Transcript of NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, Hank Is Back From San Francisco And Super Bowl Clean Up + Guys On Chicks

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On today's part of my take, presented by DraftKings, it's time to turn the page on the 2025, '26 NFL season. We have our good friend Ryan Rasillo with an NBA preview. Hank is back in studio. He's made it back from San Francisco. So maybe recap a little bit of that and how he's feeling. Pft is in Mexico. You got Guys on Chicks, and it's all brought to you by our friends at GameTime. The GameTime app gives you advantage. Back to fans. It's a hack for unlocking amazing tickets and experiences in a few taps. It's incredibly easy to use, and the GameTime guarantee means you can trust you'll get 100% authentic tickets on time and at the best price. Plus, fees are always included, so what you see is what you pay. We're looking at tickets for?

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Back. I missed you guys.

Hank, how are you feeling?

Just a little bummed out. I don't know. Super Bowl hangover. Sucks.

Zack did ask you on Sunday if this loss would be a one-day thing. Was it a one day thing?

No, it's not been one day. Yesterday was bad. Today has not been much better.

Okay.

It is what it is. Do you think that- Yeah.

Don't be mad already, Hank. I haven't even said anything. Also, I'd like an apology for the other show where you accused me of feeding Zack questions, and Zack just came at you because you came at him. You told me he sounded like shit before he spoke. And so Zack is like, Fuck it. I'm just going I'm going to hit you with my hard question first.

I will not apologize for that. What were you going to say?

I was just wondering if you consumed any media. I don't know how Patriots fans are handling this. I saw that bald Paul was not listening to part of my take on Monday because it's too fresh The lust is too fresh. Have you been reading articles, listening to any podcasts?

I listen to Spin Chicklets. That's about it. Interesting.

Yeah.

They came to your defense. Yeah. The Hands in Whitney, for people who missed it, came to Hank's defense and said that PFT and I were brutal to Hank and trolled him in a brutal way and were so mean. Then Biz did point out a nice fart, and that was it. You think we're brutal Did he ever talk to you? I never said that. No, I'm asking. That's a question. That was a question.

I came in today, and I was basically asking me to answer for Biz and Witz comments, which I had no control over. I did not talk to them beforehand. Did you think they were accurate? Yeah, I felt encouraged by what they were saying. Sometimes you feel like you're the only one thinking something, and then you hear other people repeat that, and you're like, All right.

At what point did I troll you?

At what point every day since I've met you for 10 years?

You're not a fair When Biz and Witt are coming to Hank's...

Not so much Biz. When Biz and Yandla are coming to Hank's defense, I just-Witt and Yandl.

One more time. I just-Try again.

When Witt and Yandl are coming to Hank's defense, I tune out. They're just like, It was so unfair to Hank, to a darling little Henry. I can't believe they do. Hank has a fucking troll shirt that he wears whenever Max loses and sits next to him on the couch. Hank deserves all the troll. He deserves more troll.

That's an existing thing. That was not a troll shirt. That was a It was a coincidence. I just happened to wear a shirt and Max loses a lot, and I happened to wear it on two separate times. That was not intentional.

I did text Whit and Yandel, and I said, You guys are pathetic for being like, Boohoo, poor Hank. Hank has a, I actually would estimate, 0. 0001% life. I think there are, I would say the vast, vast majority of Americans would trade lives with Hank. He has a great life. So he got trolled a little. A little bit, a little tiny trolling. The guy lives the perfect life. It's okay.

You took a loss. Yeah, listen, and I don't want to get too sentimental, but I obviously was. I spent all day. It was a day of travel delays. It wasn't anything egregious. It took 12 hours for what was supposed to take seven hours. But obviously, we were in San Francisco, and we're in the middle of writing the book, or it's almost done, but everyone go pre-order it now. I've been reading that and I've been going through pictures and working with the editor on sending them pictures. I've been going through all my photos, going through the last 10 years. San Francisco Super Bowl was 10 years ago, right before this podcast started. When the Super Bowl ended, it was now this time of year, February. The podcast started in March, but we were obviously ramping up to start the podcast. Just thinking about how different that Super Bowl was 10 years ago versus how awesome the Super Bowl week was this week. It was one of the most fun and surreal weeks of all time. It was literally too good to be true. Everything was too good to be true for us to actually win the game because everything outside of the game was beyond perfect.

Yeah, you just had to be followed around by a little troll all week.

Yeah, which was fine. It was fun. Normal-size troll. It was fun being with PFT and bringing them to the rally and everything. I have to admit defeat. I can't do it anymore. I feel like I've been just fighting, fighting, fighting, defense, defense, defense for the last... It feels like the better part of a month plus, like hardcore. And there's just nothing I can really say or do now. I don't have anything else left to give. Pft and the haters, they won this round. It's over. The battle is over. Pft has won.

That's my Super Bowl. That's my Super Bowl. He lost $40,000. No, that's my Super Bowl.

Not really. I lost $40,000.

Listen, I got to say $40,000 is a lot of money. It is. No matter how you slice it, it's worth it for the Patriots to lose. If you would tell me that I would have to pay $40,000 $4,000 for every Patriots Super Bowl loss, I'd say that's a hell of a deal. I'd shake your hand. That is a fair price to pay to see the Patriots lose in the Super Bowl.

You think this guy wasn't actually rooting for you?

No, I know he wasn't. I know he wasn't.

I'm glad that Hank is in... He's seeing things clearly right now. He seems to be in a better mood, a smiley mood. He's getting ready to go on vacation. I'm happy for him that way, too. It did bum me out to see you on Sunday night. I didn't take that much pleasure in having you sad on the show because you did make me sad, too. I'm glad that you're smiling and that now I can be happy that you're sad.

I think that was also because the Zoom came in a little blurry, so we couldn't really see you.

Yeah, I also think of the people that were like, Max, Max was saying, Oh, I would be so much... The fact that I was not in person and I knew while we were recording, I was just tuning out what you guys were saying.

You were just moving the chains.

I was just like, once this conversation ends, I can hang up this laptop and I'm away from them. That was a huge part of it.

Yeah, you did a good job. You answered all the questions. Do you have any other remaining thoughts from the Super Bowl?

I underplayed the arm, Dreg May's arm. Obviously, it was bad. It was a lot worse than I thought and hoped. That stuck to read those reports where he had to get his arm shot up. It clearly was not. It It didn't look good, and he was feeling it.

Was his arm messed up for the whole play-off or just the Super Bowl?

He said it was a play that happened in the Denver game.

Oh, okay.

I thought it'd be better if it was just for the Super Bowl.

It doesn't matter.

How do you feel going forward? Because part of it is there was a whole storyline of the schedule and how you got there was like, Hey, this is not repeatable.

I'm excited going forward. I've never been... I'm bought into this Patriots team. I'm excited for the future. I loved being in San Francisco and seeing all the Patriots fans and being reminded that there are all these outside trolls and haters. They hate on the Patriots unjustly. It's just pure hate and anger. But knowing that there is the community of Patriots fans where it's like, and obviously, it's a little corny now, like the we all we got, we all we need. But it's nice to know that there is this huge group of fans, and going forward, we're ready to fight. We're ready to keep fighting.

Why do you think it's unjust?

Why'd you use that word?

Because I just think people hate the fact that they won for so long and then were back. There was a lot of just unbiased negative feelings towards the Patriots, where generally, they're just like, I don't like the Patriots. I hope they lose.

Okay, so the problem with this one was that because it had been so long that they couldn't be open about their secret reasons why they hate the Patriots.

Before, it was Braided Belichick, and There was a deflating, and there was things where they were like, Oh, this and that. This is why I don't like the Patriots. Mike Vrabel and Drake May are extremely likable, and this team was extremely likable, but people were still like, Fuck the Patriots.

Yeah. No, I actually think Hank is right on the money, and I haven't heard anybody say When you said unjustly, I thought that you were saying that there's no reason why anybody would ever hate on the Patriots as a franchise, and I was going to disagree with that. But I think Hank is right. There were a lot of people that were rooting against the Patriots that were not admitting that they were rooting against the Patriots.

Right. A lot.

That's a tough for an enemy to fight. It's hard to beat an enemy like that.

Yeah, right. It's a good point. It's a good point. Are they in the room with you right now?

No, they're not. They're home sick.

Hank, do you think Mike McDonald is a good coach?

Yep. Never said he wasn't. Really good.

Do you think he outcoached Josh McDaniels?

Yeah. I mean, how could you say otherwise? I think Healthy Dreck may It's who knows, but you can't really play that game.

No, you can't.

Hank, do you think maybe the Patriots- What, Max?

Wait, hold on. Max is shaking his head. No, you can't play that game. You can't play that game. We shouldn't even mention it for the rest of- Don't play that game. Yeah. We shouldn't mention it. If we're not going to play that game- You're not even mentioning his shoulder. We shouldn't play that game.

Yeah, we shouldn't not play that game. He was a warrior for playing.

The shoulder was the difference.

I'm not saying that. Because we didn't play that game with Jared Stidham. Yeah, I'm not saying that.

Or CJ Strauby and ask, We're not playing that game.

No, I said you can't.

It was a play in the N. C. Championship game, but weather are the other ones. Yeah, Bomb Genesis.

No, Boehnicks didn't play. Drake may actually fought through.

The Chargers and Texans game, that was probably also their shoulder, too.

They won those games.

He threw three touch downs. What are we talking about?

Well, he didn't have a great play off run. No, he didn't turn the ball over at all.

I got blind resume. Can we do a blind resume?

Listen, you're like 45 minutes from vacation. Just keep saying that to yourself.

Quarterback one. This is three playoff games. Okay. 822 pass yards, 65. 8% completion percentage, six total touch downs, one turnover, 84. 2 QBR.

What was the weather in those games? Because there were weather tab.

Quarterback 2. You don't believe in weather luck. You scoffed at me when I brought up weather luck. True. Quaterback two.

It has been a tough playoff for anti-weather Hank. Yeah.

That's for overs.

Can I get to the shitty quarterback? Okay, quarterback two.

Well, not bias. It's a bias poll. You've already wrote it. 818 pass yards. It's supposed to be blind.

You're telling us I'm shitty. 57% completion. 818 pass CBR, it's 57 % completion percentage, six total touch downs, eight turnovers, 50. 7 CBR.

I didn't-QB1, I would want.

Yeah, I would want QB1.

Who's QB1?

Qb1 is Jaden Daniels. Also, to take Hank's side, Hank would never make fun of a quarterback that got hurt. So I think we should back off Drake May a little bit. And the fact of the matter is they just ran out of time because Drake may set a Super Bowl record for most passing yards in a quarter of the Super Bowl in the fourth quarter.

It's pretty good. That goes to Kent. That's a record that stays.

It's pretty good, yeah. Yeah.

Do you have any apologies for Sam Darnold? Sam Darnold. I'm happy for Sam Darnold.

Did you listen to the show on Sunday?

Yeah, I know, but you've had time to think about it. I said it on Sunday. Okay. I was just asking again.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I literally started the thing on Sunday by being like, all due respect to Sam Darnold. I thought he was going to turn to a pumpkin. He did not. He played well. He was avoiding pressure. It's good to say it again. To Sam Darnold. I'll say exactly what I said on Sunday again. Did you see...

Hey, we're 45 minutes from vacation, dude.

We're good. You are, too. I You guys plan this vacation. I just hop on the bandwagon.

Yeah, we do take a vacation after Super Bowl week. Right.

So you're 45 minutes from vacation. I know.

I am as well.

I'm excited. Pft left early. Yeah, PFT left early. I would never.

Pft is minus 24 hours from vacation.

I'm homesick right now. I left last night at 7: 00, not 24 hours.

What was your original flight?

It doesn't matter. I left at 7: 00 PM last night. Factor fiction. I was at work all day yesterday.

Fact, fact, fact. Thank you. Did you see Todd Bowles was prophetic? There was a story out that after Sam Donnell was drafted, his first game as a quarterback, when he won, they asked him, Do they have a guy? And he said, I don't know if we have a guy ask me again in 100 games. The Super Bowl was a 101st game, so we do confirm to have a guy. Todd Bowles saw it.

That's awesome. Good for Todd.

Good for Todd. He knew it. I love that. He knew it. I also have a take. I don't know if you guys agree with this. The Disney World thing that they have to do is just punishment. Sam Darnold and Kenneth Walker being in the tea cups right after the game when it's like, all you want to do is party with your boys. That sucks.

Yeah, they probably get paid a lot of money for it, though. Yeah, I was thinking about that, too. And they said Disneyland and said Disney World because they were in California. That didn't hit the same. I don't think that Disney World or Disneyland is a great place for an adult to go as a Super Bowl champion by themselves. If they got family, that might... Actually, no, that would suck, too. Like, wake up in the morning and take the kids to Disney World the day after winning Super Bowl. That's not that great. But I think they probably get paid a bunch of money just to say that and then to spend one day there.

But the more they get paid, the more they have to pay in taxes. Did you see Boomer Esiason? I don't know what it is with him, but I feel like every time I see a clip of Boomer Esiason these days, he's just complaining about taxes. He was just like, Sam McDonald actually had He lost money on the Super Bowl.

Yeah, Big T was hot on that yesterday. Big T has been thinking about the tag. That's why he will never win a Super Bowl. He doesn't want to.

Also, he didn't lose money on the Super Bowl because didn't he have... I'm pretty sure he had a bunch of things in his contract that he got more money if he won the Super Bowl. So he definitely didn't lose money on the Super Bowl. And he won the Super Bowl.

I think Sam Darnold is okay. I think he'll be okay.

It is a very funny take, though, to be like, You know What I'm thinking about the real Super Bowl is the fact that the California government got more money off of Sam Darnold than he made playing in the Super Bowl. If he could go back in time.

Yeah, Gavin Newsom. Newsom should have gone down onto the field and then took cash out of Sam Darnold's pocket before he got to touch the Lombardi Trophy. Yeah.

I saw people are actually being a little bit nicer to Will Campbell today. He did play with a pretty severe injury. He talked to the media, was like, I was in a bad place after the That's why I didn't talk. I think that's a totally fair answer. I have no problem with that. The fact that he got abused on Super Bowl Sunday and has to have a microphone in his face, he didn't want to talk.

We've come a long way in the last 10 years, where in San Francisco, Cam Newton, after the game, did not talk to the media, and it felt like all the writers out there send them directly to hell after that. They just wouldn't stop talking about how Cam Newton didn't talk to them about the game, and in turn, actually gave them lots of stories after the game by not talking. This year, it was just like, Will Campbell didn't talk to the press, and then we just moved on. And then the next day, it was like, Yeah, he's very injured. He had a bad game, and the clips coming out of him are not good. But knowing that he had an MCL. Then I also like that Vrabel had his back, said that we're not changing him to guard. He's going to be tackled.

The other thing that's playing in Will Campbell's favor is that we are now in a media ecosystem where there are a lot of former offensive linemen who have good followings online. I saw tons of dudes being like, he's going to be fine. It's like a technique thing. It has nothing to his short arms. Mitchell Schwartz did an entire breakdown. Jeff Schwartz did an entire breakdown. That's going to feel nice that there's a bunch of guys who can actually speak up for the linemen now.

Yeah, the Schwartz brothers. Yeah. They'll get you.

They'll defend the shield.

We do need loud voices from the O-line community, though, because for a long time, we've just been watching guys that we think get beat for one reason, be like, Oh, this guy sucks. We really didn't know what we were talking about until smarter people had to educate us. Will Campbell definitely did not have a good super. He had a bad, bad game. Probably pretty embarrassed. There were a lot of bad moments for him. But I'm not selling my Will Campbell stock, which I own a lot.

No. By the way, Sam Donald made a million dollars as an incentive in his contract for winning the Super Bowl. So I think he ended up okay. The other story that came out of the Super Bowl is I'm obsessed with Mike McDonald now, and I really want to get him on the show. He is an absolute psycho. I saw two things that were like, Holy fuck, this guy's a psycho. One, after he won the Super Bowl, he was lamenting that the season was over. He's like, I really am I'm really sad that we don't have practice tomorrow. He just wants to keep playing. Then two, I think it was a radio interview, someone asked what went through his head when Eamonn Warray got his ankle, sprained his ankle on Wednesday in the walkthrough, and he was like, Good, good. Adversity, good. He's quoted like Jocko. He's like, This is a good thing. We're going to use this. I want my guys to get picked up.

Ice bath guy. Yeah. He's probably, Yeah, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah, finally, we have some actual bulletin board material because it felt like everybody was thinking the Seahawks were going to win going into it. So he wanted something to overcome. Good for him.

Yeah. I would really like to get him on the because I think he'd be a good interview. You agree? Yeah. Do you think there's a chance... What was your last thing that you said to Dave on the way out? Anything? This isn't a loaded question. I'm just asking.

