← The Ryen Russillo Show
The Ryen Russillo Show
Bruce Feldman’s “Intel Mock Draft,” Plus Tom Haberstroh on NBA Improvements, East Playoff Picture & Philly Losing Embiid Again
02:12:32
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- [00:00]
A
Hey Resilo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. What if your drive was fueled with more like More protection for more time on the road? Shelby Power Nitro plus provides more protection for longer lasting engines, so it helps you keep your engine running like new for whatever drive is ahead. Shelby Power Nitro engine performance that lasts compared to minimum detergent gasoline. With continuous use of Shelby Power Nitro plus and gasoline direct injection engines, effects and benefits may vary. See Shell Us More Protection for more information. The Ryan Rosilla show is presented by DraftKings. We've got some NFL talk with intel from Bruce Feldman who talks to front offices, college coaches and agents. So we'll run through some first round stuff, some trends and also one guy that could get drafted that you may have never even heard of, Tom Haberstro, who is a longtime guy back in the day at espn. We're going to talk about the state of the league as far as star absences. He did a piece on that. It's a pretty damning number. And then we actually do real basketball stuff and talk about teams. And of course I'm going to ask him about Scoot. I could have done an hour on Scoot. We've got recap of my night out on the town where I saw Mulaney perform live and my life has changed and life advice, which is basically one question because I talked about comics the whole time. DraftKings sportsbook and official Sports Betting Carter of the NBA puts you right in the middle of basketball's biggest star driven moments. The moments when the season is on the line, seating is up for grabs, and the stars who want it most take over. Every game matters now. Stars are pushing harder, playing longer, leaving everything on the floor. And with DraftKings, you're ready to move when they do. Bet Player props bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime. Every late season takeover matters and DraftKings sportsbook keeps you connected as the action unfolds. New Sportsbook customers bet just $5, and if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app. Use the Code Ryan so you're ready for the moment. That's Code Ryan. R Y e n turn five bucks into $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins in partnership with DraftKings, the Crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800- GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-SET NEW YORK Call 877-8-HOPE and wire text hope and why connecticut. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas. Wager tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over in most states. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com promos Limited time offering we are weeks away from the NFL draft, and Bruce Feldman is locked in his sixth annual mock draft for the Athletic. It's kind of an intel mock draft with what he's hearing from college coaches about their players, from NFL personnel, people from agents as well. And of course, Bruce big part of the college football coverage for Fox as well. So the premise here I think is pretty straightforward, is, you know, it's not some massive deviation from the other mocks that are out there, but you are as plugged in as anyone. You know, I guess you'd say like all three levels here. Agent, NFL, college. And let's just start with Mendoza, because I think some of the intel you got there was really interesting and I think it's a kind of theme of certain positions for this draft. Is Mendoza, this can't miss prospect, or is he the best quarterback in a terrible quarterback class?
- [03:42]
B
Oh, it's just how you framed it. The latter. He is the best prospect in a terrible quarterback class. And there's some stuff you could like. And the things I think bode well for him the most. And this came up with a couple of defensive coordinators I talked to. And again, the premise for my whole mock draft isn't like, oh, I'm going to try to tell you I have better intel in the front office than some of the, than a lot of the other mock drafts. You see, where I feel like it's a strength is I don't know of anybody else who's spending as much time talking to the actual coaches who scouted these guys and then game plan for them and then knew what they were trying to do to deal with them. Right. That's a lot of the intel that I'm trying to present readers with. And so when it came to Mendoza, it's like, okay, there's no, wow, physical traits here. We're talking about first pick of the draft. There's nothing here in a normal year that says, you know, if he, if Drake May is in this draft, Mendoza's not going first. He's just not. I mean, if, if C.J. straudens is in this draft, he's not going first. If, if, you know, you could go through the list, there's, you know, certainly not of a. He doesn't have the physical.
- [04:55]
A
Jaden, all these guys are going, yeah,
- [04:57]
B
no, I mean, Trevor Lawrence. But the, the best thing about him is the way it was put to me is you can, you can kind of unsettle him, but you will not, you will not get him. He will not melt down. You know, like, and he may make a mistake, but he comes back the next series and it's right back to work. And you saw that time and time again last season where throws a late pick against Iowa. It's tough game. Iowa's good defense, comes right back, leads him on a quick touchdown drive. Next game, they're at, they're at Oregon. Tough place to play. Throws a pick six. You're like, okay, he can melt down here. What, you know, this is a tough place to play at that point. Signetti's team had not won a really huge game at that, at that point at Indiana. But then he leads him on a touchdown drive. They win. They win. Going away. You saw it at Penn State, same thing. Pick, fourth quarter, comes back, leads him on a last second touchdown drive, throws that, you know, the memorable play to Omar Cooper Jr. Into the back of the end zone. So that part, I think the, you know, his poise, his resilience is a big plus for him. You know, he's a decent athlete. He's. He's certainly not Jaden Daniels or what. I don't even think he's Joe Burrow athletically, but he's a, he's a, you know, he can move a little bit. He's big. He's got a good arm. He does not have a great arm. I don't think, you know, he got better as the year went on. I think if you're the Raiders and you really need a quarterback, he's by far the best option in terms of what the boxes he's checking. But again, this is not a very good draft. I feel like there's like three guys I think will be like elite NFL players, but I would be surprised if Mendoza is going to be one of them.
- [06:49]
A
Did you get the sense, you know, it's not like it's the sixth time you've paid attention to the draft, but it's the sixth time that you've done this. Is there a general theme with this draft? Like, are we maybe going to look back at this in a couple years going, man, there were some reaches just based on, you know, whether I go quarterback, whether I go o line, receiver, corner. Like, you start looking at enough mocks and even getting into the second round, you're just kind of like, some of these positions are really, really weak. And I had Nate Tyson kind of going like, you know, if you're taking the fifth best tackle because you need a tackle, then are you already setting yourself up for failure? And even though I felt so strongly about that, and then he makes the point, he's like, look, if you're average at guard and you make it to free agency, that guy's going to get paid way more than you ever want to pay him because they're just not available. So specific to offensive line, you know, you're reaching because your alternative is waiting around to massively overpay somebody that somehow made it to free agency. And the only reason that he made it to free agency is that the team that had him was like, look, he's all right, but we can figure out some other guards. So, you know, o line, I may be convinced, but it's just like if you have a receiver need, if you have a corner need, especially after the first two guys in this draft, I'm just wondering like, if there's a general sense that you get that even as we get closer, which is usually where people get more excited, the people that make these decisions are actually getting less excited about their options.
- [08:15]
B
Yeah, I think the only coach position coaches are probably really giddy about this draft are if you're a safety coach. I think there's. There's four. Four guys who could be day one starters, and that's not a position. I'm not saying there will be four first rounders. I think there'll be three, but I think there's a fourth guy in trade and stukes that a lot of people really, really like and think that those guys could be high, high level players. It's not just Caleb Downs. You know, there's, you know, enough people I talk to in the NFL who think Dylan Thieneman might be as good a player, maybe even a better player. Right. And you have in McNeil Warren from Toledo, you have a guy whose upside is, is sky high. People who faced him were really impressed with his. I mean, he's rangier and bigger than the other two safeties, but he's. He's just raw and still developing. But I. So that position's different, I think, to get back to your align point. And I would agree that it's. It's not great. It's a I think it's a decent group, but I think what factors into it is O line is the biggest development position there is in football. And when you have so much turnover and transition, it's not just guys bouncing around, learning different systems. It's guys being in the same weight training program where they. Where they have a plan and they stick to it. Now you ping pong back to a different, you know, another place, and there's an adjustment phase that goes into it, and I just think that that dilutes the pool. There's some good offensive linemen, but I think there's a bunch of guys who. It's not all the tackles, but I think there's probably three tackles that people look at and go, you know, I think he's really good player. I think he might be better as a guard than a right tackle. He could probably play right tackle, but he's probably better as a guard. And that's the part that I think would scare some folks, especially coming off of last year. I mean, Will Campbell's a top five pick. I still think he's going to be a really good NFL lineman, but I think he was a shaky first year, and he was a guy who went up against a lot better competition than some of these guys did in college.
- [10:29]
A
Well, I have a smile on my face because you mentioned the guard thing. I think there's six tackles that I've read about where the second paragraph's like, you know, and if you have to kick him inside the guard, you're like, hey, this, this might be. This might be a problem. And I think everybody's rankings are all over the place, which tells you there's very little consensus about all these tackles. And, you know, I liked your Caden Proctor, breakdown left tackle for Alabama, because he's enormous. But maybe it was the labor issue that he bounced back from. So credit for him. We're coming back and playing after hurting himself at the very beginning of the year. But, you know, even one of the opposing coaches that went up against him, I thought it was kind of fitting for what I saw years. Like, you look at him, you're like, oh, this guy's huge. And then at the end of the, you're kind of like, all right, you know, our guy won a lot of battles against this dude. And at his size, I mean, it's just telling you that he's. If he's projected to go in the 20s, that he's still very much a project. But O line is different for me now. Like, I'm now on the other side of it where I think if I were. Not that I have to worry about having the option, but I think if you're running a team because of the development that you talked about, like, I might be taking an offensive lineman every year in within the first three rounds, three or four rounds, just going like, let's. We know we're going to miss on some of them, but we can't go to the supermarket for one of these dudes. Like, we do not want to be doing what the Panthers did last year and guaranteeing all sorts of money to a guard where everybody's like giving you a C minus on the grade because you just go like, wow, what are you paying this guy? It's like, no, this is like the winner's curse at this position. Let's get back to some of the intel stuff, though. Give me the Reese vs Bailey breakdown because it does seem to favor like Reese seems to be the consensus guy. Although I have seen Bailey go ahead of him in some mocks.
- [12:11]
B
So, yeah, Bailey was pretty unblockable this year. I mean, they're similar sized guys. I Reese more versatility. I think Reese has even more upside. You're talking about a guy who plays with so much violence with a knockback and he's a guy who whatever Sonny Styles did that wowed people at the combine. Reese pretty much did that too. Right? Like, Reese is of that caliber and a much more impressive player on the film. You know, I would say I'll go back a little bit on this. So Freaks List comes out in early August and I have some, you know, obviously really good sources inside Ohio State that I trust and everything. And James Laurinitis, who I used to work with at Fox and you know, think really highly of, he's the linebacker coach at Ohio State. He was like, yeah, I think you're going to, I think you're going to regret not having Arvl Reese on there. You know, and, you know, we talked a little bit. I totally, you know, James would know better than me now, I would think, you know, the strength coach Mickey Murati is my guy on, on all things like that and everything. But as we watched it, I don't know, it was like two or three weeks into this season and one of the Big Ten coaches was like, hey, Arval Reese is the best player on that defense. He's better than Caleb Downs. And it was the first time I had started hearing that. And then you start to Dane Brugler, who does a great job with, with the draft for the athletic I want to say within the same week, you know, we were talking about the same thing when it came to Arvell Reese and just, I think he will be the biggest star in this draft. You know, now I've talked to some NFL coaches in the last couple of weeks. These are D line guys who are like, I think you just got to leave him as an edge guy and not mess with him and try to say, hey, we saw what the Cowboys did with Michael Parsons and we think he could be that. But I think he, I think Bailey is a legit top five guy. To me, Bailey is better than Abdul Carter, who went three to the Giants last year. I don't think Carter's a bad player at all. I think he's a legit top 10 guy. But I think in a bad draft, I think there's a couple of guys who are legit top five picks. I think Arvell Reese is one of the, I think David Bailey's another. And I think, you know, Jeremiah Love, the running back from Notre Dame, is better than what went in the top five last year. You know, in terms of Ashton Genty. And I know you don't want to take a running back that high, but I could see it with love. I think he's just a better all around back. He's more explosive. But on the, on the Reese part of it, I think he's going to be an elite player in the NFL. I just think he's just a little twitchier than Bailey and just can do a little more and Shoney can do a little more.
- [14:56]
A
You have Love going forward to the Titans, which is again, high for the position, high even for the Mocks. Even though I think there's more and more people that I respect just going like, look, this is the actual best player in this entire draft. Can you share with us the anecdote that you have on him from even the Notre Dame coaches talking about him at receiver?
- [15:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, they were telling me he could be a receiver right now. He is that polished as a route runner. You know, when I was at the combine, Ryan, coaches I talked to were like, he is by far the best pass protector here, you know, and it's funny because Kyron Williams, you know, really solid player for, you know, out in Los Angeles now, he's been a good player. He was a terrific guy all around back. Really well coached, really well developed. I mean, there's different, you know, there's different guys who, who've coached. They had three different running back coaches over the last five or six years. All good one's now the head coach in the Mac. The other one is now the head, the running back coach at Oklahoma and was the Raiders running back coach last year. And the other one J1sider came from Penn State and he's had really good back. So they've had, you know, different coaching but I think those guys are, are really well schooled on what to do. But he's not just really good in those things. He's also the most explosive runner in terms of like I had coaches were like, I know I got a 10,5 guy out there and Love's running away from, he can't catch him, you know and you see there's times where he, you know, if they're all, if there's a knock on him. One guy was like, yeah, he tends to jump and try to hurdle guys a little too much. It's almost like he wants the spectacular. But you'll see spectacular three yard runs he makes. You know, again I don't want to compare him to Walter Payton but you know, like Walter Payton was that guy who'd make the spectacular three three yard runs and everything. It was also a great all around running back. And I don't know, I'm just a. To me the only thing that will, that will stop him from being a spectacular NFL player is, is an injury because I just think he's really, really special.
- [17:08]
A
I normally don't say this, but I like it and I'd like it for Tennessee especially if you're going okay. It'd be great because of the investment we put into Cam Ward, last year's number one overall pick. All right, so which tackle do we like? Well, we don't like any of them. Okay, which edge guy do we like? Well, we like the two that just went. Okay, which receiver do we like? Well, these are probably at best B plus prospects. So do we take the guy that's actually considered the best overall player in this draft by many. And you know, there's just moments throughout 25 where I'm like, he's the best player in college football. Like he's not going to win the Heisman because it's just not the way it works anymore. But I thought he was the best player.
- [17:40]
B
Hey, one other.
- [17:42]
A
I don't know how long that list was ahead of him. Go ahead.
