The Ryen Russillo Podcast - A Full NFL Offseason Preview and the Chiefs’ Future With Mike Sando. Plus Tim Legler on the Luka-LeBron Combo, Celtics Worries, and More.

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Russillo is joined by Mike Sando for a full NFL offseason preview, including what will happen to both Super Bowl teams, and potential landing spots for Myles Garrett, Aaron Rodgers, Sam Darnold, and more (1:00). Then, he’s joined by Tim Legler to learn more about Luka’s fit on the Lakers, which team he thinks is the biggest threat in the West outside of OKC, and break down what Jimmy Butler can do for Golden State (34:42). Finally, Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (87:59)! When is it appropriate to ask someone to turn their phone volume off? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Sando and Tim Legler Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Loaded podcast for you today. What's going to happen to your favorite team this NFL off season? We're not going to get to every single team, but we'll go through some of the quarterback stuff with Sando. Also some love for the Eagles and what they did is an alarming trending the Mahomes number that Kansas City has to worry about here a little bit more. And then a real deep dive on like the Rogers musical chairs here. Will there be a chair for him if he still wants to play quarterback in the NFL? We're going to talk with Tim Legler, just do a bunch of stuff with the contenders. Also, he was in the building for Lucas debut Lakers. He'll be in Dallas tonight as that story continues to be terrible for Mavs fans.

So some more on that stuff, how that dynamic will work in a basketball sense. Um, we're going to talk, like I said, all of the contenders and some shooting things that I think are important to think about when you're watching the second half of the season. And we've got life advice. You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done.

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Huge pod today. Lot of NBA with legs. And let's do some NFL off season stuff with our guy, Mike Sando, the athletic, it's pick six column. I probably reference every single week during the pod. I don't know if that bothers him. He's like, hey man, read other pieces. But there was always something in it every single Monday

that I thought was really, really interesting. And you have more stuff in there as we gear up for an awesome off season. I can't wait for this one because I think there's going to be a lot of headline type movement, but let's start with Philadelphia. They win the Superbowl. I've seen, um, look what Howie Roseman has done in, in reinvesting into this defense in particular, hitting on the O line, all the weapons, like this seems

like what you would want your architect to do, like this is how you would want to do it and hopefully be that successful. I have however seen that this is an example of like spending and why other teams should not use spending and a lack of cash as an excuse because of some of the total values, some of the contracts. I think that's part of it, Mike, but I also think if you look at snap count and contributors on defense and how many of these rookie contracts are part of that side of the football, I think it's all of these things at once.

So take it wherever you want to go. So if we've got 10 salary cap managers together, uh, before the super bowl, at least half of them would talk about how leveraged the Eagles are. So when you talk about super highly leveraged teams, what we mean is it's kind of what people wish the Cowboys would do more like, hey, take those base salaries down, push things out, and give yourself the ability to get more players. So like Cleveland is super highly leveraged and they're bad, right? Or Jacksonville has a lot of investments made that didn't work out. So if the

Eagles at two and two this last year, when people are wondering about whether or not Nick Sirianni was going to make it through the year, if they had gone in the tank, this would be a cautionary tale, right? Of just pushing it too far and it didn't work. But they didn't. They didn't.

I think we forget how tenuous it has felt at times, but you have to give them credit because they are always pushing. And I think one of the things that a front office person pointed out to me a few years ago was, watch what teams do after they win the Super Bowl. Are they still pushing? Is the owner still hungry? And I think Jerry Jones has had his gold jacket for years now. Made man.

He doesn't even know what they're talking about when the media is talking about that they've had a long drought. Steven Jones is using air quotes about the drought that we've been talking about for 10 years, right? Right. So that's a nice contrast. I think the Eagles are leveraged out probably more than some other teams, but they've done it with good players.

The Browns did it with Deshaun Watson. So the Eagles get credit for getting good players. That's the whole key. Look at the Saints. They're leveraged. They did it with players whose windows were closing or wound up not being good. So it's all about good players, always. And then, if you get the good players and you're, you, you know, pushing and finding ways to get into more good players or, you know, find a way to bring in a Mackay Beckton, I think that's just. Good managing, right? You're being aggressive. You're trying. So how do you look at the job, how he's done?

Like, cause I think you talked to so many people around the league and we both, I mean, I know how it works in the basketball stuff is that there'd be a bunch of people praising them. And then there'll be a couple of guys going like, well, you know, I'm not talked to so many people around the league and we both, I mean, I know how it works in the basketball stuff is that there'd be a bunch of people praising them and then there'd probably be a couple of guys going like, well, you know, there's, there's this and this bill is, is come and do. I mean, when you went to super bowl, I don't want to hear any of that stuff, but I mean, how do you look at the job? How he's done, how he is widely, widely admired in the league.

Uh, now people sometimes think he gets, he gets almost too much of the credit, right? Which I get too, because there's a head coach who manages this whole thing, and the players and the coaches' assistants too. So, I think he's earned to be mentioned more than a lot of other GMs, because I do feel like his fingerprints are more on even putting it on the staff and things like that that you would normally associate with others. So I think it's appropriate that he gets love for doing this and putting it together and being probably a driving force. I think he has a different energy than some other guys. He's kind of one of these guys who's frenetic. If you picture Howie Roseman in his office, he's probably got like four TVs going

all with the sound on and all of them and he's returning all the texts and emails within five seconds and he's just active. He's just active. And I think that comes from Jeff Lurie, the owner of the team who, by the way, bought the team in 1994 when it was the Cowboys and the 49ers, one upping each other, signing Dion, and this guy's going back and forth, Ken Norton comes over. That's when the team was bought. I think they just have this energy to them where they're always doing something. They're going to bring in Tio.

They're going to trade for A.J. Brown. They're going to go get Saquon, right? That doesn't happen without just, to me lury and how he kind of being, you know, the guys that are always pushing. So I think he does deserve the credit. And look, when they do the, have the dream team here and it blows up, they get criticized for that too. Trey Lockerbie Yeah. But once you get one of these, like none of that other stuff ever matters. Pete Slauson Two, two Super Bowls.

Trey Lockerbie Well, yeah, you're right. I mean, two, I guess I'm, you know, I was looking at the window a little differently because of the coach and the quarterback and everything. But you're right. So think of this, two Super Bowls where the head coach wasn't even getting that much of the credit, right? Doug Peterson was cast off and they did it again

with a different group. So I think that's part of why, uh, not that those guys don't deserve more credit. I think that's part of why how he gets a lot of, uh, the credit is because they've like done this with moves. Some moves other teams wouldn't make like, Hey, we got Carson Wentz. Yeah, it didn't go good. We, we took hurts. We'll just try him.

You know, they do things that people wouldn't do. You're right. You're right. You're right. All right. Let's talk about Kansas city. I don't want to make it as open as what's next for the chiefs. This is a terrific football team. It is the standard, uh, you want from an organization. I fell into the a block trap of Monday talking about my homes and Brady, because

I do think with Brady on the call talking about losses and how they haunt him. I thought that was relevant to what I would do on Monday. I didn't start the show with it. But again, everybody gets sick of that because everybody's doing it, which I totally understand. But you also in your piece, like map it out and go, you know, Mahomes is fine on the Brady trajectory if you want to look at it that way.

But I think there's something to be asked here, um, in particular, and this is what I want you to use is when you chart out the drop back numbers and the production, this is now like, we're talking about the best quarterback in the world. So to say, this is an alarming chart to show decline, but it, but it is kind of alarming that you wonder if this is a game that makes Kansas City go, maybe we can't take this guy for granted. Yeah, I think they, what's interesting about them is they're not a highly leveraged roster

like the Eagles are, right? They, they did this super long-term deal with, with Mahomes and then they're trying to sort of extend the window as long as they can. What's been remarkable about the Chiefs is they've been able to win the Super Bowl even in what weren't their best years, right? Where you didn't feel like this was the best Chiefs team or even a historically great team. And this year, most of us, many of us picked the Chiefs to win the game, even though we knew the Eagles were a better team, right? A better roster. We just, you just sort of like, well, I mean, they find a way to win these things, they'll do it again. And that didn't happen. And it

didn't happen resoundingly. So I do think that the last time this happened, you know, with the Bucs, they went out and made a bunch of moves on their offensive line. You know, Orlando Brown, Joe Tooney, they did all these moves. This to me, I don't think they're going to panic, but this to me is a resounding enough loss that you can't just say, well, you know, we won 23 of our previous 25 before that, even though there's a bunch of nail biters in. Remember what Randy Reed said at the podium before the game during the week? He said, asked about that streak of winning the one-square games.

He goes, hey, some of those are just the bounce of the ball. Like, they know that you can't take it score games. He goes, hey, some of those are just the bounce of the ball. Like they know. They know that you can't take it for granted. I believe that. And this game, just if you didn't know it, then you know it now. They've got to do some things. We also, if you look at it, and I know you were bringing it up on pro football reference and I was looking at some of the stuff where, you know, that when Mahomes, when Mahomes hangs onto the football, right, when he's holding onto the football, that's when they start to fall apart.

And you also chart that out pretty well. Just as an aside, the time to throw number is brought up a lot as to a quarterback being in a good situation versus a bad situation. Can you differentiate those on time to throw versus holding onto the football? Yeah, so I think it's not as, that's not as predictive of a stat. It almost tells us what happened for Mahomes, right?

And a lot of times time to throw can be controlled by the quarterback. Philip Rivers would have a, we could have a fast time to throw because he's going to make a quick decision. He can assess everything quickly. He's a fast processor. The ball's going to come out. I think Mahomes can be that way, but when you take away their initial stuff while also

not allowing the stuff down the field, people just put a blanket on them, right? We've seen their air yards and all this stuff has come down and down and down over the years. They're almost to the point now where when it goes bad, we can all visualize what it is. That initial read's not there. And he holds it, creates some time, and there's still not anybody open down the field deep. They need to get that part resolved so that they can have a little bit more returns when he does hold onto the ball because all of his hold the ball games are losses.

Like something like eight of, he doesn't lose any games, right? He's winning 80% or something, but all of his longest to throw games for him are when he's holding onto it a long time because he can't find someone open. He runs around, he takes a sack or throws a short pass. So I don't know if that answers your question, but like usually I'll say this about time to throw. Usually the best scramblers have the longest time to throw. Exactly, like Russell Wilson, the-

They take sacks. Right, the story was I don't have time to throw, except when you looked at the numbers, he had time to throw, but that could be misleading because he was scrambling out so many times. But that whole Russell Wilson protection, non-protection argument was hilarious because I'd say half the sacks he took were because he was extending plays so much in the offensive line, like didn't know what to do with the block. And that's not even a criticism of it. It's just whenever I see that time to throw stuff, I'll see a quarterback where I think, well, no, he's actually in a bad situation.

He's just on the move all the time. He's just on the move. He's just on the move. He's just on the move. He's just on the move. He's just on the move. He's just on the it. It's just whenever I see that time to throw stuff I'll see a quarterback where I think well no he's actually in a bad situation he's just on the move all the time and then the other guy has the same time to throw number and that is because of the I would say the product of a good offensive line and good protection so I don't I don't know it's clear. I don't think that having a great offensive line means then that you're gonna have a longer time to throw I don't measure it having a great offensive line means then that you're gonna have a longer time to throw. I don't measure it that way at all.

I think usually it's... You might not, but I think it gets brought up that way. That's interesting to think of that. Yeah, because Russell Wilson creates his own problems by holding onto the ball, whether he's not seen it or whatever. And when he was younger and really could move around, the upside was still worth it, right? He would get outside the pocket, great scramble drill. And I think Lamar has a higher time to thrill and I kind of feel okay about it.

Like he gets out there and he makes the throw down the field. I feel like it's a winning gamble for him to do it. I also think Lamar has an odd thing that may be unlike anybody else. I'm not to say that nobody else does it, where things will completely collapse around him and with his movement without intending to run, he will almost get a second pocket. Like it's a second, it's a complete reset of then getting to survey the field again, because he's got the sixth sense. He doesn't have to move to still avoid everything because he's just that quick, which He doesn't have to move to still avoid everything

because he's just that quick, which is different than another guy that may clock out at the exact same time. They had three and a half seconds to get this ball out. Wow, look at that great protection. You're like, dude, those two snaps were completely different experiences. The four seconds for Lamar is the most stressful four seconds of the defense's life, okay?

