The Ryen Russillo Podcast - West Contenders and a Frigid Trade Market With Brian Windhorst. Plus, the Rules for Micah Parsons Are Different.

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts about the different reactions to Micah Parsons's comments about Jalen Hurts on the 'VonCast' with Von Miller, and whether active players should have different rules for commenting on the sport they play (0:43). Then Ryen is joined by ESPN's Brian Windhorst to discuss the NBA's Western Conference, players missing games, the Grizzlies, the Pelicans, how the conference standings will affect the trade market, whether we will see an unhappy NBA star attempt to change teams this season, which players could be holding the Bill Russell and Larry O'Brien trophies in June, and much more (12:37). Finally Ryen and Kyle give out their favorite bets for NFL Week 15 (1:12:46), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:17:17). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Brian Windhorst Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast we are talking hoops one hour strong with brian windhorse trying to figure out the west who can be the guys at the end of the year with the trophy and the bill russell trophy as well some trade speculation which i think is important as we get closer to the rumor season. And who's the next Mad Star? I don't know if we can come up with one. I have an open on Michael Parsons. Why is it okay for all of us to talk about Jalen Hurts,

but not him? I'll try to figure out why that is the case. Life advice and our FanDuel contest rolls on. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winner 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. I want to start today's podcast by talking about Micah Parsons and something he said about Jalen Hertz. Basically, he had said on a podcast with Von Miller, the Von cast, he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, is it really hurts? Is it hurts or is it the team?

Now, there's a reason I wanted to do this because the way my job will work and the way I think about doing these opens is I'll see something kind of happen and then all of a sudden, like, especially in this case, you'll be like the main guy everybody's talking about on Twitter for a day or two and then everybody's pissed at you.

And then I'm thinking like, oh man, I can't believe he said that. Now knowing that this podcast is like all in on Jalen Hurts on top of everything else. Sorry it took so long. But I'm thinking like, okay, let me think back to all the Micah Parsons stuff, and now I'm going to build my open around this, because I can't believe he said this, just like everybody else. I was mad for you, I was mad for Jalen Hurts, I was mad for Eagles fans,

and I had it all mapped out. Analogies, I was ready to go and I want to remind you of the Parsons MVP timeline because I even brought it up here on this podcast, right? I had talked about it because I'd love to figure out a way to get a non-quarterback to win the MVP award the same way I'd like a non-quarterback to win the Heisman, but it's the most important position in all of sports. So it's just really hard to not win it. If Aaron Donald never won it, an interior defensive lineman are at even a bigger disadvantage than edge guys because it's just sexier to watch guys on the edge than it is to watch a guy destroy the line of scrimmage from the middle. If Donald can't

ever win one, I don't know if anybody's ever going to win one on the defensive side of the ball again, right? It would have to also be how bad is the rest of the quarterback class that year? Is it a really down quarterback year? Because that's the other part of this. Now, whenever we talk NBA MVP, one of my least favorite mechanisms in that discussion will be, hey, here are the two or three guys that are probably going to win it. And then somebody's great for a couple of weeks, like DeMar DeRozan last season, who was unbelievable for those two weeks.

Game winners all over the place, huge numbers. And then it's like, how couple of weeks, like DeMar DeRozan last season, who was unbelievable for those two weeks. Game winners all over the place, huge numbers. And then it's like, how come he's not in the conversation? You're like, cool. What do you want me to do? Mention him more and then say he's definitely not winning. Okay, cool. You win. We did it.

So Parsons, when I brought it up, I think it was with Peter Schrager, and people started bringing up a little bit more. Then Parsons actually tweeted about it, like basically paraphrasing, why does it always have to be a QB? And then I thought to myself, okay, is he pulling kind of an MV, uh,

MVP thing with the NBA or even better, the defensive player of the year stuff, like the crying that went on from players about not winning defensive player of the year in the NBA was kind of embarrassing. I love Bam would have voted for him, but he missed a bunch of games. And for whatever reason, he can't seem to figure that out. Embiid had one post-game presser where it was almost like he was breaking down,

suggesting like the world was out to get him, everything crumbling around him, just because he wasn't the favorite to win the MVP because Jokic, I voted for Jokic. I thought it was really, really close. I think Giannis could have won one if he hadn't won one already last year. That's how good he was. But voters can get, they. They want to pick the new And so I'm ready to go. I had my open ready. Like I said, analogies, comps.

I was going to lay into Micah Parsons a little bit. And then I had this mind-blowing idea. Sit down for this one. It's a pretty rare concept. I was like, you know what? I'm going to listen to what he said before I talk about it. I know. It's fucking crazy, right?

I was like, let me hear what he actually said. And I try to always do this, okay? For the most part, I will, especially if I'm going to craft an entire open on something. You're like, if I'm going to spend 10 minutes on this topic and I'm going to have a hard opinion, then maybe I need to make sure I've listened or read everything that I can on this thing. And even then, it doesn't always happen.

Because I'll admit, especially the last few years, like here's an example. When I read something now, I'll be like, I wonder if that's true. I think getting older and being more well-read is becoming less and less impressionable. Now, I don't know that you want to be completely stubborn and never believe anything, because that's kind of annoying, too, that why you're reading in the first place. But I can speak specifically to the two lanes that I'm kind of in, right? When it comes to politics, I just assume everybody's lying to me. When it comes to economic stuff. I'm not sure. Uh, but when it comes to like coverage of ESPN, when I worked

there and people would say, well, this is what happened. And I'd read something and I'd say 90% of the time I'm like, yeah, that's definitely not what happened. So then you started thinking like, wait, is this how every other story is covered? Like, this is fucking crazy. Like sometimes it would be a basketball thing. Well, I'll know. And certainly there's so much information out there that I'm not confirmed on any of it. But the rare chance that I'll have, now, I know exactly what happened, and that's not what happened.

So it makes you think, like, wait, is this what's happening every time I'm reading something? So in this case, I was like, wait, we have audio from the Voncast. We have Micah Parsons talking about Jalen Hurts. What is it that he said that was so terrible? Listen for yourself.

Hurts or the team? I think it's a little bit of both, man. I think it's system and team. I think it's a little bit of both, man, because they got a great deep, they got a great offensive line, which helps Hurts. Hurts has A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith. They got a good running game.

I mean, Miles Sanders. They scheme that they have. O-line. I mean, bro, like, like. And it's Eagle Cowboys. The Eagle Cowboys coming up, ain't it? Yeah, it's coming up. I'm not trying to make no enemies.

I just love the game so much, and I understand it so much that when things are off, I just can't hold it in. I almost got to say something. You know what you're right? They got a great team, great defense. Everyone has their own opinions. So Jalen Hurts is good. They got him for the MVP race with Patrick Mahomes. It isn't that bad. Everyone has their own opinions. So Jalen Hurts is good. They got him for the MVP race with Patrick Mahomes.

It isn't that bad. It isn't. It isn't that bad. Here's a question for you. Here's really the meat of what I'm trying to say here. Why am I allowed to talk about whether or not a quarterback is propped up by a system or a team, but an active NFL player is not? Do you understand how fucking stupid that is?

Now, it probably speaks to these rules that we're still not really sure what they are anymore, but we were just used to them because we had them for a really, really long time. You're not supposed to talk about the opponent. You're not supposed to give people bulletin board material. But now we have people, we have players, active players supposed to talk about the opponent. You're not supposed to give people bulletin board material. But now we have people, we have players, active players with podcasts all over the place. And congrats to these guys for actually

saying something interesting. We have active players in roles on television. We have Draymond Green on TNT while he's still on the Warriors. When Josh Norman was hired to do that weird segment for NFL Sunday that he taped on his off day again this is like I think seven years ago when he did this it was a topic on radio and

television shows like wow why would an active player do this why would he be allowed to do this this can't sit well this is going to start all these different things and then people like completely forgot about like nobody even cared like when Draymond was on TNT at the beginning of the year, right after punching Jordan Poole, and it's like, hey, you were in Japan. Let's talk about how awesome that was. Yes, that felt a little weird. But I think by now, we're like, oh, Draymond's on TNT. And in this case with Von Miller, who's now hurt but was active, he's chopping it up with another edge guy, and they're talking about all sorts of stuff and he's essentially asking questions that we ask about a lot of quarterbacks all the time now i may

think he's wrong you may think he's wrong but i don't know that it's what his opinion is i think it's that it's an active player saying it and we're still not caught up we're not used to this and considering some of the reaction from the Eagles players, we thought like, yeah, this is why Parson shouldn't do it. Right. Multiple players had stuff to say about this. One tackle said, quote, Micah should worry about his game next week. I don't know who the fuck they got.

They asked Jalen Hurts. Hurts was like, we're focused on the Bears. Went full Belichick on everybody in the press conference. And yet Hurts is applauded because we're holding him to the standard that he's not actually supposed to respond. He's not supposed to say anything interesting. Now, Hurts wouldn't because he's a super buttoned up guy. But we would have then reacted as if he were doing something wrong if he went right back at Parsons, which we actually should all enjoy.

I know that I would have. You're not supposed to talk about the other players. Why? Because of the Bolton thing I mentioned before? That's so overrated and stupid. You're not supposed to talk about the players because why? Coaches, especially NFL coaches, are psychos that are control freaks. Yes, that's true.

