, I'm trying to do what's best for the game.

Oh, by the way, these aren't all my ideas. By the way, these governors have their own ideas of what they'd like to see happening. And, oh, by the way, teams that have spent a lot of money aren't necessarily always happy about spending a lot of money. Oh, by the way, there's 30 teams who have to agree to this. Like there's a lot, there's a lot of intricate things that the casual payments understand,

but also our players don't understand. And rightfully so, because they're not in the meeting, not necessarily because they want to be in the meeting, right? Because it's open invitation. So it's criticized critique rightfullyed, rightfully so, because you should. And I'm in a business where I should be criticized, critiqued on the court and off the court. But if you want to be helpful, you are allowed to participate and give ideas and come up with things.

And I would love to utilize it, honestly. This isn't like a, oh, whatever I say goes type of situation. This is a collective bargaining agreement where it has to be mutually beneficial for both parties. If it was a CJ agreement, things would be much different. folks. Just so you know, every one of you will have multiple things in here that you don't like. But instead of never showing up to any meetings and never being on any of the calls and waiting until you see a small version of it and then deciding to tweet that we did a bad deal for you. You know, like I think there's another way to do it.

I have two more on that and then we'll talk about the winery. Why was there a cap smoothing this time anticipating the TV revenue spike as opposed to not smoothing it out previously? Oh, I can't speak on previously because I was not president. You were in the league, right? I was in the league.

So I don't have the full information in terms of I got drafted in 13. I think I reaped the benefits benefits this is a situation in which i was in the free agent when there was a boom 16 right alan crab myself alan crab the list goes on shout out to my guy ac shout out to my guy ac you know i was in this i just happened to be lucky and be a part of the spike and i think one of the things we talked about as a person who benefited from this was it's not fair for our collective group to not benefit from spikes and cap. If you so happen to not be a free agent that year, it's not fair. You should be able to benefit from the fruits of our collective labor. And this is a situation in which we all talked about it. We talked about

with the players, agents, the league teams, we all agreed it's not fair for only a select few players to benefit from the spike. So it's not fair for only a select few players to benefit from the spike. So it's best to smooth it out so that everybody can take part in the success of the league slowly. It's a perfect example of, and this happens all the time, but it's like, hey, if this spike happens in 16, this is what's going to happen. I don't know that I personally, from conversations I've had, I don't think Michelle Roberts did a great job of explaining to everybody exactly what was supposed to happen. Maybe the players didn't do a good job investigating what it meant because the smoothing would have meant more money for everybody. Then John Wall actually said something about Reggie Jackson's contract. And I was like, you know what? I agree with John Wall here, despite the fact no one wanted to hear John Wall say it because he had made so much money already. And it's like, no, no, it's not who's, it's the point. The fundamental point is this,

is that there shouldn't be this windfall for this class, which then, you know, I remember Robert saying like, no, you don't get it. It's all going to work out. That's not the, it's all going to work out. Like, what are we getting ice cream in the back? Like, so for it then to have to happen for then this time through the players go oh yeah when all those guys cashed in that one

year when there was all this cap space and if your your contract was up that year like that was a significant spike so it everyone knew what it would look like but it actually had to happen to have real evidence for then the players to go. I don't want that to happen again because it's about 450, 500 members, not that free agent class of that summer. Yeah, it's for the betterment of the group, right? For the larger group, which means 450 players are never going to all agree on any topic. And they shouldn't because we're all not like-minded individuals. We all have diverse opinions and thoughts based on our upbringing and based on our experiences.

But this was a no-brainer. Once you go through it, and sometimes you have to fail or go through a trial where you learn the exact results of something. And once we went through that, and luckily I was a person that benefited, but still recognizing that it wasn't fair. I just got lucky. You, it just happened to, you talk about a windfall, like I just happened to be a free agent. We looked at it and we said, although some people benefited from it,

it's not fair if the majority aren't able to get a fair shot at this. And that was something that we talked about right on. And I can speak to it. Like, I was like, look, it wasn't fair. I'm a guy who would have got paid anyway, but it wasn't fair that it happened the way that it happened. Right. And that was always the point.

You could see it coming. And I'm sure if the players actually knew it, and then on top of that, Golden State ending up with the ramp, I think if people understood, but it had to happen to be understood, which I think happens all the time. And it's not a specific thing

to the members of your union. Okay. Last one on that. I know that just from a job number standpoint, the union's probably not in favor of getting rid of the one and done rule. And there felt like there was all this momentum that silver was going to get this past where it wasn't going to happen. I feel like when I talked to teams years ago, they were, they didn't really care. And now it feels like the momentum's kind of going the other way where it's like, you know, we actually don't mind the one

and done thing. Uh, we still have the one and done. So the easy answer is we don't want to eliminate 50 jobs, 50 signed players jobs to accommodate a double draft class. But where is the league with that as far as the player side? Yeah, I think I'll speak from my side first. Right. In my conversations, I said two things. I said I've always been in favor of players going out of high school and being able to become pros early

before they were able to be compensated early. I thought it was unfair that majority of our athletes didn't have a chance to make money and were forced to go to school because oftentimes the cream of the crop is ready. There's, call it five to eight guys a year that are ready to go to high school and don't really need that year. The cream of the crop is ready, right? There's, you know, call it five to eight guys a year

that are ready to go to high school and don't really need that year. The rest of the guys probably should go to college or whatever the case may be. And I thought it was unfair that they weren't able to be compensated. You fast forward to the way the league is now and the way high school collegiate sports are,

guys are making six figures. Some are making seven figures. So the financial aspect of being able to take care of your family is already happening. And I think I was more in favor of it because of the financial freedom that being a professional athlete allows you to have. Now with NIL, I said it publicly. I said, I don't feel like it has to happen now because we got 16-year-olds.

Chris Paul can speak to his AU team. Get two 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds making six, seven figures. 16, 17. So I think there's more of an educational component that needs to happen now that NIL is in place for high schoolers and collegiate athletes who are making six figures. And some are making close to seven figures to where we should focus more on development education. And one of the other issues that I think is occurring with our league now is that it's getting so young, which is great, but it's also not great because we need veterans. We need the right locker room presence. We need the right exposures to be around them

because you have to learn how to be a responsible adult. It doesn't just happen overnight. And generally speaking, we're first-generation collegiate students for a lot of cases in our household, and we're first-generation millionaires, and no one teaches you how to handle money properly. I went to a prestigious institution in Lehigh university. I stayed four years. That's good. I mean, it's, it's good, but not, you know, it's, it's, it's college.

