The Ryen Russillo Podcast - What Does “Value” Mean in the NBA? Plus, Sara Walsh on the Buccaneers and Chris Ryan on Preparing for James Harden in Philly

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on what value first-round picks actually hold in today’s NBA (2:00) before talking with Sara Walsh of NFL Network and Fox about the Buccaneers' rise to prominence since the addition of Tom Brady, what their recent loss to the Saints actually means, Antonio Brown, Bruce Aryans, and more (20:00). Then Ryen talks with The Ringer’s Chris Ryan about the current state of the 76ers, preparing for a possible trade for James Harden, the idea of breaking up the Ben Simmons–Joel Embiid combo, and more (49:00), before Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:24:00) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Plan for today. Chris Ryan of The Ringer, Sixers fan. He asked me about a TV show last night at Texas. Like, oh, you want to talk about this show? I was like, I haven't watched it yet. Not Queen's Gambit, which everybody is hot on right now. I'm doing, somehow I got just caught up watching The Sopranos again the last few weeks

as my little come down from all the draft coverage. So, boy, season six starts off weird. You can see the weird creeping into The Sopranos at the end of season five, and then hardcore those first few episodes season six. So that's where I'm at right now. But Sarah walsh is going to join us as well former co-worker former neighbor she was uh my neighbor there

for a bunch of years so we uh we battled it out during those long winters and then magically a really handsome baseball player moved in next door and i was like who's this guy she's like that's that's my boyfriend matt and then i had two friends it was amazing it was like, who's this guy? She's like, that's, that's my boyfriend, Matt. And then I had two friends. It was amazing. It was like gremlins multiplied that winter. So she's going to join us. Uh, Chris Ryan, life advice at the end, get you ready for the weekend with great perspective on your problems. And, uh, let's do this, but let's start with this week's open. This week's open isn't going to be a big draft recap because we've already did that. And I also, as far as the free agency stuff happens, we'll get to maybe just a touch of it here at the end. And then Chris Ryan and I are going to talk about it a little bit,

but I want to talk about value because I think for any one of us that really love leagues, whether it's the NFL, baseball, member trade deadline, all the hot stove stuff, and you'd be like, oh, that's too much for that guy. Or is there any way we can trade for a bullpen arm? But in basketball, it's always something that if you're a really big time basketball fan and you'd be like oh that's too much for that guy or is there any way we can trade for a bullpen arm but in basketball it's always something that if you're a really big time basketball fan and you understand some of the cap workings and how trades work and all this kind of stuff you're probably the guy that has a hard time explaining it to your friends just the other day bill and i were complaining about talking to our fathers about gordon hayward leaving and both of our fathers were like yeah whatever you don't need to pay that guy 34 million he's never hurt

you're like no no you don't understand you't understand. And he still was just like defiant about it as if I didn't understand the point that I was making about losing an asset versus losing money you can't spend. But there's something happening in the league and I'm not even sure what it is. It's not a complaint. I'm not saying someone is right. I'm not saying someone is wrong, but I'm telling you in the last year or so, I've had a harder time, I think, understanding what value is because value is a very easy thing to define in certain things. Hey, your services are available. This is what the market is for your services.

You're selling a house. This is what the comps are. Hey, I have a used car. Let me check the blue book, see what the miles are. And this is probably ballpark where I can do maybe a little bit higher, maybe a little bit lower. But there's a general idea of what value is. And in the NBA, whether it's picks, players, free agent signings, which I still think are okay, but the picks and the trades and some of this stuff with other players, I don't know that I understand what value is. Now, I think a lot of

things that are in play here. One is if you talk to old school NBA front office people, they will scream and yell that the league is just afraid to do anything. And that there are too many general managers that have jobs where their job priority number one is to avoid being fired as opposed to being bold and actually making some trades. So all these names that we had heard, and it wasn't a ton, but the same collection of five to 10 names

that we heard were totally available on the trade market, almost none of these guys are actually even traded. Yes, there are a couple of pieces like a Chris Paul. We'll see what happens with Harden, but whether it was some guys in the Pacers, different players with Atlanta, I could just go on and on. It's the same names we've been bringing up for a while, but it didn't feel like there was nearly enough movement. And I'd say halfway through the first round of the NBA draft on Wednesday, you're like, wait, nobody's going to do something here that's a lot of general managers operating from fear. There's also an element of newer ownership of the last decade, big money guys coming in and wanting to have more of a role with the franchise than maybe previous ownership, whether that's the children. As I pointed this out, there's a lot of franchises that they feel like the children are eventually going to take over. And just like you, I'm sure if all of a sudden I were worth a couple billion

and could buy a basketball team, I'd want to know what was going on. I'd like to think maybe I'm a little bit more in tune with what's happening in the NBA. But think about what you would be like, right? Think about the times that you've thought, oh, I could do that. That was a bad trade. I mean, some of you guys think you could be baseball managers, and you definitely couldn't just because you watch a lot of baseball. But that's my point is that now we have newer ownership and because the profile of what a GM can or can't be when it used to just

always be old school players, long-term executives and all those things. And now we've seen whether it started in baseball, it's trickled into basketball. It's been going on now for a long time. This isn't necessarily new, but the profile of a decision maker in an NBA front office has changed so much that I think, hey, I'm the one that signed the check. My son wants to run a basketball team one day. Oh, hey, I own a basketball team. Yes, I know you're the general manager or the president of the team, but my son really, really likes this guard and we should draft him. All right. So that stuff is really happening. Now, the analytics department, again,

nothing new. This has been going on well over a decade, the influence there. But when it comes to decisions, there are real divides within front offices before the draft. Talk to different teams. Hey, where do you see this guy?

Where do you see that guy? I talked to just an old school approach type of scout. There's this player he loved, looked at him as a top, really as a lottery pick, lower lottery, late lottery is the best way to describe it.'s this player he loved, looked at him as a top, really as a lottery pick, lower lottery, late lottery is the best way to describe it. And he said, our analytics department came in and had the same player in the late thirties. And I was like, I had to be calmed down. And I was like, okay, but who's right now? The analytics department, when they're right, he's going to remind you and the scout, when he's right, he's going to remind you.

And if it were really clear, if there was a very decisive win, that this is the model to use when evaluating players for the draft, then everybody would know what that model is. So there are flaws in that, just like there are flaws in the traditional way. But that divide also, I think, holds up some decision-making because one side is really scared to be wrong. So you might as well just keep your players and not make any trades. So one thing that I had said for a long time was that I always felt like late first rounders were really overrated because it sounds cool when you have that first round pick, Hey, who's your pick? Just think about the times that you've been excited about a guy in the 2020s, right? Your pick is from another

conference, maybe outside of your home state. You're in the Northeast. This guy's in the pack 12. We take them 24. And then you start clapping and you're like seeing some highlight clips and he hits a couple threes against Oregon State and you're thinking, hey, you know, he's kind of long, right? Like this guy, oh, he's making some shots. Oh, was that a steal? Oh, all right, yeah, yeah, he could be a little combo. Yeah, I kind of like this guy.

And it's cool because it's new and it's different. You don't know that he sucks yet, so him not sucking and you not being able to confirm that is the exciting part. That's the hope part, which is what you're being sold every single year. And that's why I'll come back every single year. So I get it. I've done it too. Not saying you're wrong, but I just kept looking at it over and over and over again going, man, there's a lot of first routers that don't do anything. So when teams say, oh, I need a first, like, why don't you just give them a first in the 20s? Make a top 20 protected. It doesn't really matter.

And I felt better about that one day when Daryl Morey said, hey, you know, that whole thing about you ranting about picks in the late 20s? He's like, you're totally right. He's like, you're totally right. And I guess now everybody got the memo because all anybody seems to want to do

is trade these first round picks. We'll get to that in a second. But let's go back to the 2015 draft. I'm just going to use this one as an example. Yes, there are players picked in the twenties that ended up being terrific. Pascal Siakam one year. I mean, give me a break to get that kind of guy in the twenties. If you watched him, you would have never thought he'd become this, but that's great. Gives you more chances at it. But also when you have kind of the NFL QB theory is just keep drafting them until you get one, which is what some teams truly believe in. Yep. Take a guy two years. If you probably are still asking questions, that means you should stop asking questions and you probably already know the answer.

Just draft another one. But when you have multiple first rounds in back to back years, you can ask the Celtics about this. You just start having to have all these guys in your roster and they're not exactly the greatest prospects because they're later in the first round. And so the chances are they're not really going to work out, but it's even more so when you're replacing them with the next group of multiple picks in the 20s. It's not sustainable to keep doing it every single year, and that's why we're going to look at Oklahoma City here in a second and go, yay, all these first-rounders.

All right, so 2015, 17th pick Rashad Vaughn out of the league. Sam Decker out of the league at 18. Jerrion Grant, not the good one. He actually is still in the league, and that's with the Wizards, which I'm sure Wizards fans are like, hey, don't forget about us. He played in six games this year. DeLon Wright, nice rotation players. Had a decent career at 20.

Justin Anderson, yes, is still in the league. You probably forgot Bobby Portis. How would Knick fans forget that? Rondé Hollis Jefferson, decent rotation guy now at this point. Tyus Jones is in Memphis. Drell Martin, nope. Also, some of the overseas guys, Nikola

Malutinov, he's never played in the league. Larry Nance, yes. RJ Hunter, done. Chris McCullough, done. Kevon Looney, uh, would have gone higher if you weren't hurt all the time. He's hurt all the time. So that's why I didn't go higher because he continues to be hurt. And you're like, Hey, wait, there was a couple of names in there. Yes. Yes. I get that. But the point is, is that's a win. A rotation player is a win. Yes.

We have the rare instances of where you're getting not just a starter, but an impact starter in the 20s, it just doesn't happen that often. And I remember a team like 15 years ago, I was at a draft workout and they showed me their chart. So this isn't new. This isn't new. And it was a massive sliding curve where it was whatever you wanted to use, wind shares, VORP, whatever number, whatever model you want to come up with. There's all this shit's kind of the same, but it was, there was no model that all of a sudden it was going to look completely different. It's not started up really high at the left and then just, just trailed off. And once you get to the twenties, forget it. So that leads us to Oklahoma city who just traded Kelly Oubre to the

warriors because they got Oubre in the sun's deal. Now I'm maybe the idiot watching, hey, you know what? I didn't love Kelly Oubre right away. I thought he had a rough go of it, thought he could be out of the league in a little bit. Again, one of those middle first-rounders who had the physical profile, but when you really watch what he did in college,

big recruit, but it didn't really work out, and then it was even worse. But then he found a way, and I think with Drew Hanlon, who we've had on working out with him, he's turned himself into something. He's turned himself into a player in Golden State now with even more of a need with the Klay Thompson Achilles injury. It makes a lot

of sense, but he was traded into a traded players exception for Golden State to go and do that. Now that deal initially reported as a first rounder, but it's top 20 protected. So depending on what happens with Golden State, maybe Oklahoma City gets it, but it could end up being two second rounders for Kelly Oubre. I get Kelly can be maybe difficult at times, but he was just always available. I mean, that guy's one of the most five available players in the NBA in the last year. And I'm thinking is really like Kelly Oubre, the best you could do with this early in the off season process is only a couple of second rounders when there was really no rush for you to do anything with Kelly Oubre. So then sometimes I'll go, wait, I knew first rounders when there was really no rush for you to do anything with Kelly Oubre. So then sometimes I'll go, wait, I knew first rounders are a little overrated, but now

just Kelly Oubre is available. And he's not like he's some massive contractor, some massive number. And speaking of traded player exceptions, I was arguing with Simmons about this this week. We hear about them all the time. I don't know why. I think it's this thing that it's almost like a parent telling us, maybe one day, can we get ice cream? Maybe. Can we go to the park? We'll see. For NBA fans, the we'll see for kids, for NBA fans,

it is we have a traded players exception. I knew I was right about this. I asked Bobby Marks, worked in the front office, the great Bobby Marks now at ESPN, and I go, do you have front office, the great Bobby Marks now at ESPN. And I go, do you have any tracking of the traded player exception usage over however many years? He was like, well, funny you should ask.

