The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Trade Market Check-In With Bobby Marks, Plus NFL Divisional Round Preview and Picks With Ted Nguyen

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Russillo welcomes Bobby Marks to preview the NBA trade deadline and discuss what could happen to Jimmy Butler, Bradley Beal, Zach LaVine, and Zion Williamson (0:42). Then, he’s joined by Ted Nguyen to break down all four divisional-round games, share where teams have the edge, and give his picks (52:51). Finally, Ceruti and Kyle join for Life Advice (80:39)! How do I handle my friend with money offering to pay for things for us? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Bobby Marks and Ted Nguyen Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's podcast is loaded. We've got NBA, we've got NFL, we start with Bobby Marx taking a look at the NBA names that are part of the NBA trademark. Can I interest you in some deal? Perhaps some butler, maybe a little Zion, even a little little bean. And then we're going to talk with Ted Winn from The Athletic who is just great on the film breakdown stuff. I've enjoyed reading his stuff all season long so he's going to help us look for some things in the divisional round for this weekend. Then he's going to pick all the games. We got life advice. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian super store with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points.

Visit superstore.ca to get started. Joining us to talk about the NBA is we're about the halfway mark. Almost game 40 for a lot of teams. It's Bobby Marks, former front office executive and one of my favorite NBA guests. Okay, let's, let's look at it this way. Let's look at all these headlines things. Let's talk it out. All the different stuff I have talked about Jimmy Butler, not a ton on the pod. But like I felt like it was, it's exciting. It's the big

name. It's the next domino to fall with the with the drama. I mean, we're used to having these things happen. So this is exciting. So he gets suspended. He's eligible to come back tomorrow. We know that there's a massive player option north of 50 million this summer. We can talk about the egos involved and that Jimmy's a stubborn guy and that Pat is somebody who's a pretty accomplished dude who's not going to be pushed around a little bit.

I guess I've just never quite wondered why the Heat would still want to be in the Jimmy Butler business. You don't want to sign him to a long-term deal. He's 35. Um, he was always a pain in the ass there, but he was your pain in the ass. And when you were winning, it was worth it. Uh, now it's not worth it. I don't really think the market for him would be all that great in

looking at previous deals. Cause I think sometimes you'd be like, well, how many picks or whatever? It's like, I don't know. I'd be like one okay pick and one other pick that doesn't really mean anything. And then I wonder as I promise I'll get to your bottom, but then I wonder like, will we have a James Harden thing where Jimmy doesn't get traded before the deadline, rides it out.

And then it's like, actually the best way for me to sort of protect my money is to opt in for the $52 million player option this summer. And then they're stuck with me all over again, because James did that strategically, not because he wanted freedom, because he knew he'd be able to kind of control, um, where he could go and then what his next contract would be. So I just don't, I think this is an asset that's a, a far more diminished asset than the actual attention it's getting, but it's getting the attention because it's the heat, because it's Butler and we don't really have anything else other than BL, which we'll get to.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I think there's a lot of different ways to go at this. I think you could say, listen, Miami missed the window to trade them. They knew there was going to be smoke. Right? As soon as they didn't sign him to this extension that he's still eligible to for 113, you knew eventually during the season here there was going to be some type of blow up, right? You just didn't know when it was going to be and then it happens sometime in late December. So you could say like, well, they should have just traded him this summer, right? Like that would have probably made the most sense from a clean standpoint. And you're not dealing with this. They elected

not to do it from a common sense perspective. I know we're probably throwing common sense out the window a little bit here. The best thing for him to do is when the extension is lifted for him to report and play Friday night against Denver and Sunday against San Antonio and play like an all-NBA type level player. That's the best approach for Jimmy Butler. And that's the best approach for Miami. And then continually see if there's a deal by February 6. And if not, opt into your contract and let's see if we can, well, let's find you a home during the summer. Right? That is the logical thing to happen here. And I've been told multiple times, certainly by people close to his camp, like that was going to happen. And then the wheels fell off track. You know,

the train went off the track a couple of weeks ago and with those two games and everything, and he gets suspended here. And I think that's going to be the unknown. What happens with that Denver game? Is he going to be standing in a corner again? He's going to be passive aggressive. Like there's a lot to go into that here. I think at the end of the day for Miami, they're not, you know this, they're not trading them for Bradley Beal. They're not going to go out there and appease Jimmy Butler because Phoenix is the number one choice for Jimmy Butler. But they're not taking back Bradley Beal and $110 million. what other deals are out there to make? And I think, I know things were been floating around that Jimmy Butler wouldn't want to play in Milwaukee

or Memphis and teams like that. If I'm a team like Memphis and I'm trading some expirings and maybe Marcus Smart or even Brandon Clark and I get to give a first round pick, expirings and maybe, you know, Marcus Smart or even Brandon Clark and I get to give a first round pick. This is hypothetical. I might take a swing for that for the next four months with Jimmy Butler on my team because here's the reality. Who's going to sign him in free agency? That's the $100 million question.

I don't see anyone lined up to sign him with cap space. I don't see Brooklyn going out there and signing him, although Brooklyn will have $60 million in Capspace and pay him $40 million. The hard part comes with though, Ryan, is, okay, let's say this plays out and he opts in. This is a different CBA than it was back in 2019 when Jimmy was signed and traded from Philly to Miami. That was a complicated trade, and that was under the prior CBA here. So there's a lot of different layers, but at the end of the day, what eventually happens is controlled by Jimmy Butler. Because the reality is, Miami,

and I'm just talking for myself, if I was in their front office, he acts out again, I'm suspending him again, right? Like I'm just going to continue the cycle here and that's not good for anybody at all. Yeah, look, when I've watched Jimmy this year, the advanced stuff is off the charts for him. I think that's really misleading. I see a guy that is disinterested a lot of nights.

I've seen entire stretches of a quarter where he doesn't even want to get involved in the action. And it's funny cause like, you could have the advanced stats thrown in your face. It's like, look at his PR, look at the windshield, look at the efficiency, all this stuff. The guy takes a million free throws cause people go for the up fake and he gets the call. I think the free throw stuff for him is saving his statistical profile in a way that you don't really pick up unless you watch them enough. And it's not to say like he's washed. I'm not, I'm not saying that. I think the Memphis thing is probably the only one that I've heard that actually makes basketball sense because it raises your ceiling. Like this is another really interesting thing.

Like when you look at the West this summer and you're like, look at all of that depth. And it was, the depth was kind of based look at the West this summer and you're like, look at all of that depth. And it was, the depth was kind of based on like fear of like, imagine having to go up against them in the Western Conference finals and everything. Other than OKC, I don't really think there's anyone to be afraid of. Like it's not that there's not depth, but the rating, like if there were tier one depth, it's like a bunch of tier two to tier three depth and maybe Dallas, because man, when they have those guys, we know what they did last year and they

know what kind of exactly they are. And I like their rotation options even better than last year's finals team. I don't know if Denver's going to be good enough to like be at that OKC level, certainly not Minnesota. I really love watching Houston, but there's certain nights with them that I don't always love. So like the Memphis part, the Memphis part from a basketball, like, hey, let's just, let's just get this guy in here as a motherfucker and see what happens. That one kind of makes a lot of sense if if he's but I don't like, is this one of those deals where he's more

motivated if he's hearing the right things financially ahead of time about what his options are this summer? That's the biggest thing, right? Like, cause all of this is financially driven. I know Jimmy Butler can come out and say, well, they're not using me right. And I'm not part of the offense. Well, I watched the game a month ago in Detroit where he went, he, well, he put up 31 and he was part of the office. So I think that's a little bit of a cop out here.

And I do think it's, I think this is primarily financially driven here. But this has been sitting here since July when Pat Riley came out and basically said we were not extending Jimmy Butler. So as you said, I think the Memphis thing makes the most sense. Who knows if that ever, you know, if there was ever any life to that.

Listen, when the list of teams that had come out back in December, whether it be Houston and Golden State and Dallas and Phoenix, the only clean team out of that was Houston. From a financial standpoint, draft picks, young players, and Houston's probably saying, wait a minute, we're the number two seed in the West, let's go to the playoffs

and see what we got. Let's get Jalen Green in a playoff series and Sangoon and Thompson and Easton in that crew. And then we'll figure out what's going to happen in the offseason. You're similar. I know OKC went out and got Hayward last year and he was a non-factor in the playoffs, but Oakland said it was like a science experiment, right? All right, what works against Dallas? What didn't work against Dallas? What do we need to address? We got to get rebound in Hartnestein. We got to get another defender in Caruso. That's the approach for me for Houston as far as how I see that. Trey Lockerbie I also think OKC didn't like the Mieczic fit and went, hey, let's get off of this money too on the Gordon deal on top of everything else. So I think there was like another layer of that was like, oh, look, they're doing something that may not work out. But there's also potentially another smart reason why they're doing it. Because they probably expected a little bit more out of him when they finally brought him over and given them an extension. Well, not an extension, but like a multi-year deal.

All right. Maybe I, maybe we make this the golden state part and then we'll get the deal after this. Because I totally get it. Like you need to figure out with Steph at this age and still playing this well. And you know, I think this becomes kind of the noise on social media of like, they weren't a 12 and three team. They're not a very good basketball team right now. And there's some shooting numbers where you're like, everybody was making shots. They were playing absurd level defense, but now to watch Steph out there with a

massive drop off to who the number two scoring option is and you know, some nights Wiggins has it, Kaminka's had a couple of moments, but when you watch them in all their clutch games, I think they played 24, They lost to Toronto the other night and you watch what Steph is dealing with. Like Steph is not the problem with this basketball team, right? I can't believe anybody could ever come to that conclusion. But you're like, okay, well, how do we help him when the options are the Beals of the world, not to say that they have a match for Beal or the butlers of the world. That's even though like you would hate being in the front office and telling Lakeup in ownership that, Hey, we're going to wait for the thing that I can't

tell you is going to present itself, but I'm promising you waiting for the unknown is still better than trading for the known and that's where the Butler stuff doesn't, I still don't really think it changes who they are. And if you're waiting for this magical trade, the change who the warriors are and become a title contender, like you're probably waiting forever. But some of these quick fix, like, because somebody's a name, a Levine or these types of like acquisitions where you're like, well, you made the team better and now there's a better number two scoring option. Those are the things I would have a hard time saying yes to if you're in the position of

running a front office. Well, even like Nicole Gusevik, right? Like, you know, do you want to give a nice stat? Yeah, you want to give up first and then instead of running a front office. Well, even like Nicole Gusevik, right? Like, you know, do you want to give up first? Yeah, do you want to give up first? And then instead of having five first, the summer you've got, you know, three or four, you know, like it diminishes.

I thought what Steph Curry said after that Toronto game was one of the most fascinating things I have heard an NBA player say. And if I was Mike Dunleavy Jr., I would be thinking, thank God he said it, right? Like as far as, hey, like we're not going to do a quick fix. We're going to work. You know, sometimes you got to be smart about these things and knee jerk reaction and stuff like that. I think the reality, Ryan, with Golden State, it's like a guy playing cards, right? You know, you got a stack of chips at the table

and eventually you just see the chips go down and down and then you just figure out, you know what? I just need to walk away. I need to pick up my chips and walk away. And I don't see a big swing out there. And I think it might disappoint the fan base in Golden State. And I'm just looking at their numbers, where they are. They're $6 million over the luxury tax. It's going to disappoint the fan base where maybe their only move might be to get under the luxury tax. That might be a realistic situation here where you're looking at moving Gary Payton or Looney

or something like that. Guys are making $8-9 million, attach a second, pay the rest of their salary, do something like that. That might be like the more common sense thing to do than basically say, hey, Wiggins, Kaminga, expirings, let's go get Zach Levin. Because eventually, and I don't know when it will be, there'll be something better come July. Usually it happens that way. Somebody gets the multiple teams get knocked out. Guys get mad. Players want to be traded.

