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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Dotcom as well as the Ringer podcast network. Our to see to see this about Iran Ryuko. They have global Torez on the podcast. That must mean it's baseball season when when Yankees start popping up on our talk to because it looks like they had Brett Gardiner's well this week they have to stop. Enough with the Yankees. I don't know what we're doing. Maybe working a Boston player like, I don't know, for every three Yankees.

I have to talk to you about that. But check out to see two. See about that. And Ryan Ryuko. Coming up, we'll talk to Joe House about the NBA MVP odds and the favorite Joel Embiid at the halfway point. As well as what's happening with Tiger Woods we're bringing in his fairway wrong host co-host Nathan Hubbard to talk about that. The Nathan's going to tell us about his new podcast about Taylor Swift on the Or Dish podcast network that this Sunday night and then Eddie Wong has a movie coming out, Boogie Sports Movie, and he has it been on and I think like two years.

So had him on as well. This is an action packed two hours. A lot going on. What do I have for you? Basketball. I've got a music and I have movies and some food. And then Eddie talks about the Knicks at the end. I can't do better in this first project.

All right, taping this little after four o'clock on Thursday, Joe House is here. There is some NBA games tonight and then we head into a quick All-Star break. And it seemed like a nice time to look at the MVP race as we hit the halfway point. The reason has decided that we haven't seen them in a while. We love talking basketball with them. Has this somehow managed to bet on every single MVP candidate? I don't know how you did how.

I think you lose money no matter who wins, but you could say you had the winner. Congratulations. That's not true. I have a question for you before we get going. Yeah. What do you think the overunder on Bertka sort of lemonade's that I had this afternoon was wait a second, this is drunk house cassus here. I'm not it's bughouse. Mostly because I had to drive myself home. But it is getting warm here out on the East Coast.

Yeah. And, you know, golf season, you can officially start entering scores on March the 15th.

So I'm wrapping up and I was out on the golf course. If you know, from out with a couple of buddies, got to have a drink. I look how you told me you had to start late because you had some work stuff and you did have some work stuff. It was just on the golf course was a vodka tonics. It really was work. I hosted some lawyer guys that I need some business out of. I mean. Yeah, that I think we do the business, brother.

All right. So let's let's go backwards. Who don't you have for MVP? All right, let's just go through it. You have Embiid I have Embiid you have LeBron. I have LeBron. Do you have Luca. I do not have Luca. Luca. I was I didn't like the price at the beginning of the season. I don't like the price now I you know maybe at the twist my arm if they reel off you know if they go eighteen of over the next twenty games they go on a crazy winning streak, maybe I'll countenance it but I'm not on Luca right now.

Yokich. Yes. You have some Yokich right.

I have a I don't think I don't think I have any Yokich honestly. I don't think you have Damer. Damer Curry. No, neither one of those. You do have Durant who is out of the ring. I bet. Durant twice, once before the season started and then once in the first two weeks of the season, just because the price was great before the season started. And then he came out and started playing great and I felt like, oh, I should just go ahead and and that neither one of those bets were big bets.

It was just the odds were in the 12 to 14 to one range. So go and grab him. And you have LeBron, who he mentioned here. The odds right now I have Anthony Davis. That's the other one that I forgot. We had to go into the Davis case now for the season. That was like LeBron. Hej. Just to put that in place because one of those two guys is in the going to be in the conversation we talk this through before the season started.

I regret doing a little Anthony Davis. Here's where we stand now. Odd's courtesy of Fandor. Joel Embiid is our favorite at plus two ten LeBron trails him at plus to sixty Yokich plus for twenty curry twelve to one Janek's eighteen one James Harden Mm eighteen to one Look at dontcha 18 to one dame and Choire both twenty one to one and the only other mildly interesting one is Donovan Mitchell at sixty five to one. But the jazz went a little tailspin the last week.

All right house. Here we go.

I have a question for you before you get started though. Yeah. I want to know, is there any Phoenix player on that list I'm interested in? I want one Phoenix player, Devin Booker. Eighty five to one. OK, so that's worth fifty dollars. No, it's really not. Please don't do that. Just set the fifty dollars on fire because now you didn't make the All-Star team. What if Phoenix ends up with the best record in the West?

Now you want to either stop. All right. Why is that happening? It's not that they're not a fenigstein, is that winning the MVP Booker would have scored thirty five again in the second half there. Here's who's going to win the MVP if he stays healthy. Joel Embiid OK he once again on a huge stage a really fun league pass bad on Wednesday night Utah and Philly he hit a game tying three that was a high degree of difficulty game tying three.

He was awesome. What did he end up with like forty plus points 940 the nineteen forty eighteen. So for this season he's thirty twelve three, six thirty and twelve basically fifty to forty to eighty six. Shooting splits like kind of closer to the fifty, forty ninety club than I was prepared for eleven point six free throw attempts to game. He's is averaging only three three three point field goals, which I know that was an issue for you. So he's kept that down and he takes three a game, thirty one point to play.

I will tell you this house.

Here's the complete list of senators. NBA history, who have gone for twenty nine and 12 and shot 10 plus free throw attempts in a game Wilt Chamberlain seven times, Shaq twice, Moses Malone once. That's our entire list of senators who have done this. Which leads me to my big point. This is like a vintage shack season now for Embiid statistically impact wise, he's having these overpowering nights like that night in Chicago where he just completely destroyed them. The difference between him and Shaq is that you can actually go to him in the last two minutes of a game.

