← The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Part 1: More Mavs Misery with Kyrie Out for the Season, 15 NBA East Teams in 15(ish) Minutes, and Les Claypool of Primus!
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Les Claypool
Foreign.
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Ryan Rossillo
We don't do this very often, boys and girls. We've got a two part podcast from the Ryan with slogan so Part one Kyrie Irving out for the season. Let's talk some Mavs. We're going to be really nice to Mavs fans because we feel for you. Also the east after last week's west 15 teams in 15 minutes. We do the east 15 teams in 45 minutes. Sorry. Went long. Les Claypool, perhaps the greatest bass player alive from Primus four decades long, the search for new drummer, his career and appreciation for what he's accomplished and the Letterman story that I'd never heard before. I was fired up to talk to Wes Claypool. Man, I have loved this guy for a really long time. So it was cool this episode is brought to you by the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card. This is an ad for the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game with your mom or grabbing a coffee with your dog, earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases made with it. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply. I'm going to get to the east here. 15 teams in 15 minutes. Ish. But we have to start with a headline. The breaking news this morning, Kyrie Irving lost for the season with a torn acl. You were watching it last night in the Drive. You were wondering, could it have been something else he's helped off? He makes the free throws and then we get the word this morning. I'll just tell you right now, Mavs fans, I feel for you. I mean, this is an absolutely brutal, brutal stretch. I know some of the talking points on this are kind of the karma element of it, but you're also doing that to millions of Mavs fans. So if this were about karma, they would deserve a deep playoff run. Because I still think with a healthy ad and a healthy Kyrie, and I've mentioned this before, I really like Dallas and their off season and some of their improvements around this team with Luka in place, considering this is a finals team last year that you know how to navigate a really tough West. But all right, so Luka's gone. We've covered that. Then you're thinking, at least for 25, with a healthy ad who's been incredible the last couple years. Which again, was another whole reason why for all the reasons, the trade was ridiculous and should have never happened. You're trading for an Anthony Davis that. I think the biggest Anthony Davis fans would tell you, you're always worried about that next moment. I mean, one of the. I don't even want to use the word funny, but, you know, living in la, when AD was hurt, you know, it's after the title and there's this kind of, like, limbo phase of the Lakers, and local radio would be like, well, what could you get for AD? And it's a bit like the Zion conversation where, okay, what's the market for Zion? I mean, some of the most negative, absurd. Zion being at the lowest value rating was still just ridiculous because, like, look, another team would trade for him. But I think the win in what you're seeing from the way Zion is playing is that the Pelicans are like, okay, I think we actually need to pivot off of this. His market has recovered. It will recover if he continues to play like this and is healthy going into the off season. So when you think about the lowest point of the Anthony Davis stretches was where it wasn't about his playing, it was about his availability and then trying to project out as he got older, being like, okay, like, what kind of contract do you want to do for somebody like this? Like, how much can you really bank on him? And then you have local talk shows, which, again, I'm not even being critical of the local talk shows, because I did it. And it's just kind of what you do is like, could you trade Anthony Davis? What do you get for him? And back to the Zion point, is that really the best thing you can hope for is that he plays well, and then if you wanted to make a move that he would be available or more interesting to more teams, because you just start to talk yourself into the recency bias of what you've just seen from a player. And in this case, Anthony Davis goes to, what could you get for him into Luka Doncic years later? Because AD was healthy and playing really well. But the fact that you would trade Luka again to just one team, and I know there's been some reports that they had kicked the tires on other players. From what I had heard, Dallas may have inquired about other stars, but didn't really lay out any kind of blueprint that involved Luca. So then it becomes a debate of semantics. So even if you love Anthony Davis, which is kind of funny, because I think there was, like, a player reaction to it, you know, players in the media being like, you know, Anthony Davis isn't nothing. All of us understand that, okay? Every single person that had a comment on this trade all understood, like, the best version of Anthony Davis is an awesome basketball player. Like, He's a top 10 player in the league, but he's 31, and he's hurt all the time after two really healthy years. So, like, okay, now he's had the two healthy years. Now it's never going to be an issue again. So he gets hurt immediately. So now the trade is even worse. And you're thinking, okay, what are the hopes for this team? That we're just in the NBA Finals and Kyrie's having this terrific year, and you've gotten the best, most stable stretch of Kyrie going all the way back to the end of the Cleveland run, which is nine years ago, and. And then he goes out with the acl. So it's not karma. I don't know how much I believe in karma just because maybe you work in my business long enough and you're like, I don't know if that's true or not. It'd be nice. Maybe. Maybe it is true. It's cool if you believe in it. But I don't really think that's the best way to look at this, because it's not about the karma of ownership or a front office that made this disastrous decision and an ownership that I just don't think gets it at all. You have a bunch of fans that at least get to see Kyrie and then the timetable for AD and, like, what would be funnier than a. Again, I don't even want to use funnier. What would be more rewarding than just an entertaining playoff run? You win a series, you're in it. You start talking yourself into it. You know, have a moment of joy realizing that the other guy's playing in the Lakers uniform and he's never coming back. Yeah. So I just feel for Mass fans. Let's do this. 15 teams, 15 minutes. Ish. We'll go by the standings of this morning. Some of these numbers are sorted through the last 48 hours. We start with Cleveland. So Cleveland's come back against Boston, and I know that Porzingis being out and Drew Holiday being out leads us in defensive matchups and switching and hunting that Cleveland would likely not have the option to attack if Drew Holliday and Porzingis are playing in a playoff series. But the biggest compliment I can give to Cleveland is that I didn't care about any of the regular season outcomes. I just thought there were bad Matchups there on the perimeter for Cleveland against Boston. And there's no way I was ever picking Cleveland against Boston in a playoff series. Now I'm open to it. I'm flirting with doing it. And I know I said it with Bill on Sunday, I said it earlier today on FanDuel TV, but. But I love this Cleveland team. If you look at the overall numbers, let's run through it. First on offense, seventh on defense. Last season they were 16th on offense, seventh on defense. Which, you know, coaching is probably not as impactful as we'd like to think it can be. Certainly coaches that pursue that profession when it comes to the NBA more often than not like who's on the team. But Atkinson has really unlocked something. And on top of the Hunter acquisition and everything that's happening with the rest of this team, they are nine deep. If you want to go 10 with a coral, you can do that. I'll say nine. And whether it's Dean Wade coming in being like, oh, you're going to switch into Dean Wade and he's going to hold up defensively. Have you not watched any of these Cavs games? Like he does a terrific job and stretches the floor Streuss. If you want to use him flying off of screens in a catch and shoot, that's a little bit different. It's not even a key moves more into his three than say a DeAndre hunter does right now. But you have all of these options on top of if you want to go double bigs with Alan Mobley, you can do that. If you want to split them up like they did at the end of the Boston game and keep Mobley in and keep Hunter in, you can do that. Ty Jerome is like everybody's favorite player right now. Sam Merrill provides spacing as well. And then you have the studs in the backcourt who depending on the night, if one doesn't have it going, the other one probably does. And Donovan Mitchell is not afraid of Austin at all. And whatever you think about him and likely not really being considered like a top 10 player for the majority of whatever his production has been, he, you, you know this like he is capable of some absolutely high level scoring outbursts in the playoffs because he's done it his entire career, even though there's not the deep run in there to get really excited. I mean it seems ridiculous that this is a team for the most part that went to seven games of the Orlando Magic. If you want to talk about two teams going in opposite directions. So I was trying to figure out like Something here, you know, like, could I find any kind of number here with Cleveland? Like, I'll just run through it. They have the best clutch winning percentage. They're number one in clutch shooting. They're shooting 55% in clutch time. That is a crazy number because again, clutch time, the shots just don't go in as much. That's why I think sometimes when we look at these players, like, oh, this guy's like 1 for 8 in his last game winning shot attempts as the buzzer expires, you're like, you know how hard so many of those shots are. I don't know that anybody has a good field goal percentage of that stuff. To compare their 55% clutch shooting percentage with, let's say who's in last in the NBA? It's Houston, which again, we've talked about their offense being terrible in the clutch time, yet the record is still pretty good. But Houston shoots 37% as a team that's last in the NBA on clutch shooting. To put that number into perspective, we've mentioned the nine guys. Some of you would say 10. Let's just run through a bunch of these ridiculous things. Cause I was trying to. Is there one thing they do here that isn't necessarily great? If we go points per possession. Well, on spot up shots, they're number two in points per possession, they're number two on handoffs, they're number three on the pick and roll, man. All right, that's the roll, man. Receiving the pass, they're number three on pick and roll. Ball handler. Ball handler. Keeping it obviously off the pick and roll. They're number one in points per possession. In transition, they're number one on points per session in cuts. The only thing I could find, funny enough with Mitchell