Somebody knocked out of the first round or doesn't make the play in will become available. I don't know. Maybe Zion becomes available. I know we wanted to talk about that. I said it on NBA Today. That's a guy like, listen, low risk, right? As far as if you don't have to give up as much because you can kind of see where his upside here is. But I do think, I think from the Golden State perspective, I think that reality is set in, right? This is kind of who they are. When Buddy Hill is your X factor and you need Buddy Hill to be like top five three point shooter in the NBA, that's a lot, right? That's a lot to ask for. I just don't know how the Warriors got this lucky to have somebody be this smart in the face of the

franchise. I mean, he's the greatest teammate of his generation and that he would do the opposite of what so many other stars would be doing, especially as their window closes, where it's like, hey, just do something because I'm a star and you owe this to me, even though it doesn't make basketball sense. I just want to be super impatient. I want to put public pressure on you. I want to do all this bullshit stuff. It's passive aggressive because I deserve to and I get to and instead Steph just goes the the other way like the logical basketball way of like Sure. Yeah, we can do like something stupid Which is not what he's saying, but he's essentially saying that uh, all right

So do you think Yanis was saying something when he was talking about the records against the top team? You know, it's funny. I had a I don't know the answer by the way I don't know either. I mean, a lot of stuff is pretty crypt funny, I had a... I don't know the answer, by the way. That wasn't like a leading question. I don't know either. I mean, a lot of this stuff is pretty cryptic. I had an article, I wrote an article, and you'll appreciate this. I had a Milwaukee article written, like on the doom and gloom of Milwaukee

and how they were, you know, like this is back in, I don't know, November, maybe late November. And this is when things were bad. I think two and eight bad, somewhere around there. And they went on a swimming streak. They won like six in a row. And then it got scrapped, right? Just got cut and we're not going to... But listen, what Milwaukee is, is that John Horst has made 28 trades since he took over as GM. He is one of the most creative GMs out there. Eventually, the ATM machine is dry, man.

It ain't spending that money anymore here. And you've got a 2031 first that you could trade. You got one second and you can't aggregate contracts. You got Portis, Middleton, Portis, Middleton, Connington, Lopez. Those are your trade pieces here. And it's like, relying on Damon and Yanis. And I know some of the younger players have played well for you. Um, but they have not been good against, you know, they beat OKC in the NBA cup game, but they have not been good against, you know, the top of the Eastern conference. And that's who you're going to have to get through here.

Because I think people feel like the Dame acquisition was based on Yanis. The Yanis smoke stuff has been really weird for a long time. And then Bucks fans have just since, and I don't really blame them. How come you guys always keep hinting at all these different things and then it doesn't really happen and then he signs the extension? Well, it's crazy. It's funny. You'll appreciate this. I had to go on NBA Today, this was a couple weeks ago, and show like creative trades and basically how like Milwaukee could aggregate contracts without, you know, like without,

with getting under the second apron and we threw up like a fictitious Jimmy Butler trade, right? Like Middleton and Porter's were going to Miami and Connington was going to Detroit, this convoluted thing. And Bucks fans were like, oh my God, this is happening. And I was like, wait a minute, like fictional, right? Like it's not real and stuff like that. And even like, if it was real, I don't think Milwaukee would do something like that. I just don't. That's basically having like one swing left and you're basically going to use it on Jimmy Butler. Yeah, it's a scary proposition.

All right. So how much there's still more to do. Don't worry folks. Cause we haven't really done the Beale Levine thing and maybe Milwaukee works and all of that too, but whether it's a Butler deal, I mean, Beale has the no trade, so that's, that's more like outright public control, right? Like, Hey, this is what I want to do. This is what I don't want to do.

But with somebody like Butler, where you're on the front office side and you're trying to figure out, like you're talking to his reps going, how, like, how's this going to go if we trade for your guy? And then they say, well, you know, how invested are you perhaps longterm in our guy? How do those conversations work that we know aren't necessarily supposed to happen, but it's the way business is done. So they have to happen for everybody to feel like they know what they're walking into. I think, I think the smart thing, and I don't, I believe this has not happened.

Um, just because I dealt with this with Carmelo back in the way back in 2010, Denver allowed permission for teams to talk to Butler and his reps. I mean, Anthony and his reps. Yeah, Anthony and his reps. So I think if I was Miami and you get to a point and there are teams that are, you know, that they're interested and there could be a framework of something, I think that's something that the heat should do. And they probably won't as far as say like, Hey, Memphis, we're going to give you 24 hours. You can meet with Jimmy Butler and his agent, Bernie Lee and figure out like if this makes sense and go from there.

But I think if I'm in a, if I'm in a front office, I think my big question is what's the number next year? Like, what are you, what are we looking for? You've got a $52 million player option. We're not going up from that number. Right? Like you want to start at 40 and go from there or maybe we could decline and we get creative and we do a Chris Paul type contract.

Remember Chris signed that? Four for 120 and the first two years were guaranteed and there was a partial there and you want to do something like that, give you some length, we'd be interested in that. But the idea of that, and maybe suddenly if he was traded to Phoenix, maybe they're going to basically reward him with whatever they want. The idea of giving Jimmy Butler a two-year, because if he's traded, you can extend them for 2, 4, 1, 11. That number at 36, 37. The reality probably, though, Ryan, it won't end bad because that will be the last contract. It's not like he's waiting for another one. It's not like

this is Miami or Minnesota or Philly or Chicago or the other places here. But I think that's the conversation with me is kind of what's the number, right? Like what's the number are you willing to, and are, and is he going to be happy with that number? Like that's the, that's the most important thing. Right now, outside of that official current team, allowing that say 24 or 48 hour I mean, imagine like the tires are kicked though in hypotheticals, right? Oh, sure. They're your, your. Right, so the agent knows,

the agent knows before that granted access of where your head is at financially. Yeah, the pigeon, the pigeons are flying above with the notes, right? They're, they're kind of dropping the notes as far as with that. Yeah, you have a, you have a sense, but I think it would be what I would want,

I would want to see the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the pigeon, the pigeons are flying above with the notes, right? They're, they're kind of dropping the notes as far as with that. Yeah. You have a, you have a sense, but I think it would be what I would want. I would want to talk to the player that, you know, it's one thing, you know, kind of back channeling with the agent. I would want to talk with the player. Yeah.

That would be important to me. I would want my coach and I would want my, my general manager to talk to the player. Yeah. Do you have moments where you hear everything you wanna hear, but you know it's all bullshit? Oh, you can read through guys. Come on, man.

You can read through guys. I think the other thing too is like, it always says, what are we giving up? Right? Like, what are we giving up? Like, as far as are these core guys, are these expirings, are these guys that are hurt, not part of the rotation?

Is it worth it? That goes into it too. But yeah, that's why, as I said, I would want, you know, I'd want my coach sitting, I would want to meet with the player, you know, even if it's over Zoom. I still think the Memphis one makes basketball sense. I don't know what pieces would be going out.

Yeah, well listen, it's easy. It's basically you would have to trade Marcus Smart, Brandon Clark. I'm not talking about the money. I'm talking about the one, give me the one thing that everybody can look at Houston and say, well yeah, but you're not getting Tarice and you're not getting any of those guys.

Is there a player, Wells has been so good for them as a rookie, by the way, Memphis is for an office. The stuff that they do, finding these guys, they are in the conversation with just doing, like if you wanna go, who do you trust late in the first, in the draft where you're like, they have just a nice track record. First of all, I just wanted to mention,

I was watching Welles the other night. As bad as it was last year in Memphis, they basically use it as an audition in a developmental year for all these guys and this is kind of what you're getting right now. I mean, that's what happened. Yeah, right, so, it's kind of like how I feel about Orlando a little bit.

Like it sucks that Paolo and Franz went out, but I think there's gonna be a reward for those minutes for a lot of the guys in the Magic that were pushed into a spot to keep it going, keep the seat warm, and then they're gonna get their dudes back. But I guess there's just a moment of me with Memphis where some of these draft picks are a little bit more off the radar, and then you're gonna get their dudes back. But I guess there's just a moment of me with Memphis where some of these draft picks are a little bit more

off the radar and then you're like, hey, that guy can play like Santi Aldama and that guy can play, like check it out. But what I'm saying not on the money matching part of it is that if you're Miami, there has to be some, there has to be some kind of asset. Like that's a weird, it's always a weird player. Like, hey, we kind of like that.

Yeah. Like if we're talking like baseball, right? Like who's that AAA guy, that third basement in the system that we can like, we could trade for and then we can, you know, he's going to be our guy moving forward. Listen, I love Jake Larravia. I know that's not the household name and everything like that. And I like Santi Aldama, what he's been able to do. LaRavia's problem is that Memphis declined his fourth year option. So whoever trades for him is limited as far as what they can pay him in free agency. It's like in that four to five million dollar range. So that would be a guy that I would really want, but I don't know.

I think you're going to probably get outbid in free agency worth. I think it would be Aldama, um, just based on as far as what he's been able to do, um, this year in, uh, in Memphis, as far as kind of who that blue chip guy is. See, that's exactly what I was talking about is that, you know, unless it's, unless it's the second first, right? There would probably have to be some pick. And because it's Memphis, you know, whatever, it's not like Miami's clearly one of the smarter organizations, so they're not going to be like, oh, cool.

We get this first in 31. This is, this is, this is awesome. Like, well, what does it turn into? If you're in need of a midweek boost, Fandel America's number one sports book has you covered with the NBA hump day parlay profit boost now every Wednesday you can get a parlay profit boost on everything from spreads to over unders and even player props. Okay, three games I'm looking at here that I will share with you right now looking at fan of the sports book.

Okay, a couple different theories behind these things as well. There's a bit of a Celtics, what's going on with you guys, malaise and the Raptors coming off a nice win against Golden State. So it's a bit of a zag on the Celtics not playing as well, Raptors being excited. I just think when you actually look at some of these teams that are about to go full, we don't give a bleep anymore. The number really can't be big enough. So there's two teams with that, We don't give a bleep anymore. The number really can't be big enough.

So, um, there's two teams with that Brooklyn and Toronto. So I would, I don't like giving out as many points, but it is, uh, Boston minus 15, try to get right in Toronto, Brooklyn in LA, um, I would say Clippers minus 14 on that one. And then if you want something with some points, Charlotte is actually favored. So the guys paying attention to this, as you'd imagine the people that do this professionally, Utah has actually been a tick more competitive

since their probably season low moment of four, I don't know and five and twenty Charlotte you probably forgot this but they started six and nine They are two and 18 since that's not very good, but they've actually been kind of competitive Whether it's the Phoenix win the Phoenix rematch The Cleveland game they were in that one. They were in the Detroit game. Chicago's lost the overtime there.

So I actually think Charlotte's been playing a little bit better basketball here lately. So why don't we just go, didn't want to do this, but it's three favorites. So the Hornets minus five in Salt Lake against a resurgent jazz squad, if makes any sense because it probably doesn't because they're both not very good teams but you get the point so don't let the weekend have all the fun take advantage of the hump day parlay's reward stack who knows it might just become your favorite

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Let's, let's bring it back around to Beal. He is an interesting player. Um, I think it's just always disappointing. It's probably the nicest way I could put it. I don't even have to use the playoff game last year where he was terrible, but for whatever his skillset is in his athleticism and the numbers in Washington,

I just think it's a guy that it's always going, the experience is always gonna leave you with, how come this isn't better? and that's basically been his career and his availability has has been a question for years and years here. So the fact that you've got the no trade part of this, um, what is the market for him? Well, listen, I talked to a couple of teams about it and the biggest hindrance Listen, I talked to a couple of teams about it and the biggest hindrance is not a five and a seven in the last year, is that no trade comes with it. And listen, Mark Bartelstein, his agent, went on the record with Wendy and said, we're not

removing that from the contract. You trade for them, it's coming with them, right? That's a hindrance that teams mentioned to me. For some teams, that's like a non-starter as far as because what happens a year from now and we want to maybe flip them again, we're basically going through this same process here. Man, he's owed $110 million after this year, 53 and 57. Um, I wish the game and when they play, when he came off the bench in Philly,

that I wish that was more that we saw that we've seen. I mean, you watch the, uh, during, they were in Atlanta the other last night, I think not good. Um, no Atlanta game last night. I mean, look, collectively, those guys look bad when the Charlotte loss. I know they split with them in that stretch over a week, but when they lost to them, the weirdest part of it was like Charlotte actually looked

like the better basketball team for a game. Yeah, even the game they won in Phoenix, I mean, Charlotte had them on the ropes going into the fourth. You know, like that wasn't a layup there. The market for him, listen, there's, I always say say every player is tradable, but man, he is pretty close to basically just because of how high that number and where we are with all these rules, the inability for Phoenix to trade trade multiple draft picks to attach with them. They only have a 2031. They've got a couple seconds here. People say, well, Detroit would take them.

