Speaker 1: The volume. Our conversation with my friend Danny Parkins is
Speaker 1: presented by uber eats. You know, I love them, get
Speaker 1: GameDay deals all season long on uber eats. All right,
Speaker 1: here we go. Even though I am on a little
Speaker 1: bit of a break, about a week break, ten days,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I got some time here.
Speaker 1: Danny Parkins, the co host breakfast Ball stops and we
Speaker 1: do this about once a month and we always just
Speaker 1: kind of spitball a variety of topics. So I'll start
Speaker 1: with this one, and it's an annual tradition. The All
Speaker 1: Star Game in the NBA is fairly unwatchable. It has
Speaker 1: been for most of the last half decade. And you know,
Speaker 1: people lament what is wrong with the league. I would
Speaker 1: say two things. First, all Star games, except maybe Baseball's,
Speaker 1: are all kind of dying. We see all these teams
Speaker 1: every night, these players. There is no special ooh a
Speaker 1: National League guy faces an American League guy, you know,
Speaker 1: interleague play. The second thing, and I would defend the
Speaker 1: NBA here. And I've been critical of the league. I
Speaker 1: think it's become a kind of a monotonous three point
Speaker 1: shooting gallery. And that will end somewhere in the playoffs
Speaker 1: because mid range games and situational basketball and get a
Speaker 1: bucket really becomes playoff basketball because much more half court.
Speaker 1: It's not on the treadmill. People are defending at a
Speaker 1: higher level. You just sometimes need a mid range jumper
Speaker 1: to win the game. But the NBA eleven year, seventy
Speaker 1: six billion dollars owners are happy, players are happy, commissioners happy.
Speaker 1: It's not their responsibility if the broadcast partners overreached. So
Speaker 1: my take is a lot of the complainers don't like
Speaker 1: the NBA anyway, But the NBA its owners, players and
Speaker 1: employees should be overjoyed right now with a new contract.
Speaker 1: And the All Star Game is a rain drop in
Speaker 1: an eleven year in rainstorm, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2: So the All Star Game is a guilty sports pleasure
Speaker 2: of mine. Maybe my favorite childhood memory was I went
Speaker 2: to the All Star Game in Cleveland in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven with my dad when the NBA celebrated yeah, the
Speaker 2: fifty greatest players of all time and unbelievable stories that
Speaker 2: came out of the weekend. It was just it was
Speaker 2: so cool for an eleven year old kid to be
Speaker 2: able to experience all that in the height of Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan Mania a kid from Chicago. So I love the
Speaker 2: All Star Game. I love gambling on the dunk contest.
Speaker 2: I love the dunk contest. I loved Vince Carter. I
Speaker 2: loved Zach Levine against Aaron Gordon. Like I always said,
Speaker 2: it was like my guilty pleasure. The celebrity, the pomp,
Speaker 2: the circumstance, the ridiculousness of it, And there was a
Speaker 2: social contract that existed between the players and the fans.
Speaker 2: Those of us that did love it, it was ridiculous,
Speaker 2: It was silly. There was you know, Shaq would try
Speaker 2: to cross someone up and pull up for three we
Speaker 2: did not expect high level basketball for four quarters. Go
Speaker 2: out and do your fun, don't get injured. We got
Speaker 2: all of it, but there was a social contract that
Speaker 2: basically then said keep it close and give us twelve
Speaker 2: minutes of basketball, give us, give us twelve minutes at
Speaker 2: the end. And in twenty twenty they upheld that social contract.
Speaker 2: The NBA All Star Game in Chicago. It was right
Speaker 2: after Kobe Bryant died Teamianus against Team Lebron. Half the
Speaker 2: team was wearing Kobe's jersey number. Half the guys were
Speaker 2: wearing Gianna's number, and I think because of that they
Speaker 2: also did the elam ending in maybe some of the
Speaker 2: history of Chicago matter. And I have no idea. The
Speaker 2: game was one fifty seven, one fifty five and the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter was entertaining. That's all we want, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't think I'm asking for a lot? Did I hear
Speaker 2: these guys on all of their podcasts, including Draymond's. He
Speaker 2: will talk about unbelievable pickup run that it's organized in
Speaker 2: LA in the offseason. I see it on YouTube, Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant showing up at the Drew League or at Rucker
Speaker 2: Park and just bawling out with not NBA players and
Speaker 2: trying and playing hard. So I don't think it is
Speaker 2: too much to ask does it matter? Does it affect
Speaker 2: the ratings or the drop in the bucket as you
Speaker 2: call it. No, But somewhere along the way, the social
Speaker 2: contract was broken of just try for twelve minutes and
Speaker 2: manipulate the game to be close and play competitive pickup basketball.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask of
Speaker 2: gazillionaire athletes. You know, I really don't.
Speaker 1: Some of what the NBA is going through. I always
Speaker 1: feel like by the way you get this in other businesses.
Speaker 1: If something happens, it happens in threes, you know. And
Speaker 1: the NBA is going through a run of ooh, ratings,
Speaker 1: news isn't good, and the NBA All Star Game is bad,
Speaker 1: and nobody is watching. And I think they're going through
Speaker 1: this and I think a lot of it will be
Speaker 1: forgotten because I think the Knicks and the Celtics will
Speaker 1: play an unbelievable Eastern Conference Finals and nobody will care.
Speaker 1: And I think Luca and Yeah and Luca and Lebron
Speaker 1: will connect and the Lakers will get to the Western
Speaker 1: Conference Finals and nobody will care. How much of this
Speaker 1: is Listen, It's just the league's always been driven by aesthetics,
Speaker 1: and right now the aesthetics aren't good. The game's a
Speaker 1: little monotonous. The NBA All Star Game was ugly and boring.
Speaker 1: Some of this is just bad pr It may not
Speaker 1: have no effect long term, but companies go through this.
Speaker 1: Nike's gone through it where just like bad comes in three.
Speaker 1: How much of it's that?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it. And I think that
Speaker 2: there's like two separate conversation conversations that are happening on
Speaker 2: parallel tracks that can coexist and feel like they are
Speaker 2: in conflict with each other, but are not. To your point,
Speaker 2: this happens to a lot of businesses and a lot
Speaker 2: of industries. The business of basketball is objectively very healthy.
Speaker 2: The players have guaranteed contracts. The talent is insane, the
Speaker 2: contracts are locked in the Charlotte franchise. Just when for
Speaker 2: billions of dollars like the league is healthy. That is
Speaker 2: the left parallel track, and then the right parallel track
Speaker 2: is those of us that watch that love the NBA
Speaker 2: can acknowledge regular season doesn't really matter. It's one of
Speaker 2: eighty two. Playoffs are a completely different sport. I just
Speaker 2: did the numbers on the show today on Breakfast Ball.
Speaker 2: There are five more threes being attempted this year than
Speaker 2: last year. And it's that's just just one year now,
Speaker 2: where at seventy four point seven threeze attempted per game
Speaker 2: on average. And you know what, that has led to
Speaker 2: more blowouts, results that have been decided by twenty or
Speaker 2: more points than any other time in an history. Before
Speaker 2: the All Star Break, there've already been one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight NBA games that have been decided by twenty
Speaker 2: or more points, and that makes sense. You're taking a
Speaker 2: high variance shot. One team is a good shooting night,
Speaker 2: one team is a bad shooting night, but three is
Speaker 2: worth more than two. So everyone is trying to hit threes.
Speaker 2: You have a hot night, the other team is a
Speaker 2: bad night. You get a blowout. That's not an entertaining product.
Speaker 2: So I feel like two things can be true. The
Speaker 2: product is healthy and the product is not at its best.
Speaker 2: Why are those two things necessarily a conflict?
Speaker 1: Listen, there are a lot of things. Steve Kerr pointed
Speaker 1: this out. It wasn't that long ago when he pointed
Speaker 1: out that AU basketball is not helping the product. It's
Speaker 1: not it's tracksuit Tony trying to, you know, make a
Speaker 1: livelihood of it, and the players don't benefit. And the
Speaker 1: European system is much better. That's part of it. I
Speaker 1: do think. I do think something that does help the
Speaker 1: NBA in the near future is the nil will keep
Speaker 1: a lot of kids in college one more year. A
Speaker 1: kid can make four million bucks at Duke or Carolina.
Speaker 1: Why go to a crappy team, you know, live on
Speaker 1: a college campus. I think that'll help because the one
Speaker 1: thing the NFL has always realized and lean into is
Speaker 1: college football is free marketing. I've said this before, like
Speaker 1: waters free medicine, college football is free marketing. For the NFL,
Speaker 1: Adam Silver got into office and there was almost they
Speaker 1: tried to marginalize college basketball. The players weren't getting paid.
Speaker 1: College football players pay for three or four years and
Speaker 1: they get tackled. It's okay, like that's I don't pay
Speaker 1: my interns on my show. That's just part of you know,
Speaker 1: sixteen to twenty years old or nineteen years old. So
Speaker 1: I do think that will help the NBA, don't. I
Speaker 1: think the NBA the quality of basketball is good. I
Speaker 1: think the league is making a lot of money. I
Speaker 1: think NBC, probably out of somewhat desperation, overshot the runway
Speaker 1: a little bit on that contract. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they make that work. But you know, they're trying to
Speaker 1: make Peacock grow against Amazon and Netflix and Disney and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So but that's not an NBA issue.
Speaker 1: I do think college basketball is an ally march madness.
Speaker 1: I mean, good God, Caitlin Clark comes into the WNBA.
Speaker 1: Her and Angel Reeser arguably the two most popular players.