I'm just messing with you. I'm sorry, CJ. But I, I, I sense the joke, but I say always to say, I did all these things and still didn't know much at all about how to be a professional. I didn't know the financial implications of how to hire people, how to conduct proper background checks. I still had to learn things that school didn't teach me. So think about the person that doesn't go to school at all. What are they learning? You're learning based on what the people around you are teaching you. And if you don't have the right people around you, what are you ever learning? So I think, I say all this to say that I was indifferent about one and done versus high school now

because you're getting paid. What's six months of school and then you're getting paid more. In some cases, guys are making less coming to the NBA than they are NIL. So it's like, if you pick 27, if you pick 22 to the rest of the draft and you're like elite, you of the draft and you're elite,

you're probably making what you would make in the league. I think that's what changed my perspective. The quality of play is something that the NBA is big on. They want to improve the quality of play. Is it going to improve our quality of play if you let in 70 and 18-year-olds? Honest question. No, it's not. And the problem is you're going to be hanging on a roster spot even longer because you're probably going to have, I mean, you'll have the guy in-house,

but just physically too with some of it. But then the other argument that I've heard from teams would be like, hey, this is professional basketball. And the same stuff happens in Europe in these academies. So like, why are we not doing, why not just get them in house and we'll develop them the way we need to develop them instead of having them go to some college coach who doesn't know what he's doing half the time, which again, is just sort of a rough estimate, which isn't even accurate, but you get the point.

The premise of it is that some teams feel like, hey, let's get them in. But then other teams are like, you know, let's see him play somewhere else for a year so we can weed out some of the people we may have made a mistake on. The Lehigh joke is for a friend of mine who only he will laugh about it. So maybe I shouldn't have done that for the entire university, but the money part's right. Like, I don't care who you are. I went to a good school. I didn't make money for a very long time, but once I did, like, I started thinking about like, wait, I'm supposed to give access to these accounts to like different financial people. And like, didn't I see a documentary on this? Right. Like, no, it's like,

limited power of attorney. What does that mean? Like, that means you can pay my taxes. Like, can you pay bills? Like, how is this working? But I say all this to say, we're in a spot where we need to focus on the right thing.

We need to focus on education. We need to focus on mental health. We need to focus on development and making sure whether you go to school or not, you have the basic resources that you need to be successful because whether you're one and done or not, life changes once you become a professional in any

level of any sport or not sport. Working your nine to five as a professional at a college is different than when you intern. It's different. So I think regardless of what we decide to do down the road, and if more than 15 governors in favor of it it could happen but they have to be able to vote on their behalf and really want this to happen and we have to get majority of our player reps to vote on behalf of it occurring but it didn't seem like a pressing issue no it didn't from either side i thought it was and then you kind of started hearing more about it and was like yeah there's other stuff um and if i'm the players too like it's kind of one of those funny things there's like well who's pushing for this is ownership

is the NBA. Cause whoever's pushing for it, the other side is going to ask for something that benefits them when it's like, wait, let's not position ourselves. This is something we have to have. Cause you know what that ends up meaning? It's like, oh, so that means we got this thing, but then we'd lost money. Like what, who are the 450 guys are going to give up a cut to get guys in the league that aren't even in the league yet. So, uh,

it's an interesting one. And I thought I had momentum and then it didn't happen. Last thing before we let you go, cause I kept you longer than I said I would. So I apologize for that. But McCollum heritage, uh, 91,

you get a Rose out. The simple question for this is just, you've got, you've got the funds, you've got the interest. You, you've always feel like, okay, what is this other thing that i could do to be passionate outside of basketball why wine my wife actually introduced me to wine and i'll flash it here uh on our way out of college and i think i've just i've just always gravitated towards it um since she introduced me to it and i

think the things that historically have brought me to it are the peace I get when I'm at a venue, right? The peace and tranquility, service usually doesn't work. Wine historically has been associated with celebration. So birthdays, you got anniversaries, things of that nature. And where I come from, wine isn't popular, right? People drink other things, maybe stronger drinks or beer, whatever the case may be. And I think for me, as a black man growing up in America, I want us to be more comfortable around these types of things and in these spaces. And I think for us as a society, a lot of us are uncomfortable ordering wine at a restaurant. It feels pretentious. It feels like a

lot when the song comes up and it's like, I don't know. And I want us to become more comfortable with it as a society. And I think for me, it's about learning. It's about the education. It's about continuing to find things that bring me joy and bring me peace. And I think historically when I've been at vineyards and in tasting rooms, and even when I'm on our property in Oregon, I just feel at peace and at ease because I live a hectic, chaotic lifestyle. It's always going to go. I'm always flying. So to be able to kind of sit back and enjoy things with my family is something I take pride in and this was a way in which I could

learn about something and provide my family and people that come from places like me an opportunity to learn more about something that we don't normally dive into Well thanks again man you've always been impressive to me you know whatever whether it's your game or the stuff you're doing off the court. And I can't wait to see a healthy Pelicans team this year, all right?

So hopefully it all works out. I appreciate it, man. Thank you, and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Before we get to life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

What's good, everybody? How's your week been let's just check let's just check in on it everyone doing well um there's maybe gonna be a fight next week um right before the wedding there's been some issues about the about the house and about this stupid thing and what's going on one guy was trying to find a basically it's so dumb ryan it's like this guy was like she was like all right we're all gonna make a shared album on iphone uh for for the pictures from the bachelor party and everyone's like okay great and one guy from the kip just like how do you do it and they're like all right here's how you do it he's like i don't understand what you guys are talking about how do you he kept asking they're like hey man

maybe you just don't send your photos it It's fine. If you can't figure this out. And he was like, no, what, what are you guys talking about? How do you do it? One guy calls him a dumb ass that like became a whole thing. And then he got upset at the guy who called him a dumb ass. The guy would call him a dumb ass. It was like, watch your mouth. I'll smack you. Like your fucking friend smacked you on the porch. And it was like, Oh boy. Yeah. The porch is getting callbacks. And and and then basically it ended with like i'm gonna see you in a couple weeks anyway guy so i was like ah so um i don't know where we're at uh i called i called my one guy the other day who's not a poughkeepsie guy

but was involved in this and i was like you're not really gonna smack this dude at my wedding i just went to your wedding it's all good right he was like if he says something to me i'm gonna smack him i'm like oh so i can't nobody's nobody's talking sense right now. I'd expect this from the Poughkeepsie guys. I wouldn't really respect it. Expect this from the New York City guys. But I'm just I left that group chat and I'm just I don't know. I'm just going to just going to hope for the best. You don't need this, buddy. I now wish I were going. I wish I going um because no one can tell these guys to fuck off i mean i i don't know i uh i think we're all like there's a big group going out thursday night i think i gotta make sure these two guys are in that group just so they can you know i don't want the