Not really. I was walking to the hotel with Grinnell because we were going to record, and we just got separated. I don't think we really had a final goodbye.

The word on the bus from Faisoli was that Dave might have said that everyone was a jink, so I don't know if the suite is going to happen again if they go back, you'll be okay. Yeah, a lot of things.

The fact I was prepared to get my own ticket in the first place, the suite part was, like I said on Sunday, truly surreal. But yeah, I have had the feeling of who knows if we get back, and if we do get back, there's no way it goes the way it did.

Yeah, if you lose that one where everyone... And Dave was so gracious to bring... He brought 20 people. It's tough to be like, Yeah, we're going to run it back exactly Exactly the same.

When it was the worst game of all time.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

Dave, talk about going through it online right now. I think it's very unfair how people are treating it. All he tried to do is spread joy. I agree. People are being very nasty to him online. That'll teach him a lesson. You know what? That's going to teach Dave a lesson, and the lesson is going to be maybe don't be so nice in the future. We might have seen Dave might turn into a jerk. Yeah.

This might be a villain origin story for Dave, where it's like, I was trying to be nice by wearing the six rings all around San Francisco, telling Bills fans, telling Eddie, telling KFC like, Hey, I wish you were here. I'm doing this for you. Now that everyone's shitting on him, he's going to turn into the Joker.

I'm a little bit worried, too, because I feel like he spends a lot of time around coworkers, and he might start to lash out at them first instead of lashing out to people that are being mean to him. He might just take it out on the people that he's closest I just feel bad for the guy.

I hope he's okay. I had one other question for you, Hank, and then we can go on with the show. Before I do that, DraftKings, the NBA's biggest stars, deliver the biggest moments with DraftKings Sportsbook individual, sports betting partner of the NBA. You can cash in when they take over player props, live betting, every possession, every shot, every steal is your shot to win with DraftKings Sportsbook. Draftkings has your back with early exit. If your player goes down any time in the first half, you still get paid in cash. New customers bet just $5, and if your bet wins, you'll get $300 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Use code take. That's code take to turn $5 into $300 in bonus bets if your bet wins in partnership with DraftKings, the Crown is yours.

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Hank, I want to give you a redo, if you would like one. What do you think about the Bad Bunny Halftime show?

I don't need a redo. I think, and again, like Memes hates me. He had a chance for a knockout blow, and he took it. When When I was doing the show, I was talking, obviously-How the fuck am I getting blamed for you saying this? We have had a running joke about international games, and your guy's whole thing is like, Who is this for? Why are we doing this? I'm like, Pro international international games, and all that stuff. So obviously, when I said that, I was talking to you guys, tongue in cheek, playing into the stuff that you guys said. And the halftime performance was bad. I don't obviously really care about the halftime performance. I was trying to just not do Sod and Sorrows, so I was talking a lot about the halftime show just to delay things.

And it wasn't in English?

I don't care about that. I'm just kidding. The performance, again, who cares? It's a halftime show. I don't even remember who's done some of the half. I remember Gaga. That's, again, why I love the Gaga show in Houston. Don't even remember who did it in Minnesota or Atlanta. So it's like, it's a halftime show. But yeah, then obviously, when you take that quote and put it out being like, That performance was so bad. It made me never, I hope they never do international games without the context of the season that we've had on this show talking about international games. That was tough to see. It was tough to see it for memes, but obviously, it's like, he hates me. He had this chance, and he took it. So it's like, there's nothing I can say about that.

You took the shot.

You posted on your Instagram. I did. I posted it.

It was-Memes told me to.

It was what it was. That's just part of losing. You have to eat some shit. It hurts when it's from your own guys, but it's memes, so I have to respect that.

Is this true memes?

I guess I'll just take the fall from everyone.

When you were making the clip, it was the first clip you posted.

No, it wasn't. It was posted early. It was tweeted from VivaList.

Vivalist still clipped it, and I was like, oh.

Backey boy. It's out of the bottle. Might as well get some views off it. Then I posted from the part of my take Twitter. And I just did the same.

Yeah, again, it is what it is.

Can Can I say the honest truth? I was laughing so hard because that is such a clear people who listen to our show understand exactly what you're saying, and you're making a very funny joke about the international games. It's a long storyline. Then people who have never listened to our show, who won't like our show anyway, being like, This is fucked up. How could he say it? That makes me laugh because they're just wrong. They don't know the inside jokes. You're the least political guy I know, and making a joke about us getting on you for the international game. The other thing that was funny is that it obviously showed that you were just partying at the Super Bowl all weekend and had no idea how big of a discourse that was online. You thought that you had no idea how divisive the Bad Bunny thing was online before you said that. You were like, Oh, I just didn't like it. And your team just lost.

Well, that was also... It could have been anyone performing. It could have been Billy Strings in the halftime show. I've been like, Yeah, maybe not Billy Strings.

No, you would have liked that.

It had nothing to do with Bad Bunny or the performance. I understand what you're saying. It was just like I was trying to not do Soggy Sorrows and spending as much time as I could. But yeah, seeing it, I think I opened my phone. I did the Simpsons gif. I opened my phone in the morning. Felt like death. My room looked like a bomb, and I had to pack up and get to the airport, open my phone, did one scroll, and was like, Nope.

Yeah. Because I read some of the replies. There was one very funny one that photoshopped your face onto the meme of all the guys sitting in their cars with the sunglasses. That one made me laugh. And there were people being like, Oh, Hank is a big We got Maga Lockwood back. I don't think Hank's ever voted in his life.

Lefty Lockwood is dead. Yeah, Lefty Lockwood is dead.

It's a big week for Lefty Lockwood. Yeah, the Maga people, then I get people being like, Fuck, yeah, Hank. I'm like, No, I don't like it.

He was making a joke in his team. If the Patriots were up 21 to nothing at halftime, I've probably been like, That was an awesome performance.

Generational, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. But that's why it's so funny because people, removed from context, are like, Oh, this guy just spouting off about Bad Bunny. But in context, it was such a funny clip. You saying that I'm done with all international games made me laugh so hard because that was the thing that turned you.

Maybe we sprinkle in Latin Week for you at some point this year.

I like Bad Bunny. I listen to probably more Bad Bunny than anyone on the show. Maybe Zack has a couple of songs on his playlist. Zack?

Are you Bad Bunny? Bad Bunny? Bad Bunny.

But yeah, and then that was like, you guys are the one. Who are these games for? And that's when I was like, Who is this for? And then it's like, People are like, You fucking racist. It's like, Oh, my God.

Patriots got beat so bad, it made Hank racist. That was the takeaway for a lot of people. But yeah, Hank, I love you, Hank. We understood what you're trying to say. Yeah, Zack, can you give us a little Bad Bunny? A little taste of Bad Bunny?

Bad Bunny? There's a good Bad Bunny song. How does it go? No, that's Despacito.

You got this.

I remember it. I'm blanking.

No, this is good. This is even it out. What's the-Put this clip out. Look, we got a guy who knows Bad Bunny on this show.

I don't know any of the words. You can just hum along when he's singing it because they're very catchy. I don't know what he's saying in the songs, but when they come on, you can You can float with the song, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really just float. They got the one where it's like, It's Romina, it's Mia, Mia. That's a good one.

Yeah. Yeah, that was good.

Hank, what did you think?

It's great.

What do you think is going through Russell Wilson's head these days?

Oh, I walked past him on the way out. He was at the game? I was like, this would have been so much better if we'd won, and I was walking past him. I didn't say anything to him.

The trade that when John Schneider traded him, the picks that ended up coming back in that were just all the best players on the Seahawks, basically. They reloaded with Russell Wilson. I guess Seahawks fans should thank him for demanding a trade.

Yeah, I think Russell Wilson won you guys another Super Bowl. Yeah. The other one- He was very happy for the Seahawks, or at least publicly, he was happy for the Seahawks. It is weird, though, because you know that deep down in a guy like Russell Wilson, he's like, This sucks.

It couldn't have gone worse for him post Seahawks, and it could have gone for the Seahawks. The other one was, I didn't realize this, but Tyler Locket was drafted in 2015, and he got traded to the Raiders last year. That's brutal.

That is tough.

He's a Seahawk, and he was not there for any of the Super Bowl, for the two Super Bowl.

Would you rather be Locket or Logan Mankens, who played on the Patriots forever, never won a Super Bowl?

Locket, just because he went down enough that his body probably feels good.

You It feels great.

Yeah. Yeah. He's got to feel awesome right now.

He probably feels better than me. His body is just pain-free all the time. He feels great. It's like he's on a drug.

Yeah. I don't really have much else from the Super Bowl other than I continue to be very happy for Sam Darnold. It's an awesome story. Just afterwards, he seems like the most humble guy. I know we've had him on before, but he seems like the most humble guy and just very appreciative for the fact that he got a second chance because a lot of guys don't get a second chance after having a tough start to his career.

I have seen some discourse around who's next year's Seahawks.

Yeah.

And that was on ESPN this morning, and Steve Nath Smith said, The Bears. And as far as I can tell, who's next year's Seahawks just means who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl?

Yeah, there's not really much else that you can say, Oh, that looks like the Seahawks.

Like, get a new quarterback and win the Super Bowl?

Yeah. The Jets. The Jets. Kyler Murray.

Jets might be next year's Seahawks.

Did you see the report that Kyler Murray, when asked what the Cardinals are going to do with Kyler Murray, there was a report that he feels really comfortable in Arizona and loves his routine. And it's like, yeah, that's probably why you got to trade him because he's just comfortable.

He's got a great... No, you're downplaying the routine, Big Cat. The routine that he has is pretty sweet. It's like he doesn't play that much football, and he gets paid a lot of money. He lives in a warm city, and he plays a lot of video games, and he appreciates the routine. So why would you want to change that?

Yeah, he loves life. Sam Darnold has to be in the top 10 quarterbacks right now. We have to do that by law. I also saw even one take one further. We'll do our QB rankings over the summer, but you have to, whoever wins a Super Bowl, you have to put it in top 10 right away, right? Just have to.

I go top five.

Top five. The other one was- By my laws, if you win a Super Bowl, you have to go into next season being elite.

Debate.

Yeah. I love the recency bias right after the Super Bowl. The other one that was even more Galaxy brain, Matthew Stafford, top 10 quarterback of all time. I saw that debate because he won an MVP.

Well, all right, pick it. How about this? Matt Stafford, he almost got more credit this year by scoring all those points against one of the best defenses of all time. He almost got more credit for that than he did for winning the Super Bowl.

Correct. The Seahawks had a dominant playoff run, and the only team that gave them any type of game pressure was the Rams and Matthew Stafford.

I think that should go on page one of our Matt Stafford for the Hall of Fame pamphlet that we distribute. It's not the Super Bowl. It's he dominated the Seahawks defense, and then bullet point number two. Also, he won a Super Bowl.

Also, I don't know if you guys talked about it on Sunday after I was off, but the start of the Championship DVD has to be that two-point conversion, Humble pickup.

Big time.

Sliding doors moment.

It's that or the loss. The last time the Seahawks lost was to the Rams, the four interception game from Sam Darnold in Los Angeles, where they still had a 60-yard field goal to try to win the game. That might have been the start of it, too.

Yeah, but if that two-point conversion was a miracle.

Although I think they might have won the Super Bowl still.

Two home games versus three games on the road is wild.

They only trailed for a minute, and I think it was a minute and 43 seconds. It also is perfect that the entire… Sam McDonald's entire career, he's going to turn back into a pumpkin. The turnovers, the turnovers. The Seahawks, we said it on Sunday, did not turn the ball over a single time in the playoff run.

Yeah, no. He was more mobile. There was Probably three or four pressures by the Patriots where he just moved well, got out of the way, and got rid of the ball.

Well, the other thing that was mean to you is that it felt like the Seahawks came out of the game to start the game being like, We're We don't know how this game is going to go, so we're going to have to take some risks to try to win this game. Then as soon as their defense started playing, they immediately were like, Oh, we actually don't have to take any risks. We could probably just win this on defense. You saw them settling for field goals, being fine with that, running the ball more, not having... Essentially, Mike McDonald realized somewhere in the first quarter that as long as we don't have two pick sixes, we should win this game.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, compared to the other Super Bowl losses where we were in them and it was exciting, that was such a... I'm sure casual fans were like, That was the worst Super Bowl of all time.

Yeah, but you have to... You were way too early on the rebuild to be in that spot, and the Seahawks were significantly better. In a weird way, it's probably not that a Super Bowl loss is good, but it's got to feel a little less stinging where it's like you were a play away and, Oh, my God, they could have won.

Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Being there, it was just a bummer. You're there, you're four quarters away.

Who do you think had a worse weekend? Will Campbell or Stefan Diggs?

Did Stefan Diggs and Cardi B break up?

Yeah, that was me in that hot seat.

Okay, we can get to it.

Did you say that? Yeah. Did you have a Breaking Moves, by the way? Breaking Moves. Breaking Moves brought to you by Slim Jim. Breaking Moves, when you feel like you've enough and you're ready to snap. Snap into a Slim Jim instead. Slim Jim's iconic Snap turns any moment of annoyance into satisfaction, turns any fumble into a countdown. We love meat, and slim Jim is the ultimate meat stick to satisfy your meat cravings. Available in multiple sizes to match your hunger. Can't go wrong with the O-G long stick. Looking for something more. Try a Monster or Savage size or load up on the short sticks for your meat stash at home or at the office. When life makes you want to snap, snap into a slim Slim Jim with its bold meaty flavor, iconic spice and signature Snap. Slim Jim is the smoked meat stick that helps you reclaim the moment and snaps back at the world. Snap into a Slim Jim. Grab one today everywhere. Snacks are sold. There's a different one. Oh, there's two.

What do you got, Max?

Give us the breaking mood. Shams. What do you say? Jason Tatum participated in a five-on-five practice today.

Look at that. Yeah, that was yesterday. No.

But no, yesterday, they said that he was going to do it. Today, he actually did.

Did it. Wow. Huge. That's even bigger. Yeah, you're right, Max. That's bigger. All right, fine.

I was actually- He was being nice. He was being nice. That is bullshit. You just got mad at me. I was just giving you a layup for you to get back on the track of like, All right, we're on to the next thing.

I have one.

But he was trying to be nice to you. Yes.

But that wasn't breaking news. That was news. That was breaking news.

I didn't know about that on Monday. Yeah, Sean just did a report. I got a notification from that it was talking about how his five-on-five practice went. Max has been nice. How did it go? How did it go? How did it go? Max has been nice to you. No, no, no. Now you don't care. No, you don't care. You don't care.

Yeah, Jason Tatum is back.

Max has been nice to you. Yeah, this is bullshit. Has he? Maybe not. Maybe not that nice, but I haven't been that mean. I could have been meaner.

Max's face when I walked in this morning was disgusting.

I was so happy to see him. I was so happy to see him. I've been nice to him, too. I said, How are you? I feel like we're also in a game where Max, Memes, and I are trolling you and being mean to you, but we could just point to PFT, and we're like, Well, we're not that guy. That's what we've been able to do for the last week.

Yeah, but at least PFT keeps it inside the podcast walls. What do you mean? You two are just blasting. You guys are just putting me on blast.

What are you talking about? Imagine if the Taylor Swift- The Jason Tate of the Bad Bunny?

If I posted the Taylor Swift on Instagram- Imagine if the Taylor Swift thing got posted?

Yeah, it got posted everywhere.

But you would be mad if I posted it on my personal thing being like- I posted it myself. Got it.

I didn't post shit. I also don't think the Bad Bunny thing was bad. I thought it was funny. It's so clearly you're not being like... Anyone who's mad at that is a fucking loser.

Yeah, it's the clip. It doesn't matter.

Also, I don't control my own Instagram.

I asked that, and then he was like, I got approval.

No, he didn't. Okay, we'll find out about that. I've also only calculated canceling Hank one time.

Tell me about the calculation.

It was a Seahawks schedule. The Seahawks don't play anybody good on their schedule.

That one. Yeah? Yeah, that one weren't. You put that one out on purpose.

Oh. Yeah. Can I post Hank halftime talk? Yeah.

All right.

You know what? Point you, Hank. It's all right.

Yeah, that's point you.

My bad. That's my bad. I will remember. I honestly did not think twice about it because I thought it was just... Again, you saying I'm done with all international games made me laugh so hard. It's funny. People don't I can watch the show. I thought that. Buzz off. What? I was thinking about it. You were?

I know Mimes knew when he was posting it. He was like, This is great. I'm going to post it.

I didn't post it first. This conspiracy shit is all on you. I did not post it first. I had Shane to make one quote card, and Max said, Don't post it. What was the quote card? It was just like, This is America. What are we doing? I said, Do not post that.

That would have been You still want to get to keep that in me.