Speaker 2: Right. I think you and I talk baseball before on
Speaker 2: the show, and not to not to name drop, but
Speaker 2: theo Epstein and I had a pretty good working relationship
Speaker 2: when he was in Chicago running the Cubs, and he's
Speaker 2: the smartest sports executive I've ever talked to, for sure,
Speaker 2: But Brad Stevens would be a close second. And Brad
Speaker 2: Stevens is not going to give up his job right now.
Speaker 2: But I do think that there would be something that
Speaker 2: the NBA would benefit from, which in THEO and I
Speaker 2: had this conversation on air and off air. When he
Speaker 2: ran the Cubs, his job was to exploit the rules
Speaker 2: in the interest of winning. His job was not to
Speaker 2: put the most entertaining product on the field, was to win.
Speaker 2: So strikeouts were okay. If you got a lot of
Speaker 2: walks and home runs, three true outcome and it was
Speaker 2: objectively not as entertaining of a product. The ball was
Speaker 2: in play less, there was more time between pitches. The
Speaker 2: games were interminably long. You would change pitchers every batter,
Speaker 2: seven eight, nine pitchers would get into a game per team,
Speaker 2: but that was what the numbers said gave them the
Speaker 2: best chance to win, the same thing has happened in basketball.
Speaker 2: With three is worth more than two, but I bring
Speaker 2: up the baseball point was because who's spearheaded all of
Speaker 2: the rules changes. Yeah, theo Epstein. As soon as he
Speaker 2: left the Cubs, he's like, well, I care about baseball,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to close the loopholes that I exploited.
Speaker 2: Three batter, minimum pitch clock, bigger bases, things to incentivize
Speaker 2: the things that he had. And if he gets a
Speaker 2: job running the Nashville expansion team or a Vegas who,
Speaker 2: he will then go right back to exploiting the rules
Speaker 2: to try to win. So someone should get in the
Speaker 2: league office and try to figure out because we've talked
Speaker 2: about it before. I don't know if it's making threes
Speaker 2: worth four and twos worth three. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's making dunks worth three. I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: expanding the courts and making the three point line twenty
Speaker 2: five feet twenty seven feet. I don't know what the
Speaker 2: solution is. But as long as three is fifty percent
Speaker 2: more than two and teams are trying to win, as
Speaker 2: long as those two things exist, you're not going to
Speaker 2: get less three pointers in the game unless you chase
Speaker 2: the moddle or two or three. So that is just
Speaker 2: like the fundamental.
Speaker 1: Fact that what's the mascinating to me, and I've always
Speaker 1: really appreciated this is that it takes baseball and even
Speaker 1: the NBA a while to make changes. The NFL, which
Speaker 1: is a runaway leader in all these sports, is tweaking
Speaker 1: during Super Bowls. I mean they have such an underdog spirit.
Speaker 1: I mean they could so easily be arrogant like baseball
Speaker 1: and say for twenty years, just we're gonna do World
Speaker 1: Series games at eight point fifty pm. Let's start them.
Speaker 1: Then the Super Bowl is the opposite. They act like
Speaker 1: their Division two hockey, trying to get eyeballs. They will
Speaker 1: change rule and I think they'll change rules. I mean
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl with the Eagles and the Patriots, they
Speaker 1: changed the catch role. The Super Bowl suddenly juggled things.
Speaker 1: It was six, it was a touchdown. It's like, well, right,
Speaker 1: no off season needed, would they just changed it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: And I think in the spirit I've always defended the NFL,
Speaker 1: it's a really well run league. The kickoff was fine, boring,
Speaker 1: but fine tweeted it. Pat was fine, boring tweet it.
Speaker 1: The tush push. I think they will ultimately examine because
Speaker 1: it's just not good. It's just boring, and again people
Speaker 1: get all upset. Where are you punishing us? It's just
Speaker 1: the way life works. I mean the bottom line, If
Speaker 1: somebody takes an advantage and it hurts the quality of entertainment,
Speaker 1: leagues take it out. But I do think that when
Speaker 1: it comes to the NFL, we look at it and
Speaker 1: we go, well, it's popular because it's once a week.
Speaker 2: That helps.
Speaker 1: I'm not denying that. But they have so pulled away
Speaker 1: from the other sports and a lot of Danny I think,
Speaker 1: is they really appreciate we are a television product. They're
Speaker 1: really they're really good at that.
Speaker 2: Yes, and they mess up and then they undo their
Speaker 2: mess up. Remember that the NFC Championship came with the
Speaker 2: Saints with a bad pass interference call. They made past
Speaker 2: interference reviewable, and I was like, oh, that's a terrible idea,
Speaker 2: and it was. It was a terrible idea, but they
Speaker 2: walked it back basically immediately, so they like they changed
Speaker 2: it too fast, and then they're like, oh, we overreacted,
Speaker 2: and then they changed it right back. And now, listen,
Speaker 2: NFL players don't like their commissioner, they don't trust their owners,
Speaker 2: they don't have guaranteed contracts, they kind of get ruled
Speaker 2: under an iron fist, and so there is a trade
Speaker 2: off to like, we're gonna slow play some of these changes,
Speaker 2: we're gonna empower players to have a voice in it
Speaker 2: and all that. The NFL does not care about any
Speaker 2: of that. They're like, no, no, no, you're doing it
Speaker 2: our way. These are the rules. And if you want
Speaker 2: to collectively bargain for let's practice in July, go right ahead.
Speaker 2: We care about television product, but no, the NFL is
Speaker 2: king for a ton of reasons, and I'm with you
Speaker 2: that is one of them. Again, you and I have
Speaker 2: talked about this before. You've got an n season tournament.
Speaker 2: They are changing the jerseys in the court, change some rules,
Speaker 2: just just experiment with it. It's okay. I know they
Speaker 2: counted the regular season for the standings, but it's okay.
Speaker 2: It's one of eighty two. Like, let's just see what
Speaker 2: it would look like for five games per team with
Speaker 2: no quarter free just see it. Wait, I don't know
Speaker 2: what will happen, Let's just see it. Let's four has
Speaker 2: always been ninety six feet, Let's make it one hundred
Speaker 2: and six feet and make the three point line twenty
Speaker 2: five feet. Let's just see it for two weeks.
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Speaker 1: One of the things I like about change is you
Speaker 1: get an answer right, like even if it's the wrong answer.
Speaker 1: General schwartz Goff, you know, the four star, five star general,
Speaker 1: talk about that. At one point he said, make decisions
Speaker 1: just to figure out if it's right or wrong, like
Speaker 1: you just inactivity, its finger pointing, its guessing. And he
Speaker 1: was talking about that in regards to military either exercises
Speaker 1: or or moves. And I feel like sometimes like when Baseball,
Speaker 1: for instance, when Fox sold the Regional Sports Networks, the
Speaker 1: Murdock sold it, It's one of the smartest moves in
Speaker 1: the history of television. It was literally worth half as
Speaker 1: much the next day and basically worth nothing a month later,
Speaker 1: so they made like twenty billion. But in a weird way,
Speaker 1: you look at it and think, man, it's really it's
Speaker 1: really hurt the small market teams Kansas City and Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: What it did though, it's separated small from big teams
Speaker 1: and now the Yankees, the Mets, the Dodgers, that Houston,
Speaker 1: the Braves. If you're not good as a big market team,
Speaker 1: you're just poorly runner, poorly owned. Is that in the
Speaker 1: weird way Baseball just had a great two years. Ratings up,
Speaker 1: attendance up, and everybody's like, oh though, and so like
Speaker 1: when you make moves and there's mergers and their sales,
Speaker 1: there's a winner, there's a loser. But if you're baseball,
Speaker 1: if I'm Fox, I do not care about Kansas City.
Speaker 1: What I care about is.
Speaker 2: What, Yeah, you and I disagree on this one because
Speaker 2: I do. I I because again, I think that there
Speaker 2: is a breaking point of greed that you still have
Speaker 2: to put a good product out there. And like the
Speaker 2: World Series was great, no doubt, but I think that
Speaker 2: part of what makes the NFL awesome maybe the number
Speaker 2: one thing. The number one thing is probably what you said,
Speaker 2: eighteen game season. Every game matters that's probably the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: But like a one b of that is that what
Speaker 2: do you think twenty eight of thirty two teams when
Speaker 2: they report for training can't believe at the very least
Speaker 2: they can make the playoffs, right, right, right if the
Speaker 2: right thing bounces their way and they can name ten
Speaker 2: to seven, Like, yeah, baseball is not like baseball has
Speaker 2: a serious problem in my opinion, where a third of
Speaker 2: the league has no chance not only of being competitive,
Speaker 2: but of even like being relevant when school is out,
Speaker 2: when kids could go to the game. And then like,
Speaker 2: if you're Pittsburgh, okay, you got Paul Skeins, your chances
Speaker 2: of signing him are almost zero. So like I do
Speaker 2: think that the haves and have nots of baseball has
Speaker 2: gotten two out of whack. I know you and I
Speaker 2: just disagree. Stars, big markets, TV ratings on the biggest games.
Speaker 2: I get all of that. And this is a juvenile argument.
Speaker 2: It's just lame that the Dodgers get everybody, Like it's
Speaker 2: just it's it's just it's just lime. Like it's like
Speaker 2: they get everybody because they happened to sign the last
Speaker 2: great rsn TV contract before the bubble burst, and like,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. They're run exceptionally well and they're
Speaker 2: a good organization, maybe the best organization. But it's just
Speaker 2: it flies in the face of competitive spirit that they
Speaker 2: just get everybody because they wucked into a television contract
Speaker 2: based on timing. So I you will disagree on that.
