The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Why Do We Lie to Ourselves? Plus, Adnan Virk on Movies and Baseball, and the Rockets' Anthony Lamb.

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Russillo talks about this weird trend in which we lie to ourselves about stories in the sports world (2:30). MLB Network host and new play-by-play guy for the WWE Adnan Virk stops by to talk about wrestling, movies, and baseball (14:15). Then, Rockets player and Vermont alum Anthony Lamb discusses being the first UVM guy in the NBA and trying to make it in the league (47:45). Finally, Ryen closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:02:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, as I've told you, I text every time when I listen, and I thought your pod with Jeff Passon months ago was excellent because you guys really broke down the labor challenges that are ahead. And obviously, I know how well-researched you are, talking about Marvin Miller, and there was a great line you had about, you know, if they said we want six donuts, we somehow argue about, well, wait, what do you mean? They want half the box?

How can we split this up so that one of us wins and one of us loses? It's just been so unfortunately adversarial, but I hope they figure things out. I'll say this last year, everyone was like, ah, dude, seven inning games. You're ruining the sport. That's horrible. Didn't mind it. Two hours and 20 minutes, quick little game. I'm like, okay, I can watch this whole game start to finish extra innings. Run around second. Oh my God. What a horrible idea. You go, you know what? It's kind of exciting. Like I,

I think a lot of baseball people run are generally reluctant and resistant to change until it's your point. You see it. You have to do it. Hey guys, we got COVID. We got to do this guy. All right,

fine. Let's just try it. Like the pitch clock. I was always resistant. I go, Hey, it's the only sport without a clock. That's what makes it timeless.

Now I'm like, you know what? If you put 15 seconds up there, it would speed this sucker up. So I'm glad they're at least trying it in the minor leagues. Today's podcast is going to be a lot of fun. We've got Adnan Virk, who's doing a million things now, but also how do you

get a wrestling gig, a little movie talk, and of course, baseball as well. And then something that's very personal to me, Anthony Lamb, who is now with the Houston Rockets. He played college basketball at the University of Vermont, my school, and he's the first player to ever play there, playing the NBA from UVM. So that's a big deal. So I want to check in with him and check out a guy

on a two-way contract trying to survive in the NBA and open about lies and life advice. I want to start today's podcast with a very simple question. Do you like being lied to? Now, there's different levels of lies, right? We expect to be lied to at work at times. We lie to our parents, which is all part of the deal. And if you have kids, you probably expect that your kids are going to lie to you unless you're totally naive and you probably want to believe them all the time. Maybe the worst one is a spouse. I think even worse than that is when your own parents lie to you, which is really hypocritical because we kind of accept it as part of growing up. But when they do it to us, it stings a lot more. But these are all different levels of lies. There's a lesser level of a lie, though, that I think is almost a problem in my world, and that's covering sports. Because I understand there's all sorts of lies that I'll be told because of how information is valuable,

but it's also the way we'll cover stories sometimes. We'll just straight up lie about stuff. So these maybe aren't lies, but they're just misleading truths that somehow we all like to believe it. I'm going to give you a bunch of examples. Pat Mahomes, best quarterback in the NFL. Yeah, I know he lost to Brady, but I think we all realize that Patrick Mahomes is going to go down as one of the greats of all time, which seems crazy to say already. He's got some work to do on the resume, but from a pure talent standpoint, it makes sense. I don't think that's a ridiculous statement. What's ridiculous is when I'll hear

people saying when they were talking about him leading up to the Super Bowl, hey, you know, basketball was actually his real sport. Okay, wait a minute. Do you realize what you're saying? You realize that you're saying that if Mahomes were actually better at basketball at one point, that he would have to then be the equivalent of what he is in the NFL, in the NBA? That's just not happening. But we will do that with younger, in the NBA. That's just not happening. But we will do that with younger players in high school. Think about the top high school kid. And I've mentioned this at times before, but there'll be some kid, he's great in the football field, he's great on the basketball court. And then an older guy in the stands will lean next to the other guy and he'll tell you, he actually throws a 95. If you want to go and play baseball,

he could. We do that all the time with younger athletes and yet we'll sometimes do it with pro athletes and we go completely unchecked by talking about it so if mahomes is like you know he's such a good athlete his basketball was his real sport if basketball was his real sport you have to be michael jordan in comparison to what he's doing in the nfl we've done it with lebron we know it's going to be a slow news week when it's like hey um lebron could he play in the nfl that's the graphic it's going to be a slow news week when it's like, hey, LeBron, could he play in the NFL? That's the graphic. That's going to be our second topic on the show today. I'd be like, okay, so you guys have no content because LeBron, about a year or so ago, said back in 2011 when there was an NBA lockout that the Seahawks and Cowboys invited him in to

try out. And LeBron, without any being checked at all, was like, yeah, I was going to make the Cowboys. And then people will go, how good would he have been? Like, wait, isn't there a part in between where we're not a hundred percent sure? I know he was a great player in high school. I also know the version of the NBA. LeBron doesn't seem to like contact all that much. Although that may be the more theatrical version of the NBA. And if you were in the NFL, then he would realize he had to deal with all that stuff. But you just say, yeah, I would have made the Cowboys and like played and been good. I know he's an incredible athlete, but I don't know. Are we sure about that? One of my favorite ones is Russell Wilson, who, as we know, also played baseball. And he was in the Rule 5

draft. And then people were wondering, hey, you know what? That's going to be great leverage for him in a contract if he wants to really stick it to the Seahawks. Or he hit.228 across two single-A seasons in the minors. Now, yes, if he kept with it, maybe he would have been better. The on-base, I'll admit, was a little bit better. But the way we would talk about Russell Wilson is if he had this pro baseball career awaiting him, if he just decided he didn't want to play for the Seahawks or wanted to stick it to him on a contract, there were a lot of assumptions being made against 228 in single A. One of my favorite moments that's basically a lie, but people never want to believe it depending on who you're rooting for, is the Matt Barnes inbound play against Kobe

Bryant in 2010, Magic and Lakers. For years, we saw Matt Barnes go to stick the basketball in Kobe Bryant's face and Kobe didn't flinch. Cold-blooded mama mentality. And then years later, after all of us seeing that going, even if you didn't like Kobe, you go, yeah, that's actually pretty cool. You saw an angle where it's like, oh, it's actually off to the side a little bit. Barnes does admit, yes, I was trying to get him to flinch and he didn't, but the way it was originally played versus having more information, you're like, okay, it's not the same thing. But if you were to suggest that it wasn't the same thing, that just made you a Kobe hater. And you're like, wait, wouldn't you want to know exactly what happened? And in some cases, particularly that one, I don't think people

wanted to know what really happened or didn't want to think there was any other version than just how cool Kobe looked having a ball flicked at his face and him not doing anything. One of my all-time favorite mythological stories is Daisuke Matsuzaka, okay? In 2006, when he was in Japan, he was called the Michael Jordan of baseball in Japan. He was talked about like somebody that should have been in the Marvel Universe. He threw in the 90s, but he didn't need it

because he had a magic pitch called the gyro ball, all right? He was like, you couldn't wait to see what this guy was going to do. And I was invested as well because as a Red Sox fan at the time, I'm like, this is going to be amazing. So they get him for like a hundred million, the posting fee and then his contract. And then he comes over and they're like, look at his face. He's, he's so competitive. He just, his face, there's no change in his face whatsoever. Like now no, actually, he just kind of looks that way all the time, whether he's getting guys out or walking the bases loaded.

And the gyro ball that he never really threw and then said, yeah, I didn't know. And some of it was lost in translation. It didn't work. It didn't work. And yes, you're going to come back at me and look at his 2008 stat line and say he went 18 and three.

I'm telling you, I lived through all of those starts. I can't believe what that stat line shows because that's not who he was. And that's not my eyes lying to me. But yet we, we still had internet in 2006. The internet had been up for years. It'd been working. We were able to access information, but just because this picture existed in 2006 in Japan, we somehow couldn't figure out a better way of understanding who he was. And when he got here, it wasn't that great. Guys are like, dude, where's the gyro ball? Use that one again.

The thing is, there really was no gyro ball. All right. Now, one of my recent ones, and this is, I'm like, all right, let me stretch out here. Make sure we're all going to be okay. The Sarah Fuller Vanderbilt story where she kicked and scored the first woman to ever score a point in a football game for a power five school that is historic it's an awesome moment i'm sure for those of you that have daughters that play sports it's something they could all really be excited about and all those

things are true all those things are great but somehow now if any of us were to go okay but was it also great for the school and publicity for a team that was basically failing this season? Was there a part of a motivation there? Is that also telling the full part of the story and her being SEC special teams player of the week? Is it okay to ask any of these things? And by the way, the answer is actually right now. No,

it's not okay to ask any of those things, but I think those are things that I would want to know about to understand the full scope of the story. Quick. We're still criticize a white guy. Okay. We've got you. This one is hilarious

because I remember going to work at ESPN, doing the radio show that day, and there was this headline that a guy named Jack Taylor, a D3 basketball player, scored 138 points in a college basketball game.

And SportsCenter was losing their minds. And then we all know what happens if LeBron tweets something and people are like, Hey, can we bring in some extra people? Can we, is it okay to okay? Overtime here? Yeah. LeBron tweeted, we're going to have to figure out a way to, you know, just optimize this. He had an opinion on something. So let's make sure we get this out there as much as possible. So people are simply seeing Jack Taylor, 138 points in a basketball game. Oh my God. Oh my God. All these guys are all on it. So then the coverage becomes, this is the biggest thing of the last 24 hours. Let's all talk about it.

