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

28:22And it all, here's the thing, if you're a Browns fan that you got to be worried about, is that you could do all these moves and they all look good on paper and I think they're doing the right thing and they've had some really good drafts, it all still comes down to the quarterback. Can you get the quarterback? That's all that matters. And that is to be determined because it feels like they're gearing up to get that quarterback in this upcoming draft. And if he's the guy, everything else should be in a good spot for the Browns to be good. Like a great place for Miles Garrett to get this surprise out of nowhere.

28:52Like a year after you asked for the trade. Okay, well, you're actually on a contender now and they're just going to unleash you. But then if you're Jared Verse, kind of maybe not the best Monday that you've ever had in your entire life. From Canton, Ohio. Well, yeah, from Canton. So he's like a neighbor. Yeah, no, but he's from Ohio. So it can't be the, you know, it's not totally this is the worst place ever. Right. I'm not saying like the state of Ohio is a bad place. I'm saying just centered around the Browns organization haven't historically been good recently. and they're still a good ways away on offense i would say oh two pro bowl quarterbacks coming back that's a fact uh but yeah if you're jared verse like i actually think this this is a good thing for browns fans it's gonna be tough to like say goodbye to the one player that's been like the one shining beacon of light that you've had like you've had the best defensive player in the nfl that you've gotten to watch you watch him get the sack record he's made your sundays worth getting up for the last several years it's gonna be tough to say goodbye to him but jared verse is a fucking stud and he's gonna be a great player too then you add in the draft capital that you got like sky's the limit maybe not the sky but the top of the dome that you're building okay question for you pft you say it's gonna be tough to say goodbye yeah does todd monkan say goodbye to miles garrett because he if we if we follow everything todd monkan and miles garrett never spoke does he send him a text being like hey man it was a privilege getting to coach you even though you didn't speak to me i think it's an email like the u.s national team he sent the email opened up to acknowledge you have been traded it's it's it's like very very funny to think like todd munkin just never he was the coach of the cleveland browns we're gonna in in 20 years like if todd munkin goes on to have great success and uh we're we're hopefully god willing still doing this podcast and memes and zach haven't broken us all up uh we'll have todd munkin on the show and will forget and be like, hey, so what was it like to coach Myles Garrett?

30:53He's like, actually, I never spoke to him. I ran him out of the building. I literally never said a word to him. I did not like that guy one bit. Yeah. I don't know. It does seem weird that, like, I would imagine that Munkin was probably pretty happy about this. Yeah. It never seemed like he wanted to be in the Myles Garrett business. Yeah, Myles Garrett obviously wanted Jim Schwartz as the head coach. Yeah. Verbal memes. Myles Garrett, Todd Munkin, meme Zach. You guys can decide which side is who. Just never speaking again. Yeah, so who's getting traded to the ringer? That's the question. Who's going to LA?

31:24Anyone? Well, Memes requested a trade. Memes demanded a trade. Well, he kind of said it's either me or him. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm just open for business. Maybe go to the, oh, Rosillo show? That's good. That's in-house. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he did sell us both, though. Did you hear about that? Yeah, I know. We should have talked about that on the show. I didn't want to bring it up, but... I thought about buying it. He went from... What is this? Tom Brady has liked the post about... What? This can't be real. Jerry's calling. I don't know if I should pick up or not. So this is... I was doing the yak when memes started going on his spree of saying, Zach has run its course.

32:17and I didn't want to spoil so I just said everyone tune in to part of my take tomorrow in the back of my head I'm thinking if you guys even knew how ridiculous this was you'd be like what are you talking about but right now it's like everyone is assuming I've been getting texts being like Tom Fornelli texting me saying like is Zach in physical like harm I said no also yes he's not in danger I don't think he's in physical danger Whitney and Yans all texted being like what the hell is going on People care People care about Zach and memes Tom Brady does You never called for anyone's job No you just demanded your own trade Yeah The bit has run its course Which would imply that It's the dumb bit He's a smart guy Memes would you think that Tom Brady Do you like Tom Brady being on your side?

33:06No Look what you've done Yeah that's not good No he's probably on Zach's side He's a Bucks fan so for full context there's a clip part of my take clip account that clipped out big cat talking about it on the yak and he said that tom he posted a screenshot of tom brady liking that clip oh so that definitely did not happen so it could it could have happened it could have not i don't think that happened it could have happened it could have but it so it didn't even go from a regular what what account was what account tweeted it out the the or put out the on the instagram you see what i'm saying yeah this could be fake news yeah it could be it could also not be could not be it could have been maybe it was who's to say who's to say who's to say what is in this post-truth society who's to say with the dead internet theory and all yeah we don't know Okay, other big trade, which we knew was going to happen for a very long time.

34:07AJ Brown is a New England Patriot. Congratulations, Hank. Congratulations to Diane Rossini. Yes, absolutely. She was right. Nailed this. Nailed it. No memes? No? She told us a different team. Oh. She did tell us Chargers. Well, two things. She didn't report that. She reported this trade, and then she said, maybe the Chargers. Off the record. this is the number one sports podcast and she said it on this show oh I thought it was bleeped out I don't remember what's said on this show to be honest I walk out of the door and I'm like hope that went well no she nailed it the inevitable trade became inevitable and he's now a New England Patriot as we all predicted it felt like he had one foot out the door for the last two seasons you can admit that now right Max after week four last year that's what it was and what do you mean after the last two seasons.

35:01He won a Super Bowl. He did win a Super Bowl. And then he went on to Mike to say, like, you guys all thought I was a hater. You guys all thought I was a diva. Well, you can't say that or not. Yes, yes. So that all happened. So we did think all those things. Also, I'm just saying one foot out the door. That doesn't mean that he can't win. He's been thinking about leaving the team for a while. After week four last year. Okay. All right. Let's start with you, Hank. Excited. Drake May, not a drama king. So I don't anticipate the reason. It wasn't the players or the skill set. It's just they had drama that they couldn't get over that apparently was the rift that started this all.

35:37So Jalen Hurts, by deductive reasoning, is a drama game. Yes. Okay. Not worried about that with Drake. But A.J. Brown, okay. So it's Jalen, okay. He said what he said. Got it, got it. And Mike, yeah, no, I mean, he's a diva wide receiver. That's, again, we've talked about this on the show a bunch of times. It's good. To be a stud wide receiver, you have to have a little diva in you. I'm not concerned that A.J. Brown has it in him. He seems to be the biggest Patriots fan on this planet, and he's been dying to come to New England. He said he had a Patriots rug that he still had out in his house, in his basement, that never got put away.

36:14He's had the jersey since he was a kid. He's a Patriots diehard. So it seems like he's going to give it his all for the city. We have a wide receiver one, Drake May, thick with three Cs. So this is something that he wanted to do regardless of who the quarterback was. Or the coach. Or the coach. It has nothing to do with the coach. Yeah, well, I think obviously him and Vrabel go back to Tennessee and Vrabel's going to hold him accountable. He wouldn't have wanted him as bad as he did if he thought he was a diva or was going to be a locker room issue. I kind of like where your head's at, Hank. I think I agree with you.

36:46Like, A.J. Brown, deep down, he craves accountability. Yeah. And he knew that he wasn't getting it in Philadelphia. It's like, yeah, you know, everyone's just being too... I can walk all over this guy. Yeah, he needs a real head coach, stern figure telling him, hey, when you step across this line, you're a member of the Patriots organization. This is really what's going to get him over the top. You're representing something that is bigger than you. And AJ really wants to be a part of something like that as opposed to just everyone out there goofing around, being best friends or whatever. Yeah, so I'm excited.

37:18It's exciting. It's exciting. He said, I know this ain't heaven, but it's close to it. Yeah, that's Foxborough. Is that what people say about Foxboro? Yeah, when people drive into Foxboro, that's usually their first reaction. Well, it's close to heaven. It's not heaven. Can I ask a question? Yes, Dan. And maybe someone knows the answer to this because I've had a pretty busy day and I don't know if there's maybe more discussion about it. Is it a little weird that the Patriots traded not this year's first-round pick, but 2028? No, that was always the 2027 draft was more valuable. well, they wouldn't give up the 27, but they would give up a 28.

37:55Howie Roseman said first picks are first picks. We're still going to be playing football in the 28th. I thought it was – I was talking more of the reverse way. Like the Patriots are like, oh, we might – that pick might be – like if regression happens, we might want that pick. I think it's the GMs say that the 2027 draft is going to be the – Okay, that makes sense. But Howie doesn't care. Howie said we'll still be playing football in 2028. Oh, you're sure? I like that. I like the optimism, but, I mean, Kyle Shanahan would disagree. The world could – I mean, look at memes in Zach. Zach, we woke up this morning thinking they were best friends, and now they don't even talk to each other.

38:26So anything can happen. Yeah. We had such a good morning in the booth. Max, what is your take on this? And do you want to acknowledge the comments that Henry Lockwood has made? That's fine. I get it. Like, I've been in your shoes. I was in your shoes four years ago. You get a really good receiver who wants out of a situation. And you win the Super Bowl. Yeah. I think that A.J. Brown is a good player. I think that it'll probably – I disagree with the fact that you think that this isn't going to turn to shit because it probably will turn to shit at some point because that's just what A.J. Brown does.

39:04He was really excited to get drafted to the Eagles. He was really excited to play with his best friend. He was really excited to get traded to the Eagles. He was really excited to play with his best friend, Jalen Hurts. He was three-time All-Pro, went to two Super Bowls, won one. Listen, he was good. He started pillow talking. He was a very good football player for the Eagles. He's probably the best Eagles receiver. You can make the argument that he's the best Eagles receiver of all time. Whoa. He's had two of the best. Over T.O.? He's had two of the highest single-season receiving yards in franchise history.

39:38What about Fred X? What about James Thrash? Todd Pinkston. We're just throwing guys out there. A.J. Brown has been a good guy. What about Aguilar? A.J. Brown was a great Eagle. You're going to go with the Meadowlands, bro. Wasn't Johan Dotson on the team this year? Johan Dotson's a great player. Yeah. Yeah, really good player. Alshon Jeffrey, really good. Patriots got a very good player. Eagles got a good return. Jeremy Macklin. It is what it is. Howie has... Yeah, it's like what you said about the Rams-Browns. It's good for all parties. No, I think somebody won this trade. Who? I hate to say it.

40:13I got to go with Hank. I think the Patriots won this trade. To not even have to give up a first-round pick next year is crazy. I mean, they still have to go. we'll still be playing football in 2020. I hope so. But I can hope in one hand and shit in the other. We'll see which one fills up fast. You sound like you have any bias towards that. I don't. In fact, Hank, would anybody accuse me of being pro-Patriots? Well, the Patriots being good does not affect the team that you root for. The Eagles being good does affect the team that you root for. I think Super Bowl, Max. I don't think about the division.

40:45Oh, you're thinking Super Bowl? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think Super Bowl. This guy. This guy. It's Super Bowl or bust for this Washington Commanders man. Who was at Super Bowl last year, Max? The Patriots, right? So therefore, the Patriots might be more of a threat for me winning a Super Bowl. True. So I hate to admit it, but I think that the rich get richer. I guess the question I would have for you, Max, in determining who won this trade, in a perfect world, would you rather have A.J. Brown on your team, happy to be on your team, no drama, or this? That is a lot of hypotheticals. I understand, but I'm just asking.

41:18I'm just asking because that is like... That's not A.J. Brown. Okay, but I'm just asking. That's not A.J. Brown. And we're not even talking about how the Rams were in on him, saw his medicals, then went out. Oh, we weren't talking about that until now. Speak on it, Max. Speak on it. Yeah. I mean, that's it. His medicals. It was a two-team race for A.J. Brown. Wow. Leading up to the draft, the Rams were in on him, saw his medicals. What did the medicals say? HIPAA. Just knee. Knee. It said knee. He's got a knee. He's got one of them or two of them. Maybe even two.

41:55I still think that A.J. Brown will be good. He's going to be super motivated. But medical. A.J. Brown, at least for the start of his tenure in New England, will be a very good receiver. He's going to be very good for Drake May. He needs to be very good for the next two years. Correct. Yeah. And then the Eagles get the pick. Well, no. Two years would be part of the pick. Yeah, the second year would be the pick. Two years would mean that you would get a bad first-round pick. No, no, he'll still be good when you get the pick. But then we get the pick right as he's declining. No, no, you get the pick.

42:30You get a 30-second pick. But you don't get the pick when he's already declining. You essentially get a second-rounder. Howie should have gotten the 2029 pick. If we're nitpicking, that's really how he messed up. This is actually a bad deal. Hank, what do you think about getting damaged goods, though? Yeah, did you hear about the medicals and the Rams? The knee? Yeah. Not worried about the knee. Okay, I feel... AJ Brown said he is not worried about the knee. He's already at OTAs today. He's catching one-handed passes. It's just beautiful. Oh, he showed up to OTAs already? Okay. Motivated. He might have been there before he signed.

43:09It does feel like he's been... I mean, he's been there for months. It's not like... Hank, who is he going to compete with catches? like who's the number two now probably mac collins what about booty booty romeo it's romeo romeo dobbs yeah romeo dobbs you will see i mean that's what they're doing otas for did you see figure out who that is the clip of romeo dobbs going over the fence no in the in the softball game that dave played oh yeah yeah he just went like full-on over the fence like dude you you have like 7 000 concussions what are you doing in a softball I saw somebody also try to take out Ramondre Stevenson.

43:47That was cool. Oh, man. Yeah, Matt Reif. Matt Reif tried to take him out. Oh, it was? Doing some crowd work on him? Oh, man. Okay, it's good to talk NFL. We've got some NFL news. I did miss the – I miss talking football with you guys. I know. It's just – it gets you – When the Miles Garrett trade broke, I just said football in the chat. I know. I was just excited that football was – So pumped. All right, so official – It should have been football is back to start the show. Yeah. Official word, I think I'm going to give Hank one. The Patriots won this trade. The other one. No bias. The other one's toss-up.

44:20I think it was win-win. Yep. Is that the official PMT grade? Win-win. This is your grade. You just started speaking and said, is this the. That's why I asked the question, Max. But you didn't ask anyone else. You just said, here's my grade. Is this the official PMT grade? I think I said win-win too. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I think the official grade is Browns-Rams is a win-win. Patriots-Eagles is a - Lose-lose? No, no. It's a Patriots win and then an asterisk. If Howie had gotten the 2029 first-round pick, it would have been a win for the Eagles. Now I'm talking myself into lose-lose. That was Howie's mistake.

45:02Yeah. Should have timed A.J. Brown's decline better. It actually makes sense when you think about it. Yeah, it does. I think he's going to be, he's going to, I think he turns 29 in this month. PFT will let us know if it happens. Absolutely not. And then, and then, yeah, I mean, he's going to be on the wrong side of 30 next year. And then he is going to be good. He's a very good receiver. So he's going to be good for a couple more years. And then we'll see how he ages because of everything that's also gone on. But if you're the Patriots, you're probably saying, hey, he had no problems in Tennessee with Mike Vrabel as a coach.