Speaker 1: And there are moments like, for instance, I think you
Speaker 1: cannot legislate even college football playoff proved it you can
Speaker 1: invite more teams in Notre Dame plays Indiana. Game was
Speaker 1: over in.
Speaker 2: Four minutes, right, like, you know, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: There's always gonna be a.
Speaker 1: Having women's tennis. My entire life, there's been one or
Speaker 1: two tops globally. You Serena. She's just gonna win all
Speaker 1: the big tournaments mostly. And I think, you know, if
Speaker 1: you go look at you go look at the German
Speaker 1: soccer leagues. You can go look at the English Premier League,
Speaker 1: the Italian Soccer League, Spanish Soccer League, it's always the
Speaker 1: same two teams. I mean it just I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think the reality of sports is we spend I
Speaker 1: read this recently, somebody said the NBA worries about problems
Speaker 1: that don't exist, Like they said, let's cut the length
Speaker 1: of quarters. It's like nobody's really nobody cares. It's I
Speaker 1: think sometimes in sports one of the things we really
Speaker 1: worry about is we're too caught up on parody. There
Speaker 1: is no parody in the AFC. Josh Allen Mahomes and
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson are going to keep winning their division because
Speaker 1: they have stable ownership and good enough coaches. And if
Speaker 1: Joe Brow didn't have the cheapest owner in sports, he'd
Speaker 1: be in that group too. So the reality is, I
Speaker 1: mean this year, I predict almost and I'll do again
Speaker 1: next year. I can predict the AFC for the next
Speaker 1: four or five years. It's just easy. NFC is more
Speaker 1: of a who's hot, who's less injured. But I think
Speaker 1: in baseball the bigger danger when you have parody is
Speaker 1: ESPN's like dropping out of baseball, like we're not interested.
Speaker 1: Apple contract was ridiculous. Roku things a mess, I mean,
Speaker 1: just nothing. If the big dogs are crushing, then the
Speaker 1: big network sign and then that filters down to a
Speaker 1: some degree to Kansas City or Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Yes, the problem is, unfortunately we used to call them
Speaker 2: rich hobbyists. Like the dream is that the team that
Speaker 2: your team is owned by Steve Cohen who just doesn't care.
Speaker 2: He's like, I've got more billions than I can count.
Speaker 2: I do not care if I lose money on this
Speaker 2: baseball team. This is an ego play, This is a
Speaker 2: vanity purchase. There are more billionaires than there are baseball teams.
Speaker 2: I want to own one, and I want to win.
Speaker 2: That's the great gatest thing ever for a fan. So
Speaker 2: revenue sharing exists in baseball, right the Yankees and the
Speaker 2: Red Sox and the Mets and the Dodgers. They share
Speaker 2: money with the Pirates and the Rays and the Twins
Speaker 2: or whatever. And what is very frustrating to owners and
Speaker 2: business executives of teams like the Yankees and the Cubs
Speaker 2: is like they spend the money, like you know, like
Speaker 2: the Pirates will just lay in the cut, take their
Speaker 2: revenue sharing money and profit every year, as opposed to
Speaker 2: like reinvesting into the business, break even and having your
Speaker 2: franchise value go up. That's at a minimum, what should
Speaker 2: be required of these billionaires.
Speaker 1: Spend the money that is generated by that's the bigger issue.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a huge issue. There are bad there.
Speaker 1: Are not that the big guys are eating the big
Speaker 1: guys eating college football, the AF see the big dog
Speaker 1: trade everywhere. What you have to do is force like
Speaker 1: a minimum payroll like you could you very easily, based
Speaker 1: on TV deals, would know a minimum payroll and it
Speaker 1: goes up six to eight percent a year. That to
Speaker 1: me is the bigger issue. I say this all the
Speaker 1: time to the people critical the Dodgers. Everybody can do
Speaker 1: what they're doing with that money. Everybody can push it
Speaker 1: down the road. I mean, it's not like the Yankees
Speaker 1: are going to go dry in the next twelve years.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers are saying, basically, we'll push it down the road.
Speaker 1: We'll give you the money. By the way, we'll do
Speaker 1: all star teams will win more, it'll help build our brand.
Speaker 1: We're always going to fill this stadium. So I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess this is my conservative side, my Republican side
Speaker 1: coming out. Domination is unavoidable. There are just people that
Speaker 1: are more driven, more willful, more aspirational, hungrier, meaner, whatever
Speaker 1: it is like, you just have to come to terms
Speaker 1: with it. Where this is not Evergreen State College, you know,
Speaker 1: where it's the whimsical, idealistic professors dot the campus. We're
Speaker 1: dealing with billionaires, and so some of them just have
Speaker 1: bigger egos and care more, and some of them are like,
Speaker 1: it's a toy. It's a toy to you know, at
Speaker 1: a convention they can brag. And so I've come to
Speaker 1: terms with and maybe it's because I grew up in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest, where I've lost my NBA team, my
Speaker 1: baseball team never competitive, and the Huskies are good when
Speaker 1: they have the perfect coach. I've just come to terms with,
Speaker 1: you have to be satisfied if you can, if you
Speaker 1: have good coaching, decent ownership, and you're viable, that may
Speaker 1: be as good as it's going to be. Because a third, no,
Speaker 1: a quarter of all these pro leagues have expanded to
Speaker 1: cities that can't compete. Memphis can't compete with La Boston
Speaker 1: or New York or Philly. They can't and everybody in
Speaker 1: the league knows it. But those owners wanted the expansion fee.
Speaker 2: There's there's definitely some truth to that. And to win
Speaker 2: in a market like that, it feels like yes to
Speaker 2: have White And it's one the year to draft Giannis.
Speaker 2: You have to draft Yannis at fifty, you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, tow Milwaukee got their title you drafted Gannis
Speaker 2: at fifteen, okay, congratulations, or Oklahoma City and have the
Speaker 2: best executive in the sport who, for some reason apparently
Speaker 2: is just not interested in leaving, like SAA Brest. He's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm good. I'll just I'll just live and work in
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City. When any team in the league if he
Speaker 2: was like, I want to come work for you would
Speaker 2: give him a gazillion dollars and a penthouse apartment because
Speaker 2: he's clearly the best, and he's like, no, no, no, I'm
Speaker 2: good here. Like so, like, Oklahoma City's got a shot
Speaker 2: as long as they've got that guy. But yes, most
Speaker 2: teams have a real equity.
Speaker 1: What are the things I think being an NBA executive,
Speaker 1: So a lot of my contacts are NFL gms and
Speaker 1: scouting directors, and so I don't think people understand. You know, SGA,
Speaker 1: nobody predicted this. Sorry, nobody did. Right, he was a
Speaker 1: good player, but correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't people
Speaker 1: think like Kevin Knox was going to be the better NBA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, SGA. SGA was a very polarizing draft prospect. Well
Speaker 2: it's a real bad SGA.
Speaker 1: But what's amazing about NBA executives is that, you know,
Speaker 1: college football executive. If you take out like Ohio State, Bama, Georgia,
Speaker 1: most kids stay in school for four years. I get
Speaker 1: so many pieces of game footage in big games. If
Speaker 1: you can't, I mean, if you're take out the COVID
Speaker 1: quarterback year where it just screwed up everything. I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: just take the Trey Lance, Justin Field's kid for the Jets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just take that. We were all exact well. I mean
Speaker 1: I remember that year, like Harbaugh basically shut down Michigan football.
Speaker 1: They were just egregiously bad. Belichick said, screw this, I
Speaker 1: don't care. Take that out. They hit rate on quarterbacks
Speaker 1: has gone up noticeably over the last six or seven years.
Speaker 1: And that's the hardest position for me because so much
Speaker 1: of its soul and toughness and leadership and intangible stuff.
Speaker 1: It's hard to quantify. But these NBA execs, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're going off You're going off nothing. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't do high school. You get basically you not only
Speaker 1: get like one year of college often, but the first
Speaker 1: twelve games are against like directional schools. You may in
Speaker 1: your conference, he may only face one other NBA power
Speaker 1: forward the whole year and oh yeah, he's nineteen. Some
Speaker 1: players aren't emotionally equipped at that point. I'm amazed at
Speaker 1: the hit rate in the NBA draft, which isn't very high.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the things that we just
Speaker 1: don't understand. Like what if you said, what's the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to do for any executive in any sport? NBA
Speaker 1: general managers are drafting eighteen and nineteen year olds. You
Speaker 1: ever thought about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy. It's I think that it.
Speaker 2: What it is is that there is something to watching
Speaker 2: ten guys on a basketball floor that isn't that overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Like you and I can go to a game, a
Speaker 2: high school game. There can be an NBA prospect at
Speaker 2: the high school game and within what do you think
Speaker 2: ninety seconds, Well, you know who it is. I do
Speaker 2: think that there is that's one thing to the because
Speaker 2: there because there are so many people play basketball and
Speaker 2: so few play in the NBA, and then even the
Speaker 2: guys that are in the NBA, obviously there are guys
Speaker 2: that you ride the bench like. To be a standout
Speaker 2: basketball player, you have to be so unbelievably good. And
Speaker 2: I'm in football it's like, oh, is that receiver the
Speaker 2: best deep ball receiver? But his offensive line sucked so
Speaker 2: his quarterback never had time for the deep ball routes
Speaker 2: to develop or did the quarterback not have an arm
Speaker 2: to get it to him? Like for the receiver to
Speaker 2: produce on the deep ball, the line has to do
Speaker 2: its job, the quarterback has to do its job. Like
Speaker 2: a lot of things have to happen. It's it's very
Speaker 2: difficult to isolate and evaluate the individual performance within the
Speaker 2: concept of a team game. In basketball, it's not that
Speaker 2: difficult to be like, oh, that's the best athlete, that's
Speaker 2: the best shooter, and then obviously you start separating degrees.