He says, I've tracked it since 2003. And he sent me the spreadsheet last night. So I started going through all the traded player exceptions. And I go, my guess is it's a really low usage rate for traded exceptions. And he goes, yeah, it it's a really low usage rate for traded exceptions. And he goes, yeah, it's really low. He's like, they're barely used. So since the start of 2018, 74 exceptions that were created weren't used. From 18 to 19, because we still have time on some of the 2020 exceptions, from eight to a two-year stretch, 74 of them weren't used. Now,

the smart people are going, how many were used? Are you still listening? I think we're 11 minutes into this thing. 26 were used. You're like, wait, that's actually not that bad. It's only 25%. You said none. Do you remember the Sam Decker traded exception maneuver? Do you remember the Mo Wagner one? Do you remember the one with Tim Cabero? No. Isaiah Roby. Marquise Chris. Jonathan Simmons. Do you remember these? Jake Lehman.

Jerome Robinson. Did you guys get excited about the Jared Vanderbilt trade exception usage? That's my point. You'll see these big numbers. Oh, we have a $15 million trade exception. We have a $17 million trade exception. That means, and this is, I think, have a $15 million trade exception. We have a $17 million trade exception. That means, and this is, I think, just GMing 101, where you just tell people how excited you're going to be about this traded player exception that you can use, and we can absorb a $17 million player.

Okay, but think about this. For the player to be somebody that you want, that means another team just wants to get rid of them that badly that you absorb a $17 million player for what? More draft picks, of course, but no player of significance whatsoever in just a traded player exception movement. It doesn't make any sense. The number of these that are actually used on impact players is why the Oubre deal is actually very rare, but the value of those gets spun to us all the time and they're just not used that much because of what I just said. So let's get back to Oklahoma city because after that Uber deal, and there's all sorts of different floating things, we are all praising Sam Presti who let me just get this out of the way right now. Sam Presti is a terrific general manager, but he's got 17 potential first round picks now between

this, uh, the point we're at right now in 2026, that could move a little. Honestly, when you start looking at the teams that owe him the picks, they all project to be pretty good teams over the next few years. So those picks may not be that massive. And yet you could say, Oh, he's just going to package those up. Teams try to package up this year. They couldn't package up multiple picks in this year's draft. You think in the double draft or 2021, where people have argued seven picks from the 21 draft would go ahead of James Wiseman or Anthony Edwards in this year's draft, you think people are going to start packaging up picks at the bottom of the next two drafts to move up? No, they're not going to do that. If they didn't do it this year, they're definitely not doing it the next two years. do that. If they didn't do it this year, they're definitely not doing it the next two years. So it sounds great to have all these picks. Everybody's get their memes out of the way. So others would argue whether it's Presti or Griff is that there's only public support for this.

We seem to love the rebuild teams will be two years into it, not working. And then they want everybody off the roster again, which is just completely unrealistic. It can be frustrating. You may be right. It's unrealistic. So when, when I'll see just absolute praise for Presti and Griffin, just because they have a million picks, I'm like, are you sure? Cause I'm not, I doubt either of them are, but it kind of gets back to the origin of this, of the job becomes what's the best way to be covered? How much approval can I get? And Presti has had no choice. All right. Durant left, George wanted out, then Westbrook wanted out, and he has done an amazing job bringing these assets back. But I don't really know what they are because if Oklahoma City is bad, which they project to be bad, then they're not going to get a lot of these first because of the pick swaps. And it could be that a lot of the firsts

they get end up not even being that great. So we'll have to hold off on that. I don't know what's going to happen with the Pelicans part of it, but hell, why should I be surprised? Why should I be surprised that people are praising and talking about the value of all of these future firsts while we're witnessing a devaluing of the firsts in the present day. And yet when I go back five years ago and look at Sam Hinckley, and I'm not knocking Hinckley,

I'm knocking the blind love for him and that when the Sixers would go in with five second round picks, people were like, you know, the Sixers have a ton of options here. No, they don't. I'm not saying second rounders are stupid. I'm saying being excited about second rounders are stupid. I'm saying

being excited about second rounders is stupid. Let's just go back to that 2015 draft. Do you think I may be cherry picking? You can go ahead and look this up too. Hey, you know what's a great story? Montrezl Harrell, second rounder, also known as Montrezl Harrell. Sean Holmes, you know what? You know where he played? I'm going to give him some love here. Philadelphia. They got rid of him, though. I like that pick. But you know what happens in this draft? From pick 45 on, there's one guy that played in the NBA.

Like ever. Norman Powell is a terrific story. 46th overall. You know who else went in that draft in the second round? Marcus Thornton, never played. Arturis Goudetis, never played. Dakari Johnson, 31 games. Aaron White, never played.

Marcus Erickson, never played. Tyler Harvey, never played. Satam Singh Bahamara, never played. Sir Dominic Pointer, never played. Donny Diaz de la Falla, never played. Caddy Lillane, never played. Brandon Dawson, six games. Nikola Redivic, never played. JPafaya, never played. Cady Lillane, never played. Brandon Dawson, six games. Nikola Redivich, never played.

JP Tokudo, never played. Dimitrius Argovanis, never played. Luka Mitrovic, never played. I'd like to end this by saying, hey, the lesson here is simple and wrap this up in a big bow. But I'm not sure you've learned anything. And I don't think, I think if we have learned anything, it's that it isn't simple. I could tell you first or overrated,

but I could tell you trading 20, 27 unprotected ones is kind of dumb. And yet when they're moved, it's, it's this combination of smart, smart. They needed to add talent. And yet when it's acquired,

we're going, Hey, that team has 17 picks the next five years. They needed to add talent. And yet when it's acquired, we're going, hey, that team has 17 picks the next five years. They're fucking stacked. Are they? You know her from all of her days of being my neighbor and also SportsCenter, but also, more importantly now, though, NFL Network, she covers Tampa Bay Bucs and also with Fox doing sidelines for NFL the last couple of years.

It's Sarah Walsh who's now, I don't know, that design in there looks very similar to West Hartford now that I'm looking at it. What was designed? You mean my background? Yeah. Well, it was designed by, as you know, House and and home which is krista thompson my best friend so she's uh she designs everything i just give her the keys and say do whatever you want and that's how it works look i don't want to put pressure on you but um would you say that i'm the most favorite person you've ever had on your podcast we have cole hauser scheduled for

next week but up until cole hauser joins us, the title is mine. You're going to have it for a few days. I thought you'd never ask, to be quite honest. I've asked you a bunch of times. You've been the toughest person to book for weeks. You literally ask me whenever I'm right on TV. You're like, oh, you're on TV from 1 to 105. Can you come on at 102?

It doesn't work that way. That's not true. I wasn't that difficult. No, I'm glad we were able to pull this off. I've got to ask, do you live next to Brady now? Are you allowed to report that? Is that sort of a gated community thing? How is it having Brady as a neighbor compared to having me as a neighbor? There's just a lot of questions before we get to any of that Tampa Bay Buck stuff. Okay. So I don't know what I'm allowed to report, but that's only because I'm not entirely sure what's true. So it obviously came out in Tampa

that he was getting this house. I live on Clearwater Beach currently. And it came out on TMZ, pictures of this house that is here over, you have to cross the bridge, so you're kind of on an island. And the house that was reported on TMZ to cross the bridge. So you're kind of on an Island and the house that was reported on, on TMZ to be the house that he was going to buy is yes, in my vicinity.

And it was so funny because I was out on the beach that morning, literally the day that it comes out on TMZ and helicopters started circling. Like this is big news, Brady. I mean, Brady's big news anywhere, but we haven't had someone of his stature obviously in Tampa. And so when that came out, there's helicopters circling. It was a huge deal. I don't know that he has ever moved into that house. I don't know even for sure that that is his house. I don't know how that works when you're Tom Brady and you're moving. I believe he's still over at Jeter's place, which is over on an, also on an island. It's just all islands down here, but I hope he ends up being my neighbor. I don't know

if he will provide the neighborly services that you did, which means dropping off random Lululemon gifts, sometimes ice cream cakes, um, restaurant runs. Like, I don't know if he's going to be like, Hey Sarah, I've got nothing going on. Do you want to come sit in the basement with me? Neighborhood watch. We don't have, we don't have basements here. I don't know if he's going to watch Bravo with me. I don't know if he's going to come over if I say there's a potential break-in and run over shirtless in the way in which you did. Which, by the way, you know what's so crazy to me? I get so many people that still talk to me about you being my neighbor. So many people would be like, oh, you're Ryan Russillo's neighbor. You were Ryan Russillo's neighbor. We got a lot of run out of that, you know? I wish we were neighbors in the location that we're at now, by the way,

in either of our locations than when we were in West Hartford. Although maybe we wouldn't have been as good of friends because we didn't have anything to do there. No, that's a really good point. It was a good place for that friendship to blossom because- Would Manhattan Beach Ryan still have nothing to do and hang out with me? There's a question. Nothing to do is not true. Yeah. I would, I would have more to do, but I would still hang. I would still hang, especially now during quarantine,

we would just have to take COVID tests. And once we were in our own little bubble, like we would just have a little COVID parties and watch your husband eat awful food and somehow still have an amazing six pack. So, um, I don't know what's going on there. At least genetically, it's going to work out for the kids because I've never seen anyone eat worse like for mr health and like i'm gonna crush it and he just constantly he's sort of a fraud yeah like you had donuts and pizza today like what the hell's going on wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute you guys both had sundays where the the sundays of and matt were disgusting i mean you guys would go donut run in the morning, followed by breakfast burrito.

I never ate donuts in the morning. Followed by pizza, followed by Ryan and Matt would go to the mall together, like a bunch of seventh grade little girls and just walk around. Not buy anything. Yeah. And not buy anything ever.