The four seconds of Russell right now is the most stressful four seconds of Russell's life and his offensive coordinator who's up there dying going, get rid of the ball, get rid of the ball. That was the best way to make the point. We got there eventually. I don't have more on that. So let's move on to some of the other stuff

that is more important here. Real quick though, cause you did mention it, projecting out the MVP, looking at all pro historically, it looked like Lamar was gonna get another one of these, and then boom, down in New Orleans, you find out Josh Shiloh wins MVP. What did you hear about that after it happened? I was so surprised.

Somebody, I guess the odds were shifting before, right before, and I wasn't really paying attention to it. I did a Kansas City radio show, like the day before, two days before the Super Bowl or three days and they asked me about that. And I was like, no, Lamar's going to win it because he was the first team all-pro. I can't make that make sense in my mind. I did though have an interesting conversation with somebody in the NFL who follows NBA and they said the same thing happened to Luka, or not Luka to Jokic. Luka's in the news. It happened to Jokic where he won two in a row, MVPs, and then still had a great year,

but didn't get it. And the theory was they hadn't won anything in the playoffs. Then they won the championship that year, and he comes back, I think he got the MVP the next year. So it was like, these weird narrative-based components that come into these awards are not the way that I do it. Like, I'm isolating this year. I'm looking at it. But I think voters... I think the fact that Lamar won it before, even last year when he didn't have his grade of a year, and that Josh Allen hadn't

won it before, I think that's part of the calculus for a lot of the voters. So some of these guys split the votes. They're like, well, I'll give Lamar. Yeah, Lamar probably was the best. I'll give him all pro. But you know, Josh should win the MVP. Like to me, I can't do that. How would you do that? You shouldn't. And I have an MVP vote for the NBA and I have a hard time with it some years. In other years, I don't have a hard time with it at all. And the Embiid Yokochi or I had a hard time. I would probably disagree with your NFL guy there a little bit. Here we go again, me getting upset with some of your anonymous NFL sources. Just because you're not gonna give Embiid the tiebreaker

because of previous playoffs success over Yomichich. But he hadn't won, but no, but he hadn't won championships. He hadn't won MVPs before. You can win it, the theory is you can win a certain number of MVPs and then if you haven't done it in the playoffs, like people aren't gonna give it to you. That's sort of the theory. I think it's even simpler though. I think there are people that they'll have like an internal tiebreaker of.

Well, you know, this guy has already won it. Let me, let me go with the new guy. If it's, if it's really close. Uh, and it was close. I got no problem with Josh Allen winning the MVP. He's a great MVP candidate, you know? Yeah. Cause I mean, I don't always want to just put this guy's graphics up against this

guy's graphics and then go, well, this guy has more touchdowns. So that means that he's the MVP. But, um, if you're using the Josh Allen is the most important player to his team argument, you don't get very far into the argument before you're completely contradicting yourself by dismissing what Lamar's importance is to that football team. To Derek Henry having career year too. I look at this too, like the Ravens won nine games this year against teams that had winning records at the end and the Bills, that was motion in the league, the Bills won three during the regular season. And for a lot of this year, that Bills, that Ravens defense and even special teams with

Tucker were bad. And he was winning those games against Burrow that you never win when your defense is just getting lit up. You don't win those games and Lamar has won those games over his career at a much higher rate than other quarterbacks. And he did it this year. And to me, their defense came around late in the year and Tucker made some more kicks.

The defense was helping them late in the year, but I would say for two thirds of this year, he was overcoming to a degree that others were not. Right, and it also, when you look at the defensive numbers for Baltimore's massive spike, it was also schedule-based. And I've heard the Henry argument used against Lamar in favor of Allen. And I don't, I'm not outraged about Allen winning MVP.

Me neither. He's great. At all. Right. Um, if you voted for Allen because you were, you had Lamar fatigue, that to me is a mistake. But the Henry thing in particular, Henry has a career year because everybody's scared to death

of Lamar. Okay. Absolutely. It's connected. They got away with it this year because everybody's scared to death of Lamar. Okay. Absolutely. It's connected. They got away with it this year because they didn't design and run him, Lamar. Just the threat of him being a run, because Josh runs a lot too. I mean, he's a threat, but I feel like when you play Lamar Jackson, you have a major game

plan consideration for him as a runner that you don't have for anybody else. And now that he's passing better, like, you know, it's kind of a pick your poison. They're pretty amazing. Let's do some off season stuff. Miles Garrett, what's gonna happen? I think they, Cleveland needs to have some kind of a resolution and positive outlook

at the quarterback position sooner than later this off season to make some of that stuff go away. I think that they are going down a, we talked about different types of fatigue, Brown's, Deshaun fatigue and just where the Browns are at fatigue I think is real. I think that's part of this with Miles Garrett. I think the other part of it has to be the fact that he's got two years left on his deal and then if it's guaranteed, he probably, I would think, would want to do a new deal now. I would if I were him. Instead of two years from now when he's going into year 11 or something, his production over the next

two years will probably not go up, is what I'm saying. So that could be a part of this too. And just timing wise, the Browns are super leveraged with their cap and all this. So it would be easier to move him in June, after June, for the league's accounting purposes. So I can see this thing kind of dragging out. Maybe he doesn't show up to anything this off season, and then we see what the quarterback situation is there. We see if a contract component is part of this for him, if any fences could kind of be mended there and they move on.

Do they have to reassess at a certain point too and be more honest about where they're at? Is there kind of a little bit of a taking of a step back this off season based on what happens at the quarterback position that could lead them down the road of entertaining offers for Garrett? I think that's probably fluid. Is there a landing spot for Aaron Rodgers? I'm not convinced of it yet. I think the reason the Jets are moving on from him is the same reason that our teams may not want to buy in at this point. You're so late in the career. You do have questions about the team orientation of him with just the way he's always out there.

And so if you look at the teams that could have, you know, isn't Pittsburgh is sort of rumored or, you know, people are thinking maybe the Vikings, that sort of a thing. I don't know. Do those teams feel desperate enough in a one-year window to have to do something like that? I don't feel it. So the odds of him wanting to go a place where he is wanted to me are a little low right now, but we'll see how badly he wants to play too. This is actually going to get really interesting because if he, if the exit green Bay, like, all right, fine. No, cause that was always this drawn out thing.

Um, it's, it's when I had a harder time with his argument, as I've said before, the situation is not as bad as he makes it out to be like, this is a team that's still competing and it always felt like he was presenting as if it's like, oh, you know, I went four and 12 again. Like I have to, I have to figure out another place to end up for my final chapter. And it's like, well, you know, you're part of these playoff losses too, man. So I had a harder time buying in his argument because it felt like his situation was better than the way he was describing it. So eventually look, they draft another quarterback.

He gets his way. I know you kind of want to jump in there a little bit, but you know, from the jump, the Jets thing was like all on his terms, which they decided like we're, we are going to do this because we are so desperate where the Jets, there's a chance it could still work out. It's unfortunate. He gets hurt. They make the personnel changes.

They make the front office changes. He doesn't show up. Was it to both voluntary things on the off season? And I think there's a version of this. If Aaron Rogers was like team first, even after the green Bay exit, if everything felt like it was a partnership with him, with the Jets, and we still had this incredibly disappointing two year run, including the injury with this, there's probably a market for him. So I think you're already hinting at that.

And it's like, Hey, if he's this diminished and he's a pain in the ass, like, what are we signing up for? I'll give you a good contrast. Remember when the Peyton Manning sweepstakes were a big, when he was coming back from the neck injury in Denver and other teams that shoot Seattle sent Pete Carroll and John Schneider to a runway in area in Denver, Arizona or somewhere to try to intercept them. You want to know why I love that so much is because we were tracking flights. Yeah, the flight tracker.

And I think there was a time too, where Bill Polian, we were trying to figure out where he was and then he was in Charlotte and I knew Brian Polian and Brian had been like, my dad came to visit me, man. Is it okay that my dad comes to visit me? I don't even remember why the Charlotte thing came up. There was just so much that went on with that. We were tracking flights. Schefter was joining us. There could be a plane here and then ultimately Elway

tells Manning, you can do whatever you want. And it worked out. So go ahead. But they had given, so there had been a sort of a ballpark number that had been going on. here and then ultimately Elway tells Manning, you can do whatever you want and it worked out. So go ahead. But they had given, so there had been a sort of a ballpark number that had been talked about for him to come to Denver. But then when it came time to do the deal, he was in a position to really leverage that and push for more. He could have gotten more than he ended up getting. And my understanding was that he personally put the brakes on that.

He personally didn't maximize. He got a good contract, but he was about, well, look, it's about Peyton Manning, believe me. It was his offense, all of that, but he's about for the betterment of the team. That allowed them to probably feel better or get other players around him, you know, money-wise and all of that. So I think that's a meaningful contrast. And Roger's going in the Hall of Fame in the first five seconds he's eligible. He's amazing. But that orientation is going to work against him in the all-time greats list. I think we

could have made a great case for a while there there and still a legitimate case that, hey, he never had the defense and components that Brady or Montana or these other guys had. He was sort of in that Drew Brees bucket. But I felt bad for, I felt more bad for Drew Brees, you know, with having his defense dismantled after Bounty Gate and all of that. Then you feel bad for Rogers thrower of the football that I've ever seen in my entire life. And it feels when you compare him to the other greats, like it feels like he's one ring short, like to go back to a Yocach NBA thing, like I want Yocach to have another ring just so the simplistic way that we can do it.

And I think that's the way that we can do it. like it feels like he's one ring short. Like to go back to a Jokic NBA thing, like I want Jokic to have another ring just so the simplistic way that we kind of wrap all this stuff up at the end, where there's just going to be all of these arguments. If Jokic only has one, it's like, well, you know, if he only has one, how do we put him ahead of some of these other guys? And I would say like, this is this five, six, I

don't know how much longer this window is going to go where Jokic is playing like some of the best basketball that we've ever seen for an extended period of time. And I think when I think back to Rogers peak Green Bay years, there's a similarity of, Hey, there might be a year where a guy has better stats for one year, but what he was doing at that

position, how in command he was as a quarterback. One ring feels, feels light for him. And, you know, and I, I don't know that I certainly felt worse about Breeze's defenses than I did Roger's like, maybe we can go back and look at some of the EPA defensively stuff, but there were also, I think there were some times where I felt like those Green Bay teams were pretty talented too. So, and it was a better front office. Am I wrong? No, I agree with all of that. I think they had this, they had probably a lot of spectacular

failures, you know, where, yeah, maybe they weren't the number 32 defense, but they were 22. And then gave up some amazing players, special teams, things, you know, think of that Seattle game that you easily should have won, you know, to go to the Super Bowl, the championship game, whatever it was. And like, you know, they're getting on side kicked and fake, you know, fake field goals. And I mean, it's just, he's, he's been on the sideline for a lot of those losses is what I'm saying. Right? He, you know, he, maybe he gave them the lead and then they lost it. That happened to him a lot.

Yeah, there's I, I at a time was making a lot, cause there was a really strange number, this goes back years and years, but there's a strange number that showed how bad his record was in these one score games. And I just felt like, I don't know if that numbers and I went through all of the games, I did too, you know, it was like, do don't know if that number's in. I went through all of the games. I did too. I was like, do you know how many times Rogers drove down for the go-ahead score or the tying score,

only to your point, be watching as his defense ended up giving up the game-winning score. And so then the record would reflect that Rogers couldn't get it done. It's like he's actually had already done his job. I think there's some playoff losses there later on though, at home, where you could dig into the numbers and be and be like hey he needed to get one more of those. He had the regrets the interest the regrets of Rogers

Related Rogers are all related the same thing I think one of the regrets of his latter years in Green Bay was they had this young team But they were turning everything over to Rogers like it's his offense and he was doing sort of his latter years in Green Bay was they had this young team, but they were turning everything over to Rogers. Like it's his offense and he was doing sort of his thing. And it made it sometimes hard on the rest of the team. Does that make sense? Like if you're playing, if you take the best basketball player ever

and put them with just some role players, sometimes when he makes that incredible pass, it just hits him in the face and breaks their glasses. He was playing a different game than some of these guys, I felt like. And then they were indulging him. He had earned that, but it wasn't necessarily best for the rest of the roster for what they were doing with their offensive scheme and some of that stuff. And the same thing happened with the Jets. It really offensive scheme and some of that stuff. And the same thing happened with the jets. It really became an indulgence of Rogers. Yeah.