first time them seeing each other to be at like the cocktail hour you know what i mean uh so uh i'm wondering if i if i gotta make sure these guys you know see each other before because i i really don't have faith that the poughkeepsie guy's not gonna say something even though i would say he's pretty close to me i just don't he's one of those guys who can't help himself so i really don't know i feel like i've been in this situation before i'm like man if everybody just does the right thing it'll be fine and then it's like the one guy who just needed to do the right thing, isn't going to do the right thing. So I don't know where we're at. Yeah. What you need is like one or two of the guys on each side to just be like,

we're not going to let this go down on Kyle's wedding, you know, weekend. You would think, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, somebody's got to step up and play. I just don't want to have to keep reaching out. I was like, if I could just talk to the guys in the group and it's like, the group is just descended in the the chaos i reached out to one guy on the side who's just like why are you even asking me that you know if he says something to me i gotta hurt him like oh okay so he's gotta hurt him what's this guy do for a living teacher all right so um yeah i don't know we're we're just Is he tough? I'd say he's pretty tough, yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm pissed off for you on your behalf. Like, you know, I remember one specific wedding I was not invited to because of this reason. I mean, look, the guy was dating the girl I had just proposed to. So, you know know and he was sort of in the circle of friend group and he would have never talked to her in a million years had i not dated her for a while and i found out the hard way it's like you're not nobody wants you there

and i was like i'm the one that didn't do anything wrong and they're like yeah that's what makes it even worse like yeah this is like you're gonna feel justified right you're gonna feel justified if you do something and we're just not having it and i was like yep that's fine and it's funny because then i ran into the guy that got married he's like yeah dude just you know wasn't gonna happen like we're gonna have you in the same room and i was like yep you know and then i was upset whatever but the point is is that you know i think i was 26. So, um, I don't, I don't think I would have done anything. I don't know. But now being, being older and hearing your friends do this to you, what you're 10 days out, this is bullshit. You don't need this. I hate this for you. I feel when, what's your last day on the show?

Are you doing Sunday with Bill and I, um, before the wedding? Yeah, I'll do Tuesday too. You'll do Tuesday. It's just a tough time to take time off, as you know. It's going to be the final. So I'm pretty much, I worked it out with Cerruti. Like, whoa,

I'll have like five days off. But yeah, I'll be, I'll be there Tuesday. I just wish your friends wouldn't be this selfish or the specific one friend that already sounds like he can't help himself

and it's on. And maybe they can fight on Thursday. That's what I'm saying. I think we might have to, like, you know, out back of Mahoney's or something by the train station

because my fiance doesn't know any of this and I'm not planning on telling her, hey, you know, so something's in the works. But you shouldn't have to, like, you're part of the wedding party responsibilities. The best man should be like,

oh, you should be insulated. Like 20-year-old brother. He's like, got stuff to do oh yeah yeah but it doesn't matter all the other guys how many of the guys are in the wedding that were at the bachelor party um three out of my six like grooms bros groomsmen so it's kind of on those three guys it's kind of on those three guys to be like this is kyle's day this is her day like we can't let our idiot friend fuck this up basically and you're just trying to you're just trying to put together a video to play during the ceremony or after no no i don't know what they want to do with it they just wanted to make a i hope they don't play a video of that weekend uh

it's uh it's just i think they were just trying to make like a fun memory thing and the one guy just couldn't understand what a shared album is. And he was being like really upset and everyone else was being annoyed at how upset he was. And it was like, they sent him a YouTube video on how to do it. Some guy just called him a dumb ass. And then it just escalated from there. So wait,

the guy that's bad at the, the video collage thing is the guy that smacked the dude on the porch. And also, yes. And it's also the guy that can't help himself he can't help himself in a way of saying dumb shit the other guy can't help himself is say if he feels disrespected he has to like say i'll either i'll beat your ass or so it's like so was the guy that was just saying i can't i cannot handle being disrespected was he the one that

was actually slapped on the porch? No, that was the other guy. And that's why he feels like he's got to do this because he's like, I already know that guy gets slapped. So now I got to... Oh, so it was a third guy. There was a third guy originally in it. Yeah.

Yeah, okay, all right. All right. So it's all... We'll figure it out. I think Thursday night's the answer. Well, good luck. Thanks. Speaking of fuck off,

Succession, one episode to go. The funeral scene was terrific. I'm just going to keep repeating myself on how much I like about the show. I'm still holding out some full circle moment about the car crash coming back to mess with Kendall at the very end of this series I thought that him talking to Logan security guy at the wake uh was a really important scene I

don't know why they put that scene in there if there wasn't some full circle moment because that guy could have just disappeared from all the stories and nobody really would have noticed and then the fact that the security guy kind of looks back at Kendall because Kendall handles it really poorly you know come work for me come talk to me i know you're talking to a therapist and all this kind of stuff and so uh that's kendall protecting himself and then the way they shot that where he looks back at him the only good thing that gives me hesitation that i don't think that's the ultimate maybe it's not the ultimate end game because there's all these other different things that have to be tied off and some won't be but the show is so terrific that i don't know that they would make it that obvious to close

the whole thing so that's kind of where i'm at love the funeral scene love the roman part ewan who you're like what's this guy gonna do what's this guy gonna do he hates his brother he gets up and kind of tells this story about them coming across the atlantic that was like endearing but then he sort of stops himself but he doesn't across the Atlantic that was like endearing, but then he sort of stops himself, but he doesn't go full rage, which was exactly what a guy I think in that role would have done at the funeral. And then for Kendall to kind of have a moment where he saves it from Roman and the writing of that whole thing. Once again, they stay in scenes longer than most TV shows ever would bother with. And then it stops feeling like television.

So one to go. Can't wait. Yeah, I think his brother and that whole speech. I mean, I like that they do those things at the end of the episodes. They do them for all the HBO shows now. And some of them I think are necessary. Some of them aren't. But the ones for Succession, I love that they talk stuff through and explain why they do

things. The ones for succession, I love that they talk stuff through and explain why they do things. And the way I think it was, I think it was Jesse, right? Who said basically that the thought process was, you're not trying to absolve him of being a bad dude, but it just gives you a bit of more context into why he is the way he is. And that's totally true because you're like, damn, do I feel bad? So he comes over across the Atlantic. There's a war situation. His sister dies of polio.