Just video game store. And you guys would be like, you want to go? And I'd be like, there's nothing less I would want to do than go to the mall with you two. Mall runs. It was the best. And then once you really love the malls when you can go to the mall not buy anything and be like it's a good day it's a good day in here just checking out stuff okay i gotta tell you i don't i don't want to be accusatory towards your professionalism here but i think do you feel like your reporter game is slipping that you don't know if he's

living over there like don't you think another is the 20 something sarah walsh over there sneaking around maybe some sort of optics just trying to break that story that brady in fact is your neighbor because you just seem vague on it now and i just don't want i don't know if studio sarah walsh has replaced reporter sarah walsh and it's i don't know look i i don't i don't know if he's there and be, and be by the way, the stuff comes out and I there's security measures. I don't know. I truly don't know if he's there. Like you can drive by the house. There's never been cars there that would make me think he's there. He posts stuff on Instagram that to me looks like it's Jeter's house. Still. I don't, by the way, when it came out that,

that he was getting that house, he hadn't bought it yet. again you know how closing i mean it's brady exactly exactly brady's mad right now i don't even want to get you in trouble we should move on yeah i mean what are you doing you are being accusatory and uh and i actually i'm i'm not sure there's people that have told me that they don't think that house is going to happen i don't know if it's a decoy house but the house that was shown on tmZ is in my neighborhood. Like that's the only thing I can tell you like for sure. All right. So we should probably ask some football questions now then.

You've already called me a terrible reporter. So you want to just talk about something else at this point? No, let's build up your reporter rep. This is your team. I mean, this is kind of home for you. And we know the ups and downs. I mean, there have been more ups for Tampa. But recently, it's like, okay, what's going on with this franchise?

What has this been like to be around this team that's your hometown team assigned to it and see all the excitement? And despite that Saints loss, I still feel like they have a chance to do something here. Yeah. So it's been really cool. Obviously, I grew up in Tampa. My dad was a fan when they were in the creamsicles at the old sombrero, all that stuff. And this, this franchise has probably had more downs than ups, right? They, they did win a super bowl, which was awesome. And it was this special moment in time here. And, but they have never gotten, even, even when they were on that super bowl run where it was like Lynch and Brooks and Sapp and Mike Allstott and all those guys, it was never like

a national prominence kind of thing for Tampa Bay. It's just not, this market has never lent itself to that. And so I remember telling somebody, even when I was at ESPN, when they, even when they were like above average and I would be like, Hey, let's do something on Tampa. Nobody really cares. It just wasn't one of those teams that ever got this like national prominence. And as someone that was from Tampa, right? Like I always wanted to have Tampa people on with us. I always wanted to, you know, it was a hometown. And it was just never a team that was in the national spotlight, even when their record and their play indicated that they should be.

It just wasn't a market that did that. And that's the Tom Brady effect. I mean, that's how quickly things changed. The second that he signs with this team, whether they were going to be good or bad, it was going to lift this team to a prominence. Like it's never seen primetime games. Like it's never seen, which is interesting because now they've had some struggles on primetime under the lights this year. And it's funny because Bruce Arians gets asked this, like you've got Tom and you've got Brock and their whole life has been primetime games and the biggest games on the biggest stage. And really, most of this team has never played in those kind of games.

So that's something that clearly they're getting acclimated with quickly. It's awesome, though. I mean, it's awesome to see this team matter every week, no matter if they're good or bad. Right now, they matter. And that's what Tom Brady does. And so for me personally, to be able to finally see that and then to be a part of it,

it's just, it's really cool. I know New England people have been like thrown off anytime Arians is even remotely critical of Brady and part of that's his personality, but what do we need to understand, you know, people that aren't around it all the time and especially just used to like, wait, you're criticizing Tom. Like you're not supposed to do that. What's that been like? And what do we need to kind of understand about Arians personality? Well, first of all, Arians is really cool. I mean, he's just kind of this cool guy that he doesn't sugarcoat stuff now you and i are very similar in in that regard of like we're more blunt and like tell it like it is we'd rather not have things sugarcoated to us so as a coach with that

personality i love that about bruce arian's um as someone that's covering the team you especially love that about bruce arian's and i think covering the team, you especially love that about Bruce Arians. And I think you see, not just in football, but in a lot of sports, coaches will, even when things are like so incredibly obvious, right? Like let's say this guy has been like 0 for 10 on third downs and the coaches will be like, well, it wasn't his fault, it's a team thing.

And you're like, well, this kind of what, you know? So Bruce doesn't sugarcoat that kind of stuff. And I think it's funny to me that so much is made out of it. Like, how can you say anything bad about Tom? The things that he said about Tom, like if he's like, yeah, this was a bad throw on Tom's part. Like there was a situation going back two weeks with Antonio Brown and it looked like he, um, changed up the router or didn't keep running and it ended up getting picked up. That was the pick right to the right side. Yeah. And so it did look from somebody that doesn't know what's, you know, from the outside eye, it looked like that was a miscommunication with Antonio and Tom and, and Bruce came out.

He's like, no, it was a bad throw on Tom's part. Now, I don't know what Antonio was actually really supposed to run there, but he'll say stuff like that. And I, but I do think the things that he will say about Tom is stuff that Tom would say. Right. So I think we act like Tom's like, Oh my God, how can you say that? Like, no one is going to be harder on Tom than Tom is. Right. And a lot of these guys, professional athletes operate in that way. So I don't, I think so much is made of like, Oh my God, how is Tom going to handle this? Like Tom's a big boy. Tom's been around a long time. Bruce isn't coming out and like just crucifying him. He's saying stuff that's like, yeah, sometimes, sometimes it's somebody else's fault. Sometimes it's a team fault. Sometimes a quarterback just has a bad throw.

And I think that's the kind of stuff Bruce says. And people are so surprised by that. But I think that Tom would be like, well, yeah, like that was a bad throw. Like I'm not perfect. Like Tom said that a lot this year. He's like, you know, we want everybody to be perfect all the time. We it people aren't robots He's like we're not movie actors. I don't get six takes of something I get one sometimes in a split second situation. The decision you make isn't the right decision now tom is as good as he is and he's perhaps the greatest of all time because Nine times out of ten he's making the right decision and he's making the right throw but he's's not a robot. So I just, it's funny, the Bruce thing, because I don't think Bruce is like killing him. And I think the things that Bruce does say, Tom would go,

yep. Right. He's right. Should've done this. Like it's not, but everyone else blows it up into this thing. Like, Oh my God, you can't say that about Tom. And I think Tom's probably like, yeah, I get it. What's the story with Antonio Brown? Because I would tell you that. Go ahead. Take it anywhere you want. Like, give us the beginning and kind of how it's, I mean, I don't think we have enough of a sample here to really understand what it's like, but I think there's always part of us from the outside that are like, man, Brady really wants to make this work.

And I would argue, yeah, because Brown's really good. And if he can be out there, it gives Brady a better chance to win. Um, and that's, I think that's it. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. I doubt they're hanging out. Um, so, you know, I don't think we have a big enough sample size here and it's funny. I was reading something today. I was just like, well, he's lasted twice as long here as he did with the Patriots, which was one game. He's already, he's already through two games. Right. So you, you got that out of them. You know, it's really interesting. I think everything comes down to Tom. I think it is very apparent what this team is doing. And they're built to win. They're built to win now in terms of you can't, you can't force chemistry. You can't get these guys on the same page as fast as you

would in a normal season and a season where they've had more time to work together. But when they signed Tom, they're going to put all the pieces in place to make this happen as fast as possible, right? Tom doesn't have all the time left in the world and he'll say that. But so here's a piece that they felt, clearly what it boils down to is it's pretty simple. They obviously felt the risk reward ratio,

they're willing to take it, right? So we haven't had a lot of time with Antonio Brown. He's talked to the media twice. They trotted him out after he signed for the first time. He said all the right things, obviously, that he was going to say there. And he was effective, again, in his second game against Carolina last week, and they brought him out again. We don't have the access, right, that we normally would have. It's a different era right now. So I think you're bringing him in an environment that is more controlled, not only at the team's facility, but in life right now.

These guys can't go out in the manner in which normally they would. So I think you have him in a little bit more of a controlled environment. I think it's clearly a situation where Tom backs this guy. Whatever connection they've had ever off the field or whatever they had in New England, Tom's willing to put himself out there for this guy. He just is. He came out and said it. And when Antonio's talked to us, I mean, half of his, you know, when he talked to us for the first time, half of his, I think like opening speech to the media was about Tom and his gratitude towards Tom and what Tom's done for him. And he believes them. And you'd have to think that a guy that has thrown people under the bus,

certainly coaches, other teammates, isn't going to do that with Tom. There's a, there's a clearly a different level of respect there. And I don't know if he's back in the league, if Tom doesn't vouch for him the way that Tom clearly did. Right. So now it's got to work for Tom, right? Like Tom can't have stuff go wrong because he sort of brought him back here and he must feel comfortable enough. Cause I can't say that we're around Antonio, right. But Tom clearly feels comfortable enough with Antonio that he's willing to get him on this team. And so, I mean, that's what's happening right now. I will say that, you know, Bruce is a pretty open and honest guy. Like we were just talking about and he doesn't sugarcoat things.

And he was very short yesterday because of the many things you could talk about with Antonio, it just came out that he had an incident two weeks before the buck signed him, you know, when he broke the camera at the Gaby community. Yeah. So again, then you kind of go back and think about all the things he said and that he worked with tony robbins and tony robbins helped him control his anger get rid of his anger and he's and he's you know well look i mean we can just pretend but i mean antonio

brown's gonna keep fucking up all right like i don't i mean i'm you don't have to agree with me there but i just like if he if he doesn't if he breaks a camera okay he's still gonna be able to play football but i mean i wouldn't place any bets on him. I just wouldn't. I mean, it's, it's very clear. However, he goes about his business every day. He's just, he's not going to ever, I doubt he's ever going to figure it out, but maybe he can hide it enough for a few weeks to be a part of a winning football team. That's, that's how I see it. it you don't think he can hide it for the rest of the season oh yeah no maybe he could yeah yeah that's fine that i think he could and i you know i always am as i've talked with you privately i'm always very um i guess the best it scares not the right word but i just i never know what to make of some of the more serious allegations i just don't know so i don't absolve and i and i don't also write somebody off because i just don't know I don't feel comfortable is probably the best way to say I don't feel comfortable and saying oh he's the worst because of this I just don't know but my my experience with his whole story like anyone

listening this now is that the timeline is the timeline and there's a track record yeah right I would never sit here and be like oh you know it's a different community they've embraced him they're gonna bring him in Tom Brady's event arians understands him no whatever i mean maybe maybe he makes it a few months and nothing happens they win a super bowl and everybody's happy but i don't think it means that brown some change guy no i but i think that the bucks um so bruce's like hard line on this has been anything he did before like that's one thing if he does anything here like i do think they'd take a hard line like Like, I mean, I think if the security camera thing happened this week, I think the bucks would get rid of them.

I mean, I just, I don't think, I think they're like, Hey, if you want to be, you know, if you want to walk the straight and narrow with us for the rest of the

season, we'll take you. We'll take your talent. Yeah. Touchdowns. We're glad to have them. If you want to mess up, like we'll get ready.

I would think that his people and you would hope himself would realize like how many more chances are you going to get? So if you're walking into a situation with a quarterback that is probably doing everything for you to get you back in the league, are you going to mess that up? And if you mess that up, like, I can't imagine, I cannot imagine that there would be another chance after this, if that would happen. Right. But so I think that's just their hard line stance.

