Brian Windhorst! The OG Injury Impact, Jaylen Brown–Giannis Rumors, Cavs Future, Lottery Lookahead & More

Hey, we're still a listeners. You can find every episode on Apple podcast and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon music. What's up guys? It's PFT here. Grit week is here. We're back on the road and you already know that we're bringing twisted tea along for the ride is the official drink of grit week. The new twisted tea summer party pack is 5% alcohol. It's realized tea, no carbonation. It's perfect for long days, longer nights and whatever happens after practice interviews. Plus, you've got multiple flavors in the pack, including a hard lemonade that's made with real lemons and the can turns blue when it's ice cold. So you can always tell when it's ready. Grit week, twisted tea, tea time. Let's ride. Twisted tea brewing company. Since that of Ohio, please drink responsibly. The rider's solo show was presented by draft games. Brian Wynhorst joins the show again. We're going to go through the playoff series with him. I'll start the show by going through the game twos last night, but with Wynhorst, we'll do a lot on the next with this OG injury. We'll also talk a little bit about the calves. If they were to be bounced early, what would that mean for their off season? We also have some off season fun with Kawai stuff with this Janice Jalen hypothetical. Also taking a look at the lottery. So there's a lot, lots going on there. We've also got a bit of a update on the Luca update, if that makes any sense and life advice. The NBA playoffs are here and draft King sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NBA brings excitement to every game day. The whole post season, when the lights get the brightest, the best players in the world show you exactly who they are. 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I wondered if Nick Nurse would go with Adam Bono, a Dem Bono, excuse me, Adam is the lesser known Bono. Um, if you would prefer Bono over drumming, just because you'd be able to chase some of the stuff around from the ball hander is a little bit more than drumming because drumming can probably be a little imbed ish in his lack of being able to like show and then recover and all that kind of stuff. And ultimately he went with Bono for 16 minutes, 15 minutes for drumming and he wanted more Dominic Barlow who I do kind of like. I like his versatility defensively. I don't think he's a nothing on offense and they ended up closing with Barlow, which is something that the Knicks were looking to attack anyway. We'll get to some of those Brunson things in the fourth quarter coming up here a little bit and B'd at this stage, you know, offensively, I think he is somebody that screws you up on defense because you saw like real old school hard double teams against M B'd in the Boston series. So it's not even just the scoring that you're going to get from him. It adds this element to okay, this is this different thing that we have to defend and we're going to have to come up with like, do we want to double all the time? Do we want to double on the catch? Do you want to double on his first movement? How are we going to play all this kind of stuff? And I think it also with all those possessions because you got to get him his touches because he is so talented offensively. It felt like at least in game one, there was a lot of floating from the other guys of like where, you know, for starting every possession here, like where am I, where am I getting my stuff? And I didn't mean it like is kind of like a selfish basketball thing or anything like that. It's just very clear. It's going to be entirely different the way you're running your offense with or without him. So that means entering the Tyrese Maxi game because he was spectacular in the second quarter, 15 points from him in that second quarter. I looked at the 14 shot attempts this morning in the first half because Mike Brown talked about how they needed to change up the defensive coverage and how they wanted to play Maxi, which is something they did in the fourth quarter. But in the first half of the 14 shot attempts, I think 10 were single coverage. He's either beating his man or he's beating whoever is in the screen on the switch. And especially when you're asking the guy who's trying to fight over like which side or how it's going to go, like it's just always going to be an advantage for Maxi. He has a one on four layup where he just goes through everybody and scores. It's absolutely ridiculous. But the reason I bring up that coverage with him on those shots, and again, shot attempts don't always tell you the entire story on how a player is being defended. But Mike Brown was like, look, we couldn't continue to do that. We're going to have to change it up. And we have to show him something different all the time, which is not what Boston did in game two. Part of the story, not the entire story, but Philly in that first half, 47% from three, second half, 29% from three. The Nix didn't exactly like light it up all night long. It did feel a bit like, man, the Nix are still in this, even if it feels like Philadelphia has been the superior team. So I want to focus in the close of this game here. It's 96 a piece. Ubrey hits a wide open three. That's at 652 remaining in the game. The next point that the Sixers score is at 133 on a one of two free throws. They get off an offensive rebound. That's how long they go without scoring a point. So let's look at the Sixers possessions here. Maxi is facing McBride. McBride is really good defensively. And you wonder at times, like, because it's happened, because Bridges was struggling so much offensively, has not been the case. He's just too talented an offensive player to have like multiple single-digit games. And you also think of him defensively, like, hey, maybe if he's not making his shots, it's still a lot tougher switching into a guy with that kind of length in the perimeter than it is, you know, somebody else, or even being the primary defender on somebody like Maxi. But in this possession alone, because Maxi, you've got to beat him the first time he drives the second time, he pivots, keeps the dribble alive. It's brutal. You like to get a stop on him sometimes in space, you have to hold up like three or four different times against this guy. That's just how spectacularly gifted he is. He makes other athletes look like they're non athletes. That's how just ridiculous he is once he gets any momentum. But Miles holds up beautifully on this possession on the left side. And it leads to Ubrey getting a wide open three, which he misses. The next time down, they double Maxi, leads to a bit of a scramble. VJ ends up with the basketball. There's two possessions here from VJ I don't necessarily love, but overall, I think he's been great, totally comfortable as a rookie, everything you'd hope for, for a guy who did the moments not too big for him. But these two possessions, the second one I'll get to here in a bit, but this one, he kind of ran out to the three point line and missed. Then Maxi brings it down, kind of like, all right, maybe I'll just go quicker here. And he goes one on four. He misses a layup, which still was like not a terrible look on all of this. The offense scatters all over the place. He ends up with an offense, they end up with an offensive rebound. They throw it to him. He misses a wide open three. Next play, Maxi shut off and VJ is on his side and VJ has the ball after Maxi is shut off. And VJ is trying to get the basketball back to Maxi, which is, this is like sometimes the downside to having somebody this clearly, being this clear, your number one option for Maxi, is that VJ is kind of wasting time in the possession and his number one priority is trying to get the ball back to Maxi. And either Maxi is just too tired of that one possession being like, hey, you just got to go. And at that point, VJ is like, all right, I guess all this time that I've spent trying to get the ball back to Maxi, he said he's just playing basketball. And now I'm realizing like he's just not going to get back into this play four seconds left. Then VJ is left, we're trying to make something out of it. And that ends up being a three point miss. Then they double Maxi again, he splits it as well as you're ever going to see a guy with a basketball split a double team. It is lightning fast, ridiculous. However, he turns it over. So they've run into this rut now with Maxi getting double teamed and closed off. And they're also missing some shots that out of the time out, they run a play where it's super easy to criticize the Sixers and go, why are you running a play where it's Dominic Barlow throwing it to Kelly Ubrey on a cut, which led to a turnover where it means P, well, I shouldn't say PJ, Paul George, VJ, the initials get tough at times. Maxi are all three of those guys are not touching the basketball in this monumental possession to close out game two, but it was a good look. Like it worked. They ignored Ubrey on the baseline cut. You could argue Barlow should, but you know, you can't just tell the rest of the guys that aren't as good, you're never going to touch the ball. So it was something entirely different. The Knicks never would have been prepared for. I thought about it in the moment. It's like, would you want those two guys being in charge of the basketball and this big of a possession, but the play kind of work and ended up just being a turnover. Then Maxi comes down, he gets a switch on to cat, everyone defending it still wants to stay with Maxi and he misses the layup. And that's where this, the offensive rebound and the points. So that is a nine-oh run for New York on the other side with what they were doing, but five minutes and 21 seconds for the Sixers without a point. Brunson on the other side, Barlow had to be like, wait, you guys are just going to just do this every single possession. It worked. They scored the nine points, but I'll even admit they're just going to switch into Barlow every single time with Brunson and everyone's just going to wait around. Well, Nirsten wait around because it was Barlow jumper, Barlow step back, miss Barlow and I'm talking about Brunson turnaround. He makes it, then they double them. That's where Bridges hits a huge shot. They double Brunson again. That leads to the turnover. They double Brunson again. Then there's another one of the in balance where it ends up with Barlow on Brunson. So they got Barlow on Brunson on all of this stuff there towards the end. And if you're sitting there looking at a nine-oh run going, well, how are you saying that didn't work? If it didn't work, that'd be the first thing you would hear today is that they did the same thing over and over again, even though Nirsten changed up the defense, but it did work. And the two makes from Brunson were spectacular, totally comfortable. They played it pretty straight up and they had to stop playing it straight up after two of those first three shots went in against that defense. So nicks up two. Well, I don't think that comeback is coming for the Sixers. San Antonio. This game was scoreless about 90 seconds, just under 90 seconds into it. And then when the, the follow-up a Champani three missed with an offensive rebound in dunk that felt like quite the statement. Yes, I'm overreacting and likely playing the results because the Spurs blew them out, but it was the kind of thing. We're a building with this young team losing game one, probably on edge a little bit. Like, how are the guys going to look? Like, is there any way this team goes