The Annual NBA “Would You Rather” Debates, Plus Why the Dodgers Aren’t Necessarily MLB’s Bad Guys w/ Jeff Passan

Summary

The Ryen Russillo Show

Episode: The Annual NBA “Would You Rather” Debates, Plus Why the Dodgers Aren’t Necessarily MLB’s Bad Guys (with Jeff Passan) Date: February 12, 2026

---

Main Theme and Purpose

This episode is a blend of two signature Russillo Show elements:

• The annual “NBA Would You Rather?” debates, where Ryen and Ceruti pit current-season NBA players against each other in a series of thought-provoking, sometimes contentious comparisons.
• A deep-dive with ESPN’s Jeff Passan into the looming MLB collective bargaining agreement (CBA), focusing on the Dodgers’ unprecedented spending, CBA mechanisms, and why the Dodgers shouldn’t be seen as Major League Baseball’s villains.

Life advice and some local/travel recommendations also make their trademark late-episode appearance.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. NBA “Would You Rather?” – 2026 Edition

[Starts ~03:00]

• Structure: Comparisons are strictly for who you’d take "right now, for the rest of this season and playoffs"—not for the next five years.
• Reflections on Past Picks:
  • Russillo and Ceruti recall how quickly these head-to-heads age, citing past picks that seem laughable (e.g., taking Amen Thompson over Cooper Flagg).
  • “Man, like, these things age so badly so fast.” – Ceruti (03:31)

2026 Would You Rather Pairings

Notable quotes and moments with timestamps

• Jokic vs. SGA & Jalen Williams (OKC)

  • Would you rather have Jokic (alone on a team of ‘80 overall’ guys) or SGA & Jalen Williams (and ‘80 overalls’)?
  • Russillo stands by Jokic:
    “For the next few months... I’ll take the best player in the world, who also everyone can play with.” —Russillo (07:39)
  • Both agree the dynamic would shift for a multi-year horizon given age/health.

• Jalen Brown vs. Jalen Brunson [09:47]

  • Both initially waver, but Russillo shifts his answer: “You know what? I’m going to change my answer... Jalen Brunson closing out playoff games when he’s the focal point... he’s so unguardable.” —Russillo (11:13)
  • Defensive vs. offensive value is the key axis.

• Devin Booker vs. Tyrese Maxey [12:08]

  • Both ultimately stick with Booker, but it’s closer than ever: “I know it was with Paul and whatever. There was that finals run that means something to me... I would trust that a little bit more than I would Maxey.” —Ceruti (12:36)

• Alperen Sengun vs. Chet Holmgren [13:18]

  • Value for a supporting player on a contender is more important than raw playmaking; both lean Chet for his versatility and rim protection.
  • Debate: who’d win 1-on-1? Split opinions.
  • “Even a lesser version of Chet... he’s still going to be a max player for a really long time.” —Russillo (14:22)
  • “I think one on one is like your offensive moves... Shengün would win a one on one.” —Ceruti (15:02)

• Paolo Banchero vs. Amen Thompson [16:18]

  • Ceruti wavers on his usual defense of Paolo, notes recent struggles:
    "It's just been bad. And at least I know with Amen, I'm getting a guy that plays really hard and is versatile." —Ceruti (18:19)
  • Russillo counters: “Paolo can be a one. I don't think Amen can.” (18:30)
  • Spirited discussion about “sludge drag” vs. upside.

• Austin Reaves, Tyler Herro, or Con Knippel – Battle of White Guards

  • Collective agreement that Herro is a distant third. For this year:
    “The rest of the year? Austin Reaves over Knippel.” – Russillo (19:41)

• Carl-Anthony Towns vs. Jalen Duren

  • Russillo dislikes Cat’s play style and off-court demeanor.
  • “Jalen Duren. I don’t like Cat... I find him unenjoyable to watch.” —Russillo (19:58)
  • Discussion of broadcasters' challenge with “homerism” and honesty.

• Dylan Brooks vs. Michael Porter Jr.

  • Russillo values Brooks in high-leverage games:
    “I’ll take Brooks in a playoff battle over Michael Porter Jr.” (22:17)
  • Ceruti points out "NBA champion Michael Porter Jr." doesn’t sway him.

2. Thunder Depth vs. Entire NBA Rosters

[22:53]

• Entertaining (and intentionally “ridiculous”) segment: Which teams would swap their entire roster for the Thunder’s bench (excluding their starting five)?
• Russillo and Ceruti debate specific teams, with disagreements on Wizards, Kings, Brooklyn, Memphis, etc.
• Philosophical rumination: Is it better to have a group of high-upside role-players or bet on one superstar “popping”?
  • “There’s just not enough high end possibilities here with this group where you’d be passing on Trey [Young]…” —Russillo (25:54)

3. MLB’s Looming CBA Crisis & Dodgers Deep Dive (with Jeff Passan)

[31:33]

Labor Tensions and Timelines

• The key date is not December 1st, 2026 (CBA expiration), but an undetermined mid-March 2027 “drop dead” point that determines if games are missed.
• Passan emphasizes:
  “Baseball, for all of the labor consternation... hasn't missed a game since the strike in 94... the hope is that that continues.” —Passan (32:19)

Are the Dodgers Baseball’s Villains?

[33:27]

• Passan breaks down the financial reality:
  • Dodgers are simply exploiting the CBA’s structure—penalties for overspending are only financial.
  • Hedge fund ownership (Guggenheim, Steve Cohen) enables creative, “money is no object” roster building.
• Quote:
  “Baseball really is the only sport I can see where you’re penalized for trying hard. And there’s no penalty for not trying.” —Passan (35:07)
• The Dodgers’ contract with Kyle Tucker is cited as a breaking point:
  • For 2026, the Dodgers will pay Tucker more (after tax penalties) than the entire payroll of each of MLB’s bottom 10 teams.
    “If that right there does not illustrate to you the disparity, I’m not sure what’s going to.” —Passan (40:01)

CBA Structure and Small-Market Realities

• Passan and Russillo are not anti-Dodgers; they place blame on low-payroll teams.
  • Emphasize that anyone could spend more, even if not to LA/NY levels.
  • “The lower teams... can spend more and there can be some sort of penalties... that don’t include necessarily a salary cap.” —Passan (35:34)
• The Ohtani/Tucker contract structures are especially advantageous because California can defer money—mitigates the disadvantages of a 13% state income tax.
  • “Their creative structuring puts them in another stratosphere on top of access to all this money, because no one would want to sign there unless they were deferring all this money...” —Russillo (41:14)

Parity, Public Perception, & the Salary Cap Question

• Russillo ponders the “public relations” game of 50/50 splits (“it’s hard to argue against”) and whether the Dodgers’ behavior will create more fan support for a cap.
• Passan: “Fans are very pro-salary cap... the leagues have done an extraordinary job of public relations.”
• Key dynamic: players don’t want a cap (guaranteed, uncapped deals are rare and valuable), but “socialist” sentiment among fans fuels the cap debate.
  • “Of course they’re going to take the uncapped system every single time... you believe enough people in the sport want to win...” —Passan (52:01)

Revenue Sharing and Solutions

• There already are caps and heavy taxes; the difference is the bottom “floor.” Russillo and Passan both advocate for a spending floor, or even more creative penalties for non-spenders (e.g., loss of draft picks, direct money penalties).
  • “Those bottom teams, Bob Nutting’s not going to like that.” —Russillo (65:39)
  • “Maybe... the bad owners who don’t want to win get the hell out of the game.” —Passan (65:45)
• Discussion closes with optimism for MLB’s product but a warning: the CBA crisis will be misrepresented (again) in the media if 2027 negotiations go sideways.
  • “I know the Dodgers won last year. That’s going to be one of my favorite World Series ever, because it was so much fun that Game 7. At least the product is right, but the criticism... will be premature and disproportionate.” —Russillo (68:03)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Man, like, these things age so badly so fast.” —Ceruti on "Would You Rather" hindsight (03:31)
• “The advanced shit [with SGA] is like a whole nother universe these last two years.” —Russillo (05:40)
• “Baseball really is the only sport I can see where you’re penalized for trying hard. And there’s no penalty for not trying.” —Passan (35:07)
• “I’ll take Brooks in a playoff battle over Michael Porter Jr.” —Russillo (22:17)
• “If that right there does not illustrate to you the disparity, I’m not sure what’s going to.” —Passan on Tucker’s $119.9 million vs. bottom 10 payrolls (40:01)
• “The strength of Major League Baseball is how good the fans of low revenue teams feel about their ability to win.” —Passan (58:01)
• “You shouldn't be allowed to own one of these teams anymore. You shouldn't benefit from the appreciation... if the only thing was the value of evaluation.” —Russillo (65:57)

---

Life Advice & Listener Questions

[Starts ~69:54]

The show’s trademark “Life Advice” section brings lighthearted solutions to listener dilemmas, including:

• Best Man Dilemmas: (74:06) — Layup solution: “Just make it two [best men], dude.” —Russillo
• Poughkeepsie Wedding Recommendations: (80:25) — Brasserie 292, Zeus Brewery, The Governess.
• Audiobooks vs. Reading Debate: (83:02) — “It’s not [reading], but I will tell certain people I’m reading if I want them to be proud of me.” —Kyle
• Dad Strength/Baby Arm Myth Confirmed: (87:55) — Ceruti: “My left arm is stronger... so I do believe that.”

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |----------------------------------------------|--------------------| | NBA Would You Rather begins | 03:00 | | Jokic vs. SGA/Jalen Williams | 06:52 - 08:43 | | Jalen Brown vs. Jalen Brunson | 09:47 - 11:59 | | Booker vs. Maxey | 12:08 - 13:18 | | Sengun vs. Chet | 13:18 - 15:17 | | Paolo vs. Amen | 16:18 - 18:38 | | NBA Best White Guard Battle | 18:41 - 19:45 | | Cat vs. Jalen Duren | 19:53 - 21:48 | | Dylan Brooks vs. MPJ | 22:17 - 22:53 | | Thunder bench trade segment | 22:53 - 29:43 | | MLB CBA, Dodgers, and Passan joins | 31:33 - 68:58 | | Life Advice | 69:54 - end |

---

Conclusion & Tone

Russillo’s show blends sharp basketball analysis with candid, often wry banter and a willingness to poke fun at both himself and friends. The addition of Jeff Passan’s expertise gives real insight into labor, parity, and business side realities in Major League Baseball—always in accessible, non-wonky language.

If you missed the episode, you’ll come away informed, entertained, and reminded that in both sports and life, the “easy answer” is rarely as simple as it first appears.