And you're right. That was the conference championship game before, uh, the Seattle loss. Yeah, I was there. Yeah. Okay. Let's, uh, let's go a little quicker on some of these other guys, even though I really enjoy doing that. I just don't want to leave anybody else.

Um, you mentioned Minnesota then. So what does this mean for Donald? Did Donald really lose all of this money in those last couple games against Detroit in the Rams? Yeah, he probably lost the ability to go super really high, but I think there will still be, remember this, there's going to be 70% of the league had a good grade on Darnold coming out. And so they see this and they're like, yeah, that's the guy that I saw. And then it's a need-based thing, right? If you have a need for a quarterback, what's available, he's going to have opportunities. I think the question will be how good is the fit from his standpoint because he's had, I think he's loved this situation with Kevin

O'Connell and he's not just going to go anywhere. So to me, you know, like the Raiders are very interesting because Pete Carroll is a super positive coach like Kevin O'Connell. I think that would be a good welcoming fit. I think Pete, he's known for defense, really believes in his ability to win with a lot of quarterbacks and get a lot out of them. All of his quarterbacks have overachieved, whether it's Geno Smith, Russell Wilson, all the way back. Even Drew Bledsoe had his best passer rating or best yards per 10th when Pete was there. People don't really know that because I think of him as defensive coach, but he's had great success with a lot of quarterbacks and probably believes he could do it with Darnold. But to me, if the price were over the top, I think Pete believes he could do it with

a lot of quarterbacks. So that price point, what does Darnold want? Who does he feel good about? Could take the market, take some of the ceiling off of just exactly how high you go. Cousins. That's a hard one to be all in on or excited about just based on where he's at in his career and how it looked this last year. I do think that that can't be Cleveland's solution. They have to have another part of it. They have to have something else for the draft. But I could

see that as being a place where he's obviously got some familiarity with Stefanski and it could give them something, right? At least something, but it can't be everything. It can just be a piece of it. The way that contract is structured, you know, it was the four year deal that was announced, it was really a two year deal deal for cousins. Um, and they make the Penex pick. So then you're thinking like, okay, Penex is going to sit a year. And then I think based on cousins just physically never looked right this year.

And it, you could just tell on some of those shows, like this guy has to gear up to even get this ball out on some of this stuff. Um, and then, and then it's, you know, then it's a disaster statistically. So they make the Pennex change and just the talent of Pennex alone. Like I know I was probably getting too excited. Collinsworth had that one game against Washington where they So they make the penics change and just the talent of penics alone. Like I know I was probably getting too excited. Collins worth had that one game against Washington where it was like, the guy could do no wrong.

Uh, but that's part of the Sunday story, you know, it's a national game. Everybody's getting excited. It's new and all the stuff. I don't know that I want to do a segment called his penics already overrated because I'm really excited about him. But I think any is just the sheer beauty of him throwing a football has all of us so excited that, that maybe we're a little too excited, but the contract part of cousins will go ahead.

It seems like you want to do panics here, but just include. I would do panics. Yeah. To me, cousins. Well, if they trade them now, they actually save a couple million under the cap, I believe. And if, if you were to, you know, trade them late in the process, which is less likely after June, it would be, it would save a ton.

I think there could be some talk about, uh, who picks up how much of the cash to make that type of a move and who else is involved, uh, could be part of it. Okay. Last thing. Um, I want to talk Pittsburgh here. I felt bad for you because there was an athletic promo on X where it was basically like, Hey, check out my quarterback carousel for all next season. It's really good stuff.

Obviously I read it, but it had been out for about a month, but then it started up as an ad again and it was titled with Russell Wilson solid plan. It was right. Is the ad started running? It was when Wilson wasn't playing as well. Pittsburgh started falling apart. And I'm looking at the comments and I'm like, poor Santa. Like people think he just posted this now after a month.

And granted, look, Pickens had been out. The defense fell apart for Pittsburgh. I'm not telling you Wilson was great, but Wilson clearly is not on board with this scenario again. So let me hear the Pittsburgh and the Wilson part of this as we finish up. Yeah, every hint or demoral we get out of Pittsburgh

is like they're not that interested and everything we get from him is I'd love to be there. I think it's just, doesn't sound like he's gonna be the answer for them. And so then who would be the answer for him? I think that Pete Carroll could be an answer for him as a short-term veteran guy. Said Pete and Russell got sideways at the end in Seattle, but I don't think that are still sideways.

I think there's probably some regrets on both sides about how that went down. And so now you got Chip Kelly in the mix too, so that's a little bit unexpected. We maybe thought Darrell Bevel or somebody that had been with Pete before would be there. That's a component that I don't know how that affects whether they'd have any interest or not. I think Wilson Stock took a big hit down the stretch. It was looking pretty good for a while. If you run the ball and give them a big target to throw down the field too, that can be a formula to win with and play good defense. But it did unravel a little bit. Now, I think that tells us that he may not even be a full season solution for somebody.

Do you think field stays with Pittsburgh, Ben? I don't know that either. I think it's too early. We don't know what else they're going to do, what other opportunity there could be for fields. I think they would be open to that. But again, I don't think he's going to be the starter, uh, going in and he probably isn't going to get a starting job somewhere else. So maybe it's a marriage of convenience that continues.

Well, buggy again, man. I really appreciate this and looking forward to what I think is going to be an awesome off season. So Mike Sando, the athletic. Thank you, Ryan. Mike Sando, the athletic. Thank you, Ryan. Excited to do this as we gear up for the all-star break in the second half of the NBA season, joining us from ESPN's broadcast team and of course the host of

the all NBA podcast, it's friend of the show, Tim Legler. What's up, man? Good to see you. What's going on, man. Good to be home with you again. Yeah. It's, you know, not like it's a slow news day right now in the NBA.

No, no. Here we are, it's like two weeks later and we still have meat left on this Luca bone. And that's because we were both in the building, you were calling the game for Luca's first game with the Lakers against Utah on Monday. I went to the game, you know, I ended up getting tickets. So I was like, I want to be there for it.

So before we talk about a little bit of what we saw, cause you know, clearly, you know, he's gearing up again, hadn't played in a long time. Uh, the production part of this, because you get access to both teams, you get access to the Lakers in this case. Uh, I know there's probably some uncertainty of whether or not he was even going to be able to be cleared to play at this point. So what went into that? And then, you know, I think JJ's tried to be

maybe less excited than he probably is internally about this opportunity and being respectful about the process and everything. But just some of the stuff you picked up in preparation for the call on Monday. Yeah. So, well, first we weren't even supposed to be there. We were, I had done a game that week and we were Dave Bash and I were going home and then of course that happens and we wanted we want to get an opportunity to do that first game so ESPN moves mountains to create that window of broadcasting time on because we don't do Saturday matinee games on ESPN during the regular season we you know we don't do that kind of thing so they created the space of course Saturday excited

then he's not playing major let down obviously in that game was was actually kind of weird because Indiana is red hot coming into that game. Lakers don't play LeBron. They don't play Luca. They've got one big and of course. Yeah, of course they go up 20 in the first quarter on the Pacers and win that game. The awestreams went off, but then we didn't even know Saturday night. Like what are we doing? We sticking around here for the game on Monday. They finally, again, that was, that was way above my pay grade to make that

happen. We did it. But even as late as Sunday evening, we didn't know if Luca was going to play Monday. And if he didn't play Monday, I'm saying, well, then he's probably not going to play Wednesday. He's going to play after the break. Why would you play him one game? So we didn't know, but they created the window. We were going to, we were prepared to do another Lakers game without Luca playing on Monday night against Utah, which was a terrible game. And it ended up being even worse than we expected. But at least he played, uh, we got a chance to talk to JJ, um, Saturday leading into the game. And you know, it was funny because he's, it was as if he hadn't in his words,

been able to put a lot of thought yet even to what it was going to look like with Luca. Monday going into the game when now it was clear he was going to play. We met with JJ two hours before the game and again, you know, JJ is a, he's kind of like a subdued guy anyway. You know, he's not getting super amped up or giddy about it. He's just very business like about what it's going to be. I'm sure internally, knowing that the, um, it's a limitless number of possibilities of things you could do offensively with these two players.

Uh, I think I'm sure his head is processing all of that and thinking about ultimately what this could look like. And then we got our first sample of it on Monday night. Yeah. And I think to be completely fair to Luke, I don't know what any of us would have expected him not playing NBA basketball for that long of a stretch. So it was funny because I felt like the crowd was actually kind of quiet before like the lead up to it, cause it was just, it was just a different energy in the building in that it's like,

this is actually happening is if the fans almost didn't believe that it was real. Uh, and a lot of us around the NBA still can't believe that it's real. And then the first action or whatever they ran, like I saw like Lucas down in the corner, like, all right, they're going to bring him, bring him along slowly. And yes, he was, he was completely out of shape. So you could see he was gassed early, but they kept him into like the first sub thing to kind of like that way. Basketball works, like get exhausted first and now start to play. And then your body will kind of come back around.

So I don't think there's anything from like a basketball standpoint. Of going, oh, this is what they're going to do. And this is how they're going to use it. It's just that when you're this good and this brilliant, like you'll just figure it out around him. I'm not going to be like, oh, I'm going to be like, oh, this is what they're going to do and this is how they're going to use it. It's just that when you're this good and this brilliant, like you'll just figure it out around him. I don't know if you saw anything or if that game

gave us any clues to how this will work and how he and LeBron worked together. But it was just, it was one of those things where he probably was just so happy to finally play basketball again and get this whole thing behind him. Well, one of the things that JJ talked about, and I did see it come to fruition in that game,

obviously to a very small extent. He only played 24 minutes. They staggered their minutes a good amount during that time. So that's something that's a work in progress. Like how they're going to, you know, when he ramps up full speed, those guys are gonna play 34, 35 minutes a night

along with Austin Reeves. So how are they exactly are they going to play 34, 35 minutes a night along with Austin Reeves. So how are they exactly are they going to do that? You know, you figure the first six, seven of the game, they're going to play together. The first six, seven of the second half, they'll play together. And then the last five or six minutes, they'll play together. So do the math on that. That's about 20 minutes guaranteed. They're on the court together. So then it becomes what about the other 28 minutes? How exactly are they going to do that now the luxury and you know, Costa Riz? He's got great command of his handle. He can get his own shot. You can you can run stuff through him You know to have two of those guys on the court pretty much the entire time

Like that's now the luxury that JJ has but here's one thing that I did see that JJ talked about And he kind of got excited thinking about this. So the third defender, the third best perimeter defender for every one of these teams is now going to end up on one of these guys. And like he was talking about, look, he's obviously not putting Austin Reeves in the category with LeBron and Luca, but Austin Reeves is a guy that has shown JJ, he's got a lot of game. And so even thinking about him getting an opportunity to operate against the third defender, because you can't have them on all of those guys and very few teams have three great perimeter defenders, so somebody is going to get a weaker guy.

