The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Luka and Kyrie Live and More Playoff Reactions. Plus, New Alabama Head Coach Kalen DeBoer on Getting the Gig, and Kirk Goldsberry on the Creation of the Modern NBA.

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Russillo starts the pod by by sharing his experience at Game 5 of DAL-LAC and rapid-fire playoff observations (0:38). Then, new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer comes on to explain his reaction to getting the job, what he wants to bring to the program, and his reaction to the Penix selection (18:13). Next, basketball writer Kirk Goldsberry joins the show to explain how superstars have molded the modern NBA and share his thoughts on the Western Conference playoffs. Then, they each pick their favorite starting five lineup (41:19). Plus, Kyle joins for Life Advice (87:59). How do I groom my son to be an NFL GM? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Kalen DeBoer and Kirk Goldsberry Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

massive podcast for you tons to get to a lot of playoff reaction I was in attendance for the Mavs and Clippers we're gonna talk to Kalen DeBoer the head coach at Alabama his journey getting the call talking to Saban, a lot of stuff there as well. And Kurt Goldsberry has a new book out. We're gonna put together our most complimentary starting five of active NBA players and life advice with just Kyle. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. You know, Amazon Prime is not just

a shipping subscription, right? Amazon Prime isn't just one thing, but a collection of excellent services. Amazon Prime offers a range of services, including Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Prime Fast Free Shipping. They also have great shows, great movies. Here's my favorite Amazon Prime thing. Ready? So we do the rewatchables, right? And I always like to know like who the actor is. They have this really cool thing when you watch a movie called X-Ray,

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It's on prime. Visit amazon.ca slash prime to get more out of whatever you're into. This episode is brought to you by kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, said several generations after Caesar's reign. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes shows a world where apes are the dominant species and humans are reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical leader builds his empire,

one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to make choices that define a future for apes and humans alike. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in theaters May 10th. Get your tickets now. Have some rapid fire playoff observations for you here. I went to Clippers and Mavericks last night in LA for game five. I will get to that, but let's start with Boston closing out Miami.

Other than the one game in game two where the heat hit 23 or 43 threes. And in that game where, yeah, you can get mad at Boston defensively, or you could say they should have done this better. There's also some incredible shot making. I thought during the broadcast, they're making it sound like no one was ever closing out on anybody. Caleb Martin had one in the corner. I was like, well, you know, that went in.

Um, but this is basically what was supposed to happen because of the gap between who Boston has been statistically, even without Przingus and who the heat are now with no Butler or Ruggiero for the entire series. I don't know if anyone's going to do a follow-up interview with Butler who talks so much shit during the in-game interview and then it all immediately went downhill from there. So Hero's the only offensive creator that's left in this one.

They don't even have Hakez for game five last night as it get closed out. And even with the Przingus part of this being a question mark long-term about what Boston's going to be, they at least have someone in Cornet who could play or the Tillman acquisition, which may play a big role in some specific matchup for them later on. But look, I'm not sure that Boston can win the whole thing against Denver, even with Perzingis healthy. I'm not sure they can win it against Minnesota or OKC without Perzingis, but I still think that Boston Celtics should win the East without him. And I'm not even sure who I'm picking,

except I think I'm gonna do it right now. I'm picking Minnesota over Denver in the second round. I don't love it, but I don't know. I could be in my head a little bit about this one, but I'm just going with it. So when you look at the rest of this Heat series with Boston, Derek White right there with Jaylen Brown, 22 points per game,

despite being third and field goal attempts for the Celtics during this five game series, he shot 58 and 48% splits on nine three-point attempts per game in this one. Hero, again, his game too, is probably the best game I've ever seen him play. Seven to 13 from the floor, 24 points, 14 assists, incredible playmaking.

He just were dialed in on offense that night and that game gave everyone, whether you're a Boston fan or somebody that's like, Hey, this is just something weird with this Boston team. I don't like the way they closed where I've had those moments as well. It's totally fair, accurate criticism, but it was more of like a heat PTSD thing of last year where it's like, yeah, that was actually the one out of the five games. And I almost never think anybody's going to sweep anybody because it's just human

nature, but back on the hero thing, um, his defense is atrocious. It is so bad. And whatever you are defensively, your limitations during the regular season, you can kind of be like, ah, that guy's not, you know, he doesn't play a ton of defense or whatever, but just at least stay in position and know what else is going on. This isn't even about being out of position or making selfish risky gambles. He's just, the walls in Shogun are tougher than Hero as far as like providing some kind of resistance. He gets stuck with Jaylen Brown as the primary matchup.

He just gets hunted and hunted and hunted. And I used to think last year it was kind of unfair to be like, hey, is there some weird part of this Miami run to the finals where it's because Hero isn't out there and being exploited defensively. I used to think that was unfair. I still may think it's a little bit unfair, but he has to figure out a way to be passable

and to provide some kind of resistance instead of picking fights with Peyton Pritchard, two of the games. And as far as like this, you know, we get a lot of hero and I know you can hear the annoyance in my voice, but it's just every now and then there'll be the sideline reporter that gives you this kind of like hero legacy update of like, Hey, how come I'm not mentioned with this? And there was thing years ago where it's like, Oh, you guys talk about trading and you talk about Luca, but like look at what I've done. It's like, dude, I'm good on those for a little while.

All right. And the maxi debate this summer and pursuit of Lillard when it was like, wait, could Philly make this move? And then there was pockets of Miami fans being like heroes better than Maxi. I think that conversation is over. We'll get to Maxi here as I close with Philadelphia. Milwaukee beating the Pacers in game five this week, keeping this series alive, down three one going into it. They got 29, 12 and five from Middleton.

He's now 27, nine and five on the series. They don't have a choice, but to run all their offense through him. And I think if this were to get weird and Milwaukee comes back, like the Middleton part of this is really like, I thought he'd look better to close. but to run all their offense through him. And I think if this were to get weird and Milwaukee comes back, like the Middleton part of this is really like, I thought he'd look better to close. I just thought he was, you know, he's kind of a bit of a reminder, like, man, this guy really can score with that a lot around him. They had 76 points in the elimination game from Portis, Middleton, and Beasley.

The Pacers defense, it's the second worst defense in the playoffs ahead of only Phoenix, who was the worst, obviously. And with the Pacers D, even though I like kind of who their roster is and getting Matthew and back healthy and maybe the development of one of the other younger guys, like I watched him and go, you know, there's a lot of the guys on this team

that I kind of like here, but their defense will keep the opponent in the game all the time. And that's what you have to be hoping for here if you are the Bucs. Hall Halliburton as of now, questionable tonight with his back. It felt like it was coming back a little bit in games three and four. Not so much last night. They had that big lead Milwaukee went crazy. The building's electric and they just smashed them.

And maybe that's desperation of enough guys being on the Milwaukee team with a lot of pride that have been through some playoff battles before, but this is a really, really like incredible moment in history that's look, no one's going to do a documentary on this series. But the point being that you have doc who says about Giannis that he's quote very, very, very close with that calf injury that he suffered on April 9th, where the initial report was two to four weeks from April 9 That was not an official report from the team, but tonight puts Giannis at three weeks so by the time you hear this I mean if Giannis is actually cleared and ready to go and

Somehow Milwaukee comes back and wins this series the Pacers were thinking about being up 3-1 facing Middleton and the others and not being able to close them out. It's a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series in 10 years and Carlisle hasn't won a playoff series since the Mavericks beat the Heat in the finals in 2011. So it could be a haunting moment there in game five. Let's see what happens tonight. So I went to the game last night in LA, Mavs blew out the Clippers. It was actually a game. And then there was a little bit of a cushion there LA, Mavs blew out the Clippers. It was actually a game.

And then there was a little bit of a cushion there from the Mavs at the end of the first half, but it still felt like a game. And then it was just on and the Mavs ran away from this one. A very early white flag from Tylou and the Clippers, not critical, just pointing out the timeline. So we got one of the other hardened games after a miraculous game four and hitting all those floaters, exploiting the coverage against the Mavericks, getting past the primary defender at will. I'm not going to go fucking nuts about this. He went two for 12.

I think he now has the most games with 10 or more shots with less than 10 points or thinking playoff history. I forget what the number was. I saw it last night. LA wanted to exploit the size advantage they have with Zubots, who's terrific. But I have to wonder if you know at some point to survive in this series and in last night's game

that you're gonna need Harden to take on the scoring mentality we saw with him closing in game four. It just, it's something I think about. It would be a question for Tai Liu. It doesn't mean that because it didn't work out that what he did was wrong, but would you want to plant that deferential seed in hardened to start a game five where the series is tied and that's what they were, that's how they were playing. They liked their matchup with it. It was working by the way.

But I wonder if, you know, Hardin shouldn't have to be reminded, be like, Hey, we're going to need you to score a bunch tonight. But it's just a thought as I was watching it play out. I'm like, does that having him kind of be this playmaker for such a large chunk of the start of the game, does that plant the seed for him to do what he did in the second half where he took one shot in the third quarter and then he took two threes right around the nine minute mark in the fourth quarter. Then he was subbed out at 725. So I could sit here and be like, Hey, the guy only took three shots in the second half. Well, they subbed him out with 732 to go. At that point,

the game was, they were down 27 and the game was kind of over. But as I sat there and it was something I was very tuned into of watching him, it's like, all right, so you're running this man, Powell stuff on the other side. There was a stretch there where they, it felt like they needed it from Harden. With the games today, you're still kind of always in it.

And Harden was on the other side. He wasn't even in the action. Paul George wasn't even in the game. And you show you're just like, all right, so of always in it. And Harden was on the other side. He wasn't even in the action. Paul George wasn't even in the game. And so you're just like, all right, so I'll leave it at that. Luca in person is kind of what you'd expect it to look like where you're like, I guess he's just going to get to wherever he wants for the most part. And it just goes slower for him than it does for other players that have so much

stress on their offensive game. It'll just be this moment where it's like, okay, he's in the paint now and he's kind of taking up his time sizing the release point of what he wants to do on this. And you're just so afraid of every direction that he's going to go into with his size that it kind of freezes people around him. And that was an incredible contrast to like Kyrie who maxi speed right now is just destroying people. All right, Tyree maxi like I'm I'll save it because it's it's all glowing, but his just raw speed gets him buckets that not many players can get. Kyrie's attack is like this amazing foreign sports car that has the tightest handling you've ever experienced in your life. And that's something that you can appreciate more with Kyrie live than the times I've watched him on TV. And granted,

I've watched him live a bunch of times, but it's just this buildup and then it's this footwork and then there's this angle and then he's turning on you. And it's just perfect, man. It's really, really cool to see this also in person. We get to see PJ Tucker come in and just hack the shit out of Lucas arms. And apparently there's PJ Tucker rules that I've not been forwarded. I can't believe the stuff PJ Tucker gets away with. I got to be honest with you. I can't believe the stuff PJ Tucker gets away with. I know he's not playing a ton and something may have gone wrong if PJ Tucker's out there, but they threw him out there at Luca and he was just,

it looked like defensive lineman drills with it without any calls. I sat in the second row behind Jimmy Goldstein. You may have seen me on television. I sat in the second row behind Jimmy Goldstein. You may have seen me on television. I did pay for the ticket. The ticket was 2000 bucks. The tickets in front of us were 9,000. I was invited by a friend.

Yes, I went with a buddy to a game, something outside of my house. He said, do you want to go to the game? I said, fine, no problem. He goes, I'm buying the tickets. I was like, of course you're not paying for mine. I'll kick in. He's like, the one in front's are nine. I go, fine, no problem. He goes, I'm buying the tickets. I was like, of course you're not paying for mine. I'll kick in. He's like, the one in front's are nine. I go, I'm not doing that. And then there's those tickets to the end of the bench and the NBA

experience where you're sort of on the bench, but then you're deep into the corner. And if you have a team that's say in a playoff game, that's going up almost 30 points and they're all celebrating on the bench, you may never see a moment of the actual basketball game other than like the opening first few minutes I don't know what you do with those seats it's kind of an amazing experience because you're basically on the bench you're one seat away from the last guy in the Denver Mount excuse me the Dallas Mavericks bench Denver has the same seating I believe but. But you don't see anything. All right, so as I raved about Maxey's straight line speed,

he's the second leading scorer in the playoffs here behind Brunson. Brunson's at 34, Maxey's at 32. Brunson's shooting splits are 42, 29%, 78% on nine attempts from the free throw line. Maxey's at 40, 50, 88 on five attempts from the free throw line again. So I don't know whatever, like what the end game is here for Maxey because the

way he stresses your defense, the way you have to try to respect him, whether it's the three he hit the tide up the, the four point plays just in inexcusable play on that one defensively from Robinson, but he is doing things and I am impressed by those things that he does. So we'll leave it at that. When I was watching Harden last night, and as I've watched Philly throughout this series, I know that there were some maybe in the asset management

world that were raving about what Maury was able to do with the hardened trade in recovering the assets that he moved for him. This is the part about the trade that I didn't understand and why there wasn't really more paid attention to it. And I can't really be critical of Maury because the market for hardened, the trademark frame was

going to be incredibly limited because most of the teams are like, one, I'm not interested. This is the fourth trade he's asked for. And if he's not happy here, like what am I actually trading for and where are we? So the Clippers spot was great for Harden because he said, he said he was looking to get paid, okay? He also was gonna fit in with these guys a lot better.