- [17:44]
B
Yeah, one other thing on him I went and kind of looked this up because it started to come up a little and you know, he actually had less carries in the last two years than Genty had at Boise State in his last year. Right. And so you're talking about a guy who, thankfully for him, he edgedarrion Price, who's might be the second best running back in this draft as the backup. And so he didn't. You know, it's not like he's. They. They've beaten him to heck. I mean, he is a. Plays a really physical style, but again, I think that also bodes well for him.
- [18:19]
A
So let's get to receiver then, because you have Carl Tate going, I think it's what, 10 or 11 to me.
- [18:30]
B
You know, he's a really good, good receiver. Really, really good. You know, he's got good size, not great size. He's a very good route runner. This came up a little bit. Some of the Big Ten coaches, it was like, well, if he was at Minnesota or if he was at Michigan, are we talking about him the same way? Being that there is such a proof of concept chip for Ohio State receivers now? Because we just saw Jackson, Smith and Jigba went from being a really, really good player at Ohio State to being arguably the best receiver in the NFL. Terry McLaurin got to Washington and played at an elite level. You know, Olave had 100 catches. You just go down the list. Ohio State receivers have such high floors. The. The question mark with him, though, is, you know, he was never really the one. Now, look, we know who the one is at Ohio State, and the one. Yeah. Jeremiah Smith will be the first receiver taken. He might. I don't think he'll be the first player taken because it should be a better quarterback draft, but he's the best receiver, the most talented receiver Ohio State has had in this great run. He's bigger, stronger, he's more explosive than most of these guys. And so there's a reason why Carnell Tate wasn't the one. But, you know, when I talked to some DB coaches, they were like, we didn't feel like we had to roll coverage to him. And even if they didn't have number four, Jeremiah Smith, we still wouldn't have felt like we needed to do it. But he does get behind guys. I think he is a safer pick than Jordan Tyson from Arizona State, who I think is as talented, might be more talented, but Jordan Tyson has had a bunch of injuries. It's not to say he's not because he plays physical, but he's just had a bunch of injuries. And then you have like a wild card guy in Makai Lemon, who was as good a receiver as there was in college football, but he's in the Amon Rob mode where he is small, he's. He looks almost like a running back but he's, you know, he will make some 50, 50 balls and plays bigger than he is. But he's still not, you know, he's not 6:2, you know, 2:10. He's 5:11ish, you know, 195. And I think there's probably some concerns is he going to the dominant player that he was at usc also where you had Lincoln Riley who's really good at play design and kind of getting stuff where he can get his best players featured in a ways that a lot of other guys as play callers
- [20:54]
A
sometimes struggle because it's an intel. I had to ask were you having fun with Dallas trading up to number three three to take David Bailey or were you doing that because of anything else?
- [21:05]
B
No, I think it was like, okay, you have two picks here that they have in the top 20 and it's not a star power draft. You also lost Micah Parsons. You know, does is the, is the math going to work out? I mean one of my colleagues was like, hey, use this, use this draft calculator was a different one that I had used in past years. I don't, you know, it's not. Also some of these things fluctuate on how good the draft is. Like I would argue that the top five, especially if you, whatever you think of Mendoza, just let's say he's the first pick of the draft. And then after that, if you tell me that Arvell Reese, Jeremiah Love and David Bailey are going in the top four, that does measure up because I think Arvell Reese in any year is a top five talent. I think if there's a Jeremiah Love to me is a top five running back. David Billy I think is a top five edge rusher. I don't know if I Sonny Styles, as freaky as he is, I'm not sure if I would think he's in any other Euro top five guy. But if you're the Cowboys and you're Jerry Jones, you're like, hey, what do I need to make this happen to keep the Texas Tech star in the state of Texas? Because I just think he will make a big difference as opposed to, you know, you're taking a 12 and 20, I don't think those picks are going to be, you know, you'll get good players. But I just don't know if there's somebody who we look at and go, oh, that guy's going to be. Could be Micah Parsons special or there's just, to me there's. I don't see it in this draft.
- [22:40]
A
Is there someone outside of this first tier that we're talking about, you know, just to like in conversation where, you know, you're probably pretty specific on some questions and then open ended on purpose on others. Just to kind of. Was there a consensus of like somebody in the late teens, in the 20s, that it feels like, hey, wherever he ends up going, NFL people love this player.
- [22:59]
B
There's a lot of love for Thienaman, the safety from Oregon. I had one guy who said he's the best tackler he's seen coming out of college in years. He's freaky athlete, he can run. He shows up, you know, when one of the coaches I talked to, you know, he just looks at the point of attack, number of plays, the first, one of the first things he looks at. And you could, you know, a lot of guys look in a PFF database just to see what's going to show up in the film. This guy is all over that. And he was also the best player. This may not sound like much because Purdue has been awful at football, but Purdue actually has had a bunch of really good players. They all just transferred out, you know, after a couple years. But he was their best player from the day, day one when he showed up. You know, how high do you take a safety? Mean Caleb Downs will probably go higher than that. Like, safety is such an interesting position because the guy was probably highest on last year at this time. Nikki Manwari did not go in the first round. He tested off the charts like an insane tester. Made a ton of plays at South Carolina. Coaches there raved about how smart he was. Well, you know who figured it out? Mike McDonald was like, Hey, I want that guy to be my wild card. And that guy had a phenomenal rookie year and they won a Super bowl, you know, but safeties are just like, how does it fit? What is he, what do we want to do with them? You know, you see this sometimes with D linemen where like, yeah, Aaron Donald's a Hall of Famer. And you'll hear other guys going, I don't know if we would have fit in our system really. Okay. But that, that's just kind of how like it is. It's just, to me, it's way different than almost anything else. I mean, you know, way more about the NBA draft than me. But I would just think somebody look at and go, ah, you know what I mean? That guy, that Curry guy, he's A great shooter, but I don't know if that fits with what we want to do. Okay, well, you're going to be in the lottery every year because you just spinning your wheels. And I think. I think that's the part that is always interesting because the Ravens seem to, for a long time, figured it out. We're like, hey, those guys are great players. Let's get them in. And we're going to figure out how to make. How to make everything just a little better and how they fit. Because, I mean, whether it's Ray Lewis, whether it's Ed Reed, I mean, those guys were like kind of X factor guys. And if you have somebody like that, again, I would argue Iman Warri was that. And look where he went in the draft. He didn't go in the top 20.
- [25:18]
A
Let's stay on that then. Is there a team. And we can go with a couple of teams here where you feel like they do a better job of prioritizing how the player fits in their system as opposed to just kind of following the board.
- [25:34]
B
I think it's definitely a Ravens thing. You go back. I mean, look, coming out, Kyle Hamilton was really good player at Notre Dame. There were coaches I talked to in the NFL and in college who were like, I don't know if he covers that. Great. It's like, okay. Right. And, you know, but that was. I don't say that was a consensus. That was some feeling about it. He's been a fantastic player for the Ravens. I just go through not to say they don't. They don't miss because there are definitely times where it's like, okay, that Edge Rusher didn't turn out to be as good as, you know, I'm sure they hope.
- [26:05]
C
Yeah.
- [26:06]
A
I mean, edges go ahead. I mean, edge has been lacking. So. Yeah.
- [26:10]
B
And they, you know, they went in on one of my freaks, guys who's like, he's, you know, an okay player. But not that I, I would look at. The Rams have been really, really good at what they've done. Right. You know, you. Whether it's Kyou, you know, Kyron's been a really good running back. You look at what they. Obviously, what they did, getting Puka, where they got him. You look at some of these other guys, Jared Verse, you know, the way
- [26:36]
A
they built that D line, I think is. Is a testament to what they've been doing, too. Yeah. So keep going.
- [26:40]
B
Yeah. I mean. And you know where those also, like, again, I know where some of those guys were drafted, but you look at. You got A Western Michigan guy who went, who started out, you know, in the Mac and then he goes to Florida State and he, you know, he's super disruptive. You get a guy who is an Albany Great Dane inverse, and then he goes Florida State and he blows up. You know, you look at some of the other guys, they've taken in there, they have, they have turned out to be real impact guys. Even after Aaron Donald in that D line. You know, I just think it's like, hey, who do I want to have here and how, how can I showcase him? I think McVay is really good. I mean, I haven't taken Makai Lemon in my mock just because I think he is one of these guys who, who they will figure out a way to. To flourish. Right? Yeah, he's probably, you know, he's not, you know, he's not going to have the measurables of some of the other guys. I mean, look, there's definitely some freaky athletes at receiver who will go second and third round this year who I think are good players. Ted Hurst is a physical freak from, from Georgia State. Did well at the Senior Bowl. You know, Trey, Lance's brother Bryce had put up big numbers at North Dakota State. He's in that category. There's a receiver at Cincinnati who's going to broad jump. You know, broad jumps like 11, 5, and he's 6, 5, 2, 15. There are dudes there, but I think if you're, you're McVeigh, you're going. There's something a little different about the playmaking ability of Makai Lemon. Never mind that, like the kid grew up near here and played in college here. I just think there's something that, like, he fits with what we do. You know, you see it with Robert. You know, Robert woods had a really good career, not just making plays, but how he fit. And I think there are guys like that that they have a good feel for.
- [28:32]
A
Robert woods, one of my favorite college receivers of all time. What else do I want to do here? I think if I asked you like, hey, a player, some people are hot. You know, I'm not trying to dump on any college kids dream here. Is there a consensus first that you felt like teams are, let's be nice, lukewarm on in comparison to where they're projected?
- [28:52]
B
Good question. I think, you know, in the. The one who's all over the board with people and with coaches I talk to is Reuben Bain. Right? Because there's so much chatter about, oh, we've never seen in 20 years a guy in the first round who has arms that are this short. And then I've talked to coaches who face them who are like, you guys are idiots. Don't screw this up. This guy is like, is like a Tasmanian devil in terms of his motor, in terms of his, in terms of his get off and also in terms of his bend. I mean I had a D line coach who was like, look, he's going to have to make some adjustments because the length with offensive tackles, they just going to put their hand out and try to wall you off in the NFL. But, but I said is this bend as good as some of the other guys I've talked to are telling me? He goes, it is. It's freaky because he's this square shouldered guy who does not look like he should be able to bend the way he does. And that and the get and his get off are things that really should be able to help him compensate for the lack of length. You know, I mean if you, if you ask me who were like the five best players in college football last year, Reuben Bain is definitely one of those five. Does he go in the top five with those measurables? Because it's not also like he had short arms and he, and he tested like Miles Garrett or he tested like Montez Sweat. He didn't really test. I mean you saw the drills and you saw what he did he mean he was a monster in the playoffs throughout. I mean he abused Ohio State, he tore up Texas A and M. He got after Indiana, got after Ole Miss. So he shows up, you know, he's, he's one of those that like I think is as polarizing a player as there is probably in the, you know, Mendoza certainly is for different reasons because of, because he's going first and people are like adding into the draft component of it. But I think Bane is polarizing just because of the arm length compared to what people see on film and what people know about.
- [31:03]
A
Give me some names of and I've already seen what you've written and maybe there's more names but there were some second rounders here, maybe even third rounders and they are guys that I like loved on Saturday. Like our Mason Thomas play against Tennessee. I still don't know if Fowler and Herbstream know what happened because it was one of the most incredible. Fumble recovery, mid sack, running back for a touchdown. And everybody's looking around being like did that guy actually just do that? I realize he's undersized. I also feel like a lot of these guys that were super productive just are not measurable guys and that's why we're talking about them. But maybe a few names here where it's like, yeah, he's not going to go in the first round, but there's just so much respect for the production which is, you know, sometimes it's like, hey, how come you didn't draft this guy? Look how good he was on Saturday. And then the teams that whiff on him, it's like, why would you have drafted him? He was 5 11, like what were you thinking?
- [31:52]
B
Yeah, army and Thomas is in that group. One of the D line coaches I spoke to was like, they do so much stuff there that he was like, if I had just seen him settled into maybe, you know, not as diverse of a role, which would sound counterintuitive to me. But he goes, I think he might have been a first round pick. But he was like, he'll be a good second round pick for somebody. And there's a bunch of D linemen who fit in that category of guys where you think, okay, this guy is going to make a lot of plays for people and it'll be a second round pick. Mean look Tyler oh, who is the D line defensive tackle at Texas A and M. There's three guys on that, on that Regis, another defensive tackle and Cassius Howell, who's probably got, was the biggest headliner at A and M. And it was a really good defense. I mean it was the nastiest third down defense in college football. But this is a guy who is, was spent his career at, at Iowa State playing in that 3, 3 stack defense, which is very different from what Mike Elko does. And the guys I talk to in the NFL really, really like him in terms of what they see, how he adjusted and how he plays. And I think there's some, you know, there's enough guys in the, especially SEC guys who feel like almost get lost in the shuffle. Kristen Miller I, one of the guys I talked to was like, oh, he would be a guy I stand on the table for. I think he's a guy who is, it's not a great defensive tackle class. You know, some people will talk themselves into Caleb Banks from Florida, who's this giant of a man. You had Kaden McDonald, who's a nose tackle from Ohio State who may get in the first round. And I think, you know, Peter woods, who was a guy who going into the year I thought might have been a top 10 pick. He's definitely an explosive athlete, but you just wanted to see him make more Plays. Right. And so I think when you get into the. Into that part of the D line group, it's, you know, it's hard for people to sit, to say, all right, I see something here. You know, you look at a guy I know you know a lot about Keldrick. Falk was a huge recruit for Auburn, right? He is. I don't want to say boom or bust, because people at Auburn really liked him. But how did they use him? Well, like, I felt like Auburn was really spinning its wheels for a while, including under Hugh Freeze. And there's people who faced him were like, yeah, you know, I wanted to see more from him. You know, the. The flip side with him is he won't turn 21 till September. Right. Akeem Mezador is, like, 26 years old, so evaluating those two guys, Mazador was a really good edge rusher opposite Bane. He's. He's very polished, but again, he's 26, whereas Falk, who's a big guy. And I think there's people who look at and go, man, there's a lot we could do with him. It just felt like Auburn underachieved, and it was like, did they use him? You know, did they have a plan for how they wanted to use them? That's where I think it's going to be fascinating. And this is a guy in Fox who ran really well and. And seemed like he was in really good shape for the pro day. Again, coaches like him at Auburn. It's not like people are dinging him or anything, but it's just like, this is another one that fits in the category, like, Boomer Bust.
- [35:14]
A
I wouldn't have known off the top of my head, but I just checked. I think he turned 25. I think that's.