Like Belichick, when the other team stunk, would talk about how awesome their punter was. Okay? But there's also something else that's happening here, and it has nothing to do with us. It's that no one gets more irrationally mad than pro athletes. No one gets more irrationally mad than pro athletes. No one is more excited to be

mad about something that happened than pro athletes. You know how you might be? Sometimes I'll be like, alright, I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's going to be a confrontation. I know I'm right. I actually can't wait to get on the call. It's going to be fun. It's going to be like two days from now. I'm excited. Multiply

that by a billion with athletes. Baseball players get pissed if you look at a home run too long. They get so mad about everything. You're like, what was the parenting situation with you guys? But it's the norm in baseball. Basketball, just this past

week, we had Zion dunk on the Suns. 360 end of the game. You would have thought he publicly, like you would have thought he DM'd another guy's wife and then screen grabbed it and shared it with everybody, right? We had, this is an absurd one. Rudy Gobert back in Utah, tribute video. Malik Beasley, now on the Jazz as part of that trade trade he hit a three in front of the Timberwolves bench

shook his ass where then D'Angelo Russell just sort of shoved him away Gobert at the other end at the end of the game dunks and Beasley's like he disrespected the game so this is what we're dealing with here we're dealing with a collection of guys that as much as I love

it all and talk about them non-stop and have made a living of 20 years talking about these dudes i can't help but laugh and be like you guys love getting pissed off at the dumbest shit ever so i think that plays in our reaction of how we we consume any active player talking about another active player, in this case with Parsons, on Hurts. So even if he's totally wrong on Hurts, like we've said, think about this. Micah Parsons is sitting with Vaughn Miller on their podcast, and they're talking about the NFL, which is kind of what I would expect. And Parsons asks a question, and it feels loaded. It feels disrespectful. I think it's wrong,

and it does have a hint of like, well, maybe I'm knocking another MVP guy that I'd be competing with, but at least he said something on one of these athlete pots. So I'll ask it again. Why is it that fans, that media, that public, we can talk about this stuff nonstop,

but we still have not adapted to the idea that two active NFL players would be chopping it up, discussing another quarterback. The legend, Brian Windhorst, joins us on a Friday podcast. The Legend. Brian Windhorst joins us on a Friday podcast. The Legend. The Loop Collective, ESPN. I was just listening to he and the boys this morning.

How are you? I'm good, man. It's a great week to be in LA. There's games six straight days. If you count the two local teams, you know, you count the Lakers and Clippers. There was five teams in the city yesterday. And like

actually kind of like six because the Wolves stayed over and left and the Nuggets and Wizards both arrived. Like literally if you are in the right place at the right time, you literally are falling over NBA players at this time of year when you're here, like on a heavy week.

So it's a great NBA week to be in LA. Are you working on a story? Is that why you're here? Or is just like, I'm doing NBA today. And it's, you know, when you come out here,

it's ideal to come out here when both teams are in town. And it's just, they've had these games. I almost said staples at crypto six straight days, six straight days. And it's just, they've had these games that almost said Staples had crypto six straight days, six straight days. So it's just, you know,

it's awesome. We saw each other at the Lakers. That was an unbelievable atmosphere. Like the game was kind of going the way I thought it was going to go. Boston was up. Lakers furious comeback. I noticed while I was watching, I was like,

I don't think Darvin Ham subbed any of these guys in the fourth quarter. You were right. What did you think of that? I kind of understood why he did it. I don't know that people like doing it. I don't know, man. They played that game like a playoff game. They did. I think at one point, he wanted

to take LeBron out, and LeBron said no. I think AD did the same. And look, you don't play a game thinking it's going to overtime. You play a game thinking it's going to win or it's going to end in regulation. And when it goes to overtime, sometimes you get screwed. You get screwed with decisions you made. And so it's like in baseball where you use your closer and then he blows the save or something. And now your bullpen is completely jacked up for extra innings.

So they paid the price. It was a great NBA game. I openly admit that for paying fans, the NBA is routinely treating paying fans poorly. This game I was at on Thursday night, which was Clippers Suns. The Clippers lineup was just... I mean, it was fortunate for the fans that Booker came back. He probably shouldn't have come back from his

hamstring, but at least Booker played. He was terrible. But, you know, and it's like it's a real problem when you are telling your customers that there are certain games that the player the teams don't care about and that's a real like existential problem that's existed in the nba for five years and they will exist for more but then you go to a game like lakers clippers

and that is nba basketball kind of at its height i'm not saying it was the greatest high-quality play, but runs, stars, shot-making, all the emotions, highs and lows. And that's something that the NBA can deliver. And that's one of the things that I've long been an advocate of that I don't think that... And I say we. I mean, we at ESPN, the NBA writ large.

Like most nights in the NBA, something truly awesome takes place. It isn't at all 12 games or seven games that are played. But what sustains people as an NBA fan are when there's something really cool. And that was a really cool game. Celtics Lakers. It wasn't a really cool game. The next two nights at crypto, the two Clippers games I went to after that. But, you know,

the NBA at its top level is still one of the best products in the world. And that's what you had that night. Yeah, that was one of my favorite regular season games I've ever been to. Okay, I want to stay on something you just hit on there because we've been talking about this now for a couple years.

Players missing games and the Clippers, if you keep it specific to them, I get their argument. I get what they would say. But when I looked at the top 25 scores last year and I went through it because I just was like, let me do something really

simple. I'm not going to make it a complicated stat. I was like, how many games are these players missing on average a season? And it was like 20 games. And then I went back like five years prior, it was six. I go, this is a problem. Now you could have still made the argument with COVID protocols, although I think it was only like 1500 games missed total due to those health and safety protocols. So that number wasn't as big as maybe you would think. And then maybe it was like year three coming out of a weird timeline of events that teams were still very, like very much like protective of, of what they wanted to do with their guys.

I'll see how that number plays out this year. But you and I both know that as much as people like Adam silver, that the big complaint is, is that he's letting the players do this, or he's letting the teams do this because the players want to do it. However you want to kind of focus the path of the blame that Silver's considered softer on the players than Stern was, which actually may be a compliment, okay?

Because Stern could be pretty aggressive. But when the TV money keeps going up, I don't know that a league looks like it's not a great look. It sucks for fans, but the TV deals keep going up. So why is the NBA ever going to do anything about this when it feels like it's a problem? Because I do, I agree. I think it's a really bad look. I think it's a big problem, except apparently financially, it's not even close to a problem. Yeah, that's right. And, um, you know, my thing is a lot of players are taking a lot more games off and they're still getting hurt. Uh, thank you. Thank you. Right. Like all the, all the science that was telling us, no, no, all these different things. And you're like,

Hey, when are they going to stop getting hurt now? And it doesn't happen. that was telling us, no, no, all these different things. And you're like, hey, when are they going to stop getting hurt now? And it doesn't happen. Yeah. It's really disappointing, but you're right. I don't know. I'm not sure that, you know, I see keeps, you know, one article came out three years ago that said, boy, the next NBA deal is going to triple the TV money. And like, everybody's just repeated. I've probably heard it repeated a hundred times. And I'm like, you know, with all due respect, you know, that article was a projection. It was three years ago by one individual. Let's just wait and see. But there's no doubt that it's going up. It's going to go up. And so you're right. What is the problem? I will say this, attendance isn't up.

For years on end, every year in April, the NBA used to send out a release, record attendance, record attendance, record. Well, those releases dried up even before COVID. There was already erosion attendance. And there's some places... And look, ultimately, at the end of the day, if you don't fill your rafters, it's a bummer. But if you get a 35% increase in TV money, then it doesn't really make a difference. But yeah, as somebody who is a big advocate of ordinary time, I like the concept of ordinary time. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? It's kind of obscure. I grew up Catholic and there's this whole church calendar and there was time around Christmas, which was Advent, and the time around Easter, which

was Lent. My favorite time of the year was ordinary time. They actually called it ordinary time. And the best thing about ordinary time was in the summer. Because who doesn't like the summer? And I would always love when the church calendar went to ordinary time because it meant with time for summer, no school. And great weather.

I'm from Ohio, so the summer was everything. I love ordinary time in the NBA. I want to have a great Wednesday night in January where John Morant scores 41 and Devin Booker has 37 and hits a shot at the buzzer that wins a game against the Spurs. And Paolo Bancaro scores the last 12 points of a game, and they pull an upset against the Sixers or something. I like ordinary time. That's not saying I think you should get rid of the playoffs, but the NBA has completely de-emphasized ordinary time.

And in my mind, in my opinion, they don't celebrate the everyday, the day-to-day greatness that they have in the NBA. But I'm an old man. I've got gray hair now. I'm trying not to be good off my lawn, but I'm sounding like it. I think the league is in an awesome place. I watch it a lot. Obviously, it's my job. And I routinely am like, wow, what an awesome performance. Because I've got league pass. And when I don't like the game I'm watching, I just go to someplace else. But I realize that's not the average fan. And I realize

that a lot of the average fans get bored by the regular season. And the NBA keeps sending the message that ordinary time isn't as important. And if you keep telling your fans regular season games don't matter, they're eventually going to believe you. And that's kind of started to happen, quite frankly, even though this regular season in particular is one of the coolest regular seasons we've ever had. But I feel like I've been saying that for a couple of years now.

And, you know, it's not a popular topic it's more fun to talk about other things and so i get it i don't want to be that stick in the mud i'm with you because last time i'm watching memphis put it on milwaukee the out rebound in 56 to 39 milwaukee that doesn't give a lot of transition points just getting work in transition this is all memphis without bane who the update last week because he's out another three or four weeks i realized drew holiday wasn't there for Milwaukee. I'm always a little hesitant on the passing of the torch thing.

Like Simmons and I were talking about New Orleans where he's like, are they a contender? Are they a fringe contender? And I'm like, until I've seen, like when I've seen none of your guys ever in a playoff series, it's hard for me to buy all the way in. Memphis has more playoff to them

than this group of New Orleans Pelicans. But what Memphis is doing in December 7-0, number two on offense, number one on defense, the point differential is absurd this month. It's starting to feel like with Phoenix and now the Curry injury and everything else, again, it's still December, but we may be in the midst of the passing of the torch coming out west, but we're just not sure who that team is. Yeah, I mean, if you're like in the Western conference, like one of the, one of the interesting thing

is in things that's going on is like, no matter what's happening with your team, there's so much trauma everywhere else that you're kind of okay. Like the Lakers just had this really rough loss to the Celtics. They completely blew a game. They should have won. But like in the last couple of days, Lakers have gotten good news. Not that you want to celebrate an injury,

but Steph getting hurt helps the Lakers. It's like, wait a minute. You mean the Warriors might actually be down here fighting with us? Might be a team we can... I mean, heck, if Steph's out a month, Lakers might pass him. I mean, I don't know what'll happen. You know,

the Warriors have four more games on this road trip. Are we giving them any? I mean, maybe they'll win a one or two, but they're 2-13 on the road. They just lost Steph. You know,

they're not winning. They're not going 3-1 the rest of the stretch. Of course, not everybody will. Like, they could come back. Like, seriously, in 10 days, the Lakers could be ahead

of the warriors maybe less and so all these teams kind of have all these teams are kind of like 10 good days away from being in third or 10 bad days away from being in 12th and that kind of is it actually kind of gives everybody kind of a um a soft landing no matter what happens like the suns have had like three terrible weeks in a row. They're all banged up and injured, but they're not super duper out of position because of it. But you look at the Grizzlies, like Jaron Jackson, now he's played 12 games. So I don't want to totally overreact, but it's the best start to a season he's had. Last year when he came back from injury, whenever that was,

and that was a longer recovery, when he came back from injury, he was terrible. He looked terrible for like, I don't remember exactly. I don't want to pin it, but it was like, wow, is Jaron going to be okay?

