The Arguments For/Against Jalen Hurts, Plus Celtics Guard Derrick White, Final Four Matchups, and NBA Draft Prospects W/ Sam Vecenie

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Limited time offer. There was an in-depth, Jalen Hurtsman of Festo on ESPN just a couple days ago. Tim McManus, Jeremy Fowler, Great job on this tons of sources and we are left with.

“But it's not a new question, it is, is Jalen Hurts good?”

I've struggled with it, all right?

Because on the one side of it, you have somebody that finished second in the MVP voting

went to a Super Bowl that was essentially like a coin toss game. Then in 23, they're 10 and 1 and I think those of us are kind of like, yeah, they're 10 and 1, but is there something wrong with this team? After back to backwinds against Kansas City and then against Buffalo. And something was wrong with that team.

They finished 1 and 5 to close the regular season. The loss in the first round of Tampa Bay got smoked in the playoffs. Then 24, they win the Super Bowl. Hurts wins the Super Bowl MVP, which is generally going to go to the court back anyway. And then you go, all right, you know, silencing the doubters.

This guy's been two to the last three Super Bulls. Like, what more do you want from this guy? And then 25 happens. And they're 8 and 2, but we're kind of doing the same thing that we did in 23. Or it's like, it's something wrong with this team.

And again, there were something wrong with they finished 11 and 6. And they lost in the first round at home again to San Francisco. So it was kind of like 23 all over again. So I'll say this, I don't think that he's great. But that middle low to kind of middle high when we talk about quarterbacks thing NFL.

It's a struggle. And it's usually what we think or where we'd rank these players is extremely dependent on whether you're winning or losing because Hurt's is like the perfect example of I know they're winning a ton of games, but what if I don't think he's that great? I'm like, well, I don't know that I'm allowed to say that.

The middle is is just how I like, I think we know who the great ones are. And we think we generally know who the cubies are that aren't any good. And maybe they're just young and they don't have a great year. So that's a different category to itself. But if we look at some of the stats,

we could we could do this all the time because like there's some really good stats there because he'd limits the turnovers. The deep all stuff is terrific and again, the team has won.

“But if you want to do like a stat profile on quarterbacks in the past,”

like let's just do a blind one right now. In 2015 this cubie was 13 and completion percentage.

He was tied for the lowest number of interceptions for any quarterback with over 380 attempts on the season

only seven picks. That quarterback was Andy Dalton. I could do this all day with Ryan Tana Hill numbers.

“So sometimes there's numbers for quarterbacks and you go, what's going on?”

Like those are kind of great numbers. And if I sort these over a three-year period, it looks like this is one of the steadiest guys and yet you're going, I don't know. I don't know if this guy's really that great. So hurts is coming off the worst year of his last four.

That's not really debatable. If you were pro hurts, you would say he's now entering a fifth straight season with a fifth different offensive coordinator, Sean Manion, who I selected Oregon State, not going to lie to you. And Sean Manion, who after a couple years of Jeff Fisher or sprinkling a fossil for a few games, you know, 17 gets linked up with McVay, it's coaching with the packers last couple years.

So you could say from the coaching level, he's not as experienced as some other offensive coordinators, but he kind of fits the mold of what all these teams are looking for. But if he's running a McVay style, it's not necessarily something that you think hurts would be comfortable with. But again, if you're pro hurts, you're like, all right, five different OCs.

Now, if you're anti-hurt, you could say, hey, five different OCs. It's kind of like the Jay Cutler thing. They're like, well, look how many different systems he's at to learn. So go, why are they changing the coordinator all the time? Because they're trying to figure something out.

Now, again, to add another layer of fairness to this to the coordinators are gone from fillet all few over the last five years, because two of those guys became head coaches in the NFL. If you don't like hurts, you go, it is the most expensive offense in the NFL. That's kind of where I land. It don't like as harsh, right?

And I'm going to go back to some of the QBT or outrage that we had in previous seasons as it pertains to hurts. But I'll say it. I think there's 15 quarterbacks that we know is Super Bowl with the Seagulls team.

“That's how stack they are. That's how talented this group is.”

And, you know, when the QBT here's came out in 23, he was sixth. And people were mad, he was that low. That was coming off the Super Bowl loss, which again wasn't his fault. Then he wins a Super Bowl coming off a 24 going into this year, hurts was ninth in the QBT. So he's a round longer, reach a great level of success, but the people that do this for a living

front office members head coaches, assistant coaches, personnel people, they moved him from six

after his first Super Bowl to ninth after he won it and won MVP.

So like, what am I supposed to do with that? Because we're not supposed to do that. But again, these are the people who do it every day, live it, breathe it every single day. And they're like, yeah, maybe he's ninth or tenth. When he again, when he was ranked sixth, people were mad that it was too low. A couple quotes from this piece that I thought were interesting.

There was a play where they basically were trying to figure out what they wanted to run there on the sideline. So Petulo, the former offensive coordinator, there was Seriani, hurts is there. I guess Tanner McKee's in the mix as well. And they had just run four verbs, which is four vertical routes, right? But the previous time that the Niners had stopped it, Dallas got it, the tight end. It was an completion. So they come out and they run it again.

And the team source says, cool, I was like, oh my God, this is not happening. We can't run for

“verbs. Now, look, does it seem a little specific to get into one quote, one play call?”

And what are you supposed to do if you're the coaches? Go, no, we want you to run something you're not comfortable with. Normally the first time whenever we hear that NFL mic dub stuff is, it's a big play quarterback comes over. Oh, see, head coach, whatever. And they're like, what do you like? What do you want to run? Well, we know that hurts loves the deep shot. Because he doesn't want to throw it in the middle of the field. I have some numbers that

I'll share with you a little bit. There was another quote that I thought was perhaps a little bit more

damning. And that was added a separate team source quote, you never know what play is coming out of the

huddle. And quote, when hurts is leading it. And then the pass he's been known to signal a route that hasn't been installed on the coaches. Now, the greater message of this piece is like, here we are off this 25 season going into 26 and it's like, who is this guy? Because this is the part that I think is kind of unfair, right? When he's winning, he is stoic. He's focused. He's on emotional. He's the epitome of professionalism, right? When they're not living up to the standards,

work this year again, he could be the exact same guy, but the personality and getting quotes like

“this, which is kind of interesting in itself. But it's like, oh, he's disconnected. He's arrogant.”

You know, he's feeling himself. After he won the Super Bowl, everything we may not have liked about his closed off personalities amplified now because he's really feelings. I have no idea,

not around him, never met him. And I do think a lot of times the results can completely change

the perception of an athlete. When the athlete's like, I'm literally the exact same guy. And the things that you liked about me in the past, now you're going to hold against me. So there's a lot of like back and forth. And there's some people sticking up for hurts being like, look, the guy comes in. He does his work. He's super professional. He's a closed off guy, tight circle. And that's the same thing that he's been going all the way back to Alabama. So like, what do you

expect here? But there's some pretty damming evidence now that it feels like the league has figured hurts out. The deep shots again are great. He's comfortable with those when there's completions against man coverage, not zone because he's facing more and more zone. And it seems like,

“you know, on the more explosive plays, it's just not going to happen against zone. I think over 52”

percent of the snaps that they had on offense, they faced zone coverage, which is pretty high for him in his career. And, you know, it could be as simple as the leagues figured out that this is a quarterback that doesn't want to play under center, which he may be challenged to do. And everybody's saying the right things right now. Like, oh, he wants to be coached. Like, if you're pro-herch,

and like, oh, no, he's always wanted to do this. Like, well, took a little while. And we'll see how

it goes to 26 because a lot of times as an athlete, you just more, you're more likely to just go back to whatever you're more comfortable with. The job is hard enough. Really, you want to do all these other things. But when you never want to turn your back to the defense, because you want to play out of shotgun and have everything in front of you. So you're looking at coverage the entire time, instead of, you know, relying on play action, which we know can really juice up some quarterback's

production because it just becomes especially later in a game when guys are tired and they're jumping stuff and it opens up other passing lanes. But if hurts doesn't like turning his back, because it disconnects him from the coverage reads, then that's probably a big problem six years into your career. There's a number from Nate Tyson who's joined us on the pod. And essentially what he was doing was he was breaking down where hurts is on throws that are

intermediate to deeper in between the numbers. So if you're talking air yards traveled from the line of scrimmage, 10 to 22 yards in between the numbers among 50 qualifying quarterbacks on these throws since 2022 hurts is ranked 59th in passer rating out of 50 quarterbacks that qualified for it. We could look up touchdown interception ratios. We could look up the fact that when he's running, it puts a ton of stress on the defense. I don't know if he didn't want to run

as much this year because the numbers dropped off a cliff because either he wanted to stay healthy or the team play, calling one to keep him healthy, or an offensive line, or a team that was second rushing yards per game in 24 dropped all the way to 25th in, excuse me, dropped all the way to 18th in 2025. You know, the online injuries were a real part of this. But if he is less of a threat to run, who does not want to throw it into the middle of field on a bunch of routes that just seem like

they're not part of the plan for the Eagles. The timing of this is clearly because it's not after

“Super Bowl, but that number is really hard to ignore. And I think this game is so hard at the position,”

but when the opponent knows at this point after this many seasons, like hey, he doesn't want to make any of these throws. That's the problem that Philly's facing. It's great that Laurie the owner, there's a quote in there from him during the owner's meetings, not that long ago. It couldn't been more praising of who hurts it's because you're talking about somebody in a really tough sitting in Philadelphia who's provided them sustained success here in a way that, you know,

is kind of historic. And that's always the problem with hurts is that you sit there and you watch

him and they may win a game and they're probably going to have a great record. And yet if you do this job, you're like, yeah, but I don't want to say he's awesome when I don't think that he is. And now all of this is coming to a head as they get ready for 26th. This episode is brought to you by Body Armor, Flash IV, the official rapid rehydration drink of March Madness. Flash IV is packed with electrolytes delivering faster, longer lasting hydration

without any artificial dies flavors or sweeteners, whether you're training, traveling, or just feeling the heat. I'm going to tell you, I might be back on the stuff. And that is a flavored hydration drink hit in the morning a little bit. Just trying to get those organs going. Starting

I wasn't, I wasn't in tune. They sent over a crate of it and I go, I think I like watermelon. Look at me, look at me growing up when it comes to hydration. Work hard and hydrate heart with Body Armor, Flash IV, the official rapid rehydration drink of March Madness. Grab it at 7-11. Derek way to the boss of Celtics joins us on the show. I just want to start with last night.

