Transcript of Paul Bissonnette Talking Stanley Cup Playoffs, Sixers Get Swept By The Knicks, NBA Draft Lottery, Aliens Are Back And More New

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at stellabluecoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. Uh, today's part of my take presented by DraftKings. We have our good friend Paul Bissonnette on to talk some hockey, NHL playoffs, also what's going on with the Maple Leafs because he is out on them, and then they immediately got the first pick right after.

Mark of a great franchise.

He's also getting trashed by Gronk live on air. We'll get to the bottom of that as well. We have NBA playoffs. The Knicks sweep the Sixers. The Lakers are on life support. We're going to talk Spurs-Timberwolves after Biz because the game's going on right now. We got NBA Draft Lottery. We have Who's Back of the Week, a packed show for you, and it's all brought to you by our friends at Microsoft. Before we get into more chaos, we got to tell you about something that helps people focus on what's most important: Microsoft 365 Copilot. What if you could add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow? Built into Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook, Copilot works where you work, helping you do more in the apps you already use. In Word, Copilot helps turn scattered notes into a first draft. In Excel, it generates insights from your data, and in Outlook, it cuts through the noise to get you up to speed faster. The apps you know go further with Copilot. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Monday, May 11th.

Max— oh, he's getting up, he's getting up. Max, sit down, sit down, sit down, dude, sit down. Sit down, sit down.

Wait a second, water's not going anywhere. Sit down, Max.

Listen, soggy towels can wait.

Max, why are you dry? Max, no, Max, Max, stay, stay.

He's gone. Max is gone. Oh man.

All right, he's gonna come back. He's gonna be wet.

Let's talk about memes. Zach, where'd Zach go? Zach, you don't have to go.

I think Zach's filming it.

Zach's filming them. Uh, memes, congratulations, incredible sweep. That was an absolute destruction of the Philadelphia 76ers. You walked into their trap. You took over their trap, to quote Kirk Cousins. It was so loud. It was so loud. I had the game on and, you know, the Knicks were up by 20 almost instantly. And it felt like, like if you weren't looking at the screen when something was happening, you thought maybe the Sixers were coming back. No, it was the Knicks just hitting more and more threes because that's how many Knicks fans were in Philadelphia over the weekend, completely dominating.

They have money. Means they got jobs.

Means congratulations. Your team is absolutely rolling.

Thank you very much. This is probably the best New York team I've ever seen in my entire life.

Yankees won a World Series.

Sorry, of my teams, Giants won a couple.

Giants won a couple. Yeah.

Jalen brought this—

Mets were really good until like mid-September for a couple of years.

No. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't the, uh, what's the name of the line? What's the name of the—

uh, the Red Bulls?

Yeah. Did the Red Bulls win one?

No, the other, the other one did.

The one you don't require.

Oh, you— but what about New York Liberty? You love the Liberty.

Oh yeah, Liberty. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So maybe second best.

All right, so, so, so keep going. Sorry.

No, it's okay. I mean The Knicks are so good. Jaylen Brunson is just a god at basketball. The 76ers are also terrible at basketball. That was a big part of this, but they got the job done and the team's just clicking right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, are you a little bit worried that you guys have played your best basketball because you're just dominant? And it's kind of a compliment that I'm even asking that because right now I would say— I would say that the Knicks are a threat to win the NBA championship. But are you worried that it can't get any better.

Um, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say no because that, that was a storyline last series against the Hawks that they peaked too early, but they just keep on peaking.

Yeah, they are. I mean, that was— today was, uh, it was just never even close. It was over like at the jump. Jalen Brunson has been phenomenal. Jalen Brunson only had to play— what do you end up playing, like 30 minutes? Even less. I think he, he didn't even have to play 28 minutes. Carl Anthony Towns was incredible this series. I saw the stat about like, if you're, uh, someone— you know, Tibbs is a very good coach, but it does feel like the Knicks have finally figured out a way to unlock KAT in terms of being a guy who can facilitate offense, the high post. You know, his assist number has been off the charts. The stat was from Friday night, after Friday night's game, Uh, he had more than double the assists than he had in the entire playoff run last year, 52 to 24 in half as many games, and 14 less turnovers. And I think today he had another 10-assist game, so 64 assists. He's been awesome. The, the whole team— I mean, you, you also had OG get hurt and then not need him, and he gets full rest, which is huge.

It's just everything's going well for you right now, Memes and Zach. Congratulations, Zach. You went up to film Max, but we want to say congrats to you as well.

Thank you, sir.

You guys were 100% correct, right? Like from the, from the second that the Celtics lost and we're celebrating the Philadelphia Super Bowl, you guys just under your breath immediately were like, we're going to kick the dog shit out of this team. Yeah. And you guys are right. So you called it. You guys know ball. Now we're going to get into the rest versus rust debate too, because it feels like the other series is mid-off. You guys are going to have maximum rest time. I think like Big Cat said, for OG, that's going to be good. That's going to be good for him to recover. But you guys are going to have a lot of time to recover. So are you— you're in favor of rest?

I'm in favor of rest just because the difference between last year's team and this year's team. Last year's team, we had 5 guys in the top 20 minutes played, and now we only have 1 guy in the top 20 minutes played. Last of this regular season. So they benefit off of resting and they just look fast. And when they're fully rested, they just go nuclear from 3.

Yeah. I mean, we also should mention Deuce McBride. What a performance from him. 7 for 9 from 3. He just couldn't miss. He absolutely couldn't miss. And yeah, it was the most competitive game in this entire series was Game 2 when Embiid didn't play. Yeah, that was it.

That's kind of crazy.

Feels like that was the series right there.

Max Mitchell Robinson also didn't play that.

Yes, that's true.

And he really is a true X factor because when they are missing threes, he just gets every single offensive rebound and he just dishes it back out.

Shout out Mitchell Robinson, too. I just love that Hack-a-Shaq is like still alive and well. It's just great. I don't know why. There's something about it. I know that some people will be like, that's not basketball. This is lame. I like that. Like, at some point in the third quarter, we're just going to do some free throws, but we're going to fucking get to the free throw line and we're going to watch A big man shoots some free throws.

But when he goes like 50/50 from the line, if he hits like the first half of it, the crowd goes nuts.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, this is a good trip. The strategy didn't work this time.

Yeah.

Max, you came back in, you look to be pretty wet.

Wet, wet as fuck.

Very wet.

Very wet. Tell me about how wet you are.

I mean, I tried to make sure that most of my body got wet under there because it— that was a losing that deserved to be as wet as wet could be.

Yeah. Max, have you had— because I think everyone does this where if they go on a great trip, they think about like on Friday night, I was, I was laying in bed and I was like, I was at the, I was at the Sphere a week ago right now. Like just so much, so much mushrooms in my skull, just having the time of my life. And then like Saturday, I was out to dinner with my wife. I was like, we were sitting in a hotel suite just getting twisted teed up and having a great time. And then right now we would have been recording the podcast in Vegas and—

different pod. It was a different pod.

I don't think— I don't think it could be faster that this— you went—

well, no, because it couldn't—

correct, it couldn't have been. No, I know, but I just like how fast and how severe it was. Yeah, it was from last weekend to right now.

So yes, factual, it could not have gone any faster.

Okay, well, no, you guys could have—

there were 4 games scheduled in between and— okay, I see the tenor of this.

Okay, wait, wait, but you're—

they were close games.

Yeah, it wouldn't have felt as fast. It didn't.

No, it would have been the—

it would have been just as fast. No, no, today's game felt like 5 minutes. No, it would have been—

we would be doing the same thing right now.

Today's game felt like 5 minutes.

That's all we would have been doing.

It did seem like Big Cat was just— you're agreeing with Big Cat, but you're doing it angry.

He's mad about semantics.

Yeah, it's not semantics.

Like, it almost felt like it couldn't have gone faster, and that is correct.

It could not have gone.

Okay, so you're— so in conclusion, Max, you're agreeing with Big Cat? Yeah, yeah, correct.

Okay, this has all been a long agreeing. Correct.

Agreed. Correct. We all agree. I agree.

I agree with you, Max.

Correct.

Max, do you, uh, do you think back to last, last weekend and be like, I kind of regret spiking the football in Hank's face?

Last weekend we won the game. This weekend we lost the game. And it was—

it feels like last weekend was like 2 seconds ago, how fast it was.

I mean, it was an ass kicking.

I actually feel like it feels like forever ago.

That's incorrect. It actually, it actually couldn't have been any less.

Yeah. Yeah, forever is a lot longer than 7 days.

Correct.

Yeah, I'm sure like after, you know, on Monday or Sunday, like the D'Alente brothers group chat was firing. Like, was there anything going on in this weekend?

Oh yeah, I was in a fight with my brother on Friday night because he— I just kept saying this, this Sixers team that we saw this week is what we expected in the last year.

They pulled you over.

I just kept saying that. I was like, This isn't a good team. They're not a good basketball team. I don't know what happened in the Celtics series, but this is who we thought they were going in, going into the playoffs. I didn't want to make the playoffs because I didn't want to watch this iteration of the Sixers. This team is bad. The only thing that surprised me in this series is Tyrese Maxey was horrendous. Like, I expected everything else of like everything of Joel Embiid doing like Friday. Joel was a joke. Like, I'm willing to admit he was a fucking joke on— he wasn't playing the game of basketball on Friday.

Yeah, PFT.

But then, I mean, then PFT. Yes.

Yeah, Max, PFT commenter, I had a question for you regarding this season as a whole. Would you consider this season to be a success?

No, it was not a success.

Why do you ask?

People are pulling that quote.

I'm going to ask you a question. Why do you ask that, PFT?

Because they asked Joel Embiid that after the game. Here's his quote.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I said it and I'm going to say it again. I know we lost, you know, and I know that's not the right mentality to have. But, you know, for me, this was a success. I came into this year not knowing where I was going to be. You know, how long I was going to play, if I was even going to play, based on how the knee was the last, you know, the last few years.

And, you know, I came in, it's his kid that's up on his lap.

And I feel like we're in a position—

that's a— please don't ask me mean questions, kid.

Uh, hasn't been an issue.

Okay, interesting.

So to be fair, he said game one, you asked me a question I would like to answer.

Yep.

You, you, you, you ask the question and then you're like, eh, well, to be fair, in Game 1, the entire internet said that Joel Embiid will never play basketball again. Like, wait, ever? Ever play competitive, like competitive basketball again?

In Game 1?

In Game 1 of the regular season.

Oh, okay.

If you, if you go back and watch that game, he could not move.

True.

He could not move and everyone said that we'll never see any competitive version of Joel Embiid again. And to his defense, he did get back to a sense of he was like a difference maker in a playoff series.

He was.

So to him, like, I get what he is saying, that when going into this season, he thought that he'll never be a competitive basketball player again. And then he got to a point that now he is. I understand, because as a, as a team, as a team, I don't think that he would say that this, this was a success because he said for me, which means for me personally, this season was a success for his health. I am okay with that answer. Big Cat. Josh Hart, you want me to— you want to get into that one? Is Philadelphia—

that's not what I was going to ask.

I was going to ask that.

That was not what I was going to ask.

We can have—

I was going to ask, can you please comment on the quote? I used to think Philly was a sports town. I don't know if it is anymore.

Okay.

So yeah, that is—

I can just run your guys' playbook. I like know what we're doing here. I can just run your playbook.

OK, it is a playbook. We're just talking about the game and talking about the Phillies broke.

What?

He's saying Philly doesn't have money.

Oh, yes.

By the way, I have a question for Hank because I thought you said the Phillies, Max.

I think you need a little timeout with how hot you came in this.

I just know. I'm just—

Hank, Hank, it was a nice day today. Why are you wearing such a heavy garment?

It was a little chilly. That's fair.

That's fair play. A little chilly.

That's a respect.

I can tip my cap.

Cap to that play.

That's podcast.

I can tip my cap to that play.

Hank is wearing his death sweatshirt, which he wears every time Philly loses in anything.

This is hater sweatshirt.

Did you bring that sweatshirt to Vegas?

No, no, no. I genuinely just, you know, I was, I was gone. I literally dropped my stuff off today and like didn't have a lot of clean clothes. I just threw this on.

Yeah. I just happened to throw it on.

That's weird.

I didn't, I should have, I should have picked up on that.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I thought I knew all the plays. Didn't know that play.

There you go. You played up.

Tip my cap. Tip my cap to Hank.

God, you should have known that play.

Yeah, I should have known that play. That's on me.

Okay, Josh Hart.

I think it's fair to say that after today, it's—

it's—

you can question whether Philadelphia is a basketball town.

Oh, wow.

You can't.

You can't.

Wow.

There can't be 70% Knicks fans in the building and you say that we're a basketball town. It was loud.

It was—

it was a Knicks home game.

Yeah.

And the players have every right to be angry that Tyrese Maxey said that.

He's like, it— his exact quote was like, it just sucks.

It does.

He's like, it sucks. Well, I'll get his actual quote, but it pretty much was that. Yeah. He said it absolutely sucks. If I'm being honest, it just sucks. That's really all I can say about it, man. It's hard. It's definitely difficult. It's only one way to put a stop to it, and it's we have to go out there and win these games. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't even know if they play in the playoffs anytime. It's just like you just give up.

It's just the Knicks. But yeah, Northern Jersey is basically a Philly suburb, and Northern Jersey has a population that is bigger than like the Philadelphia, the Philadelphia area, and Northern Jersey has more money than the Philadelphia area. Like, it is halfway in between Philadelphia and New York City, so those people are going to buy those tickets. Especially when it's a Knicks team that every Knicks fan has like real championship hopes. And right now the Sixers were down 3-0. Everyone in Phil— everyone in the world knew that the Sixers weren't going to win this series. Everyone who's a Knicks fan is like, this could be an all— no, I go— going into today. Oh, I'm saying today. I'm saying today, down 3, because Friday was bad, but it wasn't that bad. Like, today was really Today was really, really—

today was really bad.

The game was over.

I mean, again, it was—

no, I'm saying as like a— I'm, I'm saying as— oh yeah, as like a fan base thing.

What about South Jersey? Why doesn't South Jersey get their act together?

South Jersey is—

where's Cherry Hill?

Yeah, I know, but they got to buy more tickets.

South Jersey is a suburb of Philly, not a suburb of New York City.

I know, so they need to buy the tickets, right?

Guys, more money.

You guys—

New York City has more money. Yes. Yeah, New York City Shocking. Yes. Yes, Big Cat.

Okay. Do you know what I'm going to say?

Go, go.

You know what I'm going to say? Do you know what I'm going to say? You don't know what I'm going to say.

Sure.

You said you know my whole playbook. You say you know a whole playbook on this side of the booth.

Okay. Congrats.

Okay. Zach, do you have any stats for us?

I've got a couple of quotes that were said in this series, and I was curious, thoughts on the quotes and some information regarding my quotes.

This is a member of the staff doing some research.

Remember, you didn't— did you remember this podcast did say who's going to guard Tyrese Maxey regarding the Knicks Sixers?

I already addressed Tyrese Maxey. He was really bad.

Just a quote. Aggressive.

I've already—

who was gonna guard him?

Mikal Bridges was very good against Tyrese Maxey.

The first 3 games of this series, he averaged 18 personal friend of mine points. That's 10 fewer than his regular season average. And also He did show a lot of heart in Game 2, played 47 minutes. He also turned over the ball roughly every 7 minutes of those minutes.

Okay.

I've got another quote from a member of this podcast.

Also, I was wasted during this podcast, and Meems even said himself that he doesn't hold me accountable for anything I said during that show.

I'm not. Zach is.

But yeah, Meems is the one who put Zach up to this. I didn't put Zach up to this. Meems, you said that.

You said— Meems, you said that you don't hold me accountable for anything I did.

I texted me.

It's going to be quotes here. I have— this is going to be the first I'm hearing of these.

I texted Memes at like 3:00 today and I was like, hey, make sure you got like you're ready with the quotes that Max said to you before. He's like, oh, I already put Zach onto it.

I had Zach do it because I didn't want to do it.

Yeah, because he doesn't hold credit.

Good job, Memes. Good guy. Good guy, Memes.

That's just good producing.

Way to go, Connor.

Memes, also, I don't think you continue.

Okay.

I don't think you've done more memes ever than you, than you have today. No, it was an onslaught of memes.

There were some really good ones.