So it was kind of a perfect match. But the problem is, is I've watched Philadelphia throughout the series where they've been right in it, despite the ups and downs of it all. Is that whatever you think are hard in the playoffs, that's 30-35 minutes of playoff minutes that are going to who? You know, Batum's the only rotational piece that they got out of that. And for a team that each year feels like the window gets tougher and tougher with predicting the future of Embiid's health, you're like, yep, there wasn't really anyone to trade with.

of Embiid's health. You're like, yep, there wasn't really anyone to trade with. Yeah, they got the picks. They recouped some of that. And, you know, Batum's actually extended his career far beyond what I thought he would be able to do. But that's a lot of minutes for you to not have anything back that helps you this year. But I don't know that Morrie had a ton of options. But this isn't more about, this isn't Morrie, this isn't Maury, this isn't about Maury, it's more about the praise of what the transaction was. And maybe I'm being unfair knowing that the market was incredibly limited. We will close with the non-closer, true LMB. What he avoided, the shit storm of criticism that he avoided from Tyrese Maxey The shitstorm of criticism that he avoided from Tyrese Maxey getting it done.

And winning game five. I can't well, I guess I can believe because I do this for a living, but the 48 hours that were waiting for Joel Embiid. Had the Sixers lost that game because he was awful. They're doubling them more. It's something I'll be looking for tonight. Sometimes it's the double on the catch It was a double late in game four. They were doubling them a lot more in game five. The turnovers were atrocious I think he actually should have had more but some of the possessions were saved. He looked incredibly uncomfortable at 308 in Overtime there was a wide open three for him off the defense going to the left.

He didn't want to take it. He dribbled into the lane. He didn't want to take it. He passed it to Ubre. Ubre threw it up and B got the offensive board. He was fouled. They challenged it. The call was upheld. It smelled a little bit like a Ben Simmons Atlanta moment, not as terrible, like a Ben Simmons Atlanta moment, not as terrible, but it was someone that looked incredibly uncomfortable in a huge, huge spot again. And Embiid either delayed what was waiting for him nationally and specifically locally in Philadelphia, but I don't know if Philly comes back,

they win this series, if Embiid will have avoided what was waiting for him that storm or just delayed it. This NBA playoffs. Fandil is giving all customers two chances to bring home a big win with a no sweat same game parlay every weekend of the playoffs. Just place a same game parlay on any playoff matchup and you get bonus bets back if you don't win. Bet on everything from rebounds to assists

to three pointers and more. All right, let's take a look at this. The Knicks are plus three right now at Philadelphia. I can't wait for this game. It's been one of my favorite series in forever. I had so many great things to say about the Knicks until the end of game five. I still may be able to say them at some point

during the series and how much I enjoy watching him play. So we know Max is gonna make some shots. So what if we go, what if we try to find a 300, a payout of 300? Let's try. All right, so Max need three or more threes. Take the Knicks plus the three and Embiid who will, he has to have a bounce back game here,

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That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man. To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken. He loved it so much, he opened Prince's hot chicken. Hot chicken in the window. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at TNVacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect.

This is a real pleasure for me. I've been down to Tuscaloosa probably 10 plus times over the years. One of my favorite parts of being at ESPN traveling, getting to experience all these different programs over the years and there's nothing like Alabama. And the new head coach joins us now, Kayla DeBoer. Coach, congrats and thanks for doing this. I wanna start with, I don't know if you can really share this honesty with us the sooner the interview, but you're really successful.

You have this great run with Washington. There has to be this moment of like, whether it's an agent or whether it's somebody from Bama calls you, you're talking to your wife or you're like, wait, this might be in play. What was that moment like for you? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, I knew with the success we'd had at Washington, that any job, you know how it is, people just start throwing out names, anytime and with the success we'd had that, that would probably be the case as soon as I heard the Any job, you know how it is. People just start throwing out names anytime. And with the success we'd had, that was probably going to be the case as soon as I heard the word that Coach

Saban was retiring. And so you're kind of a little bit prepared for it. But yeah, then the reality of an interview and interest, that's a whole other world. And that happened really fast. And it was a 24-48 hour timeframe where there's a lot of conversations and just trying to have some perspective on understanding, most importantly, is this a great fit? We can get into that, but Greg Byrne, certainly our athletic director, showed me the fit that this was gonna be

and what it was gonna be all about. I believe in his vision and it really became a no-brainer to come here to Alabama. Did you think you had it before the interview or how did that? No. Yeah, tell me about that. I never take anything for granted. You know, so, and again, it was, I think an interview

where of course, you was, I think, an interview where, of course, Greg's finding out about you, but you're also really trying to make sure that you just don't jump at something because it's Alabama and everything is perceived to be. What's different now that you're down there and it's been a few months? What's the biggest thing that's different for you now? Yeah, I think just I Mean there's a lot each and every day that surrounds the program and there's so much there's so many people that are a part of it that want to be a part of it and You know having opportunities like this, you know

Are just so enjoyable but take up, you know quite a bit of the day But it's fun sharing about you know about whether it's my journey or our program, the direction we're headed, all of it. It's fun and it's why I do it. It's to share the experiences that we're having, to share the stories of these guys that I get a chance to coach and work with. It's fun pulling it all together. It's the challenge that I love,

is creating this environment, creating this culture that brings all these different people together. And it's a challenge, but it's a lot of fun doing it. What has Coach Saban told you about the job? You know, I don't know if he told me specifically. I think, if I anything, I'd probably read between lines, right? But I did get a chance to speak with him

just kind of right around the time when I was offered the opportunity. I reached out to him and I just wanted to have kind of that feeling, that vibe. Not that I was gonna ask him if I should take it or if even I was going to get offered it, but I'd never had a chance to talk with him. I think that alone right there was a cool opportunity.

He's just done it so well at a high level for so many years, not just here but before that. I think I understand what the work is that he put into it. You can see it daily with the structure that's within this place and this, whether it's the facilities and how they were built, the structure of the, and the people that are in this program. There's just so much thought and so much that was put into it to make it successful. I'll tell you, throughout my career,

he's done a very short list of my favorite people I've ever gotten a chance to talk to because he'll always make me think about something or he tells an incredible story or he'll explain something and then you're like, wow, okay, maybe I hadn't looked at it. Was there anything that you could actually share with us that maybe you were like, oh wait, I hadn't thought of that or that's really interesting?

Yeah, no, I don't think, I mean, I didn't look to him that way right away. I think a lot of the questions I had were just about maybe things that made the program click. And I know my staff has reached out to him and asked many of those same questions, whether it's coordinators or even some staffing staff, some personnel staff.

So just the type of players that have been successful over the long haul, how that's changed just over time, just defensively obviously has been a, an area where he's, you know, just, uh, an expert, uh, above and beyond. And so, you know, there's been times where just trying to get that perspective. I know some of my staff have gotten some good advice from him that way. I know you'll get sick of those questions, uh, as, as they probably will continue throughout the first year.

So here's, here's what I love about you though, is that, you know, it's always one of those things, especially in the media side of it. It's like, man, you know, like you want to be the guy that replaces the guy that replaces the guy, you know, I'm sure you heard it a million times. And like, I just don't think that's how you guys are. And the best of you would never ever think that way. You don't go like, oh, well, I don't want to have to follow that. No, no, I want to take on a challenge.

I want to challenge myself and I want to challenge it at the biggest brand in college football. So when you're deciding, okay, I've been offered the job, like what are the, is there any internal thing that you're taking yourself through? Or maybe you share it with your wife where you're preparing yourself for what this is. Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was just, it's always family and my wife, and she's been through it all. When I got my first job at the University of Sioux Falls,

that was right at the time about when we got married. And my kids, I got two daughters, one's a senior in high school and the other's a middle schooler. But it's just making sure that they're all good with this. Because as long as they're happy, that makes it to where I can go to work every day and pour into the program that I'm going to run,

being at the place I'm going to be. They were full support. To me, that was the biggest thing. There were some in the professional area just that I trust that I did reach out to. If you hear in there that just to ask them for whether it's advice or just really like, hey, any thoughts on this? And it just was overwhelming,

just kinda how, you know, their perspective was, and, you know, with me in Alabama, and then also just knowing some of the people here in this organization, how special it was, and what that mesh could be with me and those people that were already here. Was your wife with you when you were still pursuing athletics after college? Pursuing athletics? We met and I was a high school football coach for about a couple weeks,

I think it was. Maybe even less than that. And all of a sudden I got my college job and then of course, you know, life gets really crazy. You'd be coming to college level, but she stayed with me through and through. So it's, it's been awesome journey. I just love that on your resume, cause I, I just, it's funny, we had a life advice email about this guy that was like looking into Italian American football and I had a buddy who played soccer in Switzerland. I had another buddy that like after college, it's like, and then you were doing what independent baseball and some arena league stuff.

Like that's just, I love it, man. I love that you were like, hey, I'm not ready to hang them up. No, no, I hung on. I hung on for sure. I just, I loved the sports. I loved the relationships and it just, things kind of fit there for a couple of years

right out of college where I could do all of that. And so took advantage of it. And it was kind of right at that time in 2000 when I met my wife and yeah, that was kind of when things kind of trickled off from all those extracurricular, you know, football and independent baseball league games that I was enjoying so much. Yeah, man, grinding.

I love it. I love that stuff. Roster management. It is a different challenge now in college football. What is that part of the job like? And ultimately, how much has it changed in such a short amount of time? Yeah, it's certainly a different landscape

than it was just a few years back. And I think it takes everyone. It takes not just me, but it takes all of our coaching staff. And when I say that, I'm talking about just the relationships and how important they are, the vision that you have for each guy and his role in the team and the value that they can bring. And I think when you really try to keep the main thing

about that, I think that's where you get off to a pretty good start. And it's an investment of time and it's gotta be who you are. You gotta enjoy conversations, you gotta enjoy helping people, but when those players on our program feel like we really have their best interests

involved in all our decisions, and we really want this timeframe that they're in during their college football days to be special. To me, when they feel that, and you're open and honest with them, and I think that's key, that's how you do a good job of having retention. I'm a believer everywhere I've been,

whether it's your staff or your players and your team, you got that retention, that continuity is key. Staffing, I can go on and on about the different places and how that continuity, even just the last couple of years at Washington and how important that was, you know, to taking the next steps and players deciding to come back instead of entering the draft. You know, that was critical. You know, the talent is one thing, but just that, that meshing of personalities, that meshing and taking, taking on their roles and understanding it. And, you know, and then development that comes along with it, you know, them believing in that what they're going to get because of the continuity of the staff.

It's been a big deal everywhere I've been, and that's going to be important here, especially in this landscape of college football. This has been an incredible run at the school and look, this is still even a team with a lot of guys that are on the roster, you know, this close to taking out Michigan in a playoff game that ultimately won the national championship. But how will you handle I know what you did last year and what you deserve versus open competition for the starting spots Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that

You know, we certainly Are always gonna be open and I think saying blank slate I think it may be a little bit too much but you know guys do have a come in and we do have An open mind I think because there aren't these preconceived ideas and thoughts. You know, you hear things when you're talking to people, whether it's the players, and you kind of understand maybe what their role was before, what they're looking for,

maybe where guys were a little frustrated, but I do, I think that, you know, we've been able to just, you know, mesh and pull together the roster. Guys, we do have some different breaks at different positions in particular where there's some older guys and it's pretty clear and obvious based on the experiences they've had, where they're at when it comes to the depth chart. And then there's some gaps where there's some young guys where they're having to step in roles and

get opportunities that maybe in a lot of other programs they wouldn't have had. And some of that's due to graduations or the draft. Some of it's due to even guys who left and entered the portal. So, you know, it's again, trying to just pull it all together. You know, when you have low egos and, and, uh, I feel like just our guys really do. Um, everyone's got an ego, but I feel like there's low egos and they want what's best for this program and they want to continue the legacy. Um, they'll take on that role and then whatever, uh, and then they, they probably see it too, they know where they fit in just as much as anyone.

