Transcript of Russell Westbrook Announces His Retirement | Hour 2 New

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Mike, are you starting to get excited about college football season? We're really close, man.

Yeah, I've been out to practice a couple of times and the pads are popping, guys are flashing, the smell of grass, the sprinklers going on and whatnot, and a season of expectation. Yes, I'm pumped.

And the value that you get out of going to one practice, just being able to say for the rest of the season— I'm not saying Mike's doing this, but I've done this. I've done this move with Dolph. I was out of camp. Just that sentence, that little sentence.

Oh yeah. Well, I've been at camp regularly.

Oh wow.

Goosebumps.

Are you willing to say anything like you did last year that Carson Beck looks better than Cam Ward ever did in fall camp?

Don't change everything that I said.

That's—

yeah, I said he had a better fall camp than Cam Ward.

Okay, whatever.

And I was right about that. And you wouldn't know because I was at practice.

How's Mensa's fall camp going?

I think his fall camp is good. Yeah, he's looking good.

Let's bring aboard my friend Fred Siegel, who you guys know better as the creator of Freezing Cold Takes. And he has his second book out now, coming out next week— excuse me, coming out August 18th. Freezing Cold Takes. This one is College Football: An Incomplete History of the Game's Most Inaccurate Statements and Predictions. This There he is. Hello, Fred.

Hello, guys.

Fred, we have known each other. What, since, since we were both elementary school age? I've told the guys, right?

Yeah, I'd say even before that, probably like preschool.

Yeah, I've known Fred most of my life.

Do you remember when Zas first started talking like this?

I don't know about that per se, but he's been pretty simple. A simple person from his whole entire life. I mean, he's, he's loved the heat. He wanted to be on the radio and he loved Pearl Jam and wrestling. So those 4 things, it was just very simple.

Nothing has changed.

It's a really succinct description.

Nothing has changed.

Yeah, nothing. Well, I mean, the Heat the most. I mean, the Heat. He was always the Heat guy.

There you go.

And he loved Glenn Rice. He loved Glenn Rice.

Knows everything about me. There you go. Yeah, there it is. It's always funny to me, Fred, and I told the guys earlier here, where someone will tag you on Twitter after I tweet something, and I just think of this, I'm like, yeah, I guarantee he sees what I'm tweeting. We know each other.

Yeah, yeah.

And people, okay, so let's start with this. Where did, for people who don't know, where did the idea to do Freezing Cold Takes come from? Because you went to law school, you were a lawyer, you had a job, and now, you know, Freezing Cold Takes, this is what you do. Where did the idea come from? How did it start?

Oh, well, I was just using Twitter just like everybody else. And I— what I would see is, let's say, like Yahoo Sports reporter one time would say, uh, it would talk about a player being going to be great, and then the player stunk. And I remember, oh, that was wrong. And then the same said this team was going to win. And, and I was like, I'd think to myself after the team lost, that was wrong. And then like a couple days later, the same reporter would be like, after one of his things were right, just like I predicted, and post that what he was right. And I would be like, what, you know, bro, you were just wrong 2 times before. Like, no one posted that. So then I just thought to myself, I'll be the one to post that. But I didn't think it was going to be something that was very big. I just thought that it was something that I could do for fun to mess with people, I guess, like, you know, troll people. I mean, I don't know how big trolling was 10 years ago. It's always probably—

it's always been big.

It's always been big, but just it hasn't really evolved to the level it's evolved now.

But was there a cold take that catapulted you, the account?

Oh, I don't know if there was one that catapulted the account, but the original great one was that I used for the account was from— that was from the Twitter era was, was, was obviously Jason Whitlock. The Big Three is cooked after the That after the 2011 Finals. Blow it all up, he said, and then wrote a whole article on it. But the tweet was amazing. The Big Three is cooked. Blow it all up.

Did you ever hear from him about that? Was he angry?

No, he originally was very— he was cool about the feed. I think one time he got mad, but I think he picked it up pretty quickly. You got to be cool about it. But yeah, I think I did hear from him. But I used to use a lot of his stuff. Back then when, I mean, when he was commenting strictly on sports back then.

Who's been the least cool person about the cold take?

I don't know. That's a tough one. I mean, everyone's had their moments. Uh, the, the guys who used to run the Deadspin account, those guys, they did not like me at all.