I remember immediately going, something's wrong. So I spent about an hour or so researching, going down the wormhole of what Grinnell D3 basketball is. And it's different. And I give credit for being different, but the coach has almost a hockey approach to it where they would substitute out every few minutes, almost like hockey lines. They press the entire game. They'll give up a layup to get the ball back and inbound and shoot a three. And they'll know specifically against certain opponents that are terrible that they'll go, hey, here's a chance where we can have some sort of scoring record. And they were doing this multiple years in a row. Some people hate it. Some people love it for being innovative. I simply wanted to tell the truth of what it is.

Now, scoring 138 points is still impressive, but how did it happen? It happened on 52 of 108 field goal attempts. He went not hardened like, I shouldn't even say that about hardened. I think Westbrook would be one of those examples. You're like, he took 35 shots in a game, in an NBA game. This guy took 108. Apparently, depending on the minutes, he was averaging three shots per minute because the entire game, the whole reason that game tipped off is for this D3 team to figure out a way to see how many points one single player could take the entire time or how many single points the guy could score. It's kind of like when I would take Chris Mullen in NBA Jam, not NBA Jam, excuse me,

NBA Live and go, can I get Mullen to make 33s in a video game? And that was a video game, but this was real. So once you understood it, you were like, hey, and it wasn't like a well actually guy on Twitter. It was, do you want to know the truth? Do you want to know the truth about how a guy scored 138 points or do you just want to hit retweet on, oh my God, emoji, emoji, emoji? Because I think that's our fundamental problem is that it's just more fun to believe that some of these things are happening and the best version, whether that's just we want positive news, we want to hear a good story, even if we know that good story may not be entirely true. And which is also funny because sometimes we love bad stories. We like watching weather news going, how bad could this get? And we're less interested in basic weather. Nobody gets excited about good weather coverage. They're just happy the weather

is good. But we get really excited about bad weather coverage or somebody predicting the end of the economy. If that guy is teased, hey, coming up after the break, somebody who says, sell everything now and get out while you can, now you're a little bit more interested. And those are negative things. But back to sports, whether it's 40 times where no one's ever said after a 40 hey i can't believe i went that fast it's always i actually can go faster which is never true bench pressing guys or the videos that play on social media where it's like oh man put them on skates when almost every time the guy was pushed off we're like yeah i don't know i'm just gonna hit retweet the guy fell down the guy made a basket like yeah the guy threw him to the ground

poor wesley johnson isn't allowed to go out in public anymore okay and he got pushed so it's just something to ask yourself are we just gullible or do we know we're being gullible but we're okay with it because they're just stories that we want to believe that are true good friend adnan verck checking in with us here mlb network what else do we have though we get some big announcements to you lately it's been quite the surprise to hoist upon the public, Ryan. We're at now six jobs and four kids. So that would be one impending divorce the way this is going, but it's been great, dude. Thankfully Cinephile getting a new life at Metal Ark with our old friends,

John Skipper and Dan Levitard. So that's going to be coming soon. And this WWE gig, which I think is the equivalent of me flying off the top rope and surprising everybody. It's been in the rope. Okay. How did, How did that happen? What happened there? Yeah.

So, you know, like the brain trust there, including Nick Khan, you know. Oh, wait. That's how it happened. It's your agent that's running the place. There you go. No other questions necessary, right? Yeah. There we go.

Did he negotiate your podcast deal with Skipper? Did you get like six million then? I wish. I wish. Nick's all WWE, so Matt Olson had to take care of that. Okay. All right. So, yeah, tell me about the wrestling part. Now that we understand how you got the gig, where are you?

I don't ever remember you talking wrestling. Yeah, I mean, listen, when they reached out, they just said, listen, we want to go in a different direction. We want some news, you know, professional sportscaster has, uh, can, can offer that kind of a different perspective. I said, sure. But to your point, Ron, I said, I don't want to be disingenuous. I don't want to be a guy who's telling you I'm watching raw every week or watching SmackDown or locked into this and that. Like I got four kids, as you know, at ESPN, they always had me working. I'm doing baseball tonight, college football, college basketball, Cinephile. So they're like, let's just

see how it goes. I'm like, alright. So I auditioned. Unlike your belief that I had the job right away, I did not. I auditioned for it with a bunch of other people. I flew down early February. They told me, here's a few matches you're calling. I said, okay. I did the homework myself, just as if you were calling Lakers Warriors.

Okay, let me look up. Let's see how Steph Curry's done in those last five games. They told me. Wait, what's the research then? What kind of research goes into this? Because it's not field goal shooting. No, Shayna Baszler was fighting. So I went on ww.com. I looked up Karifuda Klutz.

That's her finishing move. I'm like, all right, here's this, here's that. Here's her backstory. This is the story to look for. I'm like, all right. So to me, I'm like, this is a classic three-act structure, right? Introduce the characters, call the action, put a bow on it. I'm like, all right.

So I did three matches that they gave me. One was a tag team. One was a women's match. One was the Daniel Bryan match. I went and did a couple of interviews. And at one point, one of the guys goes, you know, we love your height. And I started, no, sorry, sorry, sorry. I messed it up.

He goes, we love your look. And I started laughing. I go, well, that's not the same as saying you're a good looking guy. So what does that mean? And they said, just your height. And I said, that's unbelievable. It's that's not the same as saying you're a good looking guy. So what does that mean? And they said, just your height. And I said, that's unbelievable. It's the first time ever someone's complimented me for being 5'8".

Like every single day at ESPN, it was, oh my God, Mark Mulder's so tall, Sutcliffe's tall. I didn't encourage him in his shorts. I'm with Dan Plisak, MLB Network, he's huge. They said, no, no, it's good if you're small because it makes everyone around you bigger. I said, okay, good. So I do the auditions, I go home.

Everyone else is auditioning. Obviously, a few weeks later, verbal offer. I'm like, wow. Then I had to obviously get consent from MLB Network because I'm not losing any of my jobs. They're like, wait, what exactly is happening? And then wants to call Raw. Okay. Let's see what we can do here. As you know, COVID protocols, wait, there's travel involved. There's vaccination. The last two months have been dizzy dizzying to say the least, but somehow, some way credit to MLB network. They're like, all right, Sunday night, he flies Monday. He does raw Tuesday morning, comes back. And the question that the entire audience is asking, when am I going to get throttled? When am I going to get, you know, a chair across the back? Let's be clear. MLB network would not react kindly to me showing up with a bad back because I took a stunner in the ring from Kevin Owens.

So that's probably not going to happen, but I know people would like to see it happen. I think it's part of it. See, now this is fascinating. And by the way, when I talk about the connection for the audience here, and I mean this sincerely, you're more than capable of doing it. I just was like, wait, how did it? And then I was like, oh, how did I not remember what was going on here? But it's not to be dismissive of your abilities because you know that I'm a big fan. But I can't imagine how pissed other wrestling on-air people may be about this.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely to your point. You're going in a different lane, right? And it's interesting. What I found fascinating is how necessarily wrestling fans don't know who I am. Like, I was laughing. There's definitely a cross-section of, oh, my God, like, I'm in a Rosillo. Like, I was laughing at how many, there's definitely a cross section of, Oh my God,

like I'm in a Rosillo. Like I know that guy, like he's great. Or I know that guy from NHL now, Ricky sucks, whatever it is. But there's been a lot of like, who's that guy?

Like what? Like they, cause my understanding is that WWE universe, they're very passionate to what they're watching. They're not focused on me and Galloway and Jesse Palmer doing college football. So I think that I don't, that might be good. No. That might be good.

That might be good. Right. It can go one of two ways. Either it goes, no, he's a fresh, different voice. Didn't know who he was. It's different. Or man, this guy sucks. I don't know who he is.

I hope he goes back to where he came from. Nah, you're going to be great. I mean, your softball, celebrity softball calls alone, that actually now was planting the seed for this. Because now that I think about those calls, you were born to do this. Eddie Perez texted me and was tongue in cheek saying, I'm sure it's because of this.

And I said, I'm not kidding, Eddie. I think that helped. I'm with you. I think, hey, flair for the dramatic, embellish the action, be over the top while being somewhat grounded. You know what I mean? You're right.

They have to be, I mean, I couldn't imagine certain people we know as play-by-play guys doing this. You know what I mean? You're right. They have to be. I mean, I couldn't imagine certain people we know as play-by-play guys doing this. You know what I mean? It's a different animal entirely. Dan Schulman. I mean, picture Dan Schulman. I'm like, wait, what just happened?

Did Jonathan Coachman reach out to congratulate you? No, I have not heard from Coach. Grish did text me. Um, like I said, I was only allowed to tell five people. So my wife, my eldest son, my parents, my brother, that's it. I auditioned early February, got the job. Obviously had to get consent from MLB. It was probably wrapped up around late March.

And then I flew down under the cover of darkness in the, you know, my fedora and trench coat to WrestleMania Saturday. And then somebody, I think some reports came out Saturday. So at that point, some people were texting, oh, wait, are you kidding? Is this true? And I'd been told, listen, you don't respond to anybody. Like until Monday at 10 a.m. hits, you're nothing.

I don't care who it is. So I had at least 20 text messages and Christian was among those, was like, wait, is this true? And I'm like, well, as you would know, if everyone's texting, Rosillo, is this true? And then they don't hear from Rosillo, well then I think that's a pretty clear giveaway.