There were.

There were.

There were good ones.

I mean, some of them were last year's Celtics.

Sorry.

Yeah. All right.

I put his face on Bonnie Blue.

All right.

I mean, Zach, Zach, answer that would be how many?

Can I just— how many do we got? Okay. Just so I can prepare myself. No, I would like to know.

I would like to know the end of this.

Does it matter?

Yeah, it could be infinity.

No, no, no.

That's illegal. Don't take that from him. Okay. Zach, take it back. Come on.

Loose grip, sweaty hands.

All right, come on, Zach. All right.

Another member of this podcast did say—

a different member. You said another member, so there must be somebody else.

I guess, Kramer, you're doing great. This is bad. Come on, Max.

All right, dude. I like—

I'll just—

yes, just keep dunking on me. That's fine.

I believe a member of this podcast said, oh, Knicks couldn't play Cat this series total through 4 games, which would be the fastest they could have won the series. 61 points, 28 rebounds, 27 assists, and 7 blocks.

He was very good. I was wrong. I'll just keep saying I was wrong, but we can— we can—

you were dead sober when you said that.

Yeah, you were dead sober when you said that. No, you said that to him before the series.

I said that to him when we were out at a club.

No, you said that— you said that before Game 7.

Before we left for Vegas, you were like—

before we left for Vegas. Oh yeah, yeah, you're like, there's no way you can play KAT in this series.

Well, that— yeah. And then he took a shot to his appendix in game 1. But yes.

Okay.

He did. That did happen.

He doesn't— who took a shot to their appendix?

Joel Embiid took a shot.

He doesn't have an appendix.

Impossible. He's the only one that—

I mean, that's sad. If we're doing semantics, he does not have an appendix.

He took a shot to his midsection in game 1.

Yeah. Yeah. To where his appendix used to be.

Correct.

Yeah. Which you can't hurt him.

You can't get hurt. Which you can't hurt something you don't have. True or false?

Okay. If— okay. If you get surgery, I'm going to punch you in it so hard.

I'm going to just—

you said— I mean, if you said it doesn't hurt, then I didn't say that. I said, no, you said you can't hurt what you don't have.

You can't hurt what you don't have.

Fact.

Yeah. Okay.

So, yes, you couldn't listen.

I hope— I hope to God you have to get surgery on that fucking leg. There's a reason—

he wants you to get a testicle removed so he can just punch you in the balls.

There's a reason Oscar Pistorius has never torn an ACL.

Okay, Max, you started the semantics battle. You said he took a shot to the appendix. He does not have an appendix.

No, that is used— what? That is you starting the semantics battle.

You started the semantics battle when I said it couldn't have— could have happened faster. And you're like, yeah, technically, yeah.

Well, that was just dumb because it couldn't have happened.

Almost as dumb as saying he took a shot to the appendix when he doesn't have one.

No, because mine was inferred what I was talking about. Yours just didn't make any sense.

I think if anyone was listening and didn't know, if someone woke up from a coma, they're like, oh, shit. Next one.

Show them the appendix.

This is the stupidest thing ever.

That. Continue.

Another member of this podcast also said, uh, Sixers starting lineup is the best in the East.

I already took that one back.

That memes—

memes brought that up and I was— I already, I already said I didn't even remember saying it.

Yeah, okay.

Which cannot be true because the Knicks did win 4 games, the Sixers did win 0 games.

Okay. All right.

And lastly, uh, listen, we're, we're 3-1 when the starters are healthy. Uh, quick update to that stat. They are now 3-4 when the stars are healthy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

Doing the math. Yeah, he thought he might have been a little semantic, Zach, there, because he counted the Joel Embiid.

Yeah, yeah.

No, he did. There was a chance I was going to get it.

You're going to get anti-Semitic. That's all. Yeah. Max, I got a question for you. Max, when it comes to the future of the Process and the future of the 76ers, where do you go from here?

Good question.

Thank you.

We have— yeah, we have two— we have two young guys. VJ Edgecombe is 19 years old.

Yeah.

He didn't have a great series this, this series, but he's 19. Tyrese Maxey, still 25 years old. We're getting off of two contracts this year. We'll see what, what we can do.

I'm just going to say the ages of our players. Yeah. Like, what do you think the path forward is? Because it feels like for a lot of the guys that are— that have been part of this iteration of the Sixers, I don't know if it's going to get any better. This might be the end of the line.

PFT, just, just to put in here, Andre Drummond, actually younger than you think.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, good point. So he's a piece.

No, I mean, my point was that we have two, two guys that are still young and not one of them is in their prime and one of them isn't even— you can't even say he's close to his prime. He's 19 years old. Yeah, I remember hearing about Jason Tatum being 19 years old for 20 years.

I don't know that.

So maybe we got one of those guys.

He's 39 now.

Yep. So, yes, this was a—

what do you need to do to take the next step?

What is the next? We'll see.

We'll see.

I mean, I'm not— I don't run this fucking organization, so I actually have a question for Hank.

Yes.

Hey, great hat, by the way.

I appreciate it. Looks— love the league. Yeah. The association. What?

What is it? What? NBA?

You look like a security guard for—

I wear NBA hats all the time. What are you talking about?

He's got the little bedazzled basketball on the side.

Basketball on the side. Yeah, this is what I do. I like to respect the NBA.

You know me, guys can't get a fit off it.

Adam Silver came on the show. We appreciate everything the NBA does, everything around this time of year. They seem to be on the up and up. Like, I just want to support them. It's a good product. All everyone's talking about is like the NHL playoffs, this hockey, that. Let's have some respect for the NBA. Hank, I have a question for you. So like, just pretend that you're, you know, in charge of taking over a franchise. Let's call it like you're a GM, a floating GM.

Okay.

Who would you rather be? Who would you rather be right now? The 76ers or the Washington Wizards? Got to be the Wizards. Like the future.

Yeah.

Without a doubt. The Wizards.

Yeah.

I mean, you have, you have an All-NBA first teamer, Anthony Davis. Trae Young has proven he can, he can be a clutch player and win big playoff games in hostile environments like Philadelphia. And then you have the number 1 pick like you. You got a lot of, a lot of room to build.

Don't forget about Sarr. Yeah. And you got Trey Johnson. He's a sniper.

Yeah.

All right. That's it.

I have a question. I have a question for you, PFD.

I know the question.

Yeah. Would you rather— where would you rather be, a fan of the Washington Wizards or the Boston Celtics, the team that lost to the Philadelphia 76ers just a week ago?

That's a good question.

Good question.

So, I mean, if you lost—

good question.

If you lost to the Sixers team You suck because the Sixers team is not very good. They're old. So yeah, I think I'd say the Washington Wizards. I think I'd rather be a Wizards fan.

All right.

Good answer.

Thank you, Hank.

I mean, it's the wrong answer, but that's fine. Obviously, you should be a Wizards fan.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I mean, the Celtics are starting to hate each other.

Our star player. No, actually, Jason Tatum. I don't know if you saw the Instagram story.

I missed it.

Very much had Jaylen Brown's back. Per usual, the media is trying to break him up.

But again, yeah, I mean, nothing to do with the Twitch stream 24 hours after a loss.

If you have a— if you have a—

how could—

who could have done this? Just the fact that he comes back—

who could have started this narrative for Jaylen Brown?

Yeah, it was actually—

we're all looking for the guy.

You literally just did the exact same thing I did with Joel Embiid, of that it was a successful season from game 1 to now.

What do you mean?

That he got— it was able to be healthy enough to compete.

He wasn't even— I mean, game 7, if he plays, probably goes differently, but that's—

that's just basketball.

That's—

that's basketball. That's— I know that's That's— you can't, can't use those excuses.

You just did. I'm just saying, you literally—

we're talking about the future. We're talking about the future. I'm not looking at the fact that we lost to the Sixers this year. It's not like we are a fully healthy team. Again, you guys beat us fair and square. I'm saying for the future, this team has proven they can win a championship.

The Sixers have— has this team proven that they can win a championship?

Okay, two best players and coach, yes. And best players and coach for the Sixers? Nothing. This team has won. They've made finals. They made multiple conference finals and they've won an NBA championship.

It's not this team.

Joel Embiid hasn't got out of the second round.

It's not this team.

The star players have.

The star players and the coach have.

Yeah, star players are great when you have 7 other stars on the team.

The core.

So we all agree the Wizards who take—

Every team has star players and a core. That's how teams are built, Max.

Yeah, your core was awesome. Hell of a core. Unfortunately, that core is no longer there.

But the—

Wait, no, the core is there.

Yeah, the core. The core.

We all agree on the core.

Every team has star players and a core. Is it the star players or is it the core?

We have both.

You said every team has star players and—

Role players are no longer there. So the role players at every team, role players go in and out.

The problem though is that our star players and our core is so together. You're like a bad apple. You might have a rotten core, right?

That— yeah, that's something you got to deal with internally. I'm going to keep that.

Is there worms wiggling around in there?

You never know. That's for Brad Stevens to decide.

Okay, okay.

Um, hey, Memes, has Max anything nice to you? Has he congratulated you? Was he a good sport?

Oh, Max has been— Max has been extremely nice.

Yeah, yeah, he knew also.

Yes, I said— I said it going into the first round. I said it during that series that I didn't believe it. It wasn't until Game 7 that I said a single positive thing about the Sixers. True. And I was fucking wasted, and I was going off of like an all-time high of an all-time weekend and where it's my bachelor party. Of like, explain the high, huh?

Explain the high.

He's going off an all-time high.

I feel like it was— it was a great weekend.

He's excited.

I was. Yeah, I was.

I was amped up. Max was like, yeah, ready to go.

You're ready.

All-time high.

He was ready to absorb any punch. He had that tight jaw.

Such fucking losers. It's like actually laughable. It's actually laughable. The two guys on that desk are literally the two biggest losers of all time.

Sorry, top 4 picks.

Yeah, yeah. I remember doing that a billion times.

Where is the process right now?

VJ Edgecombe's 19 years old.

So that's still— the process is still alive.

The process is the process until the process has been processed.

I got another question, Max.

Wow.

You guys, you and I share somebody in our lives.

Josh Harris.

Josh Harris. Uh, the city of Philadelphia seems to have turned on, on Josh Harris, and, and I think they believe that he's, uh, he did a good job with the Commanders last year, right? Well, he doesn't play, he hasn't played the sport.

Star player was injured.

We got, we, we got a brand new stadium.

That's sick.

Yeah, that's, that's the best thing that he's done.

Yeah, he's a huge accomplishment. Listen, it's hard to hang a banner for a new friend.

I will, I will not belittle getting new stadiums. It's a harder—

you're also a loser.

It's a hard thing to do. Okay, but Max, it takes a lot of—

what I'm saying is like, I'm hearing a lot of Sixers fans that, that hate Josh Harris now, and because they think that he cares only about the Commanders, not about the Sixers anymore. Do you feel that same way?

I just think he's a bad owner who doesn't know how to build an organization. Okay, so I'm happy, I'm happy that he's—

agree or disagree, PFT?

With what? He's a bad—

Max said he's a bad owner that doesn't know how to build organization.

I think Max hit the nail on the head. He's not a basketball guy.

Yeah, always know he says a bad owner that doesn't know how to build a basketball owner.

He's not a bad—

he just said bad owner.

Yeah, I'll let PFT think whatever he wants to think.

Yeah, bad, bad basketball owner. I agree.

Mm-hmm.

That's not what he said.

Anything else?

Mm-hmm.

You have any questions, Hank?

Yeah, Hank, how are you feeling? Because this was— I know that I don't want to talk about the exact time that this happened because I don't want to get back into it, you know, time debate, but it did happen quickly.

It happened. It couldn't have happened quicker, honestly.

Like, I was— we were—

we were in L.A. and then I was in San Diego and I was at a wedding. Like, I didn't— I was excited for the memes and Max, a little back and forth. If it was going to go to Game 7, that would have been the start to great week, would have been great for the show. So like, back in my— wearing my producer hat, I'm like, oh, this is good. Good for us. Good for the show.

Nothing.

Nothing.

But I missed one show and I missed one show and the series was over. Yeah. I didn't get a chance to talk about the series once. It just ended. Didn't get to see them, you know, going back and forth in the office. It was just— it was just over. And that sucks for me. It sucks for the fans. It sucks for everyone.

I think that sucks for him. Hey, why don't we just— let's just pretend that Game 5 is Tuesday night and we'll just recap that.

Yeah, I'm down.

Okay. Because you did get robbed.

But it is— it is Zach and Mavs. It's exciting for them that it's— they look like the best team in the NBA. They look unstoppable.

I mean, today no one was beating them.

I don't think— I don't think— like, I would be shocked if this team doesn't win the NBA Finals. Yeah, they have an answer for everything.

Now, now, now Hank is just going on to— he's just— he's the Grim Reaper going through, going through doors and he's like, the Sixers are dead. Let me just go try and kill the Knicks.

No, you do that way.

No one's killing the Knicks.

Yeah.

No, no one is killing that Knicks team today.

Do you agree with what Hank is saying right now?

I, I know what he's doing, but I love the sound of it.

Yeah.

So you're going to fall for it.

Yeah.

And if ever— if everybody here wants to say more nice things about the Knicks, I will listen.

Memes, who do you want? Do you want the Pistons or the Cavs?

It depends on that.

It doesn't—

the Pistons won the series.

The Pistons won the series.

Cavs can't win on the road.

All right, so let's talk about that game real quick. That was, uh, Saturday was Cavs-Pistons Game 3, and we had essentially a Freaky Friday episode at the end of the game where Cade Cunningham, I think, had 3 straight turnovers, and James Harden had 3 straight iso ball, everyone get out of the way Buckets. He went floater, another 2, and then a 3 to seal the game. And I'm happy for James Harden. He actually was asked after, he's like, how do you deal with all the chatter? He's like, what chatter? And I believe him. I don't think James Harden listens to anything.

Now, why, why would you? Yeah, what would be the point if you're James Harden? Like, no one's saying anything good about you. No, you don't have any— there's not too many James Harden defenders out there.

We are. We're officially— because again, as strip club guys that we found out, Zach, you got to become the biggest James Harden guy.

Confirmed already James Harden guy.

Yep.

Yeah.

So yeah, we're going to defend James Harden.

The guy seems like he knows how to have a great time.

Right.

So I'm going to be in that guy's corner.

And he was great down the end.

But at the end of the game, I mean, he was bad for most of the game, but he's really, really bad. But then at the end, yeah, he kind of figured it out for the last few possessions. I'm happy for the Cavs. I don't, I don't necessarily agree with memes that it's over, though. I don't think that this series is over at all.

The Cavs can't win on the road until now.

That's true. No, they, they have—

no, they haven't. They lost every game in Toronto.

But until now, I'm saying like they could win on the road. Factually, they could.

Technically, technically, yeah, good.

I mean, you would just want the Cavs because of home court.

Yes. And I, I just want— I mainly just want this series to go 7. Just kill each other.

Did you—

I, I saw a very funny, uh, fan theory. I don't know if it's a theory or just— I just never put it together. But there was like a— someone was tweeting about Donovan Mitchell and they basically said Donovan Mitchell like should be way taller than he is and he just stopped growing because I don't know if you get— so he's, he's 6'1".

Yeah.

What do you think his wingspan is?

Mm, 7 feet.

He's 6'10" wingspan. What do you think his shoe size is?

No idea.

17.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

He just stopped growing. Yeah, he should have— he should be taller.

His spine. Yeah, yeah, his spine. He, he like 6'1", 17, upside down.

Yeah, 17, size 17 shoes, 6'1" is pretty crazy.

That is nuts.

Yeah, yeah. And, uh, 6'10" wingspan. I just like this theory that's like, it's not his fault if he has a bad game. It's not his fault. He should have just been taller.

Yeah, maybe there's still time.

Yeah, there could be still time. Yeah, I don't know. I, I was happy for James Harden. I do think this is like— I think this series probably is going to go—

I don't know.

I mean, like, they're both not— they both have their flaws. Cade Cunningham's the best player in this series. And that was the difference in that game is that he, for the first time in a few games, he had like a poor ending to a game where that's usually when Cade Cunningham just kicks everyone's asses like, oh yeah, I'm better than everyone in this series. He still had a triple-double. But it was those last few possessions, which that's not the whole game. But if Kate Cunningham is just the best player at the end of a game, then the Pistons should win. But I, I don't know. I just want more basketball at this point because we lost, you know, the Sixers. The Lakers-Thunder series is the most noncompetitive series. Yeah, it's trash except for the second halves.