45:38that's true so um okay any other any other uh news before we talk let's let's do a pick on the nba finals for the people and then we'll we'll we'll give our official predictions for the nba finals uh draft kings we're going to do a parlay in the draft king sportsbook the nba finals are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up and with draft king sportsbook an official sports betting partner the nba your winnings get a boost every single day all finals long bet player props bet live from the opening tip to the final possession every bucket every dime every clutch takeover matters and only DraftKings Sportsbook keeps boosting you all the way through all DraftKings customers can enjoy a profit boost every single day throughout the finals download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now use code take to claim your profit boost that's code take to get a boost every day of the NBA finals in partnership with DraftKings the crown is yours gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET New York call 877-8-HOPE-N-Y or text Hope and why.

46:34Connecticut call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over in most states, void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. One profit boost per customer per day. NBA playoffs bets only. Bet restrictions apply and vary when offered. Max bet and boost vary. Boost only applies to winnings and expires at the end of the last NBA game each day. See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos. Boys, parlay to kick it off.

47:05unfortunately they don't have what are you looking for i want jalen brunson under oh okay hater of the year hey not available what number is he you don't want to don't do that don't do that i didn't mean to do that don't do that i did not in fact i don't think that we should say that number we should retire that number can't talk about stranger things nope don't do that see aj brown changed his number uh give me three plus. To what? He went from 11 to one. So like you could hypothetically change your numbers. That's kind of awesome that he went to number one. Yeah. I love that. Give me Luke Cornett three plus rebounds.

47:46Okay. That's sexy. You could take Victor Wemenyama versus Jalen Brown points head to head. Actually, I don't know if you can do that. Jalen Brown? I'll take Wembe. Jalen Brown. All right. So Luke Cornett put it in. Luke Cornett three rebounds. What are you taking? PFT? I'm trying to look at the... I'm trying to look at threes. Okay. Do we want to make it juicy? Do you guys want to make it juicy or no? Would you like to make it juicy? I want... I want Josh Hart three plus three pointers. Oh, I was going to take him 15 points. So there we go. Okay. There goes my pick. Fuck. Fuck. I don't know what...

48:29I wish I could bet on Steph Castle fouls. He's going to be a dog in this series. He's going to be an absolute dog. Okay. You know what? Let's go with... Tell me if you like this, memes, or Zach. Let's go with Mikael Bridges' 15 points. You like it, memes? Love. Love! Should we go 18 points? 20? Go 18 points. 18. and we'll put that in the DraftKings Sportsbook go bet it with us boys NBA Finals we want to make our predictions we talk a little bit with Kirk Goldsberry but should we make let me start with this Zach and Memes are you guys a little bit nervous you have now two things going against you one did you see the random fan who has picked exact every single series correctly and he has Spurs over Knicks did you see it that one worries me He tweeted it before the playoff started.

49:33He said, I know ball, and it's literally every single round he's gotten right. That worries you. What about the Corgi? No, because Max said the Corgi picked the Sixers. I could have been wrong on that. Okay, you got to find out. And we are superstitious. This is a breakdown that we're doing. We're going to have an actual talk with Kirk Goldsberry, but this is a part of my take breakdown when what a Corgi does with an inflatable basketball is way more important than advanced analytics and shot charts and Wemby and Jalen Brunson. It's the Corgi. Yeah, Oklahoma City fans were tweeting at me that you better hope that Corgi fucking picks you.

50:16Oh, no. So this Corgi's been hot. The Corgi's been real hot. Okay. He picked the Knicks over the Sixers. He definitely picked the Sixers because Visit Philly says, what a good boy. so that's bad okay so I was right I just didn't want to be wrong and then we're good the dog has been wrong dog has been wrong about the Knicks was the dog right about the Cavs Knicks this is important this is highly important what's your official pick Hank Spurs in six in six and any reasoning behind it uh i don't want the knicks to win okay hey that's some that's some reasoning that is that qualifies as reasoning i think the spurs have to win the first two games though i think if they have to go up to nothing and then they can get it done i think if they have to come back again in another series it's going to be maybe too much of an uphill battle so game one and game two very important uh and yeah then it's just a race you know next year it'll be celtics spurs thunder a race to see who the best uh best team in the league is okay memes uh i i agreed with everything you said until the what you said last but if the knicks flipped uh home court advantage they're winning the finals and i think they're gonna win in six okay i have nixon six as well PFT of Nixon seven.

51:49Oh, I think I think we're going to get a game seven. I think that Adam Silver is entering his David Stern era where he's making sure that these things happen. See, that's I'm making the same thought process, but he's going to make sure the next win at home. OK, so that's kind of like the same theory as the frozen envelope. Just like doing doing a big market, a solid like. Yeah, the crowd and everything will be the highest-watched NBA game in a long time. Yeah, I think I got Nixon 7. I think it's going to be a great series. And I think they figure out ways to get Wimby in foul trouble. That's what I think happens.

52:27Hmm. Max? Nixon 5. Wow. Zach? I think it's going to be Nixon 6. Okay. Okay. So, Zach and Memes, you guys agree? That's adorable. Yeah. That's nice. Can you look at each other when you agree? No. Oh, you won't even look at him? No. Okay. He knows what he did. Can't do it. Oh, we forgot to say that Odell Beckham is back on the Giants. The Giants, they got like three. Yeah, Juju. They got Juju and then Braxton Berrios as well. So the Giants are loading up. Good for the Giants. And then can you explain to me where we're at with the Bears stadium thing? Are they officially going to? Is Sig just dominating the transfer portal so much that he's taking stadiums from Chicago to Illinois guys are going to Indiana?

53:17It is so frustrating and so stupid. There is blame to go around to every single piece of this entire debacle. I guess I would say, I think if I went blame, like power ranking the blame, I'd say Kevin Warren won just because. before Kevin Warren was hired, the Bears had purchased Arlington Heights. They were ready to build in Arlington Heights. We heard that shovels were in the ground or going to be in the ground like three years ago. It has gone sideways since then. Illinois politicians, because there's... Listen, I'm not going to get into the politics of it, but it does seem like there's weird stuff, like they want them to pay more taxes.

54:01I don't really understand that part. The McCaskies as a family running the Bears because they are incompetent to do it themselves. So they hire someone like Kevin Warren. Indiana for offering like a ton of free stuff. I don't blame Indiana. No, I don't either. But I'm just throwing. I'm just going down the chart. Anger. City of Chicago for like not just giving them Soldier Field. And then the NFL. The NFL is also to blame because the NFL is the one who probably has put a lot of pressure on the McCaskies to get a new stadium so that everyone's franchise prices go up. It's essentially, to boil it down, the biggest losers in all of this, as always when it comes to stadiums, is the fans.

54:49That's really what it comes down to. Yeah, it's going to suck. I do think that there's a chance there's this special commission. The hardest part to figure out is whether Indiana is a bluff. Indiana is either a bluff or it's a bluff that's gone too far and now it's real. and it's which would actually be the best bluff possible correct which is that's what happened with the caps is like they had they had a groundbreaking ceremony you had politicians like the governor of virginia wearing a hard hat like cutting ribbons they were holding you had a bunch of politicians holding shovels yeah and like two days later like dc just called we're going back like this could be actually the best bluff possible if you do the groundbreaking ceremony and then chicago's like come on back we'll give you we'll give you everything you asked for in Arlington Heights and more.

55:34PFT, the Bears purchased Arlington Heights for like$200 million in 2023, three years ago. And there's no... So they've owned this property and it's just... It's crazy. I guess Kevin Warren was hired somewhere around there, so maybe it's the... Whatever. Either way, they were ready to buy Arlington Heights for a couple years before Kevin Warren showed up. And if you move the Bears there, the deal is they don't have to pay property tax? I don't. Is that what it is? Something like that. It's all... Fans shouldn't have to worry about this shit. It's so stupid. And it's like, it's so frustrating incompetence on every level.

56:08Everyone deserves blame. And I do think Kevin Warren has somehow bungled this whole thing because he's the one who's who's supposed to be. He was the one who was hired to seamlessly get this done and nothing has gone seamless. So how could you ever come to the conclusion? I know that people want to blame the politicians. I do too. But how could you ever point your finger at anyone other than Kevin Warren first? because it was literally his job to do this, and it's become such a disaster. Yeah. I hope they end up staying in Illinois, even though to drive from Chicago to get to Indiana, depending on traffic, that might even be closer, right, than driving to Arlington Heights.

56:44Yeah. The Bears should just play in Illinois. They should not play in Indiana. They should play in Chicago. Stadiums should be in the cities. It would be, you know, but it's so stupid. I saw it, like, and then there's all these theories and deep theories that, like, Hammond is actually what the politicians in Chicago want because more people will stay in hotels downtown than if it was Arlington Heights. It's just... The whole thing is just really, really fucking stupid. And I wish it wasn't... It's very funny that the Bears finally figured out the football side by hiring Ben Johnson and the business side continues to be a complete joke.

57:20I do think that there's something... Maybe a small thing to do with the location of the stadium for free agents because a lot of guys if they play at a stadium that's out in the middle of nowhere on game day then it can take them like after the game's over another two hours hour and a half to get home listen and they're that that just like kind of sucks if that's where you go to work i don't know what they do with house hall they just made renovation on house hall house hall to to hammond is not close like everyone's talking about chicago to him which is close it's 25 30 minutes but yeah if you're most bears players are almost all bears players live up by house hall which is the north suburbs so it's a it's a shit show i still think if i had to go gun to my head i still think there's a special meeting or whatever happens in the middle of the summer and they're like all right enough of this shit arlington heights and i also think there's a chance that maybe they just fire kevin warren and then mccaskey's like hey we're not leaving illinois let's figure this out and it gets figured out which would be nice okay should we do hot seat cool throne let's do hot seat cool throne and then we got two great interviews hank hot seat cool throne uh my hot seat is you guys oh no oh geez why uh fox sports oh no our colleagues i guess official legitimate news outlet our partners uh did an instagram reel talking about gillette as a host city for the world cup and what the town and stadium has to offer and they said that it has the jail world's largest lighthouse oh well that's bullshit that's interesting fake news interesting you're calling fox news fake news i would never say that you just you literally just did you just did i would i'd say this sounds like an example of fake news from uh fox sports which is a different company fox listen is it big fox fox sports i am i'm on the record that's yeah we know them i don't know we don't know them i i go by the standards of the u.s coast guard when it comes to lighthouses and now you might hate the troops i don't i respect the troops and i respect everything that they put in terms of qualifications for a lighthouse what counts what doesn't count and to them this lighthouse is not a lighthouse so if you well they're letting don't respect people are coming from all over the world to gillette for the world cup and they're actually no they're not hank that's that's also false because they're not going to gillette because the stadiums won't have their sponsor names for the World Cup.

59:46They're going to Foxborough Stadium. They're going to basically the place with the largest lighthouse in the continental US. Hank, what do you think is going to happen when fans from Brazil, Brazil is a country with the second most lighthouses in the world. They come to Foxborough and they see that lighthouse and they're like, this is it? Where's the ocean? If they get on top, they can see it. Where? They can't. Yeah, they can. Oh, the tributary? The river, yeah. What's it called again? I forget. Oh, yeah, because you didn't do the presentation. I did do the presentation. No, you didn't. You had someone do it for you.

1:00:21No, I fucking did that presentation. No, you read the presentation that somebody else did. You would remember it. I 100 % did that presentation. It was two years ago. And it was a federally recognized body of water. Which it was. No, it wasn't. And no, you can't see it. Okay. So we're on the hot seat. Are World Cup tickets tanking? I saw something about that. Also, the schedule is psychotic. It's crazy. Yeah, some of them are tanking a little bit. Europeans are on the hot seat for being bitches. Yeah, Europeans don't want to come over and pay. No, they're mad about the times. They're mad about the times.

1:00:51Oh, I don't give a fuck about that. Yeah, I know. I know. Every other World Cup, it's on your watch. This one's on ours. Yeah. Hey, Europeans, why don't you shut the fuck up? We got to watch Jaguars-Panthers at 8.30 in the morning. Yeah. That's nice, though. It's not nice. Take your Dolphins, Giants, and be happy with it. But the schedule is psychotic, is it not? I saw some of it, and it looked like there's days. To start the tournament, there's a game at 3 o 'clock, then there's a game at 10 o 'clock all Eastern time, then 3 and 9. Why? Because it's in all the different time zones across the United States.

1:01:27Got it. Yeah. But then there's a bunch of days where the games are all day. Yeah. Those first days are nuts. It's just going to be a shitload of soccer. So here's the plan that I'm going to do for all the opening round games. And you guys are welcome to join me on my betting journey. I'm going to bet a draw for every single game. And you can usually get decent odds. And there's always crazy draws in the opening groups where you have really good teams that have just like a brain fart or letdown spot against a team that has no business even scoring a goal against them. I'm going to bet a draw every game in group stage.

1:02:01I'm in for a round robin. Okay. Yeah, we'll round robin. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Now, can we do that with round robin need to be just one per day? No, no. You can do it in advance. Okay. Yeah. I'll have our best guy get on. Yeah, we'll see how many we can do. Round robin and ties. You can only obviously do the first games because the second games won't be listed. Because you don't know who's going to get yellow cards or red cards. No, no. Who's going to get injured. Yeah. Yeah, right. And they probably might not have lines for the second games. They actually might have them all. how many how many first round games are there um yeah we're gonna do it well i'm in i'm 100 % 48 teams so whatever that is that's too much math yeah also hot seat hot seat me for thursday morning we just said on uh fs1 one of the guests is going to be greg berhalter i've said a lot of things about greg just say it to his face i've said a lot of things about greg say it to his face nice guy say you know just say hey i've said a lot of things about you i'm going to address one of them why do you have three g's yeah just leave it at that it's a good way to handle it okay your cool throw my cool throw is texas tech softball yeah j will they advanced last night they had they needed to beat uh holy fuck alabama alabama and i was about to say tennessee then you were locked in beat i did watch i watched the second game i didn't i saw uh did you watch it from out on your balcony?

1:03:28Mia Williams, I did not. Did your blinds get fixed? They did. Nice. Yeah. Because sometimes you like to step out on the balcony. No. Yeah, no. I said that, by the way, on the act, but it was like three days before I realized that Jason Williams wasn't reading books. He was smoking weed. Yeah. Oh, well. Don't blow up the spot. Don't blow up the spot. Well, he kind of blew up the spot when he said, I'm going to the library, and it was the most weed I've ever seen in my life. Reading a book. He's reading books. Just like when Hank says, I got to go for a walk with my cousins. I feel so dumb. I was like, oh, he's just, he's like, yeah, I need a hotel room with a balcony because I like to read.

1:04:04Moron. And Tate, like every other tweet being like, J. Will's going to read a book. Yeah. J. Will bought two tickets to the game on Monday night so that he could leave in between games to read a book. Yeah. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. But his daughter, they were Alabama. What's her name? Coming out of the loser's bracket, Mia Williams. They were coming out of the loser's bracket, so they had to beat Alabama twice in a row. Mia Williams hit a walk-off home run in game one. That is when I started watching. I watched the whole second game. Nail-biter. And they're going to the World Series. It's a great, great sports story.

