Transcript of NBA Finals With Kirk Goldsberry, FSU Head Coach Luke Loucks, Myles Garrett To The Rams + Memes Vs Zac New

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at stellabluecoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got a twofer for the people. We got Kirk Goldsberry breaking down the NBA Finals that's set to start on Wednesday night, and then we have Florida State men's head basketball coach Luke Laux on the show in studio.

He brought the banner, we've unveiled the banner. Uh, awesome dude, he knows a ton. He actually— we went through it and he knows basically every single person playing in these NBA Finals. Uh, great conversation with him about basketball and, uh, coaching. We're going to talk some NFL news because Miles Garrett is now a Los Angeles Ram. Antonio Or sorry, AJ Brown is now a New England Patriot. We're going to talk some finals. We've got hot seat, cool throne, maybe some doot-to-dos on the show. And then we're going to finish with guys on chicks. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Reese's. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a Reese's. Take how the whole world is vying for the cup right now. Is it because it's called the cup? Just like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Coincidence? I think not. So be a champ and score Reese's today because everything happens for Reese's. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Everything happens for Reese's. Get yours at www.hershealand.com/reese's. Okay, let's go.

Football guy, Martino, AWM.

Part of my take, yeah.

Part of my take, yeah. Part of my take, yeah. Part of my take, yeah.

Part of my take. Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, June 3rd. And boys, we've never done this before, but we're gonna do it right here. Uh, we're going to play the ending of the show, the lottery balls, first, because otherwise we can't do the rest of the show. So this was us taping the lottery ball segment a few hours ago. Let's do, uh, numbers.

77, 44, 15, 11.

Oh, fuck you, Zach. 4, 21.

What's the matter, man?

58. You're a Nova guy. What number do you wear at Nova?

5. What's the matter, man?

I've been picking that for the fucking Zach and his White Castle. Uh, I'll go 10.

11.

Oh, Zach!

Let's go, Zach! Let's go, Zach! Hell yeah, Zach! Let's go!

Hell yeah, Zach!

Let's go, Zach! Why?

Wait, why is he fucked?

Let's go, Zach.

Explain why he's fucked. Memes, why is he fucked?

I don't know.

Oh, wait, you said numbers. Everyone could have said whatever number they wanted.

Yeah, Zach said Memes apparently always takes 11.

I've been taking it for the past—

always take 11 for the past 2 months. And Zach just took 11 and he got it for no reason.

Have you gotten it? The only reason I took 11 is because Max has 109,011 emails.

Yeah. Oh no. Memes. Yep. How mad are you, Memes? So mad.

Very mad. Oh, he doesn't have words.

Memes?

No, I'm steaming.

This is what Yandel was talking about. You got the school shooter vibe.

Well, that's just fucked up, right?

There you have it.

Now that I would go into a school and shoot.

No, it's not.

Big Cat, that was over the line.

We're not talking about podcast.

We're not talking about actually. What about an office?

And adults.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's equally as bad.

Okay. All right.

I thought you were going to say no, that's, that's, that's, that's possible.

That's more my speed.

Do you think that Zach did that on purpose, Memes?

Yeah, he does everything on purpose.

Oh, Zach, do you regret this?

I just saw it in the emails. I didn't really think much.

Oh, so you don't regret this?

Look, there's no taking it back.

No one owns numbers.

Yeah, you don't own the number.

Oh, forgot to wake up again.

I love that for you.

Uh, best of luck on the machine memes. A couple guys have hit it this year. I believe that's me, Big Cat, and Jacob.

You haven't hit it this year.

Oh yes, you're also like a not-hitted guy, so best of luck.

I actually have hit it this year.

No, you haven't.

Yes, I have. I want it on the first day of the year. It's a good job, Zach. Way to wake up for that one.

It didn't count.

This machine may have counted.

Did it count?

No, he's talking about this machine. Max, why are you talking about the old machine?

Max left the booth and he walked in because it's too awkward.

He He got it on the old machine this year. He has not— he's never gotten on this machine.

I think we should give it to him.

Something you've done.

I think we should give it to him.

No, but I have won it this year.

No, you have not. Yeah, this year you've won it, but not on this machine.

I have won it this year.

Not on this machine. You haven't got this machine. Everybody's got a clean slate.

I won on this machine.

No, you did win it on this machine.

No, he didn't. He did not. And you just got his number.

He's been—

how long you been guessing it?

2 months. Oh, I've been doing it for Jalen Brunson.

Oh, but well, he's a Knicks fan too. You should be happy for him.

You get the rest of your memes.

I believe in you.

Or you might not hit it, who knows?

Yeah, Zach's Knicks fandom has been retracted.

Okay. Oh damn. Can you do this?

Bad right before the finals.

This is bad energy going into the finals.

He's out.

He's out.

We can't have this.

You still want to watch a game on Wednesday or no?

Oh, you guys had plans to watch together?

Go watch Mellow highlights.

All right.

So no Wednesday. So.

All right. He's so mad. That's tough. Oh, Max left the room. And now we're back.

And things have just kind of snowballed from there. Yeah. So it would have been impossible for us to do this show without acknowledging that right off the bat. There is some contention. Not great timing considering the Knicks are about to play in the NBA Finals, the most important series in New York basketball in, what, 30 years? 30 years. So things are— things are at a high boil, I would say. Have they gotten— have— has the simmering reduced anything since the last we talked, guys? Name Zach.

Max. Max. Max, you got to— you got to get in the game here, Max. This is—

I'm in the middle. They need to be able to look at each other.

I should be back.

I'm fine. OK. OK. You're fine to the point of saying the Zach bit has run its course and then kind of trashing him on Twitter.

Well, yeah, that was just out of rage.

Okay, so has the rage subsided at all? Because like, you understand why we had to show the lottery balls at the start of the show. People are tuning in right now being like, why do they hate each other? It would have been very confusing if it was a regular show and then at the very end it's like, oh, that's why. So we— this is why. How are we doing?

We're in the same booth.

Yeah, fact.

Okay, Zach, if there are any other podcasts hiring, DM me.

I can't stand the sight of this guy. That was part of my meme.

You just need a backup plan.

Memes has demanded, at one point demanded a trade to any other show. Then there was also a point where someone suggested that Memes could do a show with Rossini, and he did not turn that down.

He did the Shrek meme.

Yeah.

Now, that's what— memes. Did you unfollow Zach on social media? No. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Did you block him on social media?

No, he's good. He's good. Unless the Knicks lose.

Okay.

And then what? Just wrap.

But could it get worse than it's already been?

No, I don't think it'd get worse.

Yeah, because the rage is, you know, it came out hard and fast, the rage at Zach. And we've been sitting in it. We've been stewing in it. We tape. I think most people know that with our busy schedule, we sometimes tape things out of order. So we taped Guys on Chicks and the lottery ball at like 11 AM today, and it's now 4 o'clock. So we've just been stewing in it for the last 4 hours. Uh, what was that shit?

Now I'm gonna call from my building manager.

Oh no, he's probably like, hey, why are you mad at Zach? There's actually a chance you want to pick it up.

Yeah.

Okay. No, no, pick it up on air. No. All right. So Memes is leaving the room for a second, which might be a good thing.

It also might be a fake call.

It might be a fake call.

This might be him dealing with the rage, which actually—

he got a call.

He got a call.

All right, Max or Zach, let's start with you. How are you feeling?

I'm in a good spot. You got Game 1 coming up.

You have not backed down, which I gave you credit for. I asked for immunity from Memes temporarily. He granted it to me. I said out loud, I respect the hell out of Zach for not backing down. Why are you going to stay strong here?

Yeah, look, guys, guys got emotions sometimes. Sometimes they got to let them out. That's totally cool. No, we're really all good.

Okay.

No big deal.

Did you notice? And this is a little bit of jumping around here, but during the upcoming interview on today's show with Kurt Goldsberry, Zach asked a question. Zach made a specific reference to Jalen Brunson's jersey number in that question. That seemed like that might have been directed to Memes. But then while you were asking that, Memes deliberately cut the camera away from you while you were asking.

He also was doing the Hank face, if we're coining it that. Oh, okay.

As Zach was asking, can you show us the Hank face? Oh yeah, that is the Hank face.

Memes can't exist.

Hank, you do a good Hank face.

Thanks. But, but things are— you're saying that things are okay now. You're both saying that we're on the right path. You got a common goal. Are you next to the finish line?

Are you still a Knicks fan, Zach? Because according to Memes, you're not.

You provoked that from me. I don't think we're going to watch the game together Wednesday. That is in a couple of days, so I would still be open to that.

You're— you're— that's today. It's today.

Oh, fair.

Were you—

you guys were planning on watching the game together?

We were.

Okay.

I don't know if we are still. Maybe later in the day. Maybe we still link up.

Memes, watch the game with Zach.

Let's just be clear. I've been picking— this is why I'm mad. I've been picking 11. Since the beginning of the playoffs. And I said, if any point 11 comes up, the Knicks are winning the finals.

So, so there you go. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Okay, stop fucking touching me.

Not—

dude, just stop.

You're pulling down my headphones, you dick.

Nice Villanova sweatshirt, by the way, man. Thank you very much. Oh, what was that, Zach?

It was V's up.

Oh, V's up.

Okay, so That's why I got so angry.

Cool Visor Max. Got it.

It would have been the greatest omen to start the NBA Finals.

Yeah.

Vibes would have been so— on the day.

Yeah, on the day.

Of the Finals. And he said he picked it because of Max's emails.

Yeah.

So that is why I am mad. The Knicks haven't won a championship in 50 years.

But the number 11 coming up still means the omen.

Yeah, it's a sign. We just don't know what the sign is.

It could have been a better sign.

Okay. So for people who are extremely superstitious.

Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Everyone here is superstitious.

Normally, like, you guys steal numbers.

That's fine.

You steal numbers.

Well, there's no such thing as stealing.

You can't steal a number. You say it first.

Yeah. Numbers are for everyone.

And I would have said it, but I was fixing the camera because I have to fix the camera.

And that's where it comes in that you're like, Zach does nothing. I actually work.

I was just saying that was—

that was just out loud. That was just— that was not a real thing.

I love how uncomfortable Max is.

That was— well, towards him too. But yeah, I have to fix the camera.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you said earlier that you're the only one in that booth that does anything.

No, I did not say that.

You did.

Yeah. I listen, I'll actually side with you here because Max looks ridiculous in his visor right now. So like, that's a guy who's not wrong.

Shit. Wrong.

Max.

Max is cutting the cameras right now. OK, and if he was more attentive on the computer, I'd say he does a lot.

OK, and Zach is not attentive on the computer.

Therefore, I struggle sometimes with that.

And Zach does nothing in the booth.

We just—

he just— he just sits here. What was the other tweet? It was like, we— I— the fourth mic now.

Well, that guy, that was—

what did you say?

That's just negative.

I'll find it.

Self—

Self-miscommunication. He just posted things. I just said things out loud.

You just quoted Zach there.

Yeah. What did you see? What did you— what did you say? What was the fourth mic thing?

Well, the guy was essentially like, well, your bit is probably up. And I was like, well, I have to talk because others don't speak up into the mic.

OK, Max, put your fucking headphones back on, dude. This— you're part of this.

Well, the way that Max has been handling this is it's very funny because Memes has been going after Zach. Zach's been also giving it back to memes a little bit.

Well, that's the thing.

If he would have just been like, fuck, that is Jalen Brunson, and then Max has just been buying visors online to distract himself, like doing, doing like just escapism in real time, just logging on to visor websites.

I got 9 visors today.

He's Barstool Sports advisor.

Oh, all right. So I think that we're in a good spot Kind of. And the spot that we're in is if the Knicks win the NBA title, this is all forgotten and it actually was a great omen. And, you know, peace, peace in our time. If the Knicks lose the NBA Finals, Zach and Memes will just never speak again. Correct. Okay. That's right. Listen, it's a lot on the line. We got some juice for this. Fine. We didn't need more juice, but now we have more juice. It's nice to have more juice.

We need a Knicks win, but that would be a huge bummer. So I'm not even going to look to that because we got to get this win.

Zach, what if you just bet on the Spurs to win the finals? And then if the Spurs win the finals, you just give Memes all the cash to pay him off for his friendship.

No, we got to see a Knicks win. Okay.

Yeah. What's your favorite memory of working with Memes, Zach? Just in case this is the last time that you guys are on good terms.

Uh, one time me and Memes went to UFC fights, and it was really fun. But then we on the— we chose to walk to the office from the arena, and the most rain I've ever encountered in my entire life came down. And it was a lot of fun, honestly. Really? It was—

I was like, you guys in the rain?

That was a good— yeah, that sounds kind of sus, my bad. But it was a fun day. Yeah, it was a fun day. It was an all-time day.

What about you, Memes? What's your favorite memory, Zach?

Do you remember that day, Memes?

I do. I've had a lot of Fun memories of Zach, and it's tough to see him turn on me like this.

I don't know if he's turned on you, dude.

Promise wasn't a turn, but I see where you're coming from and I respect it.

This is Max's fault. Yeah, it is Max's fault. Max, if you read more emails, it wouldn't— this wouldn't have happened.

You had to read one more email.

Yeah. Yeah.

Or get one more. Literally all you had to do.

Right now it says 32.

Okay.

You got 20 emails?

109,032.

Love that. Okay, good for you.

A lot, a lot of Etsy-ers.

Yeah, a lot of visors coming through.

Those are all visors.

I did, I texted our friend Jerry just to see if he had any, any words, like try to bring you guys together, because we can't be going to the finals with the Knicks fans at odds with each other. He doesn't really have any words. He's just been calling. Trying to contribute in some way. Mm-hmm. I told him I might call him back. I feel like we're at a good spot, though. Yeah. I feel like introducing Jerry right now, like, that could be volatile.

I texted 6 Knicks fans. Jerry was the only one who was just like, dude, who cares?

All the other ones are like, fuck him. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So listen to Jerry.

Yeah. Yeah. Jerry was just like, dude, let's Let's just shut down Wemby and we're good.

Yeah. Zach, you agree? Do you have anything else you want to say to Memes? Because last time you said something to Memes, he physically cringed, and I'd like to replicate that.

I don't want you to cringe again. That's on me.

Memes?

I'm waiting to hear what he says.

Okay. Okay. All right. Let's talk some— we got a shitload of stuff we got to talk about.

A lot of stuff.

We'll get to the NBA Finals. Maybe we'll get some predictions from them. They're yelling again, people. NFT. They're doing the thing where they turn off the mic. Yeah, I don't like it. It's like, you guys are— you guys can't do that. No, I'm not a part of this.

Yeah, but you turn off the mics and then we just started yelling at me.

Yeah, but once he starts—

I'm just looking at Max in this camera and he's just— he's so uncomfortable.

Yeah, I don't like it.

He's also—

what you want me to say?

I'm literally in the middle of you two. It's— there's two of you fighting and it's me in the middle of it.

It's confrontation.

It's part of life.

We are a booth here, you got to deal with it.

Yeah, I was saying we almost need a talking stick for that—

for that room.

Yeah, if you hold it, then you're allowed to speak. There's too much yelling.

He also is hurting that Max is like 90% visor right now.

Yeah, so many more.

Your, your head though, you're, you can't see, just visor. It's good. Uh, okay, before we do that, before we talk a lot of other sports, DraftKings, the final round of the basketball season is here. Two teams left, one trophy on the line, and only DraftKings has you covered every step of the way. The DraftKings Sports app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets bringing each game straight to your fingertips wherever you are, from New York to San Antonio to LA. You're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every possession, every fourth quarter swing, every clutch shot that decides a series. Sweat the whole run in real time with a seamless experience built for championship basketball. No matter what you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend $5 to get your $200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook.

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Audio. Miles Garrett is a Los Angeles Ram. We thought it was going to be AJ Brown day on June 1st, and that trade got cucked by Miles Garrett being traded to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Verst, a first-round pick, a second-round pick, and a fifth-round pick.

Is that right? So yeah, Jared Verst, a 2027 first-rounder. Yep. A 2028 second-rounder and a 2029 third-rounder.

I know this. I know this is lame. But my take is wins all around.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I told Hank in the car yesterday. I think that it's like a rare win-win trade because Jared Vers is an awesome player. Yeah, I know. This is looked at now as being the Miles Garrett trade because we talked about Miles Garrett possibly getting traded for the last— feels like 2 years. And then there was nothing about it. And then out of nowhere, oh yeah, they traded him again. So it felt like that kind of jumped out. So everyone's referring to as Miles Garrett trade. But Jared Vers is an awesome player. So this is good for the Browns. They get a young, awesome defensive lineman. They get a shitload of draft picks. Now then you can make the argument like, well, what do the Browns usually do with the draft picks? Maybe they just get a way better defense still. Maybe they just—

I was just saying, not recently.

Keep investing in their defense.

Recently they've been doing okay. Yeah.

Nailed it on the defense. But then with the Rams, now it's like you go back to Matt Stafford and you're like, hey, sorry about that whole drafting a quarterback thing. We are in win-now mode. So proves it.

So that part, uh, I definitely— I, I've been a defender of the Ty Simpson pick. I will admit that it looks a little bit different, like, as, as we've gotten further and further away from it. Going for the Miles Garrett trade, it's like, whoa, you, you really should have used that pick for something if you're really going all, all in. But so for the Rams, I love the move because— well, I hate the move because it's going to make the NFC that much harder, but In terms of the actual Rams, the move is smart and it's basically they proven that they can do this. They did it when they won the Super Bowl last time that they were able to rebuild essentially on the fly where they're really good at drafting. They're really good at coaching. They're really good at developing. They did all those things after they won the Super Bowl. They won 5 games and then they went back to the playoffs and you could make the argument last year that they were the second best team in the NFL. And if they'd beaten the, the Seahawks, they probably would have won the Super Bowl.

So this is a smart move by the Rams because they've basically, as an organization, realized that they can figure out a way to still compete without having draft capital. And Miles Garrett— when I think about like the Rams and them winning the Super Bowl, yes, it was Matthew Stafford, yes, it was Cooper Kupp, but more than anything, it was Aaron Donald making those big plays in the fourth quarter against the Bengals. You now have a guy who is going to do that in those big, big moments. And they also have completely fixed their secondary. Like, I think we just forgot, like Trent McDuffie got traded to the Rams. Jalen Watson is a Ram. Like, they've done a lot of work on their secondary, which was suspect last year. And yeah, the Rams have proven that they can deal with, you know, monetary restrictions in the future, you know, a lack of picks in the future. They're going to be fine. They're going to go all in. I— it's a great move for them. And then the Browns, I think, is— it's, it's very smart for them because they weren't going to compete this year for anything meaningful.

And this upcoming draft is going to be loaded with QBs. They didn't want to go into this draft with only a single first-round pick where if they end up being, let's say, a 6-win team and they're in like the, you know, 8-10 range, they might, they might struggle to get their QB of the future. Now they have two first-round picks. Now they have flexibility that they could possibly trade because it feels like the Browns are building to a point where they got to get the QB next year in the draft. And if they do, a lot of the other things are starting to fall into place.

Shout out to Andrew Barry, the GM from the Browns, for being like stunningly competent with this thing. When he could have traded him last year, he had a lot of offers last year, did not trade him because he said that he wanted a premium young talent. In addition to just a boatload of picks coming back his way. And I don't know if this was him like stunting or trying to stunt or just flex his muscles in the press. But he was saying that like he didn't even consider it until like, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to even talk about moving Miles Garrett until I hear the words Jared Verse, which is what he got. And that seems like just a, it's a power play move on his part. He said that Miles Garrett did not request a trade again this year. So he was probably just dealing with the Rams going into it. It does feel a little bit to me like after the draft, like, like the front office in Los Angeles and McVay probably realize that they kind of screwed up a little bit with the quarterback situation. And they're like, I'll make it up to you, baby.