You just played for national championships. So, you know, you understand what this means, but I think, and hopefully you'll think this is fair, like you go, okay, I'm at Washington. This is the program we want to build. This is how we want to look on offenses and how we want to look on defense. This is the likelihood of like the level of player we're getting at the recruiting. How much does what's available to you as far as just talent at Alabama maybe influence how much you would change the way you see how you want to play on Saturdays, how you

want to build a roster? Because I do think it's fair to say that at Alabama it's expected that the incoming talents at another level. Yeah, I think everything in the structure of, you know, what we do offensively and defensively. And obviously, you know, I come from an offensive background, but I also was with Kane Womack, who's our defensive coordinator at Indiana. And I understand just the setup and what that looks like there too.

But our structure of our, you know, systems allows us to do all the things based on the personnel that come into our program. So right now, Jalen Milrow is a guy that can do both run and pass. And his ability to run the football and be a threat in that way, makes our rushing attack even better. And we have great tailbacks and we need to make sure we're getting the ball distributed to all of our skill players, receivers, tight ends as well. But here in this league, the physicality that comes along

and is critical to winning football games, I don't care if it's the SEC, I don't care what level you're at, it's important. And so his skill set in that way is something that we wanna make sure, we build the systems built to be able to work with him and do those things, but we have a little bit more maybe tendency with game planning and so forth

and how we install and fall camp to make sure that all that stuff is the things that we're practicing to set ourselves up for success in the fall. I loved watching you guys last year and you know, there's it's almost like when the Warriors are winning titles and it's like, Oh, well they shoot threes and they do all these things. It's like, yeah, they're also the best defensive team in the NBA. And if they're not one, they're number two. And there was a flashiness to you with

Penics and all the receivers, but there was a toughness, man. And I remember I was at Ole Miss for the LSU game. And that night I went back to the hotel to watch you play Arizona. And we didn't realize that Jed had turned things around and their quarterback and it'd be terrific. I'm like, wait, Arizona's in a battle here with Washington? Like what's going on? And it's late at night, and then you had all of these tough games. It's really easy to say, hey, I want that culture. I want that toughness. I want to do the same thing.

And that's certainly like a standard Alabama. How was that actually, like how do you create something like that? Because your team had it last year. Yeah, you know, one of our things in our program, and it was one of our goals that we have, uh, and you're hitting on it here even this spring. And it's been, it's been my thing everywhere I've been. I can go back, you know,

15 years for sure, uh, that I can think of where, you know, creating an attitude, you know, creating a toughness, creating a family environment, you know, it doesn't happen just by putting in cute pass plays or really awesome blitzes. You got to do those things well, and you got to create this mentality that exists to be able to win championships.

You can win games, but to win championships, it takes another level of just bringing it all together and what you're all about. The toughness, both mental and physical toughness, But to win championships, it takes another level of just bringing it all together and what you're all about. The toughness, both mental and physical toughness, is something that just, you know, again, this program's been all about it. It's what's made it what it is. You know, Coach Saban and everyone who's been through here, you can just see it, you can

feel it. But that was certainly what the case was there, like you said, in last season. Just the physical toughness. I think that was the thing that I probably, if there was one thing I got frustrated with, with how we were perceived, it was this physical toughness. Because offensively, you're known as throwing the ball. You can be physically tough. You can fight for extra yards. You can fall ahead. You can, you can hold a line of scrimmage and make big stops on the goal line and short yardage. And, you know, I felt like that's what our team did

and they did it in the biggest moments. And so it's a tribute to them on creating an attitude, being able to buy in and belief and confidence through preparation when it comes to those, those critical times. I guess the thing for me, because I think some people would listen to me and be like, hey, well, they're going to be giving up a ton of points.

That's not my point. My point was when I watched you play, I'd be like, okay, this Utah game, every game against Utah stuff, all right, so we can start there. But the Oregon State game was a tough mental game. The first Oregon game, watching Pennix on the sideline being like, no problem. I got this and it felt real. You know, Oregon, the rematch where Johnson, it felt like anytime they thought they stopped him, it was no, it's another five yards and I'm going to

keep grinding and he had an incredible game. So yeah, the point that I'm making, and there's not really a question here. It's just that it's not so much in, Hey, how many points did you allow? There was this belief in this mental toughness in this team that I'm making and there's not really a question here. It's just that it's not so much in, Hey, how many points did you allow? There was this belief in this mental toughness in this team that I thought was really special last year's party run. So let me, I don't have a question. So I would just transition into the Penex here. What was it like for you to see him? And obviously Rome went ninth, but for Penex to go eighth when you're watching the draft,

man, I'll just tell you my, my heart was just, I mean, my, everything about that feelings, um, I tell you, my heart was just, I mean, everything about that feeling, I was ecstatic. I love the kid. I love everything about him. He's handled everything with such grace through his entire career. But him making the most of these last two years and I always just go back to him, even the decision and the belief that he had in myself when I took the Washington job to get up and go all the way across the country. He's a Florida guy, he's living in Indiana, but getting out to Washington, that's a trek. And his family and just their belief in what we were going to do. He was a major part of it, obviously.

But I saw that the talent in him, and you could see it glimpses, and it was just a matter of stringing it together, getting some, again, continuity. He had a great off season, a full off season going into 2022, where that allowed him to just really, you know, be healthy, you know, continue to refine what he was, who he was as a person through the experiences

and the way he led. He just kept growing and growing. And then, you know, you saw what happened this last year, and the team just already had bought into him. But, you know, when he spoke, they all listened. And he's just ready for this moment. I'm fired up about him getting this opportunity and then people also realizing that he truly is that good. And I stood on the table many times over the last couple of years about how good he was and the level he could be at. And it was really cool to see here in the last few weeks,

a lot of teams, you know, really buying into that and feeling good about, you know, who he was as a person, but even more so what he was as a player. Your connection to him and then the transfer, the development. I think it's one of the best development success stories for a quarterback and a coach, you a coach in a long time, man. You deserve a lot of credit for that.

All right, about to finish up, two little quick things. I have this Mel Kuiper Jr. theory that I've shared with the audience before. That's, hey, Mel's been doing the draft 40 years. When he goes to get produce, there's probably somebody who comes up to him at the grocery store and says, I can't believe you like this receiver more than that receiver. That's Mel Kuiper Jr.'s life. Every day he's out in the public. Um, for you, it's going to be similar, but a whole nother level, because this

is the most important thing in the world for people down in Alabama. Um, I guess it's probably already happened because you've been there a few months. What is that like almost feeling like this elected official of the state? Because you're the head coach of the Crimson Tide? Yeah, it's an honor. It's an honor for sure. And, you know, it's fun seeing the support. It's fun, you know, right now in May, for example, about every night, you know, three to four times a week, you get a chance to get out. And it's seeing the excitement around this program and what it's built up to be.

It's just a pleasure to be around all these people. And the spring game was a great example. 72,000 people there celebrating our team, celebrating this program. I can go on and on. But, you know, it's, it's, it's certainly and again, those were things that I kind of had heads up on to really truly make sure I understood coming here. And when my family and I landed on the, you know, in Tuscaloosa that night, and there, I felt like thousands of people, you know, there to celebrate, you know, this opportunity, man, you know, there to celebrate, you know, this opportunity. Man, you know, you realize, you know,

what football means to the state of Alabama, what this program means and how it's such a great uniting, it's a uniting piece that just brings everyone together, you know, not just on Saturdays, but year round. I'm getting fired up for you, man. And look, I know there's a lot going on on game day and certainly the Georgia atmosphere, the end of September will be a little different, but the home opener against Western Kentucky,

I just hope you have a moment to take in sweet home, Alabama, look around and like I have nothing to do with the school and I get the chills whenever I'm on the sideline, seeing it just go off there. So it's just an incredible journey for you. And anybody that's put the work in is looking forward to seeing what this season is like. So thanks so much for the time, coach. Yeah, thank you for having me on.

Roll Tide. I am excited to do this. He has a new book out. It is called Hoop Atlas. Kurt Goldsberry is the author, an incredible background, some time with the Spurs and in all sorts of degrees. I knew you were smart, but I appreciate it. You should check out Hoop Atlas. All of his work is great. It makes studying fun and it is sold or you can get it wherever books are sold. Thanks for doing this. What's up?

Thank you, Ryan. Always great to be with you. And what is up is the NBA playoffs are firing on all cylinders. That's what's up, which is fun to talk about, especially with you, my dude. Yeah, I'm excited to try to figure out navigating this west, which I think we'll get to. So there's a lot that I want to start with. And I think the book is smart. Your editors are probably thrilled that you started with Michael Jordan. And that's where I want to start this conversation, uh, because there's, there's a bunch of ways we can go here, but now you've talked so much about how much the game has changed and where it's expanded and how it's evolved and Steph's role in all of this, but you have a really interesting point on Jordan

and kind of he of all, it doesn't mirror necessarily what we've seen in the last decade, but him understanding how to expand his game and how much that changed who he became as a player in comparison to what people thought of him when they were drafting him in the early 80s. Yeah I think Michael invented the modern NBA and I say that with all due respect to Magic and Bird who does there's a fair argument you could say it started there but really when I think about the modern NBA, I think about perimeter superstars, jump shooting, heliocentric scoring. And really, Michael launched us into a new era in pro basketball. When he came out of the draft in 84, I think, or 83, he was known as a really poor jump shooter. And I think the evolution

you're alluding to, Ryan, is by the end of his career, when he lost some of that Air Jordan athleticism, he became one of the most fearless and complete jump shooters the game had ever seen at that time. And I think looking back through the last dance lens, the fifth title they won in Chicago

was the first time the NBA had really started collecting shot coordinate data, the data that I used to make shot charts. So I wish I could compare Michael to Larry or Magic. But really, those last couple years in Chicago, we can see through today's sort of analytical lens how good Michael was. One of the first things I saw is like, dude, this guy was like more like Dirk than I realized in terms of his efficiency. And obviously his volume was insane.

But the way he blended volume and efficiency as a jump shooter passes today's sort of smell tests. Most of that, of course, in the mid-range Ryan, which is why he doesn't perfectly extend into a modern game. But Michael became an incredible and unstoppable jump shooter, which really propelled him to those last three titles and sort of launched this jump shooting revolution in the NBA.

In my opinion, you've got a great story about Steph and the trainer that you work with, Brandon Payne, you know, it's during the lockout, they had lost to the Spurs, which I thought that series though, beating Denver and then that Spurs series, knowing it was like, wait, this might be something like we could see. But San Antonio had changed their coverage on him. And that led to him and his trainer, which is probably my favorite part of the book that I've read so far, on just figuring out how to unlock who he was because Jordan's limitations

were the shooting and for Steph, those limitations were at the rim. That's right. So Brandon Payne, who is a close friend of mine and one of Stefan's closest sort of trainers and shooting coaches, gave me some incredible insights because Stefan, you know, he had the ankle issues early in his career. There was no shame in losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the early 2010s in the playoffs, of course. But Greg Popovich had put Danny Green on Stefan in the playoff series after Stefan had had one of his best early career playoff games against Tony Parker

and just torched him. And Danny, obviously much longer, more physical. And he just gave Stefan a lot of problems and sort of muted Stefan for the rest of that series as Spurs went on to win. But that summer, Brandon Payne and Stefan really tried to figure out how they could attack these longer defenders because everybody was going to copycat what the spurs had done to Stefan that series. And they developed this thing called clockwork, which is genius. And I never knew that they were doing this, but they really invented sort of a perimeter vocabulary. You know, we grew up playing hoops. You know what a drop step or an up and under.

The post had its own vocabulary, but these perimeter players didn't have the equivalent sort of fundamental footwork moves and read and react strategies. And Brandon and Steph really did that and they use the face of a clock and I'll keep it short, but it is one of the better parts of the book in my opinion. But Steph developed moves to go to every angle on the clock face based on what he saw the defender was giving him. And importantly, against some of those bigger defenders, one of the things they had in the breakthrough was go back, use like a jab step and then go back into a step back and create

space. Brandon told me one of their real breakthroughs is they always realized there was shooting space, but a lot of times it was behind Stefan. So they had to get that shot behind where the defender was taking away the spot in front of them. I don't think Stefan's step back is exaggerated in some of the stuff that we've done. And sometimes when I watch the game, I was just thinking about like, is this what they intended for the gather and step? Because when you think about the closeout challenges

you have on the smarter perimeter shooters, where now you basically have to do a drive-by, right? You can't head on contest because you're worried about the landing area. And then I'll look at guys being like, this guy's going sideways. Now granted, this has been going on for a few years. And there's definitely, like when I think about Maxi,

like I think he maximizes whatever that space creation is. I guess it's not against the rules, but when I think of some of these ways guys get space on the perimeter, you're like, all right, I'm gonna worry about the drive, I've gotta worry about the foul and contest, and now I'm supposed to mirror your lateral quickness to the side on your gather?

