The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Will the Warriors Close It Out? Plus Updated NBA Player Approval Ratings With Wosny Lambre

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Warriors' Game 5 win over the Celtics, Boston not being able to capitalize on Steph Curry's low-scoring performance, improvements from Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson, the Celtics' turnover problem, and a look ahead to Game 6 (0:33). Then he talks with The Ringer's Wosny Lambre about the "approval ratings" of eight NBA players after the 2021-22 season, including Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Damian Lillard, Rudy Gobert, and more (15:57). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (54:14). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Wosny Lambre Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today on the podcast recap game five is this thing inevitable now as golden state taking the 3-2 lead we'll explain why that feels that way but why it could be wrong and all the other stuff around it uh we got waz big waz coming to hang out and we'll update approval ratings for eight NBA players. He does the weekend shows and also full court fits and a heavy life advice. Is that it? It kind of feels like it's it. After the end of game five, Golden State goes up 3-2 and it kind of feels like, yeah, Golden State is probably going to win one of these next two games. I want to talk about what this means as far as comparing Golden State and Boston.

I guess I kind of landed on last night. Not that this is some epiphany, but these teams are pretty good. They're not great. They're both pretty good. So I don't know what you would have said. There's obviously a legacy part of this for Steph and Golden State and four titles in eight years and finding a way to reinvent this thing. Boston, this would be, what is this, the start of my dynasty joke that I always think is kind of a go-to after somebody wins something and it has to mean something more than just

what it was. But that's kind of where I feel like both these teams are both pretty good. And maybe Boston could figure out some way to turn this thing around and win the last two. The reason I even bring that up is because going back to the second round in the East, when Milwaukee won game five by Boston, really just everything went wrong for him in a very short amount of time. And then Milwaukee's up 3-2. I thought whoever won that series would beat the Miami Heat. And the title of that podcast was, did Milwaukee just punch its finals ticket? And it felt like the right take at the time. It felt completely right. And by the way,

whenever you listen to teams or players after they lose, it's rarely what the other team did to them. I mean, every now and then if somebody says an unbelievable night shooting, you'll just go, hey, they made more shots than we did or whatever. But usually, and you'll hear this from Boston a lot here, hey, we did it to ourselves. We didn't match this. We should have done this.

And this is not specific even to Boston, but most teams. It's kind of the way we all are. If something happens, it's like we never think about how other people impacted what happened. In sports, very often the team themselves will blame themselves. And Boston should for their turnovers now because they had 18 of them last night. And they're now one in seven in playoff games if they have 16 or more turnovers. They just constantly can't stop doing it. They can't stop turning the basketball over too often in this series. So even though at that moment, it felt like the right call,

you could look at what Boston did wrong at the end of game five. And then Tatum has this unbelievable kind of resume type game for him in game six. They win game seven at home and they move on. And here we are watching him in the NBA finals. So I guess there's a chance, but it kind of feels like for a series I didn't really have a great read on. I thought they were both pretty even. I thought the metrics that were very pro-Boston all along were just insane with the ratio of it being anywhere from like 87% chance to win the finals to maybe in the 70s was maybe the lowest I saw anywhere else. But we don't know. We don't know if it's over. The start of this game was ugly for Boston, though.

They were down 24-8 with 2.23 to go in the first quarter. Tatum actually had two really great stretches in this game. They were not in the fourth quarter. We'll get to that a little bit later. He scored six straight points. When it's 27-16 at the end of the first, I thought that was a miracle for Boston. Golden State's defense was terrific. The Wiggins piece of this, I think Clay's been better.

Draymond was more engaged. It didn't look like Boston was hunting the mismatches as much as they did in the third quarter, which we'll get to a little bit later as well. But that start was about as bad as you're going to get from a team offensively because Golden State's defense has really been the overriding story in this series too, which I have some numbers I need to share with you. It's an even second quarter. You've got to win the second quarter if you're the other team. Now, as bad as Steph was, and he was bad, this is his first postseason game without a three ever, 0 for 9. Tried to get that one late there. It was hunting to keep the streak going, missed it too. Boston was terrific on everything they did with Steph. It was Steph, Steph, Steph,

focus on Steph, physical with him off the ball. I thought they beat with Steph. It was Steph, Steph, Steph, focus on Steph, physical with him off the ball. I thought they beat on him a bunch of times, got away with it, but good for them. There was a bunch of plays there where I'm like, man, they're all over him. There'd be a second guy watching him if Steph was off the ball. Whenever Steph was bringing it across,

they were really good job on making that space tighter whenever it was a screen at the top because I thought Steph has gotten into his high pick and roll open threes way too easy, way too often in the series on the whole, especially in game four. But Boston deserves a ton of credit for being so Steph-focused. But we didn't quite know it was going to be this bad of a Steph game because in that second quarter, as I say, if you're even in the second quarter, that's the stretch of the game that Golden State's going to play the longest without Steph. Steph doesn't come back in that second quarter until like six-something minutes to go. So you've got to try to figure out a way to win that, and it didn't happen. So at the half,

it's 51-39. Wiggins was terrific in the second quarter, especially the end of it. Nine points, the last 449 carried them offensively. Wiggins was terrific. the second quarter especially the end of it nine points the last 449 carried them offensively Wiggins was terrific and now here's Boston who's 0-12 from 3 to start the game gearing up for the third quarter because at 51-39 you're like Boston just can't score any points here well they got hot they hit 8 straight

threes I thought they were doing a good job in hunting Steph getting Tatum onto Steph I thought they were doing a good job in hunting Steph, getting Tatum onto Steph. I thought Golden State, on the other side of it, as good as their defense has been, on the whole, did a bad job of fighting the hunting. I think sometimes teams just let themselves get switched into some really bad stuff. I still think back to that 2016 3-1 lead that they blew.

I thought they did a really bad job of just like, all right, hey, we want to go pick on this guy. We're not going to offer up any resistance. That's something that happened a little bit later. They did a better job of fighting off of the hunting. You'd have different moments. You'd be like, you can get back. The screeners are still too close to the ball. Just get

back. Get back. I know teams are always afraid of doing that, but I thought Golden State did a better job of that. Boston goes on this terrific run to start the third quarter from 51-39 to 51-49. They're making threes. They're doing a better job, I think, prioritizing mismatches.

And by the end of the third quarter, Golden State's still up. So now you're like, all right, now what? Steph's missing everything. I thought Boston, they were in the bonus twice, I think in quarters with over seven minutes to go. It's not always just about the fouls that are called,

which were almost two to one in favor of Boston. It's not just about free throw attempts. It can be the way the game is called. But in this case, you know, you can find something if you don't like it. It's a the way the game is called. But in this case, you can find something if you don't like it. It's a two plus hour game. If you want to find some stuff, you can find anything. I thought Boston was getting the whistles last night. I know the smart play at the start of the fourth quarter is very frustrating for a lot of people. Smart had gotten a technical because he was mad about a previous play. And I think the broadcast did a really good job of telling us that during the break it was constant and so that the TV audience sees Smart getting technical and we

can't really figure out what it was for I think it had been all the stuff that we probably didn't see unless you were live at the game or like the broadcast had shared with us that it was some sort of carryover and then he gets the offensive foul on Poole where Poole had grabbed him first and then Poole flopped I'll just tell you. I have zero sympathy on any Marcus Smart call that goes against him with somebody else flopping. To me, it's basketball karma. Any of these guys that flop and screw stuff up and get away with it, I never care when it happens to them because I think it should happen

to them a lot more often. So the fourth quarter part of this, you know Steph's going to sit, and you're wondering how the offense is going to go, and actually Golden State was plus seven in those first few minutes without Steph. So as bad as Steph was, he still makes all of this other stuff happen. The crazy Wiggins layup at the rim where it felt like he took off at the corner, or the elbow, I should say, that was because of Steph. Steph ran something with Tatum on him, went to the right side. Two guys stayed with him. Wiggins cuts behind it, and then he, Wiggins,

has to go through the help defenders at the rim, but that was because of Steph. Steph actually had some nice passing in there, but it was very weird to see him be this hesitant. When he got blocked by Grant Williams coming off that high pick and roll, and Grant did a great job recovering and blocking him from behind, Steph had a couple other looks that were way better than that one where he didn't shoot, which is really strange for him. So they found a way to get into the best shooter of all time's head. They got to him in a way that they, I don't know, he started doubting himself in a way that I've just not really ever seen before with Steph. Not to say it's never happened, but it's just whenever

it does happen, you're like, I don't think he really wants to shoot. He had a play where he kicked out of a nice look on the left side. I think he threw it to Gary Payton and missed. Then when he took that 9-3, I thought that was to try to keep the streak going because at that point, the game was kind of theirs. Wiggins was the story on offense and also defense. If you think of Golden State's defensive runs here now, they've held the Celtics in the three losses to 88, 94, and 97 points. In 18 games versus the East, Boston has not broken 100 or had not broken 100 only twice in 18 games.

