Speaker 1: Welcome in What Driving Nick Grade? Episode four ninety. This
Speaker 1: episode of What Driving Nick gred is presented to you
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Speaker 1: five hundred. Appreciate all of you have been with us
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Speaker 1: one for a million quarter a million, no YouTube platform,
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Speaker 1: h two hundred and fifty thousand subs on YouTube right
Speaker 1: around the time we get to our five hundredth episode.
Speaker 1: Also speaking to the episodes, another again, just quick scheduling
Speaker 1: reminder for everybody. I am off the following two weeks.
Speaker 1: My wife and I are going to Europe, just the
Speaker 1: two of us. It is my first time with consecutive
Speaker 1: weeks off since the show started, so since the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen would have been the last time I
Speaker 1: had more than one week off in a row. So
Speaker 1: very excited for that. Ty Butler and Damon Bruce instead
Speaker 1: of us going dark, Ty Butler and Damon Bruce are
Speaker 1: going to be filling in for me those following two weeks.
Speaker 1: Demanse thought those two weeks started today. That may or
Speaker 1: may not have been my poor communication. Regardless, it is
Speaker 1: just me today and we have a bunch to get to,
Speaker 1: so we will jump to straight the voicemail brought to
Speaker 1: you by Boost Mobile. Kyler Murray is going to be
Speaker 1: quarterback one for the Vikings. More on that in the second.
Speaker 1: Leo Messi unsure about his future. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's crazy to say, especially because Argentina is going
Speaker 1: to get to host at least one World Cup game
Speaker 1: next rotation, that Leo Messi might find a way to
Speaker 1: be a deep reserve four years from now, when Argentina
Speaker 1: gets to host a World Cup game and Jaden Daniels,
Speaker 1: super pissed that they let a kid on the team,
Speaker 1: switches number from number three to number five files a season,
Speaker 1: desists saying they can't use his nil anymore. I I
Speaker 1: am a little I brushed up on this story a
Speaker 1: little bit right before the pod, because that's when it
Speaker 1: broke right was right before the pod. I I understand
Speaker 1: Jayden feeling like I won the Heisman Trophy. There should
Speaker 1: at least, you know, be a bigger gap between when
Speaker 1: I wore the number and the next person wearing the number.
Speaker 1: I understand that. I think it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of the bitter, not bitterness, I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the right word, but anger about this is because no
Speaker 1: one has worn Joe Burrow's number nine, who also won
Speaker 1: the Heisman. Yes, but while they both won the Heisman, Burrow,
Speaker 1: you know, had an undefeated national championship season, so you
Speaker 1: understand why, you know, his number might be a little
Speaker 1: more sacricanct but Jayden Daniels, you know, not hearing it
Speaker 1: quickly before we get to the Lakers. On the Kyler
Speaker 1: Murray piece of it, I was pretty adamant that once
Speaker 1: the Vikings acquired Kyler Murray, the earlier they named him
Speaker 1: the starter because they were always going to name him
Speaker 1: the starter. The better because I don't think with a
Speaker 1: new offense with a quarterback who's fighting to you know,
Speaker 1: keep his career as a starter alive, splitting reps in
Speaker 1: training camp is a good idea, and I do think
Speaker 1: Kyler is the better of the two quarterbacks. So I
Speaker 1: think just ending the quarterback competition, which was probably never
Speaker 1: really going to be a full blown competition, was the
Speaker 1: smart thing to do. I do not think anything else
Speaker 1: the Vikings have done in this process qualifies as the
Speaker 1: smart thing to do. I to draft a quarterback at
Speaker 1: ten when you have Kirk Cousins because you want higher
Speaker 1: ceiling than you previously had to Then a year later,
Speaker 1: let Sam Darnold walk after fourteen wins and four thousand
Speaker 1: yards because again you want the higher ceiling, reset the
Speaker 1: quarterback salary clock, all of that, and then ten games,
Speaker 1: granted they were bad, bad games, ten games into that
Speaker 1: player's career being like, all right, he's not the guy.
Speaker 1: The process there is just brutal, and you can't draft,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, one of the youngest players in the
Speaker 1: entire draft, with as few throws as he had at Michigan,
Speaker 1: and then ten games into his career be like, he's
Speaker 1: not the guy. Again, I'm not a JJ McCarthy got.
Speaker 1: I didn't like to pick at the time. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. But the process, and I know they have
Speaker 1: a new GM, that process is so flawed, and I
Speaker 1: think you have now once again attached your wagon to
Speaker 1: another low ceiling quarterback. Like I know, people think Kyler
Speaker 1: is something Kyler's not. People trick themselves into thinking Kyler
Speaker 1: Murray's going to be a different quarterback than he's been
Speaker 1: almost every year of his NFL career. So I am
Speaker 1: not as high on the vikings as some people, and
Speaker 1: I'm really not high on the process, but the big
Speaker 1: and also, you can email us for mail bags, which
Speaker 1: we do. I was calling it semi monthly. At this
Speaker 1: point it might be monthly. We've been doing regular Friday
Speaker 1: shows instead. What's Right mailbag at gmail dot com. But
Speaker 1: the shocking story from yesterday morning is the Lakers got
Speaker 1: house flipped by Mark Walter and he bought them just
Speaker 1: around a year ago for ten billion and just flipped
Speaker 1: them to Josh Kushner. Yes, that Kushner family. And Bob Iger.
