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On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have NBA insider Woj Adrian Wojornowski. He was in studio. Awesome interview with him. We talk about his career. We talk about the draft. We talk about who's going to take the Lakers job. We talk about the famous Rico Bosco tweet. We also have our good friend Shane Bacon on to preview the PGA championship, who he thinks is going to win live from Valhalla. Oh yeah, that's happening this week. We're going to talk some basketball. We're going to talk some hockey. The Nuggets. The Knicks dominate tonight. We have a great hot seat, cool throne that goes sideways a million different ways, and then we're going to finish with guys on chicks. It's all brought to you by our friends at draftkings. Sound the trumpets. It's horse racing time. So saddle up for action with DK Horse, an official draft Kings affiliate right now. New customers who download DK Horse app can get a 100% deposit bonus up to $250. Just deposit $25 or more and complete the playthrough requirement wager on your favorite horses. Then watch the races live right in the app.

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Deposit and eligibility restrictions apply. Terms okay, let's go now. In the street there is violence and not a lot of soft work to be done no place to hang out.

Or washing and then I can't blame.

All on the sun oh no we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue and then we'll take it higher oh we.

Gonna wrap down it's pardon my take.

Presented by Marshall Sports.

Welcome to pardon my take presented by the DK Horse app. It's Preakness weekend. New customers get a 100% deposit bonus up to $250 when they opt in with code take only on the DK Horse app. Today is Wednesday, May 15 and pft. I am so happy that I'm alive that I am blessed to be able to do a sports podcast while Nikola Jokic is playing basketball because holy shit, he is the best.

Did he empty the bag tonight? It felt like the clip is gone. He did everything in the paint. I don't know what he finished at, but through three quarters he was seven for seven when he was matched up one on one with Rudy Gobert. Yeah, and he was just dominating. But not, not just, not just the crazy shot making and like all the pivots and the hook shots and the up and unders, he was doing the passing out of the lane. He made Rudy Gobert look foolish tonight. The Timberwolves, actually, they look better at times defensively with Gobert on the bench. And it might go back to what we were talking about before the series started. I think we, we talked about it with, maybe with Kirk Goldsberry, but how sometimes since Rudy Gobert is such a good defender, defensive player of the year, that when he's matched up against a guy like Jokic, they'll have him play one on one, not give a lot of help. And then Jokic feast. Because it's a one like you, it's almost better to guard Jokic with like one and a half slash two average defenders than it is to guard him with one good defender.

Yeah, and listen, Rudy Gobert, defensive player of the year many times, I don't even know how many. He's won like five really good in the regular season. This happens to him pretty much every playoffs. I'm not even going to say that like, yeah, he got cooked tonight, but Jokic was so good everyone on planet Earth would have gotten cooked. But the thing I love about tonight, and obviously this series has been great to watch, you had the Wolves come out 20, take the first two in Denver. Then the Nuggets are like, hey, we're the champs for a reason. And you felt that edge over the weekend and you felt that edge even tonight. But tonight was an extra edge because Jokic got his third MVP trophy before the game and he's going up against the defensive player of the year and he's probably the like outside of. I think Steve Nash was very criticized as an MVP. If you remember like we were like, how can you give him back to back MVP's? But it's been a while since an MVP feels like they've been criticized and poked holes in as much as Jokic has even last year.

Not winning it and Embiid winning it and Yokosure is like, I'm just going to like, you don't think I care? I care a lot. And I'm going to fucking demolish the defensive player of the year and score 40 points and do everything passing the ball and remind everyone that yes, I am the best player in the world and that's a fact. I don't know how anyone like, I understand that you get fatigued with MVP's and SGA had a great year and we're going to talk about him in a minute and other guys have been great. I don't understand how anyone can watch the Denver Nuggets play basketball and jokic play basketball and not be like, that guy is so much better than everyone else at this exact moment because everything he does is just so effortless and makes everyone better and it's fucking awesome to watch.

Yeah, he's the best player in basketball for sure. I think what's watered down the whole MVP discussion which made some people come out of the woodworks with takes on other players that might, you know, be more deserving this year, which I disagree with, Jokic is the best. And if you watch him play, you know he's the best. It's uh, it's the proliferation of MVP chance in. So there's a bunch of probably four four arenas out there have guys that when he's on the foul line, the entire crowd chants MVP. And when you hear everybody chanting MVP to me, I'm like, you know, they make a good point because there's 40,000 or 30,000 people saying a guy's name at the same time. I'm like, yeah, yeah, sga. I agree with Oklahoma City on this one, but if you actually sit down, watch them back to back to back, it's. It's pretty obvious who the best players.

Yeah. And it's. I mean, it's happened time and time again in the NBA where it's like, if you actually went, you know, the best player without any fatigue or anything else, like LeBron probably has a couple more. You know, Jordan has a couple more. Like, these things happen where. Where we just get tired of it and the voters get tired of it, and they're like, oh, he's so good, but he makes so easy. Let's give the new guy an MVP. Jokic is the MVP. He deserves the MVP. He is the best player in the world, and he did it again tonight. And it's. It's honestly, like, I feel the same way I felt when the warriors played basketball, like, at their peak of their powers. It's so much fun to watch him play basketball because it's just his two best passes tonight didn't even end up in baskets. Aaron Gordon missed one and got fouled on the other. Like, he was, he was doing tricks on it. He was fucking, he was toying with them. And even that last three that he hit was like the wettest sounding three of all time. And it's just, I don't know, I'm, like, smiling because I just, I love watching him play basketball.

The behind the back pass or behind the back of his neck pass that he had when he was driving through the lane to Aaron Gordon. That was awesome also. I just love Aaron Gordon. I love Aaron Gordon. I have no other notes on this game besides the fact Jokic dominant. Aaron Gordon, so fun to watch. He works so hard. And it's funny watching because there were times when Rudy was matched up one on one against him and on the offensive end when he got into the paint, he'd have to do, like, three different pivots in a row to get Gobert in a position, like, far enough away where he could even get a layup off against him. He has to work so hard against Rudy Gobert to score, but he hustles. He hustles everywhere. And yet the Nuggets they're fully back. I said, I think maybe we need to have the conversation about the Timberwolves. They look like they're still exhausted from when Tibbs coached them back in 2018. They hit the wall after game after game two. I feel like this is a classic. Tibbs just ran his guys too hard and now they can't.

Now they can't win another playoff game.

Yeah, it's, it's tough. I mean, there's like the learning experience. I also just think that this is why I made the joke at the beginning of the series that when, when kat was like the big three and cat played better tonight, I still, I don't know why he still does, like the, the three point celebration after every shot, like in the first quarter, like we're in a March madness tournament game and they're like a 15 seed. But whatever he's. Cat's going to do. Cat. Anthony Edwards did not have his best night. I actually might do a game of the year Anthony Edwards over points on Thursday night just because I don't. If the Wolves go out, he's going to go out like on like swinging. You know what I mean? And it sucks because he had the game on Sunday night where he was so, so good, but no one else picked him up. And then tonight you had Carl Anthony Towns actually hit some shots. It's like, where was that Sunday night? And they're just. I don't know. It sucks. It sucks to see they didn't have Mike Conley. They're, they're a fun young team, but this is why the OKT is the best and why the Nuggets are the champs.

And it could, you know, we still got two games. I'm not going to write off the Wolves, but it's just more. Tonight was more about Jokic and just flexing on everyone and the Nuggets. The scary part about the Nuggets is Michael Porter junior has not been good. And if he like, finds his shot and gets a little more confidence back, then you, then you're clicking on all cylinders and. Cause when he's going, it's like they're just an absolute terror.

He's been dog shit for the last two games. I was thinking he was going to have a big night tonight and he just didn't. Yeah, we can't revoke dog status, by the way, from Anthony Edwards, I think.

Right. No, that's what I'm saying. He's going to go out. Yeah, he's going to go out barking.

He's a dog. That's what he's going to do. It maybe to nothing, is the most dangerous lead in hockey and the NBA playoffs.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Speaking of dogs, Jalen Brunson, another incredible performance. He scored 28 points in the first half, basically ended the pacers right there in the first half. It was like, it was funny because the first, I don't know, five minutes of the game, pacers got out to a lead and you're like, oh, man, maybe the Knicks are cooked. And then Jalen Brunson's like, what are you talking about? I'm, I'm, I'm a star here. I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, dominate everyone. The big thing, though, for this game, I have two big thoughts. One is Tyrese Halliburton. When he looks bad, he looks like he just doesn't even want to be out there. Like he'll just kind of bounce around and just not be decisive and not attack. And you're just like, what is this guy doing? And the other thing, this was, if we're talking about dogs, this was the full New York Knicks Tom Thibodeaux Nova Knicks dog display because the Knicks tonight started four guys out of their five guys were six four or under, because they change up the lineup and Deuce McBride started and the New York Knicks out rebounded on the offensive glass.

A team that has, I think, three guys over six five in their starting lineup, 20 to 520 to five. Isaiah Hardenstein had twelve offensive rebounds. That's fucking ridiculous. They are just so much more physical and just take the fight to you. And it was good to see the Knicks, like, get off the mat after someday where they got blown out. Like they're just, when, when they're doing, when they're playing that bully ball and Brunson's hitting everything. They're a weird team, but they're fun and they're, they're hard to beat.

Yeah. So how many players were under six.

Four under six four. Is six four or under four out of five of their starters tonight? The Knicks. So Brunson, Juice McBride, Josh Hart and Dante Devon Shenzo are all six four under. Douce, McBride and Brunson. Or six one six 6ft.

So Bronny to the Knicks is what we're hearing.

Pronny to the Knicks.

That's crazy. Speaking of dogs, tonight was also the Westminster Kennel club. It was a dog show tonight. Was that. There's no, there's no chance that that was at MSG in the side theater, right?

No, I think it was at halftime.

That would be very funny.

That would be funny.

They brought him out on the court. They just took a big shit.

I think the Westminster dog show is the only thing in the world that got on COVID schedule never got off. Because why are they doing it right now?

I have no idea. Because it used to be right after the Super bowl.

Right. Weird.

But, yeah, it was.

Yeah.

Big night for dogs.

Yeah. Tennis center.

What?

Billie Jean King Tennis center moved to the tennis courts.

That's disrespectful to the dogs. But I get it during the playoffs, too. It would, it would have been very funny if they had it in the Hulu theater inside MSG while the, while the Knicks were in a playoff game.

Yeah. Do you think they do get the tennis, tennis ball gun out for them?

They should, like, american gladiators fire to have the dogs running obstacle course.

They're there. Why not? Yeah. This game, though, like, the Knicks are just, I don't know where this is going to end for them. I think they're going to win this series, and I think they're very overmatched against Celtics, but you can understand why they've captured the hearts of New York and, like, just from, like, a fun watch. Like, I don't like the Knicks, but I'm watching them and I'm like, these guys are. I don't know what's going on. Like, Al Burks is just hitting all these shots and Jalen Brunson can't miss, and Dante Devon Schenzel is doing put backs and then yelling. And that was actually the moment where it was like the encapsulation of the 20 to five offensive rebounding was Dante Devinchenzo. I think he was to Miles Turner, just being like, fuck you, you bitch. Like, that's the center. That's their center. And he's saying that to him.

So the other, the other thing about the first quarter of this game is there were like seven reviews.

It felt like, yes, God.

Foster kept, they, they just kept reviewing plays. Scott Foster got a screen time in. That's probably the, that's the big market media bias. They're trying to get more eyeballs. Scott Foster going over to the screen, getting another viewer, like five times in a row. I was sure that the fix was in on something at that point. That's just entirely too much. Scott Foster for America.

Yeah.

If he's on a game, the NBA should do a better job of not having him be the guy that, that stares directly into our souls after review and tells us what Scott Foster thinks he.

He did have. After that fight, what was the. What was the phrase he used? He did the review, I think. Double technical. No, it was on. I'm going to play it. Yeah, he was like, there was a fight and it wasn't easily dissolved, and so we're going to review it. I like that. So, like, if they had easily dissolved it, it would have been no problem. We could have just not had to review. But he's like, listen, that didn't dissolve quick enough. What do you want me to do? I got a review. Stop the game.

Fun stat about Jalen Brunson. He is the first player with 540 point games in the playoffs since LeBron did it in 2018.

I saw. I saw the stat. It was basically Jalen Brunson. It was, it was. There was a stat that was 540 point games in an eight game stretch. And it was like, Jalen Brunson, Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Like Jerry west. It was. It was basically like six guys had done it. And, yeah, he's just.

He's just been dominant, and it seems like he. I know there's a lot more to his game than this, but just watching him, he. It seems like he's dominant because he tries harder than everybody else on the court.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's. I mean, it's a very fun watching.

I mean.

Max, are you back into, like, Nova Knicks? Because.

Yeah, so close.

I'm so close. Well, I just need to get. I need. I need to win one. I need them to win one more game, and then I'm fully back.

And then you're going to show. Yeah.

When it's. When it's Nova against Hank. Yeah.

What a joy that will be. But speaking of Hank, huge win tonight for the Bruins. Take the series back to Boston. What were your thoughts?

Now, I get you're being modest, but we want to give you the platform because we want to hear what you have to say. Let's give Boston sports its credit. Hank, go ahead.

Speaker two. I think you're. I think your mic's muted. Hank. I think your mic's muted. This sucks for Hank. I'm going to say it right now. I actually feel bad for Hank. The sleeping allegations lasted. He beat him for, what, three weeks? But Hank is not here.

I put out a video earlier today of him, of him snoring in the studio today before we did the show.

He's going to be so mad at himself tomorrow morning. He's like, God damn it.

His quote was right afterwards. He's like, all you need is a 15 minutes nap. That's all you need. You don't need to sleep any longer than 15 minutes and you wake up and you're totally refreshed and you're good to go the rest of the day.

But you know what?

Hank might be speaking for America here. He might be. This might be Hank's protest to the 10:30 p.m. Eastern start time for the Wolves Nuggets game because that's, I feel bad for, for all the kids, all the youngsters out there who aren't able to stay up and watch their favorite teams on tv. That's too late.

It's so stupid. You have the best player in the world playing and you play them at 1030 at night. Our friend Andrew Perloff McLovin had a great tree. He was like eight, eight PM Eastern and 1030 Eastern for two, like two or three stars, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards and Yokich, that everyone wants to watch. And the NBA wonders why everyone's obsessed about the leak of the Cleveland Browns week five opponent. Like, what are we doing? Why is this? I mean, we're built different. We watch the games, but I don't like, you can't stay up till one in the morning if you're, if you're on the east eastern standard Time. Like, what are we doing of the.

Morning talk show guys out there? Let's take a moment and think about what they have to go through right now. Greenie. Oh, my God, greeny. That game tipped off 2 hours after his bedtime tonight, and he's supposed to get up in the morning and educate us about the finer points of basketball. I actually, I like the 1030 start time just because it makes me feel like a man. Like, yeah, I can do it. It's my adversity and I embrace that. I get through it. But then I also think about the less fortunate people out there who, who are able to stay up that late to watch sports like a good friend, Hank. And so on Hank's behalf. That's why I'm upset.

Hank. Hank will be in the rest of the show. We're going to talk about the Celtics with him. So this is a very brief opening on Zoom, but what do we predict Hank's text tomorrow morning is going to be? Just my bad. I did it again.

I think it's going to be just fuck. I think we're going to get a fuck from Hank.

I think it'll be at like 04:00 a.m.

He's going to like wake up on.

His couch, and he's going to be.

There's so. I wish there was a fly on.

The wall that could just see. The look on his face was like.

Fuck, I did it again.

Because he just had this happen, and now he's going to get. He's. It's going to stick a little bit that he's the sleep guy.

Like, a smart move from Hank would be to say, I'm going to go see a doctor.

No, it's the documentary. Because he's getting up at six.

At, like, six.

To work out. To work out at eight. That's what he told me today.

It's crazy that, like, him just getting in shape is now his job, that golf.

Listen, he's putting in grind to create content for this company. He's. He's burning the candle at both ends right now, so it's kind of unfair of us to expect him to stay up.

Yeah, he's going to reverse this on us. If we're. If we're like, if we give him too much shit, he's like, fine, I won't. I won't do the documentary. I won't try to dunk. Fine. You guys want me to get. You guys want me to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I won't dunk. So.

So later on the show, we asked Hank what he thinks happened already earlier tonight.

Yeah.

And he. I'm not going to give it away, but. But I think he's absolutely correct in his prediction.

Yeah, he nailed it. All right, so. So the Bruins did win. I was actually surprised by that. I thought the Bruins were dead. Now we go game six, and then we might. We alluded to it, actually, in a minute when we talk about we need a period of the week, even though it's early in the week, but that we might just have the last five minutes of the week. That Canucks Oilers game, that I'm going to say the Canucks are no longer a team of destiny. Congratulations, Canucks. You were my team of destiny for one game, actually one in, like, almost like 1.75 of a game, because them scoring to even it up with three minutes left was the biggest team, a destiny thing to do. And then the Oilers scoring with, like, a minute left. It feels like the Oilers can now relax and be like, all right, it's two two. We're better. Let's just fucking win this series. Because they were. That was. They were not. Not going to win in overtime if that went to overtime.

Pivotal game five coming up. I wonder if the stats are the same in hockey, like they are in basketball because I think it's, what, 85% somewhere around there in basketball, the team that wins game five when it's tied two two, they go on to win the series. We have to, as a sports podcast, we have to remind everybody that I think it's legally required. I don't know if that's the same case in hockey.

Should we, should we start the campaign? The game fives are actually better than game sevens.

Dude, I'm five rock. I've always said, like, I don't remember the last time that a team won a game five and then lost the series. Feels like it always happens.

Yeah. Game five's rock, so. All right.

And a home team won finally in the, in the Nuggets Timberwolf series.

Yeah. Would this be swung.

They swung home court advantage back.

I know it's not a gentleman's sweep because a four one is a gentleman's sweep. But it feels like if they win on Thursday night, this would be, this could qualify as a gentleman. Sweet. Because it basically was two just completely separate series that happened.

I think it's like a nice, a nice guy win.

Yeah. It gives the Wolves hope. They gave the Wolves hope.

They gave the wolves more than hope.

Yeah.

I think everybody was talking about the Nuggets like they were dead.

