0:11

I love today's episode.

0:14

Doing a little Tales from the Couch,

0:16

a focus on Jaylen Green's incredible night

0:18

last night in Oklahoma City. Jeff Passen,

0:20

we're going deep, we're talking baseball, just

0:22

two baseball guys hanging out, loving, loving

0:24

the game, almost an hour on that

0:27

and his World Series pick. And Doug

0:29

McDermott, now of the Indiana Pacers. I

0:31

can't wait to have you

0:34

guys respond to this interview. Great

0:36

storytelling, his time's in Chicago, and

0:38

also rooting for his dad and

0:40

Creighton this weekend. And life advice.

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I'm going to do a little tales from the couch. I'm

1:48

not going to get to a million games here. I want

1:50

to get to what I thought was important from last night.

1:52

The most important thing, and yes, teams

1:54

are missing players. But the

1:56

most important thing was Jaylen Green with the Houston Rockets last night.

1:59

He was incredible. We're gonna spend some time

2:01

on it. So no SGA for the Thunder

2:03

Chet Holmgren bad game for him Oddly

2:05

enough fouls out with 848 to go in the fourth

2:07

quarter So Houston who's been on

2:09

kind of a small thing with Jabari at

2:12

the five or Jacques Landell who jock? I've

2:14

just liked you know, I know what he is I

2:17

know what he isn't but what he is what I

2:19

like and I think there's times in the past where

2:21

I've seen him get Limited minutes. I'm like man, like

2:23

I probably could place some more as

2:25

a rotational big I don't expect that

2:27

anybody would think they were gonna have me there starting

2:29

center. So looking

2:32

at how this is playing out here with

2:34

shingoon being her and Even

2:37

with Chet healthy, you're like, okay, Oklahoma

2:39

City's a little small But

2:41

they've got the other Jaylen Williams to

2:43

play and then Kenrich Williams He's playing

2:46

basically some five for them when Chet's

2:48

gone for almost the entire fourth quarter

2:50

So that means a couple different things on

2:52

the offensive side with no SGA. It means

2:54

that Jaylen Williams the one that

2:57

scores season-high 23 field

2:59

goal attempts last night He's

3:01

flirting with a 50 40 and

3:03

90 shooting split month When

3:06

he gets an undersized body like as

3:08

good as a man is on defense

3:10

and his instincts and his athleticism Obviously,

3:13

he's a better defender already than Jaylen Green. But like

3:15

even if there are these lanky

3:18

Athletic dudes that he either has

3:21

as the primary defender or gets into a

3:23

switch Jaylen Williams has

3:25

got a little bit of this Kawhi thing in

3:28

him where he's so stout and he's also a

3:30

sick athlete kind of like how Kawhi you

3:32

can sometimes forget how explosive and

3:34

dynamic he is athletically because he just

3:36

plays with so much pace But

3:39

Jaylen Williams will get that shoulder into you and

3:41

he'll either work you to the rim or he'll

3:44

take that step back And it's just nasty like

3:46

there's just not a lot you can do with

3:49

that You almost need somebody who's more stout to

3:51

hang with him Than

3:53

than just all that length because the length

3:55

is great in the contest the blank is great on some

3:58

of the the passing lane and

4:00

you know trying to defend that way like I was watching

4:02

Utah the other night against Luca and I was like what

4:04

are they gonna do and they put Hendrix and Lowry

4:07

on Luca because it was like

4:10

well maybe we'll just try to go with sides

4:12

because when you think of the way the

4:14

roster is for the Jazz you're like well George

4:17

and Sexton and Clarkson like you

4:19

can't put them on Luca and

4:21

look none of it works against Luca anyway so it's

4:23

it's just something you'll notice who you go hey this

4:26

guy's like six seven six eight he's got this massive

4:28

wingspan he can jump out of the gym he can

4:30

do all these different things and there

4:32

was somebody like James Williams who's just so smart

4:34

played longer in college he is somebody

4:37

that can just get into you physically and move

4:39

you off of his spot and find a way

4:41

and in a very short amount of time this

4:43

guy's figuring out like real veteran type stuff in

4:47

comparison to some of these younger dudes

4:49

so the other part

4:51

of this offense without

4:53

SGA last night and this has gone on

4:55

now for three straight games is Josh Giddy's

4:58

offense season high 31 for him last

5:00

three games 19 points 25 points 31 points he's 40% from 3 in

5:05

March I've seen in different

5:07

matchups this season against the Thunder when

5:09

you're looking at whether it's

5:11

SGA Williams Giddy Chet

5:14

you know maybe it's Wallace depending on the

5:17

night I think Oklahoma City's

5:19

a little bit more willing to experiment with who they

5:21

want that fifth guy to be but

5:24

you'll look at them and go okay well what

5:26

is the defense going to give up to try

5:28

to stop SGA and these drives or at least

5:31

impede them or just get him

5:33

to pull up instead of getting the rim over and

5:35

over and over again I've seen certain teams it's not

5:37

like I'm watching every single Thunder game and focusing only

5:39

on this but I've seen teams be like alright Giddy's

5:41

the thing that will give up because

5:44

the shooting numbers haven't been good enough

5:46

considering Giddy's 31% from

5:48

3 so it feels like in their

5:50

game prep it's like okay if that's the closing five

5:52

and Giddy's out there we're gonna sag off a Giddy

5:55

to give help to SGA or Jaylen Williams well

5:59

the other thing was Giddy is he's down to

6:01

25 minutes game in his third

6:03

season after 31 a game in his first two.

6:08

But Giddy got back to being

6:10

the guy without SGA of

6:12

initiating all this offense. And depending on

6:14

how the substitution patterns work out, he'd

6:17

be running everything because Janeline Williams would be on the

6:19

bench for certain times. Granted, they end up closing together,

6:21

but you see the point like Giddy on the ball

6:24

is still the best version of him

6:26

because of his driving and because of his passing and

6:28

it's not necessarily a shooting. So sometimes he's almost miscast

6:30

with this group having to sit around and watch. And

6:32

that's why he's played less minutes. But I thought last

6:34

night he had a baseline floater where you're like, yeah,

6:36

this is kind of a reminder of like what the

6:38

peak version of him is, even if he's playing less

6:40

minutes in his third year, which is not good for him.

6:44

Well, let's talk Janeline Green, because that's really what this is

6:46

all about. So

6:48

Janeline last night, 37, 10 and seven, 14 to

6:50

24 from the floor. His

6:54

March numbers are 29, just under 29 points

6:56

a game, six boards, four assists. The

6:58

shooting splits for the month are 50 from the floor,

7:01

43 from three, 80 plus percent from

7:04

the free throw line. But we want to

7:06

talk possessions. That's why you come to Tales from the

7:08

Couch. Possessions. Let's

7:11

talk about the brilliance of Janeline Green last

7:13

night and this light going off with him.

7:16

And I thought last night was like one of the best examples.

7:18

I know he's been lighting it up all month, but really, really

7:20

was locked in on it. So we're just

7:22

going to run through a bunch of things that I love from him. Oklahoma

7:27

City wanted to try to double him a lot

7:29

when he was initiating the offense. He split the

7:31

double towards a couple

7:33

of minutes into the fourth quarter, as well

7:35

as you're going to see anybody split a double team. Like

7:38

Kobe was the best, I think, I've ever

7:40

seen at it. Dwayne

7:43

Wade rejected the screen a lot. So

7:45

if I'm thinking back, like surely Dwayne

7:47

Wade is split screens. But

7:50

I think Kobe is probably the best I've ever seen do it. Janeline

7:53

Green, in the best part, he wasn't just

7:55

trying to do it all the time, which I think has always

7:57

been my frustration with him as a player, which we'll get to

7:59

here. when he was a bit younger, but He

8:03

splits it with a plan and then

8:05

once he's through it's like Usain Bolt

8:08

He's passed everybody and then it's him

8:10

going at the rim and now Chet

8:12

isn't out of there So there's zero

8:14

fear whatsoever and he takes

8:16

off from like a step into the lane. Boom.

8:18

He's at the rim and

8:21

one It's awesome

8:24

All right. Next possession. He's got single

8:26

coverage with door on him Blows

8:29

right past him and There's

8:32

just a bunch of undersized guys flailing at the rim

8:34

But it's not like we haven't seen Jane Lee green

8:36

Jane Lee green finish against other big players So we

8:38

can't just make this out to be like our Chet

8:40

fouled out Yes, it was easier without Chet, but it's

8:42

not like he doesn't do this against other teams that

8:44

have all of their guys so

8:48

right past everybody layup got past door

8:51

then there's a three on two after

8:53

a Um,

8:56

it might have been a mess whatever from Oklahoma City

8:58

van Vleet's got it Middle of

9:01

the court Jalen Greene's on his right Jabari

9:03

Smith's on his left Van

9:05

Vleet throws it ahead to green

9:07

for green Free

9:10

for the first couple years. I

9:12

don't think he makes the pass that he made

9:14

last night. He's right side He could have just

9:17

kept dribbling. Maybe get the free throws. Maybe he

9:19

finishes in some spectacular way instead He

9:21

switches he goes right back to

9:23

Jabari. So it's van Vleet Right

9:26

side green green looks at Jabari in

9:28

the left side throws it across the paint Jabari catches

9:30

He gets fouled as he goes up to the layup.

9:33

That was my favorite play from Jalen Greene last

9:35

night It

9:38

wasn't the best one, but I thought it was the smartest

9:40

one Or the one

9:42

that showed it probably wasn't even the smartest one now that I

9:44

think about it Cuz I've got a bunch written down here It

9:47

was the one that showed me that he was like

9:49

now like I'm I'm gonna I'm just I

9:51

have more awareness I just don't think he makes that past

9:53

two years ago And maybe there's a clip of him actually

9:55

doing it at one point But I think you get the

9:57

point because it kept going on It's

10:00

102-101 Houston. Jaylen's

10:02

got Kenrich against him, goes right past

10:04

him. He gets

10:06

to the rim. All the help

10:08

comes up to Jaylen Green. Heyman Thompson's

10:11

in the dunker spot. He

10:13

just drops it right off to him. Thompson

10:15

did miss the layup. He gets double.

10:18

Later, he doesn't force it. He brings

10:20

it back out. He resets. Then he drives hard

10:23

to his left, where he's

10:25

got door with him. But he

10:27

finds a way to throw this bounce

10:29

pass to Thompson diagonally across the paint,

10:31

left to right, Thompson makes

10:33

the layup. The only play

10:36

that was like, yeah, it was a little tough. Dort locked

10:38

him up pretty good. You're not gonna beat Dort every single

10:40

time. Going at him off the dribble.

10:42

Jaylen got stuck. It was a little late, missed

10:44

a really tough jumper. But the point

10:46

is of that one, is that was from

10:48

this fourth quarter through overtime last night, that was like the

10:50

only one. You're like, I might have been a questionable decision.

10:53

But you're going to have a few of those when you

10:55

have the ball as much as he does. Everybody

10:57

has some of these possessions. The problem is, I think

10:59

that used to be half of his possessions for me.

11:02

20 seconds left. Oklahoma

11:05

City misses. That was that weird Kenrich Williams

11:07

deep shot that was just a tough look

11:09

for them. Green goes super

11:11

fast, off the miss, but

11:14

drives with purpose. But he's driving here fast,

11:16

not because he's a young, unbelievable athlete who's

11:18

out of control. He's driving because he's like,

11:20

I don't want them to get set. I

11:22

don't want to get their matchups ready. And

11:25

he brings it deep in the paint, everything collapses, then

11:27

he kicks it out to the left corner from Jabari

11:29

Smith to hit a three. Jen

11:31

Williams hit a three to tie it back up.

11:33

We went into overtime. I'll run through a couple

11:35

of these. Green gets double teamed, brings the defenders

11:37

all the way to him, to the sideline, the right

11:40

brings them away from the rest of

11:42

the play, swings it quickly to Dylan Brooks, who then

11:44

hit his second three of

11:46

the overtime. It's not just making

11:48

shots. It's not just hitting threes now at this absurd

11:50

level, which is the part of him where we've talked

11:52

about him in March, where you're like, okay, but is

11:54

he really going to be that kind of shooter all

11:56

of a sudden now? I mean, maybe, but

11:59

it's. kind of an outlaw or a monk.

12:01

The difference is, is that there's just

12:03

so many good plays in here for

12:06

somebody. It seems like now he completely

12:08

understands like, Hey, when I have the

12:10

ball, there's a lot of stuff that I can do, but it

12:12

doesn't mean I have to do those things all the time, because

12:15

when I look at his

12:17

physical gifts and

12:20

you thinking like, all right, I can get by like

12:22

almost every defender in the league, you know, maybe somebody

12:24

would get me, they'll close me off. Look, guess right. Right. But

12:27

if you think of the guys with the ball in their hands, like

12:30

how long is the list of players like ball in his hands?

12:32

Like I think that guy has the best chance

12:34

of getting past defenders. Jaylen

12:36

Green's pretty high in that and he was pretty high

12:38

in it prior to this month where he's exploded, just

12:41

wasn't necessarily like consistent enough. I know Shingu not being

12:43

around, maybe opens up some more of this stuff. The

12:45

offense is going to look different without somebody who's going

12:47

to initiate a lot of the soft fence, which is

12:49

a good problem to have worry about that later. I'm

12:51

not going to worry about it right now. The

12:54

fact that he is now understanding there's a difference

12:56

between, okay, well, cool, you can beat every guy

12:58

off the dribble if you want to, but then

13:00

what? The, the

13:03

growth as a player, because I'm sure

13:05

coaches would tell players like this. Yeah,

13:07

it's great. You can beat everyone, but

13:11

what you need to be doing is realizing

13:13

the benefits of beating the perimeter defense and

13:15

all the good things that can happen off

13:17

of it. Some of them might be sick

13:19

dunks. Some of them might be and one

13:21

layups. Maybe it's a floater here or

13:23

there, but there's also a scrambling

13:25

defense. That's likely outnumbered now

13:27

four against three. And

13:30

your teammates are going to play that much better.