Speaker 1: Yes that Bob Iger, the guy that ran Disney forever.
Speaker 1: Boughtom for ten sold them for twelve and a half.
Speaker 1: I am going to machine gun my takes at you
Speaker 1: on this and they are not in order of importance,
Speaker 1: and they're just as they I you know, I know
Speaker 1: what my takes are. Pay no attention to the order
Speaker 1: of them take one, man, oh man, those Bus kids.
Speaker 1: I don't know if a team could have made more
Speaker 1: or a family could have made more consistently bad, step
Speaker 1: by step decisions than the Bus kids made after doctor
Speaker 1: Jerry Buss passed and they took over the team from
Speaker 1: the infighting within the siblings about who is and who
Speaker 1: isn't running the team and the excommunication and the embarrassment
Speaker 1: of Rob Polinka and Magic Johnson and I'm not let
Speaker 1: me rephrase that, the embarrassment of the Rob Blink of
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson relationship falling apart like that, to Linda Rambiss
Speaker 1: being a huge part of the brain trust there to
Speaker 1: not so quietly whispering behind you know, Lebron's back, about
Speaker 1: how sick of the Lebron tenure you are up to
Speaker 1: and including, as we learned yesterday, getting ten billion dollars
Speaker 1: for a basketball team that evidently was worth far more
Speaker 1: than that. Because you can't convince me that if the
Speaker 1: Lakers are worth twelve and a half billion today that
Speaker 1: a year ago when Lebron was still on the team,
Speaker 1: mind you, that ten billion to the top of the market.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's either either the Bus family sold low
Speaker 1: more on that soon or Cushner and Eiger way overpaid
Speaker 1: seems unlikely. But so that's that's take number one. Take
Speaker 1: number two, it is not. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theorist to find the timing of this and
Speaker 1: the people involved in this to be incredibly odd and
Speaker 1: to raise a lot of questions. So Mark Walter, who
Speaker 1: we found out over the last month under investigation by
Speaker 1: the FBI for practice related to his real businesses and
Speaker 1: whether or not he's gonna have to payback loans, and
Speaker 1: I'm not listening. I am not a business reporter. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't not only do I not write for the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, and I'm a big newspaper guy. I
Speaker 1: don't really read the Wall Street Journal much. So I'm
Speaker 1: not going to act as if I have that story clocked.
Speaker 1: What he is, you know, being potentially accused of what
Speaker 1: the government's investigating him for. What I am going to
Speaker 1: say that I feel pretty comfortable from the research I've
Speaker 1: done in the last twenty four hours. What I am
Speaker 1: comfortable saying is seems like there is a possibility that
Speaker 1: Mark Walter is going to need a grip of liquid
Speaker 1: cash in relative short order. And this is a hell
Speaker 1: of a way to free up a bunch of money
Speaker 1: and make a twenty five percent return in one year.
Speaker 1: But I don't think Mark Walter bought the Lakers with
Speaker 1: the expectation or with the plan of yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a buy and hold for eighteen for twelve to
Speaker 1: eighteen months. I think he bought the Lakers for the
Speaker 1: plan of owning the Lakers, and he wouldn't have done
Speaker 1: the made the different moves that he made as far
Speaker 1: as potentially trying to meld the Dodgers' brain trust with
Speaker 1: the Lakers' brain trust if he thought he was gonna
Speaker 1: sell one of them and keep the other, which right
Speaker 1: now is what they're doing, keeping the Dodgers selling the Lakers.