- [35:19]
B
Oh, Mazador.
- [35:21]
A
Yeah. Because I'm like, Mike, I mean, not. I'm not trying to, like, correct you on the show.
- [35:25]
B
I'm glad you did. Yeah, I'm.
- [35:26]
A
I was like, my God, he's 26. But he. He did just turn 25. 25. I like Falk because when it was right and he looked like the best player on the field at Auburn, and I could sit here because I like him and make excuses and go, it's a total disaster down there. It's not what he thought he was signing up for, but at the same time, it's like, okay, so is that a window into where your competitive level is at? Where it's like, hey, the whole season's a mess. This whole thing's stupid because I Mean, look, Auburn's defense was outstanding. I mean there were certain games like this team, if they had anything at quarterback, if they had anything offensively, considering what they thought they were bringing in with Hugh Freeze, it's like they could have made some real noise with an average offense because I think that defense was just filthy and I think he was a big part of that with the size and everything. But you're right, I mean when you read all the stuff and you know, sometimes D lineman can disappear on TV and they're doing their job, but you're just not really locked into it the entire time. I mean, very few people are going to sit there and be like, I think I'm just going to watch the D tackles all day today. But if he's late 20s, I think I'd be excited about him.
- [36:35]
B
I bet he'll be gone before then. I bet he'll be gone before then.
- [36:39]
A
He's just too big and the good plays are too outstanding to be putting him in the class with some of these other second rounders. Okay, let's talk about what round this guy's going in. Last thought here. You are the king of the freaks. As we know the freak list, which we've referenced here multiple times and it's awesome. And by the way, the hit rate on it is incredible. Like a lot of the names that we talk about in the NFL, it's like, oh yeah, Bruce had that guy like Jared versus a perfect example. You were the first dude that put Jared verse on my radar because you're like, this guy is the real deal. Like they've got him down there in Tallahassee, they grab him from Albany. Like he is, he's going to be that special. And he was and he continues to be. So, so ur Bernard out of Nigeria. What are we talking about here?
- [37:22]
B
So as we're taping this, I think it was a week ago, I got a text from a trainer I know who has a lot of freak dudes. Had a bunch of them this year on the combine. Like guys who are like. He told me this guy's gonna do this in the Indy. And I was like, huh? And those guys did everything he said. So he goes, you gotta, you gotta do something on this guy. I've never seen anything like him. And so when I talk to people who are there, you know, they're sending me video of them, I'll be honest. Like so. And then I, the next day I talked to Ur on the phone. He was raised in a, playing some basketball small village in Nigeria. Eventually got seen. You ought to play football. When I posted the. The picture because the first thing that went up was the picture of him doing the. Doing a vertical jump. I think people looked at it because his shirt went up and people like, oh, he's got like abs. He. There's no way he's 306 pounds. They thought he was like what I thought looking at him, he looks like he's like 65240. Not almost 6, 5 3. It's almost 310, right? But what doesn't do justice? And I sent our friend Daniel Jeremiah. Like it's a small video from the hbc, HBCU showcase that they put on the NFL put on at where the commanders train in their bubble last. Last week was him just kind of walking around in between drills. And you'd see like, nobody has calves like this guy. Like the, the muscular proportion of him was just ridiculous. Right? He looked like something you would create on the video game, right? Or as one of the guys who was there was like, he looks like somebody Marvel created now when you watch him. There's another really good player, a really interesting athlete, I should say, I don't want to say really good player. There's another really intriguing athlete, a super explosive athlete who's from Kenya, who's an edge rusher, who's 60 pounds lighter. They sent me and McShay saw the story and he was like, I need to get tape of this. I was like, let me do school drop off, Todd. I will send you what I got. And so the first one I posted was of this guy doing a bag drill. And the other guy is impressive. You know, he's from, like I said, he's from kenya. He's almost 6 5, 2, 45. He broad jumped like 113 vertical jumped, you know, over 40 inches. And he, you know, he's not just twitchy. Like you can see some bend. And he doesn't look so stiff when you watch who are. When you watch him run the 40, it takes him a second to get rolling. When you watch him do like he pops straight up when he does some of these drills because it's all still new to him. You know, he does look kind of stiff. And he doesn't look like he's a smooth athlete when he's changing direction. And so that shows up in the video, I was told by one of the people at the NFL. So he both, you know, he will be one of, I think three international players. They're bringing a part of the IPP program that's the developmental program that Jordan Bilatera, you know, the great offensive lineman for the Eagles came from that he will be at the draft in Pittsburgh, all three of these guys and they think he will be a day three pick. I maybe in the seventh round, maybe in the sixth round. I think he's, he is a long range play now if you ask me right now, where is he going to make the biggest impact? I think he may end up in the WWE someday because you look at him and like that's what to me he looks like. You know, he's also got big personality which you kind of see in the workout stuff. And that's what Jordan Llewellyn, who is the. Allen is the trainer, combine trainer who was like, he's great kid, he's fun to be around. Everybody loves being around. You could see his energy and I saw from some of the video people sent me, you could see he kind of was like the charismatic leader to a lot of the guys in his position group. And that part would certainly, I would think translate to the WWE side. And obviously there's a lot of other things that go into it that you know, with, with that. But I could see him, I'm sure somebody will take him at some point and try to develop him. We'll see. Because you just don't see guys who are well over, you know, over 300 pounds who broad jump almost 11ft and vertical jump 40 inches right now. There's a lot of other stuff that you have to do beyond that to be a really competent NFL player. And he's only been, you know, working with the D line coach for, I don't know, a couple of months. And so it is a big crash course. You know, I had one GM at a big program in college football after the story went up, he was like, he needs to go to college. He'd be better off there. And I'm sure this school would have paid him, you know, well into the six figures to try to develop him because I can't imagine you would get much out of him on the field in the first year, even in a college program just because he is so raw and there's so much stuff he would need to learn physically, much less all the stuff X and O's and what people are going to try to do scheme wise if you're a defensive tackle against you.
- [42:34]
A
So do you think he gets drafted?
- [42:36]
B
I think somebody will take him in the seventh round just because the, the tools are so. Just to be that big and that explosive. I think he will. I think both those guys will get drafted. I think that, I think the edge rusher will probably get. The other thing interesting thing about the edge rusher is he wanted to walk on at Arizona State. I think he was a student there and they turned him down. I have not had a chance to ask Kenny Dillingham, but I heard that story from multiple people. It surprises me a little bit. But you know, like that guy I think also is probably more, you know, has it more ready to kind of is a little more worldly. Spent more time in the United States. You know, a couple of weeks before this I did another story that felt a little similar to it where it was an offensive lineman who grew up in Dublin, who grew up in Ireland. And just after a three second video of him doing a one on one pass pass protecting drill went online. All these coaches, including Mario Cristobal, who was the first one to offer, this guy just went crazy about him. Nef Giwa Neff though, you know, he grew up, you know, in Ireland. He's like, I talked to him for 30 minutes. He was a fun guy to talk to. He's very like, you know, he's 20 years old. He signed with South Carolina and you know, again, I just think the language part factors into the trend, you know, into the transition.
- [44:04]
A
And a big Irish guy.
- [44:06]
B
Well, no, the language part for him is much bodes well. I'm saying. No, all right, like, all right, like, like Neff's easier to have a conversation with than a lot, you know, than the guys I do the podcast with, you know, like so, you know, you're
- [44:23]
A
saying Neff has more personality than Stuart Mandel. That's you taking shots at Stu.
- [44:28]
B
That's, I think even Stu acknowledge if he talked to Neff. Yeah, Neff's probably, probably a little more, A little more, A little more of a better hang than me.
- [44:36]
C
So.
- [44:38]
B
But, but again with ur, it's, you know, it's a big adjustment from small village, you know, in Nigeria to all of a sudden now everybody's throwing things at him a million miles an hour. You know, you're in the NFL. I mean, I get it. They're going to, you know, you're going to be on a practice squad and they're going to try to figure out what can, how can he help us. My guess is the guy who's now, whatever he is, six, four and a half, 306 at that combine at some point will be six, four and a half, 325, 330. Because you see certain guys like this. There's a guy on the Raven staff, CJ Okoye, another freaky athlete. I think he's like 350 pounds now, right? And you know, probably put on 50 pounds since he's gotten into this, you know, development program. And I think that's the part where, you know, the, the hope is you find another diamond in a rough like Malata. The reality is, can you get a guy who's even a rotational player in three years? Because if it's a seventh round pick, you know, you sometimes those guys don't even make your roster.
- [45:41]
A
You can check out Bruce's Mock, his sixth annual mock, including intelligence from around the football world up on the Athletic. And of course, you'll see him as part of Fox's college football coverage throughout the regular season. And we'll check in with him again soon because he always hangs out with us. Thanks, man.
- [45:57]
B
Thanks, Ryan.
- [45:59]
A
Boost your credit instantly with Experian Boost Experian Boost is completely free and can instantly raise your credit scores. Add every day on time payments like phone, utilities and even rent payments to your Experian credit file so your positive history can count. It's fast, secure and free and built for people whose credit doesn't tell the whole story. See results quickly. Many customers get instant score uplift. Look, if you're sitting there going, they can't help me. Well, you know what helps? Addressing it. Addressing the problem. So even if it doesn't mean you're going to get a sick car in a month, you're at least one month closer to when you fix all this stuff that's been just haunting your days because you don't want to fix it. You're going to need help and Experian is going to hold your hand. Download the app and get started for free. Results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions are eligible. Savings not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details. If you find yourself watching a Portland Trailblazers game as I have been, we'll do a little Portland specific stuff at the end here. You may have noticed Tom Haberstrough, who is one of my former colleagues at espn. Also Nasty handles back in the day for Staples and shout out to Staples and all my Staples friends and of course Tom the finder on Substack. So man, good to catch up. You're a local but also sort of a national guy. I love what you guys do on the Trailblazers broadcast and use your curious knowledge at times throughout and just entertaining and Educating us. So thanks for stopping by, man.
- [47:41]
D
Yeah, glad to be here. Shout out to Staples. Go Wreckers. I actually had Donovan Clingan on Yahoo. Sports. We had KOC earlier today and Donovan Klingan is coming off awesome, awesome season. He's leading the league in offensive rebounds, leading the league in shots, defending around the rim. And I made this mistake of being like, oh, yeah, you played. You won a state championship in Connecticut. So I played. I played hoops at Staples and played basketball back in the day. Lost in the state champion state playoffs to hard hitting New Britain in Connecticut. He goes, oh, yeah, what year? I was like, 2004. Yeah, 2004. He goes, oh, that was the year I was born. I was like, oh, that. I felt like such a boomer. I was like, yeah, that was the moment where I felt extremely old. And I probably shouldn't do that again with Donovan Klingon, who's 22 years old. Be like, yeah, we used to play hoops together, basically.
- [48:39]
A
No, no, he'll never know what tacos or what is, though. So there you go, man.
- [48:45]
D
Someone told me this is breaking news. Someone told me that there's a place in Sono, a brunch place called Matt or a place called Match that is bringing back tacos or what? Only on the. The Mother's Day brunch menu. They're doing a tacos or what breakfast burrito special because one of the guys in that restaurant used to work at tacos or what? And so they're bringing it back. So, Ryan, I'm telling you, you got to book a flight back to South Norwalk, CT to get yourself your fix.
- [49:15]
A
I'll just let my guys know the next time that they're back home. You had a really interesting piece that I felt. I felt it in my bones about the lack of stars in primetime games. And I've referenced this a couple times now. Not that long ago, it was number one Detroit against number one okc. He was excited, got the notepads ready to go, fresh ink in the pen. And then Detroit decided to play nobody, even though we knew Cade was going to be out of that one. And this is the part of the complaints, like some of the complaints about the NBA, I will defend, I will argue, I think some of them are entirely unfair. But those are those moments where it's like, hey, this is sort of your Sunday Night Football feature. This is supposed to be a big deal. It's one seed versus one seed, and Detroit decides to punt on it. I think strategically, because they didn't want to do anything. And it's, it's really. Unfortunately it's the old Popovich. As great as Popovich is his fuck you to the NBA and their television partners over all those peak spurs years. I just thought like why would you want to do this with what the game has given you? So how bad are the numbers and what are we looking at here? Because this is real, Very real.
- [50:22]
D
And I appreciate you shouting that piece out. Cause it's something. It was a pet project of mine where I was like I gotta just get. Sit down and do it. Just do the research. Which is on national TV games. So that's ESPN, ABC, NBC, Peacock and Amazon Prime. The national TV deal that the channels, the media partners are paying $76 billion to the league for. How often do they get the full complement of stars on those national TV games? So what I did was I looked at Ryan, I looked at games in which there was at least one star player on one team facing a team that had at least one star on the other side. So I'm not counting like Washington or Brooklyn. I guess a better example would be
- [51:07]
A
like what was your qualifier for star? Just so the audience knows.
- [51:10]
D
Yeah, so this is what I'm using is the official designation from the league. So the league and their player participation policy that they implemented a few years ago, they defined a star player, capital S as a player that had been an all star or all NBA in the previous three seasons. Okay, so Jared Allen does not qualify. Lamelo Ball does not qualify. Because if he was an all star four years ago, but not in any of the previous three in the current season, not considered a star player. So under that definition, which you can quibble whether that's a capital star S star or not, but that's pretty strict though.
- [51:46]
A
I mean that's, that's not like hey, one time you were second team all defense.
- [51:51]
D
It's like anytime recently were you considered one of the top 25 players in the league at any point in the last three, three years. So there's a recency to it. There's a star power to it. And it comes out to about 50 players that are star players in the NBA at any given moment. The math was surprising. Is that only in 33% of national TV games do we see the full complemented stars. 33%. So two out of the three times that you tune in with your full ink fresh pad and go watch the stars play on national TV game, two out of the three times you're going to be disappointed. And so that's the big headline stat. And most people. You know what? I think the NBA has a problem with this too. I, I've been in the weeds on the NBA for so many years covering this league that I forget that the average sports fan just assumes that that's load management. Ryan. That they just go, well, yeah, they, they don't care. They don't play. They're just resting for the postseason, all this. And I'm like, no, they're. 95% of these are legit injuries that the teams and. Or the players are like too injured to play, that they don't want to risk an injury exacerbating something that might knock them out for the entire postseason. That's part of it, but they're injured. These are guys who have collapsed lungs or strained MCLs, torn Achilles. And the NBA has this PR problem that they're constantly fighting, that they think that the NBAs are skipping the game, NBA star players are skipping the game, that they're not too injured to play. And so it's one thing for them to miss these games due to injury and it's another to take these games off. And Adam Silver said the other day, and I'm wondering what your thoughts were is he said the 65 game rule is a success because we're not hearing the term load management nearly as much as we used to in the media. And I'm like, well, when guys are missing 40% of their games and national TV games, less than half of them have the guys on the floor, I think it's a problem. And it's a new problem. This didn't happen 10 years ago, but now it's gotten to the point where any fan out there who wants to watch the big game, they're not going to see Steph Curry, they're not going to see Giannis or Wemby. Chances are they're not going to see the full complement of players. And that's a problem.