I mean, it's just creating room and breaking it down in a way that I can't imagine anyone had ever intended that people were gonna figure this part of it out, but it is legal. It's legal, and two of the other people who are real characters. So the book essentially tries to argue that superstars invented the modern MBA. And Iverson and Manu are two of the other big characters earlier in the book before

we get to stuff. And I think in hindsight, Iverson's influence, it grows not because of his efficiency, Ryan, but because of his ball handling and his ability to create shooting space in really creative ways, he made dribbling cool for the next generation. And Manu actually made the gather like the scientific, the Euro step that he really elevated from a random gimmick to a fundamental for perimeter players. The combination of those handles and the scientific gather that the Euro step really introduced helps these perimeter players create shooting space in ways that we wouldn't have dreamed possible 20 or 30 years ago.

So it's really these building blocks stacking on top of each other. But yet today's players, whether it's Maxi or Stefan or James Harden, who I know you love, really, really deserve credit for like being inspired. And this is a new fundamental on the edge for shooters, is creating your own shooting space by blending footwork, reading the defender like Stefan is really good at in that gather step and creating space to shoot three pointers from. I do think that Maxey playing with Harden is one of the best things for Maxey though, because I imagine and I've heard this a lot, like and I've asked him like, what's Harden like as a teammate? And they're like, guys love him. And I think the time that they probably screwing around at shoot arounds and warmups and all that stuff, like you can see,

I think you can even see it with some of the MB driving stuff, where he initiates contact. I think Harden had a lot of influence on both of those players and optimizing who they could be offensively. I'm glad you mentioned Iverson, because I remember years ago, I was sitting on the Sports Center desk,

and I was with N'Gandhi, who's, you know, all-time Sixers Philadelphia fan. And I said something to him where I was like, well, look, Kyrie's the best small finisher we've ever seen in the league. He's just the best, and you know, look, Sixers fan can't let it go. He's gonna tell me it's Iverson.

I mean, if you look at the rim finishing there, there's a stretch for Iverson where it's really amazing, but it's pretty limited. And then I went back and even like checked it to go like, what could Kyrie's finishing at the rim, like throughout all of it. And then on top of us learning that his background was like the screwed up backward, if that's even true, and that he had to finish all these different angles and it's just, I've never seen someone that small finish that way.

But then that leads into. And I didn't prep you for this, but you're fine in that, Hey, Kyrie's the most talented basketball player we've ever seen. And sometimes I wonder if it's a bit like the quarterback that has the biggest arm, but just isn't the best quarterback. So you're like, okay, are we talking about just arm talent? And maybe that's, that sounds like it's, it's somewhat dismissive of Kyrie. And that's not what I'm trying to do.

Best small finisher, best handle, best at probably creating just absurd opportunities for himself off the dribble to get into his mid range. And his shooting is really good. But then it kind of leads me to be like, well, wait, if he's the most talented then, if that's what I'm being told, doesn't that mean that there should be more? Because we've never ever once had a moment where like Kyrie Irving is the best player. He's never had the belt at any point of his career in the NBA. Size, size, size. This is such a stupid game that we're obsessed with, Ryan. It's like, unfortunately the thing that Iverson

and Kyrie have in common is they're pretty slight dudes relative to the people that you watch these Mavericks, Clippers games and Ky Perry's almost always the smallest dude out there. The fact that he's even able to get his shots and finish at the rim is an incredible tribute to his sort of pound for pound supremacy over some of these other players. I think that Iverson is still the smallest guy to ever win the scoring title. He won it four times. But one of the biggest weaknesses he had on the shot chart is obviously his ability to score in the paint in an era, which is characterized by big physical, brutish dudes. It's just not what we would call efficient

today. Kyrie deserves a lot of credit. Tony Parker deserves a lot of credit for bringing these sort of creative finishes for smaller players. English, knowing how to finish on both sides of the room with both hands. Famously, Kyrie has one of the most impressive shots of this season, shooting with his offhand to win a game in a way that I've never seen. So anybody who says he's one of the most talented players they've ever seen, I'm not mad at. Ultimately, he's limited by his size, particularly on the defensive end. And there was a time where it looked like the league was going to be more and more tolerant

of these smaller guards. But one of the things that I think is happening in the mid 2020s is the bigger guys are getting more and more skilled, whether you're talking about Jokic or Embiid or now Victor Wembenyama. And now it looks like smaller players are up on trial once again, because if Chet Holmgren can do this and Wemby can do this, why do I need a 6'1'' player at all on my team, particularly on the defensive end of the court? So I think Kyrie and Iverson are legendary, as I would say in boxing, pound for pound. Some of the most talented players we've ever seen in the league, unfortunately, they're just limited by this primitive metric called

height. I do love that when you talk about like the, the extinction date of the bigs and that the bigs have fought back now, they've just decided, Hey, we're going to evolve. We're not going to go away. And that's what you see more and more throughout every night of just going around league pass where I'm like, you're just, these used to be creative player guys on video games And now they really can do all of these things and that's why I think you know like Durant He's not popular this week. Okay, his Q ratings a little lower, but I

Always wonder like even the maximum version of women yama It's like are you really gonna be able to just handle and dribble past guys? And I know he can do it, but like, can you, can you run six possessions in a row with him on the perimeter creating off the dribble in a playoff game? And I'm like, I guess you can, but even with the amazing perimeter skills of some of these absurd guys, the rant to me is like the best example of actually keeping his handle tight enough to be able to get into a defense and to take apart.

Other guys have given us glimpses and teases at times, but Durant's been the biggest perimeter guy that consistently is this great of a scorer. For sure. And we'd never seen anything like that from a player like Kevin's height or size. I write a lot about Dirk sort of changing the job destruction of big men on offense and really pulling the four and the five away from the basketball hoop.

And we have to give credit to the European development coaches and strategies, because even Janas is bringing skills to the size, to the front court that we wouldn't have imagined. And it's not a coincidence that Embiid and Janas and Jokic and Durk are all from overseas. And I think that they've all challenged, like I said, the job description of the contemporary big and like when players like Roy Hibbert start falling out of the league two years after they make the All-Star team, I think it's sent off sort of an alarm that we need. If we're going to beat centers,

we have to change the way we're playing basketball. And whether it's Durant, who's more of a three or a four, obviously, but shooting, passing, and dribbling are now sort of prerequisites for every position on the basketball court in a way they simply weren't when we were kids. When we look at the centers who played next to Michael, you know, Bill Wennington didn't have a Euro step or he didn't pass the ball as well as these dudes and he certainly didn't shoot threes. But yeah, you look at Embiid or Jokic or Wembe and it's just crazy how fast that position group has changed in the last 20 years. So I'm glad you brought up that group.

You threw Luca in there and if you really want to, you know, sometimes I think people try to strengthen their point with more bad points, but you could technically say SGA is international as well. Oh yeah, Canadian. Right. Right. So if you're looking at, you know, I don't know that I buy that one as much, but the point is very clear and that the best players in the world don't appear to be from the States right now.

And this is something I've been thinking about for a long time. And I know that the skills training part of the NBA is on fire. And I asked around before I had shared this the first time, like there's a longer monologue in there for me. If I was a writer, I would write this piece, but I wonder if there's a gap between individual skills, which are at their peak right now in the league. And you know, that's kind of the evolution of things in general, but then also the limitations of some of the training that may take away from like understanding the game. And I shared this with Simmons where I, I was kind of like a working theory. And I asked a guy who worked in a hockey front office and I was like, hey, is this something

you have with like incredible individual skill in the skating and the puck handling and all this stuff, but yet there's just elements of the game that you feel are going in the wrong direction. He's like, dude, we just, that's all we talk about. We talk about it all the time. And I do think we're seeing it and it feels like there may be a separation on that depending if you grow up in the States or you grow up somewhere else. Yeah, I remember I was talking to RC Buford about it. And I was like, RC, why are we seeing so many hyper skilled players coming from Europe?

And one of the things he was quick to point out, Ryan, is that the coaches over there have to get certified by the federations. And there's less random people in these young kids' lives over there. It's not flawless by any means, but it seems like they're more intentional about how they raise up basketball players in some other countries. And they've borrowed a lot from soccer. But what we're talking about is skill acquisition.

Becoming a better basketball player is something that can't always happen in a closed environment with the trainer. You got to be really smart about how you develop your players and your skills. And teamwork is a big part of that. Some people have told me like the Europeans love to play three on three. They're really more intentional about how they practice teamwork and playing off each other in those settings. And I think that kind of stuff you can see. But it's not all lost. I think they legitimately, Brandon Payne, we talked about earlier, and Stephen Curry have made their off-season workouts as smart as anything I've ever seen.

I had the opportunity to go watch them work together. And they're just really innovative how they're using the NOAA sensor over the rim, how they use heart rate, how they use ball handling drills. And what that does is make sure that Stefan's time is really well used in those one-on-one environments to develop things that will translate to five-on-five environments. But ultimately, I think we have an opportunity in the basketball community to make player development smarter, skill acquisition smarter. And I think some places in the world might be a little bit

ahead of us in that regard. You mentioned the Heliocentric earlier. It's something I've talked about. I looked at like high usage rates and I know it's not a flawless argument, but I just felt like the playoffs success rate for the highest usage players, it was pretty overwhelming that it wasn't a path to success.

There's exceptions, there's a counter that would be like, okay, but those teams weren't good enough and that's why they relied so much on that player. But I also think that there's a disconnect. Like I think of the Westbrook years in Oklahoma City where it's like the individual seasons are incredible. But then when you go into the playoffs, it's like, hey, wait, like I can't just drive through everybody for 40 straight minutes. Like now I need you to start helping me. I said, well, I haven't had to take the shot for eighty games. So now you're asking me to do something that's.

Like a higher stress situation and then all the stuff we've done before i felt like that was part of the problem. What. It's important and i'm glad you do this because i just feel like there's a generation that looks at a bird stat liner or his page on basketball references. Like what's wrong with these guys? Like these stats aren't that good. It's like, well, okay. First of all, that's absurd. Bird is one of those guys just like magic. Like I don't, magic stats probably hold up even worse where you'd be like,

you guys are that into him. I'm like nine finals in the 12 peak years. Okay. So like he was doing something right. When you look at the peak numbers and the peak usage, how do you kind of make sure you protect history knowing that like our eyes were not lying to us then, but they look like they just pale in comparison to the highest output guys we have today. No, you're exactly right.

And as a defender of the Hicks from French Lick, I think that's like the equivalent of basketball's dead ball era might be sort of the thing that our basketball friends are going through. Our community is like baseball heads knew when they looked back at like tie cobb stats or whatever, the home run column is gonna be really

different than when they look, say, at the nineties with the McGuire-Socera. And I think heliocentric basketball and really sort of woke analytical basketball has really Is that a term? I don't even know that I'd heard that yet. Yeah, that's that's definitely happening on college campuses around the country. But I think, yeah, we've sort of solved offensive efficiency in practice facilities around the NBA to a degree that we had when Larry was playing or Michael was playing. So these stat lines with you. And in the book, I really go in on the comparison between Tatum, who is an incredible player for the Boston

Celtics and a forward player in the sort of same position as Larry and Larry. And he has a lot more 40-point games and 50-point games. But you're right. What does that actually mean, Ryan? Does that mean? Because one of my least favorite genres of social media in the NBA is this. Jason Tatum now has more 40-point games or 50-point games than Larry Bird or has the most in Celtic history. I'm like, what does that mean? Because the insinuation is this guy is better almost in some cases. And that's obviously not what Celtic fans would say, even though they adore both players. But what's causing this? A, the three point numbers are surging. Tatum scores a ton of his points for the three point line in ways that Larry never did. He was the best three point shooter. I think he won the first three, is that right?

Three point shooting contest, something like that. He was the best sort of big man shooter of his time. But what does that mean, Ryan? It doesn't mean that these guys are better, but I think we have to come to some sort of better consensus that we can't compare apples to apples when we're going back 30 years on the box scores. Because when I looked at like the peak scoring that we were having this year where, and Dallas fans got really pissed about this. And I tried to explain it to one Dallas fan where it was like,

MB goes for 70 and it's praise. And then Luca goes beyond that. And the thing is, is Luca could have scored even more in that Atlanta game, but Atlanta finally changed the coverage on them. And the thing is, is Luca could have scored even more in that Atlanta game, but Atlanta finally changed the coverage on him and Luca made like some really great passing plays in like the right read that weren't necessarily even assist plays. It was just the right read because of the way he was being played.

And then you had, you know, this string of games, the towns game where people were like mad at him because it was just such an ugly game. And I'm not even, you know, this string of games, the towns game, where people were like mad at him because it was just such an ugly game. And I'm not even, you know, I'm not even like criticizing the criticism. I think it was this moment for this season where it was like, wait, what the hell is going on here? And Luca was just after the other guy.