His aunt and uncle basically blame him for it without actually really any knowledge of it even being his fault. And you start to get a picture of like, yeah, maybe it makes sense as to why he's kind of such an asshole and so hard and doesn't really understand how to make relationships that aren't business forward. So I thought it was great. And obviously the entire time with greg and roman just like being like what am i supposed to do what am i supposed to do like i don't know what am i gonna do like take his legs out that was incredible um the scene with all of the wives and mistresses though man that thing was fucking excellent it was so good caroline is the worst but you're like actually she kind of has a heart and that was really nice of her to bring Carrie out

because Carrie's, you know, at first I was like, what the hell is going to go down right now? For her to introduce her to Hurt and say, hey, this is my Carrie to Marsha. I thought that scene was one of the coolest scenes in the entire show, even though it didn't mean a ton, no, but then for them to all sit in the front row,

to me, that was one of the coolest parts of the entire episode. Kyle, do you not watch it or you don't care? Oh no, I watched it. I watched it. Um, I was super uncomfortable when Roman was up there.

I mean, that was like, uh, yeah. Talk about an ugly cry, you know, but, uh,

that was, uh, that was, I mean, and the six sessions made me feel uncomfortable in the past, but that's probably a top three moment. Like, well, when is this going to stop? Like I, I felt, I felt like I felt something. I was like, I mean, Succession's made me feel uncomfortable in the past, but that's probably a top three moment. Like, well, when is this going to stop? Like, I felt, I felt like I felt something.

I was like, oh, God. Yeah. When he was like, is he in there? Can we get him out of here? You're like, oh, man. Yeah. I mean, I just, I physically felt something. So that's, I think that's a sign of a good, a good scene.

So, so there was that. And I got, I just got some Greg theories. I mean, we used to joke about Greg. And now i think now i really think he's um you know i think his odds have shot up that's for sure i mean you know the the paper greg question mark was kind of a laugh and even before that we were like oh who's it gonna be it's like well you know greg's a character but uh you know i could see madsen doing the old switcheroo on shiv and just being like you know shiv's a fake puppet

greg's a real puppet like why not just why not it just be greg and you know greg's i think become the point where he's like trying to insert himself in conversations about like toppling whoever's at the top and so i mean i wouldn't be surprised if greg's like the puppet ceo at the top and all the kids are like wait what the fuck just happened so for yeah further adding to them hanging out where you got the info on shiv and then he tells everybody on election night but then did madsen connect with him uh i mean you might not trust shiv enough like you know yeah but she's been getting her ass kicked she's been getting her ass kicked and i wonder if that's the setup to her finding a way to salvage this uh Or is it going to be that obvious?

Is one of the kids actually just going to win? Or is it going to be Carl? I love Carl. I'll just say this really quick. Does there have to be a winner too? But go ahead. Sorry. It was uncomfortable to watch Roman and that whole thing.

I was almost more uncomfortable, though, with the Kendall kids car scene with his wife. That wasn't good good I was like dude when he's like banging on the window and then like what do you do you're gonna have to run me over and you're just like your kids are in the car man and like it kind of it kind of was like man it's he's sort of like weirdly turning into like a fake

version of Logan you know where he's just kind of a bad person and maybe that's what it's setting up for for him to he obviously is never gonna be as good as his dad but he's like trying to be and he becomes like the asshole kind of like his dad and that to me was I thought that that was incredibly uncomfortable to watch as a parent that really rattled as a parent yeah now that I had a daughter and that scene it just you know it's a little different yeah there's somebody we all know now that i had a daughter and that scene it just you know it's a little different

yeah uh there's somebody we all know that that dropped now that i have a daughter on me years ago and it was one of the most i was i was irate it was what was it in reference to though it wasn't i mean i don't want to be a dick but like it is true there are some things where like i've just of course i've caught myself being like all right i think about this a little bit differently i'm not i wouldn't outwardly be like ryan man you just you don't understand dude like it's just different there's i'd say it's a heavy usage rate of now that i have a son now that i have a daughter now and you're like okay like now that i have a daughter I no longer want to murder animals. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's changed much for me, but all right.

You wouldn't get it. No, I don't know. I think I do. Although reading about Shackleton right now, I can't believe I never read that book before. They just take it out on the seals. All right. Life advice. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com okay we got uh we got a hardo alert i didn't realize the rossillo pod has three simps on it now

oh boy he bought the tickets he didn't handle it well but he has every right to change who he wants to bring all caps he bought the tickets. Why are you guys treating the situation with such a double standard? You guys gave trash advice. Stop being so simpy and woke. It doesn't fit y'all. What is woke about that? Come on, man.

That was uncomfortable. We've been over y'all, first of all. Yeah. Y'all get fucking... first of all i did say he should find a way to get the tickets back if that's what he wants to do so you're not even listening guy we covered every single possible angle but it is now that sucks i guess if you talk about taylor swift you're woke now all right well it's on our radar it's on our radar. Shout out to all the people. I had a lot of positive feedback on that. People being like, dude, from the left?

From the left? Liberal media. Well done. No, but it made a dude feel good. I will be honest. I had a lot of people reach out. I was there, man. Bobby, who works at the ringer with us shout out to him he was at the saturday show asked him if he caught some rain he did not but he was like it was funny

to listen to you have to explain why it was okay for you to go to see the biggest artist in the world i was like yeah no i know i know it is what it is yeah for the record i'm all for it i'm not i'm not did you feel like i was giving you shit about it no no i didn't i just figured the audience would maybe i just Maybe I misread that. So I'm happy with the positive feedback. Okay. We had a Paul Dano follow-up. No, let's go.

I kind of like some of these meeting celebrity stories, although I'm afraid they could be fake. Apparently, the Tyler, Tyler, the creator of the Paris interview, it wasn't shocking to have a couple of people be like, that's actually edited and fake, which makes it funny as hell. It was even funnier when I thought

it was possibly real, but it was so weird. I was like, is he doing a bit or whatever? I guess it's entirely fake. So there you go. So some of these could be fake, but this one seems to be straightforward enough to be real. Short story about meeting Paul Dano

since Ryan is convinced it's too weird to randomly talk to. Yeah, I don't think I was going to talk to him at a fish show. During a more nasty COVID, the more nasty COVID time, shortly after bars and restaurants opened for outdoor dining only,

I was walking into Bird's on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. Kyle may be familiar. Kyle, Bird's? Never heard of it. Yeah, okay. Small plates. When I noticed Paul Dano sitting at a two-person table with another dude who i don't

believe was a celebrity played it cool walking past him towards the entrance and said to my girlfriend holy shit that's fucking paul dano it was fairly late at night so there weren't many people hanging out outside we get sat at the table directly in front of paul and his friend i had my back to them ordered a few drinks and an appetizer and they were still there hanging out too we decided to have one more round few drinks and an appetizer, and they were still there hanging out too. We decided to have one more round of drinks. And when the server came over, I told him that I would like to buy that table. His friend included, of course, a round of drinks of their choosing.