That's the only thing I did. I took over and I was like, We should not be posting those out-of-context quote cards.

No, I appreciate that.

That's a solid friendship move for not doing that. Sometimes a It's a little behind-the-scenes thing. This happened maybe three times since we've had Shane on board. We'll ask to make quotes of the worst things out of context that we say on the show just so we can look at them and just imagine to ourselves how bad it would be if we actually It was posted, just like for our own mental stimulation.

That's my bad.

But that's a good frame of by not posting that.

My bad, Hank. I want to apologize. I posted it after Memes posted it, and he posted it first.

That's all good.

That's not true. No one in this room posted it first. Are we sure? 100%. Okay. All right, good. None of us posted it first. We followed orders. What was the breaking news?

Speaking of PR 101, this feels like PR 101 from the tigers who have signed Justin Verlander. Oh, Verlander's back. Yeah. Signed a one-year deal. But I feel like after it's like, Hey, we didn't like the... What was it, the school? They went to court arbitration? Arbitration.

Arbitration.

I tried to explain arbitration. They were like, Oh, our fans hate us. Let's bring back Verlander.

Yeah, they got Framper, too, though.

True.

I tried to explain arbitration one time on the show, and then I had seven people telling me I was nowhere close to really understanding what arbitration was. So if somebody that's smarter than us explain what happens during arbitration, I would love to see that.

They just show up and argue about how much you should get paid. I'll do some research. Yeah. Did you see that scuba? He didn't actually... Because I think he won the arbitration almost instantly. He says a number, they say a number, they go in front of someone, and then they decide what the number is. He won, but Boris had him bring both his Cyung trophies to arbitration in case they got to arguing. He was going to pull them out. I Tim Lincecum did that back in the day, too. Yeah, awesome move. Smart. So Verlander's back.

Verlander's back.

I feel bad about the clip now. I didn't know it fucked you up that bad.

It happens. Listen, it's just one of those I thought it was pure comedy. You're not going to feel better after a loss, but... Yeah.

You're not also going to get canceled.

Yeah, there was nothing that was going to bring me up, so you might as well just bring me down as far as you can.

Okay, Okay, should we do Hot Seat Cool Drone? Then we have Ryan Rusillo on the show. Hot Seat Cool Drone, Hut Seat Cool Throne is brought to you by Pizza Hut. Have you heard about Pizza Hut's Big New Yorker? It's Pizza Hut's biggest pizza, massive 16-inch slice. The slice is so big, you have to fold them for just $10. $10 doesn't go as far as it used to, but the Big New Yorker, it's an XL pizza with fluffy New York-style crust and Parmesan, oregano, reasoning. That's a lot for $10. What more could you want? The $10 Big New Yorker here is a big deal. You can't argue with the math for a limited time only. Order a $10 Big New Yorker and solve dinner with six XL slices on New York-style crust. By the way, just a reminder, Friday, Tim woods, Dungeon & Dragons, and we're back Monday in studio. We're taking a vacation, all of us.

My hot seat is Love.

Yeah?

Stefan Diggs and Cardi B.

Oh, did they break up?

They were engaged. They broke up via being unfollowed, unfollowing each other. The rumors are that Stefan Diggs brought his baby mama and their kid to the game and had him in front row seat, and Cardi B was upset of that, and they broke up. I don't know. This is all alleged. I'm not saying this is fact, but they did unfollow each other on Instagram, which might as well just be signed, sealed, delivered, breakup.

Yeah, it's tough. I thought they were going to make it. I did, too. They seemed like a happy, well-adjusted couple.

Credits to Cardi, though, for not being a distraction.

Except for the robot, right? What was the robot thing? She said she was going to sue. She was dancing with a robot. She didn't she get in a fight, too?

She got in a fight with a four-year-old, but that's just Instagram Live stuff.

No, I thought she got in another fight at Super Bowl week.

I didn't see that. But either way, if there was clearly, there was probably this wasn't an... I'm guessing this didn't come out of nowhere, but she waited till after the game to end things, which, respect.

Yeah, and then Stefan Diggs has court on the 13th. So tough week for Stefan Diggs.

Cardi B reportedly clashing with fellow Patriot wags ahead of Super Bowl. That doesn't feel good.

But yeah, lots of love.

Carty B is very sad. Carty B is very sad. Oh, yeah, okay.

Carty B. So spend on Cardi B single.

Yeah.

Zack.

Carty?

Oh, yeah. This is the Carty B falls to ground while jokingly giving Robot a lap dance ahead of the Super Bowl party.

That's just good vibes.

Yeah, that is good vibes. Okay.

My cool throw is Cubes.

Yeah.

Crazy story, honestly. The team that bought the Mavericks from Cuban bought it because they thought gambling was going to get legalized in Dallas. They were going to build a casino. They had a whole big plan. Turns out they were dead wrong about the gambling getting legalized in Texas. There will be no casino being built, so that plan is no longer happening. So their investment was pointless. They now want to sell. And there's a Dallas group of investors that is trying to work with Mark Cuban to buy the Mavericks back. So I don't know how this works. It honestly sounds like Dave and Penn just getting paid a shitload of money for your company and then just having it given back to you. Yeah.

I would assume that the price went up since Cuban sold it. I could be wrong. Maybe it went down. Maybe the previous owners paid a premium for it. I'm going to wait to hear what Pablo Tori has to say, because he's probably... I would imagine this is a big-time him story where he knows all the ends an ounce of it. But it does seem like people bought a basketball team to get into the business, not necessarily for basketball. Right. I'm so over. So think about weeding those people out next time.

Yes, I would agree. Okay, good job. Hot seat, cool, thrown. Good job, Hank. Thanks. Pft.

Thanks for Anthony Davis to the new Mavericks ownership. My hot seat is... Actually, Hank took one of my hots. I'm going to pivot. My hot seat is The Arizona Wildcats because they're no longer undefeated. They lost to Kansas last night at the Fogg, which was an incredible game if you watch it. We have to go to the Fogg at some point. Agreed. We got to go to Fogg Allen. In the last two For two years, that has skyrocketed up my bucket list of places that I want to go watch a sporting event. And watching it last night was... The atmosphere was unreal. And that guy, Flory Bedunga, just the human eraser in the paint was just bouncing all over the place. The crowd was going nuts.

Bill self-sad. He's like, The fog won us this game. And you could feel it. The fog is 1-0 this year. That's why I love college basketball so much, especially this time of year, where every game feels so important. And I know there's always the NBA, college basketball discourse. Nba will have its time in the playoffs, but there's nothing like these college basketball games, a midweek game where the crowd and you get true homecourt advantage, and it feels like there's big-time stakes. It was going into the game. Peterson was out again. So it was like, oh, shit. Kansas rallied, and it was awesome.

There's some weird stuff going on with Peterson.

Very weird stuff.

It seemed like Phil Self was not happy. And yeah, he's just missed So many games. And then to have this sprung on the last second. Things are weird in Kansas, but the good news is they played an awesome game without Darren Peterson last night. So they don't necessarily need him. He'd be great to have, but they're a really fucking good team without him. And what was the said? The Bill Self has never lost on Monday at home?

He's on big Monday. He's 39 and 0.

Yeah, pretty incredible. And then my cool thrown, Hank, is actually love. You put it on the hot seat. I'm going to put it back on the cool thrown. Did you guys see the Norwegian skier guy after he won the Bronze medal?

I did not.

Oh, Big Cat, you have to watch this. So this dude won a Bronze medal, and then in his post-ski or whatever press conference, he starts talking about his girlfriend that he recently broke up with. And he says that he met her six months ago, the love of his life. And then three months ago, he made the biggest mistake of his life and cheated on her. And now he's had the worst week of his life because last week he admitted to her that he cheated on her. They broke up. He's been miserable. And then he goes out, wins a Bronze medal, does this interview, and he says, I hope that committing social suicide might show how much I love her. I'm taking the consequences for what I've done. I regret it with all my heart. And that was his acceptance speech for winning the Bronze medal. It was a Bronze? A Bronze. If there's one thing I know about women, it's that chicks I love it when you use the biggest moment of your life to admit to cheating on them in front of the world. I think this could work.

The biggest moment of your life being a Bronze medal?

Yeah.

Didn't even win the gold.

Didn't win the gold.

I can't get into the Winter Olympics. I'm sorry.

Not even the guy that cheated on his girlfriend and trying to win her back by admitting to cheating on her to the world?

I'm going to be very in on the hockey.

What about curling?

If it's on, I guess.

He mixed doubles, curling.

Also, not that impressed with Mike Driecke flying from the Super Bowl to Italy. Everyone going crazy for that. He probably was sleeping on a bed on his private plane.

I would love to do that.

Yeah, sounds awesome. The noise of a plane, sleeping on a full bed.

You got to watch this interview, Big Cap, because the guy's hilarious. I love it how he's... If you're a chick watching this at home and your ex-boyfriend is just telling the entire world that he fucked another chick when you were dating, what's your reaction to that going to be?

Yeah, that's That's crazy. All right, I definitely have to watch that. All right, my hot seat is John Shier and the Duke Blue Devils, because we are now three full days after John Shier claimed that a Duke staffer got punched in the face, and we still haven't found any video evidence of that happening. It's out there.

It was multiple, I think.

Wasn't there a streamer that said it? I have zero research done on this topic, so I'm not going to-Yeah, I think he's someone who makes a lot of jokes and fucks around, and there was no actual video evidence, which it seems hard to believe.

Kind of like when Philip Howski said that he got pushed and tripped and then was doing 360 dunks two days later.

My understanding is that every assistant coach and team manager on Duke was physically assaulted and beaten to within an inch of their life. And if true, that's bad.

It's just so Duke to have this happen, where there's a court storming and then be like, Yeah, one of guys got punched in the face. But I don't want to talk about that. It has nothing to do with the fact we lost.

Some guy you would see was demanding that if anybody has any video evidence, please bring it forward so that I can immediately review it. I want to say the guy might have been an assistant athletic director. Very clearly, there's not any video evidence. Everybody had their phones out that time. The game was broadcast on live TV. I think it was probably just, We lost. I'm pissed. So now I'm just going to get mad at my opponents for intervening me a little bit when I was leaving the court.

The update from John Shier was talking about the staffer. He's fine, he's fine. But after the game, what happened was I came back in the locker room and I see he's got a bloody lip, and he's disheveled, and I didn't know what happened. He got trampled on the floor. So the guy fell. So Duke, staffer, fell, and then it quickly became he got punched in the face.

Yeah, it became the scene from the Lion King where Gustavo falls off the cliff.

This is just so Duke. Every time they lose, they do something like this. You have to admit, it's pretty crazy.

It sounds like victim blaming. It sounds like the guy could have got seriously hurt, and I'm just happy that he's all right.

Also, the Greg Gard quote was a fake PFT. Yeah, we got God. That's okay. Hey, listen, it happens. It happens to us. And then my cool throw. Yeah, I hit up.

It was a good quote. It was a great quote. Get God. I just thought that it was a college basketball coach.

When do you not get God?

I don't get God a lot.

You get God often.

I got got with the Stefan Diggs proposal thing. I got got on that one.

A week ago.

Then the great guard thing. Yeah. I got got. Listen, everybody gets got on the internet. It happens.

You've never been got here. Where's your guys' relationship at right now? Where are you guys?

Hank, you got got by a picture of a guy driving a forklift over a whale hosing it down.

I did not get got. I just reposted it because it was a cool video, and I like AI and the advancements of AI.

Are you guys in a good spot? This is going to be a good vacation. Yeah. Very good vacation.

Yeah. I am excited to be separate from you guys in warm weather.

Will you be Are you undertaking in any group text conversations during the vacation?

If I'm addressed, if I'm depending on how the address is made, if it's trolling, no. If it's a question about work, possibly.

No. What about... A lot of times, it's just vibes. Yeah, it's just guys hanging out. Yeah, I'm down for vibes. You know what? Let's just do a daily fit check in the group chat. I'm down for fit check.

Just started to roll back, by the way. I didn't order. They sent me a package and I came back, and then today I just took the box of clothes and just put it in my suitcase. Love that. Ding to have to pack.

That's great.

I don't even really know what's in there. Love that.

You just trust. I actually think Hank and I are on We're as good as we can be right now. There's a video that we made.

You're as good as you can be.

Yeah, we're feeling great.

So, Hank, you do not agree that you guys are as good as you can be? You're being gaslight. Don't gaslight.

I don't like that PFT has defeated me, and I was looking forward to taking $80,000 of cash from him and all that, and that obviously sucks. So, yeah, PFT is good. I don't have an issue with him, but I'm not like, I'm down. I'm down. Yeah.

I think people are going to like the video that we did, though. We shot a video when we were golfing on Saturday.

That feels like a month, years ago. Those vibes were great.

Vibes were great. Hank and I were actually rooting for each other in that video. And I think it was maybe the most cooperative golf video that we've ever had. We'll see if the views do good on it. If it's good, we might have to do more friendly golf videos. We're working as a team. If the views aren't as good, then we might just have to go back to hating each other. But I feel like when Hank gets back from this vacation, he's going to have battery recharged. He's going to be ready turn of the page. It's going to be Celtic season. I thought Max brought up a great breaking news with Jason Tatum has practiced five on five. I thought that was a nice thing that he said. No, we're not supposed to talk about that.

Well, it was breaking news. He brought up a story from yesterday.

You lost out on a lot of money because you had a future on the Patriots as well. I think we should all-I kept saying myself during the game because people were talking about the bet, and I was like, I really don't even care about that.

I'm just excited for the game. Then yesterday, it was like, damn, I probably should have hedged a little bit. There was-A lot of money on the line. A hundred grand. If I won, I could have hedged for 10.

I think we should all, right now, agree that you should get the merch bonus for the Hank Dogg Toys. Okay. How many were you sold?

Agreed. Good deal. A fuck ton. Hell, yeah. Okay. Thank you.

That was a good job. Hey.

Thank you, Memes.

Yeah, Memes made the call to put them up. Thanks, Memes. So That was Memes Call. What memes? All right, yeah. Congrats.

Shit. That was nice. I didn't know that. I appreciate that.

Yeah, you deserve it. Thank you. Got like you, you deserve it.

It is my N-I-L. Yeah, it is.

It's true. My cool drone is the Chiefs, the Bears, and the Saints because since… This is a really dumb stat, but we love dumb stats on this show. Since 2020, the only Super Bowl winners have been the Chiefs or NFC teams getting their second Super Bowl in franchise history. That leaves us the Chiefs, the Bears, or the Saints for next year. I like my chances there. It's a pretty cool stat. The Bucks won their second, the Eagles won their second, Seahawks won their second, and then the Chiefs. And the Rams. Sorry, the Rams. The Rams won their second as well. 2020.

Yeah, okay. Let's keep it rolling.

There's some good data there, Shuckster is going to be a problem. Shuckster is going to be. I saw the stat and I was like, Oh, fuck, yes. I was like, Oh, God. We were looking at futures on DraftKings. Shuckster, I think, is 100 to one to win MVP next year. That's basically stealing.

Juicy. What if they get Jeremiah love? That offense is going to be dangerous. Yeah.

All right, Zack.

Max, is Lynn Dickerson and Lane Johnson, are they retiring?

They're taking some time for themselves right now. I didn't know that was the thing. Post-football season. Is that a thing?

Florio had a big thing on it.

Florio. Let me tell you something about that guy.

Comment on Florio's big thing.

No, they'll be back. In the moment, I think in the moment I think they were upset that their guy is not going to be back anymore. They both played through injuries this year. But a couple of months away from the game and your body starts to heal up a little bit, you start to get that itch, they'll be back. Okay, good comment. Zack, Hot Seat Cool Throng?

My Hot Seat this week is going to be the rest of the world's figure skating representation because the United States figure skating team has been on a recent absolute tear. Have you guys caught any of it?

Are we kicking ass?

I have not.

The thing some of these men and women are able to do on skates, maybe some of the most impressive athletic feats I've ever seen.

Are you talking about the flip?

We're doing flips, dips, triple spins. What they're able to do on skates, man, is unbelievable. Did you hear about the comeback story?

No. Again, I can't stress enough.

You can't get into it?

I don't know what it is about the Winter Olympics. There's a couple of events. Again, hockey, I'll be all in. If I happen to walk by a TV and they're doing ski jumping, sure.

Would you be open to maybe just taking a glimpse at some of the figure Skating clips later and just give me an honest opinion if you give it a fair shot?

Yeah, I can.

It's unbelievable, man. They got this... One of the skaters, I guess, is unprecedented in the sport. Her name is Alyssa Leu. She competed in the games in 2022 at 16, retired, steps away from the sport, comes back in the same year, wins a world title, and then gets gold on the team just now.