And when you run the action you want and you call horns action, and for want to know what's horns action horns is, you know, there's a ball handler middle of the floor, and then you come up with a screen to be set on either side of a high ball screen. So there's two, two guys up there setting screens, and then the ball handler gets his choice. And you come off and you pick which way you want to go horns action, every team runs something like that. And then after you come off the ball screen, those other two guys, the screeners, there could be an additional screen set there for each other. We're one of those guys dives to the rim. When you run all that kind of action with those three players involved

in ball screens and then off ball screens together, you're going to end up with the matchup you were looking for on that possession. And that is what, that is what had JJ very excited because now you're like, well, what if the third guy ends up on Luca or LeBron? What does that mean? That means absolute downhill breakdown, collapsing your defense in the paint. And you know, that's going to be a major problem. The other thing I saw was, Hey, you run action for one of these guys,

Lebron or Luca on one side of the floor comes off of it. There's an entire defensive shift to that side of the floor to deal with that ball screen action with those guys. Now when the ball, there's nothing there because there's too much traffic. The ball comes out, gets to the other side. Now it's going into the side of another elite level, all time, great creator with, with close out defenders coming at them with more space to operate because the first guy did most of the work on the other side of the floor. So that's the other thing that now that you're going to see. So I did see some of that very small sample size of it, but that kind of gets your head around what this is going to look like. You're talking about a guy in LeBron who this year is fourth in the league and points directly

off of his passes. Last year, Luka was third in the league in that category. They're playing together now. So let's just wrap our head around that and the facilitation of the offense for everybody else. That to me is one of the biggest upsides to this entire thing. And I saw some of that at least on Monday. It feels silly 20 years in with LeBron

watching it live of still being amazed by what he can do. But those hard dribble drive pull up fadeaways and these fadeaways that he's hitting aren't these like straight in and then back. I mean, we're talking about these crazy angles where he's just getting to a takeoff point and then it's six, nine hitting these shots. I mean, this isn't even anything necessarily off of Luca because he was doing a lot of this.

Like I felt like LeBron was kind of juiced up a little bit in that game. Um, his, his energy, but there was some shot making from him. Uh, again, not that anybody is sitting here going like, oh yeah, LeBron's really good. Um, but those are impossible. They're impossible to defend. And he's actually kind of mastered the shot now. Oh yeah, there's no doubt.

And you talk about the way he looks and then, you know, I've done four Lakers games this year, so I've been seeing it quite a bit. The thing that was amazing to me on Monday was how hard LeBron was playing defensively with containment of the ball. It was kind of amazing to watch because that's the one thing that people will,

you know, if you want to nitpick the guy, some people will nitpick that. Well, he kind of picks his hats now. Well, I have. I mean, I've brought up the defensive stretches throughout much of the season, where you're like, it has to be better in the playoffs. It just has to be, and he's really good at it.

And it's fair, it's fair. Like, you do see it. He does pick his spots. When he's 40 years old, like, you know, he does. Man, it's the bottom line. He didn't on Monday, and like, and I was wondering, he was playing so hard, Ryan, like defensively, to like pressure up the ball, and like slide, and use his strength, and I was wondering, he was playing so hard, Ryan, like defensively to like pressure up the ball and like slide and use his strength and just really, I mean,

he really disrupted some possessions. And look, it's the Utah Jazz, you know, you're talking about guys like Keonte George, you know, handling the ball against him, you know, and Isaiah Collier and like, you know, you're not talking about elite level offensive players in this league, but still, and I was like, kind of like, wow, part of me is like, is this part of this like for Luca to watch? You know, Luca, Luca has never played with a presence like this, a profile like this, a guy that cast this kind of a shadow. He's never had this.

So now LeBron at 40, expending that kind of energy. I'm not saying Luca's going to grind it out defensively, but I do think there's going to be a little bit more accountability with LeBron as your teammate than anything Luca's ever had. And I think that could be something that's beneficial. Something else ran through my mind during the game I thought about. Luca is different from LeBron in that LeBron I've always viewed as more of a facilitator first, which is kind of crazy because the guy's the all-time leading scorer in history the league, but I do think he thinks more about just putting pressure on defenses with his just his power and his force, but thinks more like a playmaker before the scoring comes. Luca's the opposite.

I think Luca dips his toe in the water first every night. He sticks the thermometer in his own mouth every night first. He's done it in Dallas since he came into the league. It makes me chuckle and I appreciate it, respect it. Because he'll come out, it doesn't matter if he's playing with Kyrie or whoever. He's just like, these first six minutes are about me. I'm going to try to see how hot I am because that'll dictate my night. So the reason I bring that up when Luca was in Dallas, like at no time was Luca able to just go like, I'm just going to score right now, man. And I'm just going

to totally take playmaking off my plate right now that you guys just don't worry about it. Just watch me for the next six minutes. He had to facilitate for those guys. Can you imagine now situation where like Luca because he's more of a raw score than LeBron just gets cooking early and but LeBron's like fine man, just go because these other dudes I'll make sure they get shots. I can run point here for a little bit at the highest level and just go don't think about anything else.

You have to worry about it. It'll come organically out of some of his action. Obviously the lobs and the, and the cross court threes that he kicks out for because you know, that's just the right play to make and he can make it. But just, I think the thought process behind it of not worrying about getting anybody easy looks if he gets cooking early in a game. That's kind of a fun thing to think about as well. You have the broadcast late game on ESPN tonight, Golden State of Dallas. We'll get to Golden State. We're going to get to the rest of the league stuff

here quickly. So just the last thought on this. Is there any concern that you like, does this topic come up? I mean, we're almost two weeks removed from the trade happening, Does this topic come up? I mean, we're almost two weeks removed from the trade happening, knowing that the job is to call the game. But depending on how the game goes and how nasty this crowd has been. I mean, this thing is not dying in Dallas. And I don't really blame Dallas fans for feeling betrayed and everything that they're feeling here, the absurdity of this trade actually happening.

You and I were texting about it right after it happened, because all of us were just kind of in shock, but how you would handle that topic during the broadcast and it feels like there's a window for it. Yeah, man, look, I think this is like something that they might never get over. I'm not exaggerating that. And I've said this, and I've kind of talked to some people

around the league about their own teams that they like and follow and the players that they're fans of. And I'm saying, would it even matter to Dallas fans if the Mavericks won it this year or next year or the third year of this Anthony Davis-Kyrie pairing? Would that be enough to salve this wound? I don't think so because number one, you may have won it with Luca too.

Like you'll never know that now they got to the finals last year. Now look, I don't know that anybody's beaten OKC this year. So maybe it's just one of those years that you're not beating that team, but we'll never know it. They did go to the finals and I do think they actually improve their team. Now, Luca missed a lot of time. There's downside to that. You're a 500 team now with a stretch run to try to position yourself.

That's a hard thing in the West to go on the road for three rounds. I get that. But at the same time, you know, the benefit of it, Luca, once he gets himself in his shape over the next couple of weeks, he will be so much fresher at that time of the year than he has ever been. There's something to be said for that. The year that Gold State won the title a few years ago, Steph missed a chunk of time in the second half of the season that year. He was fresher when the playoffs came around. It matters to guys with that kind of usage. So we'll never know. But here's what I do know. Whether you win it or you don't win it or whatever happens to Dallas the next three years, and I thought it was kind of almost mind blowing that Nico Harrison said, I'm

talking about the now and the future, and by that I mean three to four years. That's the future? You have a guy that's 25 years old, that could be your cornerstone for the next 12 years if that's what you wanted it to be. You've shrunk this down to three or four years and you start using words like culture and things like that. And we're talking about guys like Kyrie and AD, you know, so, so the whole thing was kind of surreal to listen to it, but so he shrunk it to that's

three or four year window. Okay. Let's say, let's say that you're somehow you think you're a more viable threat or you even make a deep run, or you win a damn title in the next three years. I don't think that is enough to satisfy the Mavericks fan base because of who Luka represents. This is one of the greatest offensive talents to ever come into this league, and he's 25, and he's already been to a conference final and a final by the age of 24.

Go look at the history of the league, the guys at the top of the food chain have done that. They're all time great players. And so Luke has already done that. And so I'm like saying to myself, well, how bad can this stuff be with the conditioning and your concerns organizationally when he's that good, that talented. And by the way, that entertaining, that's the other thing that the Dallas fans are having a hard time wrapping their head around, man.

Going to a Dallas Mavericks game was an event because of Luca. You just took that away. That's gone. So to your point, will they, it's still bad here? It could be bad here for a very long time. And look, you can win obviously if they make a deep playoff run, people get behind that and they're gonna be selling out,

the crowds into it, they're gonna be a parade and they'll be there. I'm still not sure it completely heals the wound of losing what was a generational player for a generation of fans, particularly like younger fans in Dallas. It's, so that's what this organization is coping with, dealing with, and now we'll see what happens

once they get everybody back and what it looks like at the end of the year. This year's gonna be very difficult because of these injuries. We'll see over the next two or three years, does Dallas make a run and does that even matter as much to the fan base? Because Luca, by the way, could also go to LA and do the same thing potentially.

So they're gonna have to live with that for maybe the next decade, watching whatever success he has in a Lakers uniform. So the whole thing, you and I, I think, are in agreement on this. It's inconceivable that a player this age of this talent could become available by the team's choosing. Without some sort of a scandal that they're involved in, without just being an unbearable human being on a daily basis to be around, without him forcing his way out or leaving in free agency. This just doesn't happen in team sports. It just doesn't happen. And it has now, and now we got to wait and see what the fallout's going to be. Let's talk about the rest of the league. We're in agreement, so I have nothing else to add there. And I've already talked about it a lot here. So

we look at OKC, I think, and I've mentioned this a few times, like in the summer, you're going, okay, well if Dallas is back, and I'm with you, I thought the roster was even better this year than the finals team last year. You always include Denver in the conversation. I think most of us thought Minnesota would have a chance here. That hasn't been as good. They were terrible the other night. I know they're Mrs. Sombatis against Cleveland, but like they started one of 20 in that game.

Um, maybe it's just the first quarter or whatever, but like there's just, it's okay seeing then trying to figure out everyone else and Denver has, has figured some things out here as well. There was a nice defensive stretch in there. Now it's been back more to the offense. Actually having Murray look like this is important. I also think when Aaron Gordon misses that many games, you're looking at the numbers, looking at the standing going like, okay, but there's just certain teams where I go, I don't really know if I care about what the numbers tell me

right now. So if you're looking at the West outside of OKC, who do you think's the biggest threat to them? Yeah, I would say probably Denver. I mean, look, I've been really impressed with Memphis and Houston all year. And I've seen Memphis, I think I've called three of their games. So I've been impressed. And every time I've seen them, I think they've been shorthanded. So I've even seen them at full strength.

I like them a lot. I like Houston a lot, man. They're tough. They compete. They're taking on the identity of their coach. I mean, Ameen Thompson is a guy that just blows me away when I watch some of the stuff that he could do on the court. I don't know that Memphis is complete enough, and I don't know that Houston is ready to take that leap. And Houston, you know, listen, the six game loser losers streak they just went on. Your people make too much of that sometimes. They hadn't lost more than two games in a row all year

and they only did that once. And so you're gonna have a- You can't believe not being around. I think some of those late possessions too, which shows with the camp- No doubt, no doubt. You can just see- No, no question.

Right. You're right. And I watched both of those games and it's like that was actually what kind of stood out to me Like, okay, how do you close games? Because it's not gonna be Jalen Green that you're gonna trust in that situation I meant Thompson is not a complete enough offensive player because he doesn't really have a perimeter shot So do you can't do it then Shin good is a nice player. He's not on that level So that's that's definitely a concern for Houston.

Tight game, playoff spot. What are you going to right now to make sure that you got a ball in the hands of a guy that's going to get a good shot or make a great decision? That's a problem for them. And you saw that rear itself during the losing streak. But in general, the six game losing streak, you're okay. It's just a stretch. It's a tough stretch.

Tough time of the year. It's just, you know, whatever. Get to the break, hit the reset. And I think Houston is legitimately a very good team. I don't think either of those teams represent a real threat to Oklahoma City. I think Denver would be the team that you would look at. And now obviously the Lakers, man, we got to wait and see because maybe it's the Lakers when it's all said and done.

Maybe it's, maybe it is them. And they added Alex Lin, which is important. They got some size. That's going to be a problem. But I think their small lineup is's gonna be a problem, but I think their small lineups are gonna be a problem for teams. When they play Rui and Dorian Finney-Smith with those three perimeter players,

I think that's gonna be a very tough lineup to guard for teams. You'll see more and more of that, I think, deeper into the year. So maybe it ends up being the Lakers, but that is kind of how I see it. Right now it'd be Denver. Watch out for the Lakers.