He can actually create a shot, get to the free throw line. He's a good free for free throw shooter or in the case with Utah last night, they're down three. With ten seconds, Sipi dribbles out the three point line double pumps and makes it three with a hand in his face. Which raises the point who's a better person to shoot in? Ended the game down three three than Embiid for three You can't block it you might him. I've seen everything I needed to see so far from him.

The only thing would be the games. He's played 30 out of thirty six but other than that to me he is hands down the MVP. It's not an argument. So you and I are in violent agreement. But I want to have one quick quibble, one quick, quick point of disagreements, which is let's not use Joel Embiid name in the same breath as Shaq. Let's not do that yet. Yet I'm saying yet. OK, ok so.

So here's the case. Why we can't do that. Because Shaq for three straight playoffs annihilated everybody won three straight finals MVP and when the real money was on the line took it to another level and became like a thirty five and 15 type guy. We have no idea if Embiid can do that yet. I'm saying regular season Embiid has reached regular season Shaq potential. We have thirty games finally thirty games of of of the potential of Joel Embiid like a really great run.

We finally scratched the surface of what this dude can be about. We've been begging for it. You may rosillo everybody across the whole ringer board. Every Philly fan, every Philly fan. We've been begging for it for Christ's sakes get this guy the ball in places where he can do some work. Don't let him settle for the easy, lazy shot. Let's get to the free throw line. And by God, that's the thing. That's the stat to me that is the most compelling, the real thing that distinguishes him, the real thing that puts him in position as the front runner of the MVP.

It's getting to the free throw line the way a guy with his tools and his advantages should. It's what we've been begging for and he's doing it. And it's great to see and and I love it. He's played thirty games. He's been in the free throw line three hundred and forty eight times. And Shaq has some. Shaq was like ten around ten in a free throw attempts every year. And then he spiked because Hackish started and he was in the thirteen fourteen range.

The difference in him and Shaq is he's a much better free throw shooter. Good time. He's in the mid 80s, Shaq was in the mid 50s. So when you foul him, especially at the end of games and it's a little like Zion's not as good of a free throw shooter, but same thing Kazai on at the end of these games is figuring out just throw my body, be athletic, throw my body into people, I'll get a call.

And Bede's getting these calls. He's actually getting superstar respect. It feels like in Utah, I had a little hissy fit on Wednesday night about it and it happened against the Celtics earlier in the year to where he's getting like touch foul calls and he seven for three. And it's a great if you can call him that way. Let's just hang on the title.

They're not going be able to guard him, but I don't really have any argument with that. I mean, that is the the big guy prerogative. This is like, you know, he has a skill set that distinguishes him from everybody else. When he asserts his will, when he's down in that low post, he's getting hit. There's no question that he's getting hit. Shaq had this prerogative, Shaq. They could have called, you know, another twenty five percent of the times that Shaq was in the low post, he definitely got fouled and they didn't call it.

So. Yeah, you know, this is and in the era that we are in where, you know, it's spread five and motion kind of offense, seeing a giant guy with the ball in the low post or near the basket, it sets it up, is an easy call for the refs. And this you know, there's been a lot of complaining about the refs through this first portion of the season. Oh, yeah, sure. But like Embiid makes it easy He gets the ball and he gets hit and he's down low.

That's not a hard foul call to make. The refs don't have a hard decision there. It's not a giant judgment call and the Sixers do outpace their opponents night in and night out and get to the free throw line. That's a good strategy. Doc is a good coach. Darryl Moore is a good GM. They're smart and he's doing the right thing. Well, he has more spacing, too. I really like that. Crunch time. Five and some.

Times will change sometimes lightbulb in there, but when it's it's Curry and Simmons and Embiid and Tobias Harris, who's been really terrific this year, and then they put a shooter in the fifth spot, or they'll play theorbo if they really need offense. But just having curry out there sometimes shake Milton Taylor if he's feeling it or whatever, but it just seems like a beat as more space. And look, we don't have to pile on Brett Brown for seven hours, but the reality is Embiid last year.

Yeah. In that in the bubble in that Celtics playoff series for the amount of talent he has, it was an embarrassment and he was in for what his talent was. It it was a bummer that it felt like we left last season going he might not get there, he has the talent, but he can't seem to figure out get in shape. Get to the free throw line, stop dallying twenty five feet to the basket, overpower people, I feel like he's overpowering people and comparing him at least to regular season.

Shaq Look, they had to literally change rules for Shaq. I don't think Embiid is at that point. They they change basketball rules to try to make it easier for teams to defend Shaq. We're not at that point yet, right. No.

And we got thirty games out of Embiid but. But, but then there's the overpowering piece. Yes. Reminds me of Shaq and to be honest I wasn't sure I was going to see it again with the center in our lifetime. It felt like Shacochis. It felt like Shaq took the center position with them when he kind of faded into whatever he became in Phoenix and Cleveland and that was just never going to be that position again. This is what's going to be fascinating about the career trajectory of Giannis of the Free.

What if the freak decides that the most efficient way for him to be an incredible basketball player? He's already incredible. But what if he wants to get to the free throw line fourteen or fifteen times a game and be around the basket. Yes, exactly right. That's a fascinating thing for us to keep an eye on as his career develops. I do have a quick question for you. Do you have any appetite for some Utah slander tonight? You have any any any interest or desire and in Utah slander?