If Ryan's my friend that would normally text me, unless he's been, Ursula, is this true? And then they don't hear from Ursula. Well, then I think that's a pretty clear giveaway. If Ryan's my friend, it would normally text me, unless he's been abducted, this is probably going to be true. He can't say anything right now. So I think people figured it out. So there's a rule you can only tell five people? I don't know if that was an official rule. That was just something they were like,

hey, let's just keep this as quiet as possible. That was not actually written and signed by me, but yeah. Huh. All right. Well, I'm happy for you, i mean i just i needed to know the full scope of the whole thing because i did want to talk a little baseball too no of course i was like i trust me i was thinking you were thinking all my friends i'm like i just wish i could see the reactions of all these people like what was rossillo chas palmintero no there's there's no yeah there's no point of like what the hell is he doing that's stupid it's an unbelievable brand

so i never want to sound that way i just think that it's for it's it's always one of those things with wrestling where i think people that are super into it are surprised that people that are and the people that are into it are surprised by the people that are super into it right so you're always kind of like wait you know like know, like Simmons is a huge, huge wrestling fan. Like he goes to it. I'm not, I'm not down on it. I just don't have time. Like it's just not look in my time of all the stuff that I have to do. Right. It's just not going to happen. Now, while I check out raw because you're doing it. Yeah. And you're going to be, you're going to be level 11 out of 10 energy. And that alone, it's a great hire. It's a great hire it's a great hire and i'm happy for you oh thanks

years ago you and i said this we were talking about any opportunities you go hey man it's best case worst case like worst case i do this and i'm an utter and colossal failure and like you know the rest of the audience hates me everyone's like this guy's brutal that might work though but that might actually be fun like hey dude like we're still chapter seven in the book look at these stories i got people yelled at me they threw stuff at me like, Oh, it was great. And then best case is who knows where this goes. Maybe I'm in a video game one day. And I I'll tell you this, this is a true story. I thought of this, you know, Affleck took a lot of heat for playing Batman and he's told the story. He goes, dude, at the very least, I went to my son's

birthday party dressed as Batman and no one can take that away from me. And I thought with four kids, I don't know how much they care about me being with my other jobs, but they're like, hey, I was ringside at WrestleMania and my dad called the action. That's kind of cool. That's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. I actually like your excuse better than Ben Affleck's

because, I mean, he couldn't dress as Batman. So we're way tougher though on, that'd be a good debate. Are we tougher on actors that bomb than, than pro athletes that have a down year? I think we are tougher on the celebrities. Yeah. I can guess like our man Cerruti, I'm sure is listening right now. He's crushing De Niro for all the bad movies he's made. I'm like, listen, De Niro's answer is always great.

He goes, I'm just glad people liked some of the movies that I've made. Right. Like rather than focus on the bad, like, I'm just glad someone thinks that I'm worthy of even being talked about. So I think for athletes, you go, ah, 60 game season, Lindor was a bit banged up, wasn't sure about his contract status. Whereas actors, you go, dude, what was Matt Damon thinking? The Great Wall? Like, what are you doing?

That's awful. The Great Wall was a tough watch. I mean, that one, that one, I watched it going like, what are we talking about here? And then there was all sorts of issues with how it was cast in the first place. But let's bring Cerruti in here because this is one of those disconnects where despite how much I love the guy, he would just roll your eyes when he left the room with his De Niro take. So why don't you just update everybody on that and let you guys have at it for a bit here.

Hi, Steve. Welcome back welcome back buddy good to see you riding together thank you you know so i'm back on de niro because i actually enjoyed the irishman probably more than i think the average person did because everyone i think everybody trashed it for being too long i kind of liked it so yeah he had a pretty like what was it bad what was what was the bad dirty grandpa like probably a mistake but you know what i'm sure the check still cash so good for him i'm'm not going to watch that. And I feel like I'm allowed to judge him. It was a terrible movie.

I don't know why he did that. But he's Robert De Niro, so he can do what he wants. So I understand. He's like, who the hell am I? And some nobody telling him what movies he can't make and not make. So here it is. I like it. Good take there from Shruti.

I remember Stan's point was Shruti's never seen Taxi Driver. If you've seen the great ones, then you can appreciate it. But I think actually it's kind of what Shruti's saying. You view him in a certain lofty status. Like, dude, this guy's so great great why are you doing this but maybe maybe that makes him appeal to the average man i'm not above doing dirty grandpa with zach efron wouldn't be my choice but hey shout out to you dude uh this is this is funny because whenever you know this is why the worst dude ever segment started because

you would, you would mention something, be like, Hey, my uncle won the lottery. And he'd be like, yeah, but state tax, like, come on. And you just feel like, so like De Niro, you'd be like, De Niro is one of the great 600,000 after the taxes. I'm like, okay, sorry. Yep. Sucks. Actually, I wish I lost De Niro, you know know has this unbelievable resume and then the guy would be like dirty grandpa you know and you're like okay but what what's what is that what is that supposed to have like what is am i supposed to not like matt damon when i liked him in all of this stuff because of a bad movie am i like who's winning is anyone winning the argument with that are you just being an asshole but And so whenever I,

it wasn't just like, you know, we had a grudge match, probably a mess. Um, the intern, like the intern, I didn't,

I watched over the shoulder of someone with no audio. And I got to tell you, just from what I saw on a flight, it looks better. It looks better than I thought. A hundred percent. I'm back. It's better than you think,

Rudy. I think if you're like, you know, 40 plus date movie, there's actually some nice moments in there. Ending's a little tough. If you don't have the sound on, you're not actually watching the movie. It's not that bad.

It looked good. It looked better than I thought. And I didn't even hear it. Anne Hathaway. Ryan's a sucker for her, maybe. It's funny because sometimes I love her in other movies and then she bums me out in interstellar like i find her difficult because i'm also like wait so you're willing to risk the

future of mankind over a fucking crush well that brings us to our boy chris for nolan so i mean i think a tenant i think it's really right away because i know it's really all in on nolan and ryan oh you're a big fan ryan i've not heard your take i know she already texted me she already very kindly listened to cinephagus okay i heard you're a big fan. Ryan, I've not heard your take. I know she already texted me. She already very kindly listened to Cinefog. I was like, okay, I heard you're a lukewarm on it. I hear you. I'm going to watch it though. She already, I know you liked it. Ryan, your thoughts. Okay. Nolan is at a point now where it's Radiohead. All right. Radiohead can plug in and people are going, uh, and I'm one of those people be like, you know, you don't get it and be like, all they did was plug their instruments in and be like, yeah, but they the way they did it. Nolan is hypnotizing because of the shots, because of the music.

When the boats are going backwards and it's that music, you're like, I'm in. I'm so in the zone right now. Nolan, the way it starts, the amphitheater location, the whole deal. the amphitheater, location, the whole deal. I thought it was a really cool, ambitious idea to have different timelines fighting with each other. It's fucking hard to follow, man. It's just really hard to follow. Anytime someone says,

we're going to watch it three times, doesn't make sense. I go, no, no, that's not a good reason to do it. If you read Hemingway's Farewell to Arms three times, it's great. No, no, you have to read it once and it has to be great. I agree with that point.

So, Rudy? See, I kind of appreciate and listen, this is me being a known apologist, but I appreciate that I would want to watch that movie a second and third time to pick up on stuff that I didn't see the first time. I think that's a cool aspect of a movie.

Like, yeah, it's great if you watch a movie one time. It's like, OK, it was good, but I'm never going to watch it again, which is me with like 99% of movies. But the fact that Tenet, you can pick up on different things like the 10th time you watch it i think that's pretty freaking awesome did you get did you get dunkirk the first time did you understand the full timeline of dunkirk when you first watched it i did i love

dunkirk we just restarted together yeah yeah right that's right no ryan did you like dunkirk love dunkirk yeah and when people were like oh there was no story and you go hey yeah that's not the point the anxiety at the beginning with the flyers falling from the sky all the Tom Hardy stuff is incredible you know what's funny now that I think

about it you're like Killian Murphy in Peaky Blinders where I didn't know that he was only five, seven. So this was something we've been talking about on the podcast recently where I felt like I might not watch it anymore, but short bias killing Murphy can't possibly be intimidating because he's five,

seven. Right. Well, I'm sorry. I just can't, it doesn't, it doesn't work anymore for me, even though he's incredible.

Cause I think he's, he's unbelievably underrated. Like, I don't know why, I guess I can understand why he's not DiCaprio, but I think he should be closer to DiCaprio than he is to Fred Durst. I don't know. So anyway.

Love Limp Bizkit. Go ahead. Yeah, right, right. No, all right. So I've lost my train of thought here, but as you were talking about the height in the casting, I go, you know, that's why Peaky Blinders is going to be tough. But it goes back to the whole point of this entire ridiculous business, which is it's always subjective,

right? Someone goes, oh, he's too short. Maybe he's too tall. Oh, he's too fat. He's too bald. Whatever it is. They just go, that's the look that we're looking for. You go, okay, somehow that's how it works. 90% of movies sometimes is casting. You'll watch a film and go, I just can't buy this guy in this role. As long as it goes the other way, you go, I don't think his acting was great, but man, Anthony Hopkins does look like a creepy mofo. Hannibal Lecter just works because of his eyes, his voice, whatever it is. All right, so give me the worst casting that you can think of off the top of your head.

Well, Sofia Coppola, Godfather III is the all-timer. I mean, the story behind that, this is, you once told me your favorite serious movie is Godfather II. So think about how incredible that film is, widely regarded one of the greatest films of all time. 16 years later, Coppola needs money. He's like,

man, I'm struggling right now. American Zoetrope is not working with a production company. Paramount's like, we got that cash gal, the Godfather. Let's do one of those. He's like,

all right, I need the money. Let's do it. Let's get a script going. Mary, you ready? Okay. Mary Apuzza's in.

