Hey, pardon my take, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

What if the golf ball you're playing isn't the number one ball for you? Meet the all new TP five and TP Five X from Tailormade. Whether you prefer the softest five layer tour ball in the TP five or.

The fastest, that's now a half a.

Club longer in TP five X, you'll be playing a golf ball that performs.

Like it was built just for you.

Available in white, yellow and picks, you.

Can personalize it with my symbol.

No matter which you choose, every TP five. TP five X is designed to help your game head to tailormadegolf.com today to.

Find the number one ball for you.

For us, golf is simple. It's a chance to get out and have some fun with our friends. But inevitably, little things have a way of ruining it. The group ahead is taking forever. You can't find the fairway with a map, and the Bev cart is nowhere to be found. And the best way to make a bad day better is fireball whiskey. You get their nips, the little shooters. They are great. Makes bad day way, way, way better. Make sure to grab the new fireball birdie shot club. It's literally a golf club filled with fireball nip. Put it in your bag, it'll fit right in that side pocket. Drink fireball nips and have a great time on the golf course. On today's pardon my take, we are back from the long weekend. We got a lot of basketball to talk about, and we have an awesome in person interview with Danny Ainge. We also are going to talk about the passing of the legend Bill Walton. And we have some unreleased footage from our interview with him, which we never actually put it out on video. So that'll be at the end of the episode. We have 35 minutes.

It's back in 2017 in Las Vegas before the PaC twelve championship, the conference of champions. Yes, and it was a unforgettable experience. So we've condensed it down into about 30 minutes. But I think it was much longer than that. Yeah, because two and a half hours.

Yeah, because there's a lot of people who probably didn't hear it. I know there's a lot of people who didn't see it because before we released every podcast on video, so that will be in video as well. At the end, we're going to talk. Half of the NBA Finals is set. Cocky Hank gets paid off. Also, the Mavs are up 30, some hockey, some hot seat, cool throne, and we're happy to be back. We're excited to be back. Extra long show because we're not going to have a show on Wednesday. Our next show will be Friday. So we have an extra long show for the people and we're brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. We're this close to crowning an NBA champ, and with the action heating up on the court, it's even hotter at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner. The NBA. There's only so many games left, and DraftKings sportsbook has you covered with same game parlays, live betting, odds, boosts, and so much more. Don't miss out or you have to wait until next NBA season to place your bets. It's super easy for first timers to get started.

Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the DraftKings sportsbook app, select your squad and place your first bet. It's that simple. You can bet game four of the Mavs verse wolves. That is Tuesday night. Just a little tip. Kyrie Irving has never lost a closeout game.

That's interesting.

Just remember that if you're new to draft draftkings, listen up. New customers can go get a no sweat bet up to 1500 bucks. Just deposit at least $5 and you'll get a bonus bet back equal to your first bet. If it doesn't hit, download the DraftKings sportsercap now. Use code take that's code take for new customers to get a no sweat bet up to 1500 bucks. If your first bet doesn't hit only on draftkings, the crown is yours.

Gambling problem, call 1800 GaMbler or in West Virginia, visit 1800 gambler.net. in New York, call 8778 HOpeny or text hopeny 467369. In Connecticut, help is available. For problem gambling, call 888-78-9777 or visit ccpg.org dot. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill casino and resort in Kansas, 21 and over. Age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario, one no sweat bet per new customer issued as one bonus bet based on amount of initial lose bet. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng Co. Bball for eligibility, wagering and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources.

Okay, let's go.

It's pardon my take presented by martial sports.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app now. Use code take that's code take for new customers. Get a no sweat bet up to 1500 bucks. If your first bet doesn't hit only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Today is Tuesday, May 28, and we have lost a legend. Bill Walton passed away on Monday. Kind of shocking. I didn't know he was battling cancer. And it was also shocking in the fact that, you know, we don't, we'll talk about celebrity deaths. I think this might be the first one that's ever led the show, and I think it's appropriate because this one, I don't know about you. Pft. But like, when I saw it hit, the news hit, I was really, really, like, affected and bummed out because I loved Bill Walton. And we, I'm like so happy that we were actually able to interview him. And he just was, he was just walking joy and it was like really sad to see that news.

Yeah, I don't really get emotional about celebrity deaths. I did cry when I found out about Bill because he was such a positive person. And when we had the opportunity to meet him, we met him for one day in 2017. One day. We spent about 2 hours with him. Just a blip on his radar. And I've missed Bill ever since then.

Yeah.

Like, I've missed, hey, I actually missed hanging out with Bill Walton. And he was so fun to be around and such a unique person and just larger than life in every single aspect. The joy that he brought countless people, the joy that he was able to exude, he was without a doubt, a one of a kind human being. They've never made anybody like Bill Walton. They're never going to make anybody like Bill Walton again. And so for that reason, I'm sad that the world no longer has that unique person in it. But Bill Walton would probably get very mad at us if he heard us being sad about him. Yeah, that's not his vibe. I am going to be sad because that's just how it makes me feel. The only good part of today was we got to hear hours and hours of Bill Walton's stories.

Yes.

Which was very nice to hear because everyone, everyone that met Bill is like, he changed their lives.

He was authentically Bill. Like, he was the same person when we got, when we were lucky enough to interview him. He was just exactly what we expected. You know, I said at the beginning of the show, if you skip through it, we interviewed him in 2017. This was early, early days, first year of, pardon my take. So it was just the three of us.

I think that was right after the Evander Holyfield interview right after we got.

Duped by Evander Holyfield. But it was just the three of us, so we didn't release the podcast on video. So we're able to find the hard drive and we'll have the video of the 35 minutes we're going to put at the end of this show. If you're new Awl, listen to it. It was a joy. It also, I mean, I've told this story before, but the two things that were so great when we interviewed him, one, he asked me beforehand if it's okay if he brings his own chair. And then he said it's the greatest chair ever. And if you, if you watch the video, he's, it's, I think for his back because he obviously had like so many surgeries on his back. He's just towering over us. And the second was, we interviewed him, we both were very, like, not anxious, but like, nervous going into this interview because we wanted to nail it. I wrote down all these questions. I think I might have asked two of them because Bill just talked. And about 2 hours in, he's like, how long does this go? And we're like, it's kind of up to you, Bill.

Like, we're having a great time. And so he just was the best. Like, I was just smiling the entire interview. And you're right. Like, all these stories that have come out, I also like, as, as great as he was as a broadcaster, I loved just his little corner of the world where it's like, it's a late night game on the West coast and Bill Walton is going to get weird and he's just going to be fun. It's crazy how good he was at basketball and how injuries took away so much of it. People should watch. There's a four part documentary, luckiest man in the world that he, that came out a couple years ago. I actually think maybe because I remember when it came out, I was like, this is kind of weird. It might have been because he was battling cancer, but he was one of the greatest college basketball players of all time. If he hadn't had to deal with injuries an entire career in the NBA, he very well could have been a top five seven player of all time because of like he won a title with, with Portland, who never wins anything, won an mvp, then was part of the 86 Celtics.

All the Portland fans at home right now are just catching the biggest ricochet.

I mean, it's true, though, but it was, it is.

Yeah.

And like, he was that good of a basketball player and then his life touched everyone after being in broadcasting and all his Grateful Dead stories just like he was. He saw a thousand shows. All one song.

It's all one song. That's what I'll always remember. Like I, and it makes sense when he says it's all one song.

Yeah.

Like I tapped into his worldview. You can't stay there because it's only Bill's brain and he only truly understands what he's saying. But when he's talking about, yeah, it is all one song in like a very like spiritual sense. I know we're getting sappy, but like, I am sad.

No, I was sad.

I'm deeply sad about, about Bill Walton. And it's not only did he won, I think, three Naismith player of the years.

Yeah.

In college, which is crazy. And then he won NBA MVP and he also won NBA 6th man of the year.

Yeah. For the Celtics.

For the Celtics. Which is probably, that's gotta be a very small list, I would imagine, of players that have done both.

Yeah. And in a serendipitous moment, there's a minor serendipitous moment. The fact that we interviewed Danny Ainge in person two weeks ago and we had been holding it because we're like, oh, this is such a great interview. Let's, let's wait till we come back from Memorial Day. He has some great Bill Walton stories in there that obviously now they feel even more important. And then of course, the fact that Bill Walton passed away a day after the PaC twelve played their last sporting event ever, I was legitimately like, what is going to, he loves that conference so much. What's going to happen? And now he's just, I don't believe in heaven, but I do with Bill Walton. He's probably hanging out with Jerry Garcia.

Right now and the Pac twelve is on 24/7 yeah, he's loving it.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, the Pac twelve ends. Bill's like, well, my work here is done.

Yeah. I'll share one last thing. The, so we, we tried to get him on a couple other times in the last few years and every time he would text back he was so Bill Walton and so nice. But the, the one time that I laugh about when we tried to get him back on a few years ago and he just wrote back, thanks, big cap, for your kindness in my life. You're, you guys are amazing and you have an incredible audience. I still get more positive and interesting comments slash feedback from your show than from almost anything, any other thing I've ever done in my life. Please. I am sadly ricocheting through the universe on the business road through Memorial Day. Sorry. Hopefully next time you're back through the promised land. Shine on, dream on, build on, carry on, be dub.

Love that.

Bill with two ls.

Yeah. Bill with two l's. And he always spelled his wife's name. L o R I. Lori. I'm the luckiest man in the world. He used to always say, didn't he? Did he give us nicknames?

I don't think so.

I thought. I thought he did something to remember our names by.

Yeah, I don't. I don't remember. I also had.

But he just. I also have to imagine that he texts everybody that way.

Yeah.

Like he's. Yeah, no, that's authentically very, very positive to say. To close out every conversation with everyone.

Yeah. And he just meant so much to us as sports fans that you mentioned all the stories. I did see one that I wanted to share that was very funny from Vince Mancini. He said, my favorite Bill Walton story was Luke Walton telling how for Christmas, his dad would just wrap up some free swag he collected. And one year, Luke Walton stocking was just huge and overstuffed, and he was all excited to open it. And then when he did, it was all power bars inside.

That's awesome.

Perfectly.

Vince mentioned is very funny, too. I like that guy. Film drunk.

Yeah. So, legend. Absolute legend. Like I said, we don't usually start the show or even talk about death, but Bill Walton felt like it was someone we had to. So tune in for. Danny ain't has. Danny ain't tells a great, great Bill Walton story that I had never heard about chess.

Yeah.

Just also bear in mind that during the interview, we did pre tape it. So when he's talking about Bill.

Yeah. Right.

He has.

Right.

He had no idea that he passed away.

Right. And then at the end of the show, after lottery ball, we will have the 35 minutes of our interview with Bill Walton. So please listen to it. If you never listened to it, if you have, listen to it again, because it will make you happy and smile. And he was the best. Okay, Hank.

Yes.

Congratulations on being in the NBA final.

Thank you.

Some might say Eastern conference merchant, but that's fine. You play who, you play cash, the under member.

When we said. I said the line would be four and a half. That was way too high. Way too high. They lost two games in their path to the finals. It also, like, people are like, oh, man, the Pacers, they were right there because, you know, game one, they threw away game three. Rick Carlisle just was like, I have the youngest team and I'm not going to use a timeout. But guess what? I actually look at the other way. The Celtics are seasoned team that knows how to make big plays, and that's what they did time and time again in this series.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there was a lot of adversity for a sweep.

Okay? It was the hardest sweep ever.

No, but it was. It was a well earned, hard fought sweep. The Pacers showed up. They didn't give up. But the Celtics, like, like big cat said, overcame. And in the past when it feels like they turtle up in close games and kind of, you know, turn into more ISO ball, selfish stuff, like, they didn't do that at all. They. They found a way to win. They made plays when they had to, and they won three games where they were down late in the fourth quarter in a sweep against, you know, inferior team. That's all you can ask for.

They stopped. The Pacers didn't score for the last three and a half minutes in this game tonight.

On Monday night, Jalen Brown, Easter Conference finals. You could tell when he got the trophy. Like, he wasn't expecting it and, like, that meant a lot to him.

I think he deserves.

Wait, Jason Tateman.

No, I think Jalen Brown deserved this one big time.

Jake Tatum had a great game three.

So did Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown had a great game to. He had the big shot in game.

Jalen Brown also is so good.

You know who could have won it is Drew holiday, because he was his defense. That was. That's why you make that trade and. Yeah, like, that type of player who can make the big moment plays on defense. Like, he was awesome.

Was that the end of game three, the little way that he had there?

Steal and the rebound tonight?

Yep. Shout out to Rick Carlisle, by the way, for that. That end of game play that he drew up in game three, he just basically turned into football coach. And they almost had that one that was like, you know, just inches away from going in.

Yeah.

Four verts.

Yeah, I love that play. So keep, keep running that, Rick. But, yeah, Hank, you guys were the much better team.

Cocky Hank deserves this.

I'm ready. I mean, that's. That's the. The drew holiday and Porzingis, like, those are two huge, huge difference makers that we didn't have last time. We're in the finals there, you know, Drew holidays won an NBA championship. Poor Zingas is amazing. I'm. I feel great now.

Would it affect you at all? Porzingis isn't back yet. Would it affect how ready you are if maybe hypothetically, the maverick sweep and then the timetable for the NBA Finals gets moved up. You guys are playing later on this week. Oh, wait, that's not how it works, because the NBA is a bunch of fucking idiots, and they're gonna make us wait until June 6 to tip off no matter what. No matter what.

So what are we, six? No matter what.

What are we supposed to do with these two weeks here?

Yeah, it's. I said it on Sunday night. I was like, I'm rooting for a double sweep just so we can make fun of the NBA scheduling.

Yeah, it's.

Someone pointed out that fans have to book their hotels. They booked their hotels and tickets months ago. It's, like, for all celtic permutations.

Yeah.

Of this.

Celtic fans knowing that they would be.

But imagine if they did that last year.

Yeah.

There's no way anyone. Any fan books their hotels and ticket, plane tickets for the NBA Finals months in advance. Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't make any sense.

Now, if I. If I know the NBA, I would expect the other series to go a little bit longer, burn up some of that time.

I read.

Oh, has never lost close out, never lost closeout game.

Never lost closer. So, Hank, you feel confident.

Very confident.

And now you're obviously rooting for the wolves.

Yeah. I think it's going to be massive. Matter what. So I don't. I don't really care. And, you know, they're going to have enough rest even if it goes seven. I mean, if it goes seven, that maybe affect things, but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I'm ready for the Mavs.

So one lucky wants his revenge. How much? They will be a talking point. It will be a storyline. If it is Mav, Celtics, how much. How big of a factor is the stomping on lucky in your head?

It's a huge fact. I mean, we talk about it with Danny ain't, but that was, you know, as disrespectful as it gets.

Yeah. Also, revenge game for christophs.

Yeah.

Former Dallas Maverick. Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

We got some messages from a friend of the program.

Yeah.

Jerry O'Connell.

Mm hmm.

He wanted to send you a few statements, Hank. Should we read them to him?

Big guy, you can read them. Yeah. She really wants you to think it's supposed to be us.

It's supposed to be Hank reading them at a Boston accent.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Would you like.

Yeah, tell Hank to read these to.

Tip, but the Mavs are not. The Mavs are not set yet, so we say we should save.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll save these. There's a lot of them.

He kept adding throughout the day. I got an email out of nowhere.

Everyone, all the swifties that came after me for the Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift video idea that I threw out there, what they thought I was doing. That is literally what Jerry O'Connell's doing with Hank and Tiffany Gomez.

Yes.

He wants that.

He does. And he wants to see it to a weird level. He wants to see, he wants to ride on a helicopter and watch Hank shoot his nut out of the helicopter and hit Tiffany with it.

Are you a little worried that you're going to have to go against Tiff house divided?

I mean, Celtics. Celtics are more important.

Split jersey.

But congratulations, Hank.

Thank you.

Don't apologize. I mean, we'll see what happens in the finals, but the Celtics were just better than everyone in the east. You can't apologize for that. They just were the better team by far.

They have been all year.

This is exactly how you drew it up, too.

Yeah.

Two losses, you know, ball. That's it.

Yeah. And now they. Now they're going to go and hopefully we have a good NBA Finals.

Yeah, I'm fine with another celtic sweep.

But that would be crazy because that then everyone would have to just switch if the Celtics swept the finals and be like, are they an all time great team?

Yeah, we'd have to have the conversation.

You'd have to have the conversation that's.

On the table for you, especially if they beat. Maybe the best offensive backcourt of all time in the finals. Was that Kenny? Was that Kenny the jet that first said that?

Yeah.

One of the guys on TNT said that about the Mavericks, Kyrie and Luca. The best offensive backcourt of all time. And people laughed at him. And then they played three games and they're like, maybe he's not that far off.

Are we permissioned to glaze the Mavericks, Hank, without thinking that we're saying anything bad about the Celtics?

Of course. I mean, the glazing was coming. That was never a question.

Right, but. But can we separate? Do you have any other thoughts on the Celtics before we move to the Mavs Wolves? Because I don't want this to get. I don't want. I don't want, you know, things. Thoughts to get twisted here.

No, but let the blazing commence.

When we compliment the Mavs, it's separate than the Celtics. Max, are you shaking your head about.

I have hated everything that Hank has said in the past ten minutes, but that's fine.

What would you have said if you were him?

I mean, he just talked about how it was a hard fought battle against a great pacers team without a mentioning that their best player didn't fucking play well, so.

Yes. Wait, who smoked 15 cigs? I don't know. Us or you?

Oh, yeah. We should say that we did the John Daley challenge earlier today. So I think me, big cat, and Hank are averaging somewhere between 13 and 15 cigarettes each.

Yeah, I feel a little weird.

I feel great.

Yeah, I feel a little weird. That video is coming out. Tweet at Max. He'll get the video out as fast as possible.

It's already. It's already edited. He's just waiting for somebody. Tell him to press the button.

Yep. If no one says, press the button, he will not put that out. But if you say it enough, say it a thousand times, it will happen.

Max just interrupted the glazing.

Yeah.

All right, I'm ready for the Mavs glazing.

Okay.

So I wanted to be personal towards Hank.

Okay, well, they call Hank Nikki Glaser.

All right, so, Max, if you want to take notes at the end and just put in, you can add a personal slant towards Hank. You're more than welcome to the Mavericks. So we obviously have been off since Friday. We saw Luca on Friday night. Completely emasculate. Rudy Gobert hit the game winning shot in his face with Rudy doing the. I thought the saddest part was Rudy, like, doing the double jump to try to get there, and his body just couldn't get there. And then Luca saying, you can't fucking guard me. You can't guard me. And then on Sunday night, in a similar fashion, Lucan Kyrie completely took over the game. The Wolves look like the moment is too big for them. Anthony Edwards looks gassed. And weirdly, like, in the fourth quarters has been kind of just. There was a couple possessions, especially Sunday night, where he just had no urgency and just passed the ball at the last second that, like, Kyle Anderson made that crazy shot that he, like, cross court. Like, here, you take it, Carl. Anthony Towns cannot possibly be playing worse. He was over eight from three. He's three for 22 in this series.

I love that he kept shooting, though. Yeah, he was just like, next one's going in.

That's in some cat. Some of them. It's not like he was like, yeah, there's just kind of. Some bounces aren't going my way. It's like, no, dude. Some of them look really, really bad.

Very bad.

One of them look like he was.

Throwing a medicine ball, but he's got so much confidence. I yearn to have confidence in anything the way that Carl Anthony Towns has confidence in his three point shot.

Yeah.

Like, watching him just. Next one's going in, next one's going in. And. Yeah. Anthony Edwards seemed like he was, he was panicking a little bit in the fourth quarter.

Yeah, we get he.