Is she US? Us, yeah. Fuck, yes. All right, I'm in for that. I think I need 16 gold medals to win that bet that I made. Let's get those goals. So more gold medals, the better. Let's get those goals.

I don't know. Outside of even the sport, the events are competing, and the feeling of what it must feel like to represent the country's sake, the biggest stage has to be unreal.

Speedskating, I'm into. I like speed skiing.

The speed skiing is impressive as well.

I love the Summer Olympics. Do you get into Winter Olympics at all? No. Anyone in the booth into Winter Olympics? I love it. Really? Yeah. I like the ski jump, the high ski jump. I mean, now you can start paying attention. This is football. I think it's also the time. It was during football. Yeah, but the time... I don't know what time it's on. That's what I'm saying to Max. But every Olympics is like that. I know. They need to make every Olympics in America. I agree.

I agree.

Clip that. Put it out. Every Olympics should take place in America so that we understand the time zones and no Bad Bunny.

And all postgame interviews in English.

I'm going to be pro Bad Bunny. I'm going to be on the pro Bad Bunny side. That My Bunny. All right, your cool thrown?

My cool throw in this week is just going to be that we should probably just skip to the end of the NBA season because Oklahoma City Thunder. They're asking the current king of the sport what he thinks paired up against him, and he's saying it's pretty much over. Who said that? Lebron.

Lebron is the current king of the sport?

I would say as long as LeBron is in the league, LeBron is not only the face of the league, but definitely has a weighted opinion on basketball and what he could say as far as outside of playingHe's the king of the...

Lebron is the king of the sport right now.

As active players go, his nickname is the King.

Self appointed.

That is true. There might be a marketing team and LeBron behind that. He is just the King. I guess definitely a king of basketball.

Do we think that...

That's what people said about the Celtics. It's hard to get back once the playoff start.

Even if we don't think he's-LeBron is the face of the league until he is no longer in the league.

He has to be, right? 100%.

What he's done for the NBA is 100%.

Why they had to ship Luka there to get a star in LA? Facts.

100%. Steph? Lebron. Lebron is the face of the league until he is no longer in the league. Scottie Barnes? He's future. Future face of the league. Did you see the Pelicans-Kings game last night? Pft. It keeps dropping out. Did you see the Pelicans-Kings game last night?

The fight? No, that's Hornets.

Yeah, that was awesome. But Pelicans-Kings, did you guys not see this? I'm not going to be- The fight was insane. Stuart just coming out of nowhere. There was a lot to dissect in that fight. No, Memes knows what I'm talking about. I'm going to be hip real quick. I'm not 41 anymore for a second. I guess the Kings and Pelicans both stink really bad and were playing last night, and it just became a trend on TikTok for people to make hype videos for that game like it was game seven. It was very funny. They were making hilarious hype videos It was the most important game of all time, and it was just a shitty, shitty February two tanking teams NBA game. It was a game of the Year. Game of the Year. The Kings aren't tanking. They just suck. They just suck. Yes. They're tanking, they don't realize it. Okay, good job, Zack. Same user. Wait, so he said, Okay, see?

His quote was, You want me to compare us to them? That's a championship team right there. We're not. We can't sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes, and they came.

What a loser.

That's why they won the Championship.

That's loser talk.

But if it's loser talk from one of the greatest guys in the sport right now, if he observes him as being far and away the best, maybe there's something to it.

Okay. Well, we're going to talk about it with Ryan Rusillo, so let's do that. Ryan Rusillo is brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Football season might be over, but you know how it goes. The minute the big game ends, we're already talking about what's next. Free agency, the draft, who's getting paid, who's grinding, because for football guys, there is no offseason, and that's exactly why they with the Chevy Silverado. Silverado is a truck that shows up every time, built to haul, tow, and take a beating, but smart where it counts with modern tech that makes life easier. Big screens, available camera views that help with towing and parking, and a cabin that feels right, whether you're road tripping, heading to practice, or loading up for the weekend. During the season, it's MVP of the tailgate. After the season, it turns in to your training camp truck hauling gear, tackling home projects, and doing the work that never stops because the grind doesn't take and neither does Silverado. Did you guys see us? Chevy Silverado put a Silverado ZR2 on top of Castle Rock in the middle of the desert. It's all part of their new campaign, See the USA in your Chevrolet.

The whole vibe is get out there, road trip, explore, see the country. Now grab your family or friends and go see the USA for yourself. Check out the current offers and build your own Chevy Silverado at chevy. Com. We're also brought to you by our friends at BodyArmor, BodyArmor Flash IV. This episode is brought to you by BodyArmor Flash IV. Flash IV is packed with electrolytes delivering faster, longer lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners. Whether you're training, traveling, or just feeling the heat, work hard and hydrate hard with BodyArm or Flash IV. Grab it at 711 today. I'm I'm going to take a sip real quick. Watermelon punch. That's delicious. Go get a BodyArm or Flash IV today. Okay, here he is, Ryan Rasil. Okay, we now welcome on our guy, Ryan Ryan Rusillo, The Ryan Rusillo podcast. Very, very, very, very, very special guest. We're going to do our NBA preview because it's time. Football is over. Time to look to the NBA. Ryan, it was great hanging with you all week in San Fran. Any thoughts from the week?

Really good content, really good guests. Feel great about everything I put out. Terrific interviews. It was It was good to bond with staff and everything and feel... It's funny because I think people can really get caught up with stuff that's simple, where it's like when I left ESPN and I started podcasting, and they're like, You're so different now. And then when I left Spotify and I came to Barstool, it's like, Oh, your content is now you're just doing a Barstool thing. And I was like, Honestly, it's just the same. And to be honest with you, now, I think a lot of those people have a point, so I have to just defer to them and go, I guess you have me now.

I think you made two really strong points.

Yeah, that's what people are saying. We were able to do... The Steve Young stuff was a retrospective, and then Julian Edelman was a bit more of a game breakdown thing. So you always have to balance it out.

Yeah, You're right about Jules. That was piercing.

Yeah. I mean, I already know what every one of these is going to be, which teams need to take it to the rack more. Should double-breasted suits be in for draft night.

I would like to just rip off the bed and say, It was a fucking awesome rack.

Yeah. Well, I would say the best summary of the reaction of just being out and about is like, there's a combination of people that think I'm the worst, and then a bunch of dudes who think I'm the best. And I'm like, Both are wrong.

It's a good place to live, though. You're making people feel. Love them or hate them. Well, if you don't love that rack, you're whatever.

I do love the idea of a guy that hated Rosillo until that. He's like, he's actually the best now.

Yeah, we get it all the time when people will treat us and be like, Fuck Dave Portnoy, fuck Barstool, fuck PMT, but I love Mikey Betz, or something like that. Or like, these guys are cool, but everyone else sucks at Barcill. It would be great if we got a, Fuck PMT, fuck One Bite Pizza, but Rosillo's tits are fucking awesome, dude.

The only real one they got.

Yeah, I mean, Big Cat was helping me the next day because I was like, Well, something happened. When When I woke up to a thousand notifications of text and calls, I was like, are we at war? And I was totally like, oh, okay, everybody's screen grabbing this thing. And I was like, all right, well, I'm hacked and I'm fine and whatever. And then I was able to get in and I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And so I was really like... It was like a weird combination of like, all right, well, this is super explainable. This doesn't make any sense. I would never do this. And then even this morning, I'm getting ready because I get up pretty early to tape on Monday show after that Super Bowl. It wasn't like anybody was out celebrating after that. Well, no, Seahawks fans. But look, it was a slow Super Bowl, as we all understand. And at 05: 00 AM, I got a notification. It's like, Instagram is updating your location 11: 00. And I was like, what is happening? What is going on? So it was all this stuff all over again, where I'm like, God damn.

But I think, look, I think most people understand it. It's not something I would ever do. The number of years I've had a phone and social media, it'd be like, hey, this will be funny. I would never, ever done that. I don't plan on doing it now, even with the change and-Management.

Partnership.

We talked about it on the pot a little bit today, but it was a rough stack of life advice emails. I'll tell you that.

I did consider when I saw it, I thought about making that my story on Instagram, too, just in solidarity. I posted my own breast. Just to try to muddy the waters a little bit. I got it, too.

7,000 people followed me this weekend. 7,000. Well, then you got Encore.

You know why they're here.

I'm like, You guys are about to be really bummed out, you 7,000 dudes.

Well, it was a very fun week hanging with you. You came out with us on Monday with the whole Barstool staff, and I will say that I consider you a very close friend, and that is why I had no choice but to jerk off to your Instagram story on Friday morning. I appreciate that.

Yeah, look, if anything, I care about my coworkers.

All right, that was our NBA preview. Thanks, Ryan. We'll talk to you later.

What an awful day to be scheduled from this. Surrey was like, It might be just the best day to be scheduled for those guys.

We actually should take some blame because we were going to have you on 8: 00 AM Friday morning, Super Bowl week, and after a long week, Thursday afternoon, we were like, You know what? Let's just fucking can it. We'll just do Zoom next week. If we had kept that, you probably would have gone home with me at midnight, and I would have just shown you my tits.

Yeah, look, I I don't even think what time I went home had anything to do with it, to be honest with you. It was more of, I think there's a tech issue.

Yeah, there's a tech issue. We got to get to the bottom of the tip.

Yeah, no one's, Look, hand up. Or whatever.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. That's not a bad Friday recurring segment. It's Friday Boobs.

Friday Boobs. Yeah, it's like, hey, what do they have? What lane is open over there? Yeah. Oh, man. I actually don't I want to be that guy. But now it's too late. It'll never go away. I'll say something about the Hornets, and then it's just going to be so. It's never going to end.

Having that be your thing like, Hey, the dude likes tits. Sign me up.

I'm in there. Or just the guy who's Instagram had tits on. People will forget.

We've got a short attention to that. No, we should do the Rudy locker room where we just all put our best tits that we can find on the coaches, on Dave's desk, being like, Hey, we stand with Rizillo.

I'm telling you, we got a couple guys here, I'm sure, would line up for the idea to be the gatekeeper of the Friday Tits account.

They can have it, man. They can have it.

Okay.

All right, let's talk some NBA for real. Who won the trade deadline? Let's start there, and then we want to talk about what's going on in the season. But who won the trade deadline and why?

Well, that's actually a little tougher answer, because if you look at the Pacers, you add a top five center in zoo, and it's such a crazy year because you get this massive reset. You get a team that makes the NBA Finals, but it still was breaking the mode of NBA teams that are super successful, where generally it's like, okay, who is your top 10 guy? It used to be like, who are your two top 10 guys? But there is a little bit more parity now. And then maybe even if you were willing at the peak of the Halliburton run to say, maybe he's 10. But for me, it's like, okay, has he always been 10? Or are we just doing this now the last couple of weeks? So say he's even 10, 11, 12, whatever. You clean up some of your cap stuff. You bring in a top center who's going to make you a little different based on his strengths and Miles Turner's strengths. But no one in the world would want Miles Turner's zoo. And then you have a chance of the top four pick here. And depending on what's going on with Darron Peterson's legs, if you end up with a number one pick in Darron Peterson in Kansas, you're like, okay, so we were a finals team, and then we get to add somebody like this or one of the other top four.

I'm surprised they even had this 26 in play, this 26 pick in play, because it could technically go to the Clippers here, five through nine, and then it's protected again, 10 through 30. This has happened a few other times. In the NBA history, you get a little creative with the protection language on this stuff. So I I like what they did because they were doing something long term while also making sure that they're tanking. And as an aside, we can do more of the trade stuff here, but there's going to be 10 or 11 teams that are going to be in an absolute tank off That's disgusting. I mean, even Utah the other night had a really nice game, and they sat everybody in the fourth quarter, and people can get mad about it. Other teams get mad at each other. But it's like, when you're doing this, I'm not looking for... I'm not going to apologize for it. My pick is top eight, protected. If I'm Utah, I'm losing these fucking games. And Washington is not going to play their guys. Clearly, Indiana wants nothing to do with anything that lands from five to nine.

I mean, we can go through a bunch of these different teams. I don't even think Milwaukee would want Giannis to come back and play, and even though Giannis was threatening, but then, of course, he was celebrating, even sticking around, which is its own story. They should want to do whatever they can with this pick because they don't have many of them. And Giannis probably shouldn't even want to play and risk health and risk this contract extension that he can get before next fall. So the taking is going to get egregious. Look, I like what the Clippers did despite being stuck, because I don't think Darius Garland is this bad. He's a two-time All-Star. He's 26 years old. He has the other toe that's hurt this year. There's some net rating numbers with him that he's one of the most disastrous high minute guys. But when he was right, he was terrific. And Harden, after the terrible start, they're one of the hottest teams in the NBA. It's like, Oh, I'm not going to get an extension. I'm out of here. Okay, cool. Fourth trade request in six years. So the Clipper is very quickly on the fly from, well, I guess we just hope that Harden and Kawhi are healthy.

And with Zoom, it shows that we've had these stretches last year. We can be a really good basketball team. It's not a safe bet. It's a bet that hasn't worked out. They had to pivot within hours, not even days. So I think there's going to be a time where you'll look at the Garland thing and go, man, they were able to land a player like that for Harden on top of what could be a really lucky landing spot for the pick in '26, and then another first, because, again, their pick is unprotected in going to OKC this year. And then, of course, OKC is just like, hey, they have contract situations coming up. What could they do? Well, let's trade for maybe last year's Rookey of the Year. If you qualified and had enough games, they give up a first that they don't even need. It's going to be a late first, and now they have financial control over him the next couple of years. So OKC just winning on the margins all the time. Yeah.

So with that trade, Max's initial reaction was that He's obviously an Eagles fan, Sixers fan. But when Howie trades with somebody-I'm aware. Yeah. When Howie trades with somebody for the Eagles, he's just like, You don't want to pick up the phone when Howie calls you because Howie is going to get you. Then he got pressied because he looks at Presti the same way other guys look at Howie. Is that a fair analysis to say that if Sam Presti is on the phone, he's going to get the better end of that deal?

Yeah, I think most times. But look, Darryl is good at this, okay? I have a lot of respect for Darryl and what he is able to do on the fly and how many times he's... Some people blame the terrible pricing of trades solely on Darryl because Darryl has had a couple that have gone... I mean, the whole Harden trade for him was ridiculous, and he turns it into this guy that's one of the best offensive players the game has ever seen and anchors a team that was the only team that was competing with the Warriors. So if it were... I would never put Darryl in the... Darryl is thinking about every single It makes me wonder if the medicals were something where Darryl is like, I'm actually okay with this. So I understand Max's point. Presty's in that. Do I want to be on the other side of the Presty deal? But it's not like any of these GMs ever have Danny. Look, Presty drafted Poku, Bob Myers drafted James Wiseman, the Seahawks drafted Jalen Millrow. So the great ones always have one thing. They're like, What the hell was he thinking there? So you could point to a couple Darryl miscues, but I have too much respect for Darryl to have gotten worked on a deal because I think they were in a bit of their own roster crunch.

And it does make me wonder, how are they able to give up on him this quickly unless they just think his medicals aren't good? I think the McCain thing, too, has a lot to do with, Hey, let's take a flyer on what we saw from last year because they're going to have so many financial decisions to make in OKC because they have too many good players.

Poor Jalen Millrow. Yeah, that's a complete.

That was nasty. Did you mean Super Bowl champion, Jalen Millrow?

All right, buddy. Scout team stuff. You know what? You're right.

Damn. My God. He was an excellent Drake May for the Scout team. Perfect, Drake May.

I know you guys already did your whole pod, but what was your... I haven't listened to it yet because I was taping my stuff this morning.

My take was, are the Seahawks the best team that we've ever seen?

You'd be good on TV.

Is Sam Darnold elite now? Is he in that top group? I think you got to put there. He just won a Super Bowl. Best QB in the game. Last two seasons, 14 wins.

Yeah. My take was that what we had an inkling, but you want to hope for a good game, that the NFC Championship game was a Super Bowl. Those are the two best teams in football this year, and they played two awesome games down the stretch. Yeah, the Seahawks were just better in every facet. I know you hate saying it. It wasn't even close. I think if they played that game 100 times, it goes like that a lot of because even the way the Seahawks went about that game, it felt like part of the boringness of it was Mike McDonald saying, Hey, the only way we can lose this is a catastrophic fuck-up of two pick sixes. So when we get into the red zone, we're mind taking field goals knowing the Patriots will never score on us in any consistent basis?

I don't mind the use of, and it's not particularly close right there, because that was a good use of it. Because leading up to it, you're going, All right, it's more talented roster Seattle. But then it gets boring to just constantly go because you can be wrong doing that all the time, too. It's like one game and the whole thing. But it felt a lot like it's something I brought up for the week when the Colts and Pats had that AFC title game where the Colts came back at home. And it's like, Hey, no offense, but we get to play the bears. We just lost, or whoever lost this game lost a chance at a ring.