Al, you want to do it? Al will do it for the money. Al, how much do I get? Five million? Great. Al's in.

Cool. Duvall, we'll give you one and a half. Duvall's like, what? How much is Al getting? Al's getting five. No,

I'm getting five. No, no, you're not getting five. You're Tom Hagen. No, no, I'm getting five. One and a half. I'll do it for four and a half. one and a half. Duvall's like, what? How much is Al getting? Al's getting five. No, I'm getting five. No, no, you're not getting five. You're Tom Hagen. No, no, I'm getting five. One and a half. I'll do it for four and a half.

One and a half. Duvall, see you later. I ain't doing it then. Good luck to your movie. Okay, let's do what else we can do. How about George Hamilton? George Hamilton's in this movie? Okay.

Winona Ryder's going to be the daughter. Not bad. Winona Ryder's a good actress. Absolutely. Who didn't love Edward Scissorhands? Cool. Now she drops out. Frances goes, I'll get my daughter wait what you're

gonna put your daughter in the godfather three does she have any acting experience no but she's great we'll put her with al and diane keaton and talia shark francis are you sure about this buddy it's a movie about family it's about tragedy about the mob i'm italian-american i know it's great i watched the the re-edited version which copeland did and i remember the time thinking i was 12 years old, I saw it. I go, I don't know why people hate this movie that much. Like, it's not great. It's not God for the One, God for the Two,

but like, it still has its moments. A lot of opera in it. Love the ending. Pacino's, you know, grief at killing his brother. I watched it again now. Sofia Coppola making dough with Andy Garcia. Every line reading is off. That's Hall of Fame of the worst casting ever

is Sofia Coppola. So I bought the three movie VHS pack when it came out because I wanted, I wanted, yes, two tapes for number three there. But I wanted, I wanted, you know,

one and two on ready to go whenever I wanted because that's how much I love two. Right. And I never watched three. Never watched it. I had the movie, the VHS. I had it in my early to late 20s until I got rid of them.

And then I probably, I think I bought them all again for whatever it was for streaming. I've never watched three start to finish. I saw the Sofia scene with Andy Garcia, and Andy's perfectly cast in it. I think every time he's in a movie, I'm like, oh man, Andy Garcia, every time it just sort of works.

I don't know what it is with him. How about the best scene is him and Joey Zaza, Joe Mantegna. But I never made it through the whole movie. I never made it through it. I've never watched three. Two's my favorite movie ever. I've never made it through three.

That's like saying the two towers, my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, I didn't get around to Return of the King. I've never made it through three. That's like saying the Two Towers is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie. I didn't get around to Return of the King. I just couldn't get through it. But you just said Two Towers is your favorite. That's what an indictment, Godfather 3, how it's impacted you, its reputation. That's incredible to me. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what else I have to say

here on this. What other movie takes should we get out there just before we go any baseball here? Well, the Oscars are coming up and I know people are saying, well, I haven't seen this movie. So maybe you and Sruti can help me figure this out.

So everyone complains. They go, I don't like going to the movies. I'd rather just be at home. Okay. Like, Virk, you're a weirdo. You actually still like going to movies. Okay, cool. So I would rather just stream.

Well, all these films are available on streaming. Nomadland, Trial of the Chicago 7. They're all available for you. Sound of Metal, which is my favorite film of the year. And yet the ratings have been down for the SAGs, for the Golden Globes. Everyone's like, oh man, I haven't seen these movies. But they're all available at your disposal. So help me figure this out. No one's going to watch the Oscars

because no one went to the movies, but everyone complains about going to the movies anyways. And all the movies are available for streaming. What am I missing here? Yeah, that doesn't seem to make a ton of sense. I think it's probably just the complication of people not understanding what they have. Like I'll see a screen whenever my TV goes to like rest mode, I'll see the HBO max thing come up and then all the things that I can have. And I'm like, do I have that? And then I don't even know. I don't even know. So if I'm, and I'd like to think I'm not an invalid, I'd like to think that I was able to figure out some of this stuff an invalid i'd like to think that i was able to figure out some of this stuff that if i'm going and i'm not even sure if i have access to that or not or when i saw cherry was available on itunes and i went oh okay you know maybe i'll check this out i don't love miss

spider-man i think they've i think they've muted spider-man in a way that like i don't know like next is the next spider-man he's gonna be to be eight. You know, I'm not sure. Just just curious. But I haven't watched that because I bought the novel because I was like, you know what? I'm going to check out the novel before it and I'm going to read it and then I'll check out this movie

because it's supposed to be, you know, whatever. But I think it's I think it's just an understanding of what people don't realize they have access to more so than just a refusal to watch stuff. But the ratings are terrible.

Oh, I mean, the Golden Globes when they got ratings down 68%. It was so bad, the SAGs, which is the Screen Actors Guild, go, you know what, let's go from two hours to one hour, and we'll pre-tape everything. We talk about just cutting your losses. Imagine the Super Bowl, they go, you know what, no one watched the World Series.

Let's just go with a three-quarter Super Bowl. Let's just make it a little quicker. And we'll do it on Thursday, we'll just air it Sunday. Like, they talk about a colossal decision. Even the Grammys, which one goes, you know what? Grammys are pretty good. They're outside two sets ratings down 40%. So I will of course be watching the Oscars.

I'll of course be tweeting those cinephile locked in. And I understand when people go, what's going to win, but I'll tell you right now, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, have seen it. It was my favorite film of the year. Riz Ahmed playing a heavy metal drummer who suddenly goes deaf, and I think it's an incredible film. I think you guys will like it a lot. Yeah. Well, that's in the first, you know, 10 minutes or so. I believe, I'm not sure. I think I'm on the Ringer podcast. Fantasy must like it. I think Fantasy probably is awesome. No, I know what it is. I'm messing with you on the spoiler. That's basically the movie.

That's correct. That's in the first 10 minutes. I watched the trailer for it and I knew it was the kind of thing where I go, I've got to be locked in to watch this. I can't throw it on as you're going to bed.

One of those deals, like give yourself the time to do it because the audio tricks that they played in the movie too to mimic him going deaf was really impressive. Oh my God. From a technical level,

I hope it wins for best sound and sound effects editing and all those kinds of nerdy categories because they're leveled to detail and attention. It's not just Riz going in meeting with hearing impaired people, learning sign language, learning to play the drums. As you said, they had microphones all over the place, just even like on his heart to register the heartbeat. How do you listen if you can only listen 20%? High frequencies, different pitches. It's remarkable work on that level. Baseball. I know Sir Rudy's

like, okay, I'm out. See you guys. Bye, Steve. Are the Red Sox good? Well, it's amazing. To name drop, my boy Alex Cora called me the other day because he's excited about WWE. And I said, well, you're going to give me some baseball. What's going on here, man?

You guys started 0-3. First terrible, like worst home start at the Red Sox at Fenway since whatever, 1948, 71 years. And he's like, bro, we're good, man. And he told me, like, okay, what else are you going to say? You're going to tell me you're not good? But he was confident all along. And listen, in that division, the Jays, I don't need to tell you,

Bushman's already texting you, not great so far. This pitching's a little concerning. Hopefully, we'll get Springer back soon. The Yankees are a 500 team. I think the Red Sox are better than expected. I remember a year ago, my biggest thing, Ryan, was like, what happened to Devers? What happened to Bogers? What happened to J.D. Martinez? I know their pitching

is not great. We all know that, but they'll be able to score enough runs. That went away last year. This year, that appears to be back. I think that's why Boston, at least right now, is actually surprising people. The lineup should be fine. Last year, I think is a colossal waste of time to put too much

into it. Clearly, the Red Sox didn't care enough to do anything, ownership-wise. They're like, yeah, whatever. If this is what it's going to be, we don't care. I still don't think the rotation is going to be deep enough. If you're relying on rodriguez is a nice pitcher but he's a three and a good staff and if he's your opening day guy that's a problem of all we know who of all he is like we know so i don't want to spend a ton of time on that other than when they when they started on three it i felt

like that was a better indicator of who they were than winning seven straight now and being the hottest team in baseball. And now everybody telling me like the amount of Red Sox fans that were like off of last year. And I don't know that ownership understands how anti-Red Sox fans are now this ownership group. And then the start of the season going, you know, get these, sell the team, get these guys out of here to now like, Hey, you know what? This team's got some heart. You're like,

well, I don't know if they have enough arms. All right. I don't want to spend more time on them of the teams that could have, they could win it this year. How deep is that list for you? All right. Dodgers are not into they're great.

I think the Padres are great. Hopefully Tatis comes back. Obviously that was a real blow for a guy who I think would be the best crossover star since King Griffey Jr. I think the Yankees can win it all. I think that the White Sox could win it all. Okay, but what's up with the White Sox right now? Because that has not gone according to...

Again, I mean, it's a 10-game stretch. At any point in the season, you're going to go 5-5 over a 10-game stretch. Right. But they're last in a division that's usually pretty bad and not very deep. Yeah, I think with them, it's a little bit interesting. It's more of a... Listen, I was concerned about Tony La Russa being the manager because I was like,

listen, man, like I know you're a legend and three-time World Series champion, but like you've got horses here. You should be loaded. Like Liam Hendricks is a closer I love. Their offense is ridiculous, Ron.