“What's it like when you hear that hot in the first 53 points in the first quarter against Miami?”

You put up a huge number. What is that experience like when you can't miss? It was a, it was insane. Like obviously, JB started off like not missing to start to game in. I mean, Miami wasn't really missing a whole lot of you. So it was just a fun fast pace back and forth. And like when JB gets high, when Sam gets hot, like it's, it's a lot of fun to

to watch. And I feel like the ball was just popping around and we basically got, we got what we

wanted right there in that first quarter and you weren't missing a whole lot. So it was a lot fun. Did you know that Tatum was coming back this year? Nah. I didn't know. I think at the beginning, I was like, I think he's in the comeback within there's like some time during the year where I'm like, he might not come back in

“and so like I really wasn't focused too much on if he was in the comeback or not. And I think like around”

like a week or so if he came back, like that's when I kind of like knew he was going to come back in. It was really exciting, Tom. How did you find out? Like we had like a team meeting like the day before Joe was like basically we all sat in the film room

and Joe was like Jay T's coming back. He's going to start tomorrow and winnings the most important

thing. We got to keep that that mindset and so I just kind of had that little team meeting and so we needed to say yeah because I mean still it was it's such a crazy year for the organization right because you have new ownership coming in. I think you understand the stage of your career like the finances that are involved in it so it's like okay we're moving out some of these pieces because you're worried about the tax and that's like well how good is the

team going to be? How much did that even bother you that it felt like it was being perceived as and

“I know Jaylin kind of laughed about the gap to your thing but how much did that bother you as a team?”

I think it was just it's good to have like a chip on your shoulder. I mean I mean ever since I've been

embossed and even the favorites are one of the favorites and people have always expected us

to win 60 games and go to the championship and whenever it might be and so I think there was just a little different like this all season where nobody had any expectations for us and people actually thought we were going to be really really bad and so I think you kind of just put a chip on all of our shoulders and I think there's a lot of guys that we're ready for their opportunity and they just kind of had a yet like what the team we had in the past and we got out this year and we're

show what we were capable of. How does Tatum coming back impact your game? I mean obviously it changes a little bit air boys game from these JT and you can do so many different things on the court and so I think I might as such like when JB would go out like I had the ball a lot more like me a pain and now like if JB's out there and probably me JT's in and so like that's probably the biggest change but then really like just the way he can bring the ball

up to court the way he rebounds the way he can kind of facilitate the team it kind of changes some things for me there but I mean I've played with him I feel like for a long time now and I've played in a lot of big games so it's just kind of felt normal again. Yeah and I mean this is a positive too I mean there's some simple math of okay well this is probably 18 to 19 shots a game that are going to be taken from the collection of other players around it but like even last night's game

and if you get a little basketball of here like Miami loves that zone and they extend it so far out like it's a two three but then sometimes I feel like on the perimeter looks like a three two and it it starts way out and I can understand like they want to kind of clog you up but then it was just such a nice reminder of seeing Tatum at point guard which is basically what he plays for you guys which can be kind of lost in the conversation of who he is as a player

but it's like hey he's killing this zone every single time and if they collapse then it's open for us and there's so much room in the paint then it's either him down hill or it's K to one on one kind of this stuff I almost feel like I want to talk about like the appreciation of how Tatum is is really this absurdly sized point guard but nobody would really ever talk about him like a luka

his contemporaries in the league? Yeah I think obviously he came in like being able to score

“and I think that's just kind of what people think he can be mad as a score but are like every”

year he's gone so much better and like his playmaking is rebounding like his complete game is just really developed and so he does a lot of things for us and especially against Miami like that zone is kind of giving us some problems in the past but I think like last night we did a good job of having the right space and then just trusting that the guys are going to make the right re so JB JT obviously they can have the ball a lot of times and they did a great job of just

making the right read and so these are credit to both of them on a safe how they developed as playmakers and like teams just can't hone in and it's like we're gonna try to make them pass like the they developed that part of their game where they we can beat you like if they're just passing and making the right read every time that the court. Well Miami or anybody else like do you think that they're trying to disrupt your comfort level on the three-point line by playing a defense out that

“high? Yeah I think it just is a little different from as a zone that I mean you hear zone and”

you kind of just expected to be one thing and their zone is completely different than any other zone in the NBA and like it looks like a three-two sometimes it looks like a one three-one sometimes and it's a two three like their wings are really high really aggressive and they put like their bigger wings at the top of the zone so and then it do was just a little bit different and you don't have the right spacing you don't make the right reads it. It definitely gives you a lot of

problems. This will be my last hit and return question I promised but when he came back did you say hey I don't know if you heard but I'm a top five player in the NBA based on what Kenny I can since said I did I did not I did not let him know not let him know that that was pretty crazy a lot of people have sent me that he's pretty cool for him to say but yeah I don't really think of myself like that.

“I think you know it's okay like I don't think you're gonna be offended by me saying like I don't blame”

you for not finding your top five player but what was your reaction when you first heard that?

I mean I mean it'd be just look at the quote like like they could plead quote and they kind of just talks about how I could just do a little bit everything on the court and just try to help the team anyway I can and so I think that's kind of how I took it I didn't think it was like if you're gonna start a franchise I'd be one of five people you pick but I mean it'd be just look at that secret quote I guess you can see where people kind of lose their mind

because I think it was also referencing like some of the on-off stuff as well and and how well that number has shown up for you but it was funny because he was kind of like you know other stuff that we have that you know as like what do you mean like the stuff that's all out there on you know that you can look up I do wonder if you're like your basketball path though

allows you to appreciate that without having that go to your head maybe if you're second year

guy and you hear something like that you're going hey I need more touches or like you guys need to clear out for me a little bit what do you think about like your your role where you're this terrific player you can kind of do everything there's a reason why San Antonio wanted you there's a reason why boss it would trade for you but I can see somebody else in your skill set being like you know maybe I'd like more shots on a worse team so I'm just curious like how you think of

what your capable of versus what you prefer as a player I mean I think I mean definitely like about it was my second year and someone said that had to be like almost be thinking all these all stars all this but I think I'm pretty comfortable with who I am as a player and what I can do on the basketball court and so I think every game it kind of tells you to do something differently and I think one of my strengths is be able to kind of figure out what what the game is telling you to do

that day and kind of do what the team needs and so if I can help us win games if I can help us be competitive like that's just really my only goal and um otherwise like last not so four shots or I take 20 shots like it doesn't really matter me I just want to help us win games what do you like about Boston living there playing there that maybe you didn't understand I mean people are the best I mean anywhere I go I get a lot of love and

I think there's a support that that they have there is a second to none and

I like the history of like the food like everything about it it's always interesting like if you

just got like the whole package in but I think it really just started the people and how much love the support they give that they're their sports teams and a big sports guy so I love being in the sports city for you upset about the spread socks start upset no but I am going to a right sauce game here soon and like being in a Fenway is is one of a kind and I mean it was really fun year last year and like being a part of being around like red socks in the playoffs because

that was the first year since I've been in Boston that they were actually competitive and so

hopefully they turn around you soon and there's a lot more competitive baseball here coming up still early it is very early that is that is accurate I don't know Zula I've known of him whether he's a player different people with the Celtics like when he wasn't even the head coach was like he's he's really good and then he's named the head coach where they're going on and it's like no this guy's this guy's going to be really good I would say if he wasn't

successful there's a lot of people going like what is up with this guy how much of this is real

“and how much of it is him messing with everybody publicly I mean I think 90 percent of it is”

really like best is who he is obviously I think like the media and how he talks to you there's awesome a little bit different but like that's just who he is the head day and like his brains just kind of wire differently and he's kind of like we landed him a walking he was he was happy that was raining and that they needed it to rain in my aunt or he was hoping it was going to rain in my am mean just like he just wired it like that and wait why would you have wanted to

rain in my aunt so everyone's just stays in the hotel or he likes it when it rains he likes him when it's cold outside he's just like we went to L.A. through the year and it was raining and he was like oh this is amazing like I'm so happy right now so he's just the other is how he is just he's just a little different it's great give me an example of something that he said to you is a player that that was a coach you know coaching you where anything some of you guys are just kind

of like so good that you know I don't know how much coaching is still developing you as a player but is there's something that he said to you in your time with him that you were like oh that's that's

“really smart right and thought of the game that way I mean I think just the way he talks about”

like the margins I never really looked at it like that in just a way that like ever kind of just like

all they're just jacking up threes but I think just the way he talked about the margins the way he can kind of get different advantages through a game and I think my fair part of him is just it's rust like he can just he really trusts his players and he puts a lot of faith and belief in them and so I mean as soon as you got the job like he's really giving me a lot of confidence just but just based off of his he's rusting me yeah it's a good point though because like I can all ask you

and I don't want this to sound critical because it's it's an offensive system that's already proven the concept is proven you have an NBA championship okay and I think fans and definitely some of us in the media times like when it's not working like I don't want to be so results based but it's like man they're going so quick and like that's a contested three and that was super early in the shot clock is that kind of forgetting that the overall math and the whole approach is

like the first good look you get like let's play the possession game let's play the math game

and get it up so you may not think it's a great shot I may not necessarily look like a great shot but for the course of 48 minutes take all of these even in the times where it feels like it's

“rushed I think just based on the team we had and like sometimes it might be a contested three”

but then I'd be the best shot you can get the whole possession like there's no like you don't want turn down a good look and I think a lot of times especially the teams we had in the past like like those are the looks that we wanted especially they could be early they could be late like you don't want to turn down a look like that and then but I think like the whole league's kind of just turned into kind of what we were doing in the past like I'm we're not the most three points

you can team anymore and I think it's an exciting brand of best with us when you're able to generate a lot of good looks and so for us it's really just like trying to create an advantage and then try to keep that advantage and use that ended up in a three ball and we had like eight guys that shot threes and so I was pretty crazy but I think we we do with things a little bit definitely this year and that's a credit to the joe and the staff of how they kind of dab it

to our personnel. Yeah do you think you needed to maybe discover a different gear than then some of the hunting for the mismatch or just looking for the first you know above average three point of time like do you think you found a different maybe it's not even gear like a

defense. Yeah I think I mean I think a lot of teams now they don't really have like a weaker defender or something that you like want to attack every time down and so how are you in a creative advantage if everybody is just switching in it's just one on one and so that's something that we talk about at the time and I mean the playoffs every series every game is a different challenge and I think we got a lot different ways we can win games, a lot different