Really?

I mean, I think I—

yeah, you would think that they would be the most like— yeah, you know, like the—

they're reverent.

They like giving people shit. Why can't they take a little bit back?

Well, I mean, I think it— I think that they They figure themselves as people who work hard to provide important commentary, and they make a difference and all that kind of stuff. And then I come in and I just post old takes, and the cheap posting of old takes. So that's like, that's an affront to what they do, affront to journalism, affront. That's really how I figured how they got— that's how— but they used to really come up with some snarky stuff. That's off the top of my head. I mean, There are some guys who started off not liking it, but then when they got, when people made fun of them for it, they realized it wasn't really the prudent thing to do to just criticize it.

I wanna ask you about vetting some of these freezing cold takes because Amin has popularized the phrase viral decontextualization. And how many people have reached out to you being like, no, no, I was being sarcastic there. That wasn't a serious tweet. I was just— you're just seeing a standalone tweet where in a thread I provided context that this is a sarcastic opinion.

I usually— I mean, I usually try to research those. A lot of the times I know, I know the person, so I know if it's sarcastic or not. Um, but I know the inside joke too that they're trying to do. But I try to do that. I'm not— I don't bat a thousand with it. Sometimes I'll delete it if I know it was sarcastic, but I'll get that some Sometimes, but sometimes a person will say, yeah, I was being sarcastic. So I go back and look at the tweets from that time and it clearly, whatever the topic was, they, they felt the same way when they were and they were serious about it in various other tweets. So I kept it.

Now, like, uh, now you have rules, right? Like if someone gives an opinion and their opinion is wrong, that's, that's not the same as necessarily as a freezing cold take. Right?

Right. And that really, That really could— I can really clarify that with, expounded that with movies. So someone will send me something where they said, where someone said, you know, this Pulp Fiction movie is trash, I didn't like it, or an article about it. And that's his opinion. And there's always some guy who says that Pulp Fiction isn't good, like that guy. So I guess that doesn't count. So I mean, in that situation, you'd have to say, this movie is— nobody's going to watch this movie, that type of thing. That would be the cold take.

Now, Fred's new book, it's the second Freezing Cold Takes book. This one is college football-centric. What, what has been your favorite cold take when you started researching specifically for the college football?

Well, I mean, one of them, there's one with— there's a few with Alabama when Nick Saban was hired right off out of the Dolphins. There was a lot of conjecture that he was going to be just like leave Alabama after a couple of years and not enjoy it type stuff. But there was— my favorites are the ones that from before the internet. Those are my favorites to find because they're kind of like diamonds in the rough. And one of them was Jimmy Johnson coming to Miami. It was very criticized at that time because he, because he coming to the Hurricanes, not the Dolphins. Yeah. Oh yeah. The Hurricanes. Correct. Because he— when he came to the Hurricanes, they thought that they wanted the, the, the press and the, and the boosters wanted this Tom Alvidati, who was the defensive coordinator for Miami at the time. They wanted him to be promoted to head coach because it was a really weird situation because Howard, Howard Schnellenberger and the Canes just won the national championship. And In May of the following— in May of '84, but just before the '84 season was going to start, he left to go to some USFL team that didn't end up materializing.

So it was really a weird position to have to hire a coach in May. But Sam Yankovich hired Jimmy Johnson from Oklahoma State, who no one knew who he was. And all the players and everyone wanted, like, the defensive coordinator everybody liked. At the time to take over.

So, so that the Jimmy Johnson one's good. Obviously, you got Alabama, Nick Saban, all that stuff's good. Now, it's not college football, Fred, but where does Greg Cody in the Miami Herald trading Dan Marino rank when it comes to all-time freezing cold takes?

Well, all-time, I don't know. Locally, all-time locally, it's, it's probably one of the top. I mean, it's— I think it could be up there. It's the most— it's definitely the most renowned. Cold take there's ever been in Miami.

And just, you know, everybody knows, like, this has been a thing with me with Greg Cody forever, where I didn't like reading Greg Cody's columns anymore because he traded Marino. It's the worst take of all time here in South Florida. But you can, you can back me up where, as kids, because we were of an age when we were all, I think, 12 years old when he wrote that column, we were of an age where this was a known thing among all of us, all of our friends, where it's Cody wrote this shit column about trading Marino, right?