I swear. Just give me some time. I'll figure— I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'll make it up and you'll see. I still love you. I still care about you. We're still all in. And you know what? You know, maybe Aaron's even going to come back. Yeah, I don't want to speak for Aaron, but he might be able to come back now. He has been posting on Instagram with some cryptic captions that if you are of the conspiracy mind and you're a Rams fan, you're probably thinking like Aaron Donald's coming back this year. Yeah. Which would be disgusting if that happened.

Yeah, it could. You could be right. Like they were—

McAfee texted him.

Oh, really? And what'd he say?

He said that he's 35 and he's got to see if that fire can light back up.

Oh, that's not a no.

Yeah, that's a yes.

But you're right, Les Snead probably did say to Matthew Stafford, like, don't worry, I got your money, I got your money. Yeah, babe, you know, I got it, I got it.

You know, I, I was good for it. It's not what it looks like, me drafting this quarterback. I'll prove it to you.

It is shocking in the fact that it's— I think Miles Garrett, at least the discussion is we have, but I would say he's probably the best player who's ever been traded, like, in terms of— he's the defensive— he just set the sack record. He's a Defensive Player of the Year. Yeah, like, the list is You know, you could go Marshall Falk, you could go, uh, Jerome Bettis was traded.

Jerome Bettis, about that.

Wait, he was on another team?

He was on the Rams his rookie year.

Ah, okay. Uh, Randy Moss, but that was also a little, you know, like the shine had come off. I'm saying like the peak— Portis, Clinton Portis, Champ Bailey is definitely up there.

That was a great trade.

But like the peak, peak powers— Miles Garrett just had— he just set the sack record.

He was—

he was the Chiefs, but it was at the tail— tail end. End of his career.

I forgot if that was a free agency deal or if that was a trade.

Steve Young getting traded to the 49ers.

Uh, Al Michaels getting traded for Oswaldo the Rabbit.

Yes, who could forget? Yep. But like, there's— it doesn't happen very often. Like, there's, there's certain guys that have been traded, you know, Marshawn Lynch got traded, but he wasn't fully Marshawn Lynch all the way there. Cleo Mack is— Cleo Mack is in discussion, but Miles Garrett's better than Cleo Mack. Like, that's That's just a fact. But he did. He was a big name.

I think they're like in the same atmosphere. Miles Garrett's the best defensive player in the NFL, right? And has been for a few years now, actually. Like going back to, I think Aaron Donald, he retired and then Miles Garrett just kind of took over from there.

Jersey Jerry's not going to like that.

He's not. But if you look at the— I'm a stats guy. Yeah. Jersey Jerry's an eyeballs guy.

But it is crazy because that's why it's so significant that you don't see a guy like this traded.

McNabb. McNabb got traded. Yeah. At his prime. He did a lot of good.

Totally his prime. Yeah, 100% his prime. But yeah, it's, it's, it's lame to say, but I, I think it's a smart move by both sides. And I think the Browns are like— they— I know that they've done a billion rebuilds, and it all— here's the thing, if you're, if you're a Browns fan that you got to be worried about is that you could do all these moves and they all look good on paper, and I think they're doing the right thing, and they've had some really good drafts. It all still comes down to the quarterback. Can you get the quarterback? That's all that matters. And that is to be determined because it feels like they're gearing up to get that quarterback in this upcoming draft. And if he's the guy, everything else should be in a good spot for the Browns to be good.

Like a great place for Myles Garrett to, to get this surprise out of nowhere, like a year after you asked for the trade. Okay, well, you're actually on a contender now and, um, they're just going to unleash you. But then if you're Jared Verse, kind of maybe not the best Monday that you've ever had in your entire life.

From Canton, Ohio.

From— well, yeah, so yeah, from Canton. So he's like a neighbor.

Yeah, no, but he's from Ohio, so it can't be the— you know, it's not totally this is the worst place ever, right?

I'm not saying— yeah, I'm not saying like the state of Ohio. Yeah, a bad place. I'm saying just centered around the Browns organization haven't historically been good recently, um, and they're still a good ways away on offense, I would say. Oh well, two Pro Bowl quarterbacks coming back, that's a fact. Uh, but yeah, if you're Jared Goff, like, I actually think this, this is a good thing for Browns fans. It's gonna be tough to like say goodbye to the one player that's been like the one shining beacon of light that you've had. Like, you've had the best defensive player in the NFL that you've gotten to watch. You watch him get the sack record, he's made your Sundays worth getting up for the last several years. It's going to be tough to say goodbye to him, but Jared Versa is a fucking stud and he's going to be a great player too. Then you add in the draft capital that you got, like sky's the limit. Maybe not the sky, but the top of the dome that you're building.

Okay. Question for you, PFT. You say it's going to be tough to say goodbye. Yeah. Does Todd Monken say goodbye to Miles Garrett? Because he— if we follow everything Todd Monken and Miles Garrett never spoke. Does he send him a text being like, hey man, it was a privilege getting to coach you. I know you didn't speak to me.

I think it's an email like the U.S. national team. He sent an email, opened up to acknowledge you have been traded.

It's, it's, it's like very, very funny to think like Todd Monken just never— he was the coach of the Cleveland Browns. We're going to in 20 years, like if Todd Monken goes on to have great success and we're, we're hopefully, God willing, still doing this podcast and memes and Zach haven't broken us all up. We'll have Todd Monken on the show and we'll forget and be like, hey, so what was it like to coach Miles Garrett? He's like, actually, I never spoke to him.

I ran him out of the building.

I literally never said a word.

Did not like that guy one bit. Yeah, I know. It does seem weird that, like, I would imagine that Monken was probably pretty happy about this. Yeah, it never seemed like, well, that was to be in the Miles Garrett business.

Yeah. Miles Garrett obviously wanted Jim Schwartz as the head coach. Yeah. Verbal meme, memes. Miles Garrett, Todd Monken, meme Zach. You guys can decide which side is who. Just never speaking again.

Yeah. So who's getting— who's getting traded to the Ringer? That's the question. Who's going to LA?

Anyone?

Well, Memes requested a trade.

Memes demanded a trade. Yeah, well, he kind of said it's either me or him.

Yeah.

No, no, no. I'm just open for business.

Maybe go to the Ocelot Show.

It's good. That's in-house. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, he did sell his boat, though. You hear about that? Yeah. Like, that's— that's tough. We should have talked about that on the show.

I'm not— I didn't want to bring it up, but I thought about buying it. He went from— what is this? Tom Brady has liked the post about— what? This can't be real.

Jerry's calling. I don't know if I should pick up or not.

So this is, this is the— so, so this— I was doing the yak when Meme started going on his spree of saying it was Zach bit has run its course, and I didn't want to spoil, so I just said everyone tune in to Pardon My Take tomorrow. In the back of my head I'm thinking, if you guys even knew how ridiculous this was, you would be like, what are you talking about? But, uh, right now it's like everyone is assuming— I've been getting texts being like Tom Fornelli texted me saying like, is Zach in physical, like, harm? I said no, but also yes.

He's not in danger. He's— I don't think he's in physical danger.

Whitney and Yance all texted being like, what the hell is going on? Yeah, people care. People care about Zach and memes.

Tom Brady never called for anyone's job.

No, you just demanded your own trade.

Yeah.

Memes said the bid has run its course, which would imply that it's a dumb bid.

He's a smart guy.

Memes, would you think that Tom Brady— do you like Tom Brady being on your side?

No.

Look what you've done.

Yeah, that's not good. No, he's probably on Zach's side. He's a Bucs fan.

So for full context, there's a clip, part of my Tate Clip account that clipped out Big Cat talking about it on the Yak, and he said that Tom— he posted a screenshot of Tom Brady liking that clip.

Oh, so that definitely did not happen.

So it could, it could have happened.

It could have not. I don't think that happened.

It could have happened.

It could have, but it— so it didn't even go from a regular— what, what account was— what account tweeted it out? The, the— or put out the— on the Instagram? Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah, this could be fake news.

Yeah, it could be. It could also not be.

Could not be.

It could have— maybe it was.

Who's to say?

Who's to say?

Who's the point?

What is— in this post-truth society, who's to say? With the dead internet theory and all. Yeah, we don't know.

Okay. Other big trade, which we knew was going to happen for a very long time. AJ Brown is a New England Patriot.

Congratulations, Hank. Congratulations to Diane Rossini.

Yes, absolutely.

She was nailed this.

Nailed it. No memes.

No, that's— she told us a different team.

Oh, she did tell us Chargers.

Well, well, two things. She didn't report that. She reported this trade. And then she said maybe the Chargers off the record.

This is the Number One Sports Podcast. And she said it on this show.

Oh, I thought it was bleeped out.

I don't remember what's said on the show.

Yeah.

Okay. And I walk out of the door, I'm like, hope that went well.

Regardless, the—

she nailed it.

The inevitable trade became inevitable. And he's now a New England Patriot, as, as we all predicted. It felt like he had one foot out the door for the last two seasons. You can admit that now, right, Max?

After Week 4 last year.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So that's what it was. And what do you mean after the last two seasons? He won a Super Bowl.

He did win a Super Bowl.

And then he went on the mic to say, like, you guys all thought I was a hater. You guys all thought I was a diva. Well, you can't say that.

Yes.

Yes. So that all happened.

So we won, right? We did think all those things.

Also, like, I'm just saying one foot out the door. That doesn't mean that he can't win. He's been thinking about leaving the team for a while.

After Week 4 last year.

Okay. All right. Let's start with you, Hank.

Excited. Drake Maye, not a drama king. So I don't anticipate, you know, the reason it's not— it wasn't the players or the skill set. It's just they had drama that they couldn't get over. That apparently was the rift that started this all.

So Jalen Hurts, by deductive reasoning, is a drama king. Yes. Okay.

Not worried about that with Drake Maye.

But AJ Brown.

Okay.

So it's Jalen.

Okay.

He said what he said.

Got it.

Got it.

And Mike—

yeah, no, I mean, but he's a diva wide receiver. That's again, like we've talked about this on the show a bunch of times. It's good to be a stud wide receiver. You have to have a little diva in you. I don't, I'm not concerned that AJ Brown has it in him. He seems to be the biggest Patriots fan on this planet. And he's been dying to come to New England. He said he had a Patriots rug that he still had out in his house in his basement that like, wow, never got put away. He's had the jersey since he was a kid. He's a Patriots diehard. Seems like he's going to give it his all for the city. We have a wide receiver one, Drake May, thick with three C's.

So excited.

This is something that he wanted to do regardless of who the quarterback was or the coach or the coach has nothing to do with the coach.

Yeah.

Well, I think obviously him and him and Vrabel go back to Tennessee and Vrabel is going to hold him accountable. He wouldn't have wanted him as bad as he did if he thought he was a diva or was going to be a locker room issue.

I kind of like where your head's at, Hank. I think I agree with you. AJ Brown, deep down, he craves accountability.

Yeah.

And he knew that he wasn't getting it in Philadelphia. Correct. It's like, yeah, you know, everyone's just—

I can walk all over this guy.

Yeah, right.

He needs a real, like, head coach, like, stern figure telling him, like, hey, when you step across this line, you're a member of the Patriots organization.

This is really what's going to get him over.

You're representing something that is bigger than you. And AJ really wants to be a part of something like that, as opposed to just everyone out there, like, goofing around, being best friends or whatever.

Yeah. So I'm excited. It's exciting.

It's exciting. He said, I know this ain't heaven, but it's close to it. Yeah, that's Foxborough. Is that what people say about Foxborough?

Yeah, when people drive into Foxborough, that's usually their first reaction.

Well, it's close to heaven. It's not heaven.

Can I ask a question? Yes. And maybe someone knows the answer to this because I've had a pretty busy day and I don't know if there's maybe more discussion about it. Is it? A little weird that the Patriots traded not this year's first round pick but 2028?

No, that, that was always the— okay, the 2027 draft was more valuable. They wouldn't give up the 27, but they would give up a 28. Howie Roseman said first picks are first picks.

We're still going to be playing football in 2028. I thought it was— I was talking more the reverse way. We're like, the Patriots are like, oh, we might— that pick might be nice. Regression happens, we might want that pick.

I think it's the GMs say that the 2027 draft is going to be the Okay, that makes sense.

But Howie doesn't care.

Howie said we'll still be playing football in 2028.

Oh, sure.

I like that. I like the optimism. But I mean, Kyle Shanahan would disagree.

The world could— I mean, look at memes and Zach. We woke up this morning thinking they were best friends and now they don't even talk to each other. So anything can happen. Yeah.

We had such a good morning in the booth.

Max, what is your take on this? And do you want to acknowledge the comments that Henry Lockwood has made?

That's fine. I'm— I get it. Like, I've been in your shoes. I was in your shoes 4 years ago. You get a really good receiver who wants out of a situation and you win the Super Bowl. Yeah. Like, I think that AJ Brown is a good player. I think that it'll probably— I disagree with the fact that you think that this isn't going to turn to shit because it probably will turn to shit at some point because that's just what AJ Brown does. He was really excited to get drafted to the Eagles. He was really excited to play with his best friend. He was really excited to get traded to the Eagles. He was really excited to play with his best friend, Jalen Hurts. He was 3-time All-Pro, went to 2 Super Bowls, won 1. Listen, he was good.

He was a—

he was a villain talking.

He was a very— he was a very good football player for the Eagles. He's probably the best Eagles receiver. You can make the argument that he's the best Eagles receiver of all time.

Whoa, whoa.

He's had two of the best over T.O.

He's had, he's had two of the highest single-season receiving yards in, in franchise history.

What about Fred Ex?

What about James Thrash?

Todd Pinkston? We're just throwing guys out there.

A.J. Brown is a—

what about Aguilar?

A.J. Brown was a great Eagle.

You're going with the Meadowlands, bro?

Wasn't Jahan Dotson on the team this year?

Jahan Dotson's a great player. Yeah, really good player.

So the Patriots—

Alshon Jeffery, really good.

Patriots got a very good player. Eagles got a good return.

Jeremy Macklin.

It is what it is. Howie is—

Howie has—

Yeah, it's like what you said about the Rams-Browns. It's good for all parties.

No, I think somebody won this trade.

Who?

I hate to say it. I got to go with Hank. I think the Patriots won this trade. To not even have to give up a first-round pick next year is crazy.

I mean, they still have to go— You will still be playing football in 2028.

I hope so. You know, but I can hope in one hand and shit in the other. We'll see which one fills up.

It's not like you have any bias towards that.

No, I don't. In fact, like, Hank, would you— would anybody accuse me of being pro-Patriots?

The football— the Patriots being good does not affect the team that you root for. The Eagles being good does affect the team that you root for.

I think—

I think Super Bowl, Max. I don't think about like, oh, the division.

But yeah, you're thinking—

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Super Bowl. This guy and who's this guy?

Who's this Super Bowl or who is this for? This Washington Commanders?

Who was in Super Bowl last year, Max? The Patriots, right? So Therefore, the Patriots might be more of a threat for me winning a Super Bowl. True. So I hate to admit it, but I think that the rich get richer.

I guess the question I would have for you, Max, in determining who won this trade— in a perfect world, would you rather have AJ Brown on your team, happy to be on your team, no drama, or this? That is a lot of hypotheticals. I understand, but I'm just asking. That's a lot. I'm just asking because that is like—

that's not AJ Brown.

Okay. But I'm just asking.

That's not AJ Brown. And we're not even talking about how the Rams were in on him, saw his medicals, then went out.

Oh, we weren't talking about that till now. Let's talk.

Speak on it.

Yeah. I mean, that's it. The Rams—

his medicals.

It was a two-team race for AJ Brown.

Wow.

Leading up to the draft, the Rams were in on him, saw his medicals.

What did the medicals say?

Hip or—

Just knee.

Knee. It said knee.

He's got a knee. Got one of them or two of them?

Maybe even two.

That's— I, I, I, I'm— I still think that like AJ Brown will be good. He's going to be super motivated. AJ Brown, at least for the start of— for the start of his tenure in New England, will be a very good receiver. I think it'd be very good for, for Drake May.

I used to be very good for the next two years, correct?

Yeah, right. And then, then the Eagles get the pick.

Well, no, the two years would be 27, part of the pick.

Yeah, the second year. Yeah, the second year would be the two years. Would Meaning that you would get a bad year after, you would get a bad first round pick.

No, no, he'll still be good when you get—

yeah, yeah, yeah.

So maybe, but then we get the, we get the pick right as he's declining.

No, no, you get the pick, you get a 30-second pick, but you don't get the pick when he's already declined. You essentially get a second round.

How he should have gotten the second round. Yeah, how he should have gotten the 2029 pick. Yeah, if we're honestly, if we're, if we're nitpicking, yep, that's really what Howie messed up.

This is a bad— actually a bad deal. Um, Hank, what do you think about getting Damaged Goods though?

Yeah, did you hear about the medicals and the Rams? The knee?

Yeah, yeah, not worried about the knee.

Okay, AJ Brown said he is not worried about the knee.

He's already at OTAs today.

He's catching one-handed passes. It's just beautiful.

Oh, he's already— okay, motivated.

He might have been there before he signed.

It does feel like he's been—

I mean, he's been there for months.

It's not like Who is he going to compete with catches? Like, who's the number 2 now?

Probably Mac Hollins.

What about booty?

Booty?

Romeo. It's Romeo.

Romeo Dobbs.

Yeah.

Romeo Dobbs. You will see. I mean, that's what they're doing OTAs for.

Did you see the clip of Romeo Dobbs going over the fence? No. In the, in the softball game that Dave played.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. He just went like full on over the fence. Like, dude, you. You have like 7,000 concussions. What are you doing in a softball game?

I saw somebody also try to take out Ramondre Stevenson. That was cool.

Oh man.

Yeah. Matt Rife. Matt Rife tried to take him out.

Oh, it was? Yeah. Doing some crowd work on him.

Oh man. Okay. That's, that's, it's good to talk NFL. We've, we've, we've got some NFL news.

I did miss the, I miss talking football with you guys.

I know. It's just, it gets you when the Miles Garrett trade broke.

I just said football in the chat.

I know football was so powerful.

All right, so officially it should have been football is back to start, to start the show.

Yeah, official word. I think I'm gonna give Hank— Hank won. The Patriots won this trade. The other one, no bias. The other one's toss-up. I think it was win-win.

Yep.

Um, is that the official PMT grade?

Win-win?

And you're just— this is your grade.

You're—

you just started speaking and said, is this the—

is this why I asked the question, Max?

What? But you didn't ask anyone else. You just said, here's my grade. Is this the official?

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, I think the official grade is Browns, uh, Rams is a win-win. Patriots-Eagles is a lose-lose. No, no, it's a Patriots win and then an asterisk. If Howie had gotten the 2029 first-round pick, it would have been a win for the Eagles.

Now I'm talking myself into lose-lose.

That was Howie's mistake. Yeah, should have timed AJ Brown's decline better.

It actually, it makes sense when you think about it.