Game one loss against Milwaukee. Game five win against the Miami Heat. Jalen and Tatum didn't rest in the second half until it was garbage time. They were missing everything late. The fourth quarter problems continue for Tatum. He is now 4-18 in the fourth quarter. Just too much ISO. Wiggins able to physically match him a little bit.

Wiggins is not going to give up. Tatum doesn't gain space on Wiggins when it's body-to-body on there. He's just as, I would say, stronger. So if I say he's just as strong, there's that one play where it was basically to the nail for Tatum to try to back down Wiggins and he couldn't do it. Then nobody else is doing anything around him the entire time. Emei brought White back in late, which I thought was a little surprising. White was 21 minutes, one point. He got torched twice

on drives where guys were like, hey, not to say White's a good defensive player he's smart stands up and everything but i don't know he went to him i don't know what he was searching for at that point again he knows better than i do just something i wrote down on the old notes here the jalen brown turnover show is it's here's the thing about jalen brown it's amazing he's this good of a player and once he has to do something with the ball beyond the two dribbles, like I've always said this, there are two dribble guys and then guys that can handle. The two dribble guys can still dribble it twice if they know exactly what they're doing after that second dribble. It's usually the athletic wings that can live that way. Jalen, once he's passed that second dribble,

it's a shit show, man. I may share sneaky, I may share it a little bit later, but is Jalen Brown being on this stage actually worse for him when it comes to advanced scouting reports now moving on in his career? Or is he going to figure out how to learn how to handle,

which is usually something you don't learn to do as you get older as a basketball player. But off the top of this, also, I think now Tatum has the most turnovers ever for any player in a postseason.

So frustrating night if you're a Boston fan. Feels like it's over. Wouldn't say that's over. But when I said at the top, like, hey, maybe the end of this is that, okay, we had entertaining finals, great franchises, the star power of it. I think everybody's kind of always interested in stuff. But if you look at this, it's what, 53 wins against 51 wins. Weird season. We've talked about how much players have missed, the top players have missed.

A healthy Golden State team, does this team win 60 games? If everybody's healthy the entire season, that's certainly a possibility. And Boston's a weird team because they're below 500 in January and have one of the most remarkable turnarounds I've ever seen in the history of this game. But when you look back on it, the Warriors, their first title team, that team went 67-15. I think it'd be a really easy thing to fall into where you'd go,

well, this team's probably better than that first Warriors team that won a title. I don't know about that because you've got full-blown clay. You've got younger Draymond, and you just have better role pieces around it. But you don't have Wiggins because now everybody's into Wiggins. If you want to give the MVP of the finals and the fourth leading scorer of a team, you go ahead and vote him. Spurs won 62. Miami won 66.

The Raptors, that team in 2019 won 58 games. Again, it's been a little different because everything that's happened as we're in the third season of different stuff. But if Golden State is winning this whole deal or if Boston were to come back with it, I think it's just two evenly matched teams in a season

where other than what Phoenix did in the regular season, a season where the teams behind them, at least record-wise, it's just all been a little... It's been a group of really good teams, but I don't know that it's necessarily anything special. The NBA Finals are here, and so is your chance to score big on FanDuel Sportsbook. Throughout the NBA Finals, FanDuel is giving new customers $200 in free bets, guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet.

Bet the money line, point spreads, player props, and so much more. Plus, you can buy in your bets for an even bigger payday with the same game parlay. Let's take a look. Well, the Boston Celtics are favored as of right now by three and a half on FanDuel Sportsbook. Total to 10.

Golden State Warriors figured it out. They figured it all out defensively. Is it an underplay here in this one? Or does Golden State take their foot off the gas the same way Boston can take their foot off the gas? same way Boston can take their foot off the gas? Both can be very frustrating

teams. Okay. Four or more assists. What are the payouts on this one? Al Horford plus 136. How about to record 12 assists? Draymond Green plus 1500. Probably want to stay away from that one.

First basket. They ran I think we had Clay as the option there. I think it was Otto Porter in game five. He's plus 1,200. Probably not going to run the exact same play for him. Different time. Player

rebounds. Let's take a look at that one. Steph is at five five and a half he's got some nice rebound numbers wiggins is over seven and a half he's been rebounding like a crazy person and wiggins by the way also was going up into traffic and flying through and fighting for these rebounds so something's kind of flipped with him all right so we threw a couple different options at you there i kind of like the wiggins over on the rebounds just sign up with the promo code Ryan R-Y-E-N if you haven't tried FanDuel. Now is the perfect time to give it a shot because the only thing sweeter than watching

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Tennessee Red Line, 1-800-889-9789. Tennessee or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET. West Virginia. You know him from weekends with Waz and also full court fits. Waz joins us here because we need to do some updated stuff here uh good to see you man it's been a while same same really excited to be here of course i'm a fan of the show i listen basically every single episode which ones do you miss just out of

curiosity little market research you know when you see what you go i'm out Anybody who's currently working in the NBA, like, cause I know I'm about to be gamed, jobbed, propagandized. So like, if you currently work for a team, even players, like most players, I don't really care what they got to say in public on record. Same for any management coach type. I just don't want to hear it. i know they are jobbing us when they speak publicly so i skip current nba people other than that i'm locked in so david griffin you got nothing out of that interview no no you wouldn't even listen to it you don't even know what happened i knew i knew griff was gonna get up there and just start working us. So I was like, yeah, I don't need to hear what Griff says.

Now, when Griff leaves his job and he does an interview, hell yeah, because I know most people are going to have scores to settle and corrections on the official record. And I'm like, all right, yeah, I want to hear what people have to say when they're disgruntled. But, like, when you're in your job and you got to be political and you have all of these agendas, you can't come out and be candid with the public. That's not how this works.

So yeah, get out of here, Griff. Love you though. Wow, I got a lot of great feedback on that one, but not good enough. Not good enough. Okay, here's the premise. Here's the premise. It's updated NBA Q ratings.

You know, whenever you're on television, you're like, man, that person gets paid a ton of money. What, you know, what's like they have a high Q rating. Something we used to have to understand at ESPN. Be like, what's going on with this? They'd be like, oh, high Q rating. So basically it's pretty simple. It's your approval rating. So I want to try to figure out with Wads and where we're at with a bunch of different players.

Everyone's favorite one right now is Anthony Davis. To fully recap where we're at with Anthony Davis, he's 29 years old. He just recently said he hadn't touched basketball in two months. Not what Lakers fans wanted to hear. He's played 138 out of a possible 225 games for the Lakers. We know he has the ring. We also know he has three years and $121 million coming his way. We know he has the ring.

We also know he has three years and 121 million coming his way. This is somebody, Waz, I think that was fair to suggest when he is right and at his best was flirting with being a top five player in this league. Saying that out loud now feels like it's absurd. I am leaning towards I think he's getting beat up a little bit too much. Where are you with both what you think the public rating of him is and kind of where you're at? Yeah, first i want to say immediately when you mentioned espn i was like damn like was confused about josh elliott's ascension and had to ask somebody at the job but i don't know why that dude is the first person that came to my mind yeah that's a weird poll were you were you

sort of like it was just assumed josh elliott he's supposed to be on television so why should anybody be asking 100 you know there's a funny josh elliott story no funny josh elliott story that you like first sports center he ever did was i believe the sixth mike greenberg and green he turned to him lifelong broadcaster goes how many of these have you done and josh goes first one right now How many of these have you done? And Josh goes, first one right now. And then he just did it. And I was like, are you nervous?

He goes, I'm very zen about it. He goes, I figure no matter what happens, it's over in an hour. That's amazing. Great philosophy. Yeah. 100%. But, you know, AD, it's crazy because I do agree with you. You know, he had people thinking that he was a top five type of guy I know we use the two-way player thing kind of we kind of abuse that term but AD

definitionally is that right um defensive player of the year type I thought in the playoffs in 2019 in the bubble like he was insane like people it's easy to forget because I think a lot of people like to dismiss the bubble um and AD hasn't been anywhere close to that since but he was clearly locked in and he was incredible the problem for me like people could talk about the injuries. My thing is like when AD's played since the finals in 2020, he has not been up to that level at all. And I would say he hasn't been close. There was moments in the 2021 season where like he was just clearly coasting. He just clearly was just like, got my ring, got my money. I'm not really too worried about any of this. It's really early in the season. I don't really care about it.

And I think that's what's disappointing to me for AD. So like people will say, oh, this guy's overrated. He sucks. I'm like, there's no way he goes from being an MVP level player in the playoffs two years ago to being a complete bum now. I don't believe that. However, I think his effort and his motor and his want to is so freaking disappointing. Yeah, he sucked this year when he played. He got hurt, came back, got hurt again.