Because they signed with that extension. They were like, oh my gosh. So this year he comes back from injury and looks great. He's like even better on defense than he was last year when he went, when he led the league in blocks, he's shooting the ball better than he ever has. And so you put him onto that team,

which was already doing really well. And the other thing is like the Grizzlies continue to draft really, really well. And they continue to draft guys that help them, help them in their, in their, in their rotation. Like saw the old demo,

like has like really helped them. And David Roddy, like he's played key minutes for them already. And like, you know, I keep thinking about. Zyre's back too, you know?

And like, when I look at Zyre adapting to his role as a young player that's pretty rare like usually a lot of these younger guys who go the cam reddish route where it's like where's where are my touches and zire was an on ball guy big numbers high school stanford even though i didn't like it yeah like he he looked a little low but it still was like those were his possessions and then to say to a guy that young hey none of these possessions are ever going to be yours. Do all the other shit that isn't cool.

And he does it. And even though he's a different player from what I saw from the high school ranks, that's an amazing credit just to their developmental system and Taylor Jenkins to get some of these guys to buy in that quickly. And you're right. Roddy was getting real buckets last night. Yeah. They handle their business, the grizzlies and so like i look at them and i go boy they could make a mid-season trade they've got danny green's uh contract and they've got extra first round picks and stuff but i'm kind of like they don't want to trade first round picks because they're so good at

using them uh by the way as an aside like i'm getting ready for NBA Today right now. And we were talking in our production meeting about what we're going to say on the show. We're obviously going to talk a lot about the Grizzlies because they kicked the bucks off the floor. And I was going to talk about this. I was like, well, they got Danny Green's contract and they could easily trade him. And they're like, oh, yeah. By the way, Danny's on the show today in person here, I think. So I'm like, oh, that should be fun. I'll talk about how they're going to trade him while he's sitting at the table. That should be an interesting segment.

Let's do it. But the thing about... There's two types of teams. There's teams that are contenders. And then there's teams that are contenders and are upwardly mobile. In other words, they got a guy who's out who will come back. Or they got a guy or they got great opportunities to make trades. Like Cleveland, for example, is a team I pay a lot of attention to. They're the best non-LeBron team they've had in 20 years.

They got a lot going for them. I don't know if they'll get multiple all-stars, but they should. They're a real interesting team to play, but they're a flawed team, and they're not upwardly mobile. They don't have a guy sitting out who's about to come back. They don't have assets to trade to help them, and they do need help at a couple spots because they traded everything for Donovan Mitchell.

So the Cavs are here, and congrats. They're doing really well. They're having a great season. But you look at a team like the Cavs, you look at a team like the Grizzlies, the Grizzlies are missing arguably their second best player and have all kinds of draft picks and

have tradable things that they can do to attach to those picks. And so when I project, I look at a team, and I feel the same way about the Pelicans, although they're kind of close to luxury tax and they've never paid it. But the Pelicans have tradable players and extra draft

picks. They're a team and they've constantly been banged up. I think Brandon Ingram has played half the games or rough close to half the games. They're in first or second place I guess the Grizzlies and they're upwardly mobile. So when I see a team like Grizzlies and Pelicans

where they are in December, I kind of get a little excited about what they can be. Do you like the Pals better than Memphis or the other way around? Well, I think Memphis is a little bit further ahead of New Orleans, but New Orleans is

they got more star power. I hope I didn't cause a rumbling in the Grizzlies' force there. But Brandon Ingram can win, can carry a team to a playoff game victory. I've seen it. I believe in it. I'm a big believer in him. And they have a very, very deep roster that is all versatile. They can go to a real

switch-heavy team. They can totally change gears. Memphis's depth, it's obviously there, but it's a little bit more suspect. A little bit younger. Memphis, I think, really it's a little bit more suspect, a little bit younger. Memphis, I think, really could use a trade more than New Orleans. I saw this great quote that Steven Adams said. He was talking about how their team's a little bit crazy. You know, Dylan Brooks is crazy.

I'm a little off. You know, Jha's kind of crazy. And he's like, we're not an Apple store. You know, I think he said something like that. We're not an Apple store. In other words, we're not all wearing, you know, polos and tucked into Dockers and, you know, all wear glasses and have perfect hair and know how all the actual functionality works. But I was kind of like, yeah, but you know what? You could use an Apple Store manager at times because... Hard to find. Yeah, because I think it's really awesome that they do that tunnel dance and everything like that. And it totally engages their fans. And Memphis has always been really good about that, really engaging their fan base.

And it's awesome. And Ja plays with reckless abandon and everything like that. But, you know, sometimes in the playoffs, you need an Apple store manager to get in the huddle and say, okay, guys, let's calm down. Let's just take it easy. Actually, Danny Green might be that type of guy, although I don't know if he's going to be able to play. He says he's going to coming back from the ACL,

but they could use one more veteran on that team, in my opinion. They may disagree, but I think they could. But obviously, they're a very exciting team. A lot of it kind of comes down. I think we're seeing this generation of players where i think the smart people were like well why are we letting other guys touch the basketball if they're not as good as the other guy let him touch the ball the most and then it can lead to like an excessive version of it that we've seen with hard in the past that we're

seeing with luca now where i think over the course of a season you're not necessarily building as many habits or you're a side guy it kind of reminds me some of the westbrook stuff back in the day where it's like so now we're in the playoffs now you're asking me to bail us out of possessions when for six months we just did it this way and i think it's a real problem it's a real problem so it always you know it'll be a trey young thing that i'll worry about i saw something from jaw last night that was very minor may not even mean anything but it meant something to me. Where, like Ja normally does, he's killing everybody in the pick and roll. You just don't know what to do with it.

Milwaukee had all sorts of problems last night, right? I think it might have been Brooks. He's on the right side. Ja's on the left. Ja probably had the setup for the matchup of the switch or however he wanted to do it. Ja was like, no, no, no. I think there's other ball dominant players that it wouldn't even be a concept to them

to be like, no, no, you initiate now. You go do your thing. I like your matchup. I like your spacing better on your side. I think Ja really likes being not only a superstar who can get buckets on everybody, but I think he's a very willing teammate. And in this ball-dominant era, I'm not sure that's always easy

to find. Yeah, I think Ja is an absolute treasure. I know it was hardly groundbreaking and being ahead of the curve but like i saw him play back half of his rookie year early part of his second year and i was just like this guy is an absolute they weren't winning yet and i remember talking to people in

the organization going congratulations you guys did it you have him and of course you know well we'll see you know blah blah they'd say the same today well we'll see very quickly it was clear to me that this is this is um uh this is center of a solar system type of guy and um that said, I, I do think he will go through, I mean, I, I don't know, I can't predict the future, but I suspect he will go through a couple of playoff runs where he will have to deal with some setbacks and learn how to adapt his game. he has a mentality that is there. He is built to be the guy who's holding the trophies at the end, holding both trophies. I can close my eyes and see him standing on a stage holding

the O'Brien trophy in one hand and the Bill Russell trophy in the other. I mean, how many guys can you actually seriously look in the eye and say that about? It's a very small number. I can see him doing that. I'm not saying that's happening this year. And I could boss's early in his second season. And I, and I really wanted to write up like jaws the next one. And, um, then he got hurt.

He sprained his ankle in Brooklyn, I think. And we didn't do it, but I was a hundred percent convinced of it. And then he, he, he came back and he showed a little bit. My,

my bosses weren't convinced that, you know, it, it, it really took ESPN and TNT, like to see all of last season before they would start to feature the Grizzlies. And, um, you know, I used to beg in production meetings to talk more about jaw and the, uh, and the Grizzlies on TV and, you know, I couldn't sell it, you know,

I couldn't sell it. Um, but suffice to say that I'm a real big believer in this guy can do it. I really, really am. And I wrote about this last year. The thing about Memphis is they're a very small market, really a tough NBA market. The folks in Memphis do a great job. It's one of the best-run organizations,

not only on the basketball side, but on the business side. They do a great job, but there's a lot of headwind there to make that a functioning NBA market. I'm just going to be honest. I'm from Cleveland. I'm fully from Akron. I'm not throwing stones. I'm just trying to tell it like it is. But they have an owner who's got a ton of money.

And he has spent into the luxury tax before. They quietly, in the middle of the grit and grind era, snuck into the top five in payroll one year. And there's some teams where you're like, boy, this team's going to run into it. I don't know what's going to happen with the Pelicans. The Pelicans don't have deep-pocketed ownership. They have never paid the luxury tax ever in the history of the team, even before the Bensons owned it.

Are they going to be able to keep this team together? Are they going to be able to sign all this? Because I don't know. But Memphis, Robert Pera's got a ton of money, a ton. He's one of the richest owners in the league. It doesn't always come through, and they don't lavishly spend. I mean, they had that one crazy summer where they spent all that money in sign chair on their Parsons and it backfired on them.

So I think they're going to be a little shy about doing that again. But one of the reasons why I really like Memphis's long-term viability is that they have a front office that knows how to draft and develop. So even when they are good year over year and they're picking in the twenties, you feel like they can get contributors and they can draft people. Other teams will want, they can trade. And I think Robert Pera, when it comes time to shove, will go into his pockets and pay.

So, you know, if I was Victor Wembenyama and, you know, uh, there's certain, there's certain teams that I would be worried about getting drafted into. Um, and there's certain teams where, you know, if they were not ideal,

like I would never, ever be concerned about, not that Wemby Yama is going to go to Memphis, but like, like when jaw went to Memphis, that was good. That was good. If Wemby Yama goes to Charlotte, I don Ja went to Memphis, that was good. That was good. If Womanyama goes to

Charlotte, I don't know, man. I don't know about that. If Charlotte wins the lottery, I don't know. I don't know if that's at the place for them, but I believe in the Grizzlies organization. I think they're headed for really great things. I'm sorry. It's a long, rambling answer.