No, I think they are what they are. I think every year there's a rabid team and we get excited about them. But you saw it in that Phil, Utah game. There's a lot of times in these last three, four minutes where they're just not going to have the best player in the court. And, you know, there's ten teams that they could play where they're just not going to have the best guy in the game. So that's a hard one to overcome.

I don't want to make jazz fans mad at me, but don't please don't.

They're vicious. I like those little dogs that just like, no, no, don't pet the dog. Don't pet the dog. He's really friendly, but just don't pet them. I mean, the go bird defensive player, the thing like everybody in social media amongst our friend crew, everybody in the sporting public is like, look what Embiid just did the defensive player of the year. Yeah I'm just over it like can we, can we just stop with Go Bears the defensive player of the year.

Like for me it's Ben Simmons. I think he's done the most interesting stuff tonight. Tonight on the defense. I understand the analytics and the support for Gabeira year over year, the impact that he has in the regular season. I just can't get my mind around the idea of a guy who gets a league award, defensive player, the best defensive player in the entire league, and he can't play against certain teams. He flat out can't play against the Houston Rockets in the previous iterations.

Yeah, and Utah has Phoenix has made Phoenix. The Clippers did that. Yeah. They made it to play. That can round twice in the last handful of years. Like, I just it's just a tough one. I'll leave it at that. Simmons is my defensive player of the year so far. What did you see what he did against Mitchell last night? I mean, I was very aware of it. You mean when Donovan Mitchell went twelve for thirty four, I took horrible shots down the stretch because he had a six foot ten maniac guarding him.

Right. So the Embiid thing. I think it's such a thrilling development and you know it's been this weird season, all these covid things. We had two huge trades. There's been a lot to keep track of. But Embiid blasting into this dude when you know, we sit on these podcasts or in the studio shows and we talk about this guy only did this and Skyland did that. This is the guy I remember going to that work out in L.A. in 2014 for the draft and coming out of a guy and this guy has to be the first pick for I can't believe what I just saw.

This guy's an incredible athlete. He could shoot threes. His footwork was amazing. He had awesome hands, like, how is this guy not the number one pick? And then he got hurt. And then it seemed like the rub with him was always going to be can't stay on the court or if he does stay on the court, doesn't seem to get the whole concept of I need to be able to play all four quarters. I just feel like he gets it.

And then there's this wow factor with him. In some of these games where you're just like, wow. That three he hit last night.

Yeah, that was like, wow, I can't believe a single senator in the history of the league who hits that shot on the history of the league.

I mean, come on. But who well, what do the team what do we call it? Dirk Nowitzki was never a center. He was a power forward is a powerful I'm seeing a guy, a seven foot three guy dribbling backwards. Now he needs to get off a three. Two guys draped all over him, and it was fucking money. It was awesome. It was awesome. That's it. That's what you want in you're on. Your MBP resumé is a wow moment, a wow shot.

He gave it to us right at the midpoint of the season. Set us up perfectly for this conversation. Well, he's done it a few times because there was a Boston game. He ripped them apart. The Bulls game on a Friday night on ESPN. He's had a couple like big spotlit games. Yes. Well, I just you know, it's exactly what we want. And, you know, I'm knocking on wood loudly. Stay healthy. Get if he gets to what's what's the minimum number of games that we feel comfortable with him getting to to give him the MVP.

Great question. Seventy two game season might be seventy one in a couple of cases. Who knows. And so this is the heart question, right. Harden's only played twenty three games. His stats are great. He switched teams, he's played twenty three and thirty seven games. I think you have to be in the high 50s to realistically be considered. That's, that's, that's pretty generous. Harden can't win it because you can't do what he did to Houston and when the MVP but well he it's all fine.

He came back yesterday, waived that.

Everybody said I was given great. Great. Look at his his is his jersey in the rafters. Should have a knife in the back. Shaq's best season where Shaq's MVP season twice and he was thirty and fourteen fifty seven percent field goal. Fifty four percent free throw. Three point of blocks, a game we didn't even mention in defense, I mean, he's one of the four or five most important defenses we have to find out. We talked about 15 minutes that you mentioned that Shaq got to the line ten point for a free throw, attempts to gain that year, thirty point six and beats thirty one point two.

My point is, look, there are different players and they're playing in different areas. But the stats are similar and the impact feels similar. And I'm really psyched. I'm psyched for the Philly fans. I have a lot of Philly fans in my life that I have a love hate relationship. But this was this frustrating guy that you felt like he had been handed the keys to the kingdom and he didn't totally take care of it. And he had some bad luck, too.

That seems like he's taking care of it. So we'll see where it goes. I have a question for you. What can you wait till we're going to take a break and then ask me the question?

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All right, we're back with your question. Are you one hundred percent comfortable at this stage halfway through the season with basically dismissing Giannis We don't tiger dames I had the freak I want to get to that right now. I think there's three and a half other people who can win the MVP. OK. One is Yokich. Twenty seven, 11 and nine. He's a borderline I mean, fuck, 57 percent shooting. Forty two percent, four three, eighty nine percent free throw.

He's a borderline fifty forty nine year guy.

