Can Belichick Wake a Sleeping Giant at UNC? Tom Curran on Why Bill Didn’t Return to the NFL. Plus, Clippers Guard Norman Powell.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ryen Russillo Podcast – "Can Belichick Wake a Sleeping Giant at UNC? Tom Curran on Why Bill Didn’t Return to the NFL. Plus, Clippers Guard Norman Powell"

Release Date: December 13, 2024
Host: Ryen Russillo
Platform: The Ringer

In this episode, Ryen Russillo delves into the intriguing possibility of legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick taking the helm at the University of North Carolina (UNC), explores the dynamics behind Belichick's decision not to return to the NFL, and highlights the standout performance of Clippers guard Norman Powell. Hosted by Russillo, the episode features insights from Tom Curran, a seasoned Patriots analyst, and a candid interview with Norman Powell.

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1. Bill Belichick’s Potential Move to UNC

Tom Curran and Ryen Russillo kick off the discussion surrounding the unprecedented news of Bill Belichick potentially becoming the head coach at UNC, marking him as the oldest active coach in college football.

• Belichick’s Passion for Football: Russillo expresses his support for Belichick’s dedication, stating, “Bill needs football, and that’s cool that he needs football” (00:10).

• Age and Career Decisions: Russillo reflects on Belichick’s earlier statement about not wanting to coach into his 70s, noting, “He said he didn’t want to be coaching in his 70s, but now he’s 73 and coming back shows his unwavering passion” (02:15).

• Relationship with the NFL: Tom Curran provides context on Belichick’s strained relationship with the NFL. He recounts a critical statement from Belichick’s confidant: “This is a big fuck you to the NFL” (17:03), indicating Belichick’s frustration with the league’s current state and management.

• Impact on UNC’s Football Program: Russillo and Curran discuss the potential transformation at UNC, with Russillo optimistic that Belichick could elevate the program: “North Carolina has always felt like the sleeping giant in college football. Belichick could wake that giant” (25:54).

• Belichick’s Coaching Philosophy: Emphasizing Belichick’s renowned discipline and adaptability, Curran remarks, “Whatever wasn’t working, Belichick would figure it out and solve the problem” (12:30). However, he remains skeptical about Belichick establishing a top-tier program at UNC, anticipating solid seasons but not championship contention (24:26).

2. Why Bill Belichick Didn’t Return to the NFL

The conversation shifts to dissecting the reasons behind Belichick’s choice to step away from the NFL rather than continuing his storied career.

• Drafting and Team Management Issues: Curran critiques Belichick’s recent drafting strategies, highlighting poor performance from second and third-round picks: “There are so many lean years that Belichick’s drafting has been subpar” (16:27).

• Organizational Challenges: Discussing the New England Patriots’ decline post-Brady era, Curran notes, “Belichick’s hesitation to trust beyond his inner circle has stifled the team’s growth” (25:54).

• Desire for Control: Russillo underscores Belichick’s need for control, suggesting that collegiate coaching offers him the autonomy he craves without the bureaucratic constraints of the NFL: “Bill has always prioritized winning over collaboration, and college football gives him the platform to implement his vision without interference” (22:00).

3. Norman Powell’s Ascendancy with the Clippers

Transitioning to the NBA, Russillo introduces Norman Powell, whom he describes as “perhaps the most underrated bucket getter in the NBA” (00:10). Powell joins the podcast to discuss his evolving role and impressive performance with the Los Angeles Clippers.

• Role Expansion and Performance: Powell reflects on his increased responsibilities, stating, “Being a go-to guy has been a dream, and stepping into that role has been incredibly rewarding” (52:51).

• Dynamic with Teammates: He elaborates on the synergy with teammates like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George: “Playing alongside superstars has taught me to maximize my opportunities and fill the gaps when they need me” (58:57).

• Adjusting to Team Strategies: Powell discusses how the Clippers’ defensive strategies, influenced by coach Ty Lue, have impacted his gameplay: “Our defensive playstyle emphasizes aggression and communication, which complements my role as a scorer” (74:50).

• Overcoming Adversity: Sharing his journey from being a second-round pick to securing a vital spot in the Clippers’ lineup, Powell emphasizes resilience: “The uncertainty during my early career fueled my determination to excel when given the chance” (56:58).

4. NBA Game Analyses

Besides the interviews, Russillo and Curran provide insightful analyses of recent NBA games, focusing on player performances and team strategies.

• Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Development: Highlighting Giannis’s improved shooting mechanics and off-ball movement: “His handle has never been better, making him even more of a force on the court” (26:47).

• Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shooting Efficiency: They discuss the Thunder’s enhanced shooting percentage and defensive prowess, anticipating a stronger season performance: “With key players returning, the Thunder’s defensive numbers are top-notch, positioning them as serious contenders” (28:29).

• Atlanta Hawks’ Team Dynamics: Analyzing the Hawks’ depth and strategic play, Russillo praises their balanced rotation and Trey Young’s evolving role: “Trey’s willingness to pass more is a testament to the team’s collective focus on wins over individual accolades” (77:02).

5. Closing Thoughts and Future Predictions

Russillo wraps up the episode with reflections on Belichick’s potential legacy in college football and Powell’s future with the Clippers.

• Belichick’s Long-Term Impact: While optimistic about Belichick’s immediate contributions to UNC, Russillo remains cautious about his ability to sustain a top-tier program long-term: “Belichick’s genius is undeniable, but translating that to college football remains to be seen” (24:26).

• Powell’s Continued Growth: Expecting Powell to maintain his upward trajectory, Russillo anticipates further standout performances that could cement his status as an essential Clippers player: “Norman Powell’s dedication and skill are only going to elevate the Clippers’ gameplay” (58:57).

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Notable Quotes:

• Ryen Russillo on Belichick’s Age and Passion for Football:
  “Bill needs football, and that’s cool that he needs football.” (02:15)

• Tom Curran on Belichick’s Strained NFL Relationship:
  “This is a big fuck you to the NFL.” (17:03)

• Norman Powell on Embracing His Role:
  “Being a go-to guy has been a dream, and stepping into that role has been incredibly rewarding.” (52:51)

• Ryen Russillo on Belichick’s Potential at UNC:
  “Belichick could wake that giant.” (25:54)

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Conclusion

This episode of The Ryen Russillo Podcast offers a compelling exploration of Bill Belichick’s unexpected foray into college football, providing listeners with an inside look into the challenges and potentials of such a move. Additionally, Norman Powell’s candid conversation sheds light on his pivotal role with the Clippers, showcasing his growth and the strategic importance he holds within the team. Whether you’re a die-hard sports enthusiast or a casual follower, Russillo’s engaging discussions and expert insights make this episode a must-listen.

Transcript

[Ryan Resilio]

Packed Friday pod for you. We start with Bill Belichick to Chapel Hill. Bill is on to college football. Tom Curran knows Bill well until Bill didn't like him anymore. But he's great to talk to him about it. So Curran's going to join us from back in Boston. NBA. We've got Norman Powell, perhaps the most underrated bucket getter in the NBA. His role with the Clippers, his numbers just raging. And I've got some thoughts on the in season tournament results from earlier this week. And we've got life advice. Have a great weekend. This episode of the Ryan Resilo podcast is presented by State Farm. Bring home a win with an affordable price when you bundle home and auto with the personal price plan. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Chevy. Great football teams are built by having the right capability in the right positions. It's the same with great trucks like the Chevy Silverado. You start under the hood with four powerful engine choices delivering massive towing capacity. Then you've got available onboard technology that gives you extra peace of mind while towing. Finally, the rugged, purposeful design of the Silverado screams grit and determination just like a winning football team. Visit Chevy.com to learn more. I want to start with Belichick in the news that he's going to be the head coach in North Carolina. Then I got some NBA stuff that I'll get to here in a second. But there you go. Bill Belichick, head coach of UNC football, now the oldest active coach in all of college football. And I'm happy for him because I think we can all assume and we know based on his decisions and what he has given his life to, given his life to the sport, that this is what he wants. I know 15 years ago he said, I don't want to be Marv leaving and coaching in my 70s. Well, he's 73 now. But he also admitted years later that he wished he hadn't said that. But when he said it, you know, he's still in his 50s. I think what he did is he made a mistake that a lot of people make. A lot of really successful people make this mistake because you start pretending you think you know who you'll be years later. You know, age is a really weird thing because when you're younger, you make all these assumptions about who you think you'll be and what your priorities will be. And then when you're in it, you're like, all right, well, this isn't that old. And like, I'm not. I'm not done. And I think last year was the first time Belichick was outside of football since, like, 1975. So Bill needs football, and that's cool that he needs football. I, I, in a way, would think it'd be really cool to have, like, this one thing that is, that is so important to you that you never want to not have it in your life. So he's headed down to Chapel Hill. I know that in the Wickersham piece this week, and he went on in more detail with Bill last night for his podcast, but Wickersham wrote this week that a Belichick confident said quote, this is a big fuck you to the NFL by Bill, and that Bill's disgusted with certain elements of today's NFL. Apparently, through this last cycle, right, Belichick and his group were trying to figure out, okay, which teams would be available. Would it be the Bears? The Bears hire him? Would it be Jacksonville? Could it be Dallas potentially, after last year's hiring cycle, where it looked like Atlanta was the only team that really even considered him all that strongly and that felt like it was coming more from ownership. Because there was another piece to this from Wickersham's.com piece with that Atlanta brass, once they had to come together and put their, their top three finalists together for the head coaching gig for the Falcons that Reem Morrison ended up getting, that all of the people that were asked to go give us your top three, no one had Belichick even in their top three. And that's probably where that quote comes from. That also could probably be the birth of Belichick being disgusted because you're thinking, all right, whatever you think of Belich, like, he's not a top three finalist for the Atlanta Falcons by anybody that has influence on that decision being made. But remember, too, when these jobs get really important, okay, it becomes the goal can become more about self preservation than it can become about wins on a Sunday. So if you're handing the keys over to Bill, even if he's telling you not fully handling the, the keys over to him, you're still kind of handing the keys over to Bill Belichick because, like, what's a reduced role, Bill Belichick, like, in an NFL, like, if you're bringing them in, you're doing it his way. And so the people that are probably going, I don't know that he's a finalist, may not be thinking about the football piece of it as much as they're thinking about their own future. And the reason we'd even come to this, because as much as I think Belichick's, you know, I don't, I don't really know. I guess we, if we wanted to make an argument, we make anything, an argument. But if he's not the greatest coach of his time, he's the greatest coach of all time. And when it came to a team being prepared or a team adapting, I'll never forget, like when they were rolling, rolling, when I still, like cared about the team and the games and that kind of stuff, when I was still like in my fan mode, it was the most amazing feeling being a fan of a Belichick coach team. Because whatever wasn't working or was whatever was disconnected in the first half, you just knew they were going to figure it out and they would come out in the second half and they'd have solved the problem. Doesn't mean they were going to win every single game. But whatever was a problem in the first half likely would not be a problem in the second half. I can't tell you how much fun that is when it's the head coach of the team that you care about. And that's what happened. But I've talked about the GM part of this. I mean, the gm, Belichick, the GM cost Belichick the head coach his job because it was ugly for years, man. I was going through it again this morning because I remember years and years ago when I was still thinking, working with Van Pelt, like we started to point it out a little bit, being like, this is a bad draft class and this class is bad and we all know, like with the receivers and all that kind of stuff. But I was going through like some of those second and third rounders where you need a couple of those guys to hit, you need those mid rounders in the NFL draft to hit so that you have depth and you're developing your own guys. Because we assume Belichick not just a great coach, but great at developing this stuff, but there's just so many lean, lean years that then you go back a couple years ago in free agency, and then Belichick had to do something that was the antithesis of how he wanted to team build is he had a dip in a free agency, start spending all of this money. And I remember one year they had the highest combined Cap, hit at receiver, tight end combined. And I doubt any of you can even name who those guys were. Certainly not the receivers, maybe a couple of the tight ends. But he had been so bad at drafting, he didn't even want to resign any of the guys he drafted. And if you go through some of those draft records, and I'm talking like the second and third round guys, like a second rounder that's flipped for a seventh three years later, the second rounder that doesn't get a contract anywhere else, the second rounder that's completely out of football, the second rounder they drafted and they're already trading two years later. There's a lot of those guys in the list. So there's certainly with the way it ended in New England, hesitation, because you go, he might be the great coach, but can he run our entire organization? And then of course, there's always the Brady thing. You want to get ahead of Brady. You want to say, I want to get in front of this before it gets a little too ridiculous. Okay, all right, fine. Because again, New England was the only Belichick, that combination, the only franchise probably in NFL history with that dynamic that ever say, no, Brady, that's fine, you can go somewhere else and by the way, win another Super Bowl. If you wanted to do those things, fine. But what was the backup plan? Cam Newton hanging around with nowhere else to sign for 1.75 million and then Mac Jones. So I think the personality, I think the track record of the front office obviously dinging him, but not in college football. Right? Because why should any of that matter? Is it an evaluation thing? And again, we're talking about Bill Belichick here. There are times when he talks about football where I'm like, do I understand anything about this game that I watched like 40 years? And maybe the recruiting part that people are worried about, which I think is totally fair to wonder, like, how is he going to handle recruiting with today's athlete where these guys are verbally committing and then flipping non stop and just all the nonsense that goes along with it, which again, I don't really criticize the kid because who cares? They've been exploited for years. But old school Belichick, is he going to be into that? Is he going to be into the nil part of the transfer portal? I mean, the nil stuff, a lot of that stuff sells, just delegated anyway, so it's not like the head coach is sitting there writing out checks, going like, 20 for you, 20 for you. Right? So I think some of that can be insulated from Bill having to worry about that all the time. But when it comes to recruiting and evaluating a lot of stuff, I can't imagine Bill watching high school football with his staff and not being able to figure out who is good or who is not good for his system. North Carolina has always felt like the sleeping giant in college football. Like, can't they get it right? I know it's not. Maybe this is bum Clemson fans out, but if Clemson can at one point reach national title contender status and win a couple national titles, can't UNC at least win an acc? I don't think that's a stretch. If you look at the recruiting databases and look at stuff by state like North Carolina, if I say top 10, that's a little misleading. I would say they're depending on who you want to look at, who you trust, like in that 10 + range. As far as states with high school talent going into D1 program programs. So that make a lot of sense. I mean, it's an awesome town, it's an awesome history. There's a real selling point. North Carolina is cool in a way. Very few colleges compare as well in the cool part of this. So. And really, what's worse, talking to high school kids and trying to recruit them and deal with all that bullshit that you have an advantage of just knowing it's ahead of time, like, you know how that you're like, this is going to be tough, it's going to be challenging. It might not be a lot of fun, but at least I know these things ahead of time. And I think that actually can be. Maybe it's not an advantage, but it, it desensitizes. Yeah, I think, I think you're just going to have more calluses built up for it ahead of time, knowing how ridiculous all that recruiting stuff can be. But is that worse than talking to NFL owners that are wondering why you did or didn't go for it on fourth down? Because it didn't seem like Bill really loved the ownership part in any of his travels throughout the work on Sunday. I also wonder what he's going to be like with the media. Is there a more affable Bill? Is that what we're going to see? Are we going to see somebody who like, okay, maybe I can't be the way I was in Foxboro all that time. We know that in the beginning, right? In the beginning, he's going to be awesome, friendly, ready to go. And you know, Bill, it wasn't that he was a bully or didn't respect Anybody, I mean, you could accuse him of those things. It didn't bother me as a media person. It wasn't like I was fighting for my media brethren. I just felt like there was kind of like a human decency thing where I was like, does it have to be like this? But at the same time, as I've mentioned numerous times, I respected the fact that he never was going to let noise be a factor with his organization. He was never going to allow any of the stuff that happened with the media, any of the negativity leak in and get in the way of impacting whether or not they could win a football game. And that part, you may not love it, but I kind of respect it. When you look at all of these drama filled organizations where every week it's something else, it's something else stupid. It's, it's a misunderstanding, it's a quote, it's all this. And he's like, I am going to eliminate all of that. That's not going to happen here. I like the fact that he's going to get his son involved because clearly the relationship between Bill and his father is something that meant a lot to him and is celebrated. And maybe he's just trying to recreate that on the fly with his son, who I would tell you a lot of people think is really good as a defensive coach. And I think there's some numbers that would back that up. Going back to last year's unit with a team that wasn't exactly stacked, I don't know if the coach in waiting thing makes any sense anymore. That was all the rage in college football there for years. Will Muschamp, Texas. Joker Phillips, Kentucky. James Franklin, MD. We don't hear about the coach in waiting all that. Here's how coach and waiting works. You have to retire and have everything be awesome and then everybody think that the coach in waiting is an awesome recruiter. So look, does build the college football mean. This is another one too. Just build a college football mean that the college football transition to the NFL means that college football is not dead. Because we had a lot of people claiming that last year when Jeff Halfley left his head coach of Austin College to go to Green Bay, becomes defensive coordinator Liam Cohen, deciding to leave Kentucky after just one year in college as the OC there to become the OC of Tampa Bay. Remember that? So maybe this is with Belichick, the greatest of all time going to college. An argument that college football is not at death's door, but it's a win. This is an all time introductory press conference win. Everybody's smiling. If you're North Carolina, if you're running that athletic department and Bill Belichick is telling you this is how he wants to do it and he wants to do it here with the family history going back to his father in the 50s, then that is a no brainer hire. You could do it a different way. You could worry about his age, you could worry about him being a little outdated, you could even worry about the personality and what that's going to be like with college media. But it's an all time win, an impossible thing, an impossible option to probably say no to. And I am going to be looking forward to seeing how he handles it because if they win, does he become more like Foxboro Bill? Or if he loses they become more like Foxboro Bill because Chapel Hill Bill is going to be fun in the beginning. Sometimes in basketball, 30 points could be worth more than 30 points and now you can get a 30% profit boost from the Ringer with FanDuels 30 on 30 during Friday's NBA action. That's right, the Ringer is teaming up with America's number one sportsbook to give you a 30% profit boost when you either pick a player to score more than 30 points or bet on our new exclusive 30 on 30 special markets. Like any game to have Both teams score 30 plus points in the first quarter. Just looking at Friday slate, there's a lot to like feel like. I say that every week but we're three and oh on these with the DNP because LaMelo didn't play in one of those games. So all right, looking at the slate tonight we could go Lamello if we wanted to, but I'm not going to. I'm going to go with Anthony Edwards, Minnesota hosting the Lakers at home the last time out for Ant against the Lakers he scored eight points. He's here for 16, 30, 27. I don't love everything I'm seeing from Minnesota right now, but I think this could be hey, I'm not getting the eight points against those dudes again. So that's the Play. Anthony Edwards 30 or more points. So whether you want to rival my picks or make your own, just look for 30 on 30 in the FanDuel sportsbook app or head to FanDuel.com Ryan for your chance to score a bigger payout this Friday. Don't miss your chance to find out how much 30 can be worth with FanDuel's 30 on 30 must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus in present DC opt in required bonus issued is non withdrawable Profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms@sportsbook fanduel.com gambling problem. Call 1-800-gambler or visit rg help.com he is the guy to talk to when it comes to this. It is Tom Kern who's covered the Patriots for a long time from of course NBC Boston and Tom Curran's Patriots talk podcast. What's going on, man? Good to see you.