and Garland's creativity, they're 14th in points for possession on isolation. So you run through it, it's hard to find anything there that's a negative with Cleveland or isn't outstanding. So I think it'll be a Hunter kind of Strews decision. Could also be a Hunter Allen decision for Atkinson, depending on the matchup. Again, how they close with Boston may be a window into what Atkinson will want to do with the Hunter Mobley lineup out there. Um, look, they're. They are special. Right now. You could talk about touches where they don't move the ball a ton because they're fifth lowest in touches for the NBA. Tracking stuff like how many touches per game do you have over the course of an entire game for all your players? So their fifth lowest does that mean anything? Well, Houston's 30th, Boston's 28th. I love them. And I'm. I'm getting real dangerous here. I don't want to make too much of Friday night's game because Drew and Porzingis did not play. But do not hit me with the. They've never done anything before because I cannot wait for that series. And we'll see how I feel about it going into it to see who I pick again. Having that kind of open mind about it tells you everything you need to know about what I think about this basketball team. Let's pivot to Boston. All right, so Boston, number three on offense, number five on defense. Last year, number one on offense, number two on defense. Last. Last year was a special basketball team, and I still think that they're really special. We know when they have their five guys, they're going to be brutal to deal with because Brzingis provides that spacing that you need for a stretch. Five, I think you. Every team actually needs. That doesn't mean every team's going to have it. But then on top of that, you have the Pozingas rim protection numbers, which he doesn't get nearly enough credit for. I have mentioned this. I mentioned it with Bill the Hunt happy scenarios where they get really hunt happy in their matchups where when I'll watch them, I'll admit there's certain things on certain nights where I'm like, wow, they're getting a little stagnant. Do I really like what they're doing here on offense? And even in these moments where I wonder if I like it or if it's some kind of flaw, there's almost no number over the course of the season that backs up this being that big of a deal. So it's like I'm being too hard on them. They're number four in clutch offense. They're 24th on clutch defense. So what does that mean? They can't play defense when it matters most? I don't know. I don't know what to do with that number because OKC, as we mentioned, we did the west, they're 23rd. So maybe that number doesn't really mean anything. They have the second lowest amount of drives in the NBA. So it's like, okay, is that something? Does this team settle a little bit too much? Well, Denver's last. Denver's last on drives, they pass it per game, the fifth lowest in the NBA. Total number of passes in a game behind them, though. Lakers, Denver, Milwaukee. Maybe Milwaukee's not your blueprint for what you want to see. Maybe the Lakers are going to be a little less movementy with Luka being so dominant with the ball and LeBron and Reeves looking for his kind of matchups. Denver maybe is just different from everybody else because Jokic is just this maestro pulling all the strings and all these different things. But like these numbers don't really mean anything, even if they seem a little bit lower. I mean they even have one number here where they have the most shots in the NBA between 25 and 29ft. So that's 33 attempts on those shots per game. That's five more than number gold, number two, Golden State. That's a pretty big differential between number one and two, but they make 37% of them. So there could be a few things over the course of a Celtics game where I'm like, I don't know what's going on there. I think if there's an anti Celtics argument, it could be, hey, they coasted through the east because everybody was hurt the whole time. So some of those questions we had about stagnant kind of one on one basketball, but not really driving and settling for some of these mid range, getting into threes a little bit too early, was that not exposed because they weren't really tested and maybe Dallas wasn't even the best team from the west and that's who they face in the finals. It's a terrible matchup for the Mavs. Like I can understand some of that stuff, but like I almost think the standard that. And I'll just say for me, my standard is probably just too high for them because of how special I think they are. It almost feels like when the SEC loses a national championship or, or in this case last couple years, doesn't play in one, it's like, hey, what's wrong with those guys? So that's where I'm at with Boston. All right, the Knicks, probably. Guess where I'm going with this? The Knicks, defensively, that's really what this conversation's about. They're one of my favorite teams to watch. By the way, if the Knicks are on, it's a lot of fun. They win a ton of close games. You know, their starting five is going to be. That's pretty clear because we've seen them throughout. So defensively or offensively, start there first, number four in the NBA, 18th on defense, last 15, 22nd defense. Last year they were seventh on offense, ninth in defense. So I can't believe the defensive numbers are actually this bad with OG Mikhail Hart, but it's a bit like a baseball team having a bad defensive shortstop and catcher. Because when your point guard is Brunson and can be attacked and Cat is going to be brought up into every single switch and get used to it. If this team closes with Cat in playoff games because they have the Mitchell Robinson scenario, which is now back, which I'll get to here in a second. You know, I don't know if Tibbs is going to be able to play Mitchell Robinson and Cat together. Maybe he's just going to have to to pro try to bring up some sort of rim protection. I mean, again, I don't know what he's going to do. Let's see how Mitchell looks coming back to this. But in the times where Kat's going to be out there by himself, he's just going to be brought up every single time at every single switch. The other biggest issue which we've covered their own seven against okc, Cleveland and Boston. The point different in those games is like 20 points. You know, Mitchell in 24, this wasn't a great number for him saving this team or at least getting them competitively in this range of defensive numbers that you would need from them. There were 15 players that I sorted by minutes last year. So the top 15 guys in minutes and Mitchell actually had the worst defensive rating of any of those guys, which doesn't seem to make a ton of sense. But I think he's being looked at as somebody who's going to. I don't know if it's save it but change course here where we can start to take them a little bit seriously. But I just, I do not see. I just don't see anything where this team gets through both Boston and Cleveland in the east with this kind of defense. On paper, last year, their sixth worst in points in the paint allowed, they have five of the top 23 players in minutes per game. They allow the fewest of opposing rebounds per game. So that's pretty good. They've got the second best cluster winning percentage. They're number one in pick and roll. Ball handler. As far as the ball handler keeping the ball. That's those Brunson possessions. Their number one in points per possession in the NBA on that kind of stuff. But like I said, I'm just the defensive profile of some of the stuff that we've been talking about here. That does not tell me that they're actually a championship contender or even going to get out of the EAs. Go to the Milwaukee Bucks, your 4 seed. So on offense, 13th defense, 10th last 15th. Offense kind of tanking here a bit. They're 8 and 7 in the last 15. They're 22nd in offense there. Last year they were 6th on offense, 19th on defense. So they've improved the defense. That felt like just a disaster for him last year. But, you know, you're looking at the offense here that's taking a dip down. So two. There are two guys have played a good amount considering Giannis and Dame's history here. Giannis has played 47 and 59. Dame's played 49 and 59. 49 and 59. Right. Like I said, this is going to be Giannis's seventh straight season with a top four MVP finish. He was fourth last year. I voted him second. People thought I was crazy. I did not think I was crazy. They actually, if you look at the expanded standings of the east of the top six teams, they have a worse record against teams 500 or better. New York's 12 and 14 as of this note, Milwaukee is 10 and 14. I can double check that. Yep, it is still 10 and 14 this morning. There was an old guy stat in there because sometimes they do look a bit older. I think there's some stuff with Dame where you're not going to get like some of those in between plays that I always talk about at times. I think Brook has been kind of up and down from a movement standpoint. I think he looks better now. But they are last in the NBA in loose balls recovered during a game. Does that mean anything? They started 1 and 6, then they went 11 and 3, then they were at 25 and 17, then they went 3 and 7, then they went 8 and 3. So in that 8 and 3 stretch, over 11 games, they had wins against Minnesota, the Clippers. I thought the Denver win was really impressive. The game against Dallas, So they've been an incredibly streaky team. But like I said, they're the only. There's another part here, too. They're the only top six team in the east that has a losing record on the road. The Pacers are 15 and 15. They're huge right now with the four guys they're using in the starting lineup around Dame, with Kuzma, who I think provides a little bit more juice than Middleton does. Prince has been playing, might be out of position at two guard, but they said they're basically experimenting with this. And on top of Lopez and Giannis all around Dame. Will that be something that they go with as a closing lineup just to strike, like, let's be huge out here, or they Try to balance out the Prince part of it with the AJ Green shooting because it looks like the Andre Jackson experiment is over. As far as where he is rotationally, they keep trying this Kevin Porter Jr thing. He was abysmal in the start of the first five minutes. If you want to go back, you will not because it'd be pointless. But just trust me on this. Having him run offensive possessions in a tight game against Houston. First five minutes of that, that fourth quarter, it was a disaster. He was better though against Denver. So maybe they're just going to keep rolling with it. Wondering if they have somebody with the second unit during the playoffs. That would surprise me. Okay, let's go Pacers. So Pacers, we knew the offense is good. It's number eight defense, number 19. Last year their offense was the second best in the N B A and their defense was even worse than it was this season. So it was 24th. They feel a bit like the Midwest Knicks. So I like them. We have not talked about them a lot because I think it's met with kind of a collective shrug, like, yeah, you know, like, I like their depth. There's a bunch of players I like. The problem is, when the Pacers play in a playoff series, how often