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On today's part of my take, we have an awesome, awesome in-studio interview with all the smoke guys, Steven Jackson, Matt Barnes. Great time with them, telling stories, talking about their podcast, everything. We are going to talk about the Boston Celtics. On the precipice of Raising Banner 18. We had the US Open. We have Stanley Cup final game three back in Edmonton, and we are also going to do Firefest of the Week. Great Friday show for you, and it's 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 part of the NBA. Draftkings Sportsbook has you covered every step of the way with same game parlays, a live betting odds boost, and so much more. Don't miss out as the NBA postseason winds down. It's super easy to get started with DraftKings. If you're a first-timer, try betting on something like a team to win. Go to the DraftKings Sportsbook app, select your team, and place your first bet. It's that simple. I'm going to say right now, this else is going to win on Friday night.

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It's Pardon My Take, presented by Marshall Sports.

Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Now use code take. That's code take for new customers. Get 150 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Today is Friday, June 14th. And this is Henry Lockwood's World, and we're all living in it. We are taping this right now on Henry Lockwood's 31st birthday.

Happy birthday, Hank.

Happy birthday, Hank. Henry Lockwood is coming off a night where where he went to see his quarterback, who won six Super Bowl's for him, be inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. And that quarterback named Hank and Fidelberg and Gaz and Dave, who actually left. In his induction speech, the Hall of Fame, greatest quarterback of all time named Hank, in his induction speech, while his Celtics were going up 3-0 on the precipice of winning their 18th banner. Today is his birthday. Oh, and just a little cherry on top, Bryson is his max bet for the US Open, and he's third. Hank, the whole world is just coming up Hank right now. I don't really know what else to say other than we're just passengers in Hank's ride through the galaxy.

I got something. I want to add one thing to it real quick. He also saw a down and out, appears possibly homeless person, wearing the handsome Hank Lockwood boxing shirt at a bus station in South Boston. So it's been quite a trip. Hank, my question for you is, can you teach me your ways?

I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. There's really nothing to say other than I just pure luck, right place, right time. I don't really know why. I know I don't deserve it, but I'm just I'm just lucky. There's really nothing else I can say. I definitely don't deserve it, but I'm happy that I'm able to experience the things I'm able to experience and blessed. I thank you two. I thank Dave for everything, really.

I didn't actually want an answer here. I didn't want an answer. I don't why this wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to acknowledge it. I'm assuming Max took off his headphones, PFT.

He took them off his ears, and then Hank kept going, and then gradually, he just slowly took them off his entire head and put them down on the desk next to him.

He can't take it. Hank is-Oh, wait, what?

You forgot one thing. The Red Sox beat the Phillies last night, too.

Oh, yeah. I got to about that.

You don't even know that they're winning again tonight, you fucking loser. Well, he's actually not a loser. You can say I drove home.

You call Hank a lot of things. You can call Hank a terrible golfer. I know. I know.

I know. Yeah, he sucks the call. Sleeps too much. But he's not a loser. He's not a loser.

No, he's not a loser. Hank is a winner, and that's why I want to know his ways. I mean, whatever he's been doing in his life has worked out so tremendously well for him. There's something that we can all learn from Hank. Hank, I saw you also tweet it out this morning that you are now as old as me and Big Cat were when we started part of my take, which made me feel extremely old. Out of all the things that have made me feel old in my late '30s, I mean, late '20s, that is probably the number one. Thinking it in that terms really blows my mind. So I want to know, when you started doing part of my take, did we feel old to you?

Oh, yeah.

I was 22, so I don't know how you guys feel, but obviously, I live a Peter Pan, basically, lifestyle with his job. But I feel like time has just stopped since we started the podcast. It's probably bad that I don't really feel any different than I did when the podcast started, but I don't. I was 22 when the podcast started. I'm 31 now. But I feel like I think in the exact same way as I did back then, I'm just a little bit better off in life.

I feel the same way. You're not fair? The other one, PFT, is my son is about to turn five next week. So I've been a dad for more than half of this show.

That's crazy, too. Crazy. That's also nuts.

That one fucked me up as well. But yeah, Hank being 31, the age that we started, Yeah, I don't know. He's still got his whole life in front of him. The guy just... Even when Hank is down for a little bit, and he's been down before, he literally sucked Nicki Smokes' cock on video last week. But it doesn't matter because it always comes back. He always bounces back. He's the stock that everyone should have bought 10 years ago. I guess I did. I guess we both did. Yeah, we did. We definitely did. And he just keeps... You might have a bad quarter, but then the dividend is just, I think that's the word, just keep producing insane profits.

I'm like the Roaring Kitty. I like the stock. I like the honk. I'm glad we invest in you, Hank. In the middle of the night last night when you were on this heater and I was getting ready to go to sleep and you pointed out that not only had all these great things happen, but also that the Red Sox beat the fillies and you didn't even know about it. I thought to myself, I should get out of bed and just fuck up all the slats in my bed frame because it might be the way that you're sleeping. I don't know. I just want to be more like Hank. What can I say?

Eat some spiders? Yeah.

I put a hole in my wall.

Now, okay, last thing, because I do want to talk about the game, Hank, then I want to talk about your night at Brady's retirement. The last thing I was wondering, so you're such a winner, Hank. You're the ultimate winner.

Here comes the back-end.

No, no, no, no, This isn't going to be a back-end. What would it feel like if, and I'm just saying any of us in this room, were the ultimate loser, but Hank, the ultimate winner, was our boss?

That would suck. I would quit.

Because we joke about Hank being our boss, PFT. He's not actually. He actually is Max's boss. What are we talking about? I thought we were talking about the game.

I thought that's what you said you were It gives Max something to strive for. It gives him examples of what it looks like. You never want your subordinate to be better than your boss. So it's better for me to show him the way and just give him something to strive for. I think that's the best boss you can ask for.

It's true. It's a great point.

Yeah, it's very good. You're showing that you're not afraid to be a hands-on boss either because the Celtics, what, four-fifths of their starting lineup were at one time 76ers? So you're showing them how to take the same, or it could have been 76ers. You're taking the same ingredients and you're showing them this is how you assemble a winning culture. And you can learn a lot from this. So I appreciate that about your boss ship, Hank.

Max, do you have any... He's not even... It might be the end of him. Because it really is incredible how much Hank wins and how much Max loses. And Max has to report to Hank. His job is in Hank's hands. It's actually a credit to you, Hank, that you do such great charity service by employing a guy like Max.

Yeah, I just want to help him. Listen, no one roots for Max more than me. That's the thing that he doesn't realize that I want him to get to this level. There's no one that's rooting for him to be where I'm at more than me. You're lying.

You can hear us?

I think we need to get Max like an emotional support animal. Somebody that's a bigger loser than him, and that way he can shit on that person.

Memes.

Well, memes also is in the category of people that probably hate me, but also has to post when I do good things on social media, and I know he hates doing it, but I love that.

It's so true.

It's a shame. It might feel bad, but not at all.

Yesterday, it sucked.

Hey, Tom braided. Thanks, okay. But yesterday, it sucked.

You just had to post highlights of Tom Brady's sucking off Hank.

Shout out Big Dom. Yeah, good point, Max.

Shout out, Big Dom. That has nothing to do with this, Max. We can talk about that later.

No, that was a win for me.

I I get to get one of these wins every now and then. Oh, Big Dom sent us some football.

Yeah, that was a win. You got to send some merch.

Big Dom's a legend. Hank, do you think Tom braided would ever send you some merch?

Yeah, of course.

We're boys now.

You guys It was very cool seeing you guys meet him. I was jealous because to have an athlete like that that you grew up idolizing, to look back and look you in the eye and being like, Thank you, guys. That was great. I love fight's response, which was like, Dude, shut the hell up.

It was so perfect. Tom braided thanked Hank and Dave and Gaz in fights, and fights first words to Tom braided were, No, you shut the hell up. Thank you. Hank, tell us. Let's do that, and then we'll talk to this game, because memes did have to post all these highlights. You went to Tom Brady's retirement ceremony. For people who don't know the lore, when Tom braided deflate Gate, he got suspended. Dave fights Gaz and Hank, the braided Four, went to jail for Tom braided. They went and protested at the NFL office. Hank spent a night in jail, literally for Tom braided. So on Tom Brady's induction night last night, they dressed up exactly like they dressed up when they went to They got special seats, great seats, given to them by Robert Kraft. They got to meet Tom braided. So then take it away, Hank. What was last night like?

Yeah, it was a beyond surreal night. Well, first of all, we parked a mile and a half away, and Dave had a parking pass, but he didn't have it. So he was like, We'll just walk. So it was a classic Barcell situation where we were walking so far to get to the stadium, which was funny because then we just walked into the VIP red carpet area with all the players. We see Scott Zolak, recurring guest of the show, absolute lightning rod. He's yelling at us. We go to check in, and Zolak has asked the lady at the front desk, Where am I sitting? And she said, Oh, you're in the general. You have a seating the general area. And then she's like, Oh, Dave, you guys are at table 31. There's seven of you. And so Zolak was like, What the fuck? How do you guys have seats? And I'm just sitting with the regular people. He literally broadcast the games. And then waiting for the red carpet, it was just all former Patriest players, Gronk, Edelman, Randy Moss, William McGinnis. And for me, there was a bunch of surreal parts of it. But seeing Gronk and Edelman and them just coming up to us and dapping us up like we were players, and obviously we know him really well.

That was crazy because it's a bunch of players just hamming it up, saying what's up to each other. And they just walk past us like, we're... Gronk was like, oh, what's up Eric? Dap me up, gave me a hug. Same with Edelman. That was insane to me, obviously, just knowing... Felt like we were on the team. That was really cool. We did a red carpet interview with Boss, and I don't think it era. And David McCorty was doing... We're going to have to figure out which one that was.

Fuck. No, no, no. Do not cut that. No, no. There's no way he's not getting cut. There's no way he's not getting cut. There's no way he's not getting cut. It's crazy. Crazy that you think I would cut that.

Mccarty was doing the interviews, and he He asked Fidelberg a question. I wish it aird so bad. I've never seen Fidelberg freeze like this in his life. He asked me, he's like, Did you guys know you were going to jail? And I said, We thought we were going to get out in the same night. We got arrested. The cop was like, Hey, it's too late in the afternoon. You're going to have to spend the night. And we all froze and looked at each other. We're like, Uh-oh. And then he asked Fidelberg a question. And I think Fidelberg was thinking about whether or not he could say shit because he was going to say the story about how I took a shit in jail. But he just froze so bad for 10 seconds. He put the mic in front of him. Fidelberg was just... Unfortunately, that clip never came out. I hope they posted because it was so funny. And then, yeah, we were just hanging out with Patriots legends, and everyone was coming up to Dave. Bon Jovi came up to Dave. They were best friends. I was like, Oh, Dave, when are you coming over for lunch?

That was insane. The whole night was just beyond insane. And then we were sitting at the seats and someone came over and said, Hey, I think you guys are in this speech. Because when we met, braided, too, he's like, You guys have really good seats right in the front row, which should have tipped us off knowing that he knew where we were sitting because he had been writing a speech and planning for it. Dave leaving was something, was definitely something.

Then when he thank you-We had Austin.

We had the game on a phone. We were watching it, and I think Dave tried to get it on his phone with YouTube TV and the region that said, You're in the wrong region. And he just was like, I got to watch. He just went from trying to get it on. He couldn't get it on. He was like, I got to watch the game. I got to go.

Hank, when he thanked you guys-We knew we were going to be in the speech.

We knew. We said, he was like, If I wait till it ends, it's going to be crazy for me because people are going to stop and talk, which they were obviously all night. Everyone was treating him like royalty. So it would have taken him way longer to get to the bar where we knew me, Gaz, and Fidelberg could just run over there. So he was like, I'll leave and you guys just come after the thing. But even after he left, I was like, we're going to get mentioned. He's going to get mentioned. He didn't know we were going to be in the Jumbotron, but we knew before beforehand that we had been told, You guys are in the speech.

Yeah. And when he thanked you, you pulled an all-time power move, which was you stood up and you gave yourself a standing ovation.

Yeah. Pump up the crowd.

Yeah, I saw myself. I mean, the pop The fact that we got a pop, there was different pops all night. People came on the stage. Randy Moss, by far the best one. It brought me to tears. They had defense come on, and then they had some offensive players come on, and they had the quarterbacks come on at different times to do talking segments. Randy Moss came on. He started to talk, and before he could even speak, everyone just started clapping. Everyone stood up, gave him a two-minute long standing ovation. He started crying. I was crying. It was a beautiful It was a beautiful, beautiful moment.

Question, Hank. This moment where Tom braided mentioned you in his Patriots Hall of Fame induction speech. Again, he mentioned you.

Before anything else, before his parents.

He mentions you. So That clip goes out. Memes, from your perspective, how was that, having to post that?

It was terrible.

Okay, great. Thank you, memes. Keep you thinking numbers?

It was good numbers, right? It got great views, great engagement. Yeah, I was pretty angry. That's what the game is, right?

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

It's part of the job.

Okay. All right. He did every second of it. Keep going, Hank.

I just can't... It was insane the amount of players that... Obviously, I'm a fan, and obviously this is a massive podcast, and Barca was a massive platform, so I shouldn't get surprised. And I've been doing it for 11 years. But as a fan of the team, the amount of people that were coming up to us, like Belichick's sons and Steve Pioli, I mean, Scott Pioli. I meant messing up everyone's name. This is bad. Cut that, Max.

Cut that.

Cut that. Yeah, cut that. Scott Pioli. Just everyone coming up and dapping us up like we were just part of the team or part of the organization was beyond surreal. And then getting the shout out at the top of the speech, you said, Fans, and then he said the braided 4, and then he went into his family. He mentioned us right out of the gate. You're closer than family. Yeah, we got to pop. I mean, when he was... The camera angle, you can't see my face, thankfully. When he was thanking us, and obviously he's a professional, he's probably used to doing eye contact. He was just looking straight at me, and I did not know what to do. I was praying that he looked away because he kept talking and staring at me, and I was just like, Look away. Please look away. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I have a 31-year-old, and I acted like I've never been more nervous or more excited in my entire life. I felt like a two-year-old. It was amazing.

Did you do any producing? Is he going to come on the show?

Yeah, we have a softs agreement. We've got a tentative date. We don't do that on this show, but we've got verbals.

We've got verbals.

All right. So it was a work trip.

You nailed some verbals.

Good job. I did see the fucking lighthouse. It looked like shit. Oh, no, it looked awesome. No, it looked like dog. The picture of you in front of the lighthouse was… You had so much face paint on. It looked like Gaz put your face paint on for you.

Yeah, I kept rubbing my face and then forgetting I had face on and then like, wiping off my white shorts, which was dumb. It was a little bit of a messy, messy, messy evening.

I'm just jealous. I'm just jealous of the anxiety. We had the same.

Samy Jay, the comedian was at our table. She was funny as fuck. Bill Burr absolutely brought the house down. Jay Zee, performance Kenny Chesney performance. It was just, it was magical.

Okay, you're a winner. All right, so and then next topic, the Celtics are up 3-0, and the Mavs, Luka has gone out as as sad as sad could be.

Just a- It's tough to say.

Pathetic second half by Luka, where there was that two possessions in a row where he took back-to-back threes and Tried to get a foul call and then just didn't go back on defense. That was so, so sad and just bad basketball, terrible to watch. And he ends up fouling out and then complaints about the refs afterwards. Brian Ryan Windorse, our guy Windy, absolutely eviscerated him on Scott Van Pelt afterwards, basically saying he has to mature, he has to get better, he has to stop doing these things that are hurting his team, which are all facts. Luka is the third best player in the NBA. There still are a lot of things that are just, Oh, Hank, okay, we don't want to do this again, Hank. You want to do this again, Hank?

Let's not do this again. No, no, no.

Let's not do this again. I do agree with Hank that Jalen Brown should be up there, though. Jalen Brown, Jalen Brown scored 24 points in the second half. He was incredible.

Phenomenal.