And that's what I think happens. And then when I look at it that way, I go, look, I think Luca could average 40 plus if he wants to. I think Bird certainly could have averaged more. The whole what if Jordan played today? Okay, maybe Jordan averages 43 points a game, but there is a line of diminishing returns and like, what do you actually want to do tonight

in the game? Because if you want to score that many, Luke could probably be my bet to score the most possible points in today's game, but there becomes a line that you've gone too far and it actually is a detriment to what you're actually trying to do. Yeah. I think there's like three dudes in the modern NBA that sort of have the antithetical view

to the hard and hear the eccentric view. And there's Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich and LeBron James, all who were facilitating, they wanted the ball to move. They wanted high assist percentages. They wanted to create open looks on the edges. But then you see what we're seeing now, which is record breaking usage rates across the association. And one of the big questions that I think you and I both have is, is that a good way to prepare for war in the playoffs? You see, you know, Donchich playing hurts or Harden

getting gassed at the end of games. Like this is a different level of sport and you can put up incredible numbers this way during the regular season in Atlanta. But let's see you do it against, I don't know, Eric Spolstra or Michael Malone in five straight games in a playoff series or Tai Liu. Let's see you do it against Paul George and Kawhi Leonard when they can really just mess with coverages and double team strategies. And I know you and I really both kind of are skeptical about the heliocentric aesthetic,

but also from a competitive standpoint, I think it's a real argument if this is gonna, if you can win this way against the best defenses in the NBA in a seven game series. Yeah. My position isn't like, well, sometimes I, hey, I don't like watching this. Sometimes it's okay. This isn't going to work, but I think I also understand it.

And I think this is where the math comes in a little bit. And if you're sitting there and you're looking at Harden during those peak Houston years, you go, okay, what's our points per possession when he has the ball? It's like, okay, so why does he have the ball less? The guys in the 80s and 90s were stupid. They threw it down in the post. They didn't run as much high screen and roll. They had balance, but the ball ended up in the hands of guys that were inefficient too often. So why do we take it away? It's hard to tell the person presenting that argument that they're wrong. But I think the beauty in basketball is that, yeah, I know what the number says, but you could still be kind of wrong.

The other, the other four people have to feel involved. And it's, it's the Larry Brown lesson of like, why do you pass it to Ben Wallace? He's like, so he rebounds and plays defense and sets screens. Cause if he never gets to touch the ball, he's not going to do those things as well. And that's, there's truth in that. Yeah, there's definitely truth. And I think one of the common threads of the modern NBA

is this undying quest for efficiency, no matter how you find it on offense. And I think the earliest low hanging fruit in the 2010s was shot selection. And that terrain has sort of largely been conquered. And I don't think it's a coincidence, Ryan, that this heliocentric movement sort of emerges out of that. Because now we're looking at how can I find more efficiency by play type? And you hit it on the head, dude. It's like, give it to my best player, rinse and repeat,

which is not a new basketball strategy. We don't have usage rates for Will Chamberlain or George Mikan, but I'm guessing they had pretty high usage rates back in the day. I don't think you can score a hundred with a low usage rate. Probably a friendly whistle. But within the confines of like sort of contemporary basketball, I think one of the emerging analytical strategies is what video game players have been figuring out for regeneration. Now it's just like, if something works, just keep doing it until they can stop it.

And now we have the numbers to back it up. We have a fun exercise at the end of this, and I do want to touch on the playoffs, specifically the West and trying to make sense of how great those top teams are. But I was thinking about skateboards the other day, pretty random. And I was thinking about these big planky to use a nautical term, wide beam pieces of plywood, but it felt like there were different styles. There was more variety in the kind of skateboard you could have when we were growing up. And my brother still skates and, you know, I was looking at his decks

and it was like they all, for the most part, looked pretty much the same. And clearly, skateboards will look different in 20 years, but I'm like, have they maximized the skateboard design? Has it happened? Like, there's not going to be that much deviation between the two. And then it led to me thinking about basketball. And I was like, is this it? Not to quote the strokes, but is this, is this kind of, has it been maximized?

No. And that's no, hell no. And I think one of the things that there's a couple of things that players keep changing. And that's sort of one of the theses of this book is the NBA is metamorphosis is drastic. It's by no means complete, but it's the players that keep innovating, just like jazz or music or art. Somebody will come along, whether it's Dr. Dre or Jay-Z or it's Miles Davis or Madonna. Somebody will come and challenge the medium. That's what I think Wembe really represents right now. It's this, holy shit, this guy can do that and he's big. And what's the game going to look like when he's 27? Because this is going to be

crazy on both ends of the court. So I think it's not optimized. It's not maximized. It's by no means in stasis. I think it's still evolving. The other thing I'd say, and this is another point you and I sort of bribed on over the course of this season, is the league is not a passive participant. They have knobs and levers in Sakakis in New York City that they can adjust to beget a different aesthetic. And they've done that for almost 80 years now, whether it was outlawing goal-tending or outlawing zone defense, adding a shot clock, oh, adding a three-point line.

I think as the product slipped this year, they sprung into action to remind us they could do that kind of thing. I think they have more to do on this, Ryan, and that's probably a longer conversation. But one of my favorite topics is, how can the regulators in New York help us engineer a better path forward and not just sit back and let, you know, this bi-modal version of basketball of threes and layups take over. Uh, but no, I don't think, I don't think it's optimized. And I'm really hopeful that it continues to evolve because I think it's sort of one of the signature elements of what makes the NBA so fun. You're right on though about the players, like to sit here and pretend we know what

every future player is now going to look like. It's just not. Like we're surprised constantly. And I think the women yama point is right on. And that's kind of the thing that I still get excited about every season is just the simple question of like, I wonder what this guy's going to look like. And that's why I'm so excited about Ant because as much as I've loved him, I still was a little worried. If you're like, okay, we know what the game is. You get all this attention,

you start getting comparisons to MJ and it's a visual thing. It's not a resume thing. It's not a predicting his resume thing, but what he has turned into, not just this physical force and the scoring, but the way he's seen the game. And you could see it this year was like, man, these driving kicks things like he's not passing for the assist.

He's passing for the right play. And he's this incredible teammate. It it's what will always bring me back. It'll always bring me back. And so then we just know there's the next guy that comes along that just collectively has us excited. I want to stay on that because I opened the podcast saying I'm doing the unthinkable and I'm picking against Denver, which is not the usual. It's not usually the way I do this. I usually feel like you got to go through and get your scars in the playoffs, the new young team surprising and Oklahoma City is clearly still part of this conversation. Although I think their matchup was incredibly favorable with the Zion injury and the lack of size for the Pelicans. They wanted to go small. They didn't want to play balance units.

How do you see, whether it's, you're already assuming Dallas gets one of the next two, how do you maybe see the West differently than a lot of us do? First of all, the playoff bracket is crooked. And you know, I'm critical on the league, but I think four of the best five teams are on the one side of the bracket, and that doesn't seem optimal for a tournament. And for our friends who root for Western Conference team, it kind of sucks. For us who are just watching it, it's awesome because we get these incredible first round series, second round series.

But this Minnesota-Denver series, first of all, has no business being in the second round of NBA playoffs. I think it's a conference finals-level matchup. Credit to both of these teams. That's not the way it is. If there's a red flag for Denver's title defense, Ryan, for me, it's on the defensive end of the court, and it's with their best player, Nikola Jokic, and specifically his ability to protect the basketball hoop, which is the most important defensive chore on the chessboard. And when you have an offensive player spending so much energy running the offense, is it really fair to expect him to also be the most important defender in the game? I don't know if it's fair, but that's exactly what they're going to have to ask him to do. The Lakers just, if you look at the stats, the Nuggets give up 57 points per game in

the paint. LeBron and AD just shredded that defense and got what they wanted in the paint and at the rim with Dunks and layups. So I think when I'm looking at the case against Denver, which I'm not sure I'm prepared to make, but the case against Denver is Minnesota, who is ferocious and aggressive and young and athletic, can get to the rim and finish at very high rates and outscore the Denver Nuggets because Nicole Jokic is either too tired or not physically ready enough to defend the pain against these young Bucks from Minnesota.

Yeah, LA, I mean, it was one of my favorite moments in this entire playoffs and it will be for awhile. Like, uh, this version of LeBron going on playing point guard and we're going to make Jokic defend two people. You know, he's going to have to show. And I felt like Denver could have like, Hey, maybe you're just going to have to help on that right side when LeBron drives there, like you're just going to have to come off the corner and I'd have to go back, you know, sometimes you just lose track of like,

Hey, actually we helped this many times or whatever. And then once they had changed the defensive assignment from Jokic to Rui, and then it was funny. Cause like 80 goes to set it up and then LeBron's like, no, no, no, like you're going to go out to the corner, which I think led to some of the, you know, it turns into a constant complaint. Like 80 is not taking enough shots late. And it's like, well, okay. But for that specific thing, once Jokic changed

his defensive assignment, that meant that LeBron just wanted Jokic back in the defensive action there. Now, will that be Ant running that with Go Bear? You know, will they change it? Will they put Jokic on Townes? Does that mean that the counter then is that they go run it with, you know what I mean? Like these are all these little moves because I don't want to pick against Yoko cheer and maybe I'm chasing money a bit with the Minnesota first round result. But make a, you know what, go ahead and make the case. Cause I think we'd agree that the thing that I felt like you get in the way of Minnesota getting out of the West is not only the depth of the talent of the teams,

but will I trust their offensive execution as much as I trust Denver's who I trust the most to get the good shot the last two minutes of the game and against Phoenix, it was never really an issue. They had bonus scoring, I think, from guys. Every single game, there was a different guy other than Ant who had just an incredible stretch offensively. Look, Phoenix just didn't have enough for a bunch of different reasons. Yeah, I think the case for Denver is they've played better defense overall this season. Last season, I was not a fan of their defense coming into the playoffs.

I made one of my worst takes of the year was that Jokic wasn't ready to win the championship on the defensive end of the court. So this is sort of familiar territory. He proved me wrong last year, hand up on that one. But I think the cases, they're better on defense this year overall through the season. We've seen pretty good markers against a brutal Western Conference schedule. They have the experience. And maybe the cases like the Lakers are not a normal team. They have two Hall of Fame players who are specifically

elite when it comes to attacking the basketball hoop. And as good as Minnesota is right now, that's not LeBron James and Anthony Davis over there. That's a relatively unproven Anthony Edwards who I love. It's Jade McDaniels. It's Carl Anthony Towns, who has not exactly been ferocious in his postseason career. Rudy Gobert, who has had some big sort of postseason absences and been played out of series. The cases that Michael Malone, Nicole Okich and Jamal Murray will find ways to weaken, I think, Minnesota's rotations and maybe keep some of these guys at bay or even off the

court in the case of Gobert. I'm not sure that can happen, but that's the case. So there's an easy case for both teams here. I'm not mad at anybody who watched that Phoenix series is coming out and being like, dude, Minnesota's ready. There was essentially a tie at the top of the West, remember? Neither of these are really, they hadn't separated themselves. But I think the case for Minnesota is they're ready, they're hungry, and they're more talented and yaw on the perimeter.

Yeah. I'm horrified by it though, where I'll go, uh oh, like this is different, Phoenix is a mess and the stagnant, what are we gonna do on offense and clear it out for Ant? And he's going one on two. And does he in this series feel a little bit more pressure to take just tougher shots, you know, tougher shots. Cause he's like, all right, Conley's not here tonight.

McDaniel's offense, like if he scores 20 or zero in a playoff game, I'm not like, I'd obviously be more surprised by the 20, but he can have a night where it doesn't happen. It's funny cause I don't always love Townes, as you know, everybody's heard me say it enough, but he actually is designed as the perfect player to play with and he's exactly what you would want.

It's just, there's a lot of stuff in there, but look, his closing game was terrific. All right, so how does OKC, also pronounced as OKC, how did they factor into this? Because, you know, again, favorable matchups, so you don't want to go too crazy over it, but the thing I keep coming back to is, I don't know that I'm gonna be shocked

if they come out of the West, because I feel like their offense doesn't, they're just, they can do so many different things. There's so many different people that feels like they can rely on. And on top of that, they can shoot and they defend like crazy. And the Jalen Williams too, this other one,

his development of like, is he gonna knock down a couple big shots here as the backup to Chet? There's a lot to like about how consistent you know their offense can be in comparison to the Minnesota concerns I have and some of those Jokic minutes where, you know, Denver has to just play even with the opponent

to be able to win the games when he's not in there. Yeah, I think. And I'll start by saying this beat OKC now, because it's going to be a problem for a while. I think that's not a hot take. This is the beginning of something. They just got the coach of the year. They have one of the best young stars in the league, the international great, Shea Gilder's Alexander.

Overseas. Yeah. But in all seriousness, they had one guy over 25 score a bucket in that New Orleans series and that was Kenrick Williams, who's not a big part of the rotation. This team is here. They're ahead of schedule. They could get there. I just don't think they have the playoff experience in the coaching staff or in the rotation yet compared to these other teams.