[Tom Curran]

Could not be happier to see you. Just I could not be happier for your success over the 20 plus years from when I knew you initially to now. So really, really happy to see the success and have a chance to talk to you.

[Ryan Resilio]

Thanks, man.

[Norman Powell]

All right.

[Ryan Resilio]

So Belichick to North Carolina. Are you surprised?

[Tom Curran]

On the face of it, you'd be a liar to say that you're, you're not surprised. But when you look back at it, Ryan, and you look at all the details, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. You know, Seth Wickersham wrote a story and a confidant of Belichick said that. Can we swear on this?

[Ryan Resilio]

Sure can.

[Tom Curran]

Said that this was from Bill to the NFL a you. And I think more accurately I would say to that confidant, it's actually closer to, oh, you know what? Me. You. You and all your little minions and all your owner sons and half wood executives and guys who I'm supposed to stand hat in hand in front of and make a case to come back to your league, the league that I helped build. Fuck you. I'm all set with you. I've accomplished too much to have to wander. And you know what? You're not even the NFL that I helped build. So fuck you two. Me? Because you said me last year. That's what you did last year. Blank and the crafts and the whole league giving me the hi hat. That was a you to me. Fuck you too, you pricks. I might have been overboard.

[Ryan Resilio]

How real? Like when, when last year in the hiring cycle was happening. In, in Bill's case, not happening. And I mentioned in the open too. Like I thought Atlanta, I thought Blank would just go, hey, I can bring in Bill Belichick. Like who cares? And I've already been over the draft record. All of us have talked about it, GM job and everything. But is there truth to say the craft side of this, poisoning the waters for Bill's opportunities?

[Tom Curran]

I think that if you are friends with a fellow owner, you have to tell them if they're buying something, what they're purchasing.

[Ryan Resilio]

What are you purchasing? If you're an NFL team, you're purchasing.

[Tom Curran]

A genius in game coach, a guy who will have an incredibly disciplined team, one who can be difficult to deal with, who's not going to be incredibly forthcoming on the decisions that he makes, who has, as you can tell, Arthur not been the greatest drafter in the past few years. He's not easy to work with, but, you know, if you get the right structure around him and he's in a better mood, then it might work fine. I mean, you can't really lie. Like it's. If you or I, if you came to me and were asking to hire somebody that I had moved on from, which isn't going to happen, but if that did happen and I said, no, he's awesome, it was all me. He's great to work with. You're going to love him. And then he got there and he was just exactly as you suspected. Then you go, what are you, an idiot? But again, when you look at the crafts, what's their motivation to poison the water when they're probably spending money on at least a portion of his contract for this year? What's the motivation to make him look stupid? I just don't think that they wanted it to be as messy as it got. I think the Kraft tried to, has been constantly trying to thread the needle on. Let's keep our foot in the past with Bill and the dynasty and move forward with Gerrard, and we'll see how it goes. What's the worst that can happen? Let's try and fire Bill, but he's not going to be mad about it. We're just going to move on with dignity. They're trying to thread the needle of an impossible needle to thread with the greatest coach in pro sports history. So that's a long winded ass answer. Sorry.

[Ryan Resilio]

But that's, I think, helps us kind of understand all of it a little bit better. I mean, because I feel like we're doing some of the topics that we just did a year ago and I didn't mean to just, you know, I don't mean to rehash all of it, but I guess like, clearly this man loves coaching in a way that, you know, you could say, hey, anybody that's passionate about their field and reaches the tops. But like, this is, this is really what he's all about. Like these, this group of people that he's with, whether it was Lombardi or Patricia, you know that Wickersham talks about this this group that would get together on a Zoom and talk about, like, hey, did you see what this team is doing? And is this guy. I mean, it's basically, these guys had their own football podcast for a year and they never released any of the episodes. So this is somebody that was either so motivated by being dismissed by the NFL or just that he can't fathom having another year where he's not walking around a field with a whistle, which I admire. Like, that part of it. I can totally like having that taken away from you when you don't, like, have his resume. And then to have that taken away from you where you're waiting for somebody else to give you that chance. There had to be some really weird moments for somebody like Bill going, wait, I'm not doing this again. Are you kidding me? So I like this. I like this for him, even though I understand the rest of it. Like, I don't know what your relationship is with him now, but maybe I'll ask you to guess. Or if you do get the chance to talk to him, like, what do you think it is about this for Belichick to be doing it in college football?

[Tom Curran]

I think that he, again, I don't think that he probably thinks about me much, but if he did think about me, go, yeah, I'm all set with him. I look at that group on the Zoom meeting and you'll appreciate this. It reminds me of a virtual or online advanced version of the guys who sit at Dunkin Donuts in there and gather around on us at 10 o'clock every morning and bitch about the world. That's probably what it's felt like. And yeah, Bill, they don't want Bill anymore, and Bill doesn't want them anymore. So Bill's going to get his guys because he trusts his guys. And there's the hive mind of Belichick that is going to go to college and dominate, because how hard can it be? Look at these guys. Look at these slappies who dominate down here. And it can have the altruistic aspect of it's the wild, wild west in college. I'm going to infuse this frontier land with some stability. I'm going to instill discipline into young men because I believe the service aspect of it and the developing of individuals does matter to him. I really do. Growing up at the Naval Academy, having impact on really wonderful people like a Matt Slater or a Nate Ebner or any other. The dozens of guys who've gone through this program that weren't great players but were actually contributing members of society. Bill, I think, believes in that. So he'll have the opportunity to do that. And we look at young men are at a crossroads in society globally. And I think the more that you can get young men off their phones and giving them purpose and they can then help other people with the next generation that comes up. I would imagine that appeals to him, but it also has to appeal to him that nobody's going to get their friggin hands in the soup. And I think the Lombardi articulated it perfectly on his podcast last week when he said, hey, this isn't about control after having spent 3 minutes and 45 seconds talking about how much it's changed in the NFL and everybody gets their hands in the soup. So it is about control and Bill having it on his terms. And if it has to be in college, fine, I'll do it. Nice sunny Chapel Hill.

[Ryan Resilio]

You think it's going to work?

[Tom Curran]

No, I think it'll be a nice cruise into the sunset on the horizon. I think he'll win eight games here, I think he'll win nine games there. I think he'll win seven games, I think he'll win 11 games. But he won't create a top five program. I don't think. I just. Because look at it this way, Ryan. Why were the Patriots not good anymore? Well, first of all, because they lost the greatest quarterback of all time. But secondly, because they had a tiny friggin coaching staff. Why did they have a tiny coaching staff? Well, first, because Bill made $25 million a year. But also because Bill didn't trust anybody who was not vetted by him or Stephen or Michael Lombardi or somebody within his circle. And that circle shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. Cornerbacks coach who's turned out to be a good coach is this kid named Mike Pellegrino. Been here for a few years. He was a lacrosse player and coach. And Bill said, well, let's make you into a football coach. It's worked, but if Bill can't mold you, he's not interested in having you. So I don't know if this collection of guys between Bill Lombardi, Patricia, Freddie Kitchens are going to have the hive mind to just infiltrate the college game and dominate it. I think it is about the size of your coaching staff and the innovation and stuff. What do you think of that notion?