When you go up and down, you go, all right, Abreu, you want an MVP. Tim Anderson's a former batting champion. You want Mankata can rake. Luis Roberts is going to be a stud. Pitching-wise,

Gilito seems to have figured it out last couple of seasons. So I think their pitching just isn't there just yet. I think Roberts is going to be a stud. Pitching-wise, Gilito seems to have figured it out last couple of seasons. So I think their pitching just isn't there just yet. I think they're going to be fine. To me, I was like, I like them clear-cut to win the Central. Twins, I think, can bash. They'll still be in the mix, but I do think Chicago will be all right. Okay. What about the Mets? I mean, the DeGrom thing continues to happen, which is almost to the point now where people are just sort of laughing about what he does and how often they can't get him to win. They're in first at four and seven.

Actually, the more you look at it, too, there's only a couple outlier teams that are beyond. The whole league feels like they're a game or two below or above 500. I was about to say, the level of parity is ridiculous. Yankees and Jays, five and six. Cardinals, who I think are the best team in the Central, they're six and five. Cubs, oh, they're going to have a rough year. They're five and six. Brewers, six and five. So it's a lot of parity right now. Giants are a bit of a surprise. They're 6-5. Cubs, oh, they're going to have a rough year. They're 5-6. Brewers, 6-5. So it's a lot

of parity right now. Giants are a bit of a surprise. They're at 7-4. The Padres, like I said, they'd be good. They're 8-4. So I think there hasn't been too many shocks. One team I'm actually genuinely surprised by, the Braves are 4-7. And there's another team that I think could win the World Series. I mean, I think they're the third best team in the National League. Arguably second.

Obviously, went to the NLCS last year against the Dodgers. I'm a little bit surprised the Braves have been slow out of the gate, but I think they'll figure it out. I just love Acuna, Freeman, the whole team. Okay, so who's your favorite player now, right now to watch? Tatis. He's unbelievable. And that's why that injury was so catastrophic. You go, man, this guy's got so much flash, charisma, exuberance.

I was at the pleasure of doing this Padres 30 and 30. We do 30 clubs in 30 days, interviewed him. Like just his smile alone is so magnetic. It's hard not to root for the guy. And then you see the first few games, you know, I sent 167. He already made four errors. He made like one error all of last year. I'm like, okay, maybe he's pressing a little bit. That happens. And then you see that injury and you go, oh my gosh, shoulder pops out. Like they use that term subluxation. I'm like, okay, that just means his shoulder popped out and i thought ryan this could be six months like are you kidding the podgers just gave this guy 340 million dollars for 14 years he's done like that on a swing but thankfully they're hoping

with resting relaxation he'll be back but like i said i just think he has crossover appeal because he can do all that stuff and and he's he's flashy you know i mean flash sells baseball needs stars like that who are young and homegrown and clearly have a lot of panache. So, Tatis is the guy. I've got the MLB Extra Innings package. I'm always watching Padres games. And I love your boy, Don Ursillo. So, him and Mark Grant, always a great listen for Padres games. Yeah, no. Big Don Ursillo

fan over here as well. Okay, so let me end it with this. And I don't want to turn this into, hey, it's July. We're filling out a mic and mic. Let's fix baseball show. We do have a few memorable shows there together. It should be Mike let's fix baseball show but the replay shows there together should be noted yeah right but the replay thing which I've said now for years and it seems like people are

finally coming around being like if we put all this into fixed stuff and it doesn't get fixed and why are we doing it yeah and you know all the things that they're trying what is the New York Penn League the Atlantic League they've been trying different stuff um trying to figure out different ways to do it theo epstein has now talked about it as he's moved on

from the cubs um i feel like this is kind of one of those unfortunate things i feel like it's recycling like one day there's going to be a bill come and do to the planet where you're like you know we should have done a better job of dealing with our garbage and no one's going to care until your water's brown out of the pipes all right and no one's going to care until your water's brown out of the pipes. All right. And that that's, I don't know if it'll ever happen. It's not going to happen in our lifetime, but that's kind of how I feel like how people feel about, um, anything that has to do with just environmental law. Uh, and I, and I'm not saying like, I'm, I'm over here, you know, protesting and stuff, but I just think like, you know, everybody that's super into the environment, I'm with

you, I'm on your side, but no one's going to care until they have to care. That's just kind of the way people are. And I think there's a correlation to there with baseball, where baseball players are still getting paid, getting these contracts and they just fight anything that's proposed at all. So I just don't know if baseball will ever get on the same page in time for them to fix the momentum of the lack of action, the length of games, all these things that they want to do that just don't seem to be working. And it's not an overnight fix. Yeah. As I've told you, I text every time when I listen and I thought your pod with Jeff

Passon months ago was excellent because you guys really broke down, you know, the labor challenges that are ahead. And obviously I know how well researched you are talking about Marvin Miller. And that was a great line you had about, you know, if they said we want six donuts, we somehow argue about, well, wait, what do you mean? They want half the box. Like how can we split this up so that one of us wins and one of us loses. It's just been so unfortunately adversarial, but I hope they figure things out. I'll say this last year, everyone was like,

ah, dude, seven inning games. You're ruining the score. That's horrible. Didn't mind it. Two hours and 20 minutes, quick little game. I'm like, okay, I can watch this whole game start to finish extra innings. Run around second. Oh my God. What a horrible idea. You know what? It's kind of exciting. Like I think a lot of baseball people run are generally reluctant and resistant to change until it's your point. You see it. You have to do it. Hey guys, we got COVID. We got to do this. All right, fine.

Let's just try it. Like the pitch clock, I was always resistant. I go, hey, it's the only sport without a clock. That's what makes it timeless. Now I'm like, you know what? If you put 15 seconds up there, it would speed this sucker up. So I'm glad they're at least trying it in the minor leagues. Yeah, and then the pitchers will always tell you, hey, it's the hitters. And until I just figured out, great, this is another pitcher arguing about the hitters.

It's like everybody, too. It's the same thing in the NFL where they have rule changes. Hey, this is good. Well, who does it help? Well, it helps the offense.

All right. Well, it's not a good rule. It's the same thing with pitchers and hitters, but pitchers will tell you. And if you watch baseball from this way, the hitters don't get in the box quick enough. And then they get out and,

yeah, I get it. Playoff moment, guy on second, two outs, Bronx, bottom of the seventh. Let me step out, reset, you know, think about the pitch sequence here.

But I don't need that April 30th. I don't. I don't need it April 30th in the third inning in Kansas City. I don't need somebody going in there, but then they'll say, hey, that's my routine and that's how I get comfortable and that's how I go about doing it. So it's going to be very hard to ever have the personal and player sacrifice for the greater good of the game. And, you know, sometimes I wonder if it's, it's, is it a fixable product or should it always be looked at as a product now that is great regionally still and has its moments in October that I've argued this for baseball on their behalf.

The moments this sport has had in the last decade in October are unbelievable. The drama part of it, but kind of like my new F1 passion. I didn't care about F1 until I knew the storylines. So baseball should be trying to find a way to give us access to storylines. So then now people will want to see results based on a more of a emotional connection to the players than just a bunch of guys out there. But, you know, again, these are all bigger things. Sell the stars and sell the storylines. It's absolutely key.

And before my computer is about to die because I didn't plug it in, I did want to mention, because MLB actually hired a former WWE executive to help grow the brand. So to your point, what's WWE? We're bringing this full circle here. Wrestling, right? Storylines.

Major League Baseball hired Brian Stedman, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Development. He's going to report to the MLB Chief Operations. Going to work on media, ticketing, international. So who knows? Maybe we'll see Giancarlo Stanton at WrestleMania. I knew we'd get back to some way to promote something. So I was just going to let you do it.

I was going to see how we got there. So I appreciate it. Check out Cinephile on Metal Arc Media. Obviously, WWE, MLB Network, NHL Network, The Zone. I'm doing my NFL draft coverage. The podcast you love, The GM Shuffle, me and Michael Lombardi. And congrats on all your success, Ryan. I loved Costas.

I texted you. I texted Cerruti. Cerruti goes, oh yeah, Ryan loves JBL. I go, I couldn't care less. I just saw Costas, so I just listened to the 55-minute mark. So whoever does that, that's Cerruti. That is good work out of you. Give me the exact time. I don't have an hour 40, but 55 minutes. I thought Costas was amazing. And I loved your interview with Craig Kilbourn. I got guys

here in Hohokas, my local Jersey people are like, hey, tell Russillo. We listened to Bob. They loved Kilbourn. He was great. Yeah, Kilbourn's a really... He's much like his food taste and acquired... You have to have a certain palate to vibe with it.

And I think he's great. I love him. I love him, but we don't want to overdo it with Kilborn. We don't want to overdo it with Craig because he's a treasure and we don't want to. The Instagram is hysterical. It's so good.

Yeah. Thanks buddy. Thanks Ryan. Good to catch up. Joining us now. He is a member of the Houston Rockets, but more importantly, for those that know that I went to the University of Vermont, Anthony Lamb, now with the Rockets,

is the first player from UVM's basketball program in the 107-year history of the program to play in the NBA. So Anthony's with us now. What does it mean to you when you hear that? Yeah, it's sort of surreal. I'm just very grateful for all my time at Vermont and all the good people I met. And I think that's what makes it actually important to me. I just met so many good people, so many people that cared about the program,

cared about us as players and that looked out for me during my time there. That's what really makes it like, dang, it's pretty cool to be the first guy to go to the NBA and sort of represent for for vermont at the next level and like the biggest thing for me is like i've seen how good the people are so hopefully that can attract more attention for uvm and allow better players and better caliber people to come so hopefully we'll i won't be the last you know i'd be a player to go do any of your teammates in the rockets know where you played in college? I've asked many people, many people ask me,

they're like, so where'd you go to school? I'd be like, Vermont. They'd be like, where's Vermont at? And I'd be like, right next to New York. I've taught a lot of geography to a lot of people recently, so.