I would like— I was still a little bit blown away every time Tobias Harris goes out there and has a good game in the playoffs.

He did. He's been playing well.

Yeah.

And Duncan Robinson has been like hitting threes, which is, you know, it changes everything for the Pistons when he's, when he's doing that. I just, yeah, I mean, I would take the Pistons in this series, but I'm down for James Harden to maybe get into a Game 6 or 7.

I want to see Game 7, James.

Yeah. Oh, Max, spin zone. Joel Embiid, 1-0 in Game 7s this year.

Great.

Okay.

But Max, it was nice. If you were to— if it was a nice thing I just said about you, if you were to rank the, the best second round losses over the course of Joel Embiid's career, where would this one go? I think this one would probably be number one, right?

Because of the hangover of the—

well, because of the— yeah, it was a successful season.

Yep.

And also because, I mean, he did have 24 points on perfect shooting midway through the third quarter, right? Everyone knows that.

Yeah. Right.

And also because you beat the Celtics in the first round. That's what I'm saying. I feel like this playoff second round loss from Joel Embiid is probably the best one of his career.

I agree.

I disagree.

Oh, what's better?

He was very good in that round, in that, uh, the, the playoffs where they lost to the Raptors.

Okay, so that's why you get a ranking maybe. Yeah, that's one.

This is the answer to that.

No, Hank, can you fill out the rest of the fair answer? Yeah, Hank will do it.

Hank's gonna get the rankings. But yeah, I, I, uh, I do want to see James Harden in like a big time game 6 elimination game. That would just be fun.

Yeah, we want to see game 7 James if possible.

Yeah, big game James.

Yeah.

So the Lakers-Thunder series, I mean, we've talked about it, but it's just the Thunder are just so much better. And I know that there's been complaining about the refs and all this stuff. It doesn't matter. None of it matters here. No. Oh, you got the rankings. Off the top of your head, what would you rank?

So the worst, I mean, the, the at the bottom is probably 2022 against the Heat. He didn't play in 2 games. 2 of the games he played in, they won, and then 2 they lost. So that's kind of a nothing.

Okay.

Uh, and then, I mean, it's, it's tough. There's so many good ones. I think I would have to put this 2020 3 against the Celtics. That was Game 7. Then I would go this year against the Knicks.

Mm-hmm.

Then the Hawks, the one who could forget that. That was, that was the Benson and Trey Young.

Yeah.

Can't, can't imagine blowing a 3-1 lead.

Then I know, but the way that went all the way down.

I can't imagine blowing a 3-1 lead.

But his, his superstar was hurt.

Can't imagine.

And your superstar just passed up a layup to win the game. Then we'll have to go with 2019 Raptors, Kawhi. Who could forget that iconic Game 7 in Joel Embiid's eye? The ball just hit off the rim, went up.

Can't imagine Game 7.

And then it got to be number 1, 2017 against the Celtics. Confetti.

Oh, the confetti game. Yeah, that was crazy.

Yeah, that was tough.

That was tough.

Good rankings.

Great rankings.

Some classics.

Really good. Oh yeah.

Great rankings. Um, yeah, the, the Lakers-Thunder— I mean, that— what are we doing? It's over. It was over before they even tipped. The, the Lakers yet again had a halftime lead. Good job. They've been very competitive in the first halves, and then they just get smoked in the second, and they're just old.

They're just old and slow and tired.

And, and like, the Thunder just have dudes for days. AJ Mitchell has been insane. He's getting paid nothing. And it's just the Thunder, like, the perfectly constructed roster. And I know people are upset about it, and I, I, I'm— I've chosen to just be like, I'm gonna enjoy the fact that they're just better at basketball than everyone.

Do the, uh, the Thunder also have like 2 lottery picks that don't play? Yeah, it's pretty—

it's crazy topic. And, uh, I can't remember who the other one is, but yeah, they, they— it's, it's nuts.

It's nuts how deep they are. And yeah, they're gonna steamroll the Lakers. 4 games and then, I don't know, the playoffs don't start for the Thunder until the conference finals. Yeah, that's what we've said from the get-go. Now the question is going to be, we're going to have this, this talk on Monday night. Is this LeBron James' last game?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I think it might be. No, no, you don't think so, Max?

He's, he's 41, but he is a guy that's going when he retires, he's gonna let people know he's retired, right?

I, I thought so too until he started playing golf all the time, and now I think he's going to be like, uh, you know what, this is kind of awesome, I'm just gonna play golf. I think, I think the golfing, the golf bug might have convinced LeBron James to, to forego another full year in the NBA.

Steph Curry's been playing golf for years.

Yeah, he gets to spend time with his son, he can golf when he's on the road, he can— he's still got another year where he can be one foot in, one foot out.

At least this is his last game for the Lakers.

Oh, I like that.

He was just on the bench while everybody was talking. He was just staring at him.

Yeah.

When they were down, when they were down 20.

Yeah. They don't really— I mean, the Lakers are kind of in a weird spot too, because like Austin Reeves is another one where they're going to have to pay him a lot of money. I don't know.

Yeah.

No, Hank's right.

Yeah.

Start. Look, it's out. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to say the star player.

Would you rather be the Lakers or the Wizards?

Probably the Wizards.

Probably the problem with the Lakers are they're, they're a good team because Luka is obviously a superstar, but they're whatever you want to say, the third, fourth, fifth bet, you know, if you want to throw the Timberwolves in there. So let's say they're the fourth best team in the West. The difference between the Spurs and the Thunder and the Lakers is so vast, it's crazy. It doesn't matter. It's like you could make the argument like, oh yeah, we're competitive in the West. No, you aren't.

And you go into the playoffs, I think you would have said like the Nuggets might be in that conversation. But yeah, you can't say that anymore. No, you're not saying that after what happened. So yeah, yeah, I think, you know what, the West, the West might be gettable now. We were just talking about how like the West has been the dominant conference for the last, what, 25 years in the NBA. They're— they've got two really good teams at the top. And outside of that, I just don't know.

So gettable, you mean by What do you mean by gettable?

By the East? In the future? Like, if I'm the East, I'm thinking to myself, like, in the next 5 years, we could take over the West. Like, we're going to be the dominant.

The problem is those 2 teams are so much better than anyone in the East currently constructed, right? I don't understand. The Thunder are just like— they're just so perfectly constructed. It's just there's nothing you can do about it.

They're an all-around great team.

Yeah, they're, they're incredible. And we're going to talk about the Timberwolves. Spurs game after Biz because it's going on right now. Wemby ejected in the second quarter for a flagrant 2, which he had no idea what it was.

Flagrant 2.

He said, what does that mean?

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

They're like, dude, you're out. All right. Before we talk about some more stuff real quick from our friends at José Cuervo. When Cuervo enters, every moment just gets better. You find yourself in the center of the dance floor. You can't help but stand up and high-five those around you at the game. The room rat reacts like it just got the same text at the same time. You stop checking the time. Suddenly small talk escalates to laughing so hard you can barely catch your breath. That's the Cuervo effect. A signal everybody understands, a moment that anyone can join, and a good time that just grows. All you have to do is keep it Cuervo. We're also brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. The NBA playoffs are here, and DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, brings excitement to every game day. The whole postseason, when the lights get brightest, the best players in the world show you exactly who they are. Playoff stars turn it up round by round, and DraftKings turns it up with them from the first round all the way to the finals. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession.

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Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire 7 days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Limited time offer. We hit our parlay on Friday. Yeah, nice work. So I think we got another one coming Wednesday. Good job, boys. We had Knicks, Brunson points, Wemby rebounds. Easy work. But next story, NBA Draft Lottery happened. PFT, congratulations. The Washington Wizards are officially on the clock.

The Wizards are back. We're so back. And that also means the Wizards are open for business because I'm seeing a lot of fan fiction about trading for the number 1 overall pick, mostly centered around the idea that, that Utah needs AJ to stay in the state, that there's so many powerful people that love him in Utah that are like, we're going to do whatever it takes to keep him in. So I did, I, I, I have some ideas. Um, I will be listening to some offers for that, but I'm, I'm just pumped. I'm pumped for the Wizards. We've been the worst team maybe in sports in the last 50 years. Uh, I believe it's been, was it 1978 was the last time we made a conference finals? That's the longest in any any team in any sport. We've been really, really fucking bad for like the last 30 years.

It's really funny to say that out loud after the first 25 minutes of this show.

Yeah, yeah. Really bad. Like we've been a dogshit team.

It kind of puts it all. Yeah.

No, the Wizards have been objectively speaking funny. Not a, not a team. They haven't been a team. I say it all the time that they're the least consequential franchise in professional sports. I think now that the Buffalo Sabers are doing some work in the playoffs, it's probably just 100% the Washington Wizards. Until now, the process worked. I'm a big process guy. We did the process. We got 2 top 4 picks in the span of about 3 years. I want AJ Demantre.

What?

Well, if that dictates a process working, yeah.

Okay, wait, what's your question?

Had plenty of top 3 picks.

Yeah, the process worked.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a success.

Agreed.

Okay. We're in agreement then.

Agreed. Yep. We're on the same page.

Yeah.

So I'm very— I'm optimistic. I can't wait to get excited about a basketball team for what feels like the first time in my adult life. So there have been like a couple of years where the Wizards have been good here and there. They've been objectively awful for the last, like, I'd say 7 seasons. But the thing is, they like wasted 4 of those really shitty seasons because they weren't like trying to be really bad. They weren't like doing the actual process. They weren't making the personnel moves behind the scenes to stockpile assets and to get pieces in place. And now we got the guy from Oklahoma City running the show. It's been cool to see a guy put a plan into place 3 years ago and then see it actually start to work and get results from it. So I have no idea what's going to happen with this team, but very excited. I think AJ Dabansa has to be the pick. I think that's got to be the pick. I've seen—

don't tip your hand, dude.

Yeah, it's probably going to be AJ. I'm just going to be honest with you. Probably AJ. And I'm just pumped. I'm excited for, for the Wizards to be somewhat relevant again. And I said it before the draft lottery. I'll say it now. I think that play-in or bust next year.

Okay.

And if Anthony Davis stays healthy, I think we might be like the 6th seed if he stays healthy. Yeah, we might be like the 6th seed, maybe the 5th seed next year. I do have one tweak to the draft lottery, though. It would be nice if you had to do the draft like 10 minutes after the lottery. So like the GMs show up, you get the order.

Yeah.

Okay, everyone go to your back room. We're calling you back out in 10 minutes. All the players are here. All right, go for it. Now you have to pick the rock.

The good job by Adam Silver last year with the Dallas situation. Everyone's like, rigged. This is the last year that we're gonna have the like true tanking because they're flattening the odds and all that stuff. Uh, good job because he basically rewarded— outside of the Nets and the Pacers, he rewarded the worst teams. So got everyone back on like, oh, that worked, because the Wizards, the Jazz, and Grizzlies were, were truly tanking pretty much the entire year. Um, I'm— the Bulls getting the 4th pick was so huge because that was They were, they were slotted in the 9th. They had a 20% chance to go up to the 4th. It's a loaded draft.

They tanked.

They did the dumb thing of only taking for half the year and it ended up working out because this is going to be awesome. I want Caleb Wilson so bad.

He's kind of the forgotten guy in this draft.

Yeah, because he got hurt in March. So good. And even if it's not that, maybe Darius Akoff, I would just love that.

Yeah. Who's there? I don't think. I don't think Boozer's going to—

Boozer's got to go. He's got to go to the Grizzlies. He's got to go to—

his dad played here.

Boozer looks like a Grizzly, though.

Yeah, he does.

He looks like a Grizzly.

I'll say this. I don't—

I wouldn't be thinking about the pictures they have of, like, courtside as a kid.

I won't be upset about Boozer.

Dad in the Bulls jersey. Now he's in a Bulls jersey.

I do think Boozer has the highest floor, lowest ceiling.

That's what I've been saying.

Yeah. Yeah. He's bust-proof.

Yeah.

I don't think he's going to be like some of these— like, Kael Wilson could be a superstar. AJ Devonta could be a superstar. Darren Peterson, if he just stops taking creatine, could be a superstar.

If Boozer has a career like his dad, objectively speaking, that's going to be an awesome career.

Yeah.

But I think that that's kind of his ceiling.

Yeah.

Of what he's going to be. He's a super smart player. I just don't think he's like exceptionally explosive.

Either way, it's awesome for the Bulls because the Bulls had like— it's been just absolute shit and nothing to look forward to. And now we'll get at least a guy that I'm going to be very excited about. And, uh, I did see the take. I love whenever this take, uh, comes out. I think it was, uh, Jeff Goodman, who's a king of bad takes, who's like, I talked to some league executives and being the 3rd or 4th pick actually is where everyone wants to be because you get the decision taken out of your hands. I still think you'd want to have number 1.

You'd rather have the 1st pick. Yeah.

But, but then if you're like, like some GM's gonna, they're gonna have to figure out if they want to take AJ or Darren Peterson. If you're the 3rd or 4th pick, you just take the other guy and it's good.

It's a loser take.

And it's something that I would actually agree with it if I was a GM, but that's why you don't want me as a GM running your team. Yeah, it's like I can blame everybody else but myself for how I would want the number one pick, because then I take Caleb Wilson. There you go. And you dictate the terms on it.

Um, big losers though, Pacers. Yeah, that was brutal. They, uh, had to stay in the top 4. They, they have the, the, the season obviously going to the NBA Finals, having Tyrese Haliburton get hurt in Game 7. A season where they were tanking, but it's also injury. So it was like, hey, we'll have a bad season And then they make that trade for Zubac and they lose their pick at— slotted at 5. The Clippers get the 5th pick. Crazy, crazy spin of events. And also the Nets. The Nets kind of— they were a tank commander. They were just tanking so hard. Yeah, I did end up with the 6th pick.

I did like how the Pacers GM was like, I took a shot. Yeah, I know. He was like, I'm sorry, I knew it was gonna be a 50-50 gamble, but we got a good center. I had to take a gamble on it and it almost paid off.

Yeah.

So like, I appreciate the honesty from— I think Pacers fans have to agree. But again, the Pacers, they're the only team in the NBA that's never had the number 1 overall pick and never had a number 1 overall pick ever play for them in the history of the franchise, which is kind of crazy. That is, they've never had the number 1 pick and traded it. They've never traded for it and traded again. They've just never touched the number 1 pick the entire franchise. Fun fact, the Wizards. Can you guess the last time the Wizards had 50 wins?

2007.

No.

Max, 2008.

No, it was 1978. 1978.

I thought Arena.

You're a loser, Max.

Yeah, you're a loser, dude.

But also, I'm pumped. I'm—

I can't— I can't stress enough how excited I got to see some fun basketball in the John Wall era that got cut short. Because he like fell down in his house and tore his Achilles. I got to see some fun basketball in the Gilbert Arenas era that got cut short because they tried to shoot each other. And I got to see some fun basketball in the Michael Jordan era that got cut short because Michael Jordan was old and washed. But I've never had like this much optimism with like a young core that's getting built up together. I'm pumped.

I'm very— Davis isn't very young.

True. But if healthy.

Yeah.

If, if healthy. The amount of games that he's missed he's played a relatively low amount of games.

That's true. He's young. Yeah. He also just has the number one pick written all over him because he was the number one pick. Right. And then he— the Pelicans traded him, got the number one pick. The Mavericks traded for him, got the number one pick. The Wizards traded for him, got the number one pick. Wherever he goes, number one picks just follow.

I do have a trade offer for the— for Utah, for the state of Utah. I will trade you the number 1 pick, which I'm assuming you'll use to take AJ Dabansa. Okay. In exchange, I would like the 2nd pick.

Mm-hmm.

I would like Ace Bailey.

Mm-hmm.

I would like the Zammoth. Mm-hmm. The Zamboni that your hockey team has. And then I will give you—

My ride better go with that.

You get the Zammoth. Yeah, it conveys. And then D.C. will send Mitt Romney back to Utah. So you'll take on that contract.

Okay.

And that's my offer. Let me know if you accept the terms.

You have 24 hours. We expect—

I think it's fair.