I don't think that Memphis necessarily, but Houston are good enough in those tight spots that you're gonna have to be in a playoff series. Yeah, there'll be a big matchup there because you look at it today, Lakers are the four seed and this is, you know, without the Luka part of it. And we saw some of that on Monday.

They've just going, look, we're just gonna downsize this thing. We're not gonna care if Utah is gonna play Kessler. I mean, Utah is completely outmatched. They're not a very good team right now. So that's probably not the best game to be like, Hey, this is what the Lakers are going to do the rest of the time. But you could see even with Len, because it's kind of a desperate acquisition after the Mark Williams trade gets rescinded.

And even if they had kept Mark Williams in that trade, I think the Lakers would look at it as saying, let's just space somebody in a playoff match up here. Let's have Doreen Finney-Smith sit in the corner. We may give up something here and there's going to be a game where we get out rebounded by a ton. But if you're opening up, you're playing five out and you're having Luke and LeBron and Reeves attack, all the stuff we were saying in the beginning, that might be the payoff where JJ is like, I know what I'm giving up, but I also know what I'm gaining here on offense. I guess I think it would just be, it'd be tough to go, okay, if you're running

into say a healthy, big, okay, C team, if you're running into, you know, what Denver is, um, you know, Memphis is probably a better matchup when you look at some of the size stuff here, let's stay on Memphis though, because I'm with you. They're the two seed today. They're 11 and two in their last 13. They're top seven, um, offense and defense. I, you know, last night, Ja, you know, the whole Ja thing in and out of line up all this different stuff that you had mentioned all the times where it feels

like it's another guy stepping up, which speaks to their depth. And, and I think it is a team that doesn't mind who goes off from night to night. Um, but Ja, you know, he's missed the end of 21 games, goes off against Phoenix last night, Santi Aldama was incredible to start the game for him. Jaylen Wells, a rookie has been like a real piece of what they're doing here. And they have guys that they can go to and Gigi is back and stuff. So I, I like them, but yeah, it just, it feels hard going. Do you see them in the Western conference finals?

And that may be too dismissive of them. And maybe it's just, I mean, here they are. They've, they've, they've had different versions of themselves so many times over the last couple of years, and yet here they are standings wise, the only team behind the thunder. Well, the thing that's going to be, um, very interesting ultimately, and it always is in the West is how do these standings play out? What does that look like?

I mean, I think that getting into that three spot is very important for Denver or the Lakers. You know, obviously you don't wanna be four or five. You get Oklahoma City in the second round, if that's the case. So that's gonna matter. So look, one of these teams is gonna get there. So I think, you know, if Denver or LA can get the three,

then I think they've got, they're gonna have a really good chance to beat whoever that is in the two spot. That's Memphis. They could hate maybe Denver, LA end up two, three. That's possible that Lakers got some work to do to get there, but that's possible. You know, do you get those two teams in a second round? But I think the key is to avoid Oklahoma City as long as you can. Memphis is a good team. And the one thing I

like about Memphis is, is when I watch them, they consistently play very hard and their role players on a given night, it's different guys, but their role players have an impact. I love Aldama. I have for quite a while. He's a guy that I think is very underrated, what he does in this league. Gigi is a big component getting him back. He's still not close to, I think,

what he can be by the end of the year. So they're deeper than they've been. But ultimately it comes down to, do you trust one possession game three minutes to go? What are they gonna run to guarantee that they get good action and get a good shot? I, you know, if they get into that situation and you got the Lakers or you got Denver,

I trust those teams more. If that's who they would end up playing in a semigame series and the winner moving on to Oklahoma City in the conference finals. Let's look at the East. I love the Hunter trade for Cleveland because whenever I watch Cleveland and Boston, I would just go, man, these defensive assignments

start off really bad for what Cleveland probably wants to close with. And they probably would want to close with Struce prior to Hunter showing up. Now I don't know how Struce closes in a playoff game unless he's just on fire and they feel like, hey, that's, but you know, I'm not saying Hunter's going to shut down Tatum

or Jaylen Brown or other guys, but it's just another big body that they didn't have. And I love the way they moved the ball. I love the way Mobley has played. You look at some of the on-off stuff with what Mobley has done. Mitchell also kind of taking that mature collective step back of like, I don't need to do this all on my own. The way I think he came up as a player, because it was so impressive and he just felt like, Hey, I'm going to get all my buckets and accolades and all that kind of stuff. I think he's at that point player because it was so impressive and he just felt like, Hey, I'm going to get all my buckets and accolades and all that kind of stuff. I think he's at that point of his career where like the guys that start to win

games understand, I don't need to play like this all the time. Although it's in there. If you need him to go on like a 10, a run because he's just that dynamic. So we know exactly who they are. And the Hunter park changes at least, cause prior to that, I'd be like, I don't want to hear it. Like I'm picking Boston against them. I don't care what happens to the regular season like, I don't want to hear it. Like I'm picking Boston against them, I don't care what happens to the regular season,

like I don't want to hear it. This provides them a closing group that I think makes that trade really important for them. There is no question, and I think, look, I think part of the trade was looking at the team, that's the measuring stick, which is the Boston Celtics. That's who they're comparing themselves to. When you look at those two forwards in Boston and what you have to do to guard them, what they were going to be rolling out there in their rotation at those spots was going to be tough for them. I think Deandre Hunter answers that.

So I'm a big Deandre Hunter fan. I think this primarily came down to his ability to guard some of the longer guys that can get their own offense in this league on the perimeter. That's what he's going to answer. And he can also give you supplemental offense. He can spot him and shoot the ball, but they're going to be Knights. He'll have a playoff game where he gets eight points and takes seven shots and he's got tremendous value because of what he's doing to guard. It won't matter as much.

I think the Mobley component to me is the biggest reason why they've moved this forward. Guys in this league, when they get to a certain place in terms of their confidence, it's amazing how all of a sudden they anticipate being open. He never anticipated being open the last couple of years. I'd watch him and it was just like, he wasn't in the mindset of running out onto the court from the tunnel expecting to do damage. He was a good player, a nice player, but he blended in. A lot of nights he blended in and he doesn't blend in anymore. He's out there and he's anticipating getting the ball.

He's thinking about his next opportunity prior to it happening. So when it does open up a little bit of a window for him, he jumps on it. He took 19 shots in their last game. I mean, go back and look at last year, you know, how many times did he even get to 19 shots? And their team has got more firepower than they've had. And he still gets that many shots on a given night because he's expecting it. He wants it. That to me has really changed the profile of their team in my mind.

To where, look, I think for me, they're going to have home court against Boston. If that's what the conference finals ends up being. Look, I'm not trying to dismiss the Knicks because I think the Knicks can go toe to toe with these teams, make it very interesting series. But it's a coin toss to me, Ryan. It's a coin toss to me now between Cleveland and Boston. And Boston, I think, still has another it's a coin toss to me Ryan. It's a coin toss to me now between Cleveland and Boston and Boston I think still has another gear that we're gonna see after the break that you can't replicate hunger They just didn't have as much hunger this year. They they they satisfied that last year That was a quest for their organization for Brown and Tatum They answered that you can't just automatically think you're to show up the next year with just driving hunger to win. You'll get it later in the year. Denver went through the

same thing when they finally broke through. They'll get it. And they might have the most talent and depth ultimately when it comes down to it. And maybe they're right back in the finals again. But Cleveland has really shored up that gap with them to where I think now that's an absolute coin toss if they were to play in a semigame series. Boston deserves to bend it with a doubt. And I can't really talk myself into being frustrated with them, even if there are stretches where you're like, what is going on with this team? And then, you know, there'll be times where I don't love what I see from them offensively.

Then I go back and look at the numbers. You're like, okay, they're fourth in offense. Like what do you want from this team? Um, and even if I did like the side by side, cause I did it this morning. I was looking at it like fourth in offense this year, fifth in defense this year, net rating this year, third last year, they were first in offense. It's, it's a better number last year than it was this year. Um, they were number two in defense.

Net rating was number one overall. So there's some statistical stuff that you can point to at 38 and 16 last year when they had won their 38th game, they were 38 and 12, but when I was looking at that, I was like, boy, that seems closer than I would have expected. But then Boston went on a 22 run where they ended up 57 and 16. So there was this stretch where they absolutely cranked it up.

Is there anything, is there anything with them? We've pointed to collectively collectively like guys across the board not having as good a season shooting wise, maybe some of the reintegration of Perzingis getting involved, some of the Jaylen Brown stuff hasn't been great night tonight, Derek White hasn't been the same guy, like I'm kind of just repeating myself here.

Is there anything that you see that's remotely concerning with them? I think the one thing that I've seen, they've reverted to a little bit this year are those nights when Tatum and Brown aren't great on the same night. Like that kind of reminded me of the years before they broke through and won it.

When you would look at them some nights and go, man, you know, Tatum and Brown, it's such a tough pairing, but they operate completely independently of each other. And so some nights to be one guy, some nights the other, and a lot of their action run on opposite sides of the floor. And I didn't think they were maxing out like the pressure they could put on defenses when they're both involved in some sort of action they run. And it just felt, they felt more complimentary last year than, and this year there's been

nights I watched him and it felt a little bit like last year. One of the things I've done with Boston all season is I just keep telling myself this just doesn't feel the same in their head as it did last year. Going for this thing and trying to get this thing across the finish line. It's just a different mentality around that. Um, they're still off season was completely different. Not only because you're a champion now, you have team USA played into that, you know, you got, you got three guys there, you know, it wasn't necessarily the best summer for Tatum, obviously with what happened, you know, Jalen Brown

was probably not thrilled that you got to two teammates who are role players or more like role players on that team or on team USA. And he's's not like there's a lot of stuff that happened over the summer that made their whole off season different. And then you come back in and you start playing. But again, it's like, man, it's a long year. It's a grind. Everybody's trying to catch up to us. So we'll show you our best when we have to, which is going to be March, April, May, June. And I think that's probably what you're going to see. I think you're going to see just a uptick in intensity and everything

that they do after they get this week off at the All-Star break. Yeah. I know that I probably watched them too much and some of the things that I'll think I'm being like, sometimes I'll look at it and go, okay, well, that was, that was bad or what happened there offensively. I mean, there's even some stuff from their clutch execution last season. I was like, could this come back and bite him? And I was like, no, I'm was, that was bad. Or what happened there offensively? I mean, there's even some stuff from their clutch execution last season. I was like, could this come back and bite him? And then it's like, Nope.

They just roll through everybody and it's not that big of an issue. And then I have to kind of remind myself to like compare it to the rest of the league and I want to get into this with you, right. As a great shooter, um, this might take a second to set up, but I was watching Portland, Denver the other night, right? And of course, Yokoch had that absurd shot clock three in the corner where you just like want to give up.

Like, can we just go home now? This is, this is ridiculous. But on a lesser heralded attempt and make was Simon's in the left corner and he has the ball. It's not a catch and shoot. He's, It looks like he's stuck, but it's Simon, so he's not stuck if he doesn't want to be stuck. And he's flat footed. He's just in the corner. There's a guy just in his grill, waiting to see what he's going to do. And there's not really a ton of jab step work to get free. He just pulls up and nails this three from the corner. And I'm sitting there going like, I hope people appreciate how hard that shot is.

It's not in rhythm. There's, he's not even sure what he wants to do until he just says, all right, I'm gonna pull up and make this. And Simon's is a really good player, super talented, great score. Like we already know all that stuff, but it's not like he's one of these all timers.

And I think of how many guys around the league can make those shots in the skill level that we're at right now. Yeah. Um, and if you look at the overall three point shooting numbers, like we're at the most attempts for game in NBA history, not surprising, just over 37, which is two more per game than the other highest mark. If you want to look at the collective shooting from three, they're at 359, which is 10th all time.

So you could take a snapshot of like the last five or six years and say that three point numbers declining a little bit, but it's not so dramatic that you think you're actually finding anything. So when I think about the people like Simon's who make these shots to him, that you're just like, I don't, it's not even a good shot, but he's capable of it. But then I'll think about like Nas Reed in that Cleveland game. And this isn't, this isn't me to be critical of Nas Reid, but it was just something I see a lot is he had a three point attempt.