- [54:12]
A
Before I answer that, are you. You know, and I've had our disagreements about this in the past, but I, I think it's been respectful about, you know, load management fixes. But I. What I'm hearing from you is before I'd answer like Silver being excited about a different description of the same problem. Yeah, I mean, you just getting back to your core thing here, that the season is too long, that they're covering too much space, and that it's not even a front office decision of maintenance here. It's that you cannot keep these people healthy with what you're asking them to do from October until April. And then, you know, forget how unhealthy the league feels right now at the top, like put us down. If you're telling me set the over under two and a half stars to be hurt in the playoffs, I would hammer the over because we're going to lose two at least really special players at some point in the first three rounds.
- [55:07]
D
Yeah. So it's great, great point. I've, I've advocated for a 58 game season. I know that sounds radical, but just one, one game away, one game at home, no back to backs. You're getting rid of that. And you would see, in my opinion, you would see a higher percentage of those games being played by the stars. You have a whole nother separate conversation about the regional sports networks and the local TV deals that are already suffering. But I do think that you would see star players play more if they didn't have those back to backs. And the travel and the game itself is going to be hard to legislate. Maybe Adam Silver has an idea that isn't trimming from 48 minutes to 40 minutes, but the bodies are breaking down and like you said, I'm not willing to do a victory lap because Wemby is going to looks like he's going to make it to the 65 game rule and Nikola Jokic, it looks like he's going to make it to the 65 games. Shay Gildrich Alexander ended up making it. We'll see about SGA's exemption and Luka Donches exemption. But the fact of the matter is back in the 90s, in the 80s they played all star players, averaged 77, 76 games a year. In the 2000s they averaged 74, in the 2000 and tens they averaged 72. And now in the 2000s it's down to 66. And so it's, something's falling, something is changing amongst the anatomy, the biomechanics of the game, what have you. And I'm just worried that we're going to continue doing this 82 games thing and fans are just going to tune out because I don't know how you turn this thing around without making a pretty significant shift like baseball.
- [56:47]
A
Yeah, I know. Cuban recently said, hey, why don't we just go to 40 minutes like international and then that way you're still saving the 82 game inventory because that's really what this is. And you know, there's some things I agree with you on because I just don't know how you could ever watch this game. This version of the space, the amount of ground. I mean, when you look at some of the defensive rotations and what a player is tasked with doing, it's like, hey, we want you to follow this cut down the middle of the paint. But then we also want you to kind of play one versus two in case your original assignment still has the ball. But then if it swings, that also means that you have to close out over here. And it's like you can go an entire game in the 90s watching those, those games. Like, I'll watch them on YouTube, it's like no one ever has to do any of that shit. And you can be the biggest Jordan fan ever. You can be the biggest Pistons fan ever. Like, stop letting your eyes, like, stop ignoring what your eyes are seeing that you can hate today's basketball. You can tell me it's the fucking worst. It's not the same. So, you know, I don't, I'm not opposed to a shorter season. I just think it's pointless to argue about because it's just never going to happen. And I also think there's something to be said if you went to 60 something games, if you went to. I've seen some proposals where it's 70 games, but like the last 12 are kind of the seating thing, so maybe that's more event revenue that you have that feels like you could charge a little bit more to make up for losing the inventory of the 12 games. I think human nature. And again, I don't know if you were agree, disagree with this one, but it would tell me this is the part of the NBA that gets really hard to defend is the culture of the NBA maybe like, hey, I'm just not going to play a ton and I'm going to get away with it because it's just kind of what it is. And if we had 65 games, then guys would be playing like 42.
- [58:35]
D
You think so? I mean, I, I hear, I don't maybe.
- [58:38]
A
I mean, I don't know how I would know. Like, how could you say it definitely wouldn't happen? You know, we don't know that.
- [58:43]
D
No one knows. No one knows. We just make educated guesses. And I think Adam Silver, he has said, well, we went to 72 during the bubble, during the strike or the lockout shortened seasons and the, and the bubble seasons and the COVID shortened seasons and we didn't see a decrease in injuries. And I'm like, that's, that's apples and oranges when we're talking about the COVID issues and Then the condensed seasons that we play, basically a season and a half in the same time span that it takes one season. I think that's also part of this question. This, this problem that I don't think is getting properly addressed is the impact of those condensed seasons on these bodies and having, having to smash all of those seasons together in a short amount of time and the long term toll that it took on the players. So I don't know, I don't know that this is an easy like fix. I don't think it's an easy fix. I'm with you. I don't know what would happen if we went from 82 games to 60 games, for example, but I think we should get rid of back to backs. Just plain straight up get rid of back to backs. And I think the products would be better. The games would feel bigger. We would actually be able to talk about matchups. Like actually, hey, the Lakers are playing the warriors tonight. Here's, here's the matchups that we need to watch. And we have this sort of like breathing and this sort of analysis of these games that we can actually talk about. The basketball and like football is awesome. The football coverage is awesome because for three days straight, four days straight, we're talking about how is this corner going to defend this action, this play action system that this, this team has. We could talk about the actual games. Whereas now I feel like the games happen so quickly and there's so much gray in the, in the games because the star players aren't playing that it's hard to actually talk about the games because they happen so quickly. Do you feel the same way that the conversations have become almost dumber? Because it's hard for me to say this team's better than this team when I have to do the math of, wait, in the last game, Anthony Davis didn't play. So like, how am I, how am I supposed to deal with that? You know, yes, they're three and one against this team, but they didn't play the stars. It's like a totally different math now that feels like all the analysts in the game are handicapped by the.
- [61:00]
A
Once I get the playoffs. I completely agree on that part. I mean, I think there's like two things there. What do I prefer? Yeah, like the first thing, once we have the seating ready to go, is I look at the season series. The second thing I do is I go through every sortable stat and figure out who played and who didn't because there's be like, hey, they're three and one against them be like, oh, did you realize like all these guys are missing? And trust me, if you ever tweet that out, the fan base is on it within 10 seconds. Being like, oh, that was a back to back and it was a four on the west coast trip. It's like, you know, that's the part of it to try. It's like no one's ever.
- [61:30]
D
That's what I'm saying.
- [61:31]
A
Okay, all right. And like here's my thing though. Like with all the load management prioritizing, you know, when, when it was like really big and I would talk to front offices and like it still feels rather inconclusive. So when teams were actually trying to follow some sort of like cautionary medical program here, I don't know that we ever got the results though, that we had healthier players. And based on the amount of time that guys have missed, even in the 82 game thing, which we probably just need to stick to here. Once you started prioritizing all this stuff, I don't know that we were rewarded with the health that we all thought we were going to get and we didn't get it in the playoffs as well.
- [62:11]
D
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's tough there. You can look at it in two ways. One, they rested Joel Embiid and it didn't work out because he's missed so many playoff games. Or Kawhi Leonard or you can say, I don't know, Joel Embiid looks really great right now and if they didn't load manage him, maybe he's out of the league and he's done and his career's over. And Kawhi Leonard, his progressive deteriorating knee issues, he's, he's not playing right now at an all NBA level. So I'm kind of like, I'm torn on the evidence that says, hey, they've been load managing quote unquote and be more cautionary with these injuries and yet Achilles tears are happening. And you know, I did hear back from the league office after that article last week and their point was, yep, star players for sure. The, your math is your data and your research is accurate. But what we're seeing is these guys are missing more games because they're longer term injuries, that they're missing games with multi game absences, stretches, longer stretches of absences. And they're not like the one game off play, one game off play. And I'm like, yeah, I know that's the problem. The injuries that we're seeing, they're sidelining guys a Lot longer than they used to. And so it either is the teams are too cautious or their bodies are more severely injured, which is not what you want either. So I think it's. I don't want to get bogged down in the medical side of this, but I do. When I talk to executives and medical teams, Ryan, it's like they're terrified of an Achilles tear. They're terrified of an Achilles tear that we saw with Halliburton, Giannis. I mean, not Giannis, Dame, Jason Tatum and then Kyrie, Irving, Torres, acl, all these owners and front offices and teams and coaches. They're terrified of these calf issues and the calf strains from becoming an Achilles tear, even though historically they haven't been linked. Like Tyrese Halliburton, Kevin Durant were the two out of hundreds of castranes that did not end up in Achilles tear. I think everyone ultimately is not sure of where to go from here, but they know that this is not the answer. Like, this 33% of star of national TV games only having star players playing them is not the answer.
- [64:37]
A
No, it's not. Nick can't be defended. But I, I'm with you. I don't. I know everybody wants a shorter season. I've already moved. Move past, like, okay, it's not going to happen. What's your next idea? You know, and. But then it's like, to your point, if this is something that keeps happening over multiple years with all these stars missing this, and we both agree that the game is so much more stressful on how much ground you're covering. And let's face it too, like, we have more athletes on the floor. We don't have the big lumbering guy that knows to kind of take it easy. Like, there's closeouts. Like, I'm not going to go do that. I'm seven feet tall and not in great shape. I'm not going to do that. Instead, you have these six, seven, six, eight guys flying around and doing all these different things. I understand your point. Like, hey, all right, so fine, long term, you don't want to do 82 games, but what if your long term is repeating this trend that we're seeing with missing stars? So then how valuable is the 82 game package? But it also can feel a little doomsdayish right now because we're talking about the worst four weeks of the NBA season. Going up against the inner city, double A tournament, going up against the Masters, the buzz from opening day of baseball. And it's like, you know, we could have A Western Conference finals here where we were sitting there worried about the NBA and where it stood. And then we have an all time series between two terrific teams which in that moment, like I'll tell you this, nobody's complaining about the Big Ten regular season in college basketball nationally because no one's fucking watching it. So I mean other than obviously Big Ten fans and anyone associated with, you know, college basketball that so the NBA. This is where I think it gets a little unfair is that we're in this window of, yeah, tanking, tough lineup luck. But the product is not late March, April, it is middle of April on and maybe all this hand wringing all of over all of this stuff won't necessarily matter. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants, all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. Whatever you're looking for. Fast Growing Trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle. You don't need a big yard or a lot of space. You can grow lemon. Hey, I just got a lemon tree and I watered it and I put it outside of my little patio. I don't have a ton of space, but this is going to be a lemon factory over here pretty soon. You can grow avocado, olive, fig trees indoors, all with a wide variety of houseplants, all grown with care and hand selected to thrive in your home. Right now they have great deals on spring planting essentials, up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code Ryan at checkout. That's an additional 20% off. Better plants and better growing@fastgrowingtrees.com using the code Ryan R Y E n at checkout fastgrowingtrees.com code Ryan. Now's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use Ryan to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply. Let's get into some basketball because I know you could probably do more. I could probably do a lot more here. But. But let's. I want to talk about Charlotte because I know you've touched on them recently. Just to run through some numbers here. Since the All Star break, Net rating San Antonio number one at 13.5, plus 13.5. Number two is OKC at plus 13.1. Those two teams since the all star break 23 and three, OKC's 22 and two. Charlotte, your Hornets number three in net rating since the all star break, plus 12.2. Slightly different record in that one where they're, I think, what are they, 19
- [68:29]
B
and 5 or 17 and 8?
- [68:32]
A
I'll have to look this up again because I wrote down two different numbers. Let me throw a theory at you, Charlotte, in this stretch and I'll get that number right here. When you, once you start talking, has three wins against top six teams. So it's a lot of wins in there, but only three wins against top six. I think Boston exposed a little something with matchups. Maybe that's a Boston thing. I also wonder if newer, younger teams where it's exciting, we're getting the max version of them where the playoffs remind us many times of some teams. It's like, oh, you wanted to write off the Nuggets, like, you know that their gear is different because they've done this and they've been doing it for years and they'll be fine. You know, OKC three years ago was a one seed tied with record wise with Denver, 57 wins. They were like a plus seven or eight net rating. And yet I'm like, how do they lose to Dallas? So it's not like the all time profile that OKC has had the last couple seasons here, but was that sort of the new first installment where the regular season was a lot of health and that they were the peak version of themselves and then once they get to the playoffs they're like, we've already been playing at this Top Gear. So to bring it back to Charlotte and maybe other examples, do you find yourself trying to look for, like, am I seeing the best version of this team from October until April where there's a reminder that the opponent could very well. Because this profile looks like a Eastern Conference finals team here. The seating is going to be brutal for them, so it's a lot of work for them to do. But when I watch them, as much as I love it, I'm like, am I going to get tricked if I were to pick them to do damage in the east by the fact that they're playing at a much higher level that's closer to their ceiling than what some of those other teams in front of them may be doing?
- [70:13]
D
Yeah. So I looked at this in that stretch sec. I looked at this for the big number pie that we do every, every Wednesday at Yahoo. Where I was like, I don't know what to do with this Hornets team. Like since February, since the I looked at the first half of the season, second half of the season. So games one through 41 in one segment, games 42 plus in the second segment. They've had the third biggest jump in net rating from the first half of the season to the second half of the season since 2002.
- [70:44]
A
That makes sense. It's a mass. Yeah, I mean that's a great number. Good stuff. Keep going.
- [70:48]
D
It's the biggest in season improvement, I think. 20, 20, 22, Boston. So remember that EMA's first season and then they just went on this huge tear with Rob Williams at the second half. There was Stan Van Gundy's first season in Miami where Karam Butler took off and it was Miami Heat after Pat Riley left. They started out really bad and then they just went rough shot over the rest of the league. And then it's this Charlotte Hornets team and I don't know what to make of it because they might not even make it into the fricking playoffs. I mean they're, they're in this seeding thing with the play in tournament and they haven't had success with the Bella ball in the play in tournament. They've lost twice in the play in. And I'm like, what do we make of the. The most improved team that they were basically a zero net rating. The point differential was basically zero for 41 games.