Danny Ainge, Danny, you know where we are. Danny, you've been in this office.

Danny, you know Danny Ainge. He probably would try to get the first pick even if it wasn't a guy from Utah that was there. He just loves to make deals. Yeah, Danny, you found— I'm simpatico. We like— we both like to make deals.

Yeah.

Give me a call.

Give him a call. Okay. Anything else before we do? Who's back of the week? Did you guys see— did you, Hank, your UFC evaluation?

Yeah, I watched, uh, the first two fights before I went to bed.

Oh, you did? Yeah, you are a UFC expert.

And then, uh, I woke up and saw that Strickland won.

Yeah, what do you think about Strickland?

I don't know, I, I—

he's very—

love—

he's very violent, the Dagestan wrestling. I like it when someone else wins. Yeah, better for the sport of UFC.

Khamzat was just riding him in the first round.

I mean, we saw that was like the fight that we saw where it's like it's not as fun to watch. So I think it's more exciting when— but I saw a lot of the— it's kind of crazy that Strickland basically was like, yeah, we were just doing a work. Like, we're actually cool.

Yeah, they touched gloves before and they were talking so much shit before. And then—

and he's like known for being, you know, super abrasive shit talker. And then afterwards he's like, yeah, no, I love him. Like, we're boys.

Good. Sell fights. Yeah, he's— yeah, he said it's like no one knows who's in the UFC right now. I have to sell fights. I like when, when, when boxers and UFC fighters do that. Like, my job is to sell fights. I got you to care. Yeah. His face looked fucked up after. Good fight, though. It's fun. I think it was controversial. I don't know.

It's hard to judge the wrestling.

Yeah, I think people thought maybe it was controversial. I don't know. I know that Sean Strickland is just— I think two— I think he's got two of like the biggest underdog wins possibly. He was, he was a massive underdog in this fight, so good for him. Um, okay, let's do Who's Back of the Week. Who's Back of the Week is brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. We love Twisted Tea. Just think about those big moments like in Vegas, the Sixers beating the Celtics Game 7. We were having some Twisted Tea. Having, having a great time.

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That's breaking to me. That's amazing.

That's huge.

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Who's back the week? I apologize if you guys talked about this Thursday, but aliens.

No, we didn't really talk about it. Yeah, aliens are back. Yeah. Wimby.

Although I don't— this is like the 10th time this has happened where it's like, oh shit, kind of like the Epstein Files where it's like, oh, the Epstein Files are finally getting released. And then like a little crumb comes out here, a crumb comes out there. They released 150 pages of documents the government did about aliens, proving their existence. A couple of videos, a couple of pictures, but still no aliens.

No aliens yet. Yeah. They just know that they can do the— we're releasing alien files and people will be like, oh, that's interesting. I'm going to listen to that because we want to know. I did see one. I want aliens.

Yeah.

I saw one thing.

I think.

You wait. Your team. You do want aliens.

I think aliens are pussies.

I disagree. They're probably listening right now.

I got no problem saying it. Do something about it.

They can't win on the road.

No, they just like to just call these things out that could fuck you.

You do get fucked by an alien. Be kind of cool.

But wait, we like what all we do is talk about aliens like, oh, they're going to come blow up our Earth. Do it then. No, I mean that though. Enough talk.

What if they do?

Well, then I'll say, hand up. I fucked that. I fucked that one up, guys.

COVID.

I messed that one up.

COVID.

Hantavirus.

They were talking to the religious leaders and they were like, hey, just so you know, you might want to prepare everybody that goes to your services because aliens just invented us and that's going to come out soon.

Huh.

Which would be I don't think that was a rumor that was going around. I, to be clear, I don't think that aliens exist in the way that we think about them, like little green men or like flying saucers or anything like that.

Well, the saucers, did you see the jet?

Yeah, yeah.

But I don't look like a saucer. I don't think that it's aliens, though.

No, little pussy boys.

I think it's our technology and we like to act.

You don't think that they found the technology in the '50s and they've been slowly rolling out?

I think that we do something.

I think that we have our own technology, and then we talk about it being aliens and shit, because then other countries are like, oh damn, they've got— they've got alien technology. We better spend a lot of money trying to find our own alien technology.

All right. Here's my real take on aliens. I think they exist. I think it's tremendously egotistical of us to think that they're coming here. The universe is so fucking huge. You think they're like, oh yeah, we got to go get those guys. They don't give a fuck about us.

They've been here.

Maybe. Yeah, but where's the actual proof? Everything is teasing.

We go to L.A. for one day and Hank's a Scientologist already.

I do think aliens exist because the universe is so fucking big that it just has to. But I don't think they're coming here.

I don't think it's little green men that are like getting into their spaceship with their death ray. I think they might already.

Also, they want to be boys about it and like come and hang and, you know, like play like E.T. with Nicki Smokes. I'm cool with that. But I don't really care. Like, we just freak out about these things. Where's the proof?

I think they're in the ocean.

Yeah.

Antarctica.

Yeah. Underneath Dante. I think. I think they're underneath the ocean.

I heard Dante killed his set on Saturday night.

Absolutely.

Obviously. No, that was per Dante.

Yeah, but no, duh.

He said, I crushed it. I knew he would.

He did a set.

The fucking—

that was crushed.

So wait, what was the most explosive thing in the alien thing that happened?

The one that I saw, that was— it was like the picture of like— it looked like the jet, but it was like alien spacecraft. And there was a bunch of which— I don't know if that's like the '50s or whatever, where it's like there was, you know, confirmed reports and like people, a group of people back in the day that saw aliens, they took all their reports and then just like kept it hidden.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

All right.

I just say there's also a story about an alien getting invited to the White House to like hang out with Dwight Eisenhower.

I'm just sick. It's kind of like the Epstein file where people just keep talking about it. Like, just give us everything. Just tell us everything.

It's like, I think the government is still just like they're slow playing it. And there probably is more stuff that would freak people out that they're intentionally not showing us. It's true.

We'd probably be freaked out.

I can handle it. Yeah, I think I'd be the calmest dude ever.

I think they exist. I think I'm not— I'm being honest when I say they— there's other life forms somewhere out there. What's that?

We got to respect aliens, though. Yeah, we got to— we got to mend like this.

You think they're listening to this right now?

I feel like they pick up all sorts of airwaves.

I think they listen to everything.

Dude, imagine if we had just a shitload of alien downloads. That would be sick. They like Twisted Tea. Got to get them on.

Yeah, tweet up.

Imagine if aliens showed up and we showed them like a Twisted Tea, an alcoholic beverage, and they're like, holy fuck, this is awesome.

Yeah.

And then they just forgot what they were going to do.

I don't want to—

I don't want to waste it.

Yeah, I don't want to fight anymore.

Got them.

Got them to a frat party.

Yeah.

Let's grill out.

We would haze the fuck out of aliens. They would not have a dude throw aliens in, in a, in a like a shitty Iowa City basement that's wet with a, with a handle of cheap vodka. They wouldn't know what to do.

No, they would have no fucking idea what to do if they landed and they're like, I want to talk to your leader. Who are we sending?

Mincy.

Speed.

Mincy. They would turn right around. They go back.

He pulls up his pants. You can't, you can't probe a man. Who's always keeping his pants up.

Mincy just starts talking about the World Series of Poker. They're like, sorry, we're out of here. We're fucking out. Widespread panic.

We're out.

Okay, good, good. Who's back?

But I want more.

Same.

It's really more my frustration. I want more.

I want to see an alien.

Mm-hmm.

I want to see P&V alien. Yeah, I do. Clip that. Okay. PFT.

My who's back is the FIFA World Cup. Oh, because everybody was saying a couple of weeks ago that FIFA is a corrupt organization, blah, blah, blah. They're going to charge people so much money. That's $200 to take the train. You're so greedy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of haters. And then FIFA was like, fine, we'll give you some real— we'll give you some civic pride and some, some city spirit. So they released a bunch of jerseys for the individual cities that are going to be hosting World Cup games this summer for $400 each. You can buy a Boston World FIFA World Cup 2026 official uniform, limited edition. Yeah, FIFA does not give a fuck. They are just— they're running up the score right now. They don't care how corrupt you say they are. They don't care how greedy you say. They're even openly saying like, yeah, we want to learn from Americans in terms of how to commercialize every sport to its maximum potential because soccer has not yet begun to do that. And so basically what they're saying is we're fully comfortable making this the worst World Cup that you've ever seen.

Listen, if they do some memorabilia, I've recently become a little bit of a memorabilia guy. So if it's big enough, I'll buy it. I bought the Boise— the Boise State blue turf. I bought a piece of that. I bought a Get Charged Up 43-foot-long banner from Qualcomm. I got the Bills trough. I'm in the market.

Have you seen these jerseys?

These are kind of hot.

And the jerseys— I don't want jersey. I put it like if they want to sell me like a giant soccer ball that's outside of one of the stadiums, I'm in.

Do you like the, the Massachusetts one, Hank?

Yeah, the big one.

The lobster one is probably the best if you had to pick one.

The Seattle one's cool too.

Jerseys for the cities.

Yeah, for Kansas City is just nothing.

They actually— PFT, those look like something you'd wear.

Yeah, you're 100% going to wear FIFA. You know what?

Get the whole set.

Send these my way. I'm going to have to get the whole set. The Boston one is the best. That— you're right, the Seattle one. The Kansas City is just like people playing soccer. I don't understand. What about Kansas City? That one is. But yeah, FIFA's Greed is 100% back. And then also Skip and Stephen A are back because they had— oh yeah, they did First Take on Friday morning and it was— it's like they never stopped doing it. It was like it took me right back to 2016. Playing the hits. There was a little T-Bo discussion just as a treat for, for those of us that are diehard Skip fans. They had Skip do his top 10 NBA players of all time. He had LeBron at number 9.

Genius.

Which was just perfect.

Genius. Like to put him at 9. Yeah, that's just why he's so good at it, because you could easily just keep him off the list.

But 9, 9.

No, he was just insane. It's the Dak Prescott at 17, like 9. Mm-hmm. That is such a funny place. Like, if you had him at 3, it's a non-topic. There's some people who have LeBron at 3. He had him at 9. He made sure that he was ranked. Yeah, but it was 9.

Do we have his official top 10 list?

Yeah, it's right there. Jordan, Magic, Shaq, Kareem, Tim Duncan, Bill Russell, Kobe, Larry Bird, LeBron at 9, Wilt at 10.

It's great. It's such a good—

it's perfect.

Larry Bird at number 8 is, is awesome.

Awesome. The— and he said the 8 players above him are all cold-blooded killers. LeBron James over many years has proven to be the most mentally fragile superstar I've ever closely observed. Still got it. Still got it.

It was— it was great television.

Still got—

I'm going to watch every time they put those two together.

Yeah. I mean, it was the 9. I laughed so hard at 9. It's just the perfect, perfect ranking to just piss enough people off. Uh, okay, my Who's Back of the Week is Grit Week because we're going on Monday. Is the first day of Grit Week this next Monday. We're doing old school like we did the first 2 years, week leading up to Memorial Day. But I bring this up because I need the AWL's help. Where are we sending submissions?

Uh, PMTBachelorParty@gmail.com.

Love that.

PMTBachelorParty@gmail.com. Here's what we need. And I'm not going to give too many details, but you can probably assume what this is going to be. Uh, we are trying to find a— ideally a construction site that would allow us to work for free labor for an hour or so in the greater Jacksonville area. If we can't find a construction site, an AWL who maybe has like a swing set they want built or something like a little, little shed in there, we got to do more than it—

we got to do a full day.

Yeah, but like, again, I'm not going to give away who we might be doing this with, but let's just say the boys want to get on a construction site, smoke some cigs, hang out. But I think, I think there's probably some legalities into just letting us on an actual construction site. So it's most likely going to be an AWO in the Jacksonville area who would potentially— who'd be willing to take Monday off and let us come to your backyard and build something for you. And when I say build something for you, I mean, we're going to try to start building it. No promises that we get it built.

And you should probably have the thing that we're going to build.

Correct.

Otherwise we're going to show up with something to build and you might not like it.

But someday you could say, hey, you see that swing set? You see that shed? You see that table? Uh, PMT and Blake Bortles built it.

Yep.

Not naming names.

Maybe a barn. Do some Amish barn raising.

Again, we're not— we are not— we're not agreeing to completing it. We're agreeing to hanging out and trying to complete it, doing it. We're doing—

yeah, we're going to do it.

Yeah. And you also need to have the tools.

We're going to do a build.

And you also need to know how to use the tools. But we're going to be there again. If there's a— if there's a foreman or a general contractor listening, it's like, hey, I can get these guys. They can just get the brooms going a little bit, you know, maybe dig a little bit of a hole or something, something easy. We're down to go to a real construction site. I just know that there might be some issues with that. What are you laughing about, Zach?

I made him laugh. I'm looking at the, at the Gmail right now, the PMT Bowser party. And I just said, how did The Washington Post get this email? Because The Washington Post, I feel like, is in every Gmail account just spamming. But this, this, this email hasn't been submitted to anything. How did this end up on a subscribe list?

I'm sure somebody out there has, has entered it.

Oh, fuck.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it. You got the mystery solved.

Either way, we need, we need the help. I think it's going to be a very funny video. That's Monday, May— someone help me—

18th.

Yep. May 18th, Jacksonville area. Let us know. We'll bring the beer, we'll bring the Twisted Tea and—

we'll bring the cigs.

Bring the cigs. And we're just going to— we're trying to build some shit. What are you looking at now, Max?

This is a girl that wants to date Zach.

Oh, let's go.

I'm looking at the emails.

Would like to apply to be Zach's future fiancée and your ticket to another bachelor party in Vegas. I'm in the Chicago area, soon to be 9-time AWL. Okay. She's the perfect— I feel I am the perfect candidate for this role.

How old is she?

29.

Okay, Zach, 28.

28.

She jumped straight to fiancé though. I feel like we're missing some steps there.

Yeah, she's trying to just get us a bachelor party. She's trying to get us back to Vegas. Yeah, yeah, good on her. Great move.

Love that move.

What if Zach just started getting engaged every year? And then breaking it off. Yeah, we just kept on buying them bachelor parties.

Yeah, you can't— yeah, my boy is not going to get checked up for life. Boy needs to keep his options open.

But yeah, someone please hit us up. We need that. And it's going to be very fun. And Grit Week, get excited for Grit Week. Early Grit Week this year. It's going to be awesome. We're changing it up because we did last year. The last couple of years we've been doing the Tahoe trip, which we're still doing. But doing Tahoe and then Grit Week like 2 weeks apart was not manageable. So Grit Week and Vanny Woodhead number 2 will be making his debut.

Yep.

Official debut. Knock on wood.

Big week.

Huge week. Huge week.

I'm excited.

Very excited.

I'm very excited for the first interview.

So we need— we need— yeah, we need— we need someone to help us out.

Okay, Zach, my Who's Back of the Week this week is going to be Barcelona because we had— we had El Clásico today and Barça made light work of Madrid.

Oh, okay.

2-0. It's pretty impressive.

Hey, what's up with Tottenham?

Tottenham?

They did.

Tottenham is now 17th on the table.

They're clear.

They did win against Aston Villa 2-1 on the third.

And then West Ham lost. Oh, so Arsenal, right?

So it's over.

So they're not over.

They're not, not completely over, but their relegation zone from earlier is not the same as now.

Okay.

So good one for them as well.

Did you watch El Clásico?

I watched clips from it because there's an all-time free kick in there to get the day started.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

All time.

Marcus Rashford just hits an absolute beauty.

Are you— are you sneaky a soccer fan?

I'm like, I dabble, you know. I don't want to—

is it mostly because I show speed?

No, my, my brother Nick got me into it.

Oh, that's right. That's right. You're your brother's keeper.

Also, they got the Olivia Rodrigo bump. They're wearing the Olivia Rodrigo jerseys in there. So like, that's a good bump for them as well.

Wait, what does that mean?

Olivia Rodrigo in the building might catch a win.

Wait, they're wearing like special jerseys for her?

You see, they got the O.R. up front. Yeah, it's a collaboration jersey.

Oh, oh, are they?

Yeah, I didn't know that.

They dropped them here recently.

Okay. I didn't know Olivia Rodrigo had it like that.

Yeah, I mean, that's like—

she has her own. That's crazy.