Speaker 2: But I think, I think that that is a part
Speaker 2: of basketball that is just inherently.
Speaker 1: Like one of these music shows. I'm not a music exact,
Speaker 1: but I can tell like three notes in with Carrie Underwood,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah you could. That's on a label
Speaker 1: that you you.
Speaker 2: Sell that right, right, there's so I think so I
Speaker 2: think that there is. And by the way, also, what
Speaker 2: two rounds of an NBA draft thirty teams, sixty picks
Speaker 2: and like fifteen per draft really do make it? Like
Speaker 2: the NBA draft is ridiculous. Like it's like we're drafting
Speaker 2: an international guy where it's a draft in stash for
Speaker 2: contract rights in twenty thirty two, Like it's it's like
Speaker 2: like like what is happening? Like, but it's like there's
Speaker 2: all there aren't There are not enough good players because
Speaker 2: it is so hard to be as good as these
Speaker 2: NBA guys that you do really get to the point
Speaker 2: where you're drafting this fact, which is why, by the way, though,
Speaker 2: that a guy like Presty is truly amazing, like to
Speaker 2: be able to differentiate at that level and has hit
Speaker 2: after hit after hit, hit after it. Even if they
Speaker 2: were top five picks, it is he still picked the
Speaker 2: I mean, he still drafted James Harden, but a lot
Speaker 2: of teams didn't. He still drafted Russell Westbrook teams didn't.
Speaker 2: He still took SGA teams didn't. Like there's a team
Speaker 2: out there that took Markel Foltz over Jason Tatum with
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like, so even at the
Speaker 2: very top of the draft, teams do still mess up.
Speaker 2: So they deserve credit when they consistently get it right.
Speaker 2: But I think that that is the thing about basketball,
Speaker 2: is that there is just a there's an inherent he's
Speaker 2: faster than everybody, jump higher.
Speaker 1: Than Yeah, I saw exact Lavine when he was at
Speaker 1: Ballard High School in Washington State. It's always really like
Speaker 1: his sophomore or junior tape, somebody said there's this kid
Speaker 1: in Ballard. You know, I'm from the state of Washington.
Speaker 1: So although so I went on like YouTube or something,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, holy shit, this is this guy can
Speaker 1: hit threes. I mean just insane hops just didn't even
Speaker 1: make you know, like thirty eight inch vertical as sixteen
Speaker 1: seventeen year old. But I think the harder part and
Speaker 1: you really never know this, and I mean you wouldn't
Speaker 1: know this unless you room with somebody in college. You
Speaker 1: don't know the personality. I don't think Zach Lavine necessarily
Speaker 1: wins games. I think a possession by possession late in
Speaker 1: game sequence. He does things that drive me nuts. But
Speaker 1: he's also productive. I think that's something that not even
Speaker 1: Sam Presty knows is does that talent manifest itself into
Speaker 1: being a great teammate, working hard, being great in circumstantial
Speaker 1: basketball Like that's for SGA is just a bucket, like
Speaker 1: it's just whatever it is. His temperature lowers, like his
Speaker 1: heartbeat lowers, he's better. Whereas there are guys out there.
Speaker 1: Westbrook's a classic example you have to draft him. He's
Speaker 1: just too talented. I'm not sure he's a winning player,
Speaker 1: but he is an audaciously gifted player. That's some of
Speaker 1: that I think comes down to luck. Like there's certain
Speaker 1: you know, it was obvious, like Kobe Bryant apparently had
Speaker 1: the best workout Jerry west had ever seen. Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: was another kid that very early on, he was way
Speaker 1: more mature than kids his age. Everybody was like, he
Speaker 1: just felt like a thirty two year old man when
Speaker 1: he was like nineteen, a duke. But I do think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of these kids that you you know,
Speaker 1: Jalen Green, I watched him when he came in to Houston.
Speaker 1: The first year, I'm like, yeah, he's talented, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't even understand how to play basketball. And then the
Speaker 1: second year You're like, oh, okay, that part. I think
Speaker 1: it takes great coaching, good jamming. That's where a good
Speaker 1: organization can help a guy.
Speaker 2: No doubt. And so like just I'll just use the
Speaker 2: Chicago example, Like, so DeMar DeRozan is you know, a
Speaker 2: chip off the Kobe Bryant block, these legendary workouts, it's
Speaker 2: great leader, took guys under his wing, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: The Bulls drafted this kid, Patrick Williams out of Florida
Speaker 2: State with the fourth overall pick. Crazy talented, athletic three
Speaker 2: and D style wing, has all the god given ability
Speaker 2: in the world. And there was this big story like, man,
Speaker 2: this guy just floats and he's kind of aloof and
Speaker 2: like he doesn't assert himself. So Damar was like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna take him under my wing. I'm bringing him out
Speaker 2: to California for an offseason. He's doing my three workouts
Speaker 2: a day. He's going through like Damar boot camp, and
Speaker 2: he's gonna come back a changed guy. And apparently he went,
Speaker 2: he did the workouts, and he came back and he
Speaker 2: was the same guy. Well he's just like it just
Speaker 2: he's not an assertive guy. But he's so down he
Speaker 2: got he signed a ninety million dollar contract. Patrick Williams
Speaker 2: will probably make two hundred million dollars playing basketball and
Speaker 2: never really make an impact or be dominant in any way. Failure,
Speaker 2: I don't know. He made two hundred'll make two hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars, but you don't have it. You don't have
Speaker 2: that dog thing. Zach Levine unbelievably efficient offensive basketball player.
Speaker 2: He was an eighteen year old kid in Minnesota with
Speaker 2: nobody to like teach him how to be pro, and
Speaker 2: then he went to Chicago where there was no one
Speaker 2: to really teach him how to be a pro. And
Speaker 2: he's like, I don't know. I'm making hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars. I signed the Supermax, I've won the dunk Contest,
Speaker 2: I've been in the three point kind of this, but
Speaker 2: I've got a thirty million dollar house in LA Like,
Speaker 2: White's pretty good, right if you're Zach lavive, Like, how
Speaker 2: much does he really need to change? Because he's not
Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant. You know, I think that there is just
Speaker 2: something too these guys have. There's a there's a little
Speaker 2: they're all crazy talented, they all make an insane amount
Speaker 2: of money, and then there's just that like psychotic gene
Speaker 2: that they don't all possess. And some organizations can scout
Speaker 2: it and some organizations can cultivate it, but most can't.
Speaker 2: And so that's the difference between the best and the
Speaker 2: other ones.
Speaker 1: And now for our segment Hot Off the Press, presented
Speaker 1: by our friends at Louisiana Hot Sauce. Bring the food
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Speaker 1: original Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce. I put it on a
Speaker 1: pizza last night. It was great, bold, authentic flavor embodies
Speaker 1: the rich culinary tradition of Louisiana. The original Louisiana Brand
Speaker 1: Hot Sauce perfect for those who demand great flavor with
Speaker 1: just the right amount of heat. I use it on
Speaker 1: my eggs, I put it on my sandwiches, I put
Speaker 1: it on my pizzas. I love that Danny wants to
Speaker 1: talk about this, so I want to bring it up.
Speaker 1: So about a month ago I read the New Yorker
Speaker 1: and about one out of every three or four articles
Speaker 1: just sticks with me. Yes, it's very left leaning, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah whatever. It's just some of the best magazine
Speaker 1: writing ever. And so they have a Lorne Michael's article
Speaker 1: about those last month of the month before. It was fascinating.
Speaker 1: So as a kid who grew up on Saturday night,
Speaker 1: was it was just just I engulfed myself to it.
Speaker 1: It takes about an hour to get through, but it
Speaker 1: is just a great read with a glass of bourbon
Speaker 1: next to a fireplace and is taking you to John
Speaker 1: Belushi and the Betty Murphy's and dan Aykroyd's Chevy Chase.
Speaker 1: So they did their fiftieth and again I did.
Speaker 2: Not see it.
Speaker 1: I'll probably do some youtubing again on the internet. Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks got kind of, you know, hammered because apparently he
Speaker 1: did some maga thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: What was your interpretation of it.
Speaker 2: So I loved it, and I was never so I'm
Speaker 2: kind of obsessed with comedy, and I was actually never
Speaker 2: like lock in and watch out you every week guy.
Speaker 2: But I got a few thoughts on this. Anyone who
Speaker 2: is complaining about that show or criticizing that show, it
Speaker 2: strikes me as like so so clueless and devoid of
Speaker 2: understanding of the entertainment business on any molecular level that
Speaker 2: you should have your rights to criticize and have opinions
Speaker 2: on things stripped from you. It was a remarkable accomplishment,
Speaker 2: just the sheer amount of talent in the room trying
Speaker 2: stuff people like, oh, that wasn't a funny sketch, it's
Speaker 2: sketch comedy. It's live sketch comedy. Like bands get to
Speaker 2: rehearse songs and then perform them. Stand up comedians get
Speaker 2: to rehearse material and then perform it. This is you
Speaker 2: get one shot to do it live. So they're not
Speaker 2: all going to be home runs, they're not all going
Speaker 2: to be the iconic bits. So anybody whoever is like
Speaker 2: that was a bad episode or that was a bad sketch,
Speaker 2: you are inherently missing the point. Like it's not about
Speaker 2: one hundred percent success rate, It's it's about shot attempts.