Good for the Grizzlies. They deserve love. They've been the best team in December. A side note on the Chandler Parsons contract. I ran into him one night out here in the streets of LA. Got a round of drinks. I went to throw my card down. He said, I got this.

And the toast was to John Hollinger. You know, I love that Chandler leans into it. the toast was to John Hollinger. You know, I love that Chandler leans into it. Well, when I threw the card down, he looked at me like, he's like, Priscilla, you know how much I just made. And I was like, I do, but I never try to assume. I'm not afraid to throw the card down. And he was like, we're going to put that one back. He's like, I got this.

And it was like to John Hollinger. So, yeah, that is leaning into it. Okay. All right. So I'm with you on this. I love this West right now. I love this league. I love every night.

It is so much fun. The talent is absurd. Like the other night I was just watching a Denver Portland game and that's with Porter Jr. out. I was doing tails from the couch and I'm like, okay, you had grant. You had heart. Simon's you had Lillard.

You had Nurkic on the other side. You've got Murray. You've got Joker. You've got Gordon. You had bones. I think Brown was probably out there. And I'm like, that's the 10 of like two middling West teams.

Like that's, that's a lot of talent out there, you know, at the same time. And I wonder how much that impacts your early wins, reading the wins of the trade market. So the trade market is thin, I think. And part of the reason is because there's so many teams bunched together and the play. Look, you can say whatever you want about the play-in tournament. There's a bunch of teams who would love to be in it. Sacramento would probably have a parade.

I'm not even saying that. Technically, because I do remember this, it doesn't end your playoff drought if you're in the play-in game and don't win. Agreed. Tell me that Sacramento is going to be selling if they can make the play-in.

Hell no, they're not going to be selling. They weren't selling before the play-in existed. I know. I'm just saying, it functionally has made more teams interested. So right off the bat, you have, instead of there being maybe three or, instead of there maybe being, by the time you get to mid to late January, instead of there being six or seven teams

that know they're done, maybe there's only three or four in all honesty that are absolutely outright selling. Number two, the currency in trades is picks, right? Well, there's just not a lot of teams that have picks to trade. So we know that Utah has hoovered them up, and Oklahoma City has hoovered them up, and New York has hoovered them up, and I guess New Orleans has some. But it's more than just that, because there's a bunch of teams out there that have these encumbered picks.

So like Washington, for example, they traded away, when they did the John Wall-Russell-Westbrooks trade, they traded away a pick that may not convey until 2025 because of the protections. So that means you can't trade a pick until 2025 because of the protections. So that means you can't trade a pick until 2025 at least.

And because you don't know whether it's going to convey until 2025, you can't trade 2026. So that means like if you're going to call up Washington and Washington was going to make you an offer, not that I'm saying that,

that they would right now, the first one they're talking about legally is 2027. And by the way, that was reality a year ago too. And there's a bunch of teams in that boat. Portland is in that boat. Detroit is in that boat. So not only are there teams that have traded away their drafts,

which there's a handful, but there's all these other teams where they're, and Miami to a certain extent is locked up where their their their hands are tied so there's just there's just not a ton of picks floating around out there now there are a few teams that are still sort of flush you know like uh phoenix is flush they have all their stuff but like i don't know what they can do they're in an ownership situation um and so like there's just not a big supply of players available because teams are are giving up and there's not a lot of currency for when those players are available. So the market in December here is not ripe for trade.

I think if you were to survey the GMs now, which I do regularly, not all 30 of them, but I talk to a lot of them on a weekly basis, they don't think that there's going to be a very robust trade market. But that's what they say in mid-December. That doesn't mean that's what it's going to be a very robust trade market, but that's what they say in mid-December. That doesn't mean that's what it's going to be, but I saw a lot of stories this week talking about the start of trade season. It's a good topic.

It's a good time to talk about it. People like to talk about it. I'm not saying there won't be any trades. I just don't think it's going to be a very active one based on my conversations. Are we going to make it a full NBA season without a really mad star asking out?

Yeah. Good question. Uh, I, I, there's a couple I'm looking at for next summer, but I don't feel it at mid season right now. I don't feel it now,

man, the NBA, you know, one of the things that I do sometimes, all my podcasts, I download them and I keep them in a queue. And sometimes I'm on a flight and the Wi-Fi goes down, which happens like what, about 35% of the time. I got to go back to what I've downloaded and I'll go back and listen to a podcast from two months before. And boy, do I often sound like a nincompoop. I want to be cautious to say that, boy, things do change fast, and some radical thing could happen. Probably should expect it to happen between now and February, but I don't feel it right now.

There are some disturbances in the medium term that you'll probably ask me about, and then I won't answer because I don't want to get aggregated, but there, there are some, uh, you know, if you're a team like the Knicks who has all these picks, there is, you know, a short, a short list that I'm sure you're keeping an eye on. Um, but in terms of this season, like radical hardened mid-season trade at this moment, I'm sure you're keeping an eye on. But in terms of this season, like radical, hardened mid-season trade, at this moment, I'm not feeling it. Yeah, it feels weird to not feel it. I would agree with you on that. There's always that moment

where you may talk to somebody and it's like, hey, you hearing about this? Yeah, you're right. And you're like, whoa, really? And then it may not even happen for months, but it's at least something you've kept in your head, right? That you're thinking about going, oh, you know, maybe I'll ask around about this a little bit or like what would have to happen or all that situation's even worse.

Remember when that guy said to you this, this and this, but we are, as you are cautiously pointing out, constantly surprised too, but it just doesn't feel like that surprise is there. Like I've operated on the assumption the surprise is happening on average every six months. It is going to happen. Don't deny it. And yet right now I'm like, where is it? Who's the next mad guy? I know.

That's the thing about the Knicks. The Knicks fans are exasperated because they're like we got to trade for a guy at some point and they've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and all these guys come to market and they never do and they've never been better positioned

and there was a guy on the market and they couldn't get it done and now there's nobody on the market and so I get it it's a now there's nobody on the market. And so I get it. It's, it's, it's a hard thing, but that's the thing.

Like on one hand, we do talk about trades of real lot and it's, can be really annoying at times, but like these trades define the leagues. Like go back and you look at the, the, the teams that are in the titles year after year after year. It's a team that usually has just made a major transaction

in the previous six to 12 months. Last year, those teams were kind of more homegrown that made the finals, but still, more often than not, the team that's competing in the title, the title are teams that made major moves. And so it really is important. It really does matter. There's a reason why people care so much about it, and there's so much time invested in it

by these teams. Okay, you said something before about Ja. You can close your eyes and see him with the NBA title, Larry O'Brien, the Russell Trophy, and I completely agree with you. I was teasing earlier this week where I like to do like twice a year. I like to do it after the season's over, but I don't want to do it the day after we win an NBA championship.

I think when we start talking about legacy of players, specifically players, within 24 hours of them winning something, that's when we're the worst at it. We're just awful at it. Because you just feel like, well, what am I supposed to say? It's going to be weird when LeBron passes Kareem, and then it's like, well, what's that topic the next day? That he's awesome?

By the way, were you out in the bowl when the Lakers, I guess you could use the word honored. They honored that LeBron passed magic in assists the other night. I was at the end of the bench.

Did you see him? And they had, I was waiting. I'm like, what is he going to do where it shows how he's respectful, but he's too cool for this right now. But I thought it was the opposite. Like, now granted, just to be fair, to describe it,

it was like the end of a timeout. There was a timeout like four and a half minutes. They did whatever on-court thing that they do. Pop a shot for 10 grand. I don't know. Whatever. As they're coming back on air for television, they say, congratulations to LeBron James for passing Magic Johnson. And it was like...

Yeah. It was like... Tepid. Tepid. It was predictably tepid, though. I was expecting it to be that. It's magic. I understand.

But my point is, I'm thinking about it in the context of when he gets close to the Kareem record. I understand. But my point is, I'm thinking about it in the context of when he gets close to the Kareem record. I don't know. The Lakers, in my mind, are trending up. I feel better about them than I have before. Maybe in March, when he gets near that record, maybe they'll be in sixth place.

I don't feel great about that, but they could be. But what if they're in 11th? It's like, LeBron James passes kareem abdul-jabbar it's like this 20-year um you know testament to his incredible talent and staying healthy and staying on top of his game and developing his game it's like really like this supreme moment that you know we're talking about an award that hasn't changed hands in 35 years and, you know, may not change hands for another 25 years and all this stuff.

And what are the Lakers fans going to do? Congrats, man. Like, I just, I don't know. I wonder how it's going to be. Sorry, I cut you off there. No, I like it. I like it because I, I feel like there's always this motivation to ask you a bigger picture LeBron question, but I don't, I like it. I like it because I feel like there's always this motivation to ask you a bigger picture LeBron question, but I think we already have the answer to it. I think he likes being in LA and now with Cleveland being who they are, that you always wondered because again, the trade stipulation that he has in his contract with the extension being done the way it was done, as you know, and I'm just explaining to everybody else like he can't be traded this year so right i think when

things got really bad it's i don't blame anybody for like forgetting the clause sometimes i have to look stuff up again it's like no no he can't he can't just like force his way out it would have been weird for him to do that i think his crew likes saying that he always left in free agency that he was not like the others who demanded a trade. And that's true. You never would ever accuse LeBron of having a get-out season. He always played to the buzzer. Always.

Look, when he chose Los Angeles, it was not 100% to win. Now, he did win, and betting on the Lakers to build a team around him was a good bet. And it did work. They built a team around him, and

two years later, they won. But it wasn't 100% based on just basketball. And I think that's played out that way. He's, I think, loves living in LA, loves being a Laker. He put up a banner. It's a banner that some people like to denigrate, loves being a Laker. He put up a banner.

It's a banner that some people like to denigrate, but he put one up. I don't. I mean, they want it. There's not any other fan base that would do what they're doing to the Lakers fan base. I mean, we all know how this works. This drives me crazy about Simmons.