And it was the Sam Darnold part where people still couldn't believe in Sam Darnold. So they were like, Oh, we'll talk ourselves into Sam Darnold being Sam Darnold we saw with the Jets. It's like, if you watch him in the NFC Championship game, he is... And he didn't light it on fire in the Super Bowl, but that team was just a complete team. They were so good. They had so many dudes. I even think the coin toss was very funny. I know it's the captain, so it's not the full team, but the Seahawks looked twice as big when they came out for the coin toss.. It was just like, holy shit. These two teams are not even- Is there a lesson to be learned there?

Don't send out special teams guys for the coin toss.

Yeah, just sign... Derrick Henry could have a career until he's 50 just by being the coin toss guy. Just go out there and look jacked up.

Yeah, Ted Washington. Just be like, Hey, we just signed him to the practice squad. Yeah, I think you're right. By the way, they're not even close ones that bother me is when somebody goes like, Hey, we think Conk and Nipple is Rooky of the Year, and it's not even close. And you're like, Actually, it's close.

Is it close?

It's close. Who else? I think Cooper Flag has been ridiculous.

So it's close that way?

Yeah, although I don't know how this happened, this shift towards winning, being the difference of everything. Yeah, all-star if it's a tie, and you're like, This team is seated here, and this guy's here. Okay, fine. Mvp voting, if it's close on everything else, and then you want to go standings, okay. But Rooky of the Year, I don't know. Look, every voter is different, whatever the fifth tiebreaker is for all this stuff. But yeah, I don't- Cooper flags very good. Yeah. What he is doing right now This is ridiculous. You want to talk about being ahead of schedule, like watching him and his disasters. Think about how special he is, considering the one year that they've just had. They trade AD to one team. Don't tell anyone else, which again is the biggest flaw. Like, whatever you think about, if you're the most anti-Luca guy ever. You're like, okay, fine, but it should be an open market. It should be everybody trying to outbid each other for this. And instead, you're like, let me do this closed non-listing deal here with a relative. You're like, what? What is this? And then a year later, They're like, Hey, let's get off of AD for a collection of nothing significant.

And because Cooper is so special this soon... When he came out, there wasn't any part of us that was like, oh, no one was saying, Well, I don't think he's going to be that good. But it was like, Offensively, is he going to be at... How soon can he get to that level of like, Hey, get out of my way. I'm going to take over this possession. And it took a couple of months. And now he's putting together these performances that not only are terrific on the court, but it's helping a fan base get over, which is what took 365 plus days to get through the worst transaction in the history of this sport.

I'm hoping that they turn into two of the best players of this entire generation, like this generation's Bird and Bird.

Luca and Max Christie?

Yeah, no, Knipel and Flag. That sounds a little racist. Yeah. It'd be very funny to look back and be like, How did this team lose in college?

In February, you're saying this?

Yeah. How did this team lose? Yeah, in February, I'm saying it. Listen, I watched the Kid Rock halftime show. I'm allowed to say it.

Cooper Flag, by the way, I told this story last night. I've never felt so stupid in my life, but I bet him for points, rebounds, and assists the other night, and he had like 22 in the first half, and he just was stuck at 22 for another quarter. I went on Twitter and I searched Cooper Flag, and the first result was, You're degenerate and you're searching Cooper Flag's name because you have a bet on him. Go find something else to do. I was like, God damn it. The guy had just written that tweet and just got me perfectly.

Yeah, that stinks.

Yeah, it stinks hard. I just got to look at it. It was like, All right, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to go to bed.

Right. I have a question. With your permission, I'd like to talk about the Wizards for the first time in the history of you being on this podcast, just for about 30 seconds.

What are you going to do? I love the Wizards.

Good. I do, too. I'm a newfound fan. I'm born again. Anthony Davis, there was some out there that he wasn't super happy about going to Washington. Is that all buried now? He's going to attempt to play for the Washington Wizards at some point?

Yeah. It's pretty clear with these two transactions. They were like, Hey, do you want to join the team? And then also never play. So we can do this. And Anthony Davis is like, Hey, say no more. Or I guess the kids would say less. I got the sense that the Trey thing was understood like, Hey, whatever is going to happen here, you can opt out. We'll pay you less, but we give you guaranteed money. It's going to be your team. And there's something to be said, too, about young guys coming in and they're just losing all of the time. And then you start taking on some bad habits. The Trey winning thing can be a little overstated, where I think there's certain players that have conference finals runs that it's like, Is that who you're going to be, or is that going to be a little fluky? I talk about it all the time as a team. Is that the neighborhood you expect to be in, or was it odd that you were there, and there's cases for both sides of it. So when Trey has that epic Knicks series where he looks like the most comfortable, or I would say the least scared player on the floor, there's something to that.

I just don't know that long term, there's enough evidence to say, Hey, this is winning basketball. So I think Trey would have to take a bit of a step back and find a way to incorporate guys a little bit more. And I know people always look at assists, but it's like, yeah, but there's more to getting your offense involved than just you deciding shot or assist opportunity here. And that's where a lot of players can put together huge assist numbers. It's like, yeah, but I don't know that that guy is really running an offense and having everybody feel like they're involved. So Trey, I would hope, and the Wizards have to hope, that there's a bit of a reset of like, hey, the market was this stale on you that you went for Ceejian McCollum and Cory Kisberg. My guess would be Trey is not going to look at it that way. So that's its own thing. The AD part of it, if there's no extension, which is why you would heard that his side of things were a a little upset because there was other places that maybe were willing to give him an extension.

I think the Wizards can look at it and say, Hey, you need to get healthy, and we'll give you all the time to recover the entire offseason. I still don't really mean I don't know what that means as far as long term health, but he's under contract next year for 58. 5 million, and then there's a player option in 27, 28 for 63 million. So if you're Mike Winger in a group that I have a ton of respect for with the Wizards, if you're looking We met it going, all right, we bought on him low, too, and he can want whatever extension he wants. But you're probably, one, you're under our control, and you're probably not going to want to opt out of the 63 million dollar player option a couple of years from now, even if you could say, hey, I'll opt out, and I'd like to do an extension at a lower number, but more guaranteed money. There's probably not a number there, at least as of today, that makes sense to them. So they may look at it as just, you can say or feel however you want to feel, but the most important thing for you to get one more contract is to come back and and we'll bet that you opt in.

So we're getting you for two years, and we didn't really give up anything. And we have two players, that again, I'm painting the best case scenario picture here, two players that immediately raise our floor, and then we figure out the young players that we like around them. And Sahr has been so much better this year. I love Keesha and George. Trey Johnson, it's been a nice rookie year and a stacked rookie class. We probably talking about him a little bit more. Sure, there's more that he needs to his game, but as far as the shooting and some of the And just athleticism from him. It's been really good. And then you've got Bob and Bilal and figuring out how the rest of these guys are. So when they made the Trey thing, I was like, why would you want Trey taking possessions and shots away from all these guys that you're trying to figure out who the two or three guys actually are? But I would also allow, and I'm open to the argument of, well, what were we supposed to do? Just come back and get our asses kicked all over again on top of the pick that we're taking this year, which again, they're another team that needs a tank.

Look, there's one, and I'll finish here. There's one thing you can never forget when transactions are happening, especially with NBA general managers. It's so hard to get any player that's really special that you will look at the asset management part and go, okay, if this is what the price is, it's not perfect. There could be a downside, but I can't ignore this price. It's like buying a jacket in the summer that you don't need. And you're like, I forgot I even bought it, but you just couldn't believe that it was priced that way. Maybe not perfect, but that's That's the way that there's always a deal where I'm like, Why would they do that? It's like, Oh, it's because it was the price.

If you can stay healthy, it could be a good team. If you can stay healthy.

Well, I've heard some people say top four in the east if everything bounces right, that feels a little aggressive with whatever version of Detroit, New York, Boston. If Cleveland could ever figure their shit out. I still can't believe Orlando is this disappointing. Maybe sniffing it. But for a team that's been this bad, being in the play-in is an improvement. And there may have been a push from ownership a little bit here, too, going, All right, guys, we've had a few draughts, and we're still not sure who that real difference maker is. We've got all this cap space. Let's just do this and then figure out who survives around it.

I think that's a really good point, which is that if you've stocked up on some young guys and they're coming up into the league, they should, at some point, start to play good basketball on a good team, or else their ceiling is going to diminish greatly.

The rebuilding It's a fascination that every player has to be between 18 and 20, and if you have a 25-year-old that's good, you're like, Oh, my God, he doesn't fit our timeline. That shit drives me crazy. If it's 32 in three lottery picks, okay, I'll agree with you now. But in a world that is all about competing and learning the right habits, I'm guilty of it sometimes, too. I try to assess each situation differently, but we can get really caught up in, everybody's going to be a year or two, how everybody's going to be a new first rounder in your stockpiling cap space, which is pointless now. The lottery is just luck, and it's mostly one excited team and nine disappointed teams, and that you can't... You can't ever have anybody that's older on the team. It's hard to push back against the position when it's pitched to you. We need to start playing important games at some point so these guys feel like something matters every night, as opposed to deep down, we're really trying to lose all these. They'll keep losing this year, but at least it'll feel different going into camp for the first time for a bunch of young players that are going to experience something that they haven't since they've entered the league.

Now, the flip side is the Bulls and what they did was, they basically did that in 2021, 2022 season, being like, Hey, let's put some decent players together and compete, and we'll be first in the East for two months, and we'll talk about that for the next five years. Now we're seeing the other side of it where they just traded everyone for a second round pick. Should I be mad? I should be happy. Here's my real take. You tell me if this is right or wrong. I'm happy that they finally said, Hey, enough with this play-in bullshit. But I'm also mad that it took them so long and they mistimed basically every asset they had and when they traded them, they didn't trade any of them at peak value.

Yeah, that's the biggest thing with the Bulls is you're making it even harder on yourself. You're trading for Vuch, who... I had a team explain it to me, and it's a really simple rule. If we're bringing this player in, who are we right now? Can we win a first-round playoff series? Can we win a second-round playoff series? Okay, well, no and no. If we add Vuch, does this mean we're winning a first round or a second round series? It was somebody in the front office, and it's honestly so good. It's such a good rule when you're sitting there on the cusp of like, Hey, we make this trade. Whoever we are, do we bring in Vuch for a couple firsts? Who could be really nice and like, Are we a different team? It doesn't mean it has to happen. It doesn't mean we have to be in the Eastern Conference Finals. But does this mean we're an entirely new tier of team? And the answer was no. And they did it anyway. And then it comes back and it looks even worse. And from that time, it's almost like, I don't know what market they're looking at with players.

When anybody's popping in good for them, then it's like, well, we can't get rid of anyone. Patrick Williams, do you see that dunk two He's the only one who survived.

Yeah, no, it's crazy. You go down the line, Levine, Vuch, Caruso, Kobe White, Io. Every single guy, they basically waited until they peaked in value, and they're like, You know what? Let's sit on this for another six months so we can make it sure it's a second rounder, not a first rounder.

Yeah, the Kobe White is a disaster because people could go, Well, he wasn't everybody's favorite this year. And you're like, Look, some of these guys are too young to be as bad as their prices on the market. And that's a collective understanding of this market in general, is that it was slow, slow. And then guys are going, What? This is all it's going to cost me? If you're the Hornets going, we can have some version of Kobe White closing with all of our other offensive weapons, one of the best offenses in the NBA. And it's like, Let's just double down and keep going more hardcore in the offense because we know these minutes are better than the Sexton minutes. And then the Bulls are like, Cool, we got a couple of second rounders. All right, fine. The Io stuff, there's some numbers you could argue, Well, he was better at the counting stuff, and some of the other stuff wasn't But if you're in Minnesota, you're like, Now we don't have to do the Conley Rob Dillingham minutes? Can we replace him with Io minutes? I don't care what his net rating is. Let's go.

This is at least somebody we know. If we stick him with the ball with the second unit or in some other version of this, he's playing off the ball or we're letting Ant get off the ball because Io has it. Maybe that's asking Io a little too much, but it'd be hard to... I don't know what runs you guys have had with the stock market. I've had day trading runs. I'm I'm so glad I don't do it anymore. But you feel absolutely cursed when you're like, the second I sell, it takes off in the second I buy. It can't go any lower. Somebody's going to buy the dips. The dips aren't going to buy themselves. And then you're just in this, which guy is in the fucking machine right now that is just haunting me going, he just bought again, he just sold. That's what it feels like with the Bulls, the worst day trading experience.

They really are. They really are. All right, let's talk about teams that actually matter. In the East, give me your one, two, three, how you see who could get to the NBA Finals.

Well, Cleveland is a 64-win team that I thought was going to be good again. Sometimes it's like my age shows a little bit where you go, well, it's not like they've been through that many playoff failures. And it's like, in today's world, getting bounced three times, the Knicks, the injuries of the Celtics last year, the Pacers. But it's like, hey, we had injuries. We had injuries. I was like, all right, well, you're the only unhealthy team. I really thought that Cleveland would get over the hop, considering the Tatum injury, right? The Knicks, as much fun as they are, and I think they're a really fun team on the right nights, the imperfections with them. We can get into some of the cat stuff here as well. And then I thought Orlando had a really good chance, and they're even more disappointing than Cleveland is because that team is so frustrating depending on the week that you watch them. So Detroit is clearly better than everybody else. Sure, they could shoot it better, and that's why they bring in Kevin Herder. But I don't know how they're going to balance those minutes because it's like, Can you have Duncan Robinson and Kevin Herder out there at the same time?

Are they going to want to close the defense? They're a defensive identity team. They're absolute dogs. If you watch them off the ball, I can't believe what they get away with. It's not just the OKC Thunder, but good for them. Go for it. Go up and watch other teams try to rebound against Detroit, and it's just chaos. And there seems It used to be something in the league right now where it's like the on the ball stuff, literally everything is called, and then off the ball, they're making up for it by going, you can do literally whatever you want. And Detroit knows that in these matchups, and I love their default to Kade with his size, even with more defensive intensity. So I don't love their offense, but they're only a game behind OKC right now. If you think about OKC's start and where Detroit has been and how good they are defensively, I know they had the Wizards loss in this whole thing. Maybe there won't be enough shooting, but I can't really think of who in the East with their flaws I would go with because the cat thing has become a real issue.

He's now sixth in minutes in the fourth quarter for the Knicks since January first. So you're seeing his minutes decline. The other thing with cat is he's always been a 52, 40 split guy shooting, and this year he's 42, 36. So when cat isn't hitting it from a historic rate from the floor or from three, and on top of his defense, and the fact that you're one through five, not one through five, but at one at five is Brunson and Kat, you see that get exposed defensively. Mitchell Robinson is so good. He's even better than I thought. I finally started coming around on him last year because we all had to. He was that good in these games, how impactful he was with the offensive rebounds. I wonder what that team looks like fully formed and what decisions Mike Brown makes with them, where does he bail on Kat in specific matchups? Because he's already starting to do it in the regular season a little bit here. I can't believe Austin is this good, but go ahead.

Yeah, no, your third team. It sounds like Pistons, Knicks, but it's a problem. But would you say Celtics? Is Tateam going to come back?

No way, right? I don't have an answer to that. I wonder if all of these great athletes Part of their rehab is lying to themselves about what their timeline is. So instead of hitting rehab being like, whatever, I'll see you guys in 26, 27, that it's just better to plant the seed. When there's photo availability at a practice, you go out there and you start taking shots, then everybody freaks out. Talks about him. Ben Simmons has done it for five years. So he was like a pioneer with the, Hey, is the media out there? Let me dunk, and then not play in the playoff game. I really do. Having Fred Warner on every week, and we were, well, not every week, but like, staggered post his injury. And then it was like, Is he going to come back in the playoff? Is he going to be able, Oh, if they had one more week, would they have been played? And then when it was all said and done, it's like, Yeah, he wasn't going to play this year. And we talked about it. So I don't know if Brad Stevens, would he go, if he wasn't 100 % certain and everybody was still...

If they felt like we've got to massage him back and he's on a minutes restriction, and you're not just coming back and playing a regular season game, you're going to do a minute's restriction in the playoffs with that intensity, and that's the first thing you're jumping into, where it's almost like a pitcher where you can go, Hey, I could throw 80 pitches in a regular season game, but 80 pitches in a payoff game may be a completely different level stress, even if the number is the same. I don't know, but I feel like it was more accepted that, Hey, be ready for him to come back, where I would think Brad Stevens would never, ever want to risk anything with his guys just for the sake of having more firepower for a play off front. I can't believe they're this good, by the way. I cannot believe they're this good in the three-seed in the East.