I'm like, I don't think so, man. Charlotte would take them. You're not taking $57 million or $53 million unless you're getting a lot back. That just doesn't make sense here. Like that just doesn't make sense here. So it's a fascinating situation because it's not going to get much better in Phoenix next year. We might be doing this podcast a year from now and you'd be like, what's going on, son? I'd be like, Groundhog Day, right? Their guys are going to be older. They're still going to have one first round pick to trade. They're still going to be in the second apron. They're still going to pay a record high, maybe $500 million in luxury tax and penalty. And they're going to have hard decisions to make as far as if they have to pivot off this. And if you pivot off it, whether it be Durant, let's say, the likelihood is that Biela

is still going to be on your roster. That's just the reality of it here. That's something they needed to accept when they traded for him in Washington here. The market for him is not great. Listen, would Milwaukee trade for him? If you basically, the package I just mentioned and stuff, that's a big number. It's like you'd almost rather just have some flexibility to the soft season and try to, you know, add through free agency. You know, going back to when it happened, you know, the argument for it is you

just got Bradley Beale for free, right? You got Bradley Beale for free and considering what your financial restrictions were going to be, especially as we moved into a new economic landscape, which is changing a lot of what's even possible. Cause like, I even think about the Butler stuff where you go, well, normally the guy's just going to get his way, right? He's going to get his way. He's going to find a way to get out.

There'll be some team that does like a two plus one for like, he'll probably figure it out and get paid because even at that age, it's kind of what the history has told us. And now I think that we're going to start realizing, I've made it in the players are going to start realizing, like, there's just not enough places to even compete for your services. Even like sometimes I even look at the hardened deal with the Clippers and it's worked for them. They needed him, they needed his usage.

They, you know, he's going to put up numbers. We were like, man, that's a big number for somebody that I wonder like how much competition there was for. So maybe that's a sign of history, not shifting the way maybe I'm expecting it to maybe it happens with Butler or whatever. But when I think about the Beal part of it is it's super easy to be like, what is wrong with you guys? You should have never ever done it.

But like the asset math is, is hard for a team to ignore. I mean, like we're literally getting Bradley Beale for free, um, except for what you have to pay him. The problem is, is it, it needed to work out in a basketball sense. You needed him to be excited about it. And he's just not that guy. He just, he just, I don't even know who would debate the other side of this. And I think the scary thing for Phoenix is all right, you want to, you

want to bring him off the bench. Like you want to maybe make it a little uncomfortable for him to become a little bit more open to waving the no trade clause to a couple of different teams. This is a dude that sat around on the wizard's bench that was more than happy getting his 30 points, losing every night. And then he had nights where he would like be just sitting by himself, kind of shaking and sad, kind of feeling like he was motherfucking the entire experience. And yet waiting to get his five year extension.

So like, I don't think that Beale can be shamed would be like, he's already shown us when he was with the wizards, like, Hey, you think me coming off the bench in Phoenix is bad? Like I'll do this. Like, don't, don't worry about me. Like I'm not, I'm not going to do anything that you guys, the basketball part of it needed to be what we think the best version of him can be. And it just isn't.

Well, yeah. I mean, listen, you think he really wants to pick up in the middle of February and move somewhere else with his wife and kids? Come on, man. That ain't easy either. I mean, he made, listen, I give Mark Barlose and his agent a ton of credit because he put that no trade clause in there when nobody else had it. And he had the right to, you should have heard the phone calls Ryan, when that happened, because we had put it out.

And I remember being in the summer league that year and I had teams coming up to me, like angry, like anger with me. I'm like, I didn't do any, like I didn't negotiate, like they're angry with me because I put it out. Like you're killing me. Like now I got to deal with like this, you know, with this agent and that guy. And I'm like, so what do you want me to do about it and stuff. And listen, it's, you know, the eight years in the NBA, four with the

team. It's open. It's available to everyone, right? You can go out there and negotiate it and listen, there's, I was talking with Jeff Passon about this cause about MLB guys and there's 44 MLB guys that have it. There's two in the NBA, LeBron and Bradley Beal. And we're probably not going to see another one unless it's Victor down the road or something like that here. And the reason why they're so rare, Ryan, is that you can't include them in extensions. They basically have to be a free agent type contract.

And how many guys actually hit free agency now? Yeah, I wonder if we'll see a shift to that though, where it started going from, I mean, however far back in the timeline you want to go, you wait until you're a free agent, everybody's stockpiling all of their cap space. This is going to be really exciting. And then the player's just like, what's the point?

Just take the extension and ask for the trade later. And then it was like, I'll ask for the trade for a year out. No, I'll ask for a trade like halfway with a year and a half out. And then we had guys going, I don't give a shit that the extension hasn't even kicked in yet. I want out, which I think is part of the restrictive language for the trades in the CBA. It's not just the penalties.

It's not just trying to find a way of curbing spending at the very top. You now get to go to your star player and say, I know you're mad and I know you want to go there and I can't legally do it. So I think all that stuff is, and I know you already understand all this. I'm explaining it to the CBA guy like you don't. I still think we didn't do enough on Zion. What do you do if you're David Griffin? Oh man.

Well, Tim McMahon and I wrote this article back in the end of December. And really the theme was trying to figure out what his value is. He's like the mystery man, the hardest guy to figure out in the NBA as far as what his value is. I was shockingly surprised that his value was higher than it was when we both of us talked to a ton of teams, that there was it was, there was value there, right? Like, but man, is he an enigma and it ain't even on the court. It's like you're out rehab and you come back and now like, and I know two months. And I know by the way, you look good. He looked good

physically, like the first game he came back. Cause I was so excited. We wrote about it. Cause you know, he's got these weight clauses in there, in this contract, right? Like he's gonna hit the weight clauses. Like that's, he looks great. He looks physical, man. He's doing windmill 360s and you know, he looked great against, who'd they play last night?

Chicago and you know, like listen, he looked great, but dammit, can you just get to the plane on time, right? Can you get the practice on time? Can you do all these things that they're asking you to be? You know, you're the face of the franchise and you've played, I don't know, 30% of regular season games and we're paying $38 million here. So if you're Griff in New Orleans, you're trying to maximize as much value on the court, but then there's still the risk of him man, a hamstring, a calf, or something like that. But as I said,

teams have called this contract one of the great ones in the NBA, because it's like an NFL type contract. It's got rolling protections. If you play a certain amount of games or you hit the weight clauses, certain parts get guaranteed and the next three years aren't guaranteed. So I would probably wait it out this year. Hopefully he stays healthy for the last whatever 40 games and then reevaluate where you are and then maybe look for trade shooters. I think it'll be interesting what happened, you know, Ingram, right? Like we haven't heard about him at all, man.

He's been hurt with the ankle and stuff like that. What happens? What's the market for, for brand Ingram? What's the value for brand Ingram? Right. Is it expirings in a, you know, a future first down the road? I don't know. And I think that's going to be another one to kind of watch, um, in the next few weeks.

I was praising Zach Kleinman in Memphis, um, without saying his name. We're just talking about the group in Memphis, but he deserves a shout out. I feel bad for the Pelicans front office because I think they have done. One of the best jobs of like roster creation. Uh, I don't love the Dejante trade as much, but I understood them feeling like they had to be different. And you know, it's real easy to be like, oh, you should have traded Zion, but he finally, you finally got the season from him

prior to him getting hurt in the playoff, the playing game, which, you know, derails everything, finally kind of working out and coming together because of his health. I am not surprised though, when you and Tim did the piece that there's more value for a Zion market, because that actually doesn't surprise me. Like his one stop, hey, get him out of New Orleans. Like, we'll bring him in with our guys. Like, we're going to do this thing. I don't know if it was Shams or somebody had reported like, it wasn't that it was going to happen, but you could just wave Zion. And I was like, look, he's actually still,

that to me was ridiculous. Cause you're like, that's not the way it works. Yeah. The only time I would see a team waving Zion would be like the fifth, yeah. If they get them or you know, you get to the fifth year and like this thing has not worked at all. Fine. It's like, but that's fine.

Then we're just going to release it. They ain't waving them. Like that ain't, that ain not worked at all. Like this is like, but that's fine. Then we're just going to release it. They ain't waving a man. Like that ain't, that, that, that ain't happened at all. Like I, we, I talked to one team and I said like, give me a number one to 10. What do you think his value is? I was waiting for like a three or four. They said it's seven, five.

I was like, holy God. And then when we did more research on this, that seems a little high. Yeah. I was like, oh goodness. I was like a six. And then when you do more. Yeah. I just think like oh goodness, I was like a six. And then when you do more. Yeah, I just think like the idea that it was a zero or something, it's just like, this is not the way

this league works because the new team, like imagine if the Knicks weren't the Knicks. Again, another incredible roster turnover in a very short amount of time. But if the Knicks had been the stale Knicks, you don't think that there's, and maybe this is not a great point because I think, well, the Knicks are good now. So when they were bad, they would have gone to Zion. The point that I'm making is that for any stale franchise to be able to

introduce this dude to come and run around in your uniform for a little bit. Like I always think there's value for the next stop for the disastrous start. And it's starting to feel though, like the page needs to be turned on it, but you'd be turning the page on leading up to the trade deadline in a few weeks at his lowest possible value. And we also realize that like market value is a real, like things can change in a very quick amount of time, but it just, it seems like an anchor to this franchise. And look, Ingram hasn't been healthy. They've had all sorts of health issues while meanwhile, we're seeing a lot of amount of time, but it just, it seems like an anchor to this franchise and look, Ingram hasn't been healthy.

They've had all sorts of health issues while meanwhile, well, they keep drafting like pretty good players and Eve's Macy's like a real dude, man. They nailed it again. Yeah. Jordan Hawkins, you know, when he plays can really fill it up. Trey Murphy, like his game against Boston and get put the ball on the floor.

And I'm like, man, I almost wished they would just like tank, get rid of all the old guys, try to add picks, see if they get one of the two or three guys and just do it all over again, because this Scion thing, you can't ask everyone, everyone involved with the franchise to rely on him and wait for it to work. But then at the same time, I'd have a hard time being like, I'm trading him at his absolute worst, because if he puts together a good month,

then people are gonna start falling for it again, but it's really frustrating. Okay, who would you rather trade for then? If you were Milwaukee, if you were Horst, and you're running the bucks and everything's equal, so it's not about matching all the money here. Would you rather, like put them in order, Butler, Beale, Levine, Zion.

I mean, Zion doesn't really make a ton of sense basketball wise, so I'm just. I don't know, man. I've kind of like grew more on Zach Levine lately. I really have. I don't know why. It's funny, like, you know, it's the power of social media, right? Like I had said, I had put out, what was it, the game, the San Antonio game, it was like

his fifth 30 point game. And I put out his last five and some lady who must be collecting all my tweets says, well, you're the guy who said you should just trade him the last summer and include all the draft picks for her. I was like, well, I didn't, listen, the guy hasn't played. He's been hurt. He wasn't very good defensively. He's not very good. I would be more inclined with Levine. I would like Butler. That teases me a little bit here, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. I was talking to a team about it. They said to me, everybody says like playoff Jimmy.

When when when when we got in playoff Jimmy? Think about it. Oh no, I do think about it. When was the last time we got playoff Jimmy? 2000 first round. 2023. Playoffs when they beat Milwaukee. Well, we got it. We got it in the first couple of games against Boston, but you can see that there is a steep

decline and he was really bad against Denver. So I know exactly what you're talking about here, but we can't just those first couple games against Boston. He was I mean, it's off the charts what he did against Milwaukee, but he was it was a tough thing there too where Boston was really unsure of themselves. And Jimmy was kind of almost like laughing at the dudes being like, you just not wired the way I am, but to your front office guy's point, like there's, there's no lie in there.

Uh, it, it wasn't in the finals. So I would probably go, I would go Levine, Butler, Beal. I'm still scared of that Beal contract, man. I would take- The Lakers have any options. If Ryan was in there, I would take him one. I would take a flyer. Listen, if I were the Nets, I would say, and I don't think New Orleans would do this.

I would say, hey, here's Simmons, and I'll give you a first and a least favorable first in another year. I'm going to take a flyer on Zion-Williamson because at the reality, we can keep on talking about Brooklyn having 60 million in cap space and who's out there this summer. Not much, unless it comes in a trade. I would rather throw up that's a three pointer from deep and see if it works and it goes in on Zion. Uh, but I don't, I listen, I don't think, I don't think the Pelicans would probably do that. All right.

Um, would you do Austin Reeves and a pick for Zion? Yeah. I mean, granted, we're going to figure out the money. Yeah. Yeah. It would be hot. Yeah. Reeves, hot, you know, whatever, you know, you make figured out the money. Yeah, it would be hot, yeah, Reeves, Hatchimora, you know, whatever, you know,

you make, figure out the money afterwards. I would, I don't know who's playing point. I don't know who's gonna be my shooters. See, the thing is, is I actually think LeBron, like one of the good things about getting D'Angelo Russell out of there is it, like you can't have LeBron play point card all night, but like when I watch the Lakers, I think of the play lot of different options and Reeves being on the ball more makes him better.