And then I hope this goes seven. I do. I would like to see a game seven in this series. And I do. I think I might do game of the year Anthony Edwards, because I just don't, I don't see a world where he doesn't just go like, he's going to take this personal. He's going to go fucking nuclear. He knows that. He's the guy. He knows that it doesn't matter if Carl Anthony Towns hits a three early on and does the finger guns, it's got to be him.

I'm going to wait to say if I wanted to go seven. I don't think that I do because that would probably mean maybe one more 1030 tip off time.

Mmm. That would. Game seven will be a Sunday or Saturday, so I think we can handle it. I don't think they would do 1030 on a Sunday.

Okay.

But the NBA might be freaky like that. Okay, so back to ourselves in studio. No ad between this in the studio and Hank will be back. Okay, we're back in studio. We're gonna talk about Monday nights games. Hank, do you want to do a quick Celtics recap? The Celtics won and they should easily be in the next round. Just end the series right now.

Yeah, that's. That's good. That's good. We can end it there.

And they struggle. That's good, Max. Truce went five for five.

Mitch was a really good player, so it makes sense that you guys would struggle against him, right?

Dom Mitchell did not play.

Oh, no, but Jared Allen. But you said.

We said we. The Celtics needed a test. They got a test. They won a close. A first ten point game of the playoffs, and they came out on top, which I think is a good sign. Good test for a playoff team. We're on onto the next round.

I have a trouble in paradise, Hank. For the Boston Celtics. Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown. You love them. You think they play well together. When Jalen Brown hit that three, I think they went up 105 to 97, about a minute left in the game. You remember that three?

Of course.

Okay. After that three was hit, Tatum comes over, smacks Jalen Brown in the chest as if to say congratulations. Hits him so hard that Jalen Brown turns around, looks at him, starts yelling at him. Oh, and then they had to hold Jalen Brown back because he was mad that Tatum made him too hard.

This sounds like your father.

This sounds like. This watch. Like fiction, this watch. By the way, Max shoes finished five for nine, but he was five for five for a while.

You want me to pull the video up, Hank?

Yeah.

Okay. Let me find this video. And you need to take a look at it, because I'll find my own video. Okay, find your own video, then.

Find the video, Hank.

Sounds like you weren't watching the game that closely. Because it's the first thing I noticed.

Oh, so we have a quote after Jalen Brown said it. Yeah, I'm gonna get Jason back for that. Yeah.

And then Jason Taylor yelling at him.

He was yelling at someone else on the court.

No, no, he went. He went and they tried to storm on the court, and that was like, a playful ones.

Like when. Today when I, like, touched your finger and you said, I broke your thumb, and you're never gonna be able to play guitar again.

Look at this. Look at this blood.

Let me see.

I'm bleeding.

Oh, you can see the tendency or that. Yeah, we gotta blur that.

Hey, big, how many beers?

Uh, zero.

Yeah, you could fuck my thumb right now.

It's tight, cuz it's so tiny.

Ah, whoa, Hank, are you talking about.

You want the tight, tiny, tiny.

Don't talk about my cash that way.

We just did. How many beers you said? Yeah. You like it, cuz it's tight and all right.

No drink effort. Say no. Drake.

Before, you know, Drake.

Yeah. No, Jason Tatum. Oh, here's an interesting part of this. So it looked like it was fun. All fun and games. But Jason Tatum did say, I didn't realize how hard I hit him. I've been lifting a lot lately.

It's good. He's getting stronger.

Kind of fucks up your shot, though.

He's playing aggressive. He's, he's good, aggressive basketball.

He has been more aggressive. This series just needs to end.

I mean, the east, it's, again, it's like the east really is such, it's crazy that we're going to get to a spot. It, you know, reminds me, it reminds me of the Patriots, where it's like, you're not going to get tested till the championship.

Yeah, you find out, you to find out, buddy.

And we just need the fucking, hopefully the Timberwolves one tonight.

Hank is right now very clearly in the fucking around part of the graph.

Yeah.

And the finding out is gonna come against the way.

Well, there's nothing. What are you supposed to do?

No, you, there's nothing you can do is fuck around.

They, what we're doing.

Yeah, they play boring games against really, like, inferior opponents. And that's not saying the cells aren't really good, because they are. It's just everyone else is just not even close to them.

Yeah. Just pouring us healthy. Get some good reps in. I think we can still, like, I feel good. I feel good.

You feel good.

Should feel good. Like, we're poking holes in the Celtics left and right.

They're going to be in the fire.

They're a very, very good team. We'll find out if they're great.

Just, we need the Timberwolves.

Need the Timberwolves. Well, we already talked about that game.

And I don't, I feel like it was bad. Oh, I don't feel good. I don't feel good about what we.

Talked about what happened earlier tonight.

Nothing good.

Nothing good.

Nothing good.

Damn. The west, though. Everyone is just beating up each other. The thunder, I want to say, have officially earned their big boy playoff stripes because what they did on Monday night when they could not shoot at all, they were like, I think like 25% from three played great defense and SGA took over that game. He's so fucking good. He's just like, so deliberate and is that back, that over the backboard shot he hit was incredible. Took over the game. The second half had 22 points and it was the, that was like a win that the Thunder needed to get where it's like we don't have our best stuff, but we'll figure out a way to win this game. That's a tough playoff win. And the Mavs defense was awesome, and the Thunder win, and I'm like, they got their big boy stripes.

Yeah, it was like, it was a nice comeback when they seemed to be down between seven and nine points for almost the entire game, and then they turned it on at the end. The Mavericks couldn't hit a foul shot at all.

They went twelve for 23 from the free throw line. The thunder went 23 for 24.

Yeah, that's the. That's the game right there. And then Luca missed that big one. Some people are saying there's a ball, don't lie situation. I think he did get fouled.

I I did. I saw this. I think he's. NFL reporter Greg Rosenthal tweeted, the officials should be allowed to talk shit back to Luca when he misses a big free throw. I agree.

Agreed.

Any foul merchant should get, like, the official should get a quick 10 seconds, like, yeah, you fucking missed that.

Yeah. If you were Lucas teammate, would you get sick of him just screaming at the refs the entire time?

I don't know about the refs. I think I would probably get. And I I like Luca when he's. He's clearly injured. Let's just say that he's clearly injured. Everyone's dealing with something this time of year. I would say the thing that would make me more mad as a teammate is when there's, like, a fast break and all of a sudden, Luca has the most painful injury ever.

Yeah. Or he's, like, having a close conversation with the referee.

Yeah. Or things go poorly and it's like, oh, shit, now he's really injured.

Yeah, he does look like he. He's not pushing off his right leg as much.

Yeah. No, he's not. You can tell. Yeah. The lift is not there, and his shot doesn't look as good. And it looks like it's just. Everything's a little bit more difficult for him. But this, this game was SGA. SgA took this game over, and the Thunder won a game that they probably didn't have business winning with the way they were shooting three. And again, big boy stripes. And I like it. I know people were say it was corny. I like that the Thunder do the postgame interview as a full team.

Yeah.

I like it.

It is good.

They're young, fun and.

Chet. Whoa, chet. What?

No, Hank, you were trying to get me back when he said that he wanted a tight, tiny pussy.

Yeah.

And that's not. That's not what I close. Young and fun is not the same same. It's saying you wanted a tight, tiny pussy.

Young and. Young and fun could still be loose.

Yeah. Nice try, Hank. You put yourself in one.

Chet is tough, though.

No, I didn't.

He also. He's got swag. Do you see his postgame?

Well, he's got, like, Abraham Lincoln swag.

Yeah.

He looks a little bit, like, on.

A stage, but he had the sunglasses on. He had, like, a pink Miami vice shirt.

Yeah.

I don't know if he's. I think he's kind of forcing it, but I'm okay with him forcing it, because he's just trying to find his way in the fashion game of the NBA.

Also, when you're that big and tall, I feel like that limits your fashion choices.

Yes.

You can't buy normal clothes.

I'd agree. Shout out my guy, Lou Dort, for hitting that big three. That was SGA assist. I mean, sga, like, you can't say enough. That was a game where it's like, I'm the best player on the court. Here's why.

Yeah. Lou Dort on defense is so fun to watch, too. Even when he blocks your shot, it looks like he hurts you.

Also, we should probably say Kyrie Irving probably needs to score more.

Yeah. Well, he's been good in the second half this playoff series. Nine points. That was not his game. No, he was way off.

And they need him to be that guy because their defense is real. Like, the Mavs have been playing great defense. And if Luca is hampered, Kyrie, you need to pick it up.

Yeah, I was thinking about the series. Do you think there are fans up in Oklahoma City that, quote, grew up Dallas Mavericks fans, and they have to act now like that never happened to them in the series?

Mmm.

I think. No, I think they were just sooner.

Fans or they were just. They were like, seattle fans. They didn't know it yet.

Yeah. Also, it works because it is sooner verse a little. There's probably some crossover sooner versus Texas.

It's a Red river rivalry in basketball form. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. No, I think. I think Oklahoma fans before that were just sooner fans and possibly Cowboys fans.

Yeah. Cowboys fans.

They didn't dip into the other stuff.

Yeah. I do know that there are a lot of people from north Texas that are close to, like, the panhandle area that are big time sooner fans.

Yeah.

Like, it's not just right along state lines.

Yeah. Okay. So hockey, real quick, the stars look like maybe the best team in the playoffs. Especially cause the Rangers lost.

Yeah. It was a clobbering memes.

Starting to feel good. Yeah. 3232 gonna be a sweep and now the Rangers still gonna win, are they?

Yeah. They're the best team.

Oh, I see what he's doing.

Yeah, the old reverse jinx. They got the best goalie.

They're going back to Carolina. They play good at Carolina.

Carolina goalie stinks.

I'm mad at myself about the stars. Cause Ryan Whitney did tell me they were the best team before the playoffs. Yeah.

Yeah, they were. They're pretty adamant about that. But they did say, this is gonna go seven. Could go seven.

Who?

Dallas, Colorado.

The avalanche said that?

No, the chiclets.

Oh, I don't think so.

You know, you think there was a.

Moment in that game in the second period where it was 18 to three in shots. The avalanche just weren't able to get pucks on net at all. And listen, if we know one thing about hockey, especially playoff hockey.

Gotta shoot the puck.

It's pucks on net.

You gotta shoot the puck. Good things happen when you put the puck on that.

Pucks on net mean everything.

I still think that one of the.

Maybe.

Maybe ahead of hitting a curveball. The hardest thing to do, at least to my untrained eye, is what hockey players seem to do all the time. Which is just deflect a shot off the end of their stick. A shot that's coming in super fast.

Yep.

And they just casually redirect into the court of the net.

It's the coolest thing.

It's so cool.

Dirty goals. You need those dirty goals in the muck.

Screen out the goalie.

Yep.

Put a puck on that. There was a knuckle puck shot the other. That was in the Bruins game. Right.

I feel like that's more the. You just put your stick up and then the shooter shoots it at your stick.

You think it's more on the shoot?

No, but there are.

I've seen sometimes where it's like they're directly shooting at, like there's, you know, know where the stick is going to be and they're shooting for that. But the coolest sometimes when they turn the.

Yeah. The coolest ones are when a guy will like, almost hit down on the puck as it's in the air.

Yeah.

And it will just change the complete trajectory. Those might be the coolest goals.

Yeah. The goalie has no chance at it.

Yeah. We still need a period of the week. This week wasn't great. What wasn't great? Two hockey games on Monday night.

Not a great, not a great couple nights for periods.

Yeah. All right, so we'll find a period of the week. Should we do some hot seat cool throwing, then? We got two great interviews. Sure. Woj and Shane Bacon getting us ready for Valhalla, the PGA championship hot sea cool throne brought to you by our friends at Coors Light. I could let bad sports news ruin my day. Or choose a chiller mindset and then reach for a Coors light. I choose chill. When you embrace a chill mindset, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors light. Coors light is mountain cold refreshment crisp and refreshing. As the Colorado rockies, we love Coors light. It is the coldest beer out there. When you get worked up, choose chill and then reach for a Coors light. Get Coors light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to Coors light.com take celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, Coors light.com take it is the most delicious beer out there. It's about to be summer. It's about to be Coors light season. It's always Coors light season. But there's something about grabbing that blue mountain out of the cooler on a hot summer day.

Oh, my God. I'm picturing it right now, and I just want to be there.

You know what I absolutely love is just pictures of people's coolers.

Yeah.

I can't get enough of them. Yeah, I took, like, when we had people over for the derby party, took a bunch of pictures just of my cooler. Not even a post anywhere, just so I could look at it. And cooler picks the blue Mountains on top of an ice cold cooler. So good.

Yeah. By the way, speaking of hot seat, cool throne, can we get the AC back on in here? Jake, you did that.

What?

Say. Said that you. You turned it off.

I haven't been here in a week.

I know. I think you turned it off a week ago.

Has it been this hot all week?

Yeah, it's been really hot.

I mean, it was freezing and I.

See, see, see?

But it was. It was either way.

Admit to.

Oh, he did. He a hundred percent admitted to it.

When it was freezing. I pressed up.

Yeah. How many times up on that?

Don't remember.

Would you rather be hot or cold?

I think too colds better than too hot, cuz. Too cold. You can layer up.

I'd rather be hot all day.

Yeah, if you're too hot, you're screwed.

Yeah, my hair was just crazy there. Jake, you're not allowed to touch that.

Okay.

I'm just saying. Sorry, cuz, like, we can't do the guy who might have the most sensitivity towards temperature just doing that.

It was freezing in here.

It was not.

It was pretty cold.

It was cold, but it's way better than what it is now.

The same in there as it is in here. Is that even.

It's fucking hot as fuck in here.

But I don't even know that that's related.

No, no, he touched this one.

I know. That's what I'm saying. But he said it was because it was cold in there.

Oh, good point.

No, he.

He was.

We were watching something in here. Oh, it was when we were doing the. We were watching Netflix, I think.

Oh. And it was.

And it was cold, and you were.

Like, oh, Jake, you got to figure out how to turn that back cold.

You. It might kill Mister Pear.

We're getting. We're getting.

Mister Pear prefers it hot.

It's a hot. It's a hot box in here. Yeah, it's a hot box.

Does Mister Pear preferred hot? Is that fact.

Yes.

Is it hot in the studio right now?

Yeah, it's hot.

Why do you have your sweatshirt hood up?

I don't know. Wait. Thought about it.

Did we. Did we change the temperature in the studio to, like, 85 degrees for our turtle?

No.

No, I think. I think it was because we already found the culprit. He denied it and then.

So. Yeah.

Yeah, it's hot.

So fucking hot.

And I. Jake, I need to be able to wear a sweatshirt. I'm fat. That's really what it comes down to. Yeah, but you need. I need to be able to layer up. That's why I, like, lie twice. Jake, you don't lie twice. Hank's spicy. I like it like a spicy. Fresh off a nap looking for a tight, tiny pussy.

My hot seat is brawny James.

Yeah.

I never thought I'd say this because I. I hate his dad so much, but I feel bad for him. Like, I.

He's.

He's in a terrible spot. He's in a terrible spot. He is at the combine this week. People are debating whether he should even be at the combine. You know, in every roster, media report, whatever he's said. He's six four. He measured in at six. One does have a big wingspan. He's like. Has like, a six eight person's wingspan and a 41 inch vertical, which is high. I'll be up there soon.

Wait, did he say he was six four, or was it his dad?

It was listed like he's like the music. He was listed in all the media guides as six four, but that one's easy.

You just say they measured him in shoes.

Yeah.

LeBron is trying to fix it now. Memes is definitely not going to fix it.

LeBron definitely told the media. Yeah, six four.

Yeah. Right.

And then, and he played in a scrimmage. He had four points for rebounds, but the four points are getting blasted out, like, by every single media outlet. Being like, Bronny James at the combine, and he just hit a floater and, like, a shot. And then you look up the stats being like, oh, is he? You know, the floater was nice. He had a nice floater. But then if you look up his stats, it's like the same as what he was doing at USC. And it's like, he's going to get draft. It's just a tough spot. He's in a tough spot. I feel bad.

I agree with you. I never thought I'd get here, but I do agree with you because it's just a simple question. Would brawny James be at the combine and be drafted if his name wasn't Bronny James? The answer is no.

No, probably not.

Absolutely not.

Probably not. Yeah.

So it sucks. And he knows that deep down, and it's, like, not his fault. He wants to just play ball.

There's a. I mean, there is a chance that team would draft him, though, just to be like, come on, LeBron, they will.

He's going to.

I think we're talking about it with woes.

Yeah, I bet. I bet against it. And that's probably why I've been tracking so closely, because when I first saw it, I was like, I think it was over under 32 and a half, and I thought it was the lock of the year. And now I feel like it's. I feel like he's going to get drafted.

Yeah. No.

Possibly even high.

Wait, he could get drafted anywhere in the second round. You'd lose that bet.

Okay, what, what numbers?

You said 32 and a half.

Yeah.

Did you, did you know there's two rounds?

Did you know there's 30 NBA teams not.

And there's two rounds? Right.

But basically saying, like, oh, you think.

He'S gonna be a first rounder or base?

No, I think he's going to be a. Like I said, I thought second round or worse.

Got it. Got it.

That's what I bet on.

Yeah. I think that's still a safe bet.

I'm the after I bet it, obviously, I've looked into it more and I know, the days go by, the worse I feel.

That's right.

I also don't know what to believe.

I think he's still going to go in that thirties forties range, so I think that's still a good bet.

And then my cool throne, Jared Goff.

Yeah.

Congrats, Jared. Way to go, buddy.

When. When do we.

Oh, what?

His fiance.

Fiance.

When do we ask those three? When do we ask for our money?

That's a good question.

How much does he owe us?

Something probably like ten. I don't know what the agreement was.

But if it was, should I do it now?

10% probably. If ten mil.

Ten phrases, 10% or Super bowl suite.

Can you. Oh, bar, you just venmo request them for like $2 million.

Okay.

Does just see what happens.

Yeah. Is that possible?

Probably not.

No.

He got no apple cash. Apple cash.

He got a bunch of money guaranteed, too.

Yeah.

It's a good contract for him.

Request how?

I feel like one of the best NFL contracts I've ever seen.

It's. It's good.