I think he had, like, two or three turnovers in the last five minutes of the game. He would just throw the ball away because he was trying to make an ill advised pass at the last second because their offense looks completely disjointed and nothing like what we've seen from them. They don't know what to do offensively at the end of games. If you just take away those last five minutes of the game, they're playing really good against the Mavericks.

So, yeah, they're.

Except for Carl Anthony Towns shot making.

Yeah. Carl Anthony Towns shot making. And Rudy Gobert also just, I. I don't think, I feel bad for Rudy Colbert, but it's getting very close because every year he wins the defensive player of the year and then every year he gets in the playoffs and he gets completely, like, roasted, cooked. He had. I actually. So this is the craziest thing. On Friday night, you had the one on one with Luca, who hits the game winning shot. Incredible play. Luca is so good, he'll cook anyone. So, like, that one, I'm like, all right, you know what? Like, Luca is that good. That's not Rudy. Rudy Gobert in space against Luka Doncic is just a huge mismatch that's not fully on Rudy. Like, they have to figure out a way to not have that, be a switch or at least double team, get the ball out of his hands. I thought the worst thing for Rudy Gobert, I don't know if you guys noticed this on Sunday night, like, maybe two and a half minutes left in the third quarter, Jaden Hardy had the ball and tried to pass it back to Luca at the top of the key, and Luca waved him off because Jaden Hardy had a one on one in space with Rudy and then got him on, like, a bad foul jumping up.

But Luca was literally like, no, you take it. It's fine. Whatever's going to happen here is going to work because it's Rudy go bear against a shiftier guy in space. And that was like, man, this sucks for him.

I've noticed this, though. A lot of players really like to go after Rudy Gobert. Being the defensive player of the year, there's a line out the door of guys that are just like, I want to, I want to embarrass him, I want to take him, I want to emasculate Rudy Gobert on national television. Then I want to celebrate in his face. I can't name another defensive player of the year that's ever had that giant target on. Normally if it's a defensive player of the year you're like well let's, let's try to figure out a way to avoid him if at all possible.

Well he's, he's so good at rim protecting but when you get him away from the basket and this happened time and time again and with him in the playoffs, getting him in pick and rolls and then just exposing him and it just keeps happening and here we are and it's like the big three. Shout out, cat of the Timberwolves have completely let them down. Nasree, if you could build the whole plane out of Nasreed. Oh yeah, wolves would be in the finals.

Give me all like every, every starting player should be your 6th man.

Yeah.

And then yes, I agree. Daz Reed plays so fucking hard. I love watching him.

It's true. It's, it does feel like one of those stories where, hey, the wolves, it was, the moment was too big for them in this. Like they had a franchise altering win in game seven against the Nuggets and that series like propels them to being a serious title contender going forward and, but this series and Anthony Edwards and everything that's come along with these playoffs, it kind of got ahead of them.

Ant and cat, I don't think they can play worse and I think that with lively out he's probably going to be out, I would imagine when he got hit.

Yeah.

And they said that's a neck sprain. That's like some NFL math. And he's going on right there.

Best player plus minus in this series.

Yeah.

In the playoffs I believe. Yeah.

I'm going to do the announcer thing where they say we never, we don't want to speculate on injuries and then they go ahead and they speculate on injuries. Yeah, I don't think that was a neck spring. Yeah, I feel like he might be out for this next game and if he is again, I don't think that Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns can play worse. They can't shoot worse than they've been shooting. And this goes back. It was like game seven I think, or game six against the Nuggets. Neither one of them have been like on their a game for a while, but I feel like. I feel like something's going to give. And the Timberwolves have been leading, I think, in every fourth quarter. Right game. I feel like it's not going to be a sweep.

Okay, but here's the thing. It's been every game, it's been a close series. But the Mavericks have better players in Luca and Kyrie, who are absolute killers. The Lucas stare down, that's when a series is over. He's done it. And whenever he wins these series, he just goes right up next to the guy and just kind of looks at him. He did that to Anthony Edwards on Sunday night. But here's, here are the stats. Dallas is, the Mavs are plus 13 in the series. So they like, that's to be up 30 and have the difference be 13 points is pretty crazy. That means it's tight in the fourth quarter. Semi consoles from Seth partner, semi contested shots, which means a defender is within four and 6ft of space. The league average is 33% on those shots. Luca and Kyrie are seven for nine. The rest of all of Minnesota, six guys are three for 13. That's the difference. They have killers who in the fourth quarter, like the fourth quarter on Sunday night, the Mavs scored 29 points, 21 of them were Luca and Kyrie. Six of them were Luca and Kyrie assists. And then there was two points.

I think it was Daniel Gafford tip in. So like, that's it. The fourth quarter comes around and they just take over the game. And whether it's them shooting, they're going, my turn, your turn, or them like that. Luca lob to finish the game. It's just they're so much better. And they know what these big moments are and they are coming through, whereas the Timberwolves are not.

And the pick and roll is a big problem for the tea wolf. So. Yeah, big, big problem.

Yeah.

They are not. I don't know what their, their switching scheme is, but it's not working. And I don't think that they've changed it.

Yeah, they can't, they just can't. Luca is just out of this world. He just, he sees the game so well, if you, if you double team him, he'll get the ball, he'll make the correct pass. If you, you know, try to show a fake double team, he'll like, he'll make the right move. He. His footwork, everything. Sorry, Hank, this is glazing. You want. Oh, he's making notes yet. He's making notes. This one, this tweet. Are you making notes?

No, I'm just listening.

Okay. This one comes from Andrew Bailey. That was a crazy stat. Lucas played his 43rd career playoff game on Sunday. He has 1336 points, 400 rebounds and 355 assists in his 1st 43 career playoff games. No one else has those three totals in their 1st 43 playoff games. And if you took away 236 points, so made it 1100 points, you take away 400 rebounds to make it 300 rebounds and 300 assists. The list is just Luca, LeBron, Oscar Robinson. So you have to basically take away so much like 200 points, 100 rebounds and 50 assists. And then finally, there are two other guys. Lebron James. Ever heard of him? And Oscar Robinson, who joined his category of their 1st 43 playoff games and how good he's been.

I feel like we also need to go back and watch some tape of Oscar Robertson, because triple double. He's mister triple. And he's in all these stats. Yeah, he's always the guy in these stats. It's like, okay, there's two guys from, like, one guy from the nineties, two guys from the. Two thousands, two guys from the. Then there's Oscar. Yeah, I feel like we need to go watch some Oscar shit.

Yeah, we should watch some Oscar. But it's. It's crazy what Luca has done. And he. He's just ascending to be one of, if not the best players in the NBA.

Yeah. And him, when he screams at you, he really. He really wants you to die.

And he's annoying. I'll back anyone up who says that he's annoying, with how much he complains the refs. I will not disagree. I just like watching him play basketball like that. That fade away he had, where his footwork was just so perfect. And even that Rudy Gobert, that step back, where it's like he knew he had him, and there was just nothing Rudy could do. And he had the perfect, like, got him off balance and then that two step back. It's just. It's fun to watch. Sorry, Hank. No, it is. He's a great player.

Tell you what, Kevin love would have put the clamps on him. Kevin, that was like, pretty much the exact same scenario he had against Steph Curry.

Yeah.

True Kevin love. Better defender than Rudy Gobert. Write it down.

So are you worried, Hank?

No, I'm excited. He's good. I think the Celtics are better team. Great defense, just as much star power.

Okay, just as much. Wait, but we got Kyrie and we got Luca.

Yeah.

We stars.

Jalen Brown, Jason Dayton.

You think they're equals?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that. I think the supporting cast in Boston, you could. You could talk me into saying that they have an advantage with the supporting cast. Although Dallas. Yeah, I know what you're about to say. I mean, I know what you're about to say. I think I don't have the experience.

PJ Washington has hit 100 big shot corner threes in the fourth quarter in these playoffs. It's every single time, it's like, up. PJ Washington is there and he's going to just fucking be so wet from the corner.

You forget about KP, though. Chris stops.

I know. I I. It's gonna. I think it's gonna be incredible. Finals. It's got everything you want. Star power, like storylines, the Kyrie versus Boston. It's gonna be every, like, whoever comes out of this, tatum or immortality is on the line. Yeah.

Immortality.

Immortality.

Immortality. Hank never gonna die.

No. You win a finals that banners Hank for.

No, that is true. Yeah, that's a fact. That's a fact. Max, did you think that. Did you think that the glazing was fair?

Yeah.

I mean, the Mavs have the best player on.

Are you okay?

Yeah.

I swear to God, he smoked the six.

I smoked no six.

He's got, like.

The Mavs have the best player on the court. They probably have the second best player on the court. And you say that the Mavs don't have experience? Well, the Mavs have someone who have actually won a finals.

Mmm.

Yeah, they've won players been in the finals.

Who's won the finals?

Okay. Finals experience.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure that that was stated.

Hmm.

Stated.

Noted.

Also didn't. Was Markieff Morris not on one of those Cleveland teams? No.

Drew holiday may have won.

Drew holiday definitely has a very big part of that. Yes, 100%. Yeah.

But Kyrie, Markieff Morris was on the Lakers bubble team, which you guys have always said is a real title.

No.

Nope. Okay, so, yeah, they. So, yeah, Drew holiday definitely counts big time as a guy who's won something big.

Good point, though. Max.

Max, you were supposed to get in this and, like, give us something good, and then you just owned yourself.

But Kyrie's better.

Okay. All right. That's fair. Yeah, he's better.

Who's he better than? The Tatum.

Than Drew holiday.

Oh, than Drew holiday.

Okay.

He's better than Tatum. But they're guys playing out of this out of his mind.

Their championship experience supersedes the Celtics because their championship guy is better.

Correct.

Okay. Got it.

Correct.

Want to make sure the numbers are right. Here.

So their number two guy on a championship team is better than the box number two guy.

Yes. Yeah.

Or the Bucks number three guy on that championship team is Chris Middleton.

Was pretty good in Pat Connadson.

In Patconiton. Don't forget Pat Connaton.

Kevin Love.

Deli. No, Deli was on the team, but Deli would have been the number two.

It's going to be pretty awesome that.

I don't think he was on the Bucks team, but he was on the Cleveland team.

Yeah.

Won a championship.

That was the. He was the number two on that team.

He was number two on that team.

Number two.

It was like two batmans. You had australian Batman and then kid from Cleveland Batman.

All right, I'm excited. So you think. You think the Wolves are going to win a game?

I may put a little future on the Wolves to be the first team to come back and.

Well, Anthony Edwards did say, which I don't know if I agree with. I love his confidence. He is a breath of fresh air and confidence and very vocal about it. But him saying after the game, I still don't feel like they can beat us, bro. We haven't all been clicking at one time. One game. One game. I mean, the Mavs have proven they can beat them.

I like the confidence, though.

I still don't think you can beat, bro.

Well, it's. How many games is series?

Big cat, it is true. He said, well, we're here now. First of four, what are we going to do?

All right. Timberwolves plus a thousand Carl anthony towns probably just giggled. They just can't be any worse. And the thing is, like, they're not playing that. Don't get me wrong, they're not playing good, but they're still building leads into the fourth quarter.

But it's.

And I feel like with lively out, that's a big factor.

That is a big out for the majority of that game.

Yeah, they played again until the last, like three minutes of the game, they played pretty good.

But that's when you have Luca and Kyrie.

That's when you.

So now don't have Luca and Kyrie on the other team.

Now you got to build a little bit of a lead.

Yeah.

And let Luke and Kyrie do their thing and hopefully won't affect. I'm gonna. I'm just gonna sprinkle it.

Okay. All right. Well, Hank, I'm excited. Was that an okay amount of glazing? That was nothing to do with the Celtics. Jason Tatum is a very good player. Jalen Brown's a very good player. Drew holidays. Very good player. Derek White, friend of the program.

Amazing player.

Amazing player.

Clutch.

Clutch.

Yeah. That was good.

You okay? Yeah. I don't want you to get your feelings hurt.

No.

Okay.

I'm excited. See you in two weeks.

Yeah. Forever from now. Should we talk a little hockey, memes? You're in trouble.

The Rangers.

Rangers.

Yeah.

The Panthers. Blow to overtime wins in a row. Team of destiny.

Yeah. The Rangers feel like they might be, like the Rangers. New York should be showing the same enthusiasm to the Rangers that they were showing to the Knicks. Mm hmm. Like, the Rangers are the real deal.

And they, and they got their overtime gold. Nice, nice, dirty overtime goal to win game three. You got to be worried. Although the stars look awesome.

Well, the Rangers. The Rangers didn't even play that well.

Yeah.

Won that game.

Yeah. So the stars do look awesome.

Yep.

Stars. I mean, the stars were down to nothing in a blink of an eye tonight. And it's like, nope. Now it's three two.

Mm hmm.

And they did that in game two as well, where they were down early and it doesn't matter.

Yeah. McDavid's gonna have some, some answering to do.

Wow.

We need Rangers Oilers, though, for the, for the vibes.

Rangers always be great. Also, are you a little worried that if the Mavs and the stars were in that people would say title town.

They'D have to win?

I would love that. I would actually.

Well, you don't have to win to claim title town. Max taught us.

Good point. Yeah, I would love it. I would love nothing more. My wet dream is if we get the stars winning the Stanley cup and we have the Rangers as the MLB champions and we have the Mavericks as NBA champions, and then the Cowboys go out there and they lose in the first round of the playoffs and it's.

All anyone cares about. I know that. Obviously, Dallas fans, you do care. You're passionate about all your sports teams, but you'd give it all up for a Cowboys super.

Yeah. And for all those in America besides Cowboys fans, we're going to come.

Oh, yeah, we're going to come. If we're coming, we're coming. When that happens, big time might go to the dual parade.

Yeah. Yeah.

That would be sick.

We might. When that happens, we might have to raise banners of all the Dallas championships in here.

Yeah.

And then just have one empty spot.

Title town, minus the Cowboys.

Yeah.

Jerry Jones worst nightmare.

It was that Arlington. They'll just disassociate from the cowboy. They should be the Arlington Cowboys.

Do you think he's definitely rooting against them. Right.

I think in his heart of hearts.

He has, like, deep down, he's got to be like, this cannot happen.

I just said he has a heart that was a mistake in his soul. No, that's not good. And is in the back. The brainstem that. The part that makes you, like, mad or horny is. That's the part where Jerry Jones is like, I hope they lose in the.

Shoe with come in it and the shoe.

Yes.

Yeah. Oh, come shoe. I really come shoe. That Jerry Jones.

Also the Dallas Wings, they went to the WNBA finals, the Vegas Aces. So a lot of championship experience in terms of making runs.

Oh, the WNBA is in trouble.

Are they in trouble? Why?

Because I think that they're. Caitlin Clark is adding so many new fans, and there's a lot of fans that are just taking the fun out of sports.

Yes.

Everything that happens in WNBA now has to be a fucking bigger cultural talking point. That's like, hey, it's fucking sports. Shut the fuck up.

That's what we're saying on Friday. Yeah, there's. There's seven think pieces after every game she plays.

Correct.

And I actually feel bad for Caitlin Clark.

And it's cool.

Really do. Because what's happening is there's no way that she can tune out all this stuff. All she's. All that's being talked about in terms of the WNBA. She's probably uncomfortable with that because she's like, I'm a rookie. I haven't done anything in the NBA yet. I want to have a successful career in the WNBA, and it's going to be a big, big distraction. If every time I go out there and I lose a game, then I've got seven people on slate.com writing about why Caitlin Clark is problematic for the league and how the league has a marketing problem. I feel bad for her. I missed the days when Greg Doyle was just being a sexual harassment creep on her.

Those were the good old days. Wish we knew as a good old days when it was a good old days. It's. But it's spread to everywhere in the WNBA because it's a new. With new fans come, like, new opinions, and the new opinions are not about sports anymore because they came, like, with Caitlin Clark. Did you see the Alyssa Thomas foul on Angel Reese? And I don't know if it was a sky game. This. This person had 5000 retweets. I was just like, what is going on? She said, unpopular opinion. Alyssa Thomas throwing Angel Reese down on the court is exactly how older black women treat younger black women in many industries, both professional and personal. It's not tough love. It's envy.

Stay out of sports.

It was a hard foul.

You shouldn't watch. Please stop watching sports.

This is not fun anymore.

We love sports. We know it's. We know it's stupid as shit, but we love it. Please don't ruin this.

I saw my brain just started to just be paralyzed. I rub my head, and I don't get migraines. When I got a migraine, in that.

Moment, self correction, Dallas wings lost in the semis last year.

Oh, I don't know if you could tell I didn't care. You could have told me they won it, and I would have been like, okay, so.

So Angel Reese did have a tweet alluding to Caitlin Clark. See this?

Yes, of course I saw.

She said she deleted. It was. Yeah, it was after. After they won. And that's on getting a win in a packed arena, not just because of one player on our charter flight.

Yeah.

Kiss emoji, hashtag Skytown. Don't delete that. Why'd she delete it?

It's just. It's just not becoming fun anymore.

But if she leaves that up, then she's talking shit, and she's like, yeah, I'm talking shit about Caitlin Clark. Let's. It's a good rivalry to get you a rivalry they had in college that's good for the league. If you're gonna talk shit, that's fine. You guys are gonna play each other again, and then you're gonna have, you know, somebody else is gonna win. They're gonna talk shit back to you. That's what sports should be about. But instead, now she deleted it because she's afraid of, like, all the other, like, outrage going on around the correct narrative.

Correct. Yeah.

If I was kayla Clark, I'd retire.

Yeah.

I'd be like, listen, this.

I go to the big three.

I don't mind getting, you know, hard fouled. I don't mind getting hit in the face. I don't mind getting knocked down. I don't mind, you know, not making that much money to play in a professional sports league, but I'm just sick of all you losers writing columns about.

Right, right. Just let me play basketball.

Yeah, she should.

She should actually reverse and be like, hey, can you guys just shut up and let me dribble?

Yeah. You know, she. What she should say? She'd say, shut up and Scribble. Yeah, the fucking. Yeah, those that are. That are taking all the fun out of it.

Scribble.

Shut up and scribble.

Little scribble scrabble.

Yeah.

My daughter always like, hey, can I do some scribble scrabble? I'm like, sure, hand her a pen. Literally, that's all it is.

She just scribbles.

Nothing. Just scribbling.

Sounds like you're disappointed for, like, a half hour.

Well, yeah, it'd be nice if she could just, like, draw me or something. She's scribble scrabble. She said. She says, like, I'm scribble scrabbling. It's like, okay, that's what Greg Doyle's doing right now, scribbling. Sitting by himself. Imagine it's scribble Scrabble.

The takes that man is cooking up in his brain with all this time to think. Just think.

Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna say Max.

So the Ranger, the Rangers game.

It'S all one song. Yeah.

So Rangers K. The Rangers are. They're a very good hockey team.

It was quite a tangent. Memes, you are in hell.

I thought you guys are gonna blow right by.

It also means I memes new thing is he. He just does all caps, so he'll just tweet it and be all caps to be like, look, I'm excited for the Rangers, but it's all caps in the most monotone. Like, Rangers winning overtime, but it's all caps.

Oh, it means he's been on that shit for a while.

Oh, yeah.

But every. Every postseason, all caps is a new.

Part that he's doing where he's, like, trying to get people off the scent. Like, hey, I'm not editorializing it. Yeah, but it's just, it's just the same. Nothing but just all caps.

So it's by far, memes least favorite part of his job. And that. That includes cleaning up turtle shit is having to post.

He loves his little mister.

Does love that. But he. He hates more than anything, having to post Rangers highlights.

Memes. Speaking of which, how mad were you at me on Sunday when I tweeted you? Hey, are we covering the Rangers game when they went up? Like, would they go up? Four, two.

Yeah, I was pretty fired up about it.