Like we're going to take them for, for what we can get in this short window. And if he wants to play ball with us in terms of, you know, the off the field incidents, like we'll, we'll allow him to be here as long as it's not an issue outside of it. Um,

you know, and they'll say he's been a model citizen. It's also been two weeks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know what they're going to say. I know as it's not an issue outside of it. You know, and they'll say he's been a model citizen. It's also been two weeks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know what they're going to say. I know what he's going to say. It's just a matter of can you avoid making any mistakes over these next few months?

That Saints loss. Did that do anything to them? Because, I mean, it was it was ugly. But I'm of the mindset of, OK, they came back. They were dominant offensively against Carolina after that. I mean, that game just got so ugly so fast. So maybe it scares you. But now you may not have to even worry about Breeze and that's another part of it. But what was it like around a group that even though there's vets and it's Brady, there's a lot of people that haven't had success before. So I'm just, did you sense that that shook them

at all? How did they move on from it? You're just read on the whole thing. Yeah. So I was actually stunned by it. I really thought, I really thought that they were going to come out and, and make a statement the same against the saints, not, not against Carolina last week. Um, I thought that defense was going to just, because, so here's the one thing that lost all the glitz and glamor, these Brady headlines, like this defense has been very good. They were very good last year. You just didn't hear about them as much because Jamis was throwing picks, right. Or they weren't, they weren't winning and it wasn't Tom Brady. So this defense isn't really that much better. They're just doing what they've already done. So you had this great defense in place. I thought

that defense would come out against the saints, um, under the lights and really make a statement. So I was really shocked by the way that they played. Um, I think they were shocked by the way that they played. The one thing about this team that's interesting is every time that they've had a loss, they have like that kind of decisive bounce back win. Now you've never, they haven't had a loss as bad as they did against the saints, but then you saw what they did.

And they it's funny because they've really like checked boxes. Like a couple of weeks, you go back a couple of weeks, they played Chicago and on, and they had horrible, like a ridiculous amount of penalties the next week. They harp on it. They're like, we lost this game because the penalties the next week, they have zero.

Like they went from a ton of penalties to zero. They've like cut those, like everything they check off. So in the saints game and obviously the saints game, there was a ton of stuff. Third down was a huge issue. They come out against the Panthers. They were great. Like they are very good at correcting a problem. That's really apparent. So every loss they've had this year,

and there's been three, they've come back with a double digit win the next week. So the problem, I think I asked, I forget who it was. I asked yesterday, said, I don't know if it's like a motivational thing, but like now you don't have that motivation going into this week's Monday night football game against the Rams. Like they have this huge chip on their shoulder. And I think that, and the good teams will do this. There's really no panic. And I think it's one thing to say that because it's cliche, but you really get that sense with them because I think they know the talent level that's there, clearly the weapons that are there.

And so the Saints thing, as bad as it was, I think they were like, yep, this was real ugly and can't do it again. Here's what we're going to fix. And they literally go out against the Panthers a week later and check off every box of the things they need to fix. I think some of the miscues and then the offense being out of rhythm, the defense coming out the way they did, I don't think there's a great explanation.

I think they were just bad. I think they just had a bad game. They haven't had a lot of time together in this offense. And even, you know, Tom, new team, new coach, knew all of it. And I know there's other teams that haven't, you know, Tom, new team, new coach, knew all of it. And, um, and I know there's other teams that haven't, you know, they all didn't have the off season, but even when they did get this season going, I'm not sure how many people realize like Mike Evans, who's a stud, Chris Godwin, who's a stud,

like his studs have not been at practice a lot. They're starting to be now, but they were banged up and playing. So again, it wasn't like that this guy's out for the season, but he wasn't really practicing with them during the week. So I just think it's taken a second and they've won because there's seriously talent there, but it's taken them a second to really start clicking. And what they're hoping is that it starts, you know, this back half of the season, those guys are healthier now they're in practice now, but they've really had a lot of those pieces out when they lost the Chicago, they, they have like no running backs available that night. I mean,

it was kind of ridiculous. And so you're seeing them get more healthy. And I think now they're, they're getting the chance to sort of be together on a weekly basis. And they haven't had that. What's it like working the sidelines in the current setup? How weird is it? Different.

The first game I did, there was no fans. So I've seen everything. I've been no fans. I've been in Tampa, a lot of fans in this COVID world, which is like between 15 and 20. I went to Arizona. The first game I did this year was in Arizona.

No fans, really weird. It was like you're watching the fanciest practice ever because there's nobody there. You're indoors at that stadium. You can hear everything. You hear stuff at that stadium. You can hear everything. You hear stuff you clearly are not supposed to hear. Like the stuff on a bench that would be drowned out by like crowd noise and you can hear everything.

And it's just weird. So honestly, you're just like walking around and you're the only one standing. You're standing because we can't go on the field. So you're standing in the front row. So you're just standing there like by yourself. It was weird. And then the next week they allowed 750 people and it was just the friends and family of the Cardinals that next week. I did back-to-back games in Arizona. And it's insane when you go from

zero to 750 and 750, by the way, in stadiums, that seat like 60 to 7,000 is nothing, but you were like, Whoa, 750 people. Like it's crazy your perspective. And then when I've been at bucks games and there's 15,000 people in this COVID era, none of us go anywhere with that many people, right? 15,000 people seems like an insane amount of people. Um, but at least with 15,000, you really can be spread out or they can be spread out and there's cheering and there's like a little bit of normalcy and it does make a difference. Like these teams. And there's a lot of them that have gotten nobody all year. Like it's weird. It's just a weird, there's no way around. There's no amount of like crowd noise you can pipe in. That's not weird. And Arians was

talking about it yesterday. He said, I don't think people realize like how big of a deal it is for some of these guys to have their mom and dad at games. And there's guys that I get it. Like we're lucky that we're even playing. Um, if you get it, if you make it to the NFL, you're lucky to be there. But he's like, man, it really like affects guys in the way that they want their mom and dad at games and they want, and that's been taken away from everybody. And to not have like your people there when you're playing, like it's like, it's a, it's a weird thing and it's tough i mean that's not the situation the bucks are in but it's the situation a lot of guys are in before we let you go i just want to let you know just give your husband matt a heads up that i have an instagram post coming that's going to

make him rethink some things like he's going to be like oh okay but he's not even looking at instagram lately by the way he doesn't do anything by the way, he doesn't do anything study for the blue Jays. So yeah, I'm so over it by the way. Um, so the blue Jays will love that comment. They're not listening to me. It doesn't matter.

Um, that's a really great teaser. You learn that in your career. That's a great tease. Yeah. I'm just saying, what are we doing? Like there's going to be a post that he's going to go.

Oh, you know, cause I've been, I've been working on some things. You've been working on something. Yeah. You're going to up the Instagram game. I'm not. I'm just going to say the content, although minimal, will be worth it. So how how many posts or comments do you make on Instagram specifically just to amuse me and no one else? Usually once a week. so for those listening yeah there'll be a people

magazine post or something or like whatever okay or culture i don't i don't know like whatever those magazine feeds are for those and it'll be a breakup of celebrities that no one knows and i'll i'll comment i'll be like no way and then like three sad. And then I just screen grab it and send it to Sarah. And it's our little game. And then sometimes Sarah finds them. I actually am embarrassed not to be even admitting this out loud. But like. Well, it's the best thing you do.

Right. And then I'll say like. It's literally the best thing he does. I'll say like they were goals, like three exclamation part. And it's so stupid, but I only do it because I think Carissa was in on that thread. And Carissa did not respect it enough. So we just made that a Sarah specific move. Nothing.

It is the greatest thing you do. Commenting on celebrity posts. Wait, can I tell you? Can I say one more story? Are we out of time? No, you can do another story. My other great speaking of Ryan's instagram or social media posts there was a time years ago that me and a girlfriend were watching the katie perry documentary and ryan and matt walk

in and um it's great by the way the katie perry documentary this came out a long time ago and so ryan and matt come in and they start watching it and they get like really into it with us and so then really into it is is is a bit you were yeah you were pretty into it so well when somebody told me that her cat when when the other girl was like her she's a cat named kitty purry yeah i was like all right that's pretty good i can yeah so ryan tweets at katie um this is when she was like seeing john mayer and i think they broke up and we all called, which tweets that are like, what did you tweet? Like just something like hang in there. Like,

but he, he literally thinks because he has a blue check and he's got the Ryan Rosillo show, he thought Katy Perry was going to see that, see the tweet. And then she obviously doesn't respond. And he's like, yeah,

I didn't hurt anything back from Katy Perry. And then he's like, okay, are you kidding me? You, you really think I thought she was going to like, you're selling this. You're selling this in a way that this is the, I did it for the entertainment value. I didn't come back a week later. 50 million followers.

Like you had no idea that she might like, he's, she's like, whoa, 50 million followers. Like, yeah, exactly. And he was like, I just, I didn't know there were so many. And I'm like, yeah, the kitty cats. And then I, then I started to understand it a little bit better that there was a whole army of people out there, but I think you're selling it as if I came back a week later, like, you know, Marley and me just barging into the kitchen being like, Hey, I haven't heard back from Katy Perry yet. Like I was pretty, I was pretty aware that that wasn't, um, there wasn't going to be a reach out and it was mayor too i didn't play an instrument you don't uh no you don't i was gonna say is there a guitar in your house but no no uh we're in the pandemic we're taking some home lessons we're actually picking up but i started right in the blue sky solo by the almond brothers which is an entry level but i was like that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna learn the tabs for that and uh made some decent progress and then i moved so maybe katie perry will hear the podcast

you know maybe she will who knows you never know what those starlets they're always they're always jumping from relationships to relationship i can't keep up that's why i follow people on instagram sarah walsh uh your handle is which one i don't know uh maybe your tumblr. I don't know. My Tinder account. On Instagram, Sarah Walsh chat. On Twitter, I don't know. Sarah underscore Walsh, something like that. All right, sounds good. You're locked in. Sarah Walsh, NFL Network, and Fox Sports.

What game do you have this week? I'm here with the Bucs for Monday Night Football. All right, Monday Night Football. Perfect. All right. Miss you. Say hi to everybody for me. And thanks for doing this. Can't box for Monday Night Football. All right. Monday Night Football. Perfect. All right. Miss you. Say hi to everybody for me. And thanks for doing this.

Can't wait for the Instagram post. Chris Ryan, not just a Philly guy, but that's why we have him. That's an old joke. That's an old insider joke. Chris Ryan joins the podcast. Do you remember what that was from? No, what's that from like bill really it was bad it was um when i first come over to the ringer and i think we were over in bill's office and then it was like hey you know i'd love to come on sometime and i was like yeah maybe like

we have like some sixers thing a philly thing for you to come on and bill was like oh i think that's what he thinks of me as well, too. No, it was really nasty. And I think Bill was like, he liked the tension. He liked the tension with that one. Okay, just blink, quick reaction. How are you feeling now? New management.