It was fine during the shot clock. He didn't really even have the ball in his hands. His feet weren't set and he's, and he's kind of not floating, but his, his feet, he's like lingering back. Like there was nothing right about his setup shot decision. It was all bad and he, and he misses the three. And so I think that's where like an older generation will look at attempts like that going, you would be benched in my era for even thinking about it.

But on the other side, when you see Simon's have that kind of make, it's like, you kind of have to allow so many of these bad attempts because, and I know that sounds crazy because like, I feel like Tim, I'll see guys like you didn't even have the ball in your hands. You weren't shot ready. There was nothing about you that gave you a good chance of making that shot, but you took it already. So I guess it's kind of taking the, the escalation of where the skill has developed to and accepting some of those bad shots,

where I think you can make an argument for it's both the most talented level of basketball we've ever seen sprinkled in with more attempts of like, what were you possibly thinking on that attempt where both sides aren't wrong to kind of emphasize the other. I think it's a very apt description of what we watch every night. First of all, there's no question the number of high-level shot makers in this league, it's silly to even say more than ever because it's not that that doesn't even do it justice. How much more than we've ever seen in this league. The number of guys on a given night that are capable of making incredibly difficult shots on threes of the kind you're describing, but just there's escape ability to get it, to get the shot off.

Everybody's got to step back. Everybody's got to sidestep three in the league. They practice this stuff. They work on this stuff in the summer, more guys can do it. And so the just maybe sometimes there is a lack of appreciation of how good it is because it can be a little monotonous.

Some nights when you watch, you were talking to me about Boston before and anything I'm seeing, that's probably another thing I would say is just like those nights when it's, they allow you to guard them because they'll take any one of those shots they get with the slightest crack of daylight immediately, because all of them can shoot it, they'll take it.

And you're just like, man, imagine if you just made a team work for eight to 10 seconds and guard you guys off the dribble when you get into the lane and you're just like, man, imagine if you just wait a team work for eight to 10 seconds and guard you guys off the dribble. When you get into the lane and you're getting your dribble drive kick action, you're never catching up to the ball. And eventually somebody takes a three, but it's a better three. Imagine if they played like that all the time. Nobody could deal with Boston. They don't. I watched the game this year when he played the Bulls and the two teams combined for a hundred and eight three point shots, a hundred and eight, 56 and 52. Okay. And it's just like, you know, it's just like, it does get, that's why when I look at teams and I'm, excuse me, it's on my throat. I look at the, the team numbers going into

a game and I make it all my notes and I'm like, Oh, this is great. Like these two teams are in the bottom 10 in attempted threes. So we're going to see more tonight than just that. So to your point, yes, I think that you're not necessarily always getting the best shot you can. You have to weigh that with it's incredible to me, the number of guys that can make good shots out of those attempts that they are reasonable because they go in enough and they shouldn't because they're incredibly difficult shots and they're not really putting a lot of pressure on the defense

a lot of times. That is pretty much what we're watching every night in this league right now. And for Boston, I do think there are nights when I go, man, they're making it easy. You know, they take six, seven in a row off of one pass, two passes. First, remote daylight, let's get it up there. And I'm going, man, you're not, with all the talent you have,

with that kind of versatility, you have four guys in your starting line that can beat anybody off the dribble, get into the lane. Then you got this freak, Porzingis, and how difficult he is to guard, all of you can catch and shoot threes and yet you don't make them have to guard you first before you get the good three, cause I don't know that anybody could beat them if they played like that every night and maybe, Hey,

maybe they'll get closer to that when it really matters. Yeah. And then I'm not to bring it up again with Boston, but my standard for them is winning an NBA title. So when I see shots where I go, what was that? Like you guys are too good to be doing that kind of stuff. But then I'll remind myself like, hey, you're gonna watch another game after this one, and you're gonna see way worse players

taking the exact same shot. So, no. Hey listen, I do wanna make a point. Like, you know, I'm sitting there watching these games and especially when I'm calling the game, cause I could really see the bench and the coaching staff and all that, that's not shown on camera sometimes when you're watching at home and I see shots like you're describing. I don't know how many at night. My first thing is typically when I see one that I just like, it makes you kind of like sick,

like you ate bad food. When you see a of like sick, like you ate bad food. When you see a shot like that, like you're talking about, I'll look immediately at the bench, the coaching staff. There's almost never a reaction to it. And I'll just sit there going, man, like, what would that be like for a guy like myself that could shoot? If I knew legitimately there is nothing I could possibly do that would be a bad shot in anybody's mind in the building,

I don't know what that freedom between the ears, like where you just, you remove all thought about good shot, bad shot, you know, playing the right way. I said, no, no, if you get any daylight legs, let it fly. I don't know what that would even feel like that level of empowerment, but that's kind of what we have in the league now. Anybody, anytime, any possession, take it if you want it. And there's no reaction from the coaching staff whatsoever. It's incredible to me, you know, but it is that that's where we're at. And look, a lot of it is because the skill level

is so off the charts that I think they run the analytics and they think that this is gonna pay off in the end. Taking that many because there are a lot of nights where they make enough of those that it becomes very difficult to guard them. I'll still never understand the guy that shoots it when it's not in his hands. Like that's the, like this is hard enough man.

And you know, as a shooter, like I don't really have it in my hands, it's like, ah, whatever. But you know, and I don't want to turn this into like criticizing necessarily today's game, because I think we're explaining some of the stuff that people don't like in the understanding behind it. But like I had two screens up on Monday night and two teams within seconds of each other ended up on three on one breaks, three on

one breaks and both wings stayed inside the three point line and both teams with the ball didn't score like completely fucked it up. And I thought that's crazy. Cause they're not even used to guys not running to the corners. So instead of like stopping at the free throw line, like all the stuff we grew up with, like stop, make the defender commit, then make your decision. Or if you're really special, like pretend you're going, you know, you know, some sort of decoy move and yet it was, it was, because you don't really see.

You know what's wild, Ryan is like, and I can't remember the player. I was watching again,, it was, cause you don't really see. You know what's wild, Ryan is like, and I can't remember the player. I was watching a game in the last couple of weeks, there was a two on one fast break where the ball handler came down and, you know, and there was a couple of defenders, you know, maybe eight, 10 feet behind running back to try to get back into the play. So you had to make a quick decision on this. You're two on one. We were always obviously always conditioned, you know, take it right out to defender, forced them to commit. And then if they don't lay it in, if they do, you drop it off and the other guy gets

a layoff. If it's a standard drill, you do in middle school even write that two on one fast break drill. And this particular ball handler started to fan out like he was going to pull for three, like sort of like from the slot or wingish type area. The defender kind of committed to him that it came out on him because he thought he was going to shoot. And by that time, like that getting that pass to the guy underneath the basket was going to be hard because there were guys running back. So the ball handler that dribbled all the way to the corner on that side of the court and then shot it so it was like it was like

It was like literally weighing that like all the scenarios This is the worst case one and I'm gonna go ahead and let that go I'm gonna let that fly right now because this is what I processed in the moment And it was also I'm noticing is the reaction of the crowd in the arena on like really bad shots is also non-existent because it's kind of like what they watch every night is just like this is this is the way the game is played. Now. This is what we do. So but again, I think your original points the best because you don't, you know, this doesn't want to come off

like we're criticizing players. Exactly. Bottom line is the bottom line is, you know, there are guys, more guys on all of these rosters capable of making these kinds of shots, um, than we've ever had. So as a result, there's a lot more leeway given to the players, man, to be able to sort those things out. The one thing I like now is, too, is like when guys come on the floor, they're in whatever minutes that you're a 15 minute player, like for those 15 minutes, like for the first time you touch the ball, go ahead and shoot it. And that is also a different mindset.

Like it used to be you're going to play 15, 18, 20 minutes, right? You're going to come in the game. You're going to you're going to go down a 18, 20 minutes, right? You're going to come in the game. You're going to, you're going to go up and down a few times, man, touch it a couple of times, right? Get into the flow before you would really think about shooting the ball. Cause you've been sitting over there for in real time, probably 20 minutes by that time to start of the game. So that's what, that's what you're meant to now. It's just, I like the fact that coaches allow guys, hey, if you play 15 minutes, make the most of those 15 minutes.

If you're a shooter, go ahead, let it fly. Every time you get it, while you're out there, and if one of those nights you miss your first six, then maybe that'll be the coach's decision. I'll go somewhere else for those last few minutes, whatever, but for the most part, you're empowered to do what you do. And it's immediately as soon as you step on the court.

No one is blinking an eye. If you check immediately, as soon as you step on the court, no one is blinking an eye, if you check in, you're still talking your Jersey in and you catch the ball and shoot it like no, no one cares if that's the case anymore. Um, and I, I kinda, I kinda dig that man as a role player and a guy coming off the bench shooting threes, like that would have been nice. I don't care who you are. There's nothing, there's nothing worse than looking over to see if you're going to be subbed out while you're trying to play. And I don't know that these guys have to worry about that that much anymore.

A couple last things here before, before we finish up here. I don't want to keep you too much longer. I was looking at some of the golden state numbers because like, I think the Jimmy Butler acquisition is just what is, what can we do to raise the floor? What can we do to close with five guys that are better than what we had before? So I understand that motivated Butler. He's looked really, really aggressive here with the, with the, with the What can we do to raise the floor? What can we do to close with five guys that are better than what we had before? So I understand that motivated Butler. He's looked really, really aggressive here with Golden State for a couple of games.

But knowing how like Golden State plays a beautiful game and they still with this limited version of themselves this year, because I think a lot of it was run the action with Steph, it gets shut off. All right. Everybody pretend we're going to do something. And now the ball ends up back in Steph's hands. And, you know, I just don't have a lot of criticism for some of the efficiency with Steph because I just, I see what he's being tasked with doing.

I've also used this argument for Booker at times where it's like Booker runs the first thing and then everybody tries to figure it out again. And then it's like, all right, Devin, like save our ass, um, depending on how the minutes are aligned, right? So Butler provides something they have not had. They still lead the NBA in passes per game, which is just kind of who they've been fundamentally here for like a long time.

How do you see Butler, let's talk about those closing minutes. How do you see him in a big spot and then kind of what Golden State could be capable of with the best version of him? Yeah, I can't wait to see him tonight. I've only seen tape. I want to see the game tonight.

I'm anxious to call this game to see exactly stylistically what this does to them, how it changes them. Look, he gives them an edge. He gives them some toughness. He's got a lot to prove. He's definitely highly motivated right now. He got crushed in terms of the perspective on Jimmy Butler with the way it ended in Miami. And look, it's ended like that in a few places.

But right now, he's definitely highly motivated and anxious to get out of that situation. He's found himself in a very healthy situation. Great guys, great coach, great system, great joy for the game, and much needed. Like his particular skill set, get to the line, win the tough mid range stuff, battle, compete, give you more defensively. So he's going to address all of those things for them. And I think one thing that Steve Kerr talked to me about earlier this year when I did one of their games was interesting. He said a big reason why Steph's numbers are kind of

down by his historical norms you know, norms because of the lack of three point shooting they had of their bigs. So he's like every night we're getting a big guarding Looney, Trey Jackson Davis, or even Draymond at the five. All they're doing is standing back in the lane. As a result, a lot of the action they run where they get cutters and they get slicers and a lot of it's not even designed to get necessarily a catch for a score in the lane, but it does force reactions out of guys. And then the next thing, here comes Steph off a dribble handoff because there's space on the perimeter.

That was like taken away. He's like, it's so congested in the lane because these defenders are just of the five are just standing back there. So all that stuff we run is just has no purpose. So now teams are high siding stuff. They're hard on the outside hip. None of that action is he getting open on. He's working so hard to get freedom and space. Well, now all of that attention paid to him, you can't. If Jimmy Butler is gobbling up all of that extra space

that's available when he gets the basketball, it's a totally different way to have to guard them. And I'm very curious to see now the impact on Steph. Even in the first two games, I can see it's energized their team. And so I'm like, it stinks. I'm not going to get a healthy Dallas team tonight. You know, I won't get to see what that looks like, but we'll have a lot of topics on Dallas that have nothing to do with how it looks tonight. I won't get to see what that looks like, but we'll have a lot of topics on Dallas that have nothing to do with how it looks tonight. So I'm sure they'll get their fill.