- [71:40]
A
And they'd argue it's injuries. It's a couple injuries early on. I mean to me it's like, okay, fine, but you didn't get prime Shaq back. Go ahead. Yeah.
- [71:48]
D
And then the second half, the Hornets are plus 10 right there with the spurs and OKC in net rating since that stretch, like the second half of the year. I'm not talking post all star, I'm talking like game 42 on. They've beaten OKC, Denver, Lakers, Houston, Minnesota, Phoenix, Boston, New York, Atlanta twice, Philly twice, Philly and Orlando twice. And I was ready to do this pod and I was like, this is going to be fucking great. And then they lost to the Celtics pretty badly the other night and I was like, all right, well this is another piece of this. We don't really know how good this team is because is Kobe right? Really? Kobe White really that big of a difference that he didn't play in that game on Tuesday night and they couldn't score in the second unit after LaMelo was unconscious. But the second piece of this, Ryan, is I looked at historically, if you were to predict, if you were to look at the first 41 games and the second 41 games or the entire season, which is the better predictor for playoff success, right? Is it the most recent? Is it the first half when there's no tanking teams or very little tanking and you're not doing this backwash of the NBA schedule and piling up wins in the second half? Or is it we should just be looking at the all 82 games and just being like, hey, this is a good team plus four net rating, like a 44 win team. That's how we should be grading them. Turns out it's that last one that the most predictive measure of how you're going to do in the postseason is not what you did for me lately. It's not what you did for me six months ago in the beginning half of the season. It's actually the full season is the strongest predictor of how good of a team is and how well they'll do in the playoffs. So with that in mind, Ryan, I think we measure the Charlotte Hornets potential as a team that is solid, really good in the Eastern Conference, but not, not top four. Maybe like a six seed, seven seed, eight seed. But I wouldn't say that the Charlotte Hornets are a lock to upset either Detroit or Boston in the first round. I would say they have potential. They can get hot for four nights in a in a series. But I don't think they're the Indiana Pacers this year. I don't think they're going to be the 2.0 Indiana Pacers that they're going to make a run to the finals simply because the Pacers got in a run halfway through the season last year. I think the Charlotte Hornets are younger, they're less experienced, and I just don't think we've seen it as much as the Indiana Pacers did with Hallie and the run that they made last year.
- [74:18]
A
Yeah, the Pacers point is a great one because it was a reminder of like this cutoff point where you go, you have to look at this team entirely different. Like a team that we always went like, yeah, they're kind of fun but they cannot defend anyone. And you go, wait a minute, they figured out the defensive stuff, but the beginning of the season, still dragging that number down to an average number. And I struggle with it. Like I'll sort it through the all 82 because I think sometimes this feels incredibly fake. Like you have some of these scores some nights. Like I don't know if you saw, I'm sure you did. I think you retweeted it, which may have been how I saw it, but it was, let me see here. I'm going to have to look it up.
- [74:54]
D
Is this the Tim Reynolds tweet?
- [74:55]
A
Yeah, if you have it up before I get to it, feel free.
- [74:58]
D
But yeah, Tim Reynolds, who's the AP writer, national AP writer on the NBA based in Miami. We used to work together down there in Miami. He said that in 82 years of the NBA or 80 plus years in the NBA, there have been two nights in which the, the average margin in the NBA was what, 24 plus with at least nine games having 24 point margins or something like that. And the two nights in 82, 82 year history were last Sunday and then like last Tuesday. So it's like two nights, 24 points. Yeah.
- [75:43]
A
least something that never happened happened like within a couple days. So, you know, there are definitely teams like I even think, let's go back to was it the 18 Sixers team that ended up getting the 50 wins with a really young Simmons and Embiid? And you're like, okay, this team is like cooking. They were.500 through most of the season. And then they put together this thing. It's like they have figured it out. They are terrific. And it's like, no, they, everybody they played was tanking. They were running away from. I mean, I'm sure there's like one pretty good win in there because they ended an incredibly hot run here. By the way, Charlotte, 17 and 8, 19 and 5 is Atlanta, which I actually want to talk about because with Charlotte. And maybe we're being a little too nice here because you're saying like, hey, there's no way you'd ever pick them to be a lock upset. But this, this profile is so impressive that you would go, okay, wait a minute against one of these Eastern Conference teams. Like, I'm still not that sure about watching Boston go, hey, we can pick on Mellow. And Mello was terrific. He didn't score in the fourth quarter, I don't think. I mean, look, Melo for the most part is at a new level. I, I do worry if there's a little hardened pace thing with him in the playoffs where it's like, hey, some of this loose shit where you kind of take forever to get into. Like, you may have to crank up the intensity and the decisiveness, you know, like, you might have to be like a little bit more into this stuff. But then, you know, look, there's so many mellow shots throughout an entire night. I'm like, he's going to take that and then it goes in. So, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah, right. I thought that they were like, hey, if Knipple's in, we're hunting Knipple. If Miller's in, we will hunt him. We'll go after Milo, we'll bring up Diabody like Will. There are so many guys that we like with our matchup because they can't put. They don't even want to put Knipple on Brown or Tatum. And then they were. They were scrambling a bit. Then they even benched Miller for a little bit defensively and went with a Grant Kalkbrenner lineup because then they were worried. It just felt like there was a lot of guys to hunt. So, like, this profile is awesome. I watched what I thought was a real game between Boston and Charlotte, looking at specific matchups, and I'm like, Boston will kill this team if they were to play in the first round. I don't know if you agree or disagree, but.
- [78:01]
D
But the Hornets killed him a few
- [78:04]
A
weeks ago, the third game ago, right? So Boston beat them there with now a full light, like Tatum just went full. The full palette of Tatum. I think Jalen missed that game, too. And then, so like, that puts a little bit more into it. But here's. Here's the thing. We actually had a real matchup with Atlanta, Cleveland, which may be the first round matchup. You seem to be very bullish on Cleveland's offense. Whether it's the versatility or the numbers. Make the case.
- [78:33]
D
Yeah, I found that the Cavs made the right move in trading for James Harden because of the uncertainty of Darius Garland. I thought that James Harden would unlock a lot of the Jared Allen downhill vertical spacing that he's helped Zubots and so many others historically. Clint Capella or whoever it is, the big that he's setting screens for and how much gravity that James Harden action creates for guys like Evan Mobley on the weak side, you know, coming in, cutting in for a lobby or Jared Allen. And I found that the upside for this offense is way higher with James Harden than with Darius Garland. If I knew that Darius Garland would be magically healthy and reliable, I would feel a little bit differently. He's been much better for the Clippers and more available for the Clippers than when I wrote that piece for Tom the Finder. But I continue to be disappointed in Evan Mobley. Man, I feel that this guy might not be a 16 win guy,
- [79:37]
B
that
- [79:37]
D
he's just not physical enough to endure the postseason grind. And that's my big worry, is that Even with James Harden, I feel like the ceiling is higher, but I want. I still want to see that next level where Evan Moby just goes through guys and is not afraid of contact and is able to be stronger. And I'm still worried, even though James Harden is more physical, I'm still worried that this team doesn't have that physicality that you need to make that next level, like Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, bring it. Like, they want the physicality. They love getting, you know, mixed up in the. In the postseason. I don't get the sense after watching them play, the Cavs play that they're kind of on that level. And I've. I've. I wrote that a few weeks ago, Ryan, and I'm not as enthused as I was initially. As the James Harden acquisition started off well, but it still comes back to Evan Mobley is kind of the swing piece for this team.
- [80:30]
A
Yeah, I read the piece and, you know, I could just sit here and say, james Harden playoffs, but let's just move past that because everybody's aware of it. Right. I'm with you on Mobley, and I think we've been talking about this now for a couple years where it's pretty simple. It's like, he's a hell of a nice player, but the best I think he's ever looked in the playoffs is when everyone was hurt against the Celtics in 24, and he had the floor to himself. And this gets into a bigger picture thing of, like, is the next move that they finally split up these two bigs and go, hey, this size thing that we thought was going to work just doesn't really work. I mean, to be fair to Cleveland, it's like they're one of these teams that seems a little cursed with all this different kind of stuff. And so moving on from Garland and going, hey, do we want to try to make another run at this? And I mean, they were just so good in the regular season last year. And then it's like, actually, this. This is going to be. Yeah, right. It's going to be really disappointing this time around. There's a version of it with all of their pieces that I really like because they're incredibly deep, too. There's so many players on this Cavs team that I like that I go, okay, if you had to face some sort of lineup with a double big, you've got it. If you want to split them up, you've got it. If you want to run, spam the shit out of pick and roll, which can get a little old in the playoffs with Harden, because I think it's a little bit like that Lamello thing that I'm worried about, where it's like, hey, you got to kind of match the intensity of this thing. You can't play at the same speed, both physically and mentally, that you kind of coast with because you're so smart. It's going to get a little harder here. And it's like Harden's like, what, you know, after. After 10 years of this stuff, and then you have somebody that's like, hey, when we're totally screwed, can you make something out of this? And Mitchell is on a very short list of guys that can create something out of absolutely nothing. You've got the Strew spacing, you have the Wade spacing with his terrific, I think, defensive numbers. And, you know, Tyson maybe isn't a guy you're going to spend a ton of time getting into a playoff rotation, but there's. It feels like there's all these different things that they could throw at you, that they're very malleable depending on the. On the matchup here. But I just don't want to be a Mitchell guy. I don't want to be like a, hey, this guy stinks in the playoffs. Like, he's too small, he's too high volume, he's too low efficiency. And based on the results, I know that that's the more popular angle on him.
- [82:52]
D
I think it's a big, big year. I know that's beating a dead horse, is that they've got a lot of money locked into this team, this core, and Evan Mobley is in that max contract, and if he doesn't deliver in the postseason again, I wonder if they start trying to float him in the Giannis talks and seeing if either of them are willing to play ball on that. And then we're not there yet, right? We'll see what this iteration of this, of this. And they haven't had their health, like you said. There's just been a lot of stuff that have been at their detriment and held them back in the postseason. Injuries to Donovan Mitchell, injuries to Darius Garland, and they haven't been healthy, so. All right, now that they're healthy, let's see how well this team performs in those moments where it's that pick and roll with that high pick and roll with James Harden. He's going to try to get the foul or he's going to kick out and Donovan Mitchell is going to catch that and attack the closeout and make something Happen at the rim or he's going to throw the lob, kick out to Max dress, who's going to have beautiful hair trying to. Trying to hit that, that shot in motion. I love the. I love that he's coming back and he's trying to integrate himself back in the team after the long layoff. I'm. The more that I see Jalen Duran's takeoff and the way that the Pistons play with Alcade Cunningham. I've got Detroit in the same tier as. As Cleveland. I've got Boston a tier above them. I think Boston with Jayson Tatum as well as he's looked, I think they've surpassed Cleveland and Detroit. But I had a little bit of concern about Detroit and their ability to tread water without Cade and what that would look like. I don't have those concerns anymore. So right now in the East, I think Cleveland, for me is in the second tier. And I got Boston in a tear of themselves in the Eastern Conference. And I think they've just. They're so well coached, dude. They're so well coached. It's it. I know people want to put Jalen Brown in the MVP conversation or in that fifth slot there, if Luka makes it. It's a first team, all NBA. I just think everybody on this team is really well positioned to score, to play well. They defend like crazy. And I don't. I don't think that. That Cleveland is on that tier. I just don't.
- [85:07]
A
Yeah, I think it's totally fair. I think this season for Missoula is easily his most impressive season. Not just because you lose Tatum. I mean, he's going to be my vote for coach of the year. I mean, I'll look at it again. I'll ask around a little bit more, but I. Even though he apparently hates the award, I don't want to then not vote for him. And there's always usually, like, a bunch of different candidates. But it's not just what they did without Tatum. It's watching them every night and going, whether it's eight or nine guys playing, it doesn't seem like anyone's ever screwing up. No, they're like a college team that's been around for a couple of years with, like, just a legendary college coach or it's like, okay, you just know that you're like, signing up for something. And I would hope, I would hope there would be a little bit of a pivot after what felt like all their offensive concerns, like, showed themselves against the Knicks. It's like, okay, so you're Going to hunt the one thing and then when it doesn't work, then you just shoot a three. And you know, that's always a little bit in there. But I think that's kind of the math of it where it's like, hey, we're going to take the three that you may not like with 15 seconds left on the shot clock, because that's what we're going to do. And for the most part, I think we've proven the concept works. Give me a little on Atlanta then.
- [86:16]
D
Land is kind of in the same bucket as Charlotte is like, are we, Are we buying this or not? I'm leaning towards yes. I'm. I'm leaning.
- [86:23]
A
I love their five. Yeah, I think their five is really good.
- [86:28]
D
Yeah. Nikhil Alexander Walker has a great case for most improved player. He might win the whole thing. He was really good in Minnesota in his role playing, like, status that he had there as just like a defensive menace who could do some things offensively and get out and transition and score. But he's way more refined than that. Great shooting season from him. I just think I've always been a Kongwu guy. I've always loved him and people thought he was too undersized and I just thought he should be getting those minutes over capella. He's got some stretch to his game. He's got some vertical spacing to his game. Screener got a little touch around the rim, passer. I just love Okongwu's game and I'm glad that they're thriving right now with him at the 5. And CJ still. I think CJ got traded because he was too good in Washington. I think he was too good. Yeah, I think he's good.