DeAngelo not being there in those slow possessions where everybody's just waiting to see whatever it is that he wants to do. Because like with DeAngelo, it's don't don't hit me over the head with his shooting numbers. I think it's a lot of different options. And I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo. I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo. I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo. I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo.

I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo. I think that's the biggest thing about DeAngelo. I think that's the biggest. D'Angelo not being there in those slow possessions where everyone's just waiting to see whatever it is that he wants to do. Because like with D'Angelo, it's don't, don't him be over the head with his shooting numbers, like look at these possessions, like, Oh cool. High pick and roll. You're going to stall with the basketball. You're going to lean down. It's like you're doing the limbo and everybody's sort of like waiting and

you're just waiting for like the one cut that's an assist and, um, you know, having Finney Smith, I know the Spurs, like Chris Paul put on just a master class of surgery matchups against them, which was nice to see from my guy. But when I look at the Lakers, I'm like, all right, I actually like a lot of the pieces here. AD's been terrific.

Finney Smith's a good pickup because they needed to change their perimeter defense. It's like, I think I like the possessions of LeBron playing point more than the other ones, but we're not going to see it in January and February. Is there a version of this that's kind of sneaky where LeBron paces himself and he has something in him to be able to do this for multiple weeks? And then I'll watch his rotations on defense and I'll go, man, um, like, are

you going to do that in the playoffs too? Cause I don't know that they can survive. This sounds crazy, but as great as he is offensively, he, the numbers are still great and his passing and all those different things there's he, for the Lakers to be at least taken seriously as maybe an upset alert team in the playoffs in the West, my guess would be he's not going to have the same approach defensively and maybe he plays more point guard and there, maybe there's something like, I'm not talking myself in the Lakers when in the West

here, I'm just trying to figure out how viable they are to be like matched up with some of these other teams. Yeah. I mean, listen, as you said, like after OKC, it's like, right. I mean, Houston, Memphis, Denver, take your pick. Yeah. It's like, you're, they're all kind of three teams last year. And then the now are four teams, Dallas, they got to get healthy.

Minnie's kind of, I mean, trying to get out of their own way. Right. Like, I'm really worried about them. Yeah. and trying to get out of their own way, right? I'm really worried about them. Yeah, it's like, you know, SAC, Phoenix, like Sanitone, you know, like Eclipse, Eclipse are a good story, you know, based on everything, right, like, if they're like crazy, they'll be there, right, they'll probably maybe crack top six,

but after OKC, it's kind of, it is a really a mixed bag. Yeah, that's what it feels like the first half of this. So I don't know if I just did a good Lakers. Was that a positive Lakers segment or a negative one? I think it was, was positive. Like here's, I think the other part of the story of just where we're at roster wise and how much talent there is in this league.

Like I was doing the top 100 for the Ringer last night and like I was looking at different rotations, Portland stinks. And yet you're like, look at all this depth. How can I get, how can I get Robert Williams? Try it today. No, but there's just teams where I'm writing down going like, this is their fifth or sixth guy and they're not even good. Like this team isn't, isn't any good. And there's like, I don't know, three or four guys're not even good. Like this team isn't any good.

And there's like, I don't know, two or four guys that I kind of like on this team. It just feels very different from 20 years ago where you were like, that's their third option. Like this is an NBA team's third option. Like this team's doomed. And yeah, I just think there's way more talent, but we'll see what happens for the deadline.

Anything else? I kept you here quite a bit, so I could let you go now. No. Listen, we could probably talk the next two hours and stuff. Listen, I think we all get caught up with the trade deadline. I always keep on reminding people there's only 440 guys in the NBA, and I know 96% of the NBA players are going to be traded, but the landscape of doing deals is going to be quite amazing here i think. I think okla. city is gonna be interesting to watch and i'm not really from a.

That's my player standpoint i don't think sam's in the business keep on adding like the party spent like three hundred million this summer gonna like eight hundred million next year. I think Oklahoma City is an interesting team to watch. I tease this a little bit when I say I call it the Bank of Presti. What the Bank of Presti is, is when you're sitting on all these draft picks, Ryan, you can start leveraging the heck out of these teams. What you saw last year, right? Remember Dallas? I'm like, hey, how'd they get a third first round pick? They're like, well, they just traded a swap rights in 28 to get the, to get their, the wizards pick and whatever. And then they trade. And it was a 26 pick in a draft. I think, I think teams like Oklahoma city and Brooklyn teams that we've,

we talked a little bit about the draft teams that control the draft. There's there's like four teams that have like 65 first in the next seven years, which is ridiculous. What's the number for 25? Cause I know you just tweeted it out. There's six teams that have 16 out of 30 first round picks in this year. And that includes Atlanta too, because they've got a Kings first that's protected. They got a, they got a Lakers, unprotected. Houston's got Phoenix's pick. I think when you're in a position like Brooklyn and you're in a position like Oklahoma City and you see teams like Milwaukee, Phoenix, and Denver, and all these teams that basically have one tradable draft asset out there, how can you leverage it to get more picks and everything like that?

So I don't... Oklahoma City, I don't see them as a team, like a Cam Johnson team, right? I don't see them going out and be like, hey, we're going to give you two ones and going to give you Isaiah, Joe, and Aaron Wigg. I don't see that. But I do think there's a way out there where Oklahoma City can start... Even Brooklyn can start consolidating some of their picks. Like Brooklyn's got, you know, seven, 18, it's like a bingo board, 26, 27, right?

And the draft order and stuff like that. Now, how do you take those and try to make it a little bit neater for you? Yeah, I still wonder like, if it ends up becoming this moment where you can dictate all these things or the actual value of the picks is diminished. Yeah. You know, where the first thought when you tweeted that out was like, look at all of these teams that are going to be controlling the first round. It's 14 picks for the other 24 teams. But there could be another side of it where the team that wants a pick is like, well, I don't have to pay your price. I'll just call the other team because you can't, like Oklahoma City can't keep drafting this many guys, especially as they start making more and more commitments financially here. Unless they were going to get really aggressive and go like the Oakland A's path of this

and re-sign their guy, trade him and then draft a replacement and try to. But you know, when you're flirting with titles, you're flirting from the NBA championships, um, nobody wants to be that cute. I would have a hard time believing that that's what they would actually do. Uh, you're the best. Uh, where can we see all your stuff on YouTube and make sure that everybody's caught up? Yeah. Yes.

Pn.com YouTube. We put up videos. Um, if you feel a little bit of another twist. I put it out on Wednesday, Tuesday, I think. Sportsbusinessclassroom.com. We put out a CBA 101. It's in addition to where basically we took the CBA and we dumbed it down for me and for everyone else out there where it basically gives you the easy version and how to read.

It's a Cliff Notes version. And we've taken all the different terminology and applied it to like real life transactions. And you can kind of go through and figure out how the apron work and extensions work and exceptions and all that. And it's free, right? All I have to do is just download it from sportsbusinessclassroom.com. And you can find that there too. I'm going to do that tonight. Easy reading. That's my Wednesday. I'm excited. You're the best. Thanks for the time. We'll talk soon. You got a buddy. I appreciate it. Let's get ready for some NFL football. Somebody who I've enjoyed having on in the past. I

love reading stuff on the athletic, a real film breakdown of what's going on in some of these NFL matchups is It's Ted Wynn. All right, man. Let's, um, let's get into this Baltimore Buffalo deal. All right. So, I mean, some of these cases we have previous games to look at week four here, Baltimore just gashes Buffalo. Uh, they run it all over them.

This is also the seventh time in NFL history. We've got a matchup of two teams who've averaged over 30 plus points a game during the regular season. So I know that some of the questions will be similar in the like, what do you see from the film there? The things repeatable, some of the adjustments where the teams are right now. So wherever you want to go on that first one that we're all looking forward to. Yeah, I think, you know, in the wild card round, we saw a bunch of rematches that,

you know, you couldn't really take a lot from because the teams are so different. I think that there are some things you could take from the first game with the Bills and the Ravens. For example, the Bills run defense hasn't improved much. They're still a bad run defense. They're very light. So I could see the Ravens gashing them on the ground. The first play of the game in that game was like a 98 yard touchdown from Derek Henry.

So I don't know how they're going to prove in that front or how they're going to try to stop Derek Henry. Last week against the Steelers, the Ravens kind of went back to this like option Lamar of Jackson offense where Derek Henry was in a shotgun. They usually like to run them from the pistol under center. I think they're gonna go back to just being a heavy offense where they're just gonna run Derek Henry and then they're gonna play action off of it.

You're not gonna see as much option football from Mar Jackson just because the Bill's front is so light. On the offensive side of the ball, the Bills are much different. I mean, in the early parts of the season, they were really struggling because they didn't have a separator. They were throwing a bunch of targets to Mack Hollins, who is like a special teams guy. Keon Coleman wasn't quite the receiver he is now. Not that he's like an all-star ball winner right now, but he's much more effective than he was early in

the season. So this is a game where Amari Cooper has to show up and he's been pretty inconsistent and they haven't really targeted him much. But the Ravens are gonna challenge these receivers and somebody's gonna have to win on the outside for Josh Allen. The Pittsburgh Baltimore game, going into it, I've already covered this on Monday,

where I'd watch the two teams play it. I'd be like, how does Pittsburgh keep beating this team? You know, and in some of the history was Lamar's availability and then they get them towards the end of the regular season, but then it was so dominant during a wild card weekend. And you did a breakdown of kind of the different attacks that Pittsburgh thought they could go into this with it. Did Baltimore just solve Pittsburgh without any adjustments or is it just the

way Baltimore is rolling right now? Cause I thought the breakdown was just really good on like the responsibilities of the linebackers yet it seemed like Baltimore was just so comfortable with everything Pittsburgh tried to do or the lack of adjustments from Pittsburgh. Yeah. I mean, they're comfortable because Pittsburgh only had one answer against Lamar Jackson and Derek Henry in the option game. And usually when you're going against the option game, you have to have multiple answers

and you have multiple ways to play that option. And one of the ways you play it is called scrape exchange, where you have the defensive end crash into the running back, forcing Lamar Jackson to keep the ball. And then you have a linebacker loop around and take Lamar Jackson. And you know, you could do that sporadically. You could do it once or twice to kind of surprise them. But for some reason, Pittsburgh just decided that's the only answer we're going with and we're sticking with it the entire game.

And the Ravens just kept on having different answers for it and they just gashed them for big plays. I mean, they just put a tie down on the backside and block the end. And then that way there's nobody crashing on a running back, opened up the A-gap. And that's how you get that big Derrick Henry run. I mean, if you're the Bills washing that tape, you know, you could have a scrape exchange and you could have that strategy in your game plan. But you also need to know that you have to have three or four other strategies to try to stop the options so that they don't just at least make them think, at least make Lamar Jackson think a

little bit and make them a little indecisive about the option. But again, I don't think the option's gonna be a huge part of this game because I just think the Bills are very light up front and they don't have to do that. They could just line up Derek Henry behind Lamar Jackson and hand the ball off. Yeah, I'm with you on the Pittsburgh thing,

just watching that game where it's like, okay, they're gonna attack the running back. They're not gonna wait, they're gonna attack. And then it's like, okay, but now Lamar just kind of knows every single time. So like, I've wondered at times with Lamar over the course of the season, if they paced him to just unleash this version of them, and maybe I'll just pivot this into a question of like, maybe it was Pittsburgh specific. Maybe it was about getting him ready for like the full arsenal of it, but

also to like what other people who've come on and talked to us like whether it was Fitzpatrick or Foxworth have been like, look, this is just a very different approach because they knew they needed to be something post-Greg Roman for Lamar to have a better chance in the playoffs. So take that wherever you want to go and kind of your expectations for Lamar in this version because obviously it hasn't worked out for him. Yeah, I think this is the first time where they don't have to be an option team because they have the option to or they have the ability to just line up behind center and just hand the ball off to Derrick Henry and

you know part of the option football is it it you know you're putting more on the shoulders of the quarterback so You know, you're putting more on the shoulders of the quarterback. So now that you could just hand the ball off to Derek Henry, the quarterback could take a break. Like you don't have to have the quarterback be part of the play every single time. And that's part of the appeal of having a run game is, you know, you're, it's not always on the shoulder of the quarterback. And when you have a run game that involves a quarterback, he's part of it every play. And that's part of who the Ravens have been and now

That doesn't have to be all on Lamar shoulders, so I think Especially against this Bill's front where they are lighter I just think the Ravens just have so many things they could do offensively where it doesn't all has to be a Lamar every time. And I think Lamar has talked about it where he has been jittery in playoff games. And you can see in that Pittsburgh game too, they didn't want to pass Spoleton and they were having a lot of success in the run game. But I think part of that was just to calm Lamar down and just give him a little bit of a mental break and let them get into the flow of the game.