But I'm just as excited even more so about seeing what Golden State looks like with Jimmy Butler and his impact on Steph Curry specifically. But I do think, look, it's going to be a tough road for them. They're coming from a 500 spot, trying to climb some rungs in the latter in the West. There's other teams in the same boat. So they're, look, they're a team ultimately could get their act together, play really well going into the playoffs. It would not be an easy out.

Can you expect right now, as we sit here, a deep playoff run for the Warriors? Probably not. But again, with question marks around Houston, around Memphis, Lakers, this all has to work for them. Like, you know, there's other teams right now that are still also figuring stuff out. Let's see how the Warriors look in comparison.

Right, and the Warriors sitting there in the 10th seed today, but only a game up on Phoenix, San Antonio in the mix, and then of course, Portland after a really nice stretch. I don't know if we lost a couple, but I just would, as a basketball fan, like the playing part of this, depending on the seating too. So you could argue we'll step shouldn't even had a chance. There's another time where he's eliminated when they were top 18. Like, all right, this guy going to turn 37 and not be in the

playoffs after they trade for Jimmy Butler legs will be on the call. That one tonight again, golden state at Dallas late game on ESPN. And again, make sure you check out his all NBA podcast as well you're the best legs thanks thanks man appreciate you it's time again for all-star connection so let's dive into this year's NBA all-star game and see who's gonna win a ring brought to you by AT&T the new AT&T guarantee connectivity you can depend on deals you want and service you deserve, or they'll make it right.

If you look at the All-Star rosters and who has a chance to win a ring, not the All-Star ring. Shaxo G's, are they anti-cabs? I hope that doesn't start up. If you look at it, Garland and Mobley are both on Kenny's Young Stars and then Chuck's Global Stars, he went with Donovan Mitchell. I love what the Cavs have done for obvious reasons. They're fun to watch. They are the number one seed in the East, the Deandre Hunter

edition adds something that, you know, Lex and I have talked about. I talked about it after the trade deadline, a new teammate that gives them another big option. You know, whenever you're making a trade and you go, would this guy close the game with us with our five at the end of a playoff game? If the answer is yes, then I think it's a lot easier to give up the resources that you have to give up. But I also think that Cleveland, if they were to at least even win the East this year is another lesson in exercising patience the same way we see another set of all-star teammates in Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown on the same team, see another set of all star teammates in Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown on the same team on Shaq's OGs. He loves the OGs.

He's got LeBron on there. He's got Steph. He's got Durant. He's got Harden, old gray beard. But you know, the Tatum Brown stuff, when you keep trying to figure out why is something not working, and then you start looking at your best players being like, do we need to make a move? It just feels like everybody has gotten incredibly impatient in the NBA, a couple early playoff losses, and then it's like, well, this isn't going to work.

And you're like, well, getting into the business of trading your best players, just to be different, isn't really a great plan either in basketball, two teammates that have a great chance of winning a ring, obviously out there in Oklahoma City, Shay Gilders, Alexander, part of Chuck's Global Guys, and Jaylen Williams. I like to say Jaylen Williams won on Kenny's Young Stars. Last year, it was all SGA, as I've mentioned, expecting more from Jaylen Williams this time around.

But I would say if you're looking at the teammates that have the best chances, you wanna go Towns and Brunson in that conversation as well. That would be the list, the group that is connected. That was All-Star Connection brought to you by AT&T, the new AT&T Guarantee. Connectivity, you can depend on. Deals you want and service you deserve,

or they'll make it right. Visit att.com slash guarantee to learn more. AT&T, connecting changes everything. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Our email address is liveadvice, rr at gmail.com. Welcome to those of you just joining us. We have Kyle. Kyle, a couple stats from you. Because we have a new listener, like the audience is growing. So, you know, if you could sum yourself up in one sentence, what would it be? Huge heart.

Honestly, I don't even know if anybody else should go. It was so good. It was two words. Insatiable. So Rudy, maybe like everybody relax. Like I'm a calming presence for not a very people. Not yet.

Yeah. Grabs not a virgin. Not a, yeah, yeah. Grav's not a virgin. Not a virgin. But yeah, feels about right. Think we're all waiting for Ryan now. Yeah, I kind of put myself on the spot. I think when I'm introduced at some sort of retirement function,

I'll just go, he was right. No doubts. Stay humble, you know? The chances of me being honored at anything like that, probably. We're still a life celebration. Yeah. I don't know that. I don't know that because I think if you stayed at like a corporate structure, like if I had made it like 30 years at ESPN, maybe,

you know, maybe they would, they would put a graphic of you like on SportsCenter. I'm like, it wasn't on the show a lot, but after the layoffs, we used them a ton of you like on Sports Center. I'm like, it wasn't on the show a lot, but after the layoffs, we used them a ton on the early morning Sports Centers. Nobody worked harder. Here's a Mickey Mouse statue.

Yeah. That one used to drive me nuts when they would send me the statue and it was off by like six years of how long I'd actually worked there from like head count to whatever. It'd be like, hey, your pin is upstairs. I'd be like, I don't care.

Anyway, let's go. All right, we had some people on the Stolen Valor, overwhelming response in support of our guy wearing the EMT shirt. Like we didn't even get, you always get a few people trying to come up with the argument of like why you shouldn't do that, we had a guy check in firefighter here, sending a picture of himself fully decked out all the gear.

It looks like he's coming right off a shift. Um, terrific look from our guy here. Long time listener, first time emailer. I have no problem with someone who's not fire department related wearing a fire department shirt, a badass shirt is a badass shirt. A little background on me is I've been a career fireman for the better part of a decade. I could see Sir Rudy crushing a local union

fire department cutoff whenever he does something manly around the house. I could see Kyle crushing an LA FD shirt frolic on a Tuesday. Rosilla could be seen at your local LA fitness, probably not LA fitness, but with the FD t-shirt which the arms are hugging the sleeves. I have some FD merch from my department.

If interested, just send me the sizes and I'll send you some gear. Cheers bros. We will get that. Kyle will be, you'll be hearing from Kyle. That really seemed like an alternative career path for me. It might still, if this all falls down, I might see if there's any openings,

maybe start volunteer, work your way up, but. Who doesn't like fire fighters? Schedule something. Did you ever look into the schedule and how it works? I have a few buddies that are on the fire. Well, yeah, my stepdad, it was a Yonkers fire for 30 plus years. And I don't know, he'd be like, going away for two days.

And the boys were gonna get some lobster, we're gonna do some steaks. They just got a new 80 inch TV at the firehouse and listen, he sees some terrible shit, but my mom would just be like, Oh, you're going on vacation for two days, which, you know, a little backhanded. We appreciate your service, but that guy had a blast most days. Yeah. That might be something we haven't even thought about as a solution for some of the friend lists that email in

volunteer. Yeah. Just join the fire department and then all of a sudden you have buddies and they do a lot. It seems like they, there's a downside, obviously on the risk part of it. So it's not just the gear and the camaraderie and cooking. Cause I have my buddy Dave. You're playing Xbox all day. Yeah. Dave is a firefighter in Florida. He's also an inventor of an incredible wrench, the fast wrench. He found an inefficiency in the way wrenches were used and invented this thing. Oh yeah. And it's unbelievable. So big shout out to Dave, who's one of our favorite friends and we all love dearly. But he sent me some fire department stuff from his station.

And I think I even set it out on the ESPN set. I may have even worn it a little bit. So that I think is all very, very normal. I think when it comes down to the staff part of it is when. But I do think like all of us, like when you're a kid is the same thing as like watching cat equipment.

Like there's another version of wherever my path takes me where I just want to get a bobcat and build a wall that I never ever, and that's not about immigration. I'm just going to have property where I would build a wall. And leveling your lawn every two years. You know, it'd be nice. There's a little brook like, all right, I got to order the backhoe attachments to this and just have the attachments. And then they would rust outside of a barn.

And then I'd have a blue tarp with some bungee cords around him after they were already rusted and it was probably too late. But I could see that. I could see myself doing that. But I think sometimes when you think about being on the fire, again, I'll talk to friends that have done it. They're like, yeah, everybody leaves out the part where you have to go to some old guy's condo.

It's just, he's old and that's why you're called there and you also have to do all of that stuff too. It's not just, although I guess you're still a hero, you know, cause that guy needed help, but they leave that part out of the ads, probably the recruitment ads. Yeah. Boy, that got somber. All right. I apologize.

Thanks for your service. Yeah. Okay. When do I tell someone to turn the volume off of their phone? Good luck if you have the answer. I don't think I don't even think I have the answer to this one. Okay. Here we go. Six foot two Oh five pickup comp. Will Chamberlain in 2004. I like what he did there. Currently. He's got have a not a virgin. Is this what this guy's saying? Currently in line at the post office. Four tellers, four teller windows open with only one teller present.

I'm number six deep. So this is live action, this is a diary entry. There's a woman standing waiting in one of the other teller windows in her 60s. She's scrolling Facebook and watching videos. Each video she opens, the volume is loud. I'm jolted each time she opens one and cringing, listening to a gymnastics commentator talking about missing the vault landing, video she opens, the volume is loud. I'm jolted each time she opens one and cringing, listening

to a gymnastics commentator talking about missing the vault landing, hearing a new recipe for gluten-free cookies and learning this one secret hack to make your social security stretch longer. Everyone in line is visibly frustrated with the noise. I think the guy in front of me strained his orbital muscles with the amount of eye rolling. When and how is it appropriate to say anything? By the time you read this, assume that I'm stuck in this endless line. 60, not great. Yep, so it sounds like we've got four windows.

One is being attended to, and then you have somebody else who's probably on their break. Classic post-op. As we all know. Right, you run in, hey, I'm on my break. There have been times where you probably feel

like you should be able to say something, maybe even justify counter eating at a breakfast place. You ever run into that? Pretty busy counter. You got the old say something, maybe even justify counter eating at a breakfast place. You ever run into that pretty busy counter. You got the old newspaper going. Maybe you're scrolling because technologically, yeah, you're a bit more advanced. Um, that's when, that's when you're kind of like, do you need to watch that? Like you've ever heard of earbuds? I would tell you the balls it would take for someone to tell a post office

employee to turn down the volume on the phone where you're doing a drive-by visit and you're probably not gonna be there again, I don't think that's your place. I think you have to sit there, I think it's part of the deal, you have to suffer, it's never fun, it's part of the suffering. Just add it. Add it to the experience and it's not your place because you don't work there. Yeah, because this is specific to the post office, I treat the post office like it's an airplane and we're 30,000 feet in the sky I just I don't make waves There's always someone else who's had it up to here

You know what I mean, and it's hard to pick out that guy in a line when you're six deep or or woman For the post office in particular. I'm very cordial. I try to keep the eye rolls to a minimum I sometimes if I don't watch myself will I'll let out like a big sigh. You know what I mean? When it's just like, this is going nowhere. You know, people waiting in line to then just be sent to go fill out a form and it's like, everyone's on edge. I treat the post office like, you know,

shit could pop off at any second. You know, there's like a famous, you know, going postal or whatever. I just don't, the post office is just different for me. But everywhere else, yeah, I think I'm probably just sighing and rolling my eyes. I don't think I'm gonna go up to someone and can you stop what you're doing?

I just, that's not a big enough inconvenience for me. It's annoying. Stay strapped, bring your headphones and then just get lost in that. Stay strapped? Yeah. Right phrasing. All right. Well, I Guess I'm done. You never know what's going down the post office. I Think Kyle's right there are situations where like if you're on like a train, you know, or you know Big problem the ride for some reason somebody's just, yeah, blasting a podcast out loud

because they forgot their headphones. Like, I think everyone's within their right to say something, be like, hey dude, like figure it out, this isn't the place for this. You're gonna have to just kind of raw dog this flight if you don't have headphones. But, post offices, it's just, it's not the same amount of time.