down to two? Although, I just think it's so strange when the favorite team loses game one, whereas if they, one game, if these two games were inverted, right? Where it was the Spurs blew out the Timberwolves in game one and be like, Oh, that's what's supposed to happen. And it's like, Hey, look at the, those, those spicy Timberwolves getting game two and evening this series. It just, it would feel different even though the series would be the same, right? So that's a huge statement from him. This is more of what San Antonio is supposed to look like. They were 59, 35, the half points to the paint for San Antonio, uh, or excuse me, for Minnesota went from 52 in game one to 36 in game two. And they shot at 38% from three in game one, Minnesota did, and they were 13% from three in the first half. I want to just talk about the second quarter, when B stuff before he was subbed out, because that's kind of where this game was one. So when be a deep catch against Randall, keeping champ, Penny in the corner, which keeps the defender in the corner. So that's something you always have to look for is if you're running two guys on the side, that person in the corner still has to be a threat. And they still may leave champ, Penny on some of these and say, Hey, let's just throw something at women, Yama here and leave your guide. If the guy hits the shot, the guy hits the shot. Um, the stuff I loved about this stretch was watching what women Yama was doing on defense because he was kind of assigned to everybody and no one in particular at the same time. And I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but there were possessions where Conley was his primary objective, which meant he just wasn't going to worry about it. Um, there's another time he's against Jade McDaniels. And then he also ends up with Clark, right? And he anytime Clark was in, he would just go like, all right, well, I'm supposed to be defending you, but I'm never going to you. I'm just going to keep it basically anybody with the basketball who was driving, they had to worry about beating their defender. And then they had to worry about beating women Yama. And the reason I'm, I'm kind of making a big deal about this is that when you watch it, the communication and discipline it takes to kind of pull something like this off. And also the fact that physically he is not out of position, even when he looks like he's out of position the way other guys are, like, hey, if I'm going over to the corner here to worry about this three point shooter, do I actually have enough time to get back into the play in the paint if somebody's driving? And most guys, well, no one can do what he does because he can just take a step like to the right side of the paint and the drive being the left, and it's one step over and he's going to contest that shot. There was a play where Clark, who he had ignored, ended up with an offensive rebound and then staring at women Yama, you can tell he misses it simply by women Yama just being there. There's another play where Aunt has a drive and women Yama is just like, I don't even, he might not even know where his guy is. Like he's looking, he's making sure behind him on the baseline that he has a reasonable sense of where the guy he's assigned to is. But as soon as anything is happening away from him, he's basically without Rudy being in during this time, he was able to float and ignore whoever it was. And whether that was Conley, McDaniels, who he wasn't super worried about, but that wasn't happening as much. And then Clark on a bunch of those possessions before he subbed out. The funniest stretch of this game is probably where Wemby ends up with a three, a block, and Rudy's back in and he tries to dream shake Rudy and he misses it. And you could call it a heat check. I'd like to call it something else, like an equity check, because I think some guys are just like, Hey, I made two in a row and I'm just going to take the heat check, which is stupid, because more often than not, it's like a terrible shot. But there are certain people that have equity to take that shot and others that don't. I think the people that don't, it should be called a heat check. And for Wemby to have done what he had done, defensively, the block, the three before it, and he's like, I just want to go at Rudy right here and just shakes into this turnaround. And he misses the whole thing. I love the shot attempt because you're seeing this multiple times down the playoffs where when he either is getting mad or he's like, now it's time to take over. Like this is what we want from these stars all the time. We want them to push up the aggressiveness a lot, whether it's just with physical stuff or taking some more shots. He always seems to be ready to do that kind of stuff. And then defensively, look, they're trapping aunt like crazy in that second quarter, which is telling you, as soon as you cross half-court, and they got them a couple times in some really good traps, we're just not going to respect one guy here offensively. That appears to be the game plan moving forward here. And when Wemby checked out, it was 43-28, and it really felt like that's where the game was decided. We'll have more on these series and the rest of the playoffs with Brian Winhorse. It's never too late to improve your credit. With experience boost, you can raise your credit scores instantly for free. Get credit for the bills you're already paying. Add your positive rent, utility, and even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. Look, I was there. We've talked about it in the past, down in the dumps, and then you're almost like, well, what does it matter? It's never going to get any better. That's loser talk right there, man. And I know it because I used to do it to myself. And then you start asking like, Hey, do you want to get an apartment together? And then the guys like, yeah, you get to send in all this information. And then you're so embarrassed. You're like, I guess we're not going to be best friends out on the town because I'm going to have to live at home until I can get into the high 600s. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible or considered by lenders. See experience.com for details. Thrilled to have Brian Winhorse again from ESPN and his podcast, My Go To, When I Need the Inside Scoop, the Hoop Collective. Let's talk about these series a little bit. Last night, Nick's take the 2-0 lead and we get the news about Embiid being out, which is unfortunate because I think offensively it's gotten better and better. Obviously, game one, we're getting some criticisms here, but it just changes what you have to do if you're the other team's defense. Then him not being out there kind of opens up the maxi part of it. But what do you think about this version of Embiid for the Sixers' chances against the next to get back in this? Yeah, here's what I think. I think that probably in the 1960s, we weren't around and there's not much footage. But my guess is that occasionally Bill Russell got taken advantage of or Will Chamberlain got taken advantage of on defense because they were slower than a guard. Throughout the course of basketball history, you get a guard like Jalen Brunson and you put them up against a big man in drop coverage or whatever and they'll show them up. But there's a reason why tall centers have been pretty valuable in basketball because the trade-off at the other end historically has been pretty good. While it no doubt may help the 76ers a little bit defensively or maybe even significantly defensively when they don't have to worry about Embiid and dealing with the drop coverage or the switch or whatever they're going to do, they were dying not having Embiid offensively in the fourth quarter last night. And I don't know how the series is going to go. We've got injuries that are playing a big role in it. You know, Ananobi, like I kind of feel like as we're doing this, we don't know what Ananobi status is. I feel like no matter what, and I have no insight on this, I want to be clear this is not a report. I feel like no matter what the MRI shows, they're going to call him questionable. Whether he's going to miss days and days or whether he could actually play, they're going to call him questionable. But I wonder if in three or four days or five days, people are going to be like, if the sixers are going to be like, man, if we only could have gotten that game too, because that was there for them. And if they had had Embiid, I think they might have gotten it because in the fourth quarter, Maxi, Paul, George, and VJ Edgecom were gassed. And look, they got open looks from three. And you know, the other day against Boston, they made those looks. They didn't make them this time. But they had no offense in the fourth quarter. And if they had had Embiid in the fourth quarter of that game, I think they throw it down to him and he gets baskets or fouls and they probably win. And so it's a tight rope to walk. But I think, you know, I think they're three and two when they have Embiid this year and they're in the playoffs and they're one and three without him. And that's not a mistake. And so while the loss potential short term or medium term loss of Annobe is a factor for the Knicks that they got game two could be the kind of cushion that they need to get through it. OG is like, I've never felt better about him. Like I've never appreciated him more as a player. I think going back to the trade with Toronto, I saw a lot of stuff like, hey, how did this happen? Well, OG was like, oh, he's kind of hurt. And I don't know that OG was... They didn't want to pay him the max. They didn't want to pay him or Siakam the max. That was the bottom line. There you go. We can keep it moving. Yeah. But by the way, they both got the max. Yeah. And you know, Siakam's been an all star and OG hasn't been an all star, but like, he's felt like a max player in the playoffs so far. He's incredible. I still think there's like the thing that maybe I didn't like about in the past is like, there's a little limitation there on him offensively, but now it's like with cats passing. Like if you're going to play cat and I thought Lex did a really good job and like talking about how hard they were getting out on cat. And it's like, I realized, because I'll always when I'm watching games and I'll see how they're playing like a big that's on the perimeter, I'll go, why do you have to like get glued to him? And I think part of it is, hey, we want to disrupt that he doesn't have a clean passing lane, right? Because you're also like inviting yourself into trouble if that big can put the ball on the floor like cat can. And it's like, you might want to like play off of them and try to cut off the angle a little bit, then there's a shooting. There's a bunch of different things we could talk about with this. But OG's life is so much easier when it's like, we have to worry about the Brunson part of it. We have to worry about cat and how we're defending this. And even having said that, like, I don't look at OG just feasting off of, I'm not thinking of like any Golden State warrior during the prime Curry run of like, your life is so easy because to always go with that guy, I think it's more than just him having all these beautiful looks and these open cuts. He's made all these shots. He's bigger than almost every perimeter guy when you really think about it. And he's a big part of why it's like, if I could be underwhelmed collectively by the East through the first round plus here, it's like, yeah, but if they have OG playing like this, like this has to be the next