[Ryan Resilio]

I could see it having a real pop early. Yes, right. Because there's excitement, there's people signing with them. The nil part of it, like nothing. All the Nils like they're Most pumped up in the beginning, right. In the beginning of like, okay, so let's get behind this. There'll be all this momentum now. You know, we'll see what happens at the most important positions. And, you know, I don't, I don't. I don't think is the draft didn't go well, that now he's going to be a bad recruiter. I think that'd be a stupid assumption. And, you know, for the most part, like, you look at the recruiting rankings, you're like, which guys are close to us? Let's try to get them right. I don't know that you're going, oh, I don't know if this guy's a three technique. You know, the way he would be with the way he would, you know, really want to hone down and like, who. Who fits his system or not.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah.

[Tom Curran]

I just dawned on me what's going to be funny is how does he cut guys that he doesn't like? You give a kid a freaking scholarship and it turns out you don't like him. Can't really cut him, can you? I mean, like, certainly. And this absolutely happened here. And Brady would talk about this in his final year here. He's like, I've seen how guys get ostracized when Bill wants to move on from them. I've seen it a million times, and I'm getting it now, too. They just doesn't communicate with them. So how is he going to do it to these 18 and 19 year olds when they show up and they can't be a three technique. You can't cut college players, can you?

[Ryan Resilio]

No, but you cannot play them and then hope they hit the portal. That's. That's kind of the benefit of the portal is if you make it miserable enough for a guy that you gave a scholarship to, then just make it that bad. I mean, this was happening before the Portal. I remember there was a player where. I mean, I. I'm not gonna. I think everybody kind of knows this story, but there was a player. Harbaugh had at one point was basically like, trying to make his life miserable. And Harbaugh was just wrong about the player. But, like, he was. He was hoping maybe this guy will get out of here. And Harbaugh. It was one of the rare cases of Harbaugh kind of getting something wrong because, you know, Harbaugh's won every single place he's gone. Look, If Bill wins 11 games at Chapel Hill, that is a win. But I understand what you're saying. Like, if you're bringing in Belichick. You're starting to wonder what's our ceiling like? Could we be competing for national championships? I mean, hell, can you win? I mean, North Carolina football, you could argue is. Is one of these weird deals. Yeah, it's like the Baltimore Orioles for years and years being like, how can the Orioles not be good?

[Tom Curran]

Right.

[Ryan Resilio]

With what you would think would be a lot of resources. But there were just other things that they were in their way. And maybe I'm thinking back too much to my AL east baseball days of that. But North Carolina should be more competitive than they've been. It is kind of funny that they go from Mac to Bill, who's actually older than Mack Brown. The other part that I think is kind of interesting, again, this is something I've always talked about with Bill is it's going to be funny to see a friendlier version of him in the beginning because he'll know that he has to do it. And I can't tell, like, this is kind of where I close the open. Will he revert back to Foxboro, Bill with losses or with wins?

[Tom Curran]

You know, there are certainly plenty. There's plenty of precedent for him to be a dink at the college level because Nick Saban was. I don't know, I didn't see all the, you know, warm and fuzzy Nick Saban press conferences, but is he going to chew on some kid from the Chapel Hill Bugle? You know, the way. And he doesn't really chew on guys, he just pisses on their foreheads. So, I mean, is that what you're looking for? It will be interesting, I think. What's more challenging, I just Talked to Billy O'Brien from Boston College about this on my pod. My PO was that how is Bill going to deal with the cocktail parties after a 21 to 20 loss to Virginia and the.

[Ryan Resilio]

Har har har har har.

[Tom Curran]

We brought all your boys down here spending a lot of money on you guys. Now we get some wins. We getting some wins. Bill here, not like I think he's not.

[Ryan Resilio]

He didn't take the Texas. Did he take the Texas Tech job?

[Tom Curran]

Was that a Texas thing? I don't give a shit. I don't. But you know, there's a sensibility in Massachusetts and certainly on Nantucket that's not as backslapping and har har har glad handing. And I wonder how much he's going to enjoy that aspect. Right. He'll.

[Ryan Resilio]

He'll do everything that you're supposed to do in the Beginning and then he's not going to do those things. Yeah, early Bill is going to be very cooperative, he's going to be friendly, but once he gets that thing rolling, he's not. And I mean rolling in like the day to day, hey, this is the job. And I don't know if rolling is, is eight wins, I don't know if it's 11 wins. But here's the thing is like he wanted to do it and they wanted to do it. So good for all of them. Like, I would not sit here and criticize it like you could. You get the next hot 38 year old offensive coordinator and fuck it up just as bad. So if the greatest coach perhaps of all time in the history of the NFL wants to come down and do this and try his approach to this whole thing, and you're North Carolina, good for everybody.

[Tom Curran]

Do you feel shortchanged that you're not going to be able to watch Bill's second iteration or third iteration as a head coach in the NFL and to watch him chase the Shula record?

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't, I think that'd be, I would have thought that mattered to him a ton because I think there's such a huge, I mean, you know, better, certainly way better than I, I don't even know. So I'm just an observer here for this long. I think that Shula thing would mean a ton to him because of how much he appreciates just the history of the game, which he's told us numerous times. You know, he's always been, oh no, he's not going to want to do this. But if he felt like there was something that was going to chronicle where he is at historically, he was in favor of the access for it. Just because the NFL has done the best job of all the sports of, you know, their, their history is going to be incredible and how accessible it is and it's, you know, there's less games, so it makes it a little bit easier there with all that NFL film stuff. But I think he recognized and appreciated all those things and I think that he probably expected at some point the sideline shot of him looking up the scoreboard and seeing a final win and surpassing Shula. And now that that's been denied of him, I do feel bad for him a little bit. But I'm, as just a football fan, I'm, I don't feel like I'm never gonna have a moment, Tom, where I'm like, you know what sucks? Like, yeah, this is a good week. 15 in 2028 but you know what have been awesome is like, done it. Yeah, I'll have forgotten. So.

[Tom Curran]

And that's the funny thing there. There is no conversation where people are saying, well, Don Shul is the greatest coach ever. He, I mean, Belichick is established as such. It doesn't matter what the wins record is necessarily. I mean, Don Shul, I hate to do this, but he lost the super bowl, the New York Jets, 1969, that created the friggin merger. He lost 24 to 3 in another super bowl to the Dallas Cowboys. And the next year they were really friggin good and they went undefeated, but they combined winning percentage of the teas they beat was like 350. So he was great, but he never went to another super bowl. And it was a longevity thing. So whatever. Bill was established as the greatest coach of all time. And I think it would have been sad in a way if he went to Chicago and won six games this upcoming year. Oh, he's got nine to go, win seven. Oh, it's two to go. And he's just holding on for that record with somebody like Ryan Poles looking over his shoulder and going, bill, we need wins here, buddy. Like, he would have had to sacrifice a great deal of dignity to return to the NFL on the terms that were necessary, whether it be with Jerry Jones having to put his nuts in a little purse and hand them to Jerry and say, give me these back when I'm done, or wherever else. As Lombardi said last week, where's the great job that was opening up? What is a great job anymore in the NFL? There aren't really any. It's all collaboration. And Bill can't stand collaboration.

[Ryan Resilio]

After I read Education of the Coach, which Halbert Strand did a really good job on that, and watching some more of the stuff with Bill and being friendly with some people that really love playing for Bill, you know, because I'd be like, hey, explain it to me, explain it to me. Like, look, if the little dumb shit's going to bother you, then you're not going to love it. But if, if you love football, if you want a coach that's going to prepare you, you know, it's not going to get caught up in all the bullshit. Like, this is the guy. Like, if you're, if you're, if you're at your core a football guy, there's nobody better to be paired with. And that means a lot to me when you think about all the stupid stuff that people prioritize and just like, no, man, we're going to Come out of the tunnel, and we're going to be ready. We're going to be more ready. It's just the problem was his teams weren't good enough anymore there towards the end. So I'm not shocked by the UNC thing. I feel like, hey, you know what? This actually makes a lot of sense for all the same things that we're talking about, whether it's your access or the wicker shame piece and all that stuff. I always thought the Navy thing was, like. I thought that was like, my big educated guess that I'd said years ago. Like, I could see him at the end just going, you know what? This is what I'm doing instead. And look, Navy had a nice season. So I'm not saying that Brian Newberry in his second year, was in any kind of trouble. And so then you start waiting out all these scenarios. But I actually think it would have been even more fitting for Belichick to just go, I love all these dudes. I love drafting these guys because they care about the right things with his background. And now I actually don't have to win the acc. I don't have to worry about my playoff seating. I don't have to worry about the NIL and all this stuff. It can just be about football. So I don't know if that opportunity would ever present itself to him here, but maybe. Do you think with the way that contract structured, that there's a buyout after June 1st of 2025, that that tell. Is that a lien? Because when I saw the contract and then the buyout, I'm like, why would the buyout only be a million dollars halfway through next year before they've even played the season? Like, that's weird. But granted, the NFL would already have all of its ducks in a row, so I. I guess I'm keeping the window open for a possibility of anything here.

[Tom Curran]

Yeah, and it seems like he is, too. I mean, like, he is 72, and I had speculated maybe he's never going to leave the media because it's a hell of a lot easier. Everyone genuflects all the time. He does dispense, I think, a lot of good stuff. Some of the anecdotes I've heard nine times already, and he's already starting to recycle some of them, but he's still compelling, especially when he speaks frankly about the quality of a player when he starts breaking down film. I mean, what are we doing here? I love it. You love it. So I thought that he might stay there in the media, and we'll see when that bio comes. Does he say, you know what? This kind of sucked? You know what? I'm 73. I just want to go back to Nantucket, see my grandkids. I'll play golf, I'll go to Jupiter. I'll just do my thing, and I'll go back to the media. Maybe he wants to leave open the opportunity to simplify his life as opposed to go back to the NFL. I just don't think I'm going to feel that way at 73, man, it's crazy. I just don't think I'm going to be as energized to say, what mountain do I need to go conquer today? It's wild. Whether it's, you know, the owners themselves, the Craft, or Belichick or Logan Roy or whoever else. Not Logan. What's the dad's name? Logan. Yeah. L. To the OG These guys who just remain unbelievably motivated to the threshold of 80 years old. I'm like, just get me to the golf course and show me which way to hit. I don't get it.

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't think most of us do. But I think anybody that's accomplished that kind of stuff, to not be allowed to try to accomplish it again is probably hell to those guys.

[Tom Curran]

I think it would have been sad to watch. It would have been sad to watch him go, hat in hand to Kevin Warren and Ryan poles in Chicago or the cons in Jacksonville and say, hey, please hire me. And then go, yeah, we got some bad news. We're not doing it. It would have been. There's no shad. You got all the shad and fried Freud you needed last year if you wanted to see Bill get snubbed.

[Ryan Resilio]

You think if Dable wasn't with the Giants, that's what would have happened?

[Tom Curran]

I don't know if anybody would hire him. I really don't. I don't think anybody would hire him.

[Ryan Resilio]

Wow.

[Tom Curran]

I just. He brings so much luggage. He's 72. You want to be. By the end of the decade, you want to be a perennial playoff team, whoever you are, you want to stay that way. If you're the Chiefs, you want to become that way. If you're the New York Giants or the New England Patriots. And there's very little to indicate that Bill Belichick is going to beat a path to the playoffs based upon what's happened in this franchise since 2019. The midpoint of 2019, they were 8 and 0. And since then, it's not a Pretty record. And Bill was involved with most of it. And the roster right now is of his making. You can just look back at the production. You can look back at what happened with Mac Jones and say, do I want to have this guy in charge of finding the next quarterback and then bringing him along? Because wherever Bill's gone, he's flushed the quarterback. Whether it was Bernie Kosar or Drew Bledsoe or ultimately with Brady, where finally with Mac. He hates quarterbacks. Hates them. Trevor Lawrence would ended up with his head on a platter probably if he went to Jacksonville. So I just think it's hard to look at Bill and say, this is going to stabilize things.

[Ryan Resilio]

Always great seeing you, man. I know you have a ton going on. Oh, it's great.

[Tom Curran]

Friday's my quiet day.

[Ryan Resilio]

All right, well, make sure you check out Tom Curran and his Patriots Talk podcast.

[Tom Curran]

And I'm going to go shoot jumpers right now, actually. All right.

[Ryan Resilio]

Get some shots up.

[Tom Curran]

Yep.

[Ryan Resilio]

The Celtics might have put you in last night, so.

[Tom Curran]

I know, I know. I used to be. Have a little. Peyton Pritchard. Do you still play at all?

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, I'm still screwing around with it.

[Tom Curran]

Attaboy. Yeah, attaboy. You probably now have developed the Caldwell Jones jump hook.

[Ryan Resilio]

No. You know what I learned? I kept watching Luca and I was like, I've noticed with Luca, Luca doesn't want to avoid the defensive player. He always wants to have the defensive player's body on him, and he's enormous and he's strong and he's not fast. So I've been toying with. Instead of trying to drive past people or around them, I'm trying to go through them. That's great. It's not being. There's not many guys that appreciate it so far in this pivot in my game, but if you just lower the shoulder at an angle and then keep the ball on the other side, away from shoulder, you just start. Keep. You just keep going. And if you're. If you're strong, it helps.