Out of everything I love about Bill, I just can't go here. When he did that book of basketball, I read it. He goes through and one out of every three titles he slaps some asterisk on for some reason. The reason the title is so hard to win is because stuff happens. For some reason.

Yeah. Well, this year, this guy sprained his ankle. Well, this year, this guy hated this other guy. Well guy well this year the coach was I'm like look man the reason they're so hard to win is because stuff happens you know those years where one team won it and the other team didn't well the other team didn't is because stuff happened the team that won it overcome

the stuff that happened but I'm surprised he and Doc Rivers don't get along better but you know like I like on a per like as someone who's been like a LeBron James biographer I am just not that interested in his Laker tenure like I'm just not as I mean I'm obviously

watching it closely we talk about it all the time are you okay with feeling like today like there's no big surprise ever coming what do you mean by surprise they're the 11th seed they lose in the play in this summer it's like hey actually actually I'd like to go

do this oh you mean like he would leave yeah I mean when he signed that contract extension, it removed... I mean, I thought... Even if he didn't want to leave LA, I was thinking he might not sign it

just because he wanted to apply pressure. Right. That used to be his move until he did that first Lakers deal. Yeah. And he still could have had it. They're sitting on these draft picks or whatever, and he's got no leverage.

He really doesn't. He doesn't have any leverage. He's locked in. So when he signed that extension, and I know that it's kind of like the inverse. The idea is that, oh, no, now that LeBron has committed to us, we know that we have to invest in these last couple of years. And that sounds plausible, but

once he's under contract, there is no real leverage. So when he elected to sign that extension and guarantee himself another $100 million, which is not insignificant for a guy who's 37. He gave up really being in my mind, trying to be attached to major Laker moves. Um, I know that everybody pretends like they didn't have anything to do. Like everybody runs away. That's awesome. I know. I love it.

There's been a couple of times I've talked to somebody. I'm like, Hey man, like you didn't show up to the facility the next day going, what? Right. What happened? You know what was funny about the Kyrie stuff when all of that was happening this summer? Which there was a lot of information that, you know, at times you're sifting through it. And you're like, why would this come out on this day? Why would the day before Kyrie has to make the decision, is there a report emphasizing that Kyrie is more than willing to play for the mid-level exemption?

I'm like, why would that be happening? And then it didn't. Although with Kyrie, I said, as it was happening, I was like, if there's one guy I have to keep an open mind about doing something that's completely unpredictable, it'd be Kyrie. I thought LeBron not only wanted Kyrie because he wasn't Westbrook, but I think Kyrie wanted the Lakers because there was a feeling that perhaps he's still going to get the contract from them. That they would have been like, okay, this is how we're going to close it out. And we're going to age the way we were supposed to age if we hadn't broken up in cleveland and all these different things i don't know how any team would

feel comfortable about signing off on that one but i felt again theorizing here that kairi had kind of worked into his head is like it's not just getting out of brooklyn it's that i'll actually get paid by the lakers still exactly Exactly. I think you're exactly right. So like last year when the Sixers traded for James Harden, they didn't just trade for James Harden. They traded for James Harden and the expectation he wanted a big contract. Now, they worked it out. They got him to take a pay cut.

They got to take a short deal. They were able to rebuild the roster a little bit. But I'm going to tell you, if Harden had played great with the Sixers last year, he's not taken the $12 million pay cut. I'm sorry. I just don't see it. He's taken the full max and you're going to be on the hook for it. So when you trade for Kyrie Irving, and this is, you know, at this point, so much has happened.

It's just, there's a lot more on it. But if you're sitting having a discussion last summer about trading for Kyrie when he was trying to do that sign and trade thing, you're like, you're not just trading for Kyrie. You're trading for Kyrie and the eventual request or expectation that you're going to have to pay him a ton of money. Because the thing was, it wasn't that the Nets didn't make him an offer. I think there was kind of like a perception that the Nets were like, we're not extending you Kyrie. No, they made him an offer. And your group,

by the way, thank you for reminding us of all of this because it was simply a games played clause. Like he, what he didn't sign is kind of crazy considering the risk of the, so keep going. I interrupted, but like,

it's, it's not, it kind of gets replayed. I'll even replay it in my head. Sometimes be like, Hey, I don't blame them. And I'm like, Oh, wait a minute. That's right. They were like, like hey we'll pay you all the money you're just gonna play that's all and it was they said no to it yeah

i'm not a hundred percent sure what was in the offer but it wasn't like they were like nope no offer come back for next year or nothing tyree like that wasn't the case so like if you're gonna trade for kyrie like how do you feel about... Because you're going to have to trade real things for him. The other thing about the concept of a Westbrook-Kyrie trade, Westbrook makes $12 million more than Kyrie. And both those teams are heavy in the tax. So they were going to have to really incentivize. So yeah, forget about it being the Lakers. If, um, yeah, you know, if you were, forget about it being the Lakers,

if you were any team in the league, just forget about the Lakers. Would you be like, oh yeah, we want Kyrie. We were ready to sign to that max. I just don't, I just don't think that that's,

I think that was, that was an issue is that, you know, what happens if Kyrie gets here and he, and, and it does work out. Now we're expected to pay him. And that's a,

that's a thing. Now, if the Lakers could have got Kyrie for the mid level, now we're expected to pay him. I mean, that's a thing. Now, if the Lakers could have got Kyrie for the mid-level, now we're talking a completely different discussion, which is, I think, what the Lakers were doing. They're like, we were glad to have Kyrie at the mid-level. Well, no kidding. That was like DeMar DeRozan. Two years ago, a lot of people were talking about DeRozan being a Laker.

And DeRozan got $27 million a year. He was never coming to the Lakers for six and a half. Never. It's crazy. And that was a narrative that was out there. Now, could there have been a sign-and-trade deal that could have gotten worked out between the Lakers and the Spurs? I think the Spurs would have done it.

The Spurs ended up working out a deal with the Bulls for him. And the Lakers still had all that Westbrook stuff. They had Kyle Kuzma. They had the pick. They had Contavious Caldwell-Pope. I think there was a deal that they could have made for DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade for

$20-some million a year. Or maybe he gives some discount. But he's never coming for $7 million. So if you're asking the Lakers, would you like DeMar DeRozan for $7 million? Hell yes! Would you like Kyrie Irving for $7 million? Yes! We will be glad to take them. But it's different than saying, would you like DeMar DeRozan for $4 and whatever he would have wanted? Or would you like

Kyrie Irving for a trade and then an extension? Those are two completely different discussions, even though the basic question is, do you want Kyrie Irving? That's the nuance that's important to look at when you think about team building. Okay, last thing here, because it was kind of off the jaw thing that I was going back to because I just like this. Whenever I go, hey, there's really like six,

maybe seven guys that truly change who you are as a franchise. You can expand it out if you get a little bit more lax with the rules of all this, but as it stands now, how many people as the face of their franchise

could you see when this season is over where it's not a surprise? So give me the face of their franchise could you see when this season is over where it's not a surprise? So, so give me the rest of the jaw list. We'll run through it. The guys, the guys who you can close your eyes and see holding both trophies.

Yeah. Let's, it's the, we'll call it the jaw list, even though that may, maybe it should be called the Curry list, but we'd started with jaw. Yeah.

The guy who's holding them both right now, it should be the Curry list. You're right. But, you know, Tatum, you can see Tatum holding them both, can't you? I mean, obviously he didn't do great in the

finals last year. Are you counting guys who have already done it? Yeah, I want to talk about this season ending with this image. Yeah, because I mean, Giannis already has done it, right? Zion? Zion? already has done it right like you know um Zion and they've never won a playoff series

he's never played in a playoff game so could I see it someday someday yes this season I'm not even sure I could say someday yes I'm not there yet with Zion. Certainly a candidate. I can't say for this season, no.

Okay, Curry? Yes, of course. Yeah, I mean, I know he's going to be out. Who knows? Maybe that's a blessing in disguise. I mean, I'm thinking about Jokic. I'm thinking about that. I can't with their defense.

They're even worse now. And I was looking at the December splits versus the regular season splits this morning. I was going through it. They're even worse now. And I was looking at the December splits versus the regular season splits this morning. I was going through it. They're 27th on defense this month. That's an improvement from being 28th overall in the league.

It's hard to take them seriously as a team that can win four series. That's the thing you got to think about. You got to win 16 games. You got to win three series in your conference. I'm not there. Like, I can... Like, Dame... He's that guy. Like, just to jump in. Like, he is of that status. seriously in your conference. I'm not there.

He's that guy. Just to jump in, he is of that status. If I'm doing a top five list of players, he's on the top five. He's the rare of team situation where I got to see you be better defensively for a longer stretch. I can see Dame Lillard doing it. I can see

Luka Doncic doing it. I just don't see it this year. I don't know if Doncic doing it. I just don't see it this year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if we're talking about this year overall. Like if you close your eyes, you can see Dame holding both trophies. You can see Luka holding both trophies.

Neither will happen this year. Okay. So Luka's a no for this year. Yeah, I think so. I don't think you can win demanding that much from him. Also, they're just not good on the road. And they've dipped again defensively, too. It was a really nice story with the Mavs last year.

They were like, oh, now they're playing some defense. I do like that coaching staff and everything. But I watched that Cleveland game the other night, and they were selling out on the Mitchell Blitz. They were bringing that pressure way up. They're trying to disrupt their initial action. And all they did was pass it to their bigs. And if you like big man passing, go back and watch that game.