The Celtics team. It's crazy because that blowing that... It's crazy to watch a team mature to a point where you can actually still see their past in their present in the fact that they almost blew a 20-point lead, which is something that a couple of years ago, Hank, you would agree, they would have actually blown the 20-point lead. So you can see the past happening, and then you can see them being like, No, wait, that's not what we do anymore. We're just going to win this game and execute down the stretch, and Jalen Brown is going to hit a big jumper to ice the Mavs out at home. And you could see it all happening at the same time.

They asked Derek White about that after the game. Is Joe Mizzula, do you think he's happy? The fact that you guys keep coming close to getting beaten, and then you just put your foot on the gas and crush him. And Derek was like, Yeah, he's a sicko, so I think he probably does enjoy this. He's showing them the videos of dudes getting choked almost choked out, and fighting back. Mizzula is definitely enjoying those types of wins, too. And I think you are right. You can see-Joh Jitsu. Yeah. Oh, I like that. Joh Jitsu. You can see the maturity.

That's a better shirt than Jéruth. The Jiruut? The truth. The truth, yeah. You're wearing it? The truth.

Okay. What about the Drineasty?

Yeah. Dronbrady. Or our good friend Donnie, Whorfer July.

Yeah, Whorfer July is pretty good. May the Whorf be with you. There's a lot of good shirts we can sell, Hank, when you inevitably win. But Big Cat, you brought up Brian Wynhors and his evisceration, his Ether of Luca, and you saw him. I don't know if you guys watch this live. I was standing up in my basement, fist bumping like I'm watching Arsineo because he didn't tell any lies in that. You could make the argument some of it was personal, but it was all 100% correct. I think my favorite part was when he pointed at the tunnel, he goes, See that tunnel right That's where the winners walk, and you're never going to be over there. Then later on, he said that maybe... I have the quote right here. Maybe over the summer, somebody will get to him because nobody with the Mavericks or anybody else in his life has. That's why the Mavericks are at this point. They'll never get to this tunnel with the trophy if he doesn't improve. And he was spot on. Luca crying about fouling out of the game on the dumbest foul to take. And yeah, it was borderline, but it was still a dumb position to put yourself in.

And then right afterwards, screaming at his own bench to be like, You better fucking challenge that. Then they do challenge it, and then they lose that challenge. And then after the game, he's still blaming the refs. Luca, he's a baby back bitch.

He was being a babyback bitch last night. And after he demands that they challenge that one, the next play or maybe a play after that, I think it was a P. J. Washington screen. That one could have been challenged and probably would have been overturned, but they burn the challenge because Luka was complaining. And I love watching Luka play basketball, but that was one of the... You can't defend what he did in game three. That was pathetic. And like Wendy said, he will hopefully mature from it and get better. And this will be... Because look, you're seeing it right now on the other sideline. The Celtics are the mature team. There have been moments where Tatum and Jalen Brown, they've had moments where you're like, this team lacks that killer instinct maturity. They had to go through the wars to get to that point where they are a championship caliber, a championship winning team that's going to be up there with some of the greatest teams ever when you look at their record. So it does take... That's one of my favorite parts about the NBA is the wars that it takes for teams. You can see it throughout the history of the NBA.

You have to go through the struggles to climb over the mountain. Luka right now getting shit on, and rightfully so, I wouldn't sell my Luka stock, but that It was pathetic last night.

Yeah, it was really bad. And it got so bad that even Mavs fans, they were like, We can't defend this. You can't. It was bad. There was that back-to-back series.

It's actually, We can't Luka this.

Yeah, we can't defend. No, we Can Luca this?

We can Luca this.

We're going to Luca this right now, meaning we're not going to defend it.

We're not going to defend it. Yeah.

And on those back-to-back threes that he missed and then flopped on, at least one of which led to a quick basket at the other end, the flops were just... They were insane. It looked like he got hit by a train in midair. So stupid. So he would take the shot and then go fully horizontal and then bitch at the referees for about 40 feet and be like, Oh, shit, I got to play defense. Oh, it's too late to play defense. It was bad. And there are compilations. We've reached Luca Compilation season, where you were now able to take these three games and to put together a highlight reel of Luca's perimeter defense and just watch how bad it's been. How bad it's been.

He's getting blown by. Now, you could make the argument- You should shut up for this part. We're talking.

Max, can you meet Hank real quick? Cut Hank's mic.

You have enough going on. Just let us talk about Luka for a minute.

Yeah. Okay. So now I forgot where I was because Hank interrupted me to join the dog pile. Oh, yeah, the compilation of his defense. You could make the argument that their defense is designed with Luca in where he's going to get blown by. And then you've got Derek Lively and some other guys down there that are quick to pick up a guy that's driving. But it also throws off the entire rotation, where you get two passes, now you've got an open three. And so his defense isn't just about a guy getting past them and getting to the basket, but it makes everybody else on defense have to work so much harder and still lose.

Well, I'm not even like, Luca's defense, we know it's not elite. His offense is. But more than just Luca's defense, it's just more of a to the Celtics having no holes. They don't have a guy who you can sag off of. They don't have a guy that you can basically say, We're going to ignore them. They don't have a guy that you can put your worst defender on and say, He's going to be okay. They have top to bottom guys that can get their own bucket, that can make a three-pointer, that can defend on the other end. And that's why they're going to be the champions of the NBA, probably tonight. And that's a testament to them As much as last night was about Luka, I don't want to just have it be all like shit on Luka. It's also the Celtics are just that much better, and they're that good of a team. You know what I mean? Yes. Can I say one tweet that I saw that I thought was very funny? And I love Wendy. I love Wendy. But I'm going to say it, and I love Wendy. One person did quote to you, and he said, damn, that's fat on fat crime.

And I laughed.

That's a good point.

I laughed a little bit.

That's a fair That's more of a shot at Luca, by the way. But listen, don't go at Wendy. Wendy said nothing wrong. Wendy, in fact, people don't realize how powerful Brian Windhorse is. I would make the argument that LeBron is just a Wendy merchant, that Wendy made LeBron not the other way around.

I'm legitimately happy for Wendy in the second part of his career when everyone thought that all he could do was cover LeBron. Because he does this every now and then, where he will go hard on someone, and it will always be facts. And you don't see it that often in traditional journalism, in traditional sports media, because everyone wants their access. Everyone wants to be friendly with the players. I mean, we're literally walking. That's what we do. But Wendy, when he decides that he's going to go for it, it's always factual. And it's not malicious or personal. It's just this is what has occurred, and this is what needs to be fixed. And I love when he How does it, because there's very few guys that have the balls to do what Wendy did.

Yeah.

Yeah. He was right. Hank, you can rejoin the conversation. What were your thoughts on last night? I mean, that was... Even in the first six minutes of the game, I thought that this was going to be the Mavs night. They came out and they were up 13. And then it felt like there was a weird shift in the universe, and it happened to coincide with Max trying to run up the score on you via message four minutes into the game, which was just, watch one NBA game, Max. You were also joining in. Bare. I said that when Tatum shot that shot-I said, Hey, are you getting updates? 17 pieces of the rim. And then you said, Oh, no, Max, you should give him updates. Yeah, because I want to see you fail all the time. No, you were a part of that. Max- No, you were a part of that. How many updates did I give? Just as many as I did because the Celtics gave back. That's a lie. That's a lie. Go look at it. I did not give any updates. I started to give good Celtics updates. The only update I gave was the Tatum's trash.

You could get in and match Max going at it. This is hard to hear.

Find me the updates, PFT. What did I say? I said the Tatum shot because that was a funny shot.

I'm looking at it right now, I'm pulling it up.

Hank, you have to admit that was a funny shot. It hit 17 parts of the rim.

Again, the first quarter, to your point, it was text messages off the Yang, and then I started watching the game, and they almost instantly started coming back.

The first text I saw was from Max to Hank. He says, Drink a water.

Well, that was at 2:00 when he was like, Oh, my God. I'm scrolling back.

You know how text messages were? Okay, this is for Max, 750. Hey, Hank, I don't know if you can watch the game, but do you want me to give you updates? Big Cat, Probably should, just to be safe. Me, my cable is down. Can you tell me?

See, that's PFT. I did the same thing. We're like, We want Max.

My cable is totally down.

Yeah, we want Max to get going.

Hank says, I have them. So I think that's Hank saying he doesn't need updates. Max says, Well, the Mavs look pretty good. They're currently up 13. They look good at that. A lot of game left.

True.

There was a lot of game left. Hank, yeah, I'm aware. Max, six-point game. A lot of game left, Hank. Big cat. Tatum just hit a Swiss three. So pure.

That was the one that bounced on everything.

So pure. Don't think it touched the net. Hank, nice. Max, two-point game, Hank. No quit. And then-I told you, I was given-And then 10 minutes later, Celtics 1, congrats, Hank. But Hank is spelled H-A-B-K.

So I gave one update. But none of my updates were done. I only gave One negative update. You tried to see... Fact or fiction, you started texting Hank being like... Because I thought it was going to be the Mavs Night, too. But you started texting Hank when they were up 13 and the crowd was rocking, and you're like, This is going to be awesome.

Yeah. No. Well, also, Hank was having such a good night. It was such bullshit. Oh, after Max said, Drink a water, Hank says, I didn't even get drunk tonight. I drove high on life.

Either way, I got back. Yeah, I got back.

My phone died, so I didn't really have my phone. I drove like an hour home, finally got home at like midnight and was just basking in all the clips and highlights and tweets and stuff. And then before, so probably like that took an hour. Before I went to bed, I just went on the score app and I had no idea the Red Sox even playing the Phillies and seeing the score that the Red Sox beat the Phillies just was a cherry on top.

Phillies were also up like 5 to 1.

I tweeted that this is going to be the best team of all time. It's hard to keep track of all of Hank's dubs.

And then they got smoked again.

The only other game thing that I noticed, I was watching some of the replay before we recorded because I was watching on my phone basically till the fourth quarter, then I was watching in a bar, so it wasn't as fully locked in. When the Mavs came back, Jason Kidd called the time out when they had all of the momentum. I think they got cut the lead to three, and he called the time out for seemingly no reason, and that was it. Like the Celtics, the Luka, I think fouled out right after that, and the Celtics pulled away. They also should have called the foul A loose ball foul, and he just ran over Jalen Brown. They didn't- You got the illegal screen, which was a horrendous call, and they had been letting everything go all night, and that ended the game.

The Celtics were on their heels.

Yeah, he put his shoulder into the guy's neck. But yeah, they also didn't... That was a makeup call. He did have an illegal screen. They basically did the same play coming down the court, a possession before. They didn't call it, and they probably told him, Don't do it again. He did it again. They called it.

So is it a Did he take a foul or did he put his shoulder into his neck?

Both.

The Celtics did... It was bizarre. They were cruising. That third quarter, they were cruising, and they were just driving and getting to the rack, kicking out for open threes. And then there was a six-minute stretch where they just stopped doing that, playing with their food.

That was vintage old Celtics.

It was crazy. Just watching it being like, You guys were doing something that the Mavs could not stop and then you just decided to stop doing it. And then they did it at the end. And Jalen Brown will probably be the Finals MVP, would you say? Him or Drew? I think it's probably 60, 40 Jalen Brown, but I think Game 4 could swing it either way.

To Who? If Jason Tatum goes off for 40 or a triple double or something.

No shot. He's shooting 8%.

Absolutely a shot. He has a shot. If you look at the odds, Max, I think Las Vegas knows a little bit better than Max. Las Vegas has him. What are the odds? I think that he's the second most likely to get MVP. At what? At getting MVP. But at what odds? I can pull it up right now. It's not that far. It's not that crazy. But right now, I think-If he has a He got the one when Jalen Brown has an average game, he'll get it.

But Jalen Brown, that second half, he took over.

Did you see when they were reviewing the challenge, when Luka was fouling out, there was a moment where Luka was just staring at the referee, and you could see the look on his face like, Oh, fuck. I shouldn't have talked all this shit to referees my entire career.

Yeah.

Because it was such a- Do you know who I am? Him saying like, Oh, you're going to give me six fouls in the finals? Like, Dude, you fouled six times, probably more.

And the ref that's reviewing it, I'm not saying that he's going to hold something personal against Luca. And if it's not a foul, call it a foul. But if it's close, fuck him.

Yeah. It's our Luca flow chart that we said a week ago. If he hits a shot, he'll yell at someone in the crowd and flex and stare at them. And if he misses a shot, it'll be like, I got fouled, and start screaming at the ref and slowly get back on defense. That's how it goes, every single possession.

It works. And we should maybe Let me lay off Luca for a second because I think that there's something else that we need to discuss, maybe the reason why Luca is being the way that he is. A guy named Baker Baker Baker pointed this out on Twitter. Luca hasn't won a game or really played well at all since they took the beer out of his hand after the end. That was Michael Finley. Yeah, the Western Conference Finals. Luca had a beer. Finley walks by, sees Luca drinking a beer in the celebration, grabs it out of his hand, walks away, and Luca's just standing there hanging his head. You got to let Luca drink. Let the man have a beer.

Well, he's had good games. He just felt like they were better.

Yeah.

I mean, game two, he was awesome. Yeah, you're right. Game one, he was good.

Yeah, the first quarter in that one game. Yeah, he's played well. But I guess I'm more colored by the last half that I saw Luka play and how bad it was.

It was pathetic. All right, Jalen Brown is minus 280, Jason Tate was plus 250. So yeah, it's going to be Jalen Brown. Thank you to DraftKings. Okay, let's talk some other things. Anything Anything else, Hank? You're about to raise Banner 18 and shave your head.

Yeah, I'm excited. Great time to be alive. Okay, great answer. Love you guys.

Us Open. We have Patrick Cantley in first. Or no, Rory's tied with him, correct? Rory's tied with him. People mad about... What do they keep saying? Borderline. The course is borderline? Yeah. Other big notes I had from this is, Brooks having his text interview was one of the funniest things I've ever read. If people missed it, Brooks skipped his media today after the round, and Eamonn Lynch texted him, a golf reporter, basically being like, Hey, you skipped your interview. Would you want to do an interview over text? And Brooks said, Sure, go ahead, fire away. And they went back and forth. And it was very funny because Brooks essentially was like, You guys ask really boring questions about the course. And, Oh, when you bogued that hole, do you think you should have shot something different? And they went back and forth and back and forth. And Brooks was just brutally honest, and it was very funny, including... I'm going to read my favorite part. Well, one, Iman tried to correct Brooks. He said your instead of your. So Y-O-U-R instead of Y-O-U-R-E. And Brooks just said, thanks, dad, back to him. But Iman was like, oh, you're trying to feel bad for yourself.

You got a pity party. What are you going to do after this? And Brooks, I'm going to try to find the exact clip. Oh, he tried to tell him, he asked him if he was going to take a nap, and he said, No, that's my son. I'm not going to take a nap. And then the best line that Brooks had was, Jenna is working out and I'm doing my routine. Have a dip in, and I'm going to get ready for the hockey game. And I want more of these Brooks interviews via text. I feel like he's way more honest.

Go pees. He might I don't know if you answered it all with Go P's.

Yeah, start texting after each round.

Yeah, really undercut the mainstream media. I love how Brooks was just like, Well, your questions aren't creative enough. And he's like, Okay, so what uncreative questions are you being... What's the most creative question that you've been asked? And the best example that he had was somebody asked me about the grass. What do you think about Bermuda grass?

Yeah, it was a perfect back and forth because I don't think... Brooks wasn't being mean. It was just, he's like, Yeah, I didn't really want to do the interview. You guys asked the same questions. What do you want me to do? And the guy was pushing back, and I think it was like a funny back and forth. I liked it, and we need more of it. People can be a little bit meaner via text, and they can face to face.

Yeah, it worked out well. But Rory played very well today. Max played okay. Now that Rory, he's back. He's totally back. The relationship has been mended. That was news that came out last week.

What? Yeah.

He's not getting divorced anymore.

I thought that was a fake- He called off the divorce. That read like a fake golf thing.

No, we should have known this. Nobody melts down like a golfer that's going through a divorce. It's always. If you go through a divorce, you lose five strokes off your game. But now that he's back, he's having the makeup sex, and the makeup sex is propelling him to get in the hole.