Yeah. And you had. He hadn't tweeted anything, and I just tweeted him. I was like, hey, are we covering the Rangers game right now? I think when they went up to one, you tweeted it. Yeah. You just. You just weren't gonna cover them. No, I was covering them. Not only tweeted out Rangers goals. Oh, wow. Reverse it on them. You're trying to jinx or something.

No, they.

They were playing really good.

Their goal is really good. The Panthers just can't make a fucking shot.

They had 108 shots, and they couldn't get five in Starkin. That's pretty crazy.

A hundred and they win the ceiling.

How many on goal?

43 to 48.

One of those numbers.

If the Rangers win the Stanley cup, not only should we sin send memes to the parade to cover it, we should also hang a banner just over his head in that last room.

That'd be nice.

We should also put Hank's banner in there, right above Max. If the Celtics won.

Yeah, that'd be a nice touch just yet. That will be our trophy case. Yeah. The booth is. Yeah, the canyon of heroes in the. In the booth.

I like that.

Yeah, you like that? You like that, Matt? Max, by the way, is out for blood in the 78 finals.

Yeah.

Which is honestly a good thing. Like. Yeah, hop on board the Mavericks train.

I just want to know how you're gonna hurt Luca in the second game of the series.

What do you say that, Max?

Oh, because that's how every series has gone for the Celtics. That's why. And Hank just doesn't talk about it.

Yeah, you don't talk about that.

I mean, I. We talk about every play. Who's Jimmy plays on the. On the floor in front of you.

I mean, you were talking about how it was a hard fought game against the Pacers and how they were really good team, and they didn't say the time. Saliberton didn't play the last two games.

It's a good point. Big avocado can be true if you're. If you're a detective and a woman's been married five times and all four of her ex husbands have been murdered mysteriously.

This is a tiger king lady.

Yeah. It's like Carol Bass.

Okay. Yeah.

So now we're looking at the Celtics, and we've got Jimmy Butler. We've got the entire New York Knicks. Excuse me. The Celtics not played him. I'm sorry.

Donovan Mitchell make it?

I'm thinking about Donna McDonovan Mitchell, who got very.

Her, and Jared Allen.

Jared Allen got hurt. And now I'm thinking of Tyrese Hall Burton.

Yeah.

On the Pacers, there's one comment.

Rick Carlisle's brain.

Yeah, his brain.

Again, I hope. I don't want Luca to get hurt. I'm not rooting for injuries. I want to beat the Mavs.

You tried to injure TJ McConnell tonight, too.

It is funny because we started this playoffs when you were clearly rooting for the Nuggets to get hurt.

I was so.

It is full, sir, I have never.

I have never once said anything about rooting for injuries.

I I'm gonna side with Hank that you can't apologize for other teams getting injured.

Yeah, but it's fun to ask him.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't apologize for that. No.

Fuck no.

But if you were, would you. No. If you could apologize, would you.

Absolutely not.

Well, Hank, you've said. You said numerous times that Luca is a much better player than Kyrie Irving. Right?

You have.

Luca ranked well ahead of him. Mm hmm. Which player would you rather see get injured on the maverick?

Neither.

Lucky factor? Neither. What if it was his lucky stomping foot?

I want to beat them full strength.

Okay. Do we have anything else before we get to hot seat cool. Thrown. There's a lot of sports stuff. Oh, shout out the Indy 500. It happened. I. Wouldn't it be crazy? Pft. If you were someone who, let's say, quote unquote, has shit for brains, watched last year's Indy 500 for solid, like, 20 minutes, not realizing was in rain delay. Wouldn't that be crazy?

We did that one time with the Royal rumble.

I fucking. I watched it for 20 minutes, kind of zoning out. And then I saw that, like, an hour and a half later, like, the. The rain is cleared. We're about to start the race. What the fuck? Yeah, I was rooting for. I bet it. And I was like, oh, man. My guys in 7th. This is pretty good.

There's no way to know. That's last year's race. It's the same cars going around the same circle.

Really dumb on that.

Indie fans will get mad at me for saying it's a circle going around the same track only.

Only 200 laps, though.

Mickey Mouse.

Yeah. Asterisks. Big time asterisks. Okay, let's do hot sea cool throw, because I think we have a lot of other sports topics to talk about. And then we'll get to our great interview with Danny Ange. Hot sea cool thrones, brought to you by our friends at game time. Did you know they can get tickets to a baseball game? Let's say Cubs. Cubs are. Cubs are around this week. Let's see. Can you pull up the Cubs tickets for me? I think they're playing the Reds this week with game time, the official ticketing partner of Barstool sports. You can find tickets to concerts, sports, anything out there. Comedy, theater, all of it at game time. So look. Friday, Friday, $22 little Friday, 120 game.

Not bad.

Nothing better. Bleachers. Let me see the bleachers. Go buy a bleacher seat on Friday. $70. That's a great deal. That's a great deal. With game time, you can get great deals because they have flash deals for sudden discounts, zone deals for when you're feeling flexible, and their lowest price guaranteed means that if you can find the same seats for less anywhere else, game time will credit you 110% of the difference. Game time is the best place for last minute seats with up to 60% off your favorite events. What are you waiting for? I'm going to go to a Cubs game this weekend. That's a fact with game time. Take the guesswork out buying tickets with game time. Download the game time app. Create an account. Use code PMT for $20 off your first purchase terms. Apply. Download the game time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed and hot seat cool Toronto brought to you by our friends at Coors Light. Shout out to the people who are ride or die fans. Despite multiple losses or bad draft picks, choosing a chill mindset makes the day to day better. Life too short to get worked up over small stuff.

Choose chill and then reach for Coors light instead. I saw a bunch of people tweeting us their ice cold Coors light over the holiday weekend and it was awesome. Had a couple Coors light on Saturday when it was the perfect weather day in Chicago. So when you embrace the chill mindset, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors light. Coors lights mountain cold refreshment crisp and refreshing, is the Colorado Rockies. I'm gonna say right now, it's the drink of the summer. Coors Light is the drink of the summer. Those coolers. That one guy who had the cooler packed and it was Coors light. There were blue mountains and it was a beautiful, long weekend. And you're like, summer has officially arrived. The drink of the summer, Coors light, is officially here. So when you choose chill, chill out, life gets better. Choose chill and then reach for a Coors like get Coors light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to Coors light.com. taking my favorite beer in the whole world. The coldest beer in the whole world. The first Coors light goes down so easy when it's hot out and you got that cold blue mountains on the cans or bottles.

Coors light.com take or get it delivered straight to your door with instacart by going to Coors light.com. slash take hot seat, cool throne hank.

My hot seat is Rafa.

Yeah.

Ah, end of an era, the king of clay.

Yeah, not. Not anymore.

Went down.

Oh.

People are saying it's probably his last one.

First round. Right?

First round.

He got screwed on the draw.

Yeah, that's loser talking, the first round.

Yeah, it's very.

If Djokovic lost in the first round, you would have been like, kick him. Kick him out of the country. He's not vaxxed.

Well, that happened at the Aussie Open.

Yeah, I know. Point me. Joker was. I'm up 15 love right now, Jake.

Ok. Joker was watching Rafa because he appreciates greatness.

Is he playing in the French Open? Yes. Oh, so who cares? He fucking had a day off. 30 love me. What are you talking about? Everyone, when they. When they play, like, tournament games, team goes and watches after the game or before the game, they watch who they're playing.

Oh, depends.

Yeah.

Probably scouting.

He's there. It would be cool if he flew in just to see it. No, he's just. He was just hanging out, like, I'll go watch Rafa.

Oh, he was probably scouting.

Yeah, of course he was. 30. 30 love me. Okay, any. Any other brain, any other shots you want me to hit back at you for him? Back in 112 four.

Is this French Open record?

Okay, and what is he lately? Oh, what's his last one?

Oh, and one.

Oh. 40 love me. This tennis shit is easy.

I do feel like if Clay. If he doesn't have clay anymore. Yeah, it's. It can't be. He can't be long.

No, that is. That is a crazy record. What is it, one for twelve and four? That's nuts.

How can you be that good on that surface?

Who did he lose to in? So how many French opens is he won't?

I think around a dozen.

And who is he lost to in the finals before?

Was the joker.

No, I'm asking. No, I honestly don't know. I know this was a first round loss.

14 French opens.

And who. Who did he. Did he lose to any? Because, like, he obviously is the king of the clay. That's not up for discussion. But did he ever lose in the finals? Or was it always, like, upsets in the first round?

Standby.

Okay, here, Joker finals. Joker.

Joker 20 me.

That was easy. Game point in 2016.

He had to withdraw before his third round match.

Okay.

Joker 21.

Whoops.

And Vera of today.

Mmm.

Straight sets.

Jake, there's. There's no way that you did not know what big cat was said.

No, I mean, course I knew.

Game me. You didn't even score a point. You got loved. Okay.

But you got a very small portion of the set.

Oh, you want to do a set? You want to do set. How much time we got?

Do an entire podcast, just be scoring points?

No, it actually is insane. 1112 and four is crazy. Is that all you had, Hank? Just that he. He lost? Yeah. Kind of a hater move.

I never hot seat yet.

True.

I'm on the cool throne.

Is he done for losing?

No, not officially.

Okay.

Yeah, but he's done if he loses in the first round of the French Open.

But bad draw might be the biggest loser stock ever was saying all kind of stuff.

I would never lose in the first round.

Never.

Too much pride.

My other hot seat is Max. He is performing this weekend with pop punk. He's nervous about it. He's been pacing around the office.

Yeah. Jerry's on weed, one of my favorite places in all of Chicago.

Very excited about.

I'm excited for a home, a home crowd concert. Pup punk.

Yes. There's a bunch people, barstool are going out there, and it's gonna be a blast. These are always, like, one of the most fun times that we have as a company. And Max is singing a song. I'm not gonna say what song you say.

Yeah, I'm nervous. I'm nervous. Memorized, like, memorizing stuff.

He's a. He's got a good voice. I don't want to be good.

It'll be publicity.

Some people have said that Max looks like fat Dave Grohl. Something.

People have said that.

So what are we gonna do, Dave roll Dave role. So what are we gonna do?

So he might be doing a. Max would sing for the food fighters.

The food fighter.

Got it.

Yeah.

I'm very excited that it is. I mean, not to. Not to glaze. Pft. I'm gonna glaze him because I love him. He's really fucking good at guitar, and their band is really good. So it's like a very fun night out. So if you want live music, and it's not that expensive.

It's not that expensive. Right by ticket.

Joe's on weed is awesome.

Jose. A great place. Roan is an awesome front man. Roan kicks ass at everything that he does.

He's a.

He's a very good front man for band. We got Robbie on bass, Frankie on drums, who's also gonna be singing. Frankie's got. He's got some pipes on.

He does.

He's a good singer. And then we got Nick Hamilton. Keyboards, guitars. And then Caroline's also singing. Well, it's gonna be a good time. Come out to Joe's on weed.

Hell yes. Friday night.

Good. Cool throwing, Hank.

Thank you. My. No, that was my hot seat Max.

No hot seat Max.

What song?

My cool throne is.

People get excited about it.

My cool throne is Mark Davis.

Yes. Good call. Yeah, Mark Davis.

A report came out that he got his 27 year old girlfriend pregnant, but then she came out on instagram and said, the reports of Mark Davis being the father, my child, are wildly untrue. So.

Oh, oh.

How is this cool throwing Mark Davis?

I don't think you want to be a new father at 70.

No, I think that's exactly when you want to be a new dad.

Don't think you want a woman being so repulsed that she has to issue a press release being like, I sat next to him at a concert or a football game once. He is not the father of my child.

Is that all we had to go on was that there was a Jovi.

Dove'S been getting into some weird, like, breaking news. Like, I don't know if he actually broke it, someone else broke it, then he caught. He probably. Yeah, that's probably exactly.

Yeah, no, do.

Yeah, yeah, but someone just saw, she posted I'm pregnant announcement and then they're like, oh, she was at a Raiders game with Mark Davis two years ago. Must be Mark Davis.

So anybody you're sitting next to him in a game in 2022 and have endured false rumors of romantic relationship since. I was just a guest sitting in the owner's box with other friends.

Yeah. So that's where I feel like it sucks me, Mark Davis, that this woman's like, ew, no, everyone stops saying this. I just saw him once.

Yeah, Mark Davis was.

She basically, he got. She's basically publicly made an announcement of like friend zone.

He got a nice little boost. I think that just having people assume that he was the father.

Right.

Was good for him. He's probably relishing in that, right?

So I don't know, I kind of feel bad for Mark Davis in this one. Art.

So hot seat.

Yeah, cuz you don't. I mean, think about it, that is to be like, oh, we're not dating.

Yeah, he's. He's a really nice guy, right? Basically what you said, like, he would.

Make a great father, just not for me. Yeah, not for my child.

Make some woman very, very lucky one.

Yeah, I would have rocked if he was a seven year old dad just cuz he'd have a kid and come out right with a bowl cut. Yeah, v cute little changes wristband. It would have air apparent to the.

Raiders the way I wish, I wish she should have done this would be if she said, that's not his baby we just did in the butt. Yeah, that's what she should have.

Only mouth stuff. That would have been nice for Mark Davis. Instead it was just the. Ew. No way. Yeah, I never, I never.

It's sad. Yeah, it's sad. Billionaires can't even get laid anymore.

Seriously. Well, you know what, Mark Davis let us interview on, pardon my take, and we'll go out on town, we'll be your wingman.

Yeah, we'll find you nice girl, we'll.

Fucking, we'll talk you up, we'll talk you up. So crazy. What? My boy, my boy, my boy.

It's literally Mark Davis.

See my boy over there in a white suit? Yeah, actually it's actually kind of a pretty popular haircut right now, you know Mark Davis, Jeff Nadu. It's kind of actually hot on the Internet.

They called that the Caesar back in the day. Cause he's the most powerful person in the world.

See my boy over there, he owns the raiders. Well, his mom does, but he kinda does.

But his dad used to own the Raiders and everyone. His dad was a hell of a guy.

See my boy over there, he, he's so confident. He wears all white while eating buffalo wings.

See my go? Look how good he looks now that he's no longer wearing the propeller hat beam.

Oh man. Yeah. See my boy over there, he drives a conversion van. Bet you'd never guess that. No, actually I would. Oh yeah. All right, Mark Davis, we got you.

My boy, my boy over there, he can drink seven sweet teas at PF Chang's before the appetizers come out.

Yeah, if you're asking, fact, if you're asking if the carpet max mask matches the drapes, they do. You ever got a bowl cut for his penis?

You ever seen a dick with freckles on it before?

Now you have. Oh yeah, we got. Boy, we got this. All right. Your hot seat. Cool. Toronto.

My hot seat is complaining about umpires. Yeah, because the MLB world lost a real one today. Angel Hernandez. Angel got his wings.

I'm sad about this.

He's not dead, he's retiring. Angel Hernandez, major league baseball umpire. Much, much better human being. Yeah, even better of a human being than he is as an umpire. Way better. So he retired today and probably not.

A great human being. Much much better.

Way better. He retired kind of abruptly and he said, starting with my first major league game in 1991. That's a long ass time.

Yeah, that is.

His eyes can't be. Well, they're definitely not good anymore. I have had the very good experience of living out my childhood dream of umpiring the major leagues. I treasured the camaraderie of my colleagues and the friendships I've made along the way. I've decided that I want to spend more time with my family. So it sounds like he. It sounds like this is his decision, that he's leaving to spend more time with his family. All of a sudden, in the middle of major league baseball season. That happens all the time.

Yeah. I'm going to miss him.

Of course. Of course you're going to.

Can't have guys like this. Like, we need. We need at least a couple diva umps out there. We lost Joe west, now we lose Angel Hernandez. It was always good for just, you know, having. Having a moment where, like, can you believe Angel Hernandez did this?

Yeah. It felt like major league Baseball media really hated him. But outside the MLB tight knickerbocker, knit circle, it's like, you can appreciate art.

Yeah, right. How ridiculously bad he is.

Angel Hernandez took bad umpiring to an art that we haven't seen before. I don't know if we'll see it again, but, yeah, it's always good. It's always good to have one guy like that. You can't have two or three guys like that right at the same time. It's like when. When Joey Crawford retired. Next man up, Scott Foster. Right, right guy. So who's next up? Who's the next umpire that we got?

Find someone.

I think a lot of people don't like. CB. Buffer.

Okay, great.

All right. Yeah.

Fuck.

Stevie Buckner, you're on the line.

CB.

Oh, CB.

Yeah.

CB.

Buckner.

Yeah.

That's a ten four.

Yeah. Angel Hernandez was so bad. But again, if you're gonna be bad, just be the worst.

Yeah.

And he was the worst by far, which is. I tip my hat if you're like, I'm. You don't want to be bad in a mix of other bad guys. You want everyone to be like Angel Hernandez. That guy's the worst.

Yep. Fact, my cool throne is misogynistic. NFL kickers. So former Jaguars kicker Brandon McManus got accused of groping two flight attendants on the team chartered flight from Jacksonville to England to go play their London game last year. And apparently he was, like, throwing money at him, making him dance like. Like strippers on the team playing this seems like it would have been an urban Meyer culture type move, maybe just a little bit left over from that. I actually know Urban would have missed a flight. He would have stayed home and, and found some strange on his own. I got a question. You said former Jaguars.

Former Jaguars. Who does he play for now?

Former Jaguars kicker.

Who does he play for now?

Former Jaguars kicker Jake, who does he play for now? When these actions occurred, he was a member of the Jacksonville Jaguar, but he.

Got, he got signed by a team after doing this.

Well, no, the accusations just came to light right now so that whatever team signed him is doing a full, thorough investigation into these allegations. And you can rest assured they'll leave no stone unturned because whatever team that has him is the type of organization that does not tolerate that sort of thing.

He is the kicker of the Washington command.

Oh, former Jaguars kicker. Dang, how he's being labeled. I'm going to continue to refer to him as such. We'll see where, we'll see where the investigation takes us. If it's true, he should be cut, and I think he will be cut.

If it's true, he's got to be the only commander ever who's like, man, I wish Dan Snyder was still the owner.

Yeah, that's the thing.

It's like if he was like, he just wrong. You know, the whole, like, I was born in the wrong era.

Yeah.

Brandon McMahon assigned with commanders in the wrong era.

By a year, he would have been kicker for life.

About to have an open position for your position.

I retired from kicking, Jake.

This is a dream opportunity.

If, if they ask me to camp, I will, I will attend.

I also feel like it's not a dream opportunity because, like, what if you lost a game from them?

I would actually much suck. I would rather be a kicker on the Cowboys and.

Yeah, right.

Because I could just lose games.

Right? Like, you'd have double whammy if you missed a kick. Like, oh, not only did I lose, but my team lost. And now I have to podcast about it.

If they're looking for some camp fodder for, you know, just some, some live bodies to bring out during training camp, I will, I will kick. But, you know, he was really happy about this. Probably Harrison Buck, actually. I bet you there's a lot of people saying, why don't you keep that same energy? No one's talking about Brandon McManus. Everyone talked about Harrison Bucker. Let those people know on the record, we were talking about Brandon McManus.

Right.

Although Harrison Bucker would probably be like, well, if they had just been home with a family.

Yeah.

And not working as a flight attendant, this wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, we. The. He shouldn't have been in a room with a. With a woman.

Yeah. Correct. Yes.

It isn't his wife.

Yeah.

Old Mike Pence agreed. Okay, good. Hot seat. Cool throne. My hot seat is NBA players, because Draymond Green says that the NBA does not set up NBA players to retire with wealth.

Okay.

Draymond Green made $177 million so far. Now, he said it was because taxes, which everyone pays, but also the fine system, is basically trying to keep NBA players poor.

Did Draymond Green, did he accrue a larger than usual amount of fines over the course?