They put a clinic on, get it to the big, kind of that Draymond Green foul line position thing, where Draymond, they don't even do it that much in Golden State anymore. But they were doing that, and then cutters, and Mobley and Allen can both pass and it was humiliating. Dallas was like, hey, this isn't going to work. Mobley's not having that great of a sophomore year, but he's doing the little things really, really well. His passing is incredible. He can pass with both hands, which sounds basic, but

big men don't always have great hands. He does. Okay. So we're staying with this. I think Booker is on the list. Is Chris Paul on the list? Chris Paul's having the worst season of his career. Nobody wants to talk about it. Back-to-back seasons of shooting three 31.7 30% this year the shooting in 15 games this year is 37.5% I thought when he first

came back before the heel injury he actually was moving fine wasn't worried about it but the shooting decline is very concerning and now that he's been back how do I write Booker yeah I know but I focus on Booker on that team I know

I know that the whole focus on Booker on that team. I know. I know that the whole team stinks of that Game 7 performance, but Booker was a killer two years ago when they got to the finals. He had some absolute killer closeout road games. And I think I can see Booker holding both trophies I don't I'm not placing a wager on them but I could see it happening this year I'm a big believer in Devin Booker okay so that's

we've got Ja we've got Tatum we've got Giannis we've got Curry we've got you put Booker on it for this year Embiid I'm a big believer in joel and b because i voted i voted for him for mvp last year here's my only assessment about joel and if you've listened to me at all on my podcast i've been i've I've gotten chided

because of how much I believe in Embiid. But Embiid doesn't always handle losing great. When he gets behind, he doesn't always handle it great. I don't think it's a mental toughness thing because I think he's mentally tough, but

he and the Sixers have not always handled adversity well, especially at the playoff level. And you could make a Doc Rivers comment here, and I wouldn't necessarily be able to disagree with it. I've been a long-time defender of Doc, but after the Atlanta series, I just

gave up. Stop. Although, if one of his players decided he's just going to stop playing in the middle of the series too, so that doesn't help. But anyway, back to you. That was hurtful. I mean, when you say stop

playing, he literally stopped playing. Imagine being a coach being like, wait, I'm going to get the heat on this one. Cause when you went back in that series, were they up? What? 20 and six of the five or five of the game,

six. I mean, that is still one of the most absurd playoff results in recent memory of like when, when Philly was right in that series, like, okay, the natural of order,

the natural order of things is going to take place. And then you go. And that's like, it's one of the few compliments I give Trey is that he was the least scared. He was the least scared of anybody that was playing in that series. And that means a lot. It's just sometimes I maybe want to be a little bit more scared. Yeah.

But I didn't say Trey on that. I didn't say Trey. I wasn't even going to ask because people are going to think I'm kidding. But by the way, I like that team. I like that roster. I think Travis in that group has done a really good job. But then when I think about somebody like DeAndre Hunter, did he grow six inches since UVA?

He looks like a fucking monster out there, okay? And then I think about his game and then the lack of development. I'm like, how often does DeAndre Hunter get to initiate the offense on his own? Because if he's what you want to be and he's what you've paid for, this big wing that's switchable, that can get you some buckets, because I've constantly had this own battle. The fact that I've had this internal battle about who DeAndre Hunter can probably speak to my life.

But it dawned on me the other day, I go, this guy never gets to initiate offense on his own. So how do you ever develop those things and become the wing player that maybe at the high end of his projection he could possibly be? So that was my Hawks roster rant over, but I would agree that I didn't ask about Trey.

It's hard to play with Trey Young. You said it. You know, the Hawks are one of these teams where you watch them walk in. They're an incredibly impressive looking team. These guys, they've got all these guys with size. And obviously, Trey doesn't have size, but he's one of the best shooters. Another team like that is the Nuggets.

Partially yesterday, I'm in the same hotel that they're in, and I just accidentally happened to catch them as they were arriving at the hotel. They've got a lot of impressive guys. Jokic is not physically impressed more than his height, but you know better.

The Hawks are a very, very impressive team, but they aren't maximizing what they've got in the second straight year, so that's a problem. Embiid is a really fair one to ask about it, and you're putting me in a tough spot

because I'm such an advocate of Joel, but I'm not sure I can go there. Okay. Well, rapid fire then, these last couple. Donovan Mitchell? It's a hard sell for me at the highest level that he can do it because he's just a little bit undersized. Okay.

KD? A little bit undersized. KD KD? A little bit undersized. KD, well, he's done it. Yes, he can. I don't think he's doing it with this team. Yeah, no. I'm talking about just this year. They're the four seed.

This year. You wake up today, have you noticed that your Nets have won eight of the last ten in our four seed? Trust me. I know. I know. I have so much respect for Kevin's talent. So much respect.

You want to talk double teams? What he is doing against some of this stuff. I need to figure out that number and perimeter face double teams. Although post double teams don't matter because nobody shoots it from the post. I just want to make sure we didn't leave out anybody here. We probably did. We haven't gotten to Jimmy Butler. So the thing about it is Jimmy is completely different in the postseason

than he is in the regular season. He just doesn't prioritize it. And I don't blame him. He's one of the most, one of the lights are on players of this generation. He's one of the most one of the lights are on players of this generation. Yeah. I don't know if I can see this year's

team doing it, but I can see Jimmy holding both. What about Kawhi? I can see it. I don't know, man. Obviously, he's done it twice. I give up on the Clippers. I know you guys spend a lot of time. He's not moving good.

And that's why I hear people like players, both former and current, just they're stunned that he doesn't play more. And I mean, I'm sure that he is being cautious, but I watch him move and I just don't think he

he looks good and I say that and I remember that when he was playing for the Raptors that he would totally Jim Brown it at times and like you'd see him like little like limp up the floor and then just go embarrass somebody at both ends for a half and you're like oh my god he's incredible but like

so he played really well on Monday against the Celtics like his best game like literally in a year and a half and then I'm watching him on Wednesday

against the Wolves and he just he doesn't look great to me and so that leads me to believe like there's a reason he's sitting out just he doesn't look great to me and so that leads me to believe like there's a reason he's sitting out because he doesn't feel great you know i mean like you can argue about whether you should play through not feeling great that's a different conversation but like you know i hear people like just say i can't believe this guy blah blah blah and i watch him i'm like but he doesn't look right yeah i i agree with you and i'm not looking right

like at the boston thing i go whoa wait a minute do we have a glimpse of this and you're like yeah but that's what happens when you're not healthy like sometimes you look healthy sometimes you'll have these moments you're like oh i actually feel pretty good today but i think defensively is the thing that really scares me but you guys were good on the hoop collective about it though because yeah i think it was you that said it like When I'm watching him still not looking great, his shoulders, his handle, his diminished athleticism is still impressive physically that he's going to get

to a spot and pull up and hit that shot. Now, I don't know what that means in the playoff series where people are selling out against that, but it's almost impossible from preventing him to getting to his comfort zone and he's going to make it. It's just all the other stuff,

you know? So I don't, I don't know. The other stuff has to look, it's also just, it's just really hard to say, okay, yeah,

he can play at a high level every other day for two months. I, I, we've obviously seen it, but I mean, how can I bet on it? It's very hard for me to say, oh yes,

absolutely. I just, it's, it's, it's hard for me to get there right now. But it's December. Well, thank you, Brian, for an hour of your time. I normally don't keep anybody

that long. It was just that much fun. Let me know if we can make it up to you and make sure you check out the Hoop Collective podcast. It's a lot of fun with Wynne Horst and his crew. Enjoy your weekend. Enjoy your holidays. All that stuff that people say. Yeah, I will. I will this year. I've decided. I am going to enjoy it. Enjoy LA weekend. Enjoy your holidays. All that stuff that people say. Yeah, I will. I will this year. I've decided. I am going to enjoy it.

Enjoy LA. Take care. Before we get to life advice, our weekly FanDuel Picks contest with just Ryan and Kyle. Apparently, we need Saruti too, also for Worst Take. We're not done with that. Keep hitting us up on Twitter or whatever, but

I think the way we're going to do it, it's a little bit more monthly, perhaps quarterly, or we'll just get through a stretch of a season, and then we're going to do it. It just doesn't have enough life. We just didn't have enough for every week. That was me. I've definitely done over-deliver, but I don't want to get rid of it, because

there's still so many funny ones that we have out there. So, all right, Kyle, do we have standings this week? Because a lot of public money is on that we won't have updated standings again. Yeah, I've got standings. You juiced the stats a little bit

and I think it is working out in your favor. You're at a 42% clip. You're eight wins, 11 losses. I did this game fairly and I didn't try to do three or more picks in one thing so i'm five and eight i'm 38 so it is working out for you steve who hasn't made a pick in a long time is at 57 so i don't know if that's worth saying it is it is because i gotta beat steve i gotta beat steve uh all right i don't feel like i juiced it i just realized i'm not gonna

go i i like my chances going two and one better than one and oh every week. I thought you were afraid of having to take me like meet me somewhere for lunch or something. You're like, all right, I got to start. I got to throw more picks at the wall here because it was getting a little, it was looking grim for a while. So you're like, no matter what, I'm just going to change the rules. So there's no way I get to pick the dinner or whatever it is. You're really in your head about me not wanting to hang out with you, huh? or whatever it is you're really in your head about me not wanting to hang out with you huh well yeah if you were me you would know i don't really hang out with that many people like oh no i have a brand i have a to-do list where now every week i'm gonna make myself do something remotely social but the problem is i can't go to the fucking frolic room and drink well hold on

it's not frolic doesn't have to be frolic That's just where I go when I got nothing to do. Yeah, but I assume you're going to want to drink if we're doing anything. And I just can't drink that early. I can't. I got games on. And then if I don't drink that often. So if I do, then it's like, okay, I know creatively all the other shit I'm going to work on is like on the back burner. Because you know what you don't want to do when you're hungover is crank open final draft and start unlocking scenes that aren't working so anyway all right

all right so i am uh creeping back to 500 which is where i will end i promise you i'll be at 500 at the end there's just not a brag it's just it's just the way the world works all right so that's off a good week we'll stay with it again. We're going three picks, going against the public percent of bets. The highest public game right now is Cincinnati minus three and a half at Tampa. Nobody likes Tampa anymore. Take them plus three and a half at home. See if on FanDuel, if that moves to four. Everybody's betting the Giants at the Commanders.

They're taking the Giants plus three and a half. Bet Washington minus, excuse me, it opened at 3.5. It's moved to plus 5. That's how many people like the points on this one or maybe the sharp money. So take Washington minus 5 at home. God, that sounds awful. It doesn't sound good at all.

Yeah, God, that sounds terrible out loud. But that's the way this works. Okay, the next most publicly bet side, It doesn't sound good at all. Yeah. God, that sounds terrible out loud, but that's the way this works. Okay. The next most publicly bet side, the Bills at home opened at six, now minus seven on FanDuel. That means you're taking the Dolphins in that weather. Cantua, tour around his season. That didn't make any sense.