Transcript

[Ryan Rosillo]

Hey Priscilla Listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music At Bumble, we're all about helping you find someone who vibes with the real you this year. Meet real people on Bumble who actually want you for you. Whether you're looking for big soul shaking, love or fun casual dates on Bumble, clear and honest intentions lead to better matches. When you say what you're looking for up front, you get more aligned in meaningful connections with with features like photo and ID verification, you feel more confident the person you're talking to is real. Start your year off with real connections on Bumble. Download Bumble. Today. The Ryan Rosillo show is presented by Giraffe Kings. We're talking Hoops All Star Break at the very beginning of this a bunch of would you rathers an incredibly challenging one from CERU on ok, we're also going to talk collective bargaining agreement with Jeff Passon this offseason means what for the future of baseball. We are less than a year away from a major decision on whether or not we'll have baseball in 2027. And life advice the NBA's biggest stars deliver the biggest moments with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. You can cash in when they take over. Player props Live betting Every possession, every shot, every every steal is your shot to win with DraftKings Sportsbook, and DraftKings has your back with early exit. If your player goes down at any time in the first half, you still get paid in cash. I'll be monitoring the healthy Nuggets. Also, the Thunder being behind last year's pace somewhat significantly if you look at wins and losses. Cleveland, your two seed calves, your new look calves. And of course, we're always monitoring the Charlotte Hornets. New customers bet just $5, and if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use the code R code Ryan Rye and to 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, 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 gaming resources. See DKNG CO Audio, limited time offer. Before we talk some baseball, let's talk some hoops before we get ready for the All Star break. I have Ceruti here. He loves would you Rathers. I mean, he does ones that have nothing to do with hoops. It's wild. You know, he loves a good would you rather is Van Pelt. So we'll run through revisit history here a little bit. So what do you got?

[Ceruti]

Yeah, I think this is like the fourth year we've done this where, you know, I basically just pinned two players against each other. And it's. It's not a. It's not like a next five years thing. It's. It's just basically right now, you know, through the rest of the season in the playoffs, like, who's the best player? Who'd you rather have in your team?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. All right. That's good.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because usually we always think, like, long term. It's like, would you rather have last year?

[Ceruti]

I said, like, 18 months, 15 months maybe. But I don't know, I kind of like, rest of the year in the playoffs, like, in the moment, who is.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, so that's the rule. Rest of the year in the playoffs. Okay. All right. Because I want to do the top 10 list, like my top 10 before the playoffs and then again before the next season starts. But I want to get like 10 front offices involved in the whole thing, too, so we can make fun of those guys the way they make fun of us.

[Ceruti]

Correct. Well, so I listened to last year's segment and it was good. But, man, like, these things age so badly so fast.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's unbelievable. It's crazy. It's a great lesson. What were the bad ones?

[Ceruti]

Well, like, let me go through a few. Last year we did cater Booker and we both said Booker. I don't think you'd say that now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Nope, I wouldn't. But I don't know that. Like, again, I. I think the way Booker's talked about is, like, criminal, but.

[Kyle]

I have done that coming up.

[Ceruti]

I do Booker every year because he's just like the guy that's floating and I never know what kind of where to put him in the. In the rankings. SGA or Giannis. We did last year and we both took. Or you took Giannis. I don't know if I answered. Do you still. You still believe that?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No.

[Ceruti]

SGA is the better guy? Okay. We did ant or.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean, from a health standpoint, there's. There's no. Like, you can't even Argue it with the way that these things have played out. And we've already seen that like whatever SGA's regular season is, it will translate to the playoffs as well. So now that we have that, I don't mind that answer last year, but now I even. I wouldn't do that. And I think I'm probably generally thought as like maybe just OKC fans that are really annoying are the ones that think I'm anti SGA. Probably because I think I'm like one of 30 of the a hundred voters that voted for Jokic last year mvp. I think that has something to do with it.

[Ceruti]

I got one that might piss them off in a little bit. We'll get to that in a second. We did do Ant or Donovan Mitchell. Now remember Donovan Mitchell. This was like when he was in the middle of just having a tear of a season. Like he was off last year pre playoffs. Obviously. Now that's like you take Ant. It's not even.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Did we say Mitchell last year?

[Ceruti]

You said Ant. I was more on the fence.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I was going to be shocked. I was going to be shocked if I put picked Aunt last year.

[Ceruti]

But here's the one.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Here's the best pick an Ant when he wasn't good.

[Ceruti]

Here's the best one. And we did kind of do this one like going forward. It was Cooper flag versus a bunch of under 25 guys. So we did Cooper flag versus WEMBY. We said no, you take Wemby. We did Cooper Flag versus Paulo. We both said no, we take Paulo. That seems like a no now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That feels wrong.

[Ceruti]

That does feel wrong. I would even admit that we did Cooper Flag versus Ant. We both said no, you take Ant. I think that's still right definitely now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But I mean the guy's made it to two Western Conference finals. He's probably the best on ball scorer. Like when he has to find a way to get it all on his own. Even though the efficiency stuff with SGA would just tell you like, well no, that's. That's not true. I guess I'm talking more from like just a can you get free and get yourself a bucket thing. But again the. The SGA advanced shit is like a whole nother universe these last two years. So again, SGA is a better player than Ant, but I wouldn't take. I don't think I'd take Cooper over them now either. Not, not right now. Not from the. You're saying the rest of the year. 12 months. Like forget that. Five years. That's not the exercise.

[Ceruti]

And here's the best one. And I don't even remember us doing this, but I'm glad I listened back. We did. Would you rather have Cooper Flagg or Amen Thompson? And we both said we'd rather have Amen.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And this is before Cooper ever played.

[Ceruti]

This was when he was at Duke, correct.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, yeah, that's fine. There was a big, big amend push.

[Ceruti]

Some would say I'm still. I'm still there. But anyway. All right, let's get to someone this year. This is the one that might piss OKC fans off. This one. I've got two that I'm kind of proud of. One will one. I think OKC fans will love this one. I'm not sure. I kind of ran this one by you last.

[Ryan Rosillo]

They're pretty chills in general, so it'll be fine.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, yeah, totally. I want to. I want to spice things up a little bit. So this is actually a two versus one situation. Would you rather have Jokic again, this is right now, healthy, rest of the season, into the playoffs, and again, all things are equal. Like the rest of the teams, they don't get the rest of the Thunder team, he doesn't get his Nuggets team. It's just all equal as of right now. Would you rather have Jokic on his own or a team with SGA and Jalen Williams?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, so last night when you threw this one at me, I didn't realize we were just talking rest of the season. Because if it was moving forward, of course, the age part of SGA and the fact that you're getting, in theory, a top 15 player and Jalen Williams also, who's really young. But if it's just the rest of the year, I'll take the best player in the world, who also everyone can play with.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, you basically get all the same 2k guys. You throw them on the, like, they're getting like 80 overalls. The rest, you know, it's like that guy and a bunch of 80 overalls or SGA and Jalen Williams and a bunch of 80 overalls. What team would you rather have? You're saying you'd rather have the Yokich team?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Ceruti]

I think you're right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Really? I don't think anyone's going to agree with me on that.

[Ceruti]

Well, it is really, man. I mean, it's tough because Jalen's obviously been hurt, but I'm just assuming, like, yeah, what if.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What if Jalen's, like, played a full season and we're going, hey, this guy might be all NBA second team and all that kind of stuff, but I don't know. I can only go on, like, kind of how I feel about it right now. And again, this. If this isn't moving forward the next few years, I mean, if that was the question, then it'd be yoga. Just a stupid answer. Just based on age and the fact you're getting a second person.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, it's pretty.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Pretty straightforward stuff to figure out here on this one, though, for the next few months. I just. I don't know, man. I mean, he's.

[Ceruti]

He's.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We need to do the which rings are doing the most work thing.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, we'll do that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because with Jokic, it doesn't feel like that because he's generally accepted by so many basketball people. Like, if he only ends up with one, I don't know. I mean, there's always going to be that audience out there that just wants to find the guy that's good and then just shit on him because they, like. I don't know, they're like Thaddeus Young people or something. But he might be so good that people will go, yeah, but I'm. I'm not going to beat up on him for only having one ring. In the grand scheme of how we'll talk about him and his greatness and historically and where he stacks up.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. I think if we're playing out this exercise, if I'm an opposing coach, right, And I'm like, hey, I. I have to. I have to game plan to stop Jokic or I have to game plan to stop SGA and Jalen Williams, I'm. I'd be more afraid of what Jokic could do against me.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, he's also. Yeah. The hypothetical of the two verse one is a little tough, though. Cause then it's like he's not playing by himself. What else?

[Ceruti]

All right. This is the battle of the best Jalen, I think, in the league. Jalen Brown or Jalen Brunson.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Damn. Brunson is the tougher guy to stop. I don't think there's any debate on that one. I can't believe. But the Jaylen Brown defense and not being able to attack him the way you can attack Brunson, I'd rather have Jaylen Brown. But that's a weird one too, though, because it's like, if you traded. If somebody was like, hey, we'll give you Jalen Brunson for Jalen Brown, like, who's saying no? I mean, the Knicks are saying no.

[Ceruti]

I think I would. Brunson, even though everything you said about the playoff stuff and the small guards thing does scare the crap out of me. You know, the playoffs. I mean, if Tatum doesn't come back and the Celtics make the finals with Jaylen Brown, like, that's going to be. That almost would be better than the title that he won and the finals mvp, Am I right? Like, that would be more impressive.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Jalen might enjoy it more, and I wouldn't blame him. Yeah.

[Ceruti]

But I think right now, I would say, man, Brunson and what he does offensively, it's really hard. It's really hard.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Like, I've never thought that Jalen's a better player than Brunson. And then you have the first 50 games of the season. You know what? I'm going to change my answer because I just don't think that Jalen Brown is better than him. So I'm doing too much of the recency bias. And I think Jalen Brunson closing out playoff games when he's the focal point. And clearly, Jalen's had really good playoff games. But my issue with the MVPs in those series is that Tatum's the one dictating everything, and Tatum has. So Brown has now gone to another level, just not based on usage. Like, it's. It's terrific. And even with his defense, though, I'm going to change my answer to Brunson closing a playoff game because he's. He's so unguardable by. Because of his own skill and because of how scared you are that he's going to get some bullshit call.

[Ceruti]

All right, so we're on the same page there. All right. My annual Devin Booker 1. Devin Booker or Tyrese Maxi.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Oh, man, you made this one tough. I don't care. I'm gonna be stubborn again. Booker.

[Ceruti]

I think I still take Booker, too, but, man, I love Matt.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Everyone's gonna give you so much for this now because they're just gonna say, like, you're agreeing with me, and I know you're not. I know that you're not agreeing.