Wait, so he essentially said he was going to get divorced so that he could go hook up with a couple of chicks for a month?

Who knows? What a move. It was a fake divorce. Are you saying it was a fake divorce, maybe?

No, I'm saying he probably had intentions of divorcing and then hooked up with some chicks. I was like, No, actually, I'm good.

Yeah, he started dating one crazy check?

Yeah, he's like, I'm good. I'd rather just have my family.

Well, he's been out of the game for a long time, right? They got married a while ago, 10, 15 years, something like that. So the game has changed a lot since then. He's probably not equipped to handle sexting.

Married in 2017. Not even close.

They were together for a while before that, I thought.

I'm going to be honest, I'm not Big, I'm not really up on Rory McRoy's love life. I'll hand up. That's a sports story that I've missed. Did you guys see his final put?

Yeah, he walked it in.

Yeah, he was sick.

He was insane.

He walked in in with five feet to go, and it never had a doubt. Hank, I also want to say that it's a little cool that we played mid-pines.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

You're welcome. A couple of times today, I was watching. I was like, Oh, I remember that hole. No way, it was 10 miles away.

Yeah. No, but there was a couple of times where I saw it in the straw, and I was like, What would I do? Oh, I actually did it. Drive her off the deck. That's what they should do here.

Same soil, the same grass. I could have answered Eman's questions about the grass.

I actually was saying- The green. There's just so much a lot of green talk. It's all about the green.

I saw someone saying that midpines- Those are the greens. Better than Pinehurst, too. That Pinehurst, too, isn't even close to the best Pinehurst.

I think there's only one way to find out. I think we have to go to Pinehurst and play them all and rank them, not Rushmore.

This was from Mark Kalvakeia. He was a pro golfer. He said, I'm ready for some abuse. Just going to spit it out. Pinehurst is such a cool area with great courses. Number two, ain't one of them. Most overrated course in the world. Let me have it, but it's true. And then a bunch of people replied and were like, Yeah, one in four are better. Midpines is better. And I was sitting there pumping my fist, being like, That's us. We played midpines. I agree.

I think midpines is way better.

Way better, way tougher. Better test.

Yeah.

I love the test talk whenever they say it's a great test what they've done out here, USGA.

None of us shot five under at midpines.

No.

They're just bending this course over. But I hope that the scores don't stay this low. I hope the course comes out a little bit. It's going to bake out later on this week, right?

Yeah. It's going to get harder.

Can it become more borderline?

Firmer.

No, I think it goes over the line. If it's borderline, if it's more... Anything more borderline is officially over the line.

Right. That's That's what I was thinking, but I've only heard people say borderline.

Right. But it could then get, yeah, over the line.

I need to be over the line.

I would like to go over the line. Yeah, Brooks said that when he said, So if we hear anyone say the course is borderline and they're just winding, he said, No, I don't think they're winding. The US Open always comes close to the line. It's just a matter of does it get crossed? I want it to get crossed.

Cross that line.

I want to get it crossed. Yeah, well, I'm excited. It's a good leaderboard to start. We also had our 20 Minutes of Tiger, where everyone was like, Oh, my God. Look at him. He's doing it. And then he wasn't. But it was fun. He's around. 20 Minutes of Tiger.

Yeah. Got to see his name for a little bit. Scotty played like ass today.

Well, Scotty, and this is how you know, when Scotty does his interviews and he says, All I care is my wife, my family, my relationship with God. None of this matters to me. I'm just a regular guy. Most of the time when athletes say stuff like that, I think it's just a little cliché. They're putting it on thick. Scottie's haircut, it's the facts. He only cares about those things because I don't know who cut his hair before, but did you guys see it?

Well, I thought he looked good.

Did you see the sideburns, though?

Yeah, he got a nice tight face.

He's got the tan all fucked up.

That's That's how you know you're a golfer.

He doesn't care, though. That's my point. There's no way that you go out looking like that if you care about other things like looks and everything else. All right.

So I thought the exact opposite of you with his haircut. I thought Scottie definitely cares now. Scottie cares about his appearance. He's trying to get his swag up. I thought he looked good. He got the nice skin-tight fade. And when you're a golfer that spends that much time out in the sun, and you not only have the hat tan line, but you've got the tan line from where all your hairs normally are on your head, and then they cut them too close, and you got that little bit of white back there. Yeah, he got the little bit of Hank on the sides. He got the skin-tight fade.

Yeah, I thought he looked great. No, but it's the opposite with his sunburn And the lack of color there because it means that he probably got a haircut last night, and no one gets a haircut right before the tournament. Everyone knows a haircut takes at least five to seven days to settle it.

Right. But you're proving my point because God, he's never been a haircut guy. No, that's my point. No, this is the first time. No, that's my point. This is the first time where he's like, I'm going to look good at the US Open, so I'm going to get my haircut the day before I play, meaning he's caring about all that other stuff now.

No, it means that he doesn't even think about... When you get a haircut right before the US Open, he's not even thinking about it. He was just like, Oh, I need a haircut. It doesn't matter what day it falls. I don't care what I look like.

No, I think he got the haircut to look good. He doesn't look good, though. I think he looks okay.

He looks good.

But that's what he was thinking. Yeah. It was an attempt to look good, and he's never been a swag guy, so he doesn't have the experience to know that he's got to get that haircut three days before.

No, he just- And he went to jail.

He's got that jail swagger. He does have a little bit of bad boy flair. He's like, I got to get a fade now.

There's no way you guys looked at his haircut and thought it looked good with the way the tan lines have worked out.

I thought the attempt at looking good, it perked me up. I was like, wow, Scottie's guy's got a little bit of shit to him.

I don't think it's an attempt at looking good because he's got a wife. She could be like, Hey, it looks bad. He just doesn't care. That's the whole point. He doesn't care.

I respect to fade always.

It wasn't even a fade. There's actually an official US Open barber named Monty the Barber.

He got the hair of Scotty Tiger.

That's more to my point.

He literally saw a free haircut.

He literally saw a free haircut. Tiger, Tommy Fleetwood.

I'll show you guys right now.

The man saw a free haircut.

No, I did.

I think he saw the guys on tour that have style, and he's like, I want to use their barber. No, he got a free haircut. No, this guy goes to every US Open since 2018. I understand, but it's a free haircut. You don't get a haircut from somebody.

No one who cares about their hair.

Does Tiger have hair? No, he doesn't. He's just hanging on. Tiger called up that news reporter.

Tiger is crazy. This is crazy. He doesn't add my name to that story. I I want Tiger Woods to be in the haircut story.

Tiger being in there is just completely wild. No one gets... If you're trying to look good, you don't get a haircut from a guy you don't get a normal haircut from.

Unless you're a guy that's never been a haircut guy, and you're only using the dude that cuts all the other players.

He's gotten a haircut before.

Yeah, he does look great. And I guarantee you these guys pay for it.

I mean, they probably tip. This guy is getting Monty the Barber. You can't tell me Scottie cares about what he looks like if he's getting a free haircut the day before the US open.

I think he had a moment where he did care what he looked like, and he fucked up by getting it too close.

Yeah, the oilers just scored. Wait, so you're admitting that it's a bad haircut if you say he fucked up?

I think it's not- You just proved my point. I didn't prove your point.

You said he fucked up.

No, I said that he might have gone too close because he's never been a haircut guy. I appreciate the by Scotty, but at the same time, I'm like, Scotty's trying to look stylish.

It did not look great. The oilers maybe have a chance here. 4-3. Either way, that was a lot of Scotty Scheffler haircut talk.

I think the people will bear me out on this one. I think that Scott, he was trying to do something. Might not have worked out, but he made an attempt.

He does not care. He does not care what he looks like. I mean, he looks like a 50-year-old man, and he's 26. He cares about God, his wife, and golf. And he doesn't really care about golf. He does, but he doesn't because he'll say that after a round, if he doesn't play well, he's like, I just care about God and my wife. Haircuts are very low on his list of things that he cares about. All right, we had Trevor Lawrence got a new contract, $275 million. Thoughts?

Whenever a quarterback signs a big contract, I always like to just jump ahead and think about the next contracts that are coming. That's what you have to do when a quarterback signs for big money. It's like, who gets more money Now, Dax- Dax is going to get 300. Oh, I cannot wait for the Brock Purdy discourse. I can't wait for that contract to come up because he's basically Jason Tatum, so he's a really good quarterback in the regular season. Has He hasn't won the big one yet, not necessarily the best player on his own team, but you're going to have to pay a quarterback, right?

Yeah. I still think Trevor Lawrence is a good quarterback. He had a bad year, and you just When you think that you have the guy, and he might be the guy, but you have to pay him, this is just the cost of doing business in the quarterback world. It just keeps going up and up and up.

We won't make excuses during the regular season, but after it's over, I think we need to say that Trevor Lawrence was one of the more injured quarterbacks throughout the course of the season, just in terms of trying to play through stuff. It came out a little bit, but he's still a very good quarterback, and I would love to have a quarterback on my team lock him up for the long term.

We have better quarterbacks.

I'm just saying if Jaden Daniels was as good as Trevor Lawrence, even at that low bar of my expectation for Jaden Daniels, I'd say lock him up.

Hank, would you take Drake May or Trevor Lawrence?

Trevor Lawrence.

Oh, really? No, Dreg May. Dreg May. I take Jaden. No, he said it.

He said it. I take Jaden for sure. I take Caleb. No questions. Not even a hesitation. Hanks football team sucks. We do need to match We do just need to get to the fall because he'll stop talking.

He's going to stop talking. Someone tweeted last night, which I don't... I'm lying. I want it to happen. What if Dreg May is the Jason Tatum of a Markel Fultz? The draft, he was third pick.

So Drieg May would never be the best player on the Patriots?

Yeah. I mean, if they're winning championships, who cares? That's the Patriot way. I learned that last night over and over over again. It wasn't about how great Tom braided was. It was how great he was as a leader. He showed up every day.

He recognized everyone's name. He talked to the rookies. So yes, that means it was about how great Tom braided was. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it was about how great Tom braided was.

But all the players talked about how great he was. Like,. How great he was, yes. As good as he was as a football player, he was a better guy. I apologize for bringing him back. And that really stuck with me.

But that's still Tom braided being great.

And I very much disagree with that statement. Tom braided is one of those people who you can absolutely say he's a better football player than he is person.

I disagree.

How can you disagree?

Well, Hank's basically his family. Did he try to make out with you?

It's not a slight on him, Hank.

He was staring at me, though, pretty hard. He was looking through my soul.

You think Tom braided is at the top 0.0001% of people? Human beings? A hundred %. I have nothing to do with that person ever.

Who's the GOAT person? Oh, goat person. Braided.

Rob Van Pelt.

Possibly John Daley.

Yeah. Bill Walton. Okay, the other-John Daley challenges out now.

Shout out to Pug.

Shout out Pug. Way to go, Pug. Pug also got tickets to the Cubs game. That has been resolved.

Pug is now our official Plug. He's Pug the Plug. And if you need anything, you just ask Pug, and then he'll ask for you. He'll find the right person, get it for you.

Yes, absolutely. All right, so we're watching the last minute 49 of the Oilers Panthers game. I really would love for the Oilers to tie this up so that we could get... This would be such a bummer if we got two sweeps.

I know. Yeah.

Shut up, Hank. It's so quick, PFT. I actually was happy for him yesterday, and I love Hank, and it's his birthday, and I I love the guy. But as soon as I see him and he starts opening his mouth, it's like, I don't know why I say I love him.

We just have to wait for football season.

Yeah, this probably might be the most hated show of all time. I realized I talked more in the beginning of the show than I've ever talked in this show's history, and I think the reviews and ratings are going to show that, but that's fine.

We just got to get to September. Once we get to September...

Mcgregor, UFC, canceled.

It felt like this was going to happen.

Yeah, that sucks. Probably should have known when- Alex Poehre versus Jiri Projocasik. Nailed it. We probably should have known this was going to happen when McGregor was at the club four weeks ago, beyond fucked up. And oh, no, not an empty netter goal. We should have known at that point, I think, PFT.

Yeah, it seemed like it for a while. And when they're canceling press conferences and weigh-ins getting delayed and shit. It felt like it was never going to happen. I want to know what actually went down, though. Yeah. Do they have some reality show that's following UFC around?

I saw some clips of Dana White. I saw that clip where they told Jon Jones that he was out for a year, and that seemed like it was behind-the-scenes camera.

That might have been a rerun, too.

That could have been, yeah. Well, no, it's for injury, not for suspension. Got it. Yes.

The writers really went fucking dummy with that Yeah.

All right. I had two last things. One was Dan Hurley did a long interview with Matt Norlander from CBS, and I wanted to share just a couple quotes with you guys because I thought it was very funny. The first one, so it was just talking about his entire process, the whirlwind, everything that happened. The first one was, he was asked, did you seek out or try and seek out Mike Shashefsky at all? Because he turned down the Lakers 20 years ago under different circumstances. Dan Hurley said, no. I was so overwhelmed at a point, I was a little paralyzed. I appreciate Dan Hurley basically saying, that was him saying, I knew what Coach K was trying to do here, and I wasn't going to talk to the guy who was trying to set me up. So that was nice. The other one that was great was he was talking about the process and running into people throughout it. Talked to a great story about how outside the Billy Joel concert, he saw a woman that her husband, they were best friends growing up. And the woman was like, You're not LA, you're Jersey. You can't do this.

You can't leave. Anyway, Matt Neulander said, Wait, you were eating breakfast out in LA and people were coming up to you? And he said, Yeah, driving by on bikes and double taking you, yelling something about the Lakers, like walking out of the workout room at the hotel the day I was meeting with them after getting my cardio in. And I'm literally rounding the corner and there's a med student, a Yukon student who's there as part of a bridal party who's bending the corner and almost knock into her. And we make eye contact. We both keep walking, and then she recognized me and comes back, says, Hey, Coach, I go to Yukon. Don't go. I'm here for a wedding. You're not going, are you? I know why you're here. It was weird, just weird stuff. Billy football's interaction is definitely one of those weird things.

He's one of the people yelling stuff at you. Yes. Yeah, that's one of his... I was out there just trying to have a mimosa and tank a job interview. And next thing I know, I got this guy. He says he's a professional boxer with hands that could kill a man. And he's asking me questions about if I'm going to take the Lakers job, and I just look at him and tell him to be quiet. Next thing I know, I'm getting linked to this job.

Next thing you know, it's being reported. And then the last one I wanted to say, which made me laugh. He was asked about the Billy Joel concert, and The reporter asked, I want to stick on two more questions with Billy Joel concert. One, did you know who Trey Anastasio was when he came on? Were you remotely aware of the rarity of what was happening there? Any thoughts of Trey's guest spots with Billy? And Dan Hurley said, I was not. I had no idea who that was. So Fish, he's a guitarist for Fish. I love that. I don't want Dan Hurley to know who Fish is. It's fucking perfect that he had no idea who Trey was.

Yeah, that's classic coach shit, where they don't... Like when Belichick used to not understand what Snapface or the other one was. I forget what he called Instagram. But yeah, I want my coaches to be as completely untethered from nature as possible. Just absolute psychos. I have a theory that I've been mulling over today about this whole Hurley thing. See if you can follow me on this one or if I'm just being way over my skis. Esp announced today that JJ Redik was now interviewing with the Los Angeles Lakers for the head coaching position. Call me crazy. I think I read something about that a week and a half ago when Shams reported it. Dan Hurley and Woj are great friends. Do you think that there's any chance that Woj was pissed off that Shams beat him to a Lakers story. And then he called the Lakers and was like, What if you interview Dan Hurley? I can get him on the phone. That way, Woj could get Dan Hurley out to LA, report that. Then after that was over, Woj could then break the news about JJ probably taking the Lakers job.

Okay, I like the thinking. It's a free-thinking thought. My only question would be, why would the Lakers willingly get embarrassed publicly for just Wosh?

Wosh might have set this whole thing up.