are they ever going to have the best player in a series? My guess is never in the 4, 5 matchup against Milwaukee? No. Say they beat them against Cleveland. No. So Halliburton, I don't think will ever be the best player on the floor in the playoff series. And it's tough to survive. It's tough to be a team that goes deep in the playoffs. Now, I know what you're saying. Pacer, Sands. Oh really, Rossillo, they made it to the Eastern Conference finals last year. Well, I think there's some conference finals. Doubt I would put them in that group of teams that makes a conference finals. But that's not really who you are. I don't look at you as a final four team of one of the four or five best teams in the NBA because if you look at the path last year against Milwaukee, Giannis plays zero games in the six game series. Dame played four of the six against the Knicks. OG played three of the seven games. Mitchell played 12 total minutes. Brunson was pretty banged up. The overall numbers are pretty good there. So, you know, defensively it's been pretty bad throughout. In, if we go through this in February they were 20th, January they were 2nd, and then December they were 21st. November they were 24th. So they had a January number in there. That was really good defensively, but it's really probably not who they are. I like the eight with Neesmith back. Halliburton post All Star has been reminiscent of pre all star. Halliburton in 23:24 where he was what, a 22 and 12 on assists per game, 49, 40% shooting splits. Then 26 games after the all star break, he was 17 and 10. That's the assist number there, not rebounds. And the shooting splits were terrible for him. 45 and 30. So I think at least that part of it because he was so good at the beginning of last year. You're like, oh my God, like, look at this guy. Dudes are just getting on some bonuses. Case, he's like, I'm over here boxing dudes out. How is this my fault? But you know the OB TJ McConnell minutes with Thomas Bryant playing center because of the injuries this year, they're all net negatives. You're asking a lot of Turner, you're asking a lot of Thomas in a playoff series to come in and spell them. Maybe they'll go small. I think there's a Mather and Nismith decision here where if you look at the Neesmith minutes, it probably feels like it's going to be advantage Neesmith here and you know, nice. Smith, 26 minutes a game in February, Mathurin's three point shooting, it's been bad two of the last three months after Kind of a nice start there. So it might be a Neesmith closing group here. It's just hard to take them seriously with this defense. All right, let's talk about everybody's favorite team from the Midwest right now, and that's your Detroit Pistons. So The Pistons are 12th on offense, ninth on defense. Okay. Last year they were 27th on offense, 25th on defense. They won 10 of 11 games. This year when they won 10 of 11 after the win against Utah, that's the first time they've won 10 and 11 since 2007. 2008 Series A season, I should say. Sorry. The last 15, they're the number three offense, the number three defense, number three in net rating behind Cleveland and OKC. And it's not really about the passing and the touches because there's been talks of like. And again, I still would love to know how many Pistons games Monty Williams has watched this season because I wonder if you've just watched this, like, hey, they got some good players on this team. The passing, touching, movement and all that kind of tracking data. Like you wonder, oh, is it, is it? They're getting no. Because of Cade. Cade is a bit like the Luca hard model of like. I'm gonna kind of figure it out until I figure out how to best use this possession. And it has worked for them. But playing defense at a higher level and having your shooting, your true shooting percentage improve from 26th in the NBA to 14th in the NBA, even just being average means you're gonna be in a lot more of these games. So shooting in defense is. Is helping a lot of this stuff. And I think Cade also is a bit of the Luca Tatum mold of when you're that big and you have that big of a frame and you have that big of a handle. I think SJ is a little different because I think he floats a little bit more than these guys, even though he has all the tricks and the angles down. There is something to be said about the way the game is officiated right now that if you're playing two contact but your body is almost a shield against the defender once you can figure those things out and around the rim. Where Kate had struggled so much earlier in his career. And he's figured that out on top of everything else. Cunningham, where he's just got this terrific vision to keep the possession going later or keeping his teammates engaged later because then he knows he might find them. That's an incredibly great place to start. They also play a million dudes. This is like a hockey team with what they're doing with the rotations in February. I don't know what that's going to mean. But the Pistons right now are a half a game back from hosting a playoff round at home. They're only a half a game behind Milwaukee and the Pacers that are in front of them in the four and five seed. All right, we go to Miami. Number 19 on offense, number 12 on defense last year, 21st on offense, fifth on defense. So they're playing better defense last year. This team is an absolute snooze fest. They're 29 and 31. If you look at their schedule and the records throughout, they're basically always like two to three games around.500. Bam's terrific. I love him. Hero. I actually have more respect for just because of his creativity and difficult shot making. After watching him try to defend the Celtics wings in the playoffs last year. Jovic has been shooting really well the last few months. Davion Mitchell's terrorizing people, but he is your starting point guard. Because the Rozier thing is bad as it was last year. It's been even worse this year, but Davion should really be a third or fourth guard on a basketball team. Haquez, who, remember, coming out of the draft, it was, you know, he lights it up. Miami, they tricked it. You know, not tricked, but Miami did it again. What's wrong with everybody? Well, the reason why Haquez lasted as long as he did is because he wasn't a great athlete. He didn't shoot it all that well. He's had months this year where he shot 19% from 3, 17% from 3, 20% from 3. So the draft questions actually kind of became true a little bit more later on. I still think he's such a smart player and he's probably going to play in the league a really long time, but maybe it isn't the Miami smarter than everybody else. And everybody's draft questions were stupid about this guy because there's been a bit of a reset on. On who he is. I think Clear has been a huge, huge plus for this team, but this team's just going to be stuck. And I think Heat fans look at it as if they're entitled to expect the next star to just want to end up in South Beach. And I don't know, is it true or is it. Is it bullshit? Because they pull off the Shaq thing, they get the title with Wade in 06. Braun decides to go there with Bosch, but did they go there because of Heat culture? And again, I'll never make fun of Heat culture again. After the Finals run losing to Denver, Right. I've decided to never do that again because Caleb Martin turned into somebody else and Gabe Vincent turned to somebody else, and those dudes turned into dudes. They're kind of not. But LeBron probably went there because it was Miami and because it was Wade already being in place. And the Jimmy Butler part, you know, they took advantage of an opportunity of Philly making the wrong decision on Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler, but at the time, everybody kind of understood it. So is it that they are going to figure out a way to get the next guy? Because there's actually not really. As much as I love Bam, there's not a top 20 guy really in place. I mean, if you wanted to get weirder about it, like, how far down the rankings is the best player in the NBA the best player for Miami against Bam? I love him, but you're never going to run your offense through him in a way where it's like, hey, get us a couple buckets. I know he's somebody who will start a possession or his passing is really good, so they'll get the ball to him a lot. But I think he fans just kind of look at the landscape of the NBA, be like, hey, who's coming? Who's next? I don't know who's coming. I think this team is really stuck right now. Speaking of stuck on offense, let's talk Orlando Magic, 28th on offense, number two on defense. That split is the widest split in the NBA in those two categories. I don't even know what. Second, I didn't bother looking it up last year. They were 22nd on offense, third on defense. To say it one more time, this team went to seven games last year with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs. Should Jalen Suggs get MVP votes? Well, he's not going to. He's not going to qualify. And now he's out for the season. Knee surgery. Kept trying to figure out what this contusion was. If you look at the on off stuff, there's a pretty significant swing for Jalen Suggs. I think it's like around nine points the last time I looked at it. The problem for them? Well, there's a lot of problems, but their two best players, Paolo and Franz, are shooting 30% on threes, and they take 12 a game, or at least they take 12 a game in February where Franz is shooting 29% and Powell is down to 27% on three. So you're looking at two scores that are combining for 50 points a game in February, and they're at like a number where you're not going to tell these guys to stop taking threes, but other people would be told to stop taking threes. Now, some of it, to be fair to two players that I still really like, they're just so bad on offense, whatever they're trying to get into. And, man, I'm telling you, when it is bad, it is unwatchable. I think there was a Stan Van Gundy game where I just really appreciated his just absolute, like, exasperation, watching them try to figure out what they were going to do. And I, I don't know why it's this bad, but it's a lot of, oh, this. What do you want to do? Maybe we'll do this. Oh, this isn't working. Okay, Fran, shoot it. Paolo, shoot it. So I have, I think, a fairer eye in how bad some of the shooting is. I, I don't know what the shot quality stuff is here because I was looking at the wide open shots. I was looking at some of the quality tracking stuff that's out there because I was like, is it that they just have the lowest quality of shots? Well, on wide open shots, they actually were like 14th most in just a closest defender, not even being within 10ft. That's how they track wide open shots. So it's not like they're not getting any of them. But this team is just forever has spacing issues. And for 66 million, you wanted a little bit more out of KCP and he's shooting 31%. And you want to talk like, all don't notice him. I think he's all don't notice him second team NBA this year. I guess I could just say, say all don't notice him. Second team KCP would get some votes. There's some other guys. You're just like, I know they've had some injury stuff here, but you're like, what the fuck is going on with that guy? It is so bad on offense. It's just so bad. They have a really good one two. They'll have Suggs back. You know, the Anthony Black stuff. The numbers are okay, but I expected a little bit more out of him, especially with the opportunity because of the other injuries. Cole Anthony's been really good for him. He's probably a sixth man forever. Jet Howard has not been really good for them. But I think ultimately what you do if you're running this team is you go, we had an awful year for a bunch of different reasons, and you stay the course and you run it back next year because that's what most basketball teams do. And I think Orlando would probably be considered one of the more patient front offices in the entire NBA. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. State Farm helps you score an affordable price. When you choose to bundle home and auto insurance with the personal price plan, you can choose the insurance coverage that fits your needs at a price you can afford. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with a 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. State. Let's talk Atlanta Hawks. Buckle up. They are your nine seed. As of today, they're 28 and 33. They're 20th on offense, 20th on defense. Consistent last year, 12th on offense. 27th on defense. Last 15, 25th on defense. So at the beginning of the year, I was hopeful. I think, I think three summers going in it like, I kind of like some of their Guys, they move on from Dejounte Murray, which wasn't playing basketball. It was taking turns between he and Trey last year. I think the Dyson pairing next to Trey is a lot better for them. Jalen Johnson is one of my favorite young players to watch in the entire league. He's out. Last game that he played in, the team finished up with a loss at 22 and 22. But now that Hunter is gone, that Jalen has been hurt, Bogdan was gone. I think we could get into some Bogdanovich stuff or just asset management stuff in general and talk about that. But they got Terrence Mann back, so that's fine. And Bogdanovich was shooting 30% from three this year. Just some terrible advanced numbers with him. Hunter, he went from too expensive, bad contract. What are they doing to teams really wanted him. Although, you know, look, they didn't kill it necessarily on draft pick compensation. Coming back with three second rounders and two swaps. And again, I can't get on the Dejounte trade. I can on the first part of it, but moving them out when I like the Dyson compliment better to Trey. But the problem is now that these dudes are gone, we're back to peak Trey and It's terrible. He's 31% usage since the trade. Since the deadline. He's 31% on threes, taken 10 of them a game. He's 33% on threes for the season, the lowest since his rookie year. He's got the worst advanced stats since his rookie year. And it's a significant drop off in the direction that's been going here. The end of the Detroit game was just gross. If you watch it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And here's a stat for you. If you log the opposing player scoring against your player in the paint, Trey ranks 547th out of 547 players. Not where you want to be. Chicago hanging on. Looks like they're going to be your 10 seed. As the teams behind them race to tank. Chicago is 18th on offense, 26th on defense. Last year they were 19th on defense or no, excuse me, 19th on offense, 26th on Defense. They make Miami seem exciting. What do you possibly want me to say about the Bulls? That's insightful. I tried remember January 22. So let's go back three years ago and a month or so they were 27 and 11. I remember doing a thing, being like, man, it's really good start, but like I'm wondering like, do they have enough size on the perimeter to deal with Giannis in the playoffs, then we didn't have to worry about that. If you go from that 27 and 11 record again from January of 22, they are 122 and 147 over three years. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what the point of the team is. Kobe's good now. He's bad on defense. Vuch has good stats. He's 34. Giddy's 37% from 3 this year and he's been insane from 3 in February. But they just have a bunch of guards that are probably all guys that come off the bench on other teams. Pat Williams just not going to work out. Zealous, the most exciting thing about this team again, zealous is the most exciting thing about this team because you're just like maybe. Okay, Brooklyn, let's talk about the bad teams here because man, are these teams bad when it comes to some of the rankings. They were 27th on offense, 23rd on defense last year. They were 22nd on offense and they were 20th on defense. They were 14 and 33, then went 7 and 2. They've lost four straight. Another team that plays really hard. But you need Google when you watch him. Cam Thomas is back. He's had some rough stretches of just missing games from November 25th. Didn't play until December 29th and played on January 2nd in his first game back Friday night. 17 shots, 21 minutes. He is better than I gave him credit for this summer. I just think he's a pretty high volume guy that plays the game one way. But I would say the difficult shot making is impressive. You know, Cam Johnson, asset, Claxton kind of an asset. Those three guys are probably your starters. Keon Johnson beginning a ton of minutes. Killian Hayes, 38% from 3 with the nets. That's probably not going to last. I've seen games where Watford is the number one option. I've seen games. There was a recent game where the rotation, the five that were out there I believe were Watford, Reese Beekman, Tyrese Martin, Jalen Wilson, who's been okay but not shooting it great, and then Tosan Ewuma who played soccer at one point. So yeah, there's this is the real ones out there. Who he played for. Like the guys on TNT would be like the Nets. I'm just going to keep guessing Nets. So I just wonder like what the player trade asset here is because if you think of Brooklyn still as a destination, I don't Know if people still look at it that way, I mean, I know you get something for Cam Johnson, you probably could flip Claxton for something. But considering, I don't know that there was a ton of interest in extending him a contract beyond what he had already made, I just don't know what, what is really enticing about the asset here. Again, this is what's going to happen with some of these, these bad teams. Their lottery odds are sixth, seventh best, depending on the day. And honestly, like, you just wonder, like, are they going to end up playing too well because they play so hard as these teams crank up the tanking here, like, even when they use that second unit, those guys all play their asses off. Like, I'm actually impressed with that part of it. But is that going to cost them some lottery balls with it? And then ultimately, I think it's the question of what Cam Thomas's ceiling is because, you know, he's, he's likely like, is he good enough to be the third guy on a really good team? I know his scoring is that. And again, he was better this year. I know Nets fans go crazy for him because he puts up huge, huge numbers. But, but, you know, whatever. I don't even know they need to dig into it all that much more. All right, the Sixers offense, 24th. Defense, 25th last year, offense, 14th, defense, 11th. We know the obvious stuff. Paul George, worst advanced stats of his career. Max's three point shooting has gone down four straight years. 43, 43, 37, 34. I think that's a volume thing where I really felt like he was pressing because they needed him so badly offensively to just kind of carry them. So I'd give him a bit of a pass on some of the efficiency. Declining year. The McCain injury ruined the one feel good story about this team. And then ultimately we're stuck with Embiid and an unknown future. The Embiid extension was irresponsible. There's no, like, there's plenty of times where something will happen, I'll have a thought and then a couple days removed from that thought, or somebody will say, hey, you know, what was really going on here was like this thing or that thing. You can try me on the Embiid thing and tell me. There's all these things that I don't understand about it. I'm not changing my mind. Three years, 193 million fully guaranteed. Not like the previous extension where they had protections. You saw him laboring like, thanks for the Serbia quarter, but for the most Part, he looked like he was diminished. And maybe that's the positive because, like the on off stuff with him and Embiid historically has been. This is a special basketball team in the regular season, when he's been out there. That did not happen this year. Because when you watch it, it's like, hey, he got his stats. But did you see him? He does not move unless he has the ball or knows exactly where he's moving. So knowing that they gave him this extension when they had him under contract for two years and a player option. Right. It's inexcusable. You want to talk about. Well, we've given George, we've given Max this. So we just, we. We owed it to him. Wait, wait. He's hurt all the time. Wait, I don't understand it. He's going to be 30, 34 years old, and he's going to have a player option for $69 million a few years from now. So you pray you land in the top six. Because the other element of this Sixers thing is that that draft pick lands outside of the top six and it ends up with Oklahoma City. I think you got to hope that can you out Tank Brooklyn. Does New Orleans get hot here with Zion, but they are, what, four and a half games off the New Orleans pace? They're just going to have to hope to get lucky here with this thing because that would just be the icing on the cake for this season. All right, let's move to the next team. The Toronto Raptors. Highest approval rating for me of any NBA City. 26th on offense, 24th on defense. Last year, 24th on offense, 26th on defense. So switching it up, what is this team doing? So the fact that they're even 19 and 42, though, I'm kind of impressed. They have 19 wins. They were 8 and 31 and then went 8 and 2. They had wins against Golden State, against Boston. Is Orlando a good win anymore? Against the Clippers, but they've gone, I think, three and nine in their last 12. So during that stretch, they were playing incredible defense. So January 12th, January 30th, that's how they did it. The offense was 22nd. The defense, they were playing the second best defense in the NBA over the course of two plus weeks in January. More positives. Grady Dick might be a thing, or it could be the sophomore opportunity bump that I mentioned so often where it's, you know, the numbers aren't awesome, but he just gets more shot attempts because he has more minutes. But at the very least, like, it's not a Johnny Davis scenario here. Agbaji might be something. 