Yeah, and yeah, he wrote about a column that we should start thinking about it. Now, as Amin said before about the detextualization of tweets, this was kind of like we took, we ran with it. We said the column was trade Marino, keep Mitchell 100%. But, but even so, he did bring it up. And in the article, in the lead to the article, it said trade Dan Marino. 'Keep Scott Mitchell, that's what it looks like in print.' I think that was the lead to the article. And so, but he knew, he knew what he was doing at the time. But he, but he got a lot of backlash. I mean, as much backlash as you get from a newspaper article.

And after he published it, I will say that your existence as an internet watchdog has made me change my approach to how I craft my opinions. A lot more qualifiers these days. I make sure that if I have a take on a player, I'm like, if healthy, you know.

Oh, if healthy, right?

Yeah, I gotta, gotta do that, you know. If things break the right way.

Yeah, if he gets the development that's necessary, then he'll be good. But then if he ends up stinking, well, he didn't get the development that was necessary.

That was a key part. I, I contextualized it.

Dan Levitar. Jonathan Sasslo.

These are smiles till LeBron's a clutch again, clutch again, clutch again.

This is the Dan Levitan Show.

Fred, what about Chris Cody recently? We don't have to do that.

Yeah, no, we, we do have to do it where Chris Cody a few weeks weeks ago, he—

oh, that was a great one.

Yeah. What was it? What did you say again, Chris? It was about LeBron.

I was hearing that LeBron was gonna sign with the Heat, and then when I wrote it, I put tomorrow.

Now, does that—

is—

does that count as a freezing cold take, that he was hearing?

I mean, it— I was hearing is kind of a weak qualifier. I'm hearing that. I'm hearing that because he's kind of putting it off to what you heard. I'm hearing some person nobody knows, and then I put the exact time.

Like, it's like I'm hearing and then I put tomorrow afternoon.

Afternoon.

Yeah, that was a— yeah, I mean, that's going to jump. That's going to— because, you know, everybody's going to get excited about it. And I mean, there are people who are less qualified than Chris Cody to write opinions about where someone's going to go or have their sources. And those guys are believed.

Thank you.

So, of course, you're going to be believed. Everybody believes everything on the internet. It doesn't matter who it is. Joe Smith, 250 writes something that this player is going to do this and everyone just posts about it and then analyzes it.

Fred, the book, this one, Freezing Cold Takes, is college football-centric. It is out August 18th wherever you get your books. Give us some Miami Hurricanes. If we're doing college football cold takes here, give us some good Miami Hurricanes that are in the book.

Oh, there's, there's so much Miami Hurricanes stuff in the book. It's for, I mean, ones that you want to relive and I guess ones that you don't want to relive. But the great ones are from the past. From like the '80s, especially when they were playing Nebraska in the national championship game in '83. Um, I think the game was in '84, but it was the '83 season. It was the Orange Bowl, and Nebraska was like the world-beating team, and Miami won that. That kind of sprung their, their dynasty. And, uh, but, uh, I mean, there was the bad ones, like in 1987 they lost to Penn State in a game they never should have lost, and in '92 they got waxed by Alabama. That one's there. But there's also I remember the Florida game in 2003. Florida was up 38-10, maybe.

Yeah, 38-13, maybe 31-13 at halftime, I think it was.

Yeah, something like that.

Brock Berlin game.

Bob Greasy said on the broadcast, because there was no Twitter then, of course everybody would be flaming the Hurricanes on Twitter if there was a Twitter at the time. But He said that to replace him, put in Crudup, Derek Crudup. And he's also said that Brock Berlin should just give— he should just resign and give the ball to Crudup. Something like along the lines of like when Gosling let the guy from Clueless go on to play linebacker in Remember the Titans because he, he couldn't guard the guy, like something like that.

Fred, uh, before we let you go here, we want to play a little bit of a game. Again, the book Freezing Cold Takes College Football comes out August 18th. Can we play a little, a little game of cold take, cold fake with you?

Hmm.

Yeah.

All right, so for folks who are uninitiated, cold take, cold fake, uh, are we gonna use me? Am I gonna be the, the guy here, Fred?

Yeah, I put together a Zazzle package.