Yeah. It does. I think he's going to be—

he's going to—

he's— I think he turns 29 in this month. PFT will let us know if it happens. Uh, absolutely not. And then, and then, yeah, I mean, he's going to be on the wrong side of 30 next year. And then I— he is going to be good. He's a very good receiver, so he's going to be good for a couple more years. And then we'll see how he ages because of everything that's also gone on. But if you're the Patriots, you're probably saying, hey, he had no problems in Tennessee with Mike Vrabel as a coach.

That's true.

So, um, okay, any other, any other, uh, news before we talk? Let's, let's do a pick on the NBA Finals for the people, and then we'll, we'll, we'll give our official predictions for the NBA Finals. Uh, DraftKings, we're gonna do a parlay in the DraftKings Sportsbook. The NBA Finals are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up, and with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, your winnings get a boost every single day all Finals long. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime, every clutch takeover matters, and only DraftKings Sportsbook keeps boosting you all the way through. All DraftKings customers can enjoy a profit boost every single day throughout the Finals. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Use code TAKE to claim your profit boost. That's code TAKE to get a boost every day of the NBA Finals in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

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Boys, parlay to kick it off.

Unfortunately, they don't have—

what are you looking for?

I want Jalen Brunson under.

Oh, okay.

Hater of the Year Hank, not available.

What number is he?

You don't want to— don't do that. Don't do that.

I didn't mean to do that.

Don't do that. I did not. In fact, I don't think that we should say that number. We should retire that number.

Mm-hmm.

Can't talk about Stranger Things.

Nope, don't do that.

See, AJ Brown changed his number.

Give me 3 points.

What? He went from 11 to 1. So like you could hypothetically change your number.

That's kind of awesome that he went to number 1. Yeah, I love that.

Give me Luke Kornet 3+ rebounds.

Okay, that's sexy.

You could take Victor Wembenyama versus Jaylen Brown points head to head.

Actually, I don't know if you can do it.

Jaylen Brown or I'll take, I'll take Wemby.

Jalen Bronson. All right, so Luke Kornet, put it in. Luke Kornet, 3 rebounds. What are you taking, PFT?

I'm trying to look at the, uh, I'm trying to look at threes.

Okay, do we want to make it juicy? Do you guys want to make it juicy or no? Would you like to make it juicy?

I want, I want Josh Hart 3+ 3-pointers.

Oh, I was gonna take him 15 points, so there we go. Uh, okay. Um, there goes my pick. Fuck, fuck. I don't know what— I wish I could bet on Steph Castle, uh, fouls. He's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna be a dog in this series. He's gonna be absolute dog. Okay, um, you know what, let's go with— tell me if you like this, Memes or Zach. Let's go with Mikael Bridges, 15 points. You like it, memes? Love, love. Should we go 18 points? 20? Go 18 points. 18. And we'll put that in the DraftKings Sportsbook. Go bet it with us. Um, boys, NBA Finals, you want to make our predictions? We talk a little bit with Kurt Goldsberry, but, uh, should we make— let me start with this. Zach and Memes, are you guys a little bit nervous? You have now two things going against you. One, did you see the random fan who has picked exact every single series correctly and he has Spurs over Knicks? Did you see it?

That one worries me.

He tweeted it before the, the playoffs started. He said, I know ball, and it, it's literally every single round he's gotten right. That worries you. What about the corgi?

No, because Max said the corgi picked the Sixers.

I could have been wrong on that.

Okay, we gotta find out. And we are superstitious. This is the breakdown that we're doing. We're gonna have an actual talk with Kirk Goldsberry, but this is a part of my take breakdown when what a corgi does with an inflatable basketball is way more important than advanced analytics and shot charts and Wemby and Jalen Brunson. It's the corgi.

So, yeah, Oklahoma City fans were tweeting at me that you better hope that corgi fucking picks you.

Oh, no.

So this corgi has been hot.

The corgi has been real hot. Okay.

He picked the Knicks over the—

he definitely picked the Sixers because Visit Philly says, what a good boy. So that's bad.

Okay. So I was right. I just didn't want to be wrong. And then we're good.

Wow. So the dog has been wrong.

Dog has been wrong about the Knicks. Was the dog right about the Cavs-Nicks? This is important. This is highly important. What is— what's your official pick, Hank?

Spurs in 6.

In 6. And any reasoning behind it?

I don't want the Knicks to win.

Okay. Hey, that's some— that's some reasoning. That is— that Qualifies as reasoning.

I think the Spurs have to win the first 2 games though. I think that they have to go up 2-0 and then they can get it done. I think if they have to come back again in another series, it's going to be maybe too much of an uphill battle. So Game 1 and Game 2, very important. Uh, and yeah, then it's just a race, you know, next year it'll be Celtics, Spurs, Thunder, a race to see who the best, uh, best team in the league is.

Okay. Memes.

I, I agreed with everything you said until the— what do you said last? But if the Knicks flip the home court advantage, they're winning the Finals. I think they're going to win in 6.

Okay. I have Knicks in 6 as well.

PFT? I have Knicks in 7. Oh, I think, I think we're going to get a Game 7. I think that Adam Silver is entering his David Stern era. Where he's making sure that these things happen.

See, that's— I'm making the same thought process, but he's going to make sure the Knicks win at home.

Okay, so that's kind of like the same theory as the frozen envelope, just like doing, doing a big market a solid.

Like, yeah, the crowd and everything will be— it'll be the highest-watched NBA game in a long time.

Yeah, I think I got Knicks in 7. I think it's going to be a great series. And I think they figure out ways to get Wimby in foul trouble. That's what I think happens.

Hmm. Max?

Knicks in 5.

Wow. Zach?

I think it's going to be Knicks in 6.

Okay. Okay. So Zach and Memes, you guys agree?

That's adorable.

Yeah, that's nice. Can you look at each other when you agree? No. Oh, you won't even look at them. No.

Okay.

He knows. Oh, we forgot to say that. Uh oh, no, Beckham is back on the Giants.

The Giants, they got like 3. Yeah, Juju. So they got Juju and then Braxton Berrios. Oh, as well. So the Giants are loading up.

Good for the Giants.

And then can you explain to me where we're at with the Bears Stadium thing? Is it— are they officially going? No. Is Sig just dominating the transfer portal so much that he's taking stadiums from Chicago to like Illinois guys are going to Indiana.

It is so frustrating and so stupid.

It—

there is blame to go around to every single piece of this entire debacle. Um, I guess I would say, I think if I went blame, like power ranking the blame, I'd say Kevin Warren won just because before Kevin Warren was hired The Bears had purchased Arlington Heights. They were ready to build in Arlington Heights. We heard that shovels were in the ground or going to be in the ground like 3 years ago. It has gone sideways since then. Uh, Illinois politicians, because there's— I, listen, I'm not going to get into the politics of it, but it does seem like there's weird stuff, like they want them to pay more taxes. I don't really understand that part. Uh, the McCaskies as a, as a, as a family, uh, running the Bears because they are incompetent to do it themselves, so they hire someone like Kevin Warren. Um, Indiana for offering like a ton of free stuff.

I don't blame Indiana.

No, I don't either, but I'm just throwing— I'm just, I'm just going down the chart. Anger. Um, the city of Chicago for like not just giving them Soldier Field, but then I— and then the NFL. The NFL is also to blame because the NFL is the one who probably has put a lot of pressure on the McCaskies to get a new stadium. So that everyone's franchise prices go up. It's essentially, to boil it down, the, the biggest losers in all of this, as always when it comes to stadiums, is the fans. That's really what it comes down to.

Yeah, it's going to suck.

I do think that there's a chance there's this like special commission. The hardest part to figure out is whether Indiana is like a bluff. Indiana is either a bluff or it's a bluff that's gone too far and now it's real.

And it's— which would actually be the best bluff possible, correct? Which is right. That's what happened with the Caps is like they had— they had a groundbreaking ceremony. You had politicians like the governor of Virginia wearing a hard hat, like cutting ribbons. They were holding— you had a bunch of politicians holding shovels.

Yeah.

And like 2 days later, like, D.C. just called.

We're going back.

Like, this could be actually the best bluff possible if you do the groundbreaking ceremony. And then Chicago's like, come on back. We'll give you— we'll give you everything you asked for in Arlington Heights and more.

PFT, the Bears purchased Arlington Heights for like $200 million in 2023, 3 years ago.

And there's no—

the deal— so they've owned this property and it's just, it's crazy. The deal is, I guess Kevin Warren was hired somewhere around there, so maybe it's the whatever. Either way, they were ready to buy Arlington Heights for a couple years before Kevin Warren showed up.

And if you move the Bears there, the deal is they don't have to pay property tax.

I don't know, something like that. It's all Fans shouldn't have to worry about this shit. It's so stupid, and it's like, it's so frustrating. Incompetence on every level. Everyone deserves blame. And I, I do think Kevin Warren has somehow bungled this whole thing because he's the one who's, who's supposed to be— he was the one who was hired to seamlessly get this done, and nothing has gone seamless. So how could you ever come to the conclusion— I know that people want to blame the politicians, I do too, But how could you ever point your finger at anyone other than Kevin Warren first? Because it was literally his job to do this and it's become such a disaster. Yeah.

So I hope they end up staying in Illinois, even though that, like, to drive from Chicago to get to Indiana, depending on traffic, that might even be closer, right, than driving to Arlington Heights. Yeah. The Bears should just play in Illinois. They should not play in Indiana.

That makes no sense. They should play in Chicago. Stadium should be in the cities. Like, it would be, you know, I know, but it's so stupid. I saw it like, and then there's all these theories and deep theories that like Hammond is actually what the politicians in Chicago want because more people will stay in hotels downtown than if it was Arlington Heights. And like, it's just the whole thing is just really, really fucking stupid. And I wish it wasn't. It's very funny that the Bears finally figured out the football side by hiring Ben Johnson and, and the business side continues to be a complete joke.

I do think that there's something. Maybe a small thing to do with like the location of the stadium for free agents, because a lot of guys, if they play at a stadium that's out in the middle of nowhere on game day, then it can take them like after the game's over another 2 hours, hour and a half to get home. Listen, and that, that just like kind of sucks if that's where you go to work.

I don't know what they do with Howells Hall. They just made renovation on Howells Hall. Howells Hall to Hammond is not close. No, everyone's talking about Chicago to Hammond, which is close. It's 25, 30 minutes. But yeah, if you're most Bears players or almost all Bears players live up by Halas Hall, which is in the north suburbs. So it's a, it's a shit show. I still think if I had to go gun to my head, I still think there's a special meeting or whatever happens in the middle of the summer and they're like, all right, enough of this shit, Arlington Heights. And I also think there's a chance that maybe they just fire Kevin Warren and then McCaskey is like, hey, we're not leaving Illinois. Let's figure this out. And it gets figured out. Which would be nice. Okay. Should we do hot seat, cool throne? Let's do hot seat, cool throne. And then we got two great interviews. Hank, hot seat, cool throne.

My hot seat is you guys.

Oh, no.

Oh, geez.

Why?

Fox Sports.

Oh, no.

Our colleagues, I guess. Official.

Yeah. Yeah.

News outlet. Our partners did an Instagram reel talking about Gillette as a host city for the World Cup and what the town and stadium has to offer. And they said that it has the jail, world's largest lighthouse.

Oh, well, that's bullshit. That's interesting. Fake news.

Interesting.

You're calling Fox News fake news?

I would never say that.

You just— you literally just did.

You just did. I would suggest this sounds like an example of fake news from Fox Sports, which is a different company. Fox.

Listen, this is Big Fox, Fox Sports.

I am—

I'm on the record. Yeah, we don't know that. I don't know.

We don't know them. I go by the standards of the U.S. Coast Guard when it comes to lighthouses. And now you might hate the troops. I don't. I respect the troops and I respect everything that they put in terms of qualifications for a lighthouse. What counts, what doesn't count. And to them, this lighthouse is not a lighthouse.

So if you— well, they're letting—

don't respect—

people are coming from all over the world. To Gillette for the World Cup, and they're actually—

no, they're not, Hank. That's, that's also false because they're not going to Gillette because the stadiums won't have their sponsor names for the World Cup. They're going to Foxborough Stadium.

They're going to get to basically the place with the largest lighthouse in the continental US.

Hank, what do you think is going to happen when fans from Brazil— Brazil is a country with the second most lighthouses in the world— they come to Foxborough? And they see that lighthouse and they're like, this is it? Where's the— where's the ocean?

If they get on top, they can see it.

Where?

They can't.

Yeah, they can.

No, they can't.

Oh, the tributary, the river.

Yeah, yeah.

What's it called again?

I forget.

Oh yeah, because you didn't do the presentation. I did do the presentation. You had someone do it for you.

No, I fucking did that presentation.

No, you read the presentation that somebody else did.

I would remember it.

100% did that presentation.

Presentation was 2 years ago and it was a federally recognized body of water, which it was. No, no, it wasn't. And no, you can't see it.

Okay, so we're on the hot seat for our World Cup tickets tanking. I saw something about that. Also, the schedule, some of them is psychotic.

It's crazy. Yeah, some of them are tanking a little bit.

Europeans are on the hot seat for being bitches.

Yeah, Europeans don't want to come over and pay their—

so they're mad about the times.

They're mad about the times.

Oh, I don't give a fuck about that.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Every other World Cup, it's on your watch. This one's on ours.

Yeah.

Hey, Europeans, why don't you shut the fuck up?

We got to watch Jaguars-Panthers at 8:30 in the morning.

Yeah, that's nice though.

It's not nice.

Take your Dolphins-Giants and be happy with it.

Well, but the schedule is psychotic, is it not? Like, I saw some of it and it's— it looked like there's days like to start the tournament, there's a game at 3 o'clock, then there's a game at 10 o'clock, all Eastern time, then 3 and 9.

Why? Because it's in all the different time zones across the United States. Got it.

Yeah. But then, then there's a bunch of days where the games are all day. Yeah. You know, those first days are not—

it's just going to be a shitload of soccer. And I've— so here's, here's the plan that I'm going to do for all the opening round games. And you guys are welcome to join me on my betting journey. I'm going to bet a draw for every single game. And you can usually get decent odds. And there's always crazy draws in the opening groups where you have like really good teams that have just like a brain fart or letdown spot against a team that has no business even scoring a goal against them. I'm going to bet a draw every game in group stage.

I'm in for a round robin.

Okay. Yeah, we'll round robin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, can we do that? Yeah. With the round robin, need to be like just one per day.

No, no, you could do it in advance.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll have our best guy get on.

Yeah, we'll see how many we can do round robin and ties. You can only obviously do the like the first games because the second games won't be listed because you don't know who's going to get like yellow cards or red cards. No, no, just injured. Yeah.

Yeah, right. And they probably might not have lines for— yeah, the second games, right? They might. They actually might have them all. How many, how many first round games are there? Yeah, we're going to do it. Well, I'm in 100%.

48 teams. So whatever that is, that's too much math. Yeah. Also, hot seat, hot seat me for Thursday morning. We just said on FS1, one of the guests is going to be Greg Berhalter. I've said a lot of things about Greg.

Just say it to his face.

I've said a lot of things about Greg.

Say it to his face.

Nice guy.

Say, you know, just say, hey, I've said a lot of things about you. I'm going to address one of them. Why do you have 3 Gs?

Yeah, just leave it at that.

It's a good way to handle it. Okay. Your culture.

My culture is Texas Tech softball. Yeah. J.

Will.

They advanced last night. They had— they needed to beat— holy fuck. Alabama. Alabama. And I was about to say Tennessee.

You were locked in.

Beat. I did watch. I watched the second game. I didn't. I saw.

Did you watch it from out on your balcony?

Mia Williams. I did not.

Did your blinds get fixed? They did.

Nice.

Yeah.

Because sometimes you like to step out on the balcony.

It's like, no.

Yeah, no, I said that, by the way, on the Yak, but I— it, it was like 3 days before I realized that Jason Williams wasn't reading books. He was smoking weed. Yeah. Oh, well, I'm a real— well, he kind of blew up a spot when he said, I'm going to the library, and it was the most weed I've ever seen. Seen in my life.

Reading a book. He's reading books. It's like when Hank says, I gotta go for a walk with my cousins.

I feel so dumb. I was like, yeah, oh, he's just— when he's like, yeah, I need a hotel room with a balcony because I like to read.

Moron. And, and Tate, like every other tweet, being like, J. Will's going to read a book.

Yeah, J. Will bought 2 tickets to, to the game on Monday night so that he could leave in between games to read a book. Yeah. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

But his daughter, they were Alabama, like they were coming out of the loser's bracket. Mia, Mia Williams, they were coming out of the loser's bracket, so they had to beat Alabama twice in a row. Mia Williams hit a walk-off home run in game 1. That is when I started watching. I watched the whole second game. Nail-biter. I was— and they're going to the World Series. It's a great, great sports story. And yeah, and college softball is, is—

yeah, I was wondering because I, I'm, I'm sure maybe it's happened before, but there was a chance. Like, has anyone ever gone back-to-back, uh, home runs themselves? Because Mia Williams hit a walk-off home run, and then she was the first batter in the second game. She got a single. Yeah, but like, I was, I was sitting there being like, am I about to see history? Back-to-back personal home runs.

That's— that would be awesome.

It would be so sick.

Hank, you've said a lot of things about your own, uh, confidence in your own athletic ability. Do you think that you could step in and get a hit off of a women's college softball pitcher?

No.

I mean, depends how many at-bats, but probably not.

Yeah.

I mean, if no fielders, I could— I can make contact with the ball at some point.

I don't think I can after watching them.

The rise— the risers. That's tough. It's—

they're very, very impressive.

One swing hard.

Yeah.

Why?

That's what you do in softball.

You just try to make contact with a 16-inch slow pitch. Do you think Mia— do you think she swings hard, or do you think she just lets the bat do the worst part?

Can we not— can we not— we already have Zach and Memes. Can we not— the pugs play in the playoffs tonight. Let's—

no, maybe not Hank, because Hank's getting dental surgery.

Yeah, let's not do that. I'll be good. Okay, we got the playoffs.

What's going on? I was trying—

he's trying to get the swing hard thing going.

I just didn't know if Mia, when she was swinging, if she swung hard to hit home runs. I went 2 for 3 last game.

I'm trying to find this.

It's about me.

This is hard.

I don't think it's ever— I mean, it would be hard.

What are you trying to find?

As it has—

it only could happen. Yeah. Well, no, it can't happen in Major League Baseball because you don't play a doubleheader where you switch home and away. Oh, she literally hit a walk-off home run, by the way. The—

what? Switch home and away.

Not— no, you don't switch home and away. They switched home and away.

So they're saying in the same day?

Yes, in the same— Max, she hit a walk-off home run against Alabama in game 1. It was double elimination for Alabama. It was single elimination for Texas Tech because Texas Tech had already lost.

I get all this.

All right, so Texas Tech, Mia Williams, game 1, hits a walk-off home run. The next game, Alabama is now the home team. Mia Williams is the first batter in the second game. She gets up to the plate. If she hits a home run, She is just hitting back-to-back home runs herself.

You—

I don't understand why you couldn't do that.

And like, if you finish a series against one team and then you play in MLB, you— if you're— if you're playing— if you're playing on the same day, I'm saying you could— you could still do it.

And I was just trying to find that.

If you finish the series, moved on to the next round. Yeah. And that—

yes, it would be possible.

Yes.

But this was literally like 30 minutes apart, same day.

Impossible. Impossible to find that. I still think I could. I could find a lead. I still think I could find.

This is a very dumb debate, but I actually enjoy it.

Max, you know, the only MLB ballplayer to hit a grand slam twice in the same inning? Bill Miller.

No, Reggie Jackson.