And even when he's right and he's playing, people always want a little bit more. I always think back, was it the Memphis game where he got a million free throws? I don't know what he was possessed with that night, but you were like, wait, why don't you play like this more often? You're a beast tonight. So I also think he's always going to be

just a little disappointing in that regard. Here's a weird thing, and I don't know if this will ever play out this way, but if AD were to be healthy, play well, he's 31-32, Lakers don't have other options, LeBron is gone, and AD would carry himself this way. He has no idea how much he has drafted off of LeBron's presence as being a topic, Westbrook sucking, and ADs actually probably gotten it easier having said all of those things and i looked at it i looked at the espn top 100 before the nba season started you can rip apart any list certainly there's a couple where i was like what are you talking about they had 89 before the season started i didn't think that was wrong that's

certainly not where he's going to be this time around. But I'd ask any fan base that thinks he's done, which he's not done. Okay. Would you be upset if your team got him in a trade in July? And I would say, of course, you'd probably be thrilled about it. So I think it's still lower than it should be. But I understand why it's so low. Look, we're watching the NBA finals, right? And just think about all the stuff that when Rob Williams is looking right, what he's able to do out there.

Like that's A.D. level stuff as far as playing out in space and being able to protect the rim. And then he's a plus, plus, plus on offense. Like, like, just imagine that and think about how impactful Rob Williams has been at certain points in the finals. So, like, you know, like, of course you wouldn't compare those players. They don't get paid the same or whatever. I'm just saying, like, in the biggest moments, the stuff that you need your best players to be able to go out and execute on both ends of the floor, AD has that within him. He just hasn't shown it in a while. Jimmy Butler was number 16 on the top 100.

Two legendary performances in that series against Boston. Almost won it with that three. He's up a notch for me, but to me, he's never top 10, always top 20, and that's okay. But whether it was the bubble run where it was like, man, we just start the same thing with Booker last year. We start trying to push him in. It's probably happened to Matae a little bit with this one.

We just start to try to force the top guy into a tier that maybe he deserves, maybe he doesn't deserve. Whatever Butler is, I think it's always been pretty fair, but I have probably just a little extra layer of respect for him because of what I thought he did in big moments for miami yeah he's one of the rare guys who his numbers get better in the playoffs his numbers get better against the better competition um and so for that reason i think he's a little underrated and just that i think his playmaking is underrated he's not just like tunnel vision all i do is score type of guy. His defensive metrics, like when they track like how well players perform when Jimmy's in the vicinity, he's getting guys involved, making them better. And he's incredible as a wing defender,

which basically is the most important defensive position outside of rim protection. So, like, I think he's closer to the top 10 than not, right? I don't, like, as far as, because you don't look at the Miami Heat with Max Struess, a gimpy Kyle Lowry, Bam doing what he does, no showing every now and again. This is not some like stacked, loaded, whatever kind of team. It's Jimmy Butler being a star, like, you know, even borderline superstar and getting him one game from the finals.

superstar and getting them one game from the finals again against a Celtics team that we all accept is very well coached very talented if not very stupid in annoying moments um all the time let's talk a little Dane Lillard 32 in July yeah and I'm just throwing out the contract stuff to update us here it shouldn't really factor in too of just how you feel about the guy and maybe the investment, but three years, 42, 45 and 49 or yeah, about 49 million. Uh, he was awful the beginning of this year. Just remind everybody a career worth shooting 40% from the floor. He was 32% from threes. It was, it was dreadful. The very beginning of it played 29 games this year. I think it was a combination of injury and, hey, let's tank. Let me give you a little bit of rest here after what's been a tough season for a bunch of teams. A couple seasons here.

Small guards don't necessarily age well. ESPN had them at number eight on their top 100. I think Portland's so off the radar, Waz, that I don't know that people are updating what they think of Damian Lillard as much as we have with other guys that are in the playoffs. But I just feel like there's a second act with him where we're going to be reminded of how special he is at taking over games. I'm not saying he's the number one of a championship contender. I think it's very clear that's not going to happen. But I think if anything, the approval rating might be a little lower than it should be just because

the whole Portland thing has been just, no one cares right now. And it's not even a reflection of him. So I, you know, I'm not saying everybody's wrong about Dame. Like I would maybe with a different player, but I think it's just kind of what it is right now.

And that's, that's not on the top of everybody's radar. Yeah. I would have to say, I completely agree with you. I think the thing about Dame, I think you and I are similar in like the whole, you know, rest and all of that kind of stuff. It kind of gets on my nerves a little, just a little bit.

I think it's a little overblown, the rest and the injury preservation and all of that. Dame Lillard basically had to be ripped off of the court with an injury this year. That's why he stunk up the joint. He was injured and he had been nursing that injury since the previous season. But he's like, I don't want to miss time. So he played on it and he wasn't his best self. And he finally missed the time. And I think he's going to get his body right.

And the thing about Dane Lillard is like, sure, there was that strange Chris Haynes, maybe I want to leave the Trailblazers thing, which he kind of retracted basically quickly thereafter. But like, to me, he's the model superstar um everything you want like as far as come back improved every single year works on his body um is just a straight up leader all that intangible stuff off-course stuff culture center stuff like he does all of that um and doesn't complain and just like is an incredible hooper,

like incredible score. I don't think people ever said this enough about the CJ thing. CJ, God bless him, made himself into a really good NBA player. The dude never passed. Like it's Dame Lillard's job to set up everybody on that team. He had to be the Alpha and the Omega of the team as far as your number one scorer, your number one distributor, your leader, your everything. And he does that. And, yeah, he wasn't that good this year, but, like, he's taken the requisite amount of time.

Nobody takes their job more seriously than Dame Lillard does. So I wouldn't be surprised, like you said, if he comes back and is showing people like, no, I'm really one of these guys. Yeah, that's kind of what I think is going to happen. And I'd always heard the entire time with Portland, like he likes it being his show. And if he went to team up with somebody else and it's not his show, he's not necessarily going to like that. But if he gets another year older, new ownership, you know, who knows? I would think new ownership would be something he'd be thrilled about, even though he's gotten his going to like that. But if he gets another year older, new ownership, who knows? I would think new ownership would be something he'd be thrilled about, even though he's gotten his way at this point.

But it just feels like there's a few guys that we're hitting on here where people kind of want to just write off. Dame would never be in that group for me. DeMar DeRozan, 33 in August. He was number 45 on the top 100 list, which looking at this season, it's kind of too low. Yeah. Right.

We, most of us were like, we couldn't believe the contract. Yeah. And there's still some time left on that. Like, you know, if Harden gets a full max,

I don't know that you're going to hear a ton of people saying that's a great idea. He's going to get like 45 in the first week of the NBA season. And then somebody is going to write an article that says, I thought the five-year max was a bad idea. And we're like, well, we still have like four plus years to go. Let's see how it goes. Congrats on your 45 points against Memphis.

So DeRozan did the weird thing where he shot at a career best from three at 32 years old, which doesn't happen. Still only two attempts. The contract to this point has been right when so many people thought that it was wrong. The Bulls as a team, I give them credit for going, we're not interesting. We have no chance of it. We can't even get into the playing game to let's just make ourselves better, even though if that better is flawed in comparison to the other top East teams. But there's also a swing where when he started making a million shots, it was like, hey, MVP DeRozan? And that's where you're like, do you want to say something wrong?

Then go ahead and make an argument for DeRozan to be MVP this week. That's fine. He's been awesome. He's making all these game winners. The numbers were absurd. But he took this massive swing where I'd say overall it should be higher. He deserves that, but it reached some peaks this season that I thought were absurd.

Yeah. I think the Rosen is actually a specialist, right? We don't, we usually think of specialists as like Tony Allen, defensive stopper type, or, you know,

a Kyle Corver, like this guy's a shooter type of specialist. We don't think of a guy as a specialist when his skill is like one-on-one shot creation, but that's what he specializes in. And I think that's an important trait to have. You know, we know the defensive limitations. We know he doesn't space out to three enough. We get that. But I think he's a really potent weapon still. Still really underrated as a playmaker because on that Chicago team, it's not like they had a bunch of that on there. Like that was DeMar basically. His role was to get the ball moving, get the ball moving, get the ball out.