So he's basically Dirk Larry level. How many games can Denver win? How many games is Denver have to win to take him seriously. That's something giving me trouble. Denver's a seven seed, they're twenty and fifteen and we may I forgot to mention earlier with Embiid He's there the one seed in the east He's there twenty four and twelve. He's the biggest reason why and that's why he's the MVP candidate. No brainer Denver. The thing with Yokich it's not going to happen.

If they're not one of the top four seeds, it's conceivable they could be. But he's, he's got a thirty two point one player and again flood flood metric. I still like it.

And when you look at the league leaders of all time in PR, it's all the best players in the history of basketball. So to be over thirty one. On top of the other stuff, he's almost averaging a triple double and he's been betrayed by his team, they have no bench. They lost Grant Beasley from last year's group. They traded Beasley before the bubble, but two guys that could come in and, you know, off the bench and do some stuff, their bench feels really weak.

The Porter thing seems to go up and down. Murray, I know he's had, you know, a couple issues. And look, it's a weird season. They played right up until the bitter end of the bubble last year. All the sudden, they're playing again. But Murray has been disappointing for where we thought he was going to be. And it does feel like Yokich, it's kind of carrying them to a 20 and 15.

Yeah, they're there right now on pace in a normal 82 game season for around forty seven wins. Forty. She's not caught. That's not doing that. I mean, the only guy in recent memory that did that was Russell Westbrook. Forty six wins for Oklahoma City in the year that the darkest moment in the recent MVP history. You know how I feel about it. So then Yoni's who everyone is, decided we can't vote for him. He can't win three in a row.

We're just thankful that happened. He's still averaging twenty nine and 12 with six assists. Shoot fifty six percent. He's getting the free throw line ten point four times, twenty nine point one PR. And his team right now is the three seed. They're twenty one and fourteen. He's heated up the last two weeks and there's a world in which he just gets hot for three weeks. All of a sudden they're a one seed and we're like, wait a second, what are we going to do here?

Well, in their last 17 games, he's over thirty one points. He's twelve and a half rebounds. He's over six assists. He's almost one and a half steals and he's almost two blocks. That's fucking insane. That was our MVP, MVP numbers. And he did, you know, basically drag Milwaukee up to the top to the three seed because they were they were, you know, the the the holiday injury really messed with them. They were not another five and five over the last ten games.

But but they need him to be superhuman, to drag them up into that top tier where they honestly belong. I mean, they still differential wise, they're the top team in the east at six plus six point four.

Well, they're averaging one nineteen a game, the highest scoring team in the league. He's eight again. He's eighteen to one to win the MVP. And I think he's either I might have to throw something at that. Well, he's either second or third right now and we're going to get another LeBron medium I to win because I'm just saying if we're just looking at this objectively, when you throw in his defense, everything he does, he is the second best player in the league right now.

I agree with you. And I have Yokich third and then LeBron fourth and the irony with the LeBron season. He's twenty six, eight, eight, which is right around where he is statistically with the Advanced Metrics stuff, it's kind of his weakest advanced metric season that he's had really since his rookie year is only twenty four point four. But just in general, like shoot fifty one percent. Thirty six percent from three six to nine percent free throw, not getting the line even six times a game.

He's taken almost seven threes. That's the case for him is the durability he's played thirty six to thirty seven, they finally arrested him the other day and you know, he could. Reclaim at least the number two spot in a week, if he had three straight good games. My question is why, why? Why he all he cares about his titles. He's got to get to the Jordan six. Why would he care about these last thirty six games?

Well, he, he, he cares.

But I mean, I care enough to make like a real MVP run and to actually put the work in to try to win the MVP. Isn't the answer to that question the body of evidence of the previous thirty five games. Why is he playing all those minutes in the first half of this stupid season? He he just played in the finals to the only obvious answer to me, and I don't know if it's obvious, but is he has designs on this MVP award like it doesn't otherwise make sense for him to put on this additional mileage.

We've been talking forever. And God, this is the thing that makes him so gosh darn incredible is that durability, the endurance his he's able to bring. He's just I mean, so it would be in a season where there are a lot of different candidates if the Lakers ascend to the top of the west, which they could easily and they could and Davis comes back, then it's like, you know, it's a split vote kind of situation and you give it to the OG because the OG averaged thirty five or thirty six minutes across sixty five of the seventy two games or whatever it is.

And you know, the Lakers have the best record in the in the NBA or close to it. And you just say all hail the king. That's the argument. Right. Well the issue for him is. It's not a split vote season, it's ended has taken control. So for the path for him to win, the MVP is Embiid. Does it ends up playing? Fifty five is 72 games, they just doesn't have enough games. The Lakers do better.

Second half LeBron stays healthy. LeBron plays 70 of seventy two games right now the league leaders and minutes Randle at thirteen sixteen Yokich twelve fifty six VanVleet twelve forty nine And LeBron is fourth at twelve forty five. I think that's insane. I don't know what they're doing but I think, I think he really wanted to win the MVP, which is why he was doing this.

But at some point the ring has to matter more than him playing all these minutes. I really should have played twenty five minutes.

I don't disagree with you, but what if he can do both? He keeps on keeping on. The thing that has hurt is Davis went out and they went on into a mini tailspin and they don't they didn't look good in those games. I mean, I watch the entirety of that Wizards Lakers game where the Wizards beat the Lakers in overtime. And I'm sorry, it was reminiscent of the Lakers of like eighteen to twenty four months ago where they don't have any offensive firepower.