No, Tatis. Fernando Tatis. Pretty crazy.

Shout out MSP.

I did find that Mike Cameron and Brett Boone hit back-to-back home runs twice in the same inning.

Those are two different guys, but also crazy.

Also, also, I mean, yeah, we're talking crazy stats.

Yeah, that's crazy stat. Yeah, crazy.

Pretty crazy.

All right.

Your hot seat, PFT. My hot seat is Luke Kwan because I'm back in the Internet Invitational.

Yeah.

And I'm excited to be there. I've got, I've got something that I've got planned. I'm going to try to harness science, a little bit of Bryson DeChambeau. I think I've found an edge when it comes to golf. So more to come on that later. But humbled to be invited back. $4 million is crazy. A crazy amount to golf for, especially somebody my poor playing ability to even be in that conversation. But I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. I hope I get matched up against Luke Kwon this time.

Oh, I hope you get matched up with Luke Kwon again. Either way, redemption would be great.

We might just become bros.

If you just slept in.

I would, I would fuck with you. Well, that's the thing is I would sleep in and then he would just dominate.

No, no, that would be the best story is you sleep in and then you show up late and then you save him.

Or I talk shit to him.

Yeah, I make him suck and then I come in, but he's down and then you come up, you show up and you save his ass and you hit a hole in one.

Yeah, either way, I'm excited about the prospect of getting back at it again. So I've got to I got to get back in the lab. We're going to be working and this is going to be a sports science thing. I do think that I've found an edge and I have to keep it quiet until we really know we get a little bit closer so that no people can replicate what I'm trying to study. But once we get there, I think sky's the limit.

As— listen, I love where your head's at. As someone who thinks they've found an edge about a trillion times when it comes to sports gambling. Yeah, you got to follow that lead. Yeah, you got to, you got to, you got to go to the end of the road. If you think you got an edge, you got to fucking find out all the way. Listen, has it never worked out? No, it doesn't matter. Find that edge because the next edge, the next edge is one that you'll find.

But also with this edge, like in golf, if you think that you have an edge, you have an edge. Definitely, definitely. You definitely have an edge. Okay, you're cool. My cool throne is Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks on the cool throne. Also, you could say maybe LeBron on the hot seat. Because Dylan Brooks just posted that he got his pilot's license. Oh, he just graduated from flight school. Did not know that he was studying to become a pilot. But I could have— I could see a world where Dylan Brooks, like, goes undercover working for a private jet company just to find out what company flies the Lakers around or whatever team LeBron's on next year. And then he just fucks with LeBron as his pilot next year. So I had no idea that Dylan Brooks even was thinking about studying that. But if you got onto a plane and Dylan Brooks is your pilot, are you feeling confident about that plane?

Nope.

I'm probably not feeling super confident about that. Probably not. Yeah. Like, you don't want— haters should not be pilots. No, pilots should be above being the world's biggest hater. They should not hate anybody. Calm dudes. Yeah. Like, to a fault.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

My hot seat is us, the viewers, because Russell Wilson is going to be on the CBS desk. Mm-hmm. And I'm just going to miss him playing football. That's really what I was trying to say.

Yeah, it's, it's a better sport when he's out there throwing that moonball.

How do you guys think he's going to do?

Faith Football Family, how do we think he's going to do? I think he'll be okay.

Corny.

Corny is okay though. I don't mind a corny guy.

Can he make fun of himself? That will be the big question. If he can, maybe he'll be okay. Okay, that's— he's got to— he's got to have someone in his ear being like, hey dude, the Mr. Unlimited, the like, you know, everything is perfect, the high knees, high knees. Let's just cool with some of that and be like, make fun of ourselves, crack a couple jokes, laugh at things. Then he— I mean, he's well-spoken, like, he— that could work. If he is not able to do that, I don't know how long it would last.

I think, I think he'll be okay. He is. He's shown an ability to like study what works and then change things about himself.

But that's the whole point is like he's, he's like almost robotic in that way. The, the true sense of like breaking being a robot is being able to make fun of yourself.

Yeah, I don't know.

Mm-hmm. My cool throne is not only college softball, but college baseball too. I I don't know if you guys saw the game in West Virginia last night, but it was electric. The Country Roads was electric. It's been awesome to watch all of it, and I've just enjoyed the hell out of it. And then while we've had that, we had the college football playoff schedule get officially announced, and it fucking sucks. It sucks. I hate that they're doing this. Do you guys want to guess when the national championship game will be played? If you haven't seen—

don't—

if you've seen it, don't answer.

I've not seen it. I would guess January 18th.

Okay.

February 13th.

No, stop, Hank. You're being silly. You're being silly. Yeah, I was silly of you.

January 24th.

That was silly. Max almost got it. I was—

so I was basically equidistant to PFT.

January 25th. Oh, January 25th.

Damn. Happy birthday.

Why are you so bad? You knew it wasn't in February.

12 days off.

But you knew it wasn't in February.

15.

I didn't know.

No, you were— you were 16.

You're 19.

You're 19 days off. You knew it wasn't in February.

I did not.

February 13th, I think, is like— you guessed the day before.

Pretty close to February.

Yeah, but February 13th isn't pretty close to February 1st.

It's kind of less than half.

Yeah. So the first round. So January 25th is the national championship game. The first round is taking place over a month prior. December 18th is the first game. That is so fucking stupid. I hate that they've done this.

It is. That's, that's bad.

It's so bad.

It's bad.

It—

I don't know what the fix is to it.

I move the schedule up a little bit.

But can you even do that?

Why not? You can start in August.

Like, I should do double elimination games like softball.

Back-to-backs, doubleheaders.

That'd be sick. I wonder if anyone has ever scored a back-to-back touchdown. Can you look that up, Max?

What if they had just every team—

wait, hold on. Oh, keep going. Sorry. What if you got—

what if you got 12 teams just at the same venue and then they just keep— you, you do it like the, uh, the Sun Belt basketball style where you have the worst 2 teams play, winner stays on.

Mm-hmm. I like that.

That would be a cool football tournament.

All right. So Super Bowl is Sunday, February 14th this year. So, okay. So we'll be— we'll be after the divisional round. I think that was what it was this year as well. There'll be 4 NFL teams left when we do a national championship game. That's really stupid.

That's really, really— I don't like that. Yeah.

Zach, finish us off.

My hot seat this week is going to be America.

Oh, no.

I don't know if you guys have seen, but we're creeping up on to UFC 250.

Yeah. Yeah.

We're doing a fight club at the White House.

Yep.

The renderings and like the build-out looks pretty impressive. But I do have to put them in the hot seat this week just because we're going to be having a cage fight at the White House. And I think that person should have to become president.

Oh, I love that. The winner.

Yeah, we're doing it. It's a cage fight at the White House. You would think if they get— you get elected on the spot.

If you— you're exactly right in the fact that if you had told someone like 10 years ago, like, hey, United States 250, we're going to do a cage fight at the White House that's televised to the whole country. Your next thought would be that's deciding the president.

They would then run the country, right? That's just not how they're doing it, though.

I would be completely fine with that. What, uh, who's fighting?

Yeah, is it a good card?

I don't think that it is, right?

Tapuria and then Justin Gaethje. So that's the main event.

Okay.

My concern with this, and I've heard Dana White talk about this on a couple podcasts, but being from DC, I can tell you that late June, mid to late June. Oh, it's gonna be hot outdoors. It doesn't matter if it's at nighttime, it's going to be 90 degrees. It's going to be 90% humidity and you're going to get gnats buzzing around your head. You're going to— there's going to be these annoying ass bugs everywhere because you're on a swamp. Guys are going to be getting kicked in the head with bugs swarming up their nostrils. It is going to be— I think it's a bad idea. I think Joe Rogan has said like, this is a bad idea. I'm not looking forward to it. It seems like this fight could have taken place indoors somewhere.

Agreed.

What are you guys' thoughts on leaving the, the, uh, the build-out up and then future conflicts we settle them in the octagon?

You like Netanyahu's coming to visit?

Yes.

Step in. Okay. Yeah. I got Ahmedinejad right here. He walks out, his music plays, glass break. I'd be down for that. Yeah. Or you get, you know what, actually this would probably break all celebrity fight numbers if we had Don Jr. and Hunter Biden, hmm, cage fighting, winner becomes next president.

That'd be cool. Yeah, that'd be cool.

You think that's headgear or no headgear?

No headgear. And also you could not do drug testing.

You can grab cocks.

Everybody's bounced. Yeah.

By the way, PFT, happy early birthday on Championship Sunday.

Oh, thank you.

I was looking at the schedule for the Super Bowl. Championship Sunday will be your birthday.

Happy early birthday to you on championship eve.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

For the NFL. Appreciate that. That's massive.

Cool throw. My cool throw this week is going to be the World Cup. We had another global moment for the World Cup yesterday. I don't know if you guys were able to see it.

I did.

Unbelievable. But they dropped a— there's a song dropped online. Oh. The unity of this, not only for country here, but really globally.

And that's like a big thing for the World Cup is having like one anthem.

Yeah.

Music transcends language.

So what is it? I'm sure we can't play it for copyright reasons, but just play it so they can see it.

I used to— I used to absolutely love that. The Waving Flag song. Yeah, that was a banger. Yep. When I get older.

Oh, yeah.

South Africa and the Shakira one.

So they'll call me Freedom, just like a waving flag.

African flag. And then it comes back.

You got to really hit that L and flag. Yeah, yeah. Especially this month.

I will say the only downside of this song, as much of Vuvuzelas as you would think, but—

well, yeah, we don't do Vuvuzelas. That's not a World Cup thing, that's South Africa.

It's called Champ.

Oh, you're saying this song, the World Cup song from South Africa?

I want to hear—

I want to hear the new— that was a good song. Sure, play the new one.

The new one, play it, but cut it.

New song.

Okay.

Where you're there.

No, that's the waving flag.

This one.

Speed. Oh, oh, fuck you.

It does happen to be by Speed, but play it.

Play it.

I mean, we're talking about unity in the World Cup.

I fell for that one.

I thought this was fake.

It's a beautiful thing. A lot of unity going on, going into the World Cup, showing some things are big in the sport and some sports bring everything together.

I feel tricked, but hey. What are you going to do?

A couple of guys.

Memes. Memes.

Memes is a good trick.

I'm starting. I'm starting to understand everything you've been saying today.

Memes is coming back.

Not true.

Not true. I'm kidding, Zach. Zach, that was a joke. I love you. All right, guys, too. All right. We're going to do memes. Did you hear that? He loves all of us. Nice. Okay. We're going to do Kirk Goldsberry. Then we have Luke Laux, the FSU head coach. And guess what? We're gonna do new lottery balls at the end, so you've already heard the ones we already did, but we're gonna do it again at the end. So, uh, we'll see how that goes, but let's get to Kirk Goldsberry. Okay, before we get to our good friend Kirk Goldsberry talking NBA Finals races, nothing beats summer break. When you were a kid, it was time off from school and sad school lunches, but you don't get summer break as a grown-up, and that's a huge bummer. But the good news is you can at least take a break from sad work lunches this summer with Reese's limited edition cups and the return of the Reese's Strawberry PB&J, plus the all-new Reese's Marshmallow Cup. My personal favorite. Had it, brought it home. Kids were like, oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing ever. The Reese's Marshmallow Cup.

So, so good. So both taste just like your childhood and my kids' childhood. So grab one before they're gone because they're fleeting, just like your youth. Go right now. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Get yours at www.hershealand.com/reeses. Okay, here he is, Kirk Goldsberry. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest, our good friend Kirk Goldsberry, talking NBA Finals. Uh, Kirk, great to have you on. I don't even know where to start. We're so excited. This feels like the Finals that probably has the most juice in a long time. You know what? Let's start with Wemby. Your guy, Wemby. Can you tell us the stat? Because I've butchered it and I've said it. I've repeated it to everyone in earshot for the last like 3 weeks. Can you tell us the Wemby stat that you have about his on-off when it comes to defense and what he does to other teams?

Yeah, he essentially turns really good offenses into terrible offenses, and he does it a few different ways. But yeah, like in these playoffs, when he's on the court, the opponents have an offensive rating of 99.2. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means your team can't score for shit. It would be the worst offense in the NBA. So it's not like he's playing bad teams. He's done this to Minnesota, OKC, and Portland so far. But when we came into the league, Big Cat, we were like, this guy is going to be the best defender of his generation, and he already is. It's incredible. And it's not just the blocks. A lot of people want to put, oh, blocks and steals and rebounds. No, like, it's a lot of invisible stuff that he does that just deter shots, make guys make passes they wouldn't normally make, and retreat. Um, but ultimately just means the other team doesn't score very well.

Have you been able to track the, uh, I've heard it referred to online as the nope, uh, where a guy will drive the lane and then see Wemby and immediately say nope and just turn around or kick it out and be like, I'm not doing this? Because that feels like that happens multiple times a game, and that's like a hidden stat that won't show up on the box score, but it's clearly affecting the other team and how they want to run offense.

Yeah, those U-turns. I've heard people call it U-turns. It's really fun when you see it in person because these dudes are making business decisions. They go in there and they, they veer off course. With SGA, it was really profound though, Big Cat, because like he averaged over 9 dunks and layup attempted per 100 possessions all season long. It's one of the big parts of his game. And in the Western Finals, it was like 4. So you just see dudes, you, they don't go to the rim as much. That's the easiest way to see it. And when this series, will Jalen Brunson be able to get to his favorite spots? Like those old man spots, those little 12-foot pull-ups in the paint that he's so great at. Those are a lot easier to get to when there's not a 7'5" guy who's 22 years old jumping and stretching out in front of you.

Uh, Kirk, first of all, I love the hat. Really good logo. Love a guy that just reps the league. Um, I know along the same lines of these Wimby stats, have, uh, has there been a point where you can quantify any of the other stuff that he's doing defensively that might not show up? Like any new— there's the nope, there's the turnaround, but is there like a way that you can quantify, um, the percentage of blocks that he keeps in play as opposed to deflecting out of bounds and whether or not that's actually like better or worse than league average.

Yeah. So I talked to the team about that exact thing, PFT, and it was— they didn't give me a specific number. They said, hey, just know that we recover a lot of those block shots at a higher rate than a typical block shot. So if you can imagine a block shot, swatting it out of the crowd, swatting it out of bounds, swatting it to an opponent, the Spurs are able to control those at a higher rate than you expect. It's a really astute point because some of his blocks turn into fast breaks at a higher rate if that's the— if that's the case. So yeah, any way you shake it, this guy is clearly the biggest sort of rising star in pro basketball. And to Big Cat's first point, Madison Square Garden, Victor Wembanyama— this is an incredible Finals for the NBA. This is going to be awesome. Uh, the city you, you guys used to record in before you sold out and went to Chicago. Yeah, he's going Crazy.

The big sellout move, go to New York, Chicago.

Left New York. Yeah, no, I hear you. It is— there's so much, so much buzz about this. I'm really excited to see what happens. From, uh, your perspective, like crunching the numbers, has, has there been a style of play or a, um, just a strategy overall that's been more successful than others at attacking Wimby?

You know, I think the best thing you can do is shoot threes. I mean, it's that basic. And New York comes into the series— PFT is the best 3-point shooting team in the playoffs. Making almost exactly 40% of their threes all playoffs long. And that's what I'm really interested in this series is they can punish you with a 5-out offense, meaning all 5 dudes around the edges of the court and all of them shoot 40%. Maybe Brunson's a little under there. Towns just made 50% of his threes in the Eastern Finals. That kind of stretch big— I don't know if you guys know this— Chet Holmgren wasn't that good in the previous series. Um, But Karl-Anthony Towns is really going to challenge the Spurs in a new way because he's going to stretch the defense out. Um, even Josh Hart, Landry Shamet, the role players can all punish the, uh, the Spurs from the arc. Uh, so that's really what a lot of people are zeroing in on and saying, yeah, New York's got a chance because they can be really productive on offense without even coming inside the arc, right?

And that, that's my big, like, I don't know if it's a hot take, but take before the series, because I think the Knicks are going to win this series. And I'm, I'm basing it on— and it's no, no shot at the Spurs, has been incredible what they did, their Game 7 performance. Teams shouldn't do that when they're that young. But if you look at who they have played in this path, they have played teams that are limited offensively, whether it be by injury with OKC and the Minnesota Timberwolves, or the Blazers, where it's not 5 guys that can all score. The Knicks, as they currently are playing, everyone can score, and it then makes it so that Wemby can't play that free safety role where you don't have a Lou Dort that you can basically say, go ahead and shoot all day. Yeah, you don't have, uh, some guys on the Timberwolves you're like, I'm— we can live with those shots, and you know, Rudy Gobert is not going to threaten us offensively, those type of things. Is that a crazy take on this, on this series coming up?

No, a lot of people are picking the Knicks because they are just so— they're such a deep team and they're diverse. We will see Wemby guarding Josh Hart a lot, which is— it might sound crazy to some of your listeners, but they did that in the regular season so that he can do what Zach Lowe, my colleague at The Ringer, calls that one-man zone where he can sort of patrol. So they will dare Josh Hart the same way they dared Alex Caruso, who made the shots, uh, for OKC, and Lou Dort, who didn't make the shots. They will try to put Wemby on the weakest shooter on the floor And that's going to be something really interesting to watch. If Josh Hart starts making threes, that's going to put the Spurs in a tough position right away. And to your point, it might make the Knicks just unbeatable because the Knicks are the hottest offense in the league right now.

Yeah. What happened in the last Game 1 where they came out flat against the Cavaliers? Like, we've— I, I know we all watched it and we said like, it just looks like they don't have the energy, like, like they were caught still sleepwalking a little bit. But is, is there something that, um, that happened in Game 1 that you think that a smart team like the Spurs might try to pounce on this Game 1?

Well, they ran into Game 1 James Harden, who's just a legendary playoff figure. Game 1, everybody talks about Game 6. Okay, don't forget about Game 1. This guy comes out, especially in the first 3 quarters of a Game 1, with guns blazing. So, uh, in all seriousness, the Cavs are a good team. The Cavs have Donovan Mitchell, they have Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley. They, they could score it. Uh, and I think the Knicks were a little rusty. Again, I think they had swept the Sixers, and, and that, that's another thing to watch, PFT. So they did, they did start that series a little rusty and a little slow, and they had to have that epic comeback to win game 1, right?

Yeah, our entire podcast bet on the Knicks in the first half.

The only half they didn't win.

That was the only half that we had a group bet on for the entire show.

Oh, that sucks.

That was tough.

Sorry for your loss.

It's okay.

Yeah, we got over it.

But I think that's— in all seriousness, I think there is— that could happen again because they've been off for what, since May 25th? It's June 2nd, uh, the series starts, uh, June 3rd. So they're gonna have over a week of rust on there again. And again, the Spurs are young dudes. This is one of the youngest cores. I think Big Cat alluded to it earlier, uh, they shouldn't be here according to some experts. Yeah, but they are, they are fresh, they're ready to go, they are very confident. And they're not rusty. So it'd be interesting to see if they have a similar sort of shortcoming against the Spurs in Game 1 as they did with Cleveland.

Yeah, it's the Spurs. It's not even according to expert dispersion beers, just according to the history of the NBA that you have to lose before you win. And I think that's what everyone expected for Game 7 in OKC, and they're just so unafraid and hit so many big shots. So we talked about Wemby. Jalen Brunson has been phenomenal. I also feel like Jalen Brunson has reached a different level too, where the ball isn't stopping as much and he's finding other guys, and it's, it's— they've unlocked Cat, like you said. Who— what do you think the Spurs are going to do to try to stop Jalen Brunson? Or is it maybe let Jalen Brunson score 35 and, and make sure that no one else beats us?