1:04:43And college softball is exciting. Yeah. I was wondering, because I'm sure maybe it's happened before, but there was a chance. Like, has anyone ever gone back-to-back home runs themselves? Because Mia Williams hit a walk-off home run, and then she was the first batter in the second game. She got a single. Yeah. But, like, I was sitting there being like, am I about to see history? Back-to-back personal home runs? That would be awesome. It would be so sick. Hank, you've said a lot of things about your own confidence and your own athletic ability. Do you think that you could step in and get a hit off of a women's college softball pitcher?

1:05:22No. I mean, it depends how many at-bats, but probably not. Yeah. I mean, no fielders. I can make contact with the ball at some point. I don't think I can after watching them. The risers, that's tough. They're very, very impressive. Swing hard. Yeah. Why? That's what you're doing softball. You just try to make contact with it? That 16-inch slow pitch, dude. Do you think Mia, do you think she swings hard? Or do you think she just lets the bat do the worst part of the stand? Can we not? We already have Zach and Mims. Can we not? The pugs play in the playoffs tonight. Let's not do this. Maybe not Hank, because Hank's getting dental surgery.

1:06:01Yeah, let's not do this. No, it'll be good. Okay? We got the playoffs. What's going on? I was trying to find it. He's trying to get the swing hard thing going again. I just didn't know if Mia, when she was swinging, if she swung hard to hit home runs. I went two for three last game. I'm trying to find this This is hard I don't think it's ever I mean it would be hard What are you trying to find? It only could happen Well no it can't happen in Major League Baseball Because you don't play a double header Where you switch home and away She literally hit a walk off home run By the way You switch home and away?

1:06:38No you don't switch home and away They switched home and away You're saying in the same day Yes, in the St. Max She hit a walk-off home run Against Alabama in game one It was double elimination for Alabama It was single elimination for Texas Tech Because Texas Tech had already lost I get all this Alright, so Texas Tech, Mia Williams, game one Hits a walk-off home run The next game, Alabama is now the home team Mia Williams is the first batter in the second game She gets up to the plate If she hits a home run She is just hitting back-to-back home runs herself

1:07:13I don't understand why you couldn't do that if you finish a series against one team and then you play the next team In MLB, if you're playing Not the same day I'm saying you could still do it I was just trying to find that If you finished a series, moved on to the next round Yes, it would be possible But this was literally like 30 minutes apart Same day, impossible to find I still think I could I still think I could find This is a very dumb debate, but I actually enjoy it. Max, you know the only MLB ball player to hit a grand slam twice in the same inning? Bill Miller. No. Fred Jackson. No, Tatis.

1:07:52Fernando Tatis did it. Pretty crazy. Shout out MS Paint. I did find that Mike Cameron and Brett Boone hit back-to-back home runs twice in the same inning. Those are two different guys. But also crazy. Also crazy. Also crazy. I mean, yeah, we're talking crazy stats. Yeah, those crazy stats. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Pretty crazy. All right. Your hot seat, PFT. My hot seat is Luquan because I'm back in the Internet Invitational. Yeah. And I'm excited to be there. I've got something that I've got planned. I'm going to try to harness science, a little bit of Bryce and DeChambeau. I think I've found an edge when it comes to golf.

1:08:31So more to come on that later. But humbled to be invited back. $4 million is crazy. a crazy amount to golf for, especially somebody, my poor playing ability to even be in that conversation. But I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. I hope I get matched up against Luke Kwan this time. Oh, I hope you get matched up with Luke Kwan again. Either way. Redemption would be great. We might just become bros. If you just slept in? I would. I would fuck with you. That's the thing is, I would sleep in and then he would just dominate. No, no. That would be the best story is you sleep in and then you show up late and then you save him.

1:09:07or i talk shit to him yeah i make him suck and then i come in but he's down and then you come up you show up and you save his ass you hit a hole in one yeah either way um excited about the prospect of of getting back at it again so i've got to i got to get back in the lab we're gonna be working and this is going to be a sports science thing i i do think that i've found an edge and i have to keep it quiet until we really know um we get a little bit closer so that no people can replicate what i'm trying to study but once we get there i think sky's the limit as listen i i love where your head's at uh as someone who's think thinks they've found an edge about a trillion times when it comes to sports gambling yeah you got to follow that lead yeah you got it you got it you got to go to the end of the road if you think you got an edge you got to fucking find out all the way listen has it never worked out no it doesn't matter find that edge because The next edge is one that you'll find.

1:10:03But also with this edge, like in golf, if you think that you have an edge, you have an edge. Definitely. You definitely have an edge. Okay. My cool throne is Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks on the cool throne. Also, you could say maybe LeBron on the hot seat because Dylan Brooks just posted that he got his pilot's license. Oh. He just graduated from flight school. Did not know that he was studying to become a pilot. um but i could i could see a world where dylan brooks like goes undercover working for a private jet company just to find out what company flies the lakers around or whatever team lebron's on next year and then he just fucks with lebron as his pilot next year um so i had no idea that that dylan brooks even was thinking about studying that but if you got onto a plane and dylan brooks is your pilot are you feeling confident about that plane nope i'm probably not feeling super confident about that probably not yeah like you don't want haters should not be pilots no pilot pilots should be above being the world's biggest hate they should not hate anybody calm dudes yeah like to a fault okay my hot seat is us the viewers because uh russell wilson is going to be on the cbs desk and i'm just going to miss him playing football that's really what i was trying to say yeah it's it's a better sport when he's out there throwing that moon ball how do you guys think he's gonna do faith football family how do we think he's gonna do i think he'll be okay corny corny's okay though i don't mind a corny guy can he make fun of himself that will be the big question if he can maybe he'll be okay that's he's gotta he's gotta have someone in his ear being like hey dude the mr unlimited the like you know everything is perfect the high knees let's just cool with some of that and be like make fun of ourselves crack a couple jokes laugh at things then he i mean he's well spoken like he that could work if he is not able to do that i don't know how long it'll last i think i think he'll be okay he is he's shown an ability to uh like study what works and then change things about himself but that's the whole point it's like he's he's like almost robotic in that way the the true sense of like breaking being a robot is being able to make fun of yourself yeah i don't know my cool throne is uh not only college softball but college baseball too i i don't know if you guys saw the game in west virginia last night but it was electric the country roads was electric it's been awesome to watch all of it and i've just enjoyed the hell out of it and then while we've had that uh we had the um college football playoff schedule get officially announced and it fucking sucks it sucks i hate that they're doing this do you guys want to guess when the national championship game will be played If you haven't seen it, don't answer.

1:13:01I have not seen it. I would guess January 18th. Okay. February 13th. No, stop, Hank. You're being silly. You're being silly. That was silly of you. January 24th. That was silly. Max almost got it. So I was basically equidistant to PFT. January 25th. Oh, yeah. January 25th. Damn. Happy birthday to you. Why are you doing so bad? You knew it wasn't in February. 12 days off. But you knew it wasn't in February. 15. I didn't. No, no. No, you were 16. You're 19. You're 19 days off. You knew it wasn't in February. I did not. February 13th, I think, is pretty close to February. Yeah, but February 13th isn't pretty close to February 1st.

1:13:48It's kind of. Less than half. Yeah. So the first round. So January 25th is the national championship game. The first round is taking place over a month prior. December 18th is the first game. That is so fucking stupid. I hate that they've done this. It is. That's bad. It's so bad. It's bad. I don't know what the fix is to it. Move the schedule up a little bit. But can you even do that? Why not? I don't know. You can start in August. They should do double elimination games like the softball. Back to backs? Double headers? That would be sick. I wonder if anyone has ever scored a back-to-back touchdown.

1:14:30Can you look that up, Max? What if they had just every team? Wait. Hold on. Oh, keep going. Sorry. What if you've got 12 teams just at the same venue, and then they just keep – you do it like the Sunbelt basketball style where you have the worst two teams play, winner stays on. Mm-hmm. I like that. That would be a cool football tournament. All right. So the Super Bowl is Sunday, February 14th this year. So, okay. So we'll be after the divisional round. I think that was what it was this year as well. There'll be four NFL teams left when we do a national championship game. That's tough. That's really stupid.

1:15:07That's really, really bad. I don't like that. Yeah. Zach, finish us off. My hot seat this week is going to be America. Oh, no. I don't know if you guys have seen, but we're creeping up onto UFC 250. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing a fight club at the White House. Yep. The renderings and the build out looks pretty impressive. But I do have to put them in the hot seat this week just because we're going to be having a cage fight at the White House. And I think that person should have to become president. Oh, I love that. The winner? Yeah. It's a cage fight at the White House. You would think you get elected on spot.

1:15:43You're exactly right in the fact that if you had told someone like 10 years ago, like, hey, United States 250, we're going to do a cage fight at the White House. that's televised to the whole country, your next thought would be, that's deciding the president. They would then run the country. Right. That's just not how they're doing it, though. I would be completely fine with that. Who's fighting? Yeah, is it a good card? I don't think that it is, right? Tapirian and Justin Gaethje. So that's the main event. Okay. My concern with this, and I've heard Dana White talk about this on a couple podcasts, but being from D.C., I can tell you that late June, mid to late June.

1:16:21Oh, it's going to be hot. Outdoors. It doesn't matter if it's at nighttime. It's going to be 90 degrees. It's going to be 90 % humidity, and you're going to get gnats buzzing around your head. There's going to be these annoying-ass bugs everywhere because you're on a swamp. Guys are going to be getting kicked in the head with bugs swarming up their nostrils. It is going to be—I think it's a bad idea. I think Joe Rogan has said, like, this is a bad idea. I'm not looking forward to it. It seems like this fight could have taken place indoors somewhere. Agreed. What are your guys' thoughts on leaving the build-out up and then future conflicts, we settle them in the octagon?

1:16:56You're like Netanyahu's coming to visit? Yes, step in. Okay, yeah. What do we think? I've been in a job right here. He walks out. His music plays, Glass Break. I'd be down for that, yeah. Or you get, you know what, actually, this would probably break all celebrity fight numbers. If we had Don Jr. and Hunter Biden. cage fighting winner becomes next president that'd be cool you think that's headgear or no headgear no headgear and also you could not do drug testing you can grab Cox everybody's bounced by the way PFT happy early birthday on championship Sunday oh thank you I was looking at the schedule for the Super Bowl championship Sunday would be your birthday happy early birthday to you on championship eve thank you appreciate that the NFL.

1:17:47Appreciate that. It's massive. Cool throne. My cool throne this week is going to be the World Cup. We had another global moment for the World Cup yesterday. I don't know if you guys were able to see it. Unbelievable. But they dropped a... There's a song dropped online. Oh. The unity of this, not only for country here, but really globally. And that's like a big thing for the World Cup is having like one anthem. Yeah. Music transcends language. So what is it? I'm sure we can't play it for copyright reasons, but what is it? Just play it so they can see it. I used to absolutely love the waving flag song.

1:18:17That was a banger. When I get older, I will be stronger. Is that South Africa? And the Shakira one. Yeah, I think so. They'll call me freedom, just like a waving flag. After they come back, and then it comes back. You got to really hit that L in flag. Yeah. Yeah, especially this month. I will say the only downside to this song is not as much of Vuvuzelas as you would think. Well, yeah, we don't do Vuvuzelas. That's not a World Cup thing That's a South Africa thing Oh you're saying this song The World Cup song from South Africa That was a good song Play the new anthem Play it but cut it You're there This one?

1:19:00Speed? Oh fuck you It does happen to be by speed Play it We're talking about unity in the World Cup I fell for that one I thought this was fake. It's a beautiful thing. A lot of unity going on, going into the World Cup, showing some of these are big in the sport, and some sports bring everything together. I feel tricked. But hey, what are you going to do? Just a couple guys talking global. Memes. Memes is a good trick. I'm starting to understand everything you've been saying today. Memes is coming back. Not true. Not true. I'm kidding, Zach. Zach, that was a joke. I love you. All right. You guys do.

1:19:39All right. We're going to do... Memes, did you hear that? He loves all of us. Nice. Okay, we're going to do Kirk Goldsberry. Then we have Luke Lauchs, the FSU head coach. And guess what? We're going to do new lottery balls at the end. So you've already heard the ones we already did, but we're going to do it again at the end. So we'll see how that goes. But let's get to Kirk Goldsberry. Okay, before we get to our good friend, Kirk Goldsberry talking NBA Finals races, nothing beats summer break when you were a kid. It was time off from school and sad school lunches, but you don't get summer break as a grown-up.

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1:20:56Okay. Here he is. Kirk Goldsberry. Okay. We now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest. Our good friend, Kirk Goldsberry talking NBA finals. Kirk, great to have you on. I don't even know where to start. We're so excited. This feels like the finals that probably has the most juice in a long time. You know what? Let's start with Wemby. Your guy, Wemby. Can you tell us the stat? Because I've butchered it, and I've said it. I've repeated it to everyone in earshot for the last three weeks. Can you tell us the Wemby stat that you have about his on-off when it comes to defense and what he does to other teams?

1:21:37Yeah, he essentially turns really good offenses into terrible offenses, and he does it a few different ways. But yeah, like in these playoffs, when he's on the court, the opponents have an offensive rating of 99.2. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means your team can't score for shit. It would be the worst offense in the NBA. So it's not like he's playing bad teams. He's done this to Minnesota, OKC, and Portland so far. But when we came into the league, Big Cat, we were like, this guy is going to be the best defender of his generation. And he already is. It's incredible. And it's not just the blocks.

1:22:10A lot of people want to put, oh, blocks and steals and rebounds. No, like it's a lot of invisible stuff that he does that just deter shots, make guys make passes they wouldn't normally make and retreat. But ultimately, it just means the other team doesn't score very well. Have you been able to track the, I've heard it referred to online as the nope, where a guy will drive the lane and then see Wemby and immediately say nope and just turn around or kick it out and be like, I'm not doing this. Because that feels like that happens multiple times a game. And that's like a hidden stat that won't show up on the box score, but it's clearly affecting the other team and how they want to run offense.

1:22:50Yeah, those U-turns. I've heard people call it U-turns. it's really fun when you see it in person because these dudes are making business decisions. They go in there and they, they veer off course with SGA. It was really profound though. Big cat. Cause like he averaged over nine dunks and layup attempted per 100 possessions all season long. It's one of the big parts of his game. And in the Western finals was like four. So you just see dudes, they don't go to the rim as much. That's the easiest way to see it. And when this series will Jalen Brunson be able to get to his favorite spots like those old man spots those little 12 foot pull-ups in the paint that he's so great at those are a lot easier to get to when there's not a 7 '5 guy who's 22 years old jumping and stretching out in front of you uh kirk first of all i love the hat really good logo love a guy that just reps the league um i know along the same lines of these wimby stats have uh has there been a point where you can quantify any of the other stuff that he's doing defensively that might not show up like any new there's the nope there's the turnaround but is there like a way that you can quantify um the percentage of blocks that he keeps in play as opposed to deflecting out of bounds and whether or not that's actually like better or worse than league average yeah so i talked to the team about that exact thing pft and it was they didn't give me a specific number they said hey just know that we recover a lot of those block shots at a higher rate than a typical block shot so if you can imagine a block shot swatting it out of the crowd swatting it out of bounds swatting it to an opponent the spurs are able to control those at a higher rate than you expect it's a really astute point because some of his blocks turn into fast breaks at a higher rate if that's the if that's the case so yeah any way you shake it this guy is clearly the biggest sort of rising star in pro basketball and to big cat's first point madison square garden victor women this is an incredible finals for the nba this is going to be awesome uh the city you you guys used to record in before you sold out and went to chicago yeah he's going crazy the big move going to new york chicago left new york yeah no i hear you it is there's so much so much buzz about this i'm really excited to see what happens from uh your perspective like crunching the numbers has Has there been a style of play or just a strategy overall that's been more successful than others at attacking Wimby?