I would agree with that. I think that Brad Stevens is too smart of a guy to risk it on that. I also think that Tatum probably he wants Missoula to think that he wants to come back so that Missoula will be like, That's my guy. He's a dog. He's going to come back even against the best wishes of Brad Stevens. But then Brad Stevens will say, No, we're shutting this down. We're not going to do it. I think Tatum is caught in between. He's not going to play, but he wants his coach to think that he's trying to play.

Well, that's some jiu-jitsu shit right there that you just explained, which would align with a guy Mental gymnastics.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like Missoula. Do the Sixers...

Sorry, go ahead.

No, I don't really have anything more to that other than, yeah, if it's super confusing, like you just made it and it's Missoula, I agree. How about that?

Do the Sixers have any chance? I want to get Max's juice has flown again.

To sit here and say, look, Detroit is in its own tier, okay? And depending on the week, we've got teams separated two through six by three and a half games. Toronto can put together some nice stretches. I still don't know that Toronto will have the best player in any playoff series, depending on who the matchup is. Cleveland, despite this disastrous year in comparison to a 64-win team and then trading out multiple pieces, including what was supposed to be the backcourt of the future for James Harden, who, all right, he's going to put up regular season stats. You're going to play really slow. It's going to be annoying. Once he doesn't have the ball in his hands, he's done with the possession. He just taps out, and then his playoff resume is dog shit. So good luck. I I don't know that any of these teams... Philadelphia, I still haven't given up on Orlando just because when I watch them certain nights, I'm like, How can these five guys not be the second or third best team in the East here? But Philly has every reason to think that they're in this as well because of how great Max he is, how special VJ already seems to be.

Getting to see him in person last week was a treat in a game that other guys are missing. And Embiid is going to put up the counting stats. He's shown signs of just being healthier, which is terrific. I think people get a little too carried away with his counting stats because if you get it to him open in rhythm from the free throw line, it's a layup for him. And all he has to do is make a few of those. He's going to get his free throws. He's going to get some putbacks. It's an easy path for somebody that talented with the way he's fouled to get to his 30 points. But it's going to be about some of the other little things. And I still see some of the little things with him that always are going to be concerning. So they'd have to be better. And I don't know that it's going to happen. I still think that those concerns are going to be there a little bit his movement or his lack of movement on defense. He's just a different cap with that stuff versus his peak athleticism. He doesn't move that way anymore.

I don't know if that gets exposed or people put him in pick and rolls to close some of those playoff games. So if that looked a little bit better beyond just the counting stats and him being a big part of the rotation now and feeling like you can count on a little bit more, even if it's not every night. And even the Paul George thing, he just wasn't really a huge... It was a nice piece to have as a fourth option, but that's all he's been. And when he comes back from the suspension, it's nice that that's your fourth best player in theory, but he's not necessarily anybody that I've counted on because of just how many times Maxi or VJ have felt like the brutal matchups to close some of these games. Yeah.

Okay, quick break from Ryan Rassil will talk to you about Better Help. This episode is sponsored by a Better Help. Sometimes it can feel like everyone else has it all together in their love lives, whether married, dating, or single. The truth is, most of us are still figuring it out and finding our way. No matter where you are in your romantic journey, therapy can help you find your way, help you determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some pressure off yourself. Shout out Stella. She's licking her food bowl right now. Better Help does the initial matching work for you, so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and our 12 plus years of experience. An industry leading match fulfillment rate means we typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from our tailored recs. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp. Com/pmt. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/pmt. And now back to Ryan Rusillo.

Ryan, can you explain something to us like we're five years old? Rpi, relative % index. The Pythagorean win stuff. Can you walk me through that like I'm a complete moron?

Yeah, It's based on point differential, right? So if you're this many points ahead of the opponents, then you should have a projected record. I mean, they've been doing this for a long time in like, baseball because I remember going, oh, that's stupid run differential, like Pythagorean theorem. And then it would just go like, here Here's how many wins you should have based on this differential or losses if you're negative on the season. And then you can like, there used to be some advanced guys to be like, well, our Pythag said that we'd be like a 92 in season and we had 81. So we were incredibly unlucky, but our front office is fucking awesome.

Yeah.

So I don't know, are you looking at our RPI for one of the NBA rating indexes? Because the Pythag thing is simply just projecting how many wins you should have based on the differential of your points which is how many you actually have. And it's a pretty good indicator of, were you unlucky or lucky this season?

Right. So I was looking at that. I was doing it in college basketball, too. And just throwing the word- RPI for that, I think, is different.

Yeah, I think that's a different thing altogether.

Throw It's high thag out there. It makes it seem like it's some super complicated thing that you need a degree in math.

I thought the same thing, but I remember... I think there was a guy from the A's who used to come on the local radio show I did 20 plus years ago when I was like, What's this? And then I remember fighting it a little bit, like any new thing. So what happens if you have a 20 to 2 baseball game and the run differential is thrown off by 18 plus runs or minus runs in one game? I'm like, Doesn't that make the whole thing stupid? And he was just like, Yeah, except for the part where everybody's playing 162, and that's all factored in. Yeah, well-But I think some of... Go ahead.

You look at certain teams and you're like, Well, what about strength of schedule? Oh, yeah, they thought about that, too. I'm not the only one I think that some teams play a harder schedule than others.

Yeah. I think the other thing with the RPI is, didn't they stop using it in the tournament, too? But that used to be a default RPI, and then everybody would just have RPI printed out. And it'd be like, Oh, this team hosed.

Yeah, it would just give good ammunition for people that were pissed off that their team didn't make it. In the West, if you're looking at the West, it feels like we've been talking about this since last year, that last year's Oklahoma City Thunder team was the worst team that they're going to have in their dynasty moving forward. You might as well try to beat them last year because they're only going to get better. They seem to be dominant. They got McCain. If there was one team to take them out in the West, who would it be?

Denver has a chance, and San Antonio has matched up really well with them in the regular season. They did get him... Well, the last match of Oklahoma City, I think, had 10 players that were listed that weren't going to play. So it felt like an old Popovich like, Hey, you guys want Thursday night basketball? Tnt? Guess what we're going to do? Not do that. And that's where you're like, Hey, can you be a little bit better on some of the primed time games of your partners? I'm not saying that's what Oklahoma City did, but you can't look at that game and factor in. But some of the other earlier matchups, God, this is the first time a team has made it look hard for OKC. And we probably haven't had enough a full run from San Antonio, even though they have the third best record in the NBA, where Bacel's missed time, Wemby's missed time, and also been on minutes restrictions. But they're so good already. It's really impressive to see what Castle is. As good as Wemby is and how much he can change a game by not even scoring all that much. And it depends on how you want to defend him.

A lot of teams now just put that dog right into his ribs and hips and go this way, at least we can cut off your drives and try to keep you further away your catch is because the beginning of the year, centers were trying to guard him, and Wemby is going between his legs and going right past these guys. That game he played against Dallas, I still think, is one of the best regular season games I've ever seen from a basketball player. But Castle's improvement, man, he's the guy. And Dieron Fox plays off of Castle, and it's the right thing. And so whether it's Keldon Johnson spacing it, Sel spacing it, I mean, almost every team, it's like baseball for the trade deadline. You're like, if we could just have one more bullpen arm, you can see teams just be like, Is Is there any way there's never enough shooting? Is there any way we can add more shooting to this? And if the shooters can also play defense, that's something else. And look, I picked Denver to win the whole thing. I was trying to be a little different than picking OKC in back to back years.

But Denver and OKC are in a missed time off right now. And Denver is a disaster. I was looking at the numbers this morning. Jokić has missed 26 games. He's back, but it was a pretty tough part of the schedule. Gordon has missed 30 games now. Christian Brown has missed 36 games. Kim Johnson has missed 24 games. But OKC, and it's something you always look at, is like, do you get to 40 wins before you get to 20 losses? Because I think every champion of the last, is it the last five years, maybe? Every champion in the last five years got to 40 wins before 20 losses. Okc has done that again. But they also got off to this ridiculous start. You could make an argument that for a little while here, they've been an broadly above average team. But I I don't know that I really believe that because Jalen Williams has missed a ton of time. Hartenstein has missed time. Caruso has missed a lot of time. Jalen Williams gets back tonight against the Lakers with this hamstering thing, which has caused him, it feels like half the season. So even with OKC start him missing time, you're like, God, they're going to get that guy back who you're thinking off of last year's run.

Is he a top 15? Is he a top 17 player in the league? Some people are saying, Hey, top 10 with the way that he can play both ways. So even if you want to beat up on OKC a little bit here during this stretch, they They haven't had their second best player for half the year. So what are you supposed to do with that? So I picked Denver only to try to do something different. I just don't want to pick OKC every single year. And even with some of their challenges, it's not like they've had... Some people are getting on their case a little bit here, but they're always going to be great defensively. When you look at them and go, Okay, they haven't played as well after a historic start, but are they still the best defense in the NBA? And you're like, yeah, they are. So they can always default to, We're going to lock you up with all the different combinations we can throw at you.

Right now, are they better this year than they were last year?

Probably not because it's just... I think they will be just with the reasoning, that playoff season. As great as they were, Last year, they still didn't shoot very well in the playoffs, which speaks to just how special they were defensively, that they can turn on this defensive switch that really I don't think Detroit can match them with. They can also go, Hey, we can play two bigs. We can play no bigs. We can put Chet here where your defensive five now has to go out and chase him on around the three-point line. So we'll close with him to have more openings for everybody else, or we'll go back to the two bigs to cut off all your drives. The way they locked up Ant in that series, Ant didn't have a good series. He had that one game where it looked like he was incredibly frustrated and he wanted to look to shoot, but there also wasn't a lot there for him. So it was a bit of one of those deals. It's like, okay, you want to get on his case and say he's not up to the moment. He's also staring at three guys standing right in front of him.

So you want him to just drive into three guys and take horrible shots and say, hey, at least I took my 20 shots. They were all dog shit just to force the issue so nobody gets mad at you on TV. But they went to game seven with Denver, and they went to game seven against a Pacers team that for one game prior to Hallibur and tearing that Achilles, you're going, How are we at game seven with OKC against this Indiana roster? So winning a title, special defensively, optionality, younger players, and all that reasoning, I'd expect fully formed their better basketball team this year than last year.

At what point in the season are we going to do the thing where it's like, Hey, watch out for the Lakers. The Lakers are going to make some noise. Hey, watch out. You know who could win the West? The Lakers. And then they lose in five to someone and everyone says, Well, they almost won four of those games. So that was a team that people should watch out for.

Yeah, I can't wait because it definitely happened last year. I mean, It was outrageous. And then that Minnesota series, I'll give myself a little credit here because I got plenty of wrong, but you're looking and it's just all... You go to anywhere. It was like every single person. The Lakers had all that momentum. They beat Denver in that regular season game where it's like, Hey, they don't love... We may not love the defensive personnel, but they're just really good. And I do think they're really good at game planning. I think it is a really good staff. And then you watch that Minnesota series, you go, Hey, you know what would be awesome is somebody big. They're just going, Hey, Rui, you're going to play center. And And then we're going to play flat. We're not even going to play anyone off the bench. And overnight, you're just going, Why did everybody pick this team here again? So I don't know if that will happen. They're not good defensively. Getting Reeves back is huge because some of these teams just double down on who they are. And they go, What we need to be is horrifying offensively, just scare the shit out of everybody.

Then, Can we be good enough offensively to make up for some of our defensive deficiencies here? Because they're 23rd in defense right now, and it's where they've been living for a long time. And prime Luca is good enough to do something scary here. But if you look at the standings, let's just do the exercise. Who would you pick them against in the first round in the West based on 50 plus games? Even having said, Hey, there's no Reeves. But if you want to do the injury game, there's four of the five top seeds in the West. You're like, Hey, it hasn't actually been a picnic for them health-wise either.

The Suns? Yeah.

I mean, if it ends up what, four, five, they'd have to be a three, six. They'd have to be a 3, 6. They'd have to be a 2, 7, so they're not getting there. I just don't know if the Suns are even going to line up with them. What about the Rockets? Rockets is a good one. Because I'm going to tell you right now, they're fourth in offense, or fifth this morning. And when you watch them close games that are tight, it's awful. They're 21st in clutch offense. And if you want to talk about some of these numbers can be misleading or whatever, that is the most truthful number of a team when I watch them play because they get stuck, they don't know who they want to be, the a men thing. As talented as he is, he doesn't provide you a ton of separation, and then you're playing with Shingun. Tari, since shooting numbers have been terrific, I don't know the people are defending him in a respectful enough way. That's going to open up other stuff, and it ends up Durant in some impossible spots where he's left to solve the possession all by himself.

And as great as he is, that is asking a lot of any player. And it feels like whatever identity they have for those first 30 plus minutes of a game, when they get in a crunch time, it is a fucking grind for them. And I don't know that they know what it's supposed to be right now. Defensively, I'm not going to worry about it, but you watch it and then you go, well, what does the number say? And you're like, well, the number says That's exactly what I'm seeing. And if you think about playoff possessions there where Durant is going, Why aren't you here? What's going on over there? You can see it with Durant. And I'm not even getting on his case with it, but you can see times where he's really frustrated in the possession where he puts his arms up being like, That wasn't what we were supposed to do. You didn't cut here. You weren't going to do that because we're this far into it, and they're a good team, but it feels like a fatal flaw for them.

You mentioned your top 15, top 17 players that you have in the NBA right Who are your top five top 15 players in the NFL or in the NBA? Who are the top 5 guys that could be the 15th best player in the NBA?

All right. Well, that sounds super complicated, so I appreciate that. I follow.

It's pretty simple stuff, Ryan.

Yeah. I think the clear four are Jokuj SGA, Yannis, Luca. The Wemby part of it is impact alone, and clearly it reflects in the standings that it's beyond just how many he scores every night, because I still think there's some nights where it's absolutely beautiful, and then I think there's other nights where it can get clogged a little bit here. I'd have Ant in this conversation. I think Ant right now is the best handle in the game. That's with Kyrie watching for an extended period of time, which I am a little curious, as an aside of the trade deadline, which It hasn't really been covered a ton. But Kyrie comes back to be like, Hey, this is awesome. Let's do this. Steph, for me, is still in this group. Kauai has actually played like this group this season, especially if you're going to say top 15, no question. Jalen Brunson is no worse than top 10. Jalen Brown has played this way this year. I voted him as a starter. Jalen Brown, every single time I put a ceiling on who he can or can't be, I'm like, All right, well, he can't be any better than this, and then he's that good again.

I mean, his season has been remarkable. Finals MVP. Yeah. I think Cade's in this conversation. I'm a huge Booker fan if we're saying top 15. I mean, I get shit on for some of my Booker stuff where I was like, Do you think the Thunder win the title last year with Booker instead of SGA? And it's like, You heathen.

I don't know.

It's interesting.

Something to think about.

Yeah. I'm not dissing SGA here, but maybe a little bit.

But yeah, a little bit.

Why can't it just be a compliment? Why can't it just be positive? Why does everything have to be negative?

Is it the Canadian thing? The Canadian thing bothers you?

No. I think Chris Paul, if he goes to Toronto, which- Where is Chris Paul right now? I think he's 10 minutes down the street from me getting shots up. You got to go talk to him. I've been so tempted to be like, Do you need a rebounder? But does that mean he's like... That guy was cool until he was like, Do you need a rebounder? I have professional coaches and nutritionists, and then this asshole is going to be like, Do you want to just run it to seven?

See what happens. Is Chris Paul, is it he's deciding whether he wants to go to Toronto? Or is Toronto deciding whether they want him?

They are pretty deep. I know Toronto A lot of fans are going to say, Hey, you completely glossed over us. I really have been impressed with the way they played, their transition stuff and all that stuff. But again, it gets back to like, if Brandon Ingram is your best player, how many players? Oh, look, I like Scottie Barnes. I think all of us would say Scottie Barnes is the best player.

Future face of this league.

You get the point. I don't want Chris Paul to go out this way. I think he probably has enough stature to probably have it on his own terms here a little bit.

Yeah, but it feels like he doesn't.

You don't want him to go out as a Canadian is what you're saying?

Yeah.

Well, I don't think it's a citizenship thing.

Why isn't LeBron just be like, Hey, man, come on the Lakers?

They always wanted to play together. It would be convenient. He is here. Might as well.

Yeah, he's just down the street.

Is LeBron-What a way to get back at the Clippers.

Yeah. Is LeBron retiring this year? I feel like he is.

I don't think he is. Really? I think he's going to have a really, really hard time being away from the attention of basketball.

So he's never going to retire?

Never would be a long time.

It would, but sounds like- But he's still incredibly productive offensively.

