Brian Windhorst! The OG Injury Impact, Jaylen Brown–Giannis Rumors, Cavs Future, Lottery Lookahead & More

Summary

The Ryen Russillo Show (Barstool Sports)

Episode: Brian Windhorst! The OG Injury Impact, Jaylen Brown–Giannis Rumors, Cavs Future, Lottery Lookahead & More
Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode finds Ryen Russillo welcoming ESPN’s Brian Windhorst to unpack a loaded slate of NBA Playoff storylines: the ripple effects of the OG Anunoby injury for the Knicks, Embiid’s absence and Sixers’ struggles, where the Cavaliers go from here, and wild possibilities in the upcoming NBA Draft Lottery. Windhorst dishes on league rumors (the ever-juicy Jaylen Brown–Giannis speculation), while Ryen’s regular crew joins for practical (and hilarious) Life Advice covering best-man etiquette, lost contractor tools, and more. The trademark blend: deep hoops analysis, candid industry insight, and locker room banter.

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Main Segments Breakdown

1. Knicks–Sixers Game 2 & OG Anunoby Injury Impact

Starts ~[02:45]

• Embiid out, Knicks up 2–0: Russillo analyzes the game, noting the challenges Philly faces running offense without Embiid and how the Knicks’ defense adjusted.
  • “They were dying not having him beat offensively in the fourth quarter last night.” (Windhorst, [18:08])
• Tyrese Maxey’s emergence: Maxi dominated second quarters, but faltered late as New York’s defense clamped down and Philly’s shooters went cold.
• The critical OG Anunoby injury: Both speculate about how OG’s absence (MRI pending) shifts the series, drawing comparisons to a playoff-version Kawhi Leonard.
  • “The way he’s playing right now kind of reminds me of the way Kawhi played when he was at his peak.” (Windhorst, [22:45])
• Knicks role players’ efficiency: Bridges and Towns have been hitting at an alarming rate, making the Knicks East contenders if OG can return.
  • “He’s [OG] felt like a max player in the playoffs so far.” (Windhorst, [21:13])
  • “Bridges is hitting everything in sight. Towns is having an incredible statistical postseason.” (Windhorst, [23:36])

Notable Quote

• On Embiid’s absence:
  • “They were dying not having him offensively in the fourth quarter. If they had had Embiid, I think they might have gotten it.” (Windhorst, [18:08])

Memorable Moment

• Analysis of the “9–0” run where Philly went 5:21 without a point, highlighting defensive adjustments and Brunson carving up mismatches ([06:00–10:00]).

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2. Cavs Future & Playoff Struggles

Starts ~[27:37]

• Cavs’ recent slide: The Russillo–Windhorst tandem details Cleveland’s fading form, especially James Harden and Donovan Mitchell’s combined shooting woes and turnover problems.
  • “Harden is getting the ball taken from him like he’s me taking it from my 8-year-old.” (Windhorst, [29:09])
• Bigs rotation & playoff chess: Jarrett Allen’s foul trouble, Duren’s dominance, and lingering questions about how to use Cleveland’s size.
• Harden’s contract and future: In-depth speculation on Harden’s upcoming free agency, the likelihood of a 3-year, ~$90m re-sign, and Cleveland’s second apron dance.
  • “I think the two sides are invested with each other.” (Windhorst, [34:03])
  • “He’ll get three years, 96, they’ll opt out and resign.” (Russillo, [39:56])
• Mitchell’s pending extension: The challenge of retaining both stars as the Cavs’ window is tied to Harden’s aging timeline.

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Notable Quotes

• On Harden and Atkinson:
  • “Kenny Atkinson has been 100% invested in having James Harden invested…that partnership is going to continue.” (Windhorst, [33:52])
• On contract philosophy:
  • “Their intention is that partnership will continue–likely on a multi-year deal.” (Windhorst, [34:03])

Memorable Moment

• Jeff Van Gundy & Harden’s ‘odd couple’ friendship anecdote ([37:16]):
  • “Van Gundy was like, listen man, I ain’t doing that story. Out of respect for James. I would never.”

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3. Rumors: Jaylen Brown–Giannis, Kawhi, and Off-the-Court Factors

Starts ~[55:14]

• Giannis’ future & Milwaukee clarity: Fast breakdown of the Bucks’ brutal “we’ll have him or we won’t” message, and owner Wes Edens’ on-record approach.
• Jaylen Brown as a trade asset (hypothetical):
  • “If you have Giannis and you want to trade Giannis, you would call about Jaylen Brown.” (Windhorst, [58:15])
  • But Windhorst downplays real traction on any Brown trade: “If I’m Brad Stevens, I would keep together the two two-way guys in their 20s who are under contract…”
• Kawhi’s paradox as contract piece: Windhorst would not extend (3/$120m), but would take him for a single year: “As far as the player on the court, I would take him in a tenth of a second.” ([45:49])

Notable Quotes

• On Boston’s possible approach:
  • “The Celtics have stuff they can retrofit this team and be very good. This is not a team at the end of the line by any means.” (Windhorst, [59:54])

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4. NBA Draft Lottery: Quirks, Chaos & What’s at Stake

Starts ~[46:06]

• Pivotal coin flips and wild odds:
  • Pacers–Clippers coin flip (pick 5 or 6 goes to whoever wins); if not, it rolls all the way to 2031.
  • Atlanta gets a 40% chance at a top-four pick due to last year’s Derek Queen deal.
• OKC’s position as ‘lucky villains’: Could cash in again with the 1.5% shot at #1 overall, which would “break the league's brain.”
  • “I would just say, like last year…Hawks won with 3%. Last year, Dallas 1.8%. Congrats.” (Windhorst, [54:06])
  • “If all they get is draft 12th, they’ll be just fine doing something there too.” (Windhorst, [55:04])
• Presti’s genius, with a touch of luck: Windhorst notes the entire OKC overhaul hinged on SGA’s MVP emergence.

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5. The Luka Injury Update (and Social Reaction)

Starts ~[40:43]

• Windhorst clarifies his reporting: Lakers let Luka rehab in Europe because the hamstring was so severe.
  • “My point is, it was a bad injury. If you were day-to-day, you'd have been with the team.” (Windhorst, [41:08])
• Media firestorm: Windhorst laments how a simple timeline update got spun into controversy.

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Life Advice / Listener Q&A

Starts ~[63:14]

• On unwanted attention, best-man removals, and lost contractor tools:
  • “He chose posting cuck chairs on his own Instagram over your friendship.” (Seruti, [76:03])
  • “Be a good person. I think this one’s easy.” (Ceruti, [88:38])
• Law school misery and the value of sticking it out: Authentically candid feedback from listeners and hosts.
• **Funny banter on old security fears (Russia, nuclear drills), social media antics, home repair, and more, keeping the segment lively and relatable.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps (selected)

• “He makes other athletes look like they're non-athletes. That's how ridiculous [Maxey] is once he gets any momentum.” (Russillo, [05:20])
• “You're not, you know, yeah, Donovan has the window…Harden's window is smaller. And you're looking at an Eastern Conference that…The mountain isn’t as high as it’s been another year.” (Windhorst, [35:14])
• “If OG misses some time, they’re going to need Bridges and Cat to continue their level of production or at least stay level, because they are going to feel the loss of OG.” (Windhorst, [26:13])
• “I think if they had Embiid in the 4th, they probably win.” (Windhorst, [19:10])
• “This may not be the optimized version – but you’ve got 37-year-old James Harden. The pressure is up this year.” (Windhorst, [35:14])

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Tone and Style

• Deeply analytical, but conversational—Russillo and Windhorst riff naturally, weaving in stats, cap talk, and locker room stories
• Candor and irreverence: hosts don’t shy from voicing frustration or calling out players (“Bridges is hitting everything in sight… Towns’ efficiency numbers are wild.”)
• Playful and self-aware—especially during Life Advice

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Key Takeaways for Listeners

• The Anunoby and Embiid injuries are genuine swinging factors in an otherwise tightly contested Knicks-Sixers matchup; every bit of health matters in these playoffs.
• Cleveland’s gamble on Harden was calculated but raises urgency for results—and their future cap maneuvers will be pivotal.
• Wild picks and swap scenarios could dramatically shift NBA fortunes in the lottery; several franchises are facing franchise-defining weekends.
• League rumor season never ends: Jaylen Brown–Giannis is a fun but unlikely scenario, but every contender is taking stock of the superstar carousel.
• Listener Life Advice continues to offer relatable, if offbeat, wisdom—don’t keep a contractor’s forgotten nail gun, don’t sweat dropping a best man who won’t stop posting “cuck chairs” on IG.

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Summary Table of Important Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Knicks–Sixers, Embiid/OG impact | Deep playoff breakdown, 4Q analysis | 02:45–25:00 | | Cavs’ struggles and Harden’s future | Contract talk, rotation, off-season moves | 27:37–40:43 | | Luka injury report controversy | Windhorst unpacks media fallout | 40:43–43:58 | | NBA Draft Lottery quirks | Coin flips, pick protections, Presti’s haul | 46:06–55:04 | | Giannis/Jaylen Brown hypotheticals | Trade odds, Boston's approach | 55:14–60:35 | | Life Advice / Emails | Best man drama, lost tools, law school insights | 63:14–90:00 |

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For diehard NBA fans or the casually invested, this episode offers a rich, nuanced window into current playoff dynamics, front-office chess, and what happens when basketball meets real life.