“options we can go to and that's what you're going to need in the playoffs because every game's a”

little bit differently and like you said it would were playing good defenses and especially like the longer you go like the better the teams are the more tapes up there and so it's definitely a challenge to create those advantages so I think this year we've done a little bit more on how to get those advantages for us. You may want to save that Jaylin Brown out of time out corner three

from the right corner late last night where it's house or sets the first screen and then it's kind

of like a little misdirection and then Kate is over that I think was just filthy um and again JB wasn't missing I mean the number shots that he hit last night were I was like okay there's no way that one's going in he's looking the wrong way and his legs are spread um his his shot like what's a good shot for him there's like I can't ever get upset about any of the looks because I cannot believe how many tough ones seem to go in for him especially this year he's a a big time

“shot maker I mean I think something like last night here like he was dribbling in like step back”

into the corner and like falling out of bounds and especially when he gets to go in like that like there's been a few games where he's just won't doesn't seem like a missing thing but I mean do it

course of time like he always kind of get to his spots and once you get to his spots it's not much

of a deep a deep as can do. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about is last year against the next and look Tainam goes down with the terrible injury that was in game four it kind of felt like they were going to win that game and go up three one what did you think was different for you guys coming off of a championship in that series. Oh and that's serious it's crazy me um I mean obviously being up 20 both games ones and two and then losing those games um

the things you never really want to go down oh two when you have home court and so um obviously you look at those games and you mean if you just win one like it's a whole holy different series

“totally different series and so um I mean I think obviously JT going down and people were kind of”

banged up and KP had the illness and everything and so I don't think we were the same team as we were the year before and the next year we're just better than us. I want to go back to high school we ask all of our guys this that played Parker Colorado you're getting recruited. What's your best recruiting story from back in the day? Well why you either ended up in Boulder or some other place that you thought you were going to go like what's your favorite memory from that time

during your recruitment at a high school? Yeah. Oh I didn't have a whole lot of uh recruitment my dad was sending out like highlight tapes to like all the division two's in Colorado just trying to give me the any team interested um I don't know I think my favorite story is that a Metro State which was a big time division two basketball team in Denver Colorado from they came in and watched me play a high school game and like I was just trying to walk on

like I and I didn't expect the scholarship nothing and like they went and watched and then after there like I wasn't good enough to walk on and so um that's probably like my favorite story is like this division two team basically said I couldn't walk on uh even just practice with her team so that kind of put a chip on my shoulder and um and then I think like uh none of one is like Coach Colver was at recruiting me at Johnson and Wales and I didn't really have a whole lot of interest

and going to Johnson and Wales but um I mean if I was cool that someone was recruiting me and so like I was like super like a call out pick up right away and like I think if like I had the mindset

I was like I'm never going to go there and I was just like a jerk to him the whole time that if he got

when he got to job at UCCS he wouldn't have called me and like hey you want to come and so I think that's a good lesson for a lot of the kids out there is like you never know who you meet whether you're going to come and what they can do for you. He saw it when no one else did so what was it tough then to be like hey I'm going to go to Boulder and transfer? Yeah yeah for sure

loved it either UCCS or like we had just won the arm act like we just did a lot of different things

and so um like after the season I was like well I'm going to come back it would be better like just try to get a division two and that's a championship but then like talking people like

“I think it might be best for me and my career to go to see you which is kind of like it was like”

selfish like I didn't wait do you could I lay I was like I'm the selfish of what me but um I know it would be the best for me and my best opportunity to get to the next level and so I had kind of make to make to jump. You know here that allowed for basketball players like I felt a little selfish about doing this um I didn't like that. It's it is crazy though like how visual we are not just in sports but like everything right and I remember the combine in Chicago

because I used to host a free SPN and one of my favorite scouts ever Steve Rosenberry and he's one of the best that I've ever talked to for 20 years and I figured which team he was with at the time but I got a little time of them in between you know whatever the television broadcast and he's like you know who's nasty any points at you and I didn't know that much about you so I was like really

“and you're like trust me like watch this guy play and I think that's probably something that”

you certainly understand because it happened to you but that there would almost be this dismissive way of like looking at you where that's like well that guy can't be that good and then you're running around out there and it's like anybody that really appreciates like how a really good basketball

player plays the game and it also helped that you've got over six feet finally when I know that

I know you're a bit of a late bloomer actually but it must be just be like hey man you're telling me my life story up until you know you started putting up some numbers with the spurs where it was just almost felt like anytime anybody started with you it started without about what you couldn't do yeah I think I don't like I don't have like that wow factor like I think a lot of times especially like those pre-draft things and you know like recruiting process like you kind of

looking for someone that kind of like wow's you and I don't think all I ever really have like every now and then I'll do something like wow that was impressive but um over the most part like I don't

“think I have that wow factor so I think I kind of just get overlooked overlooked but think over long”

long run that like what I do kind of works and that's got to say good yeah I think it works I think it works kind of final thought I don't think you're going to be good enough as a guest to like go hey we are really afraid of this team and we have no fear of that team I know that I'm doing this long enough I know that's not the way that works when you talk with your teammates though is there any sense of like figuring out the east at all like how do you guys talk about all the teams around

you with the way the seating looks right now yeah it's a piece of been crazy um we have a kind of looked in the year that east was going to be down but I mean I mean if you look like five through 10

like a change like every day so you never really know what you're going to play and like those things

are playing some of the best basketball in the NBA right now and so I think the cool thing for us is especially down the stretch years that we we play a lot of them so we get a lot of like a good ramp like a good preparation for the playoffs and every game is going to be a challenge and so it's been it's been a fun couple of weeks with that and we really have no idea who you're going to play especially with the playing and everything like that so I'm seating is going to change every day and

it's been a lot of fun basketball to watch it's been a lot of fun to watch your career as well man just keep doing your thing I'm sure you will and excited about the playoffs thanks Derek appreciate this episode coming off some seas talk is brought to you by body I'm a flash IV the rapid rehydration drink a match madness flash IV's packed with electrolytes delivering faster longer lasting hydration without any artificial dies flavors of sweetness whether you're trained

in traveling I just feel the heat that look obviously where I'm from we don't travel a ton maybe the red line up but who would want to do that but I'm telling you grab a body I'm a flash IV for the trip whether it's on the metro whatever that's called the T or a flight if you actually leave the six one seven which is not something people from that area unknown to do from time to time work hard high-grade hard body I'm a flash IV the official rapid rehydration drink of

match madness grab it at 7-11 from the wildest subsets of the most creative bracket bus shared we saw that no matter how the bracket ended every moment was a chance for a fans to win and reward themselves with recess all turn it long brackets have busted for a recess and we've seen some epic fails and even more epic recess fans we even sent someone to the final four

recess perfect time in front of the final four and to continue some of the draft

conversation we'll get some NBA in there as well because he is terrific sandbusini of the athletic he has his top 100 player rankings is scouting reports up and of course his podcast available audio and on youtube game theory okay I was talking with Billus on Monday and this has been something just going on with you con for a little while where when I watch them on offense I have to watch them differently than most any other team because I make sure I'm

watching what they're really trying to do as opposed to all the eye candy that they they run themselves through and you know he mentioned Luke Murray who's now going to take over and be the Boston College head coach which is awesome news to him I know that you have I don't want to overstate this or share too much but I know there's a relationship there that you have with him so like can you give us a even greater understanding of of what it is about view con and this buy-in

from the coach you staff the players to really advance offensive basketball in a way that I don't even think NBA teams would want to run some of the stuff that they're doing because there's such a commitment to staying in that set for that long well it's a little bit more of a European style right and I know that you know Luke Murray spoken about this publicly and Danny Hurley I think literally set it on your show at one point that like you know Luke will just stay up

and watch European basketball and try to find things to steal right it's a more like egalitarian

“European style of game and I think that what they have done is they have decided to incorporate”

more of those kind of stylistic flourishes than what other organizations across college basketball have you know you look at Illinois Illinois who they're going to play in the final four has been the other like I wouldn't say other there plenty of teams have been more effective than Connecticut offensively this year I think they're like 30th offensive efficiency but you know Illinois this year

did it by basically studying the Boston Celtics and what they do is they run a lot of

guard-to-guard actions and they play five out basketball very similar to the Celtics and what their goal is is to find the mismatch that they want for Keaton Wagner and have they well-space court and allow him to get a paint touch or to collapse the defense with Yukon it's a lot more we're running off-ball actions like Southammery can get a paint touch but he's not like a truly elite like paint touch point guard it's really funny looking back at what we now know the stiff-on castle

is as a paint touch player and how effective he's been in that regard in the NBA especially this season you call it like he basically played as a I don't know do you want to call it like a small ball four kind of so the he's an afterthought you know I mean that was it there was one of the tournament games there was almost surprising how how much he got going offensively because he could also have five points in a game and you wouldn't even it didn't even hurt them necessarily

“right and like and the I think it was one of the final four games like he was just cutting off”

the ball and moving off of the ball and they would like set up a dummy action for him to cut back door and they would find it back door and find him at the rim so I think what they do better than anybody else and this goes for the whole staff you know from Danny Hurley to you know come on a young dilute Murray to everybody you know over there Mike Nardy they are great at taking away what you're trying to do as your top option against Michigan State Michigan State once got

in transition on defense they're going to get out in transition on offense they're going to get back on defense and they're going to make it impossible for you to do so Jeremy Fears against Duke they're going to try and throw the ball into a cambooser well can we really stop it maybe not like we don't really have the option to do so because we don't want to get terrorist read and foul trouble and then Alex Cariband is in a great matchup but what's the number two

thing they want to do they want to get Isaiah Evans the ball Isaiah Evans only attempts six shots in the game against Duke and that's a huge reason why they won and then offensively they're just so good at running you through the ringer running you through the ringer and because

“so many other teams haven't seen that throughout the course of the year I think that they're”

exceptionally difficult to prep for because they also just have such a long roll of decks of plays they can go to and that they feel comfortable running with counters upon counters upon counters off of those actions when I think about what they want to do offensively you know it's going to

start with terrorist readers been on this incredible run clearly Duke thought that they could

get away with playing him straight up he has an amazing start maybe Duke still was like hey we're in control of this game so we don't necessarily need to double them they doubled them in the second half I wonder if Illinois will one go hey let's not let him go off and granted Illinois

probably wasn't totally comfortable with who where like Dungbo's was at this point because it

was like you know he's coming back through this injury it's kind of up and down we know how physical he is and that he's a huge presence but it didn't seem like it was something that they