Because as much as we love Lonzo and his basketball smarts, and trust me, nobody's a bigger Karrue Sanity stan than I am. Still can't believe the Lakers cheaped out and let him go. Vucevic, you name it. Like, these guys, Zach Levine, they don't play me. So, DeMar's like, I'm the one-on-one shot creator in crunch time, and I'm the number one facilitator on the team. He's a very valuable player he's way

more than 45th he ain't no damn top 10 player he's not an MVP type of guy but he is an all-star clearly um and you know I'm somebody who's still a sucker for the team stuff for being a like a consummate professional and being great in a culture in the locker room and being coachable and like never saying the wrong thing and just like leading by an example of like ultimate professionalism so i'm higher on damar than i feel like even you know after the disrespect coming into last season after you got that big deal. Let's talk about the Jazz Brothers. Let's go Mitchell first. 18th on the top 100 from ESPN.

I have been probably more pro-Mitchell in comparison to some other guys. That playoff run for him at the start of his career like you go back and look at those numbers and stuff he was doing i was like man and we're getting this here but this last postseason was very disappointing his lack of effort defensively just try a little harder man and the westbrook light stuff that i don't always love with him where it's like i'm just going to do this on my own and kind of ignore everybody else. Mitchell's approval rating is probably the lowest it's been post. Holy shit. Look at this rookie.

And I think it's fair, but I still like, this is not one of those do not touch guys for me. I would still love to have them, but it took a knock this year and I think it deserved to be knocked a little bit. Yeah. It's tough.

Cause I'm somebody like you who was very very very pro donovan mitchell wow that's a lot super high on him so some of it is like the you know tri-state area new york city bias the guy's a fellow mets fan like it's a lot of some of that yeah but completely irrelevant stuff but we love it I fall for that kind of stuff like a sucker but you know like you said as a young guy the kind of success that he was having in the playoffs like there was series where his shooting from three was just off the freaking charts like I'm like all right nobody can stay in front of this dude was just off the freaking charts. Like, I'm like, all right, nobody can stay in front of this dude.

And he's draining pull-up three-pointers from God knows where. I'm sorry. This is exactly what we want from a lead ball handler. But I've kind of soured on him. And it's not just the Jazz success. It's, like, individually just how bad he was, right? Where where you know rick brunson's kid is just cooking this guy like look like not even like oh there's some kind of resistance and he beat you like he's just one move i'm to the basket for a layup or i'm getting right into rudy's airspace

and creating wide open looks for other people they They're doing this stuff without Luka Doncic. So there's that. There's just a lack of pride on defense that I just thought was embarrassing, especially from quote unquote leader guy, which is what he 100% presents himself as and sells himself as. I'm leader guy. So I thought that was pathetic. And then I was just really disappointed in like

everybody on the team's inability to pass Rudy the ball after they got rid of Ingles. Like they just straight up would not give him the ball at all. And I found that to be disappointing, especially when you design a defense where it's like the rest of us get to be turnstiles all regular season long and let Rudy clean up every single mess. And we will just refuse to ever let him touch the ball on the offensive end. And I'm somebody who's been, some might even say a Rudy hater in the past, right? I just thought that was disappointing the way they managed that. And Donovan Mitchell, to me, was a big part of it. And, you know, all of that being said, he's still a really incredible weapon to have what he does off the dribble. He can shoot it. You know, I just I just wish he took more pride in defense.

And the lack of playmaking is disappointing at this point in his career. Yeah. Are you going to be a stats one or are you going to be a winning team one? Exactly. And I thought he was on the path of being a winning team one. And this year makes me question that a little bit. Let's go to Gobert. 30 this month.

This resume is incredible. Six straight years in the playoffs to Gobert. Four All-NBA. Three-time Defensive Player of the Year. This guy might end up in the Hall of Fame. Nobody has to guard him. And this is, I think, six straight years in these playoffs. I'd have to go update it again.

Where they were worst defensively in all six playoffs versus the regular season. I think four times dramatically so. I think he's a regular season efficiency guy that is really impressive. And if you're going to go deep in the playoffs, you need another option besides him. Because not only does he get worked in some of this stuff that it's

really hard for any big to handle, not specific to him, he does not make you pay for going small. Because you don't have to defend him. So I am looking at Gobert. He's 25th on the top 100 coming in. If you are a freak analytic guy that looks at just the numbers and goes, I love him, I love him, I would tell you you're wrong.

And if you say he sucks, I would also say you're wrong. But I think the approval rating is taking a little bit of a ding because the defense is not carrying over now once again in the playoffs. Yeah, it's crazy. I've made 180s. You used to hate them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so anti-Rudy.

It's just like, you know, just the idea of watching Patrick Beverly guard you and you're 7'4", whatever you are, like that, I just can't square that. Just as anybody who's ever played basketball before, it's like that cannot stand. Right. However, when you really watch what teams are doing against them, it's just that everybody else like Utah ran an experiment basically was like, we have one of the best defensive players the league has probably ever seen. one of the best defensive players the league has probably ever seen. Let's test that by surrounding him with the absolute worst defenders possible. And that's what, when you watch the Jazz,

a lot of times I'll watch Rudy get switched out to somebody like Luca, who I think is probably the best offensive player in the league at this point, all around. And he gets matched up on him like he's not doing a a terrible individual job and i thought i you're right i thought some of that lucas stuff he held up pretty well so it's not like when he's matched up against these five out teams he's embarrassing himself it's actually the opposite it's like either either Rudy's going to stay home near the basket while his teammates get just cooked at the point of attack. I can't overstate this. There's no resistance at the point of attack. People are at the basket within 0.1 seconds. So either I stay home and not guard

these corner shooters, or I guard the corner shooter, and there's a layup like you can't square those two things. So, like, I'm just like, look, Rudy is pretty insanely good as a five man, as a rim protector. I don't know that he's worth the 40 or 45 million that he makes this year. I don't know that he's worth the 40 or 45 million that he makes this year. I think, and I mentioned Rob Williams again, but like, I think he's making like what, $18 million. Like, you know, when you think about the Rob is underpaid for what he's, what he does at his best and Rudy's a little overpaid, but like, I don't know that he's worth all of that,

but he's certainly not some terrible player. And I'm telling you the jazz stunk it up on defense not because rudy gobert was playing center that's to me that's crazy yeah rudy's for one year into a five-year 205 million dollar contract extension uh and it gets really a lot of baguettes right you're paying him that kind of money it's just not the kind of guy you can put all those resources in. Rob's at $12 million because his extension had a lot of impact because he just couldn't stay healthy all the time.

So it actually turned out pretty good for them. All right, let's keep it moving. We've got a couple more here. Carl Anthony Towns, 26th, third all-star team, two first-round exits, which again, it's not like they lost the teams that were inferior to them. They actually showed some fights this year against Memphis. He's got two third team all NBA he doesn't feel like a top 15 player the all the NBA stuff is more positionally based it felt like a turning

point for Kat so his approval rating feels higher he was 24th in the top 100 for ESPN coming in I think there's a weirdness thing to him, though, that maybe on the internet hurts his approval rating. So I'm always confused because I go, all right, do I actually think he's ascending into somebody? Because the easiest thing to say was you just go like, oh, this guy's not a one. If there are 450 players in the league,

I think there's like 443 that aren't ones yeah and that might be being nice all right like every everybody kind of needs their help so if you're saying well townsend one i'm like yeah well i would agree with you but i think there's a social media element to him where at the end of the season with the way he was like waving goodbye to everybody after they lost like people kind of ding him, and he sort of invites it a little bit. So I don't know if that has more to do with his approval rating than his actual basketball play. I'm certainly not as annoyed by how socially awkward the guy is

as everybody else. That doesn't... That's what it is, though, right? I mean, is it fair? It's socially awkward, yeah. It's weird what he's doing. It's like, bro, have some self-awareness about yourself. And this is the same game where you committed some of the worst fouls.

I want to say like 9 out of 10 worst fouls i saw committed in the playoffs this year were committed by carl anthony towns if the other the other one has to be the dream on one and luca 94 feet away from the exactly and so it's like you can't be this obviously not very cerebral guy on the court while also being guy who blows kisses at a crowd to a team that eventually beats you like this is just it's just a weird thing i'm more critical of towns because i'm just like man can you build a championship defense with this guy as your center you know and if what he does is most valuable on offense, it's less valuable if he's playing the four. Right. So, like, those are the two things that is hard for me to square. The quick-ass release on the threes at volume with efficiency and every now and again being able to actually be one of the few bigs

who can punish a switch down low. I think those combinations are extremely valuable. I think the guy that he plays next to, Anthony Edwards, having a center who can space all the way out there and they can't really put a really small guy on him, like a really small guy, like you could probably get away with certain bigger type of wings, but like a really small guy can't guard him. You know, that opens so much up for Anthony Edwards drive game. So like Minnesota's most important piece, up for Anthony Edwards drive game.