They just can't score unless he goes out and creates it. That was lackluster. It's tough, I mean, daviss, I know the seventh best player in the league, the best player in the league, so. Yeah, but I mean, we're going to give the MVP to a guy who can't afford four in a row or whatever it was.

We're not. The best thing he has going for him is the LeBron media mafia will come out probably with about 15, 16 games left and there will be a whole campaign about he's the best player every year. He deserves this. We've got to make up for past sins we're selling. I broke this down. There are no Parsons. The only one you can really know, the only one you can really complain about is the 2011 one, his first year in Miami that he might have that one might have gotten.

That might have been a robbery. It was ten years ago. None of the other ones were robberies. And the way Embiid is playing he's going to win And honestly Giannis is having a better season on LeBron. We may not want to admit that we may not want to like it but it's a fact. I'm sorry, it doesn't mean he's a better basketball player. It means he's having a slightly better regular season than LeBron James's period. Different things we're talking about tiredly, some cases to make.

So that's your those are your four. It's Embiid and then it's a Yokich Younis LeBron kind of lurking underneath. But what's interesting is the ads do not reflect that and Bede's plus to 10. LeBron is plus to 60 because they're already factoring in the Mafia. Nikola Jokic plus for twenty and then Giannis is eighteen one in the honest thing that honestly those odds are ridiculous They should be lower. Yeah so then we go to the next group. I think the sleeper would be Luka, who's averaging twenty nine, eight, nine.

He's got his threes up to thirty six percent, that team starting to win and he just every year coming out of the All-Star break, somebody averages like thirty five like last year. Bradley Beal, your guy. Yeah, somebody all of a sudden puts up thirty five point three points a game and just goes nuts. I would say he's the most logical candidate to do that. So let's mark him down. Kawhi at having a really good Kawhi season twenty seven, six and five, honestly, his stats really aren't any different than the Brod's and he's a better defensive player.

But just if the Clippers if there's a path for them right now there are four seed, but there are only two games out of the two spot. But I just want to mention him. You have Dame and Curry who I almost feel like cancel each other out, but they're basically to have the exact same season. I think game's done it with a little less help and then lets the Harden thing is missed. 14, if he played every game the rest of the way and averaged a triple double in Brooklyn, won the East, we'd at least have to have the conversation which would end with both of us go, no, no, fuck, that guy would have voted for you.

You could have had the situation with somebody else, not with me. How about I'm out right now and I'm not changing my mind. So that's it, house, those are those are candidates I my advice, and I'm not allowed to bet on this. But. I think Embiid still being a plus favorite so that's a plus to 10 seems stupid to me. He should be like minus 180. I got him early in the season at twenty to one odds.

Wow. I just got, I didn't go crazy on it but now I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to throw a giant number on top of that 20 to one thing because I went big on LeBron when LeBron was still plus numbers two weeks ago. So you have to say you have the top to cover. That's it. I mean, and I'm not going to bet on something dramatic will have to happen with Denver to get me to touch Yokich.

I'm not messing with Luka or Dallas. I mean, they're just.

You sure you don't want to consider the Yoni's 18 to one? Because the to that would be ideal would say comes back and and all of a sudden Milwaukee wins 15 straight. But will the voting public this is a question to you. You're in the voting public. Will the voting public. Get around the idea of three straight, honest years, because the thing that holds him back and this is absurd and I know that this drives the analytics folks absolutely insane is we are factoring in what we've seen, what our eyes have seen of the Greek freak in the playoffs and Milwaukee in the playoffs, even though it's not a playoff award.

But when do we see the leap out of Milwaukee in the playoffs that convinces us that we're not being dumb asses by putting making three straight MVP awards for a team that can't get to the finals? I'm going to make three predictions for the rest of the way here because I'm MVP. Conversations are like podcast catnip. Prediction number one, Milwaukee will have a winning streak, followed by everyone having a reckoning about whether it would be OK to vote Yoni's for a third straight year.

And most people decided now I can't do it, followed by a round of vote shaming, voter shaming from the people who are like, hey, the resume is the resume last year. Doesn't matter. It's who had the best. And there will be some Yoni's voter shaming. I predict that, you know, we'll be hearing from the LeBron media mafia. Yeah. I can't wait to find out what they have in store for them. It'll probably start with a really long features for somebody about how LeBron has given more to this season than any in the history of his career.

I mean, it's hard to name names when I need to be drunk so we can start naming names about names and how how he can't believe he has to win the MVP for eight years when he's been the league signature player.

And makes you wonder and he'll have a couple of quotes. I can't wait for that. That's going to be amazing. That's prediction number two. Prediction number three will be I think James Harden is going to continue to be absolutely awesome for Brooklyn. And at some point we're going to have to have a reckoning with that. And that will be another three day conversation where we have to go. Wait a second. Can a guy who took a shit and forced his way out of a city to get to a better situation, can we then give that person the MVP for what he did for the team that he forced himself to?

My answer is no. Won't that resolve itself when Katie comes back? I've been believing that Katie could have played any one of these last honestly, like four games there. They've been deliberate and measured in keeping him out because like, who cares whether or not they they win? And these last four games, they've been on a great roll. The chemistry between Harden and Kyrie is really coming together.