“preferred and then the other part of you come that I think it's kind of interesting is like even”

though Cariband has 27 it gets UCLA he's a I don't mean to say like a secondary offensive player but he's usually an offensive player off of all the other things that happen I think which is totally fair to say about him he's a guy that average is 13 a game it's got to be some stuff for him off the catch and then it's a decision he's not going to bring the ball up and then just work anybody Mullens is here miss maybe there's a little bit more shock creation in there from him but we don't

really see it and might you like solo ball as they're best on ball like kind of creator and that's the part of like where you kind it's like how will they lose well maybe they lose because there's just not enough on ball creation late in the shot clock against the Illinois team that feels like they have a lot of people they can run out there defensively trying to clog you up yeah it's really interesting so just kind of thinking about you know Yukon's offense right like they've been

really successful in the tournament by putting ball download a terrorist read right and like you say Illinois they have both the evisage twins they've adopted meerkvitch like they have a lot of bodies that they can throw at terrorist read no way the Duke just doesn't right because Duke doesn't want to get cambooser and foul trouble cambooser in general is not a very vertical player it I don't know what do we want to call cambooser like six eight six eight and a half with a seven foot

wingspan so he's just a size miss match in general with read on top of not being very vertical so he's going to be able to score over the top of booser and then the thing that Duke did that was really weird to me was I thought that they would start Dungba input him on read or they would start milk brown input milk brown on caraband and cross match but they started with milk brown on

“terrorist read and that's just like a total mismatch size wise and physicality wise and that's why”

read got going early like milk brown can run off of actions cambooser doesn't really run off

of actions like the whole reason that I was thinking throughout the first half will like look

Yukon isn't playing well but I don't think they're dead is that I thought they were getting good shots like Alex Caraband and Rayland Mullins missed five wide open threes in the first half and if they make two or three of those you're sitting here and it's a what six point game going into half time maybe a nine point game going to half time and it doesn't look nearly as bad as what it was so I was just sitting there going like

okay like I don't think they're dead yet in this game obviously Duke did a really good job like kind of putting the clamps down defensively but is it refers to Illinois they just don't really have the the mismatches that Duke has for guarding Yukon on the offensive end like I will it's hard because we just we saw this match up earlier this year right like Yukon demolish them like absolutely dumb truck them it felt like to me and it was before they moved

Keaton-Wagler to point cards literally the game before there may be two games before they moved Keaton-Wagler to point card and they just like completely erased Wagler. Wagler was like in the

“corner and they got up into his body and they made his life miserable in that game I think you”

had like two points maybe something like that and I'll be interested to see how Illinois goes about getting him more involved it'll just be very simple he's playing point card now he will play at that level but how does Illinois go about taking that away from Yukon? Er go go about taking that away from Illinois do they try to force the ball to Wagler's hand force them into the corner because Wagler is somebody that will make the right decision like we saw

in the Houston game he's just going to pass it around and make sure everyone's getting the ball. Wagler has you know if you look at the box square against Houston and look anytime you're playing Houston it's going to be chaos but for Illinois to do that to Houston in itself it's like one of the biggest statements the entire tournament so you can get caught up and kind of like hate and shoot it all that well but then you flip it to the Iowa game and there's just going to be something about

Wagler where even though it doesn't look as dynamic as you want it for like the best lottery

prospect on the ball like you know it we always think it like ant like I think of ant being incredibly

crisp the hard dribble right into this movement and it's just the the perfect vision of like what you would want it on ball guy to be but Wagler has clearly something to him some kind of shake to him where you think you have him and you don't and sometimes it's angles sometimes it's physicality sometimes it's stopping sometimes it's just you guessing wrong and so I don't

shot making and then decisions and the passing and cuts to the baseline like he was in

“complete control I think offensively at that I in that Iowa game and to your point like he is”

he's this kid is just running all of their possessions in huge huge spots and it's easily the best look it's the best look for them and you know look you constantly get really physical with that they're not just going to let them waltz into wherever he wants to go but you you are missing I think and I'm not saying this to you but you're kind of missing the point on Wagler if you

think always just not dynamic enough well maybe the NBA we worry about later because right now

he's still getting wherever he wants to seem to want to go well the thing to me is like yes he was in complete control the Iowa game he goes for 13 points on four of 11 I think it was against Houston right he was in complete control that game too and it was because Houston was blitzing the ball every time what Illinois didn't that game was they found the mismatched with Kingston Fleming they would run a guard to guard screen get Kingston Fleming's on to Wagler and then

they would bring up whoever Chris Snack was guarding into the ball screen and every single time they just went to that well they went to that well they went to that well and they would blitz

the ball screen and Wagler would just get rid of it sometimes it was skip past Jake Davis opposite

wing sometimes it was just a little drop off fast sometimes it was a pass to the like basket right but he was in complete control the whole time offensively despite the fact that he only took 11 shots and he only scored 13 points right that's the like when people bring up Tyre's Halle Burton in comparison to Keaton Wagler that's the stuff that he does that I think is very halibut me and I will listen to that piece of it he reminds me a little bit more of like an

Austin Reeves though like physically where it's all very herky jerky it's all it builds off of the shot right where Wagler loves this like jab step right crossover right to left move it's his favorite move by far and what makes that so effective is that he is such a threat as a pull-up shooter that teams have to account for it so he'll jab right go left he's an effective driver he's an effective pull-up shooter you don't really know what to do and then on top of it what he does

really well to your point is he plays off of hand dribbles really well so he's always constantly

threatening the defense with the potential that he's gonna shoot off of those hand dribbles and then when he sees somebody finally come out he's like bam I'm just going right and you can't do anything about it I'm gonna beat you to the rim even though I'm not the fastest or you know

“strongest guy in the world I have the advantage because you have to play my shot”

I love watching that dude play I think he's so so sharp and so smart will be vacant if Connecticut hadn't beaten them in the way that they did earlier this year I would pretty easily take Illinois I think and it's a different Illinois team I get it because of Wagler again like the thing that is so interesting to me is like yeah we talked about Luke Murray and the influence he's had on Yukon's offense early on Tyler underwood at Illinois is also

had absolute stud like he is the one who brings like a lot of the offensive principles into the mix this like five out offense based on finding mismatches I think that they can find mismatches in that game and I think that my immediate reaction is that Illinois is probably the more talented team now that they figured out Wagler on the ball but like I kind of also just refused to bet I'm like hedging and I hate hedging like I I can't

bet against Hurley on some level and I can't bet against that coaching staff in a one game setting they took that Florida team that won the national title last year down to the absolute wire in the NCAA tournament with no offensive creation whatsoever they're just really good at this the staff is unbelievable it figuring out an answer to what you're going to do I think I'm taking Yukon my brain says Illinois and then like I know deep down in my soul that Yukon's coaching

staff is just going to figure this out and figure out a way to stop them and win okay give me just your pick on Michigan Arizona and then there's a question you don't have to break it down yet Arizona okay I too like Arizona but certainly I think we both agree we think Michigan can win it's this isn't something totally there's no way Michigan can win when I watch Arizona

“and I just love them so much I think the best way to ask is how do they lose how do they lose”

this game I love that I so it's even a dozen really take many threes right like they're not

three of six from three and then Tray McKenney and the other guards at Michigan shoot it well

“I think that's the easiest pathway I would say to them beating Arizona but I mean they just have so many”

think with Arizona there's so many bodies that throw it you like they're so tough they're so physical but then on top of it they have the shot creation with Jaden Bradley and Braden Buries right like Michigan they really are just kind of the bullies like they're gonna attack you on the glass they're gonna get out in transition they're gonna be bigger and more physical and more athletic than you Arizona can match that but then they have the back court to create shots and like be able to

consistently create half-port offense in a way where sometimes like I think Michigan goes through stretches a little bit especially since L.J. Cason's been down or been injured

where I think that that can be a bit of a problem I asked Billis this I'll ask you because you put

more into it if if Lyndon Moore was 19 is he the number one pick in the trash now I don't think so okay he'll be what 23 before next season starts in 2024 before next season starts yeah yeah I'd be like you're saying like plug he's exact game that he has now his game now yeah five you know with five years of youth before the season we're starting the NBA yeah the answer still note of me just

“because of the like shot creation aspect honestly like he's not as fluid of all handlers like”

AJ and Darren and those guys he'd be a top five pick sure it'd be like a real question between like I think you go ahead of Caleb Wilson if I think he's so big and he can play you know it's almost like he plays different versions depending on what's needed you know he's been terrific right and so I don't look at him as like a guy who where I think like hey I wish his hand was a little bit better maybe I just look at him almost as his power forward in a way even though you know

look more as Johnson's more the power forward and sometimes I watch him and think like do you just love the physical part of this because then there's like this rule I'll have a like hey how good is he as a basketball player man like is he a good basketball player before you start to just fall in love with all these measures of some of these guys because that's usually where you'll miss on on some of the guys that are on the freakish side of things um that's my rule

with coa peat this year like yeah coa peat okay he doesn't shoot it uh like he's feet or a little bit slow yep he's like an ascicker of a basketball player like you just watch him and he out physicals everybody and he's super smart and he's great with spacing and like just has an inherent understanding of the game yeah because if I had I have a bunch of things that I want to throw at you that are a little quicker um so let's just do this then if you could pick one player that's

it could be first round maybe it's lottery maybe lottery is a little bit more fun pick one play it doesn't have to be you do whatever you want with it but I'm just having name in mind if you could pick one player where you'd say I just wish this guy went back for one more year just to see what it would look like who would that be because for me it's coa peat it'd be

name it for me uh with those that the answer to that question for me is almost always the guy

that's like physically underdeveloped on some level I want those guys to get lower stakes reps in the NBA uh then what they're presented within the NBA just to develop their frame physically more right like to get a chance to develop their game and you know get those reps

“on the ball with an extra year of strength and see how that develops I think coa peat's a great”

answer to this question and probably be number um being my top two or three for sure yeah amen with the ankle I think it has to be factored in with his turn totally um when he's handling any six ten thank you understand why the conversation around him was what it was over the summer and then going into it too and I think there's even a Peterson comparison here too not saying that the same types of players but like you can give these players a hard time but when

somebody's that gifted in that big and then it becomes a debate of like are we talking about apprehension or are we talking about like understanding and with amen what I really liked is that I don't know that he ever like sure there were times around like I'd like you to be a little bit more aggressive but I don't think he was like aggressive in a way that was detrimental to his team and clearly his point guard was going to let it fly all game long um because that's kind of what

they were trusting in their offense there so I think there's like some good foundational stuff with amen where I'm like this guy's not an asshole of a basketball player just like hey I'm six ten get out of my way all this stuff work there's he's like actually trying to play hoops even with the struggles I think shooting wise throughout the tournament which again I know the box score is

positives in there of what you're working with as a player yeah no I totally agree he just is an efficient enough right now you can't shoot her right you can't make baskets around the rim which is an issue that he's had going back to high school like even on the AU circuit he was a low percentage finisher at the rim now this year the way that he is buoyed that is by getting to the foul line and like living at the foul line and striding out and using his ability to decelerate