13:32

Once you start continuing to think about them from

13:34

the point you split the double team and have

13:36

the advantage for the point where you beat your

13:38

defender or the time you're coming up and transition

13:40

and you're just flying down the court, there's

13:43

still going to be some really nice options

13:45

and you have to keep thinking about those.

13:48

Cause there's so many young scorers and I'm

13:50

like, he doesn't even think about anything but

13:52

the rim once the

13:54

game or once the ball of like that

13:56

position is in this mode, we're like, okay, this is just mine.

13:58

And like you guys could just. watch. That's

14:01

what I thought he was for a long time. And I

14:03

think that's fair. But last

14:05

night was incredible for him. Like

14:08

really, I just, I just thought high level

14:10

stuff, man, understanding it and not making mistakes

14:12

for a good chunk in a close game.

14:15

Again, they need it. Let's look at

14:17

it now. Houston the game behind Golden State for

14:19

the last play and spot the 10 seed in

14:21

the West. Golden State's got nice wins here, back

14:24

to back at Miami, at Orlando. That

14:26

was, that was a big win. That felt

14:29

emotional last night for Golden State.

14:31

Draymond was suspended after, excuse me, ejected after

14:33

four minutes. And

14:36

aside here on Draymond, gets

14:39

ejected when he came back from the

14:42

12 game suspension that it was initially an indefinite

14:44

suspension after the Go Bear thing. I

14:47

don't want to say we got conned, but

14:50

the way that story played out where

14:53

I was like, he needs time. And

14:57

we're going to figure some stuff out. And I don't know anything about

14:59

his, his, his life. So I don't,

15:01

I don't want to sound like I'm insensitive to all this,

15:03

but I would say specifically of like the way that this

15:06

played out where instead of

15:08

being like, Hey, stop jumping

15:11

on fucking dudes, you know, like

15:15

your team needs you. Don't

15:17

get thrown out of last night's game because you're pissed at

15:19

the ref again. Even if you're

15:21

right, like don't get the second tech,

15:23

they need you. Orlando's huge. You're

15:26

not huge. Golden State

15:29

needs you on the front line. But

15:31

instead of being like, Hey man, this shit's getting old.

15:33

It pivoted into people feeling bad or, or sympathy.

15:40

I guess maybe I should say empathy in this one for

15:44

Draymond. I'm

15:46

not even mad about it. It's actually pretty

15:48

impressive when you think about it. You're

15:52

like, yeah, you're, you didn't

15:54

like, nothing's different. Nothing's

15:58

different. But for those. couple

16:00

weeks, it's like, Oh, I

16:02

hope I hope he gets the answers he needs. No,

16:06

he actually just was kind of on

16:08

a run of doing some shit you're not supposed to do

16:10

in games. And now and by the way, I thought

16:12

12 games is fine. People want 2025 all that stuff. I'm

16:15

like, whatever, you know,

16:17

you miss some games, it's gonna cost you a lot

16:19

of money. But it's also gonna cost your team some wins.

16:21

Because he's an awesome player. He's an

16:23

awesome component to have on your team.

16:26

Although we know he's a little different. As

16:28

far as what he brings offensively, but he's super

16:30

important to that basketball team. So now Golden State's

16:32

got the fourth easiest schedule to go with 10

16:36

games remaining. Houston with their 10

16:38

games remaining has the 10 hardest

16:41

speaking of remaining strength, the schedules will finish

16:43

in Denver where Phoenix got the win last

16:45

night beating the Nuggets again. And thanks

16:48

to tankathon for putting these together. Phoenix going

16:50

into last night, their

16:54

opponents

16:57

winning percentage for

16:59

the remainder of the season was 645.

17:02

Like off the charts hard. Charlotte

17:04

was next toughest opponent 20 percentage

17:06

593. Let's run through Phoenix's opponents

17:09

here. So last night in Denver

17:12

at Oklahoma City at New

17:14

Orleans, Cleveland, Minnesota, New

17:16

Orleans, the Clippers at

17:18

the Clippers at Sacramento

17:20

at Minnesota to finish

17:22

up the season. Good luck,

17:24

gang. No Jamal Murray last

17:26

night. So I don't know what to

17:29

make of it other than, well, it's better

17:31

than losing if you're Phoenix. Because

17:34

the offense was

17:37

really balanced with the three guys. Phoenix kind of

17:39

looked the way they're supposed to look when

17:42

we have these expectations for what they can do

17:45

with those three guys and no nurkage last night,

17:47

which I was kind of looking forward to with

17:49

the nurkage, yoke, match up. But without Murray,

17:52

you know, just good defense

17:54

from Phoenix. There's just not enough on

17:56

the ball creators for the nuggets to

17:58

get through. night against a

18:00

good version of the Phoenix team that we got last

18:02

night. Where it other

18:05

than Reggie Jackson, there's just not a lot of guys and

18:07

kind of initiating it at offense. So you can see Yoakage

18:09

get a little bit more aggressive with the shot taking. And

18:12

they just did a really good job against them. So it's

18:14

a nice win for them, but I don't know what to

18:16

make of it won because I'm not gonna

18:18

put a ton on it because Murray's not

18:20

there as Mrs. Third straight game. And

18:22

I did watch Phoenix in San Antonio

18:24

on Monday. And if I

18:26

had done an open where there weren't a

18:28

million other more important topics than Phoenix losing a

18:31

regular season game against San Antonio after playing

18:33

him two nights prior, I think. I'm

18:36

imagining most of you missed that game. I

18:39

don't blame you when but Yama wasn't even playing. Phoenix

18:42

sucked in that game. It

18:44

was disgusting. For

18:46

a team that needs to figure out if

18:49

they're gonna be any good, like the effort

18:51

they gave in that game against San Antonio

18:54

was terrible. There were so many

18:56

little stupid mistakes defensively. Bowl getting lost a

18:58

couple times, Durant getting lost a few times.

19:00

I mean Booker who I think is always

19:03

up for it. They had a play in

19:05

transition where nobody even got to

19:07

I think Sohan on the left side. He just

19:09

blew past like three guys because nobody knew what

19:11

was going on. Their effort,

19:14

watching film after that Spurs loss

19:16

must have been brutal for

19:18

that Sun staff. I don't even know if they would have

19:20

watched it with the players because it's like whatever. So

19:22

knowing that that one still lingers in my

19:24

head as great as last night was despite

19:26

not a full roster and

19:29

really the second most important guys we all know

19:31

with the Denver Nuggets. Like I said, it's better

19:33

than losing it. But that was

19:35

that Spurs game was almost like a right them off

19:37

as being anyone. I'm really worried about in the playoffs

19:40

because I can't believe this late into it with all

19:42

the uncertainty they had when they had all three guys

19:44

again that they could have that many bad possessions where

19:46

they just lost or maybe they were like whatever we

19:49

beat these guys two nights ago so it didn't matter.

19:53

It was so bad that I don't even know how

19:55

excited I can get about the win against Denver last

19:57

night and knowing that's the remaining schedule which is insane.

20:02

I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go, hey,

20:04

they're not going to beat anybody. But that's how I

20:06

felt after that game against

20:08

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terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. America's

21:36

pastime, you know we love it. We're passionate

21:38

about opening day on the podcast. No one

21:40

I would rather talk to than from ESPN.

21:44

Baseball senior writer, it is Jeff Passen. Good day to you,

21:46

sir. It is a good day, Ryan.

21:49

Baseball season is here and we've

21:51

got scandals abound. And

21:54

you know, as a reporter and as someone

21:56

who is entering I think

21:58

year 21. one now

22:00

covering the sport. I have

22:03

maybe never been more engaged than I am

22:05

because there's a lot of fascinating stuff going

22:07

on. I will get to the Otani

22:10

story, I promise. And

22:13

obviously, you probably think I want to start there, but I

22:15

would not do that. I would not do that to baseball.

22:17

At one point, it was my favorite sport. I

22:20

read your piece up on espn.com out today

22:22

and you look at the spending of teams

22:24

and you put them into tears and I

22:26

really enjoyed it because I love talking about

22:28

spending. I think the point that you

22:30

hammer while you do this is

22:32

that baseball has become with a bit

22:34

with playoff expansion. But when I look

22:36

at the lineups, there's so

22:38

many teams and I'm like, man, it feels like they're first

22:40

five or six. That's like a really tough stretch to get

22:43

through. And considering the history they've

22:45

had in the postseason where a league's worst postseason

22:47

entry based on win totals has actually made it

22:49

to the World Series for three years in a

22:51

row. It feels like we have

22:54

incredible balance and that general managers are building teams

22:56

with the idea that this is more wide open

22:58

than ever before. So why is that? There

23:01

are two conflicting things going on

23:03

right now, Ryan. And it's awfully

23:06

interesting to me to see that

23:08

payroll disparity, not

23:10

just in terms of like standard deviation from

23:12

the average payroll of $159 million, but with

23:14

these mega payrolls

23:18

that you have with the Mets, the

23:20

Yankees and the Dodgers and

23:22

nine teams over the luxury tax

23:24

threshold compared to nine teams that

23:26

are $100 million below the luxury

23:28

tax threshold.

23:33

The disparity right now, I think, is

23:36

as large in some respects as we've

23:38

seen since like the early to mid 2000s.

23:42

And yet that runs in conflict

23:44

with this notion that you

23:46

can make an argument that 26 teams have

23:50

a realistic shot at making the postseason

23:52

this year. And in there, you know,

23:54

you've got the Pittsburghs and the Kansas

23:56

City is that, you know,

23:58

realistic is a little bit of a. stretch,

24:01

but there are a lot of teams that

24:03

believe that they have as good of a

24:05

chance as any to make the postseason. And

24:08

the point that you made, I think is really salient.

24:10

You don't have to be a great regular season

24:12

team to be a great October team. Look at

24:15

the Arizona Diamondbacks last year and 84 win team

24:17

finished 16 games behind the Los

24:19

Angeles Dodgers and in the

24:21

division series swept them in

24:23

dominant fashion. And that, that

24:25

is both the beauty and the

24:27

agony of baseball that you can spend six

24:30

months following a team, believe that it's going

24:32

to go to the World Series. And then

24:34

in three games, it can be gone like

24:36

that. And I love that about

24:38

the sport, but I have

24:40

no rooting interest for teams. So fans,

24:43

I can understand especially of those juggernaut

24:45

teams, why they might not be so

24:47

excited about it. Okay. Perfect segue into

24:50

the Dodgers because they're spending 320 million this

24:52

year. That is

24:54

second behind the Mets are spending 340 million.

24:56

But as you point out the Mets, you read

24:58

it. It's like they probably don't think they're really

25:00

primed to compete with Atlanta, with

25:02

LA, maybe even Philadelphia. Um, their

25:05

postseason chances, I think, depending on which projections you look

25:07

at it, have them at 24% chance of making the

25:09

post season where the Dodgers are 99%. So

25:12

here's what always blows my mind about

25:14

the Dodgers is this rotation, you

25:17

know, the Braves rotation, it just felt like, okay,

25:19

I'm just picking the Braves again. We go back

25:21

to when we're growing up and it didn't work

25:23

out as many times as far as winning a

25:25

World Series as you would think, because the rotations

25:27

were such a priority. But then when I look

25:29

at what the Dodgers have in glass now, who

25:31

I've loved forever, but he's thrown a hundred plus

25:33

innings twice in his career. He's their

25:35

opening day guy, Yamamoto, who we've spent a lot of

25:37

time talking about last time you're on with us, Bobby

25:39

Miller, a 23 rookie, Gavin Stone,

25:41

who threw 14 innings last year. And then you

25:43

got packs and he's actually been good when he's

25:46

actually healthy. But then you think, wait, I'm missing

25:48

people. And you're like, yes, we are. Kershaw projected

25:50

maybe to come back July, August, Justin

25:52

May, who I loved maybe August, September.

25:55

You've got Walker Bueller, who's a

25:57

stud, but now he's still a little banged

25:59

up. his timeline is shorter and then

26:02

look, Otani's not pitching in 24. So

26:05

we love the Dodgers lineup, but you're

26:07

like, is this awesome?

26:09

Or is it just that they have a million

26:11

options that at one point were all awesome? I

26:14

think options are awesome. Are they not?

26:17

You know, you look at what the

26:19

Texas Rangers, for example, are doing there,

26:21

their rotation depth to start the season.

26:23

Ryan isn't quite the same as the

26:26

Dodgers. Um, but they have max

26:28

shares are coming back in June. They have Tyler

26:30

Molly coming back in July. They have Jacob de

26:32

Grom projected to come back in August. And

26:35

I think what you see now is

26:37

these teams understand that the regular season

26:40

is a slog and that if you

26:42

have the lineup to carry you through

26:45

the end of the season, then the

26:47

pitching depth, you can, like, you can

26:49

take your time with these

26:51

guys and you don't have to necessarily

26:53

rush them back because your offense is

26:55

so good. And that's what the Dodgers

26:57

are banking on. I mean, they're, they're

26:59

offense, you know, uh, I

27:01

recorded baseball tonight with Tim Kirk,

27:03

generally today and Tim

27:05

is the font of

27:08

baseball knowledge. And he

27:10

said, the Mookie Betts Shohei

27:12

Ohtani Freddie Freeman, top three of the

27:14

Dodgers lineup is the best top three

27:16

he's ever seen. Now

27:18

when Tim Kirchin is calling

27:20

something the best he's ever seen, I'm

27:23

not just saying cause Tim's old. Uh,

27:25

Tim knows everything. He

27:28

knows absolutely everything. And if he's

27:30

saying that, uh, you

27:32

know, you have to believe it and

27:35

it is that freaking good. And so

27:37

it's in our nature, I think to

27:40

look past something like starting pitching now

27:42

just because the import of it isn't

27:44

quite what it once was because, you

27:47

know, seeing a guy go seven

27:49

innings, eight innings, complete game is

27:52

more anomalous, uh, than

27:54

it is regular. But at

27:56

the same time, when you're out there

27:58

in October, man, when you're in. post-season

28:00

baseball, you want horses on

28:02

the mound and the Dodgers, you know, health

28:04

permitting are going to have their pick of

28:07

them. And it's why I think they're more

28:09

confident than they've been in recent years going

28:11

into post-seasons. We've had a week

28:13

or so with the Satani story. I know, you

28:16

know, when you're on the air, you

28:18

are a, you know, your background as a

28:20

traditional reporter. So I'll ask it this way.