You're going to make up for his defensive stuff, which isn't exactly new, and it's to be expected. So I still think there's far more positive about him, the player, but it just depends. What are you looking for next year? Are you looking for a massive contract? Do you want to go play in a bad team? I don't think he necessarily wants to do that. I I think there's a lot of people that still wonder if he would just go to Cleveland for the one-year deal, have some storybook ending. And you could say, Well, maybe he doesn't want to go out that way. If he's going to have all this business in LA, why would you want to do that and jeopardize those relationships? Dude, walking around this place, it's just fascinating. The number of guys are just Kobe guys that are like, Yeah, thanks for the title, but whatever. The general indifference to LeBron in this city is alarming to the point where I end up being like, Hey, he came here. You guys missed the players for five straight years. Okay, he comes here. That means you also get AD. You're going to sit there and do like a, Whatever.

Thanks, dude. Just ready to move on to the rest of it. It's fine. You want to move on. I get at the stage of his career, the whole thing. But there's an indifference with him day to day whenever he seems to come up. Not like it's every single day of my life that LeBron comes up in a conversation. But I end up feeling like I turned this massive LeBron defender to the hard core. Again, I don't even call these Lakers fans. I call them Kobe fans, and they're just insanely protective to a point where they didn't even want to give LeBron any credit. So if he were to go to Cleveland for a year and then it's like, Oh, well, his whole dynamic in LA is different. I don't know that that would ever change anything. It's just a lot of people that I think took it for granted.

Do you think that he feels that?

I would see it be impossible for him to not notice it.

I would just think that he's so insulated that he's got people around him that are like, Yeah, LeBron, you're the man.

Well, yeah. And that's the other human nature part of it is that I doubt anybody's going up to him being like... I also don't think he's going to like, Aeroan by himself to see what's on the buffet schedule.

Do you go to Erwan?

I do.

What's that like?

Two, life-changing.

Is it really?

The hormones are so expensive. It's amazing.

I love it. Do you get the $30 strawberries or whatever?

I did the Hailey Bieber smoothie a few times, and it was so tasty. But then I looked at the ingredients and I'm like, What are you doing? You can't do this. It was like soft serve ice cream on top of strawberry syrup and some coconut cream. And I'm like, No wonder this thing tastes so good. And it was really expensive. They make an incredible meat sauce that you can grab jars of. That is a winner. You get maybe two, three uses out of it. It's nice because it's right next to the gym, so I could just shoot over there and hit up the buffet and say long term, if I'm I was getting this for myself. But loading up every week on produce, you get a little pricey. Things are good over here, but you never know.

I can imagine. What's the leisure scene like at Erwan? I would imagine it's pretty significant.

Yeah, I don't even think they let you in there unless you're coming from the gym.

Yeah, good.

And the hoodies, they've got their whole line of clothing right now, and I've been so tempted to grab this orange cropped deal. I was like, Can I wear a cropped? Because I think that's I have four abs on the right day.

You could do it. You could pull that on. But the lower abs, the lower abs never show up.

If you're going to be doing the crop thing-Metting to do cropped with a Fanny pack. That's a good look. Yeah. Maybe I'll do this. Maybe just an appreciation for Super Week, I'll send you guys a couple of Erwan crew next. Oh, my God.

We wear them.

I would crop it myself.

What's going on? They're dope.

Yeah. What's going on with the boat?

She's great. Filled her up the other day. Right before Super Week, had to finish up some work. So nothing forces you to do work more than just being anchored away from everything because you're like, All right, I'm on the boat, and I don't smoke weed, and I don't drink when I'm on the boat or anything. I know that sounds crazy, but I have enough anxiety docking the thing at 46 feet by myself, 47 feet.

47. Make sure you get that right.

Depending on what clearance you're talking about with the anchor in front. But there was this Dutch vessel, I think 170 feet that was in Marina Del Rey for months, and they took up the entire outside slip of the fueling station. So you get to a point where you're really comfortable with certain moves with your boat by yourself, but there's probably other moves where you go, I don't know that I've ever tried that. I won't try a 360 dunk anymore. Because I just go like, anymore. What if I over-rotate? I just land the wrong way. So I had like 6 % of fuel left. No, I had 9 % of fuel left. That's right. Because at 6 %, I don't think I would have done it. And even at 9 %, I knew where I was going. I knew where I was anchoring. I knew the distance. I'm like, I'm fine. But it's not like a car where you go like, oh, whatever, whatever zero is. I wish we were more like Europeans, where it's like, I want to know to the leader, and then I'm bone dry. I'd like to have that precision, but apparently, we don't want that here.

So this massive, massive yacht's there, and I'm like, God damn it. It's outside of the fuel pumps. And the only way is I have to go in and battle with traffic a little bit, maybe on a busy day. And then I have to go in and spin the whole boat around to an opposite side and then get the boat parallel and bring it across, almost like fish tailing a tank all the way around. And I was like, I'm not doing that today. So I was like, fuck it. Came back in at five or six % fuel dock. So then I went out the other day and the boat was still there. I'm like, Dude, you have to fill this up. You have to fill this thing up, and you're going to have to... You're going to have to just be-You have to do it. People watching? Whatever you're doing, the number one rule, just go slow. And if you're freaked out, go slower.

Was there an audience watching you?

Yeah. The guys at the pump, too. You don't want to let those guys down.

No, no. That's tough. No, those guys will give you hell, especially with your Aeroan shirt on.

Yeah, because they're like, Look at this loser.

Do you have a captain's hat?

Oh, yeah. I do. I don't wear it, though, unless I'm... It spells swell size. If the swells pick up, I put it on.

Yeah.

It just feels safe.

I feel like everybody on board feels safer.

Yeah, that's what it's about.

I went out one time, I even checked the charts, and I was like, What? And then I was Leaving the marina, I go, There's not another boat out. Not one, nothing. Usually, there's even big sailboats if it's windy because they'll cut right through it. I was like, there's not one other boat out. And I had somebody with me, and I'm like, This is This might be a little hairy. And then I open out in the marina and I see this, I was like, oh, my God. I'm like, this is bad. And so then I had to make sure I just never got sideways. And I'm like, I got to go into it. I got to get out and then come back in and make sure I'm not near the rock wall on the way in, because it doesn't really matter what side. Those waves are so powerful that if they catch the hole of the boat, you're riding the wave, you're not driving it. Every alarm goes off. Every single piece of cutlery, any glassware. It just sounds like it's all shattering, like movie scene alarms, like losing it, losing it because the levels of everything was like, What's going on?

And I was like, As long as I never get parallel with these breaks, I'll be fine. So ride into them, charge out, hard turn in between sets, then ride it back in away from the rock wall, then cut it back once the swells died down. And that was about a 15-minute trip.

Did you put the captain's hat on?

That's the whole point.

I was like, Hold on.

I go, Turn off Where's the Alma brothers? Where's the captain's cap?

Put some sea shanties on there. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Be honest, Ryan, have you thought about getting a bigger boat?

Yes. What are you fucking talking about? Do you know anything about boat ownership?

No, not really.

Yeah. Well, that's the first thing you do is you buy the boat and then you go, Oh, I could handle a 60-footer on my own as long as they get one of those slips to the outside. But then I have to also be honest. It's like you don't have the easiest schedule. People can talk about the amount of hours that we put in actually on the air. You're like, okay, yeah. If you count those up, it doesn't seem like I'm doing much, but there is a lot of other stuff that goes into it. No one's crying for us, not asking them to cry for you. But there's probably a level of boat that you should or shouldn't have depending on your access to it. And I wanted to do stuff that I was like, I don't want to wait until I'm retired. I want to be a younger boat guy. And then when I look at other guys living rooms in their bigger boats, I'm like, that's the boat you get behind. But then I realized there's a lot of guys looking at your boat. That'd be enough boat for me. Not to make this about life, but it's just something to remember.

There's probably somebody looking at your boat going, That's good enough for me. I should stop looking at the other boats.

That's great advice. Appreciate your own boat.

Don't succumb to boat envy. Yeah.

It's hard. It's hard not to.

I can't see you retiring. You don't seem like a That's a guy that's retired.

I won't do this forever. Oh.

Are we doing a farewell tour? Is it like LeBron?

Are you wearing a patch? A Chris Paul retirement tour, and you just get cut?

I don't know if that would happen. Yeah. My numbers are a little bit better than Chris's towards the end.

You're a better team player. Chris Paul wouldn't have gone to the- Or Chris Paul You would not have sat across from Rico Bosco at dinner.

That was fun, huh? You were unbelievable. It was the whole thing having that dinner, it was playing out exactly how I expected, because all the happening is Rico saying something, and he's trying to see if I'm going to read something wrong, and I'm trying to read him. And then there's not really... It's like, this isn't that complicated. It's exactly what you would expect it would be. And then every five minutes, Big Cat would be like, Yeah, but, Rico, didn't you think that something like this It's like whenever that fire start to dim out a little-Yeah, just turn it back up. It would just go, Oh, here's just a flush of oxygen into this fire pit. We're like, We're not done yet.

We did it again the next night where it was just... Max was there for that one. We did a Pick-Em episode. It was Dave and I and six other people and Rico. We did a two-hour Pick-Em episode while eating Prime rib. It was a good time.

Yeah, I did the House of Prime rib with PFT. It was a good time. That was fun. I got the full Dave experience, and we had the Gruden. It was actually-Grun-in?

It was great. Gruten is the number one guy. If you want to go to a dinner and you're like, Hey, we're going to dinner with clients, and I don't really know how I'm going to carry a conversation, you bring John Gruden and you're set. Because when he gets story going, he has every guy at a dinner in the palm of his hand.

Big time. Pft, did you tell him the driving story, what he said?

No. Tell This is pretty incredible. We're driving over to dinner, and the traffic in the city is just terrible because everyone's there for the game. It's like the first Friday night. It's Friday night. Everybody's in town. The traffic is just not moving. Our security guy makes an amazing move, and it's not a move I would ever do if I was ever driving a car, but I guess he's a really good driver. He cuts into the oncoming traffic lane because there's a bunch of red lights, swerves around a bunch of cars, ends up making a left turn. Pretty much saves us a half hour in 10 seconds with this move that he does. We all start just rubbing his shoulders, being like, Hey, that was awesome. Great job. I don't want to say his name. But great job, Jose. You did an incredible job.

We had Jose all Thursday night. He's the best. Incredible.

He's awesome. He's the best. It was a culmination of all these moves that night. I still can't believe he pulled that move. If I were the car in the front line at that red light stuck and then saw this SUV pull up and go, What the fuck are you doing? But I guess it was just if you're in law enforcement, Hey, I'm on the job. I was building up to this point of, this guy needs to be appreciated out loud. Yeah. Go ahead.

Ryan is like, Dude, this is incredible. Thank you so much. Everyone's like, great job, Jose. This is awesome. Thank you. He's like, Yeah, I got you. Then about 10 seconds later, he hits the gas in the right lane and almost runs into the back of the car that's in front of us, slams the brakes. Ryan ate shit into the back of the seating front of him.

His internal organs moved around a little bit.

Everyone jerks forward, and then immediately, Gruden goes, Some guys can't handle success.

That's perfect. Then he told us a story about some right tack he had in Tampa that was a horrible practice player, but super talented. And then he told him he had this great practice. And then he goes, He came back the next day and he sucked again. And then one of the other assistants went to Gruden and was like, Don't ever feed him sugar. Only feed him shit. That was the story that he told because the story came back up again at dinner, and then he's like, it reminds me the player's name. And you're like, Where's this going? And it was perfect. And then he lays out. He lays out for 10 minutes and observes, and then he jumps back in. It's very tactical and it's smart because he could ego out if he wanted to, and everybody would just shut up. He was incredible at a dinner.

He's got Have you the ability to talk about any, I don't know, second, third string player from 2011 that you've never even heard of before and make it the most entertaining story you've ever heard in your life. Just eating out the palm of his hand.

He's the best. Yeah, he's the best. All right, Ryan, last question. Roback question, robackkwestion, robackk. Com. Promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback. Com. Promo code, take. Who's going to win the All-Star Game? I know you're pumped.

Man, this time it feels personal, doesn't it? Yeah.

Team World versus Team USA. We can't let them win this game.

Who do you think Hank's rooting for?

Team World. Well, now he's been canceled. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know what Hank would do. I had a friend who was a Communist in college, and I think he still is a Communist, but he was always the guy rooting for the Olympics to roll around. He'd be like, Are you rooting for Germany? What the fuck is going on?

He's rooting for East Germany?

No, actually, he would never root for Germany, to be honest with you. But I was just using the example of, What is this? And of course, it's like, Oh, But you like indie rock, too. I got it. This band's too commercial. I'm going to root for England. I hate the All-Star Game a lot. I haven't watched it. I don't even know the last the time I watched it. I have never in over 10 years been like, All-Star Games on tonight. I've got to make sure I am home in front of the couch. I have missed every single minute of it, certain nights. I don't get mad at it, though. It's for kids. It's fun to celebrate these guys, have the accolades the whole week and the whole thing. And look, shout out to the Players Union, shout out to LeBron, shout out to Chris Paul, getting everybody a week off from the games. I take the week off now.

Yeah. That's the correct way to look at it. It's not for you. So who cares?

It's not for me, but don't get mad at it. Yeah, right. It's like when people get mad at all the bowl games. They're like, Hey, don't watch it. They still do really well ratings-wise. They mean a ton to those fan bases. And yeah, everything's chaotic right now at this point. But there's other things you can get mad about. Why would you get mad about... I wish the All-Star Game were competitive. I wish it reminded me of the stuff that was cool when you'd watch the close of a game and you're like, Hey, how's this guy going to look against this guy? The greatest pickup game in the world. I mean, that's been so long that I don't even... I actually think getting mad at the All-Star game is boring as the game itself. Yeah.

Okay, Ryan, you're the best. Enjoy your vacation. Portugal?

Yeah, we're headed out to those big waves. Love that.

Go catch one, Ryan. It's going to be so sick. All right, Ryan, you're the best. Everyone listening to Ryan Rusillo show, and we'll talk to you as soon as you get back. We get a basketball. Just love the NBA class.

I'll be in Chicago. I'll be in Chicago, so I'll get together. So thanks as always, guys. Yeah, you got to...

We did our bet on your show, College Football, and I think the payment we agreed is So is going to stay at Mincey's house one night.

Oh, I love that. You guys will get along so well.

Yeah, I can't wait. Looking forward to it. And even though we didn't agree to it, that seems like a totally fair and reasonable bet.

He won't mind.

It was either that or go try to pick up Chicks with Nicki Smokes one night, so you get to decide.

I don't know. It might be better.

He's going to get that quote and put it on his wall.

Yeah, just whatever you do, don't play the episode. It's a part of my take around him. It's like a Pavlov's dog situation where things will start to happen with his body.

He'll start cranking it hard.

All right. Noted. Yeah.

It's just a pro tip.

I have nothing to add to that. No, nor should you. All right. See you, man.

See you, Ryan.

Ryan Rasil was brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard ice tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. Twisted Tea is a perfect drink to keep the good times going all day and all season long. Whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, catching a game at the stadium or at the bar, or day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time, a great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love the original, the half and half, the peach. Go We'll get a twisted tea today. They are delicious. We're going on vacation this week. We will be drinking some Twisted Tees on vacation. So go get a refreshing twisted tea today. We're also brought to you by our friends at Microsoft. Before we get into today's Chaos, we got to tell you about something that helps people focus on what's most important. Microsoft 365 Copilot. The world moves fast, your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data, Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work. Built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work.

Learn more at microsoft. Com/m365. Com. Copilot. Learn more at microsoft. Com/m365 copilot. Okay, Zack, let's finish up the show. Guys on Chicks, then it is vacation time.

We're calling in the righty. Yeah, Zack.

Let's get right here. Bright lights. Sitting in that seat right now. Any thoughts about Bad Bunny?

Bad Bunny. Bad Bunny.

Bad Bunny. Bad Bunny.

Good energy in the halftime performance. I thought the lineman representation, I know we touched on this earlier, was great. Great to see lineman work hard job, tough job. Good for really just the environment of the United States to keep things going, keep the power up.

Yeah, they neededSo I love to see that. We need to have some good lineman representation after Will Campbell.

I think it's important for sure.

Yeah, very important. Okay, hit us with some guys on Chick, Zack.

Hi, guys. Me, 23, female. I have a boyfriend, 21, male. He just turned 21 and keeps downloading gambling apps on my phone, buys me and my three roommates drinks, and then tells me he's signing me up for promies.

Promos?

Promies? Promies. I have upwards of 15 gambling apps.

Wait, that's longer than promos.

Promies.

Promies is a longer version of promos.

Yeah, but it's fun. It's a fun way to say, I'm actually giving your credit card information to a massive company. It's just a promie, babe.