- [87:22]
A
You know, I don't know that anybody has thought C.J. mcConnell wasn't good or C.J. mcCollum. It was just that, you know, he. It's an unbelievable thing to have where you go like, oh, wait, this guy can get us out of some trouble here because he's still this good offensively now. I thought it was kind of interesting last night. And by the way, I didn't mention Sam Merrill in the Cleveland attack because I don't need that guy's ego getting any bigger than it already is. That's a joke. They went with Kaminga for 30 minutes last night. He took 20 shots in that game and he was like red hot to start, right? And that also meant that Risa Shea gets a dnp, which I thought. Doris Burke did, like a really good job on the broadcast of, like, Pointing it out because I was kind of looking like right now. Especially when you get one of these rare games where it's a first round matchup and everybody's got their full set of horses here. I'm looking for stuff and then I'm like, oh, my God, Reese's. Shay's not even gonna play in this game. And they only went with eight last night. And Kaminga's getting buckets. And then Mitchell's going, nice, here we go. Like, I'm, I'm like, there's some off ball switching, right? So it wasn't just straight up high ball screen with the center. Okay, now I'm into one side or the other. Although Mitchell turned on the screen as much as probably anybody. And so he gets Kaminga and some switches and it's, you know, work sometimes doesn't. He has an awesome third quarter. And then there's kind of this, like, secondary break thing where Mitchell's coming down and Kaminga's loose and he's going like, I got him. I got him, like waving somebody else off. You're going, dude, he's been hunting you the last fucking three minutes. And so maybe it was the competitiveness in him that he's like, no, I got him. So Mitchell, like, doesn't want to go full transition, brings it back out. He gets the center screen, rejects the screen because he doesn't want to switch off of Kaminga. And I'll give it to Kaminga. Kaminga stayed with him, but Mitchell hits an incredible layup right side. Probably even hooked his arm a little bit there. But, like, that was an important sequence to me because I'm going, if they play each other, look for this. But then for Kaminga to be. Look, you could have said he was too confident. I would guess he just hadn't figured out what was going on. Yeah, it's like, no, he's switching into you every time and now you're waving off anyone else. And then, of course, Mitchell scores.
- [89:39]
D
Yeah, and it's. And it's those moments where you, you start to see why Steve Kerr didn't trust him in big moments defensively, is that he just doesn't have the, the IQ to withstand what it takes to win in. In a deep playoff run. But the athleticism is there. He got off to a great start in Atlanta and people kind of forgot about it for a while. It was just, you know, you kind of. Oh, that's the story is that he got. Steve Kerr was way wrong and the warriors were way wrong on that, on that deal and they got ruined in that deal because he had three games against terrible teams.
- [90:12]
A
And then it worked out great for him. Awesome first impression. People were paying attention, then no one paid attention anymore and didn't see all the other stuff. Yeah.
- [90:20]
D
And now he's eating Zachary Riches minutes, which is what you need to do, I think. I think it's smart by. By Quinn is to try to figure out what you have with Kaminga before the postseason, because one of those guys has played in the postseason before and played deep into the postseason and been in and out of the doghouse with Steve Kerr. Wants to see if. If he can get away with him defensively. And, you know, like, I don't know where you were two years ago on recess, but I remember just being like, I think this is just a French fling, that we were really into French players because of Victor Wembanyama. And I think we went a little overboard with it, is that we want to find the next Wemby. And I felt like Zachary Ricochet, the measurables, the. The video that I watched, it just seemed like he was a role player, that he was like, maybe a ceiling of a three and D guy. And now. I did not foresee this, though, Ryan. Like, I did not see Reese Sachet falling out of the rotation. On a good team. On a good team. Like, I'm not saying it's a bad Hawks team that he's getting buried, but I. I was out on recess as the number one overall pick a couple of years ago when that draft happened. And I wouldn't say I thought. Thought this was going to happen, but this. I was not a recesset guy. I don't know where you were at watching it.
- [91:35]
A
I just kept being like, I can't believe this is going to be the number one pick. But when all the teams are talking about it and you're going, okay, you know, we're all rounding up with any of these prospects, and we know going into that draft, like, people were pointing the 24 draft and being like, this is going to be terrible. I don't do as much work on it as I'd like to, but watching his games, I just go, so they just stick this guy in the corner and he doesn't do anything else. Like, there's no, like, real dynamic on ball stuff. Like, I understand he's really tall and the stroke looks pretty good and he looks pretty athletic. Like, athletic enough. But, like, what. What the hell is going on here? You know, how different is this guy from, like, I think Kelly Oubre had Better on ball stuff certainly coming out,
- [92:22]
D
I was like, he feels like Kelly Oubre where like their moments.
- [92:25]
A
Oh, that was your comp. I didn't even know that.
- [92:27]
D
He's like a. I, I feel like he's super athletic and get him in, in a transition. He can hit some shots. But that's not a number one overall pick. That's a late lottery mid first round guy. And in that year, I guess you can argue that he was a better prospect than Stefan Castle and Donovan Klingon and Reed. I'm always a Reed shepherd guy. So I would have taken him 10 times out of 10 over Reese's Shay. But yeah, I still haven't seen, I didn't see it on draft night in 24 and I still don't see it.
- [92:59]
A
I'll give him this though. There was some aggressiveness from him in his rookie year that I went, oh, okay, wait a minute. Like there is a little bit of edge in here that I'm like, okay, so maybe there is a little bit more competitiveness. Maybe there's some wiring here. Like there were moments last year because you'd just be looking for it and, and hey, like it wasn't like I was screaming going, you can't take them number one. You can't take them number one. I kind of gave up in 24 because I was like, I don't really know what to do. I was a Reed guy. I didn't think Castle would be this. Castle to me is like going to be making all NBA here shortly. Castle is ridiculous and I still think the way he drives on his defender, the defender just doesn't know what to do. Like why is he about to make out with me? Like his chest is right into me and then it's all these arms and elbows and it's just like boom, boom. But it's like Euro step trying to hit you as opposed to Euro step trying to avoid you. And as soon as the defender has no idea what to do with Castle right now and he's using it to his advantage and he's a on top of everything else and his defense, the off ball stuff that he was doing against Jokic in that awesome game last weekend, like he is way what's the assignment Guys in and I'll do it. So he clearly looks like he should have been the number one guy and I think there's probably more people that were more like negative about Saar and who he wasn't than even Risa Shay. So then you're like, okay, well now what am I supposed to do? Because even your guy out there in Portland clinging, who's been terrific, it's like, can you really bring in one of these non stretch, 5, like old school centers? And it's like, yeah, you can. And now he's developing an outside shot that is going to maybe make this guy like a serious weapon here. So let's end here. Oh, wait. We have breaking news. Great. Producing from Ceruti, Joel Embiid has been diagnosed with appendicitis. Will undergo surgery this afternoon in Houston.
- [94:51]
D
No, that can't be real. Really?
- [94:55]
A
Well, yeah. What do you think? It's like a prank show?
- [94:59]
D
Just like it was Bell's palsy two years ago. It's appendicitis. And he's going into surgery today and out indefinitely. Wow. I mean, I'm sorry, Sixers fans. You had Paul George out with a, a suspension for drug use, violation of the anti drug policy. And then you have Embiid finally like back, but then he spars with Daryl Morey and is arguing that he should have been playing. And now it's appendicitis. I don't know, man. I think he's just snake bit. I think it's just every time we feel like, okay, they got Tyrese Maxey back. Oh, they look awesome together. And finally they're healthy and playing together. And Paul George, it's great that he got this suspension because he looks so fresh. He got, he went to the fountain of youth in the last 25 games. This is great. And now we got this other shoe that drops like it does. It never ends with Embiid. It never does. And it's not his fault. Pennicitis is not his fault.
- [96:00]
A
Yeah, this one sucks.
- [96:01]
D
It's another thing, dude.
- [96:02]
A
Yeah, I'm actually glad I didn't say anything critical because now I feel bad, but I didn't say anything critical when we were running through that Sixers part of it. All right, so let's pick the vibes back up here. Let's close on this. Is Scoot going to be good?
- [96:18]
D
Oh, starting Scoot now we've, we've seen this little run here with Scoot Henderson, a lot better shooting, a lot better decision making. He's playing really well with Drew Holiday. Thiago Splitter loves this lineup because he wants multiple guys ball handlers and he loves. Dude, the guy.
- [96:37]
A
This is the Kamara Denny, Drew Scoop. And then depending on the matchup, I mean, it still feels like it's clinging, but we got some Time Lord out there against Denver. And then he went Back to clinging. So that's, that's the closing group, right?
- [96:50]
D
Yeah, it's, it's just depending on the matchup cling and whether he's finishing or, or Rob Williams. So Scoot's been much better. He's been much more decisive. His shot has looked better. Is he, is he ready to take over and be the number one point guard for this franchise? I don't think quite yet with Drew Holiday as good as he still is and with Dame Lillard coming back, but man, he's been a lot sharper. And the fouls, the, the kind of ticky tack fouls that are maddening for a coach where he just gets a little emotional during a game. He throws a turnover, a bad pass and then he presses up on a guy and just fouls him in the backcourt for no reason. He's been limiting that and so it's, it's been great to see. I tell you, watching some of those games, coming back from injury, torn hamstring, I was really worried that he didn't have the, the step anymore, the quickness. But he's got some, he's got some zip to him back. And it's been good to see
- [97:50]
A
the most positive development in his delayed third season here is that he, he definitely, he moves better, he looks stronger. I think he just, there's something to him physically that looks like a big improvement from when we last saw him. And I don't know, maybe you're around it too much and you have the right answer or maybe it's harder for you to see. But I think when he first, first came back, I was pleasantly surprised. I was like, he just looks a little sturdier out there. I don't know. You're kind of smiling at me right now, so I don't know which way you're going to go with this.
- [98:31]
D
No, you're. No, you're right. He looked much better than I thought. I thought this was a lost season.
- [98:36]
A
I was worried, man.
- [98:37]
D
Hamstring dude, like, yeah.
- [98:41]
A
I'm sitting there checking on reevaluation dates like seven times. Like I'm related to the fucking guy. All right, I've got my number. My number for Havisho to close this out on.
- [98:51]
D
Let's hear it.
- [98:54]
A
Free throw rate.
- [98:57]
D
Nerd out.
- [98:58]
A
SGA is at 465. It's a high number. It's a high number. Harden once, a clipped 600 once. Okay, This number for Denny Abdia this year at free throw rate is 579, which would be the second highest free throw rate for an entire season in Harden's career. Has any player benefited more from. I get to ram my fucking shoulder into you as hard as I possibly can and get free throws. Has anyone benefited from it more in the history of this game than the jump that we've seen from previous? Denny Avdia, who was a really nice player to all star Denny, they call
- [99:46]
D
him Turbo for a reason. Because when he gets downhill and he just decides, I'm going to go through you, no one's been able to stop that.
- [99:53]
A
To the right.
- [99:54]
D
Yeah, to the right. He even did a move, I think it was last night where he had a move to the left and Lamar heard on the broadcast was like, oh, and he, he can still do that. He can still go to his left. Yes. And that's a shot that I want to see more is him, you know, going to his left. No one has more and ones in the NBA than Danny.
- [100:13]
A
That's ridiculous. Every time I see that number come whenever you see the graphic because it'll be other broadcasts, you know, so you'll even see it come up. It's like Denny Juan and he does the John Cena.
- [100:24]
D
You can't see me Selly and the place goes nuts.
- [100:29]
A
And I thought that window closed for the you can't see me celebration. But he's, you know, he's bringing it back.
- [100:36]
D
Yeah, he's bringing it back. He's trying. He's a guy that if I was a fan of another team and if I worked on another broadcast, I would probably be just in fits watching this guy because he, he gets the calls, he gets the contact and he's been able to finish through this contact and you just go. I guess he is one of the most unguardable guys under today's rules. He's one of the most unguardable guys in the league. And your, your stat there proves it. Is your free throw weight, It's a ratio of how many free throws do you have for every field goal attempt. And it's 60% of the time he's at the free throw line for every shot attempt that he has. That's. It's wild.
- [101:17]
A
Yeah, I mean it's, I mean it's pretty simple. 10 shot attempts, he's going to go to the line for six of them.
- [101:22]
D
Yeah.
- [101:23]
A
And harden and harden. Like look, you can look at the other guys and there's always declining number or whatever and some of the all time greats because like this factors into some of my award stuff. Like I've told myself, hey, I don't know that I'm just going to go, oh, so you've just hacked the free throw thing. So now I think you're this player. But he also was terrific. Like, there's his playmaking. I don't want to just knock a guy, but sometimes, you know, the most improved things where I'm still not sure what I would do with it, but sometimes I'm like, hey, he just got more shots. Like, I don't know that he's any better. You know, sometimes the efficiency shows up and all this stuff. But, like, I could get pissy about the free throw thing, but there's a lot of other stuff with Abdia that's completely backed up a great campaign for most improved player because he's also being asked to be the guy on a team that's actually still trying to be competitive. And I can't wait. Like, I'm really excited about Portland basketball. I love watching this team play.
- [102:18]
D
Yeah. Well, let me give you a stat here because this, this kind of blew my mind halfway through the year. I was, I was looking up because it was against Pelicans or what? No, it was against the Thunder that the number one and two guys in drives per game were Danny Abia and Shea Gildrus Alexander. And I was like, I want to do a comparison of what they do when they get downhill, how they change, you know, direction, how, how they end up with the outcome of, of kicking out or finishing or passing. Turns out Denny Avdia is leading the league in drive assists in the NBA by a mile. He has 157, Ryan 157 drive assists, and Shea is second with 135. So he's 22 drive assists ahead of Shay Gildris Alexander for second place. There's only like a handful of players that are over a hundred in this category of assists coming after a drive. And Denny Abdia is at 157, and that's with the best shooters that he has around him are Tamani Kamara and CD Sissoko. He's kicking out to Donovan Klingon and Scoot Henderson.
- [103:27]
A
Yeah, not the spacing that Shea has.
- [103:29]
D
Exactly. And so imagine if when he kicks out, it's Damian Lillard or V. Kreche when he's healthy, guys who are 40% plus shooters off the ball, Denny's going to be that much harder to guard, man. Like, I think there's another level that he can get to. And I don't think it's just free throws. I think it's the Gravity that he has when he gets downhill. You got to throw multiple bodies at him. And he's also tall enough. This is something that I think what makes Luka so hard to defend is he can just see above the defense. Lebron, Denny, Luka, they just have this ability to find shooters in ways that you can't because you just literally can't see above the defense in ways that Denny at six nine can do it. So he makes some crazy passes to the corner to Tamani, and it's like I didn't know how he saw that or I don't know how he got it there. And it's just like LeBron and Luca where they're just bigger than everybody else and they can see those drive lanes or those passing lanes.
- [104:27]
A
He's been great. And now Clingan's just on a heater here. Little early. Little early to say these numbers are going to back it up, but five, three attempts per game here almost in the month. 40% and it is not a respected shot right now, so could be on notice after hitting 46% the last three games. He is Tom Haverstro. You can check him out on the Trailblazers broadcast. And also Tom the finder, his substance stacks. So check that one out as well. It was great to finally catch up, man.
- [104:54]
D
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Anytime. And let me know what your buddies say about the tacos or what brunch
- [105:01]
A
text has already been sent.