Big dub for Olivia Rodrigo. Kind of looking sideways at Barça. Like, Barça, you should— I don't know that you would just like put a random person's initials on your jersey.

They just respect her game. She obviously respects Barça's Yeah.

Wow. Okay.

Good job, Zach. Anything else in the booth? Any other who's backs? Max, any other who's backs?

I don't do this segment.

Yeah, you don't. But I was just wondering if you did. Maybe today.

I'm wet.

Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are.

Okay.

Breece Hall back.

Oh yeah. Congrats, memes.

Here we go. Memes.

Also, NFL schedule coming out on Thursday. So that means we'll get it probably tomorrow.

Mm-hmm.

I'm so sick of the NFL schedule. They did ruin something that was fun.

I don't even think it was ever fun.

It was fun for like a minute when we didn't know, when it wasn't fully released before. Now it's just—

it's not. You know who you're playing.

I know, but it's cool to like look at it and be like, win, loss, win, loss. But now they've just made it where they're going to release like 2 games.

I—

the Bears and Seahawks are playing week— week— the opening kickoff. They're going to release that on like Tuesday morning. I got like Good Morning America and be like, whoo, tease.

Yeah, I don't. I don't think I ever actually sat and watched an entire video from any team doing this, the schedule release. I think I would like skim through it, listen to about like 30 seconds. It's never— it's not that great.

No.

Just tell us the games.

Yeah.

I miss football.

I miss football too. I'm excited for football. Okay.

Football so much.

Let's talk some hockey with Paul Bissonnette.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest, one of our favorite guys in the whole world.

Why do you say it? Why do you say very so many times every time I'm on? Or do you say that for everybody?

Just you.

Just you, dude.

You say very like 5 or 6 times.

Yeah, because you are. You're very, very, very, very special guest. It's Paul Biznick.

I needed that. Thank you for making me feel special.

Yeah, TNT Biz, we couldn't have had you on at a better time. I feel like everything is— the whole hockey world is, is, is zoned in on Biz. You're the story for a lot of different things. Uh, which one do you want to start with? Do you want to start with Gronk?

You guys go wherever you want. All right, let's start with— I kind of figured that was coming.

Well, you got, you got railroaded.

I mean, is that all time? Like, like, you'd think if there was one guy on the planet who knew bro code, it would be, it would be Rob Gronkowski, right?

Yes.

Like, can we all just agree on that?

Yes.

I'm sitting there in, in like the back room And Sabers are going on a power play and all of a sudden Gronkh comes on the screen. I'm like, oh, this is awesome. In-game hit from Gronkh. Well, it's basically he's the main focus. We're not even really watching the power play, as dogshit as Buffalo's power play has been all playoffs and even the end of the regular season. And then they ask him about Witt's Saber Chug and all of a sudden I get thrown under the bus. Yeah, that was fucking crazy. I'm— although when it happened, I mean, I was busting out laughing because it was so random, but But I mean, what did you guys think?

Well, the only thing I think it was funny.

It was funny.

The only issue I had with it was Gronk saying the word high school.

Oh, dude.

Like Gronk, what he was saying was his high school friends and the fact that he is 36 and you're a single man hitting up other single people who are 36 in the Buffalo area.

Correct. Now I'm on the Epstein files.

Not high school. Right, right, right. Because like if you just listen to it, you're like, wait, what the fuck did he just say? So, uh, also, I— Oldie was—

sentence for Biz. Yeah, tough sentence.

Oldie was in the box with him.

Oh yeah.

Okay, so yeah, maybe, uh, I'm sure Oldie was just doing the splits and getting the morale going and trying to get Buffalo's power play back on track.

He literally was. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're getting them on, uh, Spittin' Chicklets tomorrow, so we'll see what he has to say about it. But obviously I was more of like laughter, and then like, why would— like, of anything to say on national television vision. Why would that be? Like, what did I— like, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's because like he had a thing for that high school girl. I don't know what's going on there.

I don't know, he might just be jealous. That's what I'm thinking.

I don't think that's the case, guys. Come on, this guy's a man missile. How many Super Bowls did Gronk win? 2 or 3, uh, or 4? He got 4, one with Tampa too, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, did it help at all with the prospects? Because I like— that's the way to speak.

I got a few messages.

Yeah, so Gronk might have helped give you— done you a solid. Like That's how I saw it. I was like, hey, he's just doing Biz's solid. He's getting him— he's getting his name out there being like, hey, Biz is on the profiles, hit him up. He's— when he's in the Buffalo area, let's get it going.

Yeah, I like— I, I'm good though. I just didn't need that. Yeah, like, I would, I would just rather have not have had that. But once again, it's funny. We're gonna get them on, we'll joke about it, and then who knows, maybe we can chisel them into a sandbag or Yeah, I mean, I was a sandbagger.

Yeah, yes, memes.

He would kill me in a rough and rowdy, but like that play, like that deserves like, like, what the fuck are you doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, you would expect that he, he would be better with the bro code. I will give you that. That was kind of— it was a shot. It was like overreach by Gronk on that one.

Yeah, and his fellow Eskimo brothers, I thought that we had— we're in, we're The trust tree, you know, the trust tree.

You're an Eskimo brother.

We're gonna stop it there.

You just said— you just said it.

You, you—

I know, but I said I'm— I, I agree, but I've said I'm stopping it there.

Oh, is it the, the, the, uh, what's her name from Arizona who, uh, might have done—

I'll stop it there.

Some film.

I'll stop it there.

Is she an actress? You guys, she's an actor. You laid out the same actress.

Actor.

We'll stop it there.

All right, so the next Next, uh, order of business. You and the most—

you guys would have had some funnier stuff that you guys would have brought up.

What do you mean? We're biz guys.

Okay, all right, thank you. I appreciate it.

I defend you. Like, if you want—

I appreciate it.

Hey, if you want— if you tell us we gotta fucking fight Gronk, we'll do it. We'll get our ass kicked.

But that's one way we should do a rough and rowdy where it's us three versus him, handicap match.

Yeah, yeah, just, just—

that would be a lot more fair.

Like a pack of lions jumping on them. Yeah, because we are biz guys.

Hyenas.

You can be on Grindr for all I care. I won't say a word about it.

Wait, is he?

Hypothetically, like, somebody had put his—

Whit's convinced I'm gonna get so bored, uh, eventually I'm gonna turn on the— turn over the other side of the menu. That's, that's Whit's line, word for word. I'm gonna eventually turn her— turn over the other side of the menu.

That's what happened.

I said, I said I'll do it, but it's going to be at a breakfast joint, just giving a waitress a complicated order again, like I did with wonton and the peek and It's like, I think David Bowie and Mick Jagger were probably the same way.

It's like, we've seen every vagina.

Yeah.

What else is out there?

Just try something else though.

Yeah.

All right. So the other business, biz, is the most biz story ever. You, the Maple Leafs hire a new GM.

Who we like.

Who we like. He's a nerd.

He's a genius.

Genius nerd. And then like 24 hours later they get the number 1 pick. Where are you at right now with the Maple Leafs?

So let's give the backstory. So, um, out of nowhere, like, so Brad Treliving, who was the, uh, the former Leafs GM, they just got rid of him with like a month left in the season. They, they cut ties. Um, I had him in Arizona. He was our assistant GM there. Loved him. Like, great guy. Like, uh, one of the boys, right? Uh, worked under Don Maloney, who was an incredible GM, and we had a really good family. In Arizona. And Shane Doan was our captain there, Mr. Coyote. He was with the organization for 21 years, um, got his jersey retired. Like, if you think of the Arizona Coyotes, you think of Shane Doan the player first, and then no one else, right? He was the guy. He stuck through the team through very difficult times when it was being sold, when the league owned it, when every, you know, 6 weeks there was rumors of the team moving out of the desert. Like, he would be kind of putting out fires and keeping the focused. And, and when I was there, we ended up making playoffs 3 years in a row and went to the Conference Finals.

Like, and this is all when the league owned the, the team. We didn't have much money. So then Donner, after he retired— and I'll get more into this— was kind of blackballed and, and, and stabbed in the back by the organization when Tchaikovskiy and new ownership took over. Tchaikovskiy ended up becoming the youngest GM in all the 4 major sports in the history, uh, at 26 years old. But fast forward to the Leafs now where Shane Doan was one of like the assistant GMs. They have a lot of them in a lot of different roles. They give them the assistant GM label. So my assumption, he's hired till July 1st, is he's no longer going to be with the Leafs. So when out of nowhere— and I expected Tree Living, the former GM, to get let go because things didn't go well in Toronto, then missed playoffs, and there's a lot of question marks— thought maybe he would get another stab at it, but whatever. So out of nowhere, they go through this GM search and up pops up this John Tchaika guy's name where he's basically going to be the, the first guy in line.

Like, that's the guy they're considering. And tons of people in the hockey world are shocked based on how it all turned out in Arizona when he was there. Not like he did a great job by any means to begin with, but it was the way that he left things. So when they eventually named him as general manager, me being a Leafs fan and I was like, no, my loyalty lies with Shane Doan. I want nothing to do with this guy and the fact that he got hired out of nowhere to be the Toronto Maple Leafs GM. Like, listen, maybe he ends up going on to have success, but to get the, the, the one of the biggest, if not the biggest, jobs in hockey as far as a general manager with the track record he has is laughable.

Can you tell us more about that track record? Because we talked a little bit about it, but okay, I'm sure we, we didn't scratch the surface. We know that he like hosted his own combine, which seemed like big brain genius Yeah, and listen, like, I'm just gonna give you the facts, right?

And, and keep in mind, like, I couldn't imagine getting the reins to an NHL team as a general manager at 26 years old. Like, I didn't— my maturity level at that age, nowhere near close enough to be the GM. So nor do I think any 26-year-old should be, should be given the reins as general manager of any professional sports team. Like, come on here, what are we talking about, right? There's a reason that it was the, the record at the time. So when he was GM there, the— I think the reason that he ended up becoming GM is because he befriended one of the owners. At that time, there was a large ownership group that had purchased the team from the league, so there was like 12 guys hanging around. I think he got— they got in one of them's ears where they thought it was going to be a good idea because analytics was this bright, shiny new toy. It was just kind of coming into league where people were talking about it, was like it was this revolutionary thing.

Thing.

And he just so happened to have already started a company doing it, okay? Analytics are great and all, and every team in the NHL uses analytics, but it is a department that the GM, who delegates a lot of stuff, uses as a tool to check some boxes and, and end up making a decision. It's not the end-all be-all. It's 10 to 15% of the pie graph type of thing, right? Along with what's his character like, uh, you know, what else can he provide the group, uh, you know, What's his, what's his character like? What did he— how does he gel with teammates? Like, can he maybe play multiple positions? So there's so much more that goes into decision-making than just like pulling up a pie graph based on like what your, your, your, your technology tracked when this guy was on the ice and how efficient he is. So they end up hiring him, and his first year there was Shane Doan's eventual last year as an Arizona Coyote. Mind you, the year prior to that, Doaner had scored I think over 30 goals with the team. And then the year where John Tchaikov first year as GM, I think Donner might have had like under 10 goals, um, in the 10-goal range, maybe 30, 35 points.

But like at that point he was obviously on the back nine, but you still have a great leader who's going to teach these young players you're bringing in how to act off the ice. And he was still undecided after that season whether he was going to play the next year. From speaking to him, it was like, no, I probably wasn't gonna play. And even if I wasn't gonna play, like, and they didn't want me playing, like, that wasn't the big deal. So this— at that point, I believe the GM was now 27-year-old— 27 years old. He called— he texts or calls Shane Doane, hey, meet me at this breakfast place in Scottsdale. Sits down with Shane Doane, 21 years of service, Mr. Coyote, most— one of the most beloved people in the Valley. Him, Larry Fitzgerald, uh, uh, Kirk Warner, a very few, uh, people in the mix there. And he says, hey, no long— uh, not only are you not going to play for us, like, we have no need for you in the organization. Anymore. Keep in mind, the year prior he had signed a deal where Shane Doan took deals his whole time in Arizona because the league owned them, they didn't have any money.

And then now on his last— that last year where, yeah, his offensive numbers weren't there, but keep in mind, boys, that's not the reason he's around. He's around for his leadership, being a veteran, and just teaching these young guys how to be professionals. He ended up taking deferred payments on his contract just to help the team out. So this guy who did everything imaginable to help this team win, stay in the desert, as loyal as they come, the list goes on— man of faith, community guy, unreal family man, helped out all of his teammates along the way— he gets called to a breakfast place to let him know that he's no longer wanted with the organization.

And Shane Doan is now with the Leafs.

He— because Brad Tree Living.

Yeah. So Chek is just following him around.

Timeout. Chekko was not even involved with the Leafs. Brad Treliving, who was the assistant GM, got the head GM job in Toronto. He had been in Calgary prior. We're fast forwarding like whatever, like 10, 15 years here to where now Treliving's with the Leafs as head GM. He brings in Donner because of all of his experience and knowledge, and it's just a good guy to have at the roundtable. Table. Like, Donner would go watch AHL team games and, and see the prospects and like bring back like, you know, he's really good at this, he's really good at that, what's his character like. He's a roundtable guy, right? That's what you need when you want to be successful general managers. If you look at the top 5 guys in the league, not only are they well respected, if you look around at their table, they have guys who might tell them when they come up with an opinion, you're a fucking idiot, like, fuck you, we're not doing that. That's what you want. You want people combating what you— you want people with strong opinions who might call you out on something they disagree with you on, right?

So that was number one on the list. So then, as he's GM for the team, um, the NHL does a combine, and you have to— any team only gets access to these players during these windows of times for obvious reasons, like nobody gets an advantage. So what happened was, is he hired a third party, uh, who was a former trainer with the Coyotes to go test— let's say, let's start here with one kid. So this is the original one that ends up coming up as like the, oh, they— he tested a guy and like he wasn't at the combine, like what was this? So then the excuse that was used was, well, this guy wasn't a part of the top prospects game and they— we were never going to get an opportunity to, to test him, therefore that's why we did it. Well, they dug into it a little more. I guess they tested the guy third party in October. The top prospects team or whatever it was haven't even— hadn't even been announced by them, right? So it was a— so then they look more into it and sure enough, they'd done it with dozens of guys, or let's— like a number of guys.

So they cheated. So what happened was, is boom, they lost the first round draft draft pick, a second round draft pick, a third round draft pick. Now to say that the, the NHL GMs are a boys club would be an understatement. Steve Yzerman, uh, Doug Armstrong— there's a bunch of guys at the top where they're well respected, they've been around a while. Ken Holland. And they've done it so long and they do it with integrity that they all respect one another. So, uh, Lou Lamorillo Well, could you imagine these guys when they find out that this young fucking punk who stabbed Shane Doan in the back is now testing these guys behind the scenes to get an advantage on them? Okay, all right, listen, let's swipe that one under the rug. Who gives a shit? So because he's such a genius GM at that time, and, uh, it was COVID time, so, uh, they shut down the league and they figured out, okay, we're gonna reboot things in this bubble and we're gonna do like a play-in because it's unfair to some teams who are on the outside looking that we're maybe trending in the right direction.

Let's do a play-in because it's COVID and it's different, and all these teams are going to go into the bubble that were within striking distance, I believe 12 from each conference. Well, right before that, uh, uh, so earlier in the season, they had signed John Cheka to a 4-year extension. They gave him a 4-year deal. Now all of a sudden, you get— you hired as a young GM, you haven't really done much, here's 4 years of security for you after you've really proven nothing. Everything. Hey, good for him, that's great. He goes to the owners, the, the, um, the new ownership group— uh, fuck, I'm drawing a blank— the Murillos. They purchased the team off of all those guys in the midst of all this, and they were now the majority owners of the team. So they're the ones who extended him. He goes to them and he says, I'm gonna go meet with the New Jersey Devils and, uh, and I'm gonna go talk to them about something unrelated than being hired there to work for the New Jersey Devils. They say, oh, okay, well, as long as you're going to meet with the Devils to not take a job and it's something unrelated to that.