“around the basket to draw contact and draw fouls which I think has been really important for his”

development the other issue with amen though is that he was a forty percent three point shooter on the AU circuit going into a senior year and this year he shot thirty three percent from three percent in the small park yeah yeah and forty percent all might be the more damning number just because of that size to your point on the foot back certainly but yeah like it just feels it feels like a difficult uh a difficult skill set when you're that skinny and you're dealing with

physical powerful NBA players and you're also like not wildly explosive either I really like

name it to be clear he's like definitely a lottery pick for me but it's more like back half of the lottery because I really worry about him starting his NBA clock so early when he's just like not physically ready like you see the way Cody Williams you know plays in the NBA right now and I think Nate's more talented than Cody Williams but like he just can't physically do it like he's just now starting to physically be able to deal with like the contacts that NBA teams present and you know

like I worry about amen being able to do that early in his career what what so why do you want co-opete to go back I love him I know you know I sometimes that first impression stuff and obviously

“you know you know who the guys are and then you're I think the first time I watched him I was kind of like”

underwhelmed you know it's got a random Arizona game which is easy to be underwhelming in the rotation of all the different options that we've clearly referenced numerous times in this pod but there was two plays in that Purdue game where he did it on his own and he got like a pull up in the paint then I was like that looks like a guard okay and it wasn't off of all of this stuff it wasn't like a straight post up it was kind of like we're gonna get you in the middle on a catch so they're

away from the sides and then it's gonna be kind of up to you because we actually trust your passing in this spot too and it's probably another big in there where there it's Awaka or Krivaus that is gonna take up somebody else's attention so it could be up to you to just go over power that defender there could be an option to pass out of this whole thing and he hit two like pull ups in the paint including one over Jacobson who's what seven four yeah and the shot over Jacobson

I'm like that is fucking special like remember this play here and there's just a kind of back to

“that basketball thing it's like hey I think he might just be like awesome at basketball on time”

having this body that is incredible and you know if he went to a different program

that's not as deep I think we're talking about him in a different tier for the draft it's interesting just because he it's so easy to nitpick him he doesn't shoot three's right he's a bit undersized for like the four role in the NBA something like that like he's probably six foot sevenish I would guess and he's obviously physical and powerful and like he's not going to have any issues physically dealing with that but you know he's it's it's just very easy

to look at what he can't do and I think oftentimes scouts get locked into that battle of what somebody can't do versus looking at exactly what you're saying where it's like oh well you know he's just made like this sick mid-range jumper over a guy who's seven foot four we might be able to work on the shot guys like it's very possible we could develop that down the road oh they trust him with the ball in his hands in the middle of the court and they have from game one this season

because he played for Tommy Lloyd on the under 19 team oh yeah that that says something that seems valuable be able to just have that guy come in and the other piece of it too is I said the word like ask kicker he he embraces physicality like he wants to initiate physicality in a way that really matters in the NBA like there is no fear with that kid at all he has no problems sliding his feet getting his chest in front of you and you bumping him he is like for all of my

questions I do have some questions about him laterally in the way that he slides his feet and whether or not he can open his hips just because you know son of a you know NFL offensive

lineman long you know stretch of lineman in his past basically in his family history the

as a defender but man where he is explosive is an athlete is he will just go up for you as a

leaper he's a really really explosive two foot leaper in a way that I think he's actually going to move NBA guys backward when he goes into those players so I'm a big fan I think he's just an

“absolute ask kicker is it's the best way to put it like he is an ask kicker of basketball player”

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IV the official rapid rehydration drink of march madness grab it at 7-11 okay uh drafts snapshots not enough work done here but I'm just going to throw it at you right now

“I think Bennett Stewart says a chance there is a fluidity to his game the way he moves”

there's I don't know I don't care again we don't focus on the combine testing numbers nearly as much as the NFL does in the NBA draft world but there is a flow to him in the way this guy plays basketball and the fact that he shot it as well at every single stop and I think you have projected to be a first rounder which actually makes sense even in a detrap I think I think he's worth taking a shot at because I think there's a little bit something more to him even though I

know he's been around for a while yeah I I have him talk to one even like I'm a officer that's like it's going to be the highest anybody has him no I don't know it's it's going to be I think it's probably going to go like somewhere 16 to 24 ballpark like I think he goes in the first round here like you mentioned that idea of the athletic testing just being different right like you look

at Bennett starts and you say oh like this guy's never going to be able to create nice

relation like he just doesn't have the explosiveness doesn't have the ability well like each of the last two years it I won it Drake he's been up over 1.05 points per possession in isolation scoring according to synergy and it's because he is really good with his jab steps he's really good with his shot fakes he has the ability to like shot fake and then like just immediately put it right back into the pocket and shoot up over the top again with like those quick shot

fakes to get defenders off balance really good on fade away it's just his a sick sick jump shooter in very uh very versatile in how he can get to his jump shot I don't think he's really going to put much pressure on the rim but between the fact that he is a ridiculously intelligent basketball player who's basketball IQ is just like off the charts in the way that he ran that team

“and shooting in the isolation ability and his comfort and ball screens like I think you just”

figures it out at the end of the day I've had a couple people bring up the name like okay what if he's just like a creation of the Ben McCollum scheme or what if he's what if he's like Nate Walters right is one uh one name that somebody brought up to me I was like yeah you know like I can I can I can see that I get where you're coming from with it Nate Walters had it Ryan that dude had it North Dakota state but there were teams that really liked him oh he went in the

top 40 I think if memory serves but you know he uh I think starts is just going to be fluid enough and good enough to make it work in the NBA yeah I don't think he's going to be anybody's best player but um you're kind of looking at it's where the rankings were for some of these guys because like all right here's one that I don't understand why his book a tightest not on anybody's do you have a minute's top I love them it's just like why would he leave he's gonna get you know

two and a half plus it might be way more than that I don't know it's gonna be like okay

plus million dollars to go back to Texas but you're saying if he were going in like here's a

perfect example right this myth all time all time college career pretty he leads the history of the sport in assists he is the absolute epitome of what every coach would want to be like all right

ball fake ever that once you go oh so he just reaches to the sky with the ball and college kids fall for it maybe we stop falling for that a little bit but like when I think about him in the best case scenario because I see him projected like kind of in the 30s maybe 40s on people's top 100s I just can't fathom like why a vocatitis if available is what you're saying vocatitis if available be be considered a better draft prospect then so it's because I think

vocatitis hands and feet combination was again I just started watching Texas free so yeah

but I'm just surprised that I never saw anywhere the feet aren't why what you want them to be

is what I would say in ball screen coverage is I think the Texas late in the season did a really good job of kind of shielding him and keeping him near the paint so I can post touches yeah he

“is really fluid feet it's more like the speed side limb like large distances when you have to”

garden space that are a bit of an issue for him but I he would go in the top 45 I think if he entered the draft I agree like I totally agree with you it's just like okay so we have all these bigs in this class right so you know honest Steinbach Jaden Quentin's probably comes out with me is like a real I hope he can kind of go the kind of freed route here yeah I agree we're just going to energy the fuck out of you you know and that's what he is like Zubi's a rotational guy

I think best case scenario yeah I'm a little bit lower on Zubi as well then most people are for what it's worth so I agree with you but yeah you know like terrorist read has been on an absolute tear this is unbelievable but then again who is going okay when he comes in we're running old school post-ups I'll judge like ask the timber walls if we can have their Al Jefferson plays so yeah I mean it was even kind of the Zack E.D. conversation where I think E.D. has

probably when he's been healthy you know you felt better about him even if it it makes it very specific the way that you're going to play with him because he's not going to be able to play like five out in the way that you would kind of think that you'd want to with a drama rant so it's like clearly a really good front office in Memphis see something an E.D. to take him that high but there

was always part of my E.D. argument was as great as he is at this thing that he's doing

“when are you going to be doing that are you it if you want to go ahead and give him like 10”

traditional real post-up touches and attempts not just touches at the elbow that count in these post- touches where it's like that's not really a post-up give him 10 real post-ups and see if he can get 12 points then that's great and Terus Reed is added this other development of being able to turn the other way which nobody really even thought was going to happen but when I watch it I go this is awesome this guy's been on fire who's calling him like a zoo and a level like ambientter is that

without me here I think he is I mean clearly nobody's ready for it because he's turning back the other way it's almost like he was like oh I could have just turned turn this other way the entire time it's all awesome stuff but nobody does it nobody does it with NBA five that are actually like 30 minute of night guys it's like going to set screens and hopefully hit a three hundred percent like

“I guess the my thing with Terus is like I think he moves way better defensively than what people”

give him credit for like his feet are really good defensively like he can slide in large spaces and you might be able to do some variable ball screen coverages and he's just going to crush the glass like he's an offensive rebounder or awesome defensive rebounder and it's kind of your point on vocatitis like you win the you win the possession battle when vocatitis is on the court that would be my hope with Reed I think Reed's you know but I'm probably going to end up with

him the top 40 after everybody goes back which I think that a lot of players are going to go back to school and cash in at the end of the day but you know I think he's probably a backup big like I don't think he's anything more than a backup big but you're right though and I'm focusing on the offense way too much I haven't done the work but your ability to just be average on ball screens and once you're below average that's where you end up in Europe you know this is where

it's like hey man you know and his canner seems to think that it's all political and it's like no once you get put into the action man it was just a net negative every single time and we're talking about somebody from a skills standpoint canners post stuff was unbelievable better than any of these

guys we're even talking about I mean that guy was incredible as an offensive talent and looking

still made money it's still hung around the league for a long time but once it once it was just

what's going to happen every single time um on a more general point that I want to hit on that kind of

out of order here how much you think the tournament's influence some of the conversation with the top guys whether it's Busser or the Peterson Dabonza it has I would say like going back to conference