Speaker 1: So the specter of this investigation hangs over the entirety
Speaker 1: of this sale. Ramona reported that he was approached by
Speaker 1: Kushner and on Sunday, and this was done Wednesday. I
Speaker 1: find that almost impossible to believe. And again, I'm not
Speaker 1: a businessman. I don't claim to be a businessman. I
Speaker 1: haven't had the last, the closest thing to a real
Speaker 1: job I've had since I turned sixteen years old, was
Speaker 1: door to door stake salesman. So I don't have a
Speaker 1: finance degree. I don't claim to be a you know,
Speaker 1: a sharp Wall Street guy or day Trade or any
Speaker 1: of that stuff. But the idea that you could on
Speaker 1: Sunday morning not even be thinking about selling the Lakers
Speaker 1: and by Wednesday morning it's been reported you've sold the
Speaker 1: Lakers really tests the limits of plausibility. So there's that
Speaker 1: piece of this story that I don't totally understand. There
Speaker 1: is the undeniable blend of politics here where Josh Kushner
Speaker 1: is the money man behind this, because listen, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Eiger did great at Disney, but you know he doesn't
Speaker 1: have billions of dollars. But Kushner and his fund who
Speaker 1: were just involved in trying to buy the World Cup
Speaker 1: and that thing blowing up that they do. And Josh
Speaker 1: Kushner is Jared Kushner's brother. Jared Kushner is the son
Speaker 1: in law of the President of the United States. Jared
Speaker 1: Kushner arguably is about as politically powerful a private citizen
Speaker 1: as there is. And folks who want to look a
Speaker 1: scant at the timeline of Mark Walter being investigated by
Speaker 1: the federal government as a happy coincidence In the midst
Speaker 1: of that, Mark Walter and his Dodgers have a trip
Speaker 1: to the White House a couple of weeks ago for
Speaker 1: the ceremony, and then a couple weeks later, the president
Speaker 1: son in law's brother buys the Lakers in one of
Speaker 1: the most shocking sports transactions ever. Again, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of choose your own allegation. You
Speaker 1: could make there. It'd be like, oh, was there downward
Speaker 1: pressure because he's under investigation to cut Kushner a sweetheart deal? Well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't totally make a lot of sense, because this
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like a sweetheart deal. Was you know, he's
Speaker 1: paid twelve and a half billion dollars. Hell, a ten
Speaker 1: percent return in one year would be a great profit.
Speaker 1: Eleven billion it would you like worth ten a year ago,
Speaker 1: paid twelve and a half. So that doesn't mean it
Speaker 1: was did he get you know, heads up, hey man,
Speaker 1: this investigation ain't looking great for you. You're gonna need this cash.
Speaker 1: I I I don't know. I just know the timing
Speaker 1: of it, the people involved, and the fact that we
Speaker 1: do appear to right now be in an era of
Speaker 1: how illegal is the illegal stuff certainly gives you pause,
Speaker 1: So there is that piece of it. Simmons reported that
Speaker 1: Kushner and Iiger were hoping to get the Vegas team,
Speaker 1: but the Vegas team's expansion fee was going to be
Speaker 1: a minimum minimum of seven and a half billion dollars
Speaker 1: and maybe upwards of nine. And in that case, well,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna pay nine for a new team, why
Speaker 1: not pay twelve twelve and a half for the best
Speaker 1: brand in basketball. I do understand that logic. It seems
Speaker 1: absolutely bananas to me that the Vegas expansion team could
Speaker 1: be worth. It was crazy when they were talking. I
Speaker 1: thought it was nuts. It wasn't that long ago that
Speaker 1: we thought the Vegas that the expansion fees were gonna
Speaker 1: be four billion dollars. Then we started hearing six. Now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's seven and a half and
Speaker 1: maybe more. That shit. The the Timberwl sold for a
Speaker 1: billion five a few years ago. It was utterly stunning
Speaker 1: and considered a shocking overpay a decade ago when Balmer
Speaker 1: paid do you pay two billion for the Clippers? Franchise?
Speaker 1: Sales prices the I'm trying to see the what the
Speaker 1: these teams have gone for, Like I know the Celtics
Speaker 1: just went for six, but that was recently. I mean
Speaker 1: the Mavericks three years ago. We're three and a half
Speaker 1: billion post COVID Mavericks three years ago, three and a
Speaker 1: half billion, big market. I don't know if they own
Speaker 1: their arena or not. I now an expansion team is
Speaker 1: going to be around eight that's kind. I mean, that
Speaker 1: strikes me as crazy, which does bring me to another
Speaker 1: point I have about this, which is and I talked
Speaker 1: about this briefly on the TV show yesterday, but I
Speaker 1: do wonder if we are going to in twenty years
Speaker 1: think it was quaint and a relic of the past
Speaker 1: that families that individuals owned pro sports teams, And are
Speaker 1: we going to yearn for the day of the quirky
Speaker 1: Jerry Jones almost mom and pop style family business. Because
Speaker 1: once you get to these teams being all of them
Speaker 1: multiples billions of dollars, and now the Lakers are in
Speaker 1: the Decca billion category twice in a year, which means
Speaker 1: you've got to think that cheapest NFL team is a
Speaker 1: approaching seven eight billion? Are you know in twenty fifty
Speaker 1: and are we gonna have all of our pro sports
Speaker 1: teams just owned by entities, private equity, hedge funds, foreign
Speaker 1: wealth funds. I know right now, I don't think all
Speaker 1: that's allowed, but you're running out of human beings who
Speaker 1: have the money. Even in an era of this type
Speaker 1: of wealth discrepancy and more billionaires than ever, the amount
Speaker 1: of people that can just write a check for multiples
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars is not a long list, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that good for sports. I you know,
Speaker 1: I'll tell a I'm gonna leave a lot of the
Speaker 1: details out of this story, but I will tell a
Speaker 1: one true story from the last month. I was, i'll say,
Speaker 1: at an event with a guy who seemed like a
Speaker 1: nice enough guy and we just got to chatting and
Speaker 1: there were you know, might have been cocktails involved, and
Speaker 1: I asked the guy what he does for a living,
Speaker 1: and he was explaining it to me. I didn't totally
Speaker 1: get it, and then he basically bottom lined it and
Speaker 1: he's like, he basically works at a fund whose businesses
Speaker 1: investing in sports teams, you know, private equity or head Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know this world. A group with a bunch
Speaker 1: of money, their whole businesses, they invest in different sports teams,
Speaker 1: and the potential you know, baseball work stoppage came up,
Speaker 1: the NBA salary cap came, a bunch of stuff came up,
Speaker 1: And at one point I said to the guy, I
Speaker 1: was like, I hope you don't take this the wrong way.