People are kind of moving around. I think you might be kind of- Everyone's frustrated. Yeah, yeah, and Kyle's kind of right. you don't know like what the blowback could be The one thing that you probably do know is like everybody else is kind of frustrated So if you do say something you're probably gonna be like a mini hero some of those people but again Are you ever see those people again? Does it really matter to you? Like I I'm I Don't think post office is a big enough spot to do this. There are other spots where I would,

but not the post office. I know what I said earlier too, like you're kind of at the mercy of what they want you to experience. You know, it feels very DMV-ish. It can, depending on which one you go to. And I think as I was saying, I could just hear somebody saying,

well, they actually work for us. Good luck trying that approach out in the post office, especially if it's your local and you have to go in, I don't know much, you know, I think visits to the post office in general under a certain age are pretty rare. I don't know what it is. Like whenever I go in there, I think I average age has got to be like 78. Whenever I'm there, I don't know what it is. Like whenever I go in there, I think I, average age has got to be like 78. Yep. Whenever I'm there, I don't know what it is about. Maybe it's just something to do when you get older and you're like, maybe I have to, you know, love it. They go parsing through the

stamps. Be like, well, what, did you get anything new? Like I just totally forgot. There's people that really look forward to seeing what kind of new stamps they have. And it's like, of course, they're in front of me. They couldn't be behind me. And she's just like, they're keeping stamps in business. It's ridiculous. You just go in and you're like, I'm under're in front of me. They couldn't be behind me. And she's just like fingering business. It's ridiculous. You just go in and you're like, I'm under 200. I can't, what are you doing today? Like I'm at 188 stamps. I gotta get in there.

You never know if you go wrong. You get any new florals in? Oh no, no, I have the lilies. Oh no, I have the lilies. Yeah, I have the lilies. The fourth of July edition? Oh man, we got Uncle Sam. You can't pass this up.

You guys heard of baseball cards? What the hell? Thought you liked America. What's with these giraffe stamps? That's a good question though. Like, how many times in like a calendar year do you think you actually go to the post office? Mine is under five for sure. Maybe two.

I don't know. I went a couple of times planning the wedding, but outside of that, yeah, it's usually like, hey, I'm going on vacation, can I place this hold? And then can I go pick it up? It's usually it. I go more than you think. Just business. No, I'm big on-

Shipping in and out of town older, you know? Yeah, right. There it is. What are we talking about here? Can't wait to start going more. I send a lot of stuff to friends. And you choose USPS? to friends. I know. And you choose USPS.

I do, I do. I've got my little routine up here. I'm never good though. I'm never, I don't know that I've ever even been a seven out of 10, because I'm usually like, I'm wrapping up the box ahead of time, which is nice. I mean, the old people will look at you

and be like, you fucking didn't even wrap this thing. Like, you know you're already checking the price and you're trying to figure it out. Is this just the right address. No, it isn't. Especially if you're sending something to Martha's Vineyard, there's always like a delay of like, okay, but there's no, what is this? Like you can't use that street address. It doesn't really even exist. I'm like, but it does. Someone does live there. Uh, but they just don't always have mailboxes. But I do send,

like I got the Luca Jersey shirt, shirt Jersey, they gave out. Yeah. So the night of staple center, I'm not wearing it, but I'm sending it to one of my friends' kids. So I got to make sure I get this. So I am in there a little bit more. And then if I'm like going through a closet clean out, I'll

give my dad a bunch he loves as he gets older. He loves the long sleeve workout shirts. What was the size on those shirts? Were they just XL across the board? Just to be safe. Yeah, they were pretty big. Yeah. Yeah.

Are they yellow? They just the yellow ones? Yeah. Yeah, they're nice. I mean, as far as a free t-shirt goes, they're pretty nice. You know what else? Shout out to Lakers fans. Uh, I noticed that, you know, they weren't, there wasn't somebody who got to sat down

ahead of time and decided to take seven of them. And then you get to your seat, like a little bit before tip off, you're like, oh, no way, my shirt is gone. I thought for sure that would probably happen. Maybe upstairs, maybe, maybe on some of the vertical route seating areas. It was a little bit more of a free for all.

Yeah, yeah. I'd imagine there's a few people that got there, maybe five minutes into tip off, they're like, oh, yes. I'd imagine there's a few people that got there maybe five minutes in to tip off. They're like, yes, I'm not getting a shirt. So yeah, post office. Good luck. Okay, I love this one.

I love this one. Do I demote myself? We love self-awareness. Hello, Ryan, Saruti, Kyle, and now Orgon. Great addition to the team. Mike, you have anything to say about that compliment? Love compliments, keep them coming. Cast me up.

There you go. Five, 10. No gym stats, but my amateur Jiu-Jitsu record is flying. The best part, if you're not watching this, like Orgon just, he pops on the video and then he pops right off. It's great. No one likes closing out a video more than he does.

Uh, all right. So this guy, my Imager Jujitsu record has climbed to 10 and three since my last email. Okay. So we get a two-time emailer here. Who's also a bad-ass. I have a bit of a problem at work that I could use some help with. Currently I'm a full-time salesman hometown, which requires me to commute from New Jersey to be in person twice a week.

My last class that I have to be in person for, the rest will be online. I expect to finish my degree at the end of the calendar year. All right. My problem is sales is a commission based salary and I am not selling, underlined. While I think I could be good at it, I'm just simply not selling it. I'm not selling it. I'm not selling it. I'm not selling it. I'm not selling it. I a commission based salary and I am not selling underlined.

While I think I could be good at it, I'm just simply not selling compounded with my school schedule that I expect to have this year. I find it hard to hit my target sales goal of $300,000. A solution that I've thought of is going to my boss and asking to be demoted from sales to our furniture installation team. As of now, we have a revolving door of installers who do not show up, are lazy, or come in with convenient excuses to do limited work.

This has resulted in me over the last year filling in for the lackluster help. I've done everything except put the actual furniture together, my idea is that I go to my boss, also the owner, and present him with the solution. It'll provide me with a steadier schedule in regards to school work balance, gives my boss labor that he can rely on, as well as give me in-depth knowledge

of what I've been selling. My idea is that I do this until I finish my degree and then go back to full-time sales, I'm not sure how he would take this or how to present it. Any idea would be very helpful. Um, PS I've been to two live shows and every time so far I've raised my drink to Kyle and got a head nod and kept it moving. Is that a top tier fan interaction? Remember this guy Kyle? Sounds great. I could see a few head nods along the way. Okay, this is why I love this.

There's just, I'm thinking about you as a part-time, you know, age-wise. Did we get an age here again? Double check here. We don't think we got an age. All right. But full-time salesman, part-time student. So probably grad student then you think? Yeah, I'm thinking grad student age. I'm not thinking like undergrad window here of like 18 to 21. I'm thinking somewhere in his twenties, maybe he's 30. I don't know. Doesn't matter. But I love you going in and preparing this and being accountable and going, I'm not doing great in sales right now. Um, and I think you know that and I'm, I'm it's stressing me out. I feel like I'm not pulling my weight.

So I'd like to provide a short-term solution to that that could maybe benefit both of us. I come off of sales. I work in the furniture side of this. I have the steadier schedule. I don't feel like I'm letting you down and, you know, I can finish up school here the next year. I would think anyone in charge would love any employee like doing something.

I'm not just quitting, you know, forget the two weeks and quit the just, Hey, I can't do this. I'm totally stressed out. Like you are handling this just in the email alone in an incredibly mature way, which I think any employer and we're talking about the owner and your boss. Would appreciate, he may even say, Hey, you're actually not doing that bad on sales. I love what you're doing. Don't worry about it.

Um, maybe there's some leniency. Maybe this is just about you mentally getting past the anxiety you have about feeling not, uh, feeling you're not doing as good of your job in, in letting people down, maybe there ends up being some reassuring thing here where you stay on the same program and it's fine. Or maybe he's like, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. You aren't great at sales, but I love that you, you want to stay with the company, finish up school, revisit it,

and now you'll have had all this experience. And when you can focus solely on the sales thing, you're keeping that window open too. So I don't see the downside here. I mean, unless the guy's just a jerk and he's going to make it a problem for you because that's what he's like, but you haven't given us any of those indicators. So I'm assuming that you kind of get along enough. So So if the email is like, should you not do this because you're worried about his reaction, my guess would be you being this accountable and mature about it and prevent, or excuse me, presenting a solution to the dilemma is going to be something he's thrilled with that, that you've

thought about this and care this much to go through this exercise. Yeah. My wife did this like almost two years ago. Uh, she's a very, very, very, very, very He's thrilled that that you've thought about this and care this much to go through this exercise Yeah, my wife did this like almost two years ago. She was in sales, you know Sometimes hit the hit the goal sometimes didn't she didn't love the feeling of like what you have to do in that sort of such Situation like really just hounding people and upselling and all that stuff and she pitched basically a new role

Got it and is now working her way back into getting some commission on the side. It was just literally the perfect thing. She laid out the plan like you had. They were like, yeah, fuck it, let's give it a shot. And she excelled in it. And they're bringing it back around. It's like, we'd like to be able to sprinkle some commission

into the stuff that you're doing now. And it's just all worked out. It was like a total success story. And it's basically, she had the same plan. This person has is just like lay out the reasons for this, uh, rather than just saying it's not working out for me. Um, and I think if you go, if you do it this way, there's probably is a chance that, you know, he'll consider you for a sales position, but, you know, especially

like this guy said, if, you know, if he's in school part time, but you know, scrap, scraping together everything that he can, Crown Jewel is not cheap, by the way, still on fire, real estate wise. And if you're, and if you're commission based, you know, you're like, you're basically like working for free half the time, right? And you know, no one wins the company doesn't win, you don't win. I think, yeah, just so you can focus up and get everything lined up, I think just the way that you approach that is probably gonna determine how much freedom

you'll have in the future if you wanna go back. So I think that's correct, just say everything you wanna say concisely. I think everything you guys said is valid. The only thing, is the guy going to school, like is it in his long-term future to stay at this company? If you tell the guy, hey, I'm going, does he know you're going to school right now?

Maybe he didn't. If he doesn't know that, is that going to create like kind of a good proposition? Cause he's like, Hey dude, what the hell? Like this is, you know, you're supposed to be, this is your priority. Um, and then the H, you know, he's. Yeah. But then even like, what is your plan to get your degree and stay there too? Cause that's only going to help you. Like if you're looking to get your degree and stay there too? Cause that's only gonna help you.

Like if you're looking to get your degree and then bounce from this place, you know, I don't know what you're like. I feel like your plan long-term probably has to be somewhat aligned with the current employer, just so they're on board with this. But if that's all on the table for you

and you wanna do that, and you're just trying to kind of get a one leg up in your career here by getting an additional degree, then yeah, I think this is a no brainer. There's also something else to remind everybody about sales projections is that usually it's what number can we come up with that we don't think they'll get. Right. So that they'll be like the one guy who gets it.

Because if you set the projection at 75% or you set it at a realistic number, like all the different things that you could do. It's just a reminder. And he may, he may not, I don't know if he would tell you that or not, or if this is your first experience where he's like, Hey, actually nobody in the department's hitting their number, but it sounds like you still just don't feel like you're doing a great job of that. But I, I remember like the first time hearing about how a department would go and next year we're going to double it. And then I'll just say, gosh, it's like, are you serious? Yeah. It's, I don't know. I think it's just some human nature thing of like, if you're chasing this number, you're more likely to get

closer to it as opposed to just everybody in a department being like, Hey, here's a realistic number that everybody can get. And that'll be a really good year for us. Then people will just shut down once they get closer to that number that you set lower. So that might be part of the learning experience from this whole thing too, but I can't imagine an employer and again, owner of the company wouldn't appreciate you again, caring and presenting him with a solution as opposed to like, Hey, I'm not good at my job. What do I do now? You know,

and then it's just adding to his plate. So I would think this would go really well. That's it. All right. We got it. All right. Couple of easy ones banging it out, changing lives. Thanks to Kyle.

Thanks to Sruti. Thanks to Warragon. A big podcast for you today. On Friday, we will run a full episode of Friday feedback, which will also be up on our YouTube page, which we would encourage you to subscribe to. And also the podcast, Rhonda Rizzolo, Ringer Spotify. Must be 21 and older, present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut or visit md gambling help dot org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling help line ma.org or call 800-327-5050

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