1:25:16You know, I think the best thing you can do is shoot threes. I mean, it's that basic. And New York comes into the series. PFT is the best three-point shooting team in the playoffs. They're making almost exactly 40 % of their threes all playoffs long. And that's what I'm really interested in this series is they can punish you with a five-out offense, meaning all five dudes around the edges of the court, and all of them shoot 40%. Maybe Brunson's a little under there. Towns just made 50 % of his threes in the Eastern Finals. That kind of stretched big. I don't know if you guys know this. Chet Holmgren wasn't that good in the previous series.

1:25:52But Carl Anthony Towns is really going to challenge the Spurs in a new way because he's going to stretch the defense out. Even Josh Hart, Landry Schammett, the role players can all punish the Spurs from the arc. So that's really what a lot of people are zeroing in on and saying, yeah, New York's got a chance because they can be really productive on offense without even coming inside the arc. Right. And that's my big, like, I don't know if it's a hot take, but take before the series because I think the Knicks are going to win this series. And I'm basing it on, and it's no shot at the Spurs. It's been incredible what they did.

1:26:27Their Game 7 performance team shouldn't do that when they're that young. but if you look at who they have played in this path they have played teams that are limited offensively whether it be by injury with OKC and the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Blazers where it's not five guys that can all score the Knicks as they currently are playing everyone can score and it then makes it so that Wemby can't play that free safety role where you don't have a Lou Dort that you can basically say go ahead and shoot all day yeah you don't have some guys on the Timberwolves, you're like, we can live with those shots.

1:27:01And Rudy Gobert is not going to threaten us offensively. Those type of things. Is that a crazy take on this series coming up? No, a lot of people are picking the Knicks because they are just so – they're such a deep team and they're diverse. We will see Wemby guarding Josh Hart a lot, which it might sound crazy to some of your listeners, but they did that in the regular season so that he can do what Zach Lowe, my colleague at the Ringer, calls that one-man zone where he can sort of patrol. So they will dare Josh Hart the same way they dared Alex Caruso, who made the shots for OKC, and Lou Dort, who didn't make the shots.

1:27:37They will try to put Wemby on the weakest shooter on the floor. And that's going to be something really interesting to watch. If Josh Hart start making threes, that's going to put the Spurs in a tough position right away. And to your point, it might make the Knicks just unbeatable because the Knicks are the hottest offense in the league right now. Yeah. What happened in the last game one where they came out flat against the Cavaliers. I know we all watched it and we said it just looks like they don't have the energy, like they were caught still sleepwalking a little bit. But is there something that happened in that Game 1 that you think that a smart team like the Spurs might try to pounce on this Game 1?

1:28:14Well, they ran into Game 1 James Harden, who's just a legendary playoff figure. Game 1, everybody talks about Game 6. Don't forget about Game 1. This guy comes out, especially in the first three quarters of a Game 1 with guns blazing. So in all seriousness, the Cavs are a good team. The Cavs have Donovan Mitchell. They have Jared Allen, Evan Mobley. They could score it. And I think the Knicks were a little rusty. Again, I think they had swept the Sixers. And that's another thing to watch PFT. So they did start that series a little rusty and a little slow. And they had to have that epic comeback to win game one, right?

1:28:50Yeah, our entire podcast bet on the Knicks in the first half. The only half that didn't win. That was the only hat that we had a group bet on for that entire show. Oh, that sucks. That was tough. Sorry for your loss. It's okay. Yeah. We got over it. But I think that's, in all seriousness, I think that could happen again because they've been off for, what, since May 25th? It's June 2nd. The series starts June 3rd, so they're going to have over a week of rust on there again. And, again, the Spurs are young dudes. This is one of the youngest corers. I think Big Cat alluded to it earlier. They shouldn't be here, according to some experts.

1:29:23Yeah. But they are fresh. They're ready to go. They are very confident, and they're not rusty. So it would be interesting to see if they have a similar sort of shortcoming against the Spurs in Game 1 as they did with Cleveland. Yeah, it's not even according to expert the Spurs should be here. It's just according to the history of the NBA that you have to lose before you win, and I think that's what everyone expected for Game 7 in OKC, and they're just so unafraid and hit so many big shots. so we talked about Wemby Jalen Brunson has been phenomenal I also feel like Jalen Brunson has reached a different level too where the ball isn't stopping as much and he's finding other guys and they've unlocked Cat like you said what do you think the Spurs are going to do to try to stop Jalen Brunson or is it maybe let Jalen Brunson score 35 and make sure that no one else beats us I think he's going to be the top line on the whiteboard for Mitch Johnson You know, what's in front of Mitch Johnson is the whiteboard.

1:30:22Sometimes what's behind Mitch Johnson. I heard you guys talking to Mike Breen. You got to prepare for that. But in terms of Jalen Brunson, no, that's the head of the snake. They're going after it. And they're going to do exactly what they did to SGA, Big Cat, which is start with Stephon Castle, who you guys remember from UConn, is a national champion, just like Jalen Brunson. And this young man is an incredible perimeter defender. He's a strong guard. He loves to stop defenders. He's a pain in the ass by himself. And then you remember the league's ultimate lurker, like PFT lurking on sort of a 4chan message board.

1:30:58You have Victor Weminyama lurking in the background all the time. So that's what they call Area 51 in San Antonio. Generally, that was about the lobs, you know, the alley-oops. But really, Area 51 with the two jersey numbers, five and one, is about this defensive thing that Brunson's going to have to deal with. Not only do you have to get past Stephon Castle at the point of attack, you have this monster behind you who is the best shot blocker and rim protector in the world. Yeah, and much like we talk about some of the emerging superstars, and we love them while they're still coming up, and then eventually we have to find something to nitpick about them.

1:31:35I remember when Steph Curry was breaking the sport of basketball, until the nitpick about Steph Curry just became, you ruined the game because you're so good at shooting. Is there one thing that we can do to nitpick Wimby's game? What is the one, what's the weakness that he has? Besides being French. I got one. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I'd like to see him in the post more. I don't know if he's, I think that's going to come. You know what I mean? But it's also, it's interesting watching him play because he's 7 '5", but his center of gravity isn't like as low as, you know what I mean? Like it's high up there, so he can't.

1:32:12Hartenstein was able to push him around a little bit, and this is obviously nitpicking. The Germans do that to the French. Yeah, but I think that's something that he will get a lot better at. But there are times when you could see him floating away from the basket on offense and maybe not being as engaged and being able to dictate it for the Spurs offense. Yeah, two things. I think that's a very astute point, Big Cat, because I watched Game 7 with Chris Bosh, and he was like, this guy needs moves. He needs moves. And I think it's fair to say he's 22. He'll get there. like you're pointing out. But if we're nitpicking, that's it.

1:32:49Like he doesn't have a signature move yet. I don't know what it will be, but you would like to think a man with those physical gifts could get to the rim and punish people with a signature move, some drop steps, some half hook that he just develops over time. And to Big Cat's point, he does get pushed around a little bit because he is so thin and his center of gravity is so high. That said, on Saturday night, I was talking to a bunch of Spurs fans down here in Austin. I was like, guys, this is the nicest anybody's ever going to be to the Spurs. Like, this is, the pushback will come. If the Spurs start winning over and over and over again, this is, we just vanquished these guys.

1:33:32The Spurs were never cool during the last run. These guys are cool. You just did the league a favor. But to your point, PFT, it feels like, yeah, the pushback will come soon because people get bored with Wemby or be annoyed by him for one reason or another. That's why I almost wanted the Thunder to win the last series, even though I don't like watching them play. I heard you say that. That was actually a good point. You wanted another year of the honeymoon period. Yeah, extend our love for Wemby because I do love watching him play. I'm excited. I could talk myself into rooting for either of these two teams.

1:34:05I know that's like a fence-sitting position, but there's legitimately something fun to root for for the Knicks and for the Spurs. and I think, you know what, I'm just going to be like you wearing that hat right now. I'm a fan of the NBA for the finals. I want seven games. I think that's such a great point. I'm a Spurs guy. Everybody knows that. But it is really just traumatic to root against this Knicks phenomenon, this Knicks team, this Knicks fan base. I want that fan base to have a title so bad. I think everybody, they have a pretty high approval rating, barring teams like Philadelphia and Boston, of course, that will hate them forever.

1:34:41But these are really two special teams. And I think the NBA has hit the jackpot with his finals. And again, you can tell it in the ticket prices. You're going to see it in the TV ratings. You're going to see it in sort of the international coverage of these finals. This is not OKC versus Indiana. All due respect, that was an awesome finals too. But this is prime time. With the Spurs guard rotation, I made a point, I think, going into the last series, I think that Dylan Harper is maybe not the best, but he should be starting. But now after watching more of it, I think that they've just got three starting caliber guards.

1:35:17And the fact that they can move them in and out to do different things is such a huge asset that they have. So from your perspective, what does each one do better than the other two? So De 'Aaron Fox is the vet. He was hurt to open the series. And we really saw what he does so well in his absence. He controls the offense. He's not stupid. Stephon Castle, if you look back to the first two games of that OKC series, PFT, he had 11 turnovers and then nine turnovers. And a lot of that was the absence of De 'Aaron Fox. As soon as Fox came back in after his ankle recovery, suddenly those turnovers went down and the Spurs started taking care of the basketball a lot better.

1:35:57That's what he's sort of the grown-up in the room, right, with these two other young bucks. He's an all-star player. And then the other two guys, what they have in common is they are both two of the most ferocious attack guards already in the NBA. One of the reasons people love Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper is they say it to your face. They're not doing step-back threes and staying away. Stephon Castle in particular will bully a guy two feet in the paint, drop his shoulder, push him, and then make a shot in his face. Dylan Harper is a little more crafty. Again, one of the more advanced finishing packages we've ever seen from a guard this age.

1:36:33His footwork is immaculate. his use of the basketball is, is incredible. And when he elevates and starts going to the rim, he can, he can, he can yam it on your head, but he also has just an array of finishes, uh, with both hands at the rim and he's left-handed too. Uh, so it evokes Manu Ginobili for, for Spurs fans, this lefty coming off the bench and slashing through, but it's an embarrassment of riches. Uh, like you said, almost every team would start two of these guys and they have three of them. Yeah. and it's, it's, it's really the reason they're here aside from when, Wemby and is under talks about, but Dylan Harper is my favorite of them all.

1:37:08He's just so awesome to watch. Yeah. All right. So we talk about Wemby. We talk about Jalen Brunson. If you had to pick a guy from each team where I told you they had the series of their life and then they end up winning, like the X-Factor guy, who would that be? Let's start with Cat. Cat, like he plays basketball like me sometimes. I just foul people and I'm like, God, why did I do that? Like Chris Farley smashed my head with my hand. He's very frustrating to watch sometimes for Knicks fans because he just makes mental mistakes, particularly with fouls. And here's a stat for you. The Spurs enter these finals with two of the three biggest foul drawers in the playoffs.

1:37:50Victor Weminyama and Stephon Castle are two of the top three. They've both drawn over 100 fouls. And Cat comes in as the third most fouling player. So you have two of these dudes who are just getting whistles all the time, And then you have Cat, who is uncontrollable with these. So he's got to – if he cannot get in foul trouble and if he can stretch out the defense and make like five threes in game one and they steal it and he's getting rebounds and he's threatening, the Knicks are going to win this series. If Cat has the series of his life and is not getting in foul trouble, that's going to be really, really important.

1:38:27And so I think he would be my answer on the Knicks. Yeah. In San Antonio, Wembe is the obvious choice. De 'Aaron Fox is getting better and stronger coming off of this injury with his ankle. He looked really good in game seven. He had a three in the fourth quarter where he just was really bouncy for the first time all series. And it was a huge shot. And if he's able to bring that kind of transition competence and energy, and again, those point guard skills, and he's scoring 20 points, 19 points, having seven assists, if he has the series of his life then I think the Spurs are even better than they were against OKC because he was not that guy because that injury for that series yeah yeah what about Mitchell Robinson and some of the some of the gamesmanship that goes into his play where you know like you see him in the game instant foul that sort of thing if you with a guy like that do you have to start making your free throws early to have a decent night at the line or Or if you have a bad free throw shooter, is it a common thing to just start off really ice cold and then eventually if you stay in there long enough, get enough reps, you start to bump that percentage up?

1:39:36Yeah, he is one of the worst free throw shooters in the league. But I want to give him some flowers because back in Vegas, I went to the NBA Cup Final in December, and Mitch Robinson really won that game to beat the Spurs in December in Vegas. How'd he do it? He is the best offensive rebounder in the game when he gets going. He had 10 offensive rebounds in 18 minutes of play, and the Spurs had no answer for him PFT. I would say if he's able to just be a menace and just one of those high-energy rebounding guys off the bench, the Knicks, again, have a great chance to win this series. If he has to play too much because Kat's in foul trouble, or if they rely on him for offensive production, they're going to be in trouble.

1:40:21He's perfect in that role as an offensive rebounder. And if he's there late in quarters, to your point, the Spurs are going to send him to the free throw line where he makes 40 % or less of his free throws, and the math says that's the right thing to do. So you don't want to see him on the free throw line. And now the other big thing with him, obviously, is he had pinky surgery last week. He had pinky surgery last week. So a lot of us are going to go to game one tomorrow and be like, all right, all eyes on Mitch. is he able to grab the basketball with that hand where he had surgery. I mean, the pinky is the smallest digit, but probably important to grabbing a lot of rebounds.

1:40:59Yeah, but also maybe he'll be a better shooter with a broken pinky. You know, Big Cat taught me this stat. Do you know what I'm about to say about Josh Hart? No, cutting off your pinky. Yes, you are. Dude, the pinky bet, always the highlight of the fall for me. Wait, okay, I'll come back to that. Yeah, I think he had surgery. I don't know. Josh hurt his wrist and then became a better three-point shooter. We talked about that last year, two years ago on the show, but I hadn't been aware of that. You brought that to me. Who's your pinky team in the NFL this year? The Rams? We've got to wait. We've got to wait.

1:41:32Absolutely not the Rams. We've got to wait until a team goes on, dude. Do the Rams. Man up. No. Hell no. Listen, if they start 0-2, I'll have to think about it, and then Aaron Donald will somehow come back, and I'll just be fucking screwed. dude um what is og gonna guard wemby would you expect primarily yeah so og has had great success on victor weminyama i would see we're gonna see three primary defenders on wemby he's one of them i think towns is the more conventional way to start and then obviously mitch robinson when he's in the game but og ananobi has a great combination of that sort of strength that can push him around He's a smarter defender than Cat.

1:42:14He won't commit those kinds of stupid fouls. So just by putting him on Wemby, that's less of a chance that Cat will be in foul trouble. And the numbers, out of the 20 or 25 guys that have defended Wemby the most in the last three years, none, according to the player tracking system, have been as effective as OG Ananobi at holding him down. Now, a lot of that's his year one or year two, Big Cat, but we're definitely going to see OG Ananobi He's one of the best defenders in this league, defending the best player on the other team. Do you have any insight as to what information or strategy Pop is providing the team?