That would have been weird if you were like just the other guy. They accepted. The server brought them their drinks. And Paul raised his glass, looked like it was an old-fashioned, as a cheers thank you. My girlfriend told me to turn around as he was doing that, so I did. Paul and I made eye contact, and he gave me a head nod. I thought that was pretty cool, but figured that was it. A couple minutes later, he came up to our table and said,

thank you for the drink. COVID fist bump. He held out a fist, and we were fist bumping, and it was pretty fucking cool. And he walked away, and that was that. So Ryan, he might just be a little chiller than the lunatics

he plays on screen. Shouts out to this guy for, that's a great way to play seeing a celebrity in public. Buying him a drink, being super chill about it. So shouts out to the emailer. Yeah, we were in Montreal once

for some bender and one of the guys at our table at this really fancy steakhouse was so shit-faced he went up to javi lopez and like another guy on the braves i think it was the backup catcher and he went over and thanked him for their service that was not the way to handle it two guys were looking at me being like what what is he doing? And we're like, I don't know. Is he buying them around?

And he's like, no. He went over and was like, hey. He patted him on the back. Same guy also went up to Tino Martinez and Derek Jeter and brought him 700 Miller Lights at Daisy Buchanan's once. And they were like, dude, what do you want us to do with all of these beers? He was like, ugh. All right. beers he was like all right speak speaking of seeing people out about 29 510 160 pounds player comp is regular season rondo i live in chicago and last wednesday i was enjoying a lovely early

dinner with some friends at ash of all as we got it from our table to leave i do a double take as i see ryan rossillo obviously solo wearing a hat standing at the entrance and waiting for a table obviously i'm a huge fan of the pod was now finally my chance to meet one of the crew in person although to be honest i wish it was kyle however i totally froze in the moment i made eye contact with rossillo and gave an awkward head nod that got returned with an angry stare. Now, obviously, I knew Russillo was no Mr. Rogers, but I was still surprised at the very apparent, quote, this dude better not even think about coming up to me energy that he was giving off.

So instead, I shamefully walked out of the restaurant without saying a word. My question is, how should I have handled the situation so that I could say hi and give my appreciation for the pod without pissing Ryan off? There are probably a bunch of dudes listening right now who think I'm a wuss or not saying what's up, but this feels like the street fight situation where every guy says, oh, I would have totally laid the smack down on that dude. But when you actually find yourself in that situation,

you back down because the crazy guy may have a knife. But in this case, Ryan is a crazy dude with a knife. I don't remember this i have to say that i think that's just my face you think you have like a solo face i was wondering maybe you wouldn't know like if you're just solo maybe you just kind of have a different mode and you're just you're just not looking super approachable when you're when you're by yourself because when you're when there's somebody else maybe you're you know you think about it a little more and like you know maybe relax certain muscles on

your face or something first of all i would never i've never once ever been a jerk to just be like yeah of course you know if somebody's gonna come up and say hey i love the pod it's i tell everybody like to have people like what you do is the nicest thing you can tell somebody who does this so why anybody would ever be a dick about that but i'd imagine i was pretty locked in on getting in there because of how busy it was and i probably was just like i have a purpose you know i kind of walk with a purpose i look for the purpose it could just be that i'm the male resting bitch face like if i were a woman they'd be like oh she's so hot but you know right but probably that's what people would say about me so you know like oh nobody talks to her she's so hot though so yeah i'm sorry man i'm sorry i definitely would have

said what's up and probably bullshitted but i probably was so focused on making sure i got a seat at the bar to get in and get out and not this because i walked up and i was like what are we talking about here she's like 45 minute wait now it's going to be two hours soon. And I was like, I'm by myself. She's like, there's one right over there. I was like, all right, so that could have been it. So I'm sorry. Cheat code. It's a cheat code for life. Go everywhere by yourself. Two things. One,

not only the like resting bitch face or whatever, but you're just your general aesthetic, right? Like I think it's hard for I think a bald jacked guy with a beard to look approachable. I just think, like, picture even, like, I don't know if you saw Jason Statham out right now.

He kind of has that same... He's not that tall. Sorry, he's not that tall. There you go. Here you go. Classic. You know, he kind of has that same, like, face. Like, I don't know how many times you've seen him smile.

He doesn't look very approachable. So maybe it's just kind of that sort of thing. But also, you are all business, no matter what it is. Like, even when some guys come on and hop on the Zoom... Kyle, you can probably back me up on this. A guy will pop up on the Zoom. And you're just like, Alright, let's get it going. How much time you have? And then at the end, there's not much chitchat. If there's a window of you guys finding some commonality or whatever, you'll chat somebody up and you'll open up and I see your eyes go, Oh, wow. This is cool. But you're very much all

business and you're approached to a lot of things. Maybe that's it. You're out and about. You're out in public. You're trying to get your shit done. So I imagine it's like a subconscious thing from you, but you probably don't look super approachable. I have to back this guy up on that. Oh, I'm not disputing any of this, but I just know, I don't know. I just know how I operate where I'll be like, all right, I'm doing this. And then, you know, this is the move. And then I'm thinking about, all right, I have to be back at the hotel at a certain time because the game's going to be on.

And then, you know, if I'm taping tomorrow, that also means, you know, whatever. Maybe I do need a kid. You know, a kid would just be like, hey, all that shit, all that stuff you think you have mapped out, none of it's going to happen. So there you go. Yeah, so sorry.

Appreciate it. We had some other people be like hey you had the same cheeseburger i didn't it tasted different oh from the two places yeah i know it's owned by the same company but uh all right how about a couple life advices all right what do we got here what do we got that was a little friday feedback, which I don't know if we're going to do that or not, but I do like it. Summer. Summer. Yeah. Summer. Summer. Okay. 6'3", 200, former basketball walk-on at a Big Ten school, 12 points in four years, NBD. Love that. Good for you. That's awesome. I had 12 points in four years. Well, 12 more than most of us will ever have. That's awesome.

I had 12 points in four years. Well, 12 more than most of us will ever have. My wife and I welcomed our first child, a girl, in March of this past year. I'd always heard different people talk about how special fatherhood is. Big Cat and Cerruti being two of them. I think Big Cat milks it a little bit more than Cerruti does. I certainly did not appreciate that sentiment until I became a dad. It's demanding.

It's so rewarding. Here we go. I didn't even plan this out. Perfect timing. Yeah. Nonetheless, being a former athlete, athlete i'm pretty regimented person and the chaotic nature of having to take care of another person has been a challenge i promise i didn't map now this is like repeating everything we just talked about this is a big statement but uh i find that former d1 hoops players can be somewhat selfish we were catered to for four years meals laundry chartered flights free access to gyms weights and more uh even as a walk-on i was treated like a king admittedly having to put

another person's schedule ahead of mine has been something i've had to learn to navigate my way of admitting that i'm selfish with my time we are at week eight and my daughter is sleeping great and we were getting into a rhythm i told my wife i'm hoping to get back into schedule when it comes to workouts after listening to your episode with jeremy scott second shout out of the episode and we were getting into a rhythm. I told my wife I'm hoping to get back into schedule when it comes to workouts. After listening to your episode with Jeremy Scott, second shout out of the episode, I downloaded his app.