“tournaments as well even including those I think Darren Peters and not finishing the year”

super efficiently or well has definitely clouded the conversation around him a little bit I I think more than anything look like whoever gets the number one overall pick is going to determine who goes number one right like this is such an eye of the boulder situation at the top do you want to take some guesses right now? I will guess yeah I will say like I don't know who any of these teams would take at number one right now like I don't this is a guess like I don't know any of

this yet alright well let's go through it yeah you don't know but I think it's for yeah I think this will

be a fun way to do it alright so if I go I'll go worst record till you know it starts to become a pointless exercise so Washington in the pace was both tied at 17 and 58 so let's just go Washington with the tiebreaker if the wizards have the number one pick who do you think they would take? I think that the bandsa feels more like what that front office has valued in the drafts since they've been there I don't know if that means to my guy Kishan but yeah I mean look and like

will Riley as well shout out will Riley you love will Riley right now I agree with you really good nice yeah yeah like he knows he knows what he's doing out there he can really drive but like the thing about and this is like a general conversation as we get into this or a general point NBA front office is it's not about like when you're trying to project you they're going to take

“it's not about what the front office needs I think people think of it in that NFL style way”

with the draft where it's like you have so many positions to fill like you really actually need to use the draft in order to fill the things that you need from a skill perspective with the NBA draft the way I think of it a lot more often it is like every front office has a lot more of a type that they tend to really like and by and large they tend to value certain things more appreciably than other things okay I totally agree with you on the NFL part of it

I mean it's just sometimes you just are soaked in at a position you're just like hey we're going to reach for a guy all right paces if they have the number one pick I wonder if they're like one of the few teams that would legit look at cambooser bit number one because they really value like decision-making point five you know decision-making and neither to bands in or Peterson really do that I think I would say think I would say Darren maybe for them but I don't know how do you feel I also think the

the drafting especially it was going to be influenced to a great deal by like who ends up with these picks right because the paceers front office tons of security coach tons of security so maybe they take a bigger swing at somebody like Peterson as opposed to just hey the floor for Booser so much higher and then we can plug him in play him next to Zoo he's covered there a little bit he's going to be smart enough to understand what we're doing here immediately if we bring in

debonsa debonsa maybe going like hey I'm used to kind of just freestyle in here and just overwhelming people with my athleticism while I learn on the fly and the paceers going to be going into 2627 thinking they have a chance to win a championship with Halbert healthy so and they've done that with Ben with Matheren too you know what I mean like they kind of been down that road and it didn't totally work for them all these guys are better prospects than Ben Matheren but like

those guys that kind of you know take over the offense for a minute there I feel like it

hasn't quite worked in the way they wanted yeah Matheren I've always kind of argued and then I've

gone to see him in person a couple times and you're like yeah this is this is probably like a Jordan Clarkson path for him where he's going to play in the league a long time but you're probably going to come off the bench and you know he said some nights where he's put up some big numbers probably by necessity because the clippers needed somebody on the ball to score how aggressive is it gets the pressure on all of it kind of stuff but like he's playing basically one way all the time

“and I think it just becomes tough it becomes tough to play with somebody like that in big”

possessions when it's like hey we know once you get the ball this is all you're thinking about doing even as dynamic as he can be with some of that stuff so like you can look at Sacramento it's saying they have to get it right but at the same time like they're probably most likely to go with a Peterson tight because it's like this is the best chance at a superstar so unless they value debons a over Peterson as of right now with some of those concerns so even though I'm going like

hey who has more security who has more jobs security who has less jobs security you're probably

close to another guy that has the ceiling of an AJ or a Peterson yeah I think that's Sacramento would take AJ if you made me bet right now it's just it's the best combination of like star upside safe you know prospect safe for the Peterson right and like I've heard the rumors about them really liking A-Cough like that's been out there you know I like Dairy's A-Cough a lot I really enjoy them but it's just really hard to take a six foot two guard who doesn't defend it number one

overall Brooklyn actually has the third best odds of the number one pick it is there's some things

I liked about what happened with the roster this year but overall it's it's hard to like if you're ranking best rosters to worst rosters just from a talent standpoint to be nice it's in the bottom

“five I think more accurately would be a little bit closer to like the second or third least”

interesting roster maybe entirely so that's probably a non-booser team too I think it's probably a non-booser team if you made me bet I think that they're probably an AJ team I think that they would go with the bands that intake like the the somewhat relative safety and take the upside Utah at five I think I mean they were that they're taking AJ like okay but let me let me just offer a counterpoint if there is

a family in Utah that would not take the BYU guy number one because they like the other guy better it would be the age family do they own the team that that that person is involved at Utah prep and is involved at BYU I don't I don't I don't think they own the team unfortunately I think that Ryan Smith owns the team and not look for what it's worth like I say it all this and everyone I've ever talked to in Utah says like Ryan Smith is an unbelievable owner to work for

and you know like really really let's then do their thing I'd be fairly stunned if they didn't take AJ given the way that it has worked with Ryan Smith like you know being involved

both at Utah prep and at BYU you never rule out the ages sagging I really shouldn't you're right but

I don't know man like it's a lot of connecting the dog connections

“Dallas it's six and then it turns into Atlanta seven so yeah Dallas it's six I think they would”

problem huh that's an interesting one I can see them getting in the mix for your Peter sin I mean we have no idea who's gonna run that team I saw a report today think that like they're gonna try and get Sam Presty or Brad Stevens like good good I don't know my team wouldn't just go to Presty and be like what's the number I mean like if I'm if I'm Mark Walter with the Lakers right now I'm just like okay what's the like ownership percentage number that you want

forget forget like the number of you know you know you know a you know salary or whatever what would I realistically have to do here to get you yeah I don't think if I just cut a check

for the Lakers that was based on a $10 billion valuation granted he didn't have to pay that

cause he had already owned some of it but I I would frown on that but it's kind of like the old baseball GM thing it's like why is your GM making a million dollars a year and your utility infielders making seven million a year like why is it Presty should be making 25 million dollars a year I don't know what he's making this is my point of you know if I give you 0.25 percent of blakers that's probably something similar to that right pretty good way yeah um okay

final thoughts here and be a related I sit down last night number one seed in the east number one seed in the west I can't wait the pistons who do not have Kate because of what seems to be the most dismissed the long injury ever where it's like yeah I would just re-valuate it yeah I was excited even without Kate and then the pistons were like we're not playing anybody which sometimes I think teams do is like just in case we see these guys you don't want to give them

console let's not play anyone I don't know um but again they didn't play anybody but then the problem that Dr. Rivers rule is the pistons show up after getting down early and then be ball

“Paul starts running around like a 10-day contract player because that's how he plays”

every night he's out there like 10 days are coming up the game ends up in over time SGA ends

for pushoff in the game winner then it goes over time and at the same time despite the calls that I

don't love he is so clearly the best player on the court and is the reason why okay see one that game is the reason why okay see one the game at the against the next where you know yes there are free throws I hate but there's also the real part of it of like this guy's also taking over this game and making every single shot and last night's game hitting Jalen Williams in the corner for a huge three when there's three defenders on him doing the exact same thing

on the right side of Caruso for a three there I did think it was alarming though and they had chat Jalen Williams to lineups where they still couldn't grab a rebound but maybe that's just be ball Paul and Smith get some nice minutes for the pistons in there so I'll ask it again here is there any part of this rebounding non-secondary ball creator thing that should be a warning

for a team that was the first to 60 wins which seems ridiculous to be worried about.

I don't know that I'm worried about like what happened in the pistons game right like the way that that for itself out I'm a little bit less concerned about that I'm fairly concerned about the

“fact that I think San Antonio has a really good match up against them and if I had to pick”

that series right now I don't know who I would pick. In my like brain I say Oklahoma series of esteem they're going to figure it out but then San Antonio's beaten them four times like what what do we do about that right like how do we how do we put those two and two together knowing that okay so Oklahoma City is going to have to become an entirely mid-range centric team against San Antonio because of the Victor one but Yamaha factor can they stay efficient enough offensively

in order to beat that team actually don't know that I've answered that yet they stopped

the games that we've seen them play against San Antonio so that that's more where I'm at right now is I think San Antonio's 125 out of 27 and looks unbelievable and they have a good match up on Oklahoma City it feels like and when he's going to play a lot more minutes with the play out schedule right if they'd maximize whatever that number is it's a number north of what he's generally playing

“because he's I think was he still averaging like under 30 for the season of granted there was a”

lot of management in there after one of the injuries I struggled with it every night every night because I want to do it I want to say hey you've seen it they're the only team that makes okay see look confused they're gonna play each other I'd be shocked I mean maybe there's some weird like you know this is kind of the other thing with the playoffs the lessons that we're taught every single year is like do not fall in love with the max effort regular season teams

yeah and then apply that like there's still just this stubborn hope that I kind of hold out for with Denver a little bit because being fully formed Denver is like a really good team even though there's defensive and flush numbers that are just like beneath them like how how is this continuing to happen so it's like it could Denver be in this spot where it prevents this Western Congress finals of San Antonio in okay see and like even when you go east you know it's so

much fun because I have no idea I've not I mean I could just pick Boston like everybody else because we're kind of worried about Detroit can the next win three rounds with this and then you go through all those other teams it's like I forget I don't know who it was it was it Haberstrow's arguing

“I think that Cleveland's gonna have the best offense going into the playoffs you're like how could you”

argue that when we have a decade of hardened results that show us that this is different and also like the maximizing regular season thing like I love the Charlotte story I think all of us look at Charlotte is like hey Charlotte's on I'm gonna make sure I watch a quarter they're so much fun but are we seeing a young team give kind of max effort where there's a wake-up call come playoffs if they run into another team that's been playing in these games the last couple

years well and Charlotte probably has to win two games in a play in setting back to back to even get into the playoffs it feels like they're at 10 right now still even coming into today so that's tricky the the nicks are still the team and I know this like I know it's silly on some level but I can't get the nicks Celtics series out of my head like the nicks before the Tatum injury were about to go up Rio in that series if memory serves three one I think three one maybe yeah

like they were clearly the best team in that series against the Celtics so in my head I go okay or like I understand that they're just like kind of a mess like in the last couple of games or whatever I think they'd once seven in a row before those last couple of games and are we just like underrating and overthinking the idea of the nicks being

team's best player and they have a lot of different matchups for you because they can go really

big with matching cat or they can go really small if they want to with cat at the five like they have a lot of different lot of flexibility that presents problems for opposing teams so