Okay, so we're gonna go around the room, right? And you're gonna, you're gonna give us, uh, a cold take and we'll, we'll say if this was a cold take by me or if you made it up, meaning it's a cold fake. Yeah.

Got it.

Let's do it.

Complex. All right. October 7th, 2023. Mario Cristobal just ate a complete moron sandwich. Miami could fire him and it'd be completely justified.

Okay, so I'm just going to add what we must be talking about the Georgia Tech game, right?

Okay.

I mean, go ahead.

Correct. Go ahead.

That's—

why are you laughing?

I can't. It's a cold take.

If that's fake, he knows exactly how Zazz talks because that sounds— he does know exactly how I know, but like, I get it. So I'm going to say that's real.

I'm going to say cold fake.

I'm going to say cold fake because I'm not sure Zazz would go all the way with fire this guy.

That's a good— that's good, actually. What is it, Fred?

Cold fake.

Oh, and I think Mike's rationale is probably spot on, right?

Yep. Well, I used a lot of your tweets, like, for about something else and just changed the language and put— and crafted my own tweet using your language. Do you try to—

do you remember? Like, is he going to have—

I did not remember what he just said there. No, but, but I thought it could have been— it totally could have been me. But I think I don't know that I would have went far enough to fire Mario Cristobal. So, yeah, that was excellent. That's a good one, Fred. Good start. What else we got?

All right, I like this music.

Love this Al Golden. September 7th, 2013.

I love this Al Golden.

Just love this Al Golden. Yeah, love this.

I'll go first. That's a cold take.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna go off of what Fred said, which is Zazz is a simple man. That's a simple statement. I'm gonna say Cold take.

Cold take.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And then he— I remember that. And I think it was then him taking the team and singing the alma mater and— yeah, it was—

they beat Florida at— in Pro Player Stadium, Hard Rock.

Yeah.

And that was a bad Gator team.

We learned it was not a good team.

The Gators went to— they lost. 8 games in a row to end that season.

Yeah.

Mike, how do you think he said, "Love the Sal Gold"? Do it in a Zazz voice.

Love the Sal Gold. That's what I heard too.

You got another one, Fred?

Yeah. Just in my car listening to the Dolphins. This is 2012. Jimmy Cefalo has improved so much. I think he has turned a corner with his play-by-play.

Cold fake if I've ever heard one. I know Zazz.

I know one thing.

He does not like that broadcast booth.

Yeah, that's a cool thing. Yeah, that was just for fun.

Yeah, I think I know the play. It was like, it was an interception, but then he called a completion, then it was like a touchdown with the other way.

I still don't know what's going on.

Yeah, Zaslo's— yeah, I mean, nobody knows. He never knows what's going on. He doesn't even say the score ever. Okay, one more. July of 2013. Um, yes. I really think— I really think LeBron will leave Miami when he retires.

Cold fake.

Cold take.

Cold take.

Cold take. Cold take.

I remember tweeting that. Yep, I remember that.

It was actually a question. Someone asked a question, do you really think LeBron will leave Miami? And he said yes, when he retires. I kind of rephrased it to make sure, because, you know, it was a cold take if it was— if I said it was a question.

Yeah, you could have been right if he picked us this last go-round.

Ah, that's true.

I, I, I was—

I almost was right there, Fred, if you would have chose the Heat last week.

That's a question I have, Fred. Have you ever had to rescind a freezing cold take? Because all the time, the long con, all the time.

Yeah, it happens. Like, it's— I'd say my career, it's probably happened 20, 25 times. But sometimes they're like, everybody comes back to me and they remember all the things that I post and things like that. Sam Darnold was one from this year.

Fred, the angriest a media member has ever gotten at you.

Oh my God, I got this direct. It was in November. Some one of these fan site guys direct messaged me with this whole diatribe. I mean, it was a rant. And I felt— I kind of felt bad for him at the time. I mean, it's just like, I, I don't even know what to say. It was just a huge long rant. It was, um, how I'm the worst. And it's like everything that was wrong with society was blamed on me.

Oh man, I feel like you got to dig it up and read it to us now.

You don't have to—

I don't know, you don't have to divulge the name, but like, I need to hear— I need to hear how unhinged someone can be.

Okay. Yeah, he's gonna find it quick.