[Ceruti]

Well, I said Jalen Brunson first. You switched to my side on that. People do love to think that. I disagree.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Maybe I'm trying to impress. I'm just trying to impress you now.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There's still something. There's just something about Booker. I. I know it was with Paul and whatever. There was that finals run that means something to me, you know, like, having that playoff success. I. I think I would trust that a little bit more than I would Maxi, but Again, I love Max. Max is one of my favorite players in the league. So I. It's. This is maybe the hardest one on the list. Most have them kind of around the same range.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know. I imagine if you, like, ask most people, like, would you trade Maxi for Booker? People be like, what are you nuts? Like, Maxi's unbelievable. I think you can like Maxi more and that's fine. I. I think it's very, very close. And yeah, I'm going with Booker still.

[Ceruti]

All right, Shangun or Chet?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Chet. Now, look, Shingoon is tasked with more stuff. This kind of gets back to that Chet Paolo stuff that you and I talk about probably off the air way too much. But Chet, even if the fully formed version of him on offense doesn't seem like it's going to happen, where it's, you know, it was like him in this ball handling role because he was so skilled for a guy his size. But when you're not really asked to do that in your NBA career, it doesn't just. It's just hard to still have that, whatever that is. So Shingoon's playmaking and the handling and when the play looks totally broken down, him coming up with something and making a bucket, I think Shingoon's better at that stuff. But even a lesser version of Chet throughout his entire career in offense of like, what the most hopeful version of him was. Stretch five rim protection, comfortable with the ball in his hands. That's so ridiculously valuable. So. And even if Chet doesn't end up being like a 9 out of 10 based on the prospects of what he could be, he's still going to be a max player for a really long time. And I'd rather plug that in than Shingoon, who's. Who's a more probably talented guy. But the rim protection isn't even close. Like, I was looking at the rim protection numbers again, and like, Chet's just. He's just right there with everybody else. I think there's only like one guy out of him.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. If we're talking like, I think both these guys on really, really good teams are a supporting piece. And I'd rather have Chet just because of the versatility things he could do, the defensive stuff. Shangun, if he's my one player, I'd rather have Shangun. My team's gonna be probably better.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But who do you think would win one on one?

[Ceruti]

Shangun, I think he just has. I think one on one is like your offensive moves. Like, he'd be. He'd bring him into the post like he's bigger than Chat. I. I guess Chat could theoretically take him outside, but I. I think Shangun would win a one on one.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think Chet though dribbling one on one against Shingoon. Defensively I picked Chet. I think Chet wins one on one. Hmm.

[Ceruti]

We'll have to do a poll question there.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm gonna have to ask him to play. The gametime app gives the advantage back to the fans. It's the hack for unlocking amazing tickets experiences in just a few taps. It's incredibly easy to use and the gametime guarantee means you can trust you'll get 100% authentic tickets on time and at the best price. Plus fees are always included. So what you see is what pay. I was looking at tickets for Pistons knicks tonight at MSG in town and I see tickets starting at only $247. I will monitor take the guesswork out of the buying of NBA tickets with Game time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use the code ROSILLO for $20 off your first purchase terms. Apply again, create an account, redeem the code Russello. R U S S I L L O for $20 off.

[Ceruti]

This one's near and dear to my heart. Paulo or Amen Paulo.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm not giving up. I'm not giving in to everybody else. That's on this guy. Was it Haberstro that suggested they trade him the Nets for Michael Porter Jr. I was just like, all right, guys.

[Ceruti]

I like, I love Haberstro. But yeah, that was a tough. I didn't love that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I'm not giving.

[Ceruti]

I think I gotta go with my guy I met. I think. I think I have to side with them. Like, if you're asking me, I mean last night, last night's game was just like in my head right now and I'm just. I'm in a bad Paulo place.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Overall, Cranberries.

[Ceruti]

The Magic are a better team of the men.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Why? Because he provides more floor spacing.

[Ceruti]

I think he's more versatile. I think you let Franz have Magic.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Get him and be like, hey, you're going to fit right in here. A defense alone, maybe more people are going to agree with you. And Paulo just seems like publicly he's like a company that I think is still really good. And I don't know, it's not even.

[Ceruti]

Like he's like upset. It's like he's despondent. Yeah. Like he's just. He can't be bothered or just something is obviously off. People are talking about if it's like a weight thing, too. He looks a little bigger. I don't know about that necessarily. I will say, like, I saw this, like, compilation kind of highlight thing. It felt like his first couple years, like, the offense was just. And maybe because he wasn't getting doubled as much, but, like, the offense just felt like it came a lot easier to him. Whereas now, like, everything just feels like a. Like a. Just a. A sludge drag. Like, nothing comes easy. And I don't know if that's, like, how he's getting the ball, where he's getting the ball, what he wants to do versus what the. What the coaching staff and the rest of the team wants him to do, but he kind of, like, the offensive end just kind of looks. He looks disinterested. And it's. It's. It's hard to be like, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna stick my flag into that guy as much as I want to and have in the last couple years. Like, it's just. It's been bad. And at least I know with the men, like, I'm getting a guy that plays really hard and is versatile. Yeah, the shooting's not going to be there, but it's close. But I would go, man, I think.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Powell can be a one. I don't think a man can.

[Ceruti]

I think that's. That's true. So maybe I'm like the Shangud versus Chet thing. I'm basically, like, speaking out of both sides of my mouth.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But it's all right. This is what this exercise is.

[Ceruti]

All right. This is a fun one. This is maybe a battle for the best white guard in the league. I'm going to give you three guys. Austin Reaves, Tower Hero or Con Knippel.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Hero is so third on this list. It's not even.

[Ceruti]

Don't tell that to Heat fans. Come on.

[Ryan Rosillo]

They know I'm gonna go caniple. Because it's only. Well, again right now the rest of the year. Then I'll go back. I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting. I like, honestly, if it's for just the rest of this year, the way we've talked about PA way too much. We may need to put a palo cap on the show where you can only, like, you know, the NFL would let ESPN use two minutes of live action Sports Center.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And then we may need to do, like, a timer for Paolo. When you and I start talking about him, it's like, hey, we can't talk about them anymore. The rest of the year. It's a man. So sorry. I keep forgetting the exercise. The rest of the year it's Austin Reeves over Knipple, played in playoff games, you know.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, this is a good one. Cat, I think has been in this every year as well.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, it's usually always the other guy.

[Ceruti]

I think it's going to be the other guy again. Cat or Jalen Duran.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Jalen Duran. I don't like Cat. I haven't liked him for a really long time. This is not breaking news. I find him to be so unenjoyable to watch. It's getting even worse. Mike Breen, who's one of the best broadcasters in any sport. But we know how it is on the home broadcast. Like, you kind of have to chill out and you can't really like. The Sixers broadcast is an incredibly homer broadcast. But part of me has sympathy for him because of all the bullshit fouls that Embiid and Maxi get. Like, what are they supposed to do? Play it neutral? Because if they played it neutral, they'd be talking against their own players all the time. So when Joel falls down and fucking looks around, they can't be like, hey, Joel's baiting again. Or that wasn't a foul. So I sympathize with the home broadcast to having to be homers. That preamble is to point out that Breen the other night during a Knicks game I was watching watches Cat. Cat has to stop complaining this much like Breen said it. Yeah, Breen again on the Knicks, not the national broadcast. On the Knicks broadcast, Breen's like, cat's got to stop. And it wasn't. It was just like a. Hey, you know, we had clock stoppage. There was some stupid drive to the baseline which again, it works for him more than it looks like it's going to on launch. It's like this rocket that takes off and you go. I guess it made it into orbit. I don't know how. So I honestly, you could have picked. You could have picked a lot of guys. But this is turning into, you know, fighting the exercise here. But during at least I know, I know how he battles the rolling around the rim. Just a. I'll take that. Even though he. I don't think he's taken a three yet this year. And it kind of goes against what everybody hopes to have in the stretch five. Well, because he doesn't.

[Ceruti]

I agree with you. I was just surprised. A lot of lists had had them close and had Cat ahead of him. And I, I.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because he's an incredible. He's a historic three point shooter. But his rebounding's awesome, too. But I don't. I'm good. I'm good.

[Ceruti]

You see what you need to see? Yeah. All right, I got two more. One of them, the last one's long, so this is the last short one. This is the battle of two guys that have just, like, found a new home and are now we're just like, wait, are they. Are they kind of sneaky awesome. Dylan Brooks or Michael Porter Jr.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Ooh, man. For this version that we've seen from Michael Porter Jr. But I'm going to just. I'm going to go with Dylan Brooks because I think these games matter more, and I'd rather have Brooks in a playoff battle than Michael Porter Jr. Who there have been playoff games on his resume.

[Ceruti]

NBA champion Michael Porter Jr. Yeah, I don't care.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean, you know, there's. There's some really. Porter Jr. Is not playing even in regular season games that have the same meaning than Dylan Brooks regular season games. So if you're telling me from this point forward through the playoffs, I'll take Brooks.

[Ceruti]

All right. This last one here, this is a. This is a ridiculous one. And it's not even really part of, like, this exercise, but it's kind of is. So I'm going to say it's a. Would you rather. How many teams right now would swap their entire roster for the Thunders bench? So basically I'm going to ask you a team and would you rather have your current team or the Thunders bench? So we're. We're. So we're excluding sga, Jalen, Chet Hartenstein, and Dort. Right. Is that fair? That's the five.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Because I think, you know, because I'm so basically. Caruso, A.J.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, I got it here. J.J. kayson, Wallace, Caruso Wiggins, other. Jalen Williams, Isaiah, Joe, Topik, Kendrick, Kenrich, and. And obviously McCain. Now that's.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's a different question now. Now that Usman Jang is gone. Oh, yeah, this isn't. I had said I thought they would play for a playing game without SGA and Jalen Williams. And then people think it actually, once they started losing games, it was like the worst take ever. And he's like, yeah, but you're missing the concept. If that was the team with that coach and said, okay, let's roll the ball out there, I trust that they would be more ready to go than a handful of teams in the bottom of the West.

[Ceruti]

Let's do this. So Kings are a. Yes.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Kings, yes.

[Ceruti]

Wizards, yes. I'm just going by the Standings Wizards. Yes.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No. That's. That might be a no, man.

[Ceruti]

No. Oh, I think they would.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What's the high end thing here, though? That's what you have to look at the rest of the season. No, no season.

[Ceruti]

I. Well, I guess that is. Yeah, you're right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, what is it? What is it? Cause we keep bouncing back and forth on this one. I think. Let's not do the rest of the season because that's stupid.

[Ceruti]

I think this one is you. You just switch rosters going forward.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. What's the high end piece here that gets you really excited? Like, Wiggins is a really nice player. AJ Mitchell's had some incredible moments here. Would you rather have az? Would you rather have Wallace?

[Ceruti]

What if.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So what do you want to say? Wallace is the. The most appealing asset.