I used his training program. He has a summer Metcon challenge up in a few days and I'll be doing consistent workouts for the next five weeks as part of the signup. I had to take selfies to track my progress.

Hopefully gains, S no Z. And I took these shirtless photos, submitted them and didn't think much of it. All right, we're actually getting to the fucking point. That was actually a lot of lead up, but maybe necessary. Flash forward to this past weekend. We went back to my wife's hometown so she could attend a wedding shower for one of her best friends. We live in a major US city, not too far from Elgin. Shout out to Elgin, SVP days. And most of her friends are still in her hometown.

Because we live three hours away from her hometown, most of her friends have not met our daughter yet. My wife gave me the heads up that the bride and her other friends want me to bring our daughter by the end of the shower so they can all meet her. Deal. I show up with our daughter. She steals the show.

Several people are asking us questions and showing genuine interest. A few of her friends asked to see all the photos I had, so I handed them my phone. The first girl scrolled for a long time and then handed my phone back to me very abruptly. I didn't think anything of it, so I handed my phone to the next friend. The next girl scrolls through and then quickly passes it back. I was in the middle of feeding my daughter, so I didn't give this much thought. Later that night, I was looking at photos of my phone when I realized both friends must have stumbled on my shirtless selfies that this guy's sending to Jeremy Scott and quickly passed the phone back to me, likely fearing what

photos may follow. So what do I do about my wife's friends seeing my shirtless selfies? I'm not embarrassed that these girls saw these photos, but I do feel like an explanation is warranted. I am likely overthinking it and they probably just think the photos are strange and a tad bit narcissistic. Nonetheless, I feel like this is really explainable and may avoid them gossiping about me. Wow. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, this isn't a problem at all.

No, it's definitely not a problem, but I mean, are you being too narcissistic to realize that maybe they think, is this guy actually sending photos to other people? And then that's gossip that you'd want to cut off at the pass. You know, perhaps, maybe not. I mean, I had to watch Vanderpump Rules

just to get ready for an Andy Cohen interview. And, you know, it's just guys getting burned by phones year after year. You know, Steve Jobs anti-marriage when he invented this thing. You gotta ask. Scholars will debate it. It's like, what's a way where everybody gets busted all the time? I've got it. It'll be called the iPhone because I'm going to be by myself once my wife goes through this.

So, look, I think this isn't really that big of a deal. There's a perfect explanation. It is kind of funny. How close are you with these people is probably... I think it's kind of awesome that you and your wife can laugh about this that hard. That's the part of this that's funny. I mean, it depends on how close. Do you really care?

Do you care that much that they might be talking about you being a narcissist and taking shirts off pictures when's the next time you're going to run into them like never i probably wouldn't do anything and i would laugh my ass off about it with my wife yeah unless this doesn't unless the picture doesn't look good you know what i mean that's that's the thing i would be a little like you know self-conscious about but i mean i can i countless times like i remember like a girl or like they'll somebody will just be like here look at these like four photos don't scroll left it's like all right so everybody's got something on their phones everybody knows that you know what i mean like uh it's like there's so people are always so freaky if they

want to show you like more than one photo like scroll left but stop after that like i've that's happened so many times don't show the pictures you know that's weirder than seeing i know i know that's now you're just like what's going on is that a snake exactly do you guys use the hidden folder uh i have in the past yeah anything i don't want to empty now i can tell you that yeah sure well played I used to have an app that was a calculator that you had to type in a certain number and then there would be photos in there oh interesting

wait what I forget it doesn't matter it's all gone everybody's in love now doesn't matter here's the only thing that i would add to this one i don't think it's a big deal one i don't think you need to do anything about it uh it's likely if you're only seeing these people at a shower i don't know much

interaction that you'll have with them and i do think it's kind of funny if they if you don't know them that well and you made like a very direct effort to explain this to people that you don't know that well that you're, that would actually be maybe deemed weirder than them just seeing shirts off pictures of you. And I do think that there's a bit of just a human reaction now of having these things long enough. When you just start to see

a lot of flesh, you just hand the phone back. Sure. Yeah. The thing is though, that's kind of like, of all the dumb, he didn't incriminate himself. Obviously, there's something like really super negative on there. But of all the things that for someone to see a shirtless sort of like gym selfie is like kind of one of the bigger douchebag moves. So I do understand why he's like, fuck, man.

Like now they think like I'm some, you know, self-indulgent, you know, love my body kind of guy. And I get why that would annoy him. It isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter. You're not close to these people. Likely your wife laughed it off, as you guys said. But I get why that would eat away at you and you'd want them to actually know the truth because it's not you. That's not who you are. Because I make fun of those people all the time. So if I put myself in the same position and one of Maddie's friends saw a shirtless selfie of me on my phone and I saw her reaction, it would eat at me. It would bug me. And I would probably be like, how do we figure out how to make them know that this isn't the deal?

Invite them over. Have Kyle's tech guy put together a montage of all of Kyle's photos, some with a shirt, some without. And you'd be like, yeah, this is actually... What if you just have your wife be like, Hey, like, you know, subtly drop that you're doing this, like sort of like explain it without giving it away that, you know, that, that he knows that you saw them be like, Oh yeah, my, you know, my husband's been doing this workout plan where he takes his shirt off. Like, are you girls doing anything like that? Just to like, just to put it out there, just to put it out there that are you guys doing anything no i think i know you were thinking about that immediately and it's actually if it's worth it to the wife and she actually

interacts with these people enough um because again i still think it would be like well wait a minute why would this guy be taking pictures of himself with his shirt off is he if he's married because he could just have his shirt off in front of his wife unless it's something she's really she likes she's like oh are you in the hotel give me his shirts off picture and it's just that so whatever uh but you know they could be like wait is he taking these pictures because they're actually sending them to somebody else but there's a smoother way of getting into it not saying that saruti wasn't no i this but it wasn't yeah exactly i'm not saying that's the way but something like that no there could be like oh hey you know my husband's obsessed with this jeremy scott fitness app and like you

know he has to send in fucking selfies all the time or whatever and yeah make fun of yourself she could make fun of you yeah exactly but then they know why yeah jeremy scott getting guys into trouble yeah okay last one here longer pod so here we go uh six four two twelve playing weight was closer to 200 trying to shed a few LBs before the summer. Big fan since the SVP days. A little bit of context. I worked in the sports and entertainment world five plus years. Was in the same building as Ryan for a couple of playoff games,

both lost by the home team. I wonder what those were. And enjoyed close to unlimited access to tickets to some of the biggest shows you can think of. This, of course, came with the original request from friends to hook them up with tickets, which I gladly obliged. After all, with what we got paid, we might as well enjoy the perks of being the cool friend.