28:24

What do you think happened? I

28:27

appreciate you, I think, you know, I've

28:29

had a lot of conversations with Tisha

28:31

Thompson this week. Tisha is

28:33

the phenomenal investigative reporter who

28:36

has been

28:38

writing the definitive stuff on this story.

28:41

And she always gets pissed

28:43

when people ask her, what do you

28:45

think? Because as she says, it's not

28:48

our job to think, it's our job

28:50

to find out what the facts actually

28:52

are. And so pardon me for side

28:54

stepping your question here, because the real

28:57

answer, Ryan, is I don't know. It's

29:00

so early in the process right now.

29:02

And there are so many facts

29:04

that we have yet to

29:06

find out that to render any kind

29:09

of a judgment on what we know

29:11

right now, I think would be irresponsible.

29:13

And I have no

29:15

problem with people being irresponsible on

29:17

this because it's a wild story

29:20

and that's just our nature to

29:22

do so. But what

29:24

I look at when I see this right now

29:26

is I'm confused as shit.

29:29

I really am. Because when you

29:31

go from one story that was

29:34

told by Ibei Mitsuhara, the translator,

29:36

Tisha Thompson, and then within 24

29:39

hours, it pivots entirely.

29:41

Like logically, you can see how

29:44

that might happen if the story

29:46

that Shohei Otani is telling right

29:48

now is truthful. But there

29:50

are so many other possibilities out there,

29:53

and we have seen so many instances

29:55

in which athletes have lied in the

29:57

past to try and cover up misdeeds.

29:59

that our skeptical radars are

30:02

as attuned as they've ever

30:04

been. And that I think

30:06

is the way that we're approaching this

30:08

in this situation. We're gonna report what

30:10

Shohei Otani says in the version of

30:12

the story he has while fully acknowledging

30:14

that there may be other versions of

30:16

the story we simply haven't heard yet.

30:19

I tried, but I still like the answer. Let

30:22

me ask a different way though, in a way

30:24

I think you can't answer. What

30:28

do you think on the current timeline makes the

30:30

least sense as far as the explanation is concerned?

30:33

Well, there's one part of the explanation

30:36

that we don't know the answer to

30:38

and that I think is a fundamental

30:40

part of validating the story that Shohei

30:43

Otani is telling. If he

30:45

is alleging that there was a

30:47

crime committed and when you use

30:49

the words massive theft that they

30:51

did in the statement that

30:54

was put out the day that the

30:57

original story ran, generally speaking, when there

30:59

is a massive theft, there

31:01

is also the

31:03

equal and opposite reaction, which is you

31:06

tell the cops. And there

31:08

are plenty of law enforcement agencies

31:10

out there. There is a federal

31:12

investigation into the entire

31:15

alleged bookmaking ring and

31:17

all of the different tentacles it has. But

31:20

one thing that Otani's camp has not

31:22

answered when our reporters have asked repeated

31:25

times is, to whom did

31:27

you refer this case? To

31:29

whom, what agency did you give

31:31

the details to pursue

31:34

potential charges for what

31:36

Otani is saying is a four and

31:38

a half million dollar theft? Now they

31:40

may have their reasons why they're not

31:43

telling reporters right now. And I understand

31:45

it would be in the nascent stages

31:47

of an investigation, the idea that Ipe

31:49

Mitsuhara would be arrested for something this

31:51

quickly is unlikely, but

31:53

at the same time, I don't

31:56

think knowing the investigatory

31:58

unit is going to... to

32:00

diminish the case in any way.

32:02

And in their reticence to come

32:04

out and tell us who

32:07

is looking into these potential charges,

32:10

not gonna say it's a red

32:12

flag, but it is certainly curious.

32:14

And I don't understand the logic

32:16

behind it right now. I

32:18

think the language barrier is actually helping him here right

32:21

now too, where

32:23

you're like, what is going on? And what was

32:25

the relationship and how does this work? And that

32:28

may not be beneficial later on,

32:30

but I think in the early stages, it's added

32:32

to the layer of confusion of what exactly are

32:34

you saying as far as the relationship, even though

32:36

there's prepared translated statement. All right, let's get back

32:38

to baseball. Back to the diamond, Jeff.

32:41

OK, the Braves. I

32:44

was looking at it last year. They led Major

32:47

League Baseball 947 runs. That

32:49

was what, 41 runs better than the Dodgers.

32:51

That is a staggering number. Historically, when you

32:54

get over 1,000 runs, not

32:56

to say that they did, but this lineup,

32:58

with all the lineups that I really like before

33:00

we get started here, is this the best lineup

33:02

in your opinion in baseball? I

33:04

think so, but I'm not going to

33:07

discount Texas. I

33:09

think the fact that the

33:11

Rangers, Ryan, went out, won the World

33:13

Series last year, and for a full

33:16

season are going to add Evan Carter,

33:18

who was awesome as a 21-year-old in

33:20

the playoffs last year, and add Wyatt

33:22

Langford, who they drafted fourth overall out

33:25

of Florida last year and was so

33:27

good in spring training this year that,

33:30

actually, I'm going to take it back. Wyatt

33:32

Langford is so good that the Rangers thought

33:34

about bringing him up to make his Major

33:36

League debut in the World Series last year.

33:39

That is how much of it- I know, when I read that, when

33:41

I had read that, I mean, the Carter

33:43

story's nuts, right? But it's like

33:45

maybe you get this guy a couple

33:47

A-B's in the World Series. I

33:50

mean, it's just insane to think that that's what

33:52

they thought of him and certainly why he's going

33:54

to be making his debut here shortly. They

33:57

love the power. They love

33:59

the- swing decisions. They love

34:01

the approach. They love the attitude.

34:03

They love everything about Wyatt Langford

34:05

and that draft last year. I

34:07

mean, the fact that he fell

34:10

to four, you

34:12

know, you ask yourself, this guy's debuting less

34:14

than a year after he was drafted. Why didn't

34:17

he go number one overall? Well, it's because the

34:19

guy who went number one overall was Paul Skeins,

34:22

who throws 102 with

34:24

one of the best sliders in the world

34:26

before he has made his big league debut.

34:28

Dylan Cruz, an absolute star center fielder

34:30

at LSU went number two to

34:33

the Washington nationals. And then the Tigers took

34:35

Max Clark, a high school player, number three,

34:37

and you can quibble with that decision. But

34:40

the money that they saved there allowed them

34:42

to get a guy like Kevin McGonigal a

34:44

little bit later in the draft, because that's

34:47

how the MLB draft works. You

34:49

know, you can choose to pay the super

34:51

duper star who is a no doubt or

34:53

all the money up front, or you can

34:56

spread out your bonus. And as a team

34:58

like the Tigers who have been looking to

35:00

increase their organizational depth, that was the decision

35:02

that they made. But the fact that the

35:04

Rangers had a down year moved

35:06

up because of the lottery, you know, they

35:09

were not the fourth worst team the previous

35:11

season. They just got a really good pick

35:13

in the lottery and were able to luck

35:15

their way into a guy in Langford who's

35:17

going to be a star and an all

35:20

star for years to come. It is

35:23

the rich getting richer and, you

35:26

know, we'll go back to the Braves in a second,

35:28

but this, this lineup that the Rangers are going to

35:30

have when they're at full strength, Evan

35:32

Carter, Leody Tavares, who

35:34

is a very good center fielder and

35:37

may hit ninth, Adolis Garcia, who looked

35:39

like the best player in the world

35:41

in the ALCS last year, Wyatt Langford

35:43

at the age, Josh Young,

35:46

who is going to hit 30 home runs

35:48

at third base. Corey Seager, who's one of

35:50

the five best players on the planet at

35:52

shortstop Marcus Simeon, constantly an MVP conversation at

35:54

second base. Nate Lowe at first base. Jonah

35:57

Himes started the all-star game at catcher. That's

35:59

their name. It's an

36:01

obscene nine. And to be able to

36:03

compete with that in Atlanta,

36:05

I mean, you've got a platoon in

36:08

left field with Adam Duvall and Jared

36:10

Kelnick, Michael Harris, a great center fielder,

36:12

Ronald D'Acunya reigning MVP in right field,

36:15

Austin Riley, all-star at third, Orlando

36:19

Arcea, all-star at shortstop, Ozzie Aldes,

36:21

all-star at second base, Matt Olson,

36:23

all-star at first base, Sean Murphy,

36:25

all-star catcher. Some

36:27

of the lineups, Ryan, that we're going to see

36:29

this year, whether it's those two or the

36:31

Dodgers or even the Yankees that have Aaron

36:33

Judge and Juan Soto hitting back

36:36

to back, you have these

36:38

superteams in baseball right now. And

36:41

I think that superteams in baseball, I don't

36:43

know if the same can be said for

36:45

the NBA, I think superteams in baseball are

36:47

great because baseball, you need villains. And

36:50

that is what we are going to have this year. We

36:53

are going to be teams that on paper just

36:55

look too good to be true. Yeah.

36:58

And the other thing with superteams, if we allow ourselves

37:00

kind of a loose interpretation of that term

37:02

for baseball, it's like, well,

37:05

a guy doesn't get somebody else's at that. So

37:08

basketball, basketball is more

37:10

musical in the sense, it's like, okay,

37:13

but if you were taking 20 shots

37:15

and you were taking 20 shots and you were like,

37:17

one of us isn't taking 20 shots and does that

37:19

mean you're going to do all the other stuff in

37:21

baseball? You have your individual contest and it

37:23

really shouldn't matter except for whether or not

37:25

you believe in the protection. And I certainly

37:28

do. I just, I do, especially

37:30

with the way this, I mean,

37:32

it specializes some of the bullpen guys are you think

37:34

in a way, maybe protection is, is

37:36

more justified or, or the concept of it

37:38

is more believable because I just remember reading

37:40

about all the arguments. If there's actually no

37:42

correlation between the two and I just, I

37:45

just don't think that's true. I think pictures

37:47

look in the on deck circle and they're like, Jesus. Yes.

37:51

I don't know why anyone would ever eliminate the human

37:53

aspect of looking over there and being like, all right,

37:55

it's so interesting. It's

37:58

so interesting, Ryan, like 20 or so. The

38:00

years that twenty plus now into

38:02

the Sabre Metric Revolution Baseball which

38:04

I think the gap All of

38:06

the analytics that you see in

38:08

basketball that changed the game where

38:10

it has turned into a three

38:13

point center game and in football

38:15

where analytics just that word is

38:17

like still a bogeyman. It pisses

38:19

people off because. Fourth, Down

38:21

and like forth and three. you're going for

38:23

now. But yeah, in baseball I think there

38:25

were some mistakes and I think some of

38:28

the mistakes had to do with that balance

38:30

of what the numbers suggest to us and

38:32

and just the ignoring of the human element.

38:35

I'm sorry, but if I talked to a

38:37

pitcher, And I ask that pitcher

38:39

if you see a guy who's dangerous

38:41

on dec, Are you going to be

38:43

a little bit? Ah, more careful with

38:45

the guy who's at the plate and.

38:48

They. Say hell yeah, Every single one

38:50

of them are it. It did. The

38:52

notion of clutch added long conversation with

38:54

Corey Seager this spring because. I

38:57

had a premise that I wanted to

38:59

run by him like. Does.

39:01

Clutch exists and how do you

39:04

embody it? And we had a

39:06

great conversation about the notion of

39:08

being clutch and being able to

39:10

slow your heart beat in a

39:12

moment. Ah, that is pressure filled

39:14

and add the most important in

39:16

the game. And this guy just

39:18

time and again has come through

39:20

with big hits in big moments

39:22

in a you know that the

39:24

entirety of the story's going to

39:26

be on. Okay, how does Corey

39:28

Seager do it. Out what

39:31

makes him different and his replicable.

39:33

And these are things. I think

39:35

saber metrics just kind of. The.

39:37

Frowned. Upon look past discounted and

39:39

so there's been a little bit

39:41

of of sounds I think in

39:44

the opposite direction to try and

39:46

find that reasonable balance that has

39:48

to exist when you're in a

39:50

world where numbers tell you so

39:52

much they can't tell you everything.

39:54

And if you have that balance

39:56

ah that's where the best teams

39:58

come from, I think. The

40:00

still a lot I want to get to been I'm just

40:02

glad you brought up the clutch. They because my argument against the

40:05

people the believe there's no such thing. It's like will do you

40:07

believe that there's somebody in the free throw line. It doesn't

40:09

feel comfortable in the big spot because I'm telling you that

40:11

that's one hundred percent fucking trip. From. Zoc to

40:13

a guy has a lot of apart that matters. On

40:15

the eighteenth. And. Tommy doesn't feel little

40:17

bit different and remember reading about it early

40:19

in on I was super and all the

40:21

stop and wondering like what is it that

40:23

I believe in that fat true and I'm

40:25

ever digging through the clutch stuff on our

40:27

baseball prospectus. Spent twenty years ago and it

40:29

was. I. And I'm A. I'm

40:31

Not. A mathematician? I'm I'm not

40:34

one of those guys most educated as those guys

40:36

are browser deserted. Chances: math is so big Like

40:38

a supposed to yelling small sample size everytime. can

40:40

we be looking at too big of a sample

40:42

where. It just feels like.