Obviously, things percolating. We'll get to that. But as of right now, where you were, say, two weeks ago. Well, this is what I kind of was hoping for when Daryl came in, is to kind of undo the stuff that the brett brown elton brand administration had done last season that was sort of a failed attempt to go over the top it's strange though so when the when the horford deal happened i was like i had the same reaction that i had when the horford deal happened last year

where i was like super excited about it. I was just like, yeah, we're doing it. We're doing it. And I didn't even know what we were doing. And after, after the whole draft night experience,

if you step back, if I told you, yeah, you're going to trade Al Horford and Josh Richardson for Seth Curry and Danny Green, like in a vacuum, you'd be like, well,

that seems like a step down knowing nothing about how the Sixers played, those two players seem worse than the two players coming back in. Yet, I'm super excited because of what I think it means, not only for the way that they'll play, but the way that they'll be set up in the future. It's a good point because you just do that. You're like, wait, you're happy? But Horford went from somebody who I've defended his entire career. I think he was so good in Atlanta. And I'm not talking about a number one guy on a top five team kind of thing,

even though they had that really high seating that one year and a great regular season record. But he just did a lot of stuff. He did a lot of the cool stuff that didn't show up. I think he even had those moments in Boston. Boston signing him like, this guy's perfect, exactly what you want. And then you argue with your friends all the time that maybe aren't the most refined watchers of basketball.

I'd be like, no, you don't understand some of the stuff that he's doing. But then when he stopped doing it, it's like, oh, and then the Celtics still wanted him. The Celtics have had a little bit of a weird track record of,

of some of their players the last couple of years where Kyrie wanted out the entire time. They never thought that. And he did did and I'm saying that now with with information um that I had somebody sharing with me at the time he's like hey he's not staying he's not staying like no I think they think he's gonna stay man you know I don't you might be wrong about this one of course when Kyrie leaves he's like I told you he's like I knew he was always leaving the Horford deal and it's not so much not understanding Horford as much as it's like Philadelphia is giving him what? Yeah.

And then Boston's out, which ended up being the right deal. And then even with the score and Hayward stuff, I don't, I thought they were a little surprised by it. So my point of this is, is that once Horford opts out, goes to the Sixers,

you kind of miss them, but then you see that big number, but then you see how it plays out. And then it becomes impossible to go. No, you don't understand some of this stuff isn't showing up in the box score because it was such a bad fit and then it went from nice free agent signing to one of the first the worst five contracts in the league like that's kind of how it felt yeah and it made simmons and beat actively worse i mean when you

would watch the three of them on the court you're like this is like a first or second round playoff exit guaranteed there's just no way and for fans, it was awful to watch. I mean, it was just bad, boring basketball. And it was really tough to kind of get up for it 55, 65 times a year if you were a really dedicated fan making time to watch it. It was just really appalling sometimes on some of those nights. And I think that that's what has sort of gotten me fired up is

Seth Curry and Danny Green aren't necessarily, you know, the kind of starters that you would expect in like an Eastern Conference Finals or a Finals team. But what it feels a little bit more like is the version of this team that I really loved, which was sort of the Redick, Covington, Sarich, Embiid-Simmons, which had this mixture of veteran savvy, some journeyman guy, and homegrown players. And it had a really fun identity.

That was right before the Jimmy trade and before the Fultz debacle. But that's kind of where we're at. The Daryl stuff also is interesting because the Sixers have always had all this transactional frenzy you know they were always seem to be guys coming in and guys coming out

this is the first time that I've actually been like I bet this person has an actual plan you know I bet I bet this person even if the moves are constant is going in one direction so you're not gonna be bragging about six second rounders no I touched on that in the open.

I couldn't help myself in a little bit. Although there are so many guys out there who have become Paul Reed experts overnight. Yeah, it was just so predictable where I would go, okay, this guy went to a good school and loves that Hinky has five second rounders. Because it sounds cool. Do you think Elton Brand is visited with Daryl and knocked on the door and was like,

hey, you can do all this. There were some pretty funny jokes about like where Elton's phone line on draft night was going out to. Like, did they give him a phone? He's like, yeah, go ahead. Make a call. And it's just like

calling an intern down the hallway who's pretending to be like Danny Angel, Kevin Pritchard or something. I love the phone call. I actually like talking to people after the draft as much as I do before because you'll be like, hey, what happened? What happened? Somebody I was talking to yesterday was like, we're trying to call Pat Riley desperately, just didn't answer the phone. You're going, please pick up the phone because you're freaking out about it. That's not specific to pat

rye there's other people that would just stop answering phones and then you realize the person that was calling it's not like the guy just stopped answering his phone on draft night it was just that the person was calling with somebody that that person didn't want to answer the phone anymore um you know you touched on here a little bit what the sixers were in that season where it turned around and i was i was blown away because usually young teams aren't good I made it a horrible prediction I was like hey I just don't think the Sixers are gonna be all that good and then they run off all those games at the end and then I was like wait were they maybe actually not that good because and that's ridiculous because you go from what they were to making the playoffs that in itself is a massive massive victory

but they weren't even close in that Celtics series when I thought they had the two best players at that time. And they had won a bunch of games at the end of the regular season when everybody's tanking. So sometimes these teams will put together these crazy runs and these great records. And it's like, yeah, but the other teams you've been playing collectively,

you look at the schedule, like none of them are trying right now. So that's a little misleading. So when I think of what the Sixers are, it's a bounce away from going to overtime against the eventual champs which is a weird thing to be like hey we were this close you're like that was the end of the second round okay that wasn't the eastern conference finals so when i'll see some of these arguments about what the sixers really have ben i think it's a remarkable turnaround that kind

of worked followed by a big disappointment and looking into the future like if i asked you hey do you think if you had to bet a lot of money that it all works out and that the ben and joel thing and joel's been better shape and ben develops enough on some of the other stuff that it all works out or we're five years ago and remember that sixers thing and how promising it was and it ended up like this and both guys are on different teams like what's the safer money bet oh the safer money is the latter but i guess the flip is that if i had asked you last uh i guess last november i'm trying to remember when the actual basketball season started and i was like yeah october man hero and duncan robinson these guys this is finals team right you know i mean like weird shit happens all the time in the nba now. And I think windows close really fast and windows open even faster.

And that's why I guess I'm pretty hopeful about this. I don't think that we'll look back on it. I think windows close fast. I don't know that they open fast. Sure. Yeah. But I mean, if you look back and see that Brooklyn puts together

Kyrie, KD, and Harden, that window will be open. You know what I mean? What's a window? What does it really mean? Isn't it just a mechanism to the soul? That's right. Go ahead.

It's an institutional state apparatus, man. I don't know. I think that I'm fully prepared for the likelihood. Look, I was a fan of this team since Barkley, through Iverson. Tim Perry?

Yeah, you know, like Hawkins and Dawkins. We've gotten close with No Cigar a bunch of times. We've had teams that Philadelphia fans were obsessed with that didn't make it that far. I even liked the Drew Holiday,

Andrea Guidalla, Evan Turner team under Doug Collins. I'm not really accustomed to this sort of Lakers-Celtics. We should be winning championships every year. I'm used to upper mediocrity. I think that the whole promise of what the process was supposed to be was like, let's put ourselves in the best position

to actually win this thing rather than just compete every year. I'll tell you straight up. My first basketball love was that Sixers team in 83. I love the Sixers being good. They're kind of the most overlooked Eastern conference franchise. Really? I mean,

the Knicks can sit there. I mean, that team was so good in the early eighties and it's never mentioned as one of the great single seasons or, well, I shouldn't say single season, but whenever we talk about like some of the greatest basketball teams of all time,

that was never allowed to be in the conversation the 8283 team because they're just so overshadowed by what the rest of the run is laker celtics georgians pistons you know and not necessarily in that order it's just of any of the teams if you were to look back it would be like a this football team having like a number two defense number one offense hall of fame quarterback they go you know 15 and one blow out everybody in the playoffs win a super bowl and you're not allowed to ever mention that they're one of the great teams so the bigger point is i am with you even though sixers fans drive me crazy i want that team to be good i want a nasty philly atmosphere if we ever get fans back in there and have it not be this weird thing and

it just that's what it still feels like so So what are you, whether this hardened thing happens or not, people really seem to think something's happening here soon. What would you be okay with? I would have to do a lot of, um, uh, going back through my social media to, to like magic erase some of my,

my heart and feelings. Just like Rockets fans when they got Russell Westbrook. I mean, those guys had to just start deleting profiles, forget tweets. There's a sentimental part of me that really wants to see

the Embiid-Simmons team with shooters. That is like the version of this team that I think everybody was like, look, man, when you have these guys on the floor together

and they actually have some shooting around each other, like Daryl said the other day, he's like, these lineups are insane. The lineups when these guys are surrounded by some shooting are insane. And so yeah, I think there's a part of me that is resistant to the idea of James Harden,

even though there is, you know, in my brain, I know that if you have a chance to get James Harden at 31, even if it's only for probably two years, or you have to, you know to sign him up for this huge contract for the waning part of his, the twilight of his prime, you got to do it.

And it would hurt, but it would make sense and I would probably grow a beard the next day, if possible, in solidarity with it. But there's the romantic side of me really wants to see how this works with these two guys. That, I think, is the right answer man because you you've had to deal with all of this stuff you had to deal with those rosters and yet losing that way and the way you did was actually easier to stomach because it was everybody was on the same page so it wasn't like bag on the

head sixers fan deal it's hey no we're doing this like this is what we're doing. And then it kind of works out. Cause you add two franchise guys. Do you have to be an Embiid or Simmons guy? Because that's the funny thing about your city in this fan base. I don't feel like there's that split. Of course it's there, but it's not this passionate, you know,

split that we've seen. It's not the Kobe Shaq stuff with the media in LA. I feel like there's more of a combined support for both and exactly what you said hoping it works than this this divisive deal where half the city loves one player and hates the other yeah i i don't i don't think that's the case because i think for as much as imbeed seems to have become like the mascot for the city's sports in a lot of ways and has really kind of taken on a lot of embraced it in a way that Barkley and Iverson did before.

I actually think Simmons is pretty mesmerizing as a player on his good nights and the jump shot aside, which I knew was saying walking aside, but the jump shot aside, he's actually to me and my personal basketball aesthetic,

my favorite kind of player. Those hyper-athletic incredible passers who don't really come along very often. I don't think that the city is particularly like, you got to choose a side. If you spend way too much time on Twitter, then yes,

you probably are in a beater or Simmons camp. But yeah, the only Philadelphia would do that to ourselves where it's like you get these two generational players and you're like, well, you got to choose one. What team are you on? It's like, well, they're on the same team. Why do I have to choose? So it sounds like

you're cool with them moving Embiid for Harden. Oh, God. I can't believe i would have to do that what would you be okay i think it's almost impossible now impossible up to the point where i go whose body type do i like better boom i probably even though i like mb a hell of a lot more as a player and then i've had different times where i'm like oh no this guy has it way more figured out and i'll be like, wait a minute. Does he not have anything figured out? I don't think they get along.

I'm pretty confident of that. I feel comfortable sharing. I'm confident about, too. Right. Like they don't get along. And so doesn't mean everybody has to like each other. You know, this isn't semi pro. You don't have to sit there and and everybody get along and all that stuff.

That's not what's getting in the way. Injuries as much as anything. Yeah, I would argue. and everybody get along and all that stuff. That's not what's getting in the way injuries as much as anything. Yeah. I, I would argue, I think MB has been healthier than I ever thought would have been after the start of his career. Yeah.