- [105:04]
D
Of course. Thanks, Ryan.
- [105:07]
A
Kyle's excited about this. We have a partnership with Lucy Nicotine pouches. He's thrilled. His favorite flavor is mint. He even said, hey, if I don't brush my teeth, I just lose track of time throwing an old Lucy mint. Good to go, none the wiser. Lucy's the obvious choice for the true nicotine pouch connoisseurs. That's why they're the official nicotine pouch partner of Barstool Sports. Every pouch is the same. Lucy breakers are the only ones doing it differently. To give you the longest lasting flavor in pouches. Lucy pouches go up to 12mg strength and have a unique shape that feels great. Lucy is in stores nationwide. Now are to going get Lucy delivered to you ASAP on apps like Doordash and Gopuff. Lucy is the only pouch that delivers long lasting on demand flavor. Find a store near you at Lucy Co stores or get it shipped with 20% off your first order at Lucy Co. Ryan. That's using the code Ryan R Y E N. Lucy products are only for adults of legal age. And every customer is age verified. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. King of the court recap. And a. Well, an alliance announcement here. We're going to have an alliance pick for you on social media tomorrow. Follow at the Ryan Rossillo show Friday.
- [106:24]
C
Yep.
- [106:25]
A
For Friday. Because by the time this taping is done, if you haven't figured it out now after four plus months, we tape up Thursday show and release it when it comes out. As opposed to taping a Friday show that ends up showing up on the east coast at like five or six o' clock at night. Which, you know, you guys have, you know, stuff to do. We appreciate the listeners that are grinding tape but a lot of you guys have, you know, kids and maybe a girlfriend. So we can't, we can't. By the time it comes out like, although the Thursday board is really interesting. I mean it's the first time that I have not seen a game in double digits here. The biggest point spread is. Well now the Sixers thing is going to change FT and bead thing and then Bulls, Wizards, I mean you want to, you want to lay six and a half against the Wizards at home? Go ahead, do at your own risk. Yeah, yeah. Although I kind of. I don't know, I kind of do like that. All right, so what do we got? Recapping King of the core because it was a wild one.
- [107:22]
C
Yeah. So that was. This is Tatum. I had Tatum and Brown. So we went head to head. You had Cooper flag. Turns out none of that matter. Although Tatum did have a good. I'm sorry, Brown had a good game, but Jeremiah Fierce takes takes home king of the court.
- [107:35]
E
Clear winners.
- [107:36]
C
That's why it's. And I think it was like almost 700 bucks in free bets. That's pretty insane. But that's, you know, that's why you try to go a little off the beaten path. You know, we don't always pick Yokich. You always pick Luca. You don't have to pick sga like you know, go. I mean I don't fears would have been an all time poll. But congrats to the people that had
- [107:51]
E
to see if mincing had that.
- [107:53]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If that's true then he's, he's an oracle. So I don't know. But.
- [107:57]
A
So he did.
- [107:58]
E
No, he had the last, the last one.
- [108:00]
B
That was insane.
- [108:00]
E
He had. Right. I forget who that was. A couple.
- [108:03]
A
Yeah, you're right. I just never believe anything. So I was like, oh. And then they had the tickets. I was like all right, good for him. But, yeah, that's. That's a great one. That's, like, better than winning multiple ones. Just randomly picking dudes. It's like The Pelicans, with 78 games into the season, they go, hey, let's make a little fierce push for rookie of the year. All right, so we will have the odds for you. And check out all the Fun stuff on sportsbook.draftkings.com you want details?
- [108:32]
D
Bye.
- [108:33]
A
I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.
- [108:36]
E
What's up?
- [108:38]
D
I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's poppin.
- [108:49]
A
Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice, lifeadvicermail.com. that is the email address. And we have Ceruti and Kyle. It's good to be here with you. Your boy ventured out the other night, went to a fundraiser for the Divided sky foundation, which is a rehab center in Ludlow, Vermont, for Trey, who founded this in Ludlow, Vermont. Obviously his connections to Vermont and his passion about people getting healthy. So it was a small crowd, and it was a pretty incredible lineup. But just to take you through the timeline of this, so some speakers, you know, some. Some bad stories with good endings, you know, that kind of stuff. Everybody feeling good about what you're there for. But then they're also like, hey, let's see, Trey and the comedians. Mark Marin comes out, tells a story about taking mushrooms from college. It was funny. I laughed. Trey comes out, does five or six songs, acoustic deal. And he's great. You know, he's just. He's kind of fun even when he knows, like, this is not me tearing it up at MSG for a New Year's Eve run. And then Sarah Silverman comes out, and she's really funny. She shared the story about how she liked to be introduced back in her early standup career. And I'm not going to share it because she does like to do the gross thing, but she's also like, you almost get lost in her awkwardness and then realize, like, oh, that was actually, like, a really funny line. Marin comes out and brings out Nick Kroll, who, I'll admit, like, man, this guy gets a lot of TV stuff. And when it's great, I'm like, it's really funny. I laugh. And then there's some others that are too weird for me. Again, comedy's taste. He was fucking insane how good he was at stand up. He did this thing where he was preaching, but then he was making jokes while he was preaching. I don't know that anyone in the room caught everything that he was doing. And something that I think I would have stolen from him in my late 20s, early 30s, just out of nowhere. He's got complete command of the room, and the energy is high. People are laughing. They can't even keep up with his jokes. And then for whatever reason, he just decides to fuck with all of this momentum that he has and pretends as if somebody in the audience asked him a question and he just in the middle of raging, just going so fast, no one can keep up. He's like, what are my hobbies? And no one asked him. And that was his pivot into the next thing that he did about reading the backstories of the snacks at Erawan, which he took 15 minutes making one up that crushed Marin, came back out, and then they brought out Mulaney. And we reference John Mulaney all the time on the show. I don't know that anybody's like, his number one fan, I'll admit. There's a special that I caught. It didn't really work. I think I caught him post after he had to, like, apologize for all sorts of stuff on snl. And so maybe you're just in a different mindset. I will say this now, after watching for 30 plus minutes, he is that guy. It's off the charts. We'd love to get him on the show. He is so fucking good. And I think the room, because I almost was wondering this, and I'll ask you guys, this is. Somebody better not add a special. Because a special, as Saruti once said, when I did an opening monologue in Denver, it was the first time I tried to do it live in front of an audience. Surudi just looks at me and goes, hey, dude, it's a home game. It doesn't really matter what you say. They all bought tickets to come see you. You're seven minutes. You'll probably get a couple chuckles. I was like, you know what? Good producing went out, and it was easy, hey, a lot of dudes here, whatever, you know something about the local team, keep it moving. But if you're doing something that's not specifically for you, and this isn't necessarily like an away game at a foundation, but sometimes I was. I was thinking about it. I was like, I wonder if, like, the top comics are like, it's harder to be part of an ensemble. It's harder to do standup just at a comedy place where maybe not Everybody there is into you, where if you're doing a special, it's usually a massive theater, a couple thousand people that are all there solely for you. And not to say, like, I didn't appreciate how smart Mulaney was before, but it was something like, I'm so glad I finally saw him live because I don't know that I would have ever bought tickets to go see him live. So in this setting, he was incredible. And we'll continue. He did some mini Mulaney's Kyle. So he didn't do a full Mulaney.
- [113:13]
E
Oh, we're back to where we started like 15 minutes ago. Okay.
- [113:16]
A
Yeah, yeah. So there you go. I don't know if you have any follow ups or not, but I'm cutting into our life advice time. Sounds like no follow up. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
- [113:27]
C
I did hear the story on the structure of comedy. Well, I, I wonder, like, I mean, I've always liked Kroll. I get why people don't like Kroll, but. And he's in a lot of things, but I don't know when he's, when he's good, when he's going. And it's like a weird crawl thing. I'm in. I wasn't. I, I hate to say, like, I'm. I haven't really dipped my toe in the Mulaney thing. I know people love Mulaney. I just haven't really dabbled in it too much. And maybe I'm just trying to zag because everybody loves him so much. But to your point, on like, the, the, you know, comedians and like, whether or not which, which settings they're best in, like, I wonder if it's like, is it like a sports thing where, like, competition makes you funnier or does that make you, like, do you want to go after Nick Kroll kills it, like, and then Mark Maron has to go and feel like he has to follow it up. And then Sarah's like, like, I wonder like, how that order, like, affects guys brains and girls brains. Because that to me is weird. Like, do you want to go on after a guy who just had a huge heater or does that make some guys better because they're like, hey, actually, I have to step my game up
- [114:25]
A
a little bit more. I think you nailed it because that's how it felt. And it was a very, very small audience. So I think they were all willing to, like, do a little bit more stuff because even Marin was getting into some stuff, being like, oh, since no one can film this, and we're just going, let's let it rip. Like, he started ripping some guy, another public figure, who I would say has a pretty low approval rating, so he's probably safe. But it was really funny. But it felt like Kroll. Kroll just blew me away. Like, I kind of expect. I was like, I bet you this, you know, it's like, oh, hey, it's 26, and Rossila's going, yeah, let's see if this Mulaney guy's any good. Like, but I think the room being small, and then there was some stuff that they were doing that they were admitting. Like, I probably wouldn't do this on a special, or maybe I wouldn't do it, but, like, everybody's here, it's for a great cause, and there's a lot of friends and family that were in there, because I don't think they were the easiest tickets to get. And so Kroll went so hard that I do think Marin was like, I'm not just emceeing this thing now. I'm gonna do 30 minutes on something, and I better make it good, because fucking Mulaney's coming on after me. And all of the comics were off to the side behind a curtain, but they were, like, looking at each other, like, kind of test driving some material too, as well. And they were more worried about what the other comedians were doing. And then it was perfect because, like, it's just another reminder, man, when people try to fuck with these guys. Like, Marin made a Kroll joke after Kroll set, and then he was like, oh, I'm just sort of kidding. And this was like 15 minutes into Marin's thing. And then Marin looks at Kroll. He's like, you know, you've had this perfect life. You're like the perfect little boy and all this different stuff. He's like, have you ever had any time in your life that hasn't been great? And he was like, right now, like, 15 minutes into Baron's thing, which you couldn't. You couldn't even see. You just heard his voice from behind the curtain. So Serutti, I think that's incredibly perceptive because it felt a bit like, hey, Silverman's hilarious. You know, Marin's terrific. Kroll blew me away. And then Mulaney just comes down and he. I mean, he did something on old people. He's like, old people constantly say how there's. There was no autism when they were kids. He's like, no, no, no. And he started telling all these stories about, like, old People and being like, what is that then? And then he did a whole thing. Yeah. His wife's Vietnamese family. And he's like, I've got. I've got like 10 Vietnamese people. He goes, I know it's really late and this thing has gone long, but I don't want to go home. He's like, there's 10 of them. They're on the payroll. And then he's like, and if you don't think I'm doing the Voice in one minute, you're out of your minds. Because I'm doing the Voice because I'm paying like 13 of them.
- [117:13]
E
Man, I wish I was there.
- [117:15]
A
Yeah.
- [117:15]
C
Too. I don't ever see the light of day, you know. Have you seen him, Kyle or no.
- [117:19]
A
Who live.
- [117:22]
E
No, no, no. I've, I've. I did a couple drop ins at some of the bigger la like clubs, but never, never caught him.
- [117:33]
A
The CEO of USA Team handball hit me up after the Portugal travel podcast.
- [117:39]
E
That was quick.
- [117:39]
A
He wants me to come to Germany and do a German travelogue in early January next year. Or early 2027. That would be January. I don't know. It's during football. Football playoffs. But what if I just say, all right, I'm doing it. I'm going to be like, handball freak.
- [117:56]
C
That was your first trip abroad, right? Was to Germany.
- [117:59]
A
It was my first time on a plane, but yeah, it was my first. It was my first time to Europe.
- [118:04]
C
Speaking of millennia, you bring it back full circle. There you go.
- [118:08]
A
Stop in and Vengling, then see if your guy.
- [118:10]
C
What's it Jens is doing.
- [118:12]
A
Silke and Jens are doing.
- [118:18]
C
Never been to Germany. We'd love to go there, see if
- [118:20]
A
Amadeus is still staying open late. Might be a great idea. I'm not going to read that email now though. But it did. It was flagged. It was flagged as interesting. How about that? All right. So not a lot of follow up on the comedy thing. Just double checking.
- [118:44]
C
Well, we got limited time here too, so we want to get.
- [118:46]
E
It really does feel like a story that ends with like, you had to be there, man. That's the only other thing. It's like it might be someone else feeling that way, listening.
- [118:54]
A
Yeah, that's a good point.
- [118:56]
C
As far as, like, as far as recaps go of like, you had to be there. Comedy's got to be pretty high.
- [119:03]
A
Yep. I'm just kind of. Fireworks would be up there too, man.
- [119:06]
C
That fireworks show, like, oh, yeah, I got a picture.
- [119:11]
A
Was it loud? There was a lot of light. A Lot of colors kids are enjoying purple popsicles. Yeah, I get it. I've been to one. I know what you're talking about. All right, now I can't find the email that I was trying to find. Ruling on a rage bait sports combo. 58165. No gym stats, but I can do 30 solid push ups on demand. Awesome basketball comp. Asian Kirk Heinrich Insert any other point card that has a good three point shot but is ultimately hunted on defense for game point. But that's a sturdy 165 at 5 8. So maybe just get a little blue dort into them. I'll try to keep this short, but I'm going to group chat with some friends which is basically developed into us rage baiting each other for last engagement. Most of the time we try to make real arguments to make it engaging, but it's also not so serious that we would lose our friendship over these arguments. Well, that's what a lot of them say when they start, but I hope you guys can keep that going. Recently we've been having a rage bait off about whether golf or basketball is the more difficult sport. One friend, let's call him Harry, represents golf in this case. Here are his arguments. More mentally taxing, more technical skills required. It's more difficult to hit a hole in one birdie than a full court shot. That's fucking irrelevant. Just let him know that one. That's so stupid. Once again, the rule of making a point and then making more points. Making your original point weaker by adding more points. And the fact that you can't get carried to a win in golf as you might in basketball. That's right, one team has a team. He also repeatedly sends the same video. Michael Jordan, Steph curring say that golf is harder than basketball during a golf tournament. My other friend, let's call him Bob, and I take the side of basketball where we lean more into the physically taxing nature of the sport. And the example that a lot of professional basketball players can be really good at golf, but not vice versa. CJR Smith, Steph Curry, Austin Reeves. Obviously there's a few prohibitive variables when it comes to basketball, like height. But a hypothetical I posed was what if you approached a regular person who was fit but never played sports in her life? Would they find golf or basketball easier to learn if they spent equal amounts of time trying to learn that? I'd also argue that when thinking about sports, to define an athlete, I'd name a few sports before I ended up at golf, football, basketball, soccer, swimming, track and Field. I'm also slightly biased because I've run into a few collegiate players in my pickup life. And when you feel the difference in the person of someone who played at a college semi pro level, it is truly eye opening experience for any Hooper. Perhaps it's the same with golf. Yeah. Playing with Marty Fish was like, oh, so you're never in trouble and there's always a chance of birdie.