Yeah.

You have to pay your quarterback. And the. The Lions had a choice to make, probably a choice to make last year before last season. Do you want to draft somebody or do you want to try to just see what. What Jared's got? They rolled Jared and he made him very happy.

Shit. They don't let you do. They don't lead you more than ten grand.

Write in the comments, like, expect x x 100.

100 more of these.

Okay. Yeah.

Just do, do. Parentheses one slash a hundred.

All right. I'm doing all right. Apple, very important thread requests. All right. So I sent him the requests.

If you send him one of those every day, like, put a calendar reminder, he's probably going to accept one.

I think he might accept this first one just for. Just.

Okay, there we go. I did $10,000 request and then parentheses first payment.

Yep. Good for him, though. Good for him. When the trade happened, everybody was saying, like, they're going to use Jared Goff as a bridge quarterback.

Yeah.

Now he's. He's not a bridge.

No. It's awesome. I'm so happy for him.

Yeah, it's.

It did. It felt like there was. Yeah. When he got traded for the rams, like, oh, his career's over, and now he's. He's proven everyone wrong.

Second career.

Yeah. Love it.

Love it.

What were you saying about his fiance?

Well, I was joking. I was saying my. My cool throne is Jared Goff. Cause his fiance is a sports illustrated model again and then was going to mention the extension. Oh, little bait and switch.

Reverse way.

Well, no, you guys kind of. No, you guys cut me off. I wasn't able to use it.

Jared Goff first.

I said Jared Goff. Oh, I was gonna say because.

Got it.

My Beyonce just got announced as.

But I cut. I cut you off because I want to know how much money we should get. Right.

Yeah, it was.

It was fair. Yeah.

But congrats, x two.

Yeah.

What a guy.

Yes.

My hot seat is portals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Portals on the hot seat. So there's a portal that was opened up a week ago, and it's a portal that. One end of it is in New York City, I believe, Times Square. The other is in Dublin, Ireland. And they had to shut it down earlier today. So they closed the portal down. They're trying to fix it. Why was the portal closed down, you might ask? Good question. It's a giant screen where you could step in front of it, and then you see a video of. If you're in New York, you see Dublin, Ireland. You get to wave to people, say whatever you want to them. Well, some of the videos that have gone viral recently have visitors that are lining up pretending to snort cocaine. They're throwing up the birds to middle fingers. It says, miming. Snorting cocaine.

Okay.

So I don't know.

Yeah.

Like, you're in New York City or Dublin or Dublin, and you're pretending to snort cocaine.

Got it.

Some people have just flashed their boobs. One visitor in Dublin pulled up an image of 911.

Oh.

That showed the twin towers burning and held it up to the portal camera. And people from New York took offense to that, so they're switching it off temporarily until they figure out a technical solution to the inappropriate behavior. They tried to re upload the software to have blurring on it, where if they saw boobs, they could blur it. I don't know. I don't know how that works. Now you have some guy that's, like, monitoring the portal 24/7 hitting the blur button, but that wasn't satisfactory, so they close it down on Tuesday, and they're hoping to resume the live stream later on the weekend. What they did was they essentially created Twitter in video format.

Yeah.

Just like, absolutely no repercussions. Whatever. If you get two random people on earth and be like, here, hang out with this person on the other side of the world, you're gonna get people that are being dickheads about it.

I love this story so much because it was some tech nerds that spent years and years coming up with this technology. And they just forgot the simple fact that people suck.

People are assholes.

Yeah. Like, they. They did everything right, then they just didn't have one regular person sitting in the room being like, hey, is there any chance someone puts up, like, a picture of the twin towers?

Yeah.

And, like, no one even said that. And, like, hey, is there any chance someone, like, you know, flashes them, moons them, like, does something really crass? Nah. This is gonna be. Everyone's gonna love this because you get to connect across, you know, the world.

It's cross culture, relationship building.

Yeah.

Countries. How great is that? Technology has reached such a. Outstanding place where now you can make friends with somebody halfway around the world, and then you get in front of the camera and you just do a lot of cocaine in front of it. I'm so fucking lit.

This is. Dudes rock. We dudes continue to rock. Yeah.

So that's another good point, is what percentage of these activities do you think were done by dudes? I would say about 100% of them.

I saw a girl flashing.

Okay, okay. That's kind of a dude thing, though. Yeah, that's like a cool dude girl.

If it was a girl on the other end of the portal, she wouldn't just, like, flash a chick, probably.

Yeah.

Like your dudes.

Yeah, I think it was, like, old woman. Oh, old woman. Oh, really?

Open it back up. Yeah, open up that portal.

Did you guys see the guy jerking off with the gas in his ass?

Yeah. Really makes you think.

Yeah, I'm going. See, the thing is, I'm gonna watch this video and be like, I wonder what this video is off. And it's gonna be a guy jacking off with gas in the.

No, he's just getting.

Find it for us.

You never. You never, by the way, giving yourself a little old juice.

Yeah, speaking of the portal, Jake, what do you mean?

Yeah, describe it.

Getting himself going, topping himself. That's not him. Jake, what did you think about Grant Hill's use of play where Derek Lively and Chet Holmgren both fell down at the same time?

I didn't see it.

This is the guy. Oh, yeah.

I mean, who out there hasn't done it?

But the worst is he gets and he's like. He's got a hog, too.

Yeah, it's not bad. That's soft.

I like.

He's shooting, he's injecting gasoline and cranking the hog.

Yeah. What?

Okay, I need to know what college football team hacker is that he's wearing.

Looks like Tennessee.

It looks like Tennessee orange to me.

Yeah. I like to believe that, like, the person behind the camera maybe yelled like, hey, you got to pay inside first. Oh, wait, like that.

That. What language is that? Italian.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

These guys are perverted.

Yeah. Big time pervert.

Oh, I just saw.

Yeah. So grant Hill, when Derek lively and. And Chet Holmgren both fell down last night, he said the two towers falling down.

I heard that. Yeah, I heard that. I chose.

People were getting mad, like, who cares? I mean. Yeah, it's like he used the words wrong. Whatever.

Yeah. Is that how you pump gas in Italy?

Yeah, I think that's actually exactly how you get it started.

Yeah.

Yeah. You gotta prime it in your asshole.

Cranking off.

That's a good video, though. You got it.

No, it's a great video.

That's one of those ones that, like, there's sometimes we share videos with each other where I'm like, I wish you hadn't shared that.

Yeah, that's.

That's one you needed to see.

I'm glad that I saw. That's probably Max's relative from somewhere way down the line.

Oh, yeah, that's definitely a delente.

Yeah, Delente.

All over him. All right, my hot seats is. Wait. Fuck. I had it and then I lost it in my head. I'll go to my cool throne. I'll come back to my hot seat because I had one in my head and I've lost it. My cool throne is college basketball because Doug Gottlieb got a job.

Yeah, I saw that. Good for him.

Yeah.

Very happy.

Uw. Green Bay coach.

Is he going to be doing media while he does that?

Yeah, he's doing his radio show. He's multitasking.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

I didn't realize, like, unprecedented.

That is pretty crazy. Okay, good for Doug Gottlieb. Oh, I had a cool goes. Got a new team.

Yeah. Cool throw. And you can use this for your hot seat. In some way, shape, or form. Your hot seat should be Aaron Rodgers.

Oh, yeah. That was what my hot.

Cuz my cool throne is the NFL schedule.

Yes. Yeah, that was what my aunt. See.

So today, Wednesday, the schedule release is coming, but right now we've got some. What?

No good. Know you're about to say it.

We've got a couple games that have been announced already, but the full schedule is being released on Wednesday. Hank is spicy, right?

No, that was. I was agreeing with you. That was like, I hate how they.

You don't.

Just like. It's like, agreed. You see stuff getting released today, it's like, oh, the schedules got released. No, that's tomorrow.

Just tickle us.

Yeah. Yeah, I was agreeing. That was a, that was like a, I was like echoing.

Gotcha. So they've, they've dropped a couple nuggets on us already. They've got a Ravens Chiefs opening up the season. I'm going to watch that game.

I like that.

That's a good matchup. We've got Eagles, packers and Brazil. Obviously, we've got the jets and the 49 ers playing Monday Night Football in the opener.

Wait, Monday Night Football in the opener?

In the opener?

Did, who played Monday night Football in the opener last year?

That's the jets and the Bills played last year, so.

And that didn't go well?

Well, they won.

No, they won well.

Yeah, the pre game went well. Yeah.

Just fans were very happy afterwards because they beat the Bills. Remember that?

Yeah memes yeah.

Are they gonna have Aaron Rodgers come back out with a american flag again? Somebody at the NFL office is a sick fucking. So not only is it Aaron Rodgers on Monday Night Football, but it's also Floyd, the guy that was sacking Rogers, Leonard Floyd, is now on the 49 ers here for life. So it's going to be a matchup of Floyd against Rogers Achilles again.

Memes how are you feeling? Bad. If Aaron Rodgers gets another season ending injury, I'm going to strap a bomb.

To my chest and go to the blow up.

All right.

So I'm not just for the first game, just for the first game, season ending injury.

Memes you're making me, you're making me root for an Aaron Rodgers injury so badly. Well, I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to. I don't want to. But since you just said that, yeah.

I'm, I'm not, I'd be a hero in New York memes I'm not rooting for an Aaron Rodgers injury because I saw it this morning and I, I tweeted out Aaron Rodgers other achilles has, like, can do the funniest thing possible. Jets fans are being pussies about that. I'm not hoping he gets hurt. It would be, it'd be funny. Like, it wouldn't. I don't want it to happen.

But kind of sounds like you kind of know.

I, if it happened, that would be crazy.

That was the correct joke.

People are just taking their anger out.

From the NFL onto, you.

Got it.

Which they should be taking out on the NFL.

I gotta remind jets fans, like, do you think, like, I go online every day and just get abuse about the quarterbacks that I root for? Yeah, every single day, I'm like, those. The. Remember the story about, like, the Facebook quality control people who had legit PTSD from all the horrific things they saw? That's me in my mentions with bears quarterbacks. So I make one little joke. Don't be a baby about it. I don't want him to get hurt. We.

Yeah.

I do like Aaron Rodgers on the Jets.

I do not want Aaron Rodgers to get hurt. But if it did happen, then we'd have to just be like, what the fuck is going on? This is. This is insane.

I might have to. I'd have to delete that tweet if you got hurt.

No, you have to let stand, actually.

Yeah. Because memes would. Memes.

Yeah.

Bomb would definitely take. Take precedent. Yeah.

That'd be a big time. They already know.

Yeah.

Also second.

I mean, I. After that, I don't know how you can not root for it.

I think Memes is gonna get arrested, if that's what's gonna happen. There's gonna.

He's gonna be dead.

No, but right after. Right after he hypothetically tears his other achilles, there's gonna be the FBI at memes door, taking him into custody. They're gonna kick his door down.

Yeah.

And then they're gonna shoot mister pair who's coming at us. He's trying to attack us.

Memes. At least it's not happening. At least not at Metlife on that bad turf.

Yeah, that's true.

I wish they would have made it Sunday night football. Yeah. Why?

Just gets a different night of the week.

Yeah.

Yeah. Just change the vibe up.

I mean, memes is right. He's. Aaron Rodgers is one for one, tearing his achilles on Monday night football. His last one.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true. In a Jets uniform.

His only weakness.

Yeah.

Just like the real achilles.

I hope he doesn't get hurt. I want it on the record. Stop being pussy, jets fans.

So there's another matchup that another fan base is pissed off about. The second Thursday night game is Dolphins bills, but it's in Miami. And Dolphins fans are pissed off because it's a night game, and the Dolphins are like, our 12th man. Is the sun taking away our game against? We were gonna have a home game against Josh Allen, where it was gonna be too hot for him, and now they're not letting the sun come out. And so this is the NFL hating the Dolphins again.

Wow.

That, to me, is loser talk.

That's the biggest reach of all time. Also, night games are the best.

Big time loser talk.

Yeah.

You want night games.

You want.

You want, like, your crowd to be pumped up a little bit drunk. A lot bit drunk. And to be, like, the big home field advantage. They're counting on the sun to show up.

Yeah.

Even just as fans. Like, if you're going to the game, I would imagine if you live in Miami.

Are we going to go to Bears patriots? Yeah, if the leaks are correct, it's week four, Thursday night.

Hell, yeah.

Yeah.

Hell, yeah.

I went through the schedule because I saw the record.

We could record after.

Yeah. I mean, it's.

We could actually record from. Maybe I'll get Vanny Woodhead fixed back up. That would be sick.

Tattoo. Bet.

Where is vanity? What?

Get it fixed up. That thing is never getting here.

I heard it might be getting here soon.

Oh, really?

I heard. I heard a rumor that somebody contacted someone in this office to ask for assistance getting any woodhead, which is pretty much somebody in New York calling our office and be like, can you do this for me? I'm not going to name any names as to who that might.

That person sounds super reliable.

I name.

I might be partially to blame, because I do think I walked up to the. Somebody in this office and just walked by. I was like, hey, we should get Benny Woodhead here.

Yeah.

And then maybe she, because she's very good at her job, might have followed up.

Okay.

And.

And offered assistance.

Offered assistance.

Okay. All right.

So it might be. But, yeah. Well, it'd be great if it just showed up.

It would be great.

The perfect tailgate.

Yeah. Right. That's what I'm saying. Okay. My. So my. My cool throne was Doug Gottlieb. My hot seat is Eric Adams, New York mayor. Our former mayor. Did you guys see this clip?

It's not gonna be as funny as when he went through that room showing, like, here's. Look. It's an eight ball of cocaine. Look behind this pillow. Oh, it's a gun.

It's not as funny. That was the funniest clip. It's more like. What did he just say? He was essentially saying that we have to find a way to have illegal immigrants get jobs in New York and in America. And he said they're excellent swimmers. Why can't we have a lifeguard shortage?

Okay, did he really say that? Eric Adams fucking mania.

Off the clip, he said that? He's fucking crazy. The woman next to him was, like, kind of did, like a. Wait, wait. What? What did you just say?

Yeah, they're excellent swimmers.

They're excellent swimmers. And we have a lifeguard shortage. Let's see, here's a clip. Jobs that we are in high demand. We could expedite. How do we have a large body of people that are in our city and country that are excellent swimmers and at the same time, we need lifeguards?

That's like a wind horse.

That's crazy. I just figured out the whole illegal immigrants situation. That is wild lifeguards.

Wild maniac.

How do you even know there's a lifeguard shortage? Where, like.

Yeah.

Of all the things that you're dealing with as the mayor of New York in wide. I can't imagine.

Yeah.

Lifeguard shortages is anywhere on any list.

Yeah. What, even, like, the East river. Yeah. Like, we're not talking about Long island.

He's the mayor of New York City.

Correct.

There's, uh. There's one beach in Staten island.

There was one.

And there's probably nobody that wants to work there.

Yeah. There was one little, like, rocky beach where I used to live in Brooklyn on the East river. Didn't need a lifeguard. There's no one went in the water.

There's Coney island.

Yup. Okay, that's. Oh, yeah, that's fair. Coney Island. Coney.

We got a higher pay for Coney island.

We forgot about.

You gotta watch out for the Coney island box jellyfish, which are just filled diapers that floating out in the water.

50 lifeguards got to get you over the hump for the shortage.

Yeah.

It's like, how many?

Good start.

How many. How many could you really need?

There's that other island.

George's.

No.

Governor's island.

No, no, there's another. No, it's not in. It's Alice. Okay, we're just teaming islands, boys. We got it.

Hey, that's the first island that came to your mind.

Show.

With a lot of islands out there, buddy.

There. You have a bad show. Oh, I guess. I guess. Is Block island part of New York City?

No, that's like Rhode Island. Rhode island.

No. What's the one where fire. The gay people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fire island. Fire island. I think that's Long island.

That's long.

Yeah, yeah. It's looking like it's. Might be. It might be part of.

Also, there's pools in Central park.

So they actually did build a pool, and dumbo, too, in the East river, which is real, like, kind of fucked up. They built a pool inside the water. Yeah.

It's one of the ones that has the. The divider in between.

Yeah.

You're in the, in the east river, but not in East river water.

Rockaway beach is what I was looking for.

Okay.

Yep, there it is. Yep.

In Queens.

That little fucking thing that comes out. Yeah. And they got Coney island. Yeah. Manhattan beach. Okay. So there's a couple.

They're excellent swimmers.

Excellent swimmers. I was a little. We got a little New York geography for. Yeah. All right, Jake, by the way, Jake, great job on the call.

Thank you.

You're fantastic. It was awesome. Also, I liked your TikTok when you showed us behind the scenes and, like, you're all your prep. It's a fucking lot of work. Yeah.

Jake, I thought you did a great job this weekend. Congratulations on the real two on Saturday.

That was great.

As a great. As a great reel to Jake.

Yeah. Emphasizing the real two because people you did through allegations that the one was not real. That's why I said it. But people are twisting and trying to stir the pot for me, saying it to Pft when I would never do that.

Well, Pft did hit it on the green and said, that's a two. Yeah, because Berman said it. So people were saying, what's kind of a fake? You know, real.

Actually, nobody said it was a fake too at the time. Now everyone's saying it's a fake too, because Jake said his was a real to real. If Berman told me, the most hard.

Emphasis on real I've ever heard, it.

Was a hard r. That's what it was.

Now that was. I think you should go right at PFT.

Like, pft.

You're a pussy. I got a real world.

Max, I think you should shut the fuck up. Hey, is anybody out there shocked that Max has an opinion about the number two?

Oh, yeah. Two sodas now. Oh, no. Also, now that you bring it up.

Yeah.

Two sodas. And finishing in second and clogging your toilet, never forget.

You call never.

Never did that. It's a two. If you hit it on the green. You did that. So that's a real rule.

Yeah, hit to 15.

That's not. That's not a real.

No, it's a boomer rule. And so I'm gonna count if Boomer says it's a two, it's a two. So you got a real.

Jake is a real. You got a boomer too. He got a real.

No, he's being a real asshole.

Oh, man.

Jake, how far away from the pen was your show?

It was about 27ft.

That's cute, Jake.

It's good. The good news is you could win this argument if we just do, like, another 2 hours of this show, because we'll die in here.