[Ceruti]

What's the high end asset? What are the high end assets that are that exciting for the Wizards? That are.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That there's no way that you would trade Trey Johnson for A.J. mitchell right now.

[Ceruti]

No. But the totality of the rest of the Wizards. Like, I don't care about Trey. I don't care about A.D. i'm sorry. Like, I don't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Would you trade SAR for Caruso? Would you trade SAR for Ken Ruins? Right.

[Ceruti]

No.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So that's two. No, I would trade. So that's three players we could say with Keyshawn George. Would you trade AD for any of these guys?

[Ceruti]

AD And I don't care. I. AD I can't. I don't know how many games is he going to play?

[Ryan Rosillo]

You want to be.

[Ceruti]

No. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't. I don't.

[Ceruti]

I don't want Trey Young. I'd rather have Topich. Yeah. I have no interest in Trey Young on my team whatsoever. I'm telling you that the. That like the current Wizards team. Or I can get AJ Mitchell Case on Wallace, Caruso, Wiggins, other Jalen, Williams, Isaiah, Joe, Topich, Kenrich and win and McCain. I think I'd rather have that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think there's just. Even if you're gonna. Like. I'm kind of arguing against my whole playing point here, but I would say there's just not enough high end possibilities here with this group where you'd be passing on Trey on Keyshawn, on Sar. Like, who would you. Is there one player that you would say no to, Keyshawn George, on this list of bench players for okc?

[Ceruti]

I mean, I. I love A.J. mitchell.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So you just. You would say if A.J. mitchell were offered for Keyshawn George or if the Wizards offered you keyshawn George for A.J. mitchell, you would.

[Ceruti]

I don't like the one player thing, though. I don't like the one player because I'm telling you that I'd rather have that group of guys.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I understand what you're saying, but you're. If you're doing the entire Wizards roster, there's. There's a hope that one of these guys pops to another level.

[Ceruti]

So vice versa.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You.

[Ceruti]

If you're the Thunder, you'd be like, I'd rather take the Wizards as my bench than my bench. Yeah. All right.

[Joe Passon]

I think this will.

[Kyle]

I.

[Ceruti]

We.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We would agree.

[Ceruti]

Disagree.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We'll never know. I don't know if we'll ever know.

[Ceruti]

All right, let's keep going, Pelicans.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think this is going to be a million no's for me, man.

[Ceruti]

Okay. Well, the. All right. Brooklyn's a yes, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Brooklyn's probably a yes.

[Ceruti]

Utah's a no. Dallas is a no. Memphis.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Cedric, Howard, Pippen, Vince Williams, Edie.

[Ceruti]

Other than Coward. I'm not. I'm not.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But I like coward better than any other players or the idea of coward. And that's the point. Like, again, if it isn't like everything else the rest of the year.

[Ceruti]

So you don't like ayyjayy as much?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I like AJ a lot. But I. I feel like I kind of know what the fully formed version of is going to be. Even if this still feels somewhat early, there's still a high end thing here, a possibility of a high end thing here that you would value. I mean, that's what we do every single year with the draft. So the way NBA teams work on this, I don't know that anyone from this group, unless you just like topic, is going to be fucking nasty. And who knows? That could be. The funniest thing is like, two years from now, we think about this exercise and Topic is terrific. I don't know how often he's going to have a ball in his hands in this offense with SGA. It's not like he's 30. So what were the yeses? Brooklyn. Yes, it's Zachary.

[Ceruti]

Brooklyn. Yeah. The Kings. Brooklyn.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And you have the Wizards. I don't.

[Ceruti]

I think I would and I think I would. Memphis, too.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Jaw's still on the team.

[Ceruti]

Well, I don't. Yeah, I mean, that's. I guess that's. Yeah, but what's his. He has negative value right now, according to the league. So what? What's that even saying? I mean, if you were to take away Giannis off the Bucks, which I know this is a stupid exercise. But like you would swap rosters with the Bucks asap, right? No Giannis. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean unless this Cam Thompson Jang won too.

[Ceruti]

Is what about the Bulls? I've never been a huge giddy guy. I know that. I know he's he had a great start to the year and it's kind of tailed off.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Vince Williams is in that Jazz deal, by the way. I just had a double look double check that. I probably should have brought up Jalen Wells instead of Vince Williams.

[Ceruti]

I think this is the last possible team.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Nah, I'll be zealous. Like I wouldn't if you offered me A.J. mitchell for Bazealous, I said no.

[Ceruti]

So you have two teams? I have, I think four. Still, it's kind of insane. Good exercise.

[Ryan Rosillo]

All right, so you can let us know what you think about that. Our NBA mailbag NBA mailbag rrmail.com get in the game with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back at some of your favorite brands with Venmo Stash Rewards. Upgrade your Superfan status and special edition school designs so you can pay for your game day wings and rep your team at the same time. You can add your Venmo debit card to your mobile wallet as soon as you sign up and pay online and in store right from your phone. And the best part? The card is tied to your Venmo account. Got paid back for dinner. Immediately access the money in your Venmo balance and spend it on what you want. Game day snacks, tickets, new merch. You can easily split purchases in the app and there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Score more with a college branded Venmo debit card and get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash. Sign [e-mail] college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by Bank Corp. NA Select Schools available. Venmo Stash Bundle terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max $100 cash back per month Passin Massive piece for collective bargaining agreement aficionados up today on espn. One of the best baseball writers going. I don't want to get it personal here and start ranking all you guys. So look, by all means, yeah, well, maybe at the end we'll open it up to the audience. This is a day that a lot of baseball fans have been thinking about this deadline of December 1st in 2026 to see where we're at with 2027 baseball. You wrote a long piece. The most Important thing for all of us to understand is what that December.

[Joe Passon]

1St is not the date that you should be scared about. It's mid March at some undetermined point where they are going to have been fighting for, you know, months and months and there are going to be slings and arrows going back and forth and you're going to have MLB pushing hard on the public that a salary cap is necessary to save this sport. You're going to have the players pushing back and saying, no, no, no, on the contrary, a salary cap is not necessary to achieve the objectives that you, Major League Baseball, are saying are important. And that drop dead date in the middle of March is going to be. Ryan, what determines whether the season starts and whether games are missed? And I know Major League Baseball has a long and sordid labor history that the World Series was lost in 1994 on arguments over this very issue about the salary cap. But in the time since, the NHL has missed a lot of games, the NBA has missed a lot of games. Baseball, for all of the labor consternation that there is every time this comes up, hasn't missed the game since the strike in 94 that bled into 95. So the hope is that that continues and that Rob Manfred's tenure as commissioner goes clean, start to finish, with no games missed.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Baseball gets a really unfair amount of criticism when basically these labor deals are up every four, five years or so. So if you go through it the same topics, I was looking at all the stuff Back to like 97, 99 this morning and going through like, what were the key talking points? I would say this one does feel a little bit different and that's because of the LA Dodgers. So what role do the Dodgers play in the legitimacy of the. Really? I think it's an ownership concern. More it is about an overall compensation concern towards the players.

[Joe Passon]

The Dodgers, to me, Ryan, are such a fascinating character in all of this because they are painted and portrayed as this like, moneyed and villainous group that is using its natural resources to take over baseball. And to some extent that's true. Like what the Dodgers are doing right now, it shouldn't be a surprise because the Wall Streetization of sports ownership has led to, I think, front offices and teams looking for these advantages that exist within the constraints of their collective bargaining agreements. And it's not just the Dodgers. You see this with the New York Mets as well. The Dodgers are owned by Guggenheim, a hedge fund that runs 350 million. Excuse me, 3. That manages $350 billion in assets. The Dodgers are owned by Steve Cohen, one of the most successful hedge fund managers of his generation. He's literally fucking Bobby Axelrod. Like, that is who he is. The character was modeled after him. And so you should not be surprised that these organizations are looking through all of the collective bargaining agreement and saying, where do we have advantages? And the advantage that they found is that Major League Baseball in the collective bargaining agreement penalizes teams through money. And what I mean by that is, you know, for all the draft pick stuff that exists and all the other penalties, at the end of the day, if you go over the collect the competitive balance tax, really the only substantial penalty that you're paying is money. And guess what? Guggenheim and Steve Cohen have a lot of goddamn money. And they understand that if all we're doing is pouring money into this team and the team is going to be better and allow us to win championships in the case of the Dodgers or allow us to ostensibly turn things around in the case of the Mets, that's a price that we're willing to pay. That's a price that's worth it. And baseball really is the only sport that I can see where you're penalized for trying hard. And there's no penalty for not trying. And I'm not going to sit here, Ryan, and tell you that the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Kansas City Royals have the capacity to go and do the same thing that the Dodgers do. Unless you have some sort of munificent owner who is going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year, that's just not a realistic thing. But, but what is realistic is that the lower teams on the end of things can spend more and that there can be some sort of penalties put in place on the top end that don't include necessarily a salary cap to make it such that teams are not going to want to spend. And that's how you shrink the gap between the two. That has grown and grown and is at the point now where it's as big as we've ever seen.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, the parody stuff on the overall payroll, stuff like I always like to look at, okay, if you go five lowest payrolls by team in 2025, Miami's around 67 million. The Athletics 73 million. Tampa 80, White Sox 82. Pittsburgh's just under 88 million. Miami 67 million. Payroll would have been 16th in MLB rankings in 2005. So, like, when you think of the growth of the NFL cap team salaries, it's not the same amount of growth Obviously in the NBA, but like you don't have to go very far to just see this graph that explodes. And it feels like for a third of these franchises there's, there's no explosion. I mean some of these numbers continue to get more and more ridiculous on the disparity. And I understand all the Dodgers complaints, especially when you're just a fan and you're emotional and you're looking at your division going what the hell am I supposed to to do? I remember just as a hardcore Sox fan, I was so worried about what Steinbrenner was going to do after they lost Game 7 to Arizona because they're like, oh no, you know, like I almost rather you just won this one so that you're not even more motivated to go ahead. I mean it's just the way I thought. So I understand that way of thinking with everything. But this is a far more like whenever I read about any of this stuff, the issue is these teams. It's not the Dodgers. Like I understand the Dodgers and the packaging and all this stuff. And can we just as an aside, like why is the Tucker contract, the one that's like, all right, this is ridiculous because that felt like the way that was structured. Everyone was against that contract, that both is involved in this sport and, and roots for a team in this sport.

[Joe Passon]

So just for some context, Kyle Tucker was the best free agent in baseball this off season. He's 29 years old, four time all star. I mean a really, really good player.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Good. A really good player, but not, not a superstar.