Transcript

[Ryan Rosillo]

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[Kyle Ceruti]

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Wager tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over in most states. Void in Ontario, restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible G see sportsbook.draftkings.com promos Limited time offer two games last night, as you know, in the NBA playoffs and we'll get to the spurs blowing out the Timberwolves here. Second because I want to focus in on some stuff that I saw from The Knicks going up 20 against the Sixers. So the news before the game, no Embiid. I wondered if Nick Nurse would go with Adam Bona. Adam Bona, excuse me, Adam is the lesser known Bona if he would prefer Bona over Drummond just because he'd be able to chase some of the stuff around from the ball handers a little bit more than Drummond because Drummond can probably be a little embiid ish in his lack of being able to like show and then recover and all that kind of stuff. And ultimately he went with Bona for 16 minutes, 15 minutes for Drummond and he wanted more. Dominic Barlow, who I do kind of like, I like his versatility. Defensively, I don't think he's a nothing on offense and they ended up closing with Barlow, which is something that the Knicks were looking to attack anyway. We'll get to some of those Brunson things in the fourth quarter coming up here. A little bit Embiid at this stage. You know, offensively I think he is somebody that screws you up on defense because you saw like real old school hard double teams against Embiid in the Boston series. So it's not even just the scoring that you're going to get from him. It adds this element to okay, this is this different thing that we have to defend and we're going to have to come up with like do we want to double all the time? Do we want to double on the catch? Do we want to double on his first movement, how are we going to play all this kind of stuff? And I think it also with all those possessions because you're going to get him his touches because he is so talented offensively it felt like at least in game one there was a lot of floating from the other guys of like where, you know, if we're starting every possession Here, like where am I? Where am I getting my stuff? And I didn't mean it like is kind of like a selfish basketball thing or anything like that. It's just very clear. It's going to be entirely different the way you're running your offense with or without him. So that means entering the Tyrese Maxey game because he was spectacular in the second quarter, 15 points from him in that second quarter. I looked at the 14 shot attempts this morning in the first half because Mike Brown talked about how they needed to change up their defensive coverage and how they wanted to play Maxey, which is something they did in the fourth quarter. But in the first half, of the 14 shot attempts, I think 10 were single coverage. He's either beating his man or he's beating whoever is in the screen on the switch. And especially when you're asking the guy who's trying to fight over like which side or how it's going to go, like it's just always going to be an advantage for Maxi. He has a one on four layup where he just goes through everybody and scores. It's absolutely ridiculous. But the reason I bring up that coverage with him on those shots. And again, shot attempts don't always tell you the entire story on how a player is being defended. But Mike Brown was like, look, we couldn't continue to do that. We were going to have to change it up and we have to show him something different all the time. Which is not what Boston did in game two. Part of the story, not the entire story, but Philly in that first half, 47% from three. Second half, 29% from three. The Knicks didn't exactly like light it up all night long. It did feel a bit like, man, the Knicks are still in this. Even if it feels like Philadelphia has been the superior team. So I want to focus in the close of this game here it's 96 apiece. Uber hits a wide open three. That's at 6:52 remaining in the game. The next point that the Sixers score is at 133 on a one of two free throws. They get off an offensive rebound. That's how long they go without scoring a point. So let's look at the Sixers possessions here. Maxey is facing McBride. McBride's really good defensively and you wonder at times like because it's happened because Bridges was struggling so much offensively, it's not been the case. He's just too talented an offensive player to have like multiple single digit games. And you also think of him Defensively, like, hey, maybe if he's not making his shots, it's still a lot tougher switching into a guy with that kind of length on the perimeter than it is, you know, somebody else or even being the primary defender on somebody like Maxey. But in this position alone, because Maxi, you've got to beat him. The first time he drives, the second time he pivots. Keeps the dribble alive. It's brutal to get a stop on him. Sometimes in space you have to hold up like three or four different times against this guy. That's just how spectacularly gifted he is. He makes other athletes look like they're non athletes. That's how just ridiculous he is once he gets any momentum. But Miles holds up beautifully on this possession on the left side. And it leads to Oubre getting a wide open three, which he misses. The next time down they double, Maxi leads to a bit of a scramble. VJ ends up with the basketball. There's two possessions here from Vijay I don't necessarily love, but overall I think he's been great. Totally comfortable as a rookie. Everything you'd hope for for a guy who to the moment's not too big for him. But these two possessions, the second one I'll get to here in a bit, but this one he kind of ran out to the three point line and missed. Then Maxi brings it down kind of like, all right, maybe I'll just go quicker here. And he goes one on four. He misses a layup, which still was like not a terrible look on all this. The offense scatters all over the place. He ends up with an offense. They end up with an offensive rebound. They throw it to him. He misses a wide open three. Next play, Maxi shut off and Vijay's on his side. And Vijay has the ball after Maxi is shut off and Vijay's trying to get the basketball back to Maxi, which is this is like sometimes the downside to having somebody this. Clearly you're being this clear. Your number one option for Maxi is that VJ is kind of wasting time in the possession and his number one priority is trying to get the ball back to Maxi. And either Maxi was just too tired of that one possession being like, hey, you just got to go. And at that point, Vijay's like, all right. I guess all this time that I've spent trying to get the ball back to Maxi instead of just playing basketball, and now I'm realizing like, he's just not going to get back into this play. 4 seconds left. Then Vijay's left. We're trying to make something out of it and that ends up being a three point miss. Then they double Maxi again. He splits it as well as you're ever going to see a guy with a basketball split a double team. It is lightning fast. Ridiculous. However, he turns it over. So they've run into this rut now with Maxi getting double teamed and closed off. And they're also missing some shots that out of the timeout they run a play where it's super easy to criticize the Sixers and go, why are you running a play where it's Dominic Barlow throwing it to Kelly Oubre on a cut which led to a turnover where it means P? Well, I shouldn't say P.J. paul George V.J. the initials get tough at times. Maxi are all three of those guys are not touching the basketball in this monumental possession to close out game two. But it was a good look. Like it worked. They ignored Ubre on the baseline cut. You could argue Barlow shouldn't, but you know, you can't just tell the rest of the guys that aren't as good you're never going to touch the ball. So it was something entirely different the Knicks never would have been prepared for. I thought about it in the moment. It's like, would you want those two guys being in charge of the basketball and this big of a possession? But the play kind of worked. It ended up just being a turnover. Then Maxie comes down, he gets a switch onto Cat. Everyone defending it still wants to stay with Maxi and he misses the layup and that's where this the offensive rebound and the points. So that is a 90 run for New York on the other side with what they were doing but 5 minutes and 21 seconds for the Sixers without a point. Brunson on the other side. Barlow had to be like, wait, you guys are going to just do this every single possession? It worked. They scored the nine points. But I'll even admit, like they're just going to switch into Barlow every single time with Brunson and everyone's just going to wait around. Well, Nurse didn't wait around because it was Barlow. Jumper, Barlow, step back, miss Barlow. And I'm talking about Brunson turnaround. He makes it. Then they double him. That's where Bridges hits a huge shot. They double Brunson again. That leads to the turnover. They double Brunson again. Then there's another one of the inbounds where it ends up with Barlow on Brunson. So they got Barlow on Brunson on all of this. Stuff there towards the end. And if you're sitting there looking at a 90 run going, well, how are you saying that didn't work? If it didn't work, that'd be the first thing you would hear today is that they did the same thing over and over again, even though Nurse changed up the defense. But it did work. And the two makes from Brunson were spectacular, totally comfortable. They played it pretty straight up and they had to stop playing it straight up after two of those first three shots went in against that defense. So Knicks up two. Oh, I don't think that comeback is coming for the Sixers. San Antonio, this game was scoreless about 90 seconds, just under 90 seconds into it. And then Wembing on the follows up a Champagne three miss with an offensive rebound and dunk. That felt like quite the statement. Yes, I'm overreacting, likely playing the results because the spurs blew them out. But it was the kind of thing we're a building with this young team losing game one, probably on edge a little bit, like, how are the guys going to look? Is there any way this team goes down 2 0? Although I just think it's so strange when the favored team loses game one, whereas if they won game, if these two games were inverted right where it was, the spurs blew out the Timberwolves in game one and be like, oh, that's what's supposed to happen. And it's like, hey, look at the, those, those spicy Timberwolves getting game two and evening this series. It just, it would feel different even though the series would be the same. Right. So that's a huge statement from him. This is more of what San Antonio is supposed to look like. They were up 59, 35 at the half points in the paint for San Antonio, or excuse me, for Minnesota went from 52 in game one to 36 in game two. And they shot at 38% from three in game one. Minnesota did. And they were 13% from three in the first half. I want to just talk about the second quarter WEMBY stuff before he was subbed out, because that's kind of where this game was won. So Wemby a deep catch against Randall, keeping Champagne in the corner, which keeps the defender in the corner. So that's something you always have to look for is if you're running two guys on the side, that person in the corner still has to be a threat and they still may leave champagne on some of these and say, hey, let's just throw something at Wembanyama here and Leave your guy. And if the guy hits the shot, the guy hits the shot. The stuff I loved about this stretch was watching what Wembanyama was doing on defense because he was kind of assigned to everybody and no one in particular at the same time. And I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but there were possessions where Conley was his primary objective, which meant he just wasn't going to worry about it. There's another time he's against Jade McDaniels and then he also ends up with Clark. Right. And anytime Clark was in, he would just go like, all right, well, I'm supposed to be defending you, but I'm never going to you. I'm just going to keep basically anybody with the basketball who was driving. They had to worry about beating their defender, and then they had to worry about beating Wembanyama. And the reason I'm. I'm kind of making a big deal about this is that when you watch it, the communication and discipline it takes to kind of pull something like this off. And also the fact that physically he is not out of position, even when he looks like he's out of position the way other guys are like, hey, if I'm going over to the corner here to worry about this three point shooter, do I actually have enough time to get back into the play in the paint if somebody's driving? And most guys, well, no one can do what he does because he can just take a step, like to the right side of the paint and the drive being the left, and it's one step over and he's going to contest that shot. There was a play where Clark, who he ignored, ended up with an offensive rebound and then staring at Wembanyama. And you can tell he misses it simply by Winemanyama just being there. There's another play where Ant has a drive and Wembanyama's just like, I don't even. He might not even know where his guy is. Like, he's looking. He's making sure behind him on the baseline that he has a reasonable sense of where the guy he's assigned to is. But as soon as anything is happening away from him, he's basically without Rudy being in during this time, he was able to float and ignore whoever it was and whether that was Conley McDaniels who he wasn't super worried about, but that wasn't happening as much. And then Clark on a bunch of those possessions before he subbed out. The funniest stretch of this game is probably where Wemby ends up with A three, a block. And Rudy's back in and he tries to dream, shake Rudy, and he misses it. And you could call it a heat check. I'd like to call it something else, like an equity check, because I think some guys are just like, hey, I made two in a row and I'm just going to take the heat check. Which is stupid because more often than not it's like a terrible shot. But there are certain people that have equity to take that shot and others that don't. I think the people that don't, it should be called a heat check. And for Wemby to have done what he had done defensively, the block, the three before it, and he's like, I just want to go at Rudy right here and just shakes into this turnaround and he misses the whole thing. I love the shot attempt because you're seeing this multiple times now in the playoffs where when he either is getting mad or he's like, now it's time to take over. Like, this is what we want from these stars all the time. We want them to push up the aggressiveness a lot. Whether it's just with physical stuff or taking some more shots. He always seems to be ready to do that kind of stuff. And then defensively, look, they're trapping ant like crazy in that second quarter, which is telling you like, we are. We're as soon as you cross half court and they got him a couple times in some really good traps, like, we're just not going to respect one guy here offensively and that. That appears to be the game plan moving forward here. And when Wemby checked out, it was 43, 28, and it really kind of felt like that's where the game was decided. We'll have more on these series and the rest of the playoffs. With Brian Windhorst, it's never too late to improve your credit. With Experian Boost, you can raise your credit scores instantly for free, get credit for the bills you're already paying, add your positive rent, utility and even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. Look, I was there. We've talked about it in the past, down in the dumps. And then you're almost like, what does it matter? It's never going to get any better. That's loser talk right there, man. And I know it because I used to do it to myself. And then you start asking, like, hey, do you want to get an apartment together? And then the guy's like, yeah, you got to send in all this information. And then you're so embarrassed. You're like, I guess we're not going to be best friends out on the town because I'm going to have to live at home until I can get into the high 600s. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible or considered by lenders. See experian.com for details. Thrilled to have Brian Windhorst again from ESPN and his podcast My go to when I need the inside scoop. The Hoop Collective let's talk about these series a little bit. Last night, knicks take the 20 lead and we get the news about him being out, which is unfortunate because I think offensively it's gotten better and better. Obviously, Game one we can get into some criticisms here, but it just changes what you have to do. If you're the other team's defense, then him not being out there kind of opens up the maxi part of it. But what do you think about this version of Embiid for the Sixers chances against the Knicks to get back in this?