40:45

You know, remember, like Paul Molinar was like

40:47

the outlier of this one. study. And

40:50

and you know, I just basically kind of like

40:53

put everybody in his bucket of like. Now actually

40:55

it, it doesn't really happen. It doesn't really happen.

40:57

And. And if you can't prove it

40:59

mathematically to improve it with any stats yep,

41:01

that it's hard for me to argue with

41:03

you out if you talk to somebody who

41:05

knows what it feels like to have to

41:07

take a huge free throw at the end.

41:09

Maybe the question isn't so much as clutch

41:11

exist Discomfort? exist? And that's what

41:14

I think of when they're you. There's.

41:16

A certain guys you know are going to give you get

41:18

a bath. And that's that's maybe what we

41:21

should be looking to the five armies that why

41:23

I said that know I know you have a

41:25

little on that. Did. The

41:27

Difficulties measuring comfort. We.

41:29

Can't let our what comfort is

41:31

at six comfort is different for

41:34

everyone and so the the ability

41:36

to go out define it. I

41:38

think in the lack of ability

41:40

rather to go out define it

41:42

is what makes it so difficult

41:44

for people whose jobs and and

41:46

whose brains go toward quantification. Said,

41:48

it's almost like if you cannot

41:50

quantify something. ah fuck qualifying it

41:53

because qualified as a bit naff.

41:56

Yeah. That's it. That's exactly exactly what it

41:58

is. but I just I don't. I've

42:00

never had a great argument against the person

42:02

who's not comfortable on those spots of what

42:04

that means arm or it will look you

42:06

since comfortable in the Lcs. Ah,

42:09

they've made it now seven straight years.

42:11

It would be a record tying a

42:13

with the Braves run in the nineties

42:15

and again just for those that don't

42:17

remember the started. Biting. Sixty Nine.

42:20

So we know that three guys and rotation

42:22

for the Astros and they're still the betting

42:24

favor for the West with feals. Disrespectful to.

42:27

A texting a wonderful thing, but a square

42:29

it is and that that. Also.

42:31

Seattle who I think a lot of is like.

42:34

Fight in. When I look at a team

42:36

is it okay? I I like better lineup but

42:38

I love their bullpen. Bring it in! Josh Hater.

42:41

And. Thinking okay, there's three guys the front

42:43

of in rotation I like right now because stars

42:45

four and five felt like a necessity for contenders.

42:47

Now it just feels like a luxury, almost for

42:49

anybody. But then you get the Verlander part of

42:52

it. I was dig into these numbers again. you'd

42:54

just. So I think the Mets

42:56

total for last year with their on

42:58

the hook and this year sixty five

43:00

million. For. Ninety One not should be

43:02

Ninety Four innings from Verlander. And.

43:04

Then it could have potentially be another

43:07

seventeen and a half million. We're looking

43:09

at seventy five? He to? yeah, like

43:11

I don't know. eighty two, eighty three

43:13

million dollars. or the Verlander if he

43:15

goes over a hundred and four innings.

43:17

Now we know that maybe he won't

43:19

with the. The The. The

43:21

setback that he has starting the season so it's

43:24

kind of like as he is Houston still your

43:26

team and is there's so much reliance. Yeah Verlander

43:28

were truth transactional the I know they give up

43:30

with the Prospect Forum. it feels like I'm know

43:32

when and it just reminder of how bad some

43:35

of the Mets accounting has been the last year.

43:37

and yeah justin verlander forty one

43:39

years old we have to remember

43:41

and guys generally speaking do not

43:43

pitch into their forties effectively that

43:45

says something that history a you

43:47

know even with modern medicine being

43:49

as incredible as it is ah

43:51

has told us and so i

43:53

think justin verlander is the difference

43:55

between a houston astros same that

43:57

go goes back to the ALCS

44:00

and one that Peters out before

44:02

that because as good as from

44:04

Breveld as is and as consistent

44:06

as he's been. And as

44:08

good as Christian Javier can be, and as

44:11

well as we've seen him pitch in

44:13

the postseason, they need

44:15

another dude. They need another dude to

44:17

compete with the sorts of teams

44:20

that we have in the American league. Now

44:22

with Texas, that could have a stacked rotation.

44:24

And with Seattle that has five

44:26

guys once Brian Wu gets healthy, five guys

44:29

in the rotation, all five who

44:31

throw in the upper nineties and

44:33

have wipe out off speed pitches

44:35

like Seattle's rotation is gross. And

44:37

if they can stay healthy, they're

44:40

going to be in the mix. And look, if

44:42

Garrett Cole comes back for the Yankees, he

44:44

is the fulcrum of that

44:47

team. If he comes back, the

44:49

Yankees can do a lot of damage.

44:51

If not, wouldn't shock me if they

44:53

didn't make the playoffs. And we haven't

44:55

even talked about Baltimore, which won 101

44:57

games last year, the most in the

44:59

American league and added Corbin burns in

45:01

a trade with Milwaukee this winter and

45:03

is going to bring up Jackson holiday,

45:05

the best player in the minor leagues

45:07

right now. And they have Kobe Mayo

45:09

down there and Heston curse that. And

45:11

by the way, Adley Rutchman and Gunnar

45:13

Henderson are in the big leagues already.

45:15

And there's a number of other players on

45:17

that team. Like the American league is

45:20

fascinating to me. And as much

45:22

as the NL feels

45:25

like a two team race with the

45:27

Braves and the Dodgers, let's not forget

45:29

that the Braves consecutive seasons have been

45:32

taken out by the Phillies and that

45:34

the Dodgers got swept by the diamond

45:36

backs last year. And that

45:39

playoff baseball is an entirely different beast

45:41

than the regular season. And they, the

45:43

openness of this year, despite these,

45:46

these lineups in these teams that seem

45:48

like they are better than others, that's

45:51

what keeps me coming back every year. That's what keeps

45:53

me excited for the job. Yeah. I'm with

45:56

you on Baltimore because they should be better with just seasoning

45:58

and having even more options. And then the and

46:00

trade and they've won 101 and

46:02

I know they're still not the betting favorite that it's

46:04

the Yankees but that's probably more about it actually by

46:06

the way that's just yeah but it makes it I

46:13

agree like look Tampa is we know they're

46:15

gonna be good Baltimore

46:17

has the most talent I you know the thing

46:19

I look at Toronto last year I know they

46:21

still won you know going

46:23

over 500 technically being in the

46:25

playoffs is cool and all but like I really expected

46:28

a lot from Toronto last year because of that talent

46:30

and you know in a way it's like man it

46:32

feels like the talent that I love didn't work out

46:34

as well in Toronto but it did work out that

46:36

well in Baltimore and then you pencil

46:39

in the Yankees lineup with the Garakol thing like you

46:41

start looking at their depth of rotation you're like how

46:43

long are you gonna be able to handle this like

46:45

how can you stay in it long enough so

46:48

that you know the Dodgers could be

46:50

in a completely different pitching staff in August

46:52

on and we can

46:54

see where it is I don't you know

46:56

the yank no one has that kind of options just

46:58

waiting around for the second half of the season and

47:01

I think it's gonna be tough unless the Yankees just

47:03

outscore everybody all the time and it doesn't matter and

47:06

I don't know that the Yankees necessarily have

47:08

the lineup now to outscore everyone I worry

47:10

about their age no Anthony or Anthony Rizzo

47:12

is no spring chicken and Giancarlo Stanton just

47:15

has not been able to stay healthy and

47:17

Aaron Judge is gonna be expected to play

47:19

center field this year and I'm sorry but

47:21

a six foot eight 275 pound guy regardless

47:26

of how athletic he is regardless of

47:28

what level of free key is playing

47:30

center field does damage

47:32

to your body it is a

47:34

hard position yeah right okay

47:37

so I'll keep it moving here he's not

47:40

gonna get to every single team because I know you have stuff

47:42

to do here the AL Central has made

47:44

me mad historically now for years and we know

47:46

that the schedule change from the imbalance one that

47:48

we had for years because I was looking at

47:50

me like okay who we got oh cool this

47:52

team on the AL Central let's look

47:54

at their breakdown of their record oh

47:56

they beat everybody in their division they beat their

47:58

brains in which is essentially happening the season they

48:00

don't have a winning record like all of these

48:02

teams have losing records in interleague and all the

48:05

other divisions combined so I'm not taking that team

48:07

seriously once the postseason rolls around you're playing an

48:09

entirely different sport it's like a it's like the

48:11

sixth conference in college football you're like I'm sorry

48:13

I don't take you seriously even if that one

48:15

team actually might be good so

48:17

they changed it last year as you know

48:19

where the division games went from like 76

48:21

to 52 and then

48:24

the interleague bumps up from 20 to 46 I

48:27

think Sealing and owners when they

48:29

did this because I remember because I was super locked into

48:31

it they were just like look Red Sox Yankees 20 times

48:34

a year 19 times a year let's just do it

48:36

Dodgers Giants Cubs cards a couple of

48:38

the other East Coast like just hammer it because

48:40

those are the best TV numbers but it sucked

48:42

for a fan because you'd be like cool I

48:44

saw the A's for six games in three weeks

48:46

in April and I'm never gonna

48:49

see him again like and I

48:51

felt like teams were just playing

48:53

a completely you know you can talk how

48:55

you want about football and division there's a

48:57

hundred and sixty two of these and

49:00

some of these teams and the NL Central isn't exactly

49:02

deep this year either but I'm just

49:04

so much happier our general managers happy about this

49:06

because they're probably look we know how these guys

49:08

work if they're pointing to somebody else I think

49:11

has a massive advantage but that was a massive

49:13

advantage for whoever led that division when

49:15

we had the old scheduling which I'm really happy we were

49:17

on your year two of balancing this out now yeah

49:20

and and if you're a team

49:22

in the National League West right

49:24

now and and you see not

49:26

just the Dodgers at the top

49:28

but a Diamond backs team that

49:30

brought in Jordan Montgomery and Eduardo

49:32

Rodriguez and re-signed Lourdes Goreal and

49:34

traded for a Eugenio Suarez and

49:36

got jock Peterson and Randall Grichik

49:38

and added that to a

49:40

World Series caliber roster when you look

49:42

at the San Francisco Giants and they

49:44

signed Blake Snell and Matt Chapman and

49:46

Jorge Soler and Jung Huli and all

49:48

of a sudden you know they went

49:50

from the Dakota projections from the fourth

49:53

best team in the National League West

49:55

to the third best team in the

49:57

entire league by those projections when you

49:59

see San Diego, even though they got

50:01

rid of Juan Soto, they got a

50:03

really good haul back in terms of

50:05

arms and then went out and traded

50:07

some prospect capital for Dylan Cease. And

50:10

they've promoted Jackson Merrill and Ethan

50:13

Salas, who's an 18

50:15

year old catcher, going to start this year off at double

50:17

A and maybe in the big leagues, you

50:19

know, by his 19th birthday, like the

50:22

Padres are doing just fine too. Of

50:25

course, if you're in that division, you want to play only

50:27

13 times against each opponent

50:29

and be able to go out

50:31

and slaughter the central's in both leagues

50:34

when you can. And so it is,

50:36

I think a balanced schedule is

50:38

a fair game. And as

50:41

listen, as a chiefs fan, every

50:43

year I see they are

50:45

playing the number one seed

50:47

schedule. And it's great as someone who has

50:50

season tickets, because I know all the good

50:52

teams are going to be coming in, but

50:54

you look at fairness and it's like, Hey,

50:56

some, some teams out there seem to have

50:58

an easier path to the postseason. This is

51:01

about as good as you're going to get.

51:03

And it's a sacrifice. Honestly, Ryan, that players

51:05

have made because travel is a lot tougher

51:07

than it was in past years because you

51:09

have to go around the country more than

51:11

you did in past seasons. It's

51:14

just better for the sport. You know, the twins are projected

51:16

by fan grass, 84, 85 wins.

51:18

I think there are most people's pick to win the

51:20

al central, but at least if they get to 85

51:23

wins, we'll

51:25

know that half of the season wasn't

51:28

against the four other teams that if,

51:30

if a division winner is going to win it with 84, 85,

51:32

and it were the old thing, I'm

51:36

just, I'm just happy that this happened, even though I know

51:38

it's more of a travel and look at people can talk

51:40

about, Hey, it happens, the Eastern Conference, Western Conference, we'll

51:42

have a nine and seven or

51:44

the old 16 game schedule. We had a seven and nine

51:46

team win the division. You're like, okay, but you're not playing

51:49

162. So the randomness of

51:52

football and how you schedule it out, like it should

51:54

be more like that. Okay. So that's a bigger picture

51:56

question. A couple of things before we finish here. If

51:59

baseball a shipping container

52:01

cargo ship, right, crossing the Pacific

52:03

from China to the port of

52:06

San Diego and

52:08

maybe off its

52:12

direction. And I don't mean to bring this up

52:14

in the aftermath of the Baltimore bridge,

52:16

but you understand the point that I'm making.

52:18

If they were off course a little bit,

52:21

where is it now? Is it slowly rightening

52:23

the ship here? Like how do

52:25

people feel about baseball in general

52:27

after taking a lot of criticism,

52:29

I'd say some justified a lot,

52:31

just kind of turned into a lack of interest.

