John Corrales (2:25)

I don't know. I don't know. We we're doing this topic because before we started the last podcast that we recorded, you pointed you pointed out Derrick White and Joe Missoula at, like, Monday Night Raw at TD Garden and yucking it up.

Tom Westerholm (2:43)

I would say, yuck.

John Corrales (2:44)

Last Derek White politely waving to the camera. Joe Missoula smiling like his head was going to fold in half. Like his just so, the biggest, widest smile. Never seen this dude this happy, pretending to pound on Derrick White. This is like. I don't know how Joe and D. White became like, the.

Tom Westerholm (3:06)

The.

John Corrales (3:06)

The buddy cop thing. It's. We've had Baylor and Ugo Gonzalez. That's been a buddy cop kind of relationship here. You know, a little bit of. Just a sprinkling of Luca Garza, Nimius Kada, but nothing, like, serious. But all of a sudden, between that and then Joe was on the radio the other day. They were talking. Somehow conspiracy theories came up, and he's like, oh, Derek Whiteson, conspiracy theories. Hey, Derek, do you believe that? Anybody to believe that we landed on the moon? And he's like, no. No comment here. No crawling in the background. And then now Derek's on his podcast being like, maybe we didn't land on the moon. So just Joe and D. White. This has just been a fun little side subplot of this season now.

Tom Westerholm (3:50)

Yeah. I. I do want to say that I have not seen, like, I literally don't know if I've seen Joe Missoula look as happy as he did to be at the, like, when they won the title. I mean, he took a peaceful walk around the court with his wife. I mean, I think he probably seemed like he felt at. Very. At peace after the title. Right. That he had. He had accomplished the thing he wanted to accomplish. But at this wrestling event, he was ecstatic. He was so happy to be there. He was happy to be on camera. Like, Joe Missoula was happy to be on camera and was just like,

John Corrales (4:30)

he is like, there. The Joe Missoula that we get.

Tom Westerholm (4:35)

Yeah.

John Corrales (4:36)

Is just nowhere close. Nowhere close to who he actually is.

Tom Westerholm (4:43)

You know what it is, though, because it's like the Joe Missoula you get is Joe Missoula, but it's just Joe Missoula interacting with the media. He's still himself. This is just how Joe Missoula.

John Corrales (4:54)

Yeah.

Tom Westerholm (4:55)

Person would interact with reporters.

John Corrales (4:58)

It's. It's. It's Joe on, like, tranquilizers. It's Joe on high board.

Tom Westerholm (5:04)

Yeah.

John Corrales (5:06)

Yeah. You can tell the. The low mumble versus when he's into something. The. You know, he actually, like, enunciates and has energy. Yeah. You know, just take the, you know, 10, 15 possessions that we're. You Know, gonna get better at. And we're gonna go watch.

Tom Westerholm (5:23)

I just gotta just give the game what it needs and then.

John Corrales (5:27)

Okay, Joe. Okay, Joe. Come on. Come on. He hates that process. And so. All right, so whatever. This show at the wrestling, at the wwe, man, happiest dude in the world in his element. Yeah.

Tom Westerholm (5:42)

Yeah.

John Corrales (5:43)

I'm surprised, I'm surprised that he actually likes the wrestling. I don't know if he, I don't, I don't think he watches wrestling, but for him to be there and enjoying himself for an MMA guy, I felt like maybe Joe would be a little bit like, I'm not into the fake fights. Like, boxing's like, I'm not into pillow fights. You know, he wants the real thing.

Tom Westerholm (6:06)

He likes the spectacle of it. I don't think he likes a lot of spectacle. I think he's into that, that version of spectacle. It's like, it's like, you know, I mean, I, I remember when I was, I went to, when I, when I lived in Springfield, Hot Sauce from the, and one mixtape tour came and did, like, I played a game at like, a local high school, and like, he was washed and it wasn't, you know, but like, the energy in the building for a Hot Sauce was awesome. And, like, he finally crossed a guy over and everybody was just like, like, and it was like, it was awesome. I was like, oh, this is awesome. The spectacle of it, you know, it's like, if you're into something, you know, you might. Obviously you'd prefer the pure version of it. Right? But, like, the spectacle is fun too.

John Corrales (6:51)

I, I would not put it past Joe. Joe takes something from everything.

Tom Westerholm (6:56)

The.

John Corrales (6:57)

I, I know a little bit these

Tom Westerholm (6:59)

guys are gonna get, are about to be deranged.

John Corrales (7:02)

Yeah, yeah.

Tom Westerholm (7:04)

They're also, also going to make perfect sense somehow.