Speaker 1: There's probably no right way to take it. I don't
Speaker 1: think your job should exist like I don't. I was
Speaker 1: saying how I didn't like I didn't like the idea
Speaker 1: of just nameless or faceless financial entities owning a piece
Speaker 1: of American sports teams because I view American sports teams
Speaker 1: as kind of legalized monopolies, and and they're a bit
Speaker 1: of a public trust. They very often have a lot of,
Speaker 1: you know, real public dollars that help support them, and
Speaker 1: I don't think they should be run like a typical
Speaker 1: you know what do they always say widget factory where
Speaker 1: the goal is just turning it? You know, can we
Speaker 1: turn a profit this year? And you know, he handled
Speaker 1: me saying that I didn't think his job should exist
Speaker 1: better than I probably would have if he had said
Speaker 1: the same thing to me. So credit to him. But
Speaker 1: I look back on that conversation just a month later,
Speaker 1: and I realized how naive I sounded, because it's not
Speaker 1: only that his job is going to continue to exist.
Speaker 1: His job might have to exist for any sports team
Speaker 1: that's sold in the future, you might simply have to
Speaker 1: have these big institutional investors. Because if if Joe Lakab
Speaker 1: were to say, you know what, it's been a good
Speaker 1: run steps retiring, I'm gonna sell the Lakers or sell
Speaker 1: the Warriors, who not a bunch of people that are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the ten billion. And I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons probably bron who had always been serious about
Speaker 1: getting in the NBA ownership, doesn't talk about it anymore,
Speaker 1: And when he was last asked about it, it seemed like
Speaker 1: he said he had moved on from it, like it
Speaker 1: the idea of Okay, I've done amazing professionally investing all
Speaker 1: of it. I have one billion dollars Austin power style
Speaker 1: one billion dollars liquid, and I'm gonna take half of that,
Speaker 1: half of my liquid net worth five hundred million, and
Speaker 1: put it towards a sports team that doesn't even get
Speaker 1: you on the trophy stand on the podium if they
Speaker 1: win the title these days. Oh you, oh, you have
Speaker 1: five hundred million in it. Okay, We're happy for you.
Speaker 1: You you own five percent of the Golden State Warriors
Speaker 1: that just sold for ten billion, you know, in this
Speaker 1: theoretical universe. So you know, that came to mind. And
Speaker 1: the last thing that came to mind for me was
Speaker 1: because we now have this story about Matti Ishbia. Again.
Speaker 1: I'm not a cnbcre at Wall Street Journal guy, but
Speaker 1: it seems like his mortgage business might be in a
Speaker 1: bit of trouble. I'm not sure the NBA has crushed
Speaker 1: it with the latest round of owners. So everybody loved
Speaker 1: Mark Walter coming to the league. Less than a year later,
Speaker 1: he's under federal investigation and he's out. So that one,
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody saw it coming, but that
Speaker 1: one didn't go great, Tom Dundan. Nobody's accused him of it,
Speaker 1: you know, criminal malfeasance or fraud or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Just seems to be like wildly cheap and holding the
Speaker 1: Blazers hostage. Not great. Ishbia takes over the Suns, starts
Speaker 1: meddling with everything. The saving grace was yeah, but at
Speaker 1: least we have another super crazy rich owner that will
Speaker 1: spend a bunch of money. You know, do all these
Speaker 1: different do all this stuff? Well, we'll see what his
Speaker 1: financial situation is. The Adelson family that bought the MAVs,
Speaker 1: the beginning of their tenure went so disastrously some people
Speaker 1: believe to this day they were doing a ownership version
Speaker 1: or a modern basketball version of Major League where they're
Speaker 1: trying to submarine the team's popularity locally so they can
Speaker 1: move the team. That was an ideal. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: Kushner and Eiger won't be a good group, but there
Speaker 1: is undeniably, deniably now a direct line political component to
Speaker 1: the ownership of the league's premier franchise. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about that new guy that bought the champion Celtics again.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's going to be a good
Speaker 1: or a bad owner. I do know that as soon
Speaker 1: as he got the team, they started tearing down the roster.