On the Buffalo side of this, I'd agree. Like, I don't know that there's anything where you can really point to, and the Rams game wasn't that long ago, where, you know, it feels like at least if you're picking the game, like the Baltimore rushing attack against this Bill's front. But if we look at Buffalo's offensive line,

and I don't know how much you put into the pass block win rate and rush win rate stuff, but if you go by individual players, like Buffalo has like three guys that are just off the charts on these grades and there was something else I was looking at this morning that I thought was really interesting and how often they line up with a sixth offensive lineman, it's number one in the league, 148 plays this year. It's like 60 more than the number two team. And they did it a bunch against Denver.

Is that something, I mean, certainly you have to be prepared for if you're Baltimore, but is that something against Baltimore's front where you feel like Buffalo is going to want to go to that as they have during the regular season? Yeah, it's a big part of their offense now where they are moving under center more and just taking Josh Allen out of the equation and just being able to hand the ball off to James Cook. I think part of that is just the league is moving towards very light fronts, more too high boxes.

So a lot of the really good teams are ahead of that and they've built this really strong run game where they could attack those fronts just by running the running back instead of having the option and that sort of deal too. And the Bills have a very strong offensive line. Dion Dawkins, I think, is having a career year at left tackle. Spencer Brown is playing really well at right tackle. But the Ravens also have the number one run defense in the league. So I don't know if they can just go to their six offensive linemen sets and run the ball

like they did against the Broncos They just straight up bullied the Broncos like they they got under center and they just bullied them up front You're not gonna be able to do that against this Ravens front I think this is a game where you're gonna have to spread them out and you're gonna have to Run Josh Allen a ton. He's gonna have to be a huge part of the running game against this Ravens front. Okay, let's take a look at Philadelphia and the Rams. The Rams, as we all know, started one and four.

I think there's some stuff that you could talk about, like looking back schedule-wise. But getting blasted by Arizona week two by 30 points was like, okay, what's gonna happen here? The offensive line was a massive problem. The injuries that receiver and they come out and they dominate Minnesota. Real quick. Do you think there was anything from the Minnesota Detroit game that impacted

Shula at D coordinators approach to what they wanted to do against Arnold? Yeah, I think the Rams are typically a zone team. They like to play back a little bit and just kind of keep everything in front of them. But they were much more aggressive against the Vikings. They were pressing them, doubling Justin Jefferson, just not giving those receiver free releases. And then that allowed the pass rush to really work against a Minnesota offensive line that's pretty weak. Their best tackle, Brian O'Neal, he's struggling that game.

Cab Robinson has struggled all season. And the interior line is really bad. So once you force Sam Darnold to hold the ball a little bit and let that pass rush get to work, they have a lot of problems. So, you know, I don't know if they're gonna do that against the Eagles. I think the number one know if they're going to do that against the Eagles. I think the number one thing is they're going to have to try to stop Saquon Barkley.

But this is going to be a much different game for the Rams. I think against Minnesota, there's some, it was just a good matchup. Some of the strengths versus their weaknesses kind of matched up very well. This is going to be a much, much different game for the Rams. Yeah. You could hear like why I really like Aikman on a broadcast is when he's kind of over something, he lets you know without being nasty about it, but watching Donald drop back and hold onto the football and just the tone of Aikman's voice as it kept happening. And at like one point where you could just tell he was over, then it happened, I think like the next play. And he's just, you know, he's telling the audience

in a way without necessarily using his words, which I thought was just really like high level stuff because you're just watching Donald have this awful game. All right, so we go back and look at the mid-season matchup with the Rams here, the Eagles and Barkley just absolutely gashed him. They got all over Stafford, five, six sacks in that one. But yeah, it's the Rams feel like that.

Not a great record. I kind of hate that nobody wants to play this team because I mean, we've got eight teams left, like most of them are going to be really good. There's not really anybody going to be sneaking into this unless you really get some sort of upset, whatever, but just kind of looking at that matchup to where the Rams are now might be the, cause I don't really know what to make of the green Bay game because of hurts essentially being out of action for almost a month. It wasn't great on offense. It's not what you would want, but I think to be fair,

you have to look at it being a pretty abnormal situation for hurts going into his first playoff game this year. Yeah, for sure. It just felt like they didn't want to take a lot of risk with Jalen Hurts. A lot of the passing game was very simple. You know, and they've been better throughout the season and, you know, maybe they just felt like their defense was going to win the game for them and they didn't have to take too many chances. And against the Rams, they could fall into a similar script. But obviously the Rams offense is playing much better now.

They have a healthy offensive line and healthy receiving group. And during the season it was like either the receivers were healthy and the offensive line couldn't get healthy. But now that they're both healthy, the offense should be much better than they were against the Eagles when they played in a regular season.

But also there have been stretches where Matthew Stafford just has struggled against some of the better defenses. I mean, they had like a three game stretch in the season where they really were inconsistent. And part of the reason why they're so good against the Vikings is because the Vikings blitz a lot. They try to do a bunch of like coverage disguises and all that. But Matthew Stafford is a veteran quarterback. He's one of the smartest quarterbacks in the league.

And he could figure that stuff out. But against the Eagles, they do a lot of disguising, but they don't rely on the blitz to get home. They don't rely on trickery. They could just play you straight up because they have very good players on all across the board. So this could be a matchup where Stafford does struggle. I don't think it's going to be just, you know, Oh, the Rams are healthy. They're explosive on offense again. Um, I can, I can see them struggling against this Eagles defense. And the Eagles, uh, are not gonna have my guy,

N'Kobe Dean at middle linebacker, which is super frustrating. Cause I've just so happy. Like he's one of my favorite college players and I'll just have these moments from like, well, he has to be good in the pros. Even though I realized he was undersized, he gets off to kind of the slow start.

And like how many snaps is this guy even getting? And then once he figures it all out and with Bond, like this group, I think the personnel turnover, I mean, you could even speak to what the Rams have been doing here in the draft now that it's nice they have some picks, like all the young guys on that defense for the Rams, like overhauling that roster in a really, really short amount of time.

But then when you think about the Eagles just kind of reloading from being in the Superbowl two years ago to the guys that they have, and Nolan Smith starting to make plays and obviously Carter is always fun to watch there. So you feel like there's enough depth even though the Dean loss is a significant loss. There should be enough skill, enough playmakers around that defense that it's not going to derail who they are on defense. Yeah, for sure.

All right. Let's take a look at Houston and Kansas City. Now I love some of your notes on Houston for this one because you know, we've had a sando on for years and the cook index. We all love it. Like your tendencies, how aggressive you are in the passing game when the score is not dictating, play calling and all that kind of good stuff. Houston does not cook traditionally.

I think you had the know, I think I read it from you, where if you look at third and 10 or more yards, right? So just absolutely brutal third down situations. Houston had the second most third and 10 plus downs, third down, third and 10 plus. Again, I screwed that up. But the second most in the NFL behind only Cleveland, which is not where you want to be

as you're going into the playoffs. And it looked like that was going to be the approach against the Chargers. What happened in that game? I mean, there's a lot of stuff, the Herbert stuff as well, but what happened specific to maybe the play calling and the aggressiveness that we saw from Houston that we're not used to seeing with their OC?

Yeah, so cook rate basically measures how aggressive you are as far as passing a ball on early downs before the score could really... If you're up by a lot of points, then obviously you're going to run the ball a little bit more or in a two-minute drill, you're not going to run the ball. So cook rate takes account of all that. And against the Chargers, the Texans had the highest cook rate they had the entire season by far. So Bobby Slowick, who is typically a run run pass guy,

which puts them, is one of the reasons why they get in so many third and longs is because they can't run the ball. They are the least efficient run game in the entire league. They have the lowest success rate as far as run in the entire league, lower than the Raiders. And the Raiders were god awful this season. But he keeps going to this run run pass and then they get zero yard, zero yards. And then also you're in third and 10 and you expect CJ Stroud to kind of save you.

And for a part of the season, he was doing that pretty well, but then that kind of just catches up to you after a while. And that's one of the reasons why the Houston offense has been so disappointing. But against the Chargers, they passed a little bit more on early downs. They spread out, they got into empty sets. They went got into four by one sets and got Nico Collins, I sewed up. So they found ways to just quickly got rid of get rid of the ball and create some positive yards on first down.

And after the Chargers defense got worn down, that's when the run game kind of took over. You saw Joe Mixon take over in that game. And we got to give a lot of credit to Joe Mixon because in that game, there are so many times where they had penetration and he was able to just find a way to wiggle his way out and, and get some yards. I mean, this Texans offensive line is just not very good at run blocking or, or pass blocking. Yeah.

That's what's weird is because I was looking at some of the win rate stuff again, and I was surprised to see Houston on the better side of some of the pass block win rate stuff, but the run stuff is just abysmal across the board. And I think this is important stuff though, because there's so much of it is just focused on, we'll look at Stroud and there's a slight decline,

and he was so clean in the interception part of it. Unless you're Pete Garen Rogers or Brady, you're probably not staying down at that low of a number with the interceptions. So then it's kind of labeled as like, well, Stroud's taking a step back. And look, again, there's statistical stuff to tell you that this is exactly what's going to happen. But if it's long developing routes for a team where you don't like the align that is sort of run predictable at all those times, maybe there's more baked into it. You know what I mean?

More that there's another level of understanding with the quarterbacks. Because I think most of us are huge fans of Stroud. Like Fitzpatrick coming on last week saying like, he wants his sons to watch how he throws a football. I know that it's more than arm talent and all that kind of stuff But I just I feel like over the long haul of like the Stroud experience even going back to the Georgia game There's just a lot with him that that you would like and the way he just plays the position beyond just some of the talent Stuff now we pivot that into Kansas City

Because we know That they're gonna dial up pressure And I feel like Kansas City dials a pressure when you most expect it. It's actually very predictable that this is what we've been saving and we're not going to save it for a time to trick you. We're going to throw it at you when we need to throw it at you. How do you like that matchup for Houston's front, essentially? It's going to be tough. I mean, this is as healthy as the Texans have been up front and in the secondary.

They might get Watson back. And if you look at the splits and their defense when Watson was healthy and when he left, I mean, they're pretty dramatic. I mean, if you're a man coverage team, you need corners to play man coverage. And now they have potentially two cornerbacks that could kind of lock up the outside and buy some more time for this, for them up front. And this is a very talented front with Charles and Minahue back in the lineup. You know, obviously Chris Jones. And we talked about, we talked about how the Texans were able to get those quick passes on

early downs. It's going to be much tougher against Kansas City because they're going to press you. They're going to press those receivers. And they did that in the week 16 matchup. And for some reason, Slowick kept on trying to throw these bubble screens and they would get stopped for like negative yardage every single time. So I think if he's smart, he's not going to do that anymore, especially against these press corners that are very good at tackling. And the thing that they had some success with is just throwing it deep to Tank

Dell in that game where, you know, they were seeing these heavy blitzes and Shroud was just backing up and trying to get some time and just chucking it deep to Tank Dell. And, you know, they got that touchdown where Dell was unfortunately hurt on off of it. But the question is, who's going to be that deep ball winner for for the Texans now? They're going to double Nikko Collins. Steve Spagnola is one of the best defense coordinators as far as taking away your number one weapon. So who's going to be that secondary guy that's going to be able to beat these chiefs defenders?

I don't know who that's going to be, whether they're going to turn to Metchi or they're going to, you know, Robert Woods is not a deep ball winner at his age. So that's the big question for the Texans is who's going to be that guy that could take the top off the defense, when they're doubling Collins and when they're bringing pressure. We're a huge Robert Woods podcast, but I, I understand what you're saying. Uh, Kansas city red zone touchdown percentage. I looked it up again this morning, 22nd in the NFL. Not good.

That's really bad. It usually means like you're just leaving points out there all the time. Usually means it's a quarterback. Maybe you don't trust, maybe it's a play calling thing, all these different things, except it is maybe the guy we trust more that's ever played the position. Um, still some work to do on the Brady resume. But then I looked it up last year and they were 19th in red zone touchdown percentage.

So actually across Mahomes career, it's a little bit lower than you would think. There was a great year two years ago where they were second touchdown percentage. I think the Chiefs are one of the weirdest teams I can ever remember going into the playoffs because the record is insane. We know all the close calls with them.