And whether you're talking about Dallas, whether you're talking about Denver or even Minnesota, I feel like just the age and the wisdom and the basketball operations from the coaching through the roster makes me hesitant to pick OKC yet. Again, credit to Sam Presti for building one of the deepest, youngest rosters we've ever seen this far in the tournament. And look, depth is the least sexy thing to talk about, but it's really important. And OKC has a lot of it. I just don't know if they have the wisdom to go with it, to adjust and to win in big moments.

They could prove me wrong now. I think I've still taken whoever comes out of Denver, Minnesota for sure though, Ryan. Yeah, when you mentioned Kenrich, I was like, oh yeah, I knew Gordon Hayward didn't like shooting in this series, and boy, did he not. He took one shot. It's not like he played a ton,

but he played in all four games. He played a total of 31 minutes. He took one shot. And played a lot of Call of Duty, I think, at the hotel, from what I've heard. Yeah. All right, so speaking of Presti and his team building, our final exercise will be this.

It's not the five best players, this isn't all NBA. I'm really interested in what you think would be the best starting five that would complement each other with today's active players. Some of these guys are a little older than others, but that's good, that's a feature not a bug. They've been around the block, they know how to win a playoff series.

But I like, when I arrived at this list, it includes defense. I'm obsessed with defense now. And so I really discount stars that don't bring positivity to the defensive end. So my list is going to be people I really have a high view with on defense with one exception. I'll start with that, which is Stephen Curry, who is the greatest shooter of all time. with that, which is Stephen Curry, who is the greatest shooter of all time. Not afraid to make a pass, not a bad defender, but just not the Michael Jordan, LeBron James sort of two-way incredible player that we've seen from some of the other greats. So Stephen Curry, then I'm giving it to Shay Gilder's Alexander in part because he's a defensive star and in part because he's an offensive star and I think he's a willing playmaker. So that's my backcourt

And then I have LeBron James as my three Again can guard multiple positions on defense a much improved shooter, right? I don't think we've talked enough about how LeBron James became a 40% three-point shooter this year So he's also given me some spacing with Steph and SGA. I talked about it two days ago. I mean, when you look at where he was trending, I go, so you're gonna be like a 35% guy that takes half of his shots from there?

And it still would be okay. Like I would be like, hey, look, I get it. And instead he cut down on the three-point rate, yet shot at the second best of his career. Yeah, 40%. There's some offensive numbers from him this year where I went. How did it go back in this direction? Anyway, go ahead.

It's going to help him play into his 40s if he can shoot like that. 40 for 40, 40% for the 40-year-old LeBron. Yonisante Takumbo and Victor Wembenyama are my front court. Both of those guys can protect the basketball hoop, rebound, willing passers, and can guard multiple positions, to say it mildly. I really value that versatility on the defense event. So that is my lineup. Again, Steph SGA, LeBron James, Yannisant Tecumpo, and Victor Wembenyama.

Okay. Well, Steph's a no-brainer because you can plug him into anything and he moves off the ball, sets screens off the ball. And that's what I was big on. I didn't want any ball stoppers. Okay. Right. I didn't want any ball stoppers. Uh, I did go with Jokic knowing that I would have to help him defensively.

Okay. Now I think positionally, right. Positionally, Jokic, like it got really absurd during the, the like, I ran contra hearings of like the MB to Jokic stuff, where it was, it was just like, Hey, well, you know, Jokic isn't this bad. He's positioned really well. The same thing that I would argue with Steph, as you've already alluded to. I went with Ant because I think when he's into it defensively, and I'm not even talking about him as like this guy that's not interested in playing in defense, but defensively I'm totally happy with where he's at. It may feel a little bit early. And I thought about Janis as the protection to Jokic, but I just said,

screw it. I'll go with Wemba and Yama now. Dang. And I was surprised by that. And then my last spot, I was, I was a little worried about this. I know you went with LeBron. I am worried though, when he misses a defensive rotation, how it's going to feel in the huddle, when he yells at the other teammates. When it was his, he had one on Austin Reeves the other night where he got mad at Reeves for not running back to the dunker spot to cover Gordon while his hands were on Jokic and was signaling for him to get back to the baseline when LeBron was five feet closer to him. And I give Reeves credit that he like yelled back as he inbounded to him being like, what are you talking about? that he like yelled back as he inbounded to him being like, what are you talking about?

So I don't know if I want to bring that to my five, just for the vibes part of it. So I will, I will keep SGA on the list because he's a lot like, well, he's not a lot like Steph, but his approach to the game is similar in that he's totally fine off the ball, even though he doesn't provide the shooting that maybe would be the optimum version of him. Like he's not going to put up eight threes in a game, but if I need him to break down the defense and then I have the spacing from the other pieces of this,

I still think it's, I don't feel like I have anybody that's going to clog anything up. I feel like our front court is better if I replace Wembe with Jokic and we keep Janas because Janas is the best free safety in the NBA when he's healthy. Like Serge Ibaka when he was young, he put him next to Steven Adams or Les Mobile Big. It's really nice deodorant to have out there. I feel like if there's a weakness in my group, it's putting Wembe too far out there. I think Jokic is a solid pick and obviously pretty successful. But yeah, it's a fun exercise. And these are my favorite kinds of

players, players that can contribute on both ends and make each other better, which is a cliche sort of definition of a superstar. Do you make your teammates better? But one of the coolest things about the NBA is the guys that can do that end up winning the championship. And these are dudes, I think, that all check that box. I think we had, what, seven or eight total names and five in common. Or obviously five, but yeah, dude, I don't know.

The Yanis Free Safety thing is a, I mean, look, it was, I thought about it and then I'm like, okay, but what are you going to do when Steph and Jokic are running around each other? And then as Giannis providing that space, it's like, but you know what, how about when the ball's loose and then he just destroys everybody with it. And then the defensive part of it might be a better fit because, but then it's like, well, you voted one, but I'm a defensive player of the year. So what am I really saying here? Can I ask you one random question? Do you think Sam Presti has enough draft picks to actually put this team together next year? What I think is interesting is

that Presti, like most guys would just be like, all right, I'm going to just overpay for all this crazy stuff. And it's like, nope, I have a I have my own process. I have a vision for I want, I want this to be. I mean, the fact that Usman Jang was drafted, I was like, Yep, makes all the sense of the world. That's exactly what Presti is putting together here. Nice little run in the G league. If you weren't paying attention to Jang stats, I was, I was this close to putting Lou Dort down. I'm like, just give me one dog that can space the floor a little bit. And if Brandon Ingram announces retirement this summer, I wouldn't be surprised. He's like, I never want to see Lou Dort again.

And Lou is another one has become like a 40% three-point shooter. I want to say it's incredible. It's exactly what he needed to do. And in Oklahoma City, really impressive shooting numbers this year for a group of guys coming into the year. I didn't expect that from. So something they're doing in player development, sort of bring it full circle with our conversation. OKC is getting it right across the board, but the shooting numbers from players like Lou Dort are proof that they're building better basketball players,

not just drafting good basketball players too. You can check out all of this stuff. And I'm telling you, it's incredibly entertaining. And if you still like pictures, we have those for you. Maybe it's the background of geography. It is our guy, Kurt Goldsberry, Hoop Atlas, wherever books are sold. Thanks, man.

Thank you, brother. 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. The email address, as always, join the group gang. Life advice, rr at gmail.com.

I wanna take this moment to wish those that celebrate a happy Dost de Mayo. Real ones know May 2nd is the day, not May 5th. And we've got a Saruti free life advice, which I think some of you are going to like. Man down. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And I don't like that people will like it. He's actually come through with some of the best advice in the last couple of weeks where it's like, we all say all the dumb shit. And he's like, actually, what about this? And it actually

required a little bit of thought to get there too. It's not just like, I think you should just do whatever makes you happy. So I'm going to miss that today. Your approval rating is the highest. It's unapproachable by anybody. I feel like you keep saying that and it's just going to tank my stock. So we're going to have to button that up because every time you say I'm waiting for the shoe to drop. So it's impossible. You're just, this is who you are and you're like that wilt meme. It's just out there. There's nothing you can do it. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I think Xurti has the lower life advice approval rating. Here's the thing, he doesn't care. He's doing the right thing.

It's not always easy, you know what I mean? He's not bothered by it. Before we get to any of these submissions, we have just a Poughkeepsie check-in here. And I'm just doing this for Kyle to kind of set the tone for today. Gang Gang in Poughkeepsie. Hey guys, hope all is well, love the pod.

Otherwise I wouldn't take this time to send you an email about a throwaway comment. Basketball cop is Ryan Archidiakano on the Knicks. Love the game, but the only reason I'm here is because my friends keep picking me to be on their team. Well said. Archidiakano's got that hair setup that's, well, he just continues to amaze

about what's possible, not what's required. All right, welcome. Oh, excuse me, went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, Kyle, from 10 to 14. So I'm very familiar with Kyle's stomping grounds. RIP Noah's Ark. Yeah, definitely, open till four. Incredible.

Open till four. With. Open till four. With a punch machine? Come on. I aspire to one day open a bar in Montana or Colorado or maybe not Wyoming, but that has a punch machine and last call at 4 a.m. I won't be there, I don't think, but anyway. I can attest to the fact that during this era in the greater Poughkeepsie area gang gang ran rampant throughout the surrounding colleges at any party at Marist CIA Duchess CC Bard and even the weirdos at Vassar groups of what?

Vassar notes. It's funny. That's how we think of them too. But we love that. We love hanging on the campus. So I'm glad you guys are there. All right. Groups of young men would say gang gang as an emphatic yes to whatever someone had proposed. Yo, we're headed to Greg's before Darby's gang gang froze. Let's have the fraternity formal at shadows gang gang. I'm hitting is it Ross's Ross's Ross's.

Oh, okay. I see what they did here. Anyone want to import special gang gang? While it's not in the regular vocabulary anymore. I appreciate Kyle owning it. Thanks for the hours of entertainment. He also, well, maybe the PS is not supposed to be in there, but he's telling us revealing. Well, I don't know.

I don't think it. Yeah, I actually think this is totally fine. I played at the Culinary Institute of America basketball team, NAIA at the time, and Stefan Marbury's cousin went to Vassar, cooked us during a scrimmage in 2011. Box score link below. All right, all checks out.

Anything to add to that, because I really think you should. Well, really thanks for backing me up, and he knows his spots. Rossi's is probably the number one deli around too. to that because I really think you should. Really, thanks for backing me up. He knows the spots. Rossi's is probably the number one deli around too. Just thanks for backing me up. I appreciate it. Noah's Ark, 4 a.m.

What was last call in Poughkeepsie? Was it whenever they wanted it to be? Is it a New York State thing? No, 4 was the end. That was it. But a lot of the bars would close at 2 and then there would just be like, whoever's really still about it walking to this kind of weird spot at Poughkeepsie, like a little further away from the riverfront bars

or whatever. And it's just like, wow, who's still in it to win it at this point. And they're all sort of the two o'clock, they all sort of converge at the place where the regulars have always been there. They didn't go anywhere else. They're just like, oh, here comes the assholes.

It's 2.30, who's walking in? So. Yeah, I mean, you know, kind of the clientele that you expect to be getting, but all right, here we go. Um, this is about drinking, a newish fan of the pod, big scoop fan. It's from Portland, but living in Chicago, don't lift, but run three, four days a week. All right. Keep that cardio up. Haven't done cardio in a month since I tore my calves

I'm excited to get that journey going again. Anyway, one of my roommates knew As of this last school year loves on the rest of our group drinks, but not him This includes evenings and weekends when at 5 p.m He will offer to make drinks for all of us seemingly including him being in college. We almost always obliged Excited to drink as a group. Yet almost always after 34 minutes, 30, 40 minutes, he's never drinking. It would be like weird, wait, are you timing him?

34 minutes now. Yeah, 30, 40 minutes in, he's never drinking. You also pitch for us to go to the store to get drinks with him, only to leave us hanging when we get home and not drink until maybe he cracks one as the rest of us are about to go to bed. When asked about it, he gets mad and always insists that he's about to have one. And yet that rarely comes. This guy is not sober, but does this often. Are we overthinking this or feeling this

is weird or is he doing something out of the ordinary? Hmm. That is peculiar, Kyle. My guess is did he have like some bad, a string of bad performances? You know what I mean? Where he's like, I don't like all my friends, my friendships are centered around drinking. I've, I flew off the handle a couple of times. Maybe I could tightrope, maybe I can like tightrope walk this thing

with being in the mix, but like pouring my drink in a plant or something, or you know, if these guys won't pay attention enough and I'll have one when I'm ready, when I know that once 10 p.m. rolls around, I won't be an absolute mess and have to comb through my text messages and see what kind of damage did I do.