John Corrales (7:07)

They will, they will. And he may have somebody hit him with a chair. That's possible that it's gonna happen at practice. However, I, I, I would not be surprised if Joe, like, gets some of the, you know, went behind the scenes and get some. How do you guys choreograph this? How do you know what moves you're going to do? And I, I mean, I pay attention to some of that stuff. I do kind of like it for some of the same reasons. Like, guys that they, they call matches while it's going on. You know, some guy, you know, some guys, they, they, they rehearse it, they go through their rehearsals in the morning of how things are going to go, and it's, it's fake, but also, like, Guys, guys are taking bumps. You're not, you're falling and flipping and flying through the air and you're hitting the deck like you're not, it's not a, it's not a soft padded mat. It's, you know, you're not punching somebody in the face, but there's contact being made. Yeah. Sometimes those guys miss. Oh, oops, sorry. And so, yeah, I'm sure Joe is going to have something that he takes out of it that he's going to use in the game somehow. And like, hey, look, these guys are able to kind of read the audience on the fly and adjust the match accordingly. We should be able to read things on the fly and adjust whatever. But I don't know, he's, he's probably going to take something out of it. I just love that he was there with Derek.

Tom Westerholm (8:34)

It's like incredible. Yeah.

John Corrales (8:36)

Two most opposite personalities that you can find.

Tom Westerholm (8:40)

Yeah. There's something about it. I, I, I, I can't quite put my finger on why it makes sense to me that they would be, that they would be pals. There's something about it that tracks.

John Corrales (8:52)

I, I, well, they're both, they're both very quiet with the media, but very different people behind the scenes. Like Derek is absolutely, you see glimpses of it in the locker room where he's much more open and joking and he's kind of a ball buster. I think he has some of that kind of like, he's, he's a quick wit guy. He'll, he'll, he'll give it to people and listen, man, I, I don't want to go down the conspiracy theory road with him because I, I want to have, I want to hold him in the absolute highest regard. You know, we did land on the moon. We actually did. I don't want to go get into that too much, but it is, it is funny. But I do think I do. And now upon further review, I do think that there's a little bit of the reticence in front of the cameras. But hey, once the cameras are off and you can be yourselves, there's a lot more of like, maybe they're more similar than we thought.

Tom Westerholm (9:49)

Yeah.

John Corrales (9:50)

Yeah. Today's show is brought to you by. Indeed you have a job to fill. Indeed has the tools to help you fill it. Without you just hoping that somebody will come along to fill that spot. Basketball teams don't just hope when they've got an open roster spot that somebody is coming, coming along to help them. They got a bunch of boxes that need to be checked. So do you. Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach the people who actually fit what you're looking for. Their skills, experience, location. So you're not just hoping you're actually interviewing in this minute that I'm talking to you. Companies like yours will make 27 hires on Indeed according to Indeed Data Worldwide. Spend less time searching, more time interviewing with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. That's less stress for you. You're spending less time on this and you're getting more results. Listeners of the show that's you will get $75 in sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves. Indeed.com podcast go to Indeed.com podcast right now. Let them know that we sent you there and that's going to help us. Help me. Indeed.com podcast need to hire this is a job. Terms and conditions apply. This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today's show also brought to you by fanduel. The tournament is here, one of the best times of the year. There's brackets being busted, buzzer beaters, upsets, non stop action from the opening tip to the final cut down of those nets. Right now FanDuel is giving you a chance to stay in all the action all tournament long. You get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. It's 10 chances to stay involved throughout the entire tournament. You can mix it up however you want, game picks, futures or even same game parlays for bigger potential payouts. Good luck to you because it's been a wild tournament already and but it's this is the perfect way to stay involved because there's always something new, different matchups, new storylines every day. Go to FanDuel.com to sign up today. Make sure you're using the tools and that are available to you there so you can gamble responsibly, set your limits, set your budget@fanduel.com to get in on the action. Thank you for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Thank you for being in every day or joining me Monday through Friday. I'm John Corralis. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Celtics on si. Go check out my written work there. I've been covering the Celtics for about 20 years. I've been doing this podcast for 10. Let's get into Brad Stevens because this is actually when I was thinking about a bonus pod. This is actually the topic that I wanted to do even for just 10 minutes of you see it on, you know, on social media already. I the One of the, the stool Big Cat. There's a thing where he's like, listen, these, these, these job openings are going to be there.

Tom Westerholm (12:49)

I just would like to. To Note how funny 2026 is that you're like the stool Big Cat. Like, that sentence just like makes sense. Yeah, no, I know what you're talking about.