We know that the offensive approach has changed. I don't know if that's a personnel thing. I don't know if it's a maturity thing with homes, but it's a depth of target thing. Kelsey's had three touchdowns this year, although I think he's been a bigger part of the offensive second half of the season. I don't really think that's debatable with any of this stuff. I think I'll ask it this way. Where do you rank Kansas City? Like if you could make money on, and I'm not even talking about a

spread, but you get Baltimore, because I don't think anybody's picking Houston under the equation here. If you get Baltimore, Buffalo or Kansas City right now, who do you think is the best chant? Well, see, that question doesn't work either because Buffalo and Baltimore are playing each other. I guess I'll just ask it this way. Like who do you think is the best team in the AFC today? To me, it's the Chiefs. I mean, they haven't been healthy all season. Now they're as healthy as they've ever been at any point this season. We know Patrick Holmes kind of flips the switch in the playoffs.

They have the playoff experience. It's just hard to pick anybody but Kansas City in my opinion. Obviously the Ravens have an amazing roster. They're playing very well right now. But I just want to see Lamar Jackson be able to do it in the postseason, especially when he's going to be in a game where a lot, there's going to be a lot more on his shoulders. I thought, you know, Pittsburgh was just kind of gave the game away with what they, what they were doing.

And really, there was just not a ton of pressure on Lamar Jackson. But when he's faced off against a Josh Allen or a Mahomes where he's in a bit of a shootout situation, how he's in a bit of a shootout situation. How he's gonna handle it. I mean, I love Lamar as much as anyone, but I just wanna see him do it in this setting. Yeah, I mean, look, it's the home field. It's the, hey, they could play Houston. So there's an easier path conversation,

but it sounds like we're just talking straight team. You're going cheap. Sorry, before we get your rapid fire picks, let's just finish with Washington and Detroit here. We know Detroit blitzes, I think the second highest rate in the NFL. And yet Jayden Daniels is a young quarterback that seems to be comfortable against it. There's all sorts of numbers that tell you he's, you know, I'd say at worst top

10 quarterback against some of the pressure stuff going through the grade of the game against Tampa. There's probably some stuff you could pick apart from Jayden, except when you need him the most, he's, he's doing the unthinkable and he's, and he's saving a team and then doing it in a playoff level two on top of everything else. So how do you see the Jayden attack against what Detroit is going to do? Where I imagine it's probably a carryover from what we saw at the end of the regular season with Aaron Glenn.

It's like, all right, if we don't have these guys healthy, we are just going to be as aggressive. We're not going to be passive and lose. We're going to be aggressive. If we lose that way, they'll just feel better about it because that seems to be the entire team's culture. Yeah. They're going to blitz Jayden like crazy. I mean, part of the reason why you want to blitz a mobile quarterback is because you

surround them with more bodies. So there's less of a chance that they could scramble. And you get into some of those cover zero blitzes. So they just throw the ball and get rid of it. So they're not trying to scramble around and create plays. But like you mentioned, Jaden Daniels has been phenomenal against the blitz all season. He's third in EPA against the blitz. And you usually don't see that with rookie quarterbacks. But he, you know, he's just so calm and he's able to throw the ball deep against the Blitz too. He's not just throwing hot routes.

Terry McLorin is one of his favorite targets against the Blitz. And you remember that cover zero Blitz he beat at the end of the Cincinnati game that really kind of wowed everyone. That was the first throw this year with him when I'm like, that throw is like all time stuff. So yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt,

but I just wanted to back up. Like that was a moment on the couch where you go, it was pretty special, but go ahead. So, I mean, we're gonna have to see him try to beat this blitz deep because they play blitz and they're gonna play a lot of man coverage. And they're probably gonna do what they did against Sam Darnold and the Vikings where they're going to

double Justin Jefferson and try to dare somebody else to beat you. So, Dynami Brown, who's kind of come on as late, I think he's going to be a huge part of this game. But yeah, I mean, I think Detroit is going to do a good job of limiting what Jaden can do on the ground because they're just going to bring bodies at him. It's going to be tough for him to find running lanes. But if he does, I mean, it's probably going to be a big play because everybody's playing man coverage. But I think it's going to be up to guys like Zach Ertz and Dynamic Brown to win against one-on-one coverage. The lines have been a little bit weaker against tight ends, especially after all the injuries.

So we'll see if Ertz can do it. But also the lines are very good against a run too. So that's another problem for this Washington offense. And they're likely going to, the lines are likely going to score a lot, which is going to change the game script and force them into a passing game script, which is another difficult thing that the commanders are gonna have to deal with. All right, rapid fire picks. Let's start in the AFC with the headliner, Buffalo Baltimore. I think the, I think the Ravens are gonna win. All right. Sounds like Kansas City over Houston. No surprise there.

Yeah. And Detroit, sounds like Kansas City over Houston. No surprise there. Yeah. And Detroit, Washington. Detroit. Rams, Eagles. Eagles, I hate to be boring and pick all the favorites, but I have a tough time seeing upset this week. Look, I wish I had done it more during the college football playoff,

but sometimes I try to get cute myself. And maybe you'll feel better Monday if it goes off shot. If you want to read more Ted stuff, check it out on the athletic. I promise you will enjoy it. And it helps you get ready for some big playoff games. Thanks, man. No problem.

Thanks for having me on. 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. Normally we start with live advice, email address, live advice, rr at gmail.com. Kyle and Sruti are here and Borgon is back from Disney. He turned off his microphone, but Kyle astutely said, do not turn off anything. Uh, because we're going to start with you fresh from Orlando, uh, with a, what looks like a thick cotton Taylor Swift shirt on top of everything else.

Surprises never end. How are you? Is that surprising? Me liking Taylor Swift? I don't know what is or isn't anymore, to be honest with you. Is that fair? Yeah, I guess that's fair.

Yeah. I think it's all positive. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully. So you're back. Talk to us, guy. Yeah, so I told, Saruti knows this, but Thursday I just got a really bad stomach bug

and was just vomiting all day. Couldn't eat anything, didn't eat anything Friday either. Saturday morning woke up, felt pretty rough, was like teetering between whether or not I was gonna do it. Ended up doing it, but like the time was just not what I wanted. It was like 30 minutes longer than my training runs.

So it was a bit of a slog. Flu game. It poured too, as we were like getting ready to run. We were just standing there, just getting poured on. Dude, that's like two more excuses than I would need to bail on this and just go to Disney world instead. I could, I'm just telling you, if it was, if I was sick two days before I'd be like, I wouldn't probably wouldn't even be like, let's see how I feel on

Saturday on Friday, but like I'm calling it. Everyone would understand. I just put so much time into like training'd be like, I'm calling it. Everyone would understand. I just put so much time into like training for this thing that I had to at least finish. Yeah. Hey, feel different, dude. Good for you. But now I got to do another one.

Just to like get a taste of that. So we're looking at like the vomit Cape Cod, I think in October. That's another destination marathon. Let's go. Yeah. Come do it. It's ready October. Yeah.

Uh, Kyle's convinced that I'm going to like get into running now, which is definitely not true. He told me he had a dream about running. He's got an app. Right? So I don't know. It's all- I don't have an app. I've kicked around the app. Yeah, you're the couch to five-k deal. I don't know. I should just get more cardio in. But no, I mean the question has been asked like is we're gonna the best athlete on the podcast? I, you know, I don't know. The answer is no. I do know. Were you already in Orlando sick? Yeah, I got sick Thursday, flew out on Friday.

So wait, you got sick at home? At home. In New York, and then I'm still getting on the plane. Trip was already booked, yeah. Didn't have trip insurance. Too cheap to not go. Epcot waits for no man. Yeah. Exactly.

Booking dot, nah. Um. Um. Hi. Yeah, so it was already booked. How was your significant other as far as caretaker? I think her time was like 221. Uh, yeah, she did great.

She like zoomed past me as soon as we started. Waits for no man. She was not in it. Right, she was like, I'm not. Yeah, she did great. She like zoomed past me as soon as we started. Waits for no man. She was like, was she? Was she like, I don't know. Was she like in a caring mode or was she like, she was like, if you don't want to do it, I'll still be proud of you all that. Like, I won't be proud of you all that Like I will I don't do it So she's a better runner than you though typically yeah both at your best sounds like I think I would have beaten her Okay, that's healthy. All right. She's yeah Oh, so Cape Cod has to happen Cape Cod has to happen happen. Cape Cod has to happen. The Reduction Tour. Yeah. It's a real rivalry we got going on.

Crosstown shoot out of this. Right. Anything else? Any snacks? Did your stomach turn around that you could start eating Disney food or? Not really. Really the last day I was sort of feeling back to myself,

but the whole time it was like, I would order a meal and like sort of pick at it, you know? No, man. Butter noodles. Inopportune time. Disney help our guy out. You know, let's get him, let's get him a long weekend back there. If you're listening.

Yeah. I remember when, you know, one of those Saruti understands this, but like when you're at ESPN, one of the weirdest things is just the Disney stuff that you get. And you get this card that seemed like really impressive, some platinum Disney card, and then I used, I never used any of it. And then, right, then people would always be asking like, hey, do you have your passes

that you can give to other people? And that was always a pain in the ass because you had to like transfer over stuff. I was the recipient of one of those ones. Yeah. It was always kind of awkward because, uh, one, I think we would get maybe like four passes a year or something like that and you get them digitally and you know, you could either use them.

Well, I guess you wouldn't need to use them yourself because you have the pass because the pass would get you in, I think, at limited times, but you could get somebody in for free. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you had dudes that were just not afraid to ask multiple times, like no shame.

Like, hey, didn't you ask me last month? You just I thought you just went to Disney. Like it was this can't be for you. They're asking for like buddies, buddies. Like, it's just come on, man. Like so I always kind of kept it with like a tight circle of people. Like I need to know this person pretty well if I was given out. Hey, it's Rudy. Anyone else on the Mike and Mike team? Not big Disney guys. So I always kind of kept it with like a tight circle of people. Like I'd need to know this person pretty well if I was given out passes.

Hey, it's Rudy. Anyone else on the Mike and Mike team? Not big Disney guys. People, people seriously would do that. They'd be like, you know, anybody with passes? I'm like, I'm not asking around, man. I don't like, yeah. I'm going to work here. What the fuck?

Again, that's just the, that's just a characteristic that either have or you don't have. Yeah. But there would be people that you worked with that would be like, I already gave my four passes, but like, I'm trying to get 16 people down there. Correct. So like, Rosilla doesn't have any kids. And then I remember the first time I opened it up, cause I don't even think I knew.

And then it was just all of these expired passes. And I did it in front of the person that was asking me and they just looked at all that. They're like, Oh my God, look at all those expired passes. Like just this log. And granted, whenever you had to get on like the internal corporate hub, that to me was like, you might as well just, you might as well just drop me in a maze that has no opening. Cause I, I don't know what the hell's going on here.

They're like, you need to figure out that you have to update this or whatever. And I just remembered like getting this, this package of all of these things. And I just remember like in the moment, looking at them going, I'm never going to use any of these things. And I just remember like in the moment looking at him going, I'm never going to use any of this stuff. Um, but it's too bad war gone. You don't have anybody from your days at ESPN that you could reach out to. So that's unfortunate. So there's nothing else. I mean, I feel like there's always something else, another morsel with you, but I don't want to leave untouched.

Did you touch that airport lounge on the way home or are you still just nursing? Our terminal didn't have one. Real shame. To risk your run. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't sound like an F, but I don't, is this a D trip for you? It could have been a lot better.

Could have been a lot better. Sure. Okay. Um, all right. Well, thanks man. Glad to see you're feeling better and look out. I mean, the next time, this is like a movie, right? The first five minutes would be you throwing up in Orlando

and then the movie starts kind of and you're getting ready for something and chat them. All right, let's see here. We have a lot of people following up on the Bat story with Sarutti. Yeah. Honestly, Saruti, I would like to hear less, uh, exasperation out of you because people are on your side, um, kind of just pumped about the way you handle this. So, uh, yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. I, well, the well the issue now is, it's funny, I actually called a doctor today. I'm like, do I need to do anything? Because like the thing, you know, it didn't bite me or anything, but I don't know. I didn't touch it, but there's obviously, you know, there's- Then I think it's okay.

Yeah, but I don't know. Now I'm like in my own head being like, what the heck? So that's, I think I handled it extremely well. You're right. But again, the guy telling me I needed to kill it, like he's acting like I screwed up, but I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. So I appreciate the support from everybody,

but according to animal control, I did not handle it well. Those guys are a little desensitized, I think. I don't know if they're regular animal people anymore, the animal control. Yeah, maybe. Obviously we have to defer to them. There was somebody who emailed in and said, I heard somebody talking about the bat that was in his house and the standard procedure in my area is that anyone

who's slept in the same building as a bat gets a rabies shot unless they catch the bat and have it tested. So there you go. My wife is a teacher and it's happened to a couple of her students in the last couple of years. Unvaccinated rabies is 100% fatal and humans, My wife is a teacher and it's happened to a couple of her students in the last couple of years. Unvaccinated rabies is 100% fatal in humans. Literally there's never been anyone to survive it.