No, I think they're gonna— that— I think he's gonna be the top line on the whiteboard for Mitch Johnson. Uh, you know, what's in front of Mitch Johnson is the whiteboard. Sometimes what's behind Mitch Johnson— I heard you guys talking to Mike Breen— you got to prepare for that. Um, but in terms of Jalen Brunson. No, that's the head of the snake. They're going after it, and they're going to do exactly what they did to SGA, Big Cat, which is start with Stephon Castle, who you guys remember from UConn, is a national champion just like Jalen Brunson. Uh, and this young man is an incredible perimeter defender. He's a strong guard. He loves to stop defenders. Uh, he's a pain in the ass by himself. And then you remember the league's ultimate lurker, like PFT lurking on sort of a 4chan message board.

Yeah, that's good.

You have Victor Weminyama lurking in the background all the time. Time. Uh, so that's what they call Area 51 in San Antonio. Generally, that was about the lobs, you know, the alley-oops. But really, Area 51 with the two jersey numbers, 5 and 1, is about this defensive thing that, that, that Brunson's gonna have to deal with. Not only do you have to get past Stephon Castle at the point of attack, you have this monster behind you, uh, who is the best shot blocker and rim protector in the world.

Yeah, and much like we, uh, you know, we, we talk about some of the emerging superstars and we love them them while they're still coming up, and then eventually we have to find something to nitpick about them. Uh, yeah, like I remember when Steph Curry was breaking the sport of basketball until the, until the nitpick about Steph Curry just became, you ruined the game because you're so good at shooting. Um, is there one thing that we can do to nitpick Wimby's game? What is the one, what's the weakness that he has besides being French?

I got one.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I'd say I, I'd like to see him in the post more. I don't know if he's— I think that's going to come you know what I mean? But it's also, it's interesting watching him play because his— he's 7'5", but his center of gravity isn't like as low as, you know, I mean, like it's, it's high up there. So he can't— he— Hartenstein was able to push him around a little bit. And this is obviously nitpicking.

The Germans do that to the French.

Yeah, but I was— I, I think that's something that he will get a lot better at. But there are times when you could see him floating away from the basket, on offense and, and maybe not being as engaged in being able to, to dictate it, uh, for the Spurs offense.

Yeah, two things. I think that's very astute point, Big Cat, because I watched Game 7 with, uh, Chris Bosh, and he, he was like, this guy needs moves, he needs moves. Uh, and I think it's fair to say he's 22, he'll get there like you're pointing out. But if we're nitpicking, that's it. Like, he come— he doesn't have a signature move yet. I don't know what it will be. Um, but you would like to think a man with those physical gifts could get to the rim and punish people, uh, with a signature move, some drop steps, some half hook that, that he just develops over time. Uh, and to Big Cat's point, he does get pushed around a little bit because he is so thin, um, and, and his center of gravity is so high. Uh, that said, on Saturday night I was talking to a bunch of Spurs fans down here in Austin. I was guys, this is the nicest anybody's ever going to be to the Spurs. Like, yeah, this, this is— the pushback will come if the Spurs start winning over and over and over again. This is— we just vanquished these guys.

The Spurs were never cool during the last run. These guys are cool. You just did the league a favor. But to your point, PFT, it feels like, yeah, this— the pushback will come soon because people get bored with Wemby or be annoyed by him for one reason or another.

That's why I almost wanted the Thunder to win the last series, even though I don't like watching them play.

I heard you say that. That was actually a good point. You wanted another year of Wemby.

Yeah, extend our love for Wemby because I do love watching him play. I'm excited. Just like I could, I could talk myself into rooting for either of these two teams. I know that's like a fence-sitting position, but there's legitimately something fun to root for, for the Knicks and for the Spurs. And I think, you know what, I'm just going to be like you wearing that hat right now. I'm a fan of the— I'm a fan of the NBA for the Finals. I want 7 games.

Yeah, I think that's such a great point. I'm a Spurs guy, everybody knows that, but it is really just traumatic to root against this Knicks phenomenon, this Knicks team, this Knicks fan base. I want that fan base to have a title so bad. Um, these— I think everybody had— they have a pretty high approval rating, barring teams like Philadelphia and Boston, of course, that, that will hate them forever. Um, but these are really two special teams. And I think the NBA has hit the jackpot with this Finals. And again, you can tell it in the ticket prices. You're going to see it in the TV ratings. You're going to see it in sort of the international coverage of these Finals. This is not OKC versus Indiana. All due respect, that was an awesome Finals too. But this is prime time with the, with the Spurs guard rotation.

I made a point, I think, going into the last series, I think that Dylan Harper is maybe, maybe not the best, but he should be starting. But now after watching more of it, I, I think that they've just got 3 starting caliber guards. And the fact that they can move them in and out to do different things is such a huge asset that they have. So from your perspective, like, what does each one do better than the other 2?

So De'Aaron Fox is the vet. He was hurt to open the series and we really saw what he does so well in his absence. He controls the offense. He's not stupid. Stephon Castle, if you look back to the first 2 games, games of that OKC series. PFT, he had 11 turnovers and then 9 turnovers. And a lot of that was the absence of De'Aaron Fox. As soon as Fox came back in after his ankle, uh, recovery, suddenly those turnovers went down and the Spurs started taking care of the basketball a lot better. That's, that's what he's sort of the grown-up in the room, right, with these two other young bucks. He's an all-star player. Uh, and then the other two guys, what they have in common is they are both two of the most ferocious attack guards already in the NBA. One of the reasons people love Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper is they say it to your face. They're not doing step-back threes and, and staying away. Stephon Castle in particular will bully a guy 2 feet in the paint, drop a shoulder, push him, and then make a shot in his face. Uh, Dylan Harper is a little more crafty.

Again, one of the more advanced finishing packages we've ever seen from a guard this age. His footwork is immaculate. His use of the basketball is, is incredible. And when he elevates and starts going to the rim, he can, he can, he can yam it on your head. But he also has just an array of finishes, uh, with both hands at the rim. And he's left-handed too, uh, so it evokes Manu Ginobili for, for Spurs fans, this lefty coming off the bench and slashing through. But it's an embarrassment of riches, uh, like you said, almost every team would start two of these guys and they have three of them. Yeah, uh, and it's, it's, it's really the reason they're here aside from Wemby, and it's under, under-talked about. But Dylan Harper is my favorite of them all. He's just so awesome to watch.

Yeah. All right. So we talk about Wemby, we talk about Jalen Brunson. If you had to pick a guy from each team where I told you they had the series of their life and then they end up winning, like the, the, the X factor guy, who would that be?

Let's start with KAT. KAT, like he plays basketball like me sometimes. I just foul people and I'm like, God, why'd I do that? Like Chris Farley smashed my head with my hand. He's, he's very frustrating to watch. Sometimes for Knicks fans because he just makes mental mistakes, particularly with fouls. And here's a stat for you: the Spurs enter these Finals with 2 of the 3 biggest foul drawers in the, in the playoffs. Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle are, are 2 of the top 3. They've both drawn over 100 fouls. And, and Cat comes in as the 3rd most fouling player. So you have 2 of these dudes who are just getting whistles all the time, and then you have Cat who is, is uncontrollable, uh, with these. So He's got a— if he cannot get in foul trouble and if he can stretch out the defense and make like 5 threes in Game 1 and they steal it and he's getting rebounds and he's threatening, the Knicks are going to win this series. If KAT has the series of his life and is not getting in foul trouble, that's going to be really, really important.

And so I think he would be my answer on the Knicks. Yeah, in, in San Antonio, Wemby's the obvious choice. De'Aaron Fox is getting better and stronger coming off of this injury with his ankle. He looked really good in Game 7. He had a 3 in the 4th quarter where he just was really bouncy for the first time all series, and, and it was a huge shot. And if he's able to bring that kind of transition competence and energy, and again those point guard skills, and is scoring 20 points, 19 points, having 7 assists, um, if he has the series of his life then I think this— the Spurs are even better than they were against OKC because he was not that guy because that injury for that series.

Yeah, yeah. What about, um, Mitchell Robinson and some of the, uh, some of the gamesmanship that goes into his play where, you know, like you see him in the game, instant foul, that sort of thing? If you— with a guy like that, do you have to start making your free throws early to have a decent night at the line? Or if you have a bad free throw shooter Is it a common thing to like just start off really ice cold and then eventually if you stay in there long enough, get enough reps, you start to bump that percentage up?

Yeah, he is one of the worst free throw shooters in the league, but I, I want to give him some flowers because back in Vegas I went to the NBA Cup Final in December and Mitch Robinson really won that game to beat the Spurs in December in Vegas. How'd he do it? He is the best offensive rebounder in the game when he gets going. He had 10 offensive rebounds in 18 minutes of play. Um, and the Spurs had no answer for him. PFT, I would say if he's able to just be a menace and just like one of those high-energy rebounding guys off the bench, um, the Knicks again have a great chance to win this series. If he has to play too much because KAT's in foul trouble, or if they rely on him for offensive production, they're going to be in trouble. He's perfect in that role as an offensive rebounder. Uh, and if he's there late in quarters, to your point, the Spurs are going to send him to the free throw line where he makes 40% or less of his free throws, and the math says that's the right, yeah, thing to do.

Um, so you don't want to see him on the free throw line. And now the other big thing with him obviously is he had pinky surgery last week, right? He had pinky surgery last week. So a lot of us are going to go to Game 1 tomorrow and be like, all right, all eyes on Mitch. Is he able to grab the basketball with that hand where he had surgery? I I mean, the pinky is the smallest digit, uh, but probably important to grabbing a lot of rebounds.

Yeah, but also maybe he'll be a better shooter with a broken pinky.

You know, this is— Big Cat taught me this stat. Do you remember what I'm— do you know what I'm about to say about Josh Hart?

Cutting off your pinkies?

Oh dude, that pinky bet, always the highlight of the fall for me. Um, wait, okay, I'll come back to that. Um, yeah, I think he had surgery. I don't know. Josh Hart hurt his wrist and then became a better 3-point shooter. Yeah, we talked about that. That yet last year, 2 years ago on the show, but I hadn't been aware of that. But yeah, you brought that to me. Yeah, who's your pinky team in the NFL this year?

The Rams? We gotta wait. We gotta win. Absolutely not the Rams. We gotta wait till a team goes on too.

Yeah, we gotta do the Rams. We got this, man.

Up. No, hell no. We're gonna— I mean, listen, if they start 0-2, I'll have to think about it, and then Aaron Donald will somehow come back and I'll just be fucking screwed. Um, what is OG gonna guard Wemby would you expect primarily?

Yeah, so OG has had great success on Victor Wemby. I would see— we're going to see 3 primary defenders on Wemby. He's one of them. I think Towns is the more conventional way to start, and then obviously Mitch Robinson when he's in the game. But OG Anunoby has a great combination of that sort of strength that can push him around. He's a smarter defender than KAT. He won't commit those kind of stupid fouls. So just by putting him on Wemby, that's less of a chance that Cat will be in foul trouble. And the numbers— out of the 20 or 25 guys that have defended Wemby the most in the last 3 years, none according to the player tracking system have been as effective as OG Anunoby, uh, at holding him down. Now a lot of that's his year 1 or year 2, Big Cat, but we're definitely going to see OG Anunoby as one of the best defenders in this league. Defending the best player on the other team.

Yeah.

Do you have any insight as to what, what information or strategy Pop is providing the team? Because we heard the reports that he talked to Wimby after a couple of the games in the last series. Is he still very much in the mix or does he just show up like when, when Gotham needs him? He'll show up and give that little extra boost.

You know, that was pretty special. He came in after one of the losses and I think it was really impactful for the guys and for the coaching staff. Tough. And it is— what a resource to have sort of this tenured professor, uh, this, this retired professor come in and tell you how to win a Conference Finals or Finals game. I don't know exactly what he's going to say, um, but it's just a great trump card they have to play, uh, with one of the, one of the most successful coaches this league's ever seen, uh, sort of consulting in, in, in the background when they need it.

Coach Emeritus, or whatever that word is. Coach Emeritus, that's the word I was looking We've got, we got two big Knicks fans on this pod. We got Zach and Memes. Do you guys have any questions for, for Kirk?

Zach and Memes, you guys got something locked in on ball right now. Zach, Memes, what's going on, Kirk?

How we doing today, man?

I'm doing well.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

I'm doing good.

I was curious, you know, if this Knicks team this year is able to get it done and beat the Spurs, and biasly I will say I do think they will. Uh, where does this put Jalen Brunson as far as legacy? Like, will we see them hoist that number 11 jersey in the rafters when it's all said and done? Like, where do you think this is? Is this a starting point, or is it more of like, uh, this cements him Knicks all-time?

I think he's already a great Knick all-time for what he's done here and getting them into the Finals. I mean, we see how they treat Starks and Sprewell and, and Ewing, and those guys never got over the top. Um, but yeah, he would be the best Knick since obviously the '70s. '60s, which is most of our lifetime, uh, all, all of your guys' lifetime. So this would— I don't even think he's prepared for how big of a celebrity in New York he would become if they win this. This is like Jeter. He would be elevated to folklore status immediately, um, because this would be the most important championship in New York in a very, very long time, uh, for a fan base that's been starved. It's an excellent fan base fan base. And since they got Brunson in that incredible transaction, he's transformed the vibes there, getting those Nova guys there. And just, you know, he's given this fan base something to be very excited about. And now if they win it, dude, yeah, yeah, in that Jeter category, I think.

Yeah, they're number 11 retired forever.

Yeah, forever.

Attaboy. Statues.

Yeah, yeah. Gift baskets.

Uh, memes.

What do you think?

I, I don't have any questions. I like your hat. Where'd you get it?

Uh, PFT sent it to me in the mail, um, with some rowback that they always send me. Rowback when I come on the show, I'm always appreciative, but this one came with the, uh, the NBA hat. Max, any questions?

Uh, no sir. I'm looking forward to a good NBA Finals. I went with the Zach no sir there.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah. You don't have any questions about the matchups or anything? You're pumped, Memes. You've been talking about the Knicks non-stop. What's the— what's the memes? What's the one thing in your head that you're like, I'm worried about this? Honestly, nothing.

Okay, nothing at all.

Wait, wait, can I ask a question?

Yes, yes, yes.

How are— how do you expect the Knicks to contain Victor Wembanyama on offense and on defense?

That's a good question.

Good question. Hadn't thought about that. Good question. I'd run through every possible possible situation of the Finals, but had not thought about—

yeah, yeah, it's a deep cut.

It's essentially Josh Hart just has to make his threes.

Yeah, it's like the Alex Caruso role you mentioned, Kirk. Like, there's gonna be a guy open and he's got to hit him.

And that was the Caruso— when Caruso was making those threes, they were winning those games. Yeah, when they stopped falling, it started to change real fast. I think that's fair, dude. If Josh Hart makes his threes, dude, that, that's a very impossible possible team to guard at that point.

Yeah. Um, all right, I got one last question for you, Kirk. Rowback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. rowback.com, promo code TAKE. So Father's Day is coming up. You've, you've always hooked us up with something you're working on that is made for perfect Father's Day. You don't have to get your dad a tie or a gift card or something. Get him something cool about sports What do you have right now?

Oh, I'm so excited. Thank you for setting this up, Big Cat. I have the best posters. I've made championship shooting charts for every championship team going back to the '90s, including the Last Dance Bulls. Um, so it is a beautiful poster with these 3D shot charts showing the shooting terrain of everybody on those championship teams, whether you're a Celtics fan, a Spurs fan— I can't say a Knicks fan, they haven't won it yet. Warriors fans, but go to thegoldenhexagon.com. We have these incredible prints for sale of these, uh, for your dad or for yourself or for the dad in your life that, that liked one of these championship teams.

They do look awesome. All your— you are the king of Father's Day presents, from the maps to, uh, to all this stuff. Like, it's, it's an A+ move to get your dad one of these things.

No, I appreciate that, PFT. And I know that, that Big Cat's a father of 3, and I hope he has a great Father's Day coming up too.

My kids aren't buying me I know that these are awesome maps.

I'm looking at them right now.

Yeah, they're the best.

These are so sick.

Okay, thanks.

I love it.

We'll send you guys some. You, you send me so much Roback, I'll send you as many of those as you guys want. Um, we can have them in the studio. So I got the address, PFT sent it to me earlier.

Oh yes, Kirk, when you're looking at the upcoming NBA draft, is, is it clearly Dubanza going number one? Or no, I think Taren Peterson's better.

I'm, I'm Boozer curious at number 1, dude. And all the nerds are, all the nerds are. When you look at the draft models, PFT, that all the stats dudes are building at these NBA teams, Boozer comes up number 1.

Do Kevin Love?

Yeah, do Kevin Love, maybe without the chin strap, maybe a little more in shape than, than K-Love was, uh, at that time in his career. But I love Kevin Love as a comp. He is sort of a boring double-double machine, right? But that models really well. I think rebounds, when people are scouting the draft, a lot of casuals underestimate like the, the less than glamorous art of the board.

Hmm. So you would have him like right in the conversation for number one?

I'm Boozer curious. I said, I said what I said. I think Darren Peterson, AJ DeMondre, it's, it's fascinating in a way that it hasn't been in a minute.

It's a little scary too if you're picking first overall. It's like you don't want to like I mean, this could be the Sambui.

You almost rather be the Bulls, just be like, I'll take whoever's left.

I'd still take the number one pick, but yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there is— the Bulls are gonna get the pick chosen for them.

Have you guys picked the finals?

Yeah, I think the Knicks are gonna win in 6.

I've not made— I've not disclosed my pick yet.

What do you think, Kirk?

I— my NBA preview will run on theringer.com today, and I am picking, uh, the San Antonio Spurs in 7 games, but it was a tough pick. And, and to your earlier point at the beginning of the show, we had, uh, the interview. Um, this is a really, really great series. Um, and I'll be happy for my friends in New York if they win, but I'm picking the Spurs in 7 in a real great classic series.

I've just decided my pick. It's Knicks in 7.

I just think Knicks, Game 6 in MSG, up 3-2, Oh, that's it right there.

You guys got to go back, man. You got to be there. You got to be climbing this.

Yeah, I'm okay.

I'm okay missing out on that one.

You know, $10 grand just to, to go watch a team that you don't root for? Yeah, why not?

Yeah, yeah, just do it.

Just do it. Um, all right, well, Kirk, you're the best, man. We appreciate it. Uh, everyone go check out your— Kirk's, uh, NBA Finals preview on The Ringer, and go to the Golden Hexagon and get some stuff for Father's Day.

Thanks, guys.

Great to see you.

All right, thanks. See you, Kurt.

Kurt Goldsberry is brought to you by our great friends over at Jose Cuervo. When Cuervo enters, every moment just gets better. You find yourself in the center of the dance floor. You can't help but stand up and high-five those around you at the game, and the room reacts like it just got the same text at the same time. You stop checking the time, and suddenly small talk escalates to laughing so hard that you can barely catch your breath. That is the Cuervo my friends. A signal that everybody understands, a moment that anyone can join, and a good time that just grows. All you have to do is keep it Cuervo. He was also brought to you by our great friends over at Reese's. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for Reese's. Take how the whole world is vying for the cup right now. Is it because it's called a cup, just like a Reese's peanut butter cup? Coincidence? I think not. So be a champ, score Reese's today, because everything happens for Reese's. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Everything happens for Reese's. Get yours at hersheeyland.com/reeses. And now here's FSU head basketball coach Luke Laux.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest. It is head basketball coach of the Florida State Seminoles, Luke Laux.