Yeah, no, it's okay, we'll filibuster for you. Wow, think about this. Think about like, what do you got?

Oh, here we go. Wow.

Oh, it was quick. All right, go ahead, Fred.

Yeah, I remember his name. Um, uh, do you think it's not obvious what your strategy is? Cherry-pick someone's down moment, broadcast it to some people for your gain, express— if they express any issue with it, go to the 'you should brush it off' retweet to send them to your army of trolls to call them soft or whatever else. If someone who does no legal work popped up in a while to broadcast your embarrassing professional moments, had no risk of having to brush anything off, and then gaslight you by telling you exactly what your reaction should be, You should tell them to fuck yourselves too. But since you're an opportunist and a coward, you pretend you don't understand these very basic concepts and think someone appointed to you, quote, director of telling people how to work, you should mock how to feel. Deep down, I'm sure you should know what being an asshole, you're being an asshole with that, what you're doing and how you think if someone's standing to tell people what they should feel about it. And then a new post, but it's the only way you found to be relevant in your space.

And you close your DMs personally, ignore ones here to something which wasn't true. Someone has to tweet at you. So that's why I tweet at you. Yet you still RT with your takes account so you could stick your dumb assessments on someone whose shit you just blasted. I give no fuck about whether you think I should brush it off or that it should be the most emotional reply you've gotten. I know this is your sharing strategy in case anyone fires back at you, but you have no power to determine that. It's just a bullshit line to justify your garbage account. Anyway, it's your fans blowing up, that's one thing, but it's your professionals who have pride in doing high-level work. At the rare time they write something embarrassing, you swoop in to broadcast it. It's different. That's the Deadspin theory. Everything I've said is true, but you want to play dumb and filibuster. You fucking suck, Fred.

Signed, Greg Cody.

And that wasn't the only thing he said.

I got to admit, points were made.

Fred, the new book is Freezing Cold Takes College Football, August 18th, wherever you get your books. Fred sent me a copy. It's obviously great stuff. Good to see you, Fred. Thanks, pal.

All right, thanks guys.

Thanks, Fred.

There you go, dog.

Yo, how the— here's the thing, no one types that out, right? They gotta like— there's edits and rewrites in there. Like, let me see this, add a comma there, dude. That dude must spend like 20 minutes typing a DM to someone that you don't care about. Come on, man.

Zazz, do people from your childhood call you John or Zazz?

No one calls me— no one has ever called me, uh, anything short for Jonathan. Very, very few people call me Jonathan or have called me Jonathan. It's Zaslo or Zaz.

No one's ever called you Johnny Boy?

No, no, never anything short.

Johnny Z?

Nah.

Jay-Z?

Yeah, Jay-Z. Get a little bit of Jay-Z. A little bit of Jay-Z.

Yeah.

There you go.

Do you have any siblings?

A brother, yeah.

Do they call him Zaz?

No, they just call him by his name.

Why? Why does that—

wait, hold on.

How does that work?

I don't know, but my father was a Zaz. Oh wow.

Your dad was a Zaz?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I think at his work people called him Zazz. He was a Zazz.

What about your sons? Does anyone call them Zazz?

Oh, that's a good question.

Uh, like their friends at school?

No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

So does the Zazz nickname die with you?

Uh, listen, good chance to be more boys.

No, there's gonna be more boys.

I don't know if you're aware, but the calling, the naming Zazz, right?

If there's ever a girl, would they be Zazz?

I don't know.

Zazzy.

I hope we find out one day. We're over 100 years now, no girls.

Zaza Gawur.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh, it's just a group of girls getting ready to go out.

Hey, Zazz, let's— let me introduce you to Sarah Zaslow.

Sarah.

Sarah.

Zazz, trying to get your attention.

She's like, hold on, I got to do my mascara.

I can't believe how accurate Fred's description of—

oh, it was like I said, what was he like as a child? He said wrestling, Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, Club Rice. Club Rice wants to be on the radio. I'm like, goddamn, man. Dude, do you understand? Like, if someone tried to describe me—

Has he changed since he was 8?

He's wearing the same clothes.

No, you're right. You know what? That's the biggest— that's what we all learned. Haven't changed since I was 8.

The same dude!

Does Fred have one of those famous bar mitzvah t-shirts of you dunking the ball?