[Joe Passon]

Like not a superstar but he's not 30 yet. So he's young. And so you can still get those prime years. And he got offered 10 years and $350 million by the Toronto Blue Jays. And never in baseball history had somebody turned down a 300 plus million dollar contract in free agency to go for something shorter. And yet the Dodgers came in at four years and $240 million with a $65 million signing bonus. And the Mets offered four for 220 with no deferred money and a $75 million signing bonus. And that is the gap between the top and the bottom is cash flow. It's the ability for Guggenheim to go into its vast resources and say $65 million right now, that's between our couch cushions. It's for Steve Cohen to say, am I going to take a loss here? Yeah, but guess what? I got a casino out of it. And so I am going to make goo gobs of money otherwise. And I think why it pisses so many people off. Ryan, I appreciate you bringing up those bottom five teams, but let's go to the bottom 10. Kyle Tucker's contract for $60 million this year with the deferrals factored in, the average annual value is $57.1 million. Because the Dodgers have gone over the highest threshold of the the competitive balance tax multiple years in a row. Now they have to pay 110% penalty on every dollar they spend over it. 57.1 plus 57.1 plus 5.7 is $119.9 million. The Los Angeles Dodgers this year are going to pay Kyle Tucker more than the entire payroll of the bottom 10 teams in major League Baseball. And if that right there does not illustrate to you the disparity, I'm not sure what's going to. And listen, for a long time, Ryan, and I still am, to some extent, the Dodgers are playing within the framework that 30 owners agreed to four years ago. We can't discount that. There were 30 owners on board with this collective bargaining agreement. And all the Dodgers are doing is playing inside of that sandbox. Now, they're the ones like walking into the sandbox, you know, with fat Cuban links on and everybody else is wearing fake chains. But at the same time, I just, I have a hard time begrudging the Dodgers for saying that we're going to do all we can to go and win when there are so many teams out there that don't have that same mentality, even if they don't have the same resources, just for the record.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So because I think we're aligned on this and just I am in favor of what the Dodgers are doing, okay? I am not going to point to the Dodgers and go, the Dodgers are the problem. The Dodgers is why we're not going to have baseball. The Dodgers are the reason why we may not have baseball in 2027. But on the structure and some of the California stuff that you had reported on with Ohtani and understanding as a resident of California, like once you get over that million dollar salary threshold, it's a 13% state tax. And so is there something which would seem as a massive disadvantage to California, actually is an even bigger advantage to California because they're going to go, look, we're going to get you out of the state tax, we're going to pay you the lowest base imaginable, we're going to defer all this money. So it's going to be worth even more in the future. I guess there's probably like a cash Rich, poor thing. But once you get into this world of private banking, there's plenty of people who are going to figure out really good deals for you where you're going to have access to cash, where you can borrow against the future contract and then you're paying literally nothing anyway. So is the oddity of all the years of like Texas, no state tax, Florida, no state tax, California having this absurd state income tax for any of these ballplayers making this much money, which would be a massive negative. It's clearly like the Dodgers. Again, I don't know that I'd structure it or argue it as a positive, but their creative structuring puts them in another stratosphere on top of the access to all this money because no one would want to sign there unless they were deferring all this money on top of everything else.

[Ceruti]

Correct, accurate.

[Joe Passon]

And it's why I think it's going to be important as over the next few months as we look at what the alternates to the salary cap or two, a salary cap system are. And I think that's an important thing to do. Just as a reporter, if there are players that are saying there's no way in hell that we're going to agree to this, it's my job to say, okay, why, like why? Why do players not believe in this? Well, players don't believe in this because, hey, this system right now treating them pretty well. Shohei Ohtani, $70 million a year, Kyle Tucker, $60 million a year, Juan Soto, 15 years, $765 million, all guaranteed by the way, because every contract in baseball is guaranteed. So the players are saying this system has buoyed us for decades now. Like it's been more than a half century since Curt Flood and Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally and the forebears of, you know, not just labor in baseball but in all of sports allowed us this wonderful thing called free agency, which we are obsessed with as fans every year and which gives players the opportunity to control their destiny and control their careers. But at the same time, Ryan, we need to understand that unfettered free agency has unintended consequences. And one of those unintended consequences that has revealed itself in baseball is that when you allow things to go this way, there can be disparity. And there's a certain point, I think, where the disparity starts bleeding over into fans lives. And look, I live in Kansas City, I grew up in Cleveland. I know as well as anyone the plight of small market team in an uncapped sport like It's a real thing. But at the same time, remember who was the best team in Major League Baseball during the regular season last year? It wasn't the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee of all teams. And you look at Cleveland, two consecutive AL Central championships on a skin flint budget. You look at the Rays like there are ways to win in baseball in spite of these things. Since the turn of the century, Major League Baseball has more World Series champions than Stanley cup champions, NBA Finals champions and super bowl champions. Like baseball has those areas where parity has shown itself because the game is so random. And yet all this comes back, I think, Ryan, to a feeling, a feeling of we want to feel like we've got a shot as fans. We want to feel like this is fair. And that's where I think all the stakeholders in baseball need to come together and understand that they have something good going on right now. Let's not ruin it because of greed.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Microsoft Copilot. The AI assistant that actually helps you get stuff done. Copilot works across Microsoft 365 Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, turning chaos into productivity. Need a presentation? Copilot builds it. Need a summary of a meeting? You definitely zoned out in. Copilot's got you let Copilot do the heavy lifting. You just take the credit. Learn [e-mail] M365Copilot I'm forever fascinated with just the idea of 5050 because it doesn't mean it's right. It's just really hard to argue against. And so if we're roommates and we live in a two bedroom condo and the utility bill comes in and I'm like, well, you know, it's, it's 50 50. Now look, one of us could be getting a space here going. You know, it might not actually be a perfect representation of what the real value is or what the real cost is that we're running up, but it's just hard to argue against, like, hey, 5050 just makes sense. And I think it's really interesting that so many of the leagues kind of argue 5050 when I'm up for arguments of like, hey, the debt carry and everything you have to do to own one of these teams. Like it should never be 50 50, it should always be 6040 in favor of the owners. I'm more aligned with the players on this historically, where somehow the NBA went from 57 to below 50% and that's not even guaranteed. It's all based on the basketball related income, which again you so astutely point out in your piece here today, it's like this is what your check or this is what your contract says. But if you there's a shortfall, then it's just collectively felt on the pain side. So like 50 50, everybody. The reason why I think 5050 works and this is, I promise there's a point here is that the public's just good with 5050 and, and it just forever, it just was like, yeah, but what if we're the players and we're worth so much more and our skill is, is more unique than it is you accruing wealth however you did it, some people with incredibly hard work and you're just a grandson who outlasted the rest of them, you know, So I, I look at this Dodgers part of. And you had said like now it feels like the smoking gun because when they agreed to this four years ago, there's probably not many people who are like, wait, what are the Dodgers going to do the next few years? Right? And they're coming off the two World Series. So I wonder if the owners can bitch and complain about the Dodgers, but from a PR standpoint for selling their position the way the 5050 proposition has been sold to the public for decades, I wonder if the Dodgers are actually a good thing because it's a breaking point. Because I don't understand how much public support actually matters in any of this shit. It seems to matter to all of these. Yeah, right. Like, I think the way people are talking about on tv, the way all this, like, I would try to go like, I don't know that this stuff really matters. But the Dodgers may be both the thing that everyone is rallied around. And then privately the owners are like, we are so glad because the Dodgers are going to sway public opinion. They're going to have more and more fans going, you know what, let's just do the salary cap. Like what's wrong with these greedy baseball players? When in fact, like, I think it's so important, so incredible that this league still does not have a salary cap that the highest end, the most, most, the most talented, the most unique players in this sport can be rewarded with an infinity type idea of what their true value is. The same way LeBron is probably worth a hundred million plus dollars a year when he's in his prime in baseball. That doesn't happen to LeBron the way it does at basketball, the way it happens to quarterbacks in these other sports. So I really do think the Dodgers are the best thing that they're both like to sell Their public position to get the public to come to their side while also being the reason they're also mad. Which is a very hard thing to be able to accomplish as an organization.

[Joe Passon]

Yes, it really is. And by the way, I just go back to earlier when, when we're splitting the utilities, do I get to pay a prorated rate if I'm out for eight days of the month going back to September? That poor guy. That poor sucker. You were, you were right to call him out. I felt bad for him because he's just trying to be a nice guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The players union should grab the other guy. He walks in just delusional about everything. I mean, that was always all my favorite Marvin Miller stuff. It was just like, obviously he was a brilliant human being, but sometimes he would almost act so obtuse that it was like, is this guy an idiot? Like, you're just. You're not even capable of seeing our side of the argument because you're finding anything that you can to just be like. It's almost like in Veep, when Yes, right. With Selena's friend is that lawyer and she's like, what is a vote? You're just like, well, how do I. How do I argue with this person? So, yeah, we got a couple different references in there.

[Joe Passon]

It's been really interesting to me to. I haven't surveyed fans, but just getting a sense of how they feel. Fans are very pro salary cap, and.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It'S so interesting because they're used to it.

[Joe Passon]

That's exactly what it is. It's so interesting to see like the backlash against the billionaire class, generally speaking, like writ large in the world. And yet in sports, you have so many people who are saying, well, you don't want an owner to lose money, do you? It's like, hey, guy, they got a lot of it first off.

[Ceruti]

But.

[Joe Passon]

But beyond that, players, in the argument that they're trying to make, they know that it's an uphill battle. And I think the difficulty that players are going to face is a public that believes that the NFL's supposed parity is caused by the salary cap. I think leagues have done an extraordinary job of public relations in saying that we function the way that we do because a causative relationship with the salary cap, as opposed to it just being correlated, they attribute their health and their well being to the fact that there is a salary cap system. At the same time, man, if you ask NFL players, NBA players and NHL players, would you rather a system where there's a defined split or where you can earn what's essentially in baseball, as Juan Soto proved, as Ohtani and Tucker have shown, an unlimited amount of money. Of course they're going to take the uncapped system every single time. You know, they talk well about the cap system because it's what they've got, but in reality, if given the choice between those two things, yeah, you're going to take the uncapped system because you believe that at the end of the day, enough people in the sport want to win to make it such that it's going to be near that 50, 50 split. And when you look at baseball, even though the salaries themselves are below 50, 50 right now, you add in minor league salaries, you add in benefits, you add in the money spent on the draft and internationally, and the number is well over 50% of what's being spent on actual players. So I get why players don't want the system to change, but I think they need to acknowledge and recognize that even if the system doesn't change wholeheartedly, it needs to evolve to a place where those lower revenue teams feel like they have a chance and are incentivized to go out there and spend, maybe not to the level of the Dodgers, the Yankees or the Mets or those teams at the top, but a much more representative level than the 60 something million dollars that the Marlins are paying this year.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Can you be a Mets fan? That voter for Madani? You know, if you, if you think about it, you're like, well, hey, at least, like, I don't want, I don't want this sour cap to happen. Like, this is how we got Soto.