Which—

Luke, coach, I'm gonna call you coach. Thank you for coming here. We'll explain why you're your name kind of— your last name kind of sucks in terms of like you just fucks everyone up.

Yeah.

Did I do it right?

It was spot on.

Okay.

I don't even correct people. I get everything. And it's like it's an endless Luke Locks, Luke Lukes. Like it's Laux. Okay. Kind of how you pronounce couch, like the O-U in it.

Okay.

But it's a tough name, man. Yeah. It's just what I was born into. You should change that. I'm thinking about it.

What about changing it to just Luke? Lou, so L-O-U, and then last name like C-L-O-U-C-K-S. So it's Lou Cloux. That sounds more kind of like the same thing.

What about, what about L-U-L-O-U? So you're Lulu.

Yeah, that could work.

Coach Lulu.

Yeah, that's good.

So I, I got two older brothers and I, I went like my childhood, I was, I was Little Loux, Little Loux. But that's even more, that's, that's more complicated to pronounce. And I have like a small speech impediment too as a child. Called. It was like I had constant peanut butter in my mouth trying to pronounce my name. Oh yeah, it was tough.

All right, does anybody ever say FS Lou?

No.

Okay, maybe we can start that. Maybe that's a hashtag.

Yeah, yeah, we could come up with something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're here, uh, thank you for being here in studio. Yeah, uh, because when we've talked about on this show, we talked about on the Yak, Florida State raised the banner after, uh, the 2020 season, the COVID season. That said, uh, 2020 COVID, cancel season COVID, and number 4 ranking. Essentially being like, hey, we didn't do a tournament, but we were the number 4 team when the tournament would have happened. And the banner was up, actually up in your arena for a couple years, then got taken down. I am trying to collect as many, uh, weird, like, off-the-wall memorabilia pieces that I can get. And this was always something I was lusting after. I contacted someone at FSU and credit to you guys, you were like, yeah, we're never going to put this banner back up. Let's put it somewhere where it's fun. We can have fun with it. We can make fun of ourselves. And now we're going to be unveiling it in the Barstool office and it will, it will hang for as long as I'm here. It will hang. I just want you to know that.

I'm making that pledge. Yes.

Yeah.

And that's where it, to me, because there was a little, little bit of pushback internally, like, yeah, we're making fun.

Yeah.

I love making fun of ourselves. Like everyone who can't laugh at yourself, but also to celebrate that team, man. And I know, I know Florida State basketball hasn't had a ton of unbelievable teams. We won the ACC championship a couple of times, you know, back in '72 they lost in the championship to UCLA in that run. But there hasn't been a ton of teams that were at that level. So I kind of understand in a weird way why they wanted to celebrate that team. That team was rolling. Was probably a Final Four team. But you can't, you can't hang that banner, right? Like, like, you didn't win anything.

No. And also, we are going to celebrate them. That will be the celebration of them. And they are, uh, I, I really appreciate it because I think that, like, you know, we've been doing this show for 10 years now, and I think one of the reasons why we've been successful in doing this show is that sports are supposed to be fun. Sports are supposed to be, you know, there's serious parts of it. You want to win. But at the end of the day, we're trying to entertain people. We're trying to have fun. And so having that ability to laugh at yourself, I appreciate the FSU staff. We went to visit you guys on Grit Week. You guys are so gracious. Some of the worst shooting of all time. Yeah, I don't know if you heard about that.

I did.

We were trying to do the around the world drill where we had hit 5 from 5 different locations. None of us made it to the other corner. Yeah. So apologies on that. It's okay. Yeah, we probably couldn't make your team. But yeah, this is going to be fun and it's, and it's going to be fun to be able to have this banner forever.

No, no question. I appreciate you guys reaching out and getting it done and just, just have something Florida State in this building. First of all, you guys have an adult playground in here. This building is incredible. This is like a child's but a grown man's dream.

Yeah.

Everywhere you go is like, ah, that makes sense. Yeah. Like you guys did a phenomenal job. I didn't realize the scope of— I follow a lot of your stuff and your podcast. You guys incredible job, but I didn't realize the scope of this building. Yeah, this is a, this is a sweet spot. It's like giving me ideas for home. Yeah, my wife's gonna hate me.

Yeah, yeah. Did, uh, did Brooks Koepka reach out, or did anybody from Brooks's camp reach out after that interview?

No, I was, I was, you know, I was talking to the staff because I got, I got sent the clip like 250 times as soon as it came out. And before I even went to my administration, which is probably a mistake on my part as a rookie young coach, I just tweeted back. I'm like, yeah, let's do this. Yeah. And then, you know, Brooks, me and Brooks were the same class. We had, we had an unbelievable class come through Florida State, a lot of different sports, but none of his people reached out. But through that, you know, we caught up on it and he said it's pretty, pretty cool that we're doing it.

Yeah. Let's talk about that team. Let's— since we're going to be, you know, showing off the banner here, but let's talk about how good that team was and the guys on that team that should be recognized. So in your opinion, like looking back on it, what do you remember the most about that team?

Yeah. So I was coaching for Golden State at the time and I remember following that team like, oh, we actually got a chance. And I think the year before they went to the Elite Eight, so they already had some momentum. But first and foremost, Devin Vassell was unbelievable. He hit his prime. He was like an unheralded recruit. He wasn't ranked super high. He came in his freshman year and was pretty good. And then that next year he took a huge jump. Ended up being a lottery pick, but that, that team. And then obviously Pat Williams, you know, like, yeah, great, great Florida State player.

Great Florida State player.

Great, great Florida State, great college player, great defender. But those two kind of— but then they had some older guys, you know, Trent Forrest, Raekwon Gray. I think they had 4 draft picks, 2 lottery picks and 2 second round picks. Balsa, big European. They were, they were loaded for a college team. And, and that's why they had a good amount of like, to me, the best college team, best basketball teams, you have those like young guys that are your stars, but then you have old guys around them that support, you know, and that are the glue, the backbone. And that team to me had it all.

Yeah, they were 4 in the country.

Yeah, they were 4.

They hung it.

Yeah. 26-5 when COVID happened. 16-5 in the ACC or 16-4 in the ACC.

Excuse me.

Really, really good team. So we got it. We got to celebrate them. By the way, I didn't tell you, and I hope this doesn't bother you, but he was very cool. I didn't tell you that I actually— so when I, when I get obsessed with something like this, it becomes a little unhealthy and it's like I just exhaust every resource possible. I was able to actually get your athletic director's phone number and I texted him completely like cold call texting, being like, hey, it's Big Cat from Barstool. I really want this. Banner. He actually responded. He's like, let me check on where it is and we'll, we'll try to get it to you. So, absolute awesome dude. I love it. Like, to have a random text like that, you're the AD of FSU. You should have just, you should have just blocked my number and never responded to it. No. So Mike Alford, thank you for responding, and, uh, I will never tell you how I got your number, but don't worry, your secret's safe.

I'll never— yeah, that, that is interesting. I can track that down. I mean, I mean, you're a powerful guy. You can get a phone number, but I'll forever be grateful. He gave me my first job. He took a swing on me. I mean, I'm the youngest head coach in Power 4 basketball right now, and he took a gamble on me. And obviously there's a lot of connections from playing at Florida State, but he's a great dude and obviously has his hands full right now trying to help us turn, turn, you know, football around, turn basketball around. But yeah, he's doing— he's doing a great job.

Let's talk about the internship and how you decided to become a head coach. Coach? And, uh, because you got off— you picked a great place to start in Golden State. Yeah, like working on that staff is awesome. So how did you decide, um, okay, we're gonna maybe cut the playing career a little bit short, it feels like more of a career to be a, a coach?

Yeah, so I was playing in Europe, played a little bit in the minor leagues, um, with the Celtics and the Magic back when it's called the D-League, um, and then playing overseas, playing Germany, Belgium, um, Cyprus, Latvia, been, been a little bit all over the place, uh, but I knew my career was never going to get to the, the highest level. I I was kind of just doing it because I loved hoops, loved competing, and you get paid to travel the world, man. It was awesome. Um, but I knew I want to coach, and so I was working out in Vegas at the same time NBA Summer League was going on, working out for a bunch of European teams and, and trying to get my next contract. But I kept getting banged up. Like, I had spine surgery, I broke my foot, I got screws in my foot, and, and it was just one of those things like, all right, what are we doing here? We, we can keep making okay money and keep doing this, or you can start doing what your career is and still be around the game. So I talked to Coach Hamilton, and he's like, well, every team in the NBA is out where you're working out right now.

Just go start talking to people. And so I would go— I would work out in the morning, and I would go from like noon to the last Summer League game, and I would just like find every NBA person that would listen to me and be like, hey, I want to coach someday, if you got anything. And through that week, I think I had 6 or 7 interviews like in the stands at Summer League of like, yeah, all right, you want to coach, go interview. You basically got to get in through the film room, you got to start in an internship. Um, and then I had a couple buddies in the NBA that have already done this, and they were kind of showing me the ropes of like, if you want to do this, you got to talk to these people, you got it. So, so through that week, by the end of the week, I think I had 3 or 4 job offers of like, yeah, if you want to be an intern, you can join us. One of them was Golden State. The, the owners of Golden State are the Lacob family, great family.

Kirk ran the D-League team when I played in the D-League, and at one point he almost tried to trade for me to, like, come be their backup point guard. And so he remembered me. He's like, come talk hoops, like, let's catch up. I remember when you played. So through that, you know, connected with, you know, some of Steve Kerr's staff and they're like, yeah, we got a spot open. One of our interns is leaving. And literally that day, Kevin Durant signs with Golden State.

I was going to say, yeah.

Yeah.

And you're such a front runner, dude.

100%. I'm hopping on that bandwagon. So I call my wife.

You're a ring chaser.

Chaser.

1000%. Yeah. So I call my wife and I'm like, all right. She kind of knew what I was doing. I'm like, I think this is the sign we're looking for. Like, do we go play again? Do we get in? I was like, Kevin Durant just joined the best team on earth. This would be unwise to not go down this route. Yeah. And but what she didn't realize is is— and, and we're, we're young, we don't have kids yet, but we're freshly married— is I was leaving like 6 figures on the table to take in a minimum wage internship in the most expensive city in the world, in San Francisco, in Oakland. And so I'm like, hey babe, you're also gonna have to get a job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those details came later.

It's just like, we might not have to move every year in the future, so we'll save on the back end. But yeah, you might want to dust off that resume. That's right. So you go to, you go to Golden State. What's your job when you first get there? What are you doing day to day?

So I was in the film room a little bit, really whatever they needed, man, because I was fresh off playing. So I would kind of practice with the guys. I'd work out with them, rebound. But your main job is you break down film. So all the film that the staff needs, you're coding it. So it's like learning a new language. I thought I knew basketball. I knew nothing about basketball. Basketball. But it was, it was, it was awesome because there were so many head coaches on that staff. Steve was incredible, but then like Mike Brown, Ron Adams at the time was the best assistant in the NBA, uh, Willie Green was on that staff. There was all these head coaches, um, that basically— and Mike Brown being the, the most significant— that took me under their wing of like, Mike started in the film room too, and right, and he remembered those days of like, you're working 12, 16 hours, you're, you're there early, you're there late. If, if Klay wants to come shoot at 1 a.m., like you're the guy going to rebound for him. So a little bit of everything. But then through that, you learn about analytics, you learn the terminology, you learn how to coach.

And the greatest thing about Steve is, is he wanted the young guys to really learn, not just be in the background. So by year 2, I went from an intern to a player development coach that was in charge of the two-ways to, to a full-time player development coach and just kept rising up. But through that, Steve would like give you scouts. And so you'd be in front of the team. I've only been coaching for 2 years and you're in front of the team like breaking down the entire scout and you're in charge of everything. You're in charge of offensive, defensive personnel. And it really forced us as young coaches, and that's why so many coaches go on and do great things, but it forced you as a young coach to like be on your stuff. Like you got Draymond Green.

I was gonna say you're doing it.

No, no, no, that's wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not only doing it, but you're doing it in front of Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Steph Curry, guys who know basketball better than anyone in the world.

And they thought me and Draymond were the same class. Yeah. And he would like bring up all the time that I was ranked higher than him and like, like it shows how good these rankings are. But he would grill you in a good way of like, if you're going to do this as a coach, you got to, you got to know what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Was there a moment that you gave something to Draymond or gave something to KD where it's like it almost clicked where they're like, hey, we now trust you?

You?

Because I'm sure that is a process.

Yeah.

Where it's like, they're not going to just take coaching from anyone, you know. But once you get to that point, I'm sure those guys want to just absorb everything.

Yeah, not, not really any point. But I do think as former players— that's why I've tried to hire a lot of former players on my staff too— as former players, there's already somewhat of a built— obviously I didn't play at that level, but there's a built-in respect of like, I'm not in your shoes, but I've sat in your shoes. Like, I, I know in the midst of a game what goes on, right? I'm not someone that's never played. So I do think— and then, you know, that year Katie got hurt and they kind of stuck me as an intern just to work out with him as he was coming back from his knee injury. And through that, that bond and even Steph, like Steph would pull me, you know, aside to do shooting drills and they would be like heavily weighted, right? Like he's handcuffed in these shooting drills and I'm just trying to make it and he would torch me, right? But like, through those workouts and through working out, I think just that part built in a little bit of respect. And they knew, like, I'm trying to learn how to coach, right?

I don't know, I'm learning more from them and the staff than I'm actually giving. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? But if you're, if you're a sponge and you just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, you can learn pretty quick what's going on.

Yeah.

All right, what's the, uh, the most impressive shooting performance that you saw from either, you know, Klay, Steph, or KD in your time? They're like in practice.

Yeah, so, so they would do this drill, and Steph still does this drill, and he's like a maniac. He's like an absolute machine with the way he works. It's unbelievable. KD, the same thing, but he does this drill where you shoot until you miss 2 in a row. And, and so every spot you try to get a certain number and then you try to get 100, right? So you shoot until you miss 2 in a row, which for him takes a long time. If he misses one, he just—

I was gonna say, this is the fastest drill ever for us.

Well, for us, yeah, yeah, you're gonna make a total of like 5 to 10. But he's trying, he's trying to get to 100, right? Around 5 spots, right? So you're— I'm not great at math, but I think that's 20th spot. Yeah. Um, he ran off 67 straight threes, which, which I thought was like so impressive. Like, I'm— my mind was blown, right?

Just—

so that is just insane.

It's insane. And this was actually in Chicago. We're playing the Bulls later that year. He runs off, and there's a video of it, he runs off 105 straight straight— doesn't 105 straight corner threes? And I was like, what am I looking at? Yeah, this is— there's a few— by the way, this coffee, I'm not a big canned coffee guy. Coffee is unbelievable to your company. Yes. Uh, we need to get some of these.

Absolutely, we got you.

Um, but there were moments in that where as a young coach, like, what am I watching right now?

Great job coaching!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Steph, Klay, they're all under my toes.

Tutelage. Yeah. All right, so I got a question about— I got, I got two questions about Steph. I'm gonna play a little game with you. It's called, uh, uh, question you've probably been asked a million times and question hopefully you've never been asked. Okay. Uh, both about Steph. One is, what is— what does Steph do in terms of his workouts? Because I think the part of Steph that is underrated, maybe not acknowledged as much, is he's just always moving and his stamina is so insane. And that's why he's able to get open the amount of times he's gets open is he just runs everyone, you know, down essentially. What is he doing in practice and in the offseason to get to that point?

Big Cat, you kind of answered your own question there. Yeah, you— he works harder on his conditioning than anyone in basketball I've ever seen. And it's nonstop. And to me, like at his age, that's tough to do, man. Those are like long offseasons, especially at the time you're playing, you know, preseason, regular season. NBA playoffs through the finals, you're playing over 100 games a year. And to take a few weeks off and then get right back into it and to do that for like 20 straight years, it's unbelievable.

Is he like running? Is he, is he distance? What is he doing?

It's equal parts the intensity. Yeah, like he won't work out for 2 hours, but it's the intensity that he does his drills at. He tries to every single rep, he tries to go game speed, which is tough to do. It's tough to mimic a game in your workout. He's probably as close as I've seen. Of like when I do things, they're going to mimic what I do in the game. And then in between, he's doing— we'll put you through some drills. Oh, we'll put you through some Steph Curry, Steph Curry drills. Yeah, yeah. But, but it is a— so for example, when I joined Sacramento Kings, one of my jobs, you know, help run the offense. Eventually I became a defensive coordinator, but I trained Darren Fox. And one of the first things I did was, Darren, we're going down. It's an hour and a half drive from Sacramento. We're going down to work out with Steph. And in the first workout, not only like his body, he just wasn't— and Darren's one of the best athletes in all of sports, like unbelievable athlete. His forearms were cramping. I've never seen someone's forearms. His forearms were cramping just from the level and the intensity of these shooting drills.

And he looks at me after the workout, he's like, all right, I get it now. Yeah, I get why Steph is where he's at if this is the way he works out every day. But it was great for De'Aaron to go down, and, and Steph does a really good job putting together some of those, you know, younger athletes that he can kind of take over under his wing. Um, but it was great for Fox to see. And then that year, Fox became an All-Star.

Yeah. All right, so now the question that you have never been asked. Okay. Jeff, can you get him on our podcast?

I can't promise that.

Okay.

But you could ask.

I can try.

Yeah, I can ask.

Yeah.

Have you been asked that before? If you don't ask, it's always a no, right?

Yeah. Listen, that's how I got Mike Alfred.

So I got my wife.

Yeah, exactly. You got to take a shot. You got to shoot your shot.

I think you'd really like us. I think you'd really enjoy doing this podcast.

Well, we go to— we go to Tahoe for that tournament that he just dominates.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So we've— we met him last year, um, but yeah, he is—

he is definitely a, uh, white whale guest of ours because we're just putting in a feeler.

Yeah, we're massive fans. So, uh, but that's awesome. So, so, uh, I wanted— you were on Wake Up Barstool with me this morning. You said something very interesting that I wanted to go further in because we ran out of time. The first season coaching Florida State, I thought you guys were like— you guys were coming on at the end of the season, you were playing great ball. I was saying that, well, I watched a ton of college basketball and you were that, that camp of teams that I circled being like, hey, don't sleep on them anymore, they're a hard out. They might be, you know, 15-point underdogs to Duke, but like, they're going to keep this game close. And you guys finished strong, but you said that going into the season you, you coached the guys like you were in the NBA and you had to adjust. What did that look like? What did your mistakes look like to start? And then what did the adjustment look like?

Because it worked.

Yeah, there, there are a few things. Um, number one, I want to play a certain style, right? I want to play a pace that analytically supports— like, the best teams play fast because you attack a set defense. New York's doing it right now. Yeah, like, I want to play like the New York Knicks. Like, they play fast, they share the ball, there's constant movement, there's constant cutting, um, and then you create high-level shots, right? A lot at the rim, but a lot of kick-out threes. And then you, you get out of your way of your stars and you let them work, right? You're not going to handcuff Brunson, you're not going to handcuff KAT, um, But even before Playstyle, I was teaching and coaching these guys like I was used to. And I'm used to coaching adults that by the time you get to the NBA, you weed out all the guys that don't know how to play. You weed out all the guys that don't understand the game of basketball at a certain— I shouldn't say all of them, but most of them. You get to that level, you can tell those guys, even role players.