Yeah, I remember I was, the Vermont thing is always weird when you go around the country because you'll, I remember I was hanging out with a girl in the South and she's like, who's from Vermont? Who lives in Vermont? Again, I don't feel like I'm from Vermont, but Vermont will claim you.

I know, I feel like I'm from Massachusetts. I remember her saying something like Vermont's like Arkansas. So I imagine at times it's still kind of funny for you explaining that to people. Yeah, I think the best one is when people ask me, like, what's your mascot? And then I have to explain to them what a catamount is. And it's like, I've never really seen one, so I can only tell you it's like a mountain lion. But I can't really tell you the difference, I guess.

But those are always the fun ones because then they get in trouble, like, what is that? Like, what's going on here? So your accolades are two-time america east player of the year rookie of the year um we know last year was challenging but what was it like you know i talked to a couple teams about you prior to the draft saying all right two teams i know had you in the top 60 which would have been a draft pick but you don't get drafted so what was that like knowing okay i'm not getting drafted yeah it was really the covid stuff was just really

hard to like end in our season and just having like we were right about to be in the championship game again opportunity to go to the tournament hopefully improve my draft stock win games and stuff like that so not having that i think hurt me and also not having the ability to actually work out in front of teams i think that like hurt me as well but once i once i saw how it was going i i understood i sort of understood the process and saying like okay not a lot of people even know what vermont is so like i'm probably gonna lose lose traction and things like that so the biggest focus is just trying to work and

and get better and improve over that time and really just keep my head down and keep grounded and that's really what it's it's all about for me i'm not really big on like i guess the pub it's just trying to work and a lot more work to speak for for itself really so I just kept that mindset through the process and try to pick up as much as long away as I could from the people I was able to work with and and get better from you know can you make it to the NBA you have that first game against the Kings and what are the things that will come to you as you think about it and remember okay the first time i stepped on an nba court for real yeah i see it's probably different than a lot of other people because there's no fans so

like i was in i was in sack and there's just nobody in the arena so i was just i i the biggest thing i remember is uh coach silas he just is a lamb a lamb he looks at me i'm like me and i'm like all right so So I get up. It takes like when you have all your warm-up stuff on, it feels like it takes forever to just take it all off and get up to the scoreboard. But it definitely was a cool moment just being able to sub in and like matching up against Harrison Barnes and just being able to play against them. It's just crazy.

And it's definitely something I'll remember for the rest of my life. I can't imagine how tight you would be on like your first outside shot or maybe even anything close you might just be like let me get let me run up and down here a little bit before i start letting it fly yeah definitely the first one is it's it's a tough one to come off the bench and have to get that first one over nobody really you don't really know it until you have to do it like how tough it is like from going from starting to coming off the bench is like a completely different like mindset and mode you have to go into and being ready for just the small little time that you get you know so like coming and coming off the first one i got the first one i was like thank goodness it would look good you know and the second one went in so

i was like all right all right we got a little something going here. When was the last time you came off the bench? Yeah, it was probably like, it was actually ninth grade. Ninth grade was like the last time I came off the bench. It's definitely been a minute. It's definitely been a minute. It's a different experience, but it's a learning experience. You're on a two-way contract, so you're fighting for your NBA life here. But there's also a part of it, granted, with everything that's going on it's been different but what's the off the court experience been like um it's

there's a lot of traveling I would say that's the biggest biggest adjustment is like we've been on the road and like when you go on the road you don't realize like how like you can fly out at any time basically you can fly out midday or they can have you flying out right after the game and won't get to the next place to like three in the morning and and that's like such a big adjustment like vermont might maybe maybe you'll fly out at 11 and get there get there at one or two or or take the bus and then we'll get there at three but uh it's definitely different just like having a game flying out at three then playing the same day that you you flew out like that's that's a big adjustment and it's something that you you sort of have to get used to and like

you'll definitely feel the first couple games like you'll be trained you'll be a little low out of it but it's how how can you adjust and how can you i guess get back to 100 and still hold yourself professionally hold yourself to a standard and and sort of be ready for anything that you get and then like being a guy that doesn't play, you've got to, not you've got to, but you want to get as many shots up or as much opportunity to get better as you can

because you don't get to practice as much with all the games that we play. We play a game every other day, so it's hard to get reps in. There's no game reps for you, so it's just staying ready and trying to get ready the best you can. Being on a two-way, there has to be times where you don't exactly know what's going on

lack of practice and everything so explain that part yeah i said the biggest thing for me is like i had to really jump into the system so it's like everybody the main guys are there know what's going on they know know the system going on being a rookie and then coming in halfway through was was adjustment and i had to you have to do extra work yourself like if you want to get it and understand what's going on like you have to ask questions and there's not going to be somebody just spoon feeding you things and and trying to get you up to date all the time because they're trying to win games they got things that they got to focus on so uh it's a big accountability on on my end and just saying okay if i want to be ready well who do i ask for the questions how do i find these answers that i need? If you need to know anything, you got to

go out of your way to get it. And I think that's, like, that's, I guess, the working part of, you know, you got to, you got to know what questions to ask, you know, what you're looking for, and what you need to do to get better yourself personally to be successful. Hey, John Wall, at times, has flirted with being one of the best point guards in the league. I'm not ever saying he was the best, but there were times there where he was a really, really good player. And you can see with all the stuff that happened with Harden at the beginning of the year, the uncertainty, the roster turnover. I think there are times where I watch Wall trying to reclaim something, trying to remind everybody and the way he'll talk to other opponents out

there where I can see that he's trying to reclaim whatever he thinks he had at some point. So, you're playing with him now a little bit. So, explain that part of it and learning from Wall

and watching him play as a teammate. Yeah, John's a good guy and he's super talented. Really talented guy and I think this year has just been tough

like with such like a roster turnover. You really don't know like who you're going has just been tough. Like with such like a roster turnover, you really don't know like who you're going to even be able to play with all the time. We had so many guys injured that I think it puts a lot of people in a tough spot. And I think with the, with the turnover and sort of the volatility of the roster,

he's done a great job of, of being a leader and, and figuring out how to, I guess, rebuild with this team. And I think that's the biggest thing everybody has to do is figure out how can we turn this team around and go post-James Harden era to where we're going to next. And I think we've done a good job.

And there's always going to be ups and downs with a developing system. And I think he's doing a good job of helping us balance that out and get us to the next step. But I don't think it's going to be hard for him to prove to people that he's still got it because he can still do a lot of great things. And as a leader, he's helping us along and getting us to where we got to go. And I think everybody just continue. And the more we come together and have a solid roster,

I think it's going to be a lot easier for him to show what he can do and, and allow the other guys to show what they can do too. You know? Okay. Your game is not an easy thing to describe, but they haven't seen you play, right? You're big for the way you play,

but then yet some people would say you're too small. How hard is it for you? Because you know, you you're a selfless player, but you can score, you can face up, you can post, but you can pass. You started from the perimeter a lot with some of the UVM stuff you did. So now that you're trying to figure out

how to be a role player in this league that's so different from the way that you played at UVM, how difficult is that? Yeah, it's definitely a big adjustment. And I won't say it's not tough. There's a lot of things that you have to learn about playing without the ball. If you're the guy at mid-major school or you were the guy that had all the shots or controlled the game, it's such a big adjustment.

And it feels like you're playing a completely different game. And I would say it's challenging in its own ways. I would say your job's's easier you don't have to do everything on the court you only have to do small roles and just be very good at those roles and i think that's still what i'm figuring out and understanding how to do how i can contribute and how to feel like okay i'm not just running up and down here but i'm actually helping our team win and i'd say i'm figuring it out and and that's the step-by-step things, especially when you don't get as many reps. How can you figure it out without having to play?

It's sort of like you have to look at what's available on the court and what is needed, you know? So it's like, okay, if John's controlling the ball, we got people spying on the floor, how can I affect the game but not have to have the ball all the time? How can I make the other but not have to have the ball all the time? How can I make the other guys on my team better? How can I either facilitate or rebound or get loose balls? Whatever it is I got to do to help my team, that's really what the mindset is. I would say

it's tougher with the roster turning over all the time because sometimes you don't know who you're going to play with all the time. But I think I'm figuring it out. But it's definitely a process along the way and understanding what I can do and how I can still help the guys, which I know I can. It's sort of just figuring it out for myself and being able to prove it in the game. Okay, now that you've got a taste of the NBA over the G League, I know this is obvious, but how badly do you want to stay? Once I got a taste of Detroit, I knew this is where I want to be.

I want to be at this level. I want to be playing with these guys. This is the highest level of basketball. It feels so good to be pushed and challenged and being able to compete and see what there is out there for the taking. In the last five days, I've seen Arizona, L.A., and San Francisco. I've never been to any of those places. It's just amazing just to be able to experience this and live this life, but also be able to just play the game I love and get paid for it.

It's just unbelievable. It's an unbelievable experience. I want to do everything I can to stay here and be effective. As I say goodbye to you here, Anthony, I just want you to know this. Look, we don't really know each other. But for the days of when I was there as a student and you'd always wonder like, well, I wonder if anybody will ever play in the NBA from this program. When you came up, I'm talking about thousands of people that you don't know, thousands of people that I don't know, but all the texts that I got, the calls, different people on social media that don't even know me, but know that I'm connected to UVM and that, hey, a UVM guy finally made it to the league. I know how tough this is for you. I know what a grind it is and the uncertainty of all those things.

want you to remind yourself of that in those tough moments that there are thousands of people that take such great pride in you being the first guy and representing the school and reaching something we'd probably never thought was ever going to happen um it just you know again remind yourself of that because what you're doing here is really special and it means a lot to a lot of people that are all rooting for you that don't even know you and just simply know you represent the school so thanks i appreciate that, man, for real. Seriously, it means a lot. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet.