Speaker 1: That's probably not ideal. Hell, he's not even that new
Speaker 1: of an owner at this point, but it's in the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. Steve Balmer, he seemed great. They
Speaker 1: built an arena, put all this money into the Clippers.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have been checking out,
Speaker 1: you know, Pablo's podcast, but seems like he might not
Speaker 1: have been doing everything on the up and up and listen,
Speaker 1: this is this isn't a eat The rich billionaires shouldn't
Speaker 1: exist common here. It is to me a pretty obvious one. Though.
Speaker 1: It's very very very difficult to make billions and billions
Speaker 1: of dollars, you know, totally one hundred percent, never coloring
Speaker 1: outside of the lines, not saying it's impossible. This is difficult.
Speaker 1: And if all these pro sports teams are gonna cost
Speaker 1: multiples and multiples of billions of dollars, are we going
Speaker 1: to have more of these stories down the road? And
Speaker 1: are we you know, we're gonna sound crazy telling our kids, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know who used to own the Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: Steelers a family the Rooneys and the Giants rown by
Speaker 1: the Mars, and the Chiefs rown by the Hunts, and
Speaker 1: the Cowboys were owned by Jerry Jones. By Jerry Jones.
Speaker 1: She's gonna be like, oh, yeah, that's the the Chiefs,
Speaker 1: who you know, have a guy that runs the team,
Speaker 1: they call them, you know, the CEO. But they're owned
Speaker 1: by you know, this capital firm and they've got I
Speaker 1: don't know, so brave new world of sports ownership. And
Speaker 1: I am really interested in if we get real deep
Speaker 1: reporting on what the hell actually happened where Mark Walter
Speaker 1: buys the Lakers, plans to meld them essentially organizationally with
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, and a year later flips them for twenty
Speaker 1: five percent profit to a family you know, member of
Speaker 1: the president and the former guy, the guy who used
Speaker 1: to run Disney to really it's it's one of the
Speaker 1: most shocking high level sports event transactions in my life.
Speaker 1: And then a couple hours after that, Russell Westbrook retired.
Speaker 1: We'll discuss that in a second, but first, the NFL
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Speaker 1: All right. The other big news yesterday is Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: finally calling it finally sounds meaner than I wanted it to.
Speaker 1: After eighteen years in the league. Russell Westbrook calling it quits,
Speaker 1: and you know he was still to the bitter end.
Speaker 1: If you gave Russ minutes, he was going to give
Speaker 1: you some level of production. Now it wouldn't always be
Speaker 1: efficient production, obviously, but even last year in Sacramento playing
Speaker 1: thirty minutes a game fifteen six and six basically, And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways to discuss Russell Westbrook's career.
Speaker 1: I it's one of the most interesting careers ever. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most unique careers ever. It also is
Speaker 1: a career that I think will be misremembered as far
Speaker 1: as at his peak how good he was. Really. So
Speaker 1: if you take Russ what I consider his peak, which
Speaker 1: is his first full year back after the knee injury,
Speaker 1: through his one year in Houston, that year in Houston,
Speaker 1: he was all NBA and was underrated. In those six seasons,
Speaker 1: his averages were twenty six nine to ten. He won
Speaker 1: an MVP, had three other top five finishes, and in
Speaker 1: those six seasons was All NBA every season, two time
Speaker 1: first team, two times second team, two time thirteen and
Speaker 1: critically speaking, in those seasons, his team was decidedly better
Speaker 1: with him than without him. And that's the part of
Speaker 1: Russ that I think because of how the career ended,
Speaker 1: and because some of the analytical numbers are so garish,
Speaker 1: people are going to act as if his style never
Speaker 1: led to any winning And that's a more complicated discussion
Speaker 1: than it actually seems like. But as far as was
Speaker 1: having Russell Westbrook on the court good for your team,
Speaker 1: undeniably yes. Throughout the entirety of his prime. Gets a
Speaker 1: little trickier in the playoffs, and we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: But russ Is during his prime in particular, availability crazy
Speaker 1: high minutes for the era, absolutely endless energy and effort.
Speaker 1: He was an absolute son of a bitch to deal with.
Speaker 1: And while people can parse all in twenty seventeen, MVP
Speaker 1: should have been this guy. He was absolutely a super
Speaker 1: nova that first season in Oklahoma City without Durant. It's
Speaker 1: not only that he averaged a triple double, first guy
Speaker 1: to do it since Oscar Robertson, and it was It
Speaker 1: wasn't only that he broke Oscar Robertson single season triple
Speaker 1: double record, and by the way, the game in which
Speaker 1: he broke that record, he had a fifty point triple
Speaker 1: double and the buzzer beating three to win the game.