“I'm going to be honest like I think I might take the nicks to come out of the east right now”

which again coming off the last week feels crazy but I kind of think that's where I'm at I don't I can't get mad at that I think they get killed by okay Sears San Antonio I totally agree but I believe we're trying we get killed by okay Sears Yeah New York with Boston yeah it's hard yeah that was an alarming series and you're totally right they're going to go three one they're going to win that series I mean even if tames stays healthy I

guess you could say maybe Boston win straight in a row but I don't know they just seem to be something about like this Boston was like hey they're shit's not working and New York knew it wasn't working and if you're like measuring the confidence of those two teams I think the nicks were just sky high going like hey these guys aren't that good like we've got this and I think they had figured it out um and look at even are you after that Sunday game against the next

with the nicks come back and they're in it and cat was such a huge part of that come back and then when it comes down to like perimeter time you're even noticed cat and that's something where I can't believe even saying this but like I know cat can be like a weird watch but he's he's right to be upset I mean Alvarado is fun he gets the steals and the solid stuff he took 10 shots

in 17 minutes and cat took fucking nine that should never happen no because Jose's probing he's

looking he's trying and I know he's from there and it's fun and like a nice acquisition of bring him off the bench a little bit of energy but he is always going to take more shots than he probably should and you know I don't know the staggering of all the different minutes in there but when you look at the box for the internet I'm like man they got away from cat big time I'm like oh you only took nine shots I'm like how many an Alvarado take and I'm like 10 17 minutes in

granted one game but it's not like a new thing well it's what Oklahoma City does to cat as well like they have the bodies to throw them they can put chat on them and then have heart and shine help off they can put heart and shine on it and it's just fine you can put coruso on it makes

“actually right like they just have so many different ways to guard cat that I think that is why”

more than anything I think the Oklahoma City matchup for New York would be a real problem for them uh and honestly I feel the same about San Antonio like I just think San Antonio is a better team than the next the end of the day but like they have a lot of bodies that you can throw a cat and try to bother him so it's yeah the east is totally wide open to me I have no idea like you can tell

me that the hornets don't make the play in that you can tell me the hornets are losing the first

round of the play in tournament or you can tell me they go to the second round after beating the pistons because like kid cutting him everyone's just waving off the fact that he had a collapse long and is now you know probably not able to condition would be my guess when you have a collapse long sorry I'm not a lungsman so like I'm not totally sure what's going on there with lungs but it feels like a thing where you can't really get into condition especially having to play

40 minutes a game like kid cutting him does in order for the pistons to like really win at a high level in the playoffs feels feels complicated for the pistons but like it just speaks to the wildness that is going to be the eastern conference. You could check out San Basini's work on the athletic check out all of his draft profiles it is an immense amount of work it's so much fun to get self lost grab the misses playing your weekend around it and of course his podcast and a YouTube

page game theory thanks Sam. Thanks Ryan appreciate a map tasty trade has a sweet of probability tools so you can make smarter picks for your portfolio so it can help you fill out your NCAA bracket you can trade stocks options futures and more all in one platform tasty trade offers low commissions including zero commission on stocks so you can keep more of what you were the platform is packed with trading features like back testing what's let's you simulate trading strategies using

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tasty trade has dozens of educational courses you can access for free with your account get live stellar support from tasty trades deep bench of experience trade desk reps during trading hours visit tasty tray dot com four slash bar stool today tasty trading ink is a registered broker dealer and member of Finra NFA and S.I.P.C. You want details five. I drive a Ferrari 355 KBLA. What's up I have a ridiculous house in the south fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine

Life advice the email address life advice are [email protected]. Kyle is here serruti

will not be here to hear both praise and scoring but I think we've moved past the baby items thing but we had we didn't have one email that just said straight up I love serruti. No. No

“name message. That was me. Was it? No, just kidding. But that's how I feel. That's good.”

Was only in the sling for a couple days probably should be in a little bit longer. Did have somebody follow up our Alex Honel look alike from a few weeks ago. He actually attached the pictures in here. Yeah you look a little bit like him. Smile was similar too. But he added a question because just want to say a quick sorry to Ryan if my email inspired him in any way to do weighted pull-ups. Those are not for the faint

of heart which Ryan you clearly are not. You are however quite old and sentence. I'm very sorry if my inspirational gym stats got you too gasped about your body and forgot to take these and get well soon quite old. Is that the medical term? I didn't know who would want the election of who's in charge of Ryan this year so it's good to know that he thinks I'm too old for

“weighted pull-ups. I believe it or not I had done them before I read that email but I you know”

why I gripped it went a little too. I didn't I didn't warm up enough I was I was really feeling it that day. I was really feeling this for weeks stretch of less days and more weight up or depending on what the day is. Yeah it wasn't you man. Tell me what to tell you. Okay. Newborn ruining my adult league team vibes five ten five eleven on it says tender here I'm going to guess he meant tender unless there's a new one called tender. I would know I'm not even

going to type it up. 185 only have two hundred and five pounds in plates so ten reps of that well I think that's you maximizing your resources. basketball comp old Kyle Corver. I have a problem I think the three of you are well equipped to answer although series not here. That seemed like this could be one for him. Yeah well whatever. I think we figured out. I live in a popular Midwest town and a few friends and I play a popular adult league sport in a weekly league so he doesn't even

tell us the sport. Populate the claim come on what's that unless it's pickle ball which is like taking the nation by storm I said we're pretty it's got to be basketball. Could be although let's continue to read here. We've been playing once a week for a few years. Pretty good but I've

never won the championship but like I said last season this season I can feel it. We have two teammates

married couple that just had a baby maybe it's basketball it could be oh maybe it's boxy ball I don't know what this is actually I'm gonna guess it's not boxy but who knows maybe this they just had a baby this is become a five problem likely just for me okay well that's some good self awareness each week it seems like there's more concern about the baby being out too late whether or not being right et cetera and it really ruins the vibes while we make a run for a ship. I've heard ship before

have you heard ship? No but it should be you know if we're being sticklers but it just

“chip it's it's the chip that's what it is. Do some words need to not be shortened. Definitely. Perhaps”

different topic. All right before each game the group Texas filled with maybe we can't both play or I don't know if we will make it on time. We definitely love them as teammates and have great hangs with them and are pumped that they have a baby really in all those parts of life except for this one. Super happy for you baby. Super happy for you but yeah we love you but our rotations are messed up. We can easily replace them and still have a good team but they want to keep playing as the

captain I feel stressed at each week it's like a puzzle to find out if they can show or if they can

even stay the whole game the problem is they want to keep playing even though I've told them we can

get a sub for them the question is how do I either get them to bow out or let them know to figure out the baby stuff outside of the group chat. As a single guy without kids all admit I don't fully understand the baby thing but we're talking about maybe two hours a week I think the baby will be fine to hang a stroll or it won't be the end of the world. Well I don't know that babies can be a little selfish. That's a quote. That's awesome. Am I crazy or is this just how people are with

newborns or is there simple ways to say hey guys we love you the baby is cool but this is a headache trying to figure out what you were going figure out what you're doing each week. Thanks for the pot.

but I do I think that it's totally normal if you run across somebody who is like this especially if it's their first. The thing that I think sucks about this is this is a wreck league right it is competitive but this is a thing you're doing for fun and this thing is like keeping you up nights and it sounds like you haven't talked with the rest of the team because you're the captain right it's your job to figure out who's playing or not you're like the commissioner like

you do the shit that nobody wants to do and it seems like right now you might be or you just feel like you're alone in the frustration of trying to figure out who's getting on the court or field today. So I think you're suffering silence I think you're suffering silence that's for sure

“and I don't I don't know what the best way would be to broach us to the team or you just”

you're like hey I'm putting my put my captain hat on and I'm and I'm just laying it down. Yeah I don't think you're like out of control for wanting to know like can you make it all the time right but I think others would listen to this and say hey people have a newborn and some people with newborns like most people would just be like okay our life is entirely different I'm

always impressed by the people that are just like I'm going to still go on vacations and do stuff

and golf and yeah I'm not leaving my golf league right yeah right time some friends again I've talked about this before there's like one group that just goes I've now given up on life and then the other group that is like I will continue to live life the way I need to live it who's to say what's right I can tell you which group is happier but with with this could you go add them silver on like hey new rule if you miss three games or your late

to a fourth year no longer eligible for postseason awards but in this case you're just not eligible to be on the team anymore you'd have to think probably the guy you go to the guy and say hey look like I might be a little weird like I love that you had a kid but I mean do they expect to just jam you up all the time maybe this is like a new this is a new quarter of their life that they

you know they're they're they're clearly not navigating it super well and the problem is this

means way more to this guy who's like banking on a chip this year he's thinking about the design for the shirts he's going to make and these people are like we still want to find a way to like you know get out of the house like this is really good for us that's probably a little bit how they're

“feeling and this one guys like this is all I have this is all I think about and they're just on”

two different wavelengths with I think the importance of this whole thing but they want to keep it for like you know a nice life balance and this guy's like I can't I'm up nights think about this so it's just very different emotions I think I could tell you what this guy's like whenever he hears about a player missing a game because of the potential birds of a child he's like hey it's the playoffs yeah he's at home watching because I still want that to happen like he and a sea

title game with a quarterback it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna leave as soon as I find out because I remember arguing with the friends of life about this and I was like I there exist a game where the quarterback can't leave and she was like you're the worst and I go I'm just saying what so many other people are saying I also wonder too like would you have like an imagine bellachick it's like okay as soon as we find out we tell the sideline and then there's a bellachick it's like hey

“just kill that starting quarterback life is now expecting it would just be like”

alright don't tell anyone else yeah that would probably be pretty fucked up so yeah I mean you're gonna seem insensitive right because now they have like looked at life as everyone has to adjust to them but I mean look if you're not I don't know how serious this league is you're taking it very serious yeah you don't have a kid I wouldn't feel it out I would feel it out with whichever of the partners that you're more yeah you got them with you got a first mate bear that you could

yeah I could read it by just say hey can I talk to you about this is there any way like I need some stability I need to know if you're going to be here now you might be completely

overreacting it's like we actually always have enough numbers and we're fine and we're not even

the best players so are you freaking out about some disruption that's not really that pick of a deal in the grand scheme of things because I think there's an argument you may be made on the other side like if it's like so you want to stay on the team but you want it to be like day to day for you all of the time I would actually like just focus on that not the baby part of it even though that's directly related to it yeah what if you if you're setting the lineups like

are do you actually have that kind of power or do they just need to have one guy on the signup sheet that gets the emails you know because if you are setting the lineups could you actually when they are there like put them put them out there less and if they mentioned something just be like man I just I just got to go with what what I know is going to be consistent

alright you just do it through your actions and on the days that you do have enough people

unless there's no subs in this league which you know for athletes probably aren't many is there a way you could have a game before fit it so it's like that night but it sets the standard moving forward you go hey we had a forefoot you guys couldn't make it we had a forefoot we need a new approach we have to change our team culture I'm excited you had a kid congratulations but give me your shirt