It's like a silly way of... A silly promo. Yeah. He's signing me up for these promies. I have upwards of 15 gambling apps organized in a folder on my phone. He calls promies. My one roommate caught wind of this and told me he's ripping me off. I did some googling and sees that he's clearly getting the better end of the deal here, but he's depositing all of his own money and doing 100% of the work. I brought it up last night during the Super Bowl, and he got really defensive. Tell me he doesn't want to get me involved in gambling, but he's a very calm and got really aggressive about this last night. Should I bring it up again or is it not a big deal?

If it makes you uncomfortable, I'd say it's a big deal to bring it up. But it also sounds like he's at least signing you up for the promies so he can get his promies. Yeah. He's very organized with his promies. Sounds like Ben Mitz. Yeah, he's betting for free because you're giving him all the promies, which is nice.

Also, he probably shouldn't have brought it up during the Super Bowl.

Yeah.

A game where everyone's bets lost.

I would say right Right after the Masters would be a good time to bring it up. Like, Hey, do we need all these promies? Also, it sounds like you're a very trusting individual for just letting your boyfriend hold on to your phone for extended periods of time.

Yeah, that's actually a really healthy relationship.

Yeah, so it sounds like he's got a good one. Yeah.

You guys really trust each other. That does sound healthy. If you trust your significant other with promies, you're in for the long haul.

Promy together, stay together?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Don't promy if you don't know me. That's what I always say.

You got another one here. It's, Next year in the first seven games, the Patriots play Chiefs, Bills Two Times, Chargers, Bills-We don't know that.

We don't know that. This is fake news. We try to do actual journalism on the show. But okay, sorry, go That's true.

We could disavow this entire comment.

Well, no, let's just say that this is the schedule.

Early predict. Chiefs, bills, two times chargers, bears, lions. They also play the Seahawks, Jaguars, Broncos, and Packers. What's their record and by how much will they miss the playoffs?

The Seahawks. Are we talking the Patriots?

We're talking the Patriots. No, the Patriots.

This is the Patriots schedule.

Patriots schedule. Okay.

They play the NFC North next year. They play a first-place schedule.

Yeah. Do you think the Patriots going into next year are a top tier? Because the way I look at the AFC is like, if you're going to sneak in and make it count, this was the year to do it. No Patrick Mahomes, no Boogie Man out there.

Turns out everyone was like, Hey, this is the year that Josh Allen has to get to Super Bowl. Kind of right.

Yeah. Kind of right. No Lamar, no Mahomes. Bo Nicks will be back. The AFC actually has a lot of good teams. I don't know if they have any great teams.

It's all cyclical. It's all year to year. You never know. We Do it every year where we predict the schedule and predict your team's record, and then you look back and you're like, Well, that was a backup quarterback. That was a backup quarterback.

You never know. Yeah. First seven games, though, if I had to guess for the Patriots next year.

I think the are going to kick off the season with the Seahawks. I think they're going to make that Thursday night.

They could do the bears thing. They could do the chiefs thing, too.

Do the Seahawks have the chiefs?

Yeah.

They do? Yeah. But I think that's a toss up with Mahomes. We're just assuming Mahomes is going to be back, ready to go week one.

That's a good point.

I just think that I'm fully preparing myself for the bears to get the maximum amount of primetime games.

It sucks.

It sucks being in that spotlight. But actually, I hope it happened. I hope the week one that Thursday night, because that is check off one of the primetime games. It's not a... Because multiple Thursday night games does suck. But at least that one would be you get a little extra rest after.

To answer the question, I think the Patriots will be...

Zack. Zack's bubbling again. He just continues to bubble.

I'm used to the bubble. That's my fault.

What did that neck do, Zack? I'm going to go 4-3, Pat's first seven games next year.

Mahomes tours ACL on December 14th. Yeah, He'll be ready. I think he'll play week one. I don't think he'll be good. I think he won't be good for a month.

Listen, Lindsay Vaugh skied on a torn ACL, and she was fine.

Crash.

She did crash. She crashed.

She was fine, though. Before that, she was fine.

But she had both ACLs.

Credit to Lindsay Vaughn, she has no fear because she gets up there and there's a 50% chance. Just anecdotally speaking, from what I follow in skiing, there's a 50% chance she crashes every time.

I'm surprised her and Tiger didn't work it out. It seems like they have a lot in common.

I got another one for you guys if you're ready. Okay. How do I convince my boyfriend to take me out on Valentine's Day dinner next year instead of watching the Super Bowl?

Oh, yeah.

The NFL did it. They really did it to us.

I do love the guys being like... The tweets being like, You have one year to prepare. Here's your warning. Valentine's Day and Super Bowl. They coincide. Valentine's Day is a fake holiday anyway.

It's not for the season of love, you know what I mean? Well, I think- Or is it more of a consumer holiday? Like, go buy these gifts and chocolates?

I think the Valentine's Day is one of those holidays. When I say fake holiday, I mean, there are certain holidays that you can shift. St. Patrick's Day, I love St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day has a little bit of a fake holiday feel where you can… If it's St. Patrick's Day is on a Wednesday, we could just party on Saturday.

Halloween is a Yeah, right.

It's got the shift in nature. I think Valentine's Day is 100% in that category. It's not like Christmas or fourth of July where you have to celebrate it on that day. You could just do Valentine's Day on the Saturday before the Super Bowl.

You know what we're going to see? We're going to see a lot of Valentine's Day brunch. It's just going to be the drunkest Sunday that you could ever have. That actually sounds like not a bad Sunday. You do a heavy brunch at 11: 30 noon. You get through four or five mimosas, and then you just roll that into the pre-party for the Super Bowl.

It's going to It'll be Saturday. Saturday night is going to be Valentine's Day. February 13th is going to be Valentine's Day. There are certain holidays that you should have no problem, no quam with shifting. You just have to hit the week. You have to get in the general vicinity of it. Halloween, yeah, it's a perfect example. Halloween on a Wednesday in college, guess what? Friday, we're doing Halloween.

It doesn't matter. And guess what? If it's on a Wednesday, at that Monday night football before Halloween, that's when people are going to wear the costumes.

College is a bad example. In college, you just do 10 Halloweens. Yeah, of course. But St. Patrick's Day is a good example of-St. Patrick's Day is good. St. Patrick's Day when it's on a Tuesday, people aren't getting blackout drunk on a Tuesday. They're doing it on the previous Saturday, the Saturday after. So you could just shift.

So quick shift. You get a full Valentine's Day and a full Super Bowl. Everybody wins.

You get it February 13th.

I do think that a lot of people are going to do the brunch move. The brunch move sounds fun.

It does sound like a great time. But this is one of those situations where people will talk about it for engagement. I just can't imagine anyone going out to Valentine's Day dinner during the Super Bowl. It's just not going to happen. It's not a real thing.

Nobody really goes out for dinner on Sunday nights. Right.

Also true. Yeah, it was going to be Saturday anyway.

I'm doing brunch. I think the brunch move is... The more I think about it, that's just a great Sunday.

I know a lot of people will do Valentine's Day early to try to get a reservation somewhere else because the day of is pretty hard. But now, if everyone's trying to maybe move a day back, might be dinner at home.

Yeah. Do Friday or Saturday. If you hit it anywhere in that vicinity, you're good.

Got one more for you guys. Okay.

Wait, is next year the one where the Monday is President's Day?

Yeah, which is also a fake holiday.

I respect the office. I respect President's Day, too.

I'm just saying, you guys are like, yes. But when they're like, Oh, it's a bank holiday. Okay, well, what if you don't work in a bank? No one works on President's Day.

Is that true? Yeah. Nobody works on President's Day. It's a federal holiday.

We just work on President's Day.

It's a fake holiday for us. Yeah, for sure.

Hey, PMT boys. My fiancé and I are getting married this summer, and our first Valentine's Day as a married couple is going to be on Super Bowl. Now, it's highly unlikely that the chance that my saints will be playing that day. Oh, Shuck? Maybe shuck. However, there's a better chance that my soon-to-be husband's team, the Detroit Lions, could play. How do I navigate this potential outcome where he won't want to do anything romantic with me on Valentine's Day? If his team does, in fact, win the NFC.

Okay, if the lines are in the Super Bowl, you can pretty much write off that entire month.

Did you read ahead that same thing we just said for this?

Both apply.

Yeah, just take it.

I would say, though, if the lines are really the Saints, too, but if they're playing in the Super Bowl, just don't make plans the week before, the week after, either because he'll be partying still or because he'll be very depressed.

The Super Bowl, what What are we even talking about? The Super Bowl just crushes the Valentine's Day. Those aren't the same.

Football transcends love.

Good for the people who don't have any interest in watching the Super Bowl and are in a relationship with no one who watches the Super Bowl. You will get an awesome reservation somewhere. Everyone else in America, which is literally everyone else in America, will be watching the Super Bowl, and we're going to be enjoying the fuck out of it. It's a big day. What's more romantic than some Super Bowl square, some promies, farting into On the couch, eating way too much. By the way, coming to the office, because we're taking this on Monday, coming to the office today and realizing that apparently people just take home leftovers now. We don't leave them here for everyone. I was so pumped for Jumbuaya.

Oh, yeah. I didn't have any of that yesterday.

I was so pumped. I came in and there was just no Jumbalaya, and it ruined my day. I'll say it right now. It ruined my day. Jumbalaya-less day. Yeah.

That's going to be a hell of a week for Saints fans next year.

You got on Tuesday the ninth. Then if you're in the Super Bowl with Shuck, Super Bowl and Valentine's Day and President's Day.

Zack, while we're on guys on Chicks, what's going on with the Chicks?

Chicks? Haven't been talking to a lot of chicks. If we're being transparent.

Can some of the chics maybe reach out?

Yeah, I'm open to starting interpersonal relationship conversations. Okay. I'm not against that.

Put that on a graphic. Open, Zack. To interpersonal. Open to interpersonal relationship conversations.

Can we open the transfer portal for you?

I'm just not the best at conversations. Sometimes they don't-We need a strong alpha type female who's ready to take control of the relationship and just tell Zack what to do. You're saying I got to get submissive?

You got to get submissive. You're going to get pegged. You're going to get stepped on. Listen, it's fine.

What if we start somewhere else?

Yeah, what if we start with like, How do you feel about hot wax?

What's your safe word?

I don't have a safe word yet. I'm not that deep in the game. Let's come up with a safe word.

Let's get a safe word.

How many syllabus you think a safe word needs? Two, three? Whatever you want.

I think one. One?

Yeah. One feels risky because what if you just shout it in a moment of excitement? Then that could be a problem. Because I feel like one syllabus safe words could get misconstrued. It's like you said something else, but it sounds like the one syllabus.

Yeah. Let's get you a safe word. Let's start with a safe word, and then we'll talk to some women.

We'll go from there. Okay.

But we need it. Obviously, I don't want you to get pegged unless you want to get pegged. I'm not going to What I'm saying, though, is we need a girl to reach out to Zack that is like, Hey, Zack, we're going on a date tonight. Hey, Zack, I made a reservation. We're doing this. Because my boy is not going to do any of that.

I'm really good at talking myself out of occasions. The least notice, the better, probably. Right.

We need someone who's like, Hey, Zack, you just sit back. I'm going to ride you. You also said you would go on more dates after football season. Yeah.

It was a big season. It was It was a big work season. I thought, Lock in with the guys.

We need a girl on top. We need a girl to get on top and stay on top. Respectfully, though.

Of course. Nothing but the utmost respect for these queens.

Take you off to dinner, then ride the fuck out of you. I don't think that game plan. Football season is over. That was your excuse all football season.

We're about to get into preseason. Draft. Mock drafts are coming. Combine. Combine is coming.

Free agency. What a time. Yeah. How lucky are we?

Zerry Zack just stays single for life because he's like, put football season.

I don't hate that move. Yeah.

You got this, Zack.

Zack, do you have a type?

A type? No, I don't discriminate. Fat ass Latina.

I would like...

I'm down with that.

Okay, so there you go. You got a type, fat ass latinas.

Comisadice, fat ass latinas.

Ass or titties?

Can I get gluttonish there and just be like, Both? Yeah, that's right. That's awesome. Because both would be… Both would be awesome. Yeah, so sick. That's almost intimidating. It's like, oh, whoa.

What about hair color?

I mean, whatever they feel most comfortable about it. Express yourself.

I love that. Whatever makes you feel beautiful. I'm into that.

But if you had to have preference.

Never thought too much into the hair color.

You got a preference.

Come on. I don't know. I don't think I have one. On the hair color? Yeah. Because I think hair color changed with seasons.

What age range?

Age range.

We're going to whittle this down. So some type As reach out.

I don't know. How old am I? Age range, probably my age.

How old are you? You answer that.

Okay, we'll do age range on the-No, no. How old are you? Oh, I'm 28. Okay, all right. Yeah, I'm 28.

I thought for a second there you didn't know how old.

No, I definitely know.

You can't be asking yourself that question.

I definitely know my age.

All right, so you're 28. I feel like 25 to 35?

That feels like a super-Let's bump that up to 40.

Yeah, because... Oh, dude, if you got a milf-A woman who knows what she wants. A milf who maybe has a kid, but you don't have to deal with the kid, she's like, Don't worry, I got it, and I'll ride.

And I've got a lot to learn. She could provide free game.

Are you open to being... No, I don't want to say stepdad, but hang out with the kid from time to time.

I feel like you'd be a good guy for that. You play video games.

Stepdad who stepped in?

I don't want to say stepdad yet, but the kid's over, you go over to pick her up, go inside, play with the kid for a little bit, say This is also, though, this is another...

We're just adding another pitfall for Zack having to wake up. In full transparency. Imagine if he doesn't wait like, Hey, you got to take me. No, don't give him that excuse. Don't give him that excuse because he's used that excuse. In full transparency.

He's used that excuse.

I think you might need a narcoleptic type A, fat ass, fat titt, indeterminate hair, 40-year-old.

That sounds like it could come with a lot of pain in the long game, but could be a A great learning experience in the short game. But as far as the stepdad situation-There's a woman out there for you.

There's women who want to just take control.

Piercings and tats. Cool with that?

Yeah, I'm cool with body art. Paint that canvas, girl. Do your thing. Okay, nice.

Does she have to like video? She has to understand video games. She has to tolerate video games. That's it. She needs to tolerate you playing video games.

She doesn't even have to necessarily be into the game or be okay with the game. Tolerate is probably a good word.

She has to understand that when you date Zack, Zack is married to the game.

You can't leave the game. I can't put the game down. I can't put down the game. Sometimes a text response might be indifferent just because your game is live, it's online, and I can't hit pause. That's a downfall of my dating life. But people are who we are. Some things just are what they are.

That's also It'll work.

You play video games, you're just like, I'm working. Now, would you be open to if you find a perfect woman and she's everything for you and she's like, Yeah, you can video game all you want, but maybe also she's fine a little dick on the side?

Like an open relationship?

Well, she opened one way for her.

I don't know how I feel about- You love video games.

She loves dick on the side.

It's open one I get access to games. She gets access.

Yeah, so you're like, I want to play video games for seven hours tonight. She's like, No problem. I got a date.

Yeah, we're just in a super fun friendship. I'm down to have some silly friendships? Yeah.

That would be perfect, but you should put in a rule. You're allowed to have a little side piece, but you have to be married to him. So she's married. Oh, yeah. But you're also dating her. But a Occasionally, she's allowed to sleep with her husband.

Yeah, if they're fully committed.

While you play video games.

Who am I to step in the way of vows? They're fully committed.

I mean, you get to be with her intimately, too. But she's allowed to cheat on you with her husband if you're playing video games.

Does he play the game, too?

Yeah. I mean, if you guys want to have a little...

You want to be friends. Is that the best way to go about that? I wouldn't know how to go about that. It's quite a relationship.

Yeah, you got to be vagamogging him a little bit, but that's fine.

We'll start somewhere. I don't know if we should start there, but we'll start. Maybe baby steps. Okay, all right, we got it.

So reach out. If you're a girl out there who's looking for everything, check all those boxes.

But if you don't also, it's completely understandable.

All right, let's do numbers. Pmt Bouncer Party. Pmt Bouncer Party. Pmt Bouncer Party at gmail. Com.

You have fat itch.

That's where we're going to look at all submission.

If anything we describe to you sounds like you, even a little bit, reach out.

I will be looking at PMT Bouncer Party@gmail. Com.

You should do a dating show for Zack. Yeah.

All right. Numbers. Three. 23.

Eighty.

56.

77.

New machine. You're starting. There we go. 28. Get it, Colton. Get it. 11. 64. 64. 64. I don't think anyone's getting on this machine.

Love you guys. I think so. It's going to be soon. No.

It's like a spaceship. Also, happy birthday to front of the program, Diana Rossini.

Oh. Great reporter. That was mean. That was mean. On her birthday? Well, it's her birthday, I think is the 11th, which is close to today when this comes out. Love you guys.

Let's see.