That that's the thing is like people rag on him for the being in shape and the playoff stuff and sometimes disappearing. But like we weren't sure that this guy was ever going to play, you know, he was a little bit of a flyer at three when we drafted him. So it's pretty awesome that he's like routinely as, as healthy and reliable as he is. I guess that's,

that's kind of like a, a weird way of looking at it. You do, you expect everybody who said, especially since so much of what's up with him is keeping his own body in shape and not like these crippling back and foot injuries that we were told he might have. Right. That, that kind of profile that really hasn't been a player that has that kind of, and granted they wanted him to not play on purpose, which is all part of it.

So he sits out more with Philadelphia than he would probably with a different franchise. So it all kind of worked out, but then you go, all right, then he comes in a third year, plays 30 games and you're like, yeah, this is going to work out. Like you're definitely going to want to max this guy twice because this makes a ton of sense. And I like his game better than Ben's. I like what he could be better than Ben's. But if you thought about a fit with Harden,

the old version would be, yeah, Harden just dumps it in and then he kicks it back out. Little, you know, reset, back out, back in, let's do it. You're like, actually, no, it would probably be better with Simmons. Yeah. In today's NBA, letting Simmons run like, actually, no, it would probably be better with Simmons. Yeah. In today's NBA, letting Simmons run around like crazy and then throwing it out to Harden

and having space and getting Embiid out of there or Harden having the space to drive and getting Embiid out of there. I think the basketball solution, if it were available, would be to have Harden and Simmons, but I have no idea what Houston's doing. Nobody can get a read on it

other than as of late last night, early this morning, it's like, hey, this deal, something's going to happen. And I don't even know if it's necessarily with Philadelphia. It could be the Brooklyn one and it could be a surprise.

I mean, it's so hard for me to believe that Houston would say, oh, okay, so Harden's called his shot to Brooklyn. We can either do exactly what he wanted or we can trade it to the guy who just left us we can trade him to the guy who like none neither of these options seem particularly sad say that again because that makes a ton of sense for Tita if you're following any of this insanity over the last few days wait the guy that just bailed and now is running the Sixers you're going to gift wrap Harden to him yeah so there's there's a big

push that but if you're for Tita going, you geniuses that think I would make this personal, I was just going to take back Karis LeVert and Spencer Didwitty and some bad Brooklyn stuff. Instead of having one of the two Sixers players where I know at least day one I have a new thing to build around in a city where at least I know I have a chance with higher profile NBA guys that are immediately unpacking and going, hey, pack my stuff up because I want out of here now in a year or two. So I think these are all really important things to factor in. But your Daryl angle on it, I don't know the answer, but I can kind of believe anything. Yeah. I would think that he's saying all the right things about how he and Doc want to see this version of the team. And they're not looking at it as like, we have to fix this thing in six months. And that's been the problem with the Sixers in the past is I think that they've always been trying

through personnel moves to get to another level rather than allowing the team that they have to kind of develop into that. And then the other... I mean, the thing that keeps me up at night still is just like the Fultz pick. You know, that's going to go down. Historically, there will be a book of basketball

7.5 that's about that pick and how that pick changed the league. Would you trade for Fultz if you were ready? I'd trade Isaiah Joe for Fultz. Do not sleep on my... I love Isaiah Joe.

You didn't see it in the draft, so I'm a big Isaiah Joe guy over here. I know, I know. Isaiah, do you like Maxie? No. No. Okay. I could be totally wrong.

I think Maxie's somebody that you'd have to watch like 30 games of a season. Toughness, all that stuff. So I'll give him toughness. A coach is going to like him. He's going to do all these things. But here was something alarming. I have this program where I can watch any player in the world and i can filter it a certain way you can watch full games you can watch clips so if after a couple games i'll be like let me look at something

specific if it's good or bad and i would just keep watching him and i go and so i was like you know i never do this i'm going to check out his youtube highlight page because that's like everybody's unbelievable on those and i watched like a few minutes of his youtube highlight page and i was kind of like so even adjusting for the kentucky of it all and like the those guys never seem to look as good as they actually are i know that that's out there i think kentucky like alabama had a stretch where people were going man alabama football like a lot of busts there and you're like or they have like 13 guys drafted every single year. So Bama had like a nice stretch. They had a weak stretch and then they had a really good stretch again. And I've heard people do the,

all the Kentucky guys suck in the pros thing. And that's not what I'm doing with Maxie at all. Cause I think it's a flawed argument. I think it has holes. I think people like saying that about Kentucky. Sure. I just thought Maxie was a big high profile, five-star guy,

high school, you're running Kentucky's offense. And I just wanted just a little bit more. I wanted something out of him that popped where my expect, my expect, and this is classic expectation game, higher expectation for Max because of the profile and all that stuff. Isaiah Joe, I go into it, be like, let me just check out more of this guy. And he wasn't highly recruited.

And then all of a sudden he's just lighting it up. And then the numbers dipped in the second year. And I'd asked somebody down at Arkansasansas i go what happened with him i feel like they just he took on way more of a responsibility offensively so you know in college you can see guys have bad shooting numbers but like they're shooting because the team can be a mess and they're there to bail it out we're in the pros there's usually enough players that you're not just bombing away the whole time and your number your number at the pros is more reflective of who you are as a shooter.

We're in college. I think there are times it can be really misleading unless you just suck at shooting and you just, you know, you have bad numbers. Did you get a chance? Cause you were doing, you know, you were doing all that stuff during draft night. Did you get a chance to see Calipari's

uninterrupted six minute monologue? Yeah, I've had them on for those, man. I've lived it. I didn't just need to watch it. I've had that monologue given to me in the hallway, on the air, while he's grabbing your fucking arm. You know how guys stick their thumb into your bicep and it feels like it's peeling off of the bone? He just fucking will grab my fucking arm and he just starts digging his... I love the guy, okay?

But it is like... It's just so intense. So go ahead. No, I was just going to say... He's actually like, I have a huge, huge, huge soft spot in my heart for him because he is the first guy I ever interviewed

when I was in seventh or eighth grade. My dad was working at the paper. Yeah. And he hooked it up so that I could go talk to him before the Atlantic 10 tournament started because he was staying in the hotel across the street from my high school.

So I talked to him from my school paper and he seriously gave me 25 minutes. It's still like one of the longest interviews I've ever done in my life was when I was talking to John Calipari about Temple versus UMass when I was in middle school or something like that.

And he was such a good guy. Nice guy. And then watching that video last night, it's like he hasn't changed, not changed a bit since then, is watching that video of him talking about, now let me tell you something, the last time that Doc coached one of my point guards,

it was Shea. It was Shea. And I'll go even further back. The assistant coach on the Sixers is Sam Cassell, who took us to the playoffs in New Jersey. And he's just doing this elaborate map where I'm like, what, you had lunch in the same room as John Stockton and those guys won the fucking gold medal?

How is this all coming back to you? Yeah, he's so engaged. But the whole thing, a lot like Saban. People would be like, I can't believe he can get Saban on that much and it wasn't wasn't my show as much as he would be on game day all the time and then Dabo's when he started calling it the Alabama show so like so game day would call Dabo be like hey we want to get you on and be like oh the Alabama show because Saban was going on it all the time and Saban would go on. And anybody that's argued about what Saban's personality is like,

I'm like, if you ask the right questions with Saban, Saban is awesome. But Saban also knew like, okay, Saturday morning kickoff, I'm going to go on this show and I'm going to have my moment where I'm selling the program. I'm selling me, all eyes, all that kind of stuff. And if the most successful college coach in modern history has time to do a full screen, then everybody else should. And that's what Cal is doing.

Cal is recruiting every high school kid that is at home that's watching that monologue. And by the way, good, because the draft had its challenges in the broadcast because of the challenges we have as a country. I didn't always love all of the broadcast so for cal to get up there i mean i remember when i think they'd lost the tournament it was a loaded team and they had five first rounders was it the daniel orton draft i can pull this up now but uh he was like that's the greatest night in kentucky basketball history there's a bunch of people being like probably would have rather had a title uh cal but i remember that do you remember that yeah i do i do like i i always used to love like he

would they would get their ass kicked in the tournament and then a couple of months later he would be at in the meadowlands or wherever in jersey at the draft and he would just be like again and again we did it four first rounders it was it was the daniel orton draft so this is uh 2010 that's the john wall draft so he had he had wall go one to marcus five patrick peterson went 14 eric blitzo 18 and then daniel orton who actually was pretty skilled for big guy just didn't play very much and then he's like all right you guys are leaving i'm out of here um i hold on to kentucky players stock for the longest like no one there are guys who probably live in lexington who given up on archie goodwin sooner than i did i don't know why i just really like these guys i'm just like hey he's uh porthis is he still in the league

you know can he catch on somewhere i know i'm still holding out for malik monk malik monk i thought malik monk i'm like that draft i was like you get malik monk at 10 or 11 yeah this thing's this thing's fucking stacked man and those are the lessons you always get to remind yourself because you're sitting there and the guys are going hey what do you think about this pick or what do you think haliburton can't believe he falls and you just have to keep reminding yourself hey half these guys are going to suck yeah seven of these 14 guys that went at lottery are likely going to do nothing that that's all that impactful i'm not saying they're going to be out of the league like some of the other back end guys okay final thought you're a creative guy

watch uh we could be working on something here. I don't want to announce anything because we may not be working on something here. But what's your creative outlet for you? Is it to golf and not answer the phone? Or is it to... Would you write a book? So what do I do to actually scratch my creative itch since I scratch it so much at work?

Because you're so good on talking about the shows talking about movies um growing up in a journalist family i have always whenever i listen to you i go there has to be something like you're not taking notes on something yeah you know like i think i've messed around with stuff like that but i i i've tried to, as I've gotten older, to be more at peace with the work is the work. I get to do something that not a lot of people get to do. And I hope that when I'm done, I'll look back and say, look at all these interesting places I got to work, got to go, things I got to witness and write about or talk about. That is pretty cool.