John Corrales (13:01)

You know what I'm talking about, right? That's. They didn't, they didn't teach me that delivery in, in journalism school, Emerson College didn't be like, okay, today we're gonna talk about stool Big Cat.

Tom Westerholm (13:12)

Yeah, yeah.

John Corrales (13:13)

Just like, they didn't teach me how to write stories off of people's Instagram stories. This is something else we've got to do.

Tom Westerholm (13:19)

Learn that one on the fly.

John Corrales (13:20)

Yeah, but they made a great point. They made a great point. Like, I forget what jobs are open because I'm not really paying that close attention to that stuff. But the great point was you got to make Brad Stevens say no.

Tom Westerholm (13:32)

I think, I think UNC was one of the ones that's been floated around a little bit, which, like, anytime it's, Anytime it's one of the huge legacy ones, it comes up.

John Corrales (13:40)

Sure, sure. He's not going to go to one of the small mid majors. He's. It's unc, right? Yeah.

Tom Westerholm (13:47)

You did great. But you're not, you're not getting Brad Stevens.

John Corrales (13:49)

Yeah, right. But the, the big legacy ones. You gotta call. Even though I'm here to say he's not going anywhere.

Tom Westerholm (13:56)

Yep.

John Corrales (13:57)

He. You gotta call to make him say no. I completely agree with that sentiment. You gotta call him and make him say no. Because you never know. It's. You got to shoot your shot. But Brad Stevens isn't going anywhere. I don't know why he would go anywhere. Why guys generally don't leave the NBA to go back to college.

Tom Westerholm (14:20)

Right.

John Corrales (14:21)

You make the same amount of money, maybe more. Maybe one of these state schools will kind of go crazy. But why would you go back if you're Brad Stevens, why would you go back into nil world where your, your recruiting process is just so constant? Because you gotta. Who's in the transfer portal? Who am I, who am I tampering with today? You know, it's just, it's so unseemly and unbecoming that it makes making deals like the Kawhi Leonard aspiration deal seem like on board upfront stuff. Why would you. They make the, the Clippers look, you know, fine.

Tom Westerholm (15:03)

You know, nobody's saying why is nobody asking whether Steve Ballmer is Gonna run a college program. Like that's, you know, like, let's, let's talk about it.

John Corrales (15:12)

Let's do it. Let's talk about it. So, yeah, that's, that's the, that's my Brad Stevens spiel.

Tom Westerholm (15:19)

No, for sure. It's like, I think you're right too because, because when, you know, when Brad was first in the.

John Corrales (15:28)

I, I think it's great.

Tom Westerholm (15:29)

The college players are getting paid. I think that's, I think that it's, it's about. I, I listen, I think that, I think that the schools should probably be the one. They're racking up all this money and it's like, you know, why do the, why do the players have to go get their own endorsement deals? Right? But anyway, neither here nor there. I, I do think that one of the things that's happened with all of this is there used to be a rhyme and a reason to it that did make a little bit more sense, right? You're a college coach and you bring in a freshman. And either that freshman is a superstar or you're going to develop him. And you know, maybe he develops into an NBA player by his junior year, or maybe he develops into an NBA player by his senior year, or maybe he never develops into an NBA player, but he's a really solid guy, a role player who you have for four years. And hey, you know what, that might be more valuable than having that one superstar freshman. But that's a decision that you make as a program and that's a recruiting strategy that you have as a program that, you know, might be based on who you can get, but it's also based on identifying talent. And one thing we've seen with Brad Stevens as the GM of the Boston Celtics is that he is elite at identifying talent, right? So he can go out. He was able to help, you know, build a team and recruit a team because. Partly because, you know, he's at Butler. Brad Stevens can, Brad Stevens can spot a guy like he knows, like that guy is going to be an absolute Hooper. I want him in my program for four years. And that rhyme or reason worked really well for Brad Stevens. I don't know how appealing any of this landscape would be because the rhyme and reason is completely different. Now you're building a team is, is very, very different. I mean, you know, Duke can go out and get, you know, four five star guys, you know, in one or whatever, you know, in one recruiting class, like they can bring in a million guys. But like, you know, I mean, how appealing is that? Route. How appealing are any of these routes? How appealing is any of this? I.

John Corrales (17:34)

It's.

Tom Westerholm (17:34)

It. It's a different game. And Brad Stevens, like, when you go to the NBA, part of it as a college coach is part of it. You're challenging yourself. You know, what's the. Do you want to challenge yourself by going back to college? That's not how challenging yourself works. Like, you have to make any sense to me.