East. Yeah, you're, you're better at looking at understanding and relating X's and O's than I am. It's not a skill that I have. You're educating me even a little bit. What I am looking at with OG is he kind of the way he's playing right now kind of reminds me of the way Kawai played when he was at his peak. You know, the thing about Kawai is his ability to hit that mid-range jumper and his ability to guard all really all five if he needed to, but certainly one through four. And now OG doesn't have the same total offensive package, but have you seen what OG's been shooting in these playoffs? It's absurd. You're right. Cause like, I still think Kawai's getting into his handle if he's stuck and have like reset himself. There's, there's a gap there, but I mean, this shooting isn't even sustainable. That's how impressive it is. Exactly. And so, I mean, really the Knicks have been on a total heater and it's not just been OG. Bridges is hitting everything in sight. You know, Brunson's obviously been really good, but Bridges is hitting everything in sight. Towns' numbers are wild. Like Towns' efficiency numbers. Like he is having an incredible statistical postseason so far and Bridges is hitting shots. And you know, it's funny on ESPN today, we keep running over and over the OG injury the way he pulls up that nobody pays attention at the end of the possession, which was Bridges hitting a terrifically important pull-up jumper. So if Bridges keeps making anything reasonable, cause you know, his jumper has not been reliable, and Kat can stay efficient. By the way, efficiency also means being able to stay on the court and not fouling. And you know, I completely understand that Kat has had a fouling problem his whole career. It's not like this is, I understand, but like I have a great affinity for Carl. I like him on a personal level. And he's a smart guy. And it's like, I have an air message that comes across my brain when I see him slapping at the ball and hedging 35 feet from the basket. I'm like, Carl, what are you, if you're going to get your fouls, get your fouls, defending the rim, don't get your fouls hedging 35 feet. You're going to get beat anyway. Like, why are you trying to get a steal on Joellen B in the first quarter? Why are you trying to pocket pick? I digress. But your frustration is you're not even a Knicks fan. And it's driving you crazy. So I think it's a good representation of all of us. I'll just never forget, Jerron Jackson Jr. has the same thing. Jerron Jackson Jr. is an elite defensive player. He's defensive player of the year, obviously. And again, I know Jerron Jackson a little bit. I find him to be very cerebral. I enjoy talking to him, like, good player. And I see him commit some of these fouls. And I'm like, Jerron, I don't understand why, why Jerron, why? And obviously, 100 coaches have said the same thing to Kat and Jerron, but especially within bead out, and he may even play on Friday, whatever. But the Kat's advantage is so important. And so if OG is going to be out, and by the way, like, Josh Hart hurt his thumb. And I think it was Richard Jefferson in the broadcast is like, oh, you know, like, I think he's going to play. But like, Hart may now be the thumb guy, like, you might see Hart with a wrapped up thumb for the next couple of weeks. And you're just like, well, that thumb's like, not that Hart's a spectacular offensive player anyway, but like, Hart's going to have a thumb. So they just need, they need bridges and Kat, they're going to need some more out of them. And if OG, maybe OG plays, but let's just say OG misses some period of time for the Knicks to get two more wins in this series, which I think will be a struggle because I just, it's not about the Knicks, it's about the nature of the playoffs. And I think Philly's got some things going for it. They are going to need bridges and Kat to continue their level of production or to the state level, because they are going to feel the loss of OG. That is going, again, with the assumption that he's going to miss either five minutes or five games. That's just reality. But to your point, the Knicks could run the simulation of these playoffs 10 times over and not have gotten this lined up the way they wanted to get it. And I know that, you know, Detroit has been a thorn for them, but the way the Knicks are playing right now and the way it's lining up and the way Detroit's playing, like, they could, they could not get a better opportunity to get these 12 vital wins to get to the finals. Who did you pick in Detroit, Cleveland? I don't pick series. And because I think it's okay to say that in certain situations, like, obviously, if I said no to every question, I wouldn't have this job for very long. But I, I think it's like, if somebody says, who's going to win Detroit and Cleveland, and you say, I don't know, I don't think that's a should be seen as an ignorant answer. You can argue it's a non-committal answer. I'll cop to that. I don't know. I didn't know because I felt there were too many un, you know, there are too many variables. And I'll tell you one thing, Cleveland hasn't played well for like 12 days. They, their first two games, I made a little bit of a fool of myself. I went on to Cleveland radio, which I go on every week. And I, you know, got a little bit like over my skis on how good I thought the combo of Donovan Mitchell and James Harden looked in a playoff setting. I was like, man, like the way that they can play isolation basketball is perfect for the playoffs. And I, and I see the vision, Kobe Altman, I see what you're talking about. And I was like, you know, I was like, boy, Detroit doesn't look that good. And, you know, it's, you know, maybe, you know, maybe they could get home court against Orlando in the second round of the bowl. And I have been brought extraordinarily back to earth because in the last six games, the Cavs have won just two of them. And the two that they won, they had to scramble for second half comebacks and Harden and Mitchell are both playing substandard. Now there's other things going on. They've had, you know, you know, various injuries to manage and, you know, other, other factors, but the baseline is that the two best Cavs players are not playing great right now. I think they're shooting combined, they're shooting 40% and they're, and they've got 51 turnovers in these six games. I mean, there's just, there's just no way to live. I mean, Harden is getting the ball taken from him. I mean, Cade Cunningham took the ball from him. Like it was me taking it from my eight year old, like two or three times in that game. And we're talking about a, you know, a game that comes down to the final five minutes and how many points did Harden give away just having the ball taken from him. So, you know, if they were the Harden and Mitchell that I saw in games one and two, like of the last series, like, you know, you got me, but they're, they're both in slumps right now. Yeah, I'd like their talent better. I think there's even more that we could spend on the bigs of like, so is Dern going to dominate both of you guys, but Allen had the foul trouble in game two. So he wasn't, you know, it was, it was basically, excuse me, in game one, the foul trouble in game one where he didn't play the last 18 minutes of the first half. So that's something I was looking at being like, are they going to keep both of those big guys in there, but then they didn't really get a chance to do it. And then they kind of closed the staggerm because they prefer to stagger those two guys. But I think there's like a bigger picture thing here, which I don't know how much you'd want to get into any of the off-season stuff. We all assume that with Harden waving the no trade clause, even though he got a kicker that made him some money on this whole thing, that maybe there was an understanding where Harden is actually, I would argue, has lucked out based on the market of like, how many other teams are out there that want to pay you $30 plus million. But if this goes south for them and knowing they're the most expensive roster in the team, how aggressive do you think they would be in trying to make sure this team looks different? If they can't get through the series? Listen, man, it's a really good question. So the calves and Harden side have stayed away from even the hint that there's an understanding because that would be a violation of rules. But it's common sense. James Harden lives in Los Angeles, is from Los Angeles, and had a no trade clause and left Los Angeles to go to Cleveland in the middle of the season without certainty over his situation. Now, the calves have a team option. They could just pick it up and have him play on the one-year deal. They should have tried that though. Correct. That's not what he wants. He wants the shirt and money. So also, I will tell you that from before he even got there, because obviously he had to have conversations with the calves before he got there, to wave his no trade clause. The Clippers allowed it. Kenny Atkinson has prioritized their relationship. And they are, and this is not like, I mean, I will tell you that when you look, when you watch inside the huddle, sometimes at ESPN, we can get camera views inside the huddle that may not be always available publicly. We don't have sound, but we have views. You can see Kenny Atkinson go over plays and show them to James, and they have a back and forth. Like, what do you think of this? He's like, they sort of collaborate. And also Kenny and James have talked about how that's a very collaborative relationship. The point is from day negative one, day minus one, Kenny Atkinson has been 100% invested in having James Harden invested. They are fully invested in that relationship. So you are correct. Like, Team X could come to Harden and say, hey, we want to make you this multi-year offer. But I think that partnership, the intention is that partnership is going to continue likely on a multi-year deal. The calves pathway below the second apron is really one of two ways. One, they could trade one of their high earning players, most likely Jared Allen, just in like a salary dump for assets, which there is a desire for centers, including with teams that have cap space, that could happen. I would be very careful doing that, but like that's a pathway for them. The other pathway is to get Harden to take enough of a pay cut that they get out of the second apron. And then the way the harden would dig that would accept that pay cut is by adding money in years. So I can see why the calves in February were like, look, we're going to trade for a guy who could help us win, you know, this year. And that getting him and getting this contract is going to improve our books situation. Like, it's kind of a, it makes a lot of sense why they did that. But there, I think, I think the two sides are invested with each other. And then you've got the whole other thing, which is you want to get Don Vimitto into a contact extension, which is a whole nother challenge. But you know, the concept is you have Harden because you think it raises the ceiling. The thing about the Harden trade is that it changed their timeline. The calves were building around Evan Mowley's timeline. They had like, we've got this 23 year old, you know, we're investing in his, in his window. When they traded away Darius Garland, he was like 26 for James Harden, who's 36 or 37, whatever he is. They basically like, we're focused on Don Vimitto's timeline, which is by the way, I'm not, I think that's, I think that's smart. But that amped up the pressure on this year. And