Maybe-right, but-so they didn't know. The Lakers were about to hire JJ Redick, and then-I saw something that said-Go ahead.

I saw something that Shams is in Clutch's pocket, Woj is in Palinka's pocket, and Palinka used Woj about Hurley to give them leverage in the JJ negotiations.

Okay.

Okay, thatThat makes more sense.

That could be possible. But what I was saying is that maybe Woj told the Lakers, I can deliver Dan Hurley to you.

But Woj didn't fully win here because did you see Shams doing a little bit of a victory lap? Saying, He went back at Woj and was like, Yeah, they were going… Dan Hurley was, I guess, the… Or Dan Hurley was the first choice, I guess. Shams was dunking back on Woj because they didn't hire Dan Hurley. Yeah. Woj ended up not being right. He just had a week where he looked like he was getting it over Shams.

Well, Woj was right that they were interviewing Dan Hurley. He didn't say that Dan was going to get the job. If I was Shams, I would do the exact same thing because you had that story, and then there was a speed bump, and now it's back to your story again.

I think Hanks is more likely.

Because if Woj told Rob Polenka, I can deliver Dan Hurley to you, he goes out there for the interview.

Lebron wanted JJ. Polenka didn't want to give JJ there.

After the interview, to Dan Hurley said, No, thanks, then Woj had to be like, Oh, my bad. I thought he wanted this job. He had to change of heart.

But what Hanks saying makes way more sense because Polinka wanted to pay JJ less and LeBron wanted JJ, but they didn't want to seem like they were just going to hire whoever LeBron wanted. They wanted to go out and say, Hey, we're going to hire Dan Hurley. Also, Dan Hurley is a fucking awesome coach. They probably wanted to hire Dan Hurley.

Probably, yeah. That's probably Because the most likely explanation is that they wanted Dan Hurley. He said, No, now they're going to go with JJ. But what if Woj just controls the entire NBA?

That could be true.

I do love, and there's no market for it, and they'll never be completely honest. But it was like this with Schefter and Rappaport, and now it's Woj and Shams. I just love thinking about how mad they get at stuff. When Shams is on ESPN saying, I guess, they're just reporters, and there will never be an actual reality show for them, and they would never actually show how mad they are. But he probably threw something. That little comment got him as mad as anything could in the world. Rapport and Schefter, that shit used to be so juicy, and they would get so mad at each other and so many subshots and everything. It's great.

I imagine when Woj first announced the Danny Hurley thing, Shams was sitting in his parents'... I think he still lives at home. Parents' Kitchen. And his mom was like, Here's your breakfast. She's like, No, mom, not right now. Like, I just missed a scoop. Yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. Like the John Clayton commercial, the ESPN commercial. Yeah. Okay, Oilers just lost. Panthers on the brink as well. We're going to get two sweeps. This was the game that the Oilers were going to win if they were going to win a game because it was game three back in Edmonton. Did you see that Florida Had flight problems. They didn't get in until late last night. Edmonton had been there for two days. It's over.

I just need more sports. I need more sports.

Get ready to learn Dinger's Only, buddy.

I need more sports right now. I do like baseball, but it's too early for me to just only pay attention to baseball. Base is a great sport to pay attention to with 50% of your attention going to a different sport.

Well, I have one other sports story we could talk about. Memes. Aaron Rodgers. He's just taking a week off. So there's no problem. There's so much... There's so little of a problem. We've had 15 stories about how there's no problem. There's no problem. The problem is Robert Salah handled the situation wrong.

That sounds like a problem.

That sounds like a problem.

It's a problem, but it's not a problem. What does that mean? It's a riddle? Yeah.

Also, is he the only starting quarterback who's not in mini camp right now?

Mandatory mini camp, yes.

Oh, that word mandatory, you just used. Mandatory? Yeah. What was that word? What does that mean?

That's when teams can start finding players for missing OTAs. Interesting. When I brought this up on the last show, you said it wasn't a problem at all. You said this was a Florio wet dream. But then you just said right now it's half of a problem. It is. You might be half Florio. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

You're sounding like a Florio right now. No, no, no. They handled it wrong.

The coaches handled it wrong. The PR handled it wrong.

That's a problem.

It is a problem.

It's not a problem.

Yeah, you're becoming a Florio.

I'm very confused because everything you just told me sounds like there's a problem here.

There's no As long as he's there for week one, no problem.

Why are we talking about it then?

Because there's a bunch of yappers out there who just need something to talk about.

Who started it, though? That'd be Bob. Bob? Bob who?

Bob Salah.

That's the coach of the Jets. That's the coach of the Jets. That's a problem.

I think, no, it Try to follow me on this one.

I think that Bob would not have talked about it being a problem if it wasn't a problem.

Right.

Then now we got a couple of problems. Maybe Bob is not the best speaker up there, which is bad for your head football coach. That's a problem.

That's a problem. That is a problem. He wants to be a leader of men.

I've seen him do a few interviews. He seems like a pretty good speaker.

I've seen him do a couple.

He's not the best speaker. I think it's a problem. I think there might be a problem there. There's no problem. He's fine.

He's probably, I don't know, at a charity event.

Okay. All right. He's at a charity event. For the whole week? He's at a charity event. Wait, I want to follow this. He's at a charity event for an organization that wants people to know as little about them as possible. That's why Aaron can't say what charity he's It's ending.

Yeah, it's under wraps right now.

He's working on some stuff, and then it'll go public in the fall. I do like... Does he got a BBL or something? That would rock if he came back with a giant ass. Yeah.

Someone put it perfectly. This is a listener, K. M. Breslin, One. He said, It's such a non-problem that some are saying it's a problem how much of a problem others are making it when it's not a problem.

Yeah, it's not a problem.

But then it becomes a problem because people are making... It's so not a problem that it's crazy people are talking about it as a problem. That in itself is a problem.

Things are almost too perfect. And then people are like, Why is this going so swimmingly? That's an issue. Now we've got issues.

The Jets' biggest problem might be that they have so many non-problems.

Yeah. They're making other teams jealous because they've got it so good.

All they do is talk about how there's not a problem. When you see To me that, you got to think, well, is that a problem that there's just no tension whatsoever?

I saw some people making the point that Tom braided missed a few of these camps as well over the course of his career, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal or a problem. That was also Tom braided after he was winning Super Bowl with the team that he played with for years and years and years with the same players that he played with for years and years and years. Yes, Mims?

So that was on the Bucks. Tom braided missed two weeks.

Okay.

And then they went to Super Bowl after winning.

Yeah, but he told them- Did he play more or fewer than five snaps for the Bucks that first year? He played more. I think he played the entire season.

Yeah, he won a Super Bowl, Mims.

But Tom braided told the Bucks in advance And they said it was excused.

So people are saying that if Aaron Rodgers actually did tell them in advance, and then Robert Solla just went on the podium and blurt everything out on a Monday.

You know what I'm saying?

Everything you say just seems... It's just a big, blinking problem. That's all I see. Every time you open your mouth means just problem.

He's fine. He's fine.

Who? Who? Aaron Rodgers is fine. Robert Salab just needs to shut up, and we're fine.

Got it. Hank, are you taking a picture of the side of your face to look at your haircut?

I just felt a little... No, I just felt a weird little bump.

Oh. Everything okay?

Was that you going to the doctor? I don't know. Just taking a picture?

Ignore me, sorry.

Wow, that would... I mean, what a plot twist this episode would be.

I know. I know.

Holy shit.

It would be a real shame.

Memes and Max are just sitting there rubbing their hands together right now. Memes, don't fucking nod at that. Jesus Christ, dude.

He's fine. Hank's fine, too. Aaron Roger is fine, Hank.

Oh, no. Okay. All right, Let's do our interview. This has been a very fun show, boys. Let's do our interview with Steven Jackson and Matt Barnes in studio. Very fun with those guys. It's brought to you by our friends at Coors Light. The perfect summer playlist may be elusive, but one thing is for sure, it gets better when it's enjoyed with a cold Coors Light. Because music plus Coors Light equals chill. Amplified Coors Light is the only choice when you're ready to choose chill. When you embrace the chill mindset, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors Light. I love... I've had a couple of Coors Light this week at the beach. I'm on vacation with my family. It's a beautiful out. It's hot. A nice cold Coors Light. There's nothing better. Amplify your chill this summer with Coors Light. Choose chill, choose Coors Light. Go to coorslight. Com/summer music to see how Coors Light can amplify your summer. Be sure to keep an eye out on Coors Light social handles all summer long for more exciting announcement. Celebrate responsible Coors Brewing Company Golden Colorado. It is the coldest beer in the world.

It is the drink of the summer. It is Coors Light. We love Coors Light. The the most delicious beer out there. We're also brought to you by ourselves, Pardon My Cheese Steak announcement. We just added a new limited time item to the menu this week. The Buffalo Tender sub features crispy chicken tenders tossed with Buffalo sauce, topped with French and pickles on a toasted hoagie roll. We've been adding a bunch of new menu items these last couple of months. Remember, you can order the Big Cat combo, get your cheese steak of choice, fries and a drink for dessert. Try our new donut dippers, delicious donut holes, tossed in cinnamon sugar and serve with a rich caramel sauce, and wash it all down with the max special two sodas. With more than 1,500 locations nationwide, find a Pardon My Cheese Steak near you and order yours now at pardonmycheese steak. Com. Use code PMC 20 for 20% off your first order. Pmc 20 for 20% off your order. Pardon My Cheese Steak. Okay, here we go. We have Matt Barnes, Steven Jackson in studio. Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests, one recurring It is Matt Barnes, Steven Jackson, the guys from All the Smoke.

Incredible podcasters. First of all, congrats.Thank you.I know last time we had you on, Matt, it was before all this.

Yeah, I was still in the NBA, I think. Back in your guys' New York days.

Yeah, 2017. So let's start with the podcast. You guys have blown up. What's the big thing that has resonated with people? You guys are like, Oh, shit, this is actually working.

We didn't really know what a podcast was at the time. You know what We just knew that we were both working at ESPN and Fox, and it was fun, but it was a straight line. And he and I like to draw outside the lines most of our lives. So I pitched him the podcast idea. He said, What is it? But I'm down. I was like, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. And we met Brian Daly. Cold pitched him. They were just starting Showtime Basketball, and cold pitched him. He liked it. And man, we took off in our first season. We won Sports Podcast of the Year.Wow, pretty good.That's.

Pretty good. Wait, who gave that out? Were we up for that?

If you all didn't win it, it's not a real award if you all didn't win it yet.

No, I don't think so. I mean, if you ever listen to this show, we shouldn't win.

No, we should definitely never win.

Every day we wake up, we're like, How are we still allowed to do this? Let's just do this. Were you guys surprised with how much work you had to put into it?

It's a lot. It's a lot to get it off the ground. But as I was explaining before we got on the air, we bulk shoot. We'll shoot probably every four to six weeks, and in two or three days. We'll shoot six, seven, eight shows, and then just bank them. And then as current events hit through any of our guests, we'll blast that part, but we still have everybody slotted. So to get it off the ground, it was just a lot. But I think now we hit our rhythm. We're in our shit fourth or fifth season now, or fifth year, excuse me. It's It's like clockwork now.

Where do you guys see it going from here?

I'm looking around. I'm looking at the blueprint. Here. I'm looking around. That's why I'm just looking around, seeing the direction we're trying to get to. This is it.

Obviously, congratulations to you guys and everything you guys accomplished in this space. That's our next goal. We went from one show to signing a multi-year deal with DraftKings and partnering with Metalark. We put out five shows, Q1. We built a whole production company out of this. So the direction you guys are going. Yeah.

Your own facility, the smokehouse?

Yeah, that's where I like the name. So we're actually in LA looking for buildings as we speak. So we're trying to get there. So it's good to obviously be here, but then also-It's a blueprint. To see what you guys have going on.

Do you guys Do you still hoop regularly or no?

I box.

Oh, that's a scary proposition.

Boxing soft. Boxing soft just to stay in shape. Just to stay in shape. I think being an athlete, you got to do something because your body really starts to shut down when you stop being active. So I just try to stay active in softball and boxing.

That would be a good podcast. Just go three rounds of somebody and do five minutes.

I have a boxing show called Fight Towns. The new episode is actually dropping next week with Ben Avidas because he has a fight next week. And Roy Jones. It's the first time to actually get a chance to meet. And Roy Jones actually gets in the ring and teaches him stuff. So it's going to be a dope episode.

I like that. Just fight your guests.

We're getting in a fight game. All the smoke fight. Coming soon.

Can you talk shit while you're boxing?

It's hard with the mouthpiece in. But I think breathing is way more important than talking shit in boxing. You ever want to fight in a rough and rowdy?

We have a boxing league.

I would never do that. No? Not at 46. If I would have started maybe in my 30s. I've been punched hard before in real life in real fights with bare knuckles. And I know you can't play boxing. You have to really be in shape. I would never do it like a charity match. No, I'm not doing that.

What if I told you that I talked to Tony Parker yesterday? He called you out.

I would give Tony Parker a hug and say, Tony, you don't want these problems. I would hurt Tony.

Who's more likely to come on the podcast? Because I know you said that you would have Derrick Fisher on. Who's more likely, though, Tony Parker or Derrick Well, I mean, either one of them.

I'm at the point now I'm more worried about success than people. I don't have anything personal with any of them. I have my opinions, of course, that I stand strongly on, but having them come on the show, I don't want to physically hurt anybody. You know what I'm saying? I'm cool with disagreeing with people, but the respect going to remain the same.

Have you had a guest on that you didn't like going into it?

I haven't. No. I don't think- No. That's the next level. I don't think we should have a guest that we don't like, though.

Why? That's the disagreement. It's fun to- I don't know.

Well, it got to be somebody that we respect the same time. It can't be somebody that wants to disrespect us. We're going to beat the shit out of it.

Yeah, because we've had a lot of guests that have shown up and we're like, We said a lot of shit about you. It gets interesting. It gets interesting because we have to cop to all of it. You can't have someone on if you said some shit and then not say it to them.

I even feel like, I don't know how he is with it, but he wants to have Derek on. I always feel a certain way, but since he feels like he would want Derek on, I'm cool with it now. I'm cool with having Kwame on the show. I don't think He's cool with that.

No, I don't mind that shit either.

A lot of guys that we have words with, I don't physically want to hurt or be in contact with anybody. You know what I'm saying? We're going to disagree. As a man, you should be able to disagree. You know what I mean?

But the respect you remain. I just feel like life is too short, man, to dislike or hate or carry that.

And I don't play fair. So make sure you want to make sure you want to get into that with me that you're willing to be low. I'm going low.

Just saying Kwame's name, by the way. We cool now. Let's not say it anymore because we're going to end up in one of his videos where he's sitting in his truck.

No, we're cool now.

He loves going live, and I love tuning into it just because you never know what the fuck Kwame is going to be talking about. He's saying something with his chest. You're going to be like, damn, I don't want to mess with Kwame.

But he's definitely built something for himself now. A lot of people watching. He got a great audience now, so salute to him. We said his name and made him hot. You know what I'm saying? So salute to him for taking advantage of it. Hell, yeah.

When he's like, meet me in a mutual combat state. If it's a dude that knows which states are mutual combat states, that's the guy you do not want to mess with.

But then again, You got to remember, Kwame 610, 280, living the country, living wood all day. That's a different type of strong.

I love how you were talking about Derrick and Steven. You were like, I don't know, you're a good teammate. You're like, If he's in, I guess if you're cool with it, that's fine. But I'm going to be on high alert when that dude's here.

That's just how I handle it. The funny thing about that shit is after the altercation went down, that following summer, it happened at the beginning of the season, that following summer, my kids were cool and were Cared about him. That's what just made me… Because I was over the situation. I could have been cool or I could have been beef for life. I wasn't really tripping. My sons are just like… I'd always ask my sons, How is it? How's it going? They're like, We love this. I pulled them to the side and we had a conversation like, Hey, man, I'm still in the lead. We had our issues. This is why I did what I did. He explained his side, and we were cool. I even told him, You're going to see my kids more than me because I'm still playing. You got to teach them how to be men and principles and morals, if that makes sense. That don't Do you know what I mean? Just like... You do the morals. You'll do the morals. It's just be that father figure while I'm gone. You know what I mean? I say all that to say we ended up squashing it.