He goes to New Jersey, comes back how many ever days later, and he tells them, I'm leaving the team and I'm gonna go work with the New Jersey Devils. And they're like, no, you're not. We signed you to a 4-year extension with a non-compete. And he's like, well, I'm going to be doing other things for them then. Uh, you guys need to fire me and I'm gonna go work for them. And they're like, uh, No, you're gonna fucking keep working for us and you're gonna go to the bubble where the team's going right now because we've kind of made playoffs for the first time in a while and we just gave you a 4-year extension. He says, nope, not going to the bubble. So refuses. The league eventually looks into everything and then he is relieved of his duties and fired. That was the last time he was a GM in the National Hockey League. So the biggest, richest organization in the NHL, after that that layover is now gonna just— after doing an extensive search for general managers, is going to name him to the head of position. Now listen, I have no ill will towards it.

Go on and go have sex with— uh, sex, Jesus— success with the Leafs. Go, go. I want nothing to do with it.

I actually think that's fair.

I want nothing to do with it, buddy. All this has to do with the fact that my buddy Shane Doan, who went to bat for me, and in times where maybe I was on the bubble, on a cusp by with the Coyotes. He was the guy in the room saying, no, we want Biz for the morale in the locker room because the guys like him. So if it wasn't for him, I might not even get the 5 years in the NHL. If it wasn't for him, I don't have the most enjoyable 5 years of my professional hockey career. And for— and he was the catalyst and the captain, the leader. When I was going through tough spots, who could I go talk to? To do. He had a family at home with 4 kids, and he was the guy that any guy in that locker room could lean on. I would take a bullet for that guy. So the fact that all that went down, the— now the team's gone because of the shit show. And all, all these little things have part to do with why the Coyotes left, among the ownership group and decision-making along the way.

And, um, that was my decision as to why I'm no longer with them. Now, the funny, the funny part of it is is I announced that.

Yeah.

And then they got the, the Steve Simmons, who's a reporter, obviously did some research and at the press conference asks an absolute bomb of a question. I thought it was a little offside. I don't think the guy deserved to get hammered on the way that he did, regardless of what he did to my friend. I thought it was a bit much. And the fact that the Steve Simmons guy could have asked him instead of asking Pelly about the question I mean, he had John Chaika to the left of him. Fucking have the balls to ask Chaika about it.

What was the question?

It was basically like, to Pelly, it goes, you told me that you've done extensive research and have done your due diligence when I've talked to 20 people around the league and 19 of them have told me that this guy has no credibility, he's a snake, uh, snake oil salesman, he's full of shit. And just basically like, like, question— completely question the guy's character. Where once again, if you're gonna ask the question, just ask it to John Tchaika. But that's— regardless of that, with the fact that they named him that, with the fact that that's the press conference, obviously Leafs land and the whole hockey world's going into an absolute fucking meltdown, right? And then sure enough, the next day on ESPN is the lottery draft. And because of the job and the tank job that Leafs did towards the end of the season after Olympic even though they were probably trying to win, they ended up being top 5 worst teams, therefore eligible to get the first overall pick. Like, huge bounce. Because if you finish— if you finish like 6th to like 11th, your odds dropped way worse, right? And if they were able to stay in the top 5 picks, they wouldn't have had to given up their pick to the Boston Bruins.

So there was so much at stake where maybe they wouldn't have had a first-round pick for the next 2 years, teams in shambles, and then more than likely Auston Matthews, their captain and franchise player, is like I was like, all right, this is a shit show, I'm out of here, I want to go win. And then boom, it's automatic rebuild. They end up getting the lottery ball, number 12, my number with the Coyotes.

Oh wow.

Which Whit just says, like, when it went— when it popped up and it was number 12 and the Leafs got the first overall pick and I had just quit the team the day prior, Whit was on his knees at home laughing his dick off in front of the TV, like, at the fact that this had happened to us. Like, we're like the Sabers chug, like, we're taking so many L's on our podcast right now. It's crazy. And, um, and they end up getting the first overall pick, who I said in the prior podcast, assuming that it wasn't gonna be them, Gavin McKenna. Yeah, who a kid I want to follow. He's going to be— I think he's going to be a phenom. I'm going to follow wherever he goes. Well, now I don't get to follow him. Yeah, because I'm sure the Leafs are going to draft them. So I just gotta re-emphasize here, I have no ill will towards this John Tchaika other than the fact that he stabbed my buddy in the back. I believe that people can grow mature and get older. And I think that he was put in a situation that was— he was in way over his head.

And even if he was just getting word from the ownership group or management or, or whoever else was involved, I'm pretty sure he had his hand in it. And the fact that he didn't want anybody, uh, threatening his integrity or, or, or his questioning or whatever he wanted to do with the team at the roundtable, and that's why he was fucking— he got his throat But I love that you are a ride-or-die friend.

I actually want to apologize because PFT and I did on Tuesday night when we joined your Chiclets livestream, which I think we had technical difficulties since we couldn't even hear what you guys were saying. Grenelli hit me up, was like, hey, you want to troll Biz? I had none. I had none of the backstory.

Boys, I love you.

I'm with you now. You know what, Biz? As of right this second, until you tell us we can do it, We will never again utter the words, this is a Leafs year.

Wow, that is such a bad— because we ride with you, and obviously I ride with you guys, and I love you boys. And even if you didn't and you wanted to keep trolling me, like, hockey is in such an amazing place right now. Like, the gameplay, playoffs, uh, the parody, and the fact that you have like these Bravo-type Bachelorette-type, like, chaotic things drama-wise happening off the ice. There's nothing better than the NHL right now.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Top dogs. We're the top dogs right now. And it's so cool to see because the players reciprocate the energies, the, the energy of the fans, and vice versa. And that's the passion of hockey fans. And I still love Leafs Nation and the people involved. The ones who are coming at me where they're like, it's all about the I don't give a fuck about the front of the crest rather than my, my good friend, and that's the end of that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so hopefully they can see where I'm coming from, and I, I'm glad you guys got the backstory, but, but at the end of the day, this is complete theater. Yeah, it's theater. And I'm interested to see what they're able to do, the Leafs, because I think that with their roster right now, I think that they'll be in playoffs next year.

Yeah, they're— the fact that they got the number 1 overall pick after all this happened was just the most chaotic scene possible.

Insane.

It, it, it was nuts. I read a story that this guy, when he was in, in Phoenix, he had like a bunch of computer screens that would be on in his office and they had like charts and graphs on it, but the charts and graphs weren't actually monitoring anything. It was just like to show that he was an analytics guy and he's got numbers on all the screens. Have you heard that?

So I, I did hear that story and I don't know if that's true or not. I feel like that might be one just trying to kind of pile on. And, and I do think that this guy He does have an analytics company and he is big into analytics. There is one other story where, like, I don't have any personal vendetta about this. I actually, like, would probably shake his hand for it. So I was approached by a guy, Craig Morgan, at the time when I, when I retired, I was working when all that was going down. I was working for the Coyotes because I went back to do radio. So I got to hang around with Tyson Nash, Bob Heat House, all the Rich Nairn who hired me, who was our PR guy while I was playing there and who, like, allowed me to reboot my Twitter account, all people I loved and had my back while I was there. So I was traveling with the team doing radio at the time, and I was drinking. Like, I don't drink anymore, but I was drinking then. But I was more into weed, and I felt like the weed would help with my anxiety.

And it was just, to me, a better high than being drunk. So I got approached by this Craig Morgan, who was working with the team and The Athletic as a writer. And he approached me. He's like, hey, I want to talk to you about like your cannabis use and like how it helps you and stuff like that. And, and I was like, oh sure, just assuming that he had already asked the team. And, and so we talked about this article. Oh, you know, why do you do it?

Why?

How does it help with your anxiety? Like, I'm like, oh, like, I, you know, I obviously had a lot of concussions throughout my days, and I feel like doing that is a higher buzz than boozing, and I like doing it, and it makes me happier, blah blah blah. The article comes out, and the team is like furious at me, and they ended up, uh, kicking me off the road. I never traveled with the team anymore after that, and they suspended me for 5 games. So I did work for weed, buddy. For fucking weed. For weed.

Ridiculous.

And like, buddy, I was fucking trying to bring attention to the team. I was, I was doing like, uh, video content for them. But that was the moment where I realized, like, I'm fucking— I'll just do whatever it is I want to do. As far like, like that, I believe at the end of that season is when I ended up joining the podcast, and I said fuck it, like I'm just gonna do any other side hustle because why am I gonna put all my eggs in one basket for people who are gonna shun me and kick me off the road for smoking a little weed?

Yeah.

And are you thinking, yeah, and now it's like a mandated part of your job, which is wonderful.

And everyone, I mean, I just, I just like that. I like the herb, like I do. I will try to, I, if I mean, do you guys— you, you smoke?

Yeah, I enjoy. Yeah, I'm not a drug guy, but yeah, like, yes, I love to do drugs.

I like weed, and I don't, I don't, I don't drink at all anymore. I actually like prefer smoking weed way more than boozing now. So that was another thing, like, other than the computer thing, like, that's why I was like, whatever, I'm good. And, and also my understanding is that that came from him and, and worked its way down.

Okay. All right.

Yeah, now you're presenting a pretty compelling case.

Yeah, but I'm telling you is like, I have no personal ill will.

We do though. We'll take it. We'll take the personal ill will.

We thought it might be cool that he had like fake stats that he would have on random screen in his office. Sounded like a real mover and a shaker. And now what you're telling us is maybe not a great guy to you. Yeah, we, we hate him and we have your back.

We'll do it.

You just tell us, text us stuff you want us to say and we'll just say it.

I think we just let them be.

Okay. All right, all right. Let's talk hockey right now. It's been awesome playoffs. Let's start with the series that ended, Hurricanes-Flyers sweep by the Hurricanes. Zach, are you going to say something?

I was curious. We, we did come to the conclusion earlier that a sweep may have deemed a city not a basketball city. Does a Flyers-Hurricanes sweep deem Philadelphia not a hockey city?

Hmm.

No. No, no, no, Philadelphia Flyers.

We didn't come to that. We didn't say the sweep.

What else did you have, Zach, though?

Oh, oh, the sweep wasn't the reason for the—

it was that it was 70— third, there wasn't 70% Carolina Hurricanes.

Got it, got it.

Oh, this— oh, so was the sweep the reason for the wet?

That's why you got wet earlier.

You got wet earlier for Sixers.

Are you referencing the fact that Knicks fans kind of took over Philly's building?

But what are you asking, Zach?

So would that be double wet?

Oh yeah, he does have to get soggy again.

10.

All right, I'll get soggy if Hank gets soggy twice for the, for the Bruins.

He did. I mean, he got wet for the Bruins. He got wet for the Bruins.

Yeah, I got wet for both.

Yeah, he got wet for the Celtics too.

Yeah, no, he got wet once for both of those games.

He didn't get wet for the Bruins?

No, you did not get wet twice.

Yeah, sorry, Biz, one second, we gotta deal with some of this. All right, so then Hank has to get wet right now too.

No, we— it was one wet. We got one wet for both, both losses.

Memes, what do you think about this?

I literally—

we got some internal stuff we gotta deal with here. I don't want to get yelled at, dude.

All right, let's ask Biz. Biz, we have a rule on the show that when your team gets eliminated from the playoffs, you have to, you have to get wet. You got to go step to the shower.

So fucking wet. And so I was— I literally—

the Sixers, they got eliminated, so he got wet. But then we're wondering, is it double wet because the Flyers also got swept?

But also, Biz, the same thing happened to Hank last week. And he just got wet once.

Yeah, so I mean, I think that you, you, you— it starts at the top, and Hank's a leader. And if he only got wet once, then you should—

great ruling, Biz, great ruling.

By the way, we put Zach up to that, so that, that's not—

oh yeah, you make Zach—

he's just got mad at Zach. He goes, Zach, what the fuck was that? Zach, you're okay, dude. All right, I— so I have a real question about this series.

Max, don't get too Oh Max, we're good here, buddy. Yeah, let's hug it out, boys. Let's hug it out.

Come on, Max, you're not wet, you're dry.

If I could forgive John Chaika, you could forgive Max.

Max, are we good?

Yeah, whatever, continue.

Okay, that sounds good. Freaking out now. Zach, you're good. All right, let's talk about this actual series though, because I do have a question. Everyone kind of dogs on the Hurricanes in their, in their style of play, you know, the dump and chase and everything. Is that wrong? Because they also are just insanely good at forechecking, and they seem like— like, is it because they don't have a superstar? What is it? Why are people— why, why do people like get annoyed with the Hurricanes when they've just started the playoffs with 8 straight wins? They look awesome. What is it? What, what pisses people off about the Hurricanes?

I don't know. I, I, you know, I, I, I can understand why some, some people might think that their system is boring, and maybe in the past last. I will definitely say that so far this playoff, like, they have not been— they've been electric. Like, they've scored some amazing goals off the rush. Um, they do like so many amazing things well. And in fact, like, they don't— like, they're the opposite of boring. They don't just sit back. They constantly attack you even when they're playing defense. Like, they'll be up in your face. Like, if they have forwards on a, on a controlled breakout swing and like inside their own blue line, like, they're gonna have D-man up in their face. So I think that it's a bad narrative now.

Okay.

Um, I could understand why maybe in years past, like, people didn't take them seriously because they knew once they got out of the Metro and they met a team like Florida, yeah, who was just bigger, stronger, did have those superstars, that they would get worked. Well, because people thought their system was a little bit boring, they didn't take them seriously, and they knew that they would get worked by a team like Florida who had all those things that they didn't. Well, when Florida ended up working them, like, they got to say, haha, I told you so. Um, I don't think that they have in the East any team like Florida remaining, and I think that they're out to prove a lot of people wrong, and they have a massive, massive chip on their shoulder, and they deserve any bit of credit that they've— they're getting. And if anyone has doubted them or said negative things, at this point at least, they should be getting on their hands and knees begging for forgiveness.

Okay, because I, I like that, because I, like, I've, I've watched some of these Hurricanes games.

They're not boring. No, they're not boring.

Like, they're— the way they forge— they just basically say, we're going to put pressure on you the entire game and it's going to suck beyond belief for you because you can't get the puck out of your own zone. And it's like fun to watch that style of play.

I get it.

No, no superstars, but they just constantly keep like going at them and you— there's nothing you could do about it.

I don't think they're boring. They've been that boring, as much as what you kind of alluded to, that it just sucks to play against them. You hate playing against them because it's boring. Like, from, from my point of view, if I was rooting for the Capitals against the, uh, the Hurricanes in the playoffs, it sucked. It was like nothing good would happen.

They're not giving you any time and space, right? If anything, that— if you're a Carolina Hurricanes fan, they are the type of team that makes you so proud to root for them because they're not like— I think that they're still even at— and today they're still under the cap cap. Um, now to go back to analytics, I believe that if you took all the teams in league, they would probably base the most of their decision-making on analytics and making sure they're getting the best bang for buck on their players. Um, and, and that's how they've based a lot of their decisions over, over the years. And this Tulsky guy, uh, who's like kind of— he would be considered like a nerdy analytics GM But hey, all the credit to him and the moves that he's made. He tried to make a big play last year where he came off of Neches, moved him to Colorado, got Rantanen without having him agree to sign a contract. Rantanen ended up saying, no, I don't really want to be here, and, and that fizzled through. But on the, on the goal line coming towards the deadline last year, he made a trade to get Rantanen.

So Rantanen, this unreal elite player, goes from getting poached from Colorado where he'd won a cup, doesn't want to sign in Carolina, and he moves him at the deadline to Dallas for Stankhoven, and then somehow works out a three-way trade to get Taylor Hall. Well, along with a guy they, they've drafted and developed in Jaxon Blake, a former player, Jason Blake's son, they've formed the, the second line on that team, and they're the hottest line in playoffs right now. Yeah. So they have two of these guys locked in moving, moving forward between Stankhoven and Jaxon Blake at just over $11 million for the next 8 years, and they're dominating playoffs. Rantanen cost Dallas $12 million. So smart, smart moves, very efficient players. And then they got a guy, Taylor Hall, who won a Hart Trophy with the New Jersey Devils, former first overall pick. They got him off of Buffalo— or excuse me, Chicago— for cents on the dollar. And then they signed him to a deal where I think he's making $4 million. So you have the hottest line in the league making $3 million, then you paid the one superstar that you got rid of at the deadline last year that's fucking making moves, baby.

Okay.