Speaker 1: It was that that Oklahoma City team's entire plan every
Speaker 1: game was Russ create fifty fifty some points of offense
Speaker 1: for us, and he did it. He won the scoring title,
Speaker 1: scoring thirty one and a half a game, second scoring
Speaker 1: title of his career, I believe, and then also was
Speaker 1: a terror on the glass and despite the insane usage rate,
Speaker 1: didn't wear down and followed those seasons up with two
Speaker 1: years in a row where he won the assist title
Speaker 1: while averaging double digit rebounds. And then after that year
Speaker 1: in Houston, once he got to Washington, I think were
Speaker 1: post prime. But in Houston, you know, it was twenty two,
Speaker 1: eleven and eleven, and on those silly eighty two and
Speaker 1: zero games or whatever, they treat him like a god
Speaker 1: for that one year. That one year in Washington. He
Speaker 1: had a great career and he worked his ass off
Speaker 1: and all time great players that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: not the full list, but that I think he undeniably
Speaker 1: had a better career than and was a better player
Speaker 1: than mellow Dominique Dwight A. D. Gary Payton, Steve Nash,
Speaker 1: Clyde Drexler, guys that I think he is right behind
Speaker 1: as far as his full career. Tricky one, but Kawhi Iverson,
Speaker 1: Clyde Fraser, Jason Kidd, Patrick Ewing, that's the group. I
Speaker 1: have him right behind. He's one of the you know,
Speaker 1: what's my full list of guards better that have had
Speaker 1: better careers than Russ, the full list, Michael Magic, Kobe
Speaker 1: Steph those are obvious ones. I just don't want to
Speaker 1: leave anybody out. Zeke, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Shay West,
Speaker 1: and Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Stockton Harden. Those are the
Speaker 1: twelve guys that, to me like the only twelve guys
Speaker 1: that reguards that definitively are definitively higher on the pyramid
Speaker 1: than Russ. I think kids ahead of him, you know
Speaker 1: the I think Iversen's a touch ahead of him. The
Speaker 1: and I said, SGA right, SGA ahead of him. But
Speaker 1: so he's you know, somewhere thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, depending
Speaker 1: on how you want to do it. So it's an
Speaker 1: unbelievable career. It also is, you know, young elite or
Speaker 1: aspiring elite athletes can learn a lot from both sides
Speaker 1: of Russ's career. You can learn what endless energy, effort intensity,
Speaker 1: what that can do for you in a positive way. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously you can't learn his absolutely freakish athleticism where there
Speaker 1: was during his prime he was a can sit for
Speaker 1: a decade maybe a top three just raw athlete in
Speaker 1: the league. Can't learn that, But the other stuff you
Speaker 1: can learn the flip side. And I wanted to do
Speaker 1: this last, not first, because I don't listening. He's one
Speaker 1: of the forty ist greatest players ever. I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, he's one of the thirteen fourteen to fifteen
Speaker 1: greatest guards of all time. You don't want to spend it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, here's what was wrong with him on
Speaker 1: the front end, But it is part of his story,
Speaker 1: is the stubbornness and the hard headedness and the refusal
Speaker 1: to evolve once he no longer was the league's best
Speaker 1: raw athlete, and how that's a big part of the
Speaker 1: reason that in the final decade of his career, teams
Speaker 1: he was on went on one sorry, one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 1: two to eight in playoff series from that first year
Speaker 1: without Durant to retirement, and those two playoff series wins
Speaker 1: were one year in Houston by the skin of their
Speaker 1: teeth over the young young OKC team and the Clippers.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the Nuggets seven game bigory over the Clippers
Speaker 1: last Round one. That's it. And where you know, if
Speaker 1: you russ over that last decade of his career in
Speaker 1: the postseason was so wildly inefficient that it really really
Speaker 1: hurt his teams. From the MVP year through the end
Speaker 1: of his career, fifty three playoff games, thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: from the field, thirty percent from three on five threes
Speaker 1: a game, four turnovers a game, not ideal, and it
Speaker 1: is not nothing that for a guy who had that
Speaker 1: much just unbelievable talent, work, ethic, competitive spirit, all of it.
Speaker 1: When it came to overall team winning, underachieved because he
Speaker 1: was a bit of his own worst enemy. That's not
Speaker 1: like an unfair statement, and there's a lesson in that
Speaker 1: as well. But overall, you know, eighteen years in the
Speaker 1: league one MVP won, there's seven, six, ten, nine time
Speaker 1: All NBA, two time first team, five time second team,
Speaker 1: two time three team, four consecutive Top four, Top five
Speaker 1: pardon me, MVP finishes and as an added bonus, one
Speaker 1: of the greatest off the court guys as far as
Speaker 1: how he treated people on teams and the work he
Speaker 1: did in the community all those things. When I treat
Speaker 1: people that worked for teams those things. Uh, one of
Speaker 1: just the greatest UH guys in the league for twenty
Speaker 1: years and a first ballot Hall of Fame career, and
Speaker 1: anybody that's arguing he's not a Hall of Famer is
Speaker 1: a moron. I can't even say they're just trolling. They
Speaker 1: just they just don't understand how the Hall of Fame works.