[Brian Windhorst]

Yeah, here's what I think. I think that probably in the 1960s we weren't around and there's not much footage, but my guess is that occasionally Bill Russell got taken advantage of or Will Chamberlain got taken advantage of on defense because they were slower than a guard. And you know, throughout the course of basketball history, you get a guard like Jalen Brunson and you put him in, you know, put them up against a big man in drop coverage or whatever and they'll show them up. But there's a reason why tall centers have been pretty valuable in basketball, because the trade off at the other end historically has been pretty good. And so while it no doubt May helps the 76ers a little bit defensively or maybe even significantly defensively when they don't have to worry about, you know, Embiid and like, you know, dealing with, you know, the, the drop coverage or the switch or whatever they're going to do. They were dying not having him beat offensively in the fourth quarter last night. And I don't know how the series is going to go. We've got injuries that are playing a big role in it. You know, Anunoby, like I kind of feel like as we're doing this, we don't know what Anunoby status is. Right. I feel like no matter what and I have no insight on this, I want to be clear, this is not a report. I feel like no matter what the MRI shows, they're going to call him questionable whether he's going to miss days and days or whether he could actually play. They're going to call him questionable. But I wonder if in three or four days or five days, people are going to be like, if the Sixers are going to be like, man, if we only could have gotten that game two because that was there for them. And if they had had him beat, I think they might have gotten it because in the fourth quarter, Maxi Paul George and Vijay Edgecombe were gassed and look, they got open looks from three. And you know, the other day against Boston, they made those looks. They didn't make them this time, but they had no offense in the fourth quarter. And if they had had indeed in the fourth quarter of that game, I think they throw it down to him and he gets baskets or fouls and they probably win. And so it's a tightrope to walk. But I think, you know, I think they're three and two when they have embiid this year and they're in the playoffs and they're one and three without him. And that's not a mistake. And so while the loss potential, short term or medium term loss of an anobi is a factor for the Knicks that they, that they got, game two could be the kind of cushion that they need to get through it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

OG Is like, I've never felt better about him. Like, I've never appreciated him more as a player. I think going back to the trade with Toronto, I saw a lot of stuff like, hey, how did this happen? OG was like, oh, he's kind of hurt. And I don't know that OG was.

[Brian Windhorst]

They didn't want to pay him the max. They didn't want to pay him or Siakam the max. That was the bottom line.

[Ryan Rosillo]

There you go. We can keep it moving.

[Brian Windhorst]

Yeah, but, but by the way, they both got the max.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Brian Windhorst]

And you know, Siakam's been an All Star and OG hasn't been an All Star, but like, he's felt like a max player in the playoffs so far.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He's incredible. I still think there's like the thing that maybe I didn't like him in the past is like, there's a little limitation there on him offensively. But now it's like with Cat's passing, like, if you're going to play Cat. And I thought Legs did a really good job. And like talking about how hard they were getting out on Cat and it's like I realized, because I'll always, when I'm watching games and I'll see how they're playing like a big that's on the Peruner. I'll go, why do you have to like get glued to him? And I think part of it is, hey, we want to disrupt that he doesn't have a clean passing lane. Right. Because you're also inviting yourself into trouble. If that big can put the ball on the floor like cat can. And it's like you might want to play off of him and try to cut off the ankle a little bit, then there's a shooting. There's a bunch of different things we could talk about with this, but oh geez, life is so much easier when it's like we have to worry about the Brunson part of it. We have to worry about Kat and how we're defending this. And even having said that, like, I don't look at OG just feasting off of. I'm not thinking of like any Golden State warrior during the prime Curry run of like, your life is so easy because two always go with that guy. I think it's more than just him having all these beautiful looks and these open cuts. He's made all these shots. He's bigger than almost every perimeter guy when you really think about it. And he's a big part of why. It's like if I could be underwhelmed collectively by the east through the first round, plus here it's like, yeah, but if they have OG playing like this, like this has to be the Knicks East.

[Brian Windhorst]

Yeah, you're. You're better at looking at understanding and relating X's and O's than I am. It's not a skill that I have. You're educating me even a little bit. What I am looking at with OG is he kind of. The way he's playing right now kind of reminds me of the way Kawhi played when he was at his peak. You know, the thing about Kawhi is his ability to hit that mid range jumper and his ability to guard really all five if he needed to, but certainly one through four. And now OG doesn't have the same total offensive package. But have you seen what OG's been shooting in these playoffs?

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's absurd. You're right, because I still think Kawhi's getting into his handle if he's stuck and then having reset himself, there's a gap there. But I mean, this shooting isn't even sustainable. That's how impressive it is.

[Brian Windhorst]

Exactly. And so I mean, really, the Knicks have been on a total heater and it's not just been og. Bridges is hitting Everything in sight. You know, Brunson's obviously been really good, but Bridges is hitting everything in sight. Towns numbers are wild. Like Towns is efficiency numbers. Like he is having an incredible statistical postseason so far. And Bridges is hitting shots. And you know, it's funny on ESPN today, we keep running over and over the OG injury, the way he pulls up that nobody pays attention to the end of the possession, which was Bridges hitting a terrifically important pull up jumper. So if Bridges keeps making anything reasonable because you know his jumper has not been reliable and Cat can stay efficient. By the way, efficiency also means being able to stay on the court and not fouling.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Brian Windhorst]

And you know, I under. I completely understand that Kat has had a fouling problem his whole career. It's not like this is a new. I understand. But like I have a great affinity for Carl. I like him on a personal level and he's a smart guy and I have an error message that comes across my brain when I see him slapping at the ball and hedging 35ft from the basket. I'm like, Carl, what do you. If you're going to get your fouls, get your fouls defending the rim, don't get your fouls edging 35ft, you're going to get beat anyway. Like, why are you trying to, why are you trying to get a steal on Joel embiId in the first quarter? Are you trying to pocket pick? I digress.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But no, but your frustration is you're not even a Knicks fan, is driving you crazy. So I think it's a good representation of all of us going.

[Brian Windhorst]

Jaren Jackson Jr. Has the same thing. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is an elite defensive player. He's defensive player of the year, obviously. And again, I know Jaren Jackson a little bit. I find him to be very cerebral, enjoy talking to him, like good player. And I see him commit some of these fouls and I'm like, Jaren, I don't understand why Jaren, why? And obviously 100 coaches have said the same thing to Cat and Jaren. But like especially with Embiid out, like how. And he may even play on Friday, whatever. But like you need. The Cat's advantage is so important. And so if OG is going to be out. And by the way, like Josh Hart hurt his thumb and I think it was Richard Jefferson in the broadcast is like, ooh, you know, like I think he's going to play. But like Hart may now be be the thumb guy. Like you might see Hart with a wrapped up thumb for the next couple of weeks and you're just like, well, that thumb. So like, not that Heart's a spectacular offensive player anyway, but like heart's going to have a thumb. So they just need, they need Bridges and Cat. They're going to need some more out of them. And if OG maybe OG plays, but let's just say OG misses some period of time for the Knicks to get two more wins in this series, which I think will be a struggle because I just. It's not about the Knicks. It's about the nature of the playoffs and I think Philly's got some things going for it. They are going to need Bridges and Cat to continue their level of production or at least stay level because they are going to feel the loss of OG that is going again with the assumption that he's going to miss either five minutes or five games. That's just reality. But to your point, the Knicks could run the simulation of these playoffs 10 times over and not have gotten this lined up the way they wanted to get it. And I know that, you know, Detroit has been a thorn for them, but the way the Knicks are playing right now and the way it's lining up and the way Detroit's playing, like they couldn't, they could not get a better opportunity to get these 12 vital wins to get to the finals.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Who did you pick in Detroit? Cleveland?

[Brian Windhorst]

I don't pick series and because I think it's okay to say that you in certain situations, like obviously if I said no to every question, I wouldn't have this job for very long. But I think it's like if somebody says to you who's going to win Detroit and Cleveland and you say, I don't know. I don't think that should be seen as an ignorant answer. You can argue it's a non committal answer. I'll cop to that. I didn't know because I felt there were too many, there are too many variables. And I'll tell you one thing, Cleveland hasn't played well for like 12 days. Their first two games. I made a little bit of a fool of myself. I went on to Cleveland radio, which I go on every week, and I, you know, got a little bit like over my skis on how good I thought the combo of Donovan Mitchell and James Harden looked in a playoff setting. I was like, man, like the way that they can play isolation basketball is perfect for the playoffs. And I see the vision. Kobe Altman, I see what you're talking about. And I was like, you know, I was like, boy, Detroit doesn't look that good and, you know, maybe, you know, maybe they could get home court against Orlando in the second round. And I have been brought extraordinarily back to earth because in the last six games, the Cavs have won just two of them. And the two that they won, they had to scramble for second half comebacks. And Harden and Mitchell are both playing substandard now. There's other things going on. They've had, you know, various injuries to manage and, you know, other factors. But the baseline is that the two best Cavs players are not playing great right now. I think they're shooting. Combined, they're shooting 40% and they're. And they've got 51 turnovers in these six games. I mean, there's just, there's just no way to live. I mean, Harden is getting the ball taken from him. I mean, Cade Cunningham took the ball from him like he was me taking it from my 8 year old like 2 or 3 times in that game. And we're talking about a, you know, a game that comes down to the final five minutes. And how many points did Harden give away just having the ball taken from him? So, you know, if they're the Hardening Mitchell that I saw in games one and two, like, of the last series, like, you know, you got me. But I. They're, they're in, they're both in slumps right now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I like their talent better. I think there's even more that we could spend on the bigs of like. So is Dern going to dominate both of you guys? But Allen had the foul trouble in Game 2, so he wasn't, you know, it was, it was basically, excuse me, in game one.