Speaker 2: It's about you know, Lord Michael's He's like, the show's
Speaker 2: never ready, it's just it's eleven thirty. But that's the
Speaker 2: ethos of the show. So I think that like that,
Speaker 2: any criticism of it just strikes me as like not
Speaker 2: understanding what they are attempting to do. And then the cultivation,
Speaker 2: like we just thought about Sam Presty, Like what is
Speaker 2: even close in terms of an incubator of talent for
Speaker 2: second place to SNL Maybe The Daily Show, like their
Speaker 2: run is pretty remarkable of people that came through under
Speaker 2: John Stewart, it's pretty incredible. But like the number of
Speaker 2: people over fifty years that the Shaper Stars, Maggots, mephis
Speaker 2: stars is Lauren Michaels is like the greatest general manager
Speaker 2: in the history of general managers. I can't even think
Speaker 2: of anyone that is even close to him, and that
Speaker 2: should just carry such reverences. And I know people say
Speaker 2: Will Ferrell would have been Will Ferrell even without SNL. Fine,
Speaker 2: maybe the talent was there, but like, would the Blues
Speaker 2: Brothers have happened? I don't know. They did a sketch
Speaker 2: Lucy and Ackroy.
Speaker 1: Chris Rock couldn't get on the air for like three
Speaker 1: years until he created I think nat X.
Speaker 4: Like many of the stars, but Larry David, Larry David
Speaker 4: famously was a writer, couldn't get bits on quit, then
Speaker 4: goes home, talks to his neighbor Kramer.
Speaker 2: He's like, just pretend like it never happened. Go in
Speaker 2: on Monday. He goes in on Monday, pretends like it
Speaker 2: never happens, gets his job back, still doesn't really get
Speaker 2: anything up here, leaves the show and creates Seinfeld and
Speaker 2: writes that bit into Seinfeld, like it is. They have misses.
Speaker 2: They didn't cast Jim Carrey, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: They have misses, but the sheer volume is incredible, and
Speaker 2: I just when you watch what Watch the Adam Sandler
Speaker 2: I did song. It was so good, it was so
Speaker 2: beautiful and there is something too And this isn't kissing
Speaker 2: your ass or whatever I guess it is, but like
Speaker 2: you're kind of like this, Like you are at the
Speaker 2: top of the mountain. You have success, companies, radio, TV, money,
Speaker 2: fame and all of it. You could just retire to
Speaker 2: an island and stop, but you still do two hundred
Speaker 2: something shows a year and are creative and churning out
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff. Adam Sandler is worth a zillion dollars.
Speaker 2: He's worth a gazillion dollars, and so people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: he makes dumb movies. He also makes like there's probably
Speaker 2: no one comedically in my life more influential than Adam Sandler.
Speaker 2: His comedy albums were unbelievable, and then his first four
Speaker 2: comedies are Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, and I'm
Speaker 2: Blanking on another absolute Mega one whatever it was, Bob
Speaker 2: Barker Golfing, Yeah, Happy Gilmore. If I didn't say Happy Gilmore, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Happy Gilmore. He's just it's an unbelievable thing. And I
Speaker 2: went and saw him do a stand up show eighteen
Speaker 2: months ago when he sold out the United Center fifteen
Speaker 2: new songs. They weren't all hits, but like Adam Saylor,
Speaker 2: that means that that guy is grinding and writing fifteen
Speaker 2: new songs. He doesn't need to be doing that. And
Speaker 2: are they all hits? No, But his Chris Farley song
Speaker 2: is one of the most beautiful comedic things I've seen
Speaker 2: in the last ten years. His phone Wallet Keys song,
Speaker 2: You think about it every time you look for your
Speaker 2: phone wallet and keys. Like that song at SNL fifty
Speaker 2: is going to resonate. His song that he did for
Speaker 2: his monologue after getting fired was iconic and has like
Speaker 2: a gazillion views on YouTube. These guys and women obviously
Speaker 2: are so one percent of one percent talented and still
Speaker 2: given that that any criticism and I know I'm rambled,
Speaker 2: but it just it really bothers me. Instead of just
Speaker 2: appreciating and marveling the greatness.
Speaker 1: Remember comedy critics like you appreciate the swings and even
Speaker 1: the misses. The people criticizing Saturday Night Live are it's
Speaker 1: a lot of the don't get it crowd or they
Speaker 1: feel they're being marginalized. Well, and then they ever write
Speaker 1: to an opinion, But I do think I always think
Speaker 1: it's the silliest thing when you know, in our business,
Speaker 1: the media critics, I just don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: time or patience for listening to a football broadcast and
Speaker 1: not liking what an announcer says in the third quarter
Speaker 1: on a fumble. Do you understand how hard it is
Speaker 1: to say three hundred things each twelve seconds and they
Speaker 1: all be brilliant. If you can hit eighty percent, you're
Speaker 1: just you know, Troy Aikman. Troy Aikman hits on seventy
Speaker 1: eighty percent. That is as good as you can do.
Speaker 1: And he's been doing it for twenty years. He's great
Speaker 1: at it, and so it's and I think one of
Speaker 1: the things about art. People forget this about Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando had a He had like seven legendary movies
Speaker 1: and all sorts of bombs. That's the spirit of being
Speaker 1: an artist. One of the I mean, I think most
Speaker 1: comedians think Norm McDonald is one of the truest, most
Speaker 1: authentic stand up acts of our lifetime. I mean revered
Speaker 1: when he passed away, like it really and I think
Speaker 1: Gary Shandling had that as well. Shandling if you go
Speaker 1: look at Shann's diary. He had so much self doubt.
Speaker 1: Sometimes maybe it was self loathing. Whatever it is in
Speaker 1: therapy forever. And I think the great comedians, I mean
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell. I've watched five or six of his movies.
Speaker 1: I think he's probably the most dynamic, even more so
Speaker 1: than Belushi. I think he's the most dynamic comedic presence
Speaker 1: on Saturday Night Live. And I think even his stuff
Speaker 1: like people don't give the hot tub when he's a
Speaker 1: college professor, it's one of the grossest, cringiest things. And
Speaker 1: one of my wife and I used to talk in
Speaker 1: that language for about two years, could not stop laughing.
Speaker 1: It was so gross and cringey. That doesn't even get
Speaker 1: talked about. It's Jeopardy. It's the cheerleader. So and I
Speaker 1: think one of the things what you appreciate about it is,
Speaker 1: I think what most writers who cover comedy. John mulaney
Speaker 1: performed at the United Center. I read the next day
Speaker 1: the newspaper article a little too critical for my taste,
Speaker 1: but he took you through a journey of what it
Speaker 1: all meant and the rehab stories. I think comedy critics
Speaker 1: mostly land on your side, which you you owe it
Speaker 1: to the industry to take just audacious swings. And I
Speaker 1: mean Norm MacDonald bombed regularly at the laugh Factory in
Speaker 1: La Joya. It just all the time, loved it.
Speaker 2: He loved it and he loved it and that and
Speaker 2: that's the act of it. And these these people don't
Speaker 2: need to be doing it, and they but they it's
Speaker 2: just in their blood. It's just like who they are.
Speaker 2: They love it.
Speaker 1: Remember when ESPN came out with ESPN the Phone, George Bodenheimer,
Speaker 1: and it lost fifty million. And I defended George and
Speaker 1: I said time out. If it would have hit, it
Speaker 1: would have been a one hundred billion dollar hit. It
Speaker 1: was a fifty million dollar loss. That is that's a
Speaker 1: rounded there. At that time, ESPN was making eight point
Speaker 1: five billion annually. When you're an industry leader, when you're
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey in his prime, you owe
Speaker 1: it almost not just to yourself, to the industry to
Speaker 1: take big ethan swings.
Speaker 2: Amen. Amen. And so I I just I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that there should be no consequences or that
Speaker 2: there are. I don't have my preferences or the bits
Speaker 2: don't miss or whatever like and like you said, everyone
Speaker 2: has a right to an opinion, but I just don't
Speaker 2: know how you could watch a three hour show that
Speaker 2: opens with Sabrina Carpenter and Paul Simon like bridging that
Speaker 2: level of time, and then goes into Steve Martin and
Speaker 2: John Mulaney doing a co model, then having Bill Murray
Speaker 2: sit at the weekend update desk and have Jerry Seinfeld
Speaker 2: and Julia Louis Dreyfus in the crowd with Larry David,
Speaker 2: and then watching Eddie Murphy do Tracy Morgan next to
Speaker 2: Tracy Morgan. It is so goddamn funny, and then just
Speaker 2: be like sitting there on your couch being like not
Speaker 2: good enough. It's just insane. It's an insane opinion to have,
Speaker 2: And I just I just they should be revered, it
Speaker 2: should be revied, and I know it is, so I'm
Speaker 2: this isn't like some sort of like wild stance that
Speaker 2: I'm taking, but there's just nothing else like it. And
Speaker 2: the the sheer volume of swings. It almost doesn't matter
Speaker 2: how many hits or misses they have, it's just the vine.
Speaker 2: I think I think.
Speaker 1: Artists are different than us. I think they have different
Speaker 1: brain types than accountants. I don't want my I don't
Speaker 1: want my accountant taking LSD. I understand that may be
Speaker 1: part of ayahuasca is absolutely part of Judd Apatow's voyage. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Neil Brennan, co creator of Chappelle's show. Absolutely, I mean
Speaker 2: you talked about ayahuasca all the time. Three mics, unbelievably
Speaker 2: brilliant special blocks, incredible follow up special like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: glad that that guy does hallucindogenic drugs. Yeah, I'm really glad.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's led to some pretty incredible comedic discoveries
Speaker 2: and break.