[Tom Curran]

Yeah, that's a lot of fun for 57 year olds when a guy decides he's going to do that and.

[Ryan Resilio]

Well, I'm not playing against 57 year olds, but a couple guys. Yeah, couple guys have been like, what is. What is this new thing that you're doing? And I was like, it's working. And I don't have.

[Tom Curran]

It does work. It does work if you create the contact and create the space, but it's just. Just. Here we go. Here's one of these guys.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yep. Brought this guy still has eligibility left.

[Tom Curran]

And you have to do this. The first thing you have to do when you see that prick coming, you have to do this and that so you can protect the sternum and you have the little stiff arm out there so that when you start coming, at least there's some cushion.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, yeah. No, but I'm only. I'm only doing it against younger guys. They hate it more.

[Tom Curran]

You can do it to me.

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't want to do it to you because I know. I know you. I know the way you're wired. I can see it in your eyes.

[Tom Curran]

I can be a big baby.

[Ryan Resilio]

All right. Big baby. Well, thanks, buddy. It's always good to see you. Okay, before we get to Norman Powell, as we pivot to hoops here, a couple of different things from the games this week, the four games that matter. By the way, if Milwaukee had lost that game to Orlando with no Franz and Paulo, that's a problem. Jalen Suggs, a lot of shots up, didn't love the second to last three point attempt, but at that point, like, Jalen's trying to get it going. He went a little hard and ISO, ISO, cross, cross, cross, cross, pull up. Then he had a second one a little bit later, which he had to have taken. The point is, it's like this Giannis stuff, man. Like, look at his shot chart and where he started to hit these mid ranges from. I think the left elbow, if you look at over the years, hey, this was a good shot. This was a good shot. This is a good shot. Him showing this so far two thirds of the way into this season is a huge development. His off ball cutting, the way they're making him just as dangerous without necessarily having to initiate everything with the ball from 30 plus feet away, which still works because it's just so physically imposing. But this is some real stuff and I still think it's the best I've ever seen Giannis as far as his handle. So there isn't like necessarily a ton. We know Middleton's back in the mix and start with Jackson. You know, Brooke Lopez getting brought way out on the perimeter against a pretty good ball handler, who's going to drive. That is alarming. And I know what the Lopez rim protection stuff has always been in the past, but when he gets brought out, man, I think Bucks fans would agree that it's. I mean, it's a lot to ask any of the centers to do this kind of stuff. I know I talk about it a lot. It's like, well, you know, this seven footer and a switch. 33 away, 30ft away. Having a handle, you know, against Damian Lillard, like, that's not going to be fun. Well, it's not fun for any of these guys, but it's certainly something that I'm seeing more and more teams like look to do and try to bring him out there. So I don't have a ton necessarily on that game. I don't have as much on the Houston win by Golden State. The call at the end was kind of brutal, even though I liked Houston going into that game there a little bit. So I want to focus on Oklahoma City and Atlanta. Oklahoma City takes care of Dallas a couple nights ago and they're actually only eighth in offense right now. There's a couple scary things with how good Oklahoma city is at 19 and 5 where they're 16th and true shooting percentage. They're 19 on threes. Last year they were the number three overall shooting team and they were number one from three point and it's basically all the same guys. So they're going to. They're going to be better shooting the basketball. The defensive numbers are incredible. There's actually a significant gap there between them and number two, Houston. Overall defensively, they're number one. Defensively at the rim, they're 11th against the three. Sometimes the defensive numbers against three pointers can be just sort of a little weird. Maybe even luckish on some misses. The rebounding is still a problem. Rebounding rate, 28 last year, 28 this year. The point of it is like none of it. I don't know that anything like the shooting is definitely going to be better. The rebounding thing will be better once they have the Chet part of it back in the lineup and they decide how they want to play Chet and Hartenstein because chets only played 10 games and what they could do defensively in some of these games that I've seen, like even going back to the fifth game of the year against women, Yama, they just hounded him. It's like the worst game he'd had all season. Lucas started 1 and 9 two nights ago, 5 of 15 overall. His first free throw attempts were in the third quarter. And it's like, okay, we're going to start door on you and if you switch, you're going to switch into another athletic, athletic, active guy. And when we take Dort out, we're putting Alex Caruso on you. So we haven't even seen the fully formed version of the Oklahoma City Thunder. And I just, I love them. I mean, I know they had that loss to Houston, but they didn't have Chet. And if they decide they want to go Chet instead of Hartenstein, who I'm going to say his name differently, I guess a bunch this year, then they can put Chet out there and then pull a defense, whether it's Sengun or maybe Houston wants to go small because they keep experimenting all the time, which I actually kind of love about them. But just telling you, like, in this packed west going into the year, like, hey, this team could be really good and some of it's a little injury based here or there. And Dallas has actually been a lot better. I mean, Luke had been on a tear in the four games back prior to this one on Tuesday, putting up huge numbers. I mean, 36, 37, 21 and 30 before this game against the Thunder. So Dallas is. Is kind of figured out. And Dallas should just be better than a team that went to the NBA Finals last year. They may not get to the NBA Finals again. But I like the rotation pieces better and lively another year. You know, you get the whole pro Dallas part of this. But it was, it was kind of like, hey, it's this packed West. It's like, well, no, it's. It's a packed west on trying to figure out who's even going to compete with the Thunder. At least that's the way it feels right now. Atlanta's win against New York, that's now 20 for the Hawks against the Knicks. And it's official. Like, I. I've always liked the Hawks talent, but now I like the team. The Jalen Johnson part of this, I mean, we've been talking about him like the ceiling part of it, but the way they can use him. I remember when I was talking about the Jokic touches part of it. Jalen Johnson was number two in the NBA and just actual touches per game. Now I think he's down to like fifth. But you can just use them in a million different ways. And kind of based on the Thunder model of all these switchable, huge, athletic guys that are comfortable with the ball in their hands, the Hawks have a little of that as deontre Hunter in the rare year six leap. The year six leap is happening. Hunter's lighting it up and he's coming off the bench scoring 20 a game in like 27 minutes. He only started two games for this team. I mean, I think you could argue that he could start over Rishe, but maybe that's better for Hunter to be away from some of the other guys, taking shots from the starting group. And then Hunter helps with Bogdanovich, give you real nice scoring options for a second unit in the NBA. Because, I mean, that's the thing about, like, when you watch Boston, you'll watch them go through the rotations. You go, when do the bad players get in? It's like, oh, they don't have any. There's never this massive gap. And Thunder have a little of that. And Atlanta kind of has it, too, because of, again, that depth that we've talked about. Maybe that was kind of the recess draft pick, where it's like, hey, if we're going to be wrong, be wrong big and be wrong with somebody who's. Who at least profiles at, like, 6, 9 to be a really nice outside shooter with not crazy athleticism, but enough athleticism to kind of get where he needs to get on the floor. Even though right now I think strength is probably likely and predictably an issue for him. I think he gets run off of his driving lanes a little bit too much there. But I think the other part of the Hawks conversation that is very real has been happening all year is that Trey Young's dialing it back. He's taken 16.9 shots a game. I think I'd probably like it around 14. I'd love to see the hero ball shots be gone. But, hell, like, Boston's still, I think, the best team in the NBA. Maybe it's the Thunder. Love Boston's offense, love all their options. I still think they take seven to ten threes a game where I'm like, what the fuck are you doing there? Like, how much better would the offense be without it? Or is the aggression from the outside? Is that part of the tax you pay a little bit? It's like, well, if you want everybody taking a million threes and getting those shots up quick and just cranking the math up, there's going to be at least five, maybe 10 that you don't necessarily love, but you still have. You have to do that to have this overall philosophy and approach to the basketball game. All right, that's fine. That's fine. And with Trae Young, like, look, there's still going to be a few shots. Like the one at the end of regulation when they won an overtime against the Lakers. They get the ball in, I think it was maybe 14, 17 seconds left. Nobody else touches the basketball. Not a ton of movement. He's just waiting to kind of take his hero shot. I would love if he would remove all that stuff. That's probably never going to happen. But the fact that he's now a more willing passer. And I don't know if it's him understanding the talent around him. Some could argue, hey, it's the talent and him acknowledging, well, this team's better than those other teams. Maybe those other teams weren't bad. Maybe it's that it's always his. Or maybe he gets along better with Jalen Johnson than he did to Dejounte Murray. I don't know. I mean, Dejounte and him just seem to be on the court at the same time, not necessarily playing basketball. Now I feel like they're playing basketball together. But, you know, you go back and look at Trey, he's now 31st in field goal attempts per game in the NBA. Five years ago he was fourth. You know, it's. It's been something that's been declining a little bit here at 9th and 14th and 20th and now 31st, the deep threes for high volume guys. The 30 most likely players to take those deep threes. He has the second worst three point percentage on those shots. But I don't know that he's this bad of a shooter, even though he struggled this year. It's kind of like the Thunder thing in the beginning. Like, I don't think Trey's going to have us. I think the overall win for all the Trey stuff, and you know, that I've talked about it for years, is a, a hint at a willingness and maybe the actual real willingness of, I don't need to do all of this stuff all of the time. I don't need to get 30. I need to have more guys because, like, there's some players where I go, okay, like, you're good enough that everything should be yours. And it would be nice if you also have the wins to go with it, which Trey didn't have other than the 21 conference finals appearance. But this feels like a real thing. And I think it's just going to be a win for the Atlanta Hawks if he's just dialed down a little. Even though we know some of those deep ones are just never. Maybe that's just like the Celtics thing. You want all the other stuff. Well, you're going to get two or three of these 30 plus footers that are just part of it. But they also could throw Dyson Daniels at Brunson. Brunson was miserable in that game. And there was just a lot of moments with the Knicks. Like once that second half clicked, Atlanta just looked like the better. I don't think they're better than the Knicks, but they looked like the better team in the way that they were so confident and they looked faster, they looked younger. And there was just a couple checked out plays from the Knicks that I didn't really love. But who knows, you know, I, I think that's honestly the way I want to present that whole thing, that recap there a couple days removed from it, is that I just feel a lot better about the Hawks. It's not like I'm sitting there the next day going, the Knicks have all of these problems. Although the Dyson Jalen thing didn't seem like it was a lot of fun for the Knicks point guard, he's the leading scorer for the Clippers. He's third in the NBA in three point shooting. And I think one of the most underrated scorers in the league from the Clippers, Norman Powell. What's up, man? Thanks for doing this.

[Norman Powell]

Thanks for having me.

[Ryan Resilio]

Okay, so we knew the deal that there would be opportunities. You've been lighting it up. You're your top 25 in scoring now too as well. What has this role been like for you this year with the Clippers team?

[Norman Powell]

Role has been a lot of fun. I've not vision and this dream of being a go to guy for a very long time and it's been a lot of fun, you know, being in this ring, this opportunity, being able to take advantage of it and learning. You know, I've always wanted to see if I was capable of doing this and have the opportunity to like believing in myself, but then actually being able to step into the role and see what it's actually like. It's been fun being able to be one of the guys leading the team on the floor, off the floor and looking the organization and coaches looking for me to go out there and produce and them asking me questions and really, you know, trying to get me going each and every night. You know, what I feel comfortable with and some different plays and things like that. Just having more responsibility. It's been a long swing for me and I'm happy that, you know, it's going the way, you know, I envision.

[Ryan Resilio]

I know that. I understood what you were saying when you were asked. I think it was Media day was like, okay, you know, Kawhi's not playing, Russ is gone. Of course Paul George leaves. And you were like, it might just be addition by subtraction. And then that line gets taken and it's like, oh my God, like Norm, really, really let those guys have it. I thought Paul George was incredibly cool. Like when the way he talked about It. He was like, look, it just makes basketball sense. Like, what he said is. Is actually very true because there's just going to be more opportunities. Was that a little weird for you, though, at that moment, when it's like, man, this is getting turned into something as if I'm, like, dogging all these guys for leaving?

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, for sure. Because, like, it wasn't. It wasn't taken that way. It was taken exactly the way, like, PG explained it later on when he addressed it, you know, it was just about the opportunity. You know, everybody knows that. I've been a fan of pg. Like, I've talked about it, especially when I was going up against him when I was younger, my first two years playing against him in the playoffs and everything like that and getting his respect. But it wasn't like a shot or jab at those guys. It was just all about the opportunity, you know, and the mindset in going into the season, you know, we lose these guys, but the addition is that, you know, I get more opportunity. These guys that's been, you know, under their wings and playing a role gets more opportunity, and, you know, we're all looking to step up and fill that role in, you know, a different way. You know, everybody sees, you know, the superstars and think that you can't win without them, you know, and it was just a mindset that, you know, there's an addition by subtraction because guys get to step up in that role. We've got. We brought in guys that, you know, fill the voids that we're missing in different ways and that the style of basketball is going to change, but it's all about the opportunity to actually go out there and show what you're capable of. Now that, you know, you're not playing behind these superstar guys, do you think.