[Brian Windhorst]

Game one?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, the foul trouble in game one where he didn't play the last 18 minutes of the first half. So that's something I was looking at being like, are they going to keep both of those big guys in there? But then they didn't really get a chance to do it. And then they kind of close and stagger them because they prefer to stagger those two guys. But I think there's like a bigger picture thing here, which I don't know how much you'd want to get into any of the off season stuff. We all assume that with Harden waiving the no trade clause, even though he got a kicker that made him some money on this whole thing, that maybe there was an understanding where Harden is actually, I would argue has lucked out based on the market of like how many other teams are out there that want to pay you 30 plus million dollars. But if this goes south for them and knowing they're the most expensive roster on the team, how aggressive do you think they would be in trying to make sure this team looks different if they can't get through the series?

[Brian Windhorst]

Listen, man, it's a really good question. So the Cavs and Hardin's side have stayed away from even the hint that there's an understanding because that would be a violation of rules. But it's common sense. James Harden lives in Los Angeles, is from Los Angeles and had a no trade clause and left Los Angeles to go to Cleveland in the middle of the season without certainty over his situation. Now the Cavs have a team option. They could just pick it up and have him play on the one year deal.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Tried that though.

[Brian Windhorst]

Correct? That's not what he wants. He wants assured money. So also I will tell you that from before he even got there because obviously he had to have conversations with the Cavs before he got there to wave is no trade clause. The Clippers allowed it. Kenny Atkinson has prioritized the relationship and they are, you know, and this is not like, I mean, I will tell you that like when you look, when you watch inside the huddle, you know, sometimes at ESPN we can get, you know, camera views inside the huddle that may not be always available public. We don't have sound, but we have views. You can see Kenny Atkinson go over plays and show them to James and they have a back and forth. What do you think of this? He's like sort of, they sort of collaborate. And also Kenny and James have talked about how that's a very collaborative relationship. The point is from day negative one day minus one, Kenny Atkinson has been 100% invested in having James Harden invested. They are fully invested in that relationship. So you are correct. Like Team X could come to Harden and say hey, we want to make you this multi year offer. But I think that partnership, the intention is that partnership is going to continue likely on a multi year deal. The Cavs pathway below the second apron is really one of two ways. One, they could trade one of their high earning players, most likely Jared Allen just in like a salary dump for assets, which there's a desire for centers, including with teams that have cap space. That could happen. I would be very careful doing that. But that's a pathway for them. The other pathway is to get Harden to take enough of a pay cut that they get out of the second apron. And then the way the Harden would take that would accept that pay cut is by adding money in Years. So I can see why the Cavs in February were like, look, we're going to trade for a guy who could help us win, you know, this year. And that getting him and getting this contract is going to improve our books situation. Like, it's kind of a, it makes a lot of sense why they did that. But they're, I think, I think the two sides are invested with each other. And then you've got the whole other thing, which is you want to get Donovan Mitchell into a contact extension, which is a whole nother challenge. But you know, the concept is you have Harden because you think it raises the ceiling. The thing about the hardened trade is that it changed their timeline. The Cavs were building around Evan Mobley's timeline. They'd like, we've got this 23 year old, you know, we're investing in his, in his window. When they traded away Darius garland, who's like 26 for James Harden, who's 36 or 37, whatever he is, they basically like, we're focused on Donovan Mitchell's timeline, which is, by the way, I'm not. I think that's, I think that's smart. But that amped up the pressure on this year. And so one of the things that you hear when you talk to people around Cleveland is this is still a new team. You know, they traded for three players, three rotation players, because they also traded for Dennis Schroeder, who's on a multi year deal and Keone Ellis, who's a free agent, who, when they traded for him, I assume they intend to resign

[Ryan Rosillo]

him or play him. But they finally played him again in game one. I mean, he disappeared for him.

[Brian Windhorst]

But you're right, they did stop playing him. The narrative I've heard out of Cleveland is this is still a new team. And you know, of course we're going to have growing pains and of course it's going to take a while to figure it out. And this may not be the optimized version, but while I can agree with that and ratify that and go along with it, you've also got 37 year old James Harden. You're not, you know, yeah, Donovan has the window, Mobley has a window, but Harden's window is smaller. And you're looking at an Eastern Conference that Indiana ain't around, Boston ain't around. Like the mountain isn't as high as it's been another year. So it amps up the pressure to get something done with this opportunity.

[Ryan Rosillo]

They likely declined the $42 million player option. Resign three years 90. I don't know if James has looked at it like he still has to make up all the money that he's lost out on, you know, with the.

[Brian Windhorst]

Brooks going back to the.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He can't make up all that now, you know, because he would have already been done with those contracts and then making the new money. But it felt a bit like the Clippers deal was like, oh, so he's just going to get this deal. Who are you bidding against? But this is one of those deals where it feels like this is kind of the way it works. Even at 37 years old, even if they were balanced in the second round, granted, they're only down one game. You know, I think, unfortunately there's for Harden, who is. I'll say this about him, he's incredibly well liked with most of the teams that. Even when it's gone south, I think people like him a lot, you know, just over the years. So him clicking with Kenny. Yeah, him clicking with Kenny and all that.

[Brian Windhorst]

I like him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know him. I would just say the basketball, the stuff that I saw, you know, the stuff that I see from him in the playoffs, it's just. It's just impossible to ignore how uncomfortable he seems to be that he's not ramping up. You mentioned he had one player. There was a turnover. He almost lost the dribble. Just dribbling by himself in transition. It doesn't make any sense.

[Brian Windhorst]

I had somebody who. I know who. I won't name them, but they were like, it's a middle school turnover. It's a middle school turnover. By the way, you know, who loves James Harden? And so last year, I have a

[Ryan Rosillo]

long list of people that love James Harden.

[Brian Windhorst]

Jeff Van Gundy loves James Harden. And last year, I go to a lot of Clipper games because I'm out here in LA a lot. And I started noticing Harden and Van Gundy, like, bonding last year. Van Gundy came last season to be an assistant after he got let go by espn. And talking to people around the team and seeing the two of them and talking to James like they love each other. And I had the idea of this story writing about basketball's odd couple, you know, James Harden and Jeff Van Gundy. Their background, believe it or not, is through, like, Rice. Like Rice basketball or something. Like, when Harden was playing in Houston, Van Gundy was like, you know, he had, like, a friend of his who was on the Rice coaching staff and

[Ryan Rosillo]

like, Harden University in Texas. Rice School in Texas.

[Brian Windhorst]

Yes, in Houston. Somehow they ended up going to These Rice games together. Like, not together, but they would, like, see each other at these games. Because Hardin had a connection. I don't know if it was a family member was playing or some connection. And Van Gundy would go and they would see each other and talk basketball at Rice games. I think I got this right. I didn't do the story. And so I asked Van Gundy. I go, hey, I'd love to do a story on you and James, like, being basketball. I know. You know how editors are. You know, you say, hey, I got a story. It's called Basketball's Odd Couple.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Already in. Great.

[Brian Windhorst]

And Van Gundy was like, listen, man, I ain't doing that story like I am, out of respect to James. I would never. You know, I'm not doing that. So I didn't do the story. But Van Gundy, who I respect a lot, like, loves Harden, and they had a great working relationship when he was with the Clippers. And by the way, I think Kenny Atkinson loves Harden. And in game one, Harden was playing so bad that I would say probably 80 or 90% of point guards, probably at every level, get pulled in that game. But Kenny stuck with him, and he actually. They put together an 110 run. That harden kind. It was sort of ugly. He was sort of throwing up shots, were bouncing all around the rim and doing his dark arts to get free throws. But he led an 110 run, and it's a tie game with five minutes to go.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He had 13 in the fourth. I mean, he was. He was terrific. It's just, you know, look, it's.

[Brian Windhorst]

He was not terrific, but he. But he. But he. But he got it done. So, yeah, I mean, Anyway, he'll get

[Ryan Rosillo]

three years, 96, they'll opt out, and they'll resign.

[Brian Windhorst]

Is that what you think? 96. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Three years, 96. There you go. It's never too late to improve your credit. With Experian Boost, you can raise your credit scores instantly for free. Get credit for the bills you're already paying, add your positive rent, utility, and even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. I'm telling you, back in the day, they used to have these things that told you that they would help and they'd sell you on the whole idea. You'd pay them something every single month, and you're like, nothing's getting any better. Well, guess what? Experian stepped in and fixed this mess. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible or considered by lenders. See experian.com for details. You caused a bit of a shitstorm with this Luca thing.

[Brian Windhorst]

Yeah, I think my point was that the injury was bad and the Lakers knew that the injury was bad. And because the Lakers knew the injury was bad, he was going to miss a lot of time that they said, luka, go do your treatment back home. I don't think it should have been controversial, but this happens to me all the time. I say things that I don't think are controversial. My point is it was a bad injury and I knew it was a bad injury because they said, luca, you're not gonna play for weeks anyway. Go ahead and go home. And his point was like, well, I got PRP in Spain because they have great PRP in Spain. Fine. The point is, if you were day to day, you'd have been with the team. They knew this injury was so significant that they were like, hey, listen. And also he has a newborn in Slovenia that he had barely seen and his other child, which is, you know, it's a public thing. And so, like, I actually thought it was very player friendly of the Lakers to say, go ahead, you know, go over there. My only. My point was that it was a bad injury. And then Luka basically said that. He said, the doctors told me eight weeks and I thought the Lakers were. I don't know why it was construed.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Did it turn into like it was, hey, you could also do it in Germany. Then it made it seem like people thought that you were vaguely speculating that there was something nefarious going on. Is that how this ended up becoming a thing?

[Brian Windhorst]

My point is he didn't go over there to get some revolutionary treatment. He went over there because he was really injured.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right.