Speaker 1: And this is he's a no doubt walk right in
Speaker 1: immediate guy. You know what, one thing maybe we could
Speaker 1: do over the weekend and you guys can just use
Speaker 1: cut this and maybe use it as an intro. I
Speaker 1: think it could be fun if we have the capability
Speaker 1: to do it. Sorry, the producers love when I just
Speaker 1: give them on the air assignments. But maybe we drop
Speaker 1: into the feed with this as the intro. The you know,
Speaker 1: eight minutes or ten minutes of my fifty Greatest Players
Speaker 1: of the last fifty years, the Russell Westbrook portion of
Speaker 1: that episode, just as a little standalone thing. I you know,
Speaker 1: he was, let me see where he was. He was
Speaker 1: thirty fifth on that list of the fifty greatest players
Speaker 1: of the last fifty years. We did that. You know
Speaker 1: four years ago, so you know, nothing really much would
Speaker 1: have changed for Russ in that regard. I think that
Speaker 1: could be a fun thing to do. All right, I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little NFL in a moment. But first,
Speaker 1: you guys, notice how everything seems to just keep going up.
Speaker 1: Rints going up, streaming services going up. Your favorite burrito
Speaker 1: spot suddenly thinks soulzes should cost extra now with boost Mobile.
Speaker 1: With boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have
Speaker 1: to play the will this go up soon? Game? Why?
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Speaker 1: at a price that will never go up. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's the same price you pay for life. So switch
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Speaker 1: go up. Only at boost Mobile. After thirty gigs, customers
Speaker 1: may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: per month as long as they remain active on the
Speaker 1: boost Unlimited plan. All right, So yesterday I talked some
Speaker 1: on the TV show about these concept I ain't been
Speaker 1: at deep sleepers, which is the idea that right now,
Speaker 1: when people are making their preseason or their playoff picks
Speaker 1: in the preseason, you're going to hear a lot of
Speaker 1: the same types of teams, same types of teams, a
Speaker 1: lot of the same teams being listed as my sleeper,
Speaker 1: Like the Giants are going to be very trendy alleged
Speaker 1: sleeper pick, the Colts are going to be a trendy
Speaker 1: alleged sleeper pick. I I think that the New Orleans Saints,
Speaker 1: or really any team from the NFC South, when eight
Speaker 1: wins can win that division, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: years we're going to be called sleeper picks. Which is
Speaker 1: why I started talking about deep sleepers, which are teams
Speaker 1: with greater than one hundred to one odds to win
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, the worst teams in the league, of
Speaker 1: the projected worst teams in the league, and about their
Speaker 1: ability to make the playoffs, because what we have over
Speaker 1: the last half day, at least, that's just as far
Speaker 1: back as I went. Every single year one of these
Speaker 1: deep sleepers makes the playoffs. Last year with one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty to one preseason odds to win the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: The Carolina Panthers made the playoffs the year before that
Speaker 1: with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds to
Speaker 1: win the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos made the playoffs
Speaker 1: and with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds
Speaker 1: win the Super Bowl. These odds courtesy of Football Reference.
Speaker 1: The Washington Commanders made the NFC Championship game. The year
Speaker 1: before that, The Texans the worst preseason odds in the
Speaker 1: league two hundred to one. They made the playoffs and
Speaker 1: won a playoff game the year before that, the who
Speaker 1: was it that year? Oh my Jags one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty to one before the year to make the to
Speaker 1: win the Super Bowl? They made the playoffs. So it
Speaker 1: begs the question, who are the deep sleepers this year
Speaker 1: and does anyone have the courage to pick one of
Speaker 1: them to make the playoffs. The deep sleepers this year
Speaker 1: are Miami, Cleveland, Arizona, the Jets, the Raiders, and the Titans.
Speaker 1: And you hear that list and you say, well, obviously
Speaker 1: none of them those teams can make the playoffs. But again,
Speaker 1: think about what we thought of the Texans three years
Speaker 1: ago when they traded their future first round pick as
Speaker 1: a way to get Will Anderson after drafting CJ. Stroud,
Speaker 1: and we all hand up, we're discussing whether or not
Speaker 1: they just traded away the number one overall pick, and
Speaker 1: it was just and you know they made the playoffs,
Speaker 1: won a playoff game. The Commanders, after drafting Jaden, made
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship game. So I'm making this argument. I'm
Speaker 1: giving you the history and I'm staring at this and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but none of these teams have a shot.
Speaker 1: So Miami new head coach, they did spend some money
Speaker 1: on quarterback. Counterpoint, they probably want to be bad. They
Speaker 1: have cleared all their books of their veteran talent, and
Speaker 1: they're in a division with two teams that we expect
Speaker 1: to be quite good. They don't even have like the
Speaker 1: easy division path. Feels like you can cross them off.