[Joe Passon]

I mean, isn't, isn't that what fans, isn't that what most fans want though, in, in sports, Ryan? Don't they want socialism or don't they want like the air of socialism, at least in order to say, of course they do.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I'm, I'm totally with you. Like, this is all about selfishness. This is all this is. It isn't necessarily saying like, I'm defending the billionaire. It doesn't mean that you hate the player. It just means that chances are your team's not going to have a chance. All right? Even if there's more parity in baseball, if you go by title winners over the same amount of time, even if we're not that far removed from an Arizona, Texas World Series, which was like the epitome, the problem is the timing and the momentum. The Dodgers last few off seasons, back to back World Series, the time is perfect because nobody remembers shit. Nobody remembers anything. So all they're going to think about is, I can't believe this Tucker deal for a pretty good player, his average annual salary being historic. They just won two World Series. Like, I'm. I'm a Cleveland fan. I don't care. Like, I'm. I may have voted Republican, but I don't care. I want the Cleveland Guardians to have a better chance to compete in the playoffs. And so that's what I think this has always been about. So I think it's always a hard position to sell that. But the beauty of this sport on the player side is you can't ever tell any of us that we're only worth up into a certain dollar amount.

[Ceruti]

Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And that's why I try to hammer the table for. Not like I'm sitting here helping the players union. And, you know, you had a couple other pieces in there that I definitely want to touch on, too. And that is. But let's stay on this because there's this. These two economists who wrote this piece that you reference, it's years and years ago. The argument being, I believe. Right, right. It is 2011. So the argument is, and kind of the face of what I'm just saying now is if you let there be a cap, then that means we bring up the floor. We're sort of shifting the money flatter out across everyone. You don't have these bottom teams or silo that you're all pissed off about. The bottom 10 that you mentioned are going to have an annual salary under what Tucker's going to make. When you factor in the tax considerations here, do you believe what these economists argue is that the floor would come up as the ceiling comes down and that there should be more players, however many are active each year. You know, we're talking less than a thousand over 800 players, that there should be more players that are in favor of a cap to raise the floor because a lot of them, like there would be more single voters, let's say. If you look at it that way, that would benefit from this as opposed to hurting the top. What do you think?

[Joe Passon]

We talk floor and ceiling, Ryan, as if they exist only in a capped world. There is a kind of cap right now in baseball with the competitive balance tax at the top. There is not that at the bottom. And that's an area where I feel like if I'm the players right now, that's what I'm pushing for. And I'm pushing for it with this in mind. If you look at that paper, they talk about revenue sharing being an enormous Driver of parity in sports, even more so than caps themselves. And you can have changes to Major League Baseball's revenue sharing system. And this is how it's going to work. Idealistically, Major League Baseball's television rights, both nationally and they are hoping locally, are going to be up after the 2027 season. So right now, MLB teams make about $60 million a year from national television rights. It's only a billion eight a year in that national television contract where the NBA is making $7 billion, where the NFL, God knows how much they're going to be making by then. But on top of that, we've had all these blackouts in baseball and just a difficult time trying to watch the game, which is such an important part of breeding new fans. Rob Manfred wants to take all 30 teams and essentially do what the NFL has done with its regular season games as well, which is make them national to get rid of the RSNs and the broken model that exists there where we see bankruptcies right and left. And just say, if you want to watch baseball, here's how you do it. You go to this place and there will be 15 games a night. There will be, you know, 2,430, 30 games every year, like, and you have access to all of them. Who wants to pay for that? And considering it's two and a half hours every night, every game, 30 minutes pre, 30 minutes post, like, it's a lot of content, it's a lot of Fans, you know, 70 plus million fans going to stadiums every year, that should be valuable. If you take those television rights, Ryan, and pool them and distribute them evenly among teams, all of a sudden the 60 million plus, you know, the 30 or 40 million locally that these teams in smaller markets are getting via TV, that becomes 200 plus. And they have no excuse at that point not to spend on players. None. When you have that much more shared money coming in, the bottom gets stronger. And to me, the strength of Major League Baseball is not how good are the Dodgers, how good are the Yankees, the Mets, the Cubs, the Red Sox, the Phillies? You know, these teams that we look at as bellwethers. No, the strength of Major League Baseball is how good the fans of low revenue teams feel about their ability to win. That to me, tells you where the sport's going to be going going forward. Because the second you start losing hope, you've lost your game. And there are so many alternative things for fans to do right now. Don't give them a reason to leave, give them a reason to stay and sell Them on this beautiful game that's being played at a level like we've never seen before.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. But I'd also say to the NBA, half the teams have no chance before the first ball is thrown of the year.

[Joe Passon]

Yeah. And it fucking sucks. Like, the tanking this year has been awful.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, it's going to get worse.

[Ceruti]

I know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

If I don't. If I don't have a quarterback, like, all right, here we go. Week one. This will be fun, you know, So I think there's a lot of convenient arguments, like, hey, if we do this, if baseball is allowed to do this, and we can restrict some of these things and we'll do all these things, it's like, hey, everybody's going to have a chance and you're going to go, oh, cool, we spent like 40 million more and we don't have a number two starter. So, like, parody. I. Go ahead, go ahead, because I have two other thoughts here to close.

[Joe Passon]

No, no, fire away, dude. This is your show and this is your flight.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Cause you said something else, though, that I think is really important here. Because, like, if you go back, I remember, like, 97, 2000 CBA, it was like, oh, we'll just tax the top five team.

[Ceruti]

Teams.

[Ryan Rosillo]

This was like, totally, like, raw. Like, whoever the five highest are. And then I think you could even remember, like, jockeying of, like, trying to get from five to six.

[Joe Passon]

Yep.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because. Right, right. Which is such an odd part of this whole thing because then if you're a gm, you're like, my owner's telling me I gotta get payroll and get it out of this top five thing. And then it's like, who's. Which GM is going to be able to pull off trying to get below that. I don't remember how often it happened. I just remember being a talking point back then. So 0306, that's CBA. The tax brackets were 17 and a half percent over the minimum threshold and then over 40%. The next one was 22 and a half to 30 to 40%. Then you go to 17, 21. It was 20, 30, 50. Again, those thresholds and the repeater stuff, the. The thing they passed four years ago, okay. Is pretty damn close. Like, this is Second Apron NBA territory, too. If you live up here. This is kind of, you know, you can't say it. The definitive hard cap here. But the tax penalties for the repeaters, which is basically, hey, your second year in, past these thresholds, like 62 and a half percent, 75%, 95%, then if you're in that third part of it, which is what the dodgers are in 80% tax, you know, 80% tax on every dollar over that threshold as a multiple team repeater, which again, the Dodgers are just going to be in this forever because of what they keep signing to 110%. So these were. In 20 years. They kind of got there in a creative way that never gets talked about like as if it's this free for all. It's like they, they ended up getting a ton of the restrictions with again, feeds back into the owners that benefit from all of this stuff, which I know. Like there's language and how the tax money is used developing baseball and underdeveloped like I was. I know there's a million different things. You just made a face where. I don't know if you agree or disagree.

[Joe Passon]

No, no, no. I just, I just think the, the, like it, it gets redistributed. But in, in reality. Yeah, whatever. Like I.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, I'm glad you made that face because I couldn't tell if you completely agreed or disagreed. I'm uneducated on it. It was sort of odd. I'm like, what happens with all of this extra tax money and all of it. So all I'm saying is to baseball fans, like, you've had some incredible ownership progress on punitive, punitive systems that are already kind of in place. But it doesn't have the title or it doesn't have the selling appeal of, hey, no one can spend over this dollar amount. So that means you're going to have more fun for the next six months. And I'm not sure that's the game.

[Joe Passon]

How to do that. Like for, you know, I have, I have more stories coming on this. Some of the casualties of this one were like creative ideas that instead of just money. Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because that's.

[Joe Passon]

It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Just money is nothing to Guggenheim and Steve Cohen. But what if you started losing, you know, first round draft picks which have been taken away in the last collective bargaining agreement? What happens if you lose the ability to sign any player internationally or if there's an international draft, you lose that. What happens if you put in place something where if you go over a certain level, then the next year the, the lower level teams or the low revenue teams get to do what essentially would be like a redistribution draft, kind of like an expansion draft from your minor league system where they just get to pluck players from you as a penalty. Like there are, there's so many smart people in baseball, Ryan and there's so many creative ideas that they have that I feel like getting stuck on cap versus no cap is going to be a disservice to the industry long term because this is going to be all that they're talking about, when in reality they should just be sitting down in a room with the best and brightest and saying, what's some cool shit that we can do? What can we do to make this game better and make everybody happy? Major League Baseball can say to the players, we hear you, that you don't want a cap. Tell us a way to get around it. The players can say to the owners, we hear you, that you do want a cap. What can we do to not necessarily satisfy that, but to satisfy other things that you want? Because you know, the onus I think ultimately is on MLB to make this argument. They're the ones who are trying to change the system. They're the ones who want to overhaul it. They need to sell the players on doing this. The point is though, there are so many levers that can be pulled that I worry are not going to because they're going to spend so much time arguing over this very binary, yes, no thing. And I think that is the wrong way to approach it by everyone involved.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Here's what I would do. Be like, you already have a high end tax here. If you're under 120 million in total payroll, you're going to get a taxed a dollar for dollar for being below it.

[Joe Passon]

Oh, absolutely. That should have been in place years ago. Totally, totally, totally agree with you on that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Those bottom teams, Bob Nutting's not going to like that.

[Joe Passon]

You know, and maybe I don't. Maybe Ryan. The consequence of that is, is that the bad owners who don't want to win get the hell out of the game. And I think, I think we have.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You shouldn't be allowed to own one of these teams anymore. You shouldn't benefit from the appreciation of these. And I know you had the piece. It's like a lot of baseball owners are looking at their basketball and football owner brethren and being like, how come our valuations are taking off? And be like, if your only thing was about evaluation. Look, and I know I can sound a little too Pollyanna about it, but don't buy the Pittsburgh Pirates because of what you hope to sell them in 10 years. And then bitch about like, why are you a partner bitching about competitive balance when you don't really care about competitive balance?