40% from 3 this year. Like a legitimate rotation guy. Boucher's a legitimate rotation guy. But ultimately, like this comes down to the payroll. So next year, Scotty Barnes, 38.6 million. RJ Barrett, 28 million. Quickly 32 and a half million. And they just signed Brandon Ingram to three years and 120 million fully guaranteed for whatever fucking reason. I have no idea. I don't know who you're competing against. He doesn't play enough. And I think he's a good regular season scorer. I think when things get a little tighter, as we saw Oklahoma City just horrify him last year, I think that's. That's kind of real. So those four players are going to be making 137 million next year combined. For what? This is a list of guys. And I'm not including Scotty Barnes in this. Like, I like RJ Barrett a little bit. Until I have to pay him. I understand quickly. Until I have to pay him. Brandon Ingram. Yeah, he gets you some nice buckets. Even maybe a little side of passing the 38 million, 120 for Ingram. So they have, at their core, they have guys that you have even if you kind of like you don't want to pay. The Scotty Barnes stuff is. Is not great. 3 point percentage are just kind of disastrous. The advanced numbers have dipped a bit here. But I like him too much and he's too young and the good stuff was too good for me to just kind of collectively turn the page on this guy. I don't know that he'd ever be the number one option. And again, the number one option on a really good basketball team. I don't think that list is like more than five or seven guys anyway. So to ask that of him is too much of an ask. And he's such a great, like in between player and complimentary and the things that he can do. I still hold out a lot of hope for him, but like, yeah, I look at Paolo potentially being the face of a franchise of a good team. I don't see that for Scotty necessarily. But I think the Scotty stuff's going to be a little too negative because of the dip in some of this stuff. I just don't understand the point of this team. Speaking of, let's talk Charlotte Hornets, 29th on offense, 16th on defense. Hey, look at those guys. Their offense, 28th last year. Defense was terrible last year. If I bring it up here again, they were 29. So yeah, I mean, that Charlotte defensive number is so surprising. I'm checking it again here. They were 6 and 9 at one point. Then they went 8 and 37. They're the worst shooting team in the NBA. I like some of the pieces. Sort of. Miller's going to be a player. Mark Williams Park 2 has been really good salon in. I don't know what it is that might be scary, but I'm in. Only three players have played 50 games for him this year. Josh Green, Seth Curry and Diabate LaMelo. Three point decline four straight seasons. LaMelo. 21.9 field goal attempts per game, the most in the NBA. 41% overall. From the floor. Those two numbers can happen. We know his skill, we know the fun parts. But they are the Hawks North. They have a face of the franchise that's really popular. That is very flawed. Look, least Trey's won big games for them. This guy's never even played in a game. They have a major attraction. That is a major problem. And finally, Ryan, when are you going to do the Wizards phrasing? I have wizard stuff. It's on another page. They're 30th on offense, 28th on defense, 24. Do you care? No. They're 183 winning percentage. Oh, no. They lost again at 186. Their winning percentage at 186, only 32nd worst all time in the history of the NBA. So that's a positive. 2 and 32 against teams. 500 or better. I like Kouliballi. I like Bub Carrington. I like maybe George, maybe. I don't know. Sars had some good months shooting. I think it's just important that SAR is taking those shots. Champagne's a rotation guy. They found something there. I'll tell you this. If the trade deadline in the NBA were April 1, I think they'd have some options here. Marcus, Smart, Middleton, Brogdon. But it is not April 1st. It's February 8th this year. Pool two more years at 32 million and 34 million. That's each year. He's arguably my least favorite player in the league right now. I did read the piece recently about his leadership and the young guys responding and how he handled being benched last year. And it's turned his career around. And I read it, and I read it and I was like, oh, that's really interesting. It also sounds like somebody being like, you want to pump this guy up so he can trade him this summer. I guess if you're trying to lose games, pool is great for You, I don't know how much longer I'd want to be rebuilding having that guy take the most shots on my basketball team. But again, if it's about losing good stuff, it's still amazing to me the Jordan Poole story that someone that was so important to Golden State winning a title in 22. He was 17 a game during that run. His shooting splits 51 and 39% big shots from Jordan Poole on a championship team that he could play the game this way now it'd be like having an 8 year old and a 10 year old. Son, daughter, daughter, daughter, son, son, whatever you want to do, man. And say, hey, I'm going to leave for the day but could you guys build a deck? There's a shed with a bunch of tools right there. And then you came back at 5 o'clock and they tried to build a deck and used your stuff. The materials were all on site. That's kind of how I think Jordan Poole plays basketball. I'll close with this. That was longer than 15 minutes. I had this conversation. I started asking some teams about this. Which team has the best worst player or is it the worst best player? That probably works better. So of all 30 teams, if you go through who their best player is, which team has the worst best player? Look, I think it's pretty clear how I feel about Lamelo. He's not the option. He's more talented than some of the other options. Is Cam Thomas in the conversation? Is Vuch or Kobe White in the conversation? Because then it can become like a little bit like who do you want? Or who is it right now I'm open to suggestions. Like somebody offered up Laurie Markkanen. I was like, come on, dude. I think Sharpe is good enough with Portland that I would put him ahead of some of these other dudes. I mean, Toronto does not have an option because I still, I think I'd rather have Scotty Barnes than everybody that I've just mentioned. So I didn't. Let's, let's strike that from the record as if he was even suggested because he wasn't suggested by a team. I just going through, okay, here are the bad teams. Because if you go through the other teams like you know, bam is still a hell of a lot better than the worst team's best player. I'll submit pool. Yeah, I think, I think Jordan pool. But from a talent standpoint, there'd be teams to be like, no, there's no way. But do it. Go through the exercise. Look at every team, list the 30 best players. On each and every team and then tell me who actually has the worst, best player. So is it even an insult? It's like, now you're. You're just not as good as the best player on every other team. I think it's pool. This is a real pleasure for me as a guy who has been a fan for decades and first opening Frizzle Fry. He is the bassist of Primus and generally considered one of the best bass players in the world. So quite the introduction, Les. Thanks for doing this.
- [53:17]
Les Claypool
How are you? Spectacular.
- [53:21]
Ryan Rossillo
All right. Efficient. So this drummer search, it's not something that you've not had to do before. So it's covered territory with the history of Primus. But what was different about this?
- [53:36]
Les Claypool
Well, we realize after going into this process that now our new guy, John Hoffington hoffer, he's our 10th drummer. So I started the band in 1984 with a Lynn drum. So that would have been the first drummer. And then it was Perm Vincent, Perham Parker, Mark Edgar, Peter Libby, Robbie Bean, Curveball Brain was actually in the band way back then. J Ski, Jay Lane, then Herb. And then, of course, Brain came back, and then Herb came back and then left again and then Jaysky. So now Hoffer. So, yeah, drummer. I know about drummers. My buddy Lonnie Marshall, who's a spectacular bass player and one of my heroes, I quote him often. And he says, he told me once, les, drummer rhymes with bummer. So I've used that often. But, you know, all kidding aside, it was actually. It was. It was a spectacular thing. And it's still a spectacular thing. This whole. This whole process.
- [54:55]
Ryan Rossillo
Yeah, the tryout part of it. How many different drummers did you try out? Because I know there were kind of different stages of the tryouts, but I. I loved reading about the journey of this.
- [55:05]
Les Claypool
Well, once it all went down, Laura and I immediately got online and started looking at YouTubes of drummers. And then we thought, well, let's just. Let's. Because we had friends suggest people. I called Danny Carey right off the bat, and he suggested some people, and we talked to some other folks, and we decided to have the Interstellar Primus Drum Derby and just put it out to the world that anybody could apply. And it were over 6,100 applicants. Um, and then we narrowed it down to, I think, about 10 for actual auditions.
- [55:43]
Ryan Rossillo
So, yeah, it felt it was just a very classic Primus thing to do, where I was like, I don't know if they're going to put this on Craigslist but it. It feels like once we were over 6,000 applicants, it was. It was similar. But, you know, this is for a drummer, you know, who not only knows your music, but understands the level of musicianship that you bring in. The history. I. I have to imagine those tryouts, like, as much as they're just supposed to play and impress you, it had to be kind of, like, noticeable to you, like, who's playing freely and who's trying to win the job.
- [56:22]
Les Claypool
Well, I mean, once you got to that 10, all 10 of them, and it may not even ended up being 10, I think a couple dropped out before we even got there. But the level of talent was pretty high. I don't know if we started putting out episodes.
- [56:43]
Ryan Rossillo
Yeah, I saw some of them.
- [56:44]
Les Claypool
Yeah. The first episode came out last week. We're about to release the second episode. And it just takes forever to edit this stuff together. So they're not coming out as quickly as I would like, but our guy Ageno is working around the clock and kicking ass at it. But you watch these episodes, and they're all amazing. These. These guys and gals. Gal are. Are unbelievable next level type shit. So a lot of it had to do with the feel. Feel is probably the most important thing, having a creative element beyond this, because we. Of all those 10 drummers, there was three drummers that have recording history with us. So people know their work from these records. And that would be Herb, J. Ski, and Brain. So we had some people that would. That could interpret one better than the other. And we were really needing somebody that could do justice to all three players and their feel and their thumbprint, as well as have something of their own that was exciting to add to the future. Because we wrote a song in the process of this whole thing that we actually recorded with a couple of the guys, and at some point we will release that as a new Primus track.
- [58:04]
Ryan Rossillo
Because of your playing style. And, you know, I think there's like, almost like a joke where, like, the older brother gets the guitar and the younger brother gets the bass. And. And there's just so many bass players. It's like you just hang out in the back. We don't want to hear from you. We don't want you having any of the stage presence or anything. And you've been the opposite of that, which I want to get into. But based on how powerful your playing is, is there something that you look for in a drummer that maybe other bass players aren't looking for?