Like maybe he's, I'm just wondering if he's had a couple of bad runs and he's like, I just need to reset, but I don't want my friends to think I'm, so he might be stressing the fuck out and you should maybe leave him alone about this. I don't know. Because the suggesting to go get drinks makes me think like, all

right, he wants you guys to be happy, but maybe he just feels like this is untenable and he needs to like push reset on this. That's my, that's my wonder. I texted my superintendent. I think you're cute. My mom just sent me a bunch of like four question marks. Afraid to check my recent calls. Oh, I texted Jim, not Jen.

This is gonna be weird. So yeah, it could be weird, right? It could be weird at that age. Everybody gives each other a hard time out of your default setting, just constantly giving dudes a hard time. But I think for our emailer here, I like what Kyle said. There could be something baked into all of this. Now I've asked follow-ups, like, has he done any of the things that Kyle has mentioned?

Or, you know, is it some kind of self-preservation where he feels like he's still involved so he wants to make the drinks and everybody's kind of hanging out and that's like what he needs right now and that's kind of how he goes through his deal. Him cracking one late, does that mean like, okay, the night's over so this is my own Does that mean like, okay, the night's over, so this is my own golf cart governor where it's over, but I never really tied on. I never even got a buzz. So like, I'm not worried about where the night would take me if I were chasing it. I think you're asking some really good questions, Kyle. And I think the really mature thing to do, although it probably feels weird and you're probably incapable of it, would be just let him do this. Let him do this. Now,

if you were getting after it and he doesn't have any of these missing nights and he's actually a guy who keeps it together, then I would agree that I'm like, that's just why can't you do this? But here's the thing, man. It's gonna be great when you get to an age where you just don't really give a shit about what anybody else is doing. And in this case, and you're probably too young, you're not even close to it, it's gonna take a while. But if this is just what he likes to do

and make some drinks, so you guys have a live-in bartender. Yeah, go enjoy your new DD. Fucking awesome. Yeah, there's actually a lot of pluses here, you know Like hey, I can't get in my apartment Sober guy, you know, we've got We got Sam from Cheers living with us

Yeah, great part is he's in the mix and you have like the superpower of the sober guy at 10 p.m Like you maybe use that to your advantage. The greatest part is he still wants to be in the mix and you have like this superpower of the sober guy at 10 p.m. Like maybe use that to your advantage. The greatest part is he still wants to be in the mix. So like this could have been a whole different email if it was like we can't get ahold of him. You know, he bailed on our fantasy drafts. I don't know what's going on with this. None of that.

He wants to be around and he cares about clearly about the appearance of drinking with you guys, but he's still got your buddy. So I think that's like, I think a lot of these emails that we would get would have that other flavor of it to like, we're losing this guy, what are we going to do? Should we have a sit down? Yours is just like, should we talk to him about him not drinking enough? I mean, when you say it that way, it's sounds terrible. So yeah, maybe just enjoy what you got. Yeah, I think it, I think it could be two things here. And if it's, if it's the first thing that Kyle was talking about,. Yeah, I think it I think it could be two things here. And if it's if it's the first thing that Kyle was

talking about, you know, I just would say let it let it go. But but the part we don't have the information we don't have is like, No, no, no, like, he got after it a month ago, for happy hour, and it was totally normal. It was totally fine. No incident or anything like that. It just seems to be in this setting that he doesn't necessarily want to do it. I wouldn't. I know it. I wouldn't, uh, I know it's weird for your age group because it would be weird if I had a

roommate at the six of us that were living together our senior year and we had the place completely decked out and we had a full bar. We had everything. And if one guy just decided he was going to be Sir Mix a lot all the time, I just, we'd be like, we talked about building a bar in our rented house. I'm glad we didn't have the gumption to follow through on that, but we were like, yeah, we'll get the lumber. And we're like, you're going to put an addition onto this house that you're going to be out of

in a little bit. I don't think they're going to love that, but that's how, that's how big it was for us. You know? So I get it. We probably would have mentioned it if one of our buddies was like, you know, slacking off in our opinion, but you know, maybe he's like, maybe his doctor had put him on some meds. He doesn't feel like telling you about it. He's like, you know, slacking off in our opinion. But, you know, maybe he's like, maybe his doctor put him on some meds. He doesn't feel like telling you about, he's like, here, the one thing you can't do is drink. Whoa, whoa.

Great additional theory. Yeah. So just, um, nobody wants anybody to actually talk to them. So again, jokes that sting a little there. There it's, you can use them in many situations. This is one I think would be fine too. Yeah, right. OK. This one seems a little too serious for us today, so let's not do that.

That's a Rudy. I wouldn't feel comfortable. Do you feel like Saruti? We need him for the serious ones. This one, I almost want to save for a comedian when we do that again. So I think I'm gonna save that one. Okay. Let's do this one.

All right. 511225, play squash for cardio, pick up comp. Dad bod Xavier Tillman. My son is in second grade and over the past years become a rabid NFL fan. It's been remarkable to watch the league's comprehensive marketing strategy work in real time with my son as their lab rat.

Began with Disney Plus suggesting he watched the game with animated Toy Story characters overlaid onto the players. Then Amazon's algorithm fed him the Kelsey documentary. That led to quarterback on Netflix and they've had him hook, line and sinker. I fueled this by taking his first NFL game, showing him the Ross decisions I was making in fantasy each was first NFL game, showing him the Ross decisions.

I was making a fantasy each week and throwing the football with him incessantly. He's playing flag this spring and after discussing the Patriots draft strategy for weeks, he followed each pick with vested interest. He envisions himself playing quarterback in the league. And while I love that he's dreaming big, it's a non-starter. However, during the draft, he kept asking me about the guys in the war room and how they make their decisions. I figure there are only 32 GM jobs, but he has a slightly better chance of earning that

role than being under center. Yup, still. Is this guy too good of a dad? Yeah, right. He's really mapped this whole thing out. We're going to specialize you right now. Can I have a fruit roll up? Nope, we've got to whiteboard the next 12 years in the garage.

Don't worry about running spreads. You need to work on that math homework. All right. You're a big brain type of guy. You're not a. Like what's wrong with the SIPs? What's wrong with the SIPs? If you had a young child who was precocious and interested in scouting,

roster building and organizational strategy, how would you groom him to be a GM? This is fucking awesome. What after school activities would you put him in? Where would you recommend he go to college? Let's assume he never plays collegiately and would instead work with the team in some sort of scouting analytics role. Take it to extreme, what would be the Marv Marenovich

equivalent approach to positioning a kid for this role? After school math classes start building a background in statistics and modeling with predictive AI, taking him to the Sloan Conference and helping him network to get internships with Maury de Podesta theotypes. Later on an MBA or otherwise advanced degree with a graduate assistant role and a staff of an elite college coach. This is purely theoretical. I would rather he read Lord of the Rings than Steve Belichick's football scouting minds, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Love the thought.

Well, I just don't want you to make this kid weird. I think he's just, don't make him weird. You're already worried about that? I'm worried that he's like, what kind of things can we have you do? Whether like if he wants to play football, like what if he's, what if he's good? You're going to be like, sorry, you're not, you're not going to go D3 to Buffalo, to SUNY Buffalo. We're actually, we're gonna take the more academic route because we can get you into, I don't know,

another nice college. Like, I don't know. I think if he wants to be in this arena, I think playing is valued by everyone in the arena. Like, maybe you don't play with the intent of going to the league or even playing in college, but like, I wouldn't pull him out of things now because I just don't play with the intent of going to the league or even playing in college, but like I wouldn't pull them out of things now because I wouldn't, I just don't want to consider like extracurriculars as waste of time.

I think that if he's into whatever it is, like maybe you can add, maybe it's an additive situation, but not like we're not doing this because we're doing that. So I wouldn't, I don't know. I wouldn't get too much in your head about stuff like this. Do you remember the GM game that they had for EA sports? Yeah, and I never bought it. I never even wasted a rental at Blockbuster on it. Cause I was like, that looks like zero fun.

Yeah, it was NFL head coach. Oh, did I buy it? I mean, I got to the point with Madden. I bought stock. I wasn't even playing the game. I was just simulating 20 seasons at a time. I thought about doing that too in my madden. I was like,ulating 20 seasons. Oh my God. I thought about doing that too in my mat and I was like, not doing that. That's stupid, but, uh,

are you kidding? I loved it. I mean, I, I think the first time I ever did it, I didn't go to bed. I was like, let's see what happens here. How far can we go to? And then you would, there was always defensive tackles with like a 78 rating. Like there was always defensive tackles on the free agent market with higher ratings that you knew you could flip for picks. It was a bit of a cheat code with the game. So I would sign all these defensive tackles and I would trade them for picks.

We're moving the team to Burlington. But I would just, and then you would find this one safety and then you would work like you would just work it so hard on improving his skills. And then, you know, I'd have a visor on the guy and all of a sudden, you know, he's a 99 safety hall of fame immediately, 15 year career, seven Superbowl wins, maybe eight, who knows, and you're just like, you know, he thought maybe he was going to leave in free agency, like, I don't care. He's homegrown.

He's my guy. I gave him a visor. I'm going to blow up my cap for this guy. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. So, uh, that came out in 2006. Bill Cower, um, was on the cover. So I don't know if that one ended up being, it certainly wasn't as popular as Madden because you could do, I think McShay even did voiceovers for NFL head coach

too, I think he was in Orlando for like days and days. Yeah. So you could him on that. So you could start with that. Then you could go and research all the GMs because there's like this pocket of these small New England schools where a bunch of these guys went so you could go alum status there, but by the time your son is headed to school, you know, who knows how much it would have shifted. Uh, you know, really every one of these things is accomplished by knowing someone.

It's why when I would meet somebody on the Hollywood side of things, my eyes might light up the same way. If I meet somebody who's younger, who wants to be in media, they meet me, their eyes will light up and really nobody's going to do anything for anybody unless they are actually is some kind of relationship. So what you want to avoid doing is the first time you actually have an interaction with somebody that has the keys to your son's dreams. Pushing your son in front. You want to not freak out and immediately be a weirdo and ask if the guy wants to come over for any sort of social gathering because it's going to be the first thing like,

actually, I don't want to hang out with you. You're a stranger. I know what's going to happen. You're just going to keep asking me for favors and favors and favors. But I think, I think it's kind of cool. This age at what eight, there could be a burnout factor where if you really just push this for the next 10 years. But look, if I were to do it all over again, as everybody knows, I didn't even really want to be on the air. I wanted to work for a team and then things take their path and I'm fine.

But if I were to do it over again, then things take their path and I'm fine. But if I were to do it over again, I would have known this earlier. I didn't know it until it was too late, most likely, and I would have gone to a school and, or I would have visited schools and talked to the athletic department of like, I want to work with a team. I want to be in a front office. Can I be a student manager? Can I do whatever? And look, if you showed up, it's amazing in life. And I say this often, but if you just ask what is out there for you, okay? And if you're a kid in high school listening to this, and the advice is still the

same for the email here, even though we're having a little bit of fun with it. If you were determined to work in pro sports and you want to be on the decision side, you don't want to be on the business side, you know, where you kind of start off in ticket sales, because who knows, like it could work out for you. There's plenty of guys that started in ticket sales that have really high ranking jobs with all sorts of pro franchises. It's not, but it's going to be some lean, lean years in there for you. And if you're all about the ball, right? You just, I don't want anything to do with that stuff. I just want to work on this side of it. And you know, you're not going to be a former player or you're not going to be a former coach. At least the doors are actually open in baseball

the last 20 years. Basketball, I don't know which way it's going here. I think that the figurehead, I think it's maybe shifted away a little bit from some of the baseball model stuff and football's had some, some experiences with it, but I think that's, that one's still a little bit tougher to break in. But if I were a high school kid and this is what I wanted to do and ultimately how old your son gets here, if he still wants to do this, when I visited colleges, I would look for colleges that offer some kind of like sports management is not like, hey, I now I have my bachelor's in sports management management, Wednesday draft, like it doesn't work that way.

But you would have to work at making contacts earlier on in the careers of the people that will have these jobs. All right. I took too long to get there. But the guy that is the video coordinator for UMass Amherst football who then gets a job seven years later with the Jets, but he remembers your son or the high school kid that we're talking to right now who was a student manager on that team and then stayed through it for all of those years where it didn't make any sense and your prospects were limited.

And on top of that, you weren't making any money and maybe your family's getting under case or maybe they're totally supportive. But that's pretty much the only way. When you look at all these coaching and front office trees that are connected, especially on the football side, you'd be like, oh, well that guy went to school there and then he was four years behind him, but then he knew another guy because this guy came in after that.