Oh, I don't know. I don't know.

He was at your bar mitzvah.

Collector's item. Right, right. I don't even still have my bar mitzvah shirt, so I don't think so.

Fred Keith, you know, seems to be like a guy who just—

Reason called takes! Yeah. That's a— yeah.

Pay a lot for that shirt.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

I'd pay more for the ripoff shirt.

Yeah.

Juju, there's an empire here.

Amazing, right?

At least 15 of my friends would buy this.

That's me!

Like, what do you mean? This is you.

Yep.

That's my shirt.

That's me.

Yep. I was so— I was appalled.

Did someone—

Somebody bootlegged it. His own shirt.

I was appalled. The girl looked at me like I had 3 heads.

That's incredible.

I was so mad. I was like 15 years old. I was angry.

It was like— it's like the baby from the Nirvana album cover. Like, yeah, that's me.

That's me.

Yeah. Shut up, man.

Right. That's exactly what it was like.

Oh, God.

Dan Levitar.

I got a Slater scoop.

Chris Cody.

He fucked us.

This is the Dan Levitar Show.

Did you see this video that the Philadelphia Eagles posted yesterday of Jalen Hurts? So, you know, NFL accounts, they're gonna post these, you know, highlight plays on social media, on Twitter, great plays that are made in training camp, keeping their fans informed.

And slow motion too.

Yeah.

And you would like to, you know, if a DB makes a great play, you know, he throws it, uh, gets an interception, that's awesome. Let's show—

handed.

Yeah, that— let's show the highlight, you know, of the DB getting an interception. The only problem is that means Jalen Hurts threw the interception to the DB. And so the Philadelphia Eagles social media account puts this out, like, you know, all triumphant, and they got— I mean, just, they're just getting murdered for putting this out of Jalen Hurts, who has been to 2 Super Bowls, has won a Super Bowl, has been an MVP candidate, but is still a very polarizing figure. And this account is just getting murdered.

15 million views.

I don't understand, like, how did— and look, this is always a weird dichotomy, right, when it comes to training camp. I never understand if I'm at training camp and I'm watching the Dolphins offense go up against the Dolphins defense, what am I rooting for? Do I want the offense to run down the field because that means our defense sucks?

Yeah.

Or do I want the defense to give up zero yards? Well, wow, our offense is terrible.

You know, I go to camp all the time and it's a tough dynamic. Is this guy really good in one-on-ones?

Hell yeah.

Oh wait, does the other guy suck?

Should I be happy he did well?

What That's why I go to many practices, in my opinion.

Sounds like you guys are coming over to my side and saying NFL practices are dumb. This is exactly the point I was making. Hey, Derrick Hall, stop being awesome.

Yeah, there would be way too many fights, and it's tougher to book in college, but that's why in the NFL they value these joint practices so much more than the actual—

Joint practices are great for the NFL.

Yeah, because so you can go hit someone.

You can hit someone, and also you get to kind of you get to create the, the situation.

And plus you get the data point because the coaches also at times struggle. Like, are we really strong here, right?

Are we really bad?

I'm imagining tension between like the coaches and the social media team because 15 mil views, that's a nice—

those are numbies.

That's a nice day's work for the social media team.

But you got to be smarter about it though because I don't know if this per— there's one thing to hype up the defender, but you can do that on a play where it's like you're highlighting one-handed catch, you're highlighting like, oh, that's a 1v1 battle and this guy made a play on it. Like, that straight up is a bad throw.

This was just— yeah, the highlight here, bad throw.

Or you start the highlight after he throws it, right, where the ball's already in flight.

They do that.

Oh, it could have been a backup, right?

It could be that at Miami they are extra covert about what they put out, and you see just a ball in the air, so you don't know who threw it.

Exactly.

Let me ask a question. What if—

go ahead—

the social media person said, I got this great slow motion shot, it shows Jalen Hurts throwing the pick, and Jalen Hurts happens to walk by hearing that conversation? Like, yeah, post that shit, I don't care.

Yeah, that could be based—

I mean, they're also odd scenario.