No, it's a good shot, Jake. And if you guys. I was happy for you.

Thank you. If I was responsible, I would just. You probably join.

You know, if you don't want that, that's the easy way out. If you were responsible for our deaths, you have to strap a bomb and go to the headquarters now.

You'd have to do a show first, and then. Then people would really thick.

Do a. Do a live stream. At the end of this podcast, I will detonate myself.

Oh, that would be electric.

Get so many numbers.

Holy shit.

That's too far.

That's only killer.

Should that be our NFL bet this year?

If you guys all died, Jake and I would put out a banger the next day.

No, you would not.

Oh, yeah, banger.

What would you talk about?

Your death.

Okay, that's true.

Remember when they died?

Yeah. It would be like ten minutes. Be like, yeah, they died.

Roast.

Last show ever.

Yeah, but people would listen. No, the bet should be, somebody should get shot flushing part of the thigh.

No.

What? Sopranos did it.

Yeah, someone should get Phil Leotardo'd. That's what you have to do. The gas.

The gas station.

Oh, I like that. If we blur it out, I'm willing.

To do that to completion.

Yeah, no, I don't. If we blur that video out, if that we put out, I'm willing to have that be the stakes.

We'll talk about it.

I mean, that would be so funny if someone had to put a fucking gas up their ass while they tried to jerk off.

You actually light yourself on fire. Somebody's like, he died protesting a noble cause. No, he's jacking off at a gas station.

No, no, no, you don't understand. This is because we did four pics on Christmas day. I lost because of that. Okay, go ahead. Yeah.

My hot seat. Is that Campbell? Zach Campbell has some competition because something crazy had happened in Seattle last night, and this guy wasn't planning on it, but he caught a foul ball on back to back pitches.

Wow.

In the same exact spot.

What?

That might be harder than, like, the lottery. A hole in one. Like, it's.

It's crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

Is that. Is that more impressive than Fernando Tatis hitting two grand slams in the same inning?

I think so.

I think it might be because how many people go to.

Because that's complete luck.

Yeah.

TCF staff, some skill. So that's just crazier.

Yeah, no, that's insane.

Did he actually catch both of them? It may have balanced, but either way.

He caught the first one off his chest.

Yeah, cuz I was gonna say that.

Skill, too, if you.

If he actually caught both of them.

And then there's that second one.

The second one, he had to bend down.

Yeah. Second one looked like it bounced right in front of him.

But that's insane.

It's. It was nuts. When I saw it, I was like, Jesus Christ. And you're right. Zack Campbell is definitely, like, he's going to use as motivation.

It's not him.

Okay, so this guy's wearing a real low fitting hat. He's got big sunglasses on. Nobody else has sunglasses in the crowd. There's a chance that this guy was, like, skipping out on work and trying to lay low at the ballpark. And then he caught two foul balls back to finds them, and then. No chance he gets away with it now.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that was crazy. My cool.

Oh, wait. Breaking moose.

Breaking moves.

Breaking moose. I have received a response to our payment request.

Mm hmm.

I'm not allowed to pay off gambling debts. This is a good response.

Oh, that is a good response situation. You're.

Yeah, yeah. That's a very good response by Jared. He'll pass some money.

That's. That's. That's. That's smart.

It's. That's a great response. Yeah. And then I want to respond being like, I swear, it's not gambling guts, but it is. Yeah.

Okay, cool throne. We talk about it with Shane Bacon a little bit, but the AW Els, because the PGA Championship put Brooks Kafka, Max Homa in the same group.

Yes. Love it. Yeah.

Our guys and spieth, who's just an absolute wild card.

Yeah. But speech is definitely name that. You look at, you're like, what if for sure.

No. Yeah.

He's seven years ago.

He'll either be like, crazy erratic or crazy hot. But it's like, he's an entertaining. He's a super entertaining golfer.

He just better play fast.

They both play fast. I saw people saying, Brooks is gonna have to walk slow. I don't know. I don't know about the. I don't know if this is true. I don't know if this is true. I don't want to say this on the record, but I am. They were saying that. That spieth and Max are both really fast, so they were joking that Brooks has to gonna. Is gonna have to walk slow. He's have to try and slow himself down.

Oh, I think they're too fast for.

I think Brooks will go as fast as anyone will allow him to.

Yeah. He just steps up and hits it.

Yeah.

All right, take a picture of them and say, what do you think these guys are talking about?

Yeah, they're probably talking about us.

Yeah.

Narcissists.

Definitely talking about us. That's all. If you've been on the show one time, that's all you ever think about.

They're probably like. They're. They're probably like. Can you believe that Max thought he PFT was talking about two sodas when he's really talking about him finishing second and everything?

Yeah, he'll definitely say.

Or maybe they're like, can you believe that Jake's trying to kill them via the thermostat?

Yeah. Or maybe, like, they get a birdie on a par three. That was a real two.

Okay. All right, let's get to our interviews. We've got great interviews, WOJ, and then got that wrong. That's okay. We're not a fact check podcast. You never have been.

Yeah, they're slow.

Oh, okay.

Firm slow.

God damn it. That's bad.

I didn't say it on the record.

So you got it totally wrong.

Yeah, that's why it's.

But no, no, he. No, he got it kind of half right by being wrong. Because Brooks will walk slow.

Yes.

So that he. He can not stand over his ball for a long time.

Yes.

Apologies.

Do you wish that they. On golf courses, Hank, the holes were a little bit smaller.

Oh, teeny tiny.

They were bigger. I wish I was like, the soccer golf holes.

Tiny hole.

It's a big old hole.

All right, let's.

Hank hates it because there's 18 of them. He wishes there was maybe one less couple less.

Stop it.

All right, let's get to our interview. Whoa. Jinda and Shane Bacon.

Before we get to what she's brought to you by priceline. When it comes to travel, every family has a happy place. Five star resort with a kid's club or an all inclusive by the beach. I love a good all inclusive resort. So good. Little pro tip. If you go to all inclusive, stick to the beer. Get the. Get the beer that's out of the bottles, out of the cans. They can't water that down. My happy place. You know, my happy place is. It's Greece. I'm gonna go to Greece this summer. I'm using priceline to get there. Very excited about that. Wherever your happy place is, Priceline wants to get you and your family there more often, whether that's Greece, the greek isles, or if it's Memphis, Tennessee, at the Bass pro shop pyramid, they have you covered for all the most majestic places on earth. And thanks to Priceline's family friendly options, you can save up to 60% on family friendly hotels. You can even sort by room type amenities like pools and get access to deals that you can't find anywhere else. With Priceline, you never have to miss a trip. Priceline is so easy to use.

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Okay. We now welcome on a very, very special guest. He is the source of all sources. It is Adrian Wojnowski. Woj. Woj. Bombs from ESPN. The ultimate NBA insider. WoJ, first of all, thank you for coming by to the office. We appreciate it, guys.

This is an honor. Okay. In here.

I love it.

Now, I don't take this couch lightly.

I was gonna say, because I have to ask before we even get started. We've had Schefter on many times. He's a good friend of ours. Will you be looking at your phone in case there's any breaking news while you're recording this? Because Shefter gets nervous when he has to do an hour long of not looking at his phone.

It'll probably be Schefter chasing fantasy basketball.

Yeah.

Reinformation.

Yeah.

That's what wakes me up at three in the morning. That maniac.

Yeah.

Do you have any beef with him? Because he's like, he have a lot.

Of beef with him. But you know what?

He's a one man, the NBA.

But you know what? Like, there'll be times I'm embarrassed that I'm like, I'm not on top of that injury.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, hey, is so and so coming back? And I'm like, shit, I didn't realize he was out for two games. So he's.

He's on it.

There's no one like him.

What about when he dips his toes into NBA news? Are you like, get off, or do you give that to him? Do you give him a little morsel just to keep him happy? Because you should start doing it to him.

I don't.

You have NFL contacts?

No, no.

None.

He loves doing that every year.

Yeah.

And he always. He's wanted to trade off. I'm said, I do not want to break NFL news. That's for you. But he's dipped his toe in. And there may have or may not have been a negotiation on a couple, you know, veteran minimums in Toronto over time, where Adam was ready to speaker two.

Yeah.

I mean, you should just do it one time in the NFL just to let people know that you can do.

You could do it.

Possibility. And then that it would actually be good for Schefter because it would make him work harder.

Because, like, he should work harder.

Yeah. He doesn't work hard enough. That's the one thing they say about Adam Schefter, doesn't work hard.

Do you guys ever compare screen time on your phones? I think he has you because he's got. Doesn't he have a couple.

He has two phones.

Yeah.

You have two phones?

I have two phones. I got a new one like two months ago, and I haven't figured out how to turn it on yet.

Okay.

Because ESPN gives you a number. You have your own phone, which I just kept that number. And there's an ESPN phone. And I couldn't remember what the number was, and so I brought it to our tech people. I'm like, can you get this thing turned on? And then they couldn't. The one day I took it back and it's been sitting in my bag. Not. I should probably get that one turned on by every agency.

This is a very relatable story that, like, the most powerful phone in all of them can't get as.

Yeah.

As long as one's on.

Can I say something about screen time?

Yeah.

Who gives a fuck?

I agree.

I don't look at it.

Who gives a fuck?

I agree.

How much screen time you have?

Yeah. They try to shame us. That's all it is. It's like they're. Yeah, my screen time on a college football Saturday is gonna be insane.

I've never turned. I know. That's part of the app, right?

Yeah.

I've never turned that on.

Smart.

It's like. It's like NBA teams bragging about cap space.

Yeah.

And, like, how many draft picks we have. We're gonna hang banners.

Yeah.

Like, yeah. Cares about your screen time.

I know.

I do think you probably have across all of Twitter, x, whatever they're calling it, you are probably the guy that has the most people who have notifications turned on. So, like, when you tweet anything, there's millions phones across the country that. But you can. You're essentially texting all of America right now.

And then if I tweet, like, a sub tweet about us getting a recruited St. Bonaventure, everybody's like, yeah, we don't care, man.

We don't. Yes. Script here.

I know. We want I. But I do. And so. But I always. I know those are coming. I try to be kind of judicious with, like, I know people haven't notifications, but, you know, once in a while, I stray from character.

You should do one that's just, like, eating a cheeseburger. Just like. Or something, you know, like, whatever you're doing at that moment, just be, like, watching. Watching some tv.

We. We were in the office the other day, and I asked. We were in studio. I asked Perk and Malika, I said, how much would you pay me to tweet this out? And I texted both of them. He said, have it here. I said, how much would you. I said. I said, it would be my last day at ESPN. I said, let me find this. Hold on. Let me find these two guys I like to watch.

Doesn't fully know how to work his.

Okay. No, no. Okay. I texted perk and Malika Andrews. I said, I'm gonna tweet this out. You ready? Said Kendrick Perkins is finalizing a four year, $26.8 million deal to become the next coach at the Los Angeles Lakers. Sources tell yes. I said to them, what would happen in the next five minutes?

Oh, man.

I mean, people would have to run with it.

Yeah.

It would be like, CB.

I had the number. It seems 26.0.

Yeah, that's about right.

He's got the details.

Yeah. So. So, speaking of Lakers, is JJ Reddick going to get that job?

He's a real candidate.

Yeah. And this just kind of happened out of. I mean, we know JJ and we've had him on a bunch. Like, I know that he's. He's very successful in media, and now it feels like all this momentum. Well, going like, oh, he wants to cousin.

I can't speak for him about his level of interest. I think all of these things have intrigued him because, I mean, he's so talented, he could do whatever he wants, but there's no question there's an interest on the Lakers part. They've been making calls about him, trying to. I know, I know. There hasn't been anything with him. They haven't really met with any candidates yet. They're going to start this week calling for permission on guys. I think they're going to take their time with this search. There's no, like, obvious candidates right now for. I think especially the teams who are trying to win or win now. Teams, there just aren't, like, obvious candidates out there. We're like, you know, especially Bootenhozer being off the board championship coach, where I think teams are having to be creative with how they look at this, and so look at a lot of different guys. But, you know, so if he wanted to be a GM, there'd be interest in him and talking to him head coach. And, you know, my. Maybe my greatest claim to fame in this, when it's over, is I started JJ on the podcast, yahoo.

The vertical. I said to him, you know, we're starting this site alongside Yahoo. The vertical. You want to write some stories during the season about, like, being a player, trade deadline, what that's like. And he's like, that'll feel like homework, and I'd be worried about it. I'm not doing that. So I get it. And I was like, how about a podcast? And he goes, let me think about a couple days. And he came back. First podcast he did was with Steve Nash. And I'm like, and Steve Nash was up for, I think his name was being talked about, maybe to be the president in Phoenix at that time. And so I'm like, should I just say to JJ, hey, you might want to bring that up with him, see how it reacts. I'm like, I'm not gonna tell him what to do. Do what you want. So they send the audio of the pod. Hey, welcome in JJ Reddick here with Steve Nash. Hey, you can take that president's job in Phoenix. I was like, oh, this guy's gonna be.

Yeah. All right, so you should get some. Some residuals from JJ's podcasting career.

I probably should check on it with LeBron.

I think. I think the Lakers have had conversations with JJ Reddick. There's a podcast out there where it's LeBron.

Yeah, that's true.

They're talking on a weekly basis about basketball and what the Lakers do sometimes. Yeah.

He might just play that as his interview.

Yeah.

Like, I get along with your star.

Yeah, dude, for a guy like JJ, do you think that he. He could make that transition to being a head coach? He's not been a head coach before. He's studied the game. Obviously, he's been an analyst. But there's a lot of stuff that goes into coaching a team.

I agree.

That is not anything that he has any background in.

A ton of stuff. And I think. I think he can do it. It has been done. But I think it's really. I think it's harder than ever to be a head coach in the NBA. I think in a lot of cases, you have less power and say over what's going on, like, in a lot of places, you talk about like the pecking order of power. It's like the owner, the owner's kid who is inheriting the team. Right. The owner of the owner's kid. They're ahead of you. The president, GM of the team's ahead of you. The star players ahead of you. And the star player's agent is probably ahead of you.

Yeah.

And say, and maybe even your second best player and his agent, you're like 7th or 8th, 9th, and, like, not in every case. We know the guys who have, who've won big, have big voice, but I think it's harder than ever to coach in the league. It takes more. But in terms of just the organization, staff, how to build out like your staff and practice plans and all of the things, it's not just drawn up plays. And then, you know, being able to get buy in from an NBA locker room is hard.

Yeah. So, so when it comes to this Lakers and sons jobs, and I know, look, if you get, there's only 30 of these jobs, so if someone gets offered the job, they're going to take the job. But is there any feel going forward that like a Lakers or Suns job, aging superstars, is there any feel like this might be just a death sentence? Because whatever, I mean, we've seen it with Frank Vogel and Darvin Ham. Like, you're the one who gets blamed. It's not the players, it's you. So you, like, if you walk into that job and you don't have success right away, it's going to be you, not anyone else.

Yeah. And listen, if you're Frank Vogel and you signed a five year deal in Phoenix last year and you get whacked after one year, you're walking away with four years of guaranteed money. Darvin Ham had a four year deal, makes it two years, goes to the western finals, wins, what, 47 games this year. And Mike Moonholzer, five year deal, you know, about eleven, you know, ten, $11 million a year, I think there's more of a Runway with the Lakers. I think the Suns is like more of a, you know, what happens in the NBA if you, if they have another season this year, like next year, like they did this season, then it's like, does everybody want to stay there? Do guys want to start moving? Do you have to trade guy? Like, so, you know, you have this, like, very tiny window. They don't have hardly any of their draft picks assets. They don't have young players that they have coming up. The Lakers have, I think, a longer Runway. They have. They could make a big trade this summer and get like a real significant player ad still in his prime, you know, Austin Reeves, there's more in place.

And if you get in a position in three years where, let's say, LeBron retires in two, three years, if you create a max salary spot with the Lakers, come on, you're getting somebody, right? Guys are always.

Yeah, that's true.

That's right.

Good point.

So with LeBron going back to 2010, you and LeBron, your career is tied closely to LeBron's in that respect. Talk about what happened in 2010 with him and what path that sent you on.

It changed my job. It changed how you cover the NBA, like, what an insider was. I went to Yahoo. In 2007. I was a suburban newspaper columnist. Bergen record in New Jersey, home of Diana Rossini.

Good reporter. She was great reporter.

Great reporter.

Great reporter.

She used to date the guy who used to cut my hair, my kids hair in town. I remember him telling me, like, I'm dating this reporter from Channel two or Channel four in New York City. I'm like, wow. And it turned out to be Rossini. Yeah, turn out to be. She's a great Diana. Yeah, she is.

Yeah.

But I was just a suburban newspaper columnist, and I went to Yahoo. Dan Wetzel, who you guys know, one of the greats. Yeah, Dan was at Yahoo. And there was an NBA job open. And I take that in zero seven or zero seven. But by 2010, Twitter's come along, like, where now people are, or maybe it was ten or eleven, but now there's like sort of this instant scorecard of breaking news. But that free agency changed everything. It changed how people covered the sport and the attention there was on. Like, there had been Team USA guys were talking about getting together, and now, like, the offseason, it was almost like, what? College football? College basketballs, right? You had the sport and then you had recruiting, and they're like two separate things, and the deals and, like, the team building became a huge part of it. And LeBron made it okay for guys to say, I'm going to go play wherever I want with who I want to play with, and that he took a lot of shit from a lot of people about going to Miami, winning with that group, and building super teams. And he made it, like, I don't know if Kevin Durant could have done what he did with Golden State if LeBron hadn't.

Yeah.

Done it. Right, right. And so. But it changed the job and it changed how you approached it. And, like, there's lots of different ways to cover basketball. Everybody has their strengths and come at it from a different point of view. That's why, like, you want to read it all, you want to hear it all. Like, everybody doesn't have to do it exactly the same. Why would you want them to? And I think it created, but there was just like this unbelievable appetite for information.

Yeah.

Unbelievable appetite. Because every trade now was, hey, that's clearing $12 million in cap space. Now they've got a Max slot and they're going to trade this guy and this guy and they're going to create two max slots and now what two guys are they going to get? And then that became a frenzy every year. Then the next year you had Chris Paul pushing his way out of New Orleans, you had Carmelo Anthony pushing his way out of Denver. And the owners were all shitting. Like the small market owners were like, we can't, we can't control in these small markets the ability to keep great players here. They want to go to the major markets. And now the league's kind of taken out away with this new salary cap. They're going to force guys, unless they want to take way less money, they're going to force players to spread around the league.