52:34

How do you feel about the sport today? I'm

52:37

conflicted because on one hand I see

52:39

what they did with the pitch clock

52:41

last year and think that it's the

52:44

best thing since sliced bread. Like it

52:46

just made games so much better with

52:49

no discernible difference in the

52:51

actual quality of the product

52:53

itself. It

52:55

remains to be seen, okay, does it

52:57

have any effect on arms

52:59

and on pitch or health? And

53:02

if so, that's one

53:04

area, Ryan, where I think it's vitally

53:06

important to quantify rather than just speculate

53:09

or listen to what guys have to

53:11

say. At

53:14

the same time though, despite

53:16

the actual product being

53:19

better, I think we're in a weird place

53:21

right now where when it comes

53:23

to training, data has

53:25

taken over maybe too much. And

53:28

I look at pictures. And this is a

53:30

personal thing for me because I have a

53:33

16-year-old son who plays baseball and

53:35

who's a good little player. And

53:38

I keep him away from that

53:40

shit. I keep him far away

53:42

from the trackmans and the rap

53:45

soto and all of the things

53:47

that are not teaching him how to

53:50

go out there and compete and

53:52

get out, but rather they're teaching

53:55

him how to maximize something. And

53:58

it's that endeavor. toward maximization

54:01

that I worry is changing the game for

54:04

the worse, not just because guys are going

54:06

max effort when they're throwing pitches all the

54:08

time. And that I

54:10

think has a lot to do with the amount

54:12

of injuries that we're seeing. But

54:15

it also frankly takes away from the

54:17

entertainment value, I think, because in a

54:19

game that has a

54:22

depletion of stars at this point,

54:25

one reliable element of stardom was always

54:27

that you had your starting pitching matchup

54:29

that night, and you knew guys were

54:31

going to be going deep into games.

54:34

And this is not to slag relievers

54:37

by any means, but the reality is

54:39

if you are a relief pitcher, that

54:41

means you didn't cut the mustard as

54:43

a starter. And so if

54:45

we're looking at this, just this is a

54:48

very basic argument. But if we're looking at

54:50

this through the context of, do you want

54:52

guys who couldn't do the thing to be

54:54

the ones who are in at the end

54:57

of the game? Not just the end of

54:59

the game anymore, but like innings six, seven,

55:01

eight, nine, because starting pitchers just don't go

55:03

deep anymore. There

55:06

is, I think, a

55:09

three bears solution potentially,

55:11

not too hot, not

55:13

too cold, just right

55:16

to get starting pitchers back to

55:19

the level that they should be

55:21

and to build stars. But

55:24

it is limiting the number of

55:26

pitchers on a staff. You

55:29

have to somehow incentivize guys not to

55:31

go out there and try and throw

55:34

every pitch at their absolute max effort.

55:36

I think the only way that you

55:38

can reasonably do that, if at all,

55:42

is by saying that by

55:44

prioritizing going deeper into games,

55:47

and I'm sorry, but you're not going to prioritize

55:49

going deeper into games, if the

55:51

thing that guys are chasing is

55:53

velocity, the incentive structure

55:56

in baseball right now is absolutely

55:58

whacked out. It's

56:00

problematic because every

56:02

amateur pitcher who's coming up through

56:05

the ranks understands that whether it's

56:07

scouts, coaches, or otherwise, they're looking

56:09

at one thing. They want to see what you

56:11

do on the radar gun. If you can throw

56:13

a fastball 90 miles per hour, you might be

56:15

in the mix. But anything short

56:17

of that, you have to be absolutely

56:20

exceptional at commanding the baseball. And

56:23

even then, I think that scouts and

56:25

coaches are conditioned to look past that

56:27

and to think that, well, I'm

56:29

going to follow what the numbers tell me.

56:32

And what the numbers tell me is that

56:34

every mile per hour of velocity that you

56:36

add to your fastball, you are that much

56:38

more effective. And it's a straight line,

56:40

man. It's not like sort of

56:43

flat at 90, 91, 90. No,

56:46

it's like a straight line down. Your

56:49

ERA is lower if you throw harder.

56:52

It's not always the case, but that's

56:55

the beauty of numbers, that they

56:57

give us generalizations and that

57:00

people are going to follow what

57:03

the numbers tell them and to

57:05

a place, unfortunately, I think, that

57:08

is detrimental to the game. I was

57:10

reading Jason Stark this week getting ready for

57:12

opening day. And his number was that there

57:14

were 64 pitchers last year who threw a

57:16

pitch at 100 miles an hour plus. In

57:19

2018, that number was 37. You

57:23

know, I mean, it's just wild. It

57:26

tells you everything you need to know. And

57:29

look, I have seen the

57:31

training of velocity with

57:34

my own child and I've seen the

57:36

chasing of velocity with him, too. And

57:39

I'm conflicted by it. I'm

57:42

conflicted because I know he

57:44

has aspirations to play

57:46

in college and to be as

57:48

good of a pitcher as he

57:51

possibly can be. But I also

57:53

know that when that's your M.O.

57:55

and that's your motivation to throw

57:57

harder, that it puts you at

57:59

risk. for your own their

58:01

collateral ligament tearing. And I saw this, you

58:03

know, it's been more than

58:06

10 years now since I started recording

58:08

VR. And it

58:10

came out in 2016, and

58:12

all the shit that I said in that book, it

58:16

has come true. And I'm not saying that to

58:18

pat myself on the back, but more to say,

58:20

this was- No, I need to read it. I

58:23

never read it, Jeff. This was obvious- I'm gonna

58:25

read it. I'm thinking about it. Ryan, this was

58:27

obvious back then that this was the direction that

58:29

it was going in, and that the more individualized

58:31

training got, the

58:34

likelier that players were

58:37

to find these unicorn pitches that they

58:39

now throw, and that these unicorn pitches

58:41

come at a cost. They come at

58:43

a price, and that price is your

58:45

health. And it's not just like the

58:47

physical health, but it's the wellbeing of

58:49

the game too, when some of the

58:51

best people out there are incapable of

58:53

pitching because their arm just cannot hold

58:55

up to what they're asking it to.

58:58

I was thinking about the health of arms,

59:01

and I remember Verducci used to have

59:03

that awesome piece that he would

59:05

write every year of like, the guys

59:07

that were the most likely to

59:10

be like, he was like, okay, this is

59:12

the innings pattern, and then this

59:15

is like over the line of abuse based on

59:17

how he had tracked it. And then it was

59:19

like, okay, so these are the red flag pitchers

59:21

going into next year. And I think he was

59:23

actually pretty good with it from where I remember

59:26

reading it every year, because it was one of

59:28

my favorite pieces. And then

59:31

we'd argue, every one of us sitting

59:33

there with a pitch counter home being like, you gotta get this

59:35

guy out of there, as if there isn't a difference. It's a

59:37

bit like the clutch comfort talk that we just had, like,

59:40

man, there's a hundred pitches that are easy, and there's

59:42

85 that are brutal. And you don't, I mean, you

59:44

kind of have, the only reason, the only way you

59:46

know is if you've watched the entire game, or you

59:48

know the pitcher, or even another level, you're in the

59:50

clubhouse, a lot kind of stuff. And

59:53

it reminds me a bit of the quarterback stuff that

59:55

I spent so much time on in the first round,

59:57

is that maybe this is just what it is, that

59:59

it's not solvable. baseball has

1:00:01

tried all of these different things but

1:00:03

now watching guys gear up and try

1:00:05

to maximize velocity and spin rate in

1:00:07

ways that just feel like science

1:00:10

fiction you're like so wait this is

1:00:12

a solution I thought we

1:00:14

were trying to save all these guys. Alright two couple

1:00:17

quick things here because I want to let you go

1:00:19

you're a busy guy. I love

1:00:21

how when you broke down the preview and the

1:00:23

spending tiers we got to my favorite organization in

1:00:25

sports the Oakland A's. So

1:00:27

their opening day payroll is eighty

1:00:30

point five million dollars. I

1:00:32

don't normally like doing this to guests I don't

1:00:34

love it when it's like throwing it me out

1:00:37

of nowhere when you're like wait you forgot where

1:00:39

Mil Palacio went to school like I thought you

1:00:41

watched basketball and you're like sorry dude I forgot.

1:00:46

Do you want to take a guess because

1:00:48

you're so good at this I'm

1:00:50

gonna put you on the spot. Do you

1:00:52

want to take a guess which year the A's

1:00:56

current eighty million dollar payroll would

1:00:58

have been the highest payroll opening

1:01:00

day for a baseball season. I'm

1:01:03

gonna guess it was 1990. Let's see okay

1:01:08

so the Yankees started I'm gonna guess 1992 or 1993. No close though very close

1:01:10

1998. Ninety

1:01:19

eight. That's like seven million dollar payroll. You

1:01:21

know I thought I thought that the like

1:01:24

the Indians who I grew up watching in

1:01:26

Cleveland. Big spike mid-nineties and Baltimore was out

1:01:28

of control then the Yankees kind of like

1:01:30

ran away with it there but go ahead

1:01:33

keep your thought. Yeah it was Baltimore it

1:01:35

was the Yankees and when the Indians were

1:01:37

signing Albert Bell and Kenny

1:01:40

Lofton and Carlos Baierga and Omar Bischell and

1:01:42

Jim Tomay to these long-term contracts I thought

1:01:44

that might have bumped it up but the

1:01:47

Indians never spent a whole lot on pitching

1:01:49

so yeah that that makes sense. I

1:01:51

mean it's just you know the average

1:01:53

salary or the average payroll this year

1:01:55

being 159 million is you know

1:01:57

it has taken a significant. spike

1:02:00

in recent years. And that just goes to show like,

1:02:03

when you look at the A's are

1:02:05

like a full standard

1:02:07

deviation plus below the

1:02:10

average payroll. It's

1:02:12

just an embarrassing franchise. The

1:02:15

whole thing is embarrassing. You

1:02:17

know, like, somebody reached

1:02:20

out to me because I had

1:02:22

the A's, the White Sox,

1:02:24

the Rockies, and

1:02:27

the Nationals in the same category. They

1:02:29

all have, you know, less than, I

1:02:32

think the best among them has a 0.2% chance of

1:02:34

making the

1:02:37

postseason. So I put them all in

1:02:39

like an also ran not really trying

1:02:41

category, not like fully tanking

1:02:43

necessarily, but not not going for it

1:02:45

like others. And I heard

1:02:47

from someone who said, you put

1:02:50

the A's in the same category as us. They

1:02:54

are they are just such a,

1:02:58

they are like the willfully ignorant

1:03:01

human being who should

1:03:04

understand everything that's going on

1:03:06

around him or her. But

1:03:09

just don't care. They don't care about they

1:03:11

don't care as bad as they are. And

1:03:13

listen, I don't think they're going to be

1:03:16

like 110 loss team. I think

1:03:18

they've got more talent than they have in recent

1:03:20

years. And I think they got a couple guys

1:03:23

who are at very least interesting Zach Eloffs, like

1:03:25

a real guy, like he's he's

1:03:27

gonna be their second baseman this year. I

1:03:30

mean, he's he's already like team captain. And

1:03:32

he's had like 60 games

1:03:34

of big league experience. But

1:03:37

the the the idea that you

1:03:39

are going to take this team,

1:03:41

Ryan, move them to a city

1:03:43

like Las Vegas, where the entertainment

1:03:46

options are greater than anywhere in

1:03:48

the country outside of New York,

1:03:51

and maybe LA and try and

1:03:53

convince fans to come and watch them when they've got

1:03:56

the Raiders when they've got the Knights when they're going

1:03:58

to have an MD 18 sooner. that

1:04:00

later, it's laughable. And

1:04:02

beyond laughable, it's just sad.

1:04:05

It is. The whole thing is

1:04:07

sad. And one of those cases where I

1:04:09

understand if you're a business person and you

1:04:11

want to chase money, that is your right.

1:04:14

But that doesn't take away the sadness

1:04:17

of the entire operation and really

1:04:19

the entire story going the way

1:04:22

that it has. Yeah,

1:04:24

it's just gross. And when you look at

1:04:27

the new changes with lottery picks and the

1:04:29

way it's designed now in the baseball draft,

1:04:31

there's really no incentive now to

1:04:34

be this bad and try to mirror what some of

1:04:36

the other franchises did before they'd made some of these

1:04:38

changes. All right, real quick, rapid fire. Best

1:04:41

lineup in baseball. I'll stick with

1:04:43

Atlanta. I'm sorry, Rangers. I

1:04:46

might be wrong on that one, but you

1:04:48

go with a team that pushed 1,000

1:04:50

runs last year. You

1:04:52

made a very strong case for the Rangers in fairness.

1:04:54

You spent a good chunk on that. All right, best

1:04:57

rotation. I want

1:04:59

to see Brian Wu get healthy, but I think

1:05:01

it's Seattle. Best

1:05:03

bullpen. Philadelphia is

1:05:05

sneaky really good. They've

1:05:08

just got a lot of guys who throw hard

1:05:10

and have like plus to plus

1:05:12

plus breaking balls. You like their depth better

1:05:14

than Houston? It's

1:05:16

exactly right. It's more of a depth thing

1:05:19

because if you want to talk about the best

1:05:21

back end of the bullpen, it's unquestionably Houston. When

1:05:25

you go Brian Abreu, Brian Presley, Josh

1:05:28

Hader, it's

1:05:30

not quite the equivalent of the top of the

1:05:32

Dodgers lineup in terms of effectiveness, but it's not

1:05:35

far behind. World Series

1:05:37

picks. I've got Atlanta

1:05:39

coming out of National League. By

1:05:41

the way, we haven't mentioned Chris Sale. He's

1:05:44

been awesome this spring. When you

1:05:46

add him into a rotation, that's got

1:05:48

Spencer Strider, who I think is going

1:05:51

to strike out 300 guys this year

1:05:53

and will end the year as best

1:05:55

pitcher in baseball. Max Fried, who himself

1:05:57

multi-time all-star guy who's been absolutely amazing.