“I think that was good there's a couple good routes you can go there some solid a bit solid a place”

please stop sending in your fixing tanking emails I don't even care if they're brilliant I can't handle them anymore that's not what this venue is for that's NBA mailbag [email protected] which is unfortunately I think right now 90% fixing tanking we did have a housekeeping question here five seven five eight and a good day one eighty five bench two eighty five squat three seventy five debt left four oh five I'll be going to

Barcelona for a few days coming up this week and then Porto solo for a few days after north Portugal so Ryan I need you to drop the knowledge mom so I can live by curiously through you in lifetime I don't know that it's going to be coming up we're just going to drop it next week before the playoffs I'm just I'm beholden to whatever you're doing I mean the wind is blowing at a bunch of different directions with this so I'll be ready

for whatever you want to do you're in charge it's a long one it's over two hours right it's got to be yeah already yeah but without that yes so it's two two it's two and a half yeah probably

“so really always likes to throw like a life advice on so it still does all right I think it ruins”

the artistic no you can't you can't you can't do that to Portugal I think we'll just release it as a bonus extra thing because the longer I wait than we get into the NBA playoffs like there is an argument to just have it be the summer when I have a bit of a sabbatical but I think we should just drop it next week so maybe it's going to work out for this guy all right next week let me change out on the whiteboard would you ever tell me if you thought one sucked for this no definitely not

for this he thought it sucked yeah for this type of this venue this bonus you know no way no because I also don't want to discourage you from doing it one that's you know it's going to be awesome like if you ever if you were just take on the Irish islands done like I I don't I don't

would never want to discourage something like that turkey and it looks up interesting so I'd like

to drive Baja California but I don't know I mean it depends on what you remember read yeah but then you'll go to Europe and it's like oh it's dangerous in America like well like we're talking about like where are you vacation like well no one vacations there so you're good so yeah maybe that's just drop next week we're also doing the fantasy draft the 17th annual competition yeah let's get that one ready I like to watch the prospects play

for a week or so you know see what kind of seasoning they have you promise you're not going to make me listen to that one right I'll I'll I love getting the travel positive for everyone else but that that one the last time you're like dude please don't listen to it just just mix it just okay no pickups just post it no one should have to listen to this but yeah I'm going to do it again cares all right let's see um making friends as an adult what's up guys 286 foot 182 Bench 225

185 reps alright man rain a 237 marathon a few weeks ago dude that is we don't even need

work on for that that's incredible player comp Shane and Brown without the dunking

and Brown I'll try to keep this short but I just moved to Boston beacon hill a few months ago so far I've had a hard time making you friends to hang out with my job is fully remote and I'm not exactly sure how to go up to another guide as to be friends in a non creepy way what would you go to move be if you moved to a city and didn't do all another person well you picked one of the worst cities ever to me dude so there's that problem get ready to learn alone buddy I don't

know what to tell you the Boston going up to another guy I don't think there is I really don't think

“there is there has to be some sort of app friendship app I just think that would be that's how”

you know what I mean get on CNBC and I'm going to see you know like we found a market in efficiency where I've got a vest on says being capital on it I'm just like you know who's able to have took on just much funding and now on paper I'm worth all this much money and then we're also thinking about turning this into tech and even like direct to consumer say all this fucking things and uptalk at the end of it and then people ask like 24 months later like what

the world to start a company like that anything that's about anyone connecting with anyone whether

it's about selling stuff or helping stuff especially we're just talking friendship I mean this is this I'm using it in a different sense but that thing would find a way to get perverted so quickly a friendship app I don't I'm not sure I don't have to do this but there's just a way like person for it maybe I'm the right like maybe I'm the face of this company or it's like we don't want nerds on it what about creeps the creeps macerate is non creeps creeps are out don't even want to be streamlined don't even

bother yeah I I've been having trouble with that a little bit because I like I put a lot of investment into a couple guys from from back in the day I'm not changing my phrasing I'll stand by it put a lot of investment in a couple my guy friends and not so much like there's a bunch of acquaintances running around that I'm not really sure I'm I'm up for the task of like hey what do you think about you know a couple weeks from now or whatever maybe if I'm hurting for golf buddies I'll dip into that

well but it's been a little it's been different it's been like a two of my guys are busy I'm just kind of down to down to none so it's certainly something I'm struggling with too I mean I'm a friendly enough guy and I've made a coin so I have some phone numbers nothing I'm really going to act on comes to hanging out with you but you're a friendly approachable guy if somebody if the world had more kiles we'd all be better off because if somebody met you with bit you know a little

“spy around beacon hill which used to call I think it was called Hortown okay yeah that was walking around”

there I was looking up something a referencing and it was something hill I think I Hortown

probably not totally accurate but it was basically known as like hooker hill and a lot nicer it's

a lot nicer now they've spruce the thing up the last few hundred years but I think I feel like a huge loser going like we just wanted guys to meet other guys like in a click like hey do you do you lift things up and put them down so do I could it be like a screening for it like a raya screening for dudes like it's probably already something out there I would have seen my whole my whole rant was I saw a CEO of one of these dating things a bunch of years ago on

CNBC and all I could think of as I was like that's like this company's doomed. It's probably the look of them yeah basically yeah so we don't have any advice sorry I have none you know if you have a couple how you met another guy how I met your buddy CBS fall yeah I mean there probably are a couple ways you just have to put yourself in like a weird situation to get there like they could like just try to fill it fill in with you know on the golf course

“just like with a group of three and you're in there like you have to put yourself into that”

situation with just hang around the pudding green over there and just you know see if there's any see if there's like standby for golf you know my my old way is just sitting bars but like you know the clientele is may not be up here you know stand there's might not be lifelong friend might not be the guy's especially if you're there at 3 p.m. so like you have to put you have to like hang around these weird locations to try to like have a meaningful experience with someone

but other than that I don't know how I don't know how you break in. I love the just go to the golf course all the time really get you might be going to put you with this three some yeah love to how are they dressed do that are they in shape yeah I run you know so there's that when I go to a laundry to play by myself I usually play with like three Korean oh yeah people aged seventy eight or older yes that I'm morning morning or early afternoon weekdays

“I know it's a very Asian course I don't that's why I don't think I'll ever get a membership but uh”

I we get along great every single time we don't talk a lot at all usually almost nothing is said but we just enjoy the sport I had a couple of things like I rose about my course that we had to play over there like some days a guy would drop out and I told you rosevote for some reason decided they're doing five sums like I think they just shoved it like a lot of times to let you go out with four but if there's anyone hanging around that that you know stand by area they throw

him in and we've had a couple times where on the night told you like hey take your number and

you know I was flush with friends at that point so I was like okay never gonna call but like I'm

recognizing now that dudes were we're doing that yeah it's tough when you guys many friends as you did back in the day it's tough for me to throw it off all right can we do a midlife crisis in six minutes yeah I think we can six foot 200 pounds two nine five bench working for three

athlete on our hands here that this I mean all-time leading score not just for the school but the county should get a shirt made have a huge life altering decision I can't even believe you have any issues man you know although maybe you feel like you peaked all right so decision to make I'm stuck quick back story living Indiana my whole life moved to Gainesville floor to for college

absolutely love the place always hold a special place in my heart my great people some of my best

friends found myself and who I was and enjoyed my life Florida weather business just maybe realize I wanted to live near the beach and it's when I'm happiest hey man there yeah I'm 23 students I feel obligated and pull to move back home because of family and friends always been really think about family guy especially there you go right now especially with uh accidental crisis of parents and grandparents getting old missing time with brother

the weather has asked cheeks for six most of the year after three years I'm now considering moving back I'm freshly 26 I have one of my best pros and four buyers and he wants me to come down and live with him in his apartment so we can split the place even has pulled to get me a job

“I could turn into a really lucrative career and he's already doing it literally the only thing”

keeping here is my family my brother is freshly married and has his first kid on the way doing

August selfishly through a huge lump in my plan I want to be around for the kid but do the first couple years matter too much for a newborn unless you have a volleyball league probably not am I an asshole if I decide to move should I stay for family what happens if I find my wife and I have kids nine hundred miles away for my family seeing them I live two hours for my parents as it is now and 15 minutes for my brother do I move and live for my uh do I move and live my

life where and how I want or do I suck it up and stay for them and growing old with family even if I went two three years and came back when I wanted to settle down I have a midlife crisis every single fucking day it seems like let me know please love the show boys thank you all right

“deep breath man remember when we were saying when your younger things feel like a way bigger deal”

I mean this is like the epitome of that also babies will still be babies in the summertime dude that's that's totally true right there as long as this guy that is like pitching you on come here be my best friend in four buyers or whatever long as it's kind of real and you you could you know he's not like yeah we'll get you set up with the job and he's not just saying it because it would be so sick to have you as a roommate like if you had a you had a real I mean

do's really like tell you they have way more pulled and they do it a company until it's time to you know send in some apps they're like well you know hold on I just I do have a new manager you know we've got to feel each other at like there's it's it's rarely ever a hundred percent accurate when the when your buddy's talking about how how much influence he has that is that is spot but I'd say I say you go for this I mean apart from TSA sucking recently I mean there's really

nothing wrong with taking planes to get back to where you are your parents are already two hours away your brother's starting a family like no matter how close you guys are there's just going to be less time anyway and you've got all the everything's lining up for you to go down there as long as that's real I'd say twenty six go for it if you waited three years and came back you still wouldn't be thirty right I'd say go for it yeah I'm big big big on you just going down and doing this now

“because the best thing is you can then go home again if you're feeling like you're missing all the”

things you prioritize you prioritize going back to your family to really young age some people do it I think it's great realistically if your parents live two hours away how many times you've even

seen them a year and yeah I'd say the first couple years of a kid being born you're not

making a ton of connection with that kid so I think it's kind of cool like sometimes I miss you know I miss my nieces and nephews a little bit I'm like hey this is really great you did and it's like is it so great that I want to live on Mars is in here in the winter like hey we just face time a bunch you know so look I would say move but Kyle's a hundred percent right do some advanced scouting on the job advanced scouting on your buddy because sometimes buddies can get really really like

we're going to take over the land together yeah it's almost like a time share friendship it's like dude if you come down I can let set up all this stuff and then you get down there and you're like why am I sitting down in front of a whiteboard all right sounds good that'll do it for the show today thanks to Kyle we're still going to thanks to Rudy Tom Kevin, Ryan Russollo show, personal sports, too.