Totally agree. Trenton Thunder tickets. I think they gave us 10. I think they gave us 10, and then I sent two to some girl who was married, which I didn't know. I didn't know she was married, and she's like, how about I hook you up with my friend who's... And I was like, yeah, that's not going to work out.

It's not going to work out. You know? You got a chamber of commerce event firing away your game. Do you have a card? Oh, you work for state rep, whatever. Anyway, yeah, that's a true story. I got a business card from her. And then she was like, dude, I'm married.

I was like, yeah, makes sense. You're fucking wicked hot. Alright, so you don't want the Trenton Thunder tickets? A couple years ago, I decided to make a bit of a left turn in my career and left this specific side of the industry requesting friends to help them get tickets have died down close to

zero. Of course, I still have a lot of contacts in the business in my area and get in most venues with comps but I don't abuse it especially if it's for someone else so but let's call one of our friends here one of the friends here his name is James he was one of the people asking for tickets constantly back when I was in this world and it hasn't really stopped exclamation point I helped him get a couple of tickets for one venue and he hasn't stopped asking since then he wants he went

to two shows last month and the day after the second show he was already asking for tickets for another one next month my question is do I tell him straight up that he can't keep asking me or do I make up a lie like tell him that my contact there doesn't work there anymore I don't want to burn bridges for when I want to go to my

go myself to an event. Thanks. Keep up the great work. Okay, so what you have is you have one of the rare lanes of access here despite pivoting career-wise where you still have all these contacts and clearly they all still like you enough to keep giving you the tickets. You cannot fuck this up, okay?

You have the secret password in a way that most people would love to have. And is that guy potentially talking about you to somebody else? Be like, oh, let's call him Dave. Dave, who used to be my dude, he keeps asking for tickets. You can't be asking for like two or three things in a month unless you're entirely cool with your provider for shit that isn't even yours. The other problem with free tickets is people like fucking free stuff way too much.

I know that sounds odd, but there are people making a ton of money that can go buy their own fucking tickets. And beyond the inconvenience that it is normally for the person that has to get them and then relay them to somebody else, yes, I realize the apps are supposed to make it easier. But you ever get locked out of one of those. On the way into the crypto.com arena. Going wait I have to log in.

Wait is this a fake email. Is this the real email. Is it the spam email. This guy's now DMing me. What the fuck just happened. And then the person's looking at you going. Mastodon's already three songs in. And I'm like.

Seabeast is usually later in the set we'll be okay so uh i i just tickets are weird tickets are beyond just the normal free stuff category the free ticket abuser loves telling the other people that he got him for free and that's the that's the secret to all this whole ticket bullshit that people that have access to them do, right? And by the way, I didn't have like crazy, crazy access, believe it or not. I'm not a big asker. I don't really like asking anyone to do me a favor.

I don't think I do. I hope I don't. I think I'm pretty clear on that one. So I rarely, rarely ever went to anybody. I got the master's badges because I think at that point I was on the layoff list. They were like, ah, fuck them. Here's like the ultimate master's hookup. Your last meal. Yeah, right. It was kind of like that. And so I got that. Every now and then there was a

World Series ticket that popped in. So I didn't do bad. And then, of course, I had my own access just by going to covering some of that stuff. But the salespeople are the people that keep all the tickets. They're the ones hooking up all these different people. But back to the point that I need to hammer home the most here is that there's something erotic to the request friend when that friend gets to tell the other people like hey i got a guy he's at msg and i made this happen and the problem is that guy that gets off on bragging that he got the tickets for free more often than not can always fucking afford them so he's asking you

for something that's jeopardizing your own access, right? Potentially, unless the guy providing you with it is totally cool. There's also that portion of it, but it's usually not always cool. There's usually always this make-believe limit where people have already set that limit on you and you don't even know what it is by you asking. The closer you get to that, then he starts thinking like, ah, maybe I'll just fucking not hook this guy up next month. And you can't jeopardize that for yourself because it sounds like you're in a really good rhythm for another dude who clearly doesn't care about it and probably gets off on being able to tell his group that he got all of them in for free. Right? Kyle's nodding here because you know what I'm talking.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. Right? Kyle's nodding here because you know what I'm talking, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Guy who can buy his own tickets, buy them for everybody that somehow wants to inconvenience somewhere else because it sounds cooler when they're pre-gaming over beers that he got the hookup because everybody wants to be known as the guy that's able to get the hookup because it's actually a very rare breed. The story at the bar too, it's like, you know, that's, there's that guy who's just like, it's like this, I can tell it's probably not even going to happen, but he's just already put it on the table as a thing that could happen. He's like, well, you know, Masters next year. Do you have a guy?

You know, he got into buddies last year. One of his friends has been a lifelong member. So, you know, who knows, man? Maybe next year. And it's just like, all right. So we could be talking about anything. We're talking about this thing that's not going to happen because you know a guy. So I understand that.

I would just say normalize. No, I'm just going to keep just say no look at a straight face say no see what happens see what happens i mean i i've never been in a normal position i've never been in a you know power broker position where somebody's you know i've been able to like change somebody's like whole fucking event you know or whatever they're doing do you get asked do you get asked like hey hook me up with a free spotify i'm like okay so who who who am i going to talk to at spotify about just getting a a blank a blank subscription to give to somebody that's in perpetuity like what do you think like people just ask you for shit when they know that like you're attached to

something but that's i don't even say like dude that wouldn't even work like that. I just say, no, I just say, nope, not going to do that. So, um, you know, I I'd say do that. Or if, if for some reason you're not into that, just lie. As I've gotten older, I've just, just gotten really into lying. So I think you could just lie about, lie about something like this, you know, and not, not like, I'm not like lying on here. I'm just saying like lying when people, you know, are asking you to do something that they probably shouldn't be asking you.

It's like, I'm not wrong here, but I don't want to get into it. So I'm just going to lie. Yeah, I've said this before. It's okay. A little white lie to like make your life better. That's not going to hurt anybody is totally, totally acceptable. And I think that's what this guy should do. He'd also be well within his rights to be like, dude, I just don't have the time for this. Like I've hooked you up over the years. It's multiple times a month. It's not going to work. I'm sorry. Like, i think you just have to be real with them otherwise it's probably gonna keep asking you um it was definitely the worst when we were at espn everybody thought just because you worked there like the lowest of the totem pole people you know like yeah lowest entry level

radio guy yeah i'd be like hey can you get me finals tickets like dude like i ryan can't even get final like i i how many times ryan and I think in the decade that I'm, all right, you can get final tickets, but not like for some rando. For a random? Yeah. How many times in like the 10 whatever years that I've known you have I ever asked you for anything?