He did. He did. He did. But he also quoted, like. He's like, yeah, I got a technical. $2,000 fine. Okay, $2,000. Not as. Not an insignificant amount of money, unless you've made $177 million. But, yeah, I looked it up. Pft. Just because I was curious. And he has been fined over $2 million. But some of the fines, let's just throw them out there. Condra, detrimental to the team. That was when he knocked out Jordan pool. That feels like that was on you, Draymond Green. You could have easily avoided that fine by not punching your teammate in the face. How about this one? Stepping on the chest of Demontis Sabonis during the Warriors Kings game. Also very avoidable for escalating on court altercation during Minnesota Golden State game. That was when he choked Rudy Gobert. Kind of on you, Draymond. And then last one for striking Youssef Kirk in the face during the Golden State Suns game, where he just punched him in the face again on you. Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that Draymond's done that probably ended up being deserved of fines. Is this a case of being like, it's the wrong messenger saying it? Does he have a point? I don't know. I don't know what the NBA does or does not do. I don't think that Draymond is probably the one to say, hey, you know, with all these crazy fines that they're leveling out, it's really taken away from our ability to have a career post. Draymond doesn't need a career post. His career is he was in the NBA and he did whatever the fuck he wants.

Correct.

But what about. I know, like, with NFL players, your window is so small, and the last guy on the bench, they don't make that much money. Definitely not enough to set them up for life, and they, like, two years at it. Sometimes in the NBA. What is it? What is the 10th man making the NBA?

A lot of money.

A lot of money.

A lot of money. I mean, remember when Tony Snell signed, like, a $40 million contract?

Yeah.

Tony Snow. They make a lot of money.

They make a ton of money.

It's all guaranteed. I have a theory. I think Draymond Green knows it's over, and he's going out really sad. Just complaining, like, trying to, you know, he made it weirdly kind of personal with Rudy Gobert on the inside the NBA and Carl Anthony towns. I think Draymond Green has had insane amount of success. He's an interesting guy. He's made $177 million minus fines. I think there might be a small part of him when he goes to bed at night, he's like, did I cost steph, like, a couple of rings?

He might. You might think that way a little bit, but he also had it yet.

And it's over yet.

A great career, though.

Incredible career. He's. I mean, an incredible player. Incredible career. Four rings. But I do think there's a little bit of. It's over. And he's grasping it, whatever he can, to try to keep it going.

I see his point, though. It's. It's a little misleading to call punching Jordan pool in the face and knocking him out detrimental to the team. Yeah, that might have.

That been.

Yeah, that should have been reversed.

But, like, Clay did this last year. Remember when Clay was like, I don't want to come off the bench. And then Clay kind of realized, like, you know what? I've had a really good career. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna just be around. I'm not gonna.

Yeah.

Not gonna rock the boat here. Yeah, I'm gonna rock the boat part. Maybe.

Maybe he hasn't been great with his money. Maybe that's why he's doing TNT. I don't know. I don't know what his circumstances. But, yeah, for him to say that, like, the fines are the big problem. Yeah, the NBA is just willy nilly signing fine. You never know when you step on the court. It might be. You might get an envelope in your. In your locker after the game for no reason.

Yeah, quite something. And then my other hot seat was the Braves, because Ronald Acuna towards ACL. That sucks.

Yeah, a lot.

Also, he went, how do we judge this one? He went on Twitter and said, sorry, you don't have to apologize.

It's very canadian of him.

Yeah. Also kind of gives you, like everyone saying, don't worry, you don't have to apologize. I. I think that for the support.

For him, for him, it might be like he also had a devastating injury the year they won the World Series.

Yeah.

So he's probably bummed out that he's not going to get another crack at.

It again, but he shouldn't have to feel like he has to apologize. Injuries happen. It sucks.

Is it the same ACL as last time?

I don't know. It sucks.

So, yeah, it does suck.

Sucks. Okay. And then my cool throne is Conor McGregor because you wouldn't tell that he's got a fight in six weeks with some of the clips that have come out from Memorial Day weekend. And I love this energy. I think he's probably going to lose to Michael Chandler. But I like the fact that Conor McGregor, just like us, is like, it's Memorial Day weekend. Like, diet starts Tuesday.

Yeah.

Fight camp starts Tuesday.

This is how. This is how the irish train for fights.

Was that his wife? I think it was.

I'm gonna say yes. Yeah, I think it was definitely so good for them.

They're very much in love. Yeah, very much.

This is, this is how the Irish do, man. You go out, you party, you have a good time.

Yeah.

You just show up.

He's having a great time. A great time. Okay, Jake, my hot seats.

Barry Bonds. Jose Ramirez. He was pitched around with the bases loaded and someone after the game said, you received the Barry Bond treatment. And he said, I'm better than Barry Bonds.

What's interesting, that's confidence.

Well, that's.

Embrace the baby. How many career home runs does he have?

Not even close.

Not, not the most ever.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, then. No, he's not. Yeah, I'll just settle that r1 quick.

No, he is not as good or better than Barry Bonds.

He has 231.

All right. Is that. How much does Barry Bonds have? Is it more?

Seven something.

Okay. Yeah, Barry Bonds is better.

I saw a stat that was like, fuck, I'm gonna try to find it.

Take away the seven mvp.

Yes. Seven. Yeah, take away the seven.

Mv like 490 home run.

It was, yeah, it was exactly that. It was like, take away the seven MVP seasons and he had 440 home runs and 359 stolen bases.

Yeah, pretty, pretty insane.

And Barry Bond, his seven best seasons and he still is like an incredible baseball player.

And even before the steroids, he was probably a hall of famer at that point.

It's nuts that he's not in the hall of Fame. It's nuts.

So in 2004 if Barry Bonds went up to the plate without a bat, if he didn't have a bat in his hand, he would have had an on base percentage of 60%. Without a bat.

It's crazy. It's crazy.

And you know what? That would have been the best in baseball history.

Yeah.

Without a bat.

He's so good. He should be in the whole thing. Okay, best player of all time.

My cool throne is college lacrosse. Notre Dame goes back to back men's side and BC wins on the women's side. Notre Dame, men's lacrosse becoming a wagon.

Yeah. The. The Kavanaugh brothers, right?

Yeah. And then there's a guy who used to play quarterback at Alabama who transferred and is now.

Oh, yeah, he was knocker. Yeah. Buckner.

Is that his name?

Tyler Buckner.

Yeah.

Maybe.

A lot of people having the conversation. Could Notre Dame lacrosse beat the whip snakes?

Yeah.

Whipsakes are so bad.

It's game week, by the way.

It is. Tyler Bruckner nailed the opening week.

Dogs.

Yeah, dogs.

Yeah, I watched some of that game. Kind of wish they had scored more goals, but that is what it is.

Yeah.

Sometimes it just doesn't happen. They killed there. They killed Maryland.

Mm hmm.

Pretty damn good. Wake up the echoes. Okay, we have a great interview with Danny Ange in person. Been a long time coming. Shadow Hank for working on getting us this interview for like five years. But yeah, great interview, great stories. Great Bill Walton stories. And before we do that, pft, you had a couple ads.

Yeah.

Before we get to Danny, ain't she's brought to you by Chevy. As everyone knows, this is a Chevy truck podcast. The greatest trucks ever built. And our good friends at Chevrolet are a big part of the, part of my take story. They've been a big part for a long time. The Silverado helped us dig the biggest hole ever dug in Ohio during Grit week. The Silverado partners with us every season to give college fullbacks all the rightful recognition that they deserve with the low man award. They also powered our nonstop cross country trip to the Super bowl in LA behind the wheel of a Chevy Silverado. Silverado has been a part of it all. Say this about that drive going from Connecticut to LA. The Silverado was so comfortable. It was really comfortable. I drove a lot of the way and it felt spacious. Felt like you could. We had people taking naps in the front seat. There were four of us in that truck, and it was very, very roomy. The Chevy Silverado, long time awesome partner of the show. It's a truck with commanding and unstoppable grit, legendary capability, and dependability, too. I love Chevy.

I drove a Chevy Silverado, actually, for an entire summer. It's a great truck. Absolutely love it. Find out for yourself. I personally own a Chevy. You're going to love it. Like so many other awls. Go to chevy.com. check out all the Chevy truck grit. Build your own Silverado for do it yourself projects, road trips, off road adventures, tailgates, whatever your thing is, it all starts with a Chevy truck. And now here's Danny Ainge.

Okay, we now welcome on an absolute legend, a very, very, very special guest. It is Danny Ainge. He is. What are you, just the president of everything for the jazz now? You've had a million titles.

I'm CEO of the Jazz.

CEO of the Jazz. Was obviously long time with the Celtics, played baseball, was incredible football player, which I want to get into. Thank you for joining us.

Good to be here. Yeah, it's fun break from the. All the basketball at the combine camp.

Yeah, I actually. You want to start with football because I talked to your son earlier. He said that was the one thing that no one ever asked. They're like, he. You know, he was like. Everyone talks about how Danny angel was incredible. You know, NBA champion, long time Celtic, played major league baseball. No one talks about the fact that he was actually an incredible high school football player that had a ton of offers to play football.

Yeah, I played football, too.

Is there any sport that you weren't good at growing up?

I wasn't very good at tennis.

Okay, that's fine. You could throw that one out.

Yeah. And as I tried playing tennis, my father played some tennis, and I didn't know which hand to use because I was. I'm kind of ambidextrous, and I don't know what hand, left or right hand.

I heard you, too. Yeah. That you hit with both hands when you play tennis.

Yeah.

Which that is. That means you're probably good at tennis even though you're not.

I'm not very good, yeah.

But. So. So when you were coming out of high school, was there ever a thought that you were going to maybe play football and, like. Because that was obviously something you were really, really good at. Or was it always just baseball, basketball? Yeah.

When I was coming out of high school, I thought that I might try to play two sports in college. And so, yeah, I went on some recruiting trips in football and took it very seriously. I mean, I loved. Loved high school football. I was mostly receiver and a defensive corner on a corner and safety. And then. And so it was interesting how different parts of the country would recruit me as a, as a receiver and other conference teams would recruit me as a safety. And then I played my whole senior year as a quarterback just because our quarterback got hurt. And that was fun, too. Yeah, that was a blast. But I was mostly recruited as a receiver.

Yeah.

So when did you decide that football is not something I'm going to pursue anymore. I'm just going to focus on basketball?

I think when basketball season started, after football was over, I went back on the basketball court and I just felt like basketball, basketball was always going to be in the equation. You know, football and baseball go the best together. But, yeah, I was never going to give up basketball. It was going to be basketball and baseball or football and basketball.

Do, have you seen any of the discourse going on right now about, you know, how many NFL players could play in the NBA right now and vice versa? Because you might be the answer to all these questions like, oh, well, Danny ain't could probably play in all the, all the leagues at his prime.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about that. I mean, I think it's disrespectful to the football to just say that basketball players could play in there. But I mean, I think that the great athletes, and I think they're the, you know, there's a lot of great athletes in the NBA, of course. And have they chose a different path to play football? I don't think they go play football right now. I think it's a, you got to learn that craft. But I think the same in football. Every now and then you see good football players that play basketball in college, but they're not as good. You guys are too old. But I remember when the Cowboys back, you know, when I was a kid, they drafted some basketball players to play on those cowboy teams. And when Tom Landry was coaching, and I know that's ancient times for you, but I, I do believe that. I mean, you take guys like, I'm watching right here, Jalen Brown, I mean, he feels like he could be a football player if that's what he wanted to be. But, yeah, so I don't know what the argument is necessarily, but I think there's some great athletes, great athletes out there that could, that could play different sports for sure.

Had they started at a younger age.

I guess the discussion was like, are there players that could translate from either league directly right now to the other? Our point was, yeah, there's some great athletes in the NBA if they love football, if they wanted to play football. They put their minds to it. If you're one of these big guys, like you can play, you can be a tight end with enough practice if you have that competitive mentality to you. But we also thought it'd be harder for a football player to become a professional basketball player because of the skill aspect, dribbling, shooting, things that don't necessarily translate to football. But, yeah, it was one of those discussions that you talk about usually, like the second week of July when there's nothing going on in sports.

Yeah.

But for some reason just cropped up. Actually, you're, you're a good person. Asked this question, too, because you've seen so much basketball.

Well, there's, there's a player named Caleb loner who played at Baylor basketball the last couple years, played at BYU before, and he's headed to Utah to play tight end. It's a great school for him, I think, because Utah really uses their tight ends well.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we'll see firsthand, like he's a starting or he's a bench player for Baylor right now, but for your college players, going to try college football?

Yeah. Yeah.

It's going to be interesting to watch. So you've seen so much basketball, you've been in and around basketball for your entire life. So let's just start with who's the best player that you've ever played against.

Or watched play well, Michael Jordan. Yeah.

It's a good answer.

Yeah, I would say that's fair.

I heard that you might have something to do with his greatness or at least with his, one of his all time great performances.

Yeah.

You played golf against him and pissed him off.

Yeah, that's true. Got him, got him a little frustrated. He had 63 on us the next night. I had to guard him for a share of that, but my kids have abused me on that one and we've gone back and watched the film. I think I gave up twelve of the 63.

Oh, so you're fine?

I'm fine. But like, Walton fouled out and he's never forgiven me because I switched a lot. I'm guarding Michael and his screen. Like, you got him, Bill.

Yeah.

And Walton fouled out and he's like, guard your own man.

The, I watched a clip of MJ talking about you as a golfer and he said that he, you are his favorite person to golf with because you give him shit more than anyone else. Like you'll, you'll talk trash to him more than anyone else. Is that fair to say? I mean, you, you obviously you know, from your basketball career, you'd fight anyone. You got dirty. But when you're on the golf course with Michael Jordan, are you. You're not intimidated whatsoever?

No, not at all. I mean, Michael is so fun to play with. He's a great competitor, as we all know. And him and I were golf junkies when we were playing in the NBA. And so we got together like we did in the. That was his second year in the league when he had the 63 against us in the Boston Garden. And that's when it started. We had two media buddies that were. That knew each other, and they got us together and we played, and then we'd play every summer here and there. I'd run into him in San Diego and in Chicago and Boston, and it was fun. He's a. He's a great. And he's a golf junkie like I am.

Yeah. Wait, so how bad did you beat him in these 36 holes before he dropped?

Oh, not bad. I mean, I think our matches are always pretty close.

Yeah.

And that's why it's so fun. It's so competitive.

Yeah. So, all right, so your enter entry to the NBA. Obviously, you played. You were playing college basketball and major league baseball at the same time, which I feel like if that story happened today, people would be like, what's going on? This is incredible. Like, I mean, it was incredible then, but now even more, like, people being able to play multiple sports doesn't happen as much. But your entry to the NBA, what was it like coming from playing baseball? And then you're walking onto a Celtics team that has Larry Bird, that has Kevin McHale, that's won a title where you like, oh, man, I can't hang with these guys. You instantly like, no, I'm here. I'm where I belong.

You know, when I. When I played, I think playing in Yankee Stadium and in Fenway park and against those great Yankee teams, Billy Martin managing. And that was pretty special. I mean, I was a kid, and it was. It was a lifetime. Great memories of playing in those games, but it did, it didn't feel like I was playing under the same kind of pressure when I got to the NBA, even though I was playing for the Celtics. I came in midseason because of my baseball contract, and I was a very good team, like you said. And so I had to pay my dues. I sat and sat that first year and was dying to play. And then I started my second year. But, yeah, I didn't feel that pressure. I think that I got kind of that youthful anxiety, maybe out of the way. When I was playing baseball in those big ballparks in front of big crowds, that was fun.

Yeah. That actually makes sense, because baseball is the ultimate solo sport, and the fact that you're there, it's. It's pitcher versus batter, and, you know, you strike out and you. You know, you. You fail whatever, you know, three quarters of the time, and then you're on a team with the Celtics and, like.

Maybe fail 75% of the time. Yeah, you said three quarters.

What was your batting average?

We won't talk about that.

Yes. I think I actually maybe gave you a couple points there.

Okay.

That's actually not a bad strategy. I was being nice for player development. Send them, make them go play baseball for you. Yeah, there you go up there and fail the hardest mental.

Would you say baseball is the hardest mental sport?

I think hitting a baseball is tough. Yeah. I mean, pitching is tough, too, but I think. I think hitting, hitting the pitchers is. There's so many good pitchers are different, and, you know, pitchers are getting stronger and stronger all the time. And I love watching baseball. I wish the game somehow could figure out a way to have pitchers, you know, matchups a little bit, last a little longer than they do. I know I don't really like the three start inning or three starter innings, but, yeah, I love baseball.

Yeah. So at what point when you got to the Celtics, did you feel like you were accepted by a Larry Bird and the rest of the team? Would it take that, you know, putting in your dues? Like, what? Did you have a moment where you're like, okay, they can trust me, and I can trust them?

I think my second year.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that it got through. That first year wasn't playing a lot, and I don't think that there was much I did to convince anybody that I deserved to play a lot more. In my own mind, I was. I was deserving, but you just got to pay your dues. And I did. And I think my second year, I earned their respect.

Yeah.

What was it like forming that relationship with the city of Boston as a whole? Because it's a good sports town. We always talk about good sports towns, bad sports towns. Boston is a great sports town, but the fans can be hard on you, but you have to develop a relationship. You watch that with players that come into the league, especially, I'd say, in Boston and Philly, you have to kind of, like, learn how to adapt to the city that you're in. So what was it like ingratiating yourself to the city of Boston.

I loved Boston. I mean it was, it's a great sports town. I mean, you know, they're, they're anti New York and anti Philly. And they love cheering against those teams as, as much as they like cheering for their own teams. But I think just having the Bruins and the Patriots and the Red Sox, I mean, there's just a lot of competition and I think it's healthy competition. And knowing the athletes in the different sports was fun experience. And there's just, there's always sport up all the time.

Yeah. Was there, I would imagine knowing your game, you were a trash talker from time to time playing basketball. When you saw Larry Bird, you're like, oh, this is a different level of trash talking.

Well, yeah, Larry was funny. Larry wasn't like always a trash talker. I mean, always talking trash. He was selective. He wasn't. We had guys like Cedric Maxwell and ML Carr. I mean, they never stopped talking trash. He's always talking trash. And then Kevin McHale just being around them, he was always talking trash. And so Larry wasn't talking as often as them. But Larry said some funny stuff.

That's got to be like when like your dad gets like, raises voice, you're like, oh no, this is, is serious. Now. When Larry decides to start talking trash, it's, he's using it for a real reason.

I think he's using it for his own motivation more than anything. I think some of Larry's trash talk just felt like he wanted to get motivated. I remember him telling Hubie Brown is walking to the sidelines and he says, you know, Hubie, are you serious? This is the only guy that you got that can guard me? And the whole bench hears it. And you know, I'm just sitting there smiling, laughing, like. But Larry's so confident in his game. And Hubie like, you know, puts Johnny Newman in the game for me. Larry, like, are you serious?

That's what you got trash talking coaches next level. Yeah, yeah.

I remember one time we're playing in San Antonio and I don't remember the kid's name, but a young center coming off the bench. He runs in the game with all this excitement. Enthusiasm. The crowd's going crazy and, and Larry says, who you guarded? And the kid points to chief. He goes, oh crap, chief, you're bald.

It's gotta be even more intimidating if he's got that mustache too. You try to focus it feel like it'd be hard to be intimidating with that mustache. But he was able to achieve that.

Well, he was able to achieve, probably not with the mustache, but with his plight, he was a lot more than the mustache. That, that was not very intimidating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but the elevating, your trap, your trash talk to a different level that makes the mustache go from, like, that's a weird looking thing to, I'm scared of that mustache. It's a pretty good accomplishment.

Yeah.

So your teammates loved you in Boston. Who are you closest with there?

I was closest with Kevin.

Yeah.