Who would have thought? I thought those two guys would play well together. I got to say, I'm shocked by that. Well, look, Harden and Chris Paul played great together for a little while.

Also it and they were they were unhappy, though, like Chris Paul was never happy with it. Ultimately they were. But for a while there was a good symbiosis that did work. And the KDDI not playing. Let's all these roll guys come to the fore. The Bruce Brown thing is fucking incredible for Brooklyn. And that's he was my 10th candidate.

I forgot to mention Bruce Brandt, Chris Pratt or Bruce Broadsides at this to the best roll player of all time. KD not playing means there are more minutes to spread it around. And that's very helpful for Brooklyn, their ambition. So, Kate, whenever Kate Katy comes back, it will, I think, diminish Harden's case. We won't have to be talking about Harden for MVP. I don't think any of the nets are going to be candidates for the MVP, even though they might end up with the best record in the whole NBA.

CD and Chiri, Joe Harris and Bruce Brown might be the greatest five of all time.

I love it when you do that shit. Bruce Brown. Bruce Baron is my favorite new player, like my new guy who's he's not new, obviously, but new guy who's now in the mix. You put him ahead of Pritchard, your boy Pritchard up there in Boston, you have Bruce Brown ahead. It's like when they had the Best Newcomer award and like the MTV Movie Awards. Oh, I thought you were going to talk about the best newcomer in the event awards.

I thought it was bad. It's like, yeah, he made a couple of movies before this year, but what an emergence. But his friend who knew he had that magic cock, Bruce Brown, he plays he plays like they're telling him, if you guys don't win this game, we're murdering your family after the game. So it's up to you. You can decide whether we murder your family or not. I think the level of intensity he's like the loss Antetokounmpo brother, all the all the coupons feel like their life depends on is awesome.

I love it. I love Bruce Brown.

All right. So he's number ten. All right. We are going to take another break. We come back, we're going to bring House's very real partner, Nathan Hubbard on to talk about Tiger really quick.

This time last year, meeting up with friends for a beer was almost complicated. We to have to worry about where we'd go, what where we'd invite. Remember that a lot of things have changed over the past year. He's now getting together for a beer. Feels more like it shared. No more worrying about the complicated stuff. Just you being yourself with your real friends and a classic Miller Lite, well, as the original Libia Miller Lite has always been about bringing you and your friends together for Miller time.

I enjoyed my time about four weeks ago, Zoome, with my college friends, we used to drink beer in college, still bring it out all these years later because that's what happens with Miller. Like great taste, though, in 96 calories and three point two carbs.

However, you and your friends are enjoying more time, you can have the original light beer delivered by going to Miller Lite that come forward Saabs and find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ninety six calories. Three point two carbs per 12 ounces. All right, House is Fareway Row co-host Nathan Hubbard is here, who has a new podcast that we're debuting on The Ringer on Sunday, which we'll get to in a second.

But wanted to talk about Tiger quickly before we let Buzz Tasco. Tiger Nathan, does he ever play golf at a high competitive level ever again, from what you've read, what you've seen? First of all, please let me know when House is drunk so that I can show up in the same state next time. No, he doesn't. And that's OK. But he doesn't. It's over. And we've been talking about this for probably six months on the pod that it's time to pull the needle.

The Tiger Woods needle has got to come out of the arm and we have to figure out if golf is good enough to exist as a sport without a hero. House, I disagree with Nate, I think there is some percentage possibility it might be single digits, it might be like, you know, in the 20 percent range, but I think there is some possibility that he because of of his DNA, the competitive DNA, the way that that guy is wired, he just says, you know what, another thing in front of me where people say, I can't do this thing.

Fuck that. Watch me. And maybe it's the case. Like, it's still pretty early in the information around how injured his leg was, what the timeline might be for coming back from that kind of injury. What if he says. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters when he was forty six years old. That gives me a full calendar year. He's 45 right now. He has a full calendar year to rehab himself, to get himself. That whole year will be good for his back.

And if the leg is not as jacked up as it seems, then that's another competitive challenge for a guy driven in a way, unparallelled banner in all of professional golf to come out and compete in the Masters at age forty six. The only thing that would hold it back to me is him like confronting something having to do with the leg. That's like a big time like Alex Smith kind of thing. And he says, fuck it, I just want to spend time with my kids.

He's got the shaft of three of his irons in his leg at this point, keeping it together like there's no chance he's going to be anything other than an honorary starter.

I know. And we just let him go. We just let him go. He played football because look at our alternatives. No, but that's that's not the point. The point is he worked himself all the way back. He was on a football field and had Aaron Donald on his back in the last three.

But he's not. Forty five years old. Yeah, on a scale of one to Alex Smith, how bad was the leg injury because he didn't have any of the staph infection stuff that so far doesn't seem.

I don't know. This is the thing. We're only two weeks into this injury. No. One week, a week and a half into the injury. I don't I don't have any any great inside information. Nate, what do you think? The ankle is shattered and the multiple bones were sticking out of his leg. I think it was worse. He won't have to deal with the infection, hopefully. But I think the core piece of the injuries is worse.

But let's not forget, we talk about this house. I saw him at the rib on the Saturday before the Tuesday accident and he could barely walk. He went on TV on Sunday with naans and it just was as puffy as he possibly could have been and basically told us his back is barely healed. You know, it doesn't survive. A multiple rollover car accident particularly well, is a is a just surgically repaired back. We haven't talked about his back.