[Ryan Resilio]

Because you're not necessarily a smiler, that it could be taken more seriously? Because, like, when you're out on the court, I don't know that I ever see you smile.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, probably. I think these are the only times that I do smile. I just be so focused on the game and, you know, trying to win. I mean, one of the nicknames that I got when I was playing in Toronto was Mr. Serious, because I never smiled. But, you know, it's just focused. You know, I'm locked in. There's nothing funny out there. But Ty's trying to get a win.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, but then when you. When you'll say something like, oh, well, you know, he means. He means business. It's just something with you that I Noticed early on I was like, is he miserable? And I was like, I don't think he's miserable. Like, it seems like he's, he's having a good time. But look, as a non smiler, I just think people need to leave us alone.

[Norman Powell]

Seriously.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, right. When did it, you know, you're a second round pick. I think the knock on you out of UCLA is you couldn't shoot right 31% from three for your career in the four years there. You get drafted in the second round and you know, it takes a little while for you to get the minutes. It takes even longer to get the stats right. So you. I could sit here and look at your stat page and go, okay, the 50 years when it clicked because the stats reflect that. But for you as a player, was there. Hey, I'm not sure. Oh, I'm totally sure. I'm just not getting that opportunity. What was that like in the beginning for you?

[Norman Powell]

I think the, the, the moment of not being sure was probably happening in college. Going through, you know, the coaching change, players come in and certain promises being made that weren't fulfilled. I think that was a moment of uncertainty going through college, that college grind in those four years. But, you know, once I was able to, you know, refocus and, you know, things started to click after that, there was no, no doubt in my mind. I think when I was in Toronto and they were sending me down to the D league at the time, it was more like motivation. Like I see some of the, my peers in my draft class that, you know, I've been up against and played against, you know, doing really well, you know, to start off and, you know, being on a championship contending team as a young guy, like you're not going to get instant opportunity. But it was more so like, like I've seen this up close. I know I can be a factor in this league. It was just all about the opportunity. And I think I shown that early on. That's why I got the opportunity. When, you know, demari Carroll wasn't playing back to back, not going and show frame and play really well and just being one of those guys that they could go to, but just not getting that full opportunity, that full exposure to be like, okay, like this is what you're going to do every single night, right? It was all about filling a role and building that trust within the coaches, you know, that throwing me out there when they needed me. But I say like my fifth year and the fourth year when we won the championship, you know, I was being Able to play well in stints. And then the fifth year is when I got more opportunity to start and have longer stretches to show that I can actually produce every single night.

[Ryan Resilio]

How important is that run in 19 to like, the foundation of your understanding of what it takes to not only just be a player, but what it takes for a team? Because you've had stops after that. But like, how much does that run in 19 influence who you've been as a player?

[Norman Powell]

Influence A lot. Just from a confidence standpoint, you know, to get to that mountaintop and achieve it, especially doing it in an organization that was fighting and clawing and scratching for so long, but then just seeing the buy in that it takes for a full team to be able to do that for a full season. The ups and downs, you know, not having to point the finger, you know, really coming together in tough moments. And then the buy in, you know, the sacrifice, you know, your individual stuff for the, for the betterment of the team. You know, winning the championship takes all of that plus a little bit of luck. But I think it shaped me just going forward, you know, I want to get there again. I've been fortunate to be on playoff contending and championship, championship contending teams every single year I've been in the league. So I just has filled like a lot of hunger and motivation, you know, and I try to, you know, relay that down to the teams that I've been on and like, what it takes to win a championship if we're really about trying to get there and win one and how hard it was and the commitment that it takes.

[Ryan Resilio]

You had mentioned just a moment ago, and I know because I, I'd read the interview this week about the doubt part of it and how serious that guy and I, I guess you're telling us that it was more around ucla, but I mean, how, how bad was it? Was it so bad that you didn't want to play basketball anymore?

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, like. Well, I've had a couple in that it was more like just like my, throughout my journey, like the moments that you hit when you know you're. You hit those like rock bottom moments, feeling like everything's against you and like you can't get yourself out the hole that you're in. You know, it happened when my uncle passed away in high school, then when I thought I was going to have the opportunity to be a player my sophomore year, going out of my freshman year, and then seeing your name, you know, not be on the draft boards and kind of fallout, you know, you always kept, kept up with that in college, like where are you at in the mock drafts and things like that. But seeing like freshman year, you're in the mid to late first round, it's late first round, then it's early second and it's mid second, then it's not even on the draft boards and things like that. You know, you kind of feel like your dreams are like slipping out of your hands now and you're trying to grasp it, but it was tough. And then being a 18, 19 year old, you know, not getting the results or the rewards that you, you know, felt like you deserve with all the hard work you're putting in and then getting drafted and, you know, starting from the bottom again, you know, and like seeing guys ahead of you that you probably outplayed in the summer league or whatever it is, and you're trying to figure out how come you're not getting that opportunity, how come these guys are getting more pub than you to load those tough moments in your inner country all by yourself. You know, you don't know anybody, you don't know anything. And you're just trying to find a way, you know, trying to hold on to this dream of, you know, breaking through and at this, at this league, in this league. So it was a lot of tough times, a lot of tough moments and tough conversations with myself and even talking to my family, eventually getting a therapist, kind of just like let it all out because you're carrying so much on your shoulders. But yeah, it was, it was a battle.

[Ryan Resilio]

Look, I can't imagine what it's like to be looking at myself on draft boards because at that age I would be looking at it all the time. And then, you know, the, the nasty part of it is all the conversation leading up to it and whether it's an agent or whether it's teams and you're just rounding yourself up, right? I imagine like I've talked to enough of you guys that you're never thinking like, oh, I might be on the low side of the projections. You're probably sitting there watching the first round go through. Was draft night miserable for you then? Not a celebration?

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, it was, it was tough. I don't think I really, really told that story. Like I was getting ready to leave my draft party because I was pissed. Like I seen, I was like, because I had like seen on some friends that like knew some people in the league and like whether it was player low, player development guys or like computer analyst analytics guys for the teams, you know, they're all like all like mid to late first round, early second. Like, you did a great job in pre drive this, that and the other. And I'm looking at all the guys that I went up against and we had a list of like, who we're going to go at, who we're going to try to find in these workouts, you know, and I outperformed and even some of the guys that were in my position that, you know, went one through 20, you know, playing against them and like, competing against them and have really good, like, draft workouts against them to where it's like, you know, we were one one, two best players during that workout. You know, seeing these guys go, and I'm like, okay, like, I did a great job against this player, this player, this player. And then like some of the guys that I totally killed and out shined and out work went ahead of me. And then just like not hearing your name go in the first round, I said, okay, then not hearing your name going to first, 10, 10 picks in a second. It's like, what are we doing here? And then after, I think I don't want to throw no shots at nobody, but I think the. Corey Johnson went like 38 or something like that. And I was like, nah, this is crazy. And I got up and I was like, almost in tears, like, getting ready to leave my draft party. And Tyus Edney from UCLA and my high school coach, I had to literally, like, stop me and was like, no, you can't leave. Everybody's here for you, no matter what. Trying to give me, like, all the options and avenues if I don't get drafted. And then within that moment, my. My head coach for my high school team, like, told me to look at the TV and I see my name coming across the board. Being drafted at 46.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, I think you were so traumatized that Dakari went two spots after you.

[Norman Powell]

So was it, was it, was it after me?

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, I'm. I'm wondering if it was Juan Pablo Valle who went 39th to sh.

[Norman Powell]

Was he the one that went to Cleveland?

[Ryan Resilio]

No, Cleveland. See, some of this will be messed up because it'll say who took who. Like San Antonio took. Took Milatinov, who never played in the first round. I always imagine the American guys, like, when there was some dude who be like, I can't pronounce that guy's name. Like, what the hell's going on? And this guy just went ahead of me. But, you know, sometimes that's a size thing. So if I look through this, who went at 38? Darren Hilliard. From Nova, maybe that's thinking Ran Holmes, Rain. Christmas went ahead of you.

[Norman Powell]

Josh Richardson, Olivia Handling went ahead of me.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yep. Yep. From bc, Joe Young. Mighty Joe Young. From Oregon, two spots, Andrew Harrison, and then Marcus Thornton, who lit it up at William and Mary.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah. Hilliard and the card mixed up with somebody with a D. And I was like, nah, this ain't this. This. This ain't it.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, look, I mean, you guys. You guys are all really competitive dudes, and it makes sense, but, like, if you think about this dream, this childhood dream, and it's draft night, and you're actually sitting there completely miserable, wanting to leave your own party, but, like, look where we're at now. So I've. I've been curious about this because, like, Kawhi is fascinating to those of us that, like, I stopped trying to figure him out a long time ago. I'll never forget the smartest information I ever got in Kawhi. When he was leaving Toronto was a team was like, we have no idea. And if anybody tells you they know, don't listen to them, because that means they're lying to you. Like, if a team tells you, like, hey, we think he might do this, that means they absolutely are full of. Because that's just not how he operates. Since you were his teammate in 19 and, like, last year, he played 68 games, he was really good again, and it was incredibly. I can imagine how frustrating it was for you, but just as a basketball fan, so frustrating. Just seeing him in the Dallas series, you're like, he's not right. He's not right. Again, are you. Are you tasked with being the Kawhi whisperer in a way, just because you guys have had the background in history?

[Norman Powell]

Yeah. I mean, people always ask me, like, questions about Kawhi, but honestly, like, I'm.

[Ryan Resilio]

Doing it to you right now, by the way, too, so I'm guilty.

[Norman Powell]

He's normal. You know what I mean? Like, I've known him for years, even before teaming up with him in Toronto. And I mean, like you said, like, we thought as teammates that we want a championship. There's no way this dude leaves. Like, he has to stay. Like, it's the perfect setup. The team's good. Like, we have another chance to run it back with the way everything is situated. But I feel like people think I am just because, you know, I've had certain connections with him, like, off the court. Mom's a friend, been friends for a long time. So I think people just know. Like, I have, like, the inside scoop on Kawhi. But I know just as much as everybody else knows, maybe a little bit more because there's conversations, but those conversations won't ever come out or anything. For me, you know, it's the same thing that's being put out that I'm going to tell people because that's not my, my situation to tell. But I can speak from a standpoint of being a teammate and just sharing the floor with them and like his daily routines and stuff like that.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah. Because I don't. I'm not trying to put you like in a tough spot to get the answer I can't get from anyone else. I do think it's kind of funny too that like none of you guys knew in Toront, like he didn't. You just. You saw it on ESPN like everybody else, right?

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, literally. Literally. There was no like, hey guys, I'm thinking about coming back. Hey guys, appreciate the year, you know I'm saying. But I'm going to take my family and everything that la. This is where I want to be. None of Arizona is all we're waiting. See, just like everybody else.

[Ryan Resilio]

Was it different with Paul George when he wasn't getting the fourth year? Like, would you guys talk about it?

[Norman Powell]

I think it was more so just talking about like everybody player, every team, like talks about like where the team's at, you know, like the same thing. Kind of like after that Cleveland series where it's like, okay, like there's a change coming and we don't know what it is, but like it kind of. You kind of hit that wall where like something has to change and like go a different direction and build a certain way. And I think that's where we're at with it. Especially with Kawhi getting his extension early on that season. It kind of like set the standard of like this is what the, the max is going to be, you know, I don't think in for me as a team, as a player looking at basketball from a business side of it, like if your franchise players are getting this certain amount and like the reason why your team is built a certain ways for this player and he gets his max and this is what the max is like. I don't think anybody else is going to get paid higher than him, you know. So that was like kind of what the conversations were like, okay, this is kind of like the max and what team this team is going to look for going forward.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, I, I have Kawhi follow ups in my head, but I know they're all a waste of Time. So I don't even think I'm gonna ask and be like, hey, what, what's. What's the plan? Because I think. I think I can already guess that no one's quite sure. Ty. Lou, I love. I. I've really liked him for a long time. I love the Van Gundy's on the staff. I get to work with him at espn. What kind of perspective. Let's start with Jeff. Actually, you know, you. You've watched him on TV all these years. I mean, he goes all the way back to those Knicks MJ series. Give me. Give me something on, like, learning about having Jeff being on the staff, that's kind of funny to you, Learning how.