Yeah. Which it does feel like the super team is kind of not dying, but it feels like this playoffs especially, you have a lot more homegrown teams that.

Are going, yeah, like you can have a super team but you better have drafted them. Like Phoenix were two or your three great players you've had to trade for. When you do that, you've gassed all your picks, all your young guys and you have this top heavy roster that doesn't work where Denver, you know, Jokic, Michael Porter, Joel Murray, they drafted all three. They traded for Aaron Gordon. They've never had to like do that for first round pick deal. That just takes all your young guys out. Minnesota, they traded for one of the three. Right, right. And Boston drafted. Right. They drafted Tatum, Tatum Brown and lose their third now.

Yeah, I mean, Derek White, they were able to trade, like even Porzingis was a traded with for Marcus smart.

Yeah, but you, but if you have two stars that you traded for and like the third guy is not like a transcendent. They have like all star level guys. That's how you have to do it. If you have to just gas all your picks to do it, you probably don't have a roster that's strong enough.

Yeah.

So with Porzingis. Glad we brought him up.

Oh, yeah.

You said that he's going to miss a minimum of several games we've been.

Spending, we've extended past that.

Okay, so what's the maximum. Maximum of several plus.

Past the minimum. Right.

What is several games?

We brought this tweet up maybe every single episode since you tweeted it, because what the hell does it mean?

Several games is a vague cop out.

Yeah. And it's a minimum.

It's a vague, it's a vague compound. Is several. Is several three? Is it seven?

Right.

I'm not saying that's just the minimum.

We don't know what the maximum is.

I think the hope is that he could be back potentially in a conference final, that it was going to come, that this series was unlikely. And now they're three one. Yeah. Yeah. So and then maybe it buys them some time. But, you know, those, those calf injuries are tricky. Like, they just, they're tricky. So for everybody, the return isn't, it's not uniform. It's hard to say. It's going to be ten days. It's going to be two weeks. But, you know, the sense was it was going to be the series. But looks like they, especially with Donovan Mitchell out last night, that was a huge blow for them.

Yeah.

That Boston's got enough probably to get past them.

Have people been responding to your minimum of several games? Because I know, I mean, it was a very funny way to phrase it. I hope you use it again. Just a great way to put a injury timetable because it. There is no timetable. We just know that he won't. Well, next game.

Yeah.

Really all.

And it's, it's not day to day. It's a minimum of several games. Several spot. Several.

Five. Okay.

Several spot. Four to seven.

Four to seven.

Okay.

Okay.

Five to eight.

Cuz. Yeah. Eight feels like it would be a.

Minimum of a lot of more than several. That's several plus.

Several plus I like maybe next time if someone has cop out. Yeah. If someone has like a month or two month injury, just say a minimum of a lot of games. That will be the way to phrase it.

Can you send extended periods another one?

Yeah.

What's extended?

Yeah.

Say week to week. Does that work?

I hate week to week, but day.

To day, that's one thing. Week to week. Week to week, you can.

Week to week. Here's, you know, here's the one where, you know, it's. They're going to reevaluate in two weeks. Three weeks.

Yeah.

They reevaluate that thing every single day. What do you think? Like, hey, three, you know, next Thursday we're gonna bring them back into the doctor. They're pouring over these guys every day. But what the teams know is if we say reevaluated in three weeks or four weeks, it buys them time. They don't have to answer the question every day.

Right.

Hey, how's Porzingis doing? We're going to reevaluate them next Friday. Yeah, no, they're going to reevaluate them next hour and then, yeah, 3 hours, then after lunch again. But yeah, we're not going to answer.

The question till next Friday.

Yeah, that's right. We're not going to answer a question till then.

So the LeBron 2010 year was huge for your career. What was besides LeBron, who's the one player that, like, if you didn't have them and the way they treated you, you wouldn't be where you are today?

Kobe.

Yeah.

He gave me credibility covering the NBA.

Just by answering your questions and talking to you.

Just by talking to me.

Wow.

Yeah, he would give me a lot of access. He was. So he understood, however we hit it off. But he also understood before a lot of people covering the NBA that I, when I was covering the NBA, how big of a reach yahoo. Sports had, like, back then. And Yahoo. Is still significant. There's tremendous people there. I had a great, I love my time there. People I work with pass in there, obviously, Wetzel, a lot of other guys. But Kobe understood the reach of it. Like, back then, it was, that was the homepage for like on the Internet. You, you logged into the Internet and it was like you got your mail there. You saw the, you know, what the weather was gonna be if somebody looked at their stocks. It was all there. Like, that was sort of the, like everybody's homepage. So if you got stories out on the front of that, it was like a fire hose. And so he got that. He got the reach of it. But him talking to me, him giving me access, him, you know, he would sometimes say when he wanted to get something off his chest, it would always be like a cold midwestern city in the winter.

Can you get to Minneapolis? Can you meet me in Indianapolis? It was always like a place they might be in for a day. Plus it was never meet me in Miami. Yeah, sometimes it was LA and then, and so it gave me tremendous, it just made, it expedited things for me. And I think people saw, well, if he's talking to him, it gave me credibility with players, with everybody. Yeah, agents. And so that was, he was huge for my career.

Was it anything besides yahoo. Like, did you, was it like, he just kind of liked you because that, it does feel like we always understood.

The platform, but we, you know, he liked someone who was competitive, and he liked that I was competitive in my job. He always wanted to talk about it. He always wanted to talk about competing, how you do things. And he loved that part of it. He understood, like, so much about my job, his world. I remember this. I remember talking. I would always try to talk him out of getting on Twitter, and I said, kobe, twitter's for small talk. You don't do small talk. You do big proclamations. Because I knew the minute he got on Twitter, he didn't need to talk to me all the time.

Smart. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like what he did at the Olympics, he would go, you know, he'd spend. When he was older, like 2012, he was on the team with Westbrook. Durant of. Durant was there. Westbrook was there. I'm trying to remember if Durant was at the Olympics. I don't know if he was 2012. He would spend the entire time, like, telling Russ. Guys would tell me, why are you letting KD win scoring titles? You should be winning scoring. And, like, if he could just send Russ back to Oklahoma City with that thought in his mind, if it would just throw OKC off just a little bit.

Yeah, a little bit.

And. But they were at the point where the Lakers were now were. They were passing them.

Yeah.

But he. Everywhere he was, he had a, you know, he looked at how he could take a situation and.

Yeah.

Manipulate it to his.

And compete. Yeah.

So get an edge.

So you mentioned it. The. I'd have to imagine, like, all the players having podcasts. That kind of sucks for your job now because they're just reporting their own news.

I don't know if a lot of guys are. Report Pat. Bev is.

Yeah.

Bev is ready to credit his pocket.

You subscribe?

I do subscribe.

Okay.

I'm scared.

I was gonna. We were gonna have to end this whole interview.

I'll tell you. I texted him. So he were. I was texting with him yesterday. I just hit him on something, and I saw the text sitting there. I was laughing. So this was March 28. So let's see. He got waived. Why was he. Was he. If. Was he. Oh, no, it was the injury. Yeah, it was the injury.

Yeah. His wrist.

Oh, here.

It was.

Yeah. I said, um, it's good. Hey, Pat, how did it go yesterday? Any sense yet on next steps? He goes, I will break my own news. Thanks, though. I said, well, I'll be watching for it. I did one of my favorite podcasts ever in the city of Chicago. He was probably on, he's probably been on my pod maybe in the past, maybe three or four times, different place. But we were in Chicago, and he said we were gonna do it. It was one of the off seasons, and he got a deal on a boat. It was over in I don't know what the harbors.

Harbor, yeah.

And so he was like, if you just say the name he wanted, just when you introduce me, you gotta say what boat we are on, what company. Cause he was gonna get, I think it was something like he was gonna get like a free 5 hours to go around the harbor. And so we're like, the sun's beating down. It's like the middle of the day. It was fine. So we're out there, the audio. Imagine the audio sitting out in the deck of a. But it's not great. And the sun's beating down on us, and we're sitting on the deck of this. It's not a yacht. It was just, it was a boat. And we do the podcast out there, and it was like, all I could think of was that entourage where they were like, rufus from. Remember Rufus from home. Home solutions.

Yeah.

And Johnny drama had the hat on, sitting on the couch.

Yeah.

I was like, whatever the name of the boat was. But I left town. He went out and had like a whole day on the beat. I think he got it for free.

Yeah.

I had to say the name of that.

He's like, I'm telling you what was going to say. Your company.

But it went to somebody.

Yeah.

So we got to talk about the, the James Harden situation, where you broke the James Harden news. You were going to get on a plane and what time was your flight?

So I usually make my flights, like, I fly a lot. Newark to LA. I try to do it. There's a 07:30 p.m. There's an 830. I leave as late as I can. So I'm in the air for the least amount of time. That shit could happen. News can happen. And when I fly back, I either fly back on a 09:00 p.m. Pacific flight, so that's midnight eastern or the 11:00. So I know, like, in that range, it's pretty rare. Middle of the night, something's going to break. But I don't want to be on a plane in the middle of the day where like, sometimes wireless works sometimes. Yeah, it doesn't. But whatever the time was, I want to say maybe it was a 630. It was a 630 or 730 flights. Remember, I got to the airport around, like, just about an hour before my flight, and I got a sense from the teams that, like, this trade could happen tonight. And I said to one of them, I've got a flight. Leaves it. I don't know if it was 630 or seven, maybe 730. Should I get on that flight? They're like, I wouldn't get on that flight, like, week.

I'm like, okay. So I just go up to the. You know, you got that united lounge.

Yes.

Set up in there. And. And I'm like, I know. I just. Not taking a flight. And so I'm gonna sit here and wait until this thing goes down, if it's gonna go down. And then at, like, 1030, like, the United lounge is closed. Get out of here. Yeah, right. Get out. So then I go down into that. Go down the escalator, and then there's, like, just a open seating, right. So now it's like, 1112 one. So I texted my wife at some point, I'm like, hey, I'm probably coming back home tonight, like, 06:00 a.m.. Whatever, we'll figure it out. But I'll. She's like, whatever. Probably like, right? Yeah. So anyway, so then it's. But then I realized I got to a point where I saw, like, my flight landed in LA and the trade slot and happened. I could have been on it. And then it's like, now you get to. I got the sense they're like, hey, listen, it's probably gonna be around. They were waiting for somebody to get in. I want. There's finally was like, this is gonna be, like, around 02:00 a.m. You're gonna be able to put this out. And so now, like, the Zamboni machines, like, running through the airport, right?

The big machine that's cleaning the thing. So it's just me and that guy going up and down. And then, like, some guys got off some late flights, and, you know, they're sort of looking at me, like, and sort of recognized me. It's like, what is this guy sitting in an empty. A couple of guys, like, what is he doing here? I'm just. I'm just here. And so finally, 02:00 a.m., right, that thing got done, and then by the time I got, like, it was like, 03:30 a.m. I packed up, took a uber back home 30 minutes, and then came back and flew the next.

You still got it? That must have been like a. I still. I can still do this, you know, all hours.

Try to stay awake.

Yeah.

If I ever see woads just sitting by himself somewhere, you know that some shit.

Someone's about to get traded.

Yeah. Something's happening.

Yeah. That's 100% gonna happen. The, I mean, that's. That just shows. I mean, you guys, how many hours a night do you sleep?

You know, like, this idea that, like, listen, during, like, free agency or trade deadline, it's minimal.

Yeah.

The rest of the year, this idea that, like, you can't sleep as an inside, it's like, it's bullshit.

Okay.

It's just, it's like, there's a lot of. I think some people want to create a lot of mythology around this thing. Like, there's a lot of demanding jobs, like, around that time.

Right.

You know what they are? Free agency, trade deadline, draft, draft. Two nights. Thing is brutal now.

Yeah.

Because now you get up, like, usually you could. The draft ends. You know, it's five, 6 hours on that podium, and if you have to go to the bathroom, you can't leave that podium, like, during it. And so it does cut down that.

Yeah.

I get older because I got to go. But the idea, though, as soon as that thing's over at pick 30, teams are going to start making trades for the next day. Like, you're gonna be up. That, like, that's not one whining about it, but, like. Yeah, but I get why we want to do the two days. And listen, if Brawny is.

Yeah.

Like, I wonder if the league will send a memo out and say, hey, like, we need him for the second night. Yeah, don't be taking him. Yeah, 30. Right. But. But who knows when he could get picked. And so I do think having brawny in this, probably if he makes it to the second night is. I mean, that'll be the story, right?

Yeah.

Do you think that there is going to be a team that takes a chance on brawny just in the hopes that maybe LeBron will come play for this team later?

I don't think it's going to be to get LeBron. I think it'll be because they see some value in him. I don't think, you know, Rich, Paul has said this to me since March, maybe February, March. And you set on the record, like, this isn't about pairing them up. They want to find the best place for brawny, place that's focused on development, that has a good track record. He's a young player. The Lakers are not really a developmental, like, program. They're a win now team. Right. And so their thing was, if it lines up, it's organic and it happens great. But the mission isn't to get them together and, like, you know, if LeBron goes to. You know, if Brawny goes to. I don't name the city. Toronto. Charlotte. Indiana.

Philadelphia.

Yeah. Like, you know, is it a team that, like, could even. They'd have to force a trade. Right? Because free agency is not going to work. They're not gonna have cap space. He's gonna. He's a 50, $60 million year player. I don't think it's about that, but I think I saw Brawny play last year in person in Portland at that Nike hoop summit. He looked. He was a real. He's a real prospector. He was. Now he's not a superstar. He's a role player. But, like, he does a lot of things really smart. He really guards. Like, great court sense. How you would imagine LeBron son to be just incredible basketball iq, you know, athletic enough. You know, he really shot the ball well yesterday. Like, it's not a stretch to imagine him in the NBA. Do I think he's an NBA star? No, but there are a lot of role players who look exactly the same as Bronny James at that age. But he has the heart issue. He misses five months of playing, and so then he's limited in the production at USC. But if anybody took five months off, and I'm sure there's a mental hurdle in returning from that, but he looked great yesterday.

And, you know, like, I don't think, though selecting him or signing him is. People think it's a ticket to LeBron. I don't feel that.

Yeah.

All right, I got the hardest question for you in this entire interview. Do you know the name Rico Bosco?

I know the name Rico Bosco.

Okay. I want to hear your perspective of this, because Rico's crazy. I love him, but he's crazy for people who don't know. Rico had a twelve year grudge against WoJ.

Felt like. And 112.

Yeah. And you're like, wow, twelve years. He. Woj must have done something really bad. Well, not really. WOJ DM'd Rico back in 2011 when Rico was saying that Danny Hurley was the next up coach and all these other schools should try to hire him. Woj sent him a DM saying, I know him pretty well. He isn't leaving the state of New Jersey, I promise you. He stayed in high school for nine years, turned down a lot of jobs. I'm right, obviously, Danny Hurley left the state of New Jersey.

I thought it was leaving Wagner to go to Uri, wasn't it?

Speaker three? No.

Well, here's what's interesting.

Because he was, he lived in New Jersey when he coached at Wagner.

Yeah.

I didn't initially, I didn't think he was going to take you or I, but then they offered.

But here's what's interesting about it. We have the screenshot from WOJ. We don't have the screenshot of what Rico sent you. I don't remember to elicit that response. So that's interesting.

Did you, were you aware that he was just tweeting about it? Because the other.

Don't remember. I don't remember the circumstances around it. You know, I saw my screenshot for, like I said, 112 years being posted.

Yeah.

Worse and worse.

Like, yeah, yeah. It was just so. But it was, you're right. He was at Wagner. He was living in New Jersey.

It was, it was Wagner to Uri. Because I remember at the time when I had conversations with Danny, I'm like, you can make, I think you can jump to the Big east from Wagner with what he was doing there. I didn't think he had to go to Uri and then, but I was wrong. He took it. We were talking about it. I remember talking about it with it. Then I'm like, I don't think you have to take an Atlantic in job now. Also. I want to keep him out of the fucking Atlantic ten. Yeah, because you're, so there was, yeah, so some agenda.

So this is also, this was a private dm that Rico has now made it. He was like, for the longest time, he's like, woj won't apologize to me. I was like, but it was a private message. And I actually, a few months ago, we asked him was like, if Woj had apologized privately, would you have accepted it? He said no, because then he would still have to carry the embarrassment of having a private apology for something Rico made public at any point in the last twelve years. You're like, what's this? What is this guy doing? What is he talking about?

I knew what he was talking about, but yeah, I'll do it here. I, I apologize that Danny Hurley left Wagner.

Oh, I like how you phrase that.

And he didn't stay in a northeast conference.

I like that.

He would have dominated.

Yeah.

He might have won a national championship at Wagner.

Yeah, very smart.

You're not apologizing to Rico Bosco, you're apologizing the Danny Hurley lesson.

He got a lot of mileage out of that bit.

Oh, I mean, by the way, was not a bit. He's crazy like that.

He came up. He saw me, Adam.

Yeah. We made him. I made him go, because my wife.

My wife. My wife is sitting next to me. So I've known dusty May for. When I did a book on the Hurley's. I did this miracle of St. Anthony 20 years ago. 20 years ago this year. And Dusty was a young assistant in Indiana, and he came to recruit St. Anthony's, and I got to know him and known him since. So we were at the garden to go see them in the Tennessee game sweet 16. And so my wife and I were sitting, I don't know, just court side, and his family was there. And she doesn't know anything about this thing. Like, she's not.

Which is good. Healthy. That's healthy.

Yeah. She doesn't. She barely even knows what I do for a living. Just live in. Hang out at airports. Um, and so he came up and I don't know what he said, like, hey. And she was.

I'm the guy.

Yeah, yeah. And she was, like, half listening, like, because sometimes people come up and want to introduce themselves, and he won't. She's like, what was that? I go, I don't know. Like, you know, like, search my name in 11 seconds on Twitter. You'll probably see.

Yes, it was. I mean, he. Rico is. He's a special brain, but that was one of those ones where it's like, you. He made a grudge out of seemingly nothing, but he was very mad at you.