So like Minnesota's most important piece, Carl Anthony towns is like really valuable next to him. Like he's extremely complimentary to what Edwards does, but like, is he a championship player? It doesn't feel like it. I think the easy answer is no on that one. And that's, you know,

he's really good. He's really good. He's really good. He can score for a big man that can shoot and all those things. And for all the social media stuff, like to be totally fair to him, the guy's had a really rough go of it personally for a long time. So I don't know if that plays in any of it. I just want to make sure that that's mentioned to be fair to the guy. I like him, but I think I'm never going to get that excited about it.

So I think wherever his approval rating is, I think on the voting voting stuff it's a little higher than it should be but i also think that it's way more positionally based his success on some of the resume stuff than it is the actual player in comparison to other guys in the league like i don't think i'm ever going to be saying hey is carl anthony towns a top 15 player in the league i can ask the question i don't know that i'll ever answer yes i know i'll never be saying that last one um deandre ayton he was 35 on the top 100 um he's 24 in july i'm telling you it's way too low his approval rating right now is way too low he's a center in a league that doesn't care he doesn't always catch the basketball it's super fucking annoying um but i think as far as bigs

that you know have a chance of staying on the floor late in games when everybody's trying to attack your center i still would like him i i know paying him a ton of money isn't isn't great for this position but at the same time i'd rather spend 30 plus million on him than a lot of other guys that are making 30 plus million i think his approval rating right now is just too low i i tend to agree i think we have a short memory about this stuff um in the playoffs last year this guy was he was ridiculous you know like he's 24 he didn't fall off he's going to get better and people do underrated because they can't relate to it right they underrate the contract thing um just the ego bruise that comes with it uh the feeling that your organization doesn't respect you or value you because they didn't come out and just

say here's your extension and i want to admit that i was wrong about that i was one of those people that was like what's the point, bro? Go out and do it. You'll get your money at the end of the year. Get over it. You know, like, and I will say that I was wrong because his play was affected by it. 100% his play was affected by it. It seems like it's gotten to a point that he can't really come back.

Like, if he wasn't happy last year, you're going to bring him back and he's going to be happy to come back, even if you pay him. I feel like the smart thing for him in his camp to do would be to go out and get a poison pill deal out there and restrict it. Say, I want a two plus one. You can match it,

but I'm going to have you over the barrel pretty soon here. So what's the point of that? Maybe facilitate a sign-in trade. Let's both amicably be done with each other. But like you said, all the stuff that he does on the defensive end as an offensive threat and the things that he doesn't do feels correctable. Sometimes it's like maybe don't do the fall away fake hakeem thing and just go up and try to dunk on somebody and get fouled like that seems teachable am i

crazy for that right no i mean there's there's plenty of stuff where i'll look and go like i know that step back shit looks really cool in the workouts i watched jordan clarkson on an instagram one the other night where i just think he threw it up over Aaron Gordon. And you're like, man, what a great shot. That almost never goes in. Like, cool, cool post, bro. Alright, real quick, to finish

this up, rank them in order. Who would you want to have out of Carl Anthony Towns, Gobert, Aiden? And forget the money. Forget the money, just the player. Aiden, Gobert, Town Forget the money. Just the player. Aiden go bear towns. Holy shit. We both picked Aiden first. We agreed on this way more than I thought we were going to.

Yeah. I like the guys that can do more things than one, you know? Cause like at the end of the day, like a team can figure out a way to stop your one thing. Like even with Steph, right? Like, you could be like, we're gonna blitz this dude. And luckily for

Golden State, they got Draymond, they got guys that can figure out playmaking. But like, you know, like, Steph is luckily for Golden State as well. Like, he's a guy who understands playmaking. He understands defense manipulation. Like, when you can do more than one thing, I like you.

And Towns is like, yeah, shoot, I score. I was checking some notes. I had some other things. They had Beal 11th on the top 100. That's absurd. The Beal is that, that, that. His approval rating is too high for you. Yes.

And see, there are these little things that get on my nerves. Like your woman going on the internet and complaining about All-Star. That's something that sticks with me. I'm just like. You think she'd be knocked into voting because people close to him were going after Zach Lowe. Yeah. That should be baked in there. And like these little things get on my nerves when i know that

they probably shouldn't but i just look at that i'm just like what's going on there like is brad bill just complaining all the time at his house about being extremely well compensated but not being an all-star like is this really happening where's this guy's priorities i know i'm like i'm like get off my lawn with some of this stuff sometimes. And I said, even surprised myself how much I'm becoming like my father. I'm the older than that kid. They had Jalen green 96 before he'd even played.

Now he's higher than 96. So, you know, whatever, maybe you go, here's another thing that I noticed. Can you name the five best white American players?

Okay, this is hard. Who's the best? Who's the best? Is this talked about? It's not talked about because off the top of my head. It's so hard. Is it Gordon Hayward?

I think Gordon Hayward had the belt there for a little while he's just not healthy enough it's certainly not kev love no but he had it for a little while because kevin love was always your default because whenever i would say to somebody like i'd go hey who's the best white american guy right now and then you'd be like oh i got kevin love i go is it tyler hero fuck wow oh my god damn it might be it might have to be tyler hero and then you know the problem is too ryan dude try getting to five this week and then hit me up i'll give you a week is peyton pritchard in the top five is kevin herder a top five is definitely top five okay but it's kevin herder and nobody there's very there are very few spaces in the media that are more pro kevin herder than this

podcast too but i mean kevin herder's's one of the five best in this category? Yeah. So, matter of fact, it was on the call. I was talking to Saruti yesterday and he reminded me of an even crazier stat.

He said that if Chet Holmgren goes number one, he'll be the first white American since 1977 to be picked number one in the NBA draft. That is fucking crazy. That's crazy. Maybe when Chet was asked on Instagram, like, who's the best player in the NBA?

He thought they said best white player in the NBA from America. Because when he answered it, he goes, me in a couple months. And I was like, oh, man, look at the five. Maybe, maybe the question got edited. It is, uh, it's,

it's a nice little chat. It's a nice little trick when you're with, with anybody, anybody, any of your NBA buddies. And you'd be like, name your five best. And guys will start throwing out names.

You just threw up paint Pritchard. And I'm like, what are you fucking nuts? But, but like, but that's no way he's not in the five. I'm just saying, I I'm like, what are you, fucking nuts? But... But, like... But... That's no way. He's not in the five.

No, he's not in the five. I'm just saying. He's not in the five. He's not in the five, but, like... The guy wasn't even playing in the beginning of the year. Waz is like, Peyton Pritchard? I mean, he's in the playoffs still. You know what I mean?

It's like, who was a contributor? Oh, wait, wait. You should have figured it out. He's one of your guys right now. He got hurt this year. Is Caruso in the top five? Oh, wait, wait. You should have figured it out. He's one of your guys right now. He got hurt this year. Is Caruso in the top five? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Caruso, Herter, 100% in the top five.

And those happen to be two of my favorite NBA players, to be honest. I think Herter's kind of underrated, to be honest. Right. He's kind of underrated, but he's also maybe outside the top 100 players. If you go to the one. Right. So the sixth man of the year might be the best white American player. Yeah.

That's crazy. And that's why I want to see Chet Holmgren go to Oklahoma City. Because I just think matching him with that fan base. Oh, Lordy. Oh, my God. Chet Holmgren in the prairie. Oh, my goodness. It will be a tent revival at every single Oklahoma City game

if that kid ends up playing over there. That would be just incredible. You can check him out every weekend, Weekends with Waz. Appreciate it, man. Of course. Anytime, man. You want details?

Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible.

Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Checking in with Kyle, the big guy. In some pain today, huh? Yeah. You talking DL? I mean, I don't know what it is, man. I'd like to think it's more than just sleeping on something wrong,

but my neck's been killing me. And I'm turning my whole body just to check to be able to cross the street. I can't imagine what I look like from somebody that's looking at me when I'm out and about. But I hope this isn't what getting old means. I hope this was just something else because I'm not even really old like you guys. Like you guys? How much older is Saruti than kyle he just i don't know

definitely a maturity wise i think a lot years i don't know five years what do we think four no no 33 28 it's five years pal yeah it's just you know there's you know once you get in your 30s i guess it's you're i mean i'm gonna be a dad so i guess that's also kind of like that has a couple right i think yeah i will say i've never felt older in the last like two years and i mean obviously i've never been older than i am in my life in the last two years but good point that is true the facts uh the uh but i don't know man the like the gen z stuff dude i just i i've never felt older in my life it's absurd i feel like i'm old man yeah between this and my my big back thing a couple months ago, those are things I'm not used to.

I'm not really sure why it's happening. I hope that's not what that means. Maybe I just got bad genes or something. Don't be in a rush to be older. I promise you, you're going to get there no matter what happens. I believe you. I hate when young guys are like, oh man, I'm getting old.