[Norman Powell]

Passionate he is. And like, he always, like, honestly, honestly, the funniest thing, not even his passion is his random dad jokes that he's out there, like the most out of nowhere. Like, it doesn't even make sense. And that catches everybody off guard because he goes from, like, super serious and then like, he'll just throw like a random, like one liner in there that, like, nobody is expecting. But it is great having him on the staff, have him as the defensive coach too. Just like, his attention to detail. I think he kind of re. Energize the defensive side of the game for us as a team. You know, really buying in and being the aggressors and attackers and the playstyle that we have. I've said it before, like, he irritates some of the guys with just how detail oriented he is and, like, how precise he is and how he wants us to guard. But, you know, everybody's bought in and you can kind of see that, you know, when we're playing defense, like, we're focused on that guys are getting up and sharing on defensive stops. I don't think you really get that too often in the game. You know, you get more, you know, celebrations when somebody gets dunked on our big threes made, but everybody's really communicating and talking on the defensive side of the ball. It all started with Jeff Van Gundy at the start of the training camp and leading up to it.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, this is more of like a philosophical question I have about defenses, right? Because I think all coaches feel like there's some way to prevent something that's happening to them offensively. And like, I going to ask you a hardened question here in a second. But like, when I think of like Prime James in Houston and how good he was at the high pick and roll, and it's like, okay, he can stop and pull up from three he can drive and throw it to Capella if you come up to help and Capella's behind it. But then if you don't challenge, you can hit you with the floater and he's probably going to get the free throw. So like I'll see different actions and we saw it a little bit this week in some of the in season tournament games where it was just they kept going to the same thing. Like I'll see it sometimes with Rudy, right? Like Rudy is so good at showing on the ball at that size, but then he still keeps the roller like in his concept defensively as he's retreating. But sometimes it's just impossible, right? It's like it's you as the ball handler, you'll just know like as great as he might be defensively, you're asking a lot of this guy. So whether you guys want to go small, which I think teams are closing smaller, a little bit more. But then Zoo is really good. So he provides all this rim resistance. Like how will you go into a timeout with Ty Lu in the staff of like, okay, is it, is it solving the problem or is it just giving a different look? When you're trying to stop something that's happening to you, you're trying to just.

[Norman Powell]

Put out the first fire, you know, like you're trying to take away the biggest strength of the opposing player, you know, and force them to do something that they're uncomfortable with. And a lot of it is playing now with the game being so like analytical and numbers based. It's playing the numbers like this player's not that good of a passer. Going to his left, he's got his numbers show that he's not a great pull up jump shooter as he is going left than he is right. You know, every, if he goes right, he has everything he wants. He has to drive, he has to pull up, he has a three. He has even like the passing angles that he can make. But going left, you know, he might not be as good. So it's really just trying to make the opposing offensive player as uncomfortable as possible and try to make other guys be beat us in areas that you know, they're not as good as well. But like, like you said that like that James Harden like run in Houston was so crazy that you had guys like teams guarding him, like basically like giving him the Runway, you know, like, I think it was Utah, Milwaukee, hands back, remember on the side of them.

[Ryan Resilio]

Remember when Budden Holzer, like, I think there was a Milwaukee game where they basically Decided to play him on his left side.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was Utah. Like my.

[Ryan Resilio]

Was it Utah? Well, there may be a couple teams that tried it and I remember like watching it going this.

[Norman Powell]

It was like the most untraditional way of playing defense I've ever seen. Like it was like literally just like he's not going left hand at all. Like sit on like literally. Like I don't care if you give him the straight line drive. It's always like square him up, you know, play him, play him even ball, ball, man U basket. Like none of that. Like they're literally just trying to cut off his left hand. And I've never seen defenses do that, but it was just like he's so good going to his left that like we have to force him to his offhand even if it's giving him a straight run rate to go at the big. Like we're going to take away his pull up threes and things like that.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, I remember watching because I think a few teams may have tried to do it. So I think, I think it was, it was like a couple weeks and I remember thinking, well, first of all, he's too smart. Like if you're just going to tell him every time what the coverage is going to be then. And it. By the way, it stopped fairly soon because he's just, he's just too smart, he's too skilled to kind of figure it out. Now look, full transparency. I know he's a Hall of Famer and he's put a huge, huge numbers. Full transparency in the audience listening to this. He hasn't always been my favorite and I. Maybe it's the, the off arm grab that he still gets away with. I could not believe Ben Taylor on the review against Denver. Like I think it happened to Aaron Gordon twice in the same week against two different, two different teams. And I remember watching the second game like Aaron Gordon's going to retire right now if he doesn't get this one a second time. So look good for James. It works. But when I look back at last year, you were the last team in the NBA. A number of passes per game. Okay. But that's not just on James because James is actually passing as many times per game this year as he was last year. You're not last in passes per game. Now you're 19th as a team. And I think it makes a lot of sense. Like Kawhi's terrific on ball. Like if he's going to get the ball, get you to the elbow and work that's a really good possession. PG is really good on the ball. Russ is somebody that is just better with the basketball as opposed to off the ball. So it made sense collectively that you weren't going to pass a lot. As a basketball fan, I don't like that because I like passing. I like movement. I like a second movement. I like attacking from different. I like having a defense have to think where James is so good that he can stop the possession, he can dissect what's going to happen. He's been much better this year. But what does it mean for you in those possessions where James is stopping it and everybody's kind of waiting, like, how. How different is that for you as a scorer? Knowing that you're going to like, granted, you've already played them, so this isn't necessarily new this year, but it. It is asking you to kind of. I don't know if weight's the best way to describe it, but clearly it's a little bit different than some of the other offenses you see with just more movement.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, I mean, like you said last year, like, we weren't passing that much. I mean, you have four guys who in their career, like teams have been built around them. So they have the ball in their hands literally the whole game, and they're the ones deciding, like, what goes on and reading defenses. So, like, when you get those four in a team, it's kind of how do you make it work? You know, And a lot of it comes from the sacrifice from the other guys knowing that, you know, pgy they're going to get their plays, James is going to get their plays, Russ is going to get their plays, and it's kind of playing off of them. This year, you know, it's a little different. We got more guys that, you know, can get up and down the floor, you know, do different things, a lot of different movements. And James is like really the only ISO player for me. You know, I like getting my plays out of actions and transitioning in the flow, occasionally being able to go one on one here and there. But playing off James is a lot of fun for me because I like catching shoot threes. So it's just when it does get to those moments of him slowing down and, you know, taking his defender one on one, I'm just trying to find the outlet to where he's going to be. And, you know, we kind of have like a setup scheme to where he has his ISOs and me being the outlet and being such a great catch and shoot shooter and just Finding a window for him if he doesn't have a shot. But I don't mind it at all because I like catch and shoot through them with the simple, simple looks and having to create my own all the time. So it's easier. I mean, especially now because it's only one player going into ISO, really. And then Scoop has the opportunity coming off the bench, but, you know, the pressure is on James to create and you know, he does a great job in that. Well, and it's just playing off of him and finding where he likes to have his outlets to be ready to make the next play.

[Ryan Resilio]

One of the things I just always loved about you is like, and I like this in basketball is even off of a make, you know, especially after miss, we're not talking about layups and fast breaks. We're talking about the team defensively scrambling for their matchups. Like, I just think there's so many points in a game that are waiting there for you if you can get the ball up the court while they're still scrambling for kind of their defensive assignments. And I just. I can picture in my head, like, I think of you. You get it from the side and. And people aren't really ready. And then you're just. You're just off and you're attacking and look. And you're just attacking, too. And you're right about that space. Like, James is just going to give you space. I mean, look at all those Houston guys and all the numbers like post Harden. I'd be. I'd be reluctant to trade for some of those guys because it's like, okay, I know what he shot in Houston, but I don't know that this is going to translate here because it's bringing all this attention. Yeah, right. So the other thing with Ty Lue, because I feel like I didn't give him enough love here, because I don't. I shouldn't talk about Jeff more than the head coach. He is. He is considered somebody like, game to game, you know, I think it's hard in basketball, we play 82 of these to have a football mentality of like, the matchup of what we're going to do. But it feels like Ty Lue does a little bit more than that, than. Than a lot of the coaches. What. What is it like specifically, like, game planning for you against an opponent with ties as compared to, like, other coaches?

[Norman Powell]

It's a lot of fun for me. You know, like I said, like, this year, I'm. Even last year when I got here, him asking me, like, specific Questions about what I like, you know, the different plays I like, what side of the floor I like to have the ball, how do I like to tack, what's my best play of, like, shooting, what's my favorite play that I've had, you know, and having that dialogue, you know, with him, you know, where it makes me feel comfortable to be able to come and share what I see on the floor. And then him, you know, being so bought in, into who I am as a player, you know, Before I knew T Lou, before I got here, I knew Tulou was a fan of me, dating back to when we're in a bubble and I'm walking by him and he's asking me questions about my previous game and stuff like that. And I would talk to him of the assistant coaches that worked with me in Toronto, like, yo, man, Tulu always asking me this, that and the other. And he's like, man, you never know, man. You might end up there. T. Lou might be a fan of you. Every time you see him, he's asking you questions. And then to get here, you know, and hear him say that, you know, he's been a fan of me for a long time, you know, but just to have that dialogue with them, you know, it makes you feel really comfortable on the floor as a player, that you have a coach that's confident in your abilities and wants to see you can be successful and put you at, you know, the spots and areas on the floor where you can be the best version of yourself.

[Ryan Resilio]

What was that day like when you found out you're being traded to Los Angeles?

[Norman Powell]

I didn't think it was real. I thought I was being pranked. Yeah, I didn't believe it because I was getting ready for a game. I just got done working with my massage therapist after my morning workout, and I had no service. And then I come back up and I got two missed calls from my agent, two missed calls from the general manager from Portland and everything. And I'm like, oh, snap, what did I do? I must have missed something, got in trouble. And I called my agent back first because I wasn't gonna call the gm, and he basically told me that, what do you think about la? And I'm like, well, it depends on what LA we talking about. Like, what do you mean? And he said, the Clippers. I was like, nah, you messing with me. There's no way. Because they know that they're thinking about trading for you. Hasn't came out yet, but I think you're going to be a Clipper. And I was like, works for me, man. Give me up out of here. Let's go.

[Ryan Resilio]

Wait. Would you have felt different about the Lakers?

[Norman Powell]

No. Probably a little bit more excited. Not in a bad way. Just because Kobe was my favorite player growing up and, you know, having that dream of, you know, wearing that jersey, especially with him. His last year was going to be my rookie year, so I really wanted to be a Laker, just to share that team and that in that jersey with him. I think that would have been the only difference is that that childhood dream of being a Laker because of Kobe. But my first game in the NBA, going to NBA game was a Clipper. So there's still a full circle moment there, too.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah. I mean, you're from San Diego. I don't know that anybody. I don't think any Clipper fan could be upset about anyone from California loving Kobe as much as so many of you guys do. Before we let you go, I. I have to ask you this because I think it's so funny. Chris Wallace, who works the team, I've known for a bunch of years, and he reached out and the scar on the forehead, you know, I was. I was watching it and I'm like, man, that thing's not healing. And you wanted it on the bobblehead.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah, I thought. I thought it was going to be a perfect touch. You know, you're kind of leaning into it because, like, everybody, like, as soon as it happened and like the next game, like, I didn't miss any games, but I had this, like, big, like, yeah, silicone patch on it, and I couldn't see. It was messing up my. My vision. And then when I took it off and I. After the game, I. Coming back to my phone, you know, social, like, doesn't miss a heartbeat. And like, first thing I see is like a 21 Savage gift. Everybody, like, call me 24 Savage and this, that and the other. And then I had that really good game to close out the Golden State Warriors a few games after and, like, just had all of that pub around it. So I just, like, leaned into it, you know, and I had that one liner. Like, I'm. I'm not a tough taker. I'm a tough shot maker. And everybody went crazy about that. So I was like, you know, I like to embrace those things. You know, it is what it is. You know, you can't shy away from it. It's healing pretty well. But I thought it was going to be like a good, like, little, like, signature moment for me as a flipper.

[Ryan Resilio]

It does look better now that I'm looking at it than it did last season because after it had happened I was like, man, I don't know what kind of available ointments you would have as a pro athlete. I imagine you guys get some high level stuff. I was like, you know. But you know what, like you said, you've embraced it. Now it's on the bobblehead. You're having the best season of your career and I hope a lot of people are paying attention. So thanks man. Thanks so much for the time.

[Norman Powell]

No, thanks for having me.

[Ryan Resilio]

Okay, we're going to keep couch money research going even if the alliance is tbd. Maybe we'll pick it back up for the both thing. But I think McShane, I might be doing something with FanDuel here. So oddly enough, Couch Money research a 30 weekend. We'll keep it going here. Right now, one of the sharp picks was San Francisco minus two and a half but we did not tape prior to the Thursday game. San Francisco not a huge part of the podcast today looks like they're done. So that means these other picks are just spicy. They love the Colts. They always do. So research plus three and a half. Let's go Colts at Denver plus three and a half. My couch play is actually the fading the public play. So I think I'm going to take it. The heavy money so far the public money side is Pittsburgh plus five and a half at Philadelphia. So Philadelphia would be the play fading the public. But I'm going to take it for my couch one. So let's go minus five and a half there. So let's find another public play here and check out where the action network has it. So a lot of people on the Bucks second most popular public game here. Bucks plus three at Chargers. So that means fading the public will be chargers minus three.

[Tom Curran]

You want details? Fine.

[Kyle Cerudi]

I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.

[Tom Curran]

What's up?

[Michelle Smallman]

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

[Norman Powell]

I have every toy you can possibly.

[Tom Curran]

Imagine and best of all kids, I am liquid.

[Ryan Resilio]

So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Our email address life advice rr Gmail.com Kyle Cerudi, Oregon what's up? Did we have anything that we needed to clear up? I feel like these moments have turned more into. Was there any follow up that we needed?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Nothing on my end.

[Ryan Resilio]

Everything's good golfing today, Kyle?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah, might.

[Ryan Resilio]

Might. It's hell yeah.