1:06:00

the Blue Nails in the postseason, and

1:06:03

Charlie Morton, like it's

1:06:05

a nasty, nasty rotation.

1:06:07

And so

1:06:11

Atlanta, between the rotation,

1:06:13

a really deep bullpen there

1:06:15

as well, and a lineup

1:06:18

that just smashes. I've got them in the

1:06:20

National League. And in the American League, I've

1:06:22

got Baltimore. I

1:06:24

buy this core. And

1:06:27

while Kyle Bradish, elbow injury

1:06:30

really hurts their rotation depth,

1:06:32

starting with Corbin Burns at the top and

1:06:35

Grayson Rodriguez, who's going to be coming into

1:06:37

really his first full season as

1:06:39

a starter. And even

1:06:41

though they're missing Felix Bautista at the back end,

1:06:43

the Orioles do a really good job of finding

1:06:46

effective relievers who may not have been

1:06:48

effective in other places. And that lineup,

1:06:51

they're just all really mature.

1:06:54

Like they take good at bats. They do not

1:06:56

let the moment get too big for them. And

1:06:59

they're supremely talented on top of that. And then

1:07:01

in the World Series, I've got the Braves winning

1:07:03

for the second time in four years. That

1:07:06

is Jeff Passen. I appreciate this

1:07:08

amount of time on opening day.

1:07:11

And I'll check in with you after

1:07:13

my live fantasy draft. I've

1:07:15

got a few guys. But a lot of depth with

1:07:18

the young second baseman. So I may have

1:07:20

to go pull up some of my baseball

1:07:22

America stuff because I think at the Major League level,

1:07:24

I'm like, I'm not sure there's the fantasy depth there.

1:07:27

Do I go with Wyatt or I go Cheerio? There's

1:07:30

some young guys. I always like to lean a little young. You know

1:07:32

how I like to do it. So I do. Are

1:07:35

you going to be running? Are you going to

1:07:37

be running your draft again as

1:07:39

an episode? Yeah, that's the whole point.

1:07:41

But I like to see a couple games. Really

1:07:44

it comes down to scheduling. So I was like, oh, I was like,

1:07:46

I'm not going to be able to do that tonight. So

1:07:48

I didn't do it before opening day, which I think is the

1:07:50

same thing as last year. So now my new excuse is I'm

1:07:52

just a big movement guy. I want to see how guys move

1:07:54

around. I want to see how their their plant

1:07:56

foot is landing. You know, if I don't like something, I'm like,

1:07:59

oh, he's not seeing the. It could be a tough three

1:08:01

or four weeks. I don't want to draft him. So I just

1:08:03

try to, I try to cram as much as I can in

1:08:05

the first weekend of baseball. And then I kind of just, you

1:08:07

know, I got my notes and like, why the key is picking

1:08:09

up the slider. And then, you know, I have

1:08:11

my board and I adjust accordingly. So I'm

1:08:13

excited about it. Ryan Rosillo, scout at

1:08:15

heart. Yeah. Once I

1:08:17

figured out that Shay Hillenbrand, I was like, you know what? He

1:08:20

swings at too many pitches. So then he came in next year

1:08:22

and just decided, no matter what, he would never swing at the

1:08:24

first pitch and then it would just start over again. And it

1:08:26

was always O and one. I was like, I don't think that's

1:08:28

really an adjustment. I don't think that's real

1:08:30

patience or thinking out your at bat. You were just like,

1:08:32

I'm so sick of everybody talking about how I see 3.2

1:08:35

pitches per at bat and that with this new

1:08:37

Theo Epstein approach, I'm supposed to take more pitches

1:08:39

and get into the bullpen and all this stuff.

1:08:42

We thought sounded futuristic. And I remember

1:08:44

just sitting there being like, so you just decided this year, you're

1:08:46

going to take every single first pitch, every at bat. And then

1:08:48

you're like, okay, now it's time to hit down. Down.

1:08:51

Oh one. Um, yeah, I was, I

1:08:53

was super into it. You know that we already know that

1:08:55

that was when I would go back and watch the O2

1:08:57

games when I was minor league

1:08:59

baseball's rising star in O2. Uh,

1:09:02

but I'm excited, man. I'm excited for the season because I

1:09:04

just think there's so many awesome lineups.

1:09:07

Uh, and I'm going to have to watch a

1:09:09

lot of other stuff other than the Red Sox. It sounds like so

1:09:12

no Red Sox questions. I have none for you because

1:09:14

I have, I have no passion for it right now.

1:09:17

I don't blame you for one second, but

1:09:19

I do very much appreciate that, uh,

1:09:22

at its heart, this, uh, this podcast still

1:09:24

loves baseball. So, uh, thank you for that.

1:09:26

And thank you for disseminating this to an

1:09:28

audience that might not listen otherwise. You're

1:09:31

the best too. Thank you. Excited

1:09:37

to do this. He's been in the NBA now

1:09:39

a decade and, uh, big college numbers

1:09:41

as well. Creighton's Doug

1:09:43

McDermott as you get ready for the

1:09:46

weekend. What's up, man? Good to see you. You

1:09:48

too, Ryan. Uh, it's good to be on,

1:09:50

you know, obviously, uh, really excited

1:09:52

for this weekend with Creighton playing. You know,

1:09:55

uh, I should be saying that I'm really

1:09:57

excited to play the Lakers tomorrow, but obviously I got Creighton

1:09:59

on my mind. at

1:10:01

10-15. Thankfully we play at 7-15

1:10:03

so I'll be able to do both. So

1:10:07

how often do you just watch the

1:10:09

games and then immediately talk to your

1:10:11

dad after? I mean I imagine that's

1:10:14

a pretty often occurrence but how

1:10:16

does that conversation work? I

1:10:18

mean I'm locked in at all times. Even

1:10:20

if we're playing, I got a ball boy,

1:10:23

I got a trainer on the bench checking

1:10:25

the scores and I'm really

1:10:27

invested in creating basketball. Just

1:10:30

constantly getting updates. Even I'll ask people in the

1:10:32

crowd sometimes in court say, hey you got your

1:10:35

phone on, can you check the creating UConn score?

1:10:38

So it's always a stressful

1:10:40

time but I

1:10:43

try not to talk to my dad too much right

1:10:45

after games. His games especially. He'll definitely hit me with

1:10:47

some good text after some of my games. Just the

1:10:50

coach and him and the dad and him but I

1:10:52

try not to go there with him after his

1:10:54

games. I let him kind of decompress and

1:10:57

then we'll talk about the coming days. So

1:11:00

you won't be like, hey how come you guys

1:11:02

did this? You'd never do that with him? I

1:11:04

don't really question him. He's a lot smarter than

1:11:06

I am. I've learned a lot from

1:11:09

him but I try not to give

1:11:11

too much advice. Sometimes I'll give him

1:11:13

shit. If you didn't foul up three, sometimes

1:11:15

he's stubborn with that. But he's

1:11:18

stuck in his own ways with that stuff.

1:11:21

Do you notice stuff and

1:11:24

we realize the games are

1:11:26

different but the way you saw the game

1:11:29

when you're there lighting it up and then

1:11:31

you get this many years in the NBA and then

1:11:33

you think about your preparation and the things that you're

1:11:35

looking for. Do

1:11:38

you notice something and be like, I can't

1:11:40

even tell him that or I can't even

1:11:42

point that out because it's just so different.

1:11:44

It's pointless. It's just so different.

1:11:46

Like you said, being in the NBA 10

1:11:48

years, just the different rules that

1:11:51

there are, obviously the defensive three in

1:11:53

college is something I didn't really think

1:11:55

about until I got into the NBA.

1:11:57

There's so much more space to play with. in

1:12:00

the NBA, just the rules. I

1:12:02

mean, not being able to advance the ball at the

1:12:04

end of games, you know, in college, you know, I

1:12:06

think you see,

1:12:09

you know, you don't really have

1:12:11

an end to game play because you

1:12:13

can't advance the ball. I think if you saw

1:12:15

the NCAA change that, where you can call a

1:12:17

timeout, you'd see a lot more

1:12:19

buzzer beaters, a lot more strategic plays

1:12:21

towards the end of games. And

1:12:24

that's something I wish college had, just

1:12:26

some different rules here and there that the NBA

1:12:28

has. And I mean, I think it'd make it

1:12:30

a lot more exciting to watch, but,

1:12:33

you know, it is what it is. You know, you see the

1:12:35

Leitner play, you know, the Grant

1:12:37

Hill Leitner play, they show it over and over

1:12:39

again, because you just don't see a lot of

1:12:42

plays like that in college. So that's something that

1:12:44

I think would be awesome. Yeah, I

1:12:46

agree with that big time, because I just think like, hey,

1:12:48

it makes it more fun when the ball's advanced, and then you

1:12:50

have a side out of bounds, and you're, you're

1:12:52

on your side of the court, like it just gives you a

1:12:55

better chance. It's a bit like college football rule, or the

1:12:57

clock stops in the first down. I just,

1:13:00

I just like stuff that makes the end

1:13:02

a little bit more exciting, because I think with all

1:13:04

the reviews that we have at both levels, you

1:13:07

know, we miss the moments, like there's

1:13:09

very little back and forth for three

1:13:12

possessions late in a close game. And

1:13:15

that drama is supposed to build, and you're supposed to

1:13:17

have that kind of moment where you're like, you're not

1:13:20

sure what's going to happen. It's just, it's just hard,

1:13:22

I think, to ask the players and even the crowd,

1:13:24

where it's like, okay, you just chill out

1:13:26

for five minutes while you're confused, and now come back

1:13:28

because the game's tied and be just as excited as

1:13:31

you were. I think it's really, it's one

1:13:33

of my favorite things. It's like, let's make

1:13:35

everything, let's fix everything by making it

1:13:37

worse. For sure. And you know, I think if you're

1:13:40

down three in college, and there's like four or five

1:13:42

seconds left, and you don't have a timeout, I mean,

1:13:44

you just you assume the game's over, because I mean,

1:13:46

rarely are you going to make that full court pass,

1:13:48

someone's probably going to foul, you know, in college, you

1:13:51

can take a timeout, drop the play, and

1:13:53

have a good set. And, you

1:13:55

know, I think another thing is that's huge in

1:13:57

NBA is the six fouls compared to the five.

1:14:00

in college because so many times in college

1:14:02

you'll see a star player get

1:14:04

two fouls in the first eight

1:14:06

minutes of the game and they're sitting the whole half and

1:14:09

it just ruins the game at times. In

1:14:12

the NBA you get six, I think an

1:14:14

extra foul obviously is a huge difference and

1:14:16

a lot of times refs aren't

1:14:18

calling fouls on yokits or a beat or

1:14:20

an MVP type player because

1:14:23

they kind of know that this is for, there's

1:14:25

some ratings here, obviously we want to watch

1:14:28

the best players and sometimes in college the

1:14:31

best player goes out and it's like why am I watching

1:14:33

this, you know, this, not going to see them

1:14:35

the whole half. Yeah, that was like that

1:14:37

George Chan, Ohio State Final Four and

1:14:39

I was like, oh great, everybody has fouls, awesome.

1:14:41

Okay, let's go back to the start of your

1:14:43

stuff because you played for a bunch of really

1:14:45

great coaches. Was it tougher to play for

1:14:48

your father in college or Tibbs as a rookie? Tibbs,

1:14:52

Tibbs by far. You

1:14:55

know, the thing with Tibbs, you know, I obviously loved

1:14:57

the guy, I mean it was a tough year for

1:14:59

me not playing and whatnot. I honestly don't know if

1:15:01

he knew my name, I think a few times he

1:15:03

called me Kyle, that was Kyle Korver from

1:15:07

the year prior. So

1:15:09

I always told Kyle that and he's like, man, I

1:15:11

don't think he knew my name either and I played

1:15:13

for three years. But

1:15:16

I mean just the way he, looking

1:15:19

back it was the best thing that happened to me, you know, he just

1:15:21

taught me how to be a pro, always

1:15:23

there early, there late just being a good

1:15:25

teammate. You know, I don't think I've ever

1:15:27

been late for a bus in the NBA because I

1:15:30

was so scared of walking on the bus and, you

1:15:32

know, Tibbs looking at me. So

1:15:34

I think that kind of stuff prepared me so

1:15:36

much. You know, there's one time

1:15:38

where I

1:15:41

was out on the court warming up like three hours

1:15:43

before the game and Tibbs

1:15:45

called me into his office. He had his video

1:15:47

guy come get me and I

1:15:49

was like, man, I finally might have cracked the rotation

1:15:51

here. I might have a conversation with Tibbs here and

1:15:54

he gives me the classic, come on,

1:15:56

man. I'm like, what did

1:15:58

I do? And I guess

1:16:00

my phone was on loud in the locker room

1:16:02

as he was drawing up like the plays and

1:16:05

the strategy for that night. And he's like, you

1:16:07

got to have your phone on silent, man. And

1:16:10

I think that's the last time I talked to him that season. Was

1:16:15

he with, was he like that with everybody? I

1:16:18

mean, a little bit, you obviously Joe Kim and Derek

1:16:20

and Taj and, you know, Kirk Heinrich, the

1:16:22

more veteran guys, you know, obviously had a better,

1:16:24

you know, feel for him. But as a rookie,

1:16:27

I mean, I think it's part of his deal.

1:16:29

Just you got, you kind of got to fear

1:16:31

him. And I think I've told him

1:16:33

this before, you know, I've been on a lot of teams.