We've been cool the last however long ago. We just were funking for eight months. Yeah.

I mean, you are a really good friend, Steven. I do think now that we're so far removed from the malice of the palace, and obviously it was unfortunate, but your take from all of it was like, I'm a really good teammate. I'm a really good friend. Do you think people have come around to that where it's like, That's a guy you just want to ride and die with?

People that actually know me that doesn't have anything personal against me see it that way. That they actually know me. People on the outside that just see me run up there and punching a fan, they don't know that I've never been in a fight in the NBA game. They don't know that I've never been in trouble in my life before that incident. You just look at me like, this guy is a troublemaker. No, I'm just a loyal friend. And I would be that to anybody that I rock with. Like I said, it depends on how my friend is. I'm loyal to a fault sometimes, you know what I'm saying? But I'd rather be loyal to a fault than not loyal at all. Yeah.

Are we friends?

Yes, we're buddies. Fuck, yeah. No one better step to me. Just for the record.

The Indiana Fever needs to sign you as an assistant coach. Have you just- He talked about that. Where's the Fever? Looking out for her teammates. Yeah, that's what we said. Where are her teammates at? Is she not on good terms with her teammates? Because that was the weird part to me was nobody really seemed to have her back in that.

I remember when Greg Popovich, we were playing my second time in San Antonio, and he was like, we was playing the Clippers, and they were just throwing lobs and they just dunked him. And he was like, I need you to go in the game and give me a little nasty. What do you mean, pop? As soon as they throw a lob to DeAndre Jordan, don't even go for the ball, just take him out. And I went up, and DeAndre Jordan, he jumps probably 20 feet higher than me. So when I jumped up to stop, I didn't go for the ball, just hit his arm and stopped the lob. And pop like, Yeah, we need that. Tim was all happy. And DeAndre came up to me like, Bro, don't do that shit no more. Coach's up me in the game. He just can do it. He kept tapping me like, Okay, good job, bro. Yeah. Pop used to send people in games just to bring Nasty. You know what I'm saying? Because you got to protect your stars. That's what you're there for. You don't want Tim. Tim goes down, our whole season is over. Caitlin goes down, your season is over.

You're already struggling. You got to be somebody to go in there and be the enforcer.

They need that in the box.

Charles Oakley, guys like that. You need guys like that. They need a nasty.

Yeah, just like, How many nasties did you have?

Draymond Green, you need a guy like that. Greg Poppins said that every Championship team needs a Draymond game, needs to run on our test. You got to have that one guy.

You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I always think when I look at a guy like Draymond, it's finding a guy who will always live on the edge. You can deal with every now and then him going over the line as long as he can stay on that edge more often than not.

And it can't be your most talented guy. It has to be the guy that you can... What's the word I'm looking for? That you can... I'm trying to find a word.

It's early. It's early.

We should have said that from the start.

He's just a guy that you actually don't need him in the four quarter. You know what I'm saying?

Well, they need Draymond on the four quarter.

You know what I'm saying? But he got to be a guy that's risky, that could take risk. That's what I'm looking for, that could take risk. Because some games, Draymond might not be there in the four quarter. He He didn't get kicked out in the third, but what he did in the third to get kicked out might be just important for you to win the game in the fourth quarter.

I think what made him great is his ability to walk that line. Like you said, sometimes you step over that line and you'll take it. I think he started to realize that as an individual because he's very intelligent. Like, damn, I'm stepping Coming over that line a little too much. This past season, I'm costing my team.

His talent was the bullshit besides defense. His talent was the nonsense.

That's true. Now, can you have two of those guys on a team? No. Have you ever been on a team where there were two of those guys?

Yeah, me and Ron O'Tess.

Yeah, you walked in.

Me and Ron O'Tess.

That's a good point. Yeah, exactly. You see what happens. Did you walk in in the locker and you're like, Wait, hold on. There's two of us?

Like a Spider-Man thing. Yeah, right.

Like, what the fuck?

Well, I start seeing that as the season. I'm like, Hold up, man.

A little similar.

One I'm in the wrong situation with this team. It's going to go down.

One of my favorite quotes is from Big John Thompson. He said, You can win a championship with one of those guys. You need one of those guys for a championship. If you have two of them, they'll get you fired.

No question. Might not work with two. One, you definitely need one.

When you guys first met, what was the... Because tell me if I'm wrong, but an NBA locker room, I think when we're watching as fans, we're like, Oh, these guys are on the team together. They're all best friends. That's obviously not the case. There's a million different personalities, but some guys do become best friends. When you guys first walked in a locker room together, was there something that connected you where you were like, Oh, yeah, we're going to be friends.

I saw his lips and I knew he smoked.

We got the whiskey lips.

It was just weathered in dark. Cognac lips. It was just weathered in dark. I was like, Oh, he smokes. I'm going to fuck with him. It was weathered. It was weathered. He got traded to our team at the trade deadline, or right before the trade deadline, I think the end of January. We were struggling at the time, and we wanted to shake things up, and they brought him, Al, and I think Sherunis.

I was scarred up, too.

Jack was just fresh off an NBA strip club shootout. You know what I mean? So he needed a reload. He's in the Witness Protection program. They sent him to Oakland. And as soon as he walked in, I'm just like, oh, because we played together for years, but never real no interaction. But as soon as he walked in, I looked at his lips like, he smokes. And from that day.

I looked at him, oh, yeah, that's the one. That's my friend right there.

I mean, that can't be that uncommon, though. I feel like in professional sports in general, especially now, things have changed a little bit. Back when you guys were playing, it was a very common thing, but it wasn't as socially acceptable. It was be like outwardly, yes, smoke weed. But nowadays, it's like, yeah, in the NFL, they pulled back the drug test.

Something wrong with you if you don't. I think during our career, and even though we were risking, over half the league was smoking. I would say probably even more, more reports, 60 or 70 %. But they changed. When I retired and one of our other brothers, Al Harrington, retired, we were flying to New York to talk into the NBA and the EPA and tell them they needed to do more in-depth studying because there was no study on the positive benefits at the time. It was just the gateway and all the old shit from the '80s that everyone was sticking by. The MBA started looking into it, the MPA started looking into it, and the doctors still butted heads. They finally came to a conclusion and understood the benefits of the plan. I think starting in the bubble during COVID is when they stopped testing, and then after that, the shit was gone. Although we missed out on it, we take pride in the fact that we were someone to help push the lines. Luckily, this next generation doesn't have to… At the end of the day, we were risking our career, risking a lot of money to do that, but there was no alternative for us.

We have a lot of friends who are NFL players or ex-NFL players. They got to a point in their career like, I don't want to take these pills that they keep describing us. Let me just smoke. That will deal with the pain a lot better.

Even with Jake Plummer now, with his company, with the mushrooms.

We went out there. He also did, too.

We got an episode coming with him. Oh, nice. He's the best. Very educational, though, to the point where I'm taking the drops and stuff every day, even the stuff to sleep. But I didn't know anything about it until we went down to talk to Jake about the- Before he was just throwing them in his mouth and chewing them.

This wasn't the healthy one.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Did you guys go to his farm?

Yeah. Yeah, we did, too. You're like, Are we in the right place? Did you have some space Cheetos? I don't know.

No, I think it was all-Lion Mane tacos. We had the lion, man. Yeah, we had that, too. I'm trying to remember the Richie, the Richie mushroom. Richie, yeah. That's his favorite mushroom. That's his favorite one. He talked about how it talks in the earth to the other mushrooms. It's trippy stuff.

But yeah-What is the place? I didn't even cut you off. What was the place we went to called? Humbo. No, no, no. The Yurk. Did you go to the Yurk? They take you to his buddy's house that has the TP.

You guys got way better.

Yeah, you got-Oh, no. We went to the Yurk.

I think they thought we were cops. They looked at Big Cat's mustache and they were like, This guy might be the police. That just ruined my day.

He definitely gave us the NARC tour.

We're going back.

We're going to show him the real stuff.

Kept it very surface.

I'm going back to see what it's really like.

He's doing very cool stuff, and he's just a cool guy, too.

Super good Yeah, right? I think our episode with him drops soon.

Yeah, so you brought-We got some Coors Latte over here. We got some Coors Bites. We got an Octopus and formaldehyde over there.

If you want to take a look at that.

Everywhere.

We got just-It's really cool, 13-year-old's bedroom.

Yeah, exactly. I take that as a compliment. I think.

You were talking about the bubble and how they change the rules in the bubble. They didn't really have a choice because they're like, We've got these guys pretty much trapped in here. We have to let them at least smoke weed.

And you got to think, I don't know how long the break was, but I think it was four to six weeks off, and I was already out, but guys didn't know what was going on. So a lot of them partook. And I'm just thinking, If you start testing guys and you come back in the bubble and you got some star players not able to play while you're in the bubble because of this bullshit rule, it's going to look really bad. I think they looked big picture like, okay. Like you said, they were locked in there. You know what I mean? They had to give them something to do, and that was one of them.

What helped J. R. Smith, I think the whole time he was in the bubble, I got a call from him, probably 7, 8 every morning, him by his bathroom window, venting to me about how much he hate the bubble and we smoking together every morning. That's the way he survived doing the bubble, waking up and smoking and calling me on FaceTime, Bro, I can't wait to get out here like he was in jail.

Yeah. It's interesting because when you guys play in the league, I feel like the transition between, or maybe it's not a transition, but the realization that the players have had in the last 20 years, they realize that they have the power in this league. In the NFL, it's different. You got 53-man rosters. You've got guys that are interchangeable. But in the NBA, the players, especially the star players, but really, it's everyone, the players have all the power in this dynamic. I don't know if there was a moment that woke people up to that if you're in the league or if it was just a gradual realization.

I think that was David Stern's goal to create individual stars within a team game. He always wanted to promote stars because he knew that's what would grow the league. But it was also we kept the team mentality around it so they would promote the individual guys, but it was still the team. Obviously, with 12, 13 guys and no helmets on, you're still in the mix even if you don't play. You know what I mean? So there's still opportunities. But now more than ever, I mean, these kids are businesses before they even step into the NBA now. So it promotes a lot Which is weird. It's a fine line to be able to promote individuality and individuals within a team space. I don't think football is getting better at that because there's social media now, but it's still more of us. We can actually be us as a team. We can actually be individuals but still be with the team concept. Yeah.

Do you think super teams are dying? Because it does feel like this, especially these playoffs, with the Suns going out, the Clippers going out, and you see a lot of teams like the success of the or the Wolves, the Mavs. I know Kyrie got... That was an addition, but the Mavs and the Celtics both have been maneuvering, never doing the like, All right, we got one big star. Let's bring two other big stars. Do you think it's dwindling down?

I think so. With players like Anthony Edwards coming in the lead, being one of those guys that are approaching the game with that attitude, that old-school attitude, and not really want to team up with guys, want to build their own. I think the Super team is definitely dying. I think the big man is coming back, too. Having two big men. Versatility big men. Yeah, the versatile big men. I think that's coming back as well.

Yeah, I definitely think it's more back on strategy and management and drafting right, trading right, and this next generation. That super team was something that our generation wanted to do. You know what I mean? I really credit LeBron for being the first guy to make the superstar to make that jump. I don't have to stay in this organization my entire life. I don't want to. So he, I think, opened up the floodgates for stars to start moving. But I think that was more what our guy, as you just mentioned, all those guys, none of them made the play, or if they made the play, obviously it was in and out. That was teams. I look at those as like those weight builders that only lift their upper body and their legs are like this. You got a really heavy top three, and you don't have any depth. So now it's more important about depth and drafting and trading. And I see going somewhat back to the old NBA style as far as you have to build your team through the draft and trades.

I think it's going to be like that initially, but I get the feeling that The super teams that we see right now that have been constructed in the last five years, they're all from a certain generation. It's older guys, guys that are maybe at the second half of their career. Right now, we've got so many young stars in the league. If we wait 5, 10 years, they might start to do that, too. Without a ring, you get that ring. Without a ring, then you start thinking about. But right now, I think as we're looking at the NBA, the talent is concentrated in the mid to late 20s for the younger guys.

I would say even earlier. I would say early 20s to mid '20s is like the '26s and under, that's Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Luca, Luca even called Kyrie old the other day. I think Kyrie is what? 32-ish. You know what I mean? So I think that that young wave is middle '20s, and they're strong. So I really feel like we've seen this year the passing of the torch. All the great players you name, Steph, LeBron, KD, none of these guys made waves in the playoffs this year. It was all younger-led teams.

Still entertaining.

Yeah, very Very entertaining.

You guys think there's a problem in the NBA with coaches? Speaking of the super teams, the Lakers obviously fire their coach, the Suns fire their coach, where sometimes it feels like the players, basically, if there's a It's a disappointing season, there's just no blame on themselves. Coach is always scapegoats.

I hate it.

It's just the coach is the one like, Hey, you're out.

Because before, coaches used to have really... When we came in, lead coach had the authority. It was they were the highway, and now players make so much money. Organizations can't expend players like that. It has to be the coach. Even though coaches are getting way better money than they used to, it's always going to be the coaches' fault. There's not very much what acceptance or responsibility when it comes to if you're a big player in a big team and your team fucks up, it's going to be on the coach nine, a half out of 10 times now. I hate it.

I think it should be way more blame on the coaches for the perfect example.

On the coaches or on the players?

Excuse me, on the players. Because perfect example, you can't just blame Darvin Ham for that situation and fire him and just Bring another coach in with no experience just because Braun didn't win a championship. No, it's the player's fault. Any other time, when Jokuj lose, when any other team loses, it's the stars' fault. The stars, they didn't play where they didn't do this. They talk about Anthony Edwards, Why did Minnesota lost? Because he didn't play like he was playing against Denver. As soon as the Lakers lose, they blame it on the coach. I hate it. The stars, you have to be responsible because just when you win, the stars get all the credit. They don't give the coaches the credit. They give it all to the stars. He played well. He carried When the team lose, you got to take the same responsibility. I don't think the players do that no more.

It might be a lot about the star players just not liking the coach. You don't want a superstar athlete that's not in a good position mentally, that hates going to work every day. I don't think you're going to get the most production out of them, but that's where we're at right now.

You saw when Anthony Davis said, I think, was it during the playoffs or was it playing or wherever they are, or turned to end of the season, it's like, There was times out there we didn't even know we were doing it. When we didn't know we were running, I was like, Oh, Darwin hadn't done. You know what I mean? When When your players start, your stars start speaking up like that.

I feel like it happens so much faster, though, now. You even saw it with the Bucks this year. They fired their coach, what, three months into it.

He was, what, 33 and 13 or something? It was insane.

I'm not saying it's because Giannis didn't like him, but it does feel like the threshold for firing a coach is if your star player is like, Oh, I don't really like him. It's like, all right.

Well, that time is different. Perfect example. You get Kobe coming to the press conference after they lose. It's going to be a great song. We got to work right now. You know what I'm saying? Work starts right now for next year. Instead of guys coming to the press conference, Well, we had guys heard this. My team, it wasn't there. I only can do so much. That's the approach now. Instead of having an approach like Kobe, we just got to get back to work. We'll be back next year. You know what I mean? And this is just a different approach to the game.

My favorite is when they say, I don't want to make excuses, and then they make like six excuses.

Yeah.

I make excuses, but my wrist hurts. Part of the game. Yeah, it is part of the game. I'm going to get back to Matt and Steven. Before we do, they're brought to you by Chevy. As everyone knows, this is a Chevy Truck podcast, the greatest trucks ever built, and our good friends at and Chevrolet have been a big part of my take story. From the Silverado helping us dig the biggest hole ever dug in Ohio during Grit Week, to Silverado, partnering with us to give college fullbacks all the rightful recognition that they deserve with the Loman Award, to Vanny Woodhead, who is actually a Chevrolet as well. They've been with us from the start. They've partnered with us on a nonstop cross country trip to the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, behind the wheel of a Chevy Silverado. They've been a part of it all. The Silverado, long time awesome partner of the show. A truck with commanding, unstoppable grit, legendary capability, and dependability, too. So find out for yourself. Like so many other AWLs, head to chevy. Com to check out all the Chevy truck grit and build your own Silverado. For do it yourself projects to road trips, off-road adventures, tailgates, whatever your thing is, it all starts with a Chevy truck.