- [58:35]
Les Claypool
I mean, you have to have a pocket. There has to be a good sense of connection and a good sense of stability with the pocket. And pocket can be identified in many different ways. Some guys lean ahead of the beat, some guys lean behind the beat. You know, I look at the, our three different guys, you know, Jaysky, who actually. Jaysky was the original drummer. Herb actually replaced Jayski. We made our first record right after J Ski left the band. So a lot of those original drum parts on the first couple records with all the fancy hi hat stuff, that's j, that's a, those are J Ski parts. And Jaysky has this hop. Herb has this kind of sway to his playing. You can feel it kind of this loping like a, like a gorilla coming through the forest. And then brain, he had this kind of in the center kind of funk pocket. And so when I'm playing with somebody like one of the guys we played with on the, in the auditions is Thomas Pridgen. As soon as we started playing we just, we just locked because he's just got this amazing pocket, this amazing sense of rhythm. But when all is said and done, it's a conversation. We're having a conversation and, and we like any conversation like you and I are having right now, there's going to be, there's going to be elements that we're able to touch upon. Common interests and common experiences and whatnot. And then there's new things. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're learning about in a conversation. It's the same with music. So there's got to be that, that, that chemistry so that you can initiate a conversation to begin with.
- [60:15]
Ryan Rossillo
So I'd love to go back to some of the beginning stuff. I was watching all these YouTube clips the last couple days in preparation of this. I was watching your Stanford radio gig, I think in 89.
- [60:30]
Les Claypool
Yeah, I was a good looking man.
- [60:35]
Ryan Rossillo
I was just thinking like man, the fun and the freedom, you know, you're about to, you know, become. I know you were doing well locally and it's about to, you know, as the pivots towards the 90s, you know, take on a whole nother level of success. But I'd like to go back to the very beginning of it because as an aside, when you look at different actors, actresses, it's like you can only do this right. There's certain movies I may not even like, but I'm like, I'm glad they made that one. It happens in a lot of kind of front facing industries where you're out there, your work is your performance and people are like, these are the rules. Thinking about your approach. Hey, I'm a bass player. This is how I'm going to sing. These are the things I'm going to sing about. And I want to have the bass be the lead attraction of this band. How many people told you you were out of your mind in the beginning?
- [61:22]
Les Claypool
Well, people still tell me I'm out of my mind.
- [61:23]
Ryan Rossillo
You know, it's just.
- [61:26]
Les Claypool
I mean, look, I wanted to play something. I was in high school. I met this. There was this guy in my algebra class that used to sell me weed. And he always had these magazines showing me pictures of guitars and stuff and these big, thick pop bottle glasses. And he turned me on to Hendrix and he wanted me to sing in his band. Because I always. I was always singing like, you know, Zeppelin songs and Aerosmith songs, just as, you know, walking around. And I was too chicken to sing. My voice was awful. I don't know why he wanted me to sing in his bed. But that person was Kirk Hammond. And it got me interested in the notion of being a part of. I wanted to play something. I want to be part of this scene. There was musicians all over the place. And I met this other guitarist who was a monster. He was like the local hero, and he needed a bass player. Nobody wanted to play bass back then. Everybody wanted to be Eddie Van Halen. So I bought a bass, instantly had a gig, you know, and I. And we had no money. I had to borrow money from my dad and I had to pull weeds all summer to pay for it and didn't even have an amp. And. But I was instantly in a band. So for me, back then, it was guys like Getty Lee, Chris Squire, and then discovering Lewis Johnson and Stanley Clark and Larry Graham, these guys. And in the funk world, the bass is very prevalent always. You know, I was a huge Isley Brothers fan, so I just love that sultry element of the bass. And it was always up front. So when it came time for me to do Primus, because I'm writing these songs on bass. And our original guitarist was very similar to Larry Lalonde. Very textural player, not like a in your face player. I found myself playing rhythm guitar parts and bass parts at the same time as I was writing. So that's kind of how that evolved as far as singing. My dad to this day says, you know, you can't sing for shit, but you can sure play that bass. And so I've always had that perspective. So I didn't want to be the singer. I just I would write these songs and nobody. All the singers I work with, I never liked the way they approached my songs, my material. So by default I became the singer and I felt more like I was a narrator. In fact, every song I did. That's why there's so many characters like John the fisherman and Jerry the race car driver and Tommy the cat. All these different. Because it was easier for me to step into a character as if I'm in a play or something and be Mel Blanc than it was for me to try and be Peter Gabriel, who was one of my big heroes back then. And I could see guys like John Lydon, who doesn't have a historically pretty voice, or Tom Waits do these things. And I was like, well, I. I can at least do something like that. And. And that just. That's how Primus evolved into what it evolved into. If I'd have been in a bigger band, I would have played differently, I would have sung differently. But there was a lot of. It was a lot of real estate for me to cover, especially since I was writing a lot of the initial tunage on the bass.
- [64:21]
Ryan Rossillo
When did it click for you? I mean, first of all, that was. That was a incredible, like, it's an incredible answer. So it's, it's what I want to dig into. I think I probably have a follow up that. But I have a follow up before that one. It's just, I think those of us that can see somebody master something to the level that you have playing bass was there. I know all of us want to be like, did you just pick it up one day and you were, you were a natural and you were just a genius? Obviously that's not the answer, but what was the moment where it was like.
- [64:50]
Les Claypool
Oh, shit, my naturally a genius? You know, I always say the bass just happens to be the Crayola that I picked out of the box. You know, it just happens to be the crayon I grabbed. Because I still would be drawing similar pictures no matter what instrument I played. It's just. That's the Crayola I picked. So it has the timbre of bass. I don't even think of my bass as a bass if I'm playing like a traditional song or something. Sure, yes. I'm find my spot and I do my thing. But when I'm just creating stuff with it, I'm just trying to make sounds that are interesting to me and are what I'm feeling at the time. So as far as it evolving, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And. And Primus was. This has always been this thing with where the guitar, like I said, has always been very textural. Not so much in your face. And it's been the. The initial tunage has. Has generally been. Been driven by my bass parts because that's where it'll start. Not always, but most of the time. So if I'm sitting there playing, I'm holding down the rhythm and doing all these things, and, you know, the hardest part of it all was singing and playing the stuff at the same time. And it's still. It's still hard because theoretically you're playing rhythm with the bass and singing melody. So that's why I can't play piano, because it's hard for me to. To do that, to even wrap my head around that. But that's always been. The most difficult part, is singing and playing. And there's times when I've just had to force it. Like Tommy the Cat. I just knew I wanted that line, you know, the whole say baby thing to fit with that bass part. And it took me forever. But once you get it and it becomes part of your subconscious, it clicks and there it is, you know, Or Jerry, the race car driver, he's trying to sing that thing over. That part. Oh, my God. It was crazy at first, but you keep just hammering and hammering it until the bass part becomes subconscious, and then the vocal part can just flow in. Theory doesn't always work.
- [66:50]
Ryan Rossillo
No, but I do understand it. I understand, like, I think that's one of the most amazing thing about instruments is the first time you try to mess around with something, you go, what? Like, this is. What am I thinking? What am I thinking? And then there'll be that moment where the next day you'll go, wait, my finger just went there. It just went there automatically. And I don't care who you are, like, if you've never played an instrument, I don't know that you could ever understand that process of, like, unlocking your brain. I don't know what else there is that. Maybe it's some stuff in athletics where you just subconsciously, like, you just know where you're supposed to move. But yeah, that's. That's something that unlocks something that is probably very underutilized. Yeah.
- [67:30]
Les Claypool
But I think there's a lot of parallels. You know, I always say, you know, like what Tony Hawk said, it's time on your board, you know, or there's the whole 10,000 hour theory. You put 10,000 hours into anything and you, You're. You're an Expert. It's you. You spend enough time on your board and your. Your body's going to do things without you even thinking about it. To keep you going on that line and going through that. That. That routine or whatever the hell or dancers or whatever. It's. It's very, very similar with. With. With music. Once you get the. The. The fundamentals of being able to operate the equipment in theory, your subconscious takes over and you're able to flow with the. With. With the conversation again. It's like picking up a pen. I always like. It's like doodling. You know, I'm a doodler if there's a piece of paper right in front of me. If I had a pen, I was talking to you. I'd be sitting here just doodling. And there'd be. By the time we're done, there'd be all these drawings. And I don't know what the hell I'm doodling. But all of a sudden there'll be these drawings. And some of them might be kind of cool. A lot of it's not. And it's the same with an instrument. You're just kind of doodling away. And every now and again you make a cool drawing out of it.
- [68:36]
Ryan Rossillo
You've mentioned jaylain a bunch of times here. What were those early days of coming up with the lyrics, coming up with these characters and these concepts, and really doing something a lot of people hadn't been doing for a rock group.
- [68:50]
Les Claypool
Do you know Jaysky?
- [68:52]
Ryan Rossillo
I don't.