What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. LifeAdvice, rr at gmail.com. Okay, we got a couple here.

People are a little worried about Cerruti's presence getting in the way of Kyle's presence on LifeAdvice, and I'm here to tell you don't worry about it. We'll ask for Cerruti when we need him, but Kyle, don't worry. We're going to be checking in with you all the time. I know Kyle actually Kyle's like, um, I don't get worried about anything. Don't worry about it. Okay. Um, cause this guy does want Kyle's input. 27 live in Denver, six, four, two 46, seven on skates. Okay.

We haven't had that happen before. Pretty imposing, especially since I don't bend my knees when I skate thinning up top a little, but pulling it off. No better than a 7 out of 10 in my day-to-day life, but easily a deadly 9 in a suit. Dated a girl in my friend group for a year. Got pretty toxic towards the end and got dumped about four months ago. Look up ugly breakup in the dictionary and you'll find our breakup. 2 a.m. unannounced drunk arrivals at my house.

Drunk FaceTimes, awkward conversations with friends. I miss you text after sleeping with others. The whole gambit. Anyway, I'm from Park City and yes, I do ski. X and I visited the family in June to meet the parents about seven months into dating. It was the first time I'd ever brought a girl back to meet my family. So significant planning and thought went into the trip. It went great. They liked her. She liked them. Overall, I was very pleased with how it went. Shortly after that, we planned an end of the summer van trip before the fall rolled around. Plan was to rent in Denver, drive through Southern Utah, hit Moab, maybe even the Grand Canyon, drive north and finish up in Park City to say hi to the parents again. We hit a couple rough patches though, and the trip kind of slipped through the cracks. Insert the toxicity.

A few months pass. She doesn't want to try anymore, and I get dumped. Okay, so our man got dumped here, although he sets it up by saying, 2 a.m. unannounced drunk arrivals at my house. Drunk FaceTimes. Those aren't fun. Those aren't a good time. I rented a house out that I used to live in, and a girl showed up drunk,

and the tenants were like, hey, can you just let her or anyone else know you don't live here anymore? I was like, yeah, we can. That seems pretty standard. I'll get the word out. Apologize. Okay. That brings us to now. We haven't chatted in a while. I hear about the other person, meaning her. All right. So often because of some overlapping friend groups. So our man here who got dumped, despite the fact he's pointing, so he hasn't told us about anything that he was doing wrong to get dumped.

I don't know. Right now, we don't know who to blame, right? But there is overlapping stuff. He says he sees stuff on Instagram, Snapchat, et cetera. It turns out she recently started dating a new guy. Don't know him, but here they met skiing. And then he goes, parentheses, I taught her to ski, by the way. No, I'm not bitter. You're clearly making fun of yourself. But the fact that you see her skiing and you're like, I taught her to ski. I'm worried about you here, man. All right. Then I get word

she's in Park City with her new boyfriend in a van on the same path we planned for our road trip. I hear about this because she hit up one of my best friends from high school for recommendations on what to do. She's hung out with my best friend maybe four or five times in her life. Ever heard of Yelp? Anyway, a few days after I hear to post photo dump on Instagram of her adventure. All right. So she did a full-blown, here was the trip I was supposed to take with you. Here's all timeline and Instagram. And so our guy finishes this way. Listen, I get Park City's popular ski town, but there's a hundred ski resorts within days drive from Denver and the only other place this girl has ever been to Park City with my family. So this is the most elaborate plot to get back. Oh, wait. So the question here is,

so is this the most elaborate plot to get back in an ex ever invented or is she just an awful person who didn't think this was weird thanks um i know you're not going to hear this right now man but you don't come off great in it um i don't know why you got dumped if she was the one that was doing some of these things maybe it was just one of those deals where you got dumped because it wasn't working out and then one of the you know maybe but it doesn't say you sound bitter you do sound like you're bummed out and i get it man you're bummed out there's this person and you're looking at all of her stuff, which is a huge, huge waste of time. The quicker you can try to remove that from your daily

routine, the better. Um, it's a much, much easier way to go about it where you're like, yeah, whatever. I don't care. I'm not going to look at the stuff. Um, but a lot of you guys can't help yourself. And I know early on, I had a moment where I would check it every day and it was the start of my day and my day's entire mood would be, um, based on whatever I saw or didn't see that day. And then all the games that you would play in your head. And so in this case, there's no games, there's no mystery. She's dating somebody else. And she went to park city, park city is awesome. She went there with you. She wanted to go there again. Uh, you don't own park city. And if she wanted to go somewhere else, okay, cool. But you got to understand, she hasn't thought about your feelings on any of these decisions whatsoever. The van idea was a good idea.

Now she's doing it with somebody else. Park City was good. She liked it. She wanted to go back. She went to somebody else. You taught her how to ski. She likes skiing. So now she's going to keep on skiing.

So I get where you're coming from. And I know you're bummed out about it, but all of this is a big waste of your time. It's just a waste of time. And it's not, I don't think it's a plot to get you back. Um, some people definitely do that where it's like, Oh, Hey, I'm dating somebody or Hey, like I was, I went out on a date with somebody and they tagged me within minutes, within minutes. And I knew the whole reason they did it was just to hope that somebody else saw that I was being tagged in it. And I was just like, this is so fucking lame. But again, when it's an age thing, you got to understand that it's kind of the way the world works. So I would tell you that your focus is in the wrong place right now. Um, because you're just being bitter about really petty little shit, even though I'm not

telling you to not be upset. You're upset. You miss this person. You clearly wish you could have her back. You may not think you do, but the way I read this email, you wrote an email with a bunch of paragraphs about this relationship that didn't work out. So you're thinking about her and you're trying to find advice. My advice would be, don't take it so personally. I don't think it was to get you back, but I also don't think it was to fuck with you either. I don't, I, you know, I don't know, but you know, her, you said it was toxic. So maybe that's what she's doing. And I would just say, okay, if that's what she's doing, that's an even better reason to not want to pay attention to her. If she's actually doing this to fuck with you on top of everything else. So, you know, try to clean yourself with this. I know

it's going to take forever and it's easy for everybody else to tell you when to move on and all that kind of stuff, but going and looking at all of her stuff and thinking that she planned all this to fuck with you or to get you back and all this stuff, it's just, all of it is a waste of time. I can promise you it's almost one of the few guarantees in life. You will never ever remove from this emotionally go, I'm psyched I did all that stuff. That was worth it. Kyle. Yeah, I think you should unfollow her until you're actually totally don't care that she's going to go to park city until you can actually say that you don't care if you saw her walking around a park city with another dude so just unfollow her that's it's that's that's as simple

as it gets it's never going to be like a yeezy taught me situation where she's going to be like oh yeah this guy used to they taught me how to ski and i'm really appreciative of it like none of that stuff's ever going to go your way. So just like, I don't know, do the best for yourself. And that's going to be, yeah. And she's never going to acknowledge all the stuff you want her to. That'd be a good t-shirt.

Do the best for yourself. Like if she had gone to Mexico and you had never been to Mexico, would you, would you feel better about it right now? Or would you find another reason to be upset about that? Be like, Oh, she was Mexico's my favorite international soccer team.

That's what kind of mode I think you're in right now because you're pissed off about the whole thing. I mean, you even said yourself you were being bitter in it. So I'm not criticizing you. I'm just telling you I know what you're going through and I'm telling you to get out of it as soon as you possibly can and stop taking it so personally. This is a good one for Kyle here.

Our man checking in, 23. Mile time is 8.11. Okay. A little background. During quarantine, I never saw my friends. We would only FaceTime and stuff out of caution. We've all been friends since elementary school, so I consider myself a core guy in this group, and there's more than 10 of us.

Good news. My state has recently lifted some restrictions. We all hung out this past weekend, got hammered, watched UFC fights at my boy's apartment for the first time in what seemed like forever. Bad news. Three of my friends, while drunk on Saturday night, stole my car keys out of my pocket while I was passed out on the couch and took my car for a spin to go get some late night McDonald's.

My friend's girlfriend, who was still up when they stole my keys, let me know what they did or else I probably wouldn't even have found out, which is scary to think about. Shockingly enough, most of the other friends in our group didn't feel like it was that big of a thing that they stole my whip because nothing bad resulted from it like them dying, which is fucking dumb, right? If it was their car, they would be singing a different tune. Like imagine if they did die in a car accident or killed someone else in my car. My mind is made up. I'm dropping all of these fools, not just the three that stole my car, but the whole group since they are basically covering and making excuses for the three committed felonies with my car. I wrote all of this because I need advice

on how to unfriend them. Should I just ghost them? Should I get confrontational? Should I remove myself from our group chat? Should I tell them all off in the group chat? Should I remove myself from our group chat? Should I tell them all off in the group chat? Should I remove them all on social media? Since I'm an immature 23-year-old, I fear of handling this the wrong way. And besides, this is an opportunity for me to grow up and be the better person in this situation. Any advice on how to handle this as a mature adult would be appreciated. Well, you're either way more mature than anybody else. Now, let me get this out of the way.