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No.

I've been on a team where I don't like the coach, but the team wasn't good either. I think it starts at the top. Although the players are more powerful It's called buying in. Yeah, I think the hardest thing now as a coach is coming into a locker room with guys that are making millions of millions of dollars and gaining that respect. You have to have the respect of the locker room no matter what your past is, what you've done, what you've accomplished. Being able to go in the locker room and get everyone's I expect is the key. And communicating. I just feel like we have a shift in coaches right now. You're seeing a lot more former players coming in the NFL. I like that. Nba. Because to me, although X and O's always going to be important, now it's being able to communicate because this next This generation that's coming came up different than we did. A lot more coddled and given a lot of things. So if you ruffle their feathers, you're out of here. So it's not so much like kiss and ask, but it's just being able to have someone that can still communicate with that younger generation but still get the job done.

Talk your language.

Jason Kidd and Kyrie. Kyrie seems to be a different dude this year. At peace. I think he's very much at peace. I heard him talk about, obviously, this is going to air during the final, so we don't know what's happened so far. But I heard him talk about just how he's approaching in the series against Boston and how mature he sounded when he said it. I was like, Is this the same Kyrie from the Nets? He seems to have made a complete change. I think a lot of people are giving credit to Jason Kidd. Obviously, Kyrie is matured on his own a little bit, it seems like. But yeah, having a guy that has been there, done that, that can speak your language. I feel like just having that connection goes a long way. Absolutely. There's a lot of stuff that goes into a successful franchise, a good team. What are the differences that you guys have seen between a functional NBA organization, from the top down and a dysfunctional one?

Well, for me, as soon as you walk in, you can tell what organization is used to winning and what organization doesn't know how to win. That's easy to tell. When I went to Charlotte, I can tell that they were still trying to figure out how to win. When I signed in San Antonio, it was a structure. Everybody's professional, everything's on time. They're used to winning. They have the motto to win. They understand about winning. It's easy to see when you walk in the organization. You can tell a team that's been winning as one of the championships by the coach, how the coach is, and how they run everything from the top to bottom. You can go into a place like Charlotte, you can tell they're looking for somebody to come in and bring this winning feel back. You know what I'm saying? It's easy to see when you walk in the organization.

I think it starts at the top, absolutely, with ownership, and it trickles down to management, to coaches.

Some teams, I'm not even going to cut you out, but some teams, you don't even know who the owner is. So you think the coach is basically running the team. That's interesting. You know what I'm saying? I've been in several teams where I don't even know who the owner is.

We played on that warrior team that we believe team in '06, '07. We played with the Warriors then, and that was an organization that was still trying to figure it out. Owners didn't really know what they're doing. Fast forward, I went back 10 years later with the '17 team that already won a championship, and you just see them. When I tell you we walked in, you felt the energy on the days off, guys wanted to be in there. When we traveled for the playoffs, they got private jets for our whole family. They take care of hotels. You don't have to worry about tickets, food, travel for your family. All they want you to do is focus on basketball. I was blessed to play for the Lakers and the Clippers. I played for the Clippers two times. The first time, we were practicing at a fucking junior college where you had to leave the back doors open so they didn't break into your car. Next time around, we have our own practice facility and the plane and everything is set up. I feel like it starts at the top with ownership and how much they really want to pour into this team.

I always am shocked when a rich guy buys a team and then just starts cheaping out on it. You have billions. What's the point? You bought the team. Why wouldn't you want the team to be good? It's not just owning. I would be so mad if I owned a team and they just sucked all the time. I feel like-That's the purpose.

Speaking of that, Clipped is on right now in Hulu. I was a consultant on that project. That was our 2015 team with Donald Sterling when his mistress recorded them and leaked the tapes.

I don't know. I was on that team at the beginning of that year. Oh, really?

Yeah, he was. What happened?

Chris Paul broke his hand. He got clipped. Yeah, I got clipped. He broke his hand and had to get rid of somebody to bring another point guard in. And I was on a 10 day.

How fucked up was that situation? That was my last. I can imagine.

I retired right after that.

You probably hated going to work for that guy, right?

To be honest, you know what's funny about that situation when people ask? It was never about him because he was never really... He came to games, but we never thought like, Yeah, we're playing for Donald Sterling. It was more like we had a good group of guys and we were playing for each other. So he never really came into the picture until the bullshit was leaked. He was always there. For me, out of respect, I never had no awkward encounters. He never said nothing crazy to me because there ain't no telling what would have happened. But I was just always high and by. His wife was very respectful. Obviously, we saw the mistress there, and she thought she ran the stable center, which was crazy. My ex-wife had to put hands on her. But it was a circus, but we didn't allow his circus to trickle down into our locker room, so it was really never about him.

Did you text Blake when he retired?

I did. All right, good. That's Big Cat. My Big Cat.

Yeah, your Big Cat.

You told us that last time. Blake, great dude, man. Definitely a Hall of Fame career and really happy for him that he was able to play out as long as he wanted. I wish he would have won a Championship, but it's crazy because they're hanging on. Jamal Crawfer is gone, JJ Jay's gone, about to get the Laker job. Blake just retired. Who knows the CP? It might be time for CP to retire. So the last DeAndre is over in Denver.

Deandre is just going to keep... I'm going to look at a bench in the playoffs and just be like, Wait, is that DeAndre Jordan? That's what he did this year.

He is there. He's such a great vet. You know what I mean? Such a good guy, great energy, team guy. And he found a good spot that still credits that. We've always spoke that we feel like the NBA definitely still needs veterans. Teams are so young now with no, it's a blind leading the blind. But when you're able to find a good veteran, You talk to any guys that are done or guys on their way out like, Man, the game has changed. We came in the game. There was guys that were 38, 39, 40. Some contributed on the court, but they all contributed off the court in a certain way to help you guide and dodge the potholes, get your suits together, all this shit. Now, I remember at one point, Steph was the oldest player on the Warriors, and he was 32. Although they were a great organization, this is just really young. It's a young game now.

Who were those guys for you when you guys first came in the league?

For me, my first year, I got lucky with being with Steph on Marbury. He embraced me. Then I went to the Spurs and got Steve Smith. Those two guys mentored me, showed me how to be a professional, showed me what the league was going to be like. I think that was the best thing for me because I was like a chicken with his head cut off just trying to figure it out.

I would say my guy was Chris Webber. He was someone that... I'm from Sacramento, and he was with the Kings at the time when they were the big Laker Kings rivalry. I was going to school at UCLA, but every summer I would work out with him, and he'd put his arm around me. Then I ended up going to the Kings, and he and I get traded to Philly together in my first time with Allen Iverson. Obviously, super dope and just being able to see what that lifestyle is like and be like. But I really say Chris Webber on and off the court as far as business and basketball.

I want to say Steve Kerr. He spoke life into me in San Antonio for confidence-wise. Really? Yeah. I was young and pop used to take me out the games earlier. When I make a mistake, he take me out real early, and I'm trying to figure out why. When everybody else is making mistakes, and I used to come out the game cursing everybody out, just frustrated, trying to figure out why. And he used to always come down like, You're going to get back in the game. Stay focused. You're going to make big shots. Nobody else is making big shots. And he kept telling it to me all year to the playoffs and the West of Carmen's finals, I hit all the big shots. I kept hitting those big shots, but he was somebody that kept speaking life into me. When pop was taking my confidence.

That's important.

That's awesome. Speaking about San Antonio, I don't know what... Maybe it's because of the guy he is and he's not the flashiest, but it does feel like as we go farther away from Tim Duncan retiring, people just forget how awesome he was.

I I argue people down with it all the time. It's crazy.

He was so good. He just doesn't get the respect.

Because it wasn't flashy. He didn't talk his game. He just showed up. When you look at the stats, when you talk about great, if he's not in the conversation, then you don't know basketball.

Yeah, he really was. He did everything well. Also, he doesn't get credit for being one of the most ready-to-go pieces that's ever been put on a team. Exactly. They won a Championship in his second year.

All around. Yeah.

It was just like, Oh, he's second year. Oh, he's this guy already?

It just seemed like he was winning the championship every two years. What's his record in the final? Five out of seven? Five and six, something like that?

They lost the heat, obviously. And then what was the other one they lost? It might be five and one.

Five and one. I think so. They won five out of six, I think. I think so. Yeah, I think they won five out of six. Yeah. That's crazy.

It is because of his flashiness and his game. He wasn't hitting big threes or big dunks.

Look at the stat sheet?

Yeah, every single night.

20, 29, 8.

All around.

Hank just sent over some pictures of the cast of Clipped. How do you think they did with you, Matt?

Cool. They did a great job. It's my homeboy Sherunas. So he's similar to me. Everyone's always said we look alike. So they cast her really well with that. What did he say? He's doing me a favor.

Yeah, he's doing you a favor by playing you.

Now, they cast him well. They got Ed O'Neill, Al Bundy for Donald Sterling. They got Lawrence Fishburn to play Doc. The lady that plays V, his mistress, is really dope, looks just like her. And then the lady that paid Shirley, or that's her name, Sterling? Shelle looks Just Like Her, Talks Just Like Her. So I thought they casted. Some of the players casting, like Blake's casting was funny to me, and CP's casting because it's the dude from... What show was he on? What's the Racy show on Stars? The Strip Club show.

He should have just gotten Cliff Paul.

Strip Club show on Stars.

Did you sit down with the dude that was playing you?

Yeah, I already knew. I consulted on the project. So the project came about from Ramona Shelborn. Shout out Ramona at ESPN. She did a 30 for 30 for ESPN on just the Sterling, the Sterling Affairs and the growth of the Clippers and everything. It won some awards, and it got so popular that FX took her podcast and turned it into an actual script.

When you guys saw the transcript from his court filings, did you all do a reading a lot of- I didn't do a deep dive into it.

Like I said, I just knew and heard. I've had a lot of... I almost had my high school burned down by the KKK. So this old rich white man talking about Black people the way he did, I was just like, this is probably the norm. He's just the only one dumb enough to get caught. You know what I mean? I'm sure it goes on more. So to me, it wasn't a huge deal. But for some guys on my team, it was a big deal. Some guys were really hurt. Some guys cried. Some guys didn't want to play. Some guys were really fucked up by it. But to me, it was, okay, it's unfortunate, but what's next?

Yeah. Did you ever read the part where he was talking about the woman in the back seat of the car? Uh-uh.oh, you haven't seen that one?What happened?Okay, I'm going to pull it up right now.It's maybe the best transcript from work filing ever. I'm going to have to read this for you out loud here. Okay, so this is Donald Sterling. Well, I fool around sometimes. I do. When a girl seduces me and tells me all these hot stories and dirty things and tells me how much she wants to suck on me and take my shoes off and licks my feet and touches me. When I'm in a limousine, she takes all of her clothes The limo driver said, What's going on? And she starts sucking me on the way to Mr. Coon's house. And I thank her. I thank her for making me feel good. Then the lawyer, Sir, the question was, Is this your handwriting?

He talks like a Neanderthal. It's just so, Thank you for making me feel like it's just- You suck me.

Thank you. Good feel.

He was special, man.

Oh, my God.

You mentioned JJ getting the Lakers job, which isn't official, but it feels like it's moving that way. Do you think he's going to have- I'm okay with it.

I think JJ is a great basketball mind. I think he's very creative. But again, I think he can bridge that gap of communication with younger and older players. And JJ can be an asshole when he needs to be. So I don't think although he- He's a douchebag.

He's from Duke.

You know what's funny? I used to think JJ would be a cocksucker, and I wouldn't fuck with JJ. He's one of my closest friends post career. We played together twice. I was just like, this guy, the old Duke stigma, I wouldn't fuck with JJ. Jj was so cool. Jj is really cool. Like I said, I I think he's someone that's not going to be afraid to stand up and bark at LeBron if needed, because like I said, the most important thing is going in there and gaining that respect. Now, whether people think LeBron ushered a man or whatever, I'm okay from a standpoint of a beatboxer over here. I just feel like the NBA always recycles the same coaches that ain't winning shit anyway. So I like new, fresh blood. I mean, should your first job be with the Lakers? Who knows? That's not up to me. But I think JJ, if he is able to get that opportunity, I'm definitely looking forward to see what he can do.

Wait, so do you disagree?

I love JJ. Solid One of the coolest I ever met, but it's a lot of privilege going on.

What privilege? A lot of privilege. White or LeBron privilege.

Yeah, it's definitely white and LeBron.

It don't get no better than that. You guys are two privileges.

You got the strongest privilege you get. Those are the two privileges, bro.

You can't lose. Only privileges above those are the police union and teachers union. There's not much privilege after that. Cia.

You're good. That's the only thing higher than that. But that's a lot of privilege going on there. You got a lot of guys that's been going through these On these NBA teams, doing these little coaching programs for the last five, six years, sitting behind the bench, doing coaches, doing everything they're supposed to do to get an opportunity, and they're not getting these opportunities.

They don't have a podcast as LeBron.

But that happened first, so you knew it was coming. You knew it was coming.

It was the setup.

How are they cool? When have you ever seen them cool? This was all a play. We're not dumb. We have a lot. I'm first-team all common sense. It's a lot of privilege in that because I know a lot players that's been coaching in the NBA that had an opportunity. It didn't go good because their first opportunity was a trash team, and it looked like they couldn't coach. Now they're just assistant coach for the rest of their career. They don't get this opportunity, the first place to go where they're coaching LeBron James and Anthony Davis. So it's a lot of privilege there. But it's nothing against JJ. I love JJ. He was one of my favorite teammates when I was with the Clippers. I spent some good times with him, but it's a lot of privilege there.

Yeah, JJ is a great dude. He's been on the show a bunch. He actually used to be my neighbor. We like to just call him a douchebag to his face. I feel like he's like... It's almost like the Mafia going real. Like, oh, they have a real business now. People forget he went to Duke and he was a dickhead. We got to remind- He does it on purpose, though.

Everything is calculated with JJ.

On first take, I think he's playing... I actually think he's playing a wrestling character. I gave him credit for it. I was like, I think you're a genius how you're doing this because people get so angry.

He's speaking for the players, too. That's why I love it.

I think he'll do well. But the one thing I'm worried about for JJ is, LeBron, he's not young. So what's the plan when LeBron is done or when he wants to finish somewhere else? I don't know. You're signing up for something that, are you going to be there when he's gone? I guess LA always... The Lakers always get us to work.

That's always a hot seat. But to me, it's hard. How do you pass up? Because, again, I'm cool with him. He told me he had opportunities last season to coach, and I'm fresh out. I want to figure it out, spend time with my family, my kids.

You tried to bring him as an assistant in Boston. I'm not sure who said it.

He told me he had some head opportunities. Okay. But how do you turn that if that is the job? You can't turn down the Laker job. Yeah.

I feel like there's a lot of stuff that goes into coaching that's not just the X's and O's basketball IQ stuff. Behind the scenes stuff, behind the scenes stuff. You were talking about a functional organization, everything running on time, the schedules and all that stuff. So that's going to be a big blind spot for him. He's a smart guy, so I'm sure he's going to talk to people and try to figure it out. But to me, it seems like there's a lot that goes into coaching that's not just what you see on the course.

No No free time.

Yeah, no free time. But also, I think it's important for him if he does get the job, which I hope he does, to hire a good staff around him, mixing maybe a couple of old Gs in the invest, but then also just guys fresh out because guys fresh out still understand what this next wave of kids are about.

From your guys' perspective, what's the one thing that NBA fans get wrong about how the league works or how the game works? The thing that you just see all the time, you're like, That's just not-I just think how hard it is.