No offense to Rudy, but I hate what you just said. I'm not pumped about it, but I've come to the realization that I'm not cool anymore. I don't know if I'm that cool anymore. It's kind of a bummer. I don't know if you've ever had that phase in your life, but it's kind of weird. Yeah, but you must think I'm a fucking loser. yeah but you must think i'm because you're still playing pickup hoops at like 20 fucking loser did saruti just like sneaky admit that he thinks i kind of suck like if you think you're not cool at 33 then what do you say about me behind my back no you don't think that guys like you don't

i mean you never went through that fate you never went through a phase where you're like man like i guess i don't know i guess you're a little different you like you trend younger you act younger you dress a little younger uh you know you got like the not married no kids vibe living in a head beach so it's a little bit different than my situation but i don't know i feel like most dudes go through that i love what this is going i don't know no i did i had an agent once where uh we were talking about something i was like no man like I need to start. Some of these things need to start working out.

Like we need to start. And he was like, hey, you know, you're young, you're late 30s. And I was like, late 30s? Like, what the fuck are you talking about? You don't even know how. I was like, you're off by like eight years. And he goes, oh, well, you know, you just, he goes, your whole thing, your whole thing is. And I was like, am I incredibly immature to everybody else?

Is this what's going on? And one time I called myself immature in front of some other guys. And they were like, what are you talking about? You do really well. And you're pretty focused on shit. And I was like, I don't know. Maybe it's the no kids thing. Which we do have an email about.

I don't know if I want to read it. It might get too depressing. Let's start with something else. A hot girl. All right. 24. Checking in 511-170. Nothing noteworthy in the gym other than a decent vertical. I think dunking may be in the cards

with a few more leg days. Unlock those. Unleash those, man. Let it happen. I moved into an apartment complex about a month ago. This is the emailer, not me. I parallel parked my car in the street along with most of the other tenants. Today, I walked outside to see my car was sideswiped

with a decent dent and scratch on the front left bumper, probably around $300, $400 worth of damage. That's it? I mean, I know it sucks, but the way that was described, I thought it would be way worse. So we're talking $300, $400. There was no apology note left in my car the car parked directly in front of mine had a huge scratch on the right side no way and was clearly the car that did the damage to mine

all right so here we go parallel park right front left bumper the car parked directly in front of mine huge scratch on the right side all right i don't know that we need csi on this one seems like it's pretty cut and dry any paint chips yeah the other thing too is like sometimes i remember when i was in high school and i was pulling out of the parking lot and a girl who just got her license back just right in to me you know like you're waiting to get out and she's backing out and it's so clear i was like she's not really going to do this slow motion watching it yeah yeah she did it and then she pulled out and took off and i chased i i chased after for a little bit i was like what are you doing and then um i pulled into where she was

babysitting and some guy came out who was like a billion years old and i go look i'm not trying to be like i was upset but i was like you know you need and you just took off like you just crunched into my car it's clear and uh the old guy came out and he walked up to it put his leg next to where the dent was and then walked limped over with his hand still on his leg as a measurement device and then went to her bumper and he just like sort of moved it around and goes, I don't know, doesn't match up to me. Thanks, Milton. Glad you're here to clear that up.

Great old name recall, Kyle. So, you know, sometimes you want to look at that. All right. This seems pretty clear. The issue is I know the owner of the car. She lives in the apartment below mine. I actually walked past her on the way out and had a quick conversation. The solution here seems pretty simple.

Go knock on her door and confront her about it. The other issue, she's incredibly hot. Intimidating, huh? My question is how do I confront her and get her to pay for the car repair i'm a bit nervous i'll get hypnotized by her hotness and forget i even own a car also any advice to parlay this into a date while she also pays the car that would be great wow super optimistic yeah super optimistic i mean the only thing i would say just about the beginning here is like living in LA. It's like, seems like every car, especially when I'm on the road, I get nervous when I see

cars with a lot of dents around me. But once you start looking for that, like everybody's got dents. So, I mean, this could be one of those coincidences. I don't know what kind of a town or city you live in, but if it is a big city, it seems like one in three cars has like one of those oops dents in it. So I would just think about that when you approach her. There is a sliver of a chance you're wrong. Because if you do do that, by the way, why would you park right next to somebody? I've been in the car with somebody who did it and I've done it in my younger years. If you're going to stay in the same like big parking lot or something, you at least have to go away somewhere else. Like that would just, that's too ballsy. if you're going to stay in the same like big parking lot or something, you at least have to go away somewhere else.

Like that would just, that's too ballsy. Unless you're in New York City and there's like one parking spot and you just have to take it. I just can't, I just can't imagine like crunch and then just like,

all right, well, I'm going to park here for the next 12 hours and hopefully nobody puts two and two together. I don't know. I just don't see that being

a rational response to crashing into someone's car. But you're, you're smart, Kyle. Like like i don't know you're giving too much credit to i think people because i think i told the story on the pod about like my one of my buddies name upstairs neighbor stole shoes off of his front porch and was wearing the shoes in front of him like days later and denied the entire thing and so i think people would just people just lie it is what it is there's no way she's gonna if she and if you confront her about it i mean

there's like what are the odds she's gonna be like oh yeah my bad you got me and then also do you want to go on a date like there's just there's just i think you that yeah that you can throw it out right out the window i think you know you say hey you know you got to be honest and just say hey there's some stuff that's not adding up here like you got some scratches on your car similar to mine my guy hit the other day like you know anything about it was it something that like you didn't know if it was too bad and she's gonna deny it and i mean i just i think you're kind of screwed here because what what evidence is there other than like basically you and you know the same similar scratch on the car is like is that enough to prove that she

actually did it do you get the cops involved probably not i just think you're kind of screwed in this situation and you're definitely not going on a date with her if an old guy comes out you just got to charge to the game it's over yeah all Yeah. All right. Well, Kyle, I think you bring up a good point. You got to be 100% certain. There's a chance she parked there after she did it because she doesn't realize she even did it, which is a possibility. Like I just said,

the person backed into me and dented my car while it was happening and then pulled away and had no idea, had like no sense that they had hit anybody's car. The LA call is perfect. If you own a car here in any of these neighborhoods, at some point, people don't give a shit, man. It's unbelievable. Not that I've lived everywhere, but this place is the worst when it comes to people caring about what they're doing to other people's cars. They just don't care. Here's what we need to get to. This is the headline that we've missed on. If she's hot, she's used to getting away with all of this stuff

all right if she's really this insanely hot we're going to be hypnotized uh you also have to be honest with yourself do you normally pull women that are this attractive have you ever you if the answer is no get your fucking money back okay yeah like you know is there any security cam footage of any of this that you could ask the building to find out uh so you can be nice about it be like hey is there any chance um you didn't realize that you hit my car but that's the thing if like what's your goal here to meet her and is it even a possibility and this is where you have to be really honest with yourselves and not all of us like really this. You have to ask yourself, in any situation, would this girl ever pay attention to me? Would she ever say yes? Would she go on a date? Or are

you going to go on a date where she gives in and then you go on the date, she has no interest, and then guess what? You went and paid for some fucking chicken parm and now your car still has a dent in it that you have to cover $400 because she took the date knowing full well that you're a sap like most of us are by the way uh and that because of the date you were like oh well we'll figure it out on the car thing she does the date no intention of paying you for the car and then the date didn't even mean anything it was pointless and you paid for dinner so there's a lot of l's lining up here now if you're if you're the man and you've gotten some vibe from her and you actually really like her and it's worth it to you then all right maybe that'll be your end maybe that'll be your little

story you know you'll be you could take a picture of it you can have it there at the wedding party and it'd be like oh this is how we met she crashed in my car she lied about hitting my car yeah and grandkids will sit around and they'll be like tell us pop pop again how you've met me ma and you know and you're sitting there is me ma a grandmother's name i was just trying to make one up i think so i've seen some pretty wild ones i think that's in the spectrum of weird grandma names so there you go so maybe maybe if you've got that in you and more power to you if that's where your your game is, if your game is that tight, then maybe you can pull this off. But what I would guess, what is the most likely outcome here is if you give in at all, she's going to notice it.

She's going to use her hot powers on you. Your car is still going to be fucked up. And even if you gut the date, it's not going to go anywhere. And she's going to know like, oh, this idiot's going to buy me some chicken and I'm going to be able to crash his car and get away with it. Yeah, I think I think, yeah, the A1 thing here is definitely is definitely the car. So, yeah, do some do a little work. See if I mean, usually by the time these crunch crunch wrecks happen, it's not like a football jersey where you can see like the other team's jersey on it's usually just like the paint's off and it's black but i'd say look to see

if you can maybe compare some sort of like paints if they if that if that happened and then jesus and then and then look at the scott bacula over here and then and then you know look and see if there's some camera stuff but but the bottom line is if she says no what the fuck are you gonna do but yeah i think that should happen but i don't don't like how dismissive you were. As like I said, a while ago as a guy who turned a lot of maybes into sure why nots, that could be a part of it. But I'd say, yeah, A1 is definitely the car thing. And if that starts to work out, then yeah, maybe we're about to date. But you're right. If she's going to smell that on you, if you're breaking at all on this, especially if she's the type to lie.