Please read this or someone else's email on the subject. People need to know to not mess around. So yeah, there's an article there that we're not going to read on the pod. But yeah, Michael Scott tried to solve rabies and his coworkers laughed at him. Race for the cure. Maybe you guys could do a rabies fun run for real. There's your run right there. Right.

There's your run. The 5K. Yeah, there you go. I don't know. Then there was another one that said, Steve's not getting enough credit all the alpha in the room and Then there was some other follow-ups on to how the rest of us would handle it I whenever it comes to stuff. I get way too much credit. There's a time where maybe I'd be your guy

But I'm not sure that I am anymore Somebody wrote in and said should I read the crow email? Not based on the movie or Russell All right, should I read the Crow email? Not based on the movie or Russell? All right, let's read the Crow email. Cause I thought it was pretty good. All right, the setting is a bachelor party at the Oregon coast, four dudes in their mid twenties in the house, a two story deal

where the entire upstairs is a single bedroom. We're all hanging downstairs. We start hearing noises from the bedroom as if some thing or someone is now in the house. We look around and downstairs. We start hearing noises from the bedroom as if some thing or someone is now in the house. We look around and make sure nobody has gone up there. Sure enough, everyone is accounted for. That would be easy though, right? All right. Roll call. One. Four. All right. We're all here. Myself and the other guy decide to slowly walk up the stairs to see what's going on with literally no clue what we might find. Turns out it wasn't on my bingo card.

It's a two foot jet black crow that had flown through a window is now flying from ceiling fan to ceiling fan in the bedroom. Panic, the thing was massive, all caps. And if you haven't seen a crow up close, it's a terrifying looking thing. Now what?

None of us are all that interested in finding out how in real life crows respond to humans, trying to help them out of a bedroom. So we call animal control closed on weekends. The machine though says to call the non-emergency line, which we do. Sure enough, 30 minutes later, our cop arrives, probably disgusted by the lack of masculinity in the house,

promptly grabs a broom, walks up the stairs, smacks the crow out of the air, bare hands it, tosses it out the window onto the deck, and it flies away if nothing happened. So here's the question, how would you guys have handled the situation? Again, this is another one. My guess, Saruti at best doing what he did.

Oregon is doing the cop's job. Kyle's leaving the house and hoping the crow is gone by the time it gets back. See, I think Kyle would, well, if his wife is there, Kyle's the worst. If my wife's there, you know, with the, if Saruti's situation, I think I'm looking for a tennis racket. But with my wife there, I think she might be like, you know, maybe like get a blanket or a trash.

Like it might think she would complicate it a little more. It's a massive swing. It's like Andy Dalton in a prime time. Dude. I mean, I was telling Saruti before we started, we had to, with the Hollywood fire on Wednesday, we evacuated cause they, they basically, they put an evacuation notice right up to Hollywood Boulevard and I'm on Sunset. So I'm like the next big street there. And we just saw everything that happened on Tuesday. So we're like, all right, let's just get out of here.

We went out two miles south to my grandmother's house. But I'm like pulling up shit just in case, you know, the house is gone. So I'm just like, all right, passports, laptop for work, you know, some clothes. I grabbed my Drake made jersey. That was probably a little silly, but I was just like, it's brand new. I don't want to lose it. It's brand new. It's brand new, dude.

He's only had one. It's the most expensive one. And she spent the whole time. The Mac Jones t-shirt jersey did not get grabbed. Didn't make it. Actually, that would have been when I donated a bunch of clothes after, because I knew people needed clothes.

It's like, that's going in the bin in the closet. But she spent the whole time getting these five rabbits. Hurt my back, by the way, because it went in this huge fucking, like, that's going in the bin in the closet. But she spent the whole time getting these five rabbits. Hurt my back by the way, because it went in this huge fucking massive dog cage and I'm trying to keep it level. But she spent the whole time just wrangling rabbits. And I spent the whole time getting stuff. And we get to my grandmother's house that's two miles south. She doesn't have a toothbrush.

She doesn't have clothes. She doesn't have anything. She doesn't have a phone charger. But she's got five rabbits. So that's two miles south. She doesn't have a toothbrush. She doesn't have clothes. She doesn't have anything. She doesn't have a phone charger, but she's got five rabbits. So that's the difference in, I just, it really opened my eyes that we're just, we view emergencies a little differently. And so if there's a bat in the house,

I think we'd have different views on that too. Yeah. I mean, if it's a crow, she'd probably adopt it. It's like, hey, this is Cameron. Like, I think we have the pieces to build an aviary in here. Yeah, I think a cop is always, if it's four guys, they're gonna be disappointed in you just because it's like there's other stuff going on

other than a crow, it's four guys. So like, I'm sure you feel enough shame already that we don't need to add to it. I remember I had this one stretch where I felt like I was getting messed with, um, quite a bit, a few years ago. And somebody showed up to my, I think I've already talked about this. Like somebody showed up to my door and I couldn't, the camera wouldn't turn on right as it was happening.

So I had no idea what was going on. And then, so I just called the cops. And then when they apprehended a dude who was just totally confused and pretty banged up, they kind of just looked at me like, you got to call us. And I was like trying to explain it a little bit. And I went, you know what, this is just take the L. There's nothing else. Well, that's kind of what sucked about like my situation was like, I, I wasn't talking to the guy and I was like, I thought I killed it. And he was just like, killed it as in like, did a good job, not killed that.

And he was like, and he just immediately was like, basically like, no, dumb. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I, I guess I did not get the W there, but, uh, you guys wouldn't have been super proud of me if you, if there was like a, some footage, some in bedroom footage, uh bedroom footage of me for like 10 minutes just like literally under the blankets like with my with my phone flashlight like that was the funny part to me. Look at that was the funny part. We were like listen let's get under the covers while we figure this out.

But honestly you know if it's flying around a dark in there I actually don't know how much how many better options there are. So but I just it was funny the way you said like all right let's get, let's get, let's hunger down, let's get into the covers. Let's talk about it. Yeah. I really liked it. It probably didn't look super masculine, but it worked out all right. He got a family to protect, dude.

I thought you did great. And, you know, put yourself in the situation middle of the night, bat flying around, wife, you get a kid, you know, uh, I think just some people are used to bats, you know, there's people listening right now. That's not the way you do it. Right. I think most of us aren't, but again, rabies awareness. Thank you for the email.

All right. Let's get to a couple of emails here. Hanging out with rich friends. I've listened since the beginning and finally thought of a good question. Five, 10 of a good day, 180. I've been practicing basketball while my eight year old has his select practice.

If you leave me open, I'm dangerous. Let's go, JJ Reddick. My question stems from hanging out with my core friend group where one of us is a business owner and does very well for himself in life. The rest of us do just fine, mid $100,000 salary in the Midwest with a low cost of living,

but it's not close to what this guy pulls down. I thought this might be relatable to Ryan, but what I'm trying to figure out is the level of guilt we should feel if we were doing the experience that he offers to pay for that we otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Recently, we were all going to go get tickets to a sought after college football game, take all of our kids. Wow, that's a lot of tickets. And we were looking for normal bowl seats, and then he just buys all of them right down by the field and tells us to send him whatever we would have paid anyway.

Do you do that? He tries to do the same thing on vacation. We were picking somewhere to stay and he just books the best place and send what we want. I'm an adult with a wife and three kids. So how do I handle it? Do I struggle and pay my full share on pride? Do I swallow it and trust that he really means it

and doesn't care? To be clear, the amounts are definitely not affecting his personal situation whatsoever. All right. Good stuff, we're in his email. I like mowing my yard. So is that what we're talking about here? With Woody Harrison?

No, I don't think, I think you have to look at it from the standpoint, like if he's just stepped up and now he's done this a couple of times, right? So he just said, screw it, I'm buying all these tickets. And then the vague, like, do whatever you think is right thing, or he didn't even say that, which would have been a way worse way to phrase it. He gave you a really specific thing, like, hey, whatever you're going to spend before, just spend money on that. And then I've covered the rest of it. You know, look, all of us are different, right? And in this case, I think you have to understand that part of his joy

and joy in the way that he's doing it, And in this case, I think you have to understand that part of his joy of, of being able to do this stuff is that he can share it with somebody else. Right. I think this guy's coming from a pretty good place based on the description and the fact that he's booking a vacation and being like, look, I can afford this. This is the standard that I want to be at, but I also don't want you to feel that. Now, granted, there's plenty of people listening right now and just to say pride wise, like I can't have you do that. I have four kids, four at, but I also don't want you to feel bad now. I granted there's plenty of people listening right now and just to say

pride wise, like I can't have you do that. I have friends. Um, there's one situation where a friend needs some help and he was like turning it down, turning it down. And finally, like a bunch of us just get together and we're like, we're not going to listen to them. Like, let's just help our friend. He needs the help.

And of course it was a great thing and it didn't really impact us all that much. And it, and it changed, um, something for him at the, at the time he needed it. And it was something we felt good about. Like, you know, we, we felt great that we were able to help our friend. And there wasn't a moment where any of us felt like we were being asked to do something we weren't comfortable doing. So that's different because it was something that was far more serious. But in this case, I think what you have to understand is that he wants to be able to

do these things that he can afford, but he wants to share them with somebody else. And part of the reward of, of having access to these different things and, and just being able to have the financial freedom where he doesn't worry about it. Like so many of us would that you being a part of the activity with him is what he really wants. Because dudes that are loaded, like cool, you can take a jet here, you can stay in Aspen, you can do all these different things. Other than me, very few people actually want to do this stuff by themselves. And for the record, I've never ever taken a jet by myself where I've been like, whatever, this is a massive waste of money. Let me just go to Maui as I can. And I

wouldn't, I don't think I would ever do that just by myself. Maybe who knows never really anything. But just just keep telling yourself that and as far as like, you and what you're supposed to do, follow his instructions, you know, don't feel like you have to be taxed for his aggressiveness because then you end up resenting it. And that leads to all sorts of other stuff. Like I think we've even had emails on that where like the one person decides

like this is where they want to stay. And then everybody else feels like they're totally strapped or put out. And then the vacation ends up being something they're kind of digging out of financially for a little while. And they kind of get resentful about the whole thing. So I remember when I was, you know, back in the day and the hockey guys would come back to Burlington and they were young and they immediately were making money and it was just kind of understood.

Like they were going to pay for the guys that couldn't pay and you hope it works out down the line where you can repay them. Sometimes you can't, but most of the people being generous about this aren't doing it because they feel like they're taking too long with this whole thing. They're not being taken advantage of. They actually really want to do this. So don't feel like you have to get like dollar for dollar back to him. And if it ends up being a pride thing, then stop going with them if it's going to bother

you that much. But again, I don't, clearly the emailer's not saying that it's bothering him so much. So I think this is just a win for everybody. Like life's rare, like hey, I think everybody's kind of right here, so don't worry about it. Yeah, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone here,

but a favor's not gonna throw me off my game. I appreciate a favor. It's not quite a bit for me in my life. So, you know, never, never really did anything wrong by accepting a favor. I think as long as this guy isn't like, you know, controlling the itinerary to a point where you're like, right, I don't think Steve would like it if we went, you know, did this at two o'clock or, or book this dad's golf trip, like as long as it's not that. And he hasn't mentioned anything like I didn't catch a whiff of that. I think it sounds like everything's good intention this at two o'clock or book this dad's golf trip. As long as it's not that and he hasn't mentioned anything

I didn't catch a whiff of that, I think it sounds like everything's good intention here. He's not like, if the only thing is he booked this hotel, it's like, great, this is a way better hotel than I would have booked, cool. And it sounds like that's where he's stopping the control of it all. So that's, I think you're right, this is all good.