If you think about it, there's been less than 5,000 guys to ever play in this league. So the last guy on the bench is amazing anywhere else but maybe just that situation. Maybe it's the right time, right situation. But I just think the talent level, I don't think fans appreciate and respect the grind and the hard work, not just basketball, but professional sports in general. Now that we have a 24/7, 365 news cycle, everything is front street, I just don't think fans appreciate the grind. You got a better chance of being struck by than being in the NBA. You know what I mean? I just think how hard it is to make it and how good every player in that league, no matter if he has a bad season or is on a bad team or doesn't play, how good every player in that league is. Yeah.

So what's harder, playing the NBA or podcasting?

Nba.

Are you sure? I don't know. Well, you guys only- This isn't work. You can't bank NBA games. No, you can't. You guys bank podcasts.

You could be high in NBA games just like being high. The thing It's not the NBA. Someone's always going to take your spot. Podcasting space is growing, but we don't really look at anybody in our basketball space as competition. I think we all have our own unique journeys and stories, and we bring something different to the game. I feel as a whole, we're changing sports media. You guys are changing sports media because now it's guys that people really want to talk to. And as players, we used to look at the summer report as like cops. It's like criminals talking to cops, not the weird criminals, but there's just that weird line of because they used to be dirty and twist shit, and there was no other way for us to get story out, but through them. So you got the bare minimum with a lot of people. But now there's so many athletes and people that people like to talk to. You're getting different stories and point of views that a typical ESPN or a Fox wouldn't get. Yeah.

And for a while, there was a big disconnect between how sports was presented on TV and how they talked about on TV and how regular people talk about sports. When we're talking about the NBA or the NFL, me and Big Cat don't put on suits and sit down and start yelling at each other and gesturing at each other with a pen.

Nobody wants to see that anyway. Exactly.

You want to see people having real honest conversation. Have you guys ever gotten in trouble or have had a guest that got in trouble for something that they said on your show?

We had a couple of guests that said stuff that we didn't even ask them, and they ended up coming back. Can you take that out? Yeah. Can you take that out? But we didn't I can ask you that, but we'll take it out. You said that on your own.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, our goal is never-We're fine with that, though. Yeah, our goal has never been, there's people now that are turning their shit into gossip shows and looking for hot tape. Our goal has always been to humanize our guests because we think all of our guests are super dope and just have authentic, real deep conversation. We get a ton of times where people say, We've never said this before to anybody. Okay, they trust us enough. We just wanted to be a safe space. If we go viral, it's for a dope story or an in-depth conversation instead of some click bait.

It's smart. We take a similar approach where it's like every guest we've ever had on, we want them to come back. If you come with that approach, you're never going to burn someone.

You're appreciating your guests. I want you guys, next time you're I would have come back on.

If we try to burn you, it's like, Fuck these guys.

Exactly.

Who's the one or two players that you played against that you just hated?

Hated?

Maybe hated just defending them or hated them, just actually hated them?

I didn't hate nobody, to be honest with you.

There's a lot of players I thought wasn't good, that didn't deserve all the stuff they was getting in my mind.

Like who?

Oh, boy. Here you go.

This might burn you.

Well, he's a Hall of Famer. Oh, boy.

Okay.

He's a Hall of Famer.

As soon as he says his name, we're never getting him as a guest.

Yeah, well, it's not personal. I just feel like I had a lot of great games against him. I didn't have a better career than him, but when I played against him, I had some great games. Okay. Ray Allen. Oh, okay. I just feel like that. I'm not saying Ray wasn't great. Great. He was great.

One of the greatest shooters.

One of the greatest shooters, but I'm a basketball player. I wasn't one-dimensional. I just didn't shoot. I just didn't play defense. I did everything. So I looked at myself as different than a lot of these guys that were one-dimensional. You know what I'm saying? I just felt like I was a better player in game.

I don't think Ray was one-dimensional, though.

Well, most of his career, he was a shooter. To get his career, he was an athlete. He was dunking in the walk. He was taking off on people and all that. But he got a little older.

He got a little older. Yeah, only Bron could do it his whole career. That's a fair, though.

You're not saying that he was bad. It's just you thought you were better than him.

He had a better career than me. I admit that. But when it came to lining up on the court against a lot of guys that's Hall of Famers, I bust their ass a lot of nights. And it's just the truth. I got to pat myself on the back sometimes because the NBA wouldn't do it because the trouble I was in. I should have been an all-star for multiple years. But I am someone who helped two teams, my first year there, get to the playoffs after double-digit year droughts. That has to say something.

What were those teams?

Charlotte and Golden State. Golden State was 13 years, and I think Charlotte was ever.Sharlon was ever. It had never been. To be able to do that in the NBA, you have to be a great player. You just not go into teams and get them to the playoff.

Okay, so reverse, who would always bust your ass?

I got my ass busted by all of them. That's what I'm saying. I will admit that they bust my ass, but they need to admit it, too. Just because you're all Hall of Famers don't mean you all didn't get your ass busted.Okay, that's You know what I'm saying? I took my ass with them from all them because I competed. I tried to stop them. And guys like Ray Island and Kobe, you can't stop them. You got to try to make them have a difficult night. So make it difficult for them. And I made some of those night difficult. But for the most part, those guys are great for a reason. But I deserve my respect, too.

Was it equal opportunity trash talk? Like you would talk shit to anybody that you were defending?

Everybody got it.

Yeah, everybody got it? Refs, fans.

Everybody got it. It don't work on some guys like Kobe and Ray Island, these guys. It don't work, but it's good to try.

Do you ever have a guy that You just said something, you're like, I have him forever. It's done. I'm mentally in his head.

He's sweet.

Who do you think is sweet? Who's sweet? Man, I had a lot of guys that were sweet. Because we're willing to take that extra step. I'm willing to fight if I have to to win a game. You know what I'm saying? To get my respect. I'm willing to go there every game. And it's a lot of guys that ain't willing to do that. Bro, it's just basketball. Bro, it's just basketball.

That's when you know you got them, right? That's when you know.

It's just basketball.

It's It's just basketball, bro. Not to me. This is how I eat. Yeah, this is how I eat. I know it's the guy that's coming in right now that's coming in this draft that's coming to try to take my spot. So I got to try to stay here as long as I can.

How do you guys feel about rookies coming to the league that had big expectations. We can touch a little bit about how this relates to Kaitlyn Clarke, but I know that you guys have been in the league when players have come in where this rookie is so highly touted as the future face of the league, future star. As vets, How do you guys respond to something like that?

Challenge him.

I was in Golden State when we drafted Steph. I had no idea he was going to be who he was. But for me, I was at the end of my career, so I wanted to go somewhere else. I didn't want to be a part of a rebuilding process. But I knew that they drafted Steph to be the face of the team. I didn't know he was going to be who he is now. If I would have known it, I probably would have stayed and got a couple of championships off. You know what I mean? But you never know. You never know how things are going to pay out. You know what I'm saying? Because you've seen guys that get drafted that don't have good careers, that go number one, that don't last long. When you see guys that get drafted, that's supposed to be top 10 draft pick, get drafted 15, 20, and they end up having a hell of a career. So it's hard to really tell. It depends on that guy and how he's built, coming in with all that stuff on his back.

But I also think, too, anybody with some name or exposure coming into the league, you're going to get checked, you're going to get tested, you're going to get hard fouled, you're going to get hit, you're going to get a lot of different things, you're going to get beat up. What I think is so interesting now is it's such a shock to new fans with the women's game. The women's game has always been very chipping, and those girls talk a lot of shit. There's been fights, but there just hasn't been as much tension on it. When the new casual fan or new fan see women doing the same thing as men, it's like, Oh, my God. They're talking shit on the court. Oh, they're hard. This is a competitive game. My whole thing with Kaitlyn Cough, because I'm not mad at the being ever. I don't want to see no one get hurt from a cheap shot. But as far as her getting beat up, elbowed, hard screen, knocked down, that's the hard knocks of being a rookie. My whole thing, which I said a couple of weeks ago or last week, was where are the fuck are her teammates at?

You guys got to have her back, whether it's you don't think she's a good person in, whatever the situation, she's getting given too much without proving anything. No matter what those person, you got to get all that bullshit out of your heart, because that's why I said this is the reason why you guys are at the bottom of the WMBAs, because you guys aren't one. You need to be one, whether there's one star, two stars, or there's leader, you guys still got to be a team. And what bothered me was, wasn't that she was getting knocked down and hard fouled? I'm not complaining about none of that. I'm complaining to the people who aren't helping her up or who aren't, Okay, you'd knock my star down, you'd knock our rookie down, and we're going to knock yours down. There was just none of that. And to me, I think that's weak.

If you guys were doing your podcast while you were still in the league, would you make reporters subscribe before asking?

It wouldn't have been suspended from games, getting fined, and all that shit. You couldn't speak I couldn't have had no podcast. No? No. I went straight to the bitch-ass referee. You suck last night. I've been calling names out all time. Yeah, I couldn't have done it. I couldn't have done it.

No way. Did you have done it, Matt? No.

The only person that made me turn My crazy down was him because we couldn't have two real crazy motherfuckers.

Me and Jack didn't play on the team. I was the one. But I credit. It's a new age. You know what Draymond has been able to do to set the tone with guys that are currently in it. When he was doing all his shit or in the finals and he wouldn't talk to people, he would go drop it fresh on it. I think that's amazing. Yeah, it's genius. It changes the game. As far as Pat Biv telling someone he can't talk to him because she didn't just subscribe is out of this world. But that's Pat Bev sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, we love him. He obviously works with us. We're like, Yeah, you should subscribe.

I think Draymond does shit in games sometimes so that he's got good content to talk about on podcast. Bump the ratings a little bit.

I'm going to talk shit about this real quick.

I'm going to choke Rudy Gober out, and then afterwards, I'm going to have a number one podcast across all the charts. He's going to say exactly why I did it.

It was funny when he started talking about Pat Bev and what happened in their last game. It was like, Dude, this is you.

That was like the Spider-Man right there.

Someone said it was like Osama bin Laden breaking down ISIS game film.

No, but I I do think it's great. Just think how far media has come. It used to be in the papers, and then it would be the radio, and then it was on TV, and now you're really getting it from the actual recipient or the person that did it. I think it's dope.

It's got to be It's got to feel freeing for players. They know that they can control their own narrative.

It also has to be that fine line. You know what I mean? Because people know now, you're spending so much. You need to get in the gym because you always got that before we were even doing podcasts and doing shit, talking to the fan. I couldn't imagine it now. Having some bad games and still having to, Okay, is this mic on? Talk your shit on the show.

I would imagine it does change the locker room a little bit if there's a guy who's got a podcast in it.

I'm just saying no, I don't know, but probably.

It would bother me if you go on your podcast every night and doing all that, but you're not performing on the court. That would cause problems.

I also would think it would be dope from a standpoint of just imagine all the inside cool shit that we could tell people that happened on the plane, the locker rooms, the pranks, all that fun.

Oh, I actually had a question about that. Who is the best card player you ever played with?

Card player?

I think the biggest cheating card player is Chris Paul. Somehow that motherfucker was always winning with it.

Anthony Johnson or Jamaine O'Neill. That's twisted out all the time. That's the biggest.

We used to have some heavy card games with that Clipper team. I remember when I got... We had some at the end of the season where I got traded, and I owe probably 60, 70 racks to these motherfuckers. So when I came back, I had cashier's checks for everyone I had best.

How was Blake at cards?

Good, but cheated, too, I think. Okay. I just think we'd be so... We'd have a few and just start going in the music and next thing, cards are being dealt from under the pile and shit's getting moved in. It's like, You motherfuckers. I had my fair share of winning, but I definitely got hit over the head a couple of times.

Yeah, I like the idea of you going to Bank of America and be like, Okay, I need a cashback check. For Chris Paul, late Griffin, Andre Jordan.

They'll get it. And these people are like, What the hell?

Oh, this is serious. I actually need this. Can we do some top five talk real quick? Let's do it. All right. Just give me your top five. Who's your top five right now?

Top five players playing right now? Playing right now.

Current.

Jokich. No order. Jokich, Luka, Shy, Anthony Edwards.

Anthony Edwards is already up there?

Yeah. My top five right now playing. Luka, Jokich, Anthony Edwards, Shy, and I probably would throw Embiid.

Okay. So no Tatum?

No. No Tatum. 6-7. When the Championship, he'll go up. But they've been floating around. Yeah, 6-7. Has anyone ever took a bathroom break during the show?

We'll wrap up soon.

But if you need to, you can. Yeah, I want to spray the place up right quick. Okay. Yeah, you can. While Matt gives you his five.

I'm doing my top five. Yeah, show him where it is. Jack used to pee on himself. Wait, you forgot. Just so you know, Jack, you forgot Yannis. Yeah.

What's it? Yeah, Yannis 6-7 right now.

He was hurt. Okay, all right. He was hurt. He was hurt. But Embiid is always healthy.

Well, he used to pee on himself?

Yeah.

During games?

No, just his early days and early teen days. He'll tell you when he gets back, it's not like I'm disbulging any new news. He just had a problem.

He just pee on himself.

Top five. Yeah, again, no order, and I'm not counting the older guys. I got Jogich, Luca, Giannis, Tatum. Who was that fifth? My fifth is probably- It's like SGA, Embiid. Embiid, SGA. I like Edwards. I think this is his coming out party this year. I think, obviously, he's going to jump in there very soon. I'd say my fifth would probably be... It would be Embiid. He's already got an MVP. Obviously, injuries have played a big role in his career. But yeah, those are probably my top five.

So you do have Tate him in your top five?

I do have Tate him in my top. I think he's very talented. I just think, as Jack said, I think they raise the bar every time he gets good. He's been doing really good for a long time, if you think about it, coming in the Eastern Conference Finals, Ricky here has been to the Eastern Conference Finals, what, four, five times in the six years, been to the finals. I just think this year, I want him to... I want Boston to win for this reason because I think he is overlooked at times, and he is such a great talent, but I think he needs to win to get the respect from everyone else.

Yeah.

Wait, so Jack, they're one of... If you really used to pee in the bed or if I was talking shit. No, I didn't. What happened there? Until he was 19.

19?

Don't take nothing. You were in the league? You were on go-to-script?

It was older than that? 25? K-o-e.

King of exaggeration. Okay.

You'd pee on yourself. You'd pee on the bed.

When I was probably like 11 years old, I used to just pee in I used to go to sleep because I used to do a lot of drugs, too. I used to go home and go to sleep and just fall asleep and wake up, piss everywhere. I didn't even get up. I feel it. I'll be like, Shit, I got to go to the bathroom, fuck.

Remember how Adam Sandler in the Waterboy? How they have to hang his shit in the sheets on the clothes lines? Yeah, he used to piss in the bed.

I have no shame in my game. I'm a G right now. I'm very successful. I used to piss in the bed growing up.

Look, yeah, you're a model citizen to how people can make it if you piss in the bed.

I, too, used to piss in the bed.

You could make the NBA, just piss in the bed.

He You should do a PSA for kids.

A PSA.

It don't matter if you're piss in the bed at a young age, you, too, can piss yourself. Well, this has been awesome, guys.

One last question. Roback question, rowback question, robackkwestion, rhobackk. Com. Promo code take, 20% off for first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback. Com, promo code, take.

I like how you just threw that in there. Yeah, we've been doing it for a long time. You guys are pros. Shout out, Roback. You guys are good, man. I thought that was a question for us.

You guys are good. Yeah, spell it back to me. That's the question. The podcast has been going great. What's a dream guest? What's a dream guest right now?

Michael Jordan for me.

Okay.

He doesn't do interviews like that, though.

I've been blowing his phone up, too.

Does he respond?

He's responded once, and the next 10, I haven't got a response. You keep going? I'm going.

He's definitely changed his phone number.

Might have, but whoever it is after it, I'm pretty sure they know. Mike used to have this number, so hopefully, they can forward it to him. I'm not going to stop texting.

Yeah, MJ But outside of MJ, I'll probably say maybe Obama or The Rock.

Oh, The Rock's a good one. Have you guys had Braun on or no?

No.

Do you think he would?