Nobody's saying what happened was cool for guys to get drunk and take your car and go do stuff like this. But I've been a guy a long time and I remember being a younger guy and I remember guys doing stuff to each other. And this would probably not be a friend ender. Maybe I'm wrong on that one. Kyle, I would imagine you're probably going to agree with me, at least on that part of it. Yeah, I think you're right. And it's like, yeah, the guy who put his balls on your chin and shaved your head would have been upset if that happened to him. So totally he would, like he said, would be singing a different tune. But, you know,

it's the same for anything. Great, great. It's exactly the comp that we needed and we got there. So did you yell at them? Because I guess I'm just trying to figure out, I would actually not, and you know, look, I probably would admit it on a podcast, but I'm just telling you, you can trust me on this. I would not steal somebody else's car and drive drunk and then be like, ah, look what I did. I wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't do that. But I've had friends that would do it. And would I value the friendship more than being really mad about the incident? Yeah. If I liked

the person enough, I would. I'm a pretty forgiving friend too. That's probably all the years of bartending and all the stuff over the years where you're just like, look, sometimes guys make mistakes. Yes, this potentially could have been horrible. But imagine our emailer here already wanted to get rid of this group but if you're 23 and you're yelling at them saying hey this is you committed a felony um i'm just asking like in a weird way i think i'm pivoting from hey here's how to get rid of everybody to being like are you sure you just you're just good with telling these 10 guys you'd never want to have anything to do with them again. Can you replace this group?

Are you a loner? Are you sure? Are you so mad that you're sure there's not one guy out of the 10 that you're still going to want to be friends with? So I'm not really asking this because like, look, handle it however you want to handle it. It doesn't matter. You can unfriend them all. Cool. You can ghost them all. Fine. You could sit down with them individually and talk about it. And maybe you're the better person for all of this because you go you know what you guys are screwed up and i'm going to go ahead and do something else and i want to be more mature i don't want to be around people you know i've actually given you credit for going ahead and doing that but i'm just it seems like either there's more going on or there's more of a track record here and this is a culmination of things where now you're at the breaking point where you're moving on but you're

still okay with with saying to everybody else that was in this group that you're going to have nothing to do with them for the rest of your life when you grew up with them and were good enough friends that you couldn't wait to hang out with them just a weekend ago. That all seems weird to me. Seems like a bit of an overreaction. I think you're well within your rights to get confrontational with those guys and be like, listen, that's never going to happen again, drunk or sober, if you still don't feel like it's a big deal. We have a problem here. But I think that's probably

what you would do first, right? And if they're shitheads about it, then yeah, fuck them. But I don't know. Maybe they would be a little remorseful now that they're not... I think everyone's afforded a mistake, even if that could have been dangerous

and super costly. But I think you should probably say something before you're just like, all right, cut ties. I don't know. Yeah. I'm wondering if they will care, you know, will they say like, yeah, whatever, dude, we didn't like you that much. That's why we stole your car. Or if they're going to go, Hey, you know, I'm really sorry. I imagine you're closer with a couple of the guys out of the group. So maybe the guys you're not super mad at that you feel like didn't think it was as big of a deal as you want it to be, you know, air it out with them.

But it depends really, man. I mean, it's kind of like relationships where the same principles apply with men and women to this all male group. It depends on how much they like you. Like, are you one of the coolest guys in the group? Are you the least cool? I don't know, you know, send us back your rankings.

But if they really are like, oh, we don't want to lose this guy in the group, then they'll probably step up and maybe make you feel better about it. And if you're the least cool guy in the group, they're just going to go, whatever, fuck them. But I don't know. It's just an email.

I don't have those answers. Okay, different dilemma here. Our guy is checking in. He's 23 we're gonna leave it at that he sent us a bunch of um lifting numbers um but he said don't be too impressed with those numbers and i was like all right okay fine it's good they're good numbers all right so back in high school i was a good athlete four-year varsity basketball soccer player small town Midwest. So take it with a grain of salt. I was always athletic enough to get away with being just a hair over 170 pounds. I've always struggled with being really skinny and never having any muscle. I always looked at my friends around me and think, what the fuck are

they eating to look like that? Later, I found out they were all on D-ball. Anyway, not a steroid. Anyways, after high school, I went to my local college and still was struggling with being skinny, but now I no longer played sports. so I struggled even more because I always relied on showing people I was athletic to compensate for me being skinny. Typing that out makes me realize how stupid it sounds, but hey, I was 19. Hey, man, you're talking to the exact same guy right now. So, I was the exact same way. I hear you, man. I hear you. Anyway, I started getting really into weightlifting. I read everything, anything and everything I could about it. My progression was one I assume many go through.

I started with all the bodybuilding type lifts technique that eventually through reading and talking to actual certified people started doing more progressive plans that I could monitor progress with around a year in. I was still really skinny and ended up taking a round of steroids. So I didn't feel great about it. I've always made fun of people on roids, but I just wanted to make the progress go quicker. I weighed 185 at the start and in three months of it, I was up to 210. I couldn't have been more fucking obvious what I was doing, but I finally felt good about myself. This was two years ago now. I haven't taken anything since. And I usually sit around 215, 225. Side note, total hard-o about

lifting and eating, track calories and all the shit. Anyway, oftentimes at gym, people will ask for advice on how to get bigger and stronger. I feel like a fraud when telling them what to do. I know I cheated and it really bothers me. People ask me directly if I've taken stuff, I do not lie and tell them. Wait a minute. So wait a minute. Let me read that again. I know I've cheated and it really bothers me if people ask me directly if i've taken stuff i do not lie and tell them okay so we all right um i guess my question is should i be more open to people so it helped ease my conscience about what i did when i was 20 uh thanks and love the pot

honestly people are going to read that hear me read that email and then want to do something. Um, if you went from one 85 to two 10 and three months. So that actually, maybe I shouldn't have read this one. Um, I get it. I remember me in 19 and I was going to take steroids, uh, me and another guy that was on one of the teams at school, uh, we're like, let's do it. And I was like, fine. He didn't need them at all. all i i was just skinny and was sick of it i fucking hated it man i hated it um and i was gonna do it and i talked to the guy about doing it and getting him and um i just didn't i don't know for whatever reason i couldn't bring myself to actually do it i didn't i didn't buy him i talked to the guy i said hey i'm gonna do it and then i then i didn't follow up And we do follow up on the

things that we really want to do, right? Good or bad, we will follow up on those things. And there's a lot of stuff that we'll talk about that we want to do. And then we just sort of never follow up. And then we realized, you know what, either I'm lazy or I'm distracted, or I just, that was something that I actually, when it came down to making that decision and doing the thing that I thought I wanted to do, I didn't want to do it. So I think you should take it easy on yourself here a little bit. Uh, I'm, I've never taken anything. Um, and I thought about it. I convinced myself I was going to do it. And then I didn't, I don't know. I just didn't. I think I told one of my good friends, he was making fun of me. He's like, dude, you're going to do steroids for what? You don't even do anything. And I was like, fair. I didn't think I was, yeah, it wasn't even really working out. Actually,

now I think about it. So he should have made fun of me. Um, the other guy, he was just like, wait, let's do it. And I was like, oh my God. And then, you know, it was kind of funny because a couple of guys were like, those two guys are going to do it. They're like, one guy definitely doesn't need it. Um, and, and I was the other one. So what, what are you really battling with here? Feeling like a fraud because you found out other guys that were jacked were on something when you looked up to them? I mean, I had the same kind of thing happen too. There was this other big guy that I looked up to help me out. And then I remember I had this moment where I found out he was in all sorts of stuff and then I was upset about it. And I was like, are you really going to be that upset about this? Was

he supposed to open up to you and tell you immediately? So I wouldn't be in a hurry to start telling everybody, oh, actually, hey, man, I used and I did one cycle and this is what I did. And this is how I got bigger. I don't know that I'd want to share that with just anybody. So, I mean, you know, you can always do, which is always kind of funny. I'll think about like really big guys at the gym if you you started talking to them and then you're kind of talking about different stuff and every gym has like a couple of their big guys and then it'd be like, you know, a couple of boosters, you know, to, you know, some B12 and then they'll make like an eye, you know, they look with their eyes and they go up and they're basically like, I'm on everything. And we're like, yeah, I could tell.

I could fucking tell you on everything. Your eyeballs are still red. I would just take a deep breath and not be too hard on yourself because I get what the most important thing in your life at that point was I don't want to be skinny anymore. And then of course, I don't want to go any further without saying it. In certain elements, it could be really tough for you health-wise. I think we all know that if you just did it once in moderation for this, again, I don't want to be held responsible for anything

because I don't understand all of it. But I just think you're being way too tough on yourself. I don't think you have to feel like you have to tell every single person

that sees you with some decent size on at the gym whenever anybody asks you for help that you have to start with like, okay, well,

I did do this cycle once when I was 20. I just don't think you need to do that. And I would stop beating yourself up for it. So there you go. Kyle, any steroid stories? No steroid stories. But if you're considered as a mistake, like I said, I think people are afforded mistakes. I'm definitely not going to tell everybody about my mistakes. There's some that I'll never see the light of day. And you consider that as one of those. So, you know, I think about this. Is Julian Edelman a fraud? Is Diego Maradona a fraud? You're not a fraud either, dude.

Continue living life. Did the Edelman retirement break you up a little bit this week? It was an emotional one for you? Yeah, but he retired a patriot until he becomes a Buccaneer. But for now, I'm like, cool, man. I love you, Jules.

Yeah, well, he recipro like, cool, man. I love you, Jules. Yeah. Well, he reciprocated with that video. He got that video out there. A good video, I'd say, as far as those videos go. Director's chair. Dramatic walk-up. The exhale at the end, you know? Big exhale at the end.

Yeah. All right. That's the end. Yeah. All right. That's the podcast for today. We're going to do a bunch of draft stuff with somebody. Is this guy the most underrated draft analyst in the business? We'll leave it at that. That's the tease. So we will see you Friday. Outro Music you