That's really the way all of this shit works. So if I ever were to say me when I was in high school and be like, okay, you really want to say work for a basketball team, visit schools. You're never playing anywhere and go, can I be the student manager? And they're going to say, no, it's a really crowded field. Everybody wants to do it. Then you have to keep asking them over and over and over again, visit schools, you're never playing anywhere, and go, can I be the student manager? And they're gonna say, no, it's a really crowded field, everybody wants to do it.

Then you have to keep asking them over and over and over again. You have to outline the whole thing. And if there's this one program that won't let you do it, then don't go to school there. Go somewhere else where you feel like you have a better shot to break in. And then you're around the team, you're around the coaches,

you're building these relationships. And if you do a good job, like if you just do good work and you're not a shithead, it's amazing what works out for you in life. And I think that's really the only way to do it. If you're not going to have any kind of player or coaching background. Yeah. I just Googled, there's no sports nerd GM summer camps. Well, there's, there's for kids. GM summer camps. Well, there's for kids.

I mean, there's stuff. I mean, they do a Vegas one for NBA stuff of potential front office people. Really? Oh, yeah. I think I was having a hard time with the keyword search there. I was like, GM summer camp. These things exist. It was just a bunch of job openings for managing camps.

But they're tough. I remember when I went to the first Orlando draft camp, you know, and at that point I still, I was on the air, I'd just started, but I didn't really, I was kind of like, you know, much rather work for team. I have nothing to offer. So, you know, I wasn't some guy that, uh, like, oh, you're gonna hire this guy. Do you just theory on Bargnani? So I would see though, how desperate the other guys were to link with anybody

and get some kind of job. And they remember this one guy, man, he was early twenties. He had his awesome NBA folder that the outside is the same as a basketball. Like it kind of means you're official when you have one of those. And this guy kind of had one and he was just going around working the fucking room as hard as he possibly could. And he annoyed the shit out of literally everybody that he talked to. But he was hoping there was one person that he would make some sort of connection

with, it was like cold calling, but in person. And I was watching it going, oh my God, that sucks for that guy. It's awful. And he just kept going up to every single person hoping to leave those three or four days in Orlando, having made some kind of connection. And I think he had coached somewhere else in college. That's how we'd actually got a pass in there, having made some kind of connection. And I think he had coached somewhere else in college. That's how we'd actually got a pass in there, but he was out of work. And that kind of thing was happening all the time.

And if that scares the shit out of you, and you're like, I don't want to do that. I'm like, Oh, that must have sucked. I got myself, he felt like a loser every time somebody was like, okay, thanks, dude. Um, but he was undeterred. And if you can't be like that, uh, it was like the sales guy that we're talking about a few weeks ago. You want to do one more here, Kyle?

Yeah, because we have you. Because I felt like that one, just wasn't enough Kyle on that. Definitely wasn't my wheelhouse. No. I went off on a, when I was looking up camps, I was like, I had a thought, I was like, what is space camp?

So I started Googling space camp. Because I always heard about space camp, but I know they don't send you to space, but when I was a kid, I thought that it looks like they just train you to go to space. Michael Scott went to magic camp, right? Yes. He was like, it's not just for kids.

It's not just for kids. Yeah. I love that one. A lot of good, a lot of good Michael Scott stuff. Okay, here we go. Kyle, you take the lead on this one. This is a guy, 28, a male guy, 6'3", 195, 255 bench, 315 squat, NBA comp, Matt Bonner. My girlfriend and I are in our late 20s and attended an engagement party for a friend. We'll call him Steve and his fiancee who we'll call Amy this past weekend at a bar in our city. Steve's been a good friend over the past

seven years. I'm excited to be one of the three groomsmen in the wedding. Steve proposed to Amy in December and they're getting married in the fall. Unfortunately over the course of the event I may have made three mistakes Kyle. I may need to do some damage control. I would love your advice on how best to handle this. Number one, dress code was described as smart casual, which I interpreted as don't wear a hoodie. Knowing Steve is being a more laid back guy

at the venue itself, not being overly high end. And a quick- You're gonna say t-shirt. A quick scour Reddit. Wow. I mean, come on, dude. You fucking went to Reddit before you shot somebody a text. I figured a button down would be fine.

However, upon arrival, I was surprised to see almost all the 30 or so guests seemingly having interpreted this as a cocktail attire with all but two of the guys going with dress shirts and sport coats. I still believe the internet validates my choice as correct, but this got the night off on the wrong foot. It could be an age thing as we were among the youngest attendees or that Amy comes from a well-off family. Oh man, see that's the problem. If she's been doing the well-off family deal for a long time. Yeah, not only are they laughing at you, they're like, he's disrespecting us.

Yeah, look, senior week, we had our senior week crews in college. I had a girlfriend that was five years older than me that was not a student at the college. She came up for whatever reason, what an awful week to come up, even though technically I wasn't even graduating. And we sat down with the Rich's family and then they did the cocktail buffet thing where you have to go and order of tables.

And I'd never been to anything like that where you had to go and order. So I And I'd never been to anything like that, where you had to go in order to get up there. So I just went up there and then I sat back down and they did not get up and then watched us eat knowing that we had like broken protocol. And they looked at us with such overwhelming disdain. And I was like, what the fuck's wrong with them? You know, if you don't know, you don't know.

You don't know. You know, I still think that guy hates me. So anyway. That, yeah, right. If she's from like a family and this is how they get down, then you were judged. My friend and you were judged harshly. He brought a button up. Did he tuck it in? What did he say?

It was just a button up. It'd be sick if he's like, I went 2005 Aqua unbuttoned. Like Bajar. So anyway, so, but either way would not have been a massive deal in isolation on its own. We have two more mistakes to get to. Number two, shortly after arrival, I found a few of Steve's other friends

who were among those that decided to go with the WASPy attire. I know it well, my friend. I know it well. Trying to make light of the fact that we were obviously underdressed, I jokingly said to one of them, quote, if I had known this was a networking event, I would have brought business cards with me. While I thought this was a harmless comment, Amy, who I then realized was standing off the side of me as I said this, certainly did not think so. She proceeded to shoot me a dirty look and we did not interact

for the rest of the evening. We had met a few times previously though hanging out with Steve, but do not know each other overly well. Normally, I wouldn't be too concerned with something like this, but given that I'm in the wedding, I'd rather this not become a larger headache for Steve. Finally, number three, last but not least, I assumed engagement parties were a casual get together of friends that did not bring a gift. God, man, you did not prep for this at all. How the fuck did you grow up, guy? I don't mean.

I figured I would do things right by Steve by going above and beyond at the upcoming Destination Bachelor party alongside getting a tux and wedding gift for the big day later this year. The opinion was further reinforced by the fact I've only attended one other engagement party, which was last month for a friend in a different circle where no gifts were brought while I didn't have time to do a full inventory count. Let's just say many of the guests at this party held a different opinion. My question is, do I let this go or did I need to get out in front of this and apologize to Steve in hindsight? I probably should have brought something considering they were picking up

a check for the event. At this point, I think the sorry, I forget to bring a gift, gift after the fact is a tough look, but so is being the guy in the wedding who was among the most cavalier about the evening. Any advice to handle this would be much appreciated. Tough scene. I think you do the gift and I think you don't mention the off-color comment that was an earshot of the bride-to-be and you don't mention the dress code at all. I think there's the gift and that's it. You're like, I can't, we forgot the gift. I didn't want to bother you with it then, but whatever. Hey, our guy's young, he's inexperienced in these ways. And this is the kind of stuff that happens.

I mean, there was all sorts of things that I had to learn the hard way. And I was like, wait, you do what? Like you do that? You know, and other friends of mine that had older brothers or older sisters that had been married, you know, I had never really been in that scene

up until post-college. So there was all sorts of stuff that I was doing as the oldest. Like I didn't have an older brother or sister be like, what are you doing, you idiot? You know, and I didn't grow up with money. So I never went to any of this fancy shit. Like one of my friends who got married in Georgetown,

I was like, oh, I'm kind of hooking up with this girl. Can I bring her to that? And he's like, no, it's not. You can't, what are you, an asshole? Right. I don't need to spend more money just so you have a date. Like this is supposed to be someone that matters to you. And I thought he was being the stiff, right?

Cause I'm just so dumb and immature and just not, I'm not seasoned yet. And he's like, wait, you just want to bring some random? I was like, well, it said plus one. He goes, no, he goes, is it somebody special that's in your life? Like this is my fucking wedding and it's actually pretty small. It's really expensive. And it's like kind of a big deal.

You even get invited. My wife doesn't even know you. And I'm like, okay, yeah, man, whatever, dude, you know, chill out. And I had to get hit over the head with these different things in life before you start realizing like, wow, I'm not very housebroken with the way of, you could also just say, Hey, I grew up poor, Amy. I grew up poor. I don't know what to say. Maybe our guy didn't grow up poor. But like that's always what you need to do. And I think Kyle hit on this is

that you can't say like, Hey, look, I'm going to the bachelor party and I'm getting a tux. You need to do something for Amy. Okay, that has nothing to do with the bachelor party, has nothing to do with the groom, has nothing to do with your role there. You barely knew her, you made a horrible first impression, although the networking line is pretty good. This is her engagement party.

She's gonna be absurdly like reactionary to anything that's happening because this is a list of all of her magic moments she's about to have. So Kyle, what would you do for Amy, if you were our guy here? I would get something that could be considered as a weed gift that like Steve and Amy could use, but a weed gift, a weed gift, a joke with my wife about this, when she gets to me stuff for my birthday that like, she's obviously

going to use, I call it a weed gift. She doesn't like that. So maybe I said weed. I was like, all right, bad, bad start. Bad start. Um, definitely would be playing into the, playing into the persona they already have for you. But I think you give it to Amy if you can get some FaceTime with her, or you just give it to your buddy or send it to the house or whatever.

But I think you make it a gift that she would appreciate more than he would. And that's it. Because I think you're within your rights to be messing things up because I think the mid to late 20s wedding is easily the most formal thing any of these any of your shithead friends have gone to right at least but it's also the biggest opportunity for error because of all the things that we've just talked about we're like there's just there are people in the front and I was one of those guys I'm like how does this work and I didn't know any of the things.

And then everybody yells at you. It's like the first time you go to a golf course. You don't know what you're not supposed to do. You're supposed to be quiet now. Oh, okay. What the, oh, it needs to be tucked in. All right. That guy just yelled at me to tuck in my belt.

That kind of place. Got it. All right. Whatever. So like, I think that the people throwing weddings and inviting 20 something year olds should be prepared a little bit for that. At the same time, everyone's mastered their own destiny and if you don't know, that's

not an excuse. But I think people will have a little grace when they're in their 20s and they're like, oh, those are just my buddies. They don't know. So I think just trying to show that you're trying to make good without necessarily explaining why you were wrong. Just like just get the gift i know it's like you're getting hammered by all the cost for weddings it's really terrible the nice friends i have didn't remind me about how much they paid to come my wedding the ones that didn't think about maybe they shouldn't say that to me mentioned.

You know all the money they had to spend. you know, all the money they had to spend. It's just a messy, this time of people getting married at this age, it's just messy a little. It's messier than, you know, a 35 year old wedding. Handwritten note, nobody writes handwritten notes. People stopped writing handwritten notes decades ago. All right, so you go even against the grain more, you, sanding term, you decide that,

do you know where old salt comes from, by the way, Kyle? No, you gotta tell me. Yes, not because of salt water, but because of a high pork salt diet of sailors. So, just in case everybody was confused about that, you're gonna be ready for the weekend. The handwritten note, Amy, I'm an idiot. I've never been- Oh, you're gonna apologize, been, I've never been to one of these before.

Please take this gift as a token of my appreciation for our invitation, the involvement in the wedding and you putting together a big night. Boom. There you go. And if she's still mad at you then that it was never going to be fixed. Yeah. Or you could go the other route and be like, Hey, sorry that I didn't understand that you were going to obsess about every part of the timeline

and treat it like the fucking pope changing over. Hey, sorry you're mad. Sorry my shirt wasn't fancy enough for you and all of your Westport friends. I know Staples had a much higher academic standard than where I went and I've just got my first pair of chinos So sorry, I didn't take your pre pre pre thing is now I'm just kidding. You know what to do Hey, I'm an idiot first thing ever

my bad token of my appreciation to be involved in this very special event in your life and if if Anybody can't see that act because most people won't even do that All right, you'll kind of put it off, you can fuck around and like, look, I still think I own Johnny and like a wedding gift. All right. So, and he got married not last week. Very, very simple solution. And then it's kind of in her court, she's still going to be mad at you, which there's a chance that could happen. You'll at least feel better about what you did. Okay. You know, be great at the repair job would be just stuff that'll help you in life.

Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Oregon. Thanks to Saruti. Just for general presence and influence on the pod. Check out our YouTube page, the Ryan Russo podcast on Spotify. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started.

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