Speaker 1: Cleveland should have a good defense, and I like Jared Vers,
Speaker 1: but not quite as good as they've had in years
Speaker 1: past with Miles Garrett. I'm not certain on Monken. They
Speaker 1: have the worst quarterback situation in the league. They're in
Speaker 1: a division with two all pro quarterbacks are caliber in
Speaker 1: Burrow and Lamar. I'm running to cross them off. Arizona
Speaker 1: toughest division in football. New head coach Jacoby Brissett's starting quarterback.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even seem possible. The Jets. The reports out
Speaker 1: of camp about Gino have not been overwhelming. Aaron glenn
Speaker 1: Is pre fired. We already mentioned the pats in the
Speaker 1: Bills can't fathom that the Raiders veteran quarterback, at least
Speaker 1: for the beginning new head coach, but probably a good
Speaker 1: thing Ashton genty year two. But in a division with
Speaker 1: the Chiefs, the Chargers, and the Broncos. The producers worried
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fall for the Raiders again like I did
Speaker 1: last year. Really hard to see how that works out.
Speaker 1: And the Max Crosby saga kind of hanging over them,
Speaker 1: which leaves us to one team, the Tennessee Titans. Case
Speaker 1: for the Titans number one overall pick quarterback in year two, Okay,
Speaker 1: he should be better. Disastrous coaching situation Toy Salah. But
Speaker 1: Robert Sala, who now is out from under the yoke
Speaker 1: of Aaron Rodgers and Woody Johnson. Robert Sala, whose defenses
Speaker 1: always have improved once he got there, spent a lot
Speaker 1: of money on defense this offseason, drafted a quarterback's safety blanket.
Speaker 1: You think, in the top ten in Carnel Tate and
Speaker 1: a potentially softish division. I can't believe this is where
Speaker 1: I'm landing. But and I'm not even guaranteeing that I
Speaker 1: am going to follow the history, that I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: the courage to pick one of these six teams as
Speaker 1: a deep sleeper to make the playoffs. But of these
Speaker 1: six teams, it seems like the easiest case and the
Speaker 1: best case we could make, would be for the Tennessee Titans.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna spend you know, a lot of my time
Speaker 1: while my wife's vinted shopping in Europe, you know, going
Speaker 1: through all our NFL preseason magazines, all the projections, all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But if I want to find a real,
Speaker 1: oh my god, pick again, it's gotta be Miami, Cleveland, Arizona,
Speaker 1: the Jets, the Raiders, are the Titans. And I think
Speaker 1: of those options, my money would be on the Titans.
Speaker 1: Titans plus three forty to make the playoffs. I think
Speaker 1: I'd probably want better odds than that, but that is
Speaker 1: there are six teams with worse than three to one
Speaker 1: odds to make the playoffs, and then the six I
Speaker 1: just told you Titans plus three forty, Browns plus five seventy,
Speaker 1: Raiders six to one, Jets seven to one, Dolphins fourteen
Speaker 1: to one, and the poor Arizona Cardinals twenty to one.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I don't like anything about the
Speaker 1: Cardinals situation, but twenty I don't know that any team
Speaker 1: should ever be twenty to one to make the playoffs
Speaker 1: in the NFL. All right, so here's what I want
Speaker 1: to do. Barnwell, not Barnwell, pardon me. Orlowski just ranked
Speaker 1: quarterbacks on arm strength, ball placement, mechanics, decision making, pocket presence,
Speaker 1: second reaction, and rushing ability. It's it's a maddening ranking.
Speaker 1: So I want to discuss that, and I might or
Speaker 1: might not put on my sports media on Budsman hat,
Speaker 1: even though it's usually just for the TV show, and
Speaker 1: discuss what sorry about to sneeze and well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it as a tease and discuss a major
Speaker 1: what I consider sports media story from the week. Those
Speaker 1: two things, plus maybe a couple listener and viewer emails
Speaker 1: on the Bonus Friday Show. We're gonna record that right now.
Speaker 1: It'll be in your feeds tomorrow and then next week
Speaker 1: and the week after Ty Butler and Damon Bruce on
Speaker 1: for me. Uh So, we're gonna have another podcast dropping
Speaker 1: in your feed tomorrow. We should have the Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: episode coming sometime over the weekend. Not episode, but kind
Speaker 1: of the repurposing of Russell Westbrook's Top fifty players last
Speaker 1: fifty years and again if you want to get things
Speaker 1: in future mailbags, What's Right Mailbag at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to our friends at boost Mobile
Speaker 1: and seat Geek. Thank you to the Volume, Thank you
Speaker 1: to Blue Duck. I will talk to you guys on
Speaker 1: these feeds tomorrow. I'm going to record that right now,
Speaker 1: What's Right