[Kyle Cerudi]

We're seeing it might come together.

[Ryan Resilio]

All right. I like hearing that.

[Michelle Smallman]

How are the clubs? We haven't really followed up on that. Have you used them yet?

[Norman Powell]

Dude?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Doing so well. My buddies characterize it as like, you know what? Your bad is still pretty bad, but your good's getting better. So that's the type of stuff I like to hear.

[Ryan Resilio]

Love that. Okay, that's great.

[Michelle Smallman]

Both sets of clubs. Is one better than the other one?

[Kyle Cerudi]

The blades are. Blades are not for me yet.

[Michelle Smallman]

I was going to say that's the answer.

[Ryan Resilio]

Are they actual blades?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah.

[Ryan Resilio]

I gave you blades. Why do I have blades?

[Kyle Cerudi]

I don't know. Maybe that's why you. I think that was probably the second one, right? I think you always knew you were going to give me the burners, but I think the. The blades was probably the. The throw in. Those are tough.

[Norman Powell]

Bad.

[Kyle Cerudi]

The margin of error there.

[Michelle Smallman]

Yeah, but it's good.

[Ryan Resilio]

Why did I.

[Michelle Smallman]

Something.

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't even know that I knew.

[Michelle Smallman]

Those aren't even yours. Somebody just left them at your place.

[Ryan Resilio]

I remember buying them because, like, a weird thing happened where Dick Sporting Goods sent. Something got messed up, so I just basically, like, sent. Nothing was. Was happening. And so I kind of just sent him a tweet, but it wasn't. I don't know if it was. Yeah. And then I remember somebody.

[Michelle Smallman]

A real last resort situation.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah.

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't really like to really say.

[Kyle Cerudi]

For, like, flights that have gone wrong.

[Ryan Resilio]

I don't understand that one. I mean, I get, you know, if the airport thing doesn't go right, and it's kind of like last resort, but just the. I have been at Fill in the blank.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Hey, United, right?

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, we. We haven't.

[Michelle Smallman]

Don't know what that's about, though. Come on. I mean, it's literally just like, hey, look at me. And then I'm going to get some free stuff because, like, cool. The social media guys like, oh, man, now I got the shirt. Got a blue check mark. Now I got to send them like a free flight or.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah, it's still out some miles.

[Ryan Resilio]

It's.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Everyone wins.

[Michelle Smallman]

It's. It's lame. It's very lame.

[Ryan Resilio]

I can understand being desperate there, but what I can't understand is when people fly and it. Sometimes it doesn't work out.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ryan Resilio]

Sometimes it just doesn't. Doesn't go your way. And I know it sucks, but. Yeah. The thing about the golf clubs was. I can't believe I bought blades. That doesn't even make any sense.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Well, actually, did you have, like, an awesome week and you're like, I think I'm Ready to challenge myself.

[Michelle Smallman]

It actually does seem like a very resilient thing to do, though. I didn't want to say hardest piece of equipment. And, like, you'd be like, no, I'm going to make this work. This is what the people use. I'll be using this. Yeah.

[Ryan Resilio]

What I've learned about the blades thing is that basically, people that are really, really good at golf, like below professional golfers, will tell you that, like, having blades is the first telling on yourself moment of like, oh, you're one of those guys. And that the people that have the blades are probably not good enough. Whereas the really good golfer that's like, I don't. I'm still just not going to benefit from blades enough, and I'll still hit something that's a little bit more forgiving that they're smarter and they're the better golfers. But I don't. I don't remember those being, like, straight up. Straight up blades. And now that it says it right on them, it says.

[Kyle Cerudi]

And they look newer, too. So, you know, I still take the burners out, but they look newer. I'm like, man, one day.

[Ryan Resilio]

One day, yeah. Because when I played at Riv with caddies and he was looking at my clubs, he was like, no, no, these are great. These are great. And it's three hours. Because I was like, I don't know if I should have these. They're not blades, but they're. They're. You know, I was like, I just figured I would figure it out pretty quickly and be really good because golf is so easy. And towards the end, he was like, you might want to find something a little bit player, more player friendly. I was like, you know, I go. You were. I go. We were talking in the beginning of the round. You were totally on my side. You said my swing was fine for these, and I would figure it out. And I was like. And now, three hours later, you've abandoned all hope. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to research the ones that I gave you. Anyway, the point of the whole tweet thing was, is then somebody at work who was not somebody at work that should have told me what I could or could not do, told me what I should or should not do, and I like that even less. It's like, you know, I don't think you should be doing that based on partnerships that we have. And I was like, what do you do here again? All right. Ceruti's SC banner. 5, 8, 18 5. Used to bench 250 but stopped lifting anything above 40 pound dumbbells. During the pandemic. Lots of aches and pains went away and I never looked back. All right, our guys going like, you know what? I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need the pain anyway. I don't need any advice. I don't even know why I read this one. I noticed on the YouTube Cerruti has assault. What is it? A St. Louis City SC banner in the background? Yeah. What's up with that? Is the only question? Yeah, he's from St. Louis.

[Michelle Smallman]

Simple answer. I'll just, I'll just go here. You know, I've had some people, you know, make comments about my background. I like soccer. I like to collect scarves. I don't really have any place to put them. I'm working on a basement situation where I can get like a nice wall to hang them up all on. But right now I'm just hanging them over my messy Xbox poster. But I have a St. Louis City FC one. I have an Everton one because I'm an Everton fan. I have a Roma one. I actually have a. That is what? It's a Pinehurst something. I got that DSBN, the USA one. I got a NYCFC and I got an IAX one. The St. Louis City one. I got that from Smallman. She's like part of the crew, you know, over there. She was doing, I think some media stuff for them and Obviously she's Miss St. Louis, so she got me a scarf, so I figured I'd.

[Ryan Resilio]

She really is Ms. St. Louis now.

[Michelle Smallman]

Yeah. So I figured I'd support Michelle Smallman. You know, I don't really know much about. I don't watch their, a ton of their games. I don't really have an MLS team, to be honest with you. But I like the scarf and I like Smallman, so there you go.

[Norman Powell]

Okay.

[Ryan Resilio]

Really nice combo. I like that.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Seems like it's cooler to be from St. Louis these days.

[Norman Powell]

Does it?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Is there like an air about that? I don't know.

[Michelle Smallman]

Smallman. I remember, I won't say who the anchor was, but they were filling in on a radio show that Smallman, I think was producing with me. And somehow St. Louis came up and basically the guy was just like, oh, that place is a dump. Didn't know Smallman was from there.

[Ryan Resilio]

She doesn't want to hear that.

[Norman Powell]

No.

[Michelle Smallman]

And she was really bummed about it. Really bummed about it.

[Ryan Resilio]

Was the host a good villain or a bad Villain.

[Michelle Smallman]

A bad villain.

[Ryan Resilio]

I love the good villain, bad villain stuff.

[Michelle Smallman]

Oh, that would be funny. We can't do that.

[Ryan Resilio]

But it would be an awesome man.

[Michelle Smallman]

It would be great. I know just the dudes show up, great fill in. It's not Randy Scott.

[Ryan Resilio]

No, Randy Scott was a great fill in. I used to love the people that would fill in and be like, this is my show today, I'm the captain now. And you would just go, no, it's actually called this show and you're filling in.

[Michelle Smallman]

We could just do who's a good fill in. And then people could fill in the blanks. But I got a lot, like there was a lot of great fill ins. El Duncan, great villain.

[Ryan Resilio]

Loved her.

[Michelle Smallman]

She's one of the most fun people to be around.

[Ryan Resilio]

She was great for radio. I mean, not to say that she's not great on tv, but I just. She had whatever the radio thing, you have to have to transfer over from TV to radio.

[Michelle Smallman]

She has a great personality. That's pretty much.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, yeah, there would always be some villains that just be like, this is day one of the new order. Be like, is it? Why don't you get that Keystone light read in there, buddy?

[Michelle Smallman]

And yeah, look at the screen. I wrote the tease out. Just read the.

[Ryan Resilio]

Read the screen. I remember one guy, this goes back years, but he was asked to fill in on a not optimal slot. He did not want to do it. He. And he's such a dick, I don't even care. So I'm just doing that. I'm not going to say his name. But he, he was like, I don't want to do that. I'll do like Mike and Mike or the Herd. Like, I don't want to do this slot. It wasn't my slot either. All right? And so he was just thought he was going to be able to say no. And they're like, you have a million radio days. Which was this other sneaky thing that TV people would get like 50 radio days and they would never have to do them. And he decided he would just turn the whole fill in week of like a reunion because it was. He felt it was beneath him to be filling in on the slot. So he just decided what I'm gonna do is just craft it out to be like, hey, it's great to be back with the gang. And you were like, what is he, what is he doing? Like, you're just, you're filling it in this other show. Hey, what up?

[Kyle Cerudi]

Turning his appearance into the segment he.

[Ryan Resilio]

Turned the whole week into. And I remember, like.

[Kyle Cerudi]

I'm here.

[Ryan Resilio]

He's like, you know, this is a lot of fun. This is a lot of fun.

[Kyle Cerudi]

He just wrote a fucking book or something.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah. And I was like, it wasn't a lot of fun. Like everybody knew you didn't want to do it and they made you do it. So you were like, okay, since I think this is beneath me, I am now just going to pretend it was. You know, what we need to do is bring them back. Like homecoming week. It's been a while. And that'll be the whole thing. It's like, no, actually, you know, preseason week three, you know, in any interesting cuts coming up next, do the Panthers have what it takes to be competitive with this secondary? All right. Statute of limitations on friends X. Don't know why it took so long to get to all that stuff. Maybe it's because Friday. Just freewheeling. Let's go, baseball guy. Working on my pickup game. Player comp is Poku. You wish. Six three lanky. So high level pickup basketball minds are willing to use a mid first round first round. I mean, unfortunately, comedy ensues. Poco could pass, bro. All right, we're all 25 or 26. Pretty straightforward. Is a good friend's ex off limits forever? Forever is a long time. More context for my specific situation with names change. We're all 25, 26. I already read that. One of my best friends from high school. I hope we change the names here, buddy. I don't know.

[Michelle Smallman]

Change them.

[Kyle Cerudi]

25, 26. You can't be sure they're thinking that far ahead.

[Ryan Resilio]

No, I mean, it happens so often. And then somebody be like, oh, you know, I shouldn't have done that. All right. So best friend from high school boss dated a girl from our friend group everybody was close with. Let's call her Cricket. They dated our senior year of high school, then went to different colleges one hour apart. Dated for two and a half more years. They broke up four years ago. One year later, Bo started dating a woman. We just married three months ago. Beautiful wedding. Enthusiastic. He actually mentions the nationality of the family. You really do want to give all of this away. You've already decided. Yeah. So they're from a different part of the world. Beautiful family, very positive reviews. And Bocephus is extremely happy with the entire deal. Cricket now lives in a different city but remains friendly with our group. She and I have always been close. Don't talk often, but catch up on everything every few months. Saw all my good friends in the rest of our high school. On Blackout Wednesday. Yes, for Thanksgiving. What a night. What a night.

[Michelle Smallman]

Blackout Wednesday. Listen, if there's a time to hook up with your friend's ex, it is definitely on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

[Ryan Resilio]

Cricket was a little touchy and flirty with me, and I reciprocated a bit because frankly, I do find her very attractive. I also made sure to stick with the group. Nothing happened between us. We all had a fun night. Since then, Cricket has made it clear to me that she's down in a pretty casual capacity. Maybe this guy is like Poku. Because Poku has this level of confidence. My decisions now are one, whether or not to do it. Yep. Two, if I decide to go for it, whether or not to tell Bos either before or after. Probably not before, buddy. Probably not.

[Michelle Smallman]

Hey, been thinking, been kicking this around. What do you buy?

[Ryan Resilio]

Consultant, Actually, I'm going to sleep with your ex.

[Kyle Cerudi]

You think I should know?

[Ryan Resilio]

That's cool. We're cool, right? We're cool.

[Michelle Smallman]

That's cool.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Getting advice.

[Ryan Resilio]

Has anyone ever told their buddy before? That would be great. That would be a great comeback. You know, I really busted up about this. Don't know how it happened. Well, you. But you already did it, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep. All right. I'm aware that some people would just go for it, especially because my friend is now married. But I think others would say a friend's ex is just off limits for good. Personally, I'm leaning toward it would be fine, but obviously there's a tinge of bias there. That's why I'm curious what the group thinks. If it matters. This would not be a long term thing. As Cricket and I are both well aware, we're not compatible for marriage. I'm confident she and I will remain friends whether this happens or not. I'm not particularly worried about Bocephus. He's an easygoing guy and happily married. But if this jeopardized the friendship, I'd have no problem forgetting it happen and just staying where I'm currently at. That said, dot, dot, dot. She's really hot.

[Kyle Cerudi]

This is a gray area important what it is. I. I flip flop both times and I'm leaning towards you could do it. But the. When he said we're 26, I'm like, all right, so no matter what happens, not enough time has passed. That's what that was my first thought. It's like if you guys are all in the same area, probably not enough time has passed. But then she. They said they broke up four years ago. Plus, you add a marriage, it's kind of like, you know, I thought. I thought, you know, I understand. And if you're. If you're talking about keeping this under wraps, I think you could do it. The marriage is the big thing that pushes it over. But without a marriage, I don't think the statute of limitations is up, which means this is what we call a gray area. And I think there aren't any completely wrong answers.