- [121:41]
C
A humbling experience.
- [121:42]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it's like you're playing, you're trying to find your ball and he's like looking back and then you're just like, just go ahead and why don't you hit your wedge in from 1:20 out and I'll catch up with you. Like don't worry about order here. Yeah. I mean then when we finished up the hole, like he was like, I knew you were in trouble when you started going backwards. Like you were looking up here and then I saw your back. I know. I feel there was more pressure on me to play playing with an ex nhler than another guy they called Doc who was a doctor. But I had a great time. But watching that in person was like the bad shot for him. As a non birdie chance. Some other arguments are made in bad faith. Using a golf cart to get around the course. Basketball's the most fake, tough sport. Golf is pay to play. Love the pod. Thanks for reading. Go mag. Ceruti.
- [122:32]
C
Yeah.
- [122:33]
A
Is our best hoops golf hybrid here.
- [122:37]
C
Yeah, I'm playing Saturday.
- [122:38]
D
I'm excited about it.
- [122:39]
A
Golf or basketball?
- [122:41]
C
Golf, first round of the year.
- [122:43]
A
Nice.
- [122:44]
C
Exciting. Yeah.
- [122:45]
E
Watching the 18 holes tomorrow for your boy.
- [122:47]
C
Oh.
- [122:48]
A
What do you think the stimp meter is going to be at? I don't know. You checking?
- [122:55]
C
I'm not. No.
- [122:56]
A
Okay.
- [123:01]
C
I.
- [123:01]
D
This is tough.
- [123:01]
C
I.
- [123:02]
A
No, it's not.
- [123:03]
C
Oh, it's okay. Well, what do you think? Well, actually, don't tell me what you think. If you have it.
- [123:07]
B
No, no.
- [123:07]
C
Because if you think it's obvious, like I want to, I want to like a genuine reaction out of you, my first thought would be there's five basketball players on a court at any given time. Obviously on one team you could blend in, you could, you could try hard, you could be good at defense. You don't have to necessarily dribble. You could figure it out on a, on a basketball. Now if we're talking like 1v1, then maybe this is a different story with golf. Like it's just you and the course and if you're not good and the mental battle of it, like I Slightly lean golf because I think like, basketball is an easier just like natural human activity to do than to like be like, check the wind and figure out like how. What the distance is and what your carry distances are. And then putting and short games, a whole nother thing. Whereas like basketball at least, like there are some simple, basic things that you can do in basketball that I think most humans, if they tried and at least like, I'm not going 10,000 hours theory because we know that it's kind of been disproven. But like, if you at least practice for a while, you'd figure it out. Golf, you need like real lessons. You need like knowledge of the courses. Like I. So I would give the slight edge
- [124:05]
E
to golf, I guess. Like, how can you be fucking 80 years old still playing good golf? You know, how can you do that? And I think golf is like we had one of these endless arguments in our thing, but it was more of a, you know, next to your boy at the bar argument. But like we had a pretty solid group of dudes at the Frolic Room. And this would just come up and everybody be like, oh, person, person. Yeah, here they, here they go.
- [124:27]
A
I love that you guys, you guys frown on tech in these moments.
- [124:29]
E
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's golfer versus F. One driver, like another, another thing that's like heart. You're like, you're comparing apples and oranges and you're supposed to come up with some sort of answer to an equation. So like, I don't know. I mean, how can you be John Daly? And it's like, how can you look like that and be awesome?
- [124:45]
A
Like, I don't understand.
- [124:46]
E
Like there's, there are certain things like, okay, well, I see you that and I raise you this. It's stuff that like, won't.
- [124:50]
C
But I'm not saying John Dale is a great athlete.
- [124:53]
E
No, but it's saying what's harder.
- [124:54]
B
Right.
- [124:57]
C
Well, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't be, wouldn't you needing to be a good athlete in basketball make it harder though?
- [125:04]
E
Yeah, I think it's harder.
- [125:07]
A
Hmm. He's on the side of basketball. I think he made a really good point there about the 70 plus year old golfer.
- [125:13]
C
It is a good one, but I
- [125:15]
A
mean, listen right in the fucking middle all day long. And then you're like, what did you have?
- [125:19]
C
And he's like 175 down the middle.
- [125:20]
A
Yeah. And you're like, put me down for six. Like, are you serious? Looks like you were gonna die coming out of the sand trap. Right.
- [125:31]
C
When that guy tries to take a
- [125:33]
E
fucking charge on pickup hoops, he's dead.
- [125:34]
D
But I think.
- [125:35]
A
I think it's part of it. It's not strictly the longevity.
- [125:38]
C
Yeah, I don't think longevity's not the first thing that came to my mind. So I guess that I don't know that that's like the fact that's the deciding factor for me.
- [125:44]
E
I mean, if your window is all
- [125:45]
C
you'd be good at, but if your
- [125:47]
E
window is smaller for what you can. How long you could do it in your life, wouldn't that make it maybe a point for. Harder for basketball?
- [125:53]
A
I don't know.
- [125:54]
E
There's.
- [125:54]
C
I would argue, like, golf is 40,
- [125:56]
E
50, saying, this is my last game of pickup. I can't fucking do it anymore. Like, there's nobody's. Nobody's doing that at 50. Like, I just can't. Just can't do the nine. Can't do nine holes anymore. I mean, it's just less of.
- [126:07]
A
That guy's having, like, one of the
- [126:09]
E
worst moments of their life. Like, it's over for me. Do not invite me to play any more pickup basketball. And, you know, I don't think that
- [126:16]
C
you can still play. I mean, I went to the Y. There's dudes in their 50s that are still pretty good basketball players.
- [126:22]
E
Yeah, that's a smaller.
- [126:24]
A
Take it easy.
- [126:28]
E
It's a smaller circle.
- [126:30]
C
I mean, I think golf too. Like, I've, you know, I started playing golf when I was really young because my grandfather was a starter and I,
- [126:38]
A
you know, I've got buddies. This guy. Yeah.
- [126:41]
C
Well, what's up?
- [126:41]
E
What's in your blood?
- [126:42]
C
Yeah, and I play with buddies who, you know, start in their 30s, and, dude, it's starting. Golf in your 30s, you're gonna suck for a long time unless you put a lot of man hours into it.
- [126:53]
E
If you never dribbled a basketball until you're 30 and you go out with dudes who are ready for a run, I mean, you're like, can we get this guy the fuck out of here?
- [127:00]
C
Yeah, maybe you're like just. Your body is washed at that point. You're not used to the physical exertion,
- [127:04]
E
but I think like bouncing your body, the basketball, even in your 20s.
- [127:07]
C
If you try to pick up golf in your 20s, it's hard. Basketball, I feel like you can. Athletically, if you're still in good shape, you can run up and down the court. You'll kind of figure it out and fit in. Whereas golf, like, you might still stick out like A sore thumb. I'm not saying it's like definitive. It's definitely golf, but that's where I lean.
- [127:20]
A
All right. I think we almost got there.
- [127:23]
E
We just got sucked in.
- [127:25]
A
Like, these guys, you know, everybody sticks up for their sports, so I'll be accused of that. I think it's basketball if you have played neither sport. All right, if you've never. Golf, you've never played basketball and say you're like an athletic guy. I don't know how you would have never played these two sports and been like 30 or 40 years old, big swimmer. But. But the chance. Yeah, the chances of you being a really good basketball player after, like, working on dribbling drills and shooting drills at 30, after never dribbling is fucking impossible. Like, you're never going to straighten that part of it out of being disconnected from the basketball where as tough as golf is. And again, I'm not good. But if you put in that, like, what's a more reasonable thing? Hey, this guy who's never touched a golf club until he was 40, became a guy who could shoot in the 80s in five years versus a guy who never touched a basketball until he was 40, and now he's one of the best players on our men's league. The second one is impossible.
- [128:26]
C
I also, I'm like undoing my argument as we speak because it makes me think, like, Steph Curry, Tony Romo, like, there's no golf equivalent of a guy playing golf playing in the NBA. Reed being like, you know, like, Bryson's not, you know, he's not going to be a small ball 5. It's just not going to work out.
- [128:46]
A
Golfers, like, will defend the sport to the debt. And it is really hard. And yes, it's mentally taxing and you have to stay in. You know, it's. But it's just. I've never seen anybody that's never dribbled a basketball growing up. Then all of a sudden it's like, you know who's got a tight handle? It's Dave. Like, he just started playing last summer.
- [129:09]
C
Yeah, but okay, if you started playing golf last summer, though, you would be terrible too. Like, let's not. You would. It would take. There's. There's guys that could start golf in their 20s and never break 100. Right. And just be. And just be just as terrible at golf as they would be at basketball. Start at the same time.
- [129:29]
A
I remember wanted to do another handball thing.
- [129:32]
E
I just close on this. I was thinking, I couldn't remember if I was right or Wrong. I remember when I was younger, like, high school age, and people were talking about, oh, golf should be an Olympic sport. I just looked it up. We were, like, asking each other if it was a sport. Obviously, we know it's a sport, but I remember my young brain. People are like, oh, I wonder if golf should be an Olympic sport. I look to see that it was in the early 1900s. It came back in 2016, so I didn't make that up in high school. And early high school, we were arguing whether you called it a sport or not. I know that now. I would call it a sport, but I don't know if anyone said that for basketball.
- [130:04]
A
Well, then it turns into the athlete thing or whatever. I mean, there's other points you can make here. You have a better chance of doing something on the golf course that looks like a pro than you'll ever have doing something on a basketball court where it's like, hey, that looks just like an NBA player. And you're. I know the golf guys are going to be like, I can make a three in a pickup game and be like, is it against a hard closeout when it's 6, 7 Wing?
- [130:28]
C
Yeah. But also like, hey, you could be a decent golfer at your local, you know, muni.
- [130:32]
E
But you're.
- [130:33]
C
You're not, like, showing up at Augusta and being like, yeah, all right, let's see how this thing goes.
- [130:37]
E
Yeah, we were arguing at the bar.
- [130:39]
A
I mean, if you play in a pickup game with guys that played at awful colleges. And so I know part of it, too, was like, hey, there's a team and you can disappear. I don't think that that should be the core of the argument. The core shouldn't be like, okay, now that we figure out a way to trick the answer of, like, hey, I can hide here the longest. Well, no. Shit. There's. We're not. But that is part of the game.
- [131:05]
C
Yeah.
- [131:05]
D
I don't.
- [131:05]
C
I mean, you could.
- [131:06]
A
You.
- [131:06]
C
You could. Golf is one thing. Like, you're either good at this, the shots, or you're not.
- [131:11]
A
So fine. If. If the argument is, which one would you be exposed the quickest? Yeah. The first time you teed off, be like, what is this guy doing? And then maybe in basketball, you could run up and down in the court. But that's not. That is not being. I don't. I think that's a very disingenuous way to argue these two things. I think the best way is like. Let me ask you this. What is the more likely scenario if you've Ever done either.
- [131:33]
C
I think this is. This might be a stupid thing too. And it might be undoing my right. Because again, I'm not like all in on golf. I'm just trying to maybe take play Devil's Head.
- [131:39]
E
Those are the rules, bro.
- [131:40]
A
You have to.
- [131:40]
C
If me, I feel like I was equally good for most of my life at golf and basketball.
- [131:44]
A
Like, well, you're awesome, man.
- [131:46]
C
No, no, no, no. All right, relax, relax. I'm saying equally good as far as, like, what level I'm at. If I showed up at Augusta versus I played in the NBA Finals, which one would I look more out of place at? The answer is probably the NBA Finals, right?
- [131:59]
A
You think? Yeah,
- [132:03]
C
I could probably hit one in the fairway.
- [132:05]
A
Who knows?
- [132:06]
C
The nerves will be there.
- [132:07]
A
Well, the problem is the emails to this are going to be. I just want the guy about the mystery wine spill to check in with us. I just want to know how you're doing. Are you still here? Will you let us know how you're doing? Because we're going to get so many follow ups on this. So it got a little testy here at the end. Let's just end now on a real positive one. I have a bunch of other gym ones. We've done these before. I ruined life advice. Well, I don't think I ruined life advice advice, but there's been some critique that we're taking too long to get to life advice. It's like, yeah, but that's our space to dance.
- [132:35]
C
Yeah, come on.
- [132:35]
A
And then we get to life advice. You can just fast forward to the millennial stuff, but you're gonna.
- [132:39]
C
Story time, then life.
- [132:40]
A
Yes.
- [132:40]
C
Yeah.
- [132:40]
A
Usually not figuring it out yet. All right, that'll do it for the show. Thanks to Tom and Kevin, thanks to Ceru, thanks to Kyle. You have a fantastic weekend. I feel great about everyone's weekend. Yeah. I may have a handball thing. Yeah. Who knows?
- [132:55]
C
Got my daughter's first birthday party on Sunday. It's gonna be a big one. Some master Sundays this weekend. Golfing Saturday.
- [133:01]
A
Blue eyes on that one, huh, buddy?
- [133:02]
C
She does.
- [133:03]
B
She's. She's a cutie.
- [133:04]
A
She looks like a Skarsgard.
- [133:05]
C
She looks like a white walker. Yeah, she's.
- [133:07]
B
Wow.
- [133:08]
A
I don't know what's going on. Didn't come from me, but, yeah, there's some strange guy at the birthday party. Oh, my gosh. Here we go. All right, let's end the show. End the show. He comes up, you're like, I just hope you're a good dad. Like, who the fuck is this guy?
- [133:24]
E
It's got to stop.
- [133:25]
A
Please subscribe to the show. Ryan Rasula show or Steel Sports.
- [133:28]
B
It.