1:16:36

Whenever I see tips, I always try and thank

1:16:38

him because I just think he was a huge

1:16:40

part of, you know, get me to where I

1:16:42

am today. You know, I just, he built so

1:16:44

many good habits for me at a young age

1:16:46

and it sucked at the time. You

1:16:48

know, I hated it. I was miserable, but looking back,

1:16:51

I mean, everything else has been kind

1:16:53

of easy since. You know, Joe

1:16:55

is one of my favorite players because I

1:16:57

couldn't stand him at Florida and I

1:17:00

don't really know why. I mean, I guess it

1:17:02

was a really good team. I think it's because I

1:17:04

liked Horford so much more and there

1:17:06

was that stretch where people were like, Oh, Noah comes out. He's going to

1:17:08

be the number one pick. And I was like, no way. I was like,

1:17:10

he's not that kind of guy. And

1:17:12

then he got to the league and then I loved

1:17:14

him. He became one of my favorite guys. And I

1:17:16

think about like the personality that you have and

1:17:19

as you're telling tip stories, like with Noah, I

1:17:21

could just see Noah being impervious to that. Just

1:17:23

be like, you can be as mean as you

1:17:25

want to be, but like, I'm just going to

1:17:27

have the best time. And then, you

1:17:29

know, sometimes I think about you and this is

1:17:31

like a bigger thing, but when your dad is

1:17:34

such a big part of your

1:17:36

life and

1:17:38

you're, you're more likely your

1:17:40

personality is going to be like, I'm going to defer to him a

1:17:42

bit. Like it would probably blow your

1:17:44

mind to see somebody in that power dynamic to be

1:17:46

like, wait, you're, you're not going to listen to your

1:17:48

coach. And I don't even know what Noah was necessarily

1:17:51

like. I just think I know his personality well enough

1:17:53

that he just wasn't going to let that stuff bother

1:17:55

him no matter why. Also because he

1:17:57

was really good and played his ass off. Yeah. spot

1:18:00

on with Joe. You know, obviously,

1:18:02

here I am coming from playing for my dad,

1:18:04

you know, kind of being a yes

1:18:06

man trying to impress all the NBA coaches. And

1:18:08

then, you know, my first day on training

1:18:10

camp, you know, doing closeout drills, and I see Joe

1:18:13

Keem, you know, just sitting there, kind of like skipping

1:18:16

the drills, like, I don't need this shit, I'll be

1:18:18

ready for the games, you know, and tips are just

1:18:20

kind of laugh it off, you know, because, you know,

1:18:22

they had been together for so long, you know, they'd

1:18:24

already been together for like four or five, six years.

1:18:27

And, you know, it was

1:18:30

crazy, you know, their relationship was awesome. You know, I

1:18:32

think, obviously, there were some

1:18:34

practices where those guys weren't wanting to do stuff.

1:18:36

But once that ball is tipped, and at the

1:18:38

United Center, you know, they're ready to go to

1:18:40

war for that guy. And, you know, it's pretty,

1:18:42

pretty cool to be a part of that. Yeah,

1:18:45

I could see a coach being like, as long as I get the

1:18:48

Noah we get in the game for 30 plus

1:18:50

minutes, then I'm not worried about

1:18:52

it, because that guy played hard. And that's what

1:18:54

would end up being a thing with me. I

1:18:56

was like, everybody should want this kind of team.

1:18:58

So if we run through the coaches that

1:19:00

you've had, it's Tibbs.

1:19:04

It's Hoiberg. Billy Donovan,

1:19:07

with OKC, you had

1:19:09

Hornacek, Carlisle, Nate McMillan, Nate

1:19:12

Bjorker and pop and then Carlisle

1:19:14

again, now they're back with a pace. I

1:19:16

think the easy answer that maybe you give us

1:19:19

in the post game is like, hey, all these

1:19:21

guys are prepared and everybody's the same. But

1:19:24

what's actually different? Like, oh, wow, we prepared this

1:19:27

way with this guy, or this was a priority.

1:19:29

This wasn't and I'm not here necessarily to have

1:19:31

you be negative about any of them. I

1:19:33

want to just learn more about it from

1:19:35

you and that you played for some major

1:19:37

names in the NBA. I want

1:19:40

to know what what was different about different

1:19:43

stops for you. Yeah, I mean,

1:19:45

do we have all day? As

1:19:47

long as you want, man. It's great. I

1:19:49

mean, you know, I've played for so many guys,

1:19:52

like you said, and, you know,

1:19:54

obviously, I feel like the number one

1:19:56

thing is accountability. And

1:19:58

you know, the guys like pop guys

1:20:00

like Rick, they can hold guys accountable

1:20:02

because they've won titles. You know, they've had Tim

1:20:05

Duncan, they've had Dirk in those

1:20:07

guys have respected them for

1:20:09

them to be able to do their job, you know, and I've

1:20:12

played for some other guys, you know, some

1:20:15

really smart guys that just don't have that

1:20:17

pedigree, that championship pedigree. It doesn't take anything

1:20:19

away from, you know, how smart

1:20:21

they are accident-wise, you know, those are some

1:20:23

of the smartest guys I've played for, you

1:20:26

know, but if you don't have that background,

1:20:30

it's hard to hold star players accountable. You know,

1:20:32

I think that's the great thing about

1:20:34

pop and Rick, they're gonna

1:20:36

treat, you know, Tyreese

1:20:38

and Pascal and Wembe the

1:20:41

same way they're gonna treat me or TJ

1:20:43

McConnell and I just I

1:20:45

think that's the biggest difference the NBA is being

1:20:48

able to hold the whole rock locker room

1:20:50

accountable because if you're just picking

1:20:52

on certain guys and not the star players,

1:20:54

you know, guys can see right through that

1:20:57

stuff and I think that's the big thing

1:20:59

in NBA coaching is just being able to

1:21:01

hold a whole locker room accountable and

1:21:04

I'm not saying bad about any of those guys I've played

1:21:06

for because they're all great coaches but it's

1:21:08

a huge difference when you have that and

1:21:10

it just gets guys to

1:21:13

come together and play together, you know,

1:21:15

every night. I talked to Austin

1:21:17

Rivers about this last season and it

1:21:19

was incredibly revealing in that, you

1:21:22

know, I'm always kind of interested in that

1:21:24

realization right once you're in the league and

1:21:27

here's Rivers, he's a lottery pick, comes back after

1:21:29

his first year, he's thinking like, alright, I'm gonna

1:21:31

start making all-star games, you know, and especially with

1:21:33

him because he'd had this massive profile in high

1:21:35

school and then at Duke and

1:21:37

then he's, you know, he told me like, and

1:21:39

then I'm like, I'm coming off the bench, you

1:21:41

know, you're a lottery pick, huge numbers of

1:21:44

Creighton and then you kind of have

1:21:46

to find your role. What was that like

1:21:48

for you personally? It

1:21:50

was tough, man. I'm not gonna lie, you know, I

1:21:53

think being in Chicago too, you

1:21:55

know, being a lottery pick, you know, I have all

1:21:57

these expectations, you know, the fans are expecting so much

1:21:59

great great things and it doesn't go the way

1:22:01

you wanted to right off the bat. And, you

1:22:04

know, it's something that, you know, I struggled with

1:22:06

early. But, you

1:22:08

know, the quicker you realize, you

1:22:11

know, I'm not the best player on the floor anymore.

1:22:14

You know, my dad's not drawing up 15 isos

1:22:16

a game for me. The

1:22:18

quicker you get over yourself in the NBA, the

1:22:20

better career you're going to have. You know, I

1:22:23

think I just kind of I think

1:22:25

Fred Hoiberg was great for me. He came in that second year.

1:22:27

You know, he just kind of let me play freely. You

1:22:30

know, it's not like I was an all-star or anything, but

1:22:32

I show that I could be a role player in the

1:22:35

NBA and that I could find my niche. I think that's

1:22:37

the number one thing is if you're

1:22:39

not one or two guys on the team, if you're

1:22:41

not an all-star, you got to find

1:22:43

something that, you know, separates yourself from the rest

1:22:45

of the league. And for me, I feel like

1:22:47

it's moving without the basketball and shooting threes and

1:22:49

just trying to put pressure on the defense. I'm

1:22:52

not going to get any isos. I'm not going to get

1:22:55

any alley-oop strung up for me. I'm

1:22:57

going to be in the corner. I'm going to be

1:22:59

slipping out of ball screens. I'm going to be the

1:23:01

best team defender I can be. And

1:23:04

the quicker I realize that, instead

1:23:06

of complaining about shots or, you

1:23:08

know, playing time, just

1:23:11

saying less and doing more with

1:23:13

my play out there. If I'm

1:23:15

going to even if I have zero points and

1:23:17

I feel like I affected the game by, you know,

1:23:19

slipping out of a ball screen for Tyrese or TJ

1:23:22

or, you know, who knows? I

1:23:24

feel like I did my job. I think the

1:23:26

whole NBA sees that, you know, they can tell

1:23:28

when guys are selfish and they can tell when

1:23:30

guys are unselfish. And I think that's

1:23:32

something I try to hang my hat on. Yeah, I

1:23:34

felt bad for you because, you know, in the beginning,

1:23:36

it's like, man, you know, they made the move

1:23:39

for you. They take you. We'd all

1:23:41

seen school. And then, you know, it's

1:23:44

not it was too good of a team to be

1:23:46

like, all right, here are your 16

1:23:48

shots and you're playing 35 minutes. And

1:23:50

because we took you, we're going to invest

1:23:52

all these possessions in you. Right. I mean, that's what

1:23:54

happens with a lot of guys on

1:23:56

lesser teams. And so when. That

1:24:00

happens the unfortunate part

1:24:02

cuz yeah, I mean that team your rookie year

1:24:04

150 games The unfortunate part is

1:24:06

and I'm even guilty of this at times is you're

1:24:08

kind of like the first couple users go. Ah, all

1:24:10

right and then It's

1:24:13

almost like we have to be reintroduced to your

1:24:15

evolution as a player because then you're like wait

1:24:17

That guy still like makes all of his shots

1:24:20

Like wait, there is now something here when

1:24:22

you look at your shooting splits and

1:24:25

then you go, okay He's trying here. He knows where to

1:24:27

be in position all the time like there

1:24:29

has to be a spot for him somewhere

1:24:31

and kind of Reassessing like

1:24:33

our own expectations which obviously probably at

1:24:35

times for you were really tough. Yeah

1:24:40

You know and I and I bounced around a little bit

1:24:42

earlier in my career as you said, you know I played

1:24:44

for a lot of teams and you know, it took me

1:24:46

a while to figure that out and I owe Honestly

1:24:49

a lot to Rick Carlye who I played for

1:24:52

now back in Indy I think

1:24:54

Dallas was like my third or fourth stop in

1:24:56

the NBA Had been tossed

1:24:58

around a little bit and I kind of

1:25:00

looked at that. It was just right after the all-star break

1:25:02

I kind of looked at that if this could be potentially

1:25:04

my last chance, you know I got to go

1:25:06

out there and play freely I got to just

1:25:09

kind of say F it and shoot it and

1:25:11

just and just play like myself and Rick gave

1:25:13

me a great Opportunity we didn't win many games

1:25:16

It was that Luca draft year. So, you know,

1:25:19

there's probably some incentive there down the stretch not to

1:25:21

win a ton And I just

1:25:23

went out there and played I played

1:25:25

free. I shot like 45 or 50 percent after that Break

1:25:29

that year ended up getting a great deal

1:25:31

with Indiana And I

1:25:33

mean the rest is kind of that's kind of what? Helped

1:25:36

me stay in this league. What was

1:25:38

that little stretch there? So I always try

1:25:40

to remind Rick like how thankful I was

1:25:42

for him You know,

1:25:45

obviously everything worked out for the Mads. They got

1:25:47

Luca that summer. I'm actually two for two on

1:25:49

superstars I got Luca in Dallas and then

1:25:52

when be in San Antonio So I

1:25:54

guess I'm just kind of I'm the good luck charm if

1:25:56

teams are looking for that So like

1:25:58

I had a Cooper flag next year here's some teams going

1:26:00

to pick you up and be like, Doug, here's the

1:26:02

deal. You're our first option for six. Exactly.

1:26:07

I'm the go to guy. Yeah,

1:26:09

I looked it up. You were 50% for

1:26:12

Dallas from three. You know, I know it was it

1:26:14

was it was less than half the season. But

1:26:16

all right. So you get to San Antonio and. You

1:26:21

know, I think I've asked, I don't know

1:26:23

how many different Spurs guys, like different pop

1:26:25

questions, what's personal to

1:26:27

you about playing for pop? What's

1:26:30

something no one else is going to tell me? Yeah,

1:26:32

I mean, I'm sure you've heard all

1:26:34

the stories about the team dinners and

1:26:36

the wine and just the culture, just

1:26:39

unbelievable guy to play for. I

1:26:41

remember my first exit meeting with

1:26:43

him. I was so nervous. I mean, I played for

1:26:45

him for a year and, you know, everyone's like, like,

1:26:47

make sure you see me before you guys leave. And

1:26:51

I was just kind of waiting around. I'm like, when is it my turn?

1:26:53

He's talking to all the young guys. And

1:26:55

he he just comes up to me in the weight room. He's like, I don't

1:26:58

need to talk to you. I said, all right. Perfect.