Speaker 1: Through what I think I almost I wish people could
Speaker 1: appreciate people this idea of perfection. I was doing a
Speaker 1: podcast the other day for a friend and he asked
Speaker 1: me about my show, and I said, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: my goal isn't perfection, it's perspective. I'm not looking to
Speaker 1: be perfect. I'm taking swings. I think I just owe
Speaker 1: it to the audience to be entertaining. And have you
Speaker 1: know Aaron Rodgers is going to the Rams and Stafford's
Speaker 1: going to the Giants, and I think this is better
Speaker 1: than a fifty to fifty shot. If you and I
Speaker 1: talked about that at the bar, people would lean in like, really,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating, that's interesting. And so I think, and maybe
Speaker 1: this has happened my entire life, or maybe I just
Speaker 1: hope that artists aren't dissuaded from doing great work because
Speaker 1: the criticism now is so urgent, it's so vile, and
Speaker 1: it's so accessible, and it's like, folks, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: Like I went and watched John mullenny in Chicago, Sebastian Manakowsko,
Speaker 1: those nights are one offs. I mean, my wife bought
Speaker 1: me seats to John Mullaney. I will remember that until
Speaker 1: I die. It was that that due to the show,
Speaker 1: and don't dissuade artists from taking swings. I think that
Speaker 1: this goes back to the very the very point is,
Speaker 1: you know, I wish Jim Carrey would do more. I
Speaker 1: wish he wasn't so reclusive. I wish he would do more.
Speaker 2: Of course, I mean, in nineteen ninety four, Jim Carrey
Speaker 2: gave us Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura and the Mask
Speaker 2: one year it's the most incredible comedic year ever, and
Speaker 2: like and he's just like, yeah, I'm gonna do the
Speaker 2: Truman Show. I'm gonna do man in the mood and
Speaker 2: by the way, both yeah, awesome man in the mood.
Speaker 2: If you haven't seen the documentary Jim and Andy or
Speaker 2: whatever whatever the documentary is called about how Jim Carrey
Speaker 2: like immersed himself in becoming Andy Kaufman. That is ninety
Speaker 2: minutes well spent, like talk about creative genius and artists.
Speaker 2: But yeah, these guys. And by the way, like we were
Speaker 2: talking about the ratings of the NBA, the ratings of
Speaker 2: SNL are still remarkable, like it for Saturday Night that thing.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it yet, maybe they're out. I probably
Speaker 2: could have figured it out. My guess is that will
Speaker 2: be the most watched thing on American television in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. That isn't football, Like some football will beat it,
Speaker 2: But my guess is that SML fifty will outrate any
Speaker 2: World Series game, any political speech, any NBA Finals game,
Speaker 2: college football National Championship will beat it. Obviously a bunch
Speaker 2: of NFL will beat it. But my guess is that
Speaker 2: that rating will be the biggest non football event of
Speaker 2: the year. And for them to still have that kind
Speaker 2: of cultural influence fifty years in.
Speaker 1: Is just insane, just insane and now for our next segment,
Speaker 1: Whiskey Business, brought to you by Green River Whiskey, the
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Speaker 1: in a bottle today. You know, I thought, I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, but speaking of artists, I
Speaker 1: think if you took any NFL quarterback and said he
Speaker 1: was more artists, it would be Aaron Rodgers. Aaron's very unique,
Speaker 1: and I tend to believe that people make mistakes, but
Speaker 1: most NFL reporters are very very good, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trust the NFL reporter who broke this story
Speaker 1: that basically Aaron begged the Jets to keep him. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I think we both acknowledge Aaron smart.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a he's a bright guy, better than
Speaker 1: average intelligence. But he's had two franchise is catch him
Speaker 1: off guard, letting him go. And it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: with Aaron. Generally, these two things coincide intelligence and self awareness,
Speaker 1: and we think Aaron's smart. And twice he's knocked on
Speaker 1: the door of the franchise and they're like they do
Speaker 1: the Vegas Dealer, Yeah, we're out, and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. What I find interesting about Aaron, if this
Speaker 1: story is true that he begged to stay, is that
Speaker 1: he doesn't get like, he doesn't get his brand, and
Speaker 1: it's like, Aaron, you're not some dullard, You're not a
Speaker 1: dim bold. You're a lot of work and you're not
Speaker 1: nearly as good as you used to be. This, whether
Speaker 1: you're a talk show host or a quarterback, never ends well.
Speaker 1: Are When I read that he was begging to stay
Speaker 1: or he really wanted to stay, part of it to
Speaker 1: me was it's like, Aaron, how do you not get this?
Speaker 1: Does that land anyway for you? So?
Speaker 2: I don't so. Albert Breer then reported that Aaron wanted
Speaker 2: to stay, wanted and indicated that he wants to keep playing,
Speaker 2: but that he was not He did not present it
Speaker 2: like that he was begging. Rogers doesn't strike me as
Speaker 2: a guy that would get down on one knee and
Speaker 2: beg the New York Jets for employment. So I didn't
Speaker 2: buy the behind the paywall New York Post story that
Speaker 2: said it was like a man walking himself to the
Speaker 2: gallows and referencing ayahuasca. It was like very New York posted,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, I took it with a
Speaker 2: little bit of a grain of salt. What I do
Speaker 2: think is true is that Rogers probably went to that
Speaker 2: meeting and stayed at his case. I was heard at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the year, I played much better at
Speaker 2: the end of the year, and what's your plan? If
Speaker 2: not me, then who? And they probably don't have a
Speaker 2: great answer for that right now. So I bet he
Speaker 2: stated his case. I still struggle to find a team
Speaker 2: that makes more sense for Rogers than Pittsburgh. People keep
Speaker 2: saying Minnesota, aren't they gonna try JJ McCarthy. The are
Speaker 2: it traded up in the first round to draft in
Speaker 2: And if they think that if they got a great
Speaker 2: season seasons out of Kirk Cousins and then a great
Speaker 2: season out of Sam Darnold, I would have to imagine
Speaker 2: that they think that the guy that they picked they
Speaker 2: can get a great season out of.
Speaker 1: For very g it's time to look at this week's
Speaker 1: Tastiest matchup, brought to you by Uber eight. I want
Speaker 1: to quickly segue to this. I don't want to spend
Speaker 1: too much time on Aaron. So there was a story
Speaker 1: that Jason McIntyre deserves credit. He talked about it like
Speaker 1: four days before anybody else did Stafford to the Giants?
Speaker 1: And I made two calls on it, and it was
Speaker 1: a real thing. It's now Stafford may just want a
Speaker 1: new deal and an influx of money from the Rams.
Speaker 1: That's probably it. The idea of going from Stan Kronk
Speaker 1: and Sean McVay and indoor football to the Giants facing
Speaker 1: Philadelphia twice a year and Jaden Daniels does not feel
Speaker 1: appealing to me. Just chaos to non chaos. The Rams
Speaker 1: are a really well run ship. But it was interesting.
Speaker 1: So when I proposed that, it was amazing. And again
Speaker 1: it's fans. So how many people said you cannot give
Speaker 1: up a first round pick for Matt Stafford And I'm like,
Speaker 1: time out, You're definitely it is a week draft. You've
Speaker 1: been unwatchable for a decade, like you're the GM of
Speaker 1: the Giants. I press you into a corner. What would
Speaker 1: you give up for Matt Stafford in a week draft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would try to make it next
Speaker 2: year's first round pick.
Speaker 1: You got to give up something. I'm not gonna let
Speaker 1: you get away with that. You gotta give me something
Speaker 1: this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then I mean I I still think Staffords is
Speaker 2: an arguably top five pins in the NFL. I think
Speaker 2: there's a big I think there's a big four. And
Speaker 2: then like Matt Stafford, everyone was immediately like Jaden Daniels
Speaker 2: is the best quarterback in the NFC, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I'll still take the thirty
Speaker 2: five year old gum flinger like to win a game tomorrow,
Speaker 2: I'll take I'll still take Stafford over Jayden and Daniels,
Speaker 2: though Jayden's amazing. So yeah, I think that if the
Speaker 2: Rams were open for business, they would get a first
Speaker 2: round pick from miss Stafford, even.
Speaker 1: At his age, even though you'd have to renown me
Speaker 1: do the deal, like it's he's just too damn good
Speaker 1: in a league now it is all about the quarterback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the type of thing that you don't
Speaker 2: go into it blind like you'd be His agent would
Speaker 2: be given permission to talk to the team, Hey, are
Speaker 2: you playing? You know you're not retiring next year right now?
Speaker 2: You're playing multiple years? Okay? Cool? Yeah, And as long
Speaker 2: as they have a guarantee that Matt Stafford would sign
Speaker 2: a contract extension, rework the deal to your point, and
Speaker 2: play multiple years, I do think that he would get
Speaker 2: a first round pick. He's awesome. He's awesome. I don't
Speaker 2: really get why the Rams would want to be out
Speaker 2: of the Matt Stafford business though, Like I watched your
Speaker 2: segment so and I personally would put up with his
Speaker 2: wife saying, goofy things.
Speaker 1: Well, staff I think what the Rams are looking at
Speaker 1: some of that public Cooper Cup Stafford, the Rams felt
Speaker 1: a bit belied in social media, the wife, Cooper Cup.
Speaker 1: It's like, guys, we're really good, we're really good owners.