And I'm a favor guy, so maybe learn to accept favors and learn to give favors when it actually works out. Maybe get him a really thoughtful Christmas gift that isn't so much money, but more thoughts like the Jim's teapot for Pam, like something that you really put some thought into, show your appreciation in another way. Yeah, exactly. Just be a good friend. Just keep being a good friend of this guy. There's more money is like-

Clearly, that's the party value. It's not the money that you can put up for trips. It's the memories you guys make. And you got a rich friend. Congrats. There is some weird stuff. I will say, I don't really have much to add, but I do think that just a quick little anecdote. It is kind of funny when you get older with your friends and group trips or vacations

and things to see how people handle the different levels of what the vacation trip is. You know, like my buddy got married in Mexico last year and you know, there's different tiers of rooms and we're on the group chat talking about which one are you going to get and like it's almost like a domino effect or I guess snowball effect. Like once one guy says he's going to get the like the upgrade room, like everyone, no matter what their financial status is going to figure out the upgrade room. Like, wait, I Casa Bigos, like out there, whatever. Yeah, anyway, so those scenarios are just kind of funny. Like I remember we took a group trip

to see my buddy, same buddy in Chicago, and it was like a domino effect. Like one guy was going and another guy was like, all right, yeah, I'm free that weekend, I'll go. And then nobody like wanted to like not be the guy that didn't go, so they all, all like last minute we all just went to Chicago so it's kind of funny how like got you know, I think this is a maybe it's a Girl's thing too, but it's really a guy's thing where it's like the always somebody throwing their money around like I can't be the guy

That doesn't throw my money around too so I totally understand like I guess it's just going back to the email like I get why it's like ah, man like I can't I Don't feel like I contribute in the same way. But To your guys point, I don't think why it's like, ah man, I don't feel like I can contribute in the same way, but to your guys point, I don't think this guy really cares. I think it's just about camaraderie and I don't know, paying back in other ways, as Kyle said. Yeah, I mean, if he has enough money that none of this

is ever gonna bother him, I don't think he wants to be sitting 40 rows lower turning around waving to his friends. Yeah, correct. I mean, plenty of rich guys are like totally fine with it. And I think there's always something to the rich guy in the group that pays for stuff because he wants to dictate every piece of the itinerary. So it's essentially his trip and there's a bit of a power play there. Yeah, that's painfully clear.

Like there's no gray area there. You're like, I see what's happening. Yeah. I mean, I've had a couple of friends where it is like that. Like you're making it look like you're doing all of these things because you're such a gracious person. And ultimately what you're doing is controlling all of it. And that's when your boy checks out. That's when your boy's like, all right,

I'm totally out of here or I'll upgrade in a different area. And then it's like, cool, we all went on this trip together and now we're not going to see each other. These dudes are just, dudes are just whipping it out left and right. All right, can't play on basketball court office. Oh, excuse me. Can't play on office basketball court. All right, long time fan. Thanks for the content.

Six foot one, 180, haven't lifted in a while but my last bench was a 240 max which I'm still pretty proud of. You should be, it's good. Player comp is maybe late career Rashid Wallace or maybe L'Angelo Ball or Aaron Holiday because I went to UCLA and have a much more talented brother. L'Angelo Ball?

I say. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah. Good rap career. You guys see that? Little Jello. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

No, I was psyched. I went on Hoop's hype in the first seven stories were about his record deal. I was like, okay. I work at a marketing office, which is located in a huge converted warehouse. At the center of it is a beautiful basketball court with wooden floors and glass backboards.

Damn, sounds like heaven. Center of a warehouse? Yeah Now I don't know. warehouse. Yeah. Uh, I don't know what the logic was of putting a basketball court in a business office, but I always enjoyed getting some free throws in before or after meetings.

I would sometimes hear grumblings about people being annoyed by the sound of balls bouncing, but I always thought that people should just wear headphones or get used to what was essentially white noise. Yeah. I don't know about that, dude. I mean, I couldn't be more on your side of wanting to get some shots up here.

But all right. So a few months ago, I saw a sign put up that said the basketball court could only be used after 3 PM or between 12 and 1 PM. I found this a bit disheartening, but didn't have a real issue. I came into work really early the other day to beat traffic and had a bit of an inner conflict as to whether it'd be appropriate to get some shots up. It was around 7 20 AM and the office was 95%

empty though. It wasn't after 3 PM or the 12 to one window. I thought it was fine since it was well before the workday. The sign also did not specify when restrictions on the basketball court started. I think it kind of does though court started. I think it kind of does though buddy. I think it does. Yeah. If it was say 3 a.m. would that be allowed?

5 a.m.? In my head I thought 8 a.m. made sense. Again our guys showed up at 720. I began shooting free throws when one of the few people comes at me hot, asking me to quote, calm down with the basketball, I sheepishly say that I didn't know what the hour, what hour the restrictions started. And he angrily said, I obviously couldn't play now to which I meekly asked him to calm down as I put the ball away and walk back towards my desk, not wanting to escalate the situation, both because I'm non-convertational, but also because I thought I was kind of in the wrong.

He yelled, thank you, as I walked away, which I ignored. Now sitting at my desk and stewing for a few hours, I'm wondering, did he send this email day of? I love those. I'm wondering if I should ask the building's management to make a sign that more accurately describes when shooting free throws is permitted. I'm also tempted to play during the allotted lunch hours today, but as loudly and obnoxiously as possible yelling and one and whatnot, just out of spite.

Yo next. Yeah. What if you, basketball is life. The rest is just details. Just screaming and one t-shirt slogans. Now I understand the need for a calm workplace, but I feel wrong letting a beautiful basketball court go unused. And I don't want the hellishly monotonous corporate conformity

culture to win. Do my complaints have any validity? What should I do? Uh, I can't believe, I can't believe I'm about to say this. As someone that I mean, every time you see a hoop and a ball, it's just like, you know, it's my happy place. It's just, it's, I think you're wrong. And I think it's, I think it's pretty understood.

Like we don't need more fucking signs in life, man. And every time I see a sign for something that's like painfully obvious, I just go, you know, will we just be better off if we were like, Hey, if you needed that sign to not do the thing, the sign is telling you to not do, can we just split up? Like, can we just draw a line? Like you get these six states and the rest of us will take the other 44.

Like Leprosy Island. Like we're just gonna stay over there. Right, like if you were on the fence about what you could or couldn't do, but this sign like helped you understand, if that's the kind of direction you need in your life, like maybe the rest of us would all be better off if we didn't have to put up those signs for you.

So now look, this is basketball to Sruti's point, or I forget who said it. Why, you know, Butler's gym is just this gorgeous facility right in the middle of your, your warehouse, but I think it's 720. It's probably kind of understood that you shouldn't be, unless you knew you were the only person there, which you know that you weren't because you said it was 5%. So then to say, well, the sign says 12 to 1, you know what the sign saying 12 to 1 and after 3 means? I don't think that's like a running clock after 3.

The 12 to 1 is your indicator that 720 is out, man. And as much as I love this and it would be, I think I'd have to quit. I couldn't work here. Just having that there staring at me the entire time. And I don't actually have a problem with you playing from 12 to one and being super obnoxious about it because that guy lets you have it a little bit

and you're kind of pissed about it. Let's be honest, that guy's like one of the three reasons for the sign. There was probably a couple of people that rose up and he was proud of that sign. Yeah, but remember our emailers asking for like a more accurate sign and what I'd say is I think the 12 to one tells you that 720 is wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that how parking signs work too? Like they don't say, you know, to be like no parking signs are a little more

whatever specific. Yeah. Are they though? Because I, I'll tell you, there's a few times I've stared at him for 10 minutes going. Yeah, me too. What the fuck does that mean though? And then you come back. Yeah, I've seen some polls where it's like, why are there four signs? And it's always weird too,

because then when you come back and you get a ticket, the sign is so much clearer after the ticket. You're like every other Wednesday. Right. It's like it's in a foreign language while you're wondering if you're good, and then once you get the ticket, it's like somebody translated it for you. And you're like, okay, this makes sense now.

You read things optimistically, like you're like fine. And then when the consequences come down, you're like, Oh, that's right. That's what it meant. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to contest this one. Yeah. I think you're, you're spot on with with like you have to know there's no one

in there. Like, you know, frolic room has two bathrooms, right? One of them is a gender neutral bathroom. The other one's a women's bathroom. They're both one person bathrooms. That sounds like you got two women's bathrooms. I tell you what, it does bother me a little bit when they're waiting behind a gender neutral bathroom and I see a woman walk out and there's actually no women in the women's bathroom. What's the ratio like at Frog Room though? I mean, it can be super high. Well, on theater days, it's a little different.

It's connected to the Pantages Theater. So on theater days, it's a madhouse, especially that intermission and that hour before the show. Excited women and dejected men paired up, that's usually how it goes. But basically, if there's somebody in the gender neutral bathroom and it's time for me to go, and maybe I've been there an hour and I'm going to go,

and there's somebody in that bathroom. If there's no women in the bathroom, I'll look at the bar chair and be like, yeah, what do you think? We're good, I'll be 30 seconds, go ahead. But if there's one woman in that thing, even if she just got there and it's probably not, I'm not even taking the chance.

So you have to know, like you said, there has to be no one else. There has to be no one else and then it's fine because no one's hurt. But if there's one person, that could just be the time when you're walking out and she's walking in, that's a big problem. Even if you don't agree with the rule, I think maybe there should be a men's bathroom in that bar, but whatever. The rule is the rule. The sign is the sign. I hope I landed that point. I think maybe there should be a men's bathroom in that bar, but whatever, the rule is the rule. The sign is the sign.

I hope I landed that play. I think I agree. Yeah. I don't know that I would play loudly though either. I don't know. That's kind of like a dick move. Yeah, how old is he? Can we read the top of that email and just figure out,

like, is he a late twenties guy or a thirties? I think this guy has to be pretty young. Young, yeah. Yeah, that's my guess. Yeah, which is, look, I've been this guy. Yeah. You know, I mean, I've, the number of times I've been yelled at for getting a shot up.

Oh, I can't imagine. I can't imagine. And, you know, I don't know how many times I ever thought I was actually right. You know, it's like, but when somebody yells at you, when somebody gives you the business, and by the way, that wasn't about your free throw attempts. That's about all the free throw attempts before you. Right? That's about guys just working on non-cone dribble drills.

Because no one, I don't care if you've never played, people love to touch a basketball and bounce it and then throw it at the rim. Like you can be, I remember one time, I think I was in junior high and my father was holding a ball, I think after one of our practices or something and another kid's dad came up and slapped the ball out of his hands and the guy was not an athlete, slapped the ball out of my dad's hands and then like did a layup and then kind of like laughed and he threw the ball back to my dad.

And my dad kind of just, I knew even at like 13, I was like, this might not be a great idea. And then he- Dad on dad crime. Right, then he did it to him again. And I think there was a, hey, listen, motherfucker. And then, because I never forget this, because my father was like, he was upset about it

in the car ride home when we were in the truck, getting truck wisdom. And he's like, he's a fucking little guy. Like, look, I didn't fucking, and I was like, all right, damn. I'm the 13 year old telling him to like, all right, chill out a little bit. He's an annoying dad.

We all know he's an annoying dad. It's not the end of the world. He didn't actually steal the ball from you. It's not a real turnover. It's not on the box score. You have two turnovers now. That's a perfect situation that'd be like, all right, check ball, let's go.

Well, that wasn't gonna happen. All right, I think we got it all. Covered up. Anything else? I feel like there's still meat on that Oregon bone. There is, he had mentioned that Taylor Swift was his first concert as well. He's here right now.

I was gonna say we did come home last night, accidentally left the gas on. Apartments, gas had to leave. Yeah. Wow. Not great. So you're, wait, so you're a gas stove guy. Really Mike gas stove.

I'm just kidding. I'm a gas stove guy too. That's dangerous stuff, man. Yeah. Happened to me once. Four days and I asked, we're talking. Four days. That's correct.

God damn. A lot of gas. I could? Four days, that's correct. God damn. A lot of gas. I could. Did you just go back to Disney? What'd you do? So rude. That's a lot of gas. I mean, it's a good opportunity to maybe invest

in some carbon monoxide alarms, you know? Sensors. Yeah, I mean, we went out, got sushi, light a match, get rid of the smell, you know? No. You're a funny guy. It stinks in here. All right then, man.

I'm glad you're all right. Yeah, glad you feel better and you didn't blow up your building. Yeah. Damn, so you just opened all the windows for like four hours in the winter? Opened the windows, went out for dinner. God, it must have been freezing.

Wow, well, glad you're okay, man. Yeah. Yeah, welcome back. All right, yeah, good to see you. Thanks to Wargon, thanks to Sabrina, thanks to Kyle. That is it for today's podcast. We'll be back on Friday. We'll talk some NBA.

I'll probably do some kind of open on the NBA that's lingering in the leftover because we had double guests today. And then liner, getting ready for the national championship game and then next week will be Monday, Tuesday, Friday. So look out midweek gap. Who knows what's possible. Uh, please check out the show on YouTube and of course always subscribe.

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