And aside from that, the last compliment and stroke off I'll give him, I think it has to do with the culture setter, a guy who won a Stanley Cup there. And Rod Brind'Amour, he's their head coach. He was a maniac when he played. He would be the guy, first guy to the rink, in the gym, workout before practice, hardest working guy in practice, last guy on the ice after practice, go to the gym, last guy to leave the rink. Uh, working out after games. This guy retired, he should be in the Hall of Fame as a player, isn't. And now he's led the Carolina Hurricanes since he's been head coach to, I believe, 8 or 9 now, uh, playoff appearances. And this is his third trip to the Conference Finals, I believe, in the last 4 years, where the last 2 times they've been, they've been swept. Uh, but man, this guy, he gets the most out of his players. An absolute culture setter. He's on a hometown discount as head coach there. And it is— honestly, if you are a fan of sport, you, you have to be in love with the Carolina Hurricanes and their story.

Okay, I like this. And then like this, you have to—

yeah, you have to.

And credit to Philly, because everything they did this year to turn around their organization with Rick Tocchet and management, and despite all the noise and shit on the outside, to get to the second round when they had a 3.8% chance with a lot of young guys in that lineup following the Olympics to even make playoffs, to beat Pittsburgh in the Battle of Pennsylvania with 3, 4 Hall of Famers on the other side. Kudos to Philadelphia and my boy Rick Tocca for doing what they did this year.

So with the Olympics, it's interesting you brought that up because I was going to ask you if, if there's been any noticeable trend of like any of the guys that played on the Olympic team, um, have, have they bounced— but like when they came back to, uh, to their teams, have they been playing better? Have they been playing worse? Like they're tired out? Has there been any, any like noticeable thread that you've seen between all Olympians?

Um, I think that for the majority of them, I think that they have like, like exceeded my expectations and, and outperformed expectations based on how much hockey they've played this year. These guys are going— the hockey is such a brutal sport, boys. Like, I look— football is obviously very difficult, but they got a week between games. These guys are lacing them up. Like, like Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes for Minnesota played 30 minutes the other night. They've been playing hockey every other day in games, battling for, for what, 8, 9 months now, and then going to play best on best. They each lugged 30 minutes the other night. They had 5 points combined. I would say 75% of them are still playing to elite status, and then there's some guys who are just dealing with probably sore groins and, you know, just hips are fucked up, shoulders, whatever they're trying to play through. But I, I think that, that more than, than not have outperformed my expectations, and people and still playing at an elite level.

LeBron played 37 last night, just so you know. Like, yeah, it's cool that they're playing 30. Yeah, he's 41. Okay, 37 minutes.

Okay, let me ask you this: how many games— how many games in the regular seasons did he take off?

A couple, maybe.

Maybe a few here or there.

To compare NBA and NHL, where any— NBA had to make a rule where if you don't at least dress for 65 games that you can't play in playoffs, boy, boys, we're, we're talking apples and oranges here.

Anthony Edwards played 40 minutes tonight and his knee went like sideways 2 weeks ago.

Well, good for him. He's making $40 fucking million. He should be.

Uh, all right, other game, the Avs. Is anyone, anyone taking out the Avs? Also, uh, do you have any thoughts on Nathan McKinnon going full scuba gear in the pool? I loved it. Like, guys can't play mermaids? What the fuck are we doing? I, I used to do that when I was a little kid. I'd get, get, I get the, the, the scuba mask. I just dive at the bottom of the pool for like 5 hours. What, we can't do that anymore? We're getting shunned?

Yeah, it was obviously a silly video for people who are unaware of, of how Nathan MacKinnon operates. So for you non-hockey fans, this guy is an absolute dog. He's a— he's the, the— I think he's the biggest superstar in the league that will like go and like quote unquote handle his own business. I'm not talking about like fighting per but if there's a loose puck in a corner, he's going to try to take your fucking head off to get it. And that's not what you see from skilled high-end players all the time. They try to preserve themselves, but he'll go reverse hits, he'll go shoulder to shoulder with you heading into the wall to get the advantage. Uh, he also handles his off ice as more intense probably than anyone in the league as far as diet, uh, preparation. He has a mental coach, uh, physically um, like hyperbaric chambers, like anything to get the edge, he will do it. And one thing that Tyson Barry, his good friend who played with him in Colorado, brought to our knowledge was in order to like recover, he gets to zone 2 cardio on his off days, and he does it through low-impact exercise in the swimming pool.

So he does that, he'll go in there with the snorkeler and the, and the goggles and with the, the the footsie things, and he just kind of gets his heart rate going and he goes and does loser laps with the scuba gear on. And obviously it's, it's a little bizarre because like, I bet you there's not one other guy in the NHL that does it, but he has some unauthentic, um, you know, things that he does as far as his preparation. And, and who am I to judge him based on what he's bringing to the ice? He's all in. Every, every second of his day seems to be accounted for and how he's going to be ready to go and fire on all cylinders the next game. So no, yeah, fascinating human.

All right, so we got no problem with the, with the swimming with the scuba gear. Is anyone— what, what, what is stopping the Avs? I know it's only 2-1, so like the Wild, you know, answer—

or the Wild can— yeah, the Wild can play like they did last game. They, they'll— they could beat them. Like, they— like, though it was the first time in these playoffs they've, well, won that Colorado's lost. Lost. And two, they've looked human. And I think that the two guys I mentioned, Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber, can be a problem because they're so dynamic offensively from the back end. But they also have some superstar wingers. And Kirill Kaprizov, who's the Russian, he just signed the biggest deal in NHL history, uh, just over $17 million per year on an 8-year deal. And then they have a guy on an absolute bargain deal in, um, uh, Boldy, Matt Boldy. Goldie, who played for Team USA at the Olympics, had the stellar— um, I think he scored the first goal in that gold medal game, or at least made the play. I remember he was— I think he scored. He went and dangled through Cale Makar and, and Taves, which is like unheard of. So they, they are dealing with a couple significant injuries right now, but they— I believe they have the edge in goaltending. They're D— they have a couple dynamic D, and then those very skilled wingers.

Now, I believe that Colorado will bounce back in Game 4, But I also believe in Minnesota and the culture that they've built with Bill Guerin, who is the GM of Team USA for the Olympics. They're dogs. Like, they're at home, they're down 2-1, and Game 4 is going to tell me everything I need to know about both teams.

Okay, I like that.

What about, um, what about the Canadiens? Did Montreal figure out Buffalo?

What a crowd.

So what— first of all, if, if, if you're just like a sports fan Man, if you ever have the ability to go to Montreal to watch a playoff game, do it.

It's unreal.

The, the— they, they usually bring out a legend. He brings out the torch, he brings it out, they like ignite the ice and the ice is in flames. And then Coldplay's playing and they're coming on the ice. Every Canadiens fan is in a red jersey waving the towels as they come on the ice. They know— it's like going to watch a British Premier League soccer game where where even a little subtle poke check defensively, they'll cheer for it. Yeah, they're like, bravo, great job. So the knowledge of the fan base and the crowd is just so fun to be there and be a part of. Outside, they have 25,000 people outside the building going crazy with the monitors out there too. So you see that a lot with sports now, but they like lead the way in that regard. And they're the New York Yankees of, of like the players, the way they're treated. They got paparazzi. It's just insane. And Martin St-Louis, a French-Canadian player who was, uh, you know, he's a Hall of Famer. I don't know if he is yet, but he might be, but he should be. Uh, won Stanley Cup, I believe he won an MVP.

He's now their head coach and has taken this young group to the next level. And they, yeah, they, they have a great, well-built team. Like, they just, they have a really good team. Top 4 lines, their, their D are very good. They got good contracts. They have a superstar defenseman, Lane Uh, Cole Caufield scored 50 goals this year. He was a Wisconsin Badger. Nick Suzuki is going to win the Selke Trophy. Um, but I would say that right now Buffalo's America's team, right? So it kind of sucks that they're— the last two games they've laid a bit of an egg. But 5-on-5, they don't look great. Their power play has been killing them a little bit, and they're getting fucking worked in the face-off circle. So they're not even starting with the like, I don't know the last time I've seen a team get dominated this bad in this faceoff circle in a playoff series where I've taken notice to it. They're like 60 to 65%. They're starting with the puck. So for 5 on 5, that's just killing them. And they're just, they're just good. They, you know, they feed off the crowd. And Buffalo is a little bit inexperienced.

And you, you can see it right now. They look a little bit shook. So I'm interested to see, just like I said about knowing and finding out everything we need to know about those two teams in Game 4. If Montreal takes a 3-1 series lead, there's— I think they're going to close that thing out and they're going to move on to play Carolina. So Buffalo's on the hot seat. And then the one thing with them is the question mark in net. Do you go back to Alex Lyon or are you going to— oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, Pekka Lukkonen, the Finnish kid.

Yeah, the— I just looked, they won 62% of their faceoffs tonight.

That's not a recipe for success.

No.

And they were—

Buffalo fans are bitching about the refs, but I thought they They didn't play a very smart game. They need to get— they need to get back to playing more physical and more on— more with an edge, especially at the fact that they have the size advantage. Yeah, there was a big— there was a big moment for me in this series, and it, it was with Greenway and Anderson. Montreal— Anderson's with Montreal, and at the end of last game, Montreal was, I believe, up 4-1, and Greenway is like 6'4", 6'5". He's even bigger than Anderson. And he was fucking going up and cross-checking him, punching him back in the head, and basically bullying him and calling him a little bitch. Like, fuck you, you little bitch. We just fucking worked you in your building and you're a little bitch. You're my bitch. And Greenway just took it and didn't do anything. And he's a fourth liner. And I'm like, bud, drop the fucking gloves and pound that guy's face in and show your team that you're not backing down. And fuck you, we'll see you in Montreal, you motherfucker. Didn't do fuck all. Then they went to Montreal and got absolutely ragdolled tonight, and he didn't go after Anderson.

He didn't do anything. I thought that that was a very pivotal moment where hockey has a lot to do with intimidation. And I'm a— if I was the coach or one of the guys on the team, I would go up and tap him and say, hey, fucking go grab that fucking guy and pump his eyes shut. I don't even care if you're—

you're—

it's not in you You got to fake it till you make it.

Yeah.

Grab onto him and wrestle him and then go to the ground. At least I like that.

Don't pump his eyes shut.

As a Canadian, are you— are you rooting for Montreal?

I'm so— well, keep in mind, I'm from southern Ontario. Like, I used to go watch more Buffalo Sabers games than Leafs games growing up because the ticket— they would give us tickets at par and I would go to the old odd Buffalo Auditorium. So I'm kind of 50/50. But if Montreal wins, I would love to see a Canadian team go the distance and win. Win. That would be awesome. And my family's from Montreal. I'm French-Canadian.

You also, like, there's— you can't have another Southern team. You've had the Panthers win, and then now you have the Avs looking like the best team. You can't have a Southern team win the Cup again.

Vegas, Minnesota, a lot of Southern teams.

Since that we talked about that, calling, uh, Colorado South, like Southern United States. Yeah, I've had a few people back me. Like, it's— we're on the cusp. We're on the cusp here. It's more West than South, and I get that, but we're on the cusp there.

Yeah. All right, so like, if you had to repick it right now, we're watching the, uh, Knights-Ducks series right now, which this will be a pivotal game.

What's the score now?

It's 2-2.

Okay.

Um, but if you had to pick, is it Avs, or is it like— have you seen something like Hurricanes? I mean, the Hurricanes have not lost in the playoffs.

I mean, if you, if you held a gun to my head, I would say Avalanche, just because I, I just, I look at their roster and right now they, other than Josh Manson, who might, who's coming back any game now, they look healthy. Um, I would lean towards them, but if Minnesota wins next game, like, that's a coin flip. Um, and then, uh, if Vegas wins this game, they're going to be up 3-1 in that series, and Vegas is good, man. Like, they got a strong team, they got good goaltending. And the other funny element of, of the Le— all the Leafs chatter is Mitch Marner, who is, is having an unbelievable playoff, probably one of the top guys like for like the Conn Smythe Trophy right now. He's got fucking half the amount of goals in one playoff than he had for the Leafs his entire career. And you could say that Leafs fans kind of ran him out of town, and I was, I I was ragging on him a little bit. In, in like 18 games in playoffs that— and maybe it's 21 games— that he played for the Leafs from games 5 to 7, so in very important closeout games where you were deciding series, he had 0 goals and 6 assists.

Well, this is a guy who wanted top dollar coming out of his entry-level contract, wanted to be paid like a superstar, and in crunch time— I mean, I'm not just putting it all on but he didn't deliver. So I was kind of like, ah, fuck, I'm like, enough. He can, he can, he can leave. We don't need him anymore. Let's try to solve our problems without him regardless of how good he was in the regular season. Well, now he's gone off to Vegas and on to bigger and brighter things. So it just throws more salt in the wound how crazy that the 12-month turnaround for the Toronto Maple Leafs has been. And I do feel bad because I ragged on him probably too hard. Hard, but he deserves all the praise that he's getting now and how he's rebounded and performed so far in these playoffs. And like I said, probably the front runner in the West, if not top 3, for who I would give the Conn Smythe to as of right now. Okay, and go ahead.

I was going to ask you about like, you're moving on from the Leafs, so I wanted to know, you mentioned that your fandom is kind of up for auction, or you're searching, you're trying to figure out who it's going to be like, what, what are we thinking about? Do you have like a handful of teams that you're gonna pick from?

So there is a possibility that, that the Leafs do pick Stenberg as the first overall pick. People say that right now he might be a little bit more NHL ready and ready to step in. This is a very deep draft, I think, for the first 3 to 5 picks. And so who knows, maybe it's one of those things where McKenna ends up dropping. I don't think that's going to be the case case, if McKenna drops to 2, San Jose ended up getting the 2nd overall pick. Right now I'm rocking a San Jose Sharks Macklin Celebrini jersey. This kid's stud is a stud. He is a fucking freak. He's the next Sidney Crosby. He didn't get nominated for the Hart Trophy this year because his team didn't make the playoffs. He finished with more than 50 points more than the next guy on his team and dragged them to like the end of the season, almost making playoffs. Playoffs, putting the team on his back as a 20-year-old, just dominating. He dominated the Olympics, like, best on best. He was the, like, the— he was, like, arguably the best player for Canada, maybe just as good if not better than McDavid, who got the MVP.

But I digress. They got second overall and got lucky with the lottery ball too to bump up. If McKenna drops to 2, I think it's going to be automatic. I'm jumping on San Jose Sharks train. Okay, if But there are a lot of options I have as far as who I may go to. But as you can see, my— the hat I'm wearing, I might keep it neutral and not root for a team for like a year. Like, I might just wait, hang in the weeds, not be a biased donkey like my boy Whit, and like I've been in the past.

Yeah, look at— you got—

we got—

we got a league off right here. The league—

I think our logo is so much cooler than yours.

No, my—

this is the best. I've always said the NBA— the Jerry West. You got no respect for Jerry West, the logo?

Um, I got respect for Jerry West.

Okay, good, good, respect. Um, all right, I got, uh, one last question for you, Biz. You're the best. Rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

One more crazy thing about Vegas. Yeah, they fought— they're known as one of the most cutthroat organizations in the league with the decisions they make. Make. They fired their head coach, who they won a Stanley Cup with a few years back, 4 days— 4 games before playoffs started.

Yeah.

And hired John Tortorello. So you talk about all the craziness and drama and shit that's been going on with the NHL, like, it kept getting crazier and crazier and crazier. Oh, sorry, it was like maybe 11 games. There was another team that fired their coach 4 games before trying to make playoffs. Fired Islanders. Yeah, Islanders. Patrick Wall, Hall of Fame goalie, He went and convinced the guy to move his— wave his no-move clause in St. Louis to come to them, and then 4 games before playoffs they fire him and hire Pete DeBoer, who is a coach waiting in the weeds. So the NHL is fucked. Yeah, it's unreal.

Uh, all right, promo code TAKE, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Zach, do you have a final question for Biz? Oh, by the way, the name popped in my head— B.B. Jones. That's who we were talking about earlier.

Yep, yep. She went— so, so we had intercourse and she went on a local radio show the next morning because I wouldn't post a picture with her, and she told the whole valley I had a small wiener and I didn't last long in bed.

That's mean. You've probably lasted, what, 3 minutes?

Uh, well, it went longer than that because her boyfriend kept calling. Oh, I found out— because I found out was her boyfriend through that interview she was on the next morning for.