Is Rico Bosco? Is that a play on Rico Bronia?

No, no, I don't think so.

I think Rico Bronia was like, I cut. When I worked in Waterbury. He was like a play for the Mets.

He was a. Yeah, no, it was.

Like one of the first guys I ever got a. So I was wondering if he was.

Like a. I think he just tried to sound really italian.

Yeah. He also. Rico, just so you know, I. And I think you probably can maybe contend this, but he claims that he has the most powerful phone in the northeast. Rico does.

I believe it.

Okay. All right. So you're giving them that.

It's like a. It's like a terrorist organization.

Oh, it is. No, it is that. They are. I've seen the picture.

Say that.

I've seen the pictures. Oh, yeah.

Well, there was a picture of him in the Middle east.

Terror takes many forms.

Yeah, that's true.

It's not middle. I didn't suggest it was any part of the world.

Yeah, the. That's. That's good that you apologize to Danny Hurley, though. I feel like we're. I feel like we're in a good spot in this whole saga. He's good. Yeah.

Good. Good.

He makes a mountain out of a molehill. It's quite something.

I had a question for you about just the stress of traveling, and I know for our job, when we're traveling anywhere, if I'm going on vacation, but maybe we have to do a show or something. I'm always stressed out about if it's an Airbnb, is a Wi fi. It says, got really fast wi Fi. Is that always gonna be the case when you're on a plane? Do you have art? Do you have to make yourself at those times of year where it's, you know, like, if it's the trade deadline, draft, things like that? If it's a busy time of year where something might happen, do you have to plan in advance based on where you're going, how good that Wi Fi is?

I would say those times of the year, I'm almost always in studio. Like, I'm almost always either in studio in Bristol or LA. I'm not, like, in some remote location. You're gonna be like, those times. But, like, I mean, I can't tell you, like, how many times, like, I made my family sit on the side, you know, pull over the car, sit up, and especially when the kids were younger and you were driving everybody somewhere. Pull over. I remember the worst one was Christmas Eve. It was Christmas Eve. We were going into church. Our kids were really young. And I got a trade as we were walking in, like, we're walking up the steps and into. And all of a sudden, I'm at the bottom of the steps with a thing. My wife says. I can still see her with the two kids holding their hands and just standing, like, going into the church, just shaking her head like, you asshole. You asshole.

This is a life you married in.

And it was like. It was like a king's grizzlies trade. It might have been like, can't remember who it was. It was like, 2007. 2008 was early. And I'm just. 1 minute, I'll get this. You know, this is a look of just absolute disdain.

Yeah.

Do you have any, like, is there. Is there a low. Is there a low in your world?

There have to be some. Some trades that you're like. Like, I'm going into church. It's the King's grizzlies. That's. That's not worth my time.

You don't throw any back.

You don't throw any back.

Especially then, like, then it was like, that was very early. It was still a big deal to. I mean, it's always a big deal to, you know, break a trade. I mean, there's only, like, I'd say this. I always think Adam's job is much more taxing. The NFL insider, to me, is a much more taxing job to me for no other reason than the quarterback position. Right. People care about all 30 teams. All 30 quarterbacks. Is he playing? Is that guy getting moved out? Who's the starter? Who's starting this week? Is he going to be ready Sunday and for all 30 teams? And to me, that position and then free agency trades, like, to me, just that position alone makes our 32 teams. Right. Makes it. Makes the job way harder. I went up to. I always loved going up to Bristol when Schefters doing free agency or trade deadline. And if I can go up there for the day I did it this year, I guess it was free agency. It was being a free agency. And I just sit there. It's like watching like a lion in the wild, right? Like, just sit and watch him.

I go get him water. I got him some gun, went to the cap, got him some gum, you know, drove him back to the hotel later, you know, I like that, watching.

Adam Schefter on it just, you know.

Then it's like PTSD, but you just watching him go through it. But he is. He's the best. Yeah, he's the best ever.

So I guess we could ask it this way. Could an NBA trans NBA newsbreaker translate better to the NFL or an NFL newsbreaker translate better to the NBA world?

I think in any. I think, like a good reporter, you could parachute them in anywhere. Like school board covering city hall, cops, NFL, NBA. Like, if you can report, you can report. And you. If you give them time to build relationships, figure it out, I think you could put a. Somebody who's a pretty good reporter anywhere. So, yes, now you're starting at zero, and it takes. I mean, I've been doing this for, you know, you build these relationships over a very long time. Like, when I started as an NBA insider, like the guys who are low level executives who are just barely in the front office or low level agents or G league coaches. Like, when I started, like, Nick Nurse was a G League coach, I knew, you know, becomes a championship coach and front office guy. Sam Presti was the assistant GM with the spurs. And then, and so you have the years of those relationships and then the people around them that you get to know, and so. But it takes a long time. Like, you just couldn't do it overnight.

Yeah.

So is it always gonna be basketball for you, or there are other interests that you'd like to get into further in your career?

Further in my career?

Well, I mean, like, election night. Are you gonna tweet who won the election? Yes. It's not gonna be real until WOJ announces it.

I don't think so.

Okay.

No.

Would you have reported guy getting waived on Christmas Eve? I'm trying to find it. I want to find this.

Okay. I would say now teams are much more reluctant to do that shit. And Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

Because they know the response. But before social media, I bet it happened a lot more. I remember Scott Skiles got fired on Christmas Eve, didn't?

Yeah.

The bulls.

Yeah. So, wait, but I'm trying to find one.

Did you find one?

Well, I found Hamed Hadadi was signed from the Dakota Wizards on December 24, 2008. I hope it wasn't that one that you're talking that story about. And then there was Marco Yarish got waived on December 24, 2009, from the Grizzlies. I looked through all kings and grizzlies transaction.

I may be wrong about.

Okay.

I may be wrong about teams.

I wish it was like a Marco Yarri waved.

It was Christmas Eve. I don't like we. All right, we've got a. I know the. Okay, I know the. I know. I know the agent who at the time told me, my guy just got traded, and I just saw him. And I'm gonna ask is, I'm not remembering who was in it when we leave on my text.

Yeah.

And we'll put it. Text me that day. Yeah, I remember who told me me it.

Yeah.

And I just saw him. So, yeah, it was Christmas Eve. I was walking. I can still see my wife at top of those stairs, like, death glare.

Yeah. All right. So you're here for the draft. This is a weird draft because it feels like everyone's like, this draft stinks. You hear people say, it's like, if a regular draft started at five or six, the Hawks win it with the 3%. So Hawks. And, like, the city of Atlanta sports just, what. Whatever happens in Atlanta, it's always kind of like, oh, man, that was a bummer. But to win the number one pick here, does that give them any flexibility going forward? I know they want to probably maybe trade Trey Young, but is this. Is this something that teams are even interested in?

Well, if you're the Hawks, especially because you've traded away the picks, like in the DeJante Murray deal, where you don't have your pick next year. So, you know, they're sitting there expecting to pick at ten.

Right.

And now it's, we're at one, and now we control the draft. So, I mean, I think it's huge for them, but they've got to figure out who that guy is. There's going to be a star in this draft. There might be multiple stars, but the day of the draft, I said, it reminds me of 2013, which was Anthony Bennett went one, and Cleveland was on the clock until, if the draft started 730, they hadn't decided until 720. They were still trying to trade the pick. It was chaos. And they missed the pick. I mean, Bennett. But Giannis goes 15th, Rudy Gobert goes 27th. The there'll probably be somebody in the teams who ends up being an all NBA player. It's your job to figure out who it is. I don't, I have a hard time seeing people moving up to one in this draft because I think maybe if it's like a team at two or three that wants a guy, and then they just trade down one spot, like, like ange did with Philly.

Yeah, right.

They didn't want Markel. Like they knew Philly wanted Mark Hill, folks. And they said, hey, we want Jason Tatum at three. So not only do they get moved down and get Tatum, they get another pick from them.

Right.

You, you said starting to think that trade is not going to work out for the six.

No, I don't think so. You said before we started that you had a good Danny ain't story.

So they were getting ready to trade Rajan Rondo to Dallas. I don't remember the year. And I texted Danny, hey, I'm hearing from people. I'm getting the sense that you're, you're really starting to look to move. Rajan, give me a call and I want to catch up with you about it. And no response. 1520 minutes, half an hour. I get a text and it says Donnie. And it is a text with the terms a Celtic Dallas trade, possible names in it, picks. And I'm looking at this going, holy shit. Like, he sent me the wrong. He sent a text for Donny Nelson, the Dallas GM. He sent it to me by accident.

Whoa.

With, like, their back and forth on the trade. And so, and didn't realize. And then, like, I'm sitting there kind of looking at it going, I don't think this was meant for me. So I just text him back, you owe me one. And then my phone rings and he is laughing hysterically. Oh, and I said, just don't let me get beat on this whenever it gets done.

Yeah. And you didn't, I didn't gave it to you. All right.

I remember he gave it to, I remember I didn't get beat on it.

That's.

But, um, but I realized it was meant for Donnie Nelson, so that's not had all the terms in it.

Yeah. Is there, is there any trade that you look back on and that maybe one that you didn't get where you're like, I should have had that one. Is there one that eats you up inside?

They all, I never feel like one. Like you think about ones. Listen, you want to break everything. You can't break everything. I do remember the costliest trade I ever broke, which was 2012 Olympics in England. Like, back then when I was at Yahoo, the idea of being overseas for free, I don't remember. Yeah, it was July. Free age, I guess, was over. But we're covering the Olympics. The Dwight Howard trade was happening was a four team trade. I remember being in the lobby of this english hotel in London, like three, I want to say like 315, 330 in the morning when I felt like I got it and it was four teams. And back then, like, I didn't really know how to handle a calling plan for overseas, like on your cell phone. It wasn't unlimited. And they were always pretty liberal with the budget at Yahoo. Like, you always felt like you could put in for stuff. But I was gonna test this thing. So I get my phone bill at the end of the Olympics. It's $12,000.

Oh, Jesus.

$12,000 phone bill.

Oh, my.

And I'm like, all right, you can get, I'm like, this is really gonna test the limits of, you know, and I put in for, as I call my editor when I got back, Dave Morri. Hey, Dave. This is, felt really good about the Olympics. We got that trade. We got some really good stuff. But the phone bills. Twelve fucking thousand dollars.

Yeah.

He's like, oh, man.

Yeah.

But he got, they paid it. They paid it. Yeah.

That was incredible.

Try that at ESPN now.

Yeah, it wasn't so easy where you just land somewhere in your phone tells you like, welcome to Canada. Welcome to England.

And I knew, you know what, there was a point where I knew I was over, like, whatever was 100 minutes. Like, I knew I had gone through it. At first I was trying to be kind of careful with it, and then I was just like, screw that, like, I'm just, I got to get this stuff.

Gotta do your job. It's fun to speculate. And we saw LeBron sitting courtside at the Cav Celtic. Everything that he does seems to be very calculated. He's been very good about that. He's sending some kind of message. I don't know what the message is, but I think there's nobody better to ask than you about what that message could be.

Yeah, I asked about that this morning with somebody who was. Would know and was told to not read any message into it, that it was legitimately. I think they were in Cleveland for Mother's Day. He and his wife knows a lot of the players in the game. Young guys who've come through his camps, obviously has the connection with Cleveland. Said Dan Gilbert was super gracious with getting, obviously allowing him to sit there. I don't has to allow him. And so to not read anything into it. I said, now, you know, he knows when he does that, like it's going to be a conversation. I think he came in. I'm not sure he was there for the tip. I think he kind of came in and. But it's never, it's. I think his intention is still to be in LA to finish with the Lakers, but you guys know it isn't always a straight line to get there, right. And I think what I was told still is the. It's just going to be, what does the contract look like? Do you. You could opt into your deal, you can opt out and do a two year deal, three year deal.

I think those are the questions. But that they'll get to June or around that deadline. They'll be evaluating, like, what it looks like, what else might be out there. I'm not saying it can't change, because you guys know it can. It changes on a dime in this league. But as of now, I was told that was not meant to be a message. But if you're the Lakers, like, okay, like, you know. Yeah, listen, we went through it at the trade deadline. We, Ramona Shelburne and I had the story on the warriors, and like, the warriors called and they talked and, and rich eventually shut it down, said, we're not doing this. He's not interested in it. But there were a couple days there where there was some back and forth where if LeBron said, hey, I'd like to do this, there was a world where it could have happened, but he, he ultimately shut it down.

Yeah. So I heard everything you said. I respectfully disagree. So Ron's just gonna go to Cleveland.

He. He's either trying to go. He might be trying to go to Boston.

Yeah. Oh, interesting.

We didn't.

Or he's trying to get Tatum to the Lakers.

Just recruiting in person.

Oh, there's a lot of things going out there. Yeah. Yeah.

LeBron and Boston. That.

Yeah. Does that frustrate you ever when you're like, we were fans, we like to play fan fiction. We like to just make stuff up. Are you ever like, everyone's just making this up and it's not in facts.

Listen, well, I don't have my job if people don't.

Yeah.

Love that.

Yeah.

Like, that's part of why I've been able to do this. So, like, you're allowed to. Like, it doesn't bother me. Like, you know, if we're gonna do, like, a 15 minutes segment on ESPN about something that maybe is not based in reality, that's different than people doing it on social media talk. Like, that's the fun of it. It's like, that's what people love about, like, the player movement. And you've seen nothing is as crazy as some things can sound. We've seen it in this league where you go, that doesn't seem. I mean, I remember when I reported in the year before, you know, you know, maybe like, six months ahead of where Durant went from Oklahoma City to. To Golden State, when I said, hey, there's. These guys are batting eyelashes at each other, right? Like, Golden State's at the cap space. You know, warrior players were already starting to kind of recruit LeBron, KD, and this is a possibility in free agency. People were like, that's ridiculous. They were. I remember the day I reported it. I think the warriors were 44 and four. Like, they're not bringing KD in, but teams are always planning and, you know, look, it wasn't done that day, but the idea that it couldn't happen, and it did seem preposterous.

Like, he's gonna go the warriors, but, like we said, like, LeBron going to Miami and then LeBron going back to Cleveland, it made it easier for guys like KD and other guys to say, I'm gonna go play where I want, when I want. Right? Like, you're not seeing guys in free agency anymore. You're like, many fewer guys are, like, out in free agency. It's like, I'm gonna sign the super max where I am. I'm gonna take my money now, and I'm gonna fix the destination later. I'm gonna go in the portal.

Yeah.

Right? Like, this is gonna be a summer of like a bunch of guys in the NBA portal.

Yeah.

Like, I'm not taking less money to go summers a free agent. You'll just trade me.

Yeah. What about, what about when an anonymous Twitter account starts getting some things right? Do you have to, like, look at it and you're like, oh, shit, they got this. Or like, you know, we had the material change, kid. I can't remember what free agency that was.

Kawhi, I think.

Yes, kawhi. Where he just reported something and then was way wrong and there's like, wells, a material change.

Going to go to the Lakers maybe. Yeah, and he went to the clippers, according to this guy.

But is there ever, is there ever, like someone who's reporting something is like they're anonymous, but they, they just got two in a row that are. Right. And like, now I got to start looking into this.

I think, like, you can predict, like, there's a difference between predicting and reporting, right? I've got a report. But you could sit around and like, you could make predictions that are going to come true now. No one's going to count all the, no one's going to pay attention to all the ones that didn't.

Right.

But if you hit on three out of ten or three out of 20 or three out of eight. If I do that in my job, I'm back working parks and rec in Bristol, Connecticut, down the street from ESPN where I started out.

So what about the biggest trade that didn't happen, one that almost went down, but they backed out?

Good question.

Thank you.

I'd say Kobe Pistons. That was close.

Kobe Bowles too.

Kobe Bowles. But like there was a deal with the Pistons where it was like Rip Hamilton. I reported it year, like way after I remember it was like Tayshawn, Rip Hamilton, a bunch of picks and Kobe, they had agreed to it essentially the two teams, but Kobe had a want to do it and I think he went to Jerry Bus's house and they just deciding Jerry Kobe was in that period where like, I want out of here. And I think he kind of pulled him back in that trade was agreed to, like, the two teams with the terms, but it was contingent on Lakers didn't want to do it for obvious reasons. And then Kobe just said, I'm gonna, I'm not, I don't want to do this. Yeah, but like, it was. I mean, think of how different the world would have been if Kobe lands of the Pistons or the Bulls or Dallas, you know, like that summer he, they talked with a bunch of teams, they were ready to do it.

Yeah.

And looking back, you know, he.

You.

Know, I know he was obviously glad he played his whole career in LA.

Yeah.

Worked out.

Yeah. All right, so Woj has been awesome. We want you back on your recurring guests now. So you actually have to come back on whenever we ask. But I had one last question. Roback question, rho back.com promo code, take 20% off your first purchase cues. Ups, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com promo code, take full disclosure. I wanted even a question. Have you thought about changing the Twitter avatar picture? Updating it, possibly.

What is it now? Just picture of me.

It's just a picture of you.

Is it a bad picture? Kind of smug.

So I pulled up. I pulled up all the times we've talked about you. I want to be full disclosure here. Some things we've.

Let me see this.

Yeah, you're smug.

Very professional.

You be your smug.

I don't think that's smug.

It's a little smug.

There are many smug pictures of me. I don't think that's one of.

Did you have pictured it?

No, that's like on set for sports. That's an old one.

Wait, wait, like two pairs of glass. Let me see it. Oh, no, you updated it. Okay, never mind. Did. The one I'm looking at is the. It is the really smug one.

That's okay.

Yeah.

That was my first headshot at ESPN.

Okay. All right.

They use that on tv? Yeah, like when I'm not on air. And. And I replaced that one I didn't love.

Okay, good.

We're good.

Then I don't have to say all the things we said about that picture.

Go ahead.

Okay. I think this was me. I said, woj's Twitter picture pisses me off. He's got that smug I want to punch this guy in the face look. Pft said, it's the body language. It looks like LinkedIn picture for some financial banker. I said, he thinks he's a big wig at JP Morgan on Wall street, but he's really just at Omaha Mutual. Pft said he's a vice president, but he works at a place where there's like 200 vice presidents so they don't have to call them salespeople. I said, you're, you're a vp, but you get no equity. He just looks like he knows something I don't know and I want to punch him. Pft says he does. He knows every single pick in the NBA draft.