so one of the things that you hear when you talk to people around Cleveland is this is still a new team. You know, they traded for three players, three rotation players, because they also traded for Dennis Schroeder, who's on a multi-year deal, and Keon Ellis, who's a free agent who, when they traded for him, I assume they intend to resign him. Or play him, but they finally played him again in Game 1. Well, I'm talking about when they traded for him, but you're right. They did stop playing. The, the, the narrative I've heard out of Cleveland is this is still a new team. And, you know, of course we're going to have growing pains. And of course it's going to take a while to figure it out. And this may not be the optimized version. But while I can agree with that and ratify that and, and go along with it, you've also got 37 year old James Harden. You're not, you know, yeah, Donovan has the window, Mowgli has the window, but Harden's window is smaller. So it, and you're looking at an Eastern conference that Indiana ain't around, Boston ain't around, like, you know, the, the mountain isn't as high as it's been another year. So it, it amps up the pressure to get something done with this opportunity. They likely declined the $42 million player option, re-signed three years, 90, you know, I don't know if James has looked at it like he still has to make up all the money that he's lost out on, you know, with the brush. He can't make up all that now, you know, cause he would have already been done with those contracts and then making the new money, but it felt a bit like the Clippers deal was like, Oh, so he's just going to get this deal. Who are you bidding against? But this is one of those deals where it feels like this is kind of the way it works. Even a 37 years old, even if they were bouncing the second round, granted, they're only down one game. You know, I think unfortunately there's, for Harden, who is, I'll say this about him, he's incredibly well liked with most of the teams that even when it's gone south, I think people like him a lot, you know, just over the years. So him, I like Kenny. Yeah. I don't know. I would just say the basketball, the stuff that I saw, you know, the stuff that I see from him in the playoffs, it's just, it's just impossible to ignore how uncomfortable he seems to be that he's not ramping up. You mentioned he had one play, there was a turnover. He almost lost the dribble, just dribbling by himself in transition. It doesn't make any sense. I had somebody who I know who I won't name them, but they were like, it's a middle school turnover. It's a middle school turnover. By the way, you know who loves James Harden? And so last year, I have a long list of people that love James Harden. Jeff Van Gundy loves James Harden. And last year, I started, I got a lot of Clipper games because I'm out here in LA a lot. And I started noticing Harden and Van Gundy, like Bondy last year, Van Gundy came last season to be an assistant after he got let go by ESPN. And talking to people around the team and seeing the two of them and talking to James, like they love each other. And I like had the idea of this story writing about basketball's odd couple, you know, James Harden and Jeff Van Gundy. Their background, believe it or not, is through like rice, like rice basketball or something. Like when Harden was playing in Houston, Van Gundy was like, you know, he had like a friend of his who was on the rice coaching staff and like Harden University in Texas, Rice School in Texas. Yeah. Okay. In Houston. Somehow they ended up going to these rice games together, like not together, but they would like see each other at these games because Harden had a connection. I don't know if it was a family member was was playing or some connection. And, you know, Van Gundy would go and they like would see each other and like talk basketball and rice games. I think I got this right. I didn't do the story. And so I asked Van Gundy, I go, Hey, I'd love to do a story on you and James, like being basketballs. I know you know how editors are, you know, you say, Hey, I got a story. It's called basketball's odd couple already in. Yeah. And Van Gundy was like, Listen, man, I ain't doing that story. Like I am out of respect to James. I would never, you know, I'm not doing that. So I didn't do the story. But Van Gundy, who I respect a lot, like loves Harden. And they had a great, you know, working relationship when he was with the Clippers. So, and by the way, I think Kenny Atkinson loves hard. And in game one, Harden was playing so bad that I would say probably 80 or 90% of point guards probably at every level get pulled in that game. But Kenny stuck with him. And he actually, they put together an 11-0 run that Harden kind of, it was sort of ugly. He was sort of throwing up shots or bouncing all around the rim and doing his dark arts to get free throws. But he led an 11-0 run and it's a tie game with five minutes to go. He had 13 to the fourth. I mean, he was terrific. It's just, you know, look, it was not terrific, but he, but he, but he got it done. So yeah, I mean, anyway, he'll get three years, 96, the lockdown and nobody's that was like, 96. Yeah. Yeah. Three years, 96. There you go. It's never too late to improve your credit with experience boost. You can raise your credit scores instantly for free. Get credit for the bills you're already paying. Add your positive rent, utility, and even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. I'm telling you, back in the day, they used to have these things that told you that they would help and they'd sell you all the whole idea. You'd pay them something every single month and you're like, nothing's getting any better. Well, guess what? Experience stepped in and fixed this mess. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible or considered by lenders. See experience.com for details. You caused a bit of a shit storm with this Luca thing. Yeah. I think my point was that the injury was bad and the Lakers knew that the injury was bad. And because the Lakers knew the injury was bad, he was going to miss a lot of time that they said, Luca, go do your treatment back home. I don't think it should have been controversial, but this happens to be all the time. I say things that I don't think are controversial. My point is there was a bad injury. And I knew it was a bad injury because they said, Luca, you're not going to play for weeks anyway. Go ahead and go home. And his point was like, well, I got PRP in Spain because they have great PRP in Spain. Fine. The point is if you were day to day, you'd have been with the team. They knew this injury was so significant that they were like, hey, listen. And also, he has a newborn in Slovenia that he had barely seen and his other child, which is a public thing. And so I actually thought it was very player friendly of the Lakers to say, go ahead, go over there. My point was that it was a bad injury. And then Luca basically said that. He said, the doctors told me eight weeks. And I thought the Lakers were... I don't know why it was construed in the... Did it turn into like, it was, hey, you could also do it in Germany. Then it made it seem like people thought that you were vaguely speculating that there was something nefarious going on. Is that how this ended up becoming a thing? My point is he didn't go over there to get some revolutionary treatment. He went over there because he was really injured. That was my point. Because every place I go here in LA, people are like, one's Luca coming back, one's Luca coming back. And it's like, he's got a really bad injury. And it's like, I'm actually glad he's... He might be ahead of schedule. Like he said, eight weeks, maybe he's ahead of schedule. He said he's running after, he's in week five of recovery, he's running. That's good. But every show I'm going on, like, when is Luca coming back? Is it the next 12 seconds or is it going to be 15 seconds? When is the Luca salvation coming? And my point is, I think it's a bad injury. And I think it's a bad injury because they let him go home. And like, my point is they don't have a history in Spain of healing hamstrings. But there's not like some institute in Spain that brings players back from hamstrings within seven hours or six days or whatever. That was just my point. But I understand whenever you say anything about the Lakers that everybody freaks out. I was trying to explain why Luca is not back. Like, I was trying to like almost give him like some space to explain that his injury was bad. It was misconstrued. But that kind of stuff happens in media. So it is what it is. I don't want to talk about the OKC series because I don't really see how the Lakers have a chance. I mean, we could if we had more time, but I don't want to spend my time on that. OKC, I was looking at like Denver's future and what picks they have. And then it's like, oh, this so the 27 goes to OKC is top five protected because of the Peyton Watson deal, which is the 30th pick in 22. And then there was the odd, I remember all of us like in 23 being like there was a trade made during the NBA finals. And that was a trade there for Denver. I remember being like spun by it. Yeah, all of us were kind of like, there's a transaction. But then you realize that's a 29 top five protected. There's salary dumps. And of course, because of the Kauai deal, which I would argue all Kauai had to do to the Clippers and say, hey, I'm coming. And then they would have had better leverage in the Paul George deal. I know it's seven years on. It's amazing that it's still such an enriching topic because of the way it all went down. Yeah. And the update of the last year of being like, this is the single worst partner as far as a player goes of like, could you just tell us what you're doing from time to time? Well, the irony of that is that he's never played better for them. He just had a brilliant season. He did. Last year, he was very good after he came back. People can talk about him like on the market and all that kind of stuff and what the next deal is. I would just be like, I'm good. Hey, great season, man. I can't fucking do this again. Who knows? Who knows whether or not. You're responsible to extend his contract. But I'd like to, as far as the aspects around, as far as what happens off the court, that's a different discussion. But as far as the player on the court- Yeah, off the court may impact this as much as anything else. But go ahead. As far as the player on the court, I would take him in a tenth of a second. So if you were another GM, now, granted, this is, like say he's just available, you would do like a three for 120 for this guy? No. Oh, God, no. No, I'm not extending at all. But I would take him on my team next year on a one year deal. Got it. Okay. All right. That's different. Do you think, because this happens every year, the lottery, for the teams that, for their fans that are in the lottery, like their individual fans bases are like totally invested, the general NBA fan, I don't think understands, unless you think I'm wrong. There's a couple of quirks and the Clippers are heavily involved in it. There's a couple of quirks in this lottery that are wild. Obviously, it's a high stakes lottery, which is Sunday afternoon, by the way. It's Sunday at three o'clock Eastern. This is going to sneak up on people because the lottery is not used decades ago, it was on the weekend, but it's not usually on the afternoon on a Sunday. But everything is different in the, you know, things are different in the broadcast space. So it's different. But like, I