I don't need to also have a novel burning a hole in my drawer where it's... Well, I feel bad because I've only wrote a page this week and Detective Sam Charles hasn't quite figured out the case yet. It's like, no, man. Nobody gives a shit what my detective story would

be. So I'm happy to do... Is that what you want to do, though? Would you want to write a detective story? If I could call my shot, it would be one i'm happy is that what you want to do though would you want to write oh if i could if i could like do it like call my shot it would be like one of those guys who writes a crime like a mystery crime novel once every 18 months and is just like the the 13th book in the the harry smith case you know like it would just be that have you ever read any of those was that like harlan coban and i'm not knocking it like i just know how successfully is i just i've never been into that kind of stuff so the the guys who i really like tend to be more of the dudes who wrote on like season three of the wire like richard price and george pelicanos and dennis lahane uh they're

a little bit more on the literary end of it i i also love like you know and elmore leonard is sort of the godfather of all that stuff and he was really prolific so if i could what about don winslow don winslow you know like uh he's gotten very involved in the in presidential politics over the last year so i don't know what that's going to do for his output but i like i like some of his books a lot i like a bunch of his books quite a bit yeah i never read any of that stuff i read the elmore leonard stuff when i was younger and you know get short he's an awesome book yeah um the railing givens books are really good like they're trying to remember i'm trying to remember which other elmore leonard stuff i read because every time

i'd read it i would go oh you know i'm into this even though i wasn't i just got away from it all um but the lahane stuff is great because the wire brings in all of these amazing writers but they weren't tv writers and i think it was lahane that the first time he wrote a script and then he got it back and what you don't realize until you get into the business is that you're the writer and then the showrunner rewrites your script yeah and lahane was like this fucking ridiculous like there's like it's only 30 of what i wrote i hope it's lahane and i'm not getting this story wrong because abrams talks about in the oral history of the wire. And like,

he just, he'd never worked. He couldn't freaking believe that somebody was like, Hey, thanks for the script. Cool. We sent it in. All right,

cool. All right. Let me see what your edits were. This thing isn't even what I wrote. And my name is on it. Like I don't understand it. And somebody says to him 30%, they're like,

that's pretty good. Yeah. That 30% of your original script for that episode is still in there and not realizing hey the showrunner has the arc of the story and is you know we've talked about it but i have to keep this in line with what my long-term vision yeah this guy has to talk in this episode the way he's going to talk in 13 episodes you know like they need to have this consistency i mean lahane got probably spoiled a little bit too because the adaptations of his books like gone baby Gone, Mr. Griver, and to some extent Shutter Island

are pretty faithful to the novels. And there's a lot from those books that is just like whole swath, like whole conversations are just in the movie. So he's probably like, I got it figured out. And then David Simon and Ed Burns start like tweaking his stuff. He's probably pretty mad.

That whole- I hope it's Lehane. I think I have this right. It would only probably be Price, Lehane, or pelicanos from that season three because that was like the murderer's row those guys like went into a cabin and like did this season and and that actually is still my favorite season of the wire i started watching the sopranos again how's that going it's a bit that's a big quarantine project for people yeah i i mean obviously i just doing it to break.

I didn't even plan on doing it. I was like, you know what? Let me watch. Let me watch this episode. And then I was like, let me watch Pine Barrens again, because I mean, it's one of everybody's favorites. It's just so good. And then the weird mystery of what happened, especially when it's like he's a Chechen. Like he killed 17 Czechoslovakians.

He was an interior designer. And Chris is like, eh, place looked like shit. The comedy in that is like, it's so great that those guys are like, here's the world we're in, but make sure we have funny lines all the time. There's way more comedy in The Sopranos now that I'm watching it probably for the third time than I probably, maybe I realized it in the moment, but I'm appreciating it more now. Do you find that when you go back to watch or if you're rewatching The Sopranos, does it take away from watching new stuff? Like, do you have much of like a, like an engine to

watch like stuff that's like constantly coming out or are you like, this is good. Like at the end of the day, I want to kick back with a show like this that I can kind of study. Yeah, it is getting in the way. Cause there's a few shows that I want to check good. Like, at the end of the day, I want to kick back with a show like this that I can kind of study. Yeah, it is getting in the way because there's a few shows that I want to check out. Like, you texted me about industry. I would have loved to. Yeah. I should have lined this up so we had more time.

So give me your HBO breakdown of industry. Is this the next big one? Yeah, I mean, I don't know how big it's going to get. It's set in London. It's set at an investment bank, a financial services company in London. And it's set in uh at an investment bank uh financial services company in london and it's basically follows like these four three or four people who are in a uh like probationary graduate program for the for the company so they have to like prove themselves over the course of

the six months in that i think the season will probably cover before they either get permanent jobs or get get released you know and it's just a lot of drugs, a lot of sex, and a lot of finance stuff. But the way they shoot it is very much like Succession or that kind of verite feel. And it's got a really cool look and feel.

And I love the dialogue. It's kind of like very Tony Gilroy, very jargon heavy. Lena Dunham actually directed the first episode and she described. She's a producer on it, right? Yeah. And she described the pitch of it as Wolf of Wall Street meets Melrose Place, which is not inaccurate. Whoa.

Yeah, that's a great. Did she come up with that? That's really good. She came up with that. Yeah, that's a good line right there. Here's a thought. I want to leave this with with you so you know how they have the dream episode towards the end of season five the sopranos where his teeth are falling out and then he has the bullets and it's the gym coach and the bullets start like mushing in his hand like soft chocolate

yeah so and the coach is like you're never ready soprano you're never prepared and all that stuff did inception bite a bit of the dream sequence from that because we all know how much i love the movie inception the concept the writing the execution of it to do it the way they did it terrific but then again did sopranos take the dream thing from someone else where just the scenes transition in the way that they do a dream where all of a sudden you're just in a dream you don't remember going from place to place you're just there yeah i think a lot of that stuff the stuff is twin peaks it's probably taken from twin peaks okay and some of and some of the dream sequences from there if i had to guess i would say david chase probably was pretty big twin peaks guy right and twin peaks probably took it for some weird movie you can't

even think of like There was some Japanese cartoon that people were showing where it was this hallway fight scene that looks like the Inception fight scene in The Dream, and then it was like, no, it was stolen from a Japanese cartoon. I'm of the belief that you can find a way to say everything is stolen from a Japanese cartoon,

but I'm not a big... That's never really been my speed. You can't prove you're wrong, yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I'm not a big... That's never really been my speed. You can't prove you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I'm ever going to have an anime phase. And I'm not worried about it. Dream big.

You never know, man. You know, when you get done with Sopranos, it's cowboy bebop time. You never know. Done. I haven't checked that much of it out. Thank you, Chris. Of course.

You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. make sure you check out chris ryan on the watch and of course once we get all the basketball started up but we will start life advice we get two of them for you life advice rr at gmail.com okay this one's a long one but let's go for it i'm a 26-old guy living in South Carolina. Graduated from college a couple years ago with a degree in finance. I worked in real estate for about two and a half years. Real estate sales, two and a half years. Right out of college currently.

Working in finance, entry-level position. Okay. Girlfriend that I've been dating for six-plus years. We met in college our sophomore year. Been together since. We eventually moved in with each other right after college. That will be important later. Like I said, right out of college, I had the opportunity to work in real estate sales. I'm always blown

away by anybody that meets in college, dates through college, survives the college part, and then gets, you know, they're still together and then married afterwards. I think it might be a sudden thing. It never felt like a Northeast thing at all. And I would say Arizona State, we could throw in that group. It's like, yeah, wait, people marry people from college, Arizona State, another level. My girlfriend required more schooling to get the job she ultimately wants in the medical field. After graduation, she got a full-time job working in retail while applying to schools. During this time, our financial situation was steady with our combined income we were able to sustain. Okay, so combined income, boom, got the place. I'll cut right to it. We

signed a lease in May of 17. In August of 2017, my girlfriend admitted to me that she had had sex with a co-worker at a job at the time a few months prior. While they were together. Sleeps with the guy from work. Terrifying. Whatever happens. I'm crushed. I'm broken. Yep. No problem. Get it. I was

blindsided and only later recognized the behaviors that I'd missed. I couldn't stand to be at the apartment with her. Okay, so I went to stay at my parents' house to sort things out. Okay, wait a minute. So after he's devastated, finds out she cheated on him, then he says I couldn't stand to be at the apartment with her. So he went to his parents' house to sort things out.

I ended up staying at my parents' house till that December. She convinced me to come back, saying things like she ultimately wanted me and that she saw herself with me feeling lonely, being too nice and probably naive. I went back to the apartment and things proceeded as normal. I was more cautious and definitely the trust was broken. We proceeded through Christmas. Everything's fine. Almost nothing had happened during Christmas. We got a puppy and unintentionally did the old get a dog and everything will be fine trick or you could call it to have a baby to save this marriage. All right, we get it. Also in the same year, 2017, excuse me, in September 17, my mother passed away in a car accident out of nowhere. That sucks, man. Sorry to hear that. sorry to hear that. So I'm dealing with this personal relationship along with coping with my mother's passing. My girlfriend was the person there for me and helped me get through that situation. It was a weird dynamic mentally. My girlfriend had hurt me so much, but also she was

my shoulder to cry on that probably played into me being convinced to come back to live with her. Absolutely. You're going through this horrible tragedy and she's in this role doing a good job for you. And now because she's there and you're dealing with this tragedy, even though those other things that you're upset about have happened, you love that part of it. I mean, that's, there's something about her that you love and you keep going back to her, um, as you say in this. So there's like, I mean, this, you don't need me to help you figure this out. There's something about her that you're in the moment you're great with. And then when those other moments creep in, but those moments are winning. Those moments are winning versus

the moments where you resent her and all that kind of stuff. So two years ago, my girlfriend gets in the clinical portion of her final requirement for education. I leave real estate to get a more stable, predictable amount of money coming in. My girlfriend's full-time schooling still with a side job babysitting. Time goes by and there are no other cheating incidents that i'm aware of in my mind i was thinking this could work we still get married one day all right so you're thinking she slips up she was there for you and tragedy boom boom boom all right so covid lockdowns earlier this year come my girlfriend's clinical gets postponed around that time july or august so um she says that she wants to start to say yes more. Ooh, she must have read a book or an Instagram post

from some philosopher with 12,000 followers. There may be nothing more arrogant as I do these life advice emails than the person who's got abs and is like, all you need to do is say yes. Like, shut the fuck up. All right. She doesn't want to waste her remaining 20s not living so this is the saying yes

more she started to reconnect with some long-term girlfriends of hers that she hadn't hung out with in a while she starts saying yes to any and every request from these girls some of them who live an hour away meanwhile if i asked to be included at all it's why don't you get your own friends or this is my girl time why can't you let me that? I have a couple of guy friends I keep in touch with regularly. Mostly just joke about sports and shoot the shit and aren't deep relationships past that. If there's one thing guys are much better than girls at, that is having completely superficial, not deep relationships with your other male friends. So during this time, she's regularly taking trips to, we'll leave it,

we'll say North Carolina and staying with her friends the weekend. During this weekend, she's almost non-responsive. Bad sign. It gets mad when I try to get any detail

about what's up with her. Another bad sign. This Halloween, she went to a costume party with a friend in North Carolina and she didn't want me to come. So if you're dating somebody on Halloween

and you're not together on Halloween, terrible sign. I found this to be a huge red flag, was already suspicious. And please don't be a guy like, hey, I let my wife go to Halloween parties. I don't really like Halloween. You're not almost engaged with a girlfriend who lives with you, who's already admitted to cheating on you, who then decides to drive an hour away to go to a Halloween party that you're not invited to.

So we already know where this one's going. Our current lease is up in January, and the topic of our next move is looming. She currently still only has, so we're talking a month and a half here, she only has the side income from the babysitting. As she finishes her last semester of school, she wouldn't be able to afford to live on her own

without me assisting. So now we're starting to wonder, wait, what's going on? Are you just a guy paying her rent while she's with other people? A few days go by and we're talking about potential places to move and she gets nervous and says she has to tell me something. She then admits to having sex with a random guy the weekend of her friend's birthday in September and another guy the weekend of Halloween. She said she'd met up with the second guy one more time. So that's two guys, three times that you know about, by the way. So, I mean, she has no problem being sketchy, but then she has to tell you.