I am glad I changed that picture.

I want to just let you know that we, there was a moment in time where it wasn't like we want to punch him and also put him.

None of that was on. None of that was unfair.

By the way, in the new one, you look like a senior vice president.

Yeah. You look good. You've got a promotion.

Yeah. Congrats.

I like to. We like to, you know, the beauty of this show is if you come on, you end up looking good because we'll just say the dumb shit we said about you, and if you can take it, it's great. So good that you updated it. You're no longer a, you know, VP.

If I change it again, can I text you guys?

Can we.

I give you three or four choices.

Yeah, yeah, please do.

We're trying to maybe bring Rossini.

Yeah. We'll just do like a ranking of which one we want to fight most.

It'd be a quick fight.

Yeah.

If you haven't figured it out yet.

Well, whoa. You got one last question?

Yeah, I just had a question about, you know, more of a big picture future of the NBA type of thing. If you're looking outside, we can generally agree there's like six teams that are kind of at the top five or six teams outside of those. Maybe it's a team that didn't make the playoffs. Maybe it's a team that is kind of in the bottom tier of the playoffs next two, three years. What's a franchise that you think is motivated to make changes that will result in them kind of entering that discussion of the upper echelon?

The spurs are coming because of Victor. I had a GM president of one of the teams who's very much in the mix for championship right now, who said to me a couple weeks ago, we better all get our winning out of the way fast. We better get our winning done fast because once that kid has anybody around him, he's going to win everything all the time.

You think they make a change this offseason? They get aggressive? Or is that something that they're going to wait on?

I think because they have so many picks, I think they want to improve the point guard position. They could go out in the trade market and get like a solid veteran point guard who can kind of bridge them for a couple of years. They have so many picks. Maybe they find a point guard in this draft, Dillingham from Kentucky or Reed Shepard, whoever it is. But next year's draft is loaded. They could have as many as four lottery picks based on. And so, like, I don't think they're going all in on some veteran who makes 40 or $50 million? They don't have to. They just got to get something on Victor's timeline. They'll be way better next year because he's going to be so good. And listen, they have to put pieces around him. He's going to dominate this league in ways like, I think, on both ends of the floor, unlike we've seen.

Wow. All right, good question. Well, watch. This has been awesome.

We guys, I appreciate it. Honorable.

Yeah. A lot of fun. And yeah, when we. When we call on you in the future, you're. You're going to have to.

I will. I will step, too.

We're roach guys.

I appreciate that.

Woj was brought to you by our great friends over at Facebook. Everyone should explore their interests, and if you do it on Facebook, there's a world of possibilities that open up to you when you tap into the people and the products on the platform. With Facebook reels, you can discover so many sports tips, tricks that can seriously up your game. I need some help with my golf game. I'm gonna be checking out Facebook reels. I've got a. I got a tournament coming up this weekend. Haven't been on the course. Guess where I'm going to fix my swing? Watching reels on Facebook, first and foremost is the people on Facebook. You can use marketplace groups and reels and your interest exploration. What's so amazing about Facebook is where it's going to take you. We're on Facebook. You can check out part of my take on Facebook. Put the best clips up there. Maybe some of the worst clips, too. If you want to discover more, visit Facebook. Check Facebook out today. WOJ was also brought to you by visible. If you haven't heard of visible, now you have. They're the wireless carrier that's making wireless visible.

It's in the name. Just switch to visible, the wireless company that makes wireless visible. Get a one line plan with unlimited 5g data powered by Verizon. As low as $25 a month every month, taxes and fees included. Use Promo code take 20 to get $20 off your first month just for listening to this podcast. If you're listening to PMT right now, we can save you $20 off your first bill your first month when you use promo code. Promo code take 21 line wireless as low as $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Unlimited 5g data powered by Verizon Switch now@visible.com you can save on wireless with unlimited five g and it's powered by Verizon Switch now@visible.com. For data management practices and additional terms, visit visible.com. The visible monthly rate is dollar 25 a month. You can switch now@visible.com. And now here is Shane Bacon.

Now for something completely different.

Okay, we now welcome on recurring guest friend of the program. It is Shane Bacon. He is in Louisville, Kentucky at Valhalla for the PGA Championship which starts on Thursday. And we wanted to get some insight into the tournament. Talk to Shane. He also is bringing back the get a grip pod. So go subscribe now. He also has a children's book out that I actually read to my kids. They love it. Only problem is too long, a little too long. We skip some pages, which is tough because the holes are numbered in the book. But you've probably been there where you're like, all right, we got to get through this book. We're going to skip over a hole four. Now we're at hole eleven.

Big cat, I'll tell you this, I also skip holes. Yeah, my daughter. So any better? You're not the only one. The guy that actually wrote the book also skips as well. But good to see you boys. I just talked to Mister Homa, who I know you'll be paying close attention to, and his exact quote was hoping to be Seabiscuit this week in Kentucky. So we'll see if, if that actually happens.

I like for Mac.

I.

Wait, that not secretariat. Seabiscuit.

Seabiscuit is dead though, right?

They're all dead.

Well, I mean, legends died big, you.

Know, Seabiscuit died a long time ago.

But wait, wasn't Seabiscuit small?

It was a horse.

Yeah, but it was like small for a horse. And horse sense.

I like, I like that Max is getting into it because I feel like there's going to be a lot of that horse puns all weekend.

Whiskey.

Yeah.

Prepare yourselves for a lot of that this week. They're, they're pushing that pretty heavy. I think there's like little thing like, like the big, you know, boots and structures around the golf course that are kind of promoting that as well. So that's gonna be a big part of the week as to be expected.

Yeah.

It would rock if they, if they put like a wreath of like black eyed susans or roses on the winter right afterwards. Like they're a horse.

Yeah.

And then have a horse come up and interview them.

Yeah.

My favorite part of the derby. But we, we were just talking about Max homeless, so I want to make sure to talk about him right off the bat. He is in my threesome of the week, which is Brooks, Max and Spieth, I believe. Okay, so in a threesome, somebody always gets their feelings hurt. I feel like speed is going to be on the outside looking. I feel like Max and Brooks, this tournament sets up pretty well for them. Am I way off?

No, no, no. Dialed. I mean, this is, you know, it's wet here. It's been raining the last couple of days. I think it's basically going to rain off and on until Sunday. So when you're looking at players to pick or favorites to kind of focus on, I'm looking at guys that hit it far and hit it high, guys like Rory McElroy and Brooks. Max is kind of sneaky long as well. That's a big golf term that we like to throw out there. So I like those two, but I think you're dialed on the person on the outside looking in. Jordan just hadn't really played great golf in the last few years, and Jordan's one of those players that's still looking for the career grand slam. If he could win this week, I mean, you would join legitimately the most elite group and all of golf. I think there's been just five players ever that have won the career grand slam. But I don't think this is a Jordan speed golf course. So, yeah, when you're looking at that threesome, I think Brooks and Max are the likely candidates to come out of that.

All right, so, Valhalla, can you tell us just the, the history and what this course is going to give us? You know, what, you know, the intricacies, what's the unique thing? What games match up? Well, I know you just mentioned a little bit of it, but give us the download of Valhalla because I still don't. The schedule still has snuck up on me every year. Now that they moved the PGA to second, it's going to take me a few more years to be able to mentally get through that.

Yeah, and they'll probably move back to the end of the year once you kind of get comfortable with that. I probably am feeling the same thing as you. First things first, I looked up what Valhalla means because I know you probably asked that. That's the great hall described in norse mythology, where the souls of vikings feasted and celebrated with the gods. Now that sounds relatively grandiose. I bet PFt liked that. But it's a golf course that hasn't hosted a million major championships. This is just its fourth in terms of PGA Championships marks. Brooks won the first, and then, of course, they get Tiger winning and that due with Bob May and then Rory won in 2014. It's a golf course that has two completely different nine holes. I was talking to a couple of players today, and they're talking about the front nine of the back nine. Almost look like different golf courses, but it is really, really long. And I mentioned it's really soft, so I think it favors longer players. Like, I'm looking at Rory kind of looking on, like, the sleeper sides of things. I like Min Wu Lee, who has had some success this year and has played well in majors as of late, saw hit the gala.

Also a guy that I'm kind of focused on this week, maybe outside of those top five players, but you got to beat it forever, and you got to hit it relatively straight because the rough is gnarly and it's going to play like that. And when you look historically outside of Mark Brooks, you know, Tiger in 2001 of the longest guys in golf, and Rory, of course, in 2014, the longest guy at the time, and still one of the longest players in golf. So that's kind of what you're going to get here this week.

Yeah, I think Valhalla, if I remember my Mad Max correctly, and I think I do, it's what, it's where you, the, like, souls of warriors go there in the afterlife. It's like, witness me, I'm about to die. Then I'm going to be in heaven. It's like north heaven. I guess Hank made a face when you said, min Wu Lu li. I just want to put that on the record. Hank thinks that's a disgusting pick on your part. I'm going to go with you. You pay more attention to golf than Hank does. So I'm going to. I'm going to tell you, play less than Hank.

A play less than Hank as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a definite.

But from an outside, he'd be one of the guys. That's a long shot that you're looking at that could. His game translates well.

Yeah, I mean, he's one of the longest guys on tour. He's 8th on. On the PGA Tour this season in driving distance. He's got kind of more comfortable over the last couple of years in terms of majors. Top 23, top 22. And three of his last four major starts, including a tie for fifth last year at the US Open. I feel like Minwool is kind of waiting to break through in that regard. So even though hate kind of hates the pick, I feel like Min will. He's going to have a good week.

If he hates it, it's a good pick.

Yeah.

So you said the front nine and the back nine are like two different courses. In what ways are they different?

I mean, just like undulation what the holes look like, it almost looks like they took two different nines on two different golf courses and kind of married them together. Even kind of the way the holes move and meander feel very, very different. There's a lot more water as you kind of creep over to the back nine. So it's very unique like that. There's not a lot of golf courses that feel very much like you're playing two different courses. But the players that I've talked to said they love the back nine a lot more than the front nine, which is obviously what we want as golf fans. I mean, you prefer the better holes and the more fun holes to be as they're kind of closing things down on the weekend.

So I think this is the longest a PGA Championship preview has ever gone without mentioning the name Scotty Scheffler. Scotty Scheffler is the best golfer in the world. It's not really close right now. Is, is this just going to be another scottish tournament? I mean, he's, it's crazy what he's doing. And it's not just the Masters. It was before the Masters. But is anyone even close to him? If Scottie plays his a minus game, can someone beat him?

Speaker zero no, not, not at all. If he's anywhere in the a's, even the b's, I feel like Scotty's going to win. I mean, four wins in his last five starts. The one when he didn't have was a t second where he missed a ten footer and it would have been five straight. What he's doing. I mean, I looked at his stats earlier and when you scroll through it, it's just a one next to everything. It's bananas to see somebody doing this. And, I mean, you're getting so many comps to what Tiger used to do, right, and what we're seeing with Scotty right now. And when you dive into the stats, I mean, that's when you really start to see kind of. 20 00 20 01 20 02 Tiger woods. This guy leads in par three scored and par four scored and Stroh Skein off the tees and around the green and iron play. It's so complete big cat that it's incredibly impressive to watch. And obviously it took him a little bit of time to pick up that win. You know, you think earlier in the season, even the major championships last year, he was getting close, but he wasn't winning.

Picking up a couple of the wins once he switched putters has been huge for him. And then I always say winning the second major is tougher, the toughest major to win. Anybody can kind of win one, right? I mean, you go through the history of golf, there's a lot of, quote unquote, no names that have won one major championship. There's not a lot of no names that have won two. And when you look at these young players, we've got a list of one time major winners. So to pick up that second to win the Masters now kind of gets it rolling and gets it flowing, I feel like it's going to be more comfortable for Scottie. And also something Scottie has that a lot of the players in the field don't is he's had a couple of weeks off. You know, this is a guy that didn't play last week, and I think that'll bode well for Scottie coming into this week. And also, Scottie, a guy that bombs it. You know, this is a guy that we talked so much about, the complete game and the distance is incredible. And Colin Morkawa talked about it after he played with him at Augusta national.

He said, you know, I'm hitting five irons into some of these par fours, and Scotty's hitting eight iron. I mean, I'm just not going to hit it as close as he is. So I think right now in pro golf, it is Scottie on the men's side and Nelly Corey, Florida on the women's side and then everybody else. And the gap is growing right now.

It is fun for golf when we have. I know, you know, domination makes it maybe not as, as fun on Sunday, but like, when Tiger was doing it, just going into a tournament, being like, if this guy's playing his game, we're just going to get to watch a spectacle. And that's what it feels like right now with Scottie Scheffler.

Yeah, I mean, it's. You asked the a minus game. What I look at is who has to play their a game to compete. I look at Rory, I look at Brooks, even look at max. I mean, those guys, if they play a plus golf, they can compete and potentially beat Scottie Scheffler. But most guys don't have their a games in major championships. So if a guy shows up at the b plus game, they're just not going to be able to hang with that guy. He's so consistent. He makes no mistakes. He plays really smart. I mean, Scottie's doing all the things that Tiger used to do. You know, Tiger's the most conservative, great player ever. You know, that's something that we kind of, you know, misconceptualized when we thought about the way Tiger went about his business. He hit to the fat part of the greens. You know, he wouldn't take a lot of chances unless he was super comfortable. That's the thing I see the most similar to Tiger with Scotty is he knows exactly where to MIT, where to hit it, where maybe he makes birdie, but he's absolutely not going to make bogey.

And that's tough when you're trying to chase that guy down.

Yeah.

What about Tiger this week? He said that he feels like he could win. I would like for Tiger to be in contention. I think he says that before every tournament, though, because he's obviously competitor and he doesn't. He doesn't go into a tournament think like, oh, I don't have a chance at winning. But it's his new. It's his first tournament with his new line of clothes. Right. So maybe we're going to get a boost from that.

Played Riviera, I think he was Sunday red. He played Masters Sunday red. But I think this might be the first one where you can buy the clothes. So, yeah, maybe he does get the boost from, you know, saying, hey, the shirt look great when I shot 67. Go online and purchase it. You know, maybe there's a discount code or something like that. But, you know, I'm surprised he's playing. Honestly, I'm surprised he's playing this golf course, considering the link and considering what these types of venues ask. I look at Tiger right now, and I think the only major he can really contend in and potentially win is the British Open, because firm, fast, warm things like that play into his hands. It's just going to be tough for Tiger to play at a wet and soft golf course that plays this long when he's 40 and 50 yards behind a Scottie Scheffler or a Brooks or a Rory. I mean, that's just kind of the window he's playing in right now.

Yeah.

And what about Rory? I know there's a lot going on his personal life right now. Probably not the best timing for that, for him mentally to be entering this weekend. Kind of feel bad for him on that front. But he did win last weekend, and we were saying, I don't know if there's any actual, like, statistical evidence to back this up. But we feel like Rory is the king of winning a tournament close to a major, and then everybody thinking, Rory's back, he's going to win this one, and then nothing happens. How does this course set up for Rory? And he's. Is he playing good enough where if he has, like, an a. A minus effort that he could beat anybody not named Scottie Scheffler?

Yeah, I would say outside of kind of the news today, he was going to be my pick. I mean, just considering the way he's played coming in. You know, the last time Rory won a major championship, which. Which was at Valhalla, was 2014, he won the two events headed in. Well, he's won two events headed in here. So when you're kind of looking at reasons to pick Rory, the other thing I think about is, like, not to get too deep into the personal stuff. I mean, that's Rory's deal and Rory's situation. But when Rory had the chip on his shoulder and kind of played golf like an asshole was when he played the best golf. And so I look at Rory right now, and maybe that plays into his hands because he's tried everything else. He's come in playing a whole bunch of events in a row and not played great in majors, and he's taken weeks off and not played great in majors and not one. So maybe there's some level of, you know, everybody's against me. The world's looking at me. They're judging me. Let me go out here and just kind of step on some necks and play some great golf.

So if you're looking for any reason to pick Rory, winning his first major since 2014, maybe you can lean into that.

So he's like, how can I fix my game swing? Whatever. Let's try divorce.

Yeah, well, he's back on the market. That might be. He might, like, if I win, girls.

Are looking at him.

I'm going to be. I'm a champion, baby.

That's true. Everyone knows that feeling of, like, are those hot girls looking at me? I better fucking crush this drive.

Yeah, he crushes most drives. Let me just say that. I mean, it was the number. Like, the stuff I was talking to a player today, I feel like Rory is one of the rare players that's gotten into his thirties and has gotten longer. And when you watch him, like, watch him at the Wells Fargo last week, I mean, he's able to take on holes and take on bunkers that almost nobody else in the field can do. And the way he drove the ball last week, he's going to have to do it this week to be competitive. But I just feel like he was struggling so much with the driver earlier this year, which is something he never struggles with. Right. I mean, that's like Steph Curry struggling from three. Like, Steph's going to make threes. Like, maybe he gets bumped inside, or maybe he's struggling on defense, but you can rely on the three point shot. If you're Steph Curry, Rory could always rely on the driver, and it went away for about four months. Now that it's back, I feel like he can go back out there and kind of smoke it over some of the lines on a golf course he knows well, and he's one on that.

Plays into his hands, obviously.

Yeah. What about our guy? And I already made this bet, so it doesn't matter what you say to me after, but I love will Zalatoris. I was looking at it last night. He's not playing well. What's. What's up with him? I already bet him to win, so that that's been decided. But what is. What's going on with his game? And does he have. Because it always feels like when Will Zalator is playing well, he'll be in the mix. But does he have a playing well in his bag right now?

I think he does, and I think Will salators is one of those guys that the harder the golf course, the better it is for his game because he hits it so well. I mean, there are big cat. There are probably ten guys in pro golf that are just at another level in terms of ball striking, and everybody on tour knows who those guys are, right? That's Rory, that's Max, that's Brooks Koepka, that's gotti Schepler Salad. Torres is in that group. And so when you think about major championships, they're longer, the rough is higher. There's a premium on hitting fairways. All of those things play into this thing. It's almost like guys that step up in the playoffs, right? Maybe they're not great during the regular season, but they find another gear or their game translates in the playoffs. He's one of those playoff type of players. So I like. I like Zalator's as well this week. I don't really care what kind of form he's in coming into these type of events, because he seems to step it up no matter if he's playing great or not, because, again, these golf courses demand more from everybody, and he's one of those players that that doesn't scare yeah.