He was my closest teammate. I mean, I still keep in touch with Larry and Kevin here and there, and, you know, Kevin's really into the NBA still. I talked less to Larry, but we stay in touch over the years. I was, I was close with DJ for a while, but he passed away. He was a great and fun teammate as well.

Yeah. What about Bill Walton as a teammate? Because we've had the honor of being able to interview Bill Walton. We've told this story before, but we got, I think, about two and a half hours in, and Bill Walton said to us, he's like, how long does this go? And we're like, as long as you want. So I don't think we, we wrote down all these questions. I think I maybe asked one of the questions that I wrote down, because he just, he can talk. Was he always eccentric and out there like that?

You know, Bill, when we, when we got Bill, I mean, first of all, we lost Cedric Maxwell, so that was tough because I love Cedric. He was a great teammate, but Bill was, he was who, like Larry and Kevin and I looked up to when we were younger in high school and college, and he was a legend in all of our minds. And so he's coming to the Celtics, even though he hasn't played a lot, a lot of basketball over the last few years. We were, we were very excited to get him, but for me, it was great because I was like Larry and Kevin's little brother, and so I got picked on a lot, and when Walton showed up, all the attention went to him, and they were picking on him, and it was, it was fun. They were. But Bill was a great teammate. I mean, he was one of the most unselfish players I've ever played with, although he didn't really have any of his skills left at that time, so he had to, you know, he had to use his passing.

Yeah.

The most, more than scoring, but he was a great shot blocker, rebounder. But his, he was all about winning. It's all he cared about. And I think that rubbed off on everybody.

So I have a dumb question about that 86 Celtics team, because they're up there with some of the greatest teams of all time, the 96 Bulls.

No, no, no. Not up there. It's above.

Okay. Above there. Okay. Best team of all time. Well, you didn't play the Lakers in the finals.

Well, I know, because they didn't make the. I've heard that wasn't going to happen to us.

I've heard you talk about that and, like, it's. It's crazy to say, but I think that probably speaks to the confidence of the team. And I've heard, you know, I think Kevin McKayle even said this as well, where it's like you guys were mad that the Lakers lost, even though they were, they should have been the second best team. You were mad that you didn't get a chance to beat them. Most teams are like, well, we, you know, we'd like to win the championship no matter what. But you were upset that they lost the rocket.

Yeah. I mean, I think that because the Lakers beat us in 85 and, you know, we felt we were better.

Yeah.

And in 84, maybe the Lakers were a little better at that moment in time, but. And we won that series, but 86, we. We've planned all year to play the Lakers.

We.

Yeah, we just assumed that's what was going to happen, so it was a little disappointing, but, you know, we weren't going to lose either way.

Yeah. So, so the question is, it's a dumb question, but I. Maybe you can describe it and make it a great answer. How fun was it to play on a team that was that good? Because it does feel like there are certain points in NBA history that certain teams reach that almost higher level of basketball where it's like everything comes together and what they're doing is so good and it's such a different level that they can't be stopped. Did that, did you feel that day in and day out?

I did feel that. I felt that all year long in 86. And I think, you know, it was, you know, you know, all the names on, on the team, but it was, you know, the prime of my career. It was the prime of Larry Bird's career. He was, you know, MVP of the league with Magic and Kareem and Olajuwon and Jordan and all these guys in the league. I mean, Larry was the MVP, and it was the prime of Kevin McHale's career, and DJ wasn't past his prime yet. Robert was the only one that was a little older and Walton, and they were able to, like, split that time at center. And they were still great, great players. So we had a good bench. Jerry seasting was a great shooter. Scott Wedman had been an all star and was the highest paid player. Not very many people know that story, but he was the highest paid player in the league when the Celtics got him from Cleveland, and he was an all star in Kansas City. But he was Larry's backup, so he didn't get to play. Not very many people knew, but Larry reminded him and was very frustrated.

I can't believe you make more money than me.

That would piss me off. Yeah, yeah. So you. But you could feel it, like, just the level of basketball and night in and night out, being like, what, you guys, what was your record at home? Did you lose one game at home or something?

Yeah, we're 51.

That's insane.

You lose to.

We lost to Portland in December. Middle of December.

What happened there?

I'm management. No, Portland. Portland was. They. They just caught us on, you know, we weren't our best, but they're, they were a good team. That was the legendary story when we went back to Portland, where Larry was gonna beat him with his left hand, and. And he had, like, 32 points with his left hand that night.

So he said. He said that before the game.

He said that before.

I'm just gonna shoot left.

I'm saving my right hand for the Lakers tomorrow night.

And he actually did it.

He did it.

That's incredible. And while you're watching like this, maybe mix in one right handed shot. Like, no, just keep going.

I mean, Larry was like me, and he was left handed.

Right.

He did a lot of things left handed, but he played basketball right handed, but that was still an amazing feat.

Yeah. Was there. Was there a respect between you and the Lakers, or did you just hate them?

I didn't hate him. I mean, our fans hated him, but, I mean, I grew up a Laker fan as a kid, and, you know, I ran into magic Johnson, who was the same age I was coming out of high school, and we played in an AAU tournament, and, like, I was in awe of magic. It was. It was unbelievable. Seeing him for the first time as an 18 year old was. Was incredible. So I'd followed him, but, no, I wasn't. I didn't hate him, but they were just. It's like playing against Michael. Like, they're the best. Like, let's go. This is. This is the ultimate challenge. Yeah. But I know that there was hatred mostly felt by the fans. And, you know, what we're playing for. There's a lot of intensity and you couldn't ever be caught, you know, talking to him, being friendly to him, picking him up off the floor. After Mikhail did the Kurt Rambus throat shot, it was a little bit more intense.

Yeah. And before that, didn't Larry call the whole team like a bunch of pussies or something? Before the Kurt Rambis throat shot?

I don't know. He called us.

Yeah, maybe not, but I'm not sure. He called the Lakers but no, no, you guys. Yeah, he called out his own team. We're playing. Yeah, like wimps right now.

I was in 84. Yeah, we came back and won that series, which was miraculous actually.

Yeah.

We're going to get back to Danny Ange in a second. He's brought to you by betterhelp. Part of my take is sponsored by Better help. When life goes so fast, it's important to take a moment to celebrate your wins and make adjustments for the rest of the year. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, it's not convenient, it's flexible, it's suited to your schedule. I've recommended friends to better help. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with licensed therapists and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. I've personally benefited from therapy in the past. It's helped me get over loss, it's helped me deal with some emotions and I think that you guys, some of you out there could benefit from it as well. Take a moment. Visit betterhelp.com PMt today. Get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp help.com pmt. The interview with Danny Age is also brought to you by proper twelve. Proper twelve. So smooth. The springtime is here. Summer's almost here.

Proper twelve irish apple is here to welcome it. It's a delicious blend of proper's award winning irish whiskey with crisp and fresh notes of irish apple. It's perfect. Neat or with a little bit of ginger ale. There's no better springtime sip. Pour the roar with proper twelve. Pick up a bottle. Try it for yourself today. Original, rich and smooth. Proper twelve irish whiskey. Or try crisp, fresh irish apple. Smooth to the core. And now here's more Danny ainge.

So all right, so just fast forwarding because we also want to talk about you as an executive. I have a bunch of questions about that, but playing at the end of your career with Charles Barkley and the Suns, that's another, like, bigger than life kind of character. What was it like playing with Charles Barkley, especially? That was, you know, one of his mvp years was in there. Go to the finals. Was it as fun as we all see Charles on tv and we're like, man, we want to hang out with that guy.

Yes. Charles made me laugh every single day. Yeah, he didn't practice a lot. You know, my favorite Charles story was, we're getting ready to play a game, and. And coach Westphal was great. I loved him, but he knew. He knew who was in charge of our team. He knew Charles was in charge most of the time. And we look up, we're getting ready 35 minutes before tip off, and we're stretching, and Westphal comes in, sits on his stool, and we go through our pregame while he's waiting and waiting, and we all kind of look over, and Charles Locker still has his uniform hanging up. He hasn't arrived yet. And so we wait, and everyone knows exactly why we're waiting. Nothing said finally, coach Westphal, with no, nothing about the pregame, he says if he's not here by 710, he's not starting. 710 was the tip off time, and he walked out of the room. It was classic. And, I mean, but that was Paul. He was just like. He was loose. Yeah, he kept us loose, but Charles made everybody laugh all the time. I mean, he was a lot of fun to play with.

Yeah.

I had a great joy playing with him.

Yeah.

He's a great player and also, like, a great glue guy. Great guy just in the locker room.

Yeah.

I mean, he was. He was fun. He made it. He made it fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. So he was also your co star in space Jam.

Yeah.

I appreciate a lot of people don't talk about you being in space jam.

Yeah.

What was that like?

I don't remember much about space Jam. My grandkids have told me about space Jam.

Yeah.

More than I remember about space Jam.

But it was. It was a scene where they stole all of Charles Barkley's talent.

Right.

Yeah. All of his power away.

Yeah. You were. You're a great, great cameo.

Did you get in any of the scrimmages that MJ would run on the set of space Jam? I know it was. When was it filmed? It. Was it right after you retired or.

No, it was. It was during my career. Yeah, we did play.

Yeah.

On some of the sets.

That's. I mean, those. It feels like those are legendary. Just any pickup game with MJ just taking it way too seriously at all.

Times, elbowing Bill Murray in the face.

All right, so, as an executive, when you. When you decided to. Well, you what, you were a coach, and then you actually were on tv for a year, you didn't like tv?

Yeah, I was on tv for three years.

Okay.

One year before I coached, and then I did it three years after I.

Coached you, what did you think about being on the media side?

I loved it.

Really?

I loved it. Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, it was hard for me to leave that life. I mean, I was working one day a week. I didn't really have to do much preparation because I'd just been a player, and then I coached, and, I mean, I knew all the players, all the teams, all the tendencies. You know, I didn't really need to prepare for games, and so I'd fly in the day of the game and fly out the next day.

Yeah.

Was it hard to criticize players that maybe you had played with or coached against?

I guess you don't know me very well, but, yeah, it should have been harder, but it wasn't so hard. I mean, criticizing versus kind of trash talking is probably different. I mean, I respect all the players and all they do, but sometimes we do things that are. As players that are funny.

Yeah.

And entertaining and probably picked on guys a little bit too much for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so, I have a bunch of questions about your long time as executive for the Celtics, but I wanted to start with the jazz right now. From your perspective, when Brian Winhorse did the. The jazz are up to something, were you. Did you see that clip? And you're like, God damn it, windhorse just blew my cover. Do you remember that?

I don't remember it.

So is when you traded the Royce O'Neill trade, and then he basically was like, look, when Danny Ainge did, you know, made a trade right before getting Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and, like, you know, all these things, he's like, the jazz are up to something, and I don't know what they're up to, and everyone's trying to figure it out, and Danny Ainge is up to something. I was hoping you saw it. Like, oh, man, he blew my cover. Because I'm clearly up to something.

Yeah, no, that. That's really not how it is. You know, when I went to the Jazz, I wasn't. I wasn't really going to Utah to work for the Jazz. I mean, Ryan is a great friend, and I've known him for years, and I told him on numerous occasions that, you know, you got. You got me or my advice, anytime you want, then call me. We're friends. You don't need to pay me to work. I didn't really want to work back, get back in the NBA, but when that happened, when the Jazz were making the changes, we were all making the changes, it was. I'm just helping the people that are there, like Dennis Lindsey had a great staff and great people working there. Justin Zanuck is fantastic. And I just. And Ryan was, you know, wanting to know my opinion of what we should do, so I was just helping facilitate what they're doing. It wasn't like I came in with, like, this plan, right? Blow the team up, and we're gonna start over. That, that was many other people's ideas.

But you do you. You would say. It's fair to say you like draft picks. You love draft picks.

I like good players.

Yeah. You like draft picks. You've gotten a lot of draft picks. Yeah. But some really smart moves have gotten you a lot of draft picks.

Right. But I would say that I like good players much more than draft pick.

Yeah.

You like draft picks that turn into good players.

Yeah.

Draft pick, like, that's a future good player.

Yeah.

I mean, some are, some. We did some good ones and some not so good ones, like everybody, but, yeah, I mean, I think. I like draft picks because I think they're their currency, and you need to take swings at the plate with some of these new players. I mean, every team has both. I mean, every team has players they've drafted and turned out to be better than you thought and also players that they've traded for or signed.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's. I would say that's one of the more interesting parts of your career is that you've kind of done it both ways, you know, with the, with the Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett Celtics that win a title, that, you know, trade the big three and then to rebuild it all kind of homegrown with Tatum and Brown and all the guys and Marcus. Smart. So how, how did you, how did you maneuver the, the first iteration of it with the big three with, with Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett pulling that off and having, you know, basically a team have that success out of? You know, they were, they were a little, the cells were a little lost for a while with Paul Pierce in the early two thousands.

Yeah. I mean, I think that there was a lot of good fortune that went that way. I mean, obviously, we would have loved to get Kg a lot sooner. Ray Allen. But those guys just were never available. And then they came available, you know, KG, Paul and Ray were all teams playing for teams in the lottery, and all three of those teams were looking to go a different direction. Seattle, at the time where Ray was playing, they were looking to draft, you know, Kevin Durant and move on from their veteran guys, their older guys, and. And we were the beneficiaries of that. We got. Had we gotten the second pick that year in the draft, you know, we probably wouldn't have done that. I would have kept Kevin Durant. But as it turned out, we didn't. We got the fifth pick in the draft and we moved that and got Ray Allen. And then we eventually moved Al Jefferson and other, other players and we ended up with KG. So, I mean, that just turned everything. Kg's presence just gave Paul Hope, Doc Hope, the city of Boston Hope. Ray was more excited than I'd ever seen him play.

And it was just. There was a lot of electricity in that. That whole time there, we only won one championship. We should have won a couple, but injuries and we lose game seven in LA. But I think that that era was a lot of fun.

We just talked to perk the other day and he said if he didn't get hurt, you guys win another championship that year. Said no question about it.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's probably right.

Yeah.

So you guys get the big three together. And I feel like from that point forward in NBA history, we've always talked about, like, getting a big three, getting a big three to win a championship. I don't know if that's necessarily the blueprint to do it, because we've seen time and time again, it's harder than you would think to put together a super team in quotes that would end up working out. So you get. You have Paul Pierce, who I think one person voted as the best basketball player of all time, right? Was that you somebody? It was like all the votes were either MJ or LeBron. And then one person voted, Paul Pierce. He's a great player, but so you have a bona Fide superstar and Paul Pierce. And then you get Kevin Garnett, also superstar. Ray Allen, superstar at the time. What was that like gelling those three guys together and having them try to commit to being a team and not just three great players.

I just think they were together at the right time of their careers. I mean, I think that getting guys together, sometimes you get players that are too old, you know, managing older players. They're the last ones to see the decline in their games. Sometimes you get players when they're too young and they really want to be all stars and all NBA and, you know, get paid as much money as they possibly can, and. Which is all understandable, but those guys were, they only cared about one thing at that stage of their lives and careers. None of them had won a title and they were desperate for one. They played that way, they practiced that way, and it was fun to watch. It's fun to watch that electricity and the way that they played. I mean, it wasn't always Rosie, you know, but they, it was always about team.

Yeah, you mentioned something there that I'm interested in. Would you say that's one of the hardest parts about being an executive, is having to basically tell a guy who might be a little past their prime, like, hey, this is, we're moving on from you, or this is not going to work the same way that you think it works because it is. Usually the guy himself is the last to know.

Yeah, I think that I haven't had to do that. I mean, when I moved Paul and KG, they could have vetoed the trades. Yeah, we talked it through and they ended up being mutually beneficial for them and we were rebuilding and starting over, and so they were, they were willing to be traded to Brooklyn and that was good for us.

Yeah, very good.

I didn't have to tell them that you guys are really old and we need to check the expiration date on the right of your shoes. But, you know, they were, they were great. And, you know, those guys, their willingness to do that for the Boston Celtics at that time was, is huge and it's, you know, paying dividends even to this day.

Yeah. So when you did make that trade and, and then you have years where you're rebuilding and you do such a great job of it, were there any moments in that rebuild where you're like, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, or we're farther away than I thought we were going to be just because that is a very difficult thing to pull off in any professional league.

It is, you know, again, we were very fortunate and, you know, the, Brooklyn didn't turn out as good as I thought they were going to be. I thought it was actually a really good trade for Brooklyn to get Paul and KG with a couple years left, veterans, good locker room guys, all about winning to go play with that core group down in, up in Brooklyn. But, you know, I just think that our team was, we got Jalen and Jason and then we brought in Kyrie and then we brought in Gordon Hayward, and we were good. I mean, when and in training camp, I'm going on, this team is powerful and explosive, and these young players are better than we think. Terry Rozier was, was part of that group, and then, you know, we lost Gordon on day one, game one, and that was devastating to us. But that meant Jason and Jalen got much more opportunities and they, you know, but that team, and then Kyrie got hurt late in the year, wasn't able to play in the playoffs, and then Rozier at 20 and Tatum and Brown at 2019 and 20, I think, took us to the conference finals.

Yeah.

So, you know, when that, when those other guys came back, I mean, they're realizing that these young guys are pretty special.

Yeah.

Pretty good. And I don't think that was easy.

Yeah. So in terms of Tatum and Brown, we know now they're, they're incredible basketball players are incredible NBA players. But when you drafted them, there were people who were like, what is going on? Because I know Jalen Brown was, people thought that was a reach. It was his cal year. Like, he had obviously all the tools, but it wasn't the smoothest year in his one year in college. And then Jason Tatum, not, I think, very, like, there's only been a couple times in NBA history where a team is traded out of the number one pick when you have those moments where you're just like, I know. I feel it. I know it. This is who we like and forget everyone else because it is funny to look back and be like, at the moment, at that time, people were like, danny Angels kind of crazy.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like you don't ever know, but there are times that it's more fun. Like there's somebody that you just really like and you just feel like. You feel like it's a fit. I wish that were the way the case every year. But with Jalen, I watched him play a lot that year. I mean, I got to games at 437 o'clock tip off, and I'm watching him out shoot before the game and watching his work ethic and, and then I watched their team play, and he did not have a good finish to that freshman year.

Yeah.

And, but, you know, we had had him as the number two or number three pick before the season started, and, and then I watched his team play so much, I knew, like, they, they had a point guard that wasn't a good shooter, they had two seven footers that weren't good offensive players, and they just, they didn't have enough shooting, enough spacing for him. And I really thought, you know, like, man, you get him in an NBA court, in the open court. And so we brought him in for two workouts. And in those two workouts, he convinced all of us, yeah. Our whole organization that he was a guy that we wanted to go to go to bat with.

Yeah. And then Jason is the other one where it's like people, you know, like, you trade the number one pick, everyone thought Markel Folz was the guy. Philly fans have to look back at that constantly. Our producer, Max, they probably hate you. They get to play the game. Like, imagine don't hate me, do you, Max?

He does.

No, everything turned out no.

Max, we traded.

We traded Markel, folks, for the pick that got tires. Max.

Oh.

Yes. But no, Max was. He was cussing you out before you could recover.

Correct?

Incorrect.

Yeah, he hates, but that pick, like, you're out on an island because everyone's like, this is crazy. Markel Fultz was the guy for a while there, and you trade out of it and take Jason Tatum. But it was that a similar feeling. We're like, we know that this is, this guy is the best guy in this draft.

I mean, I loved Markel. I watched Markel play a lot his senior year in college, and that was really a hard decision. I mean, but I felt. I felt Jason was the guy for us. You know, Markel wouldn't, if you needed a franchise point guard, that might have been the guy. But I felt like Tatum was more important for us to get at that moment. And it just, it worked out great for us. It was, you know, Markell, I think, had injuries and. But he's shown to be an outstanding player, and I think he's still got a lot of basketball left in him.