[Brian Windhorst]

That was my point, like. Cause I just. Like every place I go here in la, people are like, when's Luka coming back? When's Luca coming back? And it's like he's got a really bad injury. You know, like, it's. And like, I'm actually glad he's, you know, he might be ahead of schedule. Like, he said eight weeks, maybe he's ahead of schedule. He said he's running after, you know, he's in week five of recovery. He's running. That's good. But like, every. Like every show I'm going on, like, when is Luca coming back? Is it the next 12 seconds or is it going to be 15 seconds? When is the Luca salvation coming? And my point is, like, I think it's a bad injury. And I think it's a bad injury. Because they let him go home. And, like, you know, my point is they don't have a history in Spain of healing hamstrings. Like, there's not, like, some institute in Spain that brings players back from hamstrings within seven hours or six days or whatever. That was just my point. But I understand whenever you say anything about the Lakers that everybody freaks out. I was trying to explain why Luka is not back. Like, I was trying to, like, almost give him, like, some space to explain that his injury was bad, it was misconstrued. But that kind of stuff happens in media, so it is what it is.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't want to talk about the OKC series because I don't really see how the Lakers have a chance. I mean, we could if we had more time, but I don't want to spend my time on that okc. I was looking at, like, Denver's future and what picks they have. And then it's like, oh, so the 27 goes to OKC's top five protected because of the Peyton Watson deal, which is the 30th pick in 22. And then there was the odd. I remember all of us, like, in 23 being like, there was a trade made during the NBA final, and that was a trade there for Denver.

[Brian Windhorst]

Being stunned by it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. All of us were kind of like, there's a transaction. But then you realize that's a 29 top five protected. There's salary dumps. And of course, because of the Kawhi deal, which I would argue all Kawhi had to do to the Clippers is say, hey, I'm coming. And then they would have had better leverage in the Paul George.

[Brian Windhorst]

I know. It's.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's.

[Brian Windhorst]

It's seven years on. It's amazing that it's still such a enriching topic because of the way it all went down.

[Seruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And the update of the last year of being like, this is the single worst partner as far as a player goes of, like, could you just tell us what you're doing from time to time?

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, the irony of that is that he's never played better for them. He just had a brilliant season. He did.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's fair.

[Brian Windhorst]

He was very good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

After he came back, people can talk about him, like, on the market and all that kind of stuff of what the next deal is. I would just be like, I'm good. Hey, great season, man. I can't fucking do this again.

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, it would be.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Who knows?

[Brian Windhorst]

Who knows whether or not to extend his contract? But I'd like To, you know, as far as the aspects around the, you know, as far as what happens off the court, that's a different discussion.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But as far off the court may impact this as much as anything else. But go ahead.

[Brian Windhorst]

As far as the player on the court, I would take him in a tenth of a second.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So if you were another gm, now granted this is like say he's just available, you would do like a 3 for 120 for this guy?

[Brian Windhorst]

No. Oh God, no.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Oh no.

[Brian Windhorst]

I would not extend him at all. But I would take him on my team next year on a one year deal.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Got it? Okay. All right.

[Brian Windhorst]

Because that's different. Do you think because this happens every year, the lottery, you know, for the teams that, for their fans, that they're in the lottery like their individual fans bases are like totally invested. The general NBA fan I don't think understands unless you think I'm wrong. There's a couple of quirks and Clippers are heavily involved in it. There's a couple of quirks in this lottery that are wild. Obviously it's a high stakes lottery, which is Sunday afternoon, by the way. It's Sunday at 3 o' clock Eastern. This is going to sneak up on people because the lottery is not decades ago it was on the weekend, but it's not usually on the afternoon on a Sunday. But everything is different in the, you know, things are different in the, in the, in the, in the broadcast space. So it's different. But like I think it's going to sneak up on people and they're not even. It's like going to already have happened again. Not if you're a Jazz fan. If you're a Jazz fan, you've had a countdown, you know, ripping off pages,

[Ryan Rosillo]

three days, one hour, 21 minutes.

[Brian Windhorst]

Right. There's, there's two aspects of this lottery that I think are particularly important. And one of them involves the Clippers and one of them tangentially involves Kawhi number one. Because of the dynamics of that Avitsa Zubotz trademark. Okay. The way it all falls, there's a coin flip between the Pacers, not an actual coin flip. It's 52% versus 48% between the Pacers and Clippers about who's going to get the pick. So the pick that they, one of the picks that they traded to get Zubotch, the Pacers traded his top four protected this year. It's actually five through nine, but that's not relevant because it's not going to be 10. So the clip, the Pacers have a 52% chance of getting a top four pick, 52% chance of getting a impact player to add to Siakam and Halliburton and Neesmith and Nemhardt and Zubac. That's pretty significant. Okay? Like the team was in game seven of the Finals last year. We will have Zubacz and potentially we'll add a big piece if the other 48% happens, which is not nothing. And I'll point out, last year, two of the teams in the top four slid to picks five and six. The Clippers will get either pick five or six. And the Clippers will be able to draft a player that will potentially be a cornerstone of their retooling or rebuild, whatever they want to call it. And maybe it affects how they look at Kawhi going into last year of his contract next year. And it's either going to be five or six. And then, by the way, if it doesn't convey Ryan, it becomes a 2031 first. It's not like, oh, it rolls over to next year. No, no, no. You either get pick five or six or a pick that nobody knows anything about in five years. And so like the Clippers. Think about the Clippers. Here's the two ends of the spectrum. The Clippers could walk out of Sunday afternoon having the fifth pick. Okay? Or they could walk out with having no pick in this draft. And even the Thunder with a 7% chance of hopping up with their pick into the top four, which, granted, is low chance, but, you know, it's on the board. Okay? So that's one thing, that whole, I call it the Pacer Clipper paradox. The second thing, and I knew about this, but I didn't really understand it until I looked at the percentages. So the top three teams have, you know, 40, you know, 50% chance of getting that top four pick. The next layer of teams, which is Sacramento and Utah, have 45% chance of getting the pick. So really, those top 16 of top four, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

So it's 52, 45, 37.

[Brian Windhorst]

Right, right. The Atlanta Hawks. This is like, this is. I mean, I knew this, but like to see it, the Atlanta hawks have a 40% chance of getting a top four pick. 40%. Because the way that trade went down for Derek Queen last year, okay, they get the better of Milwaukee or New Orleans, which means they get all of New Orleans combinations and all of Milwaukee's combinations. So if any of those come up, they get it. So their implied percentage is 40%. Like, think of what the Utah Jazz fan base went through this year watching them tank. Okay. They've got only marginally higher percentage chance than the Hawks do you. And again, if the Hawks get a top four pick, you're adding that to a team that is pretty good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, it's like 45% versus like 42, 43% with everything that Atlanta has on both sides of that. But you look at OKC 1.5% chance to get the number one overall pick, 7% for top four. If they were to luck out though the reaction, and it's something we've kind of hinted at here a little bit, people are going to lose their minds. But like whether it's the Denver trades or, or the Horford trade six years ago where they take on that salary dump and it's not like salary dumps are new, like everybody's done this. But what do you think it was about? Look, Presti had incredible leverage on the Paul George stuff and he used it. He also had this absolute buy in from ownership because he'd already like proof a concept with the first run of over now. God, I can't believe that finals is 14 years ago that he. It's not like he tanked for a really long time and then they turned this great team. But he was able to kind of go like I can do all of these other things that are obviously available to other general managers. But the ability of Presti to be able to do that many of these things in this short of amount of time and then also have the best team in the league.

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, the key is the player that they traded for in Shay became an mvp. So that unlocks everything. And they didn't know he'd be that good. I mean they took the best prospect that the Clippers had. I mean they may have liked him, but it wasn't like they had three different trades and they had to evaluate three different first year players and said all of our analysis leads us to Shea. I mean every, a lot of people liked Shea. Jerry west liked Shay. So the whole thing hinges on this guy turning from a mid lottery prospect into an mvp. And the Thunder obviously played a big role in helping him develop that way. And he's talked about Chris Paul's influence on him and everything. I mean there's a whole 360 degree story. But I mean then. And you know the thing about it is is that the Thunder haven't really had that much lottery luck. Okay. For example, a couple years ago they, the Houston pick that became Jalen green had a 5050 chance of becoming a Thunder pick. I think it was top four protected. It was sort of the same situation that the Pacers and Clippers are in. Like, they could have gotten the number five pick in that draft. They ended up not getting that last year.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's why the Sixers pick is this year. Of all the years, you're going to get the Sixers pick and then it comes down to those. Go, keep going. That was like the Quentin Grimes Festival there for a month, right?

[Brian Windhorst]

So like they, they actually had Utah's pick this year. Utah. I mean that isn't really come down into luck. That was. Came down. But like, obviously that pick from Utah could have, you know, if they had played straight up, they'd have gotten the pick because Utah would have been a borderline playing team. I believe so. Or a straight playing team. So yeah, like, they haven't gotten luck. And I'm saying that because, like what, what if I would just say, like last year. So two years ago when the Hawks won, Rishi 3%. That was their, that was their chance. 3% last year, Dallas 1.8.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Congrats.

[Brian Windhorst]

So and by the way, like, it's not that the Thunder just have to win. Like, what happens if the Thunder get the number four pick? You want to give Caleb Wilson to the Thunder? You like that? You like that? If you're the league. I actually, just from a perverse storytelling situation, I would, it would be amazing to see the room and there would be the sound of bottles opening, but it wouldn't be champagne, it would be whiskey. That would be the reaction if the Thunder hit on this. And I'm just telling you, they haven't had any luck. By the way, they had the situation have happened a couple years ago where they had the Clipper pick and it was 12th, just like this one is. They didn't get lucky and they got Jalen Williams. So they'll, you know, if all they get to do at the end of this is draft 12th, they'll, they'll be, they'll be just fine doing something there too.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Giannis update was incredible from ownership. We'll have them or we won't have them. Thank you for the clarity. Totally agree. At least it was brief.

[Brian Windhorst]

Yes.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So that was nice.

[Brian Windhorst]

Somebody. Yes. Well, Wes Edens like a month ago gave an interview to Ramona Shelburne from espn. He said on the record, you know, if. And this don't. I'm summarizing. He basically said if you don't extend. If you have a star player and the player doesn't extend his contract you typically trade him. So he was kind of saying that's what they were going to do.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, here's the question I have for you. Is Jaylen Brown the most enticing potential trade asset coming back of what the market? And there's plenty of stuff that I don't know about the market, and I imagine there's always some things that surprise you, but of like the known, like, hey, that might work. Where would Jaylen Brown be?

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, it'd be fascinating if Jaylen Brown was actually on the market and the Celtics vetted the market. I don't and I don't have any feel that that's the case. By the way, I mean, if you're

[Ryan Rosillo]

not offering that up on get up this week as, hey, this is because I know that's what it turns into for you.