think it's going to sneak up on people and they're not even, it's like going to already have happened. Again, not if you're a jazz fan. If you're a jazz fan, you've had a countdown. They rip it off pages. Three days, one hour, 21 minutes. Right. There's two aspects of this lottery that I think are particularly important. And one of them involves the Clippers and one of them, tangentially involves Kawhi. Number one, because of the dynamics of that Avitsa Zubach trait, okay, the way it all falls, there's a coin flip between the Pacers, not an actual coin flip. It's 52% versus 48%. Between the Pacers and Clippers about who's going to get the pick. So the pick that they, one of the picks that they traded to get Zubach, the Pacers trade, is top four protected this year. It's actually five through nine, but that's not relevant, because it's not going to be 10. So the Clippers have a 52% chance of getting a top four pick. 52% chance of getting an impact player to add to Siakam and Halliburton and Nie Smith and Nemhart and Zubach. That's pretty significant. Okay. Like the team was in Game Seven of the finals last year, we will have Zubach and potentially we'll add a big piece. If the other 48% happens, which is not nothing, and I'll point out last year, two of the teams in the top four slid to picks five and six, the Clippers will get either pick five or six. And the Clippers will be able to draft a player that will potentially be a cornerstone of their retooling or rebuild, whatever they want to call it. And maybe it affects how they look at Kawhi going into last year of his contract next year. And it's either going to be five or six. And then, by the way, if it doesn't convey, Brian, it becomes a 2031 first. Like the, it's not like it rolls over to next year. No, no, no. You either get five or six or a pick that nobody knows anything about in five years. And so like the Clippers, think about the Clippers. Here's the two ends of the spectrum. The Clippers could walk out of Sunday afternoon having a fifth pick, okay? Or they could walk out with having no pick in this draft and even the Thunder with a 7% chance of hopping up with their pick into the top four, which granted is low chance, but you know, it's on the board. Okay. So that's, that's one thing that whole, I call it the Pacer Clipper paradox. The second thing, and I knew about this, but I didn't really understand it until I looked at the percentages. So the top three teams have, you know, 40, you know, 50% chance of getting that top four pick. The next layer of teams, which is Sacramento and Utah have 45% chance of getting the pick. So really those top 16. Of top four, right. So it's 52, 45, 37, right. Right. The Atlanta Hawks, this is like, this is, I mean, I knew this, but like to see it, the Atlanta Hawks have a 40% chance of getting a top four pick, 40% because the way that trade went down for Dara Queen last year, okay, they get the better of Milwaukee or New Orleans, which means they get all of New Orleans combinations and all of Milwaukee's combinations. So if any of those come up, they get it. So their implied percentage is 40%. Like think of what the Utah Jazz fan base went through this year, watching them tank. Okay. They've got only marginally higher percentage chance than the Hawks too. And again, if the Hawks get a top four pick, you're adding that to a team that is pretty good. Yeah, it's like 45% versus like 42, 43% with everything that Atlanta has on both sides of that. But you look at, okay, see 1.5% chance to get the number one overall pick. It's 7% for top four. If they were to luck out though, the reaction, and there's some kind of hint to that here a little bit, the people are going to lose their minds. But like whether it's the Denver trades or the Horford trade six years ago, where they take on that salary dump, and it's not like salary dumps are new, like everybody's done this. But what do you think it was about? Look, Presti had incredible leverage on the Paul George stuff and he used it. He also had this absolute buy-in from ownership because he'd already like proof of concept with the first run of over. Now, God, I can't believe that finals is 14 years ago. It's not like he tanked for a really long time and then they turn this great team. But he was able to kind of go like, I can do all of these other things that are obviously available to other general managers, but the ability of Presti to be able to do that many of these things in this short amount of time and then also have the best team in the league. Well, the key is the player that they traded for and Shay became an MVP. So that unlocks everything. They didn't know he'd be that good. I mean, they took the best prospect that the Clippers had. I mean, they may have liked him, but it wasn't like they had three different trades and they had to evaluate three different first-year players and said, all of our analysis leads us to Shay. I mean, a lot of people liked Shay. Jerry West liked Shay. So the whole thing hinges on this guy turning from a mid-lottery prospect into an MVP. And the Thunder obviously played a big role in helping him develop that way. And he's talked about Chris Paul's influence on him and everything. I mean, there's a whole 360 degree story. But I mean, then, and the thing about it is, is that the Thunder haven't really had that much lottery luck. For example, a couple years ago, they, the Houston pick that became Jaylen Green had a 50-50 chance of becoming a Thunder pick. I think it was top four protected. It was sort of the same situation that the Pacers and Clippers are in. Like they could have gotten the number five pick in that draft. They ended up not getting that. Last year? That's why the Sixers pick is this year. Of all the years you're going to get the Sixers pick and then it comes down to those, go keep going. That was like the Quentin Grimes festival there for a month. Right. So like they, they actually have a Utah's pick this year. Utah, I mean, that isn't really come down into luck. That was came down. But like, obviously that pick from Utah could have, you know, if they had played straight up, they had gotten the pick because Utah would have been a borderline play-in team, I believe. So, or a straight play-in team. So yeah, like they haven't gotten luck. And I'm saying that because what if, I would just say like last year, so two years ago when the Hawks won Rishashay, 3%, that was their, that was their chance, 3%. Last year, Dallas, 1.8. Congrats. So, and like, by the way, like it's not that the Thunder just have to win. Like what happens if the Thunder get the number four pick? You want to give Caleb Wilson to the Thunder? You like that? You like that if you're the league? I actually just from a perverse story telling situation, I would, it would be amazing to see the room. And there would be the sound of, of, of bottles opening, but it wouldn't be champagne. It would be whiskey. That would, that would be the reaction if the Thunder hit on this. And I'm just telling you, they haven't had any luck. By the way, they had the situation that happened a couple years ago where they had the clipper pick and it was 12th, just like this one is. They didn't get lucky and they got Jaylen Williams. So they'll, you know, if all they get to do at the end of this is draft 12th, they'll, they'll be, they'll be just fine doing something there too. Yonah's update was incredible for ownership. We'll have them or we won't have them. Thank you for the clarity. Totally agree. At least it was brief. Yes. So that was nice. At least somebody, yes. Well, Wes Evans, like a month ago, gave an interview to Ramona Shelburne from ESPN. He said on the record, you know, if, and this don't, I'm summarizing, he basically said, if you don't extend, if you, if you have a star player and the player doesn't extend his contract, you typically trade them. So he was kind of saying that's what they were going to do. Okay. Here's the question I have for you. Is Jaylen Brown the most enticing potential trade asset coming back of what the market, and there's plenty of stuff that I don't know about the market. And I imagine there's always some things that surprise you, but of like the known, like, hey, that might work. Where would Jaylen Brown be? Well, it'd be fascinating if Jaylen Brown was actually on the market and then the Celtics vetted the market. I don't, and I don't have any feel that that's the case, by the way. I mean, if you're not offering that up on get up this week as, Hey, this is, cause I know that's what it turns into for you. Well, yeah. The reason it became a topic and it wasn't like Jay Williams was the first time anyone had ever said it, but Jay Williams was like, you know, trade Yonis for Jaylen Brown. Like, when Jaylen Brown was like making, you know, whatever he was saying, I think it's relevant, by the way, I think it's relevant that as soon as Brad Stevens commented on it, like had to comment on it, Jaylen like made a beeline back to Twitch to like clarify. He didn't like a podcast interview in like mid June. He didn't wait for like some, you know, some fan that catches him on IG live in a week and a half. He, he, he immediately went back to the camera and said, Oh, by the way, I want to be a Celtic. So take that for what it's worth. I think that's really important that you brought that up because it seemed very different. Like at one point after this, and I understand a guy being an emotional after losing game seven, blowing that three one lead, you know, he's not always my favorite player. I think he's taken way too much ship for, Hey, this is my favorite season. And I was even joking with somebody before the season started. I was like, the only person that's happy about this and bosses Jaylen Brown, because you get to be like, I'm going to show you guys what, and then he backs it up. He has an incredible year. They have a highly successful season based on the expectations. I think you would have to be incredibly mean to maybe not understand that like, despite everything that was said, this team made it to the playoffs and maybe we can give Jaylen a little allowance. And I'm telling you, he's not even my favorite guy that it's like, there's a way to understand him saying this was his favorite season he had ever without thinking and it's like absolute selfishness. I know you're asking for nuance, which is just very hard in the social media age when everything gets chopped up. It's just very hard. So back to the hypotheticals here, which I know you love. Well, if you if you're Milwaukee, so first off, you also know, you know, walkie doesn't control their pick for the next few years. I don't remember if it's three or four. And you also know that there's anti-tanking rules coming in. It's not going to be prudent in the next couple years to tank anyway. So the bucks are highly incentivized not to be bad. So if you're going to trade, that's why the, you know, the Warriors offer four firsts, right? Now, if the Warriors, who's playing, I'm Usman Jang, all of us over here in the Janehive are fired up, but go ahead. Like if the Warriors and they've got some single digit percentage, if the Warriors hop up to number three, that's a, that's a horse of a different color as they say in the Wizard of Oz. But the Warriors are offering four picks, you know, and Dremont Green or whatever they were going to offer. That's not that. I mean, I understand why they, why they turned that down. Like that implies that they're going to rebuild, like, or take it down. So if you're going to, if the rules are the rules and you decide you're