Oh, my God. That was like a Ravel joke. We were rolling downhill. I know. Stop the podcast, and we'll see you Monday. So that means you're taking the Dolphins plus seven at Buffalo. Those are your three fade picks. Okay.

I lost last week again, but I got a really good feeling about the Jets-Detroit over. I'm just doing overs. I'm not getting cute. Joe House took a big dump on my picks in the few seconds before we started the Bill Simmons podcast. So I'm just going to go. What do you guys say? Back to the well. I think Zach Wilson's back.

Maybe this is a Zach Wilson last chance game. Detroit pretty much lets anybody put up points and they like to put up points as well so i think it's 43 and a half uh over 43 and a half seems like a classic lions game this year is pretty much going over 43 anyway so um what can i say one pick 43 and a half minus 110 another vanilla one for you just trying to get uh in the black. Okay. Lions football. Love it. Those are your picks. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice. LifeAdvicerr at gmail.com

Life advice is brought to you by Chevy Silverado. I'm going to read an email here, Kyle. What's up, dude? What's up? But it's going to play into a little bit of a story time. So, I'm going to answer an email question about life advice, but then also relate it to something that happened last night. Okay? Okay.

Okay, guys. 63205, check it in. Wanted to ask Ryan what he thinks about people coming up to him, potentially saying hi or something like, love the podcast, man, in public settings. I'm pretty good at recognizing people's faces, even not so famous ones. I once flew in a flight cross-country that Jacoby was on.

Former ESPN? Yeah. Formerly ESPN. 23 years for Jacoby. Congrats, man. espn 23 years for jacoby congrats my god it's quite a run unbelievable 23 years the guy's is that guy like 60 how old is he um recognize him talk to him for like 10 minutes pretty sure he was stunned i even knew he was so do people ever come up to you at the gym when they recognize you and if so what's what problem like, um, coming from a non-famous person? Again, I'm just around it enough to realize how not famous I am. So we'll, we'll kind of put it out there first. Uh, somebody coming up, I I've said this and I'll say it to people that come up say hello. When you come up to somebody and tell them how much you enjoy what they do, especially

when they put a lot of effort into it, uh, that never gets old. Like it's never going to make, like if you're coming up to say, Hey, I appreciate something you do. Cool. Um, the only time it's bad is when I don't know you and you say like, Hey, you're going to find your right hotel room tonight. Five plus years happens once a week. So that one, I'm getting a little sick of. That one I'm starting to tire of. So pivot back to the positive. I went to the Legends Christmas party last night. All the Smoke actually taped a live podcast there. So shout out to Steven Jackson, Matt Barnes.

And it was in Beverly Hills. I don't go up there ever, ever. And there's reasons why people do live up there because then you roll in and Legends has this party. They're taping a live podcast. I think it might've been a hundred employees. Just an aside, I am an investor in Legends. That's why I was invited to this thing. And two things. As I'm walking into the lobby to go into the party i was talking with kind of this basketball lifer guy and he was with magic johnson so it was only like three of us and magic gets out it was one of the best dap transitions ever i've ever had you're really proud of yourself it was it was the smoothest fucking

thing ever. And then magic was like, yeah, man, what's up? Said my name. And so I'm just making a statement now that this podcast is completely pro magic Johnson. Uh, we're not gonna make fun of the tweets anymore. He might get something wrong on get up, not correcting it. It was as numb as I am to it it's still magic johnson and it was fucking cool now there's a really good chance that magic is probably the best person i've ever seen at being famous but it was a little bit of letting me feel like a kid again where i was like this is pretty fucking crazy dude sometimes when you think about it now the reason i really wanted to bring it up is that I really like the podcast.

I like Jackson. I like Barnes. I even have the Matt Barnes will kill you t-shirt that I ordered online, I think 15, no, maybe not 15 years ago. I think I ordered it in 09, maybe 2010. And magic got up there and started talking. One of my favorite interviews I've ever done is Dr. J, Dr. J as a kid, he's probably my first superhero athlete. I've mentioned this a few times before if you don't get it, but the first year I

was like conscious of what was happening in games and paying attention to it and then rooting for a team was the 82, 83 Sixers. So seven years old. And so I had this weird Sixers thing before it was Boston. I mean, that's the irony of like all the Boston bird and the 80s and all that shit. I actually like the Sixers, and that's why I like Barkley. Moses Malone is my second favorite NBA player ever. But Dr. J was the first thing because it was like, you have to understand, like being a little kid and the Dr. J part of this, not having access to any of these videos, just hoping one time you'd buy the VHS and watch it over and over and over again. They're like, Dr. J was a shit. So Magic is on this podcast.

By the way, it's going to come out in January. And Magic is just sitting up there telling these stories. And he is so good at owning the room. I'm sure that's why he's so great in business. Magic Johnson shows up to negotiate something, asks for something like, it's just going to happen, right? And Magic's going on. And he starts getting up and he starts recreating the rock and the basketball by dr j in that playoff series

you know cradling it just rocking it back and forth and magic is like reenacting this entire thing standing up and people are losing it and it was not that i was surprised i've interviewed magic i've sat in a room with him. Granted, I wasn't talking a ton because Magic Johnson's there. But it was just a little bit of a reminder. Here's Magic Johnson talking about going up against Dr. J. Apparently, Dr. J had invited Magic to come stay out with him right after Magic had gone through winning a national championship with Michigan State. So Magic said he was staying at Dr. J's place, got picked up in a limo, and then started going

in other rooms, calling his friends, being like, holy shit, I'm at Dr. J's house. I'm at Dr. J's house. Dr. J's wife, like, cooked him food

like they hung out. And he goes, then seven, eight months later, I'm beating him for an NBA championship. Okay? Seeing all that happen, even though we've all known it,

we've heard the stories, we know that it's real, kind of being reminded of it and then seeing it live was just... I don't know if it was a reminder to me. Maybe no one else appreciates this. Maybe this is a waste of time to tell this kind of story. But just a bit of a reminder, this is Magic Johnson talking about staying at Dr. J's house and then as a rookie winning that NBA championship and realizing what it is like to be at the pinnacle of what it is that you do, to do something that's this impressive, that's this important, and then be able to just recap it like you're bullshit and hanging out with the guys years later. It's almost like we can be too dismissive of some of the

historic stuff that has happened. It's not like you have to keep reminding yourself of it every day. Hey, remember when this happened, when this happened? But it's magic bullshit about Dr. J. And I guess my point is, is that should never be just a normal thing. It should always be appreciated. It should always be impressive. And it was impressive as hell last night. So there you go.

And not making fun of the tweets. Statement issued. Okay, let's get to another one. What are you going. And not making fun of the tweets. Statement issue. Okay, let's get to another one. What are you going to do on Bill's pod when Bill doesn't know about this whole memo thing? Are you going to stand tall on that? Yeah. Because really on Bill's pod is where it's done, right?

So it's going to be a couple months from now and then he'll bring it up. You're just going to be no fun during that part or you're just going to come right out and say like, sorry, I don't do that anymore. Yeah, that's pretty much it. You're a reformed jokester all right i don't yeah i'm looking forward to that day i gotta be honest

yeah um okay all right here's a podcast related one so people probably able to figure this one out am i a punked bitch that's punkeded. Yeah, got it. Past tense. 33, 5'11", 3 quarters, and 225. I have the nickname of happy fat in the past, but would like to state that others have pointed out I have decent calves for a guy that rarely works out. Look, if you're heavy young, you're going to have big calves. Science, you can figure it out.

I also do say six feet when asked how tall I am because I'm normally wearing a boot. Okay, we got it. Halloween 2021, I met a girl and thought we hit it off pretty good. We went on a few dates. I even invited her to the New Year's Eve getaway in Phoenix that my friends had planned. This guy's just laying it all out there, but I mean, it's impossible to cover all this stuff, so we're just doing it. There were about a dozen of us or so.

It wasn't super intimate, and she decided to come along. Also, for context, we met in Nashville where she lived at the time, and I lived an hour north, but was in Nashville very frequently because I have friends that live there. Fast forward to the middle of January 2022, and she decided to break it off, which wasn't a complete shocker to me due to the fact she'd just gotten out of an extremely rough five-year relationship a few weeks before we met.

We met here October 31, middle of January. So our boy had a two and a half month ride here. All right. This brings us to a few weeks ago. Found out the girl, he uses her name. I'll try to keep it out.

I found out that the girl has a podcast where she dishes out about her relationships and other topics. Oh, God damn it. Okay, but is it one that people listen to? Or is it... There needs to be some sort of check mark on podcasts. Not one that you can buy. I've seen these, though.

I don't know. I know the ones, like there's some ones that are big and there's other ones where I'm like, I don't know who these girls are. like there's like some ones that are big and there's other ones where I'm like, I don't know who these girls are. They're just talking about dick sizes and whatever. Like they're just talking about stuff that I'm sure the dude wouldn't want to hear. It's just like I scrolled on Instagram and you see it.

I'm like, I don't know what this group is, but the vibe of the background looks like they're going to be talking about sex. And it's like, surprise, surprise. It is. So I know what he's talking about. I don't know how many people listen but uh well look after alex crushed it with caller daddy there was definitely a genre like a wave a wave like completely dismissing her talents as if every other you know every other girl was just gonna go i can talk about that like like a sports podcast where we're also funny and touch on pop culture like for the dudes

i know i love i love look i think that's what mine says my my probably my description i don't know which intern did mine but um it's like we'll hit on hot topics and pop culture it's like to hit info on any sports show ever and that's that's what will happen although those are actually kind of hard to fill out. Then I'll read other ones. We were like, who wrote this one? Chernow? I'm like, this is unbelievable.