We don't know. She could be a nice girl and be like, ah, sorry, you got me. But I doubt any of those things would happen. So I think you just got to get as much info as you can about this before you have this extremely uncomfortable conversation. And don't show that you're uncomfortable because I think that will show on you. Right. Like, what's your goal? To meet her?

Then you're going to have to play a bunch of different characters here. If your goal is to get any money back from this going to have to play a bunch of different characters here. If your goal is to get any money back from this, you have to be stern immediately. But it sounds like you have no chance at being stern here if you're already thinking you're going to parlay this into I don't know.

Obviously, you're looking for more than just the shared meal. Yeah, what are you going to say after the first no when she's like, no, I didn't do it. Then what do you say? I'd like to know what your next response would be to the, no, it wasn't me. Well, then you say, okay, you know what?

I've been really depressed about this, and I'd love to be cheered up. Would you like to go get some food? Oh, man. Cerruti's like, I would have a warrant issued. Yeah. Cerruti's like I would have a warrant issued yeah how would you handle a Cerruti if it was somebody

you kind of were like you thought there was a little vibe you'd seen her around the building single guy and you're like I could date this person and you tell your buddies about her I actually think I would I would prioritize probably her over the car which which i hate that i'm saying that but if i was really into her i would use this as an excuse to because

here's the thing is like are you actually happy she hit your car because now you have an excuse to talk to her like that that could be a thing and that's the way you could use this as that's probably what it's expensive reason yeah you know it depends on what stage of my life we're also do you want to by the way do you want to date someone who hits other people's cars and doesn't leave notes? It depends on where you live. And that is dumb enough to leave their car in front of the one they just hit. Is that somebody you want as a life partner? I mean, mm-hmm.

Depends on how hot she is, huh? That's a good point. I was going to say, I was told she was pretty hot, so I guess. The research tells us. And how important is it that you don't have a dent on your car? Like, I don't like that at all. It really bothers me when I'm going, you know, 40 plus and somebody's got a dent. Just look at them different.

I have a scratch on my right now. The thing is pristine and there's a scratch and it sucks. Drives you nuts. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it so much. Neighbor. Neighbor seemed to love it though. He's like, oh, I see you got a scratch in it.

Yeah. Got to be careful out there. Okay. This one's serious and I'm going to treat it seriously. I just don't know if we're the right people to ask or the wrong people to ask. It's about kids or no kids. So I know initially all parents listening to this are going to say you're the worst people to ask, but in a way, I might

be the right person to ask because I'm older. I don't have any kids. So here we go. 5'11", 155, former college tennis player. All right. Pretty good out there. I think being good at tennis is a good thing. This is an aside. Bench is terrible. Tennis racket doesn't weigh that much,

so it was never an issue. My wife and I have been struggling lately with the question of children. We've been married for seven years. And while we're still young, I'm 29, she's 30. All right, so you guys got married pretty early. Yeah. We feel like we need to figure out whether we want a family here in the next few years. We've gone over the pros and cons quite a bit. Pros, we love the flexibility of no kids.

I do a lot of mountaineering backpacking. You're right. You'd have more, no kids, you're going to have more time for that. We both love to travel, which can all get pretty expensive and takes up a lot of free time. Cons, there's obviously something fulfilling

about having children. They bring a lot of joy, especially as you get older. That pretty much sums it up, right? More time to backpack or joy as you get older. Now, I know that's not a question that anyone can answer us. Most likely we'll wake up one day and decide that we are ready. Let's do it. Or we'll never feel ready. We'll enjoy the extra money and free time for rest. Free time for the rest of our lives. But I'm curious about your thoughts on this. We're from the South originally where everyone our age already has at least one kid and there are very few people your age with empty households.

My biggest fear is deciding to not have kids. Then wake up one day at the age of 50 filled with regret. Is this something you've given a lot of thought to? All right. All right. Sincerity's about to be a dad too. We're going to hear from him. I don't know.

Maybe I'll take a little time on this, which is not rare. I have thought about it a little bit more recently. I don't know why. I didn't plan on this necessarily. I kind of knew I had some goals in my head, and then I kind of moved the goalposts on myself constantly. Whenever I'd reach a goal, I'd be like, okay, now I want that next thing. I actually love kids. I really like kids a lot, which is sort of weird that I don't have any. And I'm the oldest of five,

as I pointed out. But I also think like in a weird way, you know, whenever, if you're ever going to go, whatever point in your life, you try to like figure out like, why am I this way? Or why do I do this? Why do I prioritize this over these different things? For me, it's pretty simple. Growing up, I was really skinny. I was a very late bloomer. Everybody would look at my huge dad and be like, what the fuck's wrong with this kid? A lot of coaches are super frustrated, trust me. I got bullied a little bit too. It was weird because I was popular, but then I got bullied because I wasn't really afraid. But I just hated feeling like I was weak. I don't know that any male would ever say, you know who's really cool with being just physically dominated by everybody? Dave.

Dave loves being super easy to intimidate, never being able to fight back. He loves it. Fits in lockers. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an animal thing we're all animals and i hated it so fucking much man and i it went on for a long time with me i didn't fill out i hated it so why am i you know why did i punch a few guys in my 20s and try to put on some weight and fill out remain strong and all these things i hated it so much when i was younger all All right, so that's one part of it. When I got to college, I really cared about the social part of it way more than the reason I was there, which is part immaturity,

but it was a compensation for when I moved in high school, the beginning of my sophomore year, which is a really weird time to move. Yes, I was still popular when I grew up, but I was a loser in high school. This new high school has after two straight years, lunches by himself and aware going, holy shit, I'm one of those guys. Nobody wants to sit and eat lunch with. This is amazing that this happened to me. And then for whatever reason, senior year, everybody really liked me and I was popular and the girls part of it worked out, which was a really weird path to go from like, no one would sit with me for two years to then I'm in the mix. And then when I got to college, I was like, I'm never letting that happen to me again, ever. And I prioritize that. And I think I could even admit that whatever that was,

whatever that experience was at a very young age, 15, 16, 17 years old to then go, okay, I'm never letting that happen again. You can prioritize different things. And as I've mentioned in very rare occasions here, that growing up, my parents broke up a lot. So I was always kind of geared with, and I also knew what it was like to not have money because family didn't do very well. I'd say the first, I don't know, 10 years of my life. And I knew that money was going to be really important to me because I knew what it was like. It always felt like there were fights about money. I knew that no matter what I wanted, I was like, I want to be kind of turnkey ready. I want to have money. And I guess I want to be tough. And I guess I also want to be social

because I can point to these things, very specific moments younger, and I don't realize it until you get older. You're like, oh, that's why I do this. Oh, this is why I feel this way. This is something that I prioritize over all these different things. The irony of all of this is that I do like kids, and I wanted to be at least thought of being able to defend myself. I think, and I can't use the word I want to

use, but I think me not having kids is probably one of the signs of the weakness I was trying to avoid. Like, I think it's one of the most bitch moves ever for me personally. I think what I've done is sort of selfish. And I think that, um, you know, I remember my father at one point when I was younger, he's like, man, people don't have kids, fucking weird. And some people just straight up can't have them. All right. So that's totally unfair. And some people are totally happy, not happy. But I, I cannot tell you, like, I don't know what the ratio is, but it's pretty high of everybody feeling like it's the greatest as challenging as it is. And I guess I just didn't want the challenge, which again, is not really all the other things that I thought I wanted to be to go, Oh, it's going to be a hassle. Like you fucking kidding.