- [68:53]
Les Claypool
Oh, okay. Well, Jaysky came along. Like I said, he was. I don't even have drummer number eight or. I don't even know. But he came along. He was a local hero in San Francisco. He was a band called the Freaky Executives. And there was a whole world beat scene that was going on in the Bay area in the 80s. And it was amazing. It was this incredible scene with the Looters and Big City and Freaky Executives. And the Freaky Executives were basically like the Time Morris Day and the Time. And Jay Ski was the local hero. I used to work for his band. I was a roadie for his band sometimes. And we all looked at, oh, Jay Ski, J. Ski. And our drummer at the time, it just wasn't working out. So I called Jaysky and said, you know, hey, man, we're looking for a drummer. You know, anybody's like, oh, dude, I want the gig. I want the gig, man. It's mine. I want the gig. And all of a sudden I called Todd Hu. I said, jay Lane wants to be in our band. He's like, holy shit. And Jay came in and we had already had a bunch of songs that we've been playing for, you know, a handful of years. And he came in and just played, played him his way and it completely changed everything. There was this energy to his playing. Like I said, he has this feel and this hop and he does things on the hi hat that nobody can do. So it completely invigorated the band and, and the, and the audience as well. So a lot of it, a lot of the stuff already existed as tunage wise, but he just came in and revamped everything. I don't know if I answered your question.
- [70:22]
Ryan Rossillo
You did, you did. Because I know that at least in some of the interviews that I've read, just your timeline of family members on this, it's just so funny. It's hard to keep up with. But just some of the creative stuff of like, all right, what, what got us to that next level? Because there had to have been. Was there ever like an executive meeting where it's like, hey you, you're quirky little thing here and you're pretty good on that instrument. But like, there's no way there's long term success. There's no way there's long term commercial appeal to what you're trying to do. Say on the first couple albums.
- [70:56]
Les Claypool
Oh, I mean, I had those internal conversations all the time. I remember years ago we had somebody from polygram or I got a hold of. I was on my. It was on my phone machine. Somebody from polygram. Such as polygram. And hearing about your ban, we're like, oh my God, this is amazing. So you know, we can. We. Because we make a, a. We'd make a demo tape like once a year. We'd save up money, me and Todd, we'd save up money and we'd go in the studio for. We'd rent a studio for one 24 hour period because it'd be $1,000 for one day. And we would just go the entire 24 hours and record like four or five songs. And then we'd have this demo that, you know, we spent our hard earned money on because we were both in the, in the trades. I was a carpenter, he was a pipe fitter. And that would be our demo for, for a while. But I remember sending the stuff to polygram or whoever it was and if, you know, and we'd always get that thing of wow. What do you ever think of getting a. You ever think of getting a lead singer? You guys ever Think of growing your hair out. Because back then it was all the hairball bands were popular, you know, and you ever think of growing your hair? You ever think of wearing these clothes? You ever. You know, it was all that. We're like, ah, you know, so I'd heard it since the get go. You know, when you get that first call from record label, you think, oh, here we go. This is going to be it. And then you start getting those suggestions of things you could change. And I remember at one point, after. I can't remember if it was after Suck on this or Frizzle. It must have been. It was definitely Suck on this. We got offered a publishing deal. And so I remember sitting there with our attorney and he said, you know, for this publishing deal to go sideways on you, you'd have to sell over 100,000 records. Do you guys honestly think you'll sell over 100,000 records? This was our attorney. And we're sitting there going, wow, 100,000 records. That's a lot of. That's a lot of records. And of course, we've sold millions of records. We didn't take the publishing deal, and thank God we didn't. So we sold millions of records. So nobody thought. We never thought we'd get on the radio. We never definitely never thought we'd get on mtv. We never thought we'd get any of that stuff. So as it was coming, it was kind of hilarious. I remember we were on MTV before Metallica. We were like being played. And Kirk says to me, how the hell did you guys get on MTV? Well, what the hell? Because we were on 120 minutes a lot. And he was baffled by this as we were. But, yeah, you know, we just. We were very fortunate a that we made that first record by ourselves with money that my father loaned us. My father didn't have a lot of money. He was an auto mechanic. He loaned us three grand or whatever it was to make this record. We sold them to stores. Me and Lur went around in my car. My Gia stoned out of our minds, selling five. Oh, that record. That store took five. Wow. Oh, that one took seven. Oh, my God. You know, we are super stoked. And then it got on college radio. And then we made frizzle fry with the money that we had made off Suck on this. So we were very fortunate that Rough Trade and Caroline Records got behind those records and helped us get them out. And then the greatest thing that really happened to Primus was Interscope Records. Tom Walley, Tom Wally came to a show I think it was at the Stone in San Francisco. He wasn't even there to see us. He was there to see the opening band. And he saw us, and he saw the energy of the crowd. And he came backstage and said, I'm Tom Wally. I used to work. I think it was Capitol. I'm now with this new label that's just starting called Interscope Records. I want to sign you guys because you guys have something going on. And we were being courted by a couple labels at the time. And the only thing Interscope had put out at that point was Rico Suave. Remember the old Rico Suave song?
- [74:35]
Ryan Rossillo
Sure.
- [74:36]
Les Claypool
Gerardo's still holds up. Yeah. So we're like, really? What the hell? What's this label? But Tom was such an amazing guy. We met everybody at the label. They all became very good friends. And it was like this just team of friends, and it was like this family thing. And they. They let us do our thing. Tom Wally used to always say, until the Brown album came along, he used to always say, you know, whatever you guys are doing, it works. Just do your thing. And we would get to go do our thing. And we'd bring it to him and it would sell, and away we'd go. So. But if it wasn't for Interscope, I would be curious where. Well, Tom Wally, mainly where we would be today.
- [75:18]
Ryan Rossillo
I can only, like, you know, I kind of go back of, like, the guys that I would hang out with. And I was always like, this band sucks. Not you. Like, if somebody said, you know, I was, like, a little pretentious about it, right? I'd be like, these guys are good, and this is, like, the good list, and this is the bad list. And then I was working at a CD place, and your CDs were in there. And I could never understand the COVID I'd be like, what the fuck is that? And then a guy who played guitar and then his brother played bass, they were out. They were like, you don't listen to Primus. And I was kind of like, laughing, being like, you do feel like you're nuts.
- [75:55]
Les Claypool
What did you not like about the covers?
- [75:58]
Ryan Rossillo
I thought it was, like, because there was younger kids coming in and buying it. But again, I wasn't even that old. I was only, like, 16. Less, but I was, like, a little pretentious, like Allman Brothers. And I was getting in my jazz phase, you know, which is funny enough, because when once I started listening. Yeah, right. What a dick. I also love rap, too. But I. I remember. I think I listened to Stanley Clark's school days before I ever listened to you. And then once I listened to you on the early stuff and then I was. It's, you know. And I've read you talk about Stanley and him being an influence. I've talked about Jocko because that Teen Town Live from Brazil thing on the fretless bass is like to this day I could, I could still go back and listen to that all the time. But once I understood there was. There was different elements to it. Again, this is just me talking to you. But it was fun. But then it was the grooves. The grooves always brought me back and the way you would get into stuff. And then it just felt like everybody was kind of sort of on board once it was sailing the season cheese. I feel like sailing the season cheese is when there was the full buy in from the rest of the people that just didn't quite get it.
- [77:06]
Les Claypool
Yeah, well, that was, that was Interscope Records. That was Tom Wally and his. And his. And his team. It was amazing what they, what they did for us.
- [77:16]
Ryan Rossillo
I was lucky enough to see you with Oysterhead in New York. I know it was short lived. What was it like to have that kind of departure to two people like Stuart and Trey after, you know, at that point? Obviously a lot of different drummers, but, you know, basically being Primus for 25 years, what was that like?
- [77:36]
Les Claypool
Well, I mean, you know, Oysterhead and Oysterhead's still bubbling under the surface. We just don't know when it's going to pop up again. That was an odd thing. And it's still an. It's still. It's a wonderfully odd thing because my manager at the time was working with Galactic and he was becoming a big part of that whole scene, that New Orleans scene with the Superfly guys and whatnot. And they would do these things called Super Jams. I don't know if you know about this, where they get a musician to put some musicians together and during Jazz Fest in New Orleans they have a called Super Jam with just a bunch of guys. So they asked me to do a Super Jam and so I was like, well, I don't know anything about this, but I know a friend of mine's the guitar player in that band Fish. And I know they do a lot of jamming. And the funny thing is I didn't really realize how Big Fish was because it just wasn't on my radar. You know, I knew those guys because we had sat in with them in Vegas years before that night. My band Sausage, which was the original Primus guys, J Ski and Todd, supported them at Laguna Seca Days or some down in Monterey. But I didn't realize how big they were. And so I called Trey. Hey, man, I got this offer to do this gig in New Orleans. Is like a jam, you know, Super Jam, blah, blah. And he's like, oh, well, he's like, you know, I've always wanted to do a project with you and Stuart Copeland. If you get Stuart Copeland, I'll do it. And I was like, okay. Because I knew Stuart because we had him produce a song because we were. He was a hero of mine. Had him produce a song on Antipop. But I think Trace, I know for a fact, because Sad Brands told me. Brad Sands, Sad Brands told me. He's like, hey, Trey didn't want to do it. That was his out. Because he was like, well, if you can get Stuart Copeland, I'll do it. I was like, all right, I got Stuart Copeland. So he was like, oh, now I gotta do this thing. And so we got together and jammed and did Oysterhead. And then we made an album. And, you know, it just. It's become this. This. This legendary Sasquatch of a thing. But what was amazing about Oysterhead is I was becoming disheartened by the whole Primus world at that point. It was. But, you know, Antipop was a tough record to make because we weren't really getting along that well. I had just had a couple. I had a couple little kids. So I was kind of alienated from the band a little bit because I was a father with kids and they were still running around single and all this stuff. And. And then the whole scene had changed. It was like, you know, the. The. We were. We were being included in these things, like family values and stuff like that. And I just. I didn't like that scene. I was like, ah, just. I was repelled by it. And then all of a sudden, I'm part of this scene that doesn't care if you're wearing a backwards red baseball cap or whatever. They. They just want to see you play your instrument. And that's the. That's the jam scene. The whole Oysterhead thing. And I was like, this is incredible. You know, here we are, we're just jamming as if we're in a garage. Back in the days when I was in high school with my buddies and Kirk Hammett included, just jamming in somebody's garage. But people are paying to see. This is incredible. So then I got asked to do another band for Mountain Air Festival, which Became Frog Brigade. And then it just kind of launched me into that world. So Oysterhead was this amazing, wonderful fork in the road for me. And it was spectacular. It was very eye opening.