You take a guy like, like Trey Lyles. You tell Trey Lyles one, one time and he's like, all right, I got it. I understand what you're saying. I can go implement that. That you get to college and it's no disrespect, it's just where they're at in their development. They're very talented, but they don't, they don't understand on like an intellectual level of like what you're saying, right? So you have to teach, which I love teaching, but I didn't realize like, not only you got to teach it, if you don't touch on it in 2 days, they forget it, right? Because they just don't know. They haven't been through all those reps. They're not, they're not grownups. And so we're like, you know, 10 games in the season and I'm like, guys, they're not grasping what we're saying. And one of my— I call him college coaches because I've never coached in the NBA, but he was a head coach in college. He's like, well, some of, some of that is on us, right? We're not teaching them. You're saying it, but we're not teaching them what you mean, right? And now you have to teach them.

You got to teach them every single day. And then you play a game and you got to do it again. Right. And so I think that was the first thing we changed our structure of practice of like we need to teach a little bit more, but then our compete level has to go through the roof, right? Second thing, we were just launching threes. I mean, we were— we led the nation in threes for a good portion, but they weren't going in. That's important. That is what— I don't care what anyone tells you, and math would agree, if the shots don't go in, you're not going to score a lot of points. Correct. And through that, I'm like, guys, I get I want to play a certain style, but if it's not working, we got to change. Right. And so it's not that I love the three ball. I love playing fast, but we got to attack the rim. We got the free throw line a little bit more. And through that, because we did that, our defense got a lot better because now it's not— you're launching threes, long rebounds, it's leading to runouts. We lost, we lost at home by 44 to NC State and I felt like it was a layup line for them, just nonstop layups because we were missing all these long shots and our defense couldn't get set.

And I think in that moment, that's where it like flipped. We, we went after that game, we went back to my office, and I don't recommend this. I'm not like, uh, be in the office all night, and— but I'm like, this is a crisis. Like, we, we need to figure this out, right? And so we stayed in my office to almost 5 AM, and we, we cracked a couple of beers, watched every clip of NC State game. I'm like, we're not leaving here until we have a plan to fix this season. At that point, I think we had lost like 8 out of 10, right? And we stayed up all Right. And we basically came back of like, all right, we need to focus on, on defense, our compete level. We got it. We got to stop this transition defense. But then offensively, like, we have to be in attack mode of getting to the hoop. And I really don't care if we shoot zero threes, right? And our staff was so good about taking that and implement. We still shot a lot of threes, but we got way better ones because their mindset was like, no, no, we're getting to the hoop.

Yeah, we're trying to score. And now if the help comes, it's a kick-out three. It's exactly what the New York Knicks are doing. Like, if you watch them If you load up and help, they're going to get a kick-out 3. And if you don't, you let your stars work, you give them space.

Yeah, Jalen Brunson, one-on-one in the paint, he's gonna score every time.

His good things are gonna— even with OG and like Mikal Bridges, like, those guys are attacking and getting to where they need to to score at an efficient rate. And as soon as you help, there's a kick-out going backside and it's a splash wide open 3.

Yeah, yeah. This is some pretty analytical stuff I'm about to ask you, but have you figured about the difference between you wearing like a quarter zip and you getting dressed up in the suit, like how the team performs. Because we like it when the coaches still get dressed up on the sidelines. Yeah, since COVID that's, you know, one of the things in addition to excluding Florida State from potentially winning the national championship. Feels like after COVID, coaches don't wear suits anymore.

Yeah. And, and speaking of suits, Nate Oates' daughter is— is that right? Is that public? No, she's interning. Yeah, I just ran into her.

Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. So best suit game in college basketball. And I think outside of probably Patino. Patino's got like—

when he throws the white suit, it's over. It's the nuclear button.

He's the boss. Yeah, he's the OG. So I will tell you, it was, it was a little bit of we're going to try some things out this year. I had a pretty good rhythm of at home. I dressed up of like, I'm going to, I'm going to put— and then on the road, I just, I'm all about efficiency. I don't like traveling with the suit.

Yeah.

You got to figure out like, are you ironing in the hotel room? I actually like that. It's like home.

This is my home uniform. Show respect to the home crowd. Like, I'm going to get dressed up for you on the road. I don't give a fuck. We're just there.

Business trip.

We're here to win a game. Yeah.

But you said— you said no to Eddie. Asked you off air, actually, if you would do an homage to your coach, Leonard Hamilton, and maybe do like the t-shirt or the turtleneck underneath a sport coat. You said no.

Yeah. So if you're going to— if you're going to dress up, it's not a bad look.

You just—

it is a great look. And it's actually more comfortable. I may walk that back. Okay. Maybe, maybe we think about it.

Yeah, think about it.

We'll ponder that a little bit.

I mean, the turtleneck too, like, that would get some eyes on you.

That, that, that would be an aggressive look. Yeah, the turtleneck. You got to have a certain look to pull that off. I'm— maybe it's a confidence issue. Maybe it's a self-image thing.

You got to just do whatever.

You got to go with it. You got to go.

And you could, you know, ease into it, like, wait, you know, early in the season, a game that, you know, you're going to win. Try something bold out because you don't want to lose in a crazy suit and then just kind of see how it goes. Then, and then you find your foot.

Good point. Game 1, I made the entire staff do suits and they, they almost rioted. I almost had coach resign. They were like, yeah, I was like, no, well, all right, hold on, let me back up. I got them all. Yeah, yeah, yep. And, and I said, now because we did this, because a lot of the younger staff members— and Steve did this for us, Steve like got it, it's a Greg Popovich thing, you like take care of the younger guys. A lot of younger guys didn't even have dress pants. And I'm like, guys, all right, I'm gonna take care of you, um, but now you got to wear it. And we wore it the first game. And my associate head coach, guy named Jim Moran, and he, he was really worried about me coming on because he knows I shoot from the hip. And, and he's like, Luke, you got to realize, like, this is a national audience. You can't totally— sports podcast, yeah, number one in the world, I think. I don't know. No, no, that's a fact. That's a fact. That's a fact. Fact. Um, but Jim's like, Luke, I'm gonna help you out.

I'm a former head coach. I'm older than you. I'm just gonna like little bro you right now. We're not doing the suits anymore. If you want to do them, you can do them. We're not doing them. I was itching the whole— I couldn't even concentrate on what my offense is doing. And so Jim saved the staff, and I don't think they did suits anymore after that. He, he kind of like, yeah, we're not doing that.

Yeah. The good news is down, down at FSU, by the time you're in your 70s, you're going to look like 30, if it's something in the water, because like Coach Hamilton, he didn't age. He looks like he's younger than all of us. Yeah, he looks like he's in his 30s right now.

It's— I've now known Coach Hamilton since I was 14 or 15 years old. I think you started recruiting me. So I don't know, 21 years, 22 years. He has not aged. It's incredible. I don't know what kind of lotion that guy uses. Wow.

Yeah, it's just younger every year.

It's incredible.

Yeah. What is your pitch to recruits, whether it be— let's just say like for this case, transfer portal. Yeah. If you're in the portal, what's your message for, for why they should come to FSU?

Yeah. So we can do things a little bit differently than most staffs in America. There's probably two other staffs that, that can do what we can do and preach the message we can preach in terms of you come to Florida State, we are going to train you like a pro because that's all we know. Half, half our staff came from the NBA. So in terms of your player development, your nutrition, your weight room, all these kids say they want to get to the NBA, but then they train like college kids. Now, now, the great ones will get there either way. It doesn't, doesn't matter. But for all those guys on the fringes, like, you're training like a college player. And I'll tell them, I used to run draft workouts for, for multiple organizations. The best college players would get an NBA workout and have no idea because everything's different. Spacing's different, the cutting's different, the ball movement's different, the terminology is different. We're going to train you like an NBA player before you get there. So when you get there, you don't just get there, you can stick. And I think that's first and foremost.

The second thing, I'm a big believer in buying stock low. And right now, like, we haven't been to a tournament in 4 or 5 years, but you can feel the momentum of like, all right, we got some good things going. You can go to one of these top programs and I'm not going to name them and just be another guy on their list stuff, or you can come to Florida State and help us turn this into one of those programs.

Yeah.

And to me, a lot of kids resonate with that. Like, I can go to Florida State and like be one of the guys everyone remembers.

Yeah.

Or you can go to Big Blue Blood and like, yeah, you're just a list of another 100 guys. No one's gonna remember you.

Yeah. No, I, I like that pitch because I do think that you can— and telling someone— there's guys wired a certain way where it's like, come be the change, not come be part of what we've been running for 20 years, you know, like we've been doing it. You're just going to become part of the factory line. It's like, no, no, start the factory here.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And I do think a lot of, you know, these conversations happen with, with the kids, right? Their parents, their coaches. But ultimately the agents have a lot of say. Yeah. And it does help us. First of all, I know a lot of these guys from the NBA and our staff does. But second off, they see our style of play. They see the way we train. Financially for them, it puts more money in their pocket if they make the NBA, right? Long term. And so why not place your kids at a place where it gives them a little bit better chance?

Yeah.

And it's not like we're a scrub program down— like, still Florida State University. Like, this is a big-time brand. You play in the ACC. A ton of our games are on national TV. But your guy is going to have a better shot if he's around NBA coaches every day.

Yeah.

It's just, you know, it's science.

Yeah. No, I like it. I like the pitch. All right. So can we talk about the NBA Finals real quick? You have absolutely competing interests. You are very close with De'Aaron Fox, and Mike Brown is one of your mentors. What are you going to do?

Are you there? There's a lot.

Are you texting each like different thing? Like, hey, I'm rooting for you, De'Aaron.

Yeah.

And then Mike Brown, you're like, hey, coach, I know you got the team.

I love You copy and paste, copy and paste both of them. 4 more.

Yeah, 4 more. You got it.

Not only Darren Fox, but Harrison Barnes, Jordan McLaughlin with the Spurs, Devin Vassell, the Florida State guy. And then, you know, obviously Mike Brown. He took a couple of our coaches from Sacramento who I'm very close with. Ricky Foye, an Italian guy, Charles Allen. But then they got a couple of guys who I was with, with the Phoenix Suns, too. Landry Shamet, Mikael Bridges. So like both teams have have like, oh, I really don't know who I'm going for. Either way, it's a win for me. Yeah, it's like someone's gonna win and I'm gonna be all the way on their side. Yeah. Um, but I'm, I'm just so happy for, especially for Fox, um, but for Mike Brown. Like, he's one of my closest friends, um, really my mentor in, in my career. He's done so much for my career and my personal life. Um, but to, to see him at that stage from, from where we left together in Sacramento Sacramento and that, that final year in Sacramento to now where these guys are, like, I couldn't be happier. And honestly, this is good for the NBA. Yeah. The Knicks being back in the finals and then you got Wemby on the other side, probably if not now, very soon, the best player on earth going at it on the biggest— it's incredible for the NBA.

How would you attack Wemby if you were game planning this?

Yeah, there's, there's no really good option because he's so long defensively. The, the best thing you can do against him is get him away from the hoop. And so you try to force a switch, but Spurs do a really good job keeping him in positions where he's close to the hoop and he can rim protect. But if you can get him away from the— if you can manufacture him getting away from the hoop, whoever his matchup is, if, if he's a threat from 3 and you get him away, the ball moves quick, and then you attack the hoop, you know, theoretically you're gonna get better shots at the him. And if he helps and overhelps, then you got to kick out threes. Yeah, it's an oversimplification for one way to attack him. The other way— and OKC tried to do it— you just try to physically maul him and hope that he breaks down. The problem is that that kid is resilient, man. Yeah, it is unbelievable. The punishment he took in that series and he just kept getting up like, no, I'm here and we are going to the finals. Was impressive.

Yeah, no, it was, it was incredible. And I, that would be the, the only— I lean Knicks to win this series is because you talk about getting Wemby away from the hoop. It felt like the Thunder just weren't able to do it because they were just lacking in, in shooters at the end, you know what I mean, with some of their injuries. And they're playing guys that couldn't hit open threes, and you could, you could sag off of them. The Knicks, it feels like right now everyone's, everyone's making shots and And there's not— I mean, even like a guy like KAT, he's one of the best 3-point shooters. He is probably the best 3-point shooting big man ever. So like you get a guy like that, he— everyone you have to respect from 3.

Yeah. KAT, you know, OG, all these guys can knock down shots.

Josh Hart. Yeah. Josh Hart. Yeah. He's hitting them down.

It'll be interesting too. And you kind of saw it last series with the Knicks with this long of a break. You might get a little rust in the first couple of quarters that they got to shake off. But the way the Knicks have been playing, I mean, it very rarely— even going back to really our Golden State teams— do you have a team that dominant offensively but also that dominant defensively. That's what's been so impressive with the Knicks. Everyone talks about the offensive numbers and output and their efficiency. I mean, the, the margin in the playoffs of their efficiency compared to the next two teams, which are San Antonio and Oklahoma City, is like jarring. It's crazy. It's like a mile of separation. But then to also be the best defense, that's like unheard of, right? It's unheard of. Usually if you're that offensive driven, your defense is going to suffer. Yeah, these guys are doing it all.

So you were— I think your job title was defensive coordinator at one point, right?

It was.

So as a defensive coordinator in the NBA, how much of that is effort? How much is like— you can, you can get most players to be decent at playing defense if they just try.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a little bit of like like God-given, you know, athletic ability and length. Like you need length to be a good defensive team. A lot of it is like, and you're seeing it again with the Knicks and a little bit with the Spurs, like OKC's a perfect example. A lot of it is just like, are you a dog? And that's, you call it effort, hustle. Like, are you a dog or are you not a dog? And if you're, and I'm not talking like poodles, Australian shepherds, like are you a pit bull that's ready to go to war every possession? Or if Fox. Yeah, probably not the best example. Right. Yeah. But that's a huge part of it. I think system and scheme helps. I think length and physicality helps. The best defenses are connected. They communicate at the highest level and then they just got a bunch of dogs out there that are hunting. Yeah. And that to me is like, this is why this series is going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome.

Very excited. And you were in Sacramento when they would light the beam after the games.

Yeah. Yeah. That was like we got there and that's what they create.

It was pretty cool, man. Yeah.

You know, I thought it was really cheesy when they pitched it to us. I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Is this circus?

No, I liked it.

The city was like insane. All into it. And the team got behind it. It was pretty cool. And especially that first year, like we were picked last and we finished third in the West. That beam was like the city would go nuts. It was pretty cool driving home. You could like see the beam coming from the stadium.

Yeah. Is that something that you've considered bringing to Florida State? Ooh, that's— maybe a spear. Maybe a spear coming out of the arena.

Yeah.

Lit up.

Yeah.

That's, that's not— think about it—

not a bad idea.

First—

yeah, that's not a bad idea.

Uh, I had one last question, then we have Zach. Zach has a question, uh, as a Florida boy. But in terms of the NBA Finals, because you went through all these runs with, with Golden State, what is it like in terms of the mentality of a locker room getting to that final? It's a lot of basketball.

Yeah.

And is it like, how do guys stay fresh mentally? Or, or you could just say that the Warriors were so good it didn't fucking matter because you guys were that good.

It was a little bit of that. I mean, my wife brought it up when we were watching Game 7 of this last series. She's like, do you remember going through the playoffs? I don't think we ever had this anxiety, right? I think we went like 16-1. There was a series in Houston where we were down at their place and then Steph just went nuclear and I think they missed like 27 straight.

Yeah, that was the Game 7.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that, that was like the closest we were like, oh, we might we might, we might not be able to do this. Most of it was like, yeah, we're gonna win the title, right? You know? Yeah. So, but we had so many vets on those teams. You know, everyone talks about Steph and, and Klay and Draymond and KD, which obviously you talk about them, but you look at those teams like Zaza Pachulia, David West, Shawn Livingston, Andre Iguodala— like, these guys were grown-ups. Yeah, they were full-grown men with families. Like, the maturity in that locker room, anytime something would sway left or right, there's like 4 adults in the room like, no boys, we're bringing this back in.

That's why the Spurs are so crazy. I know they shouldn't be here. I know they have a couple vets on the, you know, Harrison Barnes and, and Plumlee, but still, like, all their meaningful minutes are guys that are under 25, and it's, it's like no team should be doing this.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's again like the gift of Wemby. Yeah, he is. He is an alien. Do you guys think— this is a little outside, I'm gonna start you.

Well, I think Wemby's kind of overrated because if you took my athleticism and put it in his body, he would— I'd still be able to dunk. He only needs to jump 4 inches to dunk.

I think that is fair.

But yeah, maybe he's the first big guy that you look at and you say, yeah, if I— that's exactly how I would play if I had his size. Every other big guy I look at, I'm like, I'd be so much better than you. Like, if I look at George Muresan, I'm like, if I was 7'7", I'd be 10 times better than this guy. I look at Wimby, I'm like, that'd be me. Yeah, like, exactly.

Well, that, that's why he's so unusual is normally you got like Manute Bol, George Muresan, these guys that, you know, they move, they don't have the skill, right? He plays like a guard.

I know he's doing step back dribble step backs. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, it makes no sense. Yeah. But to your point on— and Mitch actually touched on in his press conference, like, experience is highly valuable. But when, when you have a group of guys that are that talented and that competitive, that, that's where Wemby's— like, his competitive nature, you can tell in his face. Like, he's, he's in tears after the game.

He wanted to rip Chet's heart out.

No, that— he wanted to embarrass him. Yeah, I know, his family. Like, like, he, he was going at his throat. I know that, that's what makes him special. Yeah. And, and really, I don't care how much experience— you can't replicate that. Yeah, that, that's why these two— and even OKC last year did the same thing. Like, Shea was unreal, and they were young. Think about that, that OKC team that won it. They, they were one of the youngest teams.

I think they were the second youngest team to get to the Finals, uh, and the Spurs are the youngest, right? Like, since like the '77 Blazers, I saw.

I mean, if you think about it, and we could maybe work on this, Wemby still might have some eligibility to come to Florida. Yeah, play for us.

Yeah.

Was he 21, 22?

Who's your tallest guy?

We got it. We got a 7-footer coming in, um, baby Shaq.

Back.

This kid's gonna be— oh, hell yeah, he's 7 foot.

That's a lot.

7 foot 309, but he's built like a defensive end. Wait, look him up. Marcius Ponder. He was a number 4 ranked center in the country coming out of high school.

Um, no relation to Christian Ponder.

No relation to Christian.

Okay, good.

Yeah.

Okay, Marcius Ponder, Baby Shaq, 6'11", 328. I love this kid.

So we just measured him. He was 7 foot with shoes. Yeah, we play basketball Shoes. Yeah, 7-foot with shoes. Um, he was 309. We're gonna try to get him about 285. We got to chisel him up a little bit, but this kid is an animal. I mean, the way he works and his competitive nature, I think from day one he's gonna be able to step in with it with a huge impact.

Okay, he's from Springfield, Virginia. I like that.

He's from Miami but went to prep school in Springfield. Okay. Um, guys, you gotta— we should do a— we should do a Barstool Sports NIL deal with Maybe Shaq. Yeah, this could be—

we got somebody just come to the office. Well, the problem is dunk on everybody and do the car wash, but he's just dunking on us.

He broke our hoop on day one. That's like literally broke. And this is like, these are hoops have been in for— I walk in, I walk into our practice facility, the hoop's like sideways. Like, what happened? Yeah, like Mars's first workout.