Yeah.

When you're scouting, you can't scout high school players anymore in the NBA. But back when you could, was there any special tricks that you used to use when you go into a gym, watch a high school player play? Maybe, like, somebody might get nervous, like Danny Ainge.

Did someone give you that tip?

No.

I asked the question to every guest that we have, but they're like, man, Danny Ainge is here. I might get nervous. I hope I don't play bad.

I can't. I can't give my secrets, but I've been to high school gyms and I was grateful that my boys, I had four boys that played AAU basketball and was able to go into the gyms and all the major tournaments for a lot of years.

Yeah.

So disguise that was worn, no glasses, fake nose, the groucho marks or nothing, whatever.

Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna kill crew.

To me, that disguise makes you stick out even more. It's like, who's this guy that's wearing a disguise?

Yeah, it's a good disguise. You got to be good at your disguise.

Yeah.

You just have to believe it.

Yeah. Would you ever throw on a wax?

Yeah, yeah, I've done that before.

You done the wig? Great.

Are people afraid to take your calls? No, I would be. If I was a GM, I would be afraid to take your calls. I'd be like, he's. He knows something that I don't know.

Well, you get on the phone with Danny agent, and all of a sudden your pics for the next ten years are gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, if I get a house, if you call me right now, I'd be like, what? We're sending. We're sending Hank to the McFee show.

He did it. He did it to us right here, where he's like, I don't love pics.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, and then. And then you're gonna walk out of here and be like, wait, did we just give up? Up three picks? What the hell just happened?

No, I think that, like, I believe that the trades were fair, and I really do. I mean, some of them worked out for us in Boston, that Jason Tatum trade. I mean, it was unfortunate Markel got hurt, but I felt like that was a really fair deal. And the same thing with KG and Paul. Like, they had Darren Williams and Brooke Lopez and Joe Johnson still in his prime. Like, I think that that team, I thought was going to be a very special team. I thought they were going to be in one of the top four or five teams in the league. So it just worked out different. I mean, we just were fortunate that they gave us the number three picks for Jalen and Jason. Like, I don't. I never had. I had an idea that would happen.

Yeah. All right. Another story that I was told from inside sources. Your wife, when you met her at BYU. The story goes that you might have met her and her boyfriend at the time at a party, and then the boyfriend invited you to play on the flag football team, and you went and played on the flag football team, and you're Danny Ainge, and you were the best player by far. And then your wife was like, oh, I kind of like this guy more. Is that fair to say?

That's close. That's close. What an idiot.

That guy was to invite you to his.

Yeah, he played center, and, yeah, that was. That's what I claim to my wife. That's when she fell for me. But. But, yeah, I wasn't supposed to be playing flag football. It was, you know, our basketball players were not allowed to, and someone eventually tattled on me, like, right before the championship game.

No way. Oh, that was definitely someone. An opponent. Yeah, yeah. They were like, we don't want to. Sick of watching Danielle.

Coach got news that we're getting ready for the championship intramural game, and, yeah, I wasn't able to play.

Oh, no way. That's hilarious.

Might have been the starting center.

Yeah, probably was. He's like, God damn it. I mean, that was a really poor choice by him to invite you. I mean, I guess you did get him to the championship game, but he lost his girlfriend.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he. Yeah, they were not dating for very long.

I mean. Yeah, don't invite Danny H. On your flag football team. Did you play? I also heard that you, when you were playing quarterback, you would throw it lefty and righty.

I. Not. I threw it righty.

Yeah, but you would.

Rolling a little bit left.

Yeah, yeah. Patrick Holmes. Before Patrick Holmes, you taught Patrick Holmes everything he knows.

No, no, no, no.

Is that something you look for if there's a up and coming player, and they've played lots of sports at a high level growing up, is that something that you look at and you're like, I like that. Because they've developed all these other areas of athleticism that will help them be a better basketball player?

I think so. I mean, it's not a make or break deal. I mean, there's not everybody that played other sports, but, yeah, I think that I get a kick out of guys that have played other sports and had success, especially at their young ages, but that's less and less. Yeah, there's just not as many.

Yeah. Was there a certain age where you clicked and you were like, oh, I'm. I'm better than everyone?

No, I would say that the first, the most confident that I got was when I was playing in that magic Johnson tournament. I made all tournament team there back in Boca Raton, Florida, and, and some of the best, you know, Albert King from New York and Gene Banks, call it, were the high school players of the year, and I held my own and played really well in that series, AAU series. And that's when I kind of believed, like, man, this is real. But when Walton was playing with the Blazers, I would go up and play with some of them, too. That same summer, I would play pickup in their camps.

How old were you?

I was 17.

And you were playing with NBA players?

Playing with NBA players.

Wow.

And I felt like I could hold my own. I felt like I could play with those guys.

That's pretty badass.

And when Walton was talking to you, did it, did it ever seem like a riddle that you had to before you answer? Because I feel like if I'm 17 years old talking to Bill Walton, it's going to take me about a minute to process what he said. Then if you think about it hard enough, you're like, yeah, he's making a good point, but you have to take a meandering road to get there sometimes.

Oh, I got a great Bill Walton struggle. So, Bill, when he was first with us, he would take a chess set, like his own computer chess set with him and he'd be sitting in his airplane seat and he would. And we're flying commercial in these days and he's sitting in the first class section, but he's playing computer chess and, you know, so worth it. And then we're stretching in the mornings and he's like telling us about Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky and, you know, queen three to jack seven is, you know, it was crazy stuff. We don't know what he's talking about, but he's like talking about the brilliant moves that, that these players are making. So we thought he was like a chess genius. He's with that board all the time. So finally one day I challenged to play him and I beat him and then Jerry ceaseding challenged to play him and he beat him and we said, we can't ever talk chess again. You are not. You are not good.

Yeah. What was he doing with that? Bored?

I don't know. He was like playing against the computer. Must have been that like level one.

He's dominating and then he's thinking that he's on the same level as like the Bobby, Bobby, the famous blunder. I think that was like a famous tournament that he was in. So reads a story about it, just gets his ass kicked. We should let Hank ask a couple questions. Hank is a diehard Celtics fan. Born, raised. Yeah, he does love you as much as Max.

Guy that made the bet, the big bet for dunking.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we'll get, we'll actually, after this, we'll have him go show you his progress.

But Hank, aren't you like, are you 6ft?

I'm 6ft. Yeah, I've been training.

How old are you, Hank?

I'm 30.

Okay. Just a pop.

I got about eight months to get about seven inches.

But have you ever dunked before?

No. No, not even close, Hank. He deadpan asked Derek White. He's like, hey, Derek, when did you first dunk? I was like, hank, are you asking Derek white when he first. I don't think you can compare the two.

Well, Hank, hgh in the rule.

Yeah, yeah. He actually said September. October is when he's going to start mixing the steroids. If he doesn't make progress.

I mean, we're getting progress, but we're going to, you know, we're going to go through it the natural way, and then if it gets to, like, October, November, we might start going the alternate routes.

Okay, well, you can come out to Utah and.

Get the elevated thin air.

Jump on some trampolines. All right. So, yeah, Hank, what are your questions?

Yeah, obviously. Now, when you're in Boston, everyone called you trader Danny. But one trade I didn't even know was possible until it happened was when you traded the coach, was that like a different negotiation? You know, talking to teams versus, you know, when you're talking about players like, hey, do you want to. You want to coach?

Well, what happened there was, you know, Doc had, had been with us for nine years, and he knew we were, and he had gone through a rebuild with us before we. We got made the big trade. And so he was just didn't not in the mood to do it again. And I completely understood where he was. And so the Clippers opportunity came to him, and, you know, he's under contract. I can't just let my coach go. So, you know, I don't think Doc was happy at first, but I think he understood where we stood, and. And we got a first round pick for our coach, but Doc got to go do what he wanted to do was go coach Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, and they obviously had a lot of promise there. Clippers.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, this isn't really a question either. And, you know, he didn't pan out, but he was, he was a fan favorite. He was always one of my favorites. Gershon Yabusa.

I just love Yabuseli, like, saying the name.

Really well overseas right now, but he didn't. You know, what happened with Gershon is he had some tight Achilles tendon, and so he got surgery on them. And, you know, that messed up his whole rookie year. And we knew that going in, you know, trying to be, you know, do what was best for him and his health, but it didn't really help and is, and he was not the same even in the second year. But watching him play now, you know, I wish we had that Gershon. The last few years he's been playing in Europe, and from that, that health standpoint, but by the time he really did get healthy, we just had a stacked team and, but Gershon was a great, fun kid and had a lot of talent.

What's the number one trait you look for in prospects? Is it. Is it size? Is it explosiveness, shooting ability?

I mean, there's not, there's not. I'm asked that question a lot. I don't think there's a, there's one. I mean, but talent overrides a lot.

Yeah.

You know, when guys are really talented, you can look the other way on other things sometimes, but I guess that.

Would be a better question, is what's the one thing you can look the other way on? Being like, I. They can probably get better at this.

I mean, if a guy is a great athlete and a good player, has a good brain, but can't shoot, I think that that's a good bet to be. A good bet.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like, you know, like Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson, all those guys, they weren't great shooters. Jason Kidd, one of my favorites I, that I ever coached was Jason Kidd or been around, but he was, you know, what it. What a special player he was.

Yeah.

Those him. Gary Payton, Scottie Pippen, Matt Mac. If they could never learn, if they never learned to shoot, which they all did learn to shoot, they still would have been great players.

Yeah. So, yeah.

What's the recipe for that? Just, is it a numbers game? Just get in the gym, work for tip, put up this amount of shots every day?

Yeah. I mean, Kawhi Leonard was another guy that wasn't a great shooter in college and turned out to be one of the best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How many shots a day do I need to get good? You saw me shoot a little bit. I think I bricked the layup.

I'm not sure you? I'm not sure that'll happen.

Yeah. Who's the one guy you. I don't say missed on, but you're like, man, I was thinking about drafting him, and it just didn't work out. And I obviously turned out to be great.

I would say Jimmy Butler, one that comes to mind. It was, you know, he was a late first round pick, and, and he was seriously in our thoughts of drafting, and we went another direction, and Jimmy turned out to be a great player.

Yeah.

And that's probably the one I regret the most.

What about. What about Giannis?

Giannis was different. Like, it's not like it's hard to regret.

Like, but I saw everyone missed on Giannis.

Right. I mean, I saw Giannis play, like, three months before the draft, maybe four months before the draft, and I liked him. I loved his enthusiasm for the game. And then I saw him in the summer league, and it was like, he's three inches taller. Like, he actually has muscles in his arm. Like, it was incredible transformation over that time. But, I mean, what a great story Giannis is. I went over to. I went over to Greece to watch him play, and, I mean, he was a joy to watch, but never in a million years could I imagine him being an MVP NBA champion that he's become. But it's fun to see.

Yeah. So, so you've lived your whole life in basketball. Can you note, can you notice, like, going overseas now just how much the game has grown and how much better the guys are, just, like, on a baseline level?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's been that way for the last 20 years.

Yeah, it's big.

I mean, people talk about Jokic and how he's the best player in the game today, but I remember when, well, Drasm Petrovich was a superstar over there years ago. I played with Drossen for a year in Portland, but. And then Sabonis. Sabonis before he had his achilles tendon injury when he was 2021 years old. I mean, he was so special. He had. He passed the ball like Jokic. He could shoot. He was seven two. I mean, he was an amazing, amazing young player.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been good over there for quite a while.

Yeah.

Different countries that have different strengths. Like, is one country known? Hey, they produce really great point guards. One country is like, you got to get, like, a serbian big man.

No, I don't think so. I think that there's. I think they're. They come from all the countries over there, and, I mean, you got Doncic and Jokic from the same country, but they're completely different positions. But, you know, those guys are very special. I mean, I don't know why they. They grew, those two players, but it's a big country and actually a small.

Country, but, yeah, it actually is remarkable that both those guys.

Yeah. I mean, they. They had good basketball roots, and you could just see how smart they were at a very young age.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, this has been great. I have a, like, couple last questions. Roback, question Rho back.com promo code. Take 20% off your first purchase cues this. Polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. i don't know if you know this, Danny, but we've been trying to get you on the show for a long time, so this is a thrill for us. Hank has been bothering your son for how many years, Hank? Four or five, six years.

That's so fun.

Yeah, we. And I feel. I hope you had a good time where it's like, oh, we could have probably done this.

No, it was good. It was good. It was way better than anything else I'm doing in Chicago tonight. So I've been sitting, watching basketball. So this is fun.

Yeah. So, last couple questions. Is there. So you got. You gotten some scraps in the NBA? I. You know, it is funny watching back some of these old videos where you were completely unafraid and doesn't matter who the guy was, you weren't gonna take shit. But you famously got bit in a fight by tree. Rollins. What was going through your head while you were getting bit? Were you like, what? Is he actually biting me right now? Is this actually happening?

Yeah, I mean, so tree was a physical player, was a playoff game, and. And, you know, like, he set screens. I think that's part of their thing. They're going to hit. Hit us on screens. In those days. They didn't call them like they do today. I mean, they let guys really screen and move and hit. And Tree had knocked out Quinn Buckner earlier in the game, and, you know, just with an elbow, and Quinn went down, and so I just gave him an elbow as he was running back down the court. He's running by me, and I just, like, gave him an elbow because he's been doing that all night. But he turned and started coming at me. I mean, I basically had two options to run to the locker room or tackle tree. And so I went and tackled tree, and we're in a dog pile, all the players on the floor, and my finger is in his mouth, and I swear I thought he was going to bite it off.

Jesus.

I thought he was gnawing at my finger to bite it off.

Yeah. That's got to be terrifying.

It was crazy, but I don't think that he could move. I think we were all kind of paralyzed with all the bodies around, and that was his way of getting at me, I guess, at that moment, my. My hand must have been up close to his face, and he just, like, chose to bite it almost bite it off, but it was crazy. I looked down at my hand, and I. I could see it hadn't started bleeding, and so I could see my finger that it lift up. I could see all the way. The tendons.

Oh, my God.

My hands really.

Bitch, you have teeth marks on your face. Finger still.

I have. I have a scar on the middle of my finger right here.

That's a pretty cool scar. It is. Yeah. A man bit me in an NBA game.

I still say when. When I play golf, when I hit a tree, that, you know, tree. Rollins blocked my shot, so.

And then in terms of all the. The fights or the scraps or the physical play, was there ever a time where Larry Bird got mad at you and was like, no, that's. We shouldn't fight today, because Larry got in fights, too.

Yeah, Larry had had some fights, but, no, a matter of fact, we kind of had a team rule that if you. If you go. If you go down swinging, you gotta, you know, take someone equal or better on the other team with you.

That's good rule.

But. But other than that, I think that it was. I mean, I could score 35 in a game, and red would come in and pat me on the butt, say, nice job. Way to go. And. But if I got in a fight, like, he wanted to celebrate. He wanted to take me out to dinner and throw a party for him. Like, it was unbelievable how excited Red was when the fights happened.

That's great.

And he just, you know, he loved that. He loved that intensity. And, you know, I didn't. I mean, I played 14 years in the NBA, and, I mean, I think I had, like, six of them, but they were usually at times when.

Yeah, they were memorable.

Watch.

I just googled Danny ain't fighting before. You know, earlier this morning, I was like, damn, he was. He. He would throw with anyone.

Yeah, I didn't win very many.

Yeah, the one where you got knocked out, but you actually got up. Yeah. Yeah, you got up fast. That was credit to you. That was a big time. I'm not injured. I'm not injured, but you're clearly injured. Move.

Yeah, no, I wasn't injured. I was dizzy.

Yeah.

I was chasing him, and I felt like my body was, like, tilting the whole time. Running, running after Suddell, and I. Someone asked me, you know, like, with the greatest shots you ever made in the NBA, and it was those two free throws.

I was.

I saw two baskets. Philly fans are going crazy. And I, like, I made both the technical free throws, but, like, it was that. That was.

Yeah, he also.

Those days, you'd have been, you know, concussion protocol for two weeks.

He also. He escalated that very quickly. It was like a push. And then he's like, you know what? I'm just gonna just punch Danny H. In the face.

Got me good.

Yeah, he did.

But you got up, landed the punch, though. Did he won the fight?

Yeah.

Did Tree ever reach out and apologize? Was he like, hey, my bad for biting you?

No, no, but, I mean, everybody that I know that's played with tree says he's a great guy. Like, I don't hold anything against fighting and those things that happen in a battle.

What about as. As a talent evaluator? Do you like a guy that fights under team?

It's kind of phased out of the game.

I mean, it's. It's harder to fight now just because it's so. Penalty. But I think I like guys that fight. I mean, not literal fight, but guys that'll fight for what they can and take it as far as they can.

You like guys with it? Do you actually.

I like instigators.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you. Can you tell if a guy has a. Has the dog in him? I don't know if you know that. Me? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think some of my favorite draft picks were Avery, Bradley, Tony Allen, Delonte west. Like, they were. They were big time instigators.

Got the dog. Do you have, like, an analytics department that has the. Like. You know, you pull up all the charts, you're like, all right. He's got 95% dog. Yeah. We could be that for you.

Okay.

We're gonna the jazz.

We're gonna do some dog.

Yeah. You just give us a guy, have him come by.

I hear my scouts talk about it all the time, but, like, we needed, like, is it 20%?

Yeah. Put a number on it.

75%.

You need to know what kind of dog to.

Yeah.

I have a scout, Leo pepil, who I worked with in Boston, and he used to always say he's the wrong kind of cat. He's a housekeeper. Cat. Daisy, ali cat. Or is he a house?

Yeah.

Cat.

Outdoor cat.

Yeah.

Yeah. You want rottweilers.

Yeah.

Bulls.

Yeah.

It was John Thompson that said, like, you can. You can get one of those guys and win a championship if you have two of them on the same team. They can get you fired, though.

Yeah.

So be careful with.

Yeah. Hank, you got one last question.

Yeah.

The only thing I was. I was going to ask about is just. I like hearing those stories about the. The old garden versus the new garden, like the home. The home corner, vantage, the heat. I always wish I got to go there.

Yeah. I mean, that Lakers game, you know, where it was 100 and something degrees. Yeah, that was. That was crazy. But the old garden was just more. It was just steeper. It felt like they were right on top of you. You get the smoke going on in the arena. You had all the dead spots all over the floor.

Would, you know? You knew all the dead spots?

No, no. Like, we didn't know the dead spots because we never practiced there, but we knew there were dead spots, and so I think that's an advantage. I mean, there was. I remember Isaiah Thomas coming down one time and, you know, doing his dance with the ball, and he loses the ball. Like, we knew not to do that.

Right.

You know, like, the. It's not a normal floor, so. But that might have been our only advantage. But we didn't know where the dead spots were.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question.

None of us were that good of ball handlers anyway.

Kyrie would have to know. Is Kyrie the most talented ball handler you've ever seen?

He's up there for sure. I'm trying to think there's a lot of good ones, but, I mean, Kyrie was. He's a magician with the ball. He's really fun to watch, and he has really strong hands. So, like, you know, in traffic, he hardly ever loses the ball, and, yeah, he's. He's a beautiful player.

Yeah.

Did you get as personally offended when he stomped unlucky as Hank did? Hank was like, you couldn't talk to him for a week.

Is that right?

Yeah. He was so upset.

What's your stat like after he stomped on lucky? He hasn't won a game there.

Not pretty sure.

Yeah.

Good stats.

I'm not. I mean, I'm grateful Kyrie gave us a chance, and he. He was. He was great for the first year and a half, and, like, there's some things went wrong. He talked with me about it, and, like, I don't hold any grudges at all.

Okay, so, Hank, we'll just hold the grudge for stomping luck.

Hank will get over it.

Yeah, no, he won't. Definitely won't.

Like anything else would be for Kevin, but he stepped on Lucky.