1:27:00

He said maybe one of the

1:27:02

worst defenders I've ever coached. But you can

1:27:04

really shoot that thing. He's not as bad

1:27:06

as Kurt defensively, but I'll see you next

1:27:08

September. Like that was

1:27:10

just a story from

1:27:13

that's just who he is. He's going to call it how

1:27:15

he sees it. He's going

1:27:17

to hold everyone accountable. Kind of as I

1:27:19

was talking about earlier, you know, he treats when be as

1:27:22

tough as anyone in the locker room, you know, it

1:27:24

would be calling him out first clip on film, you

1:27:26

know, saying we're not shooting the shot, you know, it's

1:27:29

just he's just a very authentic

1:27:31

guy, very real, genuine guy. It

1:27:33

just really enjoyed my two and a half, three years

1:27:36

with him. He taught me a lot. When

1:27:38

someone says you're a bad defender. What

1:27:41

do you do? Is it like, all summer

1:27:43

ladder work? Like, OK, this is what I'm

1:27:45

going to do. Like, I know that's been

1:27:47

a knock on you. You're clearly aware of

1:27:49

it. So you just get to

1:27:52

a point like, hey, I'm just not going to be good

1:27:54

enough against certain guys in the NBA and I have to

1:27:56

figure out how to at least just be in the right

1:27:58

spot. I just I wonder what that's like. when

1:28:00

people keep saying it about you? I mean, it

1:28:03

is what it is. You know, I kind of I know the deal.

1:28:05

I know what I'm out there for. I'm

1:28:07

definitely not out there to be a defensive

1:28:09

stopper. But there's

1:28:11

things you can do. I mean, just putting in

1:28:13

some effort. I mean, just communicating with your teammates.

1:28:16

You know, trying to I feel like

1:28:18

as a guy like me, you're

1:28:20

going to get picked on. They're going to call you up

1:28:22

into ball screens. But you got to

1:28:24

be the best show defender. You know, instead

1:28:26

of switching, you got to find a way

1:28:28

to make an impact on if you're going

1:28:30

to show or just communicate communicating a different

1:28:32

way to your teammate. But

1:28:35

yeah, I mean, in the summertime, I'm working on it.

1:28:37

I'm working on close outs. I'm working on ladder

1:28:39

drill. But you know, at the end of the day, you know,

1:28:41

I know who I am. I know what I'm out there for.

1:28:43

I'm out there to make shots and make an impact on the

1:28:45

game that way. But I think

1:28:48

guys like former and, you

1:28:51

know, I'm not just trying to say all these six,

1:28:53

seven white guys. But you know, Dunleavy, they

1:28:56

became really good defenders later in their career

1:28:59

because they were able to take

1:29:01

charges, always be in the right spot. And

1:29:03

that's something I'm always looking at, you know,

1:29:05

trying to become a better defender. Yeah,

1:29:08

I mean, if you had thrown Sam Hauser in there, we'd

1:29:10

be like, hey, look out. Yeah, it doesn't

1:29:12

matter. Sam gets switched into all the time. And

1:29:14

it's always funny, especially like when he was just

1:29:16

starting to play this year. And I was like,

1:29:19

he actually holds up way better. And then guys

1:29:21

will switch to him twice, like two possessions in

1:29:23

a row. They're kind of like, wait,

1:29:25

what's going on here? Yeah,

1:29:28

Sam's a sneaky, good defender.

1:29:30

He's got that Tony Bennett,

1:29:32

Virginia background. So

1:29:34

he knows how to hold his own. OK,

1:29:37

your first impression, your first time meeting Wembley,

1:29:39

being on the floor with him, what was

1:29:41

it like when you got him into camp?

1:29:45

I mean, he's, I mean, it's just

1:29:47

it's insane how tall he is. You know, I think when

1:29:50

you see him in person, you're like, what the hell? Like, this

1:29:52

guy's a legit a foot taller than me. But

1:29:55

I remember we were doing like a we're doing

1:29:57

like a yoga session, you know, typical Spurs. a

1:30:00

yoga session on off day. We're

1:30:03

all laying down there. And Vic

1:30:06

gets up of all people. And he's like,

1:30:08

does anyone need a towel or a water

1:30:10

or extra mat or anything? And I'm

1:30:12

like, hell this kid, you

1:30:14

know, I think that was just a sign to show you

1:30:17

like, I mean, he is, he truly

1:30:19

just wants to be one of the guys he wants to

1:30:21

be treated the same. You

1:30:23

don't see that a lot from rookies, you know,

1:30:25

let alone number one picks. You

1:30:27

know, I think I was giving some shit to our rookies

1:30:29

from the previous year. I'm like, wow,

1:30:32

this guy's willing to do this. So where

1:30:34

was this from any of you guys last

1:30:36

year, you know, it's he just a he's

1:30:38

a special guy. He's super humble. He, he

1:30:41

just constantly reading books on the

1:30:43

plane, just very low key. And I think he's

1:30:45

a perfect fit for San Antonio, just because that's

1:30:47

how Tim was very low

1:30:49

maintenance, didn't want the spotlight. And

1:30:52

just, just a joy to be around him every

1:30:54

day. It's incredible how lucky

1:30:56

San Antonio is that you get Duncan, where

1:30:59

I think there's some Curry similarities there where it's

1:31:01

like, okay, if the face of the franchise is

1:31:04

wired this way, then it

1:31:06

just changes everything. Like you can search

1:31:08

for it, you can hope to draft

1:31:10

it. You're basically asking like, okay, which

1:31:12

Hall of Famer can I draft that

1:31:14

has the perfect personality to

1:31:17

be at the center of this, but

1:31:19

to make everybody else feel valued, right?

1:31:21

It's just, it's really hard,

1:31:23

especially because even though basketball is a team

1:31:25

sport, like we both know, there's a lot

1:31:27

of individualism in it. And

1:31:30

to think that the Spurs would get this two

1:31:32

decade run with Duncan and hell, you

1:31:34

can even go further

1:31:36

back with David Robinson, but

1:31:38

then to have one manama where, you know, I

1:31:40

could watch all the videos and I don't never

1:31:42

talk to him. But when I watch him play,

1:31:45

I go there's there

1:31:47

may be a lot of that in there with him

1:31:49

where it's like, yeah, no, I know what I'm being

1:31:51

asked to do. And I know the responsibility of it,

1:31:53

but I'm going to do it in a way where

1:31:55

I want all of this to work. And I want

1:31:57

to care about all these things that are the right

1:31:59

thing. to care about. And it

1:32:01

just seems like beyond the physical stuff, the

1:32:04

athleticism, it's like, wait, they really get the

1:32:06

perfect person to lead the next however many

1:32:08

years he's there. It really

1:32:10

did. I mean, it's crazy. Like the

1:32:12

Tim comparisons, obviously, and then him

1:32:15

being from France, Tony being in town all

1:32:17

the time, Manu's pretty much out of the

1:32:19

facility every single day. I mean, these guys

1:32:22

are really around him all the time

1:32:24

to help him, kind of guide him through his career.

1:32:26

And I think that's huge. And just,

1:32:28

I mean, just the way he plays, I mean, it's just so

1:32:30

exciting. I mean, all you

1:32:32

have to do is throw it somewhere around the rim,

1:32:34

and he's going to get it. And he's

1:32:37

just, he's an unselfish guy. I

1:32:39

think just, I think the sky's the limit.

1:32:41

Obviously, he hasn't really figured out how to

1:32:43

get fouled. You know, I think once he

1:32:45

learns to, to draw fouls, I mean, it's even going

1:32:47

to take his game to the next level. Not

1:32:50

that we liked watching free throws all night,

1:32:52

but I just think it's something that he's

1:32:54

gonna, he's gonna be able to get calls

1:32:56

and with his length and swiping through defenders.

1:32:59

I think it's just gonna have a whole different dimension to his game.

1:33:02

Is there a moment this season where when you

1:33:04

were playing with him, you felt like somebody really

1:33:06

tried to challenge him, try

1:33:08

to beat him up a little bit, just kind of wanted to see

1:33:10

what he was made of. And it's something you remember. Honestly,

1:33:14

it felt, felt like the

1:33:16

Chet thing is real, you know, the rivalry

1:33:18

between them, I feel like they, they

1:33:21

really take it personal. I think when we really

1:33:23

wanted to play well in those games, you

1:33:26

know, there was a couple of guys, I think like

1:33:28

Andre Drummond or someone tried to get

1:33:30

under, you know, under skin a little bit. And

1:33:32

he, he like accepts that he's like, he's

1:33:34

the opposite of soft, you know, he's, he's,

1:33:37

he's a tough guy. He wants, he wants

1:33:39

that physicality. He wants that, that talking. And

1:33:41

I think that's the difference between him and

1:33:43

a lot of guys in his position is

1:33:45

he welcomes that he really does. And

1:33:47

I think he's

1:33:50

really gonna continue to welcome

1:33:52

that. And he's, he's gonna, he's

1:33:54

gonna get every night because he's gonna everyone's best

1:33:56

shot. And there's only so much he

1:33:58

can do with a, with a seven, six, guy you

1:34:00

can't he's just gonna reach

1:34:02

over you and dunk it. So

1:34:05

you make your way back to the Pacers

1:34:07

Carl Alligan which we've alluded to a bunch

1:34:09

of times have you ever during your NBA career

1:34:11

been able to say like hey you guys are

1:34:13

thinking about moving me but like

1:34:15

I'm wondering if there was ever a transaction where you

1:34:17

had a moment of influence? I

1:34:20

mean free agency a little bit. Well sure

1:34:23

but. But this year obviously being on the

1:34:28

Spurs you know we weren't winning a ton. I

1:34:31

knew being on an expiring deal you know

1:34:33

there'd be an opportunity probably

1:34:35

for me to get traded and that's that's

1:34:37

exactly how it worked out you know I think there

1:34:39

was a few calls you know

1:34:42

obviously on trade deadline day and you

1:34:44

know I obviously felt very strong about Indiana

1:34:46

and I know their interest and it was

1:34:48

one of those deals where this made it

1:34:50

happen and I was I was super excited

1:34:52

to be back. Obviously

1:34:55

really loved my time in San Antonio I

1:34:57

still talk to those guys all the time but

1:35:00

being on a more veteran team like

1:35:02

the Pacers back with you know

1:35:04

Miles T.J. Tyreese obviously unbelievable

1:35:06

player in Pascal but I

1:35:10

knew there was a high chance I get traded

1:35:12

and that's exactly what happened and I'm glad it's

1:35:14

back to a place I'm familiar with. Playing

1:35:16

with Halliburton I imagine

1:35:18

that you look there's great pastors in the

1:35:20

league but my

1:35:22

favorite thing is the way he sees the game

1:35:24

how he keeps everybody in the position alive like

1:35:26

do you have to remind yourself or did you

1:35:28

have to leave the first few games back when

1:35:31

your minutes were aligned where it's like

1:35:33

he'll still find me even when

1:35:35

I may think I'm out of the

1:35:37

play like what is that like playing next to

1:35:39

him? It's amazing I

1:35:41

mean the thing about Tyreese

1:35:43

is with a lot of guys you

1:35:46

know superstars all stars you

1:35:48

know they make the assists for

1:35:50

the assists you know Tyreese is a guy where

1:35:52

he doesn't care about the the hockeyist like he

1:35:55

doesn't he's fine making the hockey assist the pass

1:35:57

to a pass which is the best

1:35:59

part about it. him like you, you feel like he,

1:36:02

he makes the right read every time, you know,

1:36:04

and if I'm open in the corner, but miles

1:36:06

Turner's rolling to the rim, he'll hit miles first

1:36:08

and miles could swing it to the corner. Like

1:36:10

he, he truly just wants to win. He's, he's

1:36:12

a, he's a very smart guy.

1:36:15

Um, and I've, I've never seen anyone

1:36:17

make a pick and roll look so easy. You

1:36:19

know, he just makes the right, right. Read every

1:36:21

time. And I was obviously with his ability to

1:36:23

shoot the three, it just opens everything else up

1:36:25

for the rest of us. Thanks

1:36:27

so much for doing this man and enjoy another

1:36:29

stint with the Pacers. All right. All right.

1:36:31

Thanks Mike. I appreciate it. You

1:36:37

want details? Bye. I

1:36:39

drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's

1:36:42

up? I

1:36:44

have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

1:36:46

I have every toy you can possibly imagine.

1:36:49

And best of all, kids, I am

1:36:51

liquid. So now you

1:36:53

know what's possible. Let me tell you

1:36:56

what's required. Our email addresses, live

1:36:58

advice, [email protected]. Good mood Thursday. Everybody's in

1:37:00

a good mood. I hope. Uh,

1:37:04

I think it's just because baseball's back and

1:37:06

everybody's getting a smile on their face.

1:37:08

Crypto, the crypt. Are you going

1:37:10

to the game? If Bill's schedule

1:37:13

allows, I told him, I'm hoping he has a heart, but

1:37:15

we'll see. I don't think there's too many great NBA

1:37:17

games tonight, so I should be okay. There's only

1:37:19

two games tonight. I know. We'll

1:37:22

see. Got good seats too. So are

1:37:25

you trying to go to both that crypto or just the Carolina

1:37:27

game? Well, I mean, it's just back to back. Why not? Yeah.

1:37:30

Yeah. I don't

1:37:32

know. Milwaukee, New Orleans is a big game, but

1:37:34

Boston has landed this time. I'm at first all

1:37:36

Ryan. Don't take them about this game at all.

1:37:38

I'm begging you. I

1:37:41

might text them right now and be

1:37:43

like, man, I feel like this is

1:37:45

the turning point of the season with

1:37:47

how they respond. I might watch the

1:37:49

game twice. I hope, I hope you

1:37:51

get to go, man. Not only is

1:37:53

it a non-hangout, it's an anti-hangout with

1:37:55

Kate is what it's turning into. I

1:38:01

had so much fun going to the games in Brooklyn. No,

1:38:05

I'm not doing this investment. No, I'm talking about like

1:38:07

doesn't work out and then this will be hilarious. Yeah,

1:38:09

I know. I know. But

1:38:12

I'll admit to the audience that I

1:38:15

do feel a little guilty that I'm

1:38:17

not as locked in as I

1:38:19

used to be years ago. I

1:38:21

still think it's the greatest sporting event in sports.

1:38:25

I mean, obviously, if you come back at me with the

1:38:27

World Cup, I'm not going to tell but

1:38:30

for what we do here, OK, for