He said several times he would, but who knows? There's a lot of going on in his life, so obviously, it would be amazing to sit down with him.

Now that he's in the content game, he might understand a little bit more because he's having to reach out to people and ask them.

Or he might want to save his good shit for his own shit. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. He's told me several times. At Draymond Green's wedding, we had a few drinks, and he probably told me three or four he was coming on the show. So we'll see.

Yeah, he would never lie. After a couple of drinks, everyone will go on every show.

Yeah, right.

Whatever you need. You can promise to everybody something by that second drink. I do it all the time. I can't wait to have a drink.

It would be an I wanted to get Bron, though.

Is there a player in the league right now that you would like to see develop a podcast?

Anthony Edwards. Yes. I think he's got the personality. He's an up and coming star. I think he is going to be one of the faces of the league in the next couple of years, so I think he would be dope.

I'd like to see a Jokuj podcast, but just about horse racing. Just strictly horses.

Drinking beer and horse racing?

Drinking beer and horse. I'd subscribe for it.

Yeah, definitely. Well, guys, congrats on all the success. Thank you guys for coming by. Thanks for having us, man. I would love to have you on. I appreciate it.

All you all fans, could you all be our fans now? Yes.

Well, yeah, because you said you'd fight for me. Yeah, I got it. I got you. So that's, yeah, they'll all go subscribe.

Once we're locked up, we're locked in for life, bro.

I might have some people. I might need you to come back to the office. We're doing a survivor. I might need you to just walk around with me for that.

I've had a couple of fights, too. I'll help you guys. All right. Yeah.

Both of you guys can just come and just walk behind me.

It's bodyguards. Yeah, there's a guy named Brandon Walker you're going to pass by. When you guys hit him in the face.

Be careful because it might happen. As long as you got the legal bills. All right. Thank you guys.Thank you guys for having me. Thank you.

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Okay, Firefest of the Week, Hank. I mean, I don't...

He should be exempt. Hank should not do a Firefest this week.

Pass on Hank.

Pass on Hank. Max, you do a Firefest instead. My Firefest is Hank.

Okay. Mine's also Hank. Firefest. Hank had a legitimate one earlier this week.

Yeah, he already did it.

Max, by the way, are you-I have another one. Max, are you going to the Water Dogs tomorrow?

Water Dogs, maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. Saturday, Sunday.

I'll be on the field, rooting on our dogs.

Michael Sauer's homecoming.

That's a fun weekend, Saturday and Sunday.

Michael Sauer's the man. He's going to have 10 goals. I don't know. I think that's a lot in lacrosse over two games. He had 10. I promise the Water Dogs free bar tab if you'd like to match with me or just split with me. They have to go 2-0 this weekend and win a fight.

Okay. If they win two fights, then I'll double.

Okay. All right. Perfect. Love it. So, Max, your Firefest is Hank? Yeah. No. That's your boss, bro. Boston. All of Boston is my firefest. Hank is your boss. I also learned a fun fact about Boston. Do you know that they're not allowed to have Bottomless Mimosa or Happy Hour because they're getting too many bar fights?

That rocks. That would be such a honor to have your city have to pass a law because you guys party too hard.

That's not partying too hard.

Just fighting each other.

Getting drunk in fighting, that's the definition of parting too hard.

Getting into Bottomless Mimosa fights is pretty funny.

Yeah. That's like Zoolander. That's your How much loss you're talking about, Max. Whatever. Okay. Pft. We're skipping you, Hank.

Yeah, Hank doesn't get a fire fist. I actually think he shouldn't get one this week or next week.

Yeah, agreed.

Because he had the 24 hours of a lifetime. Unless something really bad happens to him.

Like that growth on his-I think it was swollen lymph node.

Have you been partying? What if the maps just come back? Oh, my God. Let's talk about it, Max.

Let's talk about it. How good would it be, though, Max? You can't actually think that. No, I don't at all. There's literally zero % share. No, you do because you said it out loud. I know.

Well, I'm just thinking we just gave Hank all his flowers. The next episode doesn't even matter. It does feel like we're writing Hank off the show. Yeah. This is a big happy goodbye for Hank.

But it would be hilarious if the Max came back. You think there's a chance? No, I don't. I'm not watching any more game. I'm not watching a single game the rest of the series. Okay. I'll be watching zero basketball.

I'll text you updates.

Thanks. I'll need them. Okay. Bft, your Firefest.

My Firefest, I guess, tying back to something from last episode, the USA tied Brazil in soccer, which was our first tie against Brazil ever, which doesn't really mean shit because we've also beaten them in the past. But the answer was like, That's our first tie against Brazil. Let's go. That's what losers soccer people are sometimes. But we are loser soccer. We are loser of soccer people. So it was a good thing that we tied Brazil. But this is the nightmare scenario for me and people like me who are Berhalter Out guys, Greg Out guys. I think, are we a Berhalter Out podcast? Sure. I think we are.

The US is what we are in soccer. That's been my stance for the longest time. It's like, if we want to... Didn't you say, PFT, we have to go to the Elite 8 next year, next time?

Yeah, quarterfinals in the World Cup, and we've got a good enough team. The players are good enough to do it. But our coach stinks.

We're not a top-level soccer country. It's just we have other sports that we care about, and I care about those other sports more.

That's a fact. Our coach stinks. Having him get this tie against Brazil is going to... Because we are a loser country in soccer.

What does our coach stink? What does he do that makes us stink?

He doesn't play the best players. That's good. They don't play hard. They don't play hard for him. Usually, we lose to inferior opponents, and we lose by a lot.

But we've always stunk.

But the difference is now all of our players are good. You can't say that our players aren't good anymore because they're starting- But what if our players, what if they're just the same? No, but they're better because they're starting in the EPL. They're starting in La Liga. How many of them? All of them, I think. All of our players? I think all of our starting players are, yeah.

Are starting in the EPL?

No, not in the EPL. I'm talking the big European Leagues. I think all of them are. So they're really good.

What if the rest of the world just got a little worse?

That It might have been why we did COVID.

Yeah. Just knock everybody down a peg. I'm down to be Berhalter out. Berhalter out. I also just don't know. We're not going to win a World Cup, so who cares?

Probably not. We probably won't win one in the near future.

You're sounding like the math is coming back in this.

But what if we did? It would rock. In 2002, we should have made the semifinals. People forget that. It would rock. But this team will be good enough. But the fact that we tied to Brazil in a meaningless game, an exhibition, means that the US Soccer Federation is going to be like, Greg's got the team on the right track. Sounds like he does. And he's not going to be fired.

Sounds like he does. We've never done that before.

We have never tied Brazil. We have beaten them.

Our A-Team versus their A-Team?

Yeah, back in 1998, I think. In a tournament, in a bigger game.

This isn't their tournament?

No, this is friendly, getting ready for the South American tournament. Anyways, my point is that this This was a bad tie because now it's going to keep our shitty coach around because people are going to be like, Good job, Greg. You're coaching for your job, and you got a major win when you tied Brazil. Although I will say we won that tie. It's just like when we beat England zero, zero.

Is his job even in jeopardy?

I think it would have been if we got smoked by Brazil because Columbia-In a friendly? Yeah, because Columbia beat us five to one like two days ago.

You get fired over a friendly?

If the team stinks and then we're going into this big tournament, and then they stink in the tournament, then Greg could have been fired. But now we got too much momentum, and we're probably going to be good in the tournament, and then Greg is going to be around for the World Cup.

I feel like I've heard about this guy getting fired forever now.

He was fired two years ago. They didn't renew his contract, and then he went on a coaching search, and they're like, Greg wasn't so bad.

Yeah, so they're just bluffing.

I don't know. I don't know what's happening, but I do know that it's going to be bad news if he's the coach of the World Cup team. That's the only thing I don't I don't really care about EPL soccer or any European soccer. I do care about international. I like watching the US men's team do well.I do, too.This is bad.

I just know what our ceiling is. I'm the most realistic US men's national team fan of all time.

I think our ceiling is probably the semifinals at the very best in the next World Cup.

Okay. What happens if we get bounced in the group play?

Then Berholtz are out.

Okay. And then the next guy will get us to Well, then we'll rehire Berhalter after like six months. Bounce in the first round. Okay.

I guess if you're going to be shitty, it's actually not bad to have a scapegoat. If we're going to be a bad team, if we end up sucking in the South American tournament and then we suck in the World Cup, I could always be like, Our players are so good. If we just had a good coach, we would have won.

He actually, Berhalter, might be the greatest thing for US men's national team because it gives fans hope that his coaching change will change the entire outcome of the history of soccer in this country when we have years and years and years of history to tell us it won't. But you can tell yourself that Berhalter out will change that. If you do fire Berhalter and then the next guy comes, and we just are the same exact soccer country, you might have to face the fact that we are what we are. Yeah.

Like last season, got a new owner in DC, didn't really have anybody to blame the shittiness on. Right.

You don't want to have that happen. You want to scape scapegoat.

Yeah. So I could see myself being Berhalter in just so that I guarantee myself a scapegoat.

Yeah.

But he's still a shitty coach.

That's my piece. I've said my piece. I'm going to follow your lead, so I'll go Burhalter out for now, as of right now. Okay, my Firefest. I don't know if I should tell this story, but I'll just tell it. Fuck it. I got in a splash battle with a seven-year-old at the water park yesterday. I don't know if that was me being a bad person or not. I would like you guys to tell me if I'm a bad person or not.

Did you win?

So here's what happened. Went to the water park, took my son. I'm on vacation with my family, and then friends, a couple of friends, and then their kid as well. So we went to the water park, having a great time, about to leave the water park, and this seven-year-old comes up to me, and he just starts splashing me in the face. Like, legit eye contact, splash me in the face. And I turned to him and I was like, Can you please stop flashing me in the face. And he kept on splash me in the face. And then I said it a little louder because how it works at these water parks is like, there's parents around watching. So I said, Please stop splash me in the face. Hoping a parent be like, Hey, Johnny, stop, stop splash that man with the sponge Bob body and the big tits in the face. And I would be like, Okay, great. No parent looks up. No parent says anything. Another time, Please stop, splash me in the face. The kid just standing there, splash me in the face three times. So I just went tsunami splash, like one of these.

Just absolutely just smashed him in the face with a splash, and then he left.

I think you had to do that. I think you're in the right- I think so, too. But here's why, not because you were being splash, but because your children were there. And if they see their dad getting bullied by a seven-year-old and losing a splash fight, that's the worst thing that could ever... That's something that they'll be in therapy for for 60 years.

It was one splash and done. I could have stayed there and just kept on splashing the kid if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I just wanted to end the issue because he was almost following me, splash me in the face.

Now your son will get to go to school and say, My dad could splash the fuck out of your dad.

Yeah, because I'm already dealing with the whole the kid in his class, his dad is stronger than me. So I needed to do something to get a little bit of power back. Yeah. Do you think this is fair play?

I think it's totally fair play. Yeah. There's only going to be two splashes if my dad gets a hold of your dad, him splash in the water, your dad's head splash and open on the pavement.

I've been feeling bad about it, but I really- Step in.

You just got to Parents don't step in. You got to do what you got to do. Right.

It was just a quick splash right back in his face, then he was gone. And he didn't even care. He didn't cry or anything. He just literally just left the scene. He was like, All right, I can't pick on this guy anymore because he was picking on me. Legit picking on me. I felt picked on. There was nothing I could do. Also, I've had the revelation just being on vacation in pool environments. You have weird moments as a parent where the light bulb clicks and you're like, God damn it, I sucked so much as a kid for my parents. Trying to get my kids out of the pool, it clicked. I had that moment where I was like, I remember vividly just never refusing to get out of the pool as a kid and how much that must have sucked because it sucks.

Because you know that your parents have clothes on. You're in a pool, you can just be like, no.

I used to do a thing where I would lay down, where I'd lay on my back and pretend that I couldn't hear because my ears were under the water. I would just lay there and Or go underwater and just keep going underwater and then come up for a little breath and go back underwater and just stay in the pool forever. That sucks.

If you're swimming around, you're making the splash noise, you can't hear anything. It's a strong move. I don't think the kids are going to stop doing that anytime soon.

No, they're smart. They're very smart. All right, Jake, you want to finish this off? Yeah. I've been back on a pickleball kick lately, and this happened last year. I was standing in front of the kitchen and I accidentally hit a winner in a lady's face. Oh, that's way worse than me splashing that seven-year-old.

Yeah, I said, Sorry, she was okay, but the guilt afterwards was bad.

We won the point, but we lost a lot more.

So this is the second time you smashed a woman in the face? During a pickleball point. You keep finding yourself getting your balls in women's faces. Well, yeah, the way it works is if you're both at the kitchen, You leave a ball high.

So the woman should be in the kitchen.

Yeah, right. Okay, got it.

But I think Jake's saying she shouldn't be in the kitchen. No, she wasn't in the kitchen. She wasn't in the kitchen. She said she was being a bat.

You were punishing her for not being in the kitchen. No, if she was in the kitchen, she'd be disqualified.

Jake Bucker. Yeah.

Yeah. But any high ball in front of the kitchen, you're putting it away. It just happened to hit her, and I felt bad.

Did you just do the racket in the air or did you go to her?

Yeah. No, I'm just like, sorry. Did she make a noise? Not that I know of. Did she Yelp? No, I just said, Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, are you okay? And she started crying and was like, God damn it.

Jake, did you make a noise when you hit it?

I don't think There's not as much grunting in pickleball.

That's a lie. Jake makes a lot... You lead the podcast. No, I do here and there, but not like tennis.

You grunted in ping-pong.

Yeah.

Okay, different sports. No, that's less than pickleball. Yeah, that's less than pickleball. Not if you're slamming it. Which apparently you do a lot to women. How old was this woman?

She was probably about my age.

Okay. Okay. Are you ever catching yourself playing against elderly people?

Yeah, it happens. But that's what makes pickleball so great is age, gender, it doesn't really matter.

Older people can really be good at this game. Yeah. I read something that was like, pickleball was invented to finally try to get back at boomers who have ruined the entire country to just get them to play this sport and get injured, which I like that theory.

Yeah, but it's a very inclusive game.

It's fun.

Okay. Except if you're across from Jake and then outside the kitchen, then you get smashed in the face.

Is it a one-on-one game?

It's mostly doubles.

Mixed doubles? Or was it you and a guy against two girls?

This game was pick up, so it was just four on, four off.

So it was me and a guy against a guy and a girl.

Okay. And you smashed the girl because she was not in the kitchen?

No. Oh, my God. Memes already did a... He did a facemash of Bucker and Jake March. Oh, my God. That was so quick.

Yeah, that was really quick.

That was crazy. No, but yeah, I respect, appreciate women.

Yes.

Okay. That didn't end up. I mean, anything I said, you guys would have worked your magic. Okay. Should we do numbers? Pft, you're going to have to hit it.

Yeah, I got it. Yeah. Great show, boys. All right. What are the numbers?

20.

56. Eight.

Eighteen. Three. I view you, Hank.

99, post.

It's your birthday. You can have it.

89. 21. No. You want it? 33. You got a tank, what is this? Let's murder him.

Say it again. Sorry. If Hank wins this, can we all agree to murder him? Yes. Okay.

If the thing on his chin doesn't murder him first.

Yeah, I'm a little worried.

Were you on WebMD?

Yeah.

What did they say?

I could have Hodgkins lymphoma. I don't know.

Jesus. Webmd is what got me to the urgent care for my hand, too. Oh, what happened with your hand? It pretty much broken hand. So it's not broken? It's pretty much broken.

All right, here we go.

Make sure you don't look.

Fourteen.

Fourteen.

All right. See you on Monday.

Love you guys.

I'm talking away.

I don't know what to say.

I'll say it anyway. Today's my day to follow you. Shining away.

I'll be coming for your love of days.

Shining away.

I'll be coming for your love of days.

I'm

I'm better to be safe than sorry. You're safe to me. I'm better to be safe than sorry. Come on me. Dream on me. I'll be gone. That I don't know what to do. Hold me. That's what I'm saying. Is it like You might be surprised by the Working Family Payment.

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