So I'm going—

I'm, I'm heading to the rink the next day. We have a game against the Chicago Blackhawks fighting for a playoff position, and I'm listening to the whole valley find out I have a small wiener and I'm horrible in the sack. So I mean, if you can't laugh at yourself, then you can't laugh at yourself, but that shit's funny.

Yeah. All right, Zach, finish.

So I don't think I got a small one. I would say it's like—

no, I've seen it. Average. Yeah, it's decent.

You've seen my Nope.

Yeah, you've been—

you're not shy.

Yeah, you take helicopter cock.

Yeah, you're not shy. But I mean, yeah, if you, if you clipped it, then you'd lose, you know, half inch. So smart move not doing that.

That's the thing. I must have rolled it back when she saw it. Um, anyway, roll back last question.

Yeah, congratulations on having absolute peace. I was curious, is Matthew Schaefer the, uh, Is what? Is Matthew— is Matthew Shaffer the future face of this league? And if so, will it cement him as the greatest Canadian of all time?

No, I would say that it would— you can't beat Wayne Gretzky when it comes to hockey players and the greatest, like, Canadian of all time. Um, shout out, like, all the other great Canadians, like Michael Myers, Alexander Graham Bell, Justin Bieber, um, John Candy, like, the list goes on. We, uh, Jim Carrey, Alanis Morissette. Alanis Morissette. A little ironic, don't you think?

A little too ironic.

Yeah, I really do think it's like rain.

Yup.

On your wedding day. Sing with me.

It's a free ride when you're already paid.

It's good advice that you just didn't take. Who would have known?

Jam. Um, Matthew Schaefer is going to win the Calder for Rookie of the Year. This year. Uh, he had probably the greatest rookie season for a defenseman in the history of the NHL this year, and he is on his way to becoming one of the greats. And I, I hope that he's able to follow it up next year. And he's such an amazing kid. And sure as shit, we're doing this interview on Mother's Day, and he unfortunately lost his mother to a battle with cancer. And this kid who has been through and dealt with all that got drafted last year, obviously not having his mother there, and had the cancer ribbon on his jersey when he was drafted. He was in tears, obviously wanted his mother, who he adored, to be there. He battles through all that adversity, comes in his first year in the league and does what he does with, with, uh, with, with all the, all the circumstances. So what a kid, what a special kid and a special player, and we're, we're blessed the NHL has him.

All right, yeah, NHL's in great hands.

Shout out to all the moms out there, the amazing mothers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out to all the moms.

Bibi, what's up?

You're a fucking idiot. She is a mother. She is a mother now.

Yeah. Shut up.

She doesn't work in the industry anymore. Not yours. Not my mom. No, no, not yours.

Not yours. All right, Biz, you're the best. We love you. And we'll talk maybe before the Stanley Cup Final.

Boys, great. I love talking puck with you guys. And I know I rambled a lot, but I hope I gave you guys a lot of value. Information and what's going on with our amazing league. So anybody who listened, thank you guys, love you, and you guys are the best. I love you all.

And fuck John Tchaikovskiy!

Yep, yep. No, no, we said it not you.

We're biz guys. We don't like the guy. You can take the high road; we're taking the low road.

How about— how about we put our energy to just let's— why don't we show love for Shane Doan right now? One of the biggest stars that NHL has ever seen. Over 1,500 games played, over 1,000 points, and he's a Hall of Famer in my heart.

Heart.

Love you, Donor.

Yeah, Donor.

Human being.

Lots of respect for Donor.

Yep.

You guys are the best.

Fuck John Cheikh.

We're Donor party on this podcast.

All right. Thanks, Biz.

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Okay, let's wrap up the show. The Timberwolves have tied the series. Anthony Edwards Dude, that guy had his leg went backwards 10 days ago and he came out tonight. I think he was taking oxygen during the game. Absolute dog. What a performance. I know Wemby's out because he, uh, he elbowed. He had a little oopsie. A little oopsie flagrant to Dylan Harper's face, by the way. Was so funny in that. Yeah, chat thought he was so funny.

I mean, it was clearly just like, it was the right call. Yeah, it should have been a flagrant—

no, he, he went after him, smashed him. But, but Anthony Edwards, this is why the Timberwolves, like, you know, when Friday night happens and Wemby just has a historic night where he just completely— he's an alien and dominated that game to a level that they were throwing out, like, the stats where the only other guys who did what he did were Kareem, Hakeem, Shaq, and Wemby. Like, that That's— those are, those are the best centers of all time, and Wemby is in his first playoffs doing shit like this. And then Sunday night happens, and again, Wemby's out, but still, this is what the Timberwolves are. They're just absolute dogs. And Anthony Edwards, like, on one leg, drops 36 and just will not let the Timberwolves lose this game. And they've— like, Julius Randle has not been great. And they, they still— like, Anthony Edwards, like, I gotta just do this. And he did it. And it's fucking— he's, he's the man. He's just absolutely awesome to watch and awesome to, like, see. He just, he just— he has that, like, killer instinct that even when shit is going bad, he's like, I'm going to just will myself to a victory here.

And now we have a series which, if you look, like, big picture The Timberwolves and Spurs are going to kick the shit out of each other and then Thunder are going to kill whoever's like battered because the Thunder are going to have a whole entire week off. But I don't care because this has been a fun series to watch.

I think no matter who—

great.

So here's where I've ended up because I picked the Nuggets in 6 against the Timberwolves in the first round. I felt pretty confident about that. And then I learned my lesson. I was like, I think that the Timberwolves can beat the Spurs. I don't know that they will, but I think that they can because I'm done. I'm done. Doubting the Timberwolves after everything they've done in, it feels like, the last 3 playoffs.

You know, every year they win as an underdog.

They crush somebody. And I feel like the Timberwolves might be the team that would give the Thunder the best push in these playoffs, just because I feel I've seen them do it again and again and again against supposedly, you know, outmatched opponents. So I feel like if they can beat the Spurs Lakers. I think that might be our best recipe for the, uh, to have like a close Western Conference Finals.

Yes, Hank, you're wearing the NBA hat. You're, you're a league guy.

League.

Would you say that the best-case scenario for the Finals is Spurs-Knicks?

Um, little '99 throwback? No.

Are you talking about ratings? Yeah. No, I think it'd be Lakers-Knicks.

Well, yeah.

Okay, technically still alive, so gotcha.

He's right on that.

Yeah, he's 100%. You're counting LeBron out.

Yeah, I am.

Yeah, that was really—

that was just my thoughts as a sports junkie, regardless of my own sport I play.

Yeah, no, but it would be realistically the best ratings.

Yes, the realistic scenario of the Spurs with Wimby against the New York Knicks. Yeah, I think that's it.

Also, Dylan Harper was awesome when he had to step in and just— he was great. I mean, the Spurs are really good.

It's just—

yeah, when he's got to not elbow people's heads off, I I don't— there's no way he gets suspended, right?

No, I don't think so.

But there has been precedent for this type of— Ron Artest, remember Ron Artest like almost took James Harden's like head clear? It was regular season, different.

But I think his elbows too are just up at people's heads, it's different.

Yeah, Ron Artest also did have, you know, a history at that point to where it was like, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna get him anyway.

I—

it was, it was a weird play because it was— they push. They didn't call the foul beforehand, but then Wemby still— you can't, you can't do that.

No, I mean, he got, he got pushed a little bit. He did kind of snap. I don't know what the monks have been teaching him. I feel like monks are nonviolent by nature, right? So like, that's— he should figure out, as a Frenchman, his first instinct should be to not fight back.

He also should learn the rules because he had no idea what the flagrant—

he's like, qu'est-ce que c'est flagrant?

Yeah, what is this? What do you mean I'm not playing anymore? I would expect an incredible Wemby game 5 coming up.

Yeah, I think so. Memes, I saw, I saw, I think you tweeted out about this. Is it true that Šimpágni, that he's on the Spurs because the Sixers cut him?

Well, maybe you come like a little bit close to pronouncing his name right.

And that would work better.

But just like a little bit close.

All right, go ahead.

Šimpágni.

Nope.

Champagney.

Nope.

Champagney.

Nope.

Champagner.

Nope.

Champagner. Champagner.

Answer the question, meme slash Max.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean you have no idea? You tweeted it out.

I don't think so.

I thought it was you. You? Wasn't me.

I get fucked up sometimes from PMT stats.

It might have been that.

Same, same. That will get me every now and then.

Let me look this up.

I thought it was you.

Yes. And you know why he's not a 6er PFT? He's your fucking guy, Mack McClung. Yeah, they dropped him to add Mack McClung to their active roster so that he could compete in the dunk contest.

Oh, that's kind of crazy.

And your guy Josh Harris.

Yeah, you're right, it was PMT Stats. Good job, PMT Stats. That's a fun PMT stat.

Yeah, he does get me sometimes. He's a good dude. Uh, but yeah, this is, this is kind of, this is the series we have to cling on to when it comes to the NBA playoffs right now. It's been great. Tuesday night, so we— what, what's the— what did they bump up the time for this game because of, uh, no other game, hopefully. So, 7 o'clock, there we go. Get excited. Yeah, Wemby's gonna, you know, I mean, getting a little— also, take it out of this game. He's got it, he's got it, he's gonna be fresh.

Shout out to Nas Reid for just like, for taking that like a champ too.

Oh yeah, dogs are just dogs. They— everyone on the Timberwolves is a dog.

So Jade McDaniels is a dog. Oh my God, being like, I— oh my God, the Nuggets suck at defense. Uh, Jokic sucks at defense, Murray sucks at defense. Every—

he just backed it up.

He called them all out by name.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, he proved that.

Anthony Edwards' leg went backwards. There was a— the realistic timeline was for him to not play in this series. Yeah, he's played every game. He's basically like, yeah, I'll just rehab on the fly. Okay, good show, boys. Um, PGA Championship.

Yeah.

This week, Shane Bacon on Wednesday.

Major.

Is that in Philly?

Philly. Fucking Philly. Max took his prom pictures there.

It's true.

It's a golf town. Philly. Not, not a basketball town.

That'd be funny if there's just a bunch of bing bongs going off. By the way, I asked Jerry O'Connell if he wanted to, if he had a statement. He said, I said Nixon for 8 days ago. I'm on to OKC was last week. Nothing to say. Okay, so he's— yeah, he called the shot. Jerry was very right. Yeah, he said it almost immediately. He's right, Mr. Bing Bong. He's right. Hey Shane, Shane, you ready to get charged up?

I'm always charged up.

Are you ready?

Are you ready? Where's it gonna go? I mean, probably probably in the rafters. 43— I bought a 43-foot-long Get Charged Up banner. Wherever it is, I'll be there. I'm ready for the unveiling. Yeah, I think you got to do the unveiling. Me? Yeah.

What do you mean?

I can do that.

That'd be—

that'd be the honor of a lifetime. There we go. Get charged up, bro.

The whole office get charged up.

Oh, we're all getting bolted. That's what I'm talking about. Every day you're gonna walk in, you're gonna be like, oh shit, I forgot to get charged up. Facts, right? Right, right.

Bolt up.

Let's go.

Hell yeah.

If anybody from the, from the Washington Mystics knows where to get our hands on the WNBA attendance champion, I will purchase them. I would love to have 6 of them, maybe 3. I, I, I will buy up to 3 of them, dude.

I've been trying to get those. I want the Florida State COVID one. I want the St. Joe's one. Just bad banners. Get— let us know. We're, we're in the market for I want this whole office to just become basically a sports museum where everyone's like, I guess that's cool. Like, you know, you're like, oh, OK, I get— yeah, I guess the Bills trophy's cool. A lot of that reaction. Nothing, nothing to be like, oh my God, you have that?

No, no.

Yeah. Oh, all right.

Yeah.

How much did you pay for that? A lot of that. I want that. I want the whole museum to be like that. Maybe that's the name of the museum. The— how much did you pay for that?

Oh, so also shout out to Four Aces. They have a championship banner.

Yes.

Live Virginia.

Yes.

Team win.

Yes.

One.

Why would they get rid of that, Hank?

I don't know if they're— maybe they make double when they make one, make two.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

And I think that the Bills, I think that they had O.J. Simpson's jersey retired for like 40 years.

Take it.

But then they unretired it. But at some point they had to have a banner saying it was retired, right? Yeah, we would take that.

We'll take it. Okay. Numbers.

4, 15, 14.

Why did you say 4? 4, 6, 18.

Double sweep.

What about a statue?

Can we get a statue? Yeah.

I actually— boys, I, I would 100% buy the Joe statue. I think it would be a great statement piece. I think— all right. Hey, listen, I'm not— I know there's controversy around it.

It.

But imagine you walk in and the Joe Paws statue's right there. Holy shit, that's a fucking— that you don't have to do small talk when you got the Joe Paws statue. You're bam, you're in the conversation. You're, you're, you're putting— you're, you're doing the John Taffer stress test on guests instantly. What do you think about that?

Oh man.

All right, uh, 77. '67. How sick would that be though?

11.

We just had it when you walk in the front door.

I, I think they're bringing it back. I don't think they're selling it.

They're waiting.

They're waiting a couple—

oh, you want to see what I am trying to buy?

Like another 20 years and they're gonna be like, yeah, we're gonna bring this back.

63. Uh, 63. Max, can you, can you pull up, uh, the— it's called the Nails Tails football statue. It's from Madison, from Wisconsin. We had this statue up for like 10 years and then they took it down and it hasn't been seen. They said they were putting it somewhere else. PFT, look at this. It's a penis-shaped statue, 43 feet tall, of footballs.

That's all football.

That's footballs, dude. Where would you—

what was it for?

We'll just find a place.

Where was it made?

43 feet.

It was just me. It was put in front of Camp Randall It's there for a while. It's been taken down. Look at that. Look at all the footballs, PFT.

Yeah, but why did they— I don't understand why they— one, built it in the first place, but why would they take it down?

Like the art of like the struggle of football. Uh, I don't know why they took it down, but I'm trying to find it. Could you imagine if we had this?

It looks kind of like a football butt plug.

How sick would that be? Yeah, imagine if we had this 43—

where would this go?

We could figure it out.

Oh, there's one other statue I was thinking about about the other day. Why can we try to track down the subway statue that they made of Robert Griffin out of deli meat?

I don't think it's just deli meat.

Yeah.

No, look it up. Look it up. I don't know what it's actually made out of.

I think it's deli meat.

It's a subway.

Yeah. Where would it—

look at that thing.

It's deli meat.

Where can we get that? Does that still exist? We'd have to make it.

I don't think it exists anymore. It's deli meat.

You can't destroy that, though.

Yeah. PFT, it doesn't— it's— it's—

you make that in its art, and I don't think anyone in good conscience could destroy that.

You're like asking for like an ice statue.

Yeah.

You're asking for like, hey, does anyone got that sandwich I was eating 10 years ago?

You're like, leave it.

You can't—

you can't put that sandwich outdoors because birds will eat it.

I had a chicken parm.

Where—

where'd it go?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think we can. I mean, maybe Who knows?

Robert, let us know.

All right, one more.

15.

11.

Same number, 77.

Also, pre— a pre-happy birthday coming up on Thursday. Thursday's Max Homa's birthday.

Oh, hell yeah!

On a major Thursday. Happy birthday, Max, in advance.

81. Anyone? Anyone?

81.

Also, uh, can we do a, a, a happy birthday? Because they literally were born, I think, 2 days ago.

LaJuan.

LaJuan.

LaJuan.

You didn't see LaJuan? No.

Yeah, which one?

LaMelo's son. Oh no, you named him LaJuan.

LaJuan is his name. LaJuan.

I had to look at this.

Shut up.

So many times thinking that I was getting sent old.

Pop the champagney.

LaJuan.

How sick is that?

Lil One is an incredible name. So his name is La One Ball? Yeah. That's fucking awesome.

One Ball.

I can't be real.

That's no way. But then the real— I just, I stared at it like I— it was— I saw the NBA Central tweeted it and I stared at the Twitter account count for 10 minutes being like, am I miss— it's central, right? It's got to be central. Luan, happy birthday, Luan.

Oh my God, happy birthday, Sabrina Carpenter. Uh, happy birthday to Cam Newton and Matt Leinart and Billy Bean, Moneyball. And also Tuesday is Steve Smith, noted, and Mo Bamba and Jonah Lomu, maybe the best rugby player ever, ever to play.

Love you guys.