1:42:50Because we heard the reports that he talked to Wimby after a couple of the games in the last series. Is he still very much in the mix, or does he just show up like when Gotham needs him, he'll show up and give that little extra boost? You know, that was pretty special. He came in after one of the losses, and I think it was really impactful for the guys and for the coaching staff. And it is what a resource to have. sort of this tenured professor, this retired professor come in and tell you how to win a conference finals or a finals game. I don't know exactly what he's going to say, but it's just a great trump card they have to play with one of the most successful coaches this league's ever seen, sort of consulting in the background when they need it.

1:43:33Coach Emeritus, or whatever that word is. Coach Emeritus, that's the word I was looking for. We've got two big Knicks fans on this pod. We got Zach and Memes. Do you guys have any questions for Kirk? Zach and Memes. You guys got something? We're locked in on ball right now. Zach, Memes. What's going on, Kirk? How are we doing today, man? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing good. I was curious, you know, if this Knicks team this year is able to get it done and beat the Spurs, and biasly, I will say I do think they will, where does this put Jalen Brunswick as far as legacy? Will we see them hoist that number 11 jersey in the rafters when it's all said and done?

1:44:08Like, where do you think this is? Is this a starting point or is it more of like this cements him Knicks all time? I think he's already a great Knick all time for what he's done here and getting them into the finals. I mean, we see how they treat Starks and Sprewell and Ewing and those guys never got over the top. But yeah, he would be the best Knick since obviously the 70s, which is most of our lifetime. All of your guys' lifetime. So this would, I don't even think he's prepared for how big of a celebrity in New York he would become if they win this. This is like Jeter. He would be elevated to folklore status immediately because this would be the most important championship in New York in a very, very long time for a fan base that's been starved.

1:44:54It's an excellent fan base. and since they got Bronson in that incredible transaction, he's transformed the vibes there, getting those Nova guys there, and just, you know, he's given this fan base something to be very excited about, and now if they win it, dude, yeah. He's in that Jeter category, I think. Yeah, number 11, retired forever. Yeah, forever. Attaboy, Tim. Statues, statues. Yeah, gift baskets. Memes, what do you think? I don't have any questions. I like your hat. Where'd you get it? PFT sent it to me in the mail with some Roback. They always send me Roback when I come on the show. I'm always appreciative, but this one came with the NBA hat.

1:45:36Max, any questions? No, sir. I'm looking forward to a good NBA finals. I went with the Zach No, sir, there. Sorry. Memes, you don't have any questions about the matchups or anything? You're pumped. Memes, you've been talking about the Knicks nonstop. what's the what's the means what's the one thing in your head that you're like i'm worried about this honestly nothing okay nothing at all wait wait can i ask a question yes yes yes how are how do you expect the knicks to contain victor women yama on offense and on defense that's a good question good question hadn't thought about that i'd run through every possible situation in the finals, but had not thought about winning Nama.

1:46:21It's a deep cut. It's essentially Josh Hart just has to make his threes. Yeah, it's like the Alex Caruso role you mentioned, Kirk. There's going to be a guy open, and he's got to hit him. And that was when Caruso was making those threes, they were winning those games. When they stopped, Paul, it started to change real fast. I think that's fair, dude. If Josh Hart makes his threes, dude, that's a very impossible team to guard at that point. Yeah. All right. I got one last question for you, Kirk. Roback question, RHOBACK.com, promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

1:46:54Roback.com, promo code TAKE. So Father's Day is coming up. You've always hooked us up with something you're working on that is made for perfect Father's Day. You don't have to get your dad a tie or a gift card or something. Get him something cool about sports. What do you have right now? I'm so excited. Thank you for setting this up, Big Cat. I have the best posters. I've made championship shooting charts for every championship team going back to the 90s, including the last dance bowls. So it is a beautiful poster with these 3D shot charts showing the shooting terrain of everybody on those championship teams, whether you're a Celtics fan, a Spurs fan.

1:47:32I can't say a Knicks fan. They haven't won it yet. Warriors fans. But go to the goldenhexagon.com. We have these incredible prints for sale of these for your dad or for yourself or for the dad in your life that liked one of these championship teams. They do look awesome. You are the king of Father's Day presents from the maps to all this stuff. It's an A-plus move to get your dad one of these things. No, I appreciate that, PFT. And I know that Big Cat's a father of three, and I hope he has a great Father's Day coming up too. My kids aren't buying me shit. I know. These are awesome maps. I'm looking at them right now.

1:48:08Yeah, they're the best. These are so sick. Okay. Thanks. I love it. We'll send you guys some. You send me so much Roback. I'll send you as many of those as you guys want. You can have them in the studio. So I got the address. PFT sent it to me earlier. Hell yes. Kirk, when you're looking at the upcoming NBA draft, is it clearly DeBancay going number one? No. No. I think Darren Peterson's better. I'm Boozer Curious at number one, dude. And all the nerds are. All the nerds are. When you look at the draft models, PFT, that all the stats dudes are building at these NBA teams, Boozer comes up number one.

1:48:44His ability to do Kevin Love. Yeah, do Kevin Love, maybe without the chin strap, maybe a little more in shape than Caleb was at that time in his career. But I love Kevin Love as a comp. He is sort of a boring double-double machine. Right. But that models really well. I think rebounds when people are scouting the draft, a lot of casuals underestimate the less than glamorous art of the board. So you would have him right in the conversation for number one? Ambus are curious. I said what I said. I think Darren Peterson, A.J. DeMonts, it's fascinating in a way that it hasn't been in a minute. It's a little scary, too, if you're picking first overall.

1:49:23It's like you don't want to – this could be the Sambui. You would almost rather be the Bulls. Just be like, I'll take whoever's left. I'd still take the number one pick. But yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the Bulls are going to get the pick chosen for them. Have you guys picked the finals? Yeah, I think the Knicks are going to win in six. I have not disclosed my pick yet. What do you think, Kirk? My NBA preview will run on TheRinger.com today, and I am picking the San Antonio Spurs in seven games. But it was a tough pick. And to your earlier point at the beginning of the show, We had the interview. This is a really, really great series.

1:50:07And I'll be happy for my friends in New York if they win. I'm picking the Spurs in seven in a real great classic series. I've just decided my pick. It's Knicks in seven. I just think Knicks, game six in MSG, up 3-2. That's it right there. You guys got to go back, man. You got to be there. You got to be climbing the Super Bowl. I'm okay. I'm okay missing out on that one. Just, you know,$10 ,000 just to go watch a team that you don't root for? Yeah. Why not? Yeah, yeah. Just do it. Just do it. All right. Well, Kirk, you're the best, man. We appreciate it. Everyone go check out Kirk's NBA Finals preview on the ringer and go to the Golden Hexagon and get some stuff for Father's Day.

1:50:49Thanks, guys. Good to see you. All right. See you, Kirk. Kirk Goldsberry is brought to you by our great friends over at Jose Cuervo. When Cuervo enters, every moment just gets better. You find yourself in the center of the dance floor. You can't help but stand up and high-five those around you at the game. And the room reacts like it just got the same text at the same time. You stop checking the time and suddenly small talk escalates to laughing so hard that you can barely catch your breath. That is the Cuervo effect, my friends. A signal that everybody understands, a moment that anyone can join, and a good time that just grows.

1:51:20All you have to do is keep it Cuervo. He was also brought to you by our great friends over at Reese's. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a Reese's. Take out the whole world is vying for the cup right now. Is it because it's called a cup? Just like a Reese's peanut butter cup? Coincidence? I think not. So be a champ. Score a Reese's today because everything happens for a Reese's. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Everything happens for a Reese's. Get yours at hersheyland.com slash Reese's. And now here's FSU head basketball coach, Luke Lauchs.

1:51:56Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest. It is head basketball coach of the Florida State Seminoles, Luke Laux, which coach, I'm going to call you coach. Thank you for coming here. We'll explain why you're here. Your last name kind of sucks in terms of like you just fucks everyone up. Did I do it right? It was spot on. Okay. I don't even correct people. I get everything. And it's like, it's an endless Luke Locks, Luke Luke. Like it's Laux. Kind of how you pronounce couch, like the O-U in it. Okay. But it's a tough name, man. Yeah. It's just what I was born in. You should change that.

1:52:34I'm thinking about it. What about changing it to just Lou? So L-O-U and then last name like C-L-O-U-C-K-S. So it's Lou Claux. That sounds more complicated. Kind of like the same thing. What about L-U-L-O-U? So you're Lou Lou. Yeah, that could work. Coach Lulu. Yeah, that's good. So I got two older brothers, and I went, like, my childhood, I was little louks. Little louks. But that's even more complicated to pronounce. And I had, like, a small speech impediment, too, as a child. It was like I had constant peanut butter in my mouth trying to pronounce my name. Yeah, it was tough. All right. Does anyone ever say FSLU?

1:53:14No. Okay, maybe we can start that. That's a good hashtag. Yeah, yeah. We can come up with something. Yeah, yeah. So you're here. thank you for being here in studio because we've talked about on this show we talked about on the yak Florida State raised the banner after the 2020 season the COVID season that said 2020 COVID cancel season COVID and number four ranking essentially being like hey we didn't do a tournament but we were the number four team when the tournament would have happened and the banner was up actually up in your arena for a couple years then got taken down i am trying to collect as many uh weird like off the wall memorabilia pieces that i can get and this was always something i was lusting after i contacted someone at fsu and credit to you guys you were like yeah we're never gonna put this banner back up let's put it somewhere where it's fun we can have fun with it we can make fun of ourselves and now we're gonna be unveiling it in the barstool office and it will hang for as long as I'm here it will hang I just want you to know that I'm making that pledge yeah and that's where to me because there was a little bit of pushback internally like we're making fun yeah I love making fun of ourselves like everyone who can't laugh at yourself but also to celebrate that team man and I know Florida State basketball hasn't had a ton of unbelievable teams won the ACC championship a couple times you know back in 72 they lost in the championship to UCLA in that run but there hasn't been a ton of teams that were at that level.

1:54:48So I kind of understand in a weird way why they wanted to celebrate that team. That team was rolling. It was probably a Final Four team, but you can't hang that banner. You didn't win anything. And also, we are going to celebrate them. That will be the celebration of them. I really appreciate it because I think that we've been doing this show for 10 years now, and I think one of the reasons why we've been successful in doing this show is that sports are supposed to be fun. Sports are supposed to be, you know, there's serious parts of it. You want to win. But at the end of the day, we're trying to entertain people.

1:55:21We're trying to have fun. And so having that ability to laugh at yourself, I appreciate the FSU staff. We went to visit you guys on Grit Week. You guys are so gracious. Some of the worst shooting of all time. Yeah. I don't know if you heard about that. I did. We were trying to do the around the world drill where we had hit five from five different locations. None of us made it to the other corner. Yeah. So apologies on that. It's okay. Yeah, we probably couldn't make your team. But, yeah, this is going to be fun, and it's going to be fun to be able to have this banner forever. No question. I appreciate you guys reaching out and getting it done and just have something floor-estate in this building.

1:55:57First of all, you guys have an adult playground in here. It's awesome. This building is incredible. This is like a child's but a grown man's dream. Yes. Everywhere you go, it's like, ah, it makes sense. Yeah. You guys did a phenomenal job. I didn't realize the scope of – I follow a lot of your stuff in your pocket because you get an incredible job. But I didn't realize the scope of this building. Yeah. This is a sweet spot. It is. It's like giving me ideas for home. Yeah. My wife's going to hate me. Yeah. Yeah. Did Brooks Koepka reach out or did anybody from Brooks' camp reach out after that interview?

1:56:26No. I was talking to the staff because I got sent the clip like 250 times as soon as it came out. And before I even went to my administration, which was probably a mistake on my part as like a rookie young coach, I just tweeted back. I'm like, yeah, let's do this. And then me and Brooks were the same class. We had an unbelievable class come through Florida State, a lot of different sports. But none of his people reached out. But through that, we caught up on it. And he said it was pretty cool that we're doing it. Yeah. Let's talk about that team since we're going to be showing off the banner here.

1:57:02But let's talk about how good that team was and the guys on that team that should be recognized. So in your opinion, looking back on it, what do you remember the most about that team? Yeah, so I was coaching for Golden State at the time, and I remember following that team like, we actually got a chance. And I think the year before they went to the Elite Eight, so they already had some momentum. But first and foremost, Devin Vassell was unbelievable. He hit his prime. He was like an unheralded recruit. He wasn't ranked super high. He came in his freshman year and was pretty good, and then that next year he took a huge jump.

1:57:35Ended up being a lottery pick. But that team, and then obviously Pat Williams. Yeah, great Florida State player. Great Florida State player. Great Florida State, great college player, great defender. But those two kind of – but then they had some older guys, Trent Forrest, Raekwon Gray. I think they had four draft picks, two lottery picks and two second-round picks. Balsa, big European. They were loaded for a college team. And that's why they had a good amount of, to me, the best college team, best basketball teams. You have those young guys that are your stars, but then you have old guys around them that support, that are the glue, the backbone.

1:58:18And that team, to me, had it all. Yeah, they were four in the country. Number four. You hung it. 26-5 when COVID happened. 16-5 in the ACC. Or 16-4 in the ACC, excuse me. Really, really good team. so we gotta celebrate them by the way I didn't tell you and I hope this doesn't bother you but he was very cool I didn't tell you that I actually so when I get obsessed with something like this it becomes a little unhealthy and it's like I just exhaust every resource possible I was able to actually get your athletic director's phone number and I texted him completely like cold call texting being like hey it's Big Cat from Barstow I really want this banner.

1:59:03He actually responded. He's like, let me check on where it is and we'll try to get it to you. Love it. So, absolute awesome dude. I love it. Like, to have a random text like that, you're the AD of FSU. You should have just blocked my number and never responded to it. No. So, Mike Olford, thank you for responding. And I will never tell you how I got your number, but don't worry. Your secret's safe. I'll never share it. Yeah, that is interesting how you track that down. I mean, you're a powerful guy. You can get a phone number. But I'll forever be grateful. He gave me my first job. He took a swing on me.

1:59:33I mean, I'm the youngest head coach in Power 4 basketball right now, and he took a gamble on me. And obviously there was a lot of connections from playing at Florida State, but he's a great dude and obviously has his hands full right now trying to help us turn football around, turn basketball around. But, yeah, he's doing a great job. Let's talk about the internship and how you decided to become a head coach because you picked a great place to start in Golden State. Yeah. Working on that staff is awesome. So how did you decide, okay, we're going to maybe cut the playing career a little bit short.

2:00:06It feels like more of a career to be a coach. Yeah. So I was playing in Europe, played a little bit in the minor leagues with the Celtics and the Magic back when it was called the D League. And then playing overseas, playing in Germany, Belgium, Cyprus, Latvia, been a little bit all over the place. But I knew my career was never going to get to the highest level. I was kind of just doing it because I loved hoops, loved competing. and you get paid to travel the world, man. It was awesome. But I knew I wanted to coach, and so I was working out in Vegas at the same time NBA Summer League was going on, working out for a bunch of European teams and trying to get my next contract.