[Joe Passon]

I feel the same way about these teams as I did the day that My friends at the Washington Post all lost their jobs, and that's this. These are public trusts. These are institutions. These are not just mere businesses that exist to get squeezed for all the profits that you can make out of them. When you buy a trust, when you buy an institution, there's a certain level of stewardship that they demand. And if you're not willing to provide that, go away. Because somebody else who actually cares, who understands what the goal is and what the benefits of reaching that goal are, we'll take over and do a better job than you.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm warning everybody. And I know you already know this, so I'm not explaining it to you because this is your world, not mine. But I do remember the stuff coming out of 21, the coverage of it. You know, we're getting through Covid. Baseball felt like it had momentum, and then it's like, stupid old baseball. Stupid baseball. Like, there's. There's. There's cb like, they get way more shit for their collective bargaining agreement stuff than any of the other leagues do. And when that deadline, which isn't even a real deadline because you're right to say, hey, March is when it really matters. Let's not worry about December. Let's not worry about what less than 11 months from what we're doing right now, talking about they're going to be people on TV on December 2, going like, oh, baseball had all this momentum, and now they're trying to kill themselves again. And it's like, you know what?

[Ceruti]

We.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We're. We're less than five years away from those conversations, and we just had some of the best baseball that we've ever seen, some of the most exciting storylines. I think despite the Dodgers part of this, like, having a target on this one team, like, I know the Dodgers won last year. That's going to be one of my favorite World Series ever, because it was so much Fun that game 7. At least the product is right, but the criticism of it is going to be so obsessive, and it'll be premature, and I think it'll be disproportionate. So just get ready for that, though. And I know you know that's happening.

[Joe Passon]

Thanks. It's going to be awesome.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We'll do well. We're not that far away from pictures of catcher, so we'll. We'll do some stuff before the season gets started. I promise. We'll talk baseball. Baseball. But you're the best. Thanks, Joe.

[Joe Passon]

Thanks, Rob. I appreciate you.

[Ryan Rosillo]

All right, before we move on, a quick word on the tool that keeps people's workflow tighter than my takes. Microsoft 365 copilot the world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through the clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn [e-mail] M365 copilot you want details?

[Ceruti]

Bye.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.

[Kyle]

What's up?

[Joe Passon]

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I have every toy you can find possibly imagine.

[Ceruti]

And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So now you know what's possible.

[Kyle]

Let me tell you what's required.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Life Advice lifeadvice rrmail.com what is up to Kyle? What is up to Steve all right, let's just get right to it. Choosing Best man for a Wedding hey guys. Recently engaged. Could use some life advice on choosing my best man. I'll get into it. But first the stats. 6 to 200 pounds ran the 25 New York City Marathon in 3:38. Wow.

[Kyle]

Sounds good to me, man.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. 22512 reps. Not lifting for mass. Well, sounds like you've got some mass brother and you're running marathons. Basketball comp Corey Brewer scores accidentally using the run and hoop combo, but forces turnovers with cardio effort. If I ever score 51, there will be zero jumps, zero jump shots instead of Corey's three. I got engaged earlier this year. My fiance are finalizing wedding parties. My groomsmen list is set, but the best man decision is where I'm stuck. For context, I have a younger brother one year apart. We love each other as brothers, but would both tell you that we're complete opposites. I work in banking in a big city and love sports and social events. He's lived overseas since college, bouncing around Southeast Asia, teaching English as a second language and working through his visa in each country before finally landing in Taiwan. We see each other once or twice a year, rarely text. There's no tension. It's just a dynamic we've always had and it's worked for both of us. Additional Context My fiance has a twin sister and an older sister. At her older sister's wedding, she was co maid of honor with her twin sister. She's doing. She's doing the same thing here with her sisters being the maid of honor and matron of Honor. Did you guys go that deep into the bullpen?

[Kyle]

Is Matron just the older one?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Sounds worse.

[Ceruti]

I thought that was the mother of. Is it being one's married, one's not, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Oh, I have no idea. Yeah. Who do you guys? Sure.

[Kyle]

You just opened up the whole world. I wasn't even prepared for.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. Wedding Planner. I was like, I'm not. I'm not ready to see that movie yet.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. Matron's married maid is unmarried.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. This whole time. Thanks, dude.

[Ceruti]

Welcome.

[Ryan Rosillo]

My initial and honest choice for best man was my best friend. We went to college together. Playing a band, dude.

[Ceruti]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Paul Rudd and Siegel over here talk all the time. What's that?

[Ceruti]

What's up? Jobin.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's good. Remember.

[Ceruti]

Remember Dan? Remember Dan? Dot. Fantasy guy. Espn. Awesome dude. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Secret Squirrel.

[Ceruti]

Secret Squirrel, yeah. He named his cat Jobin. That's when I knew I would like him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Dobbs. A good, good dude.

[Ceruti]

Great guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Good dude. And he's super. He likes everybody, too. I think you started a hundred with Dan and then you gotta work your way down to 50. I would say Surudi and I. Everyone starts at a zero.

[Ceruti]

I don't know about that. Am I zero?

[Kyle]

Maybe you. Sounds like you.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, Brian, maybe you.

[Ceruti]

Everyone starts at a zero. Don't loop me into this. I feel like I'm a decently likable dude. I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, no, no, no. I meant where everyone else starts with you.

[Ceruti]

Oh, yes. Okay. I'm not a zero. You are. I'm not a.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You're a 20.

[Ceruti]

I'm below 50.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Kyle's a 75. With any.

[Kyle]

Yeah, I was gonn 65.

[Ryan Rosillo]

75. Yeah, for the most part. What's up, stranger?

[Kyle]

How you doing, guy?

[Ceruti]

We need. Speaking of, we need to. You got smoke out here?

[Kyle]

What?

[Ceruti]

Dana beers. Kyle Something Show. YouTube podcast. There was some. There was romance going on there.

[Kyle]

There were good vibes.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Good vibes. Last week. Yeah, Dana's. Dana's. I'm psychotic to hang out with everybody. Let's see here. All right, so we. We get the history behind that. We don't know if it's the Latin. Latin origin. There. My initial and honest choice again, best friend band, same building. He's your typical guy. Best friend sounds cliche, but I think you guys know what I mean. My brother was, of course, going to be a groomsman. Hey, I think we know exactly what you're talking about. I recently had dinner with my parents, and after telling them this, they had serious consternation. My dad, specifically was Very against it. He cited a few things. One, given the natural setup of my fiance having a maiden matron of honor, it would look like as if he had intentionally excluded my brother by having one best man. Two, even if this may not hurt my brother's feelings, it would seriously hurt both of my parents. My dad said it would feel like he failed as a parent if her sons weren't close enough for my brother to be best man.

[Ceruti]

Hey, dad.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Doug moved to Taiwan. All right? Every wedding they have ever been to where the groom has a brother, the brother has been the best man. I don't know. I don't think they'd refuse to attend or support the wedding, but I know this would stick with them long term. I'm not totally against having two best men, but if I'm being honest, it feels forced and not like a true reflection of my relationships at the same time. You only get married once, hopefully, and I don't want. Yeah, you could just say to your brother, hey, next time around. I had an aunt that got you a spot. I had an aunt where the. We went to this, her second wedding, and then the uncle on the other side was like. Like. Was like, didn't make it, and said to everybody and was like, well, make it to the next one.

[Kyle]

It's kind of funny for a second wedding. I think that is a little bit fun. I think you're allowed to have one or two of those jokes, I think.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't want to make a decision that creates unnecessarily family baggage forever. So what's the right move here? Prioritize honesty in my relationships or appease my parents? Move on. I'll say real quick, just make it two. Dude, are you kidding? And then let you guys who've been married decide, because I don't have much more to offer.

[Ceruti]

It's such a layup. Yeah, I don't. I. It's. It's.

[Kyle]

I can tell you what I did. I did something a little similar. I had two guys. I was probably leaning towards one that I was like, yeah, you know, I haven't really made the best man thing yet, but it's definitely, you know, I'll.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'll.

[Kyle]

I'll think about it. And it was, like, kind of going one way or the other. I let my one guy plan the bachelor party. He did a great job. Even though we did go to Ocean City, Maryland, a little bit off season. But, I mean, the wedding was in June. That's kind of when we were supposed to be there, I think. And then I Kind of switched it up and gave it to my best man. And I was like, my brother just needs this man. He just needs this. So I got my one guy to do the bachelor party, and it was sort of a. It wasn't like a race. But I didn't real. I was having this weird thing where it's like, I really don't want to make either one of these guys feel bad. And they were both crass enough to, like, talk about it in front of me, which, you know, probably it's kind of bad form. Like, which one of us are going to. Is that the right word?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, it is.

[Kyle]

I just wasn't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. Yeah.

[Kyle]

So you're surprised. I nailed it.

[Ceruti]

Got it.

[Kyle]

So I kind of. I was uncomfortable with that, and it was sort of like a way out. And my parents were like, you know what? Your brother would really appreciate that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And then I just, like.

[Kyle]

They both got mad at me in equal amount. Neither of them was the best man. My brother got it. Everyone was kind of the same amount of miserable, except for my brother, who was happy, so mine was a little muddy too. Let your boy plan the bachelor party and give it to your brother.

[Ceruti]

Fine.

[Kyle]

Yeah.

[Ceruti]

Or again, this is a layup where you could just choose both. Everyone's kind of happy. Maybe they split the speech. I mean, I guess that could be a little awkward if they don't, like, super know each other. And it might not be bad, but. Or maybe I don't mean just say, hey, they're. They're co. Best men. And whoever's the better speaker does the. Does the actual speech. If that's your brother, great. If it's not, then. Although your dad's probably gonna want your brother to talk.

[Kyle]

Just judging by the brother speech, hits a little different than, like, yeah, you know, me and John met in college. It does.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. But sometimes the college. The college one's usually funnier, though. Like, that guy's usually. That's more entertaining. So maybe you just do a little hybrid situation there. But this is. This is a layup. Like you. If she didn't have a mate and a matron, if she didn't have two, then it would be, like, a little bit weird. Maybe, but it's not like you're just matching up. You're playing man here. Like, this is. You're going man to man on the wedding parties. I didn't. I actually didn't have best man.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Matchup zone.

[Ceruti]

Matchup zone. There you go. Sorry. I had. I have four really, really good friends.

[Kyle]

I don't really Hope that Ryan could let that go.

[Ceruti]

I'm sorry.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. I might be wrong.

[Ceruti]

As it was coming out of my mouth, I was like. I'm saying.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm not even trying to be correct. By the way.

[Kyle]

What was it? I'm interested in your.

[Ceruti]

There you go. Anyway, I have four really good friends. Four horses. I don't. I don't really put. There's like five of us total.

[Ryan Rosillo]

As long as you're not bragging about it.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, I mean, I don't have many beyond that, but I have four really good friends and I. I just. I didn't pick one. I didn't pick one. I had the guy who I knew would. Would be the best speaker do the speech. He was my college guy. Although we did obviously go to high school together too. Again, I had a different, different guy kind of playing the bachelor party like it was kind of a tag team effort. I think that sort of worked all around. I'm not the best person to ask, but I. I didn't want to pick one guy because I genuinely love all those guys kind of the same. And I don't think any of them really cared. I don't think anyone really wanted to be the best man either, to have that responsibility. So I just took the stress off everyone's shoulders and did it. But here in your case, you have a built in. This is what you should do because the wife has two. So you just need to have two. Make your dad happy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Kyle]

And Sarut is here to tell you it's not really that serious.