That's the difference between players and executives and guys who are on that side versus fans. Fans will never get over it.

Yeah. I mean, I would get over it just because I know all the circumstance and I know Kyrie, and, you know, what he did to help us. And, yeah, I hold no grudges.

Yeah. But stomping on Lucky.

Yeah, right on that leprechaun's face.

Lucky should have been standing there. Yeah.

What is lucky lucky do to instigate that?

That's what we need to symbol.

I do have one last, last question. How often do you get unsolicited advice from fans on what to do with it?

Oh.

Oh, wow. All the time.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I like it. I think it's fun.

Really?

Yeah. There's some good ideas. There's some not so good ideas, but there's. But fans, they love that stuff. I mean, the fans care more in the world we live in today, more about the trades and the draft and the free agency and lottery than they do the games. It's incredible how much of a following there is in the NBA and in the NFL, just with all of that chatter, and so I like it. I enjoy it.

Has there been, like, a really good suggestion that somebody's given you?

Yeah, I mean, I get them sometimes from kids at schools going to watch games and college kids. They come up with some very good ideas. Yeah, you should.

Here's a suggestion. Let's bring back some paint play and maybe some mid range. Just zig while everyone zags. No more threes.

Well, there's. There's teams that are doing that. I think it's getting. It's. It's coming that direction. I think that it's not, like, exclusively threes, but I think there was a three craze, and I think the three is still a great thing if you got great three point shooters, but you have to have both. You gotta be able to score in lots of ways.

Yeah. I just don't want to see basketball become like baseball, where it's some teams and more like, college teams are playing this way where it's like, no shots that aren't threes or layups, and it's like. I mean, I. There's got to be something more. There has to be something more. Yeah.

I mean, I've always. I've always fought the analytics on that. You know, they. The analytics will say that mid range shot is a 40 something percent shot or around there, and, like, get better at it then.

Yeah.

Shoot 50%, shoot 55%. You know, like, there's a lot of rant.

There's a lot of rose. Yeah.

There's a lot of players that shoot a higher percentage than that. That can be very efficient with your team at mid range and especially at times of the game. There's. There's times of the game where two points is crucial or one point, like you got a seven or eight point lead and it's hard, like get the, get the 55% shot instead of the 40% shot. So, yeah, I think that it's coming that direction.

Yeah. All right. Well, Danny, thank you so much. This was honestly, we, like I said, we've been trying to get you on for a while now and this didn't disappoint. We appreciate it very much. Anytime you're in Chicago, we'd love to have you back on.

Okay. And let's get crew on.

When you get crew on, we also need to go. Let's go judge Hank's dunking ability.

Oh, yeah.

Give us the scouts take on this.

Hank, I got to see how far you are.

This is going to be great. Bear in mind that PMT, bear in.

Mind that what you're watching today is probably like five inches better than what it was three months ago.

I worked out this morning, too.

Oh, okay.

You're giving excuse to Danny ain't who was basically the best at every single sport. Yeah. You worked out today.

Just go do it.

Yeah. All right. Thanks, Danny.

All right. Thank you.

Pardon. Your take is brought to you by EA Sports college football 25. I am so excited for this. It's coming out. We've seen the trailers. Features all new composure system, player wear and tear, home field advantage, diverse playstyles across 134 FBS teams. I might mess around, win a championship, national championship. With JMU Sunbelt representing through dynasty, you can create a coach. You can upgrade their abilities, establish your staff, then recruit the best talent either straight from high school or direct from the transfer portal. Coach Dougs is going to be playing college football 25. You can pre order the MVP bundle now to get college football 25 and Madden NFL 25 plus. Can't miss rewards in both like three day early access. You're going to want that three day early access, by the way. Three days is an eternity in video games. 4600 Madden points college football points, Madden early access, ultimate team challenges, Madden cover athlete elite player item and more. You get all sorts of goodies when you order the MVP bundle. Pre order the MVP bundle right now. You get college football 25 and Madden NFL 25. Get involved.

Okay, let's wrap it up with some pardon your take. Reminder, we're back. We're back on Friday and we also have 35 minutes of Bill Walton from our 2017 interview after numbers here. Coming up. Hey, big cat.

PFT and the boys. I have a college football fan base question. I'm a massive Colorado Buffalo fan. I have always been. Even before Deon showed up, I've enjoyed seeing Colorado being brought out more in conversation, but now it's mainly people just hating on Colorado. Would you rather be a fan of a team that no one talks about or be a fan of the team that everyone hates?

Um, that's a good question.

I would rather be a fan of a team that everyone hates. If the hate was because we were winning this. Yes. This isn't that.

If the hate was because you talked a big game and you never did anything, didn't win, that'd be tough. Yeah, that'd be really, right now, as a fan of many teams that nobody cares about, it's not that bad.

Yeah. Colorado is so weird to me because Colorado. And this is maybe just, you know, the nineties. Kidding me. Like, I remember when Colorado was a big deal in Cordell Stewart and all those teams and Rashawn Salam and Westbrook. Yeah, Westbrook. But it's. It's crazy. They're not good because Boulder is, like, the coolest place on earth, and their colors are awesome, and their stadium is awesome. I know that doesn't actually make a college football program, and my dumb brain, it does. Like, do you have a cool stadium, cool colors, and is it a cool place to go to school? Okay. You should be good at football.

Well, that's also what would make people hate it more. If you were also good at football.

Yeah.

It's like, you can't have everything.

Yeah. I think that this type of hate is not the best hate. You want it like people. If you're alabama, you probably love being hated.

Mm hmm.

That's a fun hate to have because you can. Georgia. Fun hate.

You can always just be like, well, we're gonna kick your ass.

Yeah. Michigan. This past year, that's a very fun hate. Us against the world, and you're winning. But this one is not as fun of a hate.

Yeah. Yeah. For a while, for my teams, it's been us against the world, and we've just gotten our team kicked in by the world.

The world keeps winning.

The world. -2000 yeah, I know it's late, but.

Max's Sixers ruined the NBA lottery. The process has failed, like, everything in Philly lately. And it pisses me off even more that because of those losers, they changed the whole lottery system. Him. I've watched so much bad basketball because I never got to see Blake dunk because he was hurt. And Detroit is in its longest championship drought as a city ever. I hope that wendy could save us. But instead, all I got was another kick to the dick. Fuck the NBA, fuck the lottery, fuck the Sixers, and fuck you, Max.

Did Philly ruin the Detroit Pistons?

That's a fair part in your take.

Yes.

Like, if you're Pistons fan, you have a fair gripe to be like, hey, the. The way the lottery worked for all these years, we should have been in that lottery, and we should have gotten Wemby.

How about you just be better?

Well, no, that. You. But you didn't do the process. You did.

You didn't.

You literally were worse to game the system.

You ruined it for the rest of us.

You. You put. You pulled the ladder up on everyone else.

That's not true.

Yeah, you climb the ladder.

You were.

By getting number one.

We were just.

You hold it up.

You sucked so flagrantly that you ruined every other shitty team ever.

You're the baby boomers of every day. But. But you understand this pistons point. This is a fair part in your take. Yeah, they. They have suffered, and they just wanted a shot of. Good shot at Wemby for being so bad, and all they keep getting is the fifth pick.

Sorry. I don't care.

Yeah, you don't sound sorry.

I don't fuck about.

Also, one correction on this, guys. Take. The process isn't over yet, right? We're still processing.

Yeah. Yeah. The process of the process is not concluded yet.

Sorry. That was a cigarette.

Snickers burp the process of the process worked. The results of the process. Jury still out. Thank you.

Still have not decided if the process worked or not until jomb.

Until how many more years?

It's. Unfortunately. Pft. I think it's in perpetuity, because it's until, like, John Bead will play for the Sixers, then he'll demand to leave because the Sixers fans will be so mean to him, and then his trade assets will be part of the process.

Got it.

And then the next guy will draft. So they're in a process for the Sixers fans. As long as some piece of the process is still alive and they win a title in 50 years, they can be, like, the process worked.

Yeah, precisely.

Precisely.

I do feel. I do feel bad. But if it's any consolation to Detroit, San Antonio was always gonna get Wimbee.

Yeah.

That's just kinda. That's how it was gonna work.

And you, Jared, you know, we need. We need all the sick current Sixers right now to just retire. Then the process is over.

Mm hmm.

How would that not be?

They just disbanded.

No, I just don't want. I. I disagree.

Right. But if they did that, then we would be done with the process. Sure.

But also, if they disband, they all quit. Then you would never have another playoff loss again, and that would be a win.

Or the six. Just win. The process is done.

Yeah, we don't want that.

Yeah, you do.

No, we don't.

All right.

When.

With this one.

Imagine if Max won.

That's not. He's gonna get the Lord.

I haven't won. I know. I haven't watched you. Technically, I have won on this show.

Yeah.

Cubs on a World Series.

That's huge.

But the Hank Celtics have seen nothing but success. I've seen nothing but success.

Razor teams won a championship on part of my take.

Pug, what are you raising your hand for? Oh, the nit. Yes. Pug. Yes. Memes. Georgia one back to back national. Oh, yeah. Georgia fan. Yep. Yep. Hell yes. Max, did you want to raise your hand next?

Pardon your take.

Okay.

And Jake's peas are still in it.

Yeah, still in it.

I'm just won by being on this podcast.

Yeah. Are they still.

Are they calling them the peas now?

I think I've solely Brooks Capcom.

It's. But it started to spread a little bit. I've seen like three or four other people call.

Feels weird. Yeah.

When I set it on here.

Yeah.

I just like, went with it.

Yeah.

But I've never heard that before.

That Shane is gonna win because he's got Jim Harbaugh.

Yep.

So, Max. Yeah. Have you ever gotten this in real life? No.

Close, though. Would you rather last one a series NBA or NHL that ends in a suite? But all four games were closely contested, entertaining throughout, relatable or a series that goes seven games. But the first six games were all blowouts. Cheers.

Tyler, is it? Which would you rather watch?

Would you rather seven because he said seven. 7th game could be great.

It just says the first six were all blowouts.

Yes. Seven.

Yeah. Also in a seven game series, you get a lot of weird storylines that pop up and creep up and last stuff to talk about and get excited about these.

A four game sweep where all games were closely contested, entertaining throughout. A great, great experience.

I wonder why you're saying that. That. Yeah, I'm over that. We call that the Lakers. How far away were the Lakers?

Two years in a row. Back to back, almost best team in the NBA.

They lost the team that lost to the team that lost to the team. But that's even if the Nuggets won it all, the Lakers could be like, we were so close, but they literally, if the Mavs lose the Celtics, the Lakers lost to the maximum amount of teams.

But that's so small minded of you, big cat. The only reason that the Nuggets lost, lost in seven games, by the way, is because they were exhausted, I guess, playing against the Lakers.

But I just realized that, that it would be the maximum amount of teams they lost to every team after lost. Tough. Okay, Max, owe you a number. This is the last one. No, that was last week. All right. I wanted 20 so bad to happen.

Yeah, but would have been great.

All right, let's do numbers.

30. 218.

56.

Wow.

Banner.

18.

Jake.

Six. Nice.

Oh, I gave you a second.

Max, would you like to trade 20 for 56 right now? One for one?

No, three.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Never, never give, never give a man two numbers that you like.

99. Poke.

What was your number? Pft.

I'm looking at 56 right now, though. I don't like that I'm picking three.

Max, this lottery machine is so far in your head.

So far in this head.

What did you say?

Max, what did you say?

I didn't say anything.

What's your pick?

Oh, 20. And I have 56. His other number, 35.

Look good for half a second.

35.

Love you guys.

I thought that said 56.

Okay, we have our special re release of our 2017 interview with Bill Walton. If you missed it when we did the interview, it's must listen. There's 35 minutes of it. Also, like I said, we never released it on video. So go watch it where we have all the video and it is brought to you by ourselves. Pardon my cheesesteak. Go check out pardon my cheesesteak. Now. It's a pickup and delivery only restaurant bringing you craveable cheesesteaks, tenders, loaded fries and desserts for lunch, dinner and late night. Choose from our expanded menu that has regular cheesesteaks, chipotle cheesesteaks and chipotle chicken, buffalo chicken or chicken bacon ranch cheesesteaks and the newly added buffalo tender sub, which features crispy chicken tender tosses tossed with buffalo sauce topped with ranch and pickles on a toasted hoagie roll. You can order the big cat combo and get your cheesesteak of choice fries and a drink. And don't forget the max special, two sodas with more than 1500 locations nationwide. Find a pardon my cheesesteak near you and order yours now@pardonmycheesteak.com. or by using the QR code on the screen here. Use code PMC 20 for 20% off your order.

And here he is from 2017, the legend, Bill Walton. All right.

Wow. I am the luckiest guy on earth. I'm at the MGM grand. I've got a view of the Statue of Liberty outside my room. I'm fired up. And I'm with a couple of guys named Dan. Dan, right?

Yeah. Big cat. Big cat.

How many names you have? Two and PFT. Is that like a restaurant? Like PF Chang's or something?

Yeah, you can think of it that way. You actually. Okay, you know my name better than our lawyer does, so thanks.

So I'm sure everyone. That's a good thing. I'm sure everyone can tell the man.

On the mic, I'm Bill. That's Bill with two l from San Diego.

From San Diego.

Luckiest guy on earth.

NBA legend. College basketball legend.

No, no, man, I was lucky. Yeah, you're lucky, because I had fantastic parents. My first coach was the greatest coach I ever had. The message in my life was Chick hearn the most positive, optimistic, happy guy, a guy who had a lot of reason to be sad. Chick lost both his children when they were, you know, in their thirties and forties. And then John Wooden. John Wooden, who was this remarkable person that I had no idea what I had, because I grew up thinking that everything was perfect.

Did John Wooden's ears, were they always very large?

I never.

Did you notice at the end is the lobes got. I think that's something.

Old age.

Yeah.

I never noticed that. I. I made a conscious decision in my life. When I was 21 and I graduated, I was coach Warden's easiest recruit. I became his worst nightmare, and I drove the poor guy to an early grave at night. But here was a guy who, when I was 21, when I graduated from UCLA, he had his pyramid of success, which we thought was crazy. He had his seven point creed, which we thought was. What's this? He had his two sets of threes that didn't make sense. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses. He had his endless maxims. He had his tools to overcome the adversity and the tough times. He wrote everything down. And he was an english teacher by practice profession, who happened to have young people under his athletic supervision in the afternoon. But here was this guy who, on the day I graduated, he wrote a maxim for me to Bill Walton, it's the things you learn after you know it all that count. John wooden. And that still sits on my desk at home. And although home these days is at the MGM grand, where we are.

And right behind me we have red rock, Canyon State.

You said that. You actually said it. So when you came in, you sat down and you said, I don't want to look. I want my seat to have it. It's back to the window. Otherwise I'm just going to stare out there.

Concentration, focused discipline, that's what I really need. Work.

Okay. And then the clock. What about the clock?

You have always been. I live by the clock.

You sat down and you put a claire.

Preparing to fail.

Okay.

And you got to know what the time is because you have to know. And this was another thing I got from John Wooden, because when we would go and play as children, and I played all the time, basketball was my religion. The gym was my church. I love basketball. It was the easiest thing I've ever done besides academics in my life. And not to brag, my challenges have been orthopedic health. I've had 37 orthopedic surgeries. Both my ankles are fused. I've got a replaced knee as well now. And now I have a replaced and brand new reconstructed, rebuilt spine. My other big challenge in life was my speech impediment. I'm a lifelong stutterer and I couldn't say a word. I couldn't say hello. I couldn't say thank you until I was 28 years old. And then Marty Glickman, one of the greatest broadcasters, one of the greatest human beings ever, please check out his book, fastest kid on the block, please check out his movie on HBO. Glickman. Marty's now passed. And when Marty did pass, they came to Coach wooden for a comment. Because, you know, Coach is so, he is so experienced, so worldly and so old that he knew everybody.

And so Marty, who completely changed the world of broadcasting and humanity and spirit and ethics and moral clarity. When he passed, they asked Coach Whitney about him. And Coach was going on and telling a story about how great a person and humanitarian and philanthropist and, and broadcaster and really everything that Marty Lichtman was. But then he said he turned it and he said, but I've got a problem with Marty because Marty, he taught Bill Walton how to speak, but now he's passed away and he didn't tell Bill Walton how to stop talking.

That's a fair.

So, Dan.

Yeah.

Big cat. Pft.

Yes.

How's the restaurant business?

The restaurant's going well. Good.

I love to eat.

I eat so much. I wish I didn't have to eat so much.

If I were to open a restaurant, it would just be nachos. Just nachos. And buffalo wings.

Really?

You'd have a deep fry.

You guys are so young. You're probably not into health food, man. What? Gotta get into health. You gotta get sustainability.

What does that mean? I'm not into health food? Or, like, you think that call me fat? Is that what you're saying?

No.

Okay.

That's.

I know that you're really. You're really into health, right?

You're bicycling, right?

You're an avid bicyclist.

I love bicycles.

So me and you, we actually have a little connection here.

You. What's that?

You lost your bike when you went to Hawaii. You remember that?

Oh, one of the worst.

Yeah.

Not one of the worst customer experience ever.

But I got Twitter account and I called the resort. I called the resort for you.

Thank you.

And I was. I was like, my friend Bill lost his bike. You have to help him get it back. So I essentially found your bike for you.

Pft. You're my man. The Statue of Liberty, shining the light here. Have you guys seen that picture at the Bill Graham traveling exhibit? Bill Graham, the guy who created the concert world experience that we have today. I was at desert Trip. How about you guys? It was over the top.

You have become somewhat of a viral phenomenon with what is.

I have a. I'm a virus now.

Viral.

Yeah.

So you.

I just had viral. Pneumonia was the worst.

You're the only. Let's put it this way. You are wholly unique in the way you announce games and you do your color play with Dave Pash. Who are there moments where you.

Who is the guy you mentioned your, your, your co host, what's his name?

Is it not Dave Pash?

I don't.

He's messing with you because he screwed up the name before.

Oh, no. Now we're going to deflect it on.

No, but that's why now I'm named conscious.

So you're big cat. I deal with two elders. Purifying and talent.

So you. So when you go on. When you go off in the middle of the broadcast, do you ever get lost in your own mind and you, like, almost forget where you are?

I get lost all the time. And it's.

It's unbelievable to listen to. Like, people love to listen to it. It's late night on the east coast.

It's a. It's fun to get lost and it's important to get lost. But getting lost, that implies that I know where I am to begin with. And. And that's a giant leap of faith right there. But I love education I love knowledge. I love science. I love facts. I love politics. I love music. I was just upstairs before I came down here, and I woke up at the crack of dawn. I was up late last night working, and I woke up at the crack of dawn knowing that I had a chance to be on this special show. And so as I'm clearing my life and trying to wash away the sins, trying to cleanse the stains of my life and try to come down here and be able to shine that light, because as that light comes in, you can't keep it. Your job, your duty is to reflect it. And so I put on my iTunes, and I found John Fogarty, and he was singing, and he had guys singing with him, and it was just over the top. And it took me back to a new place.

Saw a sound bite the other, or heard a sound bite the other day of you saying that. There's a lot of synchronicity between the NBA and your favorite band, the Grateful Dead.

Yeah. It's not just the NBA. It's basketball.

Basketball, it's sport.

So I want to play basketball more.

Than any other sport because, see, the other sports you're standing around cycling. I like speed.

Right?

You have a speed freak. I want to keep going. It makes you cycling rush, but it makes you so high when you're riding your bike. You see those mountains over there? When you're riding your bike straight up those mountains, that makes you so high when you're playing basketball and there's 20,000 people there yelling and screaming even. There's no people there. It's the greatest thing in the world because you're moving and you're doing something, and you can make a positive contribution on every single play. These other sports, they just stand around, right? They stop all that. I hate that.