2:00:42But I kept getting banged up. I had spine surgery. I broke my foot. I got screws in my foot. And it was just one of those things like, all right, what are we doing here? We can keep making okay money and keep doing this, or we can start doing what your career is and still be around the game. so I talked to coach Hamilton and he's like well every team in the NBA is out where you're working out right now just go start talking to people and so I would go I would work out in the morning and I would go from like noon to the last summer league game and I would just like find every NBA person that would listen to me and be like hey I want to coach someday if you got anything and through that week I think I had six or seven interviews in the stands at Summer League of like, yeah, all right, you want to coach, go interview.

2:01:27You basically got to get in through the film room. You got to start in an internship. And then I had a couple of buddies in the NBA that have already done this, and they were kind of showing me the ropes of like, if you want to do this, you got to talk to these people. So through that week, by the end of the week, I think I had three or four job offers of like, yeah, if you want to be an intern, you can join us. one of them was golden state that the owners of golden state are the lake of family great family kirk ran the the d league team when i played in the d league and at one point he he almost tried to trade for me to like come be their backup point guard and so he remembered me he's like come talk hoops like let's catch up i remember when you played um so through that you know connected with you know some of steve kerr's staff and they're like yeah we got a spot open one of our interns is leaving um and literally that day kevin durant signs with i was gonna say yeah you're such a front runner dude i 100 i'm hopping on that bandwagon so i call my wife your ring chaser chaser a thousand percent so i call my wife and i'm like all right she kind of knew what i was doing i'm like i i think this is the the sign we're looking for like do we go play again do we get in i was like kevin durant just joined the best team on earth um this would be unwise to not go down this route yeah and but what she didn't realize is and and we're we're a young we don't have kids yet but we're freshly married as i was leaving like six figures on the table to take in a minimum wage internship in the most expensive city in the world in san francisco and Oakland.

2:03:02And so I'm like, Hey babe, you're also going to have to get a job. Yeah. Yeah. Those details came later. It's like, we might not have to move every year in the future. So we'll save on the back end, but yeah, you might want to dust off that resume. So you go to a, you go to golden state. What's your job when you first get there? What are you, what are you doing day to day? So I was in the film room, um, a little bit, really whatever they needed, man, because I was fresh off playing. So I would kind of practice with the guys i'd work out with them rebound um but your main job is you break down film so all the the film that the staff needs you're coding it so it's it's like learning a new language i thought i knew basketball i knew nothing about basketball but it was it was it was awesome because there were so many head coaches on that staff steve was incredible but then like mike brown ron adams at the time was the best assistant in the nba uh willie green was on that staff there There was all these head coaches that basically, and Mike Brown being the most significant, that took me under their wing of like, Mike started in the film room too.

2:04:01And he remembered those days of like, you're working 12, 16 hours. You're there early. You're there late. If Clay wants to come shoot at 1 a.m., like you're the guy going to rebound for him. So a little bit of everything. But then through that, you learn about analytics. You learn the terminology. You learn how to coach. and the greatest thing about Steve is is he wanted the young guys to really learn not just be in the background so by year two I went from an intern to a player development coach that was in charge of the two ways to to a full-time player development coach and just kept rising up but through that Steve would like give you scouts and so you'd be in front of the team I've only been coaching for two years and you're in front of the team like breaking down the entire scout and you're in charge of everything you're in charge of defense personnel and it really forced us as young coaches and that's why so many coaches go on and do great things but it forced you as a young coach to like be on your stuff like you got draymond green i was just saying you're doing no that's wrong yeah yeah you're not only doing it but you're doing it in front of kevin durant draymond green staff guys who know basketball better than anyone in the world and they thought it me and draymond were the same class yeah and he would like bring up all the time that was ranked higher than him and like like it shows how good these rankings are but he would grill you in a good way of like if if you're gonna do this as a coach you gotta you gotta know what you're talking yeah was there a moment that you gave something to draymond or gave somebody to kd where it's like it almost clicked where they're like hey we now trust you because i'm sure that is a process yeah where it's like they're not going to just take coaching from anyone you know but once you get to that point i'm sure those guys want to just absorb everything yeah not not really any point but i do think as former players that's why i've tried to hire a lot of former players on my staff too as former players there's already somewhat of a built obviously i didn't play at that level but there's a built-in respect of like i'm not in your shoes but i've sat in your shoes like i i know in the midst of a game what goes on right i'm not someone that's never played so i do think and and then you know that year katie got hurt and they kind of stuck me as an intern just to work out with him as he was coming back from his knee injury.

2:06:10And through that bond, and even Steph would pull me aside to do shooting drills. And they would be heavily weighted, right? He's handcuffed in these shooting drills, and I'm just trying to make it. And he would torch me. But through those workouts and through working out, I think just that part built in a little bit of respect. And they knew, I'm trying to learn how to coach. I don't know. I'm learning more from them and the staff than I'm actually giving. You know what I'm saying? But if you're a sponge and you just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, you can learn pretty quick what's going on.

2:06:43What's the most impressive shooting performance that you saw from either Clay, Steph, or KD in your time? Like in practice. Yeah, so they would do this drill, and Steph still does this drill, and he's like a maniac. He's like an absolute machine with the way he works. It's unbelievable. KD, the same thing. but he does this drill where you shoot until you miss two in a row and and so every spot you try to get a certain number and then you try to get a hundred right so you shoot until you miss two in a row which for him takes a long time if he misses one he just i was gonna say this is the fastest drill ever for us well for us yeah you're gonna make a total of like five to ten but he's trying he's trying to get to a hundred right around five spots right right so you're i'm not great at math but I think that's 20th spot.

2:07:30He ran off 67 straight threes, which I thought was so impressive. My mind was blown. That's insane. It's insane. This was actually in Chicago. We're playing the Bulls later that year. He runs off, and there's a video of it. He runs off 105 straight corner threes. What am I looking at? there is a few by the way this coffee i'm not a big canned coffee guy yeah coffee is unbelievable thank you very much your company yes uh we need to get some of these yes absolutely we got you um but there was moments in that where as a young coach like what am i watching yeah great job coaching yeah yeah yeah i thought yeah yeah steph clay they were all under my tutelage yeah all right so i got a question about i got i got two questions about steph i'm gonna play a little game with you it's called uh uh question you've probably been asked a million times and question hopefully you've never been asked okay uh both about steph one is what is what does steph do in terms of his workouts because i think the part of steph that is underrated maybe not acknowledged as much as he's just always moving and his stamina is so insane and that's why he's able to get open the amount of times he gets open as he just runs everyone you know down essentially what is he doing in practice and in in the offseason to get to that point big cat you kind of answered your own question there yeah you you he he works harder on his condition than anyone in basketball i've ever seen and it's is non-stop and to me like at his age that's that's tough to do man that those are like long off seasons especially at the time you're playing you know preseason regular season nba playoffs through the finals you're playing over 100 games a year and to take a few weeks off and then get right back into it and to do that for like 20 straight years it's unbelievable is he like running is he is he distance what is he doing it's equal parts the intensity yeah like he won't work out for two hours but it's the intensity that he does his drills at he tries to every single rep he tries to go game speed which is tough to do it's tough to mimic a game in your workout he's probably as close as i've seen of like when i do things they're gonna mimic what i doing the game and then in between he's doing con we'll put you through some drills we'll put you through some Steph Curry yeah yeah um but but it is a so for example when I joined uh the Sacramento Kings one of my jobs um you know help run the offense eventually I became a defensive coordinator but I I trained Darren Fox and one of the first things I did was Darren we're going down it's an hour and a half drive from sacramento we're going down to work out with steph and in the first workout not only like his body he just wasn't and darren's one of the best athletes in all of sports like unbelievable athlete his forearms were cramping i've never seen someone's forearm his forearms were cramping just from the level and the intensity of these shooting drills and he looks at me after the workout he's like all right i get it now yeah i I get why Steph is where he's at.

2:10:42This is the way he works out every day. But it was great for De 'Aaron to go down. And Steph does a really good job putting together some of those younger athletes that he can kind of take over under his wing. But it was great for Fox to see. And then that year, Fox became an all-star. Yeah. All right, so now the question that you have never been asked about Steph. Can you get him on our podcast? I can't promise that. Okay, but you could ask. I can try. I can ask have you been asked that before? if you don't ask it's always a no listen that's how I got Mike Alford that's how I got my wife you gotta take a shot you gotta shoot your shot I think he'd really like us I think he'd really enjoy doing this podcast we go to Tahoe for that tournament that he just dominates he's so good at golf so we met him last year but yeah he is definitely a white whale guest of ours I'll put in a feeler yeah we're massive fans But that's awesome.

2:11:39So you were on Wake Up Barstool with me this morning. You said something very interesting that I wanted to go further in because we ran out of time. The first season coaching Florida State, I thought you guys were coming on at the end of the season. You were playing great ball. I was saying that I watched a ton of college basketball, and you were in that camp of teams that I circled being like, hey, don't sleep on them anymore. They're a hard out. They might be 15-point underdogs to Duke, but they're going to keep this game close. and you guys finished strong, but you said that going into the season, you coached the guys like you were in the NBA and you had to adjust.

2:12:13What did that look like? What did your mistakes look like to start, and then what did the adjustment look like? Because it worked. Yeah, there are a few things. Number one, I want to play a certain style. I want to play a pace that analytically supports the best teams play fast because you attack a set defense. New York's doing it right now. I want to play like the New York Knicks. like they play fast they share the ball there's constant movement there's constant cutting and then you create high level shots right a lot at the rim but a lot of kick out threes and then you you get out of your way your stars and you let them work right you're not going to handcuff Brunson you're not going to handcuff Cat but even before play style I was teaching and coaching these guys like I was used to and I'm used to coaching adults that by the time you get to the NBA you weed out all the guys that don't know how to play you weed out all the guys that don't understand the game of basketball at a certain I shouldn't say all of them but most of them you get to that level you can tell those guys even role players you take a guy like like Trey Lyles you tell Trey Lyles one one time and he's like I already got it I understand what you're saying I can go implement that you get to college and it's no disrespect just where they're at in their development they're very talented but they don't they don't understand on like an intellectual level of like what you're saying right so you have to teach which i i love teaching but i didn't realize like not only you got to teach it if you don't touch on it in two days they forget it right because they just don't know they haven't been through all those reps they're not they're not grown-ups and so we're like you know 10 games in the season and i'm like god guys are not grasping what we're saying and one of my i call them college coaches they've never coached in the nba but he was a head coach in college he's like well some of some of that is on us right we're not teaching them you're saying it but we're not teaching them what you mean right and not only you have to teach them you got to teach them every single day and then you play a game and then you got to do it again right and so i think that was the first thing we changed our structure of practice of like we need to teach a little bit more but then our compete level has to go through the roof right second thing we were just launching threes i mean we we we led the nation in threes for a good portion um but they weren't going in that's important that that is what i don't care what anyone tells you and and math would agree if the shots don't go in you're not going to score a lot of points correct um and through that i'm like guys i get i want to play a certain style but if it's not working we got to change right and and so it's not that i i love the three ball i love playing fast but we got to attack the rim we got the free throw line a little bit more um and through that because we did that our defense got a lot better because because now it's not you're launching threes long rebounds it's leading to runouts we lost we lost that home by 44 to nc state and i felt like it was a layup line for him just non-stop layups because we were missing all these long shots and our defense couldn't get set and i i think in that moment that's where it like flipped we we went after that game we went back to my office and i don't recommend this i'm not like be in the office all night and but i'm like this is a crisis like we we need to figure this out right and so we stayed in my office till almost 5 a.m and we we cracked a couple of beers watch every clip of nc state game i'm like we're not leaving here until we have a plan to fix this season at that point i think we had lost like eight out of ten right and we stayed up all night and we basically came back of like all right we need to focus on on defense our compete level we We got to stop this transition defense.

2:15:52But then offensively, we have to be in attack mode of getting to the hoop. And I really don't care if we shoot zero threes, right? And our staff was so good about taking that and implement. We still shot a lot of threes, but we got way better ones because their mindset was like, no, no, we're getting to the hoop. We're trying to score. And now if the help comes, it's a kickout three. It's exactly what the New York Knicks are doing. Like if you watch them, if you load up and help, they're going to get a kickout three. and if you don't you let your stars work you give them space yeah jalen brunson one-on-one in the paint he's going to score every time his good things are going to happen even with og and like mikhail bridges like those guys are attacking and getting to where they need to to score at an efficient rate and as soon as you help there's a kick out going backside and it's a splash wide open three yeah yeah this is some pretty analytical stuff i'm about to ask you but have you figured out the difference between you wearing like a quarter zip and you get dressed up in the suit like how the team performs because we like it when the coaches still get dressed up on the sidelines yeah since covid that's you know one of the things in addition to excluding florida state from potentially winning a national championship feels like after covid coaches don't wear suits anymore yeah and and speaking of suits nate nate oats daughter is is is that right is that public knowledge she's interning yeah i just ran into her yeah it's awesome yeah best suit game in college basketball and i think outside of probably patino patino's got like When he blows, he does the white suit.

2:17:15It's the old school. He's the boss. He's the OG. So I will tell you, it was a little bit of, we're going to try some things out this year. I had a pretty good rhythm of at home. I dressed up. I'm going to put, and then on the road, I'm all about efficiency. I don't like traveling with the suit. You got to figure out, are you ironing in the hotel room? I actually like that. It's like home. This is my home uniform. Show respect to the home crowd. Like, I'm going to get dressed up for you on the road. I don't give a fuck. We're just a business trip. We're here to win a game. Yeah. But you said no to Eddie asked you off air, actually, if you would do an homage to your coach, Leonard Hamilton, and maybe do like the T-shirt or the turtleneck underneath a sport coat.

2:17:58You said no. Yeah. So if you're going to dress up, it's not a bad look. It's a great look. It is a great look. And it's actually more comfortable. I may walk that back a little bit. Maybe we try that out. Yeah. Think about it. We'll ponder that a little bit. I mean, the turtleneck, too. Like, that would get some eyes on you. That would be an aggressive look. Yeah. The turtleneck. You got to have a certain look to pull that off. Maybe it's a confidence issue. Maybe it's a self-image thing. Yeah, you got to just do whatever. You got to go with it. You got to go with it. And you could ease into it.

2:18:32Like, early in the season, a game that you know you're going to win, try something bold out. Because you don't want to lose in a crazy suit. And then just kind of see how it goes. and you find your foot. That's a good point. Game one, I made the entire staff do suits, and they almost rioted. I almost had coach resign. You spring down on them? Yeah. All right, hold on. Let me back up. I got them all custom tailored suits. Nice. Nice. Nice. Yep. And I said, now, because we did this, because a lot of the younger staff members, and Steve did this for us. Steve got it. It's a Greg Popovich thing. You take care of the younger guys.

2:19:08A lot of the younger guys didn't even have dress pants. and I'm like guys all right I'm gonna take care of you um but now you got to wear it and we wore it the first game and my associate head coach guy named Jim Moran and he he was really worried about me coming on because he knows I shoot from the hip and and he's like Luke you got to realize like this is a national audience you can't totally sports podcast yeah number one in the world yeah I think I don't know no that's yeah that's that's a fact that's a fact um but Jim's like Luke I'm I'm going to help you out. I'm a former head coach. I'm older than you.