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, yeah, I mean, the reason became a topic and it wasn't like Jay Williams was the first time anyone had ever said it, but Jay Williams was like, you know, trade Giannis for Jaylen Brown, like, when Jaylen Brown was like making, you know, whatever he was saying. I think it's. By the way, I think it's relevant that as soon as Brad Stevens commented on it, like, had to comment on it. Jalen, like, made a beeline back to Twitch to, like, clarify. He didn't wait to like a podcast interview in like mid June. He didn't wait for like, some, you know, some fan that catches him on IG Live in a week and a half. He. He immediately went back to the camera and said, oh, by the way, I want to be a Celtic, so take that for what it's worth.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, I think that's really important that you brought that up because it seemed very different, like, at one point after this. And I understand a guy being an emotional after losing game seven, blowing that 31 lead. You know, he's not always my favorite player. I think he's taken way too much shift for, hey, this is my favorite season. And I was even joking with somebody before the season started. I was like, the only person that's happy about this in Boston is Jaylen Brown because you get to be like, I'm going to show you guys. And then he backs it up. He has an incredible year. They have a highly successful season based on the expectations. I think you would have to be incredibly mean to maybe not understand that, like, despite everything that was said, this team made it to the playoffs and maybe we can give Jalen a little allowance. And I'm telling you, he's not even my favorite guy that it's like there's a way to understand him saying this was his favorite season he had ever without thinking that it's like absolute selfishness.

[Brian Windhorst]

I know, but you're asking for nuance, which is just very hard in the social media age when everything gets chopped up. It's just very hard.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So back to the hypotheticals here, which I know you love.

[Brian Windhorst]

Well, if you're Milwaukee. So first off, you also. Milwaukee doesn't control their pick for the next few years. I don't remember if it's three or four. And you also know that there's anti tanking rules coming in. It's not going to be prudent in the next couple years to tank anyway. So the Bucks are highly incentivized, not to be bad. So if you're going to trade, that's why the warriors offer four firsts right now. If the Warriors.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, but who's playing? I mean Usman Jang, all of us over here in the Jang Hive fired up. But go ahead.

[Brian Windhorst]

Like if the warriors. And they've got some single digit percentage. If the warriors hop up to number three, that's a, that's a horse of a different color, as they say in the wizard of Oz. But the warriors are offering four picks, you know, and Draymond Green or whatever they were going to offer. That's not that. I mean I understand why they, why they turn that down. Like that implies that they're going to rebuild like or take it down. So if you're going to. If the rules are the rules and you decide you're going to trade, you know, and it's still an if because I'm not ruling out that Giannis doesn't sign that extension. It's a ton of money. Okay. So I want to be clear that I don't think it's guarantee that Giannis is gone. But. But with the big but. But holding a lot of water there. But if they do, they're going to have to make a deal that requires player or players that help them today now. And Jalen Brown is 29 years old, plays both ends of the court and under the contract for three more years. So like you don't have to be like running an analytics and strategy department at a team to have the idea that if you have Giannis and want to trade Giannis that you would call about Jalen Brown. That said, if I'm Brad Stevens, who is a lot smarter and a better team builder than I will ever be, I would keep together the two two way guys in their 20s who are under contract, under control and proven they've won a championship. And I would look at rebuilding the team around them and I would consider about whether we want to develop a curveball instead of a straight gas fastball three point shot that we have been, that we've been rolling with for five years. That to me they have a 27 million dollar trade exception. They have a couple of tradable first round picks, they have some flexibility, they have some young players that have some interest. The Celtics have stuff that they can retrofit this team and be very good. This is not a team at the end of the line by any means. So I, I wouldn't do that. That said, it was also interesting to me that Brad basically came out and said we weren't good enough, Philly should have won the series and that we, we as meaning The Celtics were 3 and 11 against the top teams in the west and east. Like I think what he was saying is this, this is really unfortunate but like he didn't necessarily see this as a championship team or at least they hadn't proven it yet. Maybe they could have gelled together. And I think that to me more than the Jaylen Brown back and forth Brad saying that is his acknowledgment that we got to go put some pieces on this roster.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What do you think of assigned Alice?

[Brian Windhorst]

I think that Patrick Dumont said after what happened with an untraditional, inexperienced general manager, Nico was I want the most experienced, most proven executive that I can get. And he's definitely looked at other people who were in the jobs, he couldn't acquire those people. Either they weren't interested or he couldn't acquire them. And so he went out and hired the top executive available on the market who had those qualities. And it took him four or five months to get there. But really if you had that basic mandate, if I was the billionaire like him and I said to you, I want a proven general manager who's built multiple teams, who has a ring and is a total face of the France. Like if you described what he was looking for, it would chatgpt would spit out Masayu Jiri. And so like, so it makes sense. The question for them is what are they gonna do with Kyrie? Because the last front office, the guys who are still there really liked the idea of putting Kyrie with Cooper flag and I kind of get it. But Kyrie is 34, 4. Cooper flag is 19. There would be a market for Kyrie. That to me is the question and that may not be like, you may want to see Kyrie and him together, but like to me, that's the big decision and also who they're going to draft in this. They've got two first round picks and they're in the lottery. Let's see what happens with that too.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I know you got to run to Sports center, man. I always appreciate the time. Check out Brian Winhorse the Hoop Collective with the Tims. Thanks man.

[Brian Windhorst]

Thank you. I'll see you soon.

[Ryan Rosillo]

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[Kyle Ceruti]

I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What's up?

[Seruti]

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I have every toy you can possibly imagine, and best of all, kids, I am liquid.

[Kyle Ceruti]

So now you know what's possible.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Let me tell you what's required. Today's life advice is brought to you by Microsoft 365 copilot. What if you can add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow built into Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook? Copilot works where you work, helping you do more. In the apps you already use. In Word, Copilot helps turn scatter notes into a first draft. In Excel, it generates insights from your data, and in Outlook, it cuts through the noise to get you up to speed faster. The apps you know go further with Copilot. Learn [e-mail] work we have a ton of feedback to get to here on a couple different topics. So why don't we read a couple lawyer emails and then we'll just kind of see how we feel and look I'm going to give the emailers a ton of credit here. I don't know what's happened in the last year or so. I don't know if the year is the right qualifier, but usually would just turn into a shit show of like. Granted most of this stuff is like people are driven by dislike and negativity, so then that would be the feedback you would get. It's just like it was just all nasty and for whatever reason it feels like the audience has become super constructive, helpful. Yeah, yeah. There's some really good stuff in here on a lot of the stuff that we do. We don't always read it, but I'm really impressed. I should say healthy masculinity. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I thought we all sucked. So anyway, Law School misery email writing in 25 law school grad My advice is stick out the next two years. Law school's three years are summed up scared to death, work to death, bored to death. If you're doing well in your classes now, you continue to do well in your second and third year with your year of legal reading and writing under your belt. It sounds like you've been burnt out after the first year, which I felt similarly too. You'll have a way better summary. Your internship the practice of law is so much better than first year law. You'll also choose your classes in your second third year, which makes a huge difference in that you'll be learning areas of law that you're interested in. Once you finish your second year and have your post grad employment locked down, law school turns into a version of college where you do the minimum amount of work to receive your ideal grade. You just got to tell yourself you have one more year. Once you secure your job, law school turns into a piece of cake. Stick with it. Try to find internships you can actually experience the practice of law rather than reading cases and learning from professors that have been in academia for decades while also not practicing as attorneys. If you don't like practicing as an attorney, you will still have a degree that differentiates you from the pack. Another guy went to law school. Realized two years in I wasn't going to be a lawyer. Pivoted to finance things worked out. Not that uncommon. Guys should figure out how law school can be used in another field. If you do that, you'll likely be an advantage in those other fields. That's kind of my point. He said. You could also switch to to night school.

[Seruti]

That sounds worse. No,

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know I mean if he's broke, you know, I mean I did some weird like stuff where I would take like those three hour courses. So instead of like I take one three hour course to try to get through it quicker. Yeah, because I was working, you know, depending on the professor back then too. Like the guy would be like two hour, two and a half hours in go. All right. One guy used to give everybody smoke breaks. I contemplate he smoked like a chimney so he had to take them for himself. So it was understood, like, hey, there are smoke breaks and there are many during this dudes are just. I think a couple guys start. I was thinking about it, I was like, maybe I should start smoking.

[Kyle Ceruti]

But extra credit.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You had to really love darts though because I mean there'd be some nights there you'd just be like, it's negative Kelvin out here.

[Kyle Ceruti]

It's when they stink the worst too. When you come back inside.

[Seruti]

It's true.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. What is that?

[Kyle Ceruti]

I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Chemistry's going on.

[Kyle Ceruti]

I was never a chemist, but I. Somebody told me that in high school and I was like, you can't convince me otherwise. It does not. A new port in the cold does not get worse. Then you know, that's. That's the bottom of the barrel when it comes to smell wise and smokers.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So I don't get it. There's one more that I want to find here that I can't seem to find. Basically this guy was like, look, if you finish opens up all sorts of doors. That I think is basically the point that we were hitting on there yesterday. He was even talking about like loan approvals. Like there's just a higher level of when you have that on your wrist, mate. So anyway, good luck with that. All right. We had a gay man responding to how to not get hit on by gay guys. I was hoping this would happen and it was. It's a terrific email. 58210 no real gym stats player comp. In the spirit of the upcoming World Cup, Tyler Adams, an enforcer in the midfield but will pop up with a

[Kyle Ceruti]

Tony in there Dutch's county zone. Right. Right. From outside Poughkeepsie.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Is he really?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, Wappinger.

[Seruti]

He's team leader. He's the man. Yeah.

[Brian Windhorst]

Great dude.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay.

[Seruti]

Shout out. New York Red Bull was listening to

[Ryan Rosillo]

the pod the other day. Caught the discussion about the dude who kept getting unwanted attention from other dudes. As a gay man myself, I felt compelled to weigh in on the topic first. All dude is 64240 in shape and presumably good looking. I hate to say it, but you're just going to get attention.

[Kyle Ceruti]

That was kind of my point. Could have been.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Poor guy. Second, serity is right. If you're going out of your way to look good and show off a little bit. Tighter clothes, shorter end seams, opening an extra button on a shirt, et cetera, this is dangerously leaning into, like. Well, with that dress on, you know, I mean, that doesn't.