Yeah.

I wanted to play a quick game with you in chat, in that vein.

Who's the ref?

I'm going to name. I'm going to name four NBA teams, and you tell me which Grateful Dead song matches up.

Okay.

With them. Soundtrack.

Let me just say that I am not good at thinking on my feet.

I'll help.

I would disagree.

I'll help.

I'm not good at thinking on my feet. And so the answers I'm gonna give now.

No, wrong answer.

What's your favorite grateful Dead year, by the way, before we start this game this year? Okay.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, first of all, it's all one song. I remember we were there. It was at Poly Pavilion.

Life is just one long song, right?

Just wait a second. Let me tell this story real quick. We're at Poly Pavilion, right? And the Grateful Dead. Every year we're at UCLA. They came, grateful. They would come and play Poly pavilion. I didn't know him at the time. I was too shy. I had opportunities to meet him. I became a fan, which. My first dead show when I was 15. 1967 Summer, I love. It was just incredibly great. And so my life was never the same again, but. And then over the years, there's always these opportunities to meet him. But I was just too shy, and I couldn't talk, and I just. So I just. I was a very. I was very much of a loner as a person on the stage, on the court is fantastic. You know, the lights all shining on me. Otherwise, I'm heading back to my hotel room. I'm going to the library. I'm going to read a book. I'm going to go to the beach by myself. I'm going to just be by myself. And so. But that changed when I learned how to speak anyway, so coach wooden, when the grateful, they would come and play at Pauley Pavilion, they would use our locker rooms as their dressing room, and coach wooden would come in the next day and he'd say, what's that smell?

I said, nothing, coach. There's nothing to see here. And so. But we were out in the audience. We had in the audience one of these. One of these shows in Poly Pavilion. And they're grateful that we're just all over the place. Just one of those spectacular, ricocheting journeys through the universe, right where you're bouncing off Pluto and Mars and going into other solar systems, and it's just like, wow, let's go. And then they would come back and go out and come back, and somebody in the crowd said, wow. Hey, you know, they already played that song, and somebody else said, hey, man, it's all one song.

That would blow my mind right there.

Love it.

That's an all time moment.

That's one you might never.

That's the kind of stuff that happens in my life every day.

That sounds amazing.

Every. Every day we're gonna play quick game.

I'm gonna name an NBA team. You're going to tell me which Grateful Dead song.

Okay, I'll try. But bear in mind that if for the people listening at home and the people keeping score at home, if you write these answers down tomorrow, there might.

Be different at this very moment.

Okay?

That's one of the problems. That's one of the problems in my life is the test is always changing, right? The test, the answers change, the questions change. And I love that.

Yeah. Okay, so first one, we'll go. We'll make an easy one at San Antonio spurs.

I'm gonna play this game with you.

Yeah. Okay. San Antonio spurs. Okay.

Touch.

Gray.

No. I love Greg Popovich. That guy is awesome. And I. I don't know if you know Peter Holtz story, the owner of the team, that guy. Do we have time to tell this?

Yeah, of course. We have as much time as you want. We have nowhere to go.

Okay, so, Peter, you know, talk about, you know, the song. You talk about the sustainability and the dream and something special. I mean, this franchise was just floundering. They were going to fold. They had nothing going on. Peter Holt, he is an heir to the caterpillar tractor family at the top. And so, Peter, somehow, some way, he ends up in Vietnam. Vietnam in the fight. And, you know, don't ever let anybody tell you that Vietnam was fun or that Vietnam was good. That was the epitome of evil and selfishness and greed and crony capitalism and war profiteering. Just all the worst of the worst. That was Vietnam. And so Peter, fortunately for him, he survives. But he comes back and ends up in San Francisco, as so many people did. And California. Meet me on the burning shore the promised land just knocking on heaven's door Peter goes there, and his life is never the same again. But he loses a lot, if not everything, including his family connections, because the family basically just cut him out, and he was just out on his own. So, Peter, like Marty Glickman, when he had his challenges and his problems, like so many of us tried to do, Peter was able to get back up.

And he got back up and started over again, and he took. And this is the ultimate challenge in life, and this is what I've tried to do many times, by taking the worst things that ever happened to you and make them into the best things that ever happened to you. When my spine failed February 24, 2008, and I went from the top, even though I had been slowly debilitating physically, and I was getting worse and worse and worse. But it was on February 24, 2008, that I got off the plane and could no longer move. And I spent the next four and a half years trying to get back up and trying to go, and I tried everything. And I did not understand the concept of everything until my spine. I thought I knew a lot of stuff. But when your spine fails and you're lying on that ground and you would just rather be dead, that was me if I had a gun, I would have used it. There was no reason for me to ever think that I was going to get better, that I had a chance. But I am all better now.

And so during that time, I got fired from my job, lost my health insurance, lost everything, my dignity, suffering. I'd lost everything. And just lying on the ground, nothing I could do about it. And. But now here I am. That's what. That's nine years ago. And, you know, so and so I have been able to learn this time and take it back to the other times when my ankle fusions, knee replacements, all that kind of stuff, and personal failures, financial failures. But to learn to take those failures and turn it around to becomes the best thing in your life. And that's what Peter Holt did. And he climbed back up, he got back in, and he bought the San Antonio spurs. And he has created this culture, this culture of excellence, a culture of success, a culture of culture of genius. And that's what I want to be a part of in my life. I don't want to be a part of negativity. I don't want to be a part of intimidation. I don't want to be a part of anger. I want to be a part of joy, of happiness. And so as we think of the song, you said touch a gray.

I mean, I don't know. I can't think quickly enough.

I'm going to go with trucking.

Trucking.

Because of the owner and also the spurs.

Every year they're there, all good.

They just keep on going.

They're all good.

Good.

Okay. Okay. What was your question? Pft Lakers.

Now we'll do the Lakers. A little close to home for you.

Do you think magic was the right hire?

Absolutely. We love magic.

Okay.

Everything magic does is fin, you know, magic is, you know, he's one of those rare beacons of hope. I mean, look, come on. They told magic he was gonna die and now look at him, right? It's like the magic is perfect. And you talk to David Stern. Didn't David Stern, all the things he's done in his life, said the best thing he ever did was with Magic Johnson? When Magic Johnson went and played in that 1992 all star game, Dick Enberg, our college broadcaster, one of my best friends, Dick, ever called that game, and Don Nelson coached that game. And magic went out there. It just was fantastic and what he's done and, okay, so I love Magic Johnson, but the Lakers and a great. See, you guys are. I'm not sure you guys are deadheads.

I am I don't.

Yeah.

Pft is not.

Well, no, she appreciates that being a dead is a personal choice.

Right.

And, you know, I. When I first went, I, you know, I had listened. I had heard him on the radio and the DJ. The DJ, he was the one that prompted me to go. It was Gabriel Wisdom. It was 1967. And he said, hey, man, there's a new band. They're gonna have a concert. Let's go. We. Everybody got in free, and it was fantastic. And I got to the front of the stage and just happiness and joy and love and peace and, you know, singing Uncle John's band. The first days are the hardest days. Don't you worry about it. No. When life looks like easy street there's danger at your door what I want to know is, are you kind and will you come with me? Come here. Uncle John's band.

There we go. I love it. So for me, my love for the great Grateful Dead has always been like, I'll float around and listen to other music and, like, other music, but whenever I turn on, whenever I put in, you know, a Grateful Dead concert or Dick's pics when it was back, cds, there's just something different. You know what I mean? It just feels different than all other music that you're listening to.

There's nothing like a grateful debut. There's nothing like a Grateful Dead contributor. Graham said it best be Grateful Dead. They're not the best at what they do. They're the only ones that do what they do. And you talked about Dick's pick, so you know Dick Laffala?

Yeah.

Okay. So let me tell you how this works, because, you know, I'm not sure. How old are you? You're 32. No way.

Yeah. See the gray hairs, by the way? Do you hate. Do you hate Donna? Who? Donna. Gotcha.

I love Donna.

Come on, be honest.

I love Donna.

Please.

No time to hate.

Okay. All right.

Okay.

Not a Donna fan. If you couldn't tell, he'll listen to you.

Wine one time, big cat.

I thought next, I'm not a Donna is an Brent Midland was my favorite, was my middle.

Fantastic. I wish they would play his songs again. They don't play them anymore. And I'm just sad because I love those songs. But let me tell you the story of Dick Lotteful. And this is sort of how this whole life works.

That was actually, by the way, the first time you didn't smile in the entire interview. You was when I bashed Donna.

No, I'm standing up for Donna.

Yeah, I know. I appreciate that.

I love Donna.

That's a ride or die guy.

And as soon as they turn this camera off, I'm gonna punch you in the face. So we're on tour with the dead, and we're up at Red Rocks. And I think it was in the eighties, I'm not sure somebody will know. Red rocks. Fantastic. Three days, three nights in a row, everybody's there. Camping, parties, hotel. Let's go. Just having the time of our lives. Show starts first night.

Bam.

The heavens explode. Thunder, lightning. Just torrential, historic, epic, monumental rain, right? Just pounding all night long. And with the fans, they all just stayed. It was not a one left, and it was the Grateful dead. And it was just better than perfect. And what we lived for. It was our team, it was our guys, it was our leaders, it was our beacons. And let's go to the promised land and let's celebrate. And so. But just rained all. Just floods, water, rivers coming right down through the red rocks amphitheater bowl there. This phenomenal place. And so everybody leave the concerts over, and everybody goes back and looking at the weather report and talking to the guys and the police and everything, and they just said, look, this rain is going to keep going for the next three days. And so two or 03:00 in the morning, band makes the decision, look, let's cancel red rocks and move the whole show downtown to McNichols arena, which is the NBA arena at the time. And so everybody in the middle of the night gets up, drives back out to red rocks. Works all night through the dawn, tearing everything.

Grateful that that's a big production. That's a big show. And tons of equipment, tons of lighting, everything. Work all day, tear it down, drive it down into town, set it up at McNichols. And at the announced starting time, they were ready. And they come out on the. And it just. But everybody's beat, everybody's dead tired. And all the dead heads, we're all still wet from the night before, but the music starts up and the joy and the happiness and the rainbows and the people and the smiles and the love and the spinners, and just. Everything is just fantastic, right? So I'm just cruising through the whole arena, just listening to the music play and riding the wave and just having the time of my life as they're just going through again, ricocheting off the comets and the stars and the planets and the universe, whichever one we're in that night. And I come around this corner, and there's this guy looks a lot like you big cat. And he's walking right toward me. He's got these dazed, glazed eyes, and he's just, like, fierce, and he's intense, and I can just feel it. I can see sweaty.

Sweaty. And I look at him, powerful, handsome. I look at him, and he has got this shirt on, and I stop. We come face to face, or we stop, and I look at him, and I said, that is the coolest shirt I've ever seen in my life. This was like an airbrushed history of the world through the prism of the Grateful Dead. Pyramids and exploding bus stops, rainbows, serpents coming out. And it was just as wild a shirt as you could possibly imagine. I said, that's the coolest shirt I've ever seen. Had no idea who he was. He just looks at me, doesn't say a word, and rips off his shirt and gives it to me.

Wow.

And then he just goes on his.

Way, riding another way.

He was, like a little short guy, like big cat. And so the night goes on, and I put the shirt on, right? And I'm wearing the shirt, and it was a fantastic shirt. People were talking about, talking all night long about my shirt. And the show's over. And so now we're all leaving down the stage, out the back door, through the gauntlet, all the fans reaching and grabbing and trying to get all the autographs and take the pictures. And the vans are waiting right there. And we're getting in the vans, and I look over, and there's that guy who gave me the shirt, and he's standing on the front of the rail, reaching in, looking still with no shirt on. And I looked at him, and I said, you're coming with us. And so I picked him up by the back of the neck and lifted him up over the barrier, threw him in the van, and says, let's go. We got back to the hotel. I introduced him to everybody all around. They looked at my shirt and said, oh, my God. That's the coolest shirt ever built. And they hired him on the spot.

That was Dick Latvilla, and he went on to become the curator of the vault.

Wow.

That's amazing.

You never know.

So people who don't know Dick, he basically was the librarian for all of Grateful Dead's music.

His job was to sit in the vault all day long and listen to all the old concerts and decide which ones were good enough to put out his rerelease.

Sometimes the universe just kind of works together like that.

That's the way all of our universe works. We just have to keep our eyes open, and we just have to keep our shoulders back and our heads up.

That's also the most Grateful Dead story ever because they basically pick, like, the highest guy in the world to listen.

To all their music. No, no, no, no. That's the way it always works. Grateful dead. I promise. Pain is no good. And don't ever discount pain, because the challenge in life, okay, is to get out of.

Gotcha.

No, we're busy in here, please. I'm with PFT and big cat.

Housekeeping is trying to get in.

Yeah, they're breaking into our room.

Okay.

The forces of evil.

Let's. Let's do another team.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's like team jump back when we get a story, which is exactly what we wanted this interview to be.

No, thank you.

No, thank you.

We're busy. Force of evil.

All right, well, let's see what the gift is. Hank is gonna go check it out.

By the way, please have the security forces check this, please. These forces of evil, they get at you in lots of different ways.

Oh, it's a can of beer nuts. Let's open it up. I'm. Do you know snakes?

A pass. Ever have a talk about the fact that he doesn't believe in evolution?

Thank you.

I had to wait till a gift came in to ask you the hard.

Oh, my gosh.

Do you have that bottle of champagne?

Just came in.

I love discourse.

Okay. Yeah.

Same.

I love.

Oh.

I mean, intercourse, but, yeah, I love.

I love that too. I love my wife. My wife is fantastic. Can you imagine being married to me? What they bring you guys? Some bottle of tequila, some chocolates and stuff? Oh, my gosh. If you can't do it for breakfast, you can't do it all day long. Don't do it at all, guys.

So do you talk to him at all about the fact we don't believe in evolution?

No, no, man. I'm here. No, you've been to the Galapagos, right? Oh, one of the great trips ever.

Yes. Take him there.

I didn't know him. No, he's young. He's very young. He's very young. Look, you know, don't look. We're. We're trying to bring people along. We're trying to get. My job in life is to be a human forklift and a human solar power panel. So I'm a road grader, so.

So, like, well, I'm more one of those traffic cones. It's kind of like, got dirt on it, and everyone's like, that's the saddest traffic cone.

Think of the forklift. A forklift picks things and people up and puts them in a better place. Think of them as a solar. Solar energy is the biggest no brainer in the history of the world. Are you kidding? More solar energy hits the earth every day.

But now. Let me stop.

Every day.

Don't whine. Don't complain.

You could do the sun, or we could just go in and burn another war in the Middle east, right?

I'm choosing the sun, okay? I'm choosing solar.

Tomato, tomato. Here.

Or we could start a new ice age, kill all the humans, and then dinosaurs come back, then they die, then millions of years after that, we've got more oil.

Yeah.

What kind of.

Maybe Dave Pash will believe it.

What kind of trip are you guys? Sound like Dave. You guys love coal.

Actually, I actually read a story yesterday, the New York Times, and it.

About what?

I think that you would enjoy it. It's about the galapagos, which is one of my favorite places on earth.

You've been there?

Yeah, I've been there. Had just the best.

Were the angermeyers still alive when you were there?

The anger Myers.

The anger Myers are five brothers I didn't meet.

I didn't meet other brothers.

Okay.

The anger Myers are five brothers in the. The early 1930s in Germany, and this was when Hitler was just coming up. And if you haven't read Eric Larson's in the Garden of beasts, please make that. We've talked about a number of books here, but that book right now, today, is critical. But all the books I've mentioned today are critical. And anyway, their parents, anger Meyer's parents parents saw what was happening. They were jewish, and they saw. So they put their children on a boat and knowing that they would never see their children again. And the boys, they ended up in the galapagos. And in the thirties.

What island were they on?

The main. I don't know. I forget the names. It's the main island. Porta Ayorta. Is that the name of the town?

There's. What's the name of St. Cristobal.

What's the name of town?

Porta Ayora. Right where the harbor is and the town. Anyway, this was. This was a phenomenal trip. Oh, my gosh. It was. It was one of the. I could easily make the argument that certain days on that trip were the greatest. What was the greatest single day of my life. I could make the argument that that trip was the greatest single moment of my life. But then there's all these other things that have happened, too, they just keep coming. And so what I've learned over the course of these now 64 years, never rank, rate or compare.

That's what I tell my girlfriends.

Championships, concerts, children, coaches or congratulations. What about enjoy them all?

What about teams? Like, could. Could UConn women's basketball beat?

No, but you're not supposed to compare.

What? You're the best team you ever played on.

Was any team that won the championship.

You. But that's what I played for. But you.

My hero. I played to win. I didn't play for personal glory. I didn't play.

What was the most fun team you ever played on?

It's when you win the championship, it's interesting because you. When you lose, it's like, yeah, that's the worst.

Well, you taught us a lesson today.

That's because a lot of lessons.

Well, no.

Told you what not to do.

No, no. This is an important lesson, because the way we do this show, you know, we'll. We'll game plan our guests and we'll try to steer them different ways. And I think today's interview taught us that you gotta let the guest talk about what they want to talk about, because this was one of the most interesting interviews we've done, and we didn't steer well. I didn't even look at my pad once.

Coach Wooden, that's the antithesis of what coach Wooden was like, because coach Wooden, he never started practice with these words. Never. What do you guys want to do today?

Right.

Right. Well, in basketball, you need a coach, and the coach can't.

Structure, organization, discipline, focus, you know, platform. And that's where the sacrifice comes in and the discipline. Because to be a part of a group, you got to realize, okay, now, what's the goal here? You know, hopefully, we achieve something here today.

Yeah, absolutely. I had a great time. Thank you for stopping by ft. Big cat.

I'm Bill two l's from San Diego.

I'll have to tell you about the. About the galapagos story, the New York Times. Some other time. But I think you'll really. You'll really enjoy it. I saw you talking about the bamboo, the Banff. Buffaloes. Right. The bison.

Buffaloes. I can't believe I'm reading this book right now. Peter Cozen's the earth is weeping. Oh, my God. It's the story of the indian wars in the latter half of the 19th century. Oh, it is just the most tragic story. We're right back there again, and they're still making these pipelines. Come on, solar energy. The biggest no brainer in the history of the world.

Do it.

Don't think about the past. Learn from the past. Learn from our mistakes in the past. Quit burning coal. Let's move forward. Solar energy. Wind power. Hydrother. Hydro electricity. Let's go geothermal.

One last question. I did write this down earlier. I just remembered it. Have you ever found Bobby Jackson?

Bobby Jackson? I know a bunch of Bobby Jackson's.

During.

During that king series. Like, where is Bobby Jackson? Where is Bobby Jackson?

Oh, that Bobby Jackson.

Yeah. Six man of the year. I do love when you do that, when someone disappears on the court and you just start saying, where is this person? When they stop playing. Well.

So you're familiar with the pyramid of success?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, so there's 15 human.

They store grain in that pyramid, too?

No. They store love. They store happiness.

Better.

They store knowledge, which is power. An ephemeral being of stuff.

Did you just call us chicks?

No.

Ephemeral.

No.

Just kidding.

It's a joke.

I told you I can't. I'm not good at thinking on my feet. You guys are.

You are.

You guys are scrambling yourself.

Enough credit.

Guys are scrambling myself. Enough. You guys are trying to join in with those forces of evil. So anyway, the pyramid of success. 15 words. Human values and personal attributes and characteristics of your soul, of your being. And they. Industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, intentness, initiative, alertness, self control, physical fitness, skill development, commitment to the team, poise, confidence, and the very top block, competitive. Great. Be at your best when your best is needed. Where is Bobby Jackson?

There we go. That's the perfect ending. Love of me, love me,

baby don't take it on, baby

sa.