going to trade, you know, and it's still an if because I'm not ruling out that Yonis doesn't sign that extension. It's a ton of money. Okay. So I want to be clear that I don't think it's guaranteed that Yonis is gone, but, but with the big but, but holding a lot of water there. But if they do, they're going to have to make a deal that requires player or players that helped them today. Now, and Jaylin Brown is 29 years old, plays both ends of the court and run into contract for three more years. So like, you don't have to be like running an analytics and strategy department at a team to cut, to have the idea that if you have Yonis and want to trade Yonis that you would call about feeling brown. That said, if I'm Brad Stevens, who is a lot smarter and a better team builder than I will ever be, I would keep together the two two-way guys in their twenties who are under contract under control and proven they've won a championship. And I would look at rebuilding the team around them. And I would consider not whether we want to develop a curveball instead of the straight gas fastball three point shot that we have been that we've been rolling with for five years. That to me, I have a $27 million trade exception. They have a couple of tradeable first round picks. They have some flexibility. They have some young players that have some interest. The Celtics have stuff that they can retrofit this team and be very good. This is not a team at the end of the line by any means. So I wouldn't do that. That said, it was also interesting to me that Brad basically said, we weren't good enough. Philly should have won the series and that we as meaning the Celtics were three and 11 against the top teams in the West and East. Like I think what he was saying is this, this is really unfortunate, but like he didn't necessarily see this as a championship team or at least they had improved it yet. Maybe they could have gelled together. And I think that to me more than the Jalen Brown back and forth, Brad saying that is his acknowledgement that we got to go put some pieces on this roster. What do you think it was signed Alice? I think that Patrick Dumont said the after what happened with an untraditional inexperienced general manager, Nico was, I want the most experienced, most proven executive that I can get. And he definitely looked at other people who were in the jobs. He couldn't acquire those people either they weren't interested or he couldn't acquire them. And so he went out and hired the top executive available on the market who had those qualities. And it took him four or five months to get there. But really if you had that basic mandate, if I was the billionaire like him and I said to you, I want a proven general manager who's built multiple teams who has a ring and is a total face of the frant, like if you described what he was looking for, it would chat GPT would spit out in the size of your year. And so it makes sense. The question for them is what are they going to do with Kyrie? Because the last front office, the guys who are still there really like the idea of putting Kyrie with Cooper Flag and I kind of get it. But Kyrie is 34, Cooper Flag is 19, there would be a market for Kyrie. That to me is the question. And that may not be like you may want to see Kyrie and him together. But like to me, that's the big decision. And also who they're going to draft in this potter. They've got two first round picks and they're in the lottery. Let's see what happens with that too. I know you're going to run to SportsCenterMan. I always appreciate the time. Check out Brian Wynne Horst, The Hoop Collective with The Timbs. Thanks, man. Thank you. I'll see you soon. It's never too late to improve your credit. With Experian Boost, you can raise your credit scores instantly for free. Get credit for the bills you're already paying. Add your positive rent, utility, even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. The part about fixing your credit is about preparation for the next thing. Because look, if it's already a mess right now, that means there's just things that are not going to go your way. You want to buy a new home now with that credit score? No. Do you want to try to get a car? Do you want to tell the person that you want to propose to like, hey, by the way, I'm rocking a 580 right now. So have today be the first day of the rest of your credit score life. Start fixing this stuff now when the big stuff starts coming on later in life. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible or considered by lenders. See Experian.com for details. Do you want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every tool you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Today's Life Advice is brought to you by Microsoft 365 Co-Pilot. What if you can add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow, built in a Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook. Co-Pilot works where you work, helping you do more in the apps you already use. In Word, Co-Pilot helps turn scattered notes into a first draft. In Excel, it generates insights from your data. And in Outlook, it cuts through the noise to get you up to speed faster. The apps you know, go further with Co-Pilot. Learn more at m365co-pilot.com slash work. We have a ton of feedback to get to here on a couple different topics. So why don't we read a couple lawyer emails and then and we'll just kind of see how we feel. And look, I'm going to give the emailers a ton of credit here. I don't know what's happened in the last year or so. I don't know if the year is the right qualifier, but usually we just turn into a shit show of like, you know, granted most of the stuff is like people are driven by dislike and negativity. So then that would be the feedback you would get. It's just like it was stall nasty. And for whatever reason, it feels like the audience has become super constructive. Yeah, yeah, like there's some really good stuff in here. On a lot of the stuff that we do, we don't always read it, but I'm really impressed, I should say. And I'm healthy. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I thought we all sucked. So anyway, law school, misery email writing in 25 law school grad. My advice is stick out the next two years. Law schools, three years are summed up. Scared of death, worked to death, bored to death. If you're doing well in your classes now, you continue to do well in your second and third year with your year of legal reading and writing under your belt. It sounds like you've been burned out after the first year, which I felt similarly to you'll have a way better summer at your internship, the practice of law so much better than first year law. You'll also choose your classes in your second and third year, which makes a huge difference in that you'll be learning areas of law that you are interested in. Once you finish your second year and have your post-grad employment lockdown, law school turns into a version of college where you do the minimum amount of work to receive your ideal grade. You just got to tell yourself, you have one more year, once you secure your job, law school turns into a piece of cake. Stick with it. Try to find internships. You can actually experience the practice of law rather than reading cases and learning from professors that have been in academia for decades, while also not practicing as attorneys. If you don't like practicing as an attorney, you will still have a degree that differentiates you from the pack. Another guy went to law school, realized two years in, I wasn't going to be a lawyer, pivoted to finance, things worked out, not that in common. Guys should figure out how law school can be used in another field. If you do that, you'll likely be an advantage in those other fields. That's my point. He said you could also switch to night school. That sounds worse. No. I don't know. If he's broke, I did some weird stuff where I would take those three hour courses. So instead of like, I'd take one three hour course to try to get through it quicker. Yeah, because I was working. Depending on the professor back then too, the guy would be like two and a half hours in. One guy used to give everybody smoke breaks. I can't to pull, he smoked like a fucking chimney. So he had to take them for himself. So it was understood like, Hey, there are smoke breaks and there are many during this. Dudes are just, I think a couple guys started, I was thinking about it. Maybe I should start smoking. But extra credit. You had to really love darts though, because I mean, there'd be some nights there where you just be like, it's negative Kelvin out here. It's when they stink the worst too. When you come back inside. It's true. Yeah. What is that? What's that? I don't know. Chemistry is going on there. I was never a chemist, but I, I, somebody told me that in high school and I was like, you can't convince me otherwise. It does not, a new port in the cold does not get worse. Then, you know, that's, that's the bottom of the barrel when it comes to smell wise and the end smokers. So I don't get it. There's one more that I want to find here. That I can't seem to find. Basically this guy was like, look, if you finish it, it opens up all sorts of doors that I think is basically the point that we were hitting on there yesterday. He was even talking about like loan approvals. Like there's just a higher level of one you have under your wristmate. So anyway, good luck with that. All right. We had a gay man responding to how to not get hit on by gay guys. I was hoping this would happen. Yeah. And it was a, it's a terrific email, 58210. No real Jim Stats player comp in the spirit of the upcoming World Cup, Tyler Adams and an enforcer in the midfield, but we'll pop up with a tiny here and there. That's his county zone, right, right from outside Poughkeepsie. Is he really? Yeah. Wappangers. Team leader. He's the man. Yeah. Great dude. Okay. Shout out New York Red Bull. I was listening to the pod the other day. Caught the discussion about the dude who kept getting unwanted attention from other dudes as a gay man myself. I felt compelled to weigh in on the topic. First of all, due to 642 40 in shape and presumably good looking, I had to say it, we're just going to get attention. That was kind of my point. Could have been. Second, Surya is right. If you're going out of your way to look good and show off a little bit, tighter clothes, shorter in seems opening an extra button on a shirt, etc. Because this is dangerously leading, leaning into like, well, that dress on, you know, I was a little nervous saying that. I'm like, man, I'm going to get shippers, but like, it's right. Like, yeah, I don't know. Like sometimes there's a fine line. Like the, remember back in the day, it was like the metrosexual look, right? It's like, if you care too much, are you gay? And then it's like, why can't I just look good? Like it's okay. People could. Yeah. Annie listens to Drake. Come on. Oh, come on. Yeah. No, there was a time that's all. I mean, Surya, you're going top not talking about Drake all the time in your 20s. Like, you know, you have to ask, are you doing it to yourself at some point? Yeah, I'm only 510 though. So maybe I'll have a 64. I'd be getting more attention to this guy's point, but no, I never got any attention. Yeah. I don't think there was any, not that I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been upset about it. There was never any confusion. There was never any confusion. You know, I never, you know, yeah. Yeah. I also think you were like in the PA program at ESPN. So it wasn't like you were. I was in the circles that would have. Yeah. Yeah. Upper west side, kicking it, you know, so man, bleachers, this guy wouldn't leave me alone. Anyway, third, check out the area of the bar where you're a regular at. Are there other gay bars, coffee shops, other places you might think the LGBTQ people would frequent in the area. If so, then Kyle might be right. There may be a certain group of gay men that have just adopted the bar because they feel comfortable in that area of town. I know that I've done that with a few places in my neighborhood. This is going to sound a bit like a stereotype here. Well, as long as he's saying it, not us, right? But the keys to cutting down to some of these interactions are sports and beer. Most gay men are not going to partake in either of these things. My evidence is this, I pulled these sports and beer move damn near anywhere I go at a straight sports, a sports car, what at a straight sports bar, I'll be drinking my beer or watching whatever the game is on. Someone starts a conversation. Eventually the topic of girlfriends or wives comes up and I throw out, oh, no, I'm gay and it throws off a lot of people. Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know. Conversely, I've been at gay bars drinking my beer and wearing a t-shirt with a local team's logo on it. Multiple people come up to ask me, do you know what this bar is? When I answer yes, and then I came here on purpose, do zone, I don't know what to do with that either. Oh, but yeah, no, I am in the right place. It's getting from both sides. Yeah, this is not good. I don't like that for our guy. All this to say is this probably just going to happen at some level when it does just be polite and keep it moving. Sorry for the long-winded answer, but hopefully it helped. Love the pods. Keep doing your thing. Well, thank you. All right. Yeah, like it's... He basically said it could be any of the things we said. It's like it could totally be what Surudi said or definitely what Kyle said. It could be something totally different. But it feels good to be dilitated by it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's an important part. We're just, we have no experience. I don't know. But I would say there are worse situations, man. You're getting attention. You know, nobody's being disrespectful. Keep it moving. Except one of those top shelf cocktails. Yep. You know, gets them out of it. Yeah, I will have a Cadillac. She's like, where are you with the bears draft? You just, as he hands the drink. Yeah. Nice. Worry about Austin Rees and free agency. See, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's true or not, but he said it was. Okay, removing my best man from the wedding. Six, four, no gym stats, basketball comp, Mike Dunleavy. That's a good one. I recently moved, removed, I recently removed my best man, let's call him John, from the wedding, because I couldn't trust how he would behave background. John lives in the Midwest. My fiance and I live in the South. John has never met my fiance, but they follow each other on social media. John has an odd social media presence. And he recently started posting cuck chairs from hotels. Oh, he was at on his Instagram story. Can you guys help me with that one? I do know what you're talking about. I do know. Is this a thing? Yeah, it's like a, it's like a circle of the internet. I don't know. It's like, I don't know if shit posting is the word, but it's just like, it's certainly a thing that I've seen. It's like, this one's got a cuck desk. It's like a chair right at the end facing the bed, like, right in the corner of the hotel room facing the bed. Yeah. Sometimes it's like an actual little desk that you can do work. And that's what I've seen. It's just, it's a strange corner of the internet that exists. That's all I can tell you. I saw one recently where there was like a desk in the middle of the room right next to the bed, just like looking at the bed. It was like the perfect setup. The cuck command center. I think it's all set up. Yeah. So yes, I do know. Four hours of coding in here. Yeah. So this guy just wanted for our specific type of humor. Something around my age or older, you know, just to fully understand, but like dudes are posting just random hotel room cuck chairs. Okay. Yeah. Usually not a dude with a face, you know what I mean? Usually it's one of those accounts that you probably can't attribute to someone. He's using it for this. It's kind of funny. Or lies the problem. I understand there's part of the internet. This pops up and it's an ongoing joke. I tried to explain to my fiance and she did not find it funny. I asked John about it. He immediately got defensive and said he didn't want to be in the wedding. That's a reaction. That's like cuck chairs. I don't want to be in your wedding. He's using cuck chairs over you. You got to stand for something or you fall for anything. The conversation continued. I explained that all the bridesmaids would find it very odd behavior and would be uncomfortable around him. Additionally, my fiance's family is on social media and John has a public Instagram account. I'm fearful her family would see it begin to worry what might happen at the wedding and the speeches. Lastly, multiple of my friends have mentioned to my fiance that John is a bit of a wildcard and she rightfully was concerned. John also started going off and group messages we were in about the situation. Am I the wrong for removing John from the wedding? No way, dude. If you can't just go man to man, it's like, dude, can you please take that down? Just make my life so much easier. If he doesn't understand that, that's not really somebody you can have standing up on your wedding day when maybe there actually is going to be something else that you might, if you can't even have your back with this. It's like, listen, we'll just figure this out after the wedding, but I got a lot of shit going on. If I can't do this thing for me, that would make it so much easier. You're inheriting a whole family and it's like you're part of what they're inheriting for me. If this is how you're going to be acting now, you can't even just take it down for me. You don't even have to mean it. You don't have to mean that you're sorry or whatever. Take it down for me. If he can't meet you there, then whatever. Like I said, he chose posting cup chairs on his own personal Instagram account over your friendship. I don't think you should lose an ounce of sleep over this. He's a content over everything, guy. Sure, man. All right, then make it a contract too. You got kicked off the wedding. I don't think I have any wildcard friends like this, but I would be nervous about what he would say during the speech too. That would throw me off for my whole wedding day. I think you're good, man. I don't know how long have they known each other? Is this just like, it's very odd that it was like this was the hill he's going to die on? If it's like a lifelong friend that's going to die on this hill, then that's really kind of sad. Yeah, I mean, imagine this guy's ranked pretty high if at one point he was the best man. Yeah, I don't know if they just met. I feel like everyone's going to kind of just breathe the cyber relief though when they realize you made the right decision here, which is having him not be in the wedding. So it's not like anyone's going to be like, I can't believe you did that too. It's just your conscience, obviously, but he's kind of made the decision for you. He said, I don't want to be in the wedding if I can't post the way I want to post. That's silly. And this was this, I mean, I'm sure you're going to remain friends with John as long as you possibly can. But this is also kind of the first step. Of John's life, looking at you, having a new family and not to say that this is what it's going to be like in the future, but when your buddy gets married, something changes a little bit and like, this is one little tweak he was trying to make. And so there was a lot of pushback for that. So I just hope John Boyd grows up in the future and I'm sure you guys will still be friends. Yeah, this is totally a fine move to me. Well, he said he didn't want to be best man. He said he didn't want to be in the wedding. In the wedding. So that's your out, right? If he still desperately wanted to be the best man, there's part of me that would be like, you guys can't resolve this, like you can't figure out, but it is always interesting. And this happens a lot. Like if the wife doesn't know him, which she doesn't, she only follow, they follow each other on social media. So there's no like, hey, I went to school with them too. Like that guy always gets way more grace. The wife's like, hey, I've known him since college and like, he's a good guy, but there's some sort of like buildup to all of it, right? Like there's, you're more accepting of this stuff because you know him. So now this guy's kind of a stranger, but he's the best man. And then he's posting his chairs, which again, I think like, if you were just to say, yeah, that's really weird that he's posting this, but now he's banned from the wedding and like everybody's going to turn on him or like the bridesmaids are going to be huddled together at some point in the reception going like, that's the guy that posted the chairs. You know, because they don't have any experience with him whatsoever. Like his approval rating is already in the He starts out with one strike. Yeah. Right. It's not even, so if you wanted to keep him in the mix, I could almost see part of it of like, hey, this is pretty ridiculous how quickly the tide and momentum is gone against him when no one really even knows him. But that's just what happens in these scenarios. Like people are whistler about you. If you're the best man here before you're even boots on the ground, but if this guy freaked out and was like, I can't believe you're mad and I don't want to do it, that's your out. And it's her day anyway. It's not your day. If she's on edge about it at all, if you're worried about the parents, you're worried about the speech, if there's other elements of this as you're saying with the wild card part of it, where they're not doing a great sell job on this guy for you to your wife, just make sure that she doesn't have any anxiety about it. Yeah. I mean, he's already said, I don't want to do it. And if he's going to freak out that much before you're even addressing it with them, then you don't even have to feel bad about it. Yeah. That was my point. It wasn't the fallout of what could happen. It was the fact. It was his whole reaction, but also to your friends. You guys are all supposed to be wrote in the same direction here. And if they're dropping little things about John that's making your life harder, maybe try to rein that into listen, we're all we're a united front, buddies. That is a good point. I feel like there's, I've had a couple functions recently, family, friend, whatever related where it's like, it's people have made things about them. When I said, dude, it's not about you. Just sit down, shut up, eat your meal, smile, have a couple beers and just like go on. We'll live to drink another day. Come on. Yeah. This isn't like you're like the hill that you're going to die on is that you're not going to, like you don't want to be in your buddy's wedding because of this habit that you have. That is objectively kind of strange. Yeah, you're good. I don't know. But the idea that like people just make these things that aren't about them, about them blows my mind. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else. Nope. That's it. Clean conscience. Just make sure you stay friends with them, even though he's not in the way. This is from a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I just, here's what's going to happen. He's going to grow out of it at some point you would think and then he's going to come back to you and go, hey, I don't know what's going on back then. Stop doing it. Good. Stop doing it. All right. Contractor forgot tools at my house. What's my obligation? I'm sensitive to this already. No, Jim Statz want to get right to it. Sorry for the long email. I think you'll be interested in the extra details. My house had original windows from the 90s and needed almost 30 windows replaced. So quotes were in the range of 50,000. I'm right in the middle of that right now. It's awesome. What's your quote at? 20, we had 28 windows. It's right around there. Holy shit. The windows themselves are fine. They're just like drafty. So in the winter, like you'll feel breezes and stuff. It's a bummer. Don't need to be replaced. Yep. Kids runny noses. It's like it's a wonderful life. You're coming home. Kids sick. Just drafty old house. Same thing though. 90s. So it's just kind of 30 years. It's the life of these things. It's the life of a window, right? For the most part. You know, when it's a wonderful life, when it came out, people thought it was stupid. I haven't really thought about watching it. I haven't seen it. It's a wonderful life since I was 13. Maybe, I don't know. You don't watch it every Christmas? You guys from Russia? Christmas vacation is sort of what I moved on to. I'll do a Christmas story, Christmas vacation. I'm pretty much tapped out. I've been home a long time. I've been finishing up that Reagan book. Well, yeah. You have to understand if you're my age, you were so scared of Russia all the time. Just constant fear. Movies like Red Dawn, Rocky, Top Gun. Yeah. They were the solid bad guy for a while. Really good. Great messaging there by the U.S. Defense, I don't know, Department of Defense, whatever, but also the defense spending spree that we went on because we were just like, we have to, we've got to just boss up here. Like Rambo getting ready in the last scene. Like that's what was going on. Just funding billions and billions of dollars into our defense systems all because we were so scared of Russia. And there were intelligence people telling everyone they're actually a fucking mess over there. Like the stuff is old. Doesn't really work. The windows are draft yet. They don't actually want to take over the world. A lot of the guys that are in power are super old. Like the last guy that was like world domination, that was years ago. Nobody listens to them anymore. They're scared of death of the United States because they think Reagan's like subliminally staying, all these things that it's actually, he's the warmonger. They're comparing Reagan to Nazi, the Russian, some of the Russian intelligence because there would be some people, you know, whether it was trying to get more spending for defense purposes, which is not exactly a new thing. But if we lived in constant fear, we would keep spending so much on the defense budget, which would obviously benefit a lot of different people with certain interests. Did you guys watch The Americans? I watched the first episode yesterday. Was that a show you guys watched back in the day? I've seen the first season and it was great. And then I, for whatever reason, I just like never read Matthew Reese. Yeah, I like that guy. I'm watching that new thing on Apple right now with his bed. Love Matthew. So just looking for more shit. He was great as Perry Mason. Welsh guy, I believe, right? Yeah, Welsh actor. Woodo's Bay. We're going to have the creator of the show on. Dude, I've been in. I've been in. It's funny. It's kind of spooky. It's great. It's awesome. Yeah, I was fired up. I got to forget which scene. Well, the scene I was there for, I'm not in it. I went to go watch them film it. But anyway, it just was, it was kind of cool the other day being like, I was that scared of Russia the whole time. Well, quick side note, I always thought about this because remember, I mean, obviously I didn't experience it. Get to the tools, man. Don't worry. You learned about, you learned about like the nuclear bomb drills that kids would do in school. Oh yeah, my dad loves those. What is the point of that? Yeah. Well, a false security. You're gonna get a death. Nothing, maybe. I don't know. Gotta have some sort of protocols. Sounds like a waste of time to me, but hey, just one guy. I don't know. Early elementary school, we just thought we were getting bombed all the time. Sucked. Did you do that? Because that was in like the 60s though. Yeah, we didn't have that. I don't remember ever doing a drill, but dudes were talking about it all the time. I mean, I've brought this stuff up before, but like just the movies and all the topics and every bad guy, it was like, those guys must suck, man. Why do they want to blow us up? And the whole time they were like, our shit is broken. They would just get to know us. It doesn't work. At least based on this book, maybe there's some counter arguments out there, because there always are. All right, so back to the deal here. We went from tools to windows to Russia. I found a local company that would do the windows for 37,000. The windows are a quality name brand, but I quickly found out one place where I saved the money and it was definitely in the finish work. Oh man. Finish work doesn't keep any secrets. But even with the second guy, I brought him to help finish things up and caulk and paint around the edges. I still came out way ahead. All right, so he brought in another guy to do some finished stuff. And also might be worth noting, these guys didn't go out of the way to care about anything extra. Windows were installed in the Northeast on a 20 degree day and these guys took out a huge double window in my office at 11.59 and split for about an hour for lunch with a 25 square foot hole on the side of my house. Yeah, that sucks. Guys do that. Didn't even blue tarp it for you. The crux of this issue is they forgot some stuff here, including a 10 foot ladder and a nice nail gun. They also, I think is an honest accident, took my screw gun and left an older one of the same brand in its place. They stored windows and equipment in my garage overnight. So like I said, I think it was an accident. So what's my obligation? Should I reach out and tell them to come pick this stuff up? Do I consider myself ahead here and move on? Does their quality of work matter at all? Or did I get what I paid for? And does it matter that I already have an eight foot ladder don't really need a nail gun? That was my first thought was like, Hey, cool nail gun. When are you using it? I don't know. I'm gonna push back on that nail gun. I don't have one, but I feel like I'd put it to use. You know, you'd find a reason. Same thing with a ladder ladder. The cardboard on the back of these dressers. I'm not actually, I'm not agree with his nail gun. You find a use. Right. Just start, you know, some of that wobbly furniture, just, just, just take a day. Right. I just shoot a bunch of nails into it. Yeah. It's easy. I would take the car. The most, the best thing that I've ever been gifted to me that you wouldn't think, you know, power washer, I think I've talked about before. Love it. I just power wash everything now. It's amazing. Fucking Zen, dude. But I never bought one. But I have one now. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I wouldn't keep it because you're gonna get caught. Why, how are they, how are they not gonna know that they left this stuff there? Eventually they're gonna know, right? Like what? Yeah. If you do this, you're stepping out of line for some guy to randomly send you $600 and then $1,200 or $1,800, whatever, whatever happened to that guy. If you, if you use your good karma on this, you know, you're just totally taking yourself out of there running for something that's actually good. And like you said, you don't need it. You're like trying to, like, I guess I could mental gymnastics my way into the, yeah, they did leave for lunch with a hole in my house for a bit, but it's just like, they didn't, they didn't leave and you were like, wow, what a waste of time and money. It's just like, let's just all be on the same social contract here for this one. This is an easy one. You feel way better. I'm big on the give the guy the tools back thing because I know how much it sucks when you lose something. And then the guy in charge is like, are you serious? Granted, for me, it was my dad, which was even worse. You know, but I did work for a framing crew, but they were subs for him. So, you know, it just sucks because you're going to like, he would always make a point of like, I can't, he would make it even worse for me, you know, because he would make a point of like, I don't want anyone to think of being like showing him any favoritism whatsoever. So I would be big on giving a back to these guys. And I think you also pointed it out, like Saruti maybe using the nail gun, I think most people would not and you'd have to buy all the other stuff to run it too. And these things end a variety of different ways. Like sometimes they overorder a bunch of shit and then all of a sudden the materials they ordered is gone with them. And you're like, wait, wait, I mean, I didn't see you ordered a bunch of shit. I didn't want I paid for it and you have it. Like, so there's plenty of ways where shit can just leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. And the fact that it didn't happen here, just, just keep plowing right ahead. I think that's just be a good, be a good person. I think this one's easy. Another quick side story, my dad had his work van stolen once out of our driveway. And I mean, they were like, we're the point where like, all right, you got what was in there. And he's like, I don't have like a list of all the stuff. Like it's like tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Turns out two days later, they just found it abandoned like a town over nothing was taken with all the shit crazy. Nothing was taken. Yep. Nothing was taken. That's why we were like somebody the other thing was very strange because like, you'd also have to know the truck was there. Like, was somebody just like messing with us? It was very strange. Was it all just keys in the visor thing or they just, Oh, my dad never locked a car in his life. Come on. I used to, we never locked our cars where I lived. Really? I still, my wife always gives me shit because I'm just like, an alpine yanked. I was like, all right, those days are over. Yeah. But that was like Martha's Vineyard's, you didn't have to lock anything. And then you had to. Unfortunately, a little slice of innocence fading away. All right. Thanks to Tom, Kevin, Kyle, Saruti, that'll do it for the show. Please subscribe and check us out on Netflix for every full episode. The Ryan Russel Show, Barstool Sports. So your teams connect and collaborate with confidence. Simplify your solutions and standardize at scale with sure. Sure, built for collaboration. Learn more at shure.com slash solutions. With LinkedIn Premium All-in-One, you're 60% more likely to get replies from suggested prospects, so you can grow your small business. It cannot give you 60% more time in your day. It can help you sell, market and hire all-in-one product. It cannot find more space for all the files on your desktop. 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