John Corrales (17:53)

No, you have to. You would have to miss it with every fiber of your being to go back and be like, but that's not. I don't think that's Brad at all. I'll put it this way. Brad can only lose if he goes back to college. There's no winning if he goes back to college because he's going to go back and win a championship right away. If he doesn't win a championship within his first year or two, give him a chance to recruit and all that stuff. If he doesn't do that right away, within his first couple of years, then it's like, oh, man, shouldn't have left. Shouldn't have left the pros, you know, and you can always go back. You can always go back. You also don't want to be that guy because now people are going to wonder, like, do you. Did you. You left because you had the itch? If Brad wants to coach, he can coach in the NBA. There are jobs opening up in the NBA all the time. He could go coach in the NBA like that, no problem. If you got. If you got an itch you need to scratch, I'm sure somebody somewhere is going to be they. In fact, if you just put it out there, Brad Stevens could back channel it today. Five coaches will get fired tomorrow. 100% in the NBA just so they could hire Brad Stevens.

Tom Westerholm (19:08)

If he wanted to stick it to Eme Udoka, he could get Ema Udoka fired right now.

John Corrales (19:13)

Right now. He could absolutely, 100% agree. He could back channel it and be like, I really love Houston and Ema. The way the season is going, they'd be like, peace, buddy. And Brad just be like. But he could only.

Tom Westerholm (19:27)

Actually, I'm out. I'm not interested, actually.

John Corrales (19:29)

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, guys. Oh, I wish I could make the joke. I just wanted to make so. But look at where Brad is. He's a genius right now. The perception of Brad is you've built. You've built a champion. You got yourself a ring. You built this winner by kind of taking advantage of this new collective bargaining agreement. Then you cleaned house for the most Part. And the guys you got, you kind of butlered your way into. Oh, my God, what a surprising team the Celtics team is because you got a bunch of tryhards. They're like, how did this group get together and be so good? Typical Brad Stevens putting together a team, whether it's in Indiana or in Boston. He puts a team together that no one expects to be good and they're good. And why would you give that up? Why would you. You got Jason Tatum going through his rehab now. He'll be back next year. Whether it's this year or next year, Jason Tatum will be back to enough of himself. Where the Celtics are contenders. You get Jalen Brown at his absolute peak. You've got money to spend. You've got proven role players here. Why would you leave a potential NBA champion multiple times? You get. You're going to have two, three, four years of potential potentially being a contender. If you can stay under the tax next year, you maybe more. Why leave? Why?

Tom Westerholm (21:00)

And you've got a little bit of work life balance. Like, I know that's like, sounds ridiculous to say about an NBA gm, but like, you got more of a work life balance than you did as an NBA coach, and you definitely have more than you would have as a college coach.

John Corrales (21:11)

That means a lot to Brad.

Tom Westerholm (21:15)

That was a big part of the reason he took the. He took the leap. He stated, like, he said that in his. He said that in his press conference. Like, yeah.

John Corrales (21:24)

So, yeah, for all those reasons. Very Shark Tank. For all those reasons. I'm out on Brad Stevens going back to college.

Tom Westerholm (21:33)

And I think that if you're a Celtics fan, you can. I will say I. I have not seen any Celtics fans who are like, I think. I think Celtics fans are pretty, pretty on board with the whole, like, nad. Sure, buddy.

John Corrales (21:47)

Yeah.

Tom Westerholm (21:48)

Okay, sure. As.

John Corrales (21:50)

But as these coaches get fired, you're gonna see Brad Stevens name in there. So he'll be smart. Celtics have practiced on Tuesday. He'll be smart to come out and just give an official quote and be like, guys, I'm going to answer one question. No, I'm not going back to college. No one call me. I'm not. Thank you. I'm flattered, but I'm not interested. Just like every girl that I asked out in high school, just use that playbook and you'll be fine.

Tom Westerholm (22:23)

Yeah.

John Corrales (22:25)

And on that note, Tom, thank you.

Tom Westerholm (22:29)

I appreciate you, man.

John Corrales (22:31)

I appreciate you. I appreciate everybody here for being there. It's a little, little too much, a little too painful look behind the curtain at teenage Sean, was that a little too much? Am I going to start to single tier? It's okay. I've gotten better over time. I'm married.

Tom Westerholm (22:47)

You're a happily married individual.

John Corrales (22:48)

Happily married man.

Tom Westerholm (22:50)

Get out of here.

John Corrales (22:52)

I love my wife and I think she likes me. Thanks everybody for listening. Pay no attention to Tom Westerone behind the Curtain. Thank you for watching. I appreciate everybody being here every dayers. Thank you for being with me every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcasts like this, they appear on the weekends. I would love it now if you shared the podcast. Spread the word. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day.

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