2:19:39I'm just going to, like, little bro you right now. We're not doing the suits anymore. If you want to do them, you can do them. We're not doing them. I was itching the whole – I couldn't even concentrate on what my offense is doing. And so Jim saved the staff, and I don't think they did suits anymore after that. He kind of like, yeah, we're not doing that. Yeah. The good news is down at FSU, by the time you're in your 70s, you're going to look like you're 30 if it's something in the water. Because, like, Coach Hamilton – He didn't age. He looks like he's younger than all of us. Yeah. He looks like he's in his 30s right now.

2:20:07I've now known Coach Hamilton since I was 15 years old. I think he started recruiting me. So I don't know, 21 years, 22 years. He has not aged. It's incredible. I don't know what kind of lotion that guy uses. It's wild. He gets younger every year. It's incredible. What is your pitch to recruits? Let's just say, for this case, transfer portal. If you're hitting the portal, what's your message for why they should come to FSU? Yeah, so we can do things a little bit differently than most staffs in America. There's probably two other staffs that can do what we can do and preach the message we can preach in terms of you come to Florida State, we are going to train you like a pro.

2:20:48Because that's all we know. Half of our staff came from the NBA. So in terms of your player development, your nutrition, your weight room, all these kids say they want to get to the NBA, but then they train like college kids. Now the great ones will get there either way. It doesn't matter. but for all those guys in the fringes like you're training like a college player and i'll tell them i used to run draft workouts for for multiple organizations the best college players would get an nba workout and have no idea because everything's different spacing is different the cutting is different the ball movement's different the terminology is different we're going to train you like an nba player before you get there so when you get there you don't just get there you can stick and i think that's first and foremost the second thing i'm a big believer um and buying stock low and right now like we haven't been to a tournament in four or five years but you can feel the momentum of like all right we got some good things going you can go to one of these top programs and i'm not going to name them and just be another guy on their list of or you can come to florist state and help us turn this into one of those programs yeah and and to me a lot of kids resonate with that like i can go to florist state and like be one of the guys everyone remembers Or you can go to Big Blue Blood and like, yeah, you're just a list of another hundred guys.

2:22:03No one's going to remember you. Yeah, no, I like that pitch because I do think that you can. And telling someone there's guys wired a certain way where it's like, come be the change, not come be part of what we've been running for 20 years. You know, like we've been doing it. You're just going to become part of the factory line. It's like, no, no, start the factory here. That's right. Yeah. And I do think a lot of, you know, these conversations happen with the kids. Right. uh their parents their au coaches but ultimately the agents have a lot of say yeah and it does help us first of all i know a lot of these guys from the nba and our staff does but second off they see our style of play they see the way we train financially for them it it puts more money in their pocket if they make the nba right long term and so why not place your kids at a place where it gives them a little bit better chance yeah and it's not like we're a scrub program down like still florida state university like this is a this is a big time brand you play in the acc ton of our games are on national tv but your guy is going to have a better shot if he's around nba coaches every day yeah it's just you know it's science yeah no i like it i like i like the pitch um all right so can we talk about the nba finals real quick you have absolutely competing interests you are very close with daren fox and mike brown is one of your mentors uh what are you gonna do Are you texting each different thing?

2:23:29Like, hey, I'm rooting for you, De 'Aaron. And then Mike Brown, you're like, hey, coach, I know you got the team. I love you. Copy and paste. Copy and paste of both of them. Four more. Yeah. Four more. You got it. Not only De 'Aaron Fox, but Harrison Barnes, Jordan McLaughlin with the Spurs. Devin Vassell is a Florida State guy. Yep. And then, you know, obviously Mike Brown. He took a couple of our coaches from Sacramento who I'm very close with. Ricky Foy, an Italian guy. Charles Allen. But then they got a couple guys who I was with with the Phoenix Suns too. Landry Schammett, Mikael Bridges.

2:24:01So like both teams have like – I really don't know who I'm going for. Either way, it's a win for me. Yeah. It's like someone's going to win and I'm going to be all the way on their side. Yep. But I'm just so happy for – especially for Fox, but for Mike Brown. He's one of my closest friends, really my mentor in my career. he's done so much for my career and my personal life um but to to see him at that stage from from where we left together in sacramento and that that final year in sacramento to now where these guys are it like i couldn't be happier and and honestly this is good for the nba yeah the knicks being back in the finals and then you got wimby on the other side probably if not now very soon the best player on earth um going at it on the biggest it's incredible for the nba how how would you attack wemby if you were game planning this yeah there's there's no really good option because he's so long defensively um the best thing you can do against him is get him away from the hoop and so you try to force a switch but spurs do a really good job keeping him in positions where he's close to the hoop and he can rim protect but if you can get him away from the if you can manufacture him getting away from the hoop whoever his matchup is if if he's a threat from three and you get him away the ball moves quick and then you attack the hoop you know theoretically you're gonna get better shots at the rim um and if he helps and over helps then you gotta kick out threes i mean it's an oversimplification for for one way to attack him the other way and okay so he tried to do it you just try to physically maul him and hope that he breaks down the the problem is that that kid is resilient man yeah it is unbelievable the punishment he took in that series and he just kept getting up like no i'm i'm here and we are going to the finals was impressive yeah no it was it was incredible and i that would be the the only i lean nicks to win this series is because you talk about getting wemby away from the hoop it felt like the thunder just weren't able to do it because they were just lacking in shooters at the end.

2:26:11You know what I mean? With some of their injuries, and they were playing guys that couldn't hit open threes, and you could sag off of them. The Knicks, it feels like right now, everyone's making shots, and there's not, I mean, even a guy like Cat, he's one of the best three-point shooters. He is probably the best three-point shooting big man ever. So you get a guy like that, everyone you have to respect from three. Yeah, Cat, OG, all these guys can knock down shots. Josh Hart. Yeah, he's sitting them down. It'll be interesting, too. And you kind of saw it last series with the Knicks. With this long of a break, you might get a little rust in the first couple quarters that they got to shake off.

2:26:49But the way the Knicks have been playing, I mean, very rarely, even going back to really our Golden State teams, do you have a team that dominant offensively but also that dominant defensively? That's what's been so impressive with the Knicks. Everyone talks about the offensive numbers and output and their efficiency. I mean, the margin in the playoffs of their efficiency compared to the next two teams, which are San Antonio and Oklahoma City, is like jarring. It's crazy. It's like a mile of separation. But then to also be the best defense, that's like unheard of. Right. It's unheard of. Usually, if you're that offensive driven, your defense is going to suffer.

2:27:25These guys are doing it all. So you were, I think your job title was defensive coordinator at one point, right? It was. So as a defensive coordinator in the NBA, how much of that is effort? How much is – like you can get most players to be decent at playing defense if they just try. Yeah, it's a little bit of like God-given athletic ability and length. Like you need length to be a good defensive team. A lot of it is like – and you're seeing it again with the Knicks and a little bit with the Spurs. OKC is a perfect example. A lot of it is just like, are you a dog? You call it effort, hustle. Are you a dog or are you not a dog?

2:28:06And I'm not talking like poodles, Australian shepherds. Are you a pit bull that's ready to go to war every possession? Or a fox. Probably not the best example. But that's a huge part of it. I think system and scheme helps. I think length and physicality helps. The best defenses are connected. They communicate at the highest level. and then they just got a bunch of dogs out there that are hunting yeah and that that to me is like this is why this this series is gonna be awesome it's gonna be awesome very exciting and you were in sacramento when they would light the beam yeah games yeah yeah that that was like we we got there and that's what they create it it was pretty cool man yeah i'm not gonna lie i thought it was really cheesy when they pitched it to us i'm like what are we doing what are we doing is this circus no i liked it the city was like insane all into it and the team got behind it it was pretty cool and especially that first year like we were picked last and we finished third in the west that beam was like the city would go nuts it was pretty cool driving home you could like see the beam coming from the state yeah is that something that you've considered bringing to florida state that's maybe a spear maybe a spear maybe a spear lit up yeah that's that's not about it not a bad idea first yeah that's not a bad idea uh i had one last question then we have zach has a question as a Florida boy, but in terms of the NBA finals, because you went through all these runs with Golden State, what is it like in terms of the mentality of a locker room getting to that final?

2:29:34It's a lot of basketball. And is it like, how do guys stay fresh mentally? Or you could just say that the Warriors were so good it didn't fucking matter. Because you guys were that good. It was a little bit of that. My wife brought it up when we were watching Game 7 of this last series. She's like, do you remember going through the playoffs? I don't think we ever had this anxiety. I think we went like 16-1. There was a series in Houston where we were down at their place, and then Steph just went nuclear. And I think they missed like 27 straight threes. Yeah, that was the game seven. Yeah, yeah.

2:30:05That was like the closest. We were like, oh, we might not be able to do this. Most of it was like, yeah, we're going to win the title. Right. But we had so many vets on those teams. Everyone talks about Steph and Clay and Draymond and KD, which obviously you talk about them. But you look at those teams like Zaza Pachulia, David West, Sean Livingston, Andre Wadal. These guys were grownups. They were full-grown men with families. The maturity in that locker room, anytime something would sway left or right, there's like four adults in the room like, no boys, we're bringing this back in. That's why the Spurs are so crazy.

2:30:44They shouldn't be here. I know they have a couple of vets on the Harrison Barnes and Plumlee and Bisback Biambo, but still, all their meaningful minutes are guys that are under 25, and it's like no team should be doing this. Yeah, I mean, it's again like the gift of Wemby. Yeah. He is an alien. Do you guys think – this is a little outside. I'm going to start you with that. Well, I think Wemby's kind of overrated because if you took my athleticism and put it in his body, I'd still be able to dunk. he only needs to jump four inches to dunk i think that is fair but yeah he's the first big guy that you look at and you say yeah if i that's exactly how i would play if i had his size every other big guy i look at i'm like i'd be so much better than you like if i look at george mirison i'm like if i was 7 '7 i'd be 10 times better than this guy i look at wimby i'm like that'd be me yeah like exactly well that that's why he's so unusual is normally you got like manute bowl of George Merritt's on these guys that, you know, they move, but they don't have the skill.

2:31:42He plays like a guard. I know. He's doing step back, dribble step backs. It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense. But to your point on, and Mitch actually touched on in his press conference, like experience is highly valuable. But when you have a group of guys that are that talented and that competitive, that's where Wemby's, like his competitive nature, you can tell on his face. Like he's in tears after the game. Oh, he wanted to rip Chet's heart out. No, he wanted to embarrass him and his family. Like he was going at his throat. I know. That's what makes him special. And really, I don't care how much experience, you can't replicate that.

2:32:21That's why these teams, and even OKC last year did the same thing. Like Shea was unreal. And they were young. Think about that OKC team that won it. They were one of the youngest teams. I think they were the second youngest team to get to the finals, and the Spurs were the youngest. right like since like the 77 blazers i saw i mean if you think about it and we could maybe work on this wimby still might have some eligibility to come to florida play for us yeah what is he 21 22 who's your tallest guy we got it we got a seven footer coming in um baby shack this kid's gonna be oh hell yes seven foot that's a lot seven foot 309 but he's built like a defensive end look him up marcis ponder he was a number four ranked center in the country coming out of high school um no relation to christian ponder no relation to christian ponder okay good yeah okay marcia's ponder baby shack 6 11 328 i love this kid so we just measured him he was seven foot with shoes yeah we play basketball shoes yeah seven foot with shoes um he was 309 we're gonna try to get him about 285 we got to chisel him up a little bit but this kid is an animal i mean the way he works and his competitive nature i think from day one he's gonna be able in with it with a huge impact okay he's from springfield virginia i like that i like he's from miami but went to prep school in springfield okay um guys you gotta fuck we we should do a baby shack our stool sports nil deal with baby shack yeah this could be we got some ideas just come to the office just like dunk on everybody and do the car wash but he's just yeah he broke he broke our hoop on day one that's like literally broke and this is like these are hoops have been in for i walk i walk in i walk into our practice facility the hoops like sideways like what happen like marcia's first workout this is good that's how urban legends get started he wasn't allowed to dunk in practice oh i told him i said we got to teach you how to dunk man you can't be swinging on our hoops oh i'm watching the highlights of him he is swinging on the hoop he's swinging he likes to swing on the hoop so we could do an nil deal with him but the problem is the only thing we can offer him is cheese steaks and you're trying to chisel them up so no we can figure something out okay what if we put a bounty on backboards in games because you don't see guys breaking backboards anymore they don't break they don't break but if you can damage a rim or break a backboard during a game on a dunk i'm willing to put cheesesteak money behind every time yeah we can't do cheesesteaks we're trying to trim down okay but but that that would be a like mark i i told him i he was in my office right before i flew out for this and i told him i was like marcus we got to teach you how to dunk like shaq you know he he would do the swing but those are just the highlights he wasn't doing that every time yeah yeah you knew when shaq was trying to break a backboard.

2:34:55I'm watching the highlight and Marston's trying to break the backboard every time. Every time. I like that. You play Duke, Carolina. You play big time to break the backboard. If you're playing whatever team at home, we need our rims. When you're wearing your weird suit, that's not a backboard game. If I got the plaid on, don't dunk. It's all the synergy. All right. This has been so much fun, Coach. I got one last question for you. It's a rowback question. RHOBACK.com promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, Polos, Hoodies, Joggers, Shorts, Roback.com, promo code TAKE. You have successfully made – I mean, so I'm not going to stop rooting for the Badgers, but if I have a second team, especially if you can beat Duke, it will be Florida State because I hate Duke.

2:35:39Love that. So it will be Florida State this year. But Zach, you got a question for Coach. Two Florida boys chopping it up. They met her a little bit earlier. Coach, I was going to ask about Marcus Ponder just because he does seem post-human. Did you not have a question, Zach? I did have a question. I was going to ask about that because some of those clips are great to see. I have another question for you. Being a Clearwater guy that's nearby the Gulf, you do any fishing growing up or no? A little bit of fishing. A little bit of fishing. Not a ton. That is all sports, football, basketball. Grew up non-sport.