- [81:01]
Ryan Rossillo
That Frog Brigade show that you did, I think it was what, summer of 23, that was my brother, his first concert. So I was able to bring him to that, which was really cool.
- [81:15]
Les Claypool
How did he do? Was he snoozing or was he grooving?
- [81:18]
Ryan Rossillo
No, he was, he loved it. And you, you put on a show too? I just, it was, it was kind of like, you know, he was almost like looking around going like, this is. This is what these people can do. And I'm like, yeah, like, especially when, when they're this special, I can close on this because I don't want to take up more of your time. But you mentioned Danny Carey, who I'm lucky enough to met a bunch of different times through a mutual friend. I've been lucky enough to go see Tool live. And I always thought the first time I saw Tool play in la, and we went backstage, I saw like every musician imaginable and it was, it was like a thing that jumped out. I go, think about this, like Tool playing here. And then granted, you know, it's being in la, so there's a lot of guys around, but that this many people from this many genres wanted to make sure that they saw it. That has to be like one of the ultimate compliments. And I feel like you are the same kind of guy where the appreciation of 40 years of doing this that other musicians have for you. I know you're probably a pretty well grounded guy, and maybe there aren't days where you're just egos through the roof, but this is an incredible run for something that was so different than everybody else. I'm wondering if you're getting to an age in your life where you're acknowledging how special this run has been.
- [82:43]
Les Claypool
No, of course, you know, I look around, look around my house, I go, I have this house for doing what I do. That's. It's amazing. I mean, I. Like I said, we never expected any of this. You know, when you're a young kid, you're like, I'm going to take over the world and blah, blah, blah, blah. But as you get into it and you realize that you're the, you're the odd, odd duck in the. On the pond or, or whatever metaphor you want to use. It's. It is interesting to look back at all this, but for me, the. My what I feel like I'm most proud of for my resume or what's going to be on my tombstone or whatever is all the heroes that I've gotten to befriend and play with. And, you know, I'm in a band with Stuart Copeland. That's fucking amazing. You know, Danny Carey is going to play with us next week down in Dominican Republic because we didn't have a drummer at that, you know, anymore. And, you know, Danny is successful because he's just so much about just playing good music. You know, he's. He goes and plays the Baked Potato regularly. So he doesn't have to do that. He's doing that Crimson thing. He doesn't have to do that. He's got. He. He's in Tool, one of the biggest bands in the world. He doesn't have to do that. And it's a lot of work to do this stuff, but yet he does it because it's. It's. He appreciates the music and he elevates the music at the same time, you know, he's. He's a super great guy. You know him. He's a sweetheart of a guy. And. And he's. He's a monster. And he's. He's dedicated to his craft.
- [84:25]
Ryan Rossillo
Do you regret the outfit choice in 1995 on Letterman?
- [84:31]
Les Claypool
No, not at all. That was a weird. The whole thing was just weird. Do you know the story of it?
- [84:39]
Ryan Rossillo
No. I just watched the video this morning again. I've been doing a lot of Primus prep, and it looked like the mask was driving you fucking crazy halfway through the song.
- [84:49]
Les Claypool
I'll tell you the story, Larry. Larry Lalonde and I were huge Dave fans. We'd say, we're going to watch Dave. Every night. We'd watch Dave back in the day when Hiram Bullock was in the band and Steve Jordan was on drums. I mean, it was epic show. We watched it all the time. We were insanely excited that we were going to be on. We're going to be on Dave. So we said, we got to do something special. We got to do something special for Dave. What's it going to be? What's going to be? I said, well, let's wear the penguin suits. Because we had done this photo shoot that was kind of this. And it wasn't meant to be goofy or zany. It was meant to be just kind of odd. We wanted it to be odd. And so we show up and we do this sound check and everything was hunky dory and everybody was very friendly. It's freezing cold in that place. Then we go downstairs because they filmed this in the afternoon. We go downstairs, we put on our penguin suits, and this lady comes down to get us, and she just looks at me, and her face drops, and she goes, is that what you're wearing? And I was like, yeah. And she says, is that what you normally wear? I said, no, we're doing it. We're doing a special for the show. And she just, like, had this look on her face of like she was pissed. And she walked away. And I was like, what, what's. What's wrong? Oh, it's. I'm thinking, oh, it has a white bit in the front that's too hot for television. Oh, I didn't even think about that. And so my tour manager comes back, and he's like, man, this. That lady's freaking out on Lori Earl. Laurie Earle is a publicist for. For Interscope. She was a big publicist. Snoop Dogg, Dre, all that stuff she did. Everybody. It's like, this lady's going off yelling and screaming at Lori Earl. I'm like, well, let me go talk to her. He's like, no, you do not want to talk to her. You don't want to talk to her. I was like, what? Let me explain what's going on. So they made Lur go up on stage in the commercial break and stand on the side of the stage so that Dave could look at him and approve whether we were going to get to play on the show. And so Lur standing there, nervous as fuck because this is his hero, David Letterman. Letterman looks at him, and Lear just kind of waves, you know, being lure. And. And Dave just goes. Goes like this. And that meant we got to play the show. So we go on. We're totally just flipped out because we just got in trouble for doing this. And we go up and we play, and I was just pissed. So then we do the show, and after the show, nobody would talk to us. Nobody said anything to us, and we just kind of left. And it was like, you know, it was like. It was like meeting Santa Claus and getting beat up by one of the elves or something. You know, it just was. It was. It sucked. It was one of the worst nights of my entire career. So all our friends went out to dinner that night. Me and Larry just went to a bar and got drunk. We were so bummed because it was such a big deal for us. And it. And it just. It just sucked.
- [87:32]
Ryan Rossillo
Had you ever run into Letterman after that?
- [87:35]
Les Claypool
No. I, I, I. We were asked to do the show again. I Think when the next record came out and we just said, nah, we don't want to do it.
- [87:43]
Ryan Rossillo
So.
- [87:44]
Les Claypool
But, well, we did Conan like, a couple months later, and I cracked a joke about the whole thing, and they're like, you know, know, do whatever you want. You know, it was just. It was just. It was just weird. I don't know if it was just this one person that was worried about their job or something. I. I have no idea. But it was, it was. It was really deflating.
- [88:02]
Ryan Rossillo
I can't imagine booking Primus and then going, well, wait, you guys are going to do something weird? Being thrown off by.
- [88:10]
Les Claypool
I don't know, it's been a long time, too. So, you know, look, I'm a. I'm still a big fan of Dave. He's a. He's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant man. So. Especially the stuff he's doing now, you know, it's. He's, He's. He's incredible. So it was just a bummer. Sometimes they're a bummer.
- [88:26]
Ryan Rossillo
Maybe it'll come full circle and you'll be. You'll be a guest on his. I know, I know. You have the tour coming up, so that's starting up soon, right? I mean, as far as the. The 25 dates.
- [88:39]
Les Claypool
Well, we have. We have Dominican Republic next week, and then we have Sasanta, and. And John Hoffman is going to be our drummer on Sasanta. Oh, Hoffer. And then we have, I think, a month after that through the States, and I believe Tysa Gal's on it with us, and Mono Neon's on some of it with us, too, so. Should be interesting. Summer.
- [89:05]
Ryan Rossillo
I can't wait. I'm excited for you guys and I just want to, as a fan, there's so many Primus fans out there, you know, to put together this kind of music and to try the things that you've tried and to be this successful and all the joy that I've had from listening to you guys over the years. A sincere thank you. So thanks.
- [89:21]
Les Claypool
Yeah, no worries, man. Thanks for. Thanks for having me on.
- [89:24]
Ryan Rossillo
All right, we'll run into you again. Thanks.
- [89:25]
Les Claypool
Les O Reservoir, as they say in France.
- [89:32]
Ryan Rossillo
Okay, that's part one. We've got part two coming up with Todd McShay coming off of the combine. And we've got life advice. So thanks to Wargon. Thanks to Ceruti, Kyle, Jonathan Fras put together part one. Enjoy part two. The Ryan Rossillo podcast for your spot.