Speaker 1: We're good people here. Don't go public. So I think
Speaker 1: that's part of it. I think the other thing you
Speaker 1: have to look at is take Stafford out. Who are
Speaker 1: the pocket quarterbacks that you really think can win a
Speaker 1: Super Bowl over the next ten years?
Speaker 4: Goff?
Speaker 1: And that's mostly because the on line really of Detroit,
Speaker 1: the old line is so suffocating it could move the
Speaker 1: ball against Philadelphia's D line. The truth is, I think,
Speaker 1: and they're also looking at we don't Matt wants four years,
Speaker 1: they'd give him two. So I think it's they want
Speaker 1: Matt Stafford. But I do think rent a quarterback for
Speaker 1: a year because next year's quarterback class is much better.
Speaker 1: Is Aaron Rodgers. I think Aaron. If you go to
Speaker 1: Aaron's last ten games in New York with at that
Speaker 1: point arguably the worst coaching staff not in Chicago in
Speaker 1: the league, it was the worst coaching staff, and he
Speaker 1: put up like really decent numbers the last ten games.
Speaker 1: My take is with McVeigh, if you could hold those
Speaker 1: numbers for a year, two year deal, we draft a quarterback.
Speaker 1: And I also think Aaron has been humbled. I think
Speaker 1: I think he'd come live in Malibu and be like,
Speaker 1: this is a gift. I'm taking this gift.
Speaker 2: Oh well, listen. I have no issue with understanding why
Speaker 2: Aaron Rodgers would want to play in LA For Sean McVay,
Speaker 2: that's not a that's not a leap. My thing is,
Speaker 2: if I'm Sean McVay, I think Matt Stafford is better
Speaker 2: than Aaron. He is at this at this stage. I
Speaker 2: just don't get why the Rams would want to be
Speaker 2: out of the Stafford business to get into the Rogers business.
Speaker 2: Like if if Matt Stafford forced the trade or retired
Speaker 2: or whatever, then like, okay, we can have that conversation.
Speaker 2: But I just I get to me all these teams
Speaker 2: that people are throwing out for Rogers, like the Nighters,
Speaker 2: the Vikings, the Rams, is like, yeah, that all sounds
Speaker 2: great for Aaron. I think it's much more likely that
Speaker 2: it's gonna be like Vegas, Tennessee. Nobody like I think
Speaker 2: that that that's where it's gonna be. Like is he
Speaker 2: gonna just play to play and grind out six wins
Speaker 2: or I don't. I don't believe that a Super Bowl
Speaker 2: contender is calling Aaron Rodgers. Maybe I'll be proven wrong,
Speaker 2: but I don't. I don't believe that a Super Bowl
Speaker 2: contenders ready for him.
Speaker 1: That was this week's tastiest matchup, brought to you by
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Speaker 1: game day deals all season long. I use it every
Speaker 1: Sunday order now for Game Day. So I'm gonna throw
Speaker 1: something out at you and this I haven't fully baked
Speaker 1: this idea, but it's just interesting. So I was with
Speaker 1: my wife for four days an undisclosed location and we
Speaker 1: were just talking about a bunch of stuff, and I said,
Speaker 1: this was my theory. I said, you know, Americans don't
Speaker 1: like change. Forty percent of Americans never leave their zip
Speaker 1: code and they don't like sudden change. I said, so
Speaker 1: what Trump and Musk are doing. It may play well
Speaker 1: to the wealthy, to the status of the top of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, but for most Americans, they don't like change.
Speaker 1: It's just too much, too soon, too fast. We don't
Speaker 1: like change. I've moved all over the country. I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1: I think I'm an outlier. Nobody else in my family
Speaker 1: likes it. Nobody in my sister's family likes it, or
Speaker 1: my wife's family likes it. People don't like change. So
Speaker 1: we're going through a lot of change, and I think
Speaker 1: eventually you do too much of it, and people it's
Speaker 1: a turn off. But I said, I said, I've been
Speaker 1: watching now for several months, since the inauguration and since
Speaker 1: the win by Trump, and I said, you would think
Speaker 1: the Democrats lost by twelve million votes and didn't get
Speaker 1: a state. But I'll throw a theory at you, I
Speaker 1: told my wife driving back. I said, on average, usually
Speaker 1: the Democrats have more women than Republicans, generally, more African Americans,
Speaker 1: more kids who are bullied, more gay, lesbian, more, more
Speaker 1: people that have needed assistance. And I said, those people,
Speaker 1: when they lose, are more prone to believe the sky
Speaker 1: is falling. I said, when conservative lose, they're like, all right,
Speaker 1: we just need a better candidate. You know, Let's face it,
Speaker 1: most of us grew up Conservatives were everybody's rich dad
Speaker 1: was a conservative, right, That's kind of the way it worked.
Speaker 1: And so I said, I said, if you listen over
Speaker 1: the last two months to Democrats, you would think, forget
Speaker 1: the electoral College. You would have thought it was Walter Mondale.
Speaker 1: You would think that literally it was a thirteen million
Speaker 1: vote difference. And I said, because I think Democrats, if
Speaker 1: you look at the base of the Democratic Party, it
Speaker 1: is often people who have had real struggles, not that
Speaker 1: Republicans haven't, but there are women have not been in
Speaker 1: as much power as men have, minorities have not been
Speaker 1: in power, and that Democrats are overthinking it. If they
Speaker 1: got a really dynamic, vibrant candidate in two years, it
Speaker 1: would change everything, and you'd be like, we are number one,
Speaker 1: this is the Party of genius, and that people when
Speaker 1: they lose an election, Democrats when they lose the election
Speaker 1: are just inherently more negative and neurotic about it than conservatives.
Speaker 2: I think that that tracks. I know a lot of
Speaker 2: Democrats who are pretty neurotic. Yeah, you're talking to one
Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, I think that that tracks completely across
Speaker 2: the board. And listen. I don't know. I spend above
Speaker 2: average amount of time online. I assume this is your
Speaker 2: soft launch for your candidacy, because isn't that you. America
Speaker 2: just needs to know you. You just need to be
Speaker 2: like a rich radical centrist that gives hot sports takes
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden you're in right, let's
Speaker 2: go forget Steven A. Smith. No, Colin Coward twenty eight
Speaker 2: bring analogies to the White House.
Speaker 1: I have no interest in it. But one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I love this podcast is I just throw these
Speaker 1: half baked ideas out and my wife, I said, Jesus,
Speaker 1: eventually all these changes are going to scare some people off,
Speaker 1: and they're going to go back to moderates or left.
Speaker 1: They're just this is too much activity for most Americans.
Speaker 1: They don't like it. A lot of Americans who are
Speaker 1: being displaced maybe conservatives, they're not all liberals at US eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the story of like I voted for Trump and
Speaker 2: now I lost my job, like no shit, like like
Speaker 2: like like do people like that. I'm not saying like
Speaker 2: you deserved it. That's not my point at all. My
Speaker 2: point was like he doesn't strike me as someone that's
Speaker 2: like doing this with like a fine teeth. Come and
Speaker 2: it's like, like the point is chaos and disruption and
Speaker 2: throwing so much stuff against the wall that it took
Speaker 2: a moving target And what am I supposed to focus on?
Speaker 2: And that's the that's the point of it. He's not
Speaker 2: he's not really making a bunch of discernments of like
Speaker 2: this person in this government agency happened to vote for me.
Speaker 2: Like there's just this story I was first reading that
Speaker 2: was like they had to undo some firings because there
Speaker 2: was a bunch of people who worked at like a
Speaker 2: nuclear test site. They're like, we can't fire the safety
Speaker 2: guy at the nuclear test Good. I'm glad that you
Speaker 2: caught that one. So so yeah, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 2: interested in this next wave of stories of like I
Speaker 2: voted for Donald Trump and then I lost my job.
Speaker 2: Like he doesn't give a shit. He won, he he won.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just my whole theory is basically Democrats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they struggle their their they tend to be introspective, they
Speaker 1: tend to be a little more insecure. A lot of
Speaker 1: their life backgrounds they weren't in control. So when you
Speaker 1: when you lose more control, it is really off putting,
Speaker 1: and it throws you into this dark hole of despair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and listen, I mean it's it's talking politics
Speaker 2: is whatever. But I'll do it with you. You brought it up.
Speaker 2: Democrats try to be all things to all people. Got
Speaker 2: a very wide net, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 2: like LGBT, minorities, women's rights, all incredibly valuable, worthwhile causes.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit more complicated when there's two teams
Speaker 2: and you're trying to be like the thing to all
Speaker 2: things to all people, and the other side is just like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's just bulldoz. Like you know, that's
Speaker 2: that's like an overly simplistic, reductive way of looking at it.
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, they could probably just be like we
Speaker 2: just need a better candidate and Democrats are like, who
Speaker 2: did we offend? Who's the Joe Rogan of the left,
Speaker 2: and like they're out, should should we have? Should we
Speaker 2: have done? Call her daddy? It's like shut out. Just
Speaker 2: get a better candidate, Get a better candidate.
Speaker 1: That is exactly my point. We come all the way around,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Just get a better candidate and you'll
Speaker 1: be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and in two years they'll probably run Hillary.
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus boy, Okay, I want to end it on this.
Speaker 1: I made I made the argument there are there are
Speaker 1: two types of artists Gordon Ramsey, jay Z Lebron where
Speaker 1: there's artistic, interpretational, artistic talent, but they're very good business man.