2:36:08I do like to fish. I wish I would have fished more growing up there. You don't really realize how nice Clearwater is until you leave, and then you realize the rest of the world is not an oasis. A couple of fun facts about Clearwater, home of Scientology. Not a lot of people know that. world headquarters um world headquarters original hooters okay for my house no clue water's got some some fun stuff yeah all right so but didn't do a ton of fishing but it was an unbelievable place to grow up um love going back there love recruiting there max what's going on back there zach has another question that he just won't ask what are we doing we're getting there we're talking about like uh listen we're talking about national waters we're going to take it to international waters okay and i was curious uh do you have any highlights from uh maybe a honeymoon circa 2022 in italy i love it i love it so all right i'll try to keep this story short dearon fox um married a girl named resay resay was an unbelievable basketball player mcdonald's all-american played in play play yeah mcdonald's all-american played in college when i was with Golden State at Cal and she's a really good player while she was still playing she interned with Golden State and I was low in the film room so they're like can you just take care of Rese show her what we do teach her how to do film you know rebound for the boys and so Rese was like my intern Rese she thought she wanted to get into coaching Rese very wisely did not get into coaching married Darren Fox so when I went with Mike Brown to Sacramento Rese immediately called me was like come to san diego train with fox you know show them what you were doing in golden state and so immediately that whole summer going into year one in sacramento i was working out de 'arren fox in san diego um they were getting married that summer and so went to the wedding my wife my wife was like very pregnant um like a week before the wedding risset calls me and was like hey we want you to come on the honeymoon and i'm like i'm good yeah i'm good she's like no bring stevie my wife and i'm like stevie's really pregnant and you guys go enjoy your time she's like no this this means so much to fox to try to make the playoffs and try to become an all-star he doesn't want these workouts to stop so we're going we're going to italy they they they we we were in venice they put me on an island like this jw on this island so i was away from them and for two hours a day every morning we would boat to the same gym i'd work him out for two hours and then we would leave that's amazing and it was it was actually incredible because it like it sounds terrible like i went on their honeymoon yeah you went on df fox's honeymoon but it showed how dedicated he was to like no we're doing this right i'm not taking two weeks off to go to italy so me and the strength coach went and we like bro'd out for 12 hours a day and you know drank aperol spritz and beers in italy and then for two hours a day we just go put fox to the most intense workouts he could and then we'd go our separate ways okay so that so good question zach uh that was a good poll yeah good you clear it up because you you when you say you went on his uh honeymoon you really just went out and helped him work out yeah but now i have a follow-up how pregnant was your wife she's about seven and a half months and she was cool with this yeah well she wanted to come and we actually did a trip the next year okay um an anniversary trip okay to spain and she came and that was pretty cool that's the part that's probably when you're like yeah i was broing out like hanging out not i did italy and then you're facetiming your very pregnant wife being like what where were you guys living yeah we were well she was still moving from scottsdale we were the phoenix sun she was in scottsdale in july yeah pregnant yeah holy very pregnant her and my her and my mom were like packing up the house she's like eight months pregnant but now now you got it you got to be a i would always facetime or like in the gym yeah the work yeah yeah i'm out you're grinding yeah yeah yeah so break it's scotts down which one is not ideal 109 degrees yeah yeah every time right here in italy yeah when you when you break it down with the details it wasn't great well i'm just thinking because of my all three of my kids were born in like the uh late spring early summer and like i remember at the end my wife just like it'd be like you know 90 degrees in Brooklyn and she'd be walking on the street and I'd be like this is not good we need a baby to come out like this is not fun yeah so and then through that like to move she actually had um my son the first day of training camp with the Sacramento Kings so we're in a two a day she goes to the hospital we finished practice one and that's a tough conversation now Mike was awesome he's like a family guy yeah but I'm like Mike I like my wife's about to give birth and so i i drive the hospital missed the night practice um it's like 6 a.m and i'm like trying to break down film from practice she had just given birth and she's like luke what are you doing and and i'm like we're in the middle of training camp like i can't shut it off and her mom was there she's like you know what just go just go to practice come check in on me and so we literally i was there for like 12 hours birth back to practice yeah yeah that's kind of like me except the difference is i while my wife was giving birth i was just losing wmba overs that i was betting in the hospital so we but you know we both got to work similar yeah grind don't stop um all right well coach thank you so much for for coming here uh we're gonna be massive fans you and and the fact that you're friends with brooks our good friend and kyle long yeah uh so a lot of connections but we really appreciate it and it was uh awesome having you on thanks for having me Coach Lauk is brought to you by Chevy.

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2:42:26Check out the current offers. Build your own Silverado at Chevy.com. That's Chevy.com. Coach Laux is also brought to you by Twisted Tea. Summer's right around the corner. Twisted Tea is coming in clutch to turn our day drinking up a notch. Their new summer party pack has a brand new Twisted Lemonade. It's made with real lemons and 5 % alcohol. It's got that refreshing taste with a little kick, no carbonation, and goes down smooth. The no carbonation is a game changer. If you're drinking it outside, if you're up to outdoor activities, you want that no carbs. It's not going to, no carbonation. It's not going to fill you up.

2:43:00It's going to go down smooth, and it's going to turn your day drinking to a next level day party. Whether it's hitting the course for a round, if you're pre-gaming a ball game, or inviting the guys over for some grilling, the new Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack is perfect to keep the good times rolling. Grab a refreshing twisted tea today. All right, let's finish up the show. We got guys on chicks. Hank. Yeah. Hit us. What's up, shitheads? Whoa. What's up? Sounds like a lady. Yep. My boyfriend grunts every time he sits down or stands up, but he's 28 and works for a desk job. Is this a medical condition or just him mentally preparing for the NFL season?

2:43:37It's just a guy. Like, you have to. That's an athlete. Yeah. If you make a noise when you do something, then it counts as a workout. If I stand up and I go, that means I just, that was a burn. Yeah. It's gains. Yeah, I mean, I definitely make noises when I'm walking. Memes just said he put this in because I would just make all the noises. Oh. Question from Memes. Did you write this, Memes? No, I was just like, I know a guy who does this, so this sounds real. What are the noises that Max makes? He's like a bit. Okay, is that a standing up noise? No, he did it before he turned on the mic to talk to you guys.

2:44:14Oh, yeah. I know. Listen, that is definitely under the category of Italian. I also make noise when I eat. Well, yeah. All of us do. I've got those glasses that record from your point of view, and the bad part about that is you can just hear all the noises that you make, just like walking. You hear your nose whistling. If you breathe hard, if you take a few steps too quick, it's a shocking revelation. there's nothing worse than catching a good nose whistle for a little bit and you're just like what the fuck man get this out of here a nose whistle and an eye twitch those are two things that are really nothing in the grand scheme of things but can really fuck up your day what meme just keeps laughing about the ice cream thing that hanks what did hanks say he was eating ice cream on Sunday and I was right behind him I thought it was like scary It was good.

2:45:11And it was also, it was a disaster. The cone broke halfway through, so I had to eat it quickly because it was going to fall through. It was also his last day before the diet. Yeah. Fact, although. He's in this final stretch. You had pizza? Dude, it was June 1st. I know, but we had family visiting and they wanted to go. We went to this pizza patio spot. I'm not just going to go to the patio and not eat pizza. Yeah, no, that's a fact. That's a fact. The place was really good. And you want to know the pizza that I got? What? The name of the pie that I got? You're literally not going to believe it.

2:45:50Fat Italian. Basically. Spicy Meatball. Oh, okay. That was the name of the pie. That's you. Yeah. Pretty normal. Yeah, that's a pretty normal name. That's unreal. Whoa. Are you kidding me? Get the handle. Wow. Yeah. Wow. No, that's fair. Wait, this Italian pizza place had a... You'll never guess. Pepperoni. Had... No, hot pepperoni. Had a... I mean, it was literally called... Spicy Meatball has just been a bit on this show. Right, but that's like a normal thing for pizza. That's like saying Mount Rushmore is a... Spicy Meatball was never listed. Actually, Meatball probably was. You'll never know what this pizza says.

2:46:28It said Hawaiian. What? That is not true. You guys are crazy. Spicy Meatball. I was like, that's me. I gotta get that. We all thought you were going to say something that was super like the spicy maxi or something like that. That's basically the same thing. No. I got a sub today. You'll never guess what it was. Chicken cutlet? Italian. Oh. Classic bit. Classic. It's one of our bits. I'm not going to get mad today. All right. All right. Noted. Great. Good guy. Challenge accepted. Great. No. We haven't even done the AJ Brown stuff. It was time travel Yeah My male co-worker got married recently And I always found him somewhat attractive But now that he's got a ring on it I find him even more attractive Memes is setting up back so bad Why is that the case?

2:47:19Does it make me a bad person that I feel this way? Max does look hotter with a ring Yeah I'll give you that Wait this question was from memes This question is a home record Memes wants to fuck me Memes wants to fuck me my male co-worker got married i don't know i don't really know no that's pretty good yeah i mean this is a homewrecker you gotta you're bad news lady yeah just finger yourself is that what girls say i think you just gotta you gotta recalibrate right now the guys that you're attracted to not healthy if you're on a bachelorette party with all the girls is it acceptable to have a one-night stand with someone parentheses obviously not the bride or is that rude and you should just enjoy the weekend with the girls same question for a bachelor weekend and guys wait wait go back huh one night stand with one of the fellas i think you want you want the friends to get at least for a bachelor party you want your boys to get fucked on the bachelor party that means you're having a you're you're hosting a good bachelor party no she's saying she's fucking another one of the friends on the trip that's what i heard it's written that way but I don't think that's what she's saying.

2:48:27Is this a lesbian situation? It's a one-night stand. With someone obviously not the bride, but it sounds like maybe you want to. It's like the doctor was the mother, the woman was a lesbian? I think it's written in a way that makes it sound like she's talking about one of the other bridesmaids, but she's not. I know, actually, a bachelorette party where that actually happened. Bachelorette parties, I feel like they get really upset. Bachelor parties. If what? A girl goes off separately. Oh, yeah. If you go off separate, yeah, Yeah, then that can get weird. And it's like, we were all worried about you.

2:48:57But I know a party where it was like one person from the party ended up sleeping with a straight person from the party. Became a whole thing. That's hot. Yeah. Very. Bachelor party, I don't know where the fuck. Guys all separate and everything just goes haywire. There's no way you can all stay together. You want chaos. Yeah. You want a guy to get lost at the strip club. You want a guy to lose his glasses at the strip club. You want a guy to just never come home from the strip club. All that stuff, hypothetically. It's a bash party. It's a bash party. Just having fun with the boys. Or not with the boys.

2:49:36By yourself. And a stripper. All right. Last one. I've been living with my boyfriend for over a year now, and he's great. Skip the sappy stuff. But he has this weird thing about him that I just can't get over. He loves to pick things up with his feet. I can't understand why he does it. And to be fair, he doesn't have the best back, so he says that it's to avoid aggravating it. If he's doing laundry, folding clothes on the bed, and something falls on the floor, he'll just pick it up with his toes. He'll pick up the fire stick with his toes. I've even caught him picking up silverware between his toes one time after he dropped a fork.

2:50:08Luckily, he knows better than to just act like nothing happened, and he'll put it right in the dishwasher. I'm not grossed out by feet in general, but something just rubs me the wrong way, knowing that he picks things up off the floor with his feet, but he won't stop. am I going to just have to live with us forever if we get married? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like your boyfriend's an athlete. Or an orangutan. Yeah, a gorilla. It could be a primate. Does he have a tail? Are you dating? Wait. Are you dating Stiddy? Could be dating Stiddy, although he's married. Yeah, that's kind of a weird thing, but it also makes me think maybe I'm just not living my life as efficiently as possible.

2:50:44Yeah, I was just saying, I got to try this. I didn't know you could do this, but I'm fairly confident at least a fork I could pick up. But also silverware is gross. Everything else is fine. The silverware is gross. Fire stick is kind of strange too. No, fire stick's fine. Silverware gross. The weird part about this is more that he's just barefoot all the time. Yeah, that's... Being barefoot all the time. I could do this, but I'm not really barefoot. Right. There's actually... There's one item that I've used my feet to pick up probably more than... Maybe the only item I've ever used my feet to pick up.

2:51:12And it's just like the mindset guys get into sometimes when we watch TV. i've tossed a remote to myself using my feet from the ground but that's just because like i've usually got a nice ass groove going in the couch i've got like my setup going so i don't want to move then i'll use my feet to like try to kick it up to myself usually won't succeed at it but yeah it sounds like this guy is just i think he might be more efficient at just like his different appendages i've been we've been playing with our hands tied behind our back all these years if we haven't tried using our feet i lost i lost the living room remote for six days it was a nightmare that's brutal nightmare where was it i don't even know it just showed back up but it just it was just back i i'm assuming one of my kids just took it i put the remote in the have you ever put the remote in the fridge all the time yeah good that's half the time i put my phone in the fridge one time yeah that's tough remote in the fridge is that's just that's just putting your that's when you're just on autopilot yeah you're just you're just cruising along in life.

2:52:11You're in the zone. And you're just like, oh, shit. Where'd the remote go? Yeah. Okay. We've never done this before where we did the numbers. We played it at the beginning of the show, and then we're going to do new numbers. Does anyone want to guess first? Mimi's going to fix the camera first before. Does anyone want to guess first?

2:52:34Numbers. Does anyone want to guess first? I'll do eight. Anyone want to guess?

2:52:42I'll do 44. Anyone in the booth want to guess? I'll do 8. Oh, memes. Memes. Memes. Memes. I just said 8. PFTG. He just said 8. Oh, that's a good one. Oh, Danobi. Yeah. Oh, that's weird. I'll do 32. I'll do 3. Do I 67? I guess. I mean, I'll do 11. Should I do 11? You sure? Yeah. Do I have your permission? The damage is done. I don't think it is. I don't think the damage is done. You just shouldn't. This is a bad idea. I want to say for the record, this is a bad idea. I'm going for Josh Hark. Let's go two for him. Who'd you say memes? Three, Josh Hark. Three. Okay. Okay.

2:53:2868. 21. 69. Okay. 44. I'm going 11 for Carter Bryant.

2:53:5463 63 Anyone? No one Alright one more Oh boy Memes thought that Colton got it What did Colton guess? 69 Okay And Jacob did 68 Yeah It's fine I don't know what you guys are freaking out about Well, we're freaking out because last time we did lottery balls, it almost broke up the whole podcast. When somebody took the number that you wanted. Well, no. He wants three. Why they took the number? He wants three. 44. Actually, no, it's not. Yeah. Max! Max! Wow. All right, Max. What a day for the Booth Boys. That's awesome. Holy shit. Two-thirds of you guys. Good job, Max. There's six of us in here. Well, I'm saying like the regular Booth Boys during the show.

2:54:42That's incredible, Max. Another ring for Max. Shout out Christopher Sanchez. Four days in a row for Max. Anyone else want to congratulate Max? Oh, congrats, Max. Yeah. Zach? Good pull. Max, how are you feeling? I think I'm good. I think this is a clean, fair win for me. No, that's your favorite player right now, right? Christopher Sanchez? Yeah. That makes sense. not your emails yeah christopher sanchez 44 scoreless i think he does he might pitch tonight wow what a pull max congrats max way to go shit i mean walls are closing in around me and hank yeah so right now it's jacob zach me max wow i've gotten it oh boy okay um are we doing birthdays Did we already run that or are we piping in the old birthdays?

2:55:36Piping the old birthdays. Piping the old birthdays. Love you guys. Happy birthday to Kate. Oh, okay. Still Kate. Happy birthday to Roma Dunze. Happy birthday to Aaron Nola, Max. Happy birthday to Al Horford, Hank. Also, 10-day birthday countdown starts today until Hank's birthday. 10 days. We got 10 days to get ready for Hank's birthday. It's a can't miss Hank's birthday. 10 days. I'm saying it out loud to myself. Also, big, huge happy birthday today. Probably should have let off with this. Or should I say, Id Milad Saeed Ogbal Mitzana to the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, my home dog.

2:56:15Appreciate everything you do. Glorious, wise, gracious, across the board. Keep knocking out of the park, king. Or Amir, should I say. Love you guys.

2:56:35Thank you.

2:57:03Thank you.

2:57:32Thank you.

2:58:04Thank you.