It's because I know that it's not easy to get. In fact, the one thing I think that you did, Maddie, my wife, asked you, it was the Nets tickets we got recently, because I just know it's hard. I know it's a pain in the ass. And I never want to be a burden to somebody. So yeah, you're 100% right. These people, they get off on it.

And it's also dumb. It's one thing if somebody's naive, though. Like my mom, for example. She saw that Bill and the crew went to the Masters and she was like, oh, do you think we'd be able to go next year? And I'm like, mom. I know where I'm at here like that's sweet i'm doing i'm doing all right but like you know i'm not i'm not bill i'm not bill ryan level and it's fine because she doesn't know any better but like your buddy who's like hey do you think we can get a house at the masters next year which

hasn't happened i'm just saying hypothetically like that guy sucks so i think you're well within your right to just tell this guy like how good of a friend is this guy? Why do you keep hooking him up? Yeah, right. What does he have on you that you're emailing us and you're asking us if you can actually just straight up say no to this dude? And I think what's the downside to you saying no, unless you're just uncomfortable with confrontation, unless there's something else. Does he ever do anything for you? Does he say, hey, let me get a dinner because he got those tickets? Like, maybe then I could see it. If this is one of your closest friends and that's why you want to lean more towards light lie and not the hardcore no.

And you're right, Steve. I think it's important to bring up the naive thing. Like my father last year during the NBA finals, I had tickets to games three and four. And I can't believe I gave up to game four tickets. I went with game three with one of my friends. Of course, Steph lost. And, you know, he's a lifelong Celtics fan. So he flew down from Vermont.

Shout out to Marty, Buffalo Wild Wings. What's up? And we went and then he's like, what are you doing with the game four tickets? I was like, I told my dad I'd get him in the building, but I only have two and I can't, I want my brother and my dad to go. So I think I'm just going to, I think I flew back to LA the next day and left him the tickets. So then my father, you know, was back on the vineyard and I think, you know, he's probably fixing somebody's porch or something, porch back in the mix. And the guy, you know, this is the homeowner that he's doing the job for he's like oh what'd you do he's like i went to game four of the finals and the guy's like oh how'd

you get those he's like oh my son he works in sports he's like what's he doing for this game six tickets he's like you know what he's not doing with him you know what he's not doing with him porch guy porch guy's going yeah hey guy i don't know like how long do you think the imaginary line is before i get to the guy who i don't know who my dad is fixing his porch for game six of the nba fucking finals it's crazy so yeah i think some i think it's sometimes the naive part but this guy knows like this guy knows especially if he knows that you were in the business all the other times you've had to get tickets for it you've got to figure out the math is there anything that's coming back to you for this to even feel like you need to be massaging about

the whole deal? But don't, number one goal, do not jeopardize your own deal. All right. Do not let anyone else's request jeopardize your own deal because you are one of the lucky ones. There are very few that get to live in this world and you are one of them. I will say one thing. And in this guy's defense of why he's like, so he's like, why did you help him out so many times? I was on my bachelor party and I found myself doing this thing. I like woke up halfway in the middle of it. My buddy's like the world cup's coming. One of the New York city guys, like the world cup's coming. You know, what is that? 2026 already? What is that? It's like years away, right? Okay. It's years away. And he's just like,

you know, it's going to be in LA. You're going to get us, you're going to get us in. And I was like, yeah, maybe I could do something. I was so comfortable saying that because it's three years away. But then, like, I woke up like, what the fuck? Who am I going to ask for World Cup? How many beers? How many beers in? Be honest.

Dude, I didn't count. I mean, it was daylight. I can tell you that. I don't know. I'm just saying, I think any planning, city planning, long-term business planning partnerships after six beers none of that has any like standing but i will say it did it helped it felt good that i was the guy that he was like consulting was like how are we going to get this done and i was like well i mean i guess i could ask somebody we got a little time right we'll figure it out i'm not

going to ask anybody like what am i going to do about this you're not planning the 2026 world cup is what you're talking about what am I supposed to do do you know anybody like I don't know I'm already worried about the tickets are going to be I mean for the US games it's going to be that's what I'm saying but he being on the outside thought I had some sort of pull and that feels nice

is all I'm saying I woke up halfway through the conversation like why are you telling him this you're not going to do anything about this you're saving grace that it's three years away. If somebody comes to me in a one-off though and is like, hey, could you help me out? Yeah, hell yeah. I'll try to help you out,

especially if you're a core person. I really like you. But if you're a repeat offender asking me multiple times a month, that's just not the same thing. Understood. I'm just saying, I get the feeling the guy gets when he's like, I'm about to make some guy's day. Or this guy thinks I can make his day not even that i could do it i like what kyle just brought up though because i'll admit too which i think saruti will find surprising and i say saruti only because you know uh he usually probably guess we could finish each

other's sentences if that wasn't going to be so lame so we don't do it uh that's weird there's nothing i know it's just got weird maybe we should it uh that's weird there's nothing i know this is get weird maybe we should edit that out but uh there's nothing better than planning something that's in the future when there's no steps needed like to make the plans because it's so far out and then you're definitely not doing that thing that you're planning like there's hey do you want to do this next weekend no hey in six months there's a chance for this. No. Like I got invited to Nashville for this thing in August. It's a pretty big deal. And the guy was like, do you think you can make this? And I know like, I'm like, probably not. But I said yes yesterday.

Right. It's kind of in that window. I remember when Atlanta was announced for the summer games in 96. I think I was at the bus stop. like a little kid didn't even have a driver's license yet. Right. And I grabbed the newspaper. I would steal my dad's newspaper, which is really dick move. Now that I think about it, I'd read the newspaper while I was coming around. Stop like, yeah, I'm coming around. Yeah, right.

Full circle. Great call. You know, because then at first he's like, what's going on? Hartford Current. We don't have a sports section in here. And again, this is when I was really young. And I remember reading the announcement as I was. I just remember whatever this is, walking up the hill to the bus stop at our driveway, grabbing the paper and then reading that Atlanta got the Summer Olympics.

And I was like, shit, I'll be in college by then. I was like, I'll definitely go down to Atlanta for the summer games. Not only did I not do that. My roommate from college was living in Atlanta that summer. And I still was like, I'm not fucking going to Atlanta for the Summer Olympics. But when I was 11, I was going to go. All right.

There you go. A little Olympic history. We've covered a lot today. Please subscribe to the Ryan Russell Podcast. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. As always, bring your Spotify. We'll see you on Sunday night with Bill and back

next Tuesday. Outro Music