Well, he's had five surgeries on the back. And that's the thing for me. This is why I hope he comes back. And if anybody can leverage all of the medical science we could ever possibly devote to something like this and all the best people would be him. But we were talking I went on your pod before this accident and we were saying basically, like the ship probably has sailed with him because physically the masters that he won seems to have become more and more amazing as the years pass, because physically, how did he do it?

How did this guy who had been operated on so many times and had a fucked up need all these things? How did his body come together for that, you know, little stretch there, the lad and ruin it? And all of us thought his body probably will never be able to get back to that point. Now, you throw in the car accident, the leg stuff, I guess it's house. It's better that it was his right leg than his left leg, though, right?

Yes. And and the point you just made to me is exactly the point. Right. If you're going to try and have a glass half full point of view on this, it is. Can he grab a four to six month window where his body works? Like that's really what we had when he won the twenty nineteen Masters. He had a window of about six months where his body did not betray him. He was able to, you know, play pretty consistent competitive golf.

The events leading up to that. It wasn't like he arrived at the Masters as the odds on favorite because he was burning the courses down. He was kind of middling, but it was clear, looking back, that he was protecting himself physically. So if we'll have a better feel for this at the end of this summer and into the Ryder Cup, when we when when we get some indication of how his leg, his right leg is responding. And then, you know, obviously all of the stuff that we've said in these last eight days, thank God he's alive.

Yes. Thank God. It seems like he has a chance at at being at walking that he didn't lose his leg. Yeah. Thank God he's alive. That guy's not crippled. Yeah. Is that what I think? That yes, I think but he might he might be.

How was how was our Michael Jordan experience in on the Bullets.

Hey, he scored fifty. He did drop fifty. Look, my problem with all of this is we have to stop pretending it's going to continue. It's bad for the game that we both love. Like the tour has to figure out how to survive without Tiger Woods. I hope he does come back. But like, we have to move on.

And right now we don't have a hero. We agree. We agree. And those are two different. We do have a hero. It's Brooks Koepka. I hear that, though, this year here she's kicking ass again. State is out there. Who has a better chance of coming back? Tiger Woods or you bring him back the guys from Crede and going on one more concert tour.

Me, me bringing back the guys from Creed and going out.

Can you take me how you. I can do it. Yeah, you take me. Ha.

Hey, I got to say, if I was if I was the judge listening to your two takes. I think House had a compelling point there about. If anyone is going to be like, oh, I can't come back from this, watch this, it's probably Tiger. I can't get over the back thing, though, because we know five back surgeries that we know about and then a car accident rollover situation that as somebody who has a bad back, who has.

Yeah, as bad as bad as Tiger's back, like my back hurts if I hit the right bump on. I can't get you to play golf for shit like that. No way Tiger's going to be like, yeah, let me go and just be in pain. I think you said it that Masters moment is going to mean more than ever as well. And how you pointed this out when he played the PNC with Charlie in December, that was he knew at that point he was getting that surgery, but he went, oh, interesting.

Yeah. And that's why I was like an emotional weekend for him. I think.

I think that's exactly that's the note he goes out on. I mean, you know, we weren't factoring in a goddamn life threatening car fucking crash, but he did know he was going to get that that surgery and, you know, a way to hedge his his his last moment on the competitive golf stage. How about him going out with around with this kid? That's pretty great house.

What are the odds of you betting on Tony Phee now at twenty seven to one in the Masters? I, I'm going to go have another vodka after since we hang up here and then there's a decent then we'll see what that'll be. The third about Jordan Spieth at sixteen one you've got to like Jordan sixteen one six to one or eight that I hate about our guy Brooks at ten to one.

I hate those odds. I don't like them. I don't think they're hot blooded. Twenty nine to one now we're now we're talking. Yeah. Now I need guys like that. Thirty class. I'm not sixteen. The one for Jordan Spieth. Jordan Spieth hasn't done shit since twenty seventeen. How about this. Why don't you book everybody's bets on Phil Mickelson and eighty to one. If he doesn't win you keep the money. I think that's the best way to win on the.

I'll do that. I'll gladly anybody who wants to bet Phil Mickelson hit me on the Twitter. I'll book every single one of those bets. I'll go about this. I'll give you I'll give you a boost. One hundred and twenty to one.

The House booster has booster I. I know.

I'm going to bet on Tommy Fleetwood fifty to one and already hit by some. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just Tommy just understands me. You're you're already hurts my feelings and then it's like Tommy I thought were supposed to be there at seven thirty. What happened.

You get right on your knees for that little guy house we're going to bid you would do enjoy the rest of your day. It was great to see you. A good time for me to leave because you guys are going to talk about Taylor Swift. And I am not in a condition to talk about her right now. Say, about house. Okay. See you guys.

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All right, so. On Sunday, we're releasing the first episode of a new podcast that we're going to have that's going to be on the Ringer Dish Feed is about Taylor Swift. The podcast is called Every Single Album. This is season one. And we've been kind of dancing around this. You've come on my podcast talking about Taylor Swift, nor Pinciotti has come on and talked about Taylor Swift. And it was a little bit of a showdown with U2 and it could have been a frenemy situation.