They're also guys— the problem here is at the heart of it, it's tapping on an insecurity. That's when it hits the hardest, right? Because if we saw this from Chiefs camp, maybe— well, because of the injury, maybe we'd be a little bit worried. But there are guys that just have the cachet, like, okay, yeah, I know this player is good. I don't think it's an issue with this person. Yeah, if Josh Allen throws an interception in practice, I'm not all of a sudden like taking that as confirmation bias versus whether it's someone who's like, if it was like, if it's Jalen Hurts in particular, struggle to throw the football.

Yeah.

Like JJ McCarthy, like they would have been like, yo, what y'all doing?

Remember there was the one year a few years ago here where the Dolphins social media account thought they were, they were tweeting out this awesome connection as Tyreek Hill caught a deep pass for a touchdown from Tua Tagovailoa. But everyone's like, yo, that was a duck. Tyreek had to slow down. This is a disaster for the Dolphins.

Well, that happened also with the Celtics, Jaylen Brown, remember?

Yeah.

Where like, because he couldn't dribble with his left hand and then it started with a Celtics social media posted video that turned into a meme.

Our show is the Eagles social media though.

Oh, we don't care who looks bad.

If it does numbers, we'll put it out.

We're doing it on purpose though, in our show's case.

Oh, you have phlegm? Put it out on social.

This will go— this will do numbers.

Yeah, you have—

I'm always like, all, all, all of our clips I see of me are me throwing an interception like Jalen Hurts, but we do it to me.

Russell Westbrook retired yesterday.

Oh man, that was kind of sad.

Russell Westbrook put out a— it's like a 3-minute long video where he's narrating, but he's not actually talking himself in the video.

He's not—

that wasn't him narrating?

It's Michael B. Jordan, man.

Oh, okay. I don't know, whatever.

What a big day for Black internet over here.

How would—

how would I read the captions? I saw him before the show. He was reading the captions on mute.

That is true, actually. Thank you.

The B in Michael B. Jordan doing so much heavy lifting here.

But Jordan, it's funny, I actually watched the episode, uh, yesterday of The Wire where Wallace got killed.

Ah, yeah. Where's Wallace?

Spoiler alert.

D'Angelo was pissed.

Where's Wallace?

Where's Wallace?

Where's Wallace?

Where's Wallace?

Yeah.

So Russell Westbrook retired yesterday. And like I saw the tweet from Shams where, you know, Russell Westbrook, he had offers from Washington and Sacramento but wanted to retire on his own terms. And I'm like, hold up a second, when the only offers you're getting are from Washington and Sacramento, that ain't retiring on your own terms.

That's the very definition of someone else's terms.

They should have thrown a good team in there just to make it sound better. Yeah, the Spurs too offered me.

Olympiacos.

So Russell Westbrook played for 7 teams in an 18-year, sure to be first-ballot Hall of Fame career, a league MVP. He made one Finals appearance. It was against Miami in 2012, and he played his first 11 years in Oklahoma City. But I mean, this is, this is an interesting legacy he leaves behind, right?

Yes. You know, he's— you talk polarizing. You guys were talking about Jalen Hurts like Russ is polarizing, right? Because on the one hand, undeniable force of nature. On the other hand, has some glaring shortcomings that, you know, might have put a crimp in basically how great he could have been as a player.

I guess I would say one difference there with the polarizing part is Jalen Hurts. Jalen Hurts is polarizing within his own city. Russell Westbrook, I would imagine, is beloved in Oklahoma City.

Beloved. Yes. I wonder how much of that beloved is because of Durant leaving.

Because it's a huge part of his legacy, right?

There was a— there was a part, but it's—

that's an important part though.

There was a stage at which it was like, oh man, this Russell Westbrook guy, man, he's out of control, right?

Because when they were together, Westbrook would catch a lot of the shit and Durant would skate.

Yes. And then— but then Durant leaving and Westbrook basically doubling down and staying, that basically— whatever dissension there was in OKC was done after that.

Right.

You're our guy.

Our guy. And even when he left—

one MVP after—

yeah, it helped that he was incredible.

He was. I mean, he was incredible before too, but like him—

but doing it without KD.

Yeah, but that's, but that's the point. It's, it's— I think he was incredible either way. Like, it wasn't like, oh man, anyone can do that if I play with KD. No, the guy was incredible. It's just he was a scapegoat. But then KD departure automatically made KD the scapegoat forever. And nothing Russell Westbrook would do could be wrong in the eyes of the faithful.