[Seruti]

I was a little nervous saying that because I'm like, man, I'm going to get shipped. But, like, it's right. Like, yeah, I don't know. Like, sometimes there's a fine line. Like the. Remember back in the day, it was like the metrosexual look. Right? It's like, if you care too much, are you gay? And then it's like, why? Why can't I just look good? Like, it's. It's okay. People could.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah. And he listens to Drake.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Come on.

[Seruti]

Oh, come on.

[Kyle Ceruti]

There was a time, that's all.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean, Seruti, you're going top. Not talking about Drake all the time. In your 20s, like, you know, you have to ask, are you doing it to yourself at some point?

[Seruti]

Yeah. I'm only five' ten, though, so maybe

[Ryan Rosillo]

if I was six' four, I'd be

[Seruti]

getting more attention to this guy's point. But, no, I never got any attention. Yeah, I don't think there was any. Not that I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have been upset about it. There was never any confusion. There was never any confusion. I never.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I also think you were in the PA program at espn, so it wasn't like you were.

[Seruti]

I was in the circles that would

[Ryan Rosillo]

have Upper west side kicking it, you know, so. Man, bleachers. This guy wouldn't leave me alone anyway. Third, check out the area of the bar where you're regular at. Are there other gay bars, coffee shops, other places you might think the LGBTQ people would frequent in the area? If so, then Kyle might be right. There may be a certain group of gay men that have just adopted the bar because they feel comfortable in that area of town. I know that. I've done that with a few places in my neighborhood. This is going to sound a bit like a stereotype here. Well, as long as he's saying it, not us.

[Seruti]

Right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

But the keys to cutting down to some of these interactions are sports and beer. Most gay men are not going to partake in either of these things. My evidence is this. I pull the sports and beer move damn near anywhere I go At a straight sports car. What? At a straight sports bar, I'll be drinking my beer, watching whatever the game is on. Someone starts a conversation, eventually the topic of girlfriends or wives comes up and I throw out, oh, no, I'm gay. And it throws off a lot of people. Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know. Conversely, I've been at gay bars, drinking my beer and wearing a T shirt with a local team's logo on it. Multiple people come up to ask me, do you know what this bar is? When I answer, yes. And then I came here on purpose. Dudes don't know what to do with that either. Oh, like, yeah, no, I am in the right place.

[Seruti]

Getting it from both sides. Yeah, this is not good. I don't like that. For our guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

All this to say, this is probably just going to happen at some level. When it does, just be polite and keep it moving. Sorry for the long winded answer, but hopefully it helped. Love the pod. Keep doing your thing. Well, thank you. All right.

[Seruti]

Yeah, he basically said it could be

[Kyle Ceruti]

any of the things we said. Just to recap, it's like it could totally be what Saruti said or definitely what Kyle said, or it could be something totally different.

[Seruti]

But it feels good to be dilapidated by it. Exactly. Yeah. That's the important part. We're just.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Seruti]

We have no experience. I don't know, but I would say there. There are worse situations, man. You're getting. You're getting attention, you know, nobody's being disrespectful.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Keep it moving.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Except one of those top shelf cocktails, you know, get something out of it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I will have a Cadillac. Where are you with the Bears draft? As he hands the drink.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, nice. Worried about Austin, Rees and free agency. See, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's true or not, but he said it was okay. Removing my best man from the wedding. 6 4, no gym stats, basketball comp. Mike Dunleavy. That's a good one. I recently moved. Removed. I recently removed my best man, let's call him John, from the wedding. Because I couldn't trust how he would behave. Background. John lives in the Midwest. My fiance and I live in the South. John has never met my fiance, but they follow each other on social media. John has an odd social media presence and he recently started posting cuck chairs from hotels he was at on his Instagram story. Can you guys help me with that one?

[Kyle Ceruti]

I do know what you're talking about.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I do know. Is this a thing?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, it's like a circle of the Internet. I don't know. It's like. I don't know if shit posting is the word, but it's just like. It's certainly a thing that I've seen. It's like this one's got a cuckoo desk. It's like right at the end facing the bed.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Like, chair right in the corner of the hotel room facing the bed.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah. And sometimes it's like an actual little desk that you can do work, and that's one of. I've. It's just. It's a strange corner of the Internet that exists. That's all.

[Seruti]

I can saw one recently where there was like a desk in the middle of the room right next to the bed, like looking at the bed and it was like the perfect setup.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Command center, I think.

[Seruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So, yes, I do four hours of coding in here. Yeah. I just wanted for our listeners, some that are around my age or older, just to fully understand, but dudes are posting just random hotel room cuck chairs. Okay.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah. Usually not a dude with a face. You know what I mean? Usually it's one of those accounts that you probably can't attribute to someone

[Seruti]

he's

[Kyle Ceruti]

using the personal for. This is kind of funny.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I understand. There's part of the Internet this pops up and it's an ongoing joke I try to explain to my fiance and she did not find it funny. I asked John about it. He immediately got defensive and said he didn't want to be in the wedding.

[Kyle Ceruti]

That's a reaction by cuck chairs. I don't want to be in your wedding.

[Seruti]

He's choosing cuck chairs over you.

[Kyle Ceruti]

You gotta stand for something or your fault for anything. Isn't that what they say?

[Ryan Rosillo]

The conversation continued and I explained that all the bridesmaids would find it very odd behavior and would be uncomfortable around him. Additionally, my fiance' on social media and John has a public Instagram account. I'm fearful her family would see it and begin to worry what might happen at the wedding and the speeches. Lastly, multiple of my friends have mentioned to my fiance that John is a bit of a wild card and she rightfully was concerned. John also started going off in group messages we were in about the situation. Am I in the wrong for removing John from the wedding?

[Kyle Ceruti]

No way, dude. If you can't just go man to man, it's like, dude, can you please take that down? Just make my life so much easier. And if he doesn't understand that that's not really somebody you can have standing up on Your wedding day, when maybe there actually is going to be something else that you might. If he can't even have your back with this, it's like, listen, we'll just figure this out after the wedding. But I got a lot of shit going on, and if you can't do this thing for me, that would make it so much easier. You're inheriting a whole family, and it's like you're part of what they're inheriting from me. And if this is how you're going to be acting now, you can't even Just take it down for me. You don't even have to mean it. You don't have to mean that you're sorry or whatever, you know, you just, Just take it down for me. And if he can't meet you there,

[Ryan Rosillo]

then, you know, whatever.

[Seruti]

Yeah, like I said, he chose. He chose posting cup chairs on his own personal Instagram account over your friendship. I don't think you should lose an ounce of sleep over this.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He's a content over everything guy.

[Seruti]

Sure, man. All right, then make him a contract, too, that you kicked off the wedding. But, yeah, like, I would be afraid, I don't think. I don't have any, like, wildcard friends like this, but I would, yeah, I would be, like, nervous about what he would say during the speech, too, and that would, like, throw me off for my whole wedding day. So I, I, I think you're good, man. I think, I don't know. What, what do you, what, what's the, how long have they known each other? Like, what is this? Just, like, it's very odd that it was like this was the hill he's going to die on. If it's like a lifelong friend that's going to die on this hill, then that's really kind of sad.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But, yeah, I mean, imagine this guy's ranked pretty high if at one point he was the best man. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know if they just met.

[Seruti]

I feel like everyone's gonna, like, kind of just breathe a sigh of relief, though, when they realize you made the right decision here, which is having him not be in the wedding. So it's not like anyone's gonna be like, I, that too. It's just your conscience, obviously. But he's kind of made the decision for you. He said, I don't want to be in the wedding if I can't post the way I want to post. So that's silly.

[Kyle Ceruti]

And this was this. I mean, I'm sure you're going to Remain friends with Jon as long as you possibly can. But this is also kind of the first step of John's life, looking at you having a new family. And, you know, not to say that this is what it's going to be like in the future, but, like, when your buddy gets married, something changes a little bit. And this is one little tweak he was trying to make. And so there was a lot of pushback for that. So I hope John boy grows up

[Ryan Rosillo]

in the future and I'm sure you

[Kyle Ceruti]

guys will still be friends. But, yeah, this is totally a fine move to me.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, he said he didn't want to be best man. He said he didn't want to be in the wedding. So that's your out. Right? If he still desperately wanted to be the best man, there's part of me that would be like, you guys can't resolve this. Like, you can't figure out. But it is always interesting. And this happens a lot. Like, if the wife doesn't know him, which she doesn't, she only follow. They follow each other on social media. So there's no, like, hey, I went to school with him too. Like, that guy always gets way more grace. You know, the wife's like, hey, I've known him since college. And, like, he's a good guy, but there's some sort of buildup to all of it, right? Like, you're more accepting of this stuff because you know him. So now this guy's kind of a stranger, but he's the best man. And then he's posting these chairs, which again, I think, like, if you were just to say, yeah, that's really weird that he's posting this, but now he's banned from the wedding and, like, everybody's going to turn on him. Or like, the bridesmaids are going to be huddled together at some point at the reception going like, that's the guy that posts the chairs. Because they don't have any experience with him whatsoever. Like, his approval rating is already in

[Kyle Ceruti]

the starts out with one strike.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, right. It's not even. So if you wanted to keep him in the mix, I could almost see part of it of like, hey, this is pretty ridiculous how quickly the tide and momentum has gone against him when no one really even knows him. But that's just what happens in these scenarios. Like, people are whispering about you if you're the best man here before you're even boots on the ground. But if this guy freaked out and was like, I can't believe you're mad. And I Don't want to do it. That's your out. And it's her day anyway. It's not your day if she's on edge about it at all. If you're worried about the parents, you're worried about the speech. If there's other elements of this, as you're saying, with the wild card part of it where they're not doing a great sell job on this guy for you to your wife, just make sure that she doesn't have any anxiety about it. Yeah, I mean, he's already said, I don't want to do it. And if he's going to freak out that much before you're even addressing it with him, then you don't even have to feel bad about it.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, that was my point. It wasn't the fallout of what could happen. It was the fact it was his whole reaction. But also to your friends. You guys are all supposed to be rowing in the same direction here. And if they're dropping little things about John that's making your life harder, maybe try to rein that into. Listen, we're all. We're a united front, buddies.

[Seruti]

That is a good point. I feel like there's. I've had a couple functions recently, family, friend, whatever, related, where it's like, it's. People have made things about them. When it's a dude, it's not about you. Just sit down, shut up, eat your meal, smile, have a couple of beers, and just, like, go home.

[Kyle Ceruti]

We'll live to drink another day.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Come on. Yeah.

[Seruti]

Like, I don't. This isn't like, you're like, the hill that you're going to die on is that you're not going to, like, you don't want to be in your buddy's wedding because of this habit that you have.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's.