So listen, this is good. This is how urban legends get started. It's like he wasn't allowed to dunk in practice.

Oh, I told him, I said, we got to teach you how to dunk, man. You can't swinging on our hoops.

Oh, I'm watching highlights of him. He is swinging on the hoop.

He's swinging.

He likes to swing on the hoop. So we could do an NIL deal with him, but the problem is the only thing we can offer him is cheesesteaks and you're trying to chisel them up.

So no, we can figure something out.

Okay, what if we put a bounty on backboards in games? Because you don't see guys breaking backboards anymore. They don't break.

They don't break.

But if you can damage a rim or break a backboard during a game on a dunk, I'm willing to put cheesesteak money behind every time.

Yeah, we can't do cheesesteaks. We're trying to trim them down. Okay, but, but that, that would be that like Mark, I told him he was in my office right before I flew out for this and I told him, I was like, Marcus, we got to teach you how to dunk like Shaq. You know, he would do the swing, but those were just the highlights. He wasn't doing that every time.

Yeah. Yeah. You knew when Shaq was trying to break a backboard. That's right.

That's right.

I'm watching the highlight and Marcus is trying to break a backboard every time.

Every time.

Yeah, I like that.

You play Duke, Carolina, you play, you know, big time to break the backboard.

Yeah.

If you're, if you're playing, you know, whatever team at home, we need our rims. Yeah.

When you're wearing your, when you're wearing your weird suit, that's not a backboard game. If I got the plaid on, it's dunk.

Don't dunk.

All right, uh, this has been so much fun, Coach. I got one last question for you. It's a Rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rowback.com, promo code TAKE. You have successfully made— I mean, I— so I, I'm not going to stop rooting for, for the Badgers, but if I have a second team, especially if you can beat Duke, it will be Florida State because I hate Duke. Love that. So it will be Florida State this year, but Zach, you got a question for Coach? Two Florida boys chopping it up. They met her a little bit earlier.

Coach, I was gonna ask about, uh, I was gonna ask about, uh, Marcus Palmer just because he does seem post-human.

He may—

the way his body—

do you not have a question?

I did have a question. I was gonna ask about that because some of those clips are great to see. I have another question for you. Being a Clearwater guy, that's nearby the Gulf, you do any fishing growing up or no?

A little bit of fishing, a little bit of fishing, um, not a ton. That is all sports— football, basketball. Grew up non-sport. I do like to fish. I wish I would have fished more growing up there. You don't really realize how nice Clearwater is until you leave and then you realize the rest of the world's not an oasis. A couple of fun facts about Clearwater, home of Scientology. Not a lot of people know that. World headquarters. World headquarters. Original Hooters. Okay. About a mile from my house. Oh, yeah. No, Clearwater's got some fun stuff.

Yeah.

All right. So, but didn't do a ton of fishing, but it was an unbelievable place to grow up. Love going back there. Love recruiting there. Max, what's going on, buddy?

Zach there.

Zach has another question that he just won't ask.

What are we doing? We're getting there.

We're talking about, like, uh, listen, we were talking about national waters. We're going to take it to international waters. Okay. And I was curious, uh, if you had any highlights from, uh, maybe a honeymoon circa 2022 in Italy.

I love it. I love it. So, all right, I'll try to keep this story short. Darren Fox, um, married a girl named Rasay was an unbelievable basketball player. McDonald's All-American, played in— played— yeah, McDonald's All-American, played in college when I was with Golden State at Cal. And she's a really good player. Well, she was still playing, she interned with Golden State, and I was low in the film room. So they're like, can you just take care of Rasay, show her what we do, teach her how to do film, you know, rebound for the boys? And so Rasay was like my intern. Rasay, she thought she wanted to get coaching. Rosay very wisely did not get into coaching, married De'Aaron Fox. So when I went with Mike Brown to Sacramento, Rosay immediately called me, was like, come to San Diego, train with Fox, you know, show them what you were doing in Golden State. And so immediately that whole summer going into year one in Sacramento, I was working out De'Aaron Fox in San Diego. Um, they were getting married that summer. And so went to the wedding, my wife, my wife was like very pregnant.

Like a week before the wedding, Roussey calls me and was like, hey, we want you to come on the honeymoon. And I'm like, I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. She's like, no, bring Stevie, my wife. And I'm like, Stevie's really pregnant and you guys go enjoy your time. She's like, no, this, this means so much to Fox to try to make the playoffs and try to become an all-star. He doesn't want these workouts to stop. So we're going, we're going to Italy. They, they, we, we, we were in Venice. They put me on an island, like this JW on this island. So I was away from them, and for 2 hours a day every morning, we would boat to the same gym. I would work them out for 2 hours, and then we would leave. That's amazing. And it was, it was actually incredible, because it, like, it sounds terrible. Like, I went on, went on their honeymoon.

Yeah, you went on Dier Fox's honeymoon.

But it showed how dedicated committed he was to like, no, we're doing this, right? I'm not taking 2 weeks off to go to Italy. So me and the strength coach went and we like broed out for 12 hours a day and, you know, drank Aperol Spritz and beers in Italy. And then for 2 hours a day, we just go put Fox to the most intense workouts he could, and then we'd go our separate ways.

Okay, so that— so good question, Zach.

Uh, that was a good point.

Yeah, good, you cleared it up because you, you— when you say you went on his, uh, honeymoon, you really just went out and helped him work out. Yeah. But now I have a follow-up. How pregnant was your wife?

She's about 7 and a half months.

And she was cool with this?

Yeah, well, she wanted to come, and we actually did a trip the next year. Okay. Um, an anniversary trip. Okay. To Spain, and she came, and that was pretty cool.

That's the part that's probably when you're like, yeah, I was broing out, like, hanging out in Italy, and then you're FaceTiming your very pregnant wife being like, what, where were you she was living?

Yeah, we were— well, she was still moving from Scottsdale. We were at the Phoenix Suns.

She was in— she was in Scottsdale in July.

Yeah. Pregnant.

Yeah.

Holy shit. Very pregnant.

You're a piece of shit.

Her and my mom were like packing up the house. She's like 8 months pregnant. But now, now you got it. You got to be— I would always FaceTime her like in the gym. Yeah. And so the work trip, work trip, baby. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm out here grinding.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So breaking Scottsdale, which is not ideal. 109 degrees.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Every time I'm like, right here in Italy.

Yeah. When you, when you break it down with the details, it wasn't great.

Well, I was just thinking because of my, all 3 of my kids were born in like the late spring, early summer. And like, I remember at the end, my wife just like, it'd be like, you know, 90 degrees in Brooklyn and she'd be walking on the street and I'd be like, this is not good. We got a baby to come out. Like, this is not fun. Yeah.

So, and then through that, like, to move, she actually had my son the first day of training camp with the Sacramento Kings. So we're in a 2-a-day. She goes to the hospital, we finish practice 1, and that's a tough conversation. Now, Mike was awesome. He's like a family guy. Yeah, but I'm like, Mike, I like— my wife's about to give birth. And so I drive to the hospital, missed the night practice. It's like 6 a.m. and I'm like trying to break down film from practice. She had just given birth, and she's like, Luke, what are you doing? And, and I'm like, we're in the middle of training camp, like, I, I can't shut it off. And her mom was there, she's like, you know what, just go, just go to practice, come check in on me. And so we literally— I was there for like 12 hours, birth, back to practice.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of like me, except the difference is I— while my wife was giving birth, I was just losing WNBA overs that I was betting in the hospital. So we, but you know, we both got to work. Similar. Yeah. Um, all right, well, Coach, thank you so much for, for coming here. Uh, we're gonna be massive fans of you, and the fact that you're friends with Brooks, our good friend, and Kyle Long.

Yeah.

Uh, so a lot of connections, but we really appreciate it, and it was awesome having you on.

Thanks for having me.

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All right, let's finish up the show. We got Guys on Chicks. Hank. Yeah. Hit us. What's up, shitheads?

Whoa, what's up? Sounds like it. It sounds like a lady.

Yep.

My boyfriend grunts every time he sits down or stands up, but he's 28 and works for a desk job. Is this a medical condition or just him mentally preparing for the NFL season?

It's just a guy. Like, you have to—

as an athlete, yeah.

If you make a noise when you do something, then it counts as a workout. Like, if I stand up and I go, mm, that means I just— I—

that was a burn.

Yeah.

Gains.

Yeah.

I mean, I definitely make noises when I'm walking.

Memes just said he put this in because I just make all the noises.

Oh, question for memes.

Did you write this meme?

No, I was just like this. I know a guy who does it, so this sounds real.

What are the noises that Max makes?

He's like a bit—

okay, that is— that is a standing up noise.

No, he did it before he turned on the mic to talk to you guys.

Oh yeah, I know. Listen, he's a— that is— that is definitely under the category of Italian.

I also make noises when I eat.

Well, yeah, all of us do.

I've got those glasses that record your point of view. And the bad part about that is you can just hear all the noises that you make, just like walking. You hear like your nose whistling if you breathe hard, if you take a few steps too quick. It's a— it's a shocking revelation.

You know, there's nothing worse than catching a good nose whistle for a little bit.

You're just like, I don't think I did this out of here.

A nose whistle and an eye twitch. Those are two things that are really nothing in the grand scheme of things, but can really fuck up your day. Mm-hmm. What?

What? Meme just keeps laughing about the ice cream thing that Hank said.

Do it again.

I was eating ice cream Sunday.

I was right behind him. I thought it was like scary.

He was like, it was good.

And it was also—

I—

there was— there was— it was disaster. The cone broke halfway through, so I had to eat it quickly because it was gonna, it was gonna fall through.

It was also his last day before the diet.

Yeah, fact.

Although he's in the final stretch. Pizza, dude, it was June 1st.

I know, but we had, we had family visiting and they wanted to go. We went to, we went to this pizza patio spot. I'm not just gonna go to the patio, not eat pizza.

Yeah, no, that's a very That's a fact.

That's a fact.

Place is really good. And I got it. You want to know the pizza that I got? The name of the name of the pie that I got? You're literally not going to believe it. Fat Italian, basically spicy meatball. Oh, that was the name of the pie.

That's you.

That's—

yeah, pretty normal.

Yeah, that's a pretty—

that's unreal.

Whoa. What are you kidding me? Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Now that's— yeah, that's—

wait, this Italian— this Italian pizza place had Pepperoni had no hot pepperoni.

Had a— I mean, it's literally called spicy meatballs. Just been a bit on this show, right?

But that's like a normal thing.

That's like saying Mount Rushmore is a spicy meatball. Was never listed. Actually, meatball probably was.

You'll never know what this pizza says. Said Hawaiian.

That is not true. You guys are crazy.

Spicy meatball. And I was like, that's me. I got to get that.

I got—

we all thought you were going to say something that was like like super, like the spicy maxi or something like that.

That's basically the same thing.

No, I got a sub today. You'll never guess what it was.

Chicken cutlet Italian.

Oh, classic bit. Classic. That's one of her little bits.

I'm not, I'm not gonna get mad today.

All right, all right. I'm noted.

Great.

Good guy.

Challenge accepted.

Great.

No, don't, don't.

We haven't even done the AJ Brown stuff. This is time travel.

Yeah, yeah.

My male coworker got married recently and I always found him somewhat attractive, but now that he's got a ring on it, I find him even more attractive.

Memes is setting up Max so bad on this.

Why is that the case? Does it make me a bad person that I feel this way?

Max does look hotter with the ring. Oh yeah, yeah, I'll give you that. Oh yeah. Wait, this question was from Memes. This question—

Memes wants to fuck me.

Read it again.

Memes wants to fuck me.

My male coworker got married.

I don't, I don't really know what— that's pretty good.

Yeah, I mean, this is a homewrecker. You got to—

you're bad news, lady.

Yeah, just finger yourself. Is that what girls say?

I think you just got to— you got to recalibrate right now. The guys that you're attracted to, not healthy.

Mhm.

If you're on a bachelorette party with all the girls, is it acceptable to have a one-night stand with someone, parentheses, obviously obviously not the bride, or is that rude and you should just enjoy the weekend with the girls? Same question for a bachelor weekend and guys.

Wait, wait, go back.

Huh?

A one-night stand with one of the fellas.

I think you want, you want the friends to get, at least for a bachelor party, you want your boys to get fucked on the bachelor party. That means you're having a, you're, you're hosting a good bachelor party.

No, she's saying she's fucking another one of the friends on the trip.

That's what I heard.

Oh, it's fucking each other. But I don't think that's what she's saying.

It's a lesbian situation. To have a one-night stand with someone obviously not the bride, Sounds like maybe it was just like a—

the doctor was the mother, the woman was a lesbian.

I think it's written in a way that makes it sound like she's talking about one of the other bridesmaids, but she's not.

I did— I know actually a bachelorette party where this— that actually happened. Bachelorette parties, it's a—

I feel like they get really upset. Bachelor parties, if what, a girl goes off separately?

Oh yeah, separate. Yeah, then that can get weird. And it's like, we were all worried worried about you. But I know a party where it was like one person from the party ended up sleeping with a straight person from the party. Became a whole thing. That's hot. Yeah, very.

Bachelor party, I don't know where the fuck— like, guys all separate and everything just goes haywire. Yeah, there's no way you can all stay together.

You want chaos.

Yeah, yeah, you want a guy to like get lost at the club. You want a guy to lose his glasses the strip club. You want a guy to just never come home from the strip club. All that stuff. Hypothetically, it's bash party. It's bash party.

Just having fun with the boys. Or not with the boys. By yourself and a stripper.

Uh, all right, last one. I've been living with my boyfriend for over a year now and he's great. Skip the sappy stuff. But he has this weird thing about him that I just can't get over. He loves to pick things up with his feet. I can't understand why he does it. To be fair, he doesn't have the best back, so he says that it's to avoid aggravating eating it. If he's doing laundry, folding clothes on the bed, and something falls on the floor, he'll just pick it up with his toes. He'll pick up the Fire Stick with his toes. I've even caught him picking up silverware between his toes one time after he dropped a fork. Luckily, he knows better than to just act like nothing happened, and he'll put it right in the dishwasher. I'm not grossed out by feet in general, but something just rubs me the wrong way knowing that he picks things up off the floor with his feet. But he won't stop. Am I going to just have to live with this forever if we get married?

Married?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it sounds like you're—

like your boyfriend's an athlete or an orangutan.

Yeah, gorilla.

He could be— it could be a primate. Um, does he have a tail? Are you dating— wait, are you dating Stitty?

Could be dating Stitty. I love— he's married.

Yeah, that's a kind of a weird thing, but it also makes me think maybe I'm just not living my life as efficiently as possible.

Yeah, I was just saying, I gotta try this. I didn't know you could do this, But I'm, I'm fairly confident at least a fork I could pick up.

But also silverware is gross. Everything else is fine. The silverware is gross.

The fire stick is kind of strange.

No, fire sticks fine. Silverware gross.

The weird part about this is more that he's just barefoot all the time.

Yeah, that's—

I could do this, but I'm not really barefoot, right?

There's actually— there's one item that I've, I've used my feet to pick up probably more than— maybe the only item I've ever used my feet to pick up. And it's just like the mindset guys get into sometimes when we watch TV. TV, I've tossed a remote to myself using my feet from the ground. But that's just because, like, I've usually got a nice ass groove going in the couch. I've got, like, my setup going, so I don't want to move. Then I'll use my feet to, like, try to kick it up to myself. Usually won't succeed at it. But yeah, sounds like this guy is just— I think he might be more efficient at just, like, his different appendages. I've been— we've been playing with our hands tied behind our back all these years. If we haven't tried using our feet.

I lost— I lost the the living room remote for 6 days. It was a nightmare. That's brutal.

Nightmare.

Where was it?

I don't even know. It just showed back up. But it just— it was just back. I'm assuming one of my kids just took it.

I put the remote in the fridge. Have you ever put the remote in the fridge?

All the time.

Yeah, good.

That's half the time. I put my phone in the fridge one time. Yeah, that was tough.

Remote in the fridge is— that's just— that's just putting your— that's when you're just on auto. Autopilot. Yeah, you're just, you're just cruising along in life.

You're in the zone.

You're just like, oh shit, where'd the remote go?

Yeah.

Okay, we've never done this before where we did the numbers, we played it at the beginning of the show, and then we're gonna do new numbers. Does anyone want to guess first?

Meme's gonna fix the camera first before—

does anyone want to guess first?

You didn't.

Numbers. Does anyone want to guess first? I'll do 8. Anyone want to guess? I'll do 44. Anyone in the booth want to guess? I'll do 8. Uh, memes, memes, memes, memes.

I, I just said 8.

PFT, he just said it.

Oh, it's a good one. Oh yeah, Anobi.

Yeah. Oh, that weird. I'll do 32.

I'll do 3.

Do a 67. 7. I guess, I mean, I'll, I'll do 11. Should I do 11?

You sure?

Yeah. Do I have your permission? I don't think it is.

I don't think the damage is done.

You just shouldn't.

This is a bad idea. I want to say for the record, this is a bad idea.

I'm going for Josh Hart. Let's go, let's go.

Twofer.

Who'd you say, memes?

3.

Josh Hart.

3.

Okay.

He's good.

68, 21, 69.

Okay, 44. I'm going 11 for Carter Bryant. He's got a hot hand.

63.

63. Anyone? No one. All right, one more. Oh, oh boy.

Memes thought that Colton got it.

Would Colton guess 69?

Okay.

And Jacob did 68.

Yeah, so it's fine. I don't know what you guys are freaking out about.

Well, we're freaking out because last time we did lottery balls, it almost broke up the whole podcast.

So when somebody took number you wanted.

Well, no, he wants 3.

Why? They took the number.

He wants 3. 44, actually.

No, it's not.

Yeah. Wow.

All right, Max.

What a day for the booth boys. That's awesome. Holy shit. Two-thirds of you guys.

Good job, Max.

There's 6 of us in here.

Well, I'm saying like the regular booth boys in this during the show. That's incredible.

Another ring for Max.

Shout out Christopher Sandham.

4 days in a row for Max.

Anyone else want to congratulate Max?

Oh, congrats, Max.

Yeah. Zach?

Good pull. Max, how are you feeling?

I think I'm good. I think this is a fair— this is a clean, fair win for me.

No, it's clean. That's your favorite player right now, right?

Christopher Sandham?

Yeah. That makes sense.

Not your emails?

Yeah, for Sanchez, 44 scoreless.

I think he does.

He might pitch tonight.

Wow. What a pull, Max.

Congrats, Max.

Way to go.

Shit. I mean, walls are closing in around me and Hank.

Yes. So right now it's Jacob, Zach, me, Max. Wow. All gotten it. Oh boy.

Okay. Are we doing birthdays? Did we already run that? Are we piping in the old birthdays?

Pipe in the old birthdays.

Pipe in the old birthdays. Love you guys. Happy birthday to Kate.

Oh, okay.

Of course, still Kate. Happy birthday to Roma Doomsday. Happy birthday to Aaron Nola, Max. Happy birthday to Al Horford, Hank. Also, 10-day birthday countdown starts today until Hank's birthday. 10 days. We got 10 days to get ready for Hank's birthday. It's a can't miss. Hank's birthday, 10 days. I'm saying out loud to myself. Also, big, happy huge happy birthday today. Probably should have led off with this, or should I say Eid Milad Saeed, to, uh, the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, my home dog. Uh, appreciate everything you do. Uh, glorious, wise, gracious across the board. Keep knocking out of the park, King, or Emir, should I say. Love you guys.