[Michelle Smallman]

Totally. There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. I think the fact that, you know, it's kind of weird that you're both like, yeah, we both realize that this is not going anywhere long term. It's just kind of like a thing. We're both attracted to each other. That makes me think, you know, do you trust her to just, like, not tell anyone or, like, not have this, get back to your buddy then? I think it's kind of fun.

[Kyle Cerudi]

It's probably super exciting to think about too.

[Michelle Smallman]

Like, you know, he's not hung. You know, if it was one of those things where, like, she broke up with him and then he was really hung up on her and then he married this girl they didn't like because he wanted to get one over on her or something. Like, if there's this whole backstory about how he's, like, still kind of into where I'd be like, yeah, he's asked.

[Kyle Cerudi]

You for advice in the past. Like, yeah, that's.

[Michelle Smallman]

But, like, if he. But if he's moved on. I mean, I know. You know, I don't know. I. Plenty of people, like, they. They date high school into college, and they just kind of grow apart. And they're like, I'm sure many of those people would be happy with whatever life their. Their, you know, ex partner lived. And I don't know, I think that's kind of unfair to be like, no, you can never do this. Even though I understand, like, it is complicated, I think it's fine. Try to keep it under wraps and, you know, even if it gets back to your buddy, hopefully he's kind of understanding.

[Kyle Cerudi]

There are some guys out there. Like, we read an email not too long ago about that guy who's getting married and tried to, like, back channel through the grapevine to get this old fling to be at the wedding. So there are guys that, like, will look at that girl possessively forever. There are, but, you know, you'll probably be able to tell which one of those guys are not. Like, those guys can't hide it amongst their friends forever. If that's how they are. So you would know one way or the other for that. But if it's not that, I think just shut the fuck up about it and, you know, enjoy the excitement and then move on if you're leaning towards doing it.

[Ryan Resilio]

Every guy is different. And I think possessive is definitely part of the makeup for a lot of dudes out there where if he finds out, then it's like, well, if you marry, you're fine, but if you don't, that's fucked up, right? And you're already saying, so you're not going to do that. There's a ton of pressure on you there to be like, the only way we can justify this is if we spend the rest of our lives together.

[Michelle Smallman]

So I don't know that beginning of a romcom too. It's like, we, we, we can't, we can't, we can't get married. This is just a hookup. And then it's like, wait a second, you got a family vacation?

[Ryan Resilio]

It's like, yeah, I don't. I mean, guys are all over the spectrum on this one, right? Just absolutely all over the spectrum where. I mean, really my only experience is being a guy. So I don't, I can't offer up. Yeah. Guesses on how the other side sees this, but I think sometimes when it comes to relationships and sex, that kind of stuff, we're probably a little bit more aligned. There's probably some more commonalities than maybe we want to admit or realize because, you know, there can be so many things that are different about men and women. But. Yeah, like, I've had guy friends that are incredibly possessive. Like the second they've ever hooked up with anybody, then it's like some weird, like, land grant thing that they think.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Is like divs, divs pass.

[Ryan Resilio]

Passed on through generations, and you just go, yeah. I don't think that's necessarily the way it works, however, I don't know that it should ever be like a free for all either. And.

[Kyle Cerudi]

And guys will tell you different things and they actually thing to their friends too, so it makes it even more money, right?

[Ryan Resilio]

Because when you're married and you're going to start a family and you start telling your buddy, like, hey, can you not do this now? Is it. Are you saying you can't do it like anybody, or is it this one specific one? And then there's the other side of it that I think is always, like, kind of fascinating. And I don't know if it's like a. Just a pure sign of maturity. Or if it's some weird, like desensitized, like, I'll never forget, like one time one of my friends from college, he. I was like, you know what, what, did you do this, this summer or something? I don't know how it came up. Like, it wasn't, hey, hello, man. How was your summer? And then he told me some weird escapade story, but he was like, basically talking about he and his uncle, like went on this rampage during wedding season. And I was kind of like, you're that close with your uncle? That's like, I never want to be. And sometimes like the uncle age thing.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah, sometimes it's like a three year gap and it's just like, it makes sense if you explain it, but it's still weird.

[Ryan Resilio]

But this uncle was older than him, so like significantly older than him. It's from a part of the country where I think if I said, but I'm not going to say the state, we'd all go, ah, that kind of checks out a little bit. But where there can be some dudes that are just like, yeah, you know, I, I used to hang a. You should do it too, man.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Crosshairs, double, all sorts of lines, man.

[Ryan Resilio]

Right, right. And I don't know that I love that one either. So then there's the other part too, where I feel like, what's your. And I'm talking to the emailer here, like, what's your deal? Have you pulled off any transaction on your own? Or are you simply just a guy that seems to get credit for a merger that's at the table? You know, and that's a great. I don't, I just don't like that guy. Like, there's certain people that I know specifically be like, you would have never gotten here if there weren't a buddy already hacking away with a machete. Okay. And lurker, right. You, Your in is association has nothing to do with your personality, your own accomplishments. You have no fucking game whatsoever. Your only game is that of a deer tick. You are a parasite. And if it weren't for the host, you wouldn't talk to a girl the rest of your life. And I hate those fucking guys. Does it sound a little pointed? Yes. I'm thinking about two people in particular.

[Norman Powell]

Sure.

[Ryan Resilio]

So I'm not getting that sense for you at all. I'm not saying those things about you. But ultimately we already know what you're going to do. You're going to do this and hope you get away with it. And you probably are, because he's Got a wife and kids and the stuff you start worrying about that you used to worry about before that happens. I would imagine as I'm talking to my two married buddies here, you just don't have enough room to care about this shit anymore when you start getting kids in the equation.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Also, if it comes out later, you know what I mean? There is a time that the statute of limitations on that would be up and if it doesn't come out for a while, then it's all in the wash. Like, yeah, who knows what date it was if he finds out four years from now, you know, whatever at that point.

[Ryan Resilio]

That's the other good math good, right? It's not like he's going to get a bulletin the next Tuesday.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Right? Exactly.

[Ryan Resilio]

Town crier bell running through alert on his phone. Yeah, I think we care. All right, good luck. Okay, last one here. Do I go to a live podcast with my girlfriend on Valentine's Day? First time emailer. Love the pod. Gym stat. 6 foot 210, 505 deadlift. 285 bench. 455 squat. 385 Zercher deadlift? I think so. Whoa. All right, there we go. A college rugby athlete play pickup hoops every few weeks. Player comp is Smith with the athleticism of Spencer Hawes. Dude, Spencer's our buddy is down the street Ish Smith. A lot of teams though. A lot of friends. So maybe you're a really popular guy. My girlfriend and I have been dating for a year currently long distance and as I finish up school she's back home as I graduated early. We have no issues. Hardly ever fight. Not with stats like those. Brother, she shows you off. Here's the thing. We're going to a really fun city for Valentine's Day and spending four days together. She wants to go to a live podcast of her favorite pod. Think call her daddy. Type of content, but a bit less sex oriented. Okay, the podcast is on Valentine's day. It's going to be a single girls festival and I will stick out like a sore thumb. You, sir, will be the thumb and you will be sore. That's like I feel bad when women are at my live pods. It's like man came to this. Yeah, you must really like them. Guess I've yet I don't. I don't think there's ever been a woman that like has gone to my live pod. At the meet and greet after we take pictures of shake hands she's like I'm really psyched because did this.

[Michelle Smallman]

Right.

[Kyle Cerudi]

It's like, it's actually.

[Ryan Resilio]

That's not true. You met one, did you, Serudi?

[Michelle Smallman]

Yeah, well, maybe a couple, but there was definitely one at the Vegas show who is really. Was really into. Who you could tell. Like, this wasn't like just there because her boyfriend was there or whoever. I think that might be it, though. So, yeah, one.

[Ryan Resilio]

Okay, so we got one.

[Michelle Smallman]

Hey, thanks to her, we'll do one.

[Ryan Resilio]

All right. So normally I would be fine going to something like this, but I think since it's on Valentine's Day, we should just spend that day together and have a nice dinner. I don't really want to go to the podcast and I know I won't like it, but I know she really wants to go. Do I suck it up and go with her or do I tell her no? This is a big ask of her.

[Michelle Smallman]

No.

[Ryan Resilio]

To have you do this. Yes, it is.

[Michelle Smallman]

Valentine's Day isn't about the dude. Like, just go grow up.

[Ryan Resilio]

Like, go to that.

[Michelle Smallman]

Who cares?

[Ryan Resilio]

What if your wife was like, I'm joining a crochet club and it starts on Valentine's Day.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Bring your palace, partner day.

[Michelle Smallman]

I don't know, man. Valentine's Day is not about the guy. If she wants to do this and it's going to make her happy, just go, dude, it's not what's going on.

[Ryan Resilio]

Normally. You're right. It isn't about the guy. It's about the dinner. It's about the flowers. It's about all the other setup. It's about doing something nice. It's about showing the other person you care to go to a Taylor Swift fest with no music.

[Michelle Smallman]

Well, let's settle down. I had a good time at the Taylor Swift conversation.

[Ryan Resilio]

Did she sit there and talk about relationships for three hours? It was right.

[Michelle Smallman]

In some ways. There were a lot of.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah. To be honest. Yeah, Good counterpoint. But she had a fucking guitar. This is not going to have a guitar.

[Kyle Cerudi]

There's a couple things here. I think you're right. Definitely. It is not about the dude. Unless it's a dude dude situation. Then I'm not really sure what it's about. But that's not the point of this email. The fact that this is a long.

[Ryan Resilio]

Term possibility, the fact that this is.

[Kyle Cerudi]

A long distance relationship, I think has, like, maybe you should do the traditional, you know, preset menu. I was thinking, like, if you've been together for a while, like, maybe you start getting a little creative on Valentine's Day. This could be. This is probably your second one, Right? They've been together A year. That must mean that you've had one Valentine's Day already. You haven't seen each other in a while. I think you could maybe be like, you know, we're long distance here. I'd kind of like to be able to spend it with you and not kind of staring at someone else, talk at us. Maybe there's a way you can do that. Or you'd be like, you know, I really just. I wanted to do like, a nice, you know, the good prefix menu. Not the. Okay one. Like, the thing where you'd be happy to have that prefix menu. I think maybe you can just be.

[Michelle Smallman]

Like, do it like the next day. Yeah, I don't.

[Ryan Resilio]

I just.

[Michelle Smallman]

It's just not worth.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah. What does Valentine's Day mean to you? Like, is there magic in the air? That celebration of love that.

[Michelle Smallman]

The nice dinner 365 days a year, dude.

[Ryan Resilio]

So.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Yeah, I bet you do. Yeah, I think you're right. I guess just cave, like, if it's not really about you anyway. But I don't know.

[Ryan Resilio]

I could see the flowers telling me which day I love my wife.

[Kyle Cerudi]

I could see you saying, like, I wanted to do a nice, traditional Valentine's Day. Haven't seen you in a while, babe.

[Ryan Resilio]

You know, here's the deal.

[Kyle Cerudi]

You're going to be uncomfortable.

[Ryan Resilio]

Terrible idea. I'm on our guy's side.

[Norman Powell]

Yeah.

[Ryan Resilio]

Bullshit request. Bullshit request. If you do it, I imagine you're going to be stacking up some chips of equity here, which is kind of. What kind of. What if she's like, okay, you did that. You're the best. What do you want to do for your day tomorrow? And be like, pouch a red man. Call of duty, 4:00am let's go. You. You owe me this.

[Kyle Cerudi]

So two out of three votes, dude, go to. Go to the podcast. Just be a nice guy.

[Ryan Resilio]

I think it's a ridiculous request.

[Kyle Cerudi]

I think you're right, but I think Valentine's Day is a little ridiculous all around, so.

[Tom Curran]

Yeah.

[Ryan Resilio]

But, Jesus, you imagine, like, can you imagine me at a Caller Daddy live show in general? No. And I mean, look, Alex is awesome. So it's. It's not about, like, me, but I've seen the videos. Like, me just in the back being like, yes, I'm unwell.

[Michelle Smallman]

You don't have to, like, have the greatest time ever. You just have to, oh, that is.

[Ryan Resilio]

Promise. No problem.

[Kyle Cerudi]

Shout out to league pass with AirPods. That's what you've been up to.

[Ryan Resilio]

When is she going to do the Lamelo segment? Okay, that'll do it for us today thanks to Kyle. No, this is a war gone free zone.

[Kyle Cerudi]

No, we're not making picks today. So you know.

[Ryan Resilio]

Yeah, there's no I couch. Yeah. Poor guys. Like I dominated this season. I'll just be back here rubbing some coconut oil on this beast of a left arm tat. Yeah, I think it's left arm. All right. Thanks for checking out the show. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and as always, you can hear us on Ringer. Spotify must be 21 and older, present in select states. For Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18/ plus and present in D.C. gambling problem, call 1-800- gambler or visit RG help.com call 880-878-97777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.