[Seruti]

That is objectively kind of strange. You're. You're good, dude.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know, but the idea that,

[Seruti]

like, people just make these things that aren't about them about them blows my mind.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. I don't think there's anything else. Nope.

[Kyle Ceruti]

That's it. Clean conscience. Just make sure you stay friends with

[Ryan Rosillo]

him even though he's not in the wedding. This is from a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I just. Here's what's going to happen. He's going to grow out of it at some point, you would think, and then he's going to come back to you and go, hey, I don't know what was going on back then. Stop doing it.

[Brian Windhorst]

Good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Stop doing it. All right. Contractor forgot tools at my House. What's my obligation? Well, I'm sensitive to this already. No gym stats. Want to get right to it. Sorry for the long email. I think you'll be interested in the extra details. My house had original windows from the 90s and needed almost 30 windows replaced, so quotes were in the range of 50,000.

[Seruti]

I'm right in the middle of that right now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's awesome. Yeah. What's your quote at?

[Seruti]

We had 28 windows, so right around there.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Holy shit.

[Seruti]

The windows themselves are fine. They're just, like, drafty. So in the winter, like, you'll feel breezes and stuff. It's a bummer. Door needs to be replaced. Yep.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Kids, runny noses. It's like It's a Wonderful Life. You're coming home, kid's sick. Just drafty old house.

[Seruti]

Same thing, though. 90s, so just kind of 30 years. It's the life of these things.

[Kyle Ceruti]

The life of a window.

[Brian Windhorst]

Right.

[Kyle Ceruti]

For the most part.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You know, when It's a Wonderful Life, when it came out, people thought it was stupid.

[Kyle Ceruti]

I haven't really thought about watching it.

[Seruti]

I haven't seen Its Wonderful Life since I was 13. Maybe. I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You don't watch it every Christmas. Are you guys from Russia?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Christmas vacation is sort of what I've moved on to. I'll do a Christmas story, Christmas vacation. I'm pretty much tapped out.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Speaking of Russia, finishing up that Reagan book.

[Seruti]

Whoa.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. You have to understand, if you're my age, you were so scared of Russia all the time. Just constant fear. Movies like Red Dawn, Rocky, Top Gun. Yeah.

[Kyle Ceruti]

They were the solid bad guy for a while. Really good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Great messaging there by the U.S. defense. I don't know, Department of Defense, whatever. But also the defense spending spree that we went on because we were just like, we've got to just boss up here. Like Rambo getting ready in the last scene. That's what was going on. Just funding billions and billions of dollars into our defense systems, all because we were so scared of Russia. And there were intelligence people telling everyone. They're actually a fucking mess over there. The stuff is old. Doesn't really work.

[Kyle Ceruti]

The windows are drafty.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. They don't actually want to take over the world. A lot of the guys that are in power are super old. The last guy that was world domination, it was years ago. Nobody listens to him anymore. They're scared to death of the United States because they think Reagan's subliminally saying all these things, that it's actually. He's the warmonger. They're comparing Reagan to Nazi. Some of the Russian intelligence. Because there would be some people whether it was trying to get more spending for defense purposes, which is not exactly a new thing. But if we lived in constant fear, we would keep spending so much on the defense budget, which would obviously benefit a lot of different people with certain interests.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Did you guys watch the Americans? I watched the first episode yesterday. Was that a show you guys watched back in the day?

[Seruti]

I've seen the first season and it was great. And then I.

[Ryan Rosillo]

For one reason, I like that guy.

[Seruti]

I just like, never. Oh, Matthew Reese.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, I like that guy. I'm watching that new thing on Apple right now.

[Seruti]

Love Matthew Reese.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Just looking for more shit. He was great as Perry Mason.

[Seruti]

Welsh guy, I believe, right?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, Welsh actor.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Widow's Bay. We're going to have the creator of the show on.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Dude, I've been in. I've been in. It's funny. It's spooky. It's great.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's awesome. Yeah, I was fired up. I got to. I forget which scene. Well, the scene I was there for, I'm not in it. I went to go watch them film it. But anyway, it just was. It was kind of cool the other day being like, I was that scared of Russia the whole time.

[Seruti]

Well, quick side note. I always thought about this because, remember, I mean, obviously I didn't experience it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Get to the tools, man. Don't worry, we'll get to the tools.

[Seruti]

You learned about, like, the nuclear bomb drills that kids would do in school.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Oh, yeah, my dad loves.

[Seruti]

What is the point of that?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, well, a false insecurity. Nothing.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Maybe. I don't know. Gotta have some sort of protocols.

[Seruti]

Do you? Sounds like a waste of time to me. But, hey, just one guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know, early elementary school, we just thought we were getting bombed all the time. Sucked.

[Seruti]

Did you do that? Because that was in like the 60s, though. I wasn't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, we didn't have that. I don't remember ever doing a drill, but dudes were talking, talking about it all the time. I mean, I've brought this stuff up before, but, like, just the movies and all the topics and every bad guy and it was like, those guys must suck, man. Why do they want to blow us up? And the whole time they were like, our is broken.

[Kyle Ceruti]

They would just get to know us.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Doesn't work. At least based on this book. Maybe there's some counter arguments out there, because there always are. All right, so the big deal here, we went from tools to windows to

[Seruti]

Russia, nuclear Bomb tests, I found a

[Ryan Rosillo]

local company that would do the windows for $37,000. The windows are a quality name brand. But I quickly found out one place where I saved the money, and it was definitely in the finish work. Oh, man. Finish work doesn't keep any secrets. But even with the second guy I brought in to help finish things up and caulk and paint around the edges, I still came out way ahead. All right, so he brought in another guy to do some finished stuff. It also might be worth noting these guys didn't go out of their way to care about anything. Extra windows were installed in the northeast on a 20 degree day. And these guys took out huge double window in my office at 11:59 and split for about an hour from lunch with a 25 square foot hole in the side of my house. Yeah, that sucks. Guys do that. They didn't even blue tarp it for you. The crux of this issue is they forgot some stuff here, including a ten foot ladder and a nice nail gun. They also, I think it's an honest accident. Took my screw gun and left an older one of the same brand in its place. They stored windows and equipment in my garage overnight. So like I said, I think it was an accident. So what's my obligation? Should I reach out and tell them to come pick this stuff up? Do I consider myself ahead here and move on? Does their quality of work matter at all or did I get what I paid for and does it matter that I already have an eight foot ladder? Don't really need a nail gun. That was my first thought, was like, hey, cool nail gun. When are you using it?

[Kyle Ceruti]

I don't.

[Seruti]

I'm gonna push back on that nail gun. I don't have one, but I feel like I'd put it to use, you know?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah, you'd find a reason.

[Seruti]

Same thing with a ladder. Ladder's awesome.

[Kyle Ceruti]

The cardboard on the back of these dresses. You guys need some? I'm not, actually, I'm not. But I agree with his nail gun.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You find a use.

[Seruti]

Right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Just start, you know, some of that wobbly furniture. Just, just, just take a day, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Seruti]

Just shoot a bunch of nails into it. It's easy. I would take the car, I would set aside the most, the best thing that I've ever been gifted to me that you wouldn't think, you know, Power washer. I think I've talked about this before.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Love it.

[Seruti]

I just power wash everything now. It's amazing. Zen dude would have never bought one, but iPhones now. Yeah, yeah, but No, I wouldn't keep it because you're going to get caught. Why? How are they. How are they not going to know that they left this stuff there? Eventually they're going to know, right? Like, what?

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah. If you do this, you're stepping out of line for some guy to randomly send you $600 and then 1,200 or 1800, whatever. Whatever happened to that guy?

[Ryan Rosillo]

If you.

[Kyle Ceruti]

If you use your good karma on this, you know, you're just totally taking yourself out of the running for something that's actually good. And like you said, you don't need it. You're, like trying to, like, I guess I could mental gymnastics my way until. Yeah, they did leave for lunch with a hole in my house for a bit, but it's just like, they didn't leave. And you were like, wow, what a

[Ryan Rosillo]

waste of time and money.

[Kyle Ceruti]

It's just like. Let's just all be on the same social contract here for this one. This is an easy one. You'll feel way better.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm big on the give the guy the tools back thing because I know how much it sucks when you lose something. And then the guy in charge is like, are you serious? Granted, for me it was my dad, which was even worse. Right. You know, but I did work for a framing crew, but they were subs for him. So, you know, I. It just sucks because you're gonna, like. He would always make a point of like, I can't. He would make it even worse for me, you know, because he would make a point of like, I don't want anyone to think I'm being, like, showing him any favoritism whatsoever. So I would be big on giving it back to these guys. And I think you also pointed it out, like, Saruti maybe using the nail gun. I think most people would not. And you'd have to buy all the other stuff to run it too.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Yeah. And these things end a variety of different ways. Like, sometimes they over order a bunch of shit and then all of a sudden the materials they ordered is gone with them. And you're like, wait, wait. I mean, I didn't see. Ordered a bunch of shit I didn't want. I paid for it. And you have it. Like, so there's plenty of ways where shit could just leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. And the fact that it didn't happen here, just keep plowing right ahead. I think that's just. Be a good person. I think this one's easy.

[Seruti]

Another quick side story. My dad had his work van stolen once out of our driveway. And, I mean, they were like, we're to the point where, like, all right, you gotta. What was in there? And he's like, I don't have, like, a list of all this stuff. Like, it's like tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Turns out, two days later, they just found it abandoned, like.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Like, a town over.

[Seruti]

Nothing was taken.

[Kyle Ceruti]

With all the shit. Crazy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Nothing was taken.

[Seruti]

Yep. Nothing was taken. That's why we were like, somebody. The other thing, it was very strange because, like, you'd also have to know the truck was there. Like, was somebody just, like, messing with us? It was very strange.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Was it all keys in the visor thing or they just.

[Seruti]

My dad never locked a car in his life.

[Kyle Ceruti]

He's in the visor, too. Come on.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Come on. I know. I used to. We never locked our cars where I live.

[Kyle Ceruti]

Really?

[Seruti]

I still. My wife always gives me shit because

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm just like, did I get an Alpine yanked? I was like, all right. Those days are over. Yeah, but that was like Martha's Vineyards is. You didn't have to lock anything, and then you had to. Unfortunately. Little slice of innocence fading away. All right, thanks to Tom Kevin, Kyle Ceruti. That'll do it for the show. Please subscribe and check us out on Netflix for every full episode. The Ryan Rosilla show of Arsenal Sports Chee Sam.