[Ceruti]

It isn't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Kyle]

Make everyone happy, man. The wedding really isn't about.

[Ceruti]

A single person's gonna think that's.

[Kyle]

It's really not about you. I found out it is a little.

[Ceruti]

Weird, I will say, from your dad's perspective like, that I would be like, oh, the, the brother's not doing it. I wouldn't really, like, think about it for more than five seconds, but it would cross my mind.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It sounds. I mean, look, what are you weighing? You're weighing the long term honesty of your relationships that only you are aware of and monitoring versus your dad saying he would fail as a parent if it's just your college buddy standing next to you. This is not hard when you put it that way.

[Kyle]

I think it's open and shut.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Nothing to add.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. Cool. Sure.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Let's stay with the wedding planner. Here, a little Jen Lopez for you. Poughkeepsie wedding weekend help. Listener since the Spotify days. Way back when. 5, 11 months ago. Honestly, I think less 511, 225, stocky build. I can rep two plates on the bench for 18 reps. Two plates meaning four plates. That be just. I. Yeah, I think if he's saying 225 stocky build. I think that's what he'd be saying.

[Kyle]

No, there's different kinds of two 25s.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, like I fucking rip one 35. Always pretend I'm at the NFL scouting combine when doing so. Okay, so it's 225. That makes sense. That's why he's telling us.

[Kyle]

Nice pickup.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Comp is Al Jefferson. Jared Sullinger. Back to the basket games. My art form on the court. Big man playing style at Fred Van Vliet's height. Question for Kyle. My fiance and I are planning Poughkeepsie wedding weekend in the fall, and we're looking for good ideas for rehearsal dinners, hidden gems, or favorites. Oh, this is just straight up travel stuff. All right, what do you got?

[Kyle]

Just rehearsal dinners. Like where they should host a rehearsal dinner. Like they're having a wedding here or they're going to a wedding here.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Good ideas, rehearsal dinners, hidden gems, favorites that you'd like to share to make it enjoyable for our guests. I know you mentioned Maloney's before we had lunch.

[Kyle]

Chill out, bro. Ryan's got the T shirt.

[Ceruti]

You should have.

[Kyle]

You shouldn't even have boxed that one, Ryan.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It says it. Maloney's in the. I'm just kidding. I'm just joking.

[Kyle]

Did send that in a box to you personally, though.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But I know it's one of three. That one I packed with me, too. By the way, I love that T shirt.

[Ceruti]

Nice. Oh, good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I cut the sleeves off, but all right. Had lunch there. The food was great. We don't see it, though, as a fit for our rehearsal dinner. Was thinking Zeus Brewery Company sick as well. So give this guy a few spots for rehearsals and a hidden gem.

[Kyle]

Boom right there. Brasserie 292. You can rent out the room. It's awesome. French restaurant. Got all the seafood and stuff, if you guys are into that. Yeah, Zeus is solid. Poughkeepsie Steakhouse a little further away, but I've heard good things. Used to be the old Hobnobbin Pub. Haven't got in there yet, but everyone says it's great. Yeah, Zeus is good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Derby.

[Kyle]

Probably not your speed, but maybe after, smoke some cigarettes outside. Oh, it's called the Governess. It used to be the Poughkeepsie Ice House. It's called the Governess. It's right on the Hudson River. Pretty sick there.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Kyle]

Those are enough for. For rehearsal dinners.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's good. All right.

[Ceruti]

When you run for mayor, dude, me, you're like, yeah.

[Kyle]

Oh, dude, we've got, like, a second generation. Like, her dad was mayor, and now she's mayor. She's got a great last name, flowers, like, no way, dude. She's got a lot. She's got a long time left.

[Ceruti]

So you're saying it's like a monarchy?

[Kyle]

Yeah, a bit of a ro.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Cincinnati.

[Kyle]

Yeah, I'm happy with how it's going. Hey. Okay, they're starting from the river.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Going up, dude.

[Kyle]

Get your houses now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I heard Discovery Properties was getting into Poughkeepsie. Is that true?

[Kyle]

Heard the same.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, let's see here. This guy sent an email in where the text is. Are audiobooks considered reading? 32 years old, 6 foot. That's a good question. 5, 11, 3 quarters. You're 6 foot, dude. You're fine. 180. Did five sets of five at 225 yesterday. Player comp like Bibby when I'm playing pickup, but was strictly a 3 and D guy when I played in high school. Got to know your role. I'm currently a high school basketball coach in the Atlanta area. Ryan, let me know if you want to do a little extra notepad film work to help us sell scalp before the playoffs begin next week. Need a ruling from y'.

[Ceruti]

All.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Our friend group has an ongoing debate about whether listening to audiobooks is considered reading. My stance is. It is not. One cannot say, I read 27 books last year when in fact, you listen to them on your daily commute to work. I think it is impressive but needs to be stated. As I listened to 27 books last year, someone that can't even read could listen to audiobooks. Therefore, I think reading is an action that is done by reading words off of a page or screen. Would love to hear your thoughts and go, dogs.

[Kyle]

It's not. But depending on who I'm talking to, I will tell them I read the book or, like, I'm reading or I'm listening to, like, my parents, I'll tell them. Well, like my parents, I'll tell them I'm reading because I want them to be proud of me. But if I'm talking to my buddy and I think I just do it subconsciously, like, I'll be like, oh, I'm listening to this right now. But my parents like, hey, dude, just. Just finished Michael Crichton's, you know, whatever.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Jurassic park is even better, dude.

[Kyle]

Pirate Latitudes. Better doing Rising Sun. Right now, I'm actually reading Rising Sun. Check that out of the library. But that's reading because it's harder for me. But yeah, I think on it, if we're defining it, definitely not reading. But I will tell certain people I'm reading it if I want.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The listeners are going to defend reading. The readers don't care. Right?

[Ceruti]

Correct.

[Ryan Rosillo]

As a reader, I'm not offended if you say it, but the way this email, like, I kind of was, like, should be, though.

[Ceruti]

You should be offended.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. You should stop putting in the work. I got to worry about and whether or not guys are going to.

[Ceruti]

But I'm on your behalf. Like, it just is. It's not. It's not to say that it's not, like, a good thing to listen to audiobooks. Like, I've done it here.

[Kyle]

But you're carving out the time. You know, you're not getting through a grand while you're doing dishes. Like, you got to sit down and focus.

[Ceruti]

Right. Right. There's a state of mind that you need to be in that you're just not when you're.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I can't do audiobooks because my mind wanders, and then I'm. I'm not paying attention.

[Ceruti]

Yeah. And you got to rewind. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean, my mind wanders when I'm reading, and then I got to go back, like. And I try to, like, get pissed at myself and focus in, lock in, and speed read. Whenever you speed read and you just make yourself do it. It's amazing how much you actually do retain. If you can keep doing it, you get better and better. It's like AI for humans, just how quickly that they're improving their own code.

[Ceruti]

Well, a big part of reading, though, isn't it? Obviously, you're improving your vocab. Right. And you're not getting that same experience, I don't think. Are you learning the same.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, there's some things you are. I just go, no, I gotta have. Like, I don't want my phone with me while I'm reading. That's another part of it. But, like, I'll write down. I get annoyed when there's, like, words that I just go, you don't know what the fuck that word means. Yeah.

[Kyle]

Try to sound out some of those things. You're like, God, am I an idiot.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Like, I don't know what that is.

[Kyle]

Like, I can tell I was doing all right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I can. I can figure out that doesn't mean gazebo to the plot. Yeah, but it's Some term that I'm not 100 sure of. When he says 27, when he says 27 books, like, hey, I read 27 last year. I'm kind of on, on the emailer. Like I didn't care until he made that point. Because if you're walking pumping stats. Yeah, yeah. Like I read 27 books. All right. Because now if you're even announcing it too, you want credit for it. And you basically listen to 27 really long podcasts.

[Ceruti]

It's not the same.

[Kyle]

You can get through 27 books if you got a long commute just going to work. I mean, it's really, it's true. Especially if you're 1.5 speeding it. Like, how about that? That's a cheat right there. If you go like 1.2, 1.2, you barely notice it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But speed listening, it's 20% or 10%, right? All right, let's close on this. A guy wrote in and said that he had his body monitored because he went to the gym. Yeah. 5, 10, 1 55, 41 years old. Gym stats mildly relevant. No longer max out rep185,686 to eight times on the bench. Golf comp. Justin Thomas hit the ball pretty far for a smaller guy. Occasionally lose my temper when things aren't going well. Recently had a full body scan at the gym, mostly because it's free and they insist I do it in order to track my progress. First question for the trainer on the scan. Are you left handed after a Princess Bride joke fell flat? Yeah, those don't work a lot with younger trainers, man. I inform her that I'm actually right handed. Have both of you guys not seen the Princess Bride as well? I've seen it. I've seen it.

[Kyle]

I did not pick up on what you were saying right there, but I have not. But I have seen it and I think I even caught it on table recently. Like back half.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So right.

[Kyle]

Not a stranger.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I inform her that I'm actually right handed but frequently hold my two and four year old children with my left arm while I'm performing daily tasks, cooking breakfast, doing dishes, drinking beers. As it turns out, the reason she asks is because my left arm has 3% more muscle mass than my right arm. C scan attached. I live four days per week, do hit training style workouts two, three days a week. So it's not like holding my children is my only physical activity. Given these factors, I would say that baby dad arm strength myth is confirmed, not busted.

[Ceruti]

Okay, I don't remember if I said this was true or not the first time we did this but I don't think it's baby but when you're holding like your 2, 3, your top agent kids that's when it's real and I am 100% a left hand person.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Constant flexion.

[Ceruti]

Yeah clip that. It's 100% real. My left arm, I haven't done a body scan. I hold my daughters with my left arm. My daughter probably weighs 35 pounds maybe now and no doubt about it, my.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Left arm is stronger.

[Ceruti]

So I do believe that as a baby though. No, I didn't feel it.

[Kyle]

Okay, that's nice nuance.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's good. I'm gonna send you those scan results too. I think the emailer is okay. Sharing those health results with Ceruti is the OG of this theory that people try to shoot down all the time. Again, polling of one sampling of one maybe not great but I think we've got two confirmations on this one that'll do it for the show. Thanks to Kevin, thanks to Tom, thanks to Rudy, thanks to Kyle. The Ryan Rosillo Show Barstool Sports.

[Ceruti]

Sa.