Speaker 1: They can compartmentalize. And then there's the artist on the
Speaker 1: other side, who is just all artists and cancels the
Speaker 1: tour and seu's ticketmaster and is you know it can
Speaker 1: struggle with bandmates and and then there's you know the
Speaker 1: other side. There's two types of artists, and that Lebron
Speaker 1: is very much in the Gordon Ramsey, jay Z Bono,
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger. I'm not a businessman. I'm a business man.
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant is sort of the wandering artist independent to
Speaker 1: a fault. It's not about championships, it's about being the
Speaker 1: best you and I don't. In a way, I think
Speaker 1: he somewhat tanked his career because at thirty there was
Speaker 1: an argument he was better than Lebron, and now he's
Speaker 1: viewed as somebody who just can make baskets and that's
Speaker 1: about it. Your thought, where do you? How do you?
Speaker 1: Because I really love watching KD and I think he's
Speaker 1: such a unique all time player. I've argued if you
Speaker 1: did a one on one tournament in league history, I'd
Speaker 1: take him over Michael. I think he's unstoppable at six
Speaker 1: to eleven, just literally unstoppable. Michael would miss just one
Speaker 1: if it was make it, take it, Mike would miss once,
Speaker 1: and d would just keep scoring. How do you view Durant?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Durant is one of the greatest offensive players in
Speaker 2: the history of the sport, like a true basketball genius
Speaker 2: in terms of putting the ball in the in the
Speaker 2: hole right, like that's the objective of the game. There
Speaker 2: are very few people in the history of the sport
Speaker 2: whose offensive arsenal you would take over him. I agree
Speaker 2: with him that two. Much of basketball discourse has become
Speaker 2: rings culture dominant that we talk basketball basically three ways.
Speaker 2: We talk about rings and championships, transactions, trades, free agency,
Speaker 2: guys forcing their way out, the disgruntled superstar, and then
Speaker 2: the social media drama beef stuff. We're not doing a
Speaker 2: lot of like how a team defends the pick and roll, right,
Speaker 2: that's not like a lot of mainstream basketball conversations. So
Speaker 2: like that media criticism, I think is a valid one,
Speaker 2: and he decries it, but there is also just some
Speaker 2: truth that not all rings are created equal. That guy
Speaker 2: didn't have any rings, and then he did a thing
Speaker 2: that is allowed that you could say that we bear
Speaker 2: some responsibility for because we said, if you don't win
Speaker 2: a ring, you're Charles Barkley or your Dan Marino, and
Speaker 2: we mock you for it, and then we moved the
Speaker 2: goalpost on him, and then we mocked them for what
Speaker 2: he did. But joining up with that Warriors team was weak.
Speaker 2: It was just it just flew in the face of competitiveness.
Speaker 2: It goes back to my Dodger's point from earlier. I
Speaker 2: understand why it happens. I get that it's a have
Speaker 2: and a have not world. It doesn't mean that I
Speaker 2: have to like it, like Yannis's one in Milwaukee means
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more than Durant's two in
Speaker 2: Golden State. Sorry, it just does. And so if Durant
Speaker 2: would have won in Oklahoma City, we would look at
Speaker 2: him so different. Even if he just had the one,
Speaker 2: we would look at him as Joker or Yannis, these
Speaker 2: guys that were singular entity forces of nature who didn't
Speaker 2: have the institutional advantage of the historic franchise and the
Speaker 2: warm weather market and the free agent destination and built
Speaker 2: the team the quote unquote right way, and his legac
Speaker 2: see would be beyond reproach. It would. It'd be perfect
Speaker 2: if he would have won in Oklahoma City. But as
Speaker 2: soon as he went to Golden State and won these
Speaker 2: titles that fell cheap and that they flew in the
Speaker 2: face of competitive spirit pined his legacy. Okay, he would
Speaker 2: hate that phrase, but I can't really have a problem
Speaker 2: with it because it was a it was a move
Speaker 2: that just flew in the face of competitiveness.
Speaker 1: Okay, but let me throw that did it? Let me
Speaker 1: be Devil's It didn't feel fair. Let me let me
Speaker 1: be a Devil's advocate. Does it feel fair? Let's say
Speaker 1: you're an Ohio sports fan, You're like, man, I that
Speaker 1: is so weak what Kevin Durant did. And I would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith and all
Speaker 1: your great players, don't they go to where they'll have
Speaker 1: a competitive advantage over Purdue, Like no doubt. Nil is
Speaker 1: not just the money grab for the best players. It's like,
Speaker 1: I want to go to a team that's already.
Speaker 2: Stacked, no doubt, And I don't have much of an
Speaker 2: argument against it, except in the history of the NBA,
Speaker 2: that's not what we celebrated, like it turned the heat
Speaker 2: into supervillains. And there was a historic pay jump when
Speaker 2: that in that CBA that at that offseason one time,
Speaker 2: every team in the league could afford a MAX player
Speaker 2: and he just chose, so say you choose the seventy
Speaker 2: win team, like it just it again, This is a reductive.
Speaker 2: It's just lame. It's just lame.
Speaker 1: I always felt Kevin Durant people preached doing loyalty, and
Speaker 1: he watched the Sonics moved Oklahoma City, so in the
Speaker 1: back so in the back of his mind was and
Speaker 1: it's this is all about the green. And then when
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook would eat up the shot clock and get
Speaker 1: him the ball late. He and the and the organization.
Speaker 1: Actually Westbrook was, you know, the better athlete. They worked
Speaker 1: in a bail on Westbrook, and I think some of it.
Speaker 1: I defend Kevin because I think he went Okay, I
Speaker 1: got drafted by Seattle. Now I'm playing in Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: and you you you have a point guard who can't
Speaker 1: get me the ball until the end of the shot clock.
Speaker 1: And so if I'm gonna move, I'm not moving to
Speaker 1: a crappy team and a crappy city. I'm going to
Speaker 1: the Bay Joe lacub and Steph Curry.
Speaker 2: Yeah again, I I get it. And the team was
Speaker 2: an unfair cheat code and he won and he got
Speaker 2: his rings. But it would have meant more if he
Speaker 2: would have won in Brooklyn or Phoenix or Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't make the rules. I just didn't fortunate, man.
Speaker 2: Do I mean? Right? Every title is not the same.
Speaker 1: You agree with that, Yeah, I mean the Lakers COVID
Speaker 1: title doesn't feel like the Celtics last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But also like I just in terms of Yannis's
Speaker 2: Milwaukee title, is a call it this called again immature.
Speaker 2: That is a pure title drafted by the team fifteenth overall.
Speaker 2: Chris Middleton is the running mate, and he has one
Speaker 2: of the three greatest game seven you know, cheery Championship
Speaker 2: closeout performances ever in NBA history, where he drops fifty
Speaker 2: and he wins a title. That one thing is more
Speaker 2: sports pure than Lebron in the Heat. Doesn't mean Lebron
Speaker 2: in the Heat isn't a better team, doesn't mean it
Speaker 2: wasn't more exciting, doesn't mean it wasn't better business, doesn't
Speaker 2: mean I would not want to go to South Beach
Speaker 2: and play with my friends. But like Yannis's title in Milwaukee,
Speaker 2: is just it's special. It just means a little bit
Speaker 2: more in history, jokers in Denver, it just means a
Speaker 2: little bit more.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 2: I just it just I just I think we all
Speaker 2: kind of know that. We just you know, we don't
Speaker 2: we don't like to admit it. It doesn't feel.
Speaker 1: Fair, that's why.
Speaker 2: But we all I think, but we just we just
Speaker 2: we just know it to be true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's the Knicks one being able to
Speaker 1: make a deal and really steal Jalen Brunson. It is
Speaker 1: to make a deal, a risky deal to get Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns and then McHale bridges and give up a lot.
Speaker 1: I do think like the Knicks title would. I don't
Speaker 1: think they match up well with Boston at all. Boston
Speaker 1: offensively just attacks Carl Anthony Towns and Brunson. But I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons that the Knicks are so
Speaker 1: likable is that you know, Carl Anthony Towns has had
Speaker 1: a lot of failures and Jalen Brunts it's a nova guy,
Speaker 1: a second rounder there. I think there is value too.
Speaker 1: There are certain teams that are much easier to root for,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the Heatls or most Laker teams
Speaker 1: are terribly easy to root for.
Speaker 2: Lebron's Cleveland title means more than his LA title or
Speaker 2: his Miami titles. Clear we all we all know that.
Speaker 2: We all just know that to be true, and there's
Speaker 2: a reason for it. Hometown kid. He was an underdog
Speaker 2: in the finals, led both teams and all fives. That
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the greatest NBA Finals performance ever. Like
Speaker 2: that that is that is you could I would make
Speaker 2: the argument that that is the most impressive NBA title ever,
Speaker 2: the one that Lebron won in Cleveland over.
Speaker 1: Golden's funny thing about, like there's a funny thing.
Speaker 2: There is a ranking.
Speaker 1: The funny thing about that final. The six of those
Speaker 1: games were blowoups, and then game seven was magical.
Speaker 2: Like Game seven was mad.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like an average movie with a great
Speaker 1: twelve minutes to cap it off.
Speaker 2: No doubt, but the accomplishment was amazing. Like what the
Speaker 2: trophy represented was like, holy shit, Like he went home,
Speaker 2: he won, He won as an underdog, he beat the
Speaker 2: super team, he led in all five categories the game.
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable. It's one of the greatest things I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in sports.
Speaker 1: Danny Parkins breakfast Ball. We fired through an hour, our
Speaker 1: hour fifteen. We gave you a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: We kind of go all over the board. But I
Speaker 1: sometimes I just need the therapeutic.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love talking with you, I love
Speaker 2: picking your brain. Good stuff, man.
Speaker 1: The volume