So I guess maybe it is just the two guys and three times. My guess would be no, but I guess if she's willing to tell you about the co-worker before in the email, then this sex fall romp that maybe she is telling you the truth the entire time i don't know i mean i don't know why you would trust anybody here hey she was really honest about fucking me over oh cool come on pull me once man yeah right um not only that but she admitted that the second guy was a six foot nine samoan guy so what's the email about i don't get it um it's almost over um she says that things with both guys were nothing serious there's no further contact she doesn't want them but she wants to be with me she says it had nothing to do with me and it was just her wanting a thrill this time i had almost no external reaction because I knew something had to be going on.

I was internally really pissed in her. I felt betrayed like trash, like I was worthless. This whole recent incident has been a secret to everyone. I've been too embarrassed to tell anyone. I haven't talked to anyone else about this. What should I do going forward? I love this girl and had plans to marry her one day. I don't want to be alone and waste these six years for nothing.

I also don't want to keep happening. I don't want to keep treated like trash. six years for nothing. I also don't want to keep happening. I don't want to keep treated like trash. Would you ever be able to forgive someone like this? Maybe I already know the answer. I just need someone else to help make it real. Okay. I would not be able to. We would not be getting a new rent together.

We would not be looking at leases. You kind of knew this was going to happen. You're smart. You knew. But you didn't want it to be true. So that's why you ignored some of the stuff. And I think the fact that she was there for you, not in the normal sense of relationship, she was there for you during a massive tragedy years ago. That's going to impact the way you are. So now I think we could do a really bullshit modern thing, be like, okay, but what are her things that that what are her things that have led her to this what are the things she needs to unlock about her past that can allow her to be so terrible to

somebody that she says she loves and wants to be with now fuck that she's this girl sucks man she sucks she's living with you you're paying for most of it appears and then she decides that by she just wants to say yes more means just a bunch of other dudes so you know you guys had your run but when you start to say i felt betrayed like trash i feel worthless why would you want to spend more time with someone like that now there could be a chance right there could be a chance that she's better looking than you are and that's something that's really messing you up. Cause you think like, Oh, I'm never going to be with a girl that's attractive again. And you know,

I want to make it work. All right. Well, if that's more important than you're going to have to get over all that other stuff, but you're not, you're still, you're never going to trust her. You're going to have these moments, any little thing where she might not even be doing something where if her Instagram is private by accident, then you're going to freak out. So that's what you're signing up for. So if you get back together with a, get the lease. And she says it was this thing like for her to not have anything more than like, Hey, I just want to live my life. I don't want to waste my twenties. I just want some thrills. And Hey, the Simone guy was only two times. Like, don't worry about it. Like this is a very immature person and a selfish person. And even

though there are these moments that obviously you're clinging to, because I think even in bad relationships, a lot of us can have these moments. obviously you're clinging to, because I think even in bad relationships, a lot of us can have these moments. Like I remember in my twenties, again, I apologize for most of them, but you know, this girl I was serious with and then her friends would be like,

what the fuck with him? I get that people like him a lot, but I mean, I don't think that's like a long term or at least he's not in the place. And she'd be like, you don't get it. He's so great when it's just us. And I'm laughing thinking about it now. And I'm like, I wasn't even great when it was just us,

but she would defend me to all of her friends and be like, you don't, you don't see the other side of him that I do. And I'm like, thinking back and I'm like, there wasn't really much, there wasn't real complications with trying to figure me out back then. So this is, this is normal that your fear is you don't get to feel those feelings anymore that make you really like her and you're still attracted to her. But I mean, you already knew the answer to this. Like, I don't want to examine what her deal is or why she could do this. Clearly she has some need to have the stable, real adult thing with you. But that, that's the point of all this stuff is that, you know, the older people listening to this, they already know this. Yes. Sometimes it gets a little stale. Yes. Sometimes you're going to fight. Yes. Sometimes

you're going to be bored. You don't get to have the thrill all the time, but that's part of, you know, growing with somebody and truly trusting that person, whether it's starting the family and having that one person in your life that you know, no matter what, they have your back. That's the whole point. And you're not even getting that during the supposed non-serious phase. So whatever. I mean, if you're sitting there saying, hey, I feel like trash, I feel worthless, she makes me do these things. Then why would you want to do that more? So, yeah, it's going to suck.

You're going to miss her. She's going to tell you, especially if you step up and go, I'm done with this. Then she's going to come back and want you even more clearly because I can tell she's that type. And you're going to have to resist it or you can give in and feel like trash and worthless at times when there are moments where you're not going to be able to trust her five years from now right when it's 10 years later no man 10 years later it's like so this pool guy now he is cool you know and she said hey he's doesn't he was the fill-in pool guy he's not even our main pool guy so that part i understand um but you already know the answer you didn't need to write that email to

me but i appreciate you doing it let's do one more okay my man checking in here probably should uh find someone to ask that's actually married but i've been listening since i was sitting around lsu uh in 2010 met my wife around the same time. Unrelated, just for the notes. All right. So hopefully I don't sell this guy entirely. If he's an LSU guy, people are going to start connecting the dots.

Anyway, I love my wife and all, but she holds on to stuff for the longest time. She wants my input on things, but refuses to listen to any of my advice. Most recently dragged me to look for couches on Master Sunday. Uh-oh. No big deal. It was pretty boring.

I can keep up with a few holes I missed on my phone all right hey man that's great that's a good sign right there the issues is my opinion doesn't fucking matter um i like this one really comfortable in our budget that's me she puts on a stink face and comes up with any excuse to not like it she claims she doesn't do it but it happens every time she's still mad at the one time i showed balls my only request for the wedding was that my grooms were the black tuxes that they all own we were all in our late 20s and owned one or two plus not one person gives a shit about what my dipshit friend's tux looks like i didn't want to make them spend 200 to rent a tux that fits shitty it almost looks the exact same she of course thought otherwise and picked out a rental against my wishes i decided to disregard the email about the rentals essentially

is what he's saying here and go about it plan. She found out at the church, and guess what? She's the only one that noticed. We're talking about his groomsmen's tuxes here. It's infuriating when she does task me because she's unable to get out of the way. She's now vetoing every garage fridge and then sending me the same fridge from a different store. It's maddening. The thing is, if I just buy one to end, I have to spend the rest of my life hearing about how it's the wrong fridge. Do I just quit trying to help altogether or just go with my gut and buy the shit I want? Or do I think that will work best?

Okay. Like all of us, if you're buying a house, relationships like buying a house, not to try to... You know, the great thing about real estate... I'm doing my cowhurt, but... When you're buying a house, not to try to, hey, Cal, you know, the great thing about real estate, I'm doing my cowhurt, but when you're buying a house, you can be like, hey, I want a porch. I want two parking spots. I want, you know, this kind of showerhead. I want all these different things. And you're not

going to get all of those things. You're just not. Whatever your checklist is, it's not going to happen unless you buy, unless you build your own house. And I doubt you're going to want to build a sex robot. So everything working out to your standards isn't going to happen. This does sound annoying. So it sounds like you're right. There's something to this where I don't know how many of you can remember something like this. Maybe you're the person, but where if you like music, a kind of music and your roommate recommends, you know, back in my day,

it'd be like, Oh, you got to listen to the CD. I love this guys. And like all of a sudden your buddy becomes the sublime guy because he was the first one that started playing it. And then he wants to be super sublime guy. So he's playing it all the time.

And I'm actually saying this because I had a roommate who came back one summer, our senior year was like going to be sublime guy guy no matter how bad we didn't want it to happen it was just always gonna be on it was gonna be on during the day it was gonna be on during awkward hours because he just wanted it was just known like i i feel like he almost wanted to introduce him as sublime guy to people um and then he'd be like hey what do you think and the thing is you kind of like it right like sublime you know what's what's wrong with with that you know you shouldn't get mad at it but he kind of overdid it that the rest of us are like yeah you know it's all right it's all right and i felt like

i was fighting liking it because i didn't want to agree with his recommendation and his dominating way of putting this music on it right so? So instead of just relaxing and going, yeah, you know what? He's right. This is pretty good. This is fun. A fun listen. It's not my go-to, but it's a good listen.

And I started to just downgrade them and that CD because it was more about the roommate wanting to force it on us, which is weird. All of that's weird. I think that happens a lot. That's not nearly as important as your wife, but my guess would be that there's a lot of stuff about her you really like. You didn't mention anything else negative. Okay. So there's no one out there that is going to like, there's always, you're doing something to her

that you're doing wrong you realize that you made it you probably don't i actually think most of us don't go hey what am i what am i terrible at or even less likely to you know what i'm really bad at you know what's constantly my fault this for whatever reason however we're wired rare is the person that can just sit around and go hey i i gotta own this whether we have problems at work, problems in relationship, it's generally over. It's always somebody else's fault. And you're probably doing something that maybe she doesn't like as much. I'm with you though, man. That's really, really annoying. I would say in the future, and maybe you have to do a serious thing where you could

even do it with a bit of a smile. If you've been together 10 years, you met her, you were younger, and you're still like, just go, hey, look, I want to tell you something and you just hear me out here. And I'm not even mad. I'm not even mad, but you don't want to hear my opinion on anything. And that's okay. So like, I'll go with you, but it's clear that you don't care. Like if I'm recommending a fridge and then you say no to that one, you're just subliming me is all you're doing. I'm pointing at a fridge and it's not the fridge. It's that it was my suggestion because then you just went ahead and picked out the exact same fridge. And so I totally get what she's doing. I completely understand how annoying it is. I would give it one shot at like, I'm not mad. I don't, I don't really even care. I'm just bringing

it up. I'm not asking you to improve upon it. I'm just telling like, don't ask me about the fridges anymore. Okay. Like I, this isn't about not having balls. It isn't because this isn't that big of a deal. This really isn't that big of a deal. If the worst thing is, is that if you suggest a couch or a fridge that she just wants to somehow, she just has probably a little bit more alpha personality where she's saying, Hey, you know, I just want the fridge to be my decision. That's really not that bad. That's really not in the grand scheme of, of being married. And some of these other emails we get, that's not that bad. And that's why I want to do that one. This was a huge week for the ringer. It was a huge week for this podcast. And for me,

I got engaged this week. Now I'm just kidding. Um, it was the draft. So what do we got? Um, I just, I want to thank everybody for subscribing,

getting the word out, keeping all that stuff going. I know it's kind of annoying to hear about it all the time, but, uh, your boy top three episodes in sports right now are, uh, either my shows or me as a guest on other shows. So that felt awesome because of how much I love this draft.

And, you know, at this point, this is the number three podcast in sports. So it's not the coolest thing to brag about being number three. When we know there are two monsters, um, top of the charts every single week.

And those are my closest friends and two of the podcasts I was on this week. So, um, no, uh, obviously we're all competitive and all that kind of stuff, but it just makes me feel good that from the ESPN point to get into this point,

um, looking at episode rankings every single week now for months, um, this podcast has been number three, more than any of the other podcasts in sports. So keep it going. Thank you so much. And we'll talk to you next week. Thank you.