4 seasons he averaged a triple-double.

Yeah, 4 seasons, 3 straight with Oklahoma City. Yeah, 3 straight when at the time no one had done it since Oscar Robertson.

Yeah, I think his legacy is going to improve with time because they're going to be people chasing records and they're going to be like, wait, Russell Westbrook did what? And also like he had this flashy personality, always angry on the court, scowling and being super athletic. The fashion too. Like, I'm not going to make a direct comp, but there is like, for a generation, Iverson-ish, Iverson-adjacent type of things that came with Russ's game that I think we're approaching a generation that are going to be asked, who was your favorite player growing up? And you're going to have a lot of Russell Westbrook.

All the Russell Westbrook strengths are the kind that over time grow even larger. So for instance, ultra competitive. We look back at the ultra-competitive guys with a lot of, a lot of like deference, right? Number 2, the ultimate professional, right? Comes to work, works hard.

He played.

Not just plays, practice hard, holds guys accountable. Like again, those are the, oh, that's an old-school guy. Number 3, and this one is pretty easy, just an incredible visual player. Meaning when I watch him play, Man, that looks fun. Man, that looks cool. Meaning, what if I go back and watch YouTube pull up— because which is what a lot of kids are going to learn about Russell Westbrook is through YouTube highlights. He's going to look phenomenal through that. Number 4, the raw stats. Like Tony said, 3 straight years of triple-doubles, 4 overall, at a time when that wasn't as commonplace as it is now. Uh, led the league in scoring twice, led the league in assists 3 times. Uh, I mean, like, he's got—

only player to do that. I saw some Venn diagram of players that have done that, and it's like great on both sides and only him in the middle.

History's gonna look at, because of the raw numbers, because what was annoying about Russell Westbrook was the discourse that surrounded Russell Westbrook because there were a lot of analytics hipsters that would always be like, well, actually, but which is funny because he's actually the great test subject for this, which is we might overrate him, that doesn't mean he sucks.

And the way discourse happens on the internet is either You're awesome or you suck. So it's like if he's maybe a little overrated here, like for instance, the year that he averaged a triple-double, I think the first time, a lot of those rebound numbers were based off of like Steven Adams basically saying, I'm not going to go after this rebound. I'm just going to block out and let him swoop in and get it. And like, again, that's not the first time it's ever happened in NBA history. But like how many people—

Rondo juiced up the assist numbers by passing up shots.

Everyone does it. Everyone has it. And it's just like even with that ability, available to everybody. How many have done it? Not many. And again, that's proof of his greatness. But at the end of the day, these are all things that are of the moment, ephemeral. The things that'll last— the trophy, the MVP trophy, the, the records. And like I said, just the reputation of being a guy who's the ultimate competitor.

He was beloved in Oklahoma City, and he'll have his jersey retired there.

Sam Presti gave out like the most gushing statement about—

yeah, beloved player, deserves all of the love from that franchise. Played for 6 other teams outside of Oklahoma City. Did any of those teams' fan bases like when Russell Westbrook was playing for them?

I think initially in Houston— wasn't he an All-Star in Houston?

Houston, he was an All-Star. He got there, and also it was also Chris Paul had soured, and so they were traded for each other. Yes, but the Houston fan base was like, get this Salty MF are out of here. And it's like Russell Westbrook actually wants to be here. Washington for sure.

Yeah, because—

yeah, because he was like a jolt of energy and he was the guy that kind of— what was looked at as a team that was kind of loose and not really together. Like, he came in and like I said, all the professionalism and the work ethic and stuff, and they were bad and he was hurt. And then he came back and they were actually one of the first play-in teams, I think. Like, that was like the biggest advertisement. See the play-in? This team thought their season was dead. And then Russell Westbrook going crazy, and they end up making a play and making the playoffs.

I thought the Denver stop was a good story for his career too, because he embraced a role.

It was, but to Zazz's question, will the Denver faithful remember him like, oh, we love Russell Westbrook?

No, I think he's not like a, like a Brown. He's not like a—

no, no, no, no, he's not like that. But he embraced the role, and that was good for his narrative.

It's good, it's good for the narrative, but the idea is like, how many teams will look how many team fan bases, excuse me, will look back fondly? And I don't know if Denver's one of them.