So anyway, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know what this guy's talking about. I don't know if we'll have any defining. I'm expecting some girl to send in an email and be like hey he's a solid six one but he subscribes to twitter blue like what do i do uh like i know you should do okay all right all right so back to the email back to the all right she's got a podcast dishes out of relationships other topics obviously i'm curious uh curious what she's going to say about me so i tune in oh jesus christ that's actually a good like hey what do you do like

oh this is really that's cool like what are you up to like oh i have a podcast about all my relationships like oh okay awesome definitely want to hang out with you great um okay so he tunes in to listen to what she has to say about him it wasn't bad at all until i ended up finding out she'd slept with what was one of my really good friends in nashville a week or two before she broke it off with me okay uh let's call him earnest hooked up well why'd she hook up with earnest this guy better be good you know anyway all right so the podcast host admits on the podcast that while she was kind of hanging out with our emailer that she had slept with his really good friend uh and that they hooked up for another three and four months until she moved to Texas.

Jesus, man. Everybody's going to be able to figure this one out. To make matters worse, I'm currently his roommate in Nashville. I've been best friends with his brother's sister-in-law since 2007, while also being close to their parents. He's also the reason I know the rest of my friends in Nashville.

The girl on iPodcast hosts and I weren't boyfriend-girlfriend, but we did have the conversation that we're at least not going to sleep with other people. Ernest, who's 35, has a tendency to use women for their company, although it has been overlooked by the friend group because he's typically a decent human being. What would you all do? At least two of our mutual Nashville friends have listened to the

podcast. I've confronted Ernest about it. He just says it's a huge regret. He apologizes that it happened. He seems remorseful. We're adults, so I understand shit happens, but he either didn't have the balls to tell me or respect me so little he didn't think he needed to. Had I not been living with him or nor best friends with his brother, I probably would just

cut ties. I've given him the ultimatum that he needs to tell his brother before the new year, but not sure if that's good enough. Am I overreacting? Appreciate all the advice. Love the podcast. Okay. A lot going on here. A lot going on. There was a lot going on here a lot going on there was a lot going on we did need all that info you're right okay let's talk about the relationship first you didn't live in the same place you met you probably had sex for two and a half months you'd never talked about it being boyfriend girlfriend um the rules for that usually favor one

party pretty heavily and in this case you know she didn't look at it as like you were her dude you kind of knew she wasn't your girl so there's an overlap there that doesn't feel great okay yeah you probably joked about it right like oh you're not you're not out there doing anything are you like you probably was probably like a joke because he probably joked about it, right? Like, oh, you're not, you're not out there doing anything. Are you like, you probably was probably like a joke. Cause he said they talked about it, but if you're not boyfriend and girlfriend, how could you talk about it? And by the way, offhand joke, nobody, nobody talks the way we suggest that we'd like to be talked to. Okay. That's my other like mantra. We're talking to the way we can handle being talked to. And that's why the public talks to us the way that we do nobody

say hey look i'll probably i'll probably have a side guy at some point and like you know this is kind of fun or whatever but i don't see it going anywhere long term so honestly like i'll probably i'll probably bang a couple dudes right inside whatever our window is like i'll go home with another dude just so you know right nobody says that nobody says that now as far as it being a friend and that was like ruled out that wasn't supposed to be happening yeah sure this guy doesn't respect you enough okay but he wasn't going to tell you either he wasn't going to fucking tell you because unless you're like super super close which i don't know if you are are, it sounds like you're super close with one part of it

and then you met this guy and then you're living with him. So yeah, he doesn't respect you, but he also wasn't going to tell you. He wasn't going to tell you until he got busted and now you're demanding that he tell his brother who you're closer with, right? Yes, I think that's what I got.

Yeah, he has to tell his brother before the new year or something is what I heard, which doesn't really seem like a big punishment if they're brothers they'll get right right best friends with the brother and the sister-in-law so the brother and the sister-in-law um and that's why i hooked up with this guy okay uh look it happened to me once it happened to me in college like a guy did something like the one girl he shouldn't have done it with and everybody knew about it. And nobody fucking told me. Nobody told me.

And then when I finally figured it out, it was really weird. I just sort of figured it out one night. No one told me anything. I just figured it out. But I didn't figure it out until like the year had passed. And then everybody was leaving. Everybody was graduating. Everybody was gone.

And I was fucking furious about it. And then I'm running into guys who I think are my closest friends who knew the whole time. They're like, what were you supposed to do? Nobody goes, hey, dude, guess what? That's it. Then the other thing that sucks for you is that this is what sucks. Again, I don't think this falls into technically cheating because it didn't seem like it was that locked up of a relationship

but it bothers you because it's somebody who's you clearly liked her a little bit more than she liked you um she slept with one of your friends that she talked about it like the way you found out is really fucking weird hit that subscribe button it's a new age sort of that's a problem three star on that episode uh the thing that sucks about when this happens to you and then it's in this friend group is that then you end up receiving most of the punishment because you're the one that wants to cut it off which i totally understand you wanting to do but there's also part of it where the calculus is wait now do i i lose all my fucking friends like i lose this friend

group it sounds like you'd still be really good friends with the brother but I'm wondering like you're upset what do you expect to gain out of this you already know the roommate guy Ernest doesn't give a shit about you she slept with him because she didn't take the relationship seriously it kind of

sucks but it wasn't like you were engaged to her you know it wasn't like you were engaged to her. It wasn't like you dated her or lived with her for two years. This is what happens. There is overlap, especially if you're in a social group that's going out and doing fun shit and you're in cities like Phoenix and Nashville. This stuff is going to happen. So what I'd say is you're right to be upset and not like it. Nobody's judging you on that one, But don't go nuclear codes here on the entire dynamic. And then you're left with the shrapnel of friendship where you actually paid an even bigger price than anybody else did because you were so prideful of the whole thing. Fuck Ernest.

Fuck him. Right? But he doesn't give a shit about you. The girl doesn't give a shit about you. So cool. It's a good thing you didn't hang out with her long term if she was willing to do this but my guess is that it wasn't all that serious so i think you need to constantly look at this through that lens like none of this is really that serious even if i don't like it you'll get over this one quicker

than you would some of the other stuff yeah i think i think what what you said was right about like what do you what is there to gain at this point the girl's never coming back she's already she's already talking about you too I mean however many people are listening to this uh podcast and also like him saying that he wants the the guy to tell his brother you know I kind of said it earlier it's like they're brothers they're gonna get over it no matter how close you guys are as friends you you guys might be best friends. That's still his brother. So like, I don't know. I don't know what you're accomplishing by having this guy tell his brother by the new year or whatever, whatever that little section of the email was. I would

just go, I just go cold towards this guy. I mean, if you have a Christmas present gifted to somebody else, you know, it's, it's getting that time of year, like just, just shut it down, shut it down. And if the, and if the brother asks you like, what's going on with you, then you can tell him. But I think, I think you're right. Like what, there's really nothing to gain. The guy's not going to excommunicate his brother. You guys are still living together for however long. I don't know. I mean, how long that's going to, how long that's going to last, but I would just, I would just shut it down. Like just be noticeably different. You don't have to be mean, just definitely don't be nice. It's just sort of like, this is like, this guy's

excommunicated, um, from your fun part of your life. And I think, I think he'll feel that. And you don't have to go over, you know, you don't want to be like, well, what's wrong with Brandon? Brandon's been so mean to everyone. He's such a grouse. He's just not into the other guy. That's all. I'm just not talking to you anymore. Cause I don't know what else there is to do. You've lost in almost every single way. Um. I think you just kind of would keep losing by doing anything else. And I think whatever you think this conversation between the brothers is going to be, again, they're still brothers. I think your brain is thinking it's going to go a little differently. So I wouldn't hold out for some great resolution by your best

friend finding out his brother was a piece of shit to you because i mean they're brothers that's kind of the it's kind of the point of being brothers is that you get bought you get past you like this all the time and by the way like some people are really weird about the rules right again i don't i don't know how much i feel like a loser talking about this stuff sometimes but like i dated somebody pretty seriously. And then again, I was like, I think it was 22 and maybe 23. I don't know. And it was, you know,

a real relationship. We took a break. And I think like that week, uh, one of her friends came back to the house that I was renting with a bunch of dudes. So it wasn't like, you know, it was like sort of a one-off. And then like, I don't know. I think we made out or something, right?

In the kitchen. Not even a big deal. And then I was like, fuck. I was like, I can't believe we did that. I was like, I feel like a dick. Like that's, you know, I can't do we did that. I was like, I feel like a dick. Like, that's, you know, I can't do that. All right. Whatever break I'm on, like, we know we were going to get back together.

I'm like, we can't do that. And we talked about it straight up. And she was like, well, we're not together. So I was like, what? I was like, that's how you're that's how you're processing this like you're okay with it and then i found out that she was like yeah no i went on like two dates during that time i was like you already had dates lined up yeah that quickly it was like that you know so sometimes people are a little so maybe he's looking at like hey you weren't really dating

her so sorry um although that guy that guy's probably thinking like imagine how annoyed he was even if he doesn't like our emailer right but he'd like him enough to live with him and this thing's kind of fucked up but imagine how annoyed he is being like did you really have to do that episode right yeah yeah totally what was the rundown that day i've been sick to my stomach for three months and now you just i'm like oh didn't see it went ending this way i was wondering how he's gonna find out didn't think it would be this way thanks for that segment one health and wellness segment two is helen mirren everything segment. Talk about that guy. Sort of dated for like two months and then fuck this roommate.

Okay, done. That's a show. Make sure we give out our gambling picks. Today's life advice was brought to you by Chevy Silverado. Learn more about Chevy Silverado at Chevy.com. Love the Silverado, by the way. Okay. Love my man, Kyle.

Thank you. As always, the Ryan Russell podcast by the way. Okay. Love my man, Kyle. Thank you, as always. The Ryan Russell Podcast, Ringer Spotlight. What do you got going on this weekend? I might be doing the 7 a.m. thing. I mean, Frolic Room's opening at 7 a.m. tomorrow. You believe that? I don't think I could swing it, but I've been invited by many people. Also, was just gifted a gold chain.

I'm a gold chain guy now. I'm going to try that out this weekend. Just pop it out for you right now. I really liked how that's going. Some people haven't noticed. Some people have, you hadn't said anything. So I did want to just put it on the radar,

but I've been liking my life as a gold chain guy. So who knows what this weekend will bring. Maybe I'll get into a vendetta. That was a lot. At one point, I almost regretted asking. Now I definitely don't regret asking gold chain frolic room opens at 7 AM.m I actually may open the show on Monday with you not the NFL have a great weekend thanks you too Outro Music