Like some of my friends have started having kids with joke being like, I feel like I need to write my parents a letter and apologize for being such an inconvenience. So, um, to, to bring people into the world and care for them, I mean, this is heavy stuff, right? To bring them in and take on that responsibility. To me, that's the ultimate sign of toughness. And I really think it's going to be weird if you're older and you don't have like, cool, you've got extra houses and stuff. Uh,

you know, knowing that your kids until they hate you when they're teenagers, but, and then blame you for everything in therapy later on. But, um, knowing that there's some good years there in the beginning where when you come home and no matter what happened,

they're so fired up to see you. I think it's, I think it's better for your mental health. I think it's kind of what's supposed to happen. I think we are supposed to reproduce. So anyway, that was a little heavy. And I don't think this response to an email is going to change your mind whatsoever. But if you really say these things out loud of like, here are the pros and here are the

cons, it's kind of of ridiculous debate because everyone that i've heard from about it has gone you know if i was on the fence about it i'd rather do it than wake up that one day going holy shit i never did it yeah i spent rudy yeah why don't you go kyle rudy why don't you go first buddy i'll bring up the rear go ahead okay i was just gonna say um i spent probably the last 10 12 years uh deathly afraid of having a child by accident trying not you know trying to be responsible and not do that and over the last and over the last like really brother no really just like trying to be like man i just don't want i got a lot of friends as i said before with uh my whole wedding shtick you know my, my friends don't get married. They do reproduce though. So again, going, going to my first wedding this summer, really happy,

Christina Alonzo, happy for you guys. But so it's like, I've watched it. It's like, Oh, that guy wasn't ready. That guy wasn't ready. But then also when you talk to, to them now, you know, it was fine. They, you know, they, they struggled. They definitely were like young and maybe not as mature as they would have wanted to be if they could have, but you know, they struggled. They definitely were like young and maybe not as mature as they would have wanted to be if they could have. But, you know, they were also in their early 20s rather than their late 20s. So and I asked like my dad and other people just like, you know, are you ready? He's like, yeah, you know, you're like you're never like ready. So if you're waiting for that like aha moment, I don't know. Some people have it and they start trying. And I think other people just like they're like, hey, surprise. And then you get you get ready. So it's

like get right or get left at that point. So if you're i wonder if you're wondering like for when this thing happens when it's like oh yeah it's baby time i mean you just might not be one of those people that happens to you that way so you know if you're if you're excited about i think maybe go for it people figure it out like i don't know if you're waiting to have like a million in the bank so you feel good about having a kid or something but like i think who are you talking to me or the emailer oh wow oh i'm definitely not talking to you but if you feel it i mean feel free to take the advice man play this back at 0.5 speed uh saruti you want to you want to take us through your timeline of events

yeah i mean so i uh it was friday you know well i've pretty much known i've wanted to have kids for most of my life um although you know what's weird is when i was younger kyle's dying right now sorry it's all right grab a drink of water um i i remember thinking like i wanted to have kids younger than i than i am now like i said i'm in my early mid-ish 30s or whatever. And I always thought like I would just have kids earlier than I do now. But as I got older and as like you sort of start doing stuff in life and there's career stuff and like and I think I talked about this like when I first rejoined the pod like a year ago, like I just I don't know, like there's it's you have to give stuff up. And the guy's talking about giving up the hiking stuff and all that stuff. And, you know, you basically are giving up part of what

feels like it's you. And I think that was a hard thing for me to be like, am I ready to actually give up playing FIFA or just watching every NBA game at night all the time or just being that invested in stuff that you've done for most of your life to transition to something really cool, but something that's outside of what your normal of outside of what your normal interest would, would be. And, um, you know, I had a good talk about it with my wife cause I'm in the same situation too.

Kyle brought the financial aspect of it. I never wanted to be, I didn't want money to be even a remote question. Like I don't, I didn't want to grow up in a house and I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house where it wasn't, but I never wanted it to be like, I didn't want my career or my money situation to also be a problem while I'm

trying to raise a kid or two. I guess I knew I could not handle that. Um um and it would stress me the fuck out and i wouldn't be able to be as like good of a dad as i would want to be so all those factors kind of came in to you know our decision obviously to have a kid now and you know do i still i don't i don't feel like i'm ready to have a kid but the more like dads i talk to that's not an that's not like an abnormal thing i think that's the thing That's like every parent right now is listening. Like, like Kyle even said that there's no like, okay, not ready now, but in six months, I think we're going to pass the test, right? Like it just happens and you adjust and you deal. And I think part of that, that's great too,

is you stop thinking about all the little dumb shit that doesn't really matter now because something else in your life matters more than anything else. And it's this unconditional feeling. So like this, this planning it out and all this different stuff i again i was kind of like you where i was like okay i have to be here because i was so sick of seeing fights about money growing up that i was like i have to make sure that's i'd never want that to happen and then once i was in a position where it wasn't going to happen then i was like like, oh, I guess I'm wait, I'm going to wait for this other thing. And then it just, and I'm, I'm actually okay with it. You know, like I they'll maybe, I don't know how far I want to, like, I know I can kind of handle it because I like being by myself,

but I also don't want to be like one of those guys that tries to overcompensate for not having, like I'm booking a trip overseas soon and I'm just going to go. And I get to do that because of my situation. But I wouldn't talk to a guy with two snotty-nosed kids running around going, oh, I'm going to Iceland and I can do it whenever I want. Because I actually am not proud of that. I'm not proud of that. And I would never point to the guy who's decided to sacrifice and provide for somebody else and get out of his own fucking head i wouldn't ever be like oh look what i get to do is some compensation for the fact that i don't have those things because like i said like i get i have this flexibility to do whatever i want

all the time and clearly i guess deep down maybe i prefer that but it's not something where i'd say like i'm doing better than you because i get to do this. I look at the other person as he's doing something more worthy than me being able to change my fucking departure time. Yeah, I totally agree with you, though. The guy, and this isn't you. I think you have great perspective on this. And I do know that you like kids. And it's not something that I think you're afraid of. It just isn't necessarily the direction your life went down.

But the guy who's like oh i i could never bring a child in this world or oh that guy's trying to bring a child in this world or or or or yeah like oh my god think about all the money i'm gonna save on education and not having to you know like i'll save hundreds of thousand dollars a year because i don't have a kid well that's a stupid i mean okay like what do you want me to say like cool i'm happy like i'm happy for you that you made that decision but that doesn what do you want me to say like cool i'm happy like i'm happy for you that you made that decision but that doesn't mean you're right or that you're better and it's 100 it's such a great point by you that always seems to me like it's a weird deflection

technique um no there's a lot of that a little happened like you know it'll we all kind of but i try to like catch myself and all that stuff like i don't if somebody's talking me up like oh like i had a friend over not that long ago and he came over he saw the place and he was looking out at the water and he's sitting there going holy shit and he goes what are you going to do today and i was like i don't know i didn't work out i probably go work out and then i don't know i gotta watch the basketball and then i get dick around like he's like you're gonna literally do whatever you want today whatever you want and i go yeah and he goes and tomorrow you're gonna do whatever you want tomorrow i'm like well i do have a job and it's kind of demanding even though i'm not on the air

as much anymore he goes but yeah and he was just sitting there and i understood what he was doing he was kind of but i i wasn't going like hands on hips arms out like yeah i'm awesome i was just accepting it for what it was so i don't think many people and here's the other thing dude i'm telling you if you get older and you don't have kids and all of your other friends have kids first of all people don't invite you shit because they don't think you want to go because it's all kids and then there's always going to be people kind of behind your back a little bit being like what the fuck is up with rossillo like he's just this is it this is it like cool podcast but you know and then you know you're calling your buddies to be like hey what's going on and then they don't answer that

you have some story about something and they're like yeah man i don't really fucking care right now i got three kids running around the house and they're building their own memories while you're still like hanging on to yours with your and it just you got to also get like i had to learn that lesson a little bit too where it was buddies would be like okay tool like we got it that was a good time um but I, I got soccer practice today and you're like, Oh, that's right. Not that I didn't realize that,

but it's, uh, I would just say most people, you know, there's, there's a reason everybody has kids because you kind of want to feel like you're doing something. And,

uh, unless you have an insanely like specific career where it's all these different goals and people are still talking to you and they want to hang out you and i could it's not it's not for everybody is what i would tell you i say do it kid round i say do it do it now if you do it now you're gonna be 50 hanging out with your adult kid that's pretty cool you can still get around places i say do it now if you're gonna do it that was another that was another uh thing that came into the equation was like do i want to be an old dad you know and i guess that you you just feel like when you're younger i think you know someone who's like when

you're 20 someone who's 30 feels so much older than you are and then when you're 30 you're like well i'm not that old and that's when i when i got to that point i'm like oh am i supposed to have be having kids right now i still don't feel 30 i feel younger i don't feel like i'm not not ready but i just feel like man, I'm still playing a bunch of FIFA over the weekend. Thank you. I appreciate that. I was a late bloomer. For sure. Puberty, I was 5'1".

Jet black hair. He looks jet black. Oh, that's right. Yeah, you guys hung out. You saw the jet black hair. So Saru looks good. I think we landed on half kids. Maybe not for everybody, but I think never having them is for less people. You also don't have to decide tomorrow.

You're still young. You're good. He actually said, can you get back to us by today in the email. E-O-D, it says. Now or never. Might be too late. Who knows? Who knows? Good luck. Good luck with all that. Got a little deep there. Okay. Life advice, rr at gmail.com.

Thanks to Kyle and Steve. Please subscribe to the Ryan Rosillo Podcast, Ring or Spotify. Talk to you on Thursdays with Gear for the Draft and what could be a deciding day in the NBA Finals. Outro Music you