Great.

Five to one.

Yeah. I like, I like those odds. You mentioned all the great ball strikers. You left off Blocky.

Oh, yeah. Blocky is going to probably win this because this is.

It's a year. It's a year to the point where he, he captured America's hearts for about 93 hours. And then he talked about Rory McElroy. If. If he had Rory McElroy's tee shots on every hole, what would he shoot? Would he be top ten, top 20, career grand slam?

Probably. I mean, he probably would have won the Masters. He probably would have won Wells Fargo. He would win this week for sure. Thinking about Pinehurst. I think it plays at Pinehurst. So us opens his and then Troon. It's where the opens at. So, I mean, you're talking a Scottie level run. If block, you could hit it like Rory. I'm with you there.

Yeah. I mean, block, he's not a bad guy, but I'll be honest, I'm rooting for him to finish dead last.

It'd be fun.

Yeah, it would be now. Yeah. I want.

I want to finish dead last, but I also want him to have a hole in one.

Yeah.

And still finished.

I want to finish dead, dead last and just be like, oh, man, if he had worries distance.

You rather make a hole in one and shoot your best score ever or make a hole in one and shoot, like, an obnoxiously high score?

Obnoxious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It just stands out.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That would be way better if I shot, like, a 148 with a hole in one. It's hard to do with you.

I mean, I think, again, you're going to frame the scorecard, right?

Right.

Why not make the hole in one the ally, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It'd be great. We have to ask you about the. The live merger because I feel at this point that when they made that announcement last year, they didn't have anything at all ready to go. They just got done with a meeting and he was like, okay, I think we're going to do a merger. Let's do a press conference. They had no plans in place whatsoever. Am I. Am I off on thinking that? It was just like a spur of the moment? We're going to make this announcement. No idea how it's going to work because people are resigning. It's not going anywhere. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. They didn't have shit ready to go when they said this last summer, did that.

It feels like it. It feels like it was just kind of one of those things you throw out there, it's like the. It's like the Hawks getting the number one pick, and you're going, we're going to rebuild, man. Like, we. Look what we can do now with our team. Is there really a plan in the back room, or is everybody just high five? And because they had the top pick, I don't really understand what's happening in the background. Everybody's leaving. Guys are getting voted off the pack. Rory's not allowed back on. Now, it seems, as far as it's ever been, in terms of a merger, the one thing I will say about live in the PGA Tour, it feels like the parties are more comfortable now, like almost being apart, if that makes sense. I don't know if you guys feel the same way in terms of observation, but it feels like live players are really comfortable being live players, and PGA Tour players are really comfortable being PGA Tour players, and they're just kind of coexisting. They show up at the majors, they play practice rounds. I loved what, what Brooks said a couple of months ago, and he was asked, who, if you had to play one round of golf the rest of your life with one pro, who'd you pick?

And he said, rory, like, it seems like it's kind of simpatico between these two parties, and they're just kind of existing. But I don't know what happened last year. I don't know what's happened in twelve months. And it feels like every six weeks or so, we get a press conference that something's going to happen, and then nothing ever does.

I feel like what happened was the PGA guys that stuck around. They realized that the PGA has been kind of full of shit on this, so they don't have that same animosity towards the live. They can't be like, you're leaving this great institution. We care so much about this institution and the future of the game, because they realize that, oh, yeah, they don't have a plan in place. Nothing is happening. So it's like they've kind of come over to the other side, which is why we're seeing more and more players, I think, leave the PGA Tour. I think the PGA has a leaderboard problem, where on Sundays in every tournament, it feels like you just look at the leaderboard, and you're like, what is this? Is this a major event? Is this an event that people usually play in? Are you guys skipping this week? And then you look at the live leaderboard, and the irony is, nobody's really watching the live, but the leaderboards look great. Hank is watching. Yeah, but the leaderboards look so much better. And that's what, you know, casual golf fans like us care about is just that one quick glance and be like, I don't know any of these guys.

Yeah.

Hey, what is Hank like outside of the Patriots?

That's a good.

What is? Cuz.

Cuz I feel like I hear a lot of complaining, and I'm just wondering, like, Hank, can you give me three things you love in life?

In life?

Yeah. God.

Just in life.

I don't. I don't complain at all.

No, no. Golf. Give it to us.

Golf. Family, podcasting, friends.

Vacation.

Vacation.

Vacation. The ocean.

Hank is a big live golf fan. He is like a huge live golf fan. He turns it on all the time.

Do you set your alarm and wake up early or. No, no.

I mean, I.

It's.

I think the ones big guys talking about was this last run when they were in Hong Kong and Singapore and we were watching at night, like, we were watching Sunday afternoon or Sunday night, and I was like, let's put on live. Yeah, I'm a big time if golf's on, you know, call me crazy if golf's on. I'd rather watch live golf than anything else. No, but, like, if it's. If it's on, I'm gonna. I'm gonna watch it.

Yeah.

Well, like, the live leaderboard thing has been so interesting because obviously, they've got smaller fields. But, you know, I mean, the recipe for success in terms of somebody looking online or even watching it on the leaderboard is you're inevitably going to get five of those guys in the top ten because they're just so much better than the guys maybe at the bottom 20. So Rom is going to be involved, Brooks is going to be involved. Bryson is going to be involved. And so if you're a casual golf fan and you dive into the leaderboard, that makes a lot of sense. I will give the PJ Tour a little credit. It feels like the last couple of weeks we've had some better leaderboards, which has been nice because I'm with you. PFT. The first couple of months were relatively brutal in terms of leaderboards.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you were to take, like, a big, big outsider, like a type of long shot that we saw win some tournaments this year, who would be the biggest outsider that you would put money on?

I think. I think, sahit, the gala kind of makes sense there. I mean, again, you're talking about he's probably 150 to one ish. I'd say big cat. You can check that and let me know. I mean, he's probably floating around that number. He ranked 6th in total strokes, gained 20th in driving distance, 12th in putting over the last three months. He's a guy that has been finding his game and getting more comfortable in terms of tour setups. He's also a guy that misses fairways and kind of lives by missing fairways. And when I say that, I mean, there are wills, ale tourist types that stripe it all the time, and then there are dudes that, like Phil Mickelson did this throughout his career that hit it all over the place and could play from those spots. And I feel like saw hit this kind of modern fill in that regard. So I'd say he's probably in that hundred to 125 to one range that I kind of like this week.

Okay, so last question. Rowback question. Rho back.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Cusips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com promo code take I know we talked about them at the top. Can Max win this tournament?

Yep. Absolutely. I think Max is an athlete that when he gets a taste, he gets a taste. You know, you think about Riviera in 2021, right? This is a guy that had longed to win that golf tournament. He wins Riviera, and then he wins four times in the next two years. He got a taste a little bit at the Open last year, finished it the top ten. Then he didn't have to answer any of those questions about major championship golf anymore. Then he gets to the Masters and gets himself in contention. I remember talking to Max after an event a few years ago, and he was close to winning. And I asked him kind of on Monday, how does it feel, and where are you at? And he said, I just want to get back to that moment again. Like, I want to be back in the arena. I want to feel those same sensations that I just felt. And so I imagine that once he left Augusta national and a couple of days passed and he realized Scottie was just at a different level, I'm sure Max felt very similar to that. I think Max can absolutely win here.

I think it's a good golf course for him, and I feel like he's been playing better and better golf than we saw early in the season. So. Absolutely, I think. I think Max not only can win, but I think he's in probably my top three favorites right now.

I love that for Max.

Yes.

My last question is about the champions dinner, because I didn't realize that the PGA championship had a champions dinner like the Masters does. So it was last year, and I think JT made a little off color joke about Mito. Right. And then people talked about that for a while. When is the champions dinner for the PGA? Is it Monday? Is it tonight?

I believe it's tonight, if that tells you anything. I'm not even sure that the night it's on. I did just see Mark Brooks walking through the compound about ten minutes ago, and he seemed to be leaving, so maybe he was going to get, you know, cleaned up and put the suit on. But I think the chance. Pretty sure this dinner players have skipped in the past, so it doesn't quite feel like the one we see, obviously, at Augusta national. But as we know anything in sports, everybody's kind of a lemming. So once somebody does it, they're like, we should do that as well. And the PGA does it now, but I believe it's tonight.

Okay. That's really the only reason I would want to win a tournament, to come back for those dinners.

Would you go tux? Would you go suit?

What?

Would you go?

Probably. I don't know. Probably just a t shirt. T shirt. Sweatpants. Just keep it comfortable.

Lay it out there. Maybe it should be that. Maybe that should be their thing. Like the masters does. You pick the menu. Maybe the winner of the PGA should pick the outfits.

Everybody has to wear your pick. Like a theme. Pick a theme for the night.

Like the Met gala. That's smart.

Yeah. Yeah. Or yeah. Just thinking back through all the college parties I went to, probably all of those are not acceptable for. For mixed company, but that's fine.

Yeah. All right. Well, Shane, thank you, as always. We appreciate it. And have fun out there, and we'll be watching the whole thing.

All right, thanks, boys. Appreciate it.

Shane Bacon is brought to you by Topgolf. It's golf. It's not golf. It's Topgolf. We've been to Topgolf. Whether you love golf or if you've never swung a club before, they're the place to play. Bighead. I loved it when we went to Topgolf. Yes. We had all those competitions that we.

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I felt like me or you finished in first place in all of them. It was so cool.

Yeah, no, we did.

Yeah. We won all of them. It was great. What a great night. It was. It doesn't matter if you're hanging out with the boys from the podcast, if you're on date night, guys trip, or just a fun afternoon activity for your friends or if you're trying to evaluate every quarterback in the NFL draft, Topgolf is the place to go. Since they want everyone to play. Topgolf launched a new game. It's called Block Party. You remember block party, right?

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Where you can book a bay and come play around. That's topgolf.com. Pardon my take.

Okay, let's finish up with guys on chicks for that.

Quick question.

Should we be having Hank read these questions?

Yeah. Guys on this. Hank, can we do guys on women? Is that okay this time?

Yep. Before that, do you think what is more significant? Scottie Scheffler baby bump. Rory McElroy divorce.

Right. So I. I think it might be Rory divorce bump.

Because we're a baby bump show.

We are. But I don't know. This might be too soon for the baby bump. Engulf consider. Is the US open on Father's day?

Yeah. No. Yes, it is. Yes.

So. So Father's day is gonna be Sunday of the US Open. The baby will probably be at the US Open on Sunday. In attendance.

Yes.

I don't know if the baby is going to be there this weekend. On the course I would say no.

But that's not the. That's not the.

I think maybe the answer of the.

Baby bump, but no.

Think about just Hank. Close your eyes. Picture Scottie Scheffler US Open Father's Day Sunday. He's going up 18. He holds out, and his wife and baby are right there. That feels like that's going to happen, right?

That's fair.

Hold on. I'm gonna try to find it.

Cuz, while you're looking for that, it's worth mentioning that Scotty's caddy will not be there on Saturday because he's attending his son's high school graduation. I'm gonna say this friend is caddying on Saturday at a major, the Scottie Scheffler.

Too much perspective.

Way too much.

Too much perspective.

Why?

I mean, his caddy is missing a major for high school one Saturday round. It's a moving day.

Yeah.

It's important.

Yeah.

I think there's a bet you can do where it's like, one two, and maybe we just do that one two shuffler.

Zack the box.

Yeah.

One Brooks max.

But one two Scheffler McElroy, and then one two.

This is also. I mean, Brooks did win his first event. I guess not.

It's. He won his fourth event on the live tour.

No, I know, but that wasn't the first event since he had the kid. But he did get the baby bump. Like, you know, he had. That he had the kid on him with on the 18th and all the cute pictures and stuff.

Rory's last major, 2014. This course.

Yep.

Yep. It is, uh, it is also possibility that Scheffler wins both.

Yeah, I would say so. Um. Oh, yeah. 20 2525 to one Scottish Heffler, Rory McElroy. And then you could just do it reverse Rory Scotty. And that might be the move.

Hey, boys. Why is it that my boyfriend and his roommate have a 51 hundred foot ethernet cable legit running through their apartment? They say it's for better Internet connection for when they drop in with the boys.

Yep.

War zone. But it is more than just that. But is it more than just that? Huge fan. Tell Jake the Bing bong maxi on last weekend's PGA. Call me my boyfriend's weekend. Thanks.

Love that.

I think you're reading too much into cable. I think it, like, the first thing I thought of. It's the meme of, like, the girl in bed. I bet he's using that ethernet for weird part porn, and then he's just think about call of duty.

Yeah, no, this is. This is one of those situations where you got to just trust that guys are dumb, and this is, like, a dumb hobby is just what it is.

Mm hmm. And if it weren't for women, I think most guys would just have cables running roughshod all over the apartment or houses. Just functional.

Yeah.

You've got a extension cord going across your, like, basement. Yeah, that's because that's where. That's the good hole.

Yeah.

Right on that side of the wall.

That's where I get all the power.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sup, boys? My boyfriend and his roommate have a secret hand signals that they appear to do behind my back. But I've caught them a couple times. They won't share with me what the hand signals mean. And it appears they keep coming up with more since I've started to notice them. Does every guy have a secret way of communicating with their friends when they're with their girlfriends? P's. Bing bong.

Maxi, Jake, double. Um.

You might be in a gang. Might be just throwing up the pirou.

He could be in a gang, I think. No, most guys don't have this. Put it rocks.

Yeah.

You know what? You know what should be more popular? And this is because they're in my house now. Walkie talkies. Yeah, we should just be bringing back walkie talkies. More like, we should have. We should have walkie talkie.

We've done that. We've tried this before. And New York.

Well, yeah, cuz I. Me and big head have it on our wrists.

Yeah, it's true. But we should have walkie talkies. Like, I would wear a walkie talkie on my belt if we all just had walkie talkies around the office. It's the best when you hit it and you're just like, over.

I also think that if you're wearing a walkie talkie and, like, a day glow high vis vest, you can get in any room in America.

Yep.

Nobody's gonna stop a guy with walkie talkie.

If I get us some high tech walkie talkies. Or if someone sends them to us, would you not walk around with it and we can hit each other up.

Maybe for a day? What was. Oh, man, why can't I remember the commercials?

Nextel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I used to want one of those so bad. Hello? Pft, fat cat.

You wouldn't get that one, Hank.

Yeah, fat cat. Honk. Jake and Maxi pad. I was dating this guy last year and bought tickets to PGA Championship for this weekend. Sunday, to be exact. But since then, he's moved cities and we basically mutually ghosted each other.

Oh, that's mutually mutually ghosting.

Should I reach out to him and remind him of the tickets?

Sounds like you're thinking about not mutually ghosting.

I think I like golf a little more than he does. He grew up Amish.

Oh.

And now I'm in a pickle because I'd really like to go, but I don't really have girlfriends that would enjoy watching golf for hours in the heat. Need some advice on what to do?

I think given the recent news that Jeff Nadu does not have comedy, you should definitely have him come. Mutual ghosting is a wild thing to say. There's no way it was mutual. That. That was a. You can't fire me. I quit. Like, she got. She or.

Yeah, she was waiting.

She got ghosted. And, like, after, like, two text was like, you know what? I might get ghosted. Let me pull out and ghost here, too.

How many relationship that were off to, like, a really good start do you think have been ruined by both teams playing the. I'm gonna wait till they text me.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna text them first. And then nobody just ever texts each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Hank, no. Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, you've textured.

Anyway, Hank.

No big cat brings up a good point. Don't let this be the one.

There's been accidental ghosts. I'm not gonna get into it, senator.

Accidental ghost is definitely worse than a mutual ghost. Right?

Text right now being like, hey, I was waiting for you to text me first, and I wasn't the same. I really miss you.

Got it.

Hey, boys. Big awl here. I'm 34 year old bartender, and I love my job, but I've had a hard time finding a guy who wants to commit a relationship. Is my profession the problem? Do guys assume I'm wild because of what I do for a living?

What does she do?

Bartender. It might. It might be the hours. I don't know if it's about, like, being a bartender. There's nothing wrong with being a bartender. I think most guys are like, I don't want to date this person because they work serving liquor. I think it's, like, hours of bartender crazy.

But I feel like the service industry.

Yeah, hookups happen.

Yeah. Like, that.

That I think you have to. I feel like a lot of bartenders who become professional bartenders, they have that moment where they're like, is this going to be my profession? And then you just start making enough money that it is. And so if you work at a busy bar that the tips are crazy. Like, I never understood that. Why you'd be like, oh, you're 40 and bartending. What if they're making $100,000 a year? Like, within cash tips? Yeah, why wouldn't you do that?

Yeah, I think it would take a. Not every guy can date a bartender, because I think a lot of guys would take advantage of that where they just bring all their buddies, we can get free drinks all night. And also knowing that you're gonna get hit on by, like, every guy that you talk to every single night, not every dude is comfortable dealing with situation.

You need. You need a true alpha male, not someone who's going to be a beta.

Yeah. So when the guy does come around, he's gonna be confident.

Yeah, confident, cocky. His name's gonna be Hank.

That's it.

Okay, good show, great show, great show. Very fun show.

Hot studio helps.

Yeah.

See, I just invited you to walkie talkie.

Oh, you've been invited.

Yeah. Apple Watch.

Oh, it's on the.

Okay, okay, numbers. 2056. Oh, you had one in the barrel there, Maverick.

46.

What is that? Max.

That's what I want one with in New York.

All right, so taking 56.

99.

Pug.

Jake, what number are you taking over?

1810. Point. No, 18.

He said ten four.

No, no, you said ten four. Which, 110 or 418?

You just said ten four.

I said 18.

That means 14.

Yeah, 18. Okay, we have everyone's numbers. Shane? 21. What was yours? Ps. Two. Eight. Eight was yours. Hank?

46.

I have 2060.

Love you guys.

My peace. Say after me.

Take on me take.

Me out, I'll be gone.

Take on.

Me me, take on me, take on me.