You could have just been outright enemies. Instead, you joined forces and you're going to break down on the record podcast starting Sunday night, every single Taylor Swift album, starting with the first one going all the way through and then making a little room for the rerelease, which is coming out. Later this month or next month, the April 9th, April that, so there you go, I set that up correctly, right? You did. It's your fault you don't know this, but Nora was driving to Foxborough into Gillette, listening to your iPod when she heard you and me talk.

Taylor and that was before she joined the ringer. And that convinced her that she absolutely wanted to do it. So you set us up. We built this little relationship during quarantine. She lived through the Taylor experience as a teenage girl. I'd lived through it as an exotic in the music and the tech industries, and we just connected on that level. We have like a 20000 word text thread over the last year. Is Taylor mailed in one of the great years as an artist of all time.

And so the point of this was to publish the thread because like more than any other artist, each of her albums represents a distinct era, like a portion of her career. And so we're just going to go out and buy album and track by track and drop in a bunch of music. And we're going to deliver 12 hours of Taylor Swift content to you, Bill.

And when you when you dive into the Taylor Swift vortex. There's there's a large, sizable fan base that is very protective. Of Taylor Swift, we feel like we are equipped. Two people who really appreciate the terror swift career for all the right reasons, who have put a lot of thought and time into what has made her succeed and what makes her so unique, this is I don't want to say it's a positive podcast, but it's it's an appreciative podcast because in your and you've been saying this on this pod for a while, you feel like she's a one on one that nobody in the last 15 years has had a career like this.

It's a story about a musical artist. It's a story about a pop culture icon and the Internet and the twins. And it's a case study in business from one of the best entrepreneurs and brand builders of her generation, period. She has run the business of music better. She's really our first star who is native to the Internet. Right. She's like she's not to overplay it, but she she used the Internet not to just build her brand, but to understand her fan base like she's basically Jeff Bezos of the music world.

Right. She has an obsession with her customer. Her dad called me in 2007 when she was opening for Brad Paisley and amphitheatres and was like, I had no idea who Scott Swift was, but Scott Swift was calling, going, my daughter's opening in your amphitheatres. And the lines are too long for the bathroom and there aren't enough food options. And the experience of the people on the lawn is to pack together like they were thinking holistically about the fan experience when she was 14, 15, 16 years old.

And she has done that every step of the way. And, you know, we talk about Madonna as being somebody who constantly reinvented herself. Taylor really evolves. And that's the fun part of overlaying the the musician, the celebrity and the businesswoman all in one story.

It's a little like the LeBron career, right, where you kind of look back and you go, wow, that shouldn't have gone this well. You think like you're basically a child star or child celebrity. And there's a huge spotlight on you from a really super early age with some controversy like I guess for for Taylor, like the whole kind of thing was the equivalent of LeBron and the decision right at this thing that happened at kind of a formative time that she just got through and it made her stronger.

You would have thought that that would break her. I mean, we look back at, you know, here we are on the heels of the Britney doc in the past couple of weeks. There are very, very few human beings who get out of childhood stardom alive, much less in decent mental shape. And I think she is such a driven human being in the best way that that drive and sort of vision for what she wanted to be and how to manage her career and how to take all of these songs that she was creating and turn them into first country music songs, but then something bigger kept her through it.

And but you're right. I mean that that moment at the 2009 VMAs when Kanye grabbed the stage, could have broken her instead. A few months later, she won Album of the year, beating, by the way, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and never forget Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey and the Drugs King album, which somehow got nominated for a Grammy. But yes, that was nominated for Album of the Year in 2009. Sometimes we get it wrong.

The Sasha Fierce album by Beyonce had Halo had single ladies. I mean, you look back and you put these albums together and boy, it was a murderer's row of albums, but they're one of these things was not like the other.

I think it's crazy that, you know, I think like. Comedians in movies or pop artists, we've talked about this before. It's usually like a seven, eight year peak. And she's on 15, 16, 15 years. It's just, yeah, that part doesn't make sense to me. It feels like she's more relevant this year than she's ever been.

Well, so you edited a piece for me in 2015 where I made the case that Taylor had mailed in 2015 one of the four best years ever submitted by an artist. And we compared it to Elvis Presley in 56, the Beatles in 64, Michael Jackson in 83. But this year she might have topped it. I mean, she put if you really look at the last 18 months, she's put out four albums. Lover came out in 2000, 19, then she dropped folklore out of nowhere in it really was the quarantine album.

Then she then she dropped the Disney Longpont live thing of folklore. And a couple of weeks later, she dropped evermore on top of it and then said, Hey, by the way, I'm also rerecording all my stuff. So she really was the artist of of the lockdown in quarantine and just had a hell of a year and the rerelease thing.

So love story, which she rerecorded. Probably her most famous song or at least one of the top three. Yeah, and it sounded the same, but there is like a maturity to it. Zoe Simmons, walk me through it. Yeah, she can. She can do it. There was definitely was the same song, but in a weird way, it sounded like slightly more polished, I guess. Yeah.

Her voice is now a legit, powerful instrument. And if you listen to the albums in order, you can feel it go from this nasally high end kind of week thing, which, by the way, I don't know what my voice sounded like at 14, 15, but, you know, I hope nobody has tapes of it. Where they were really mixing it and producing the music to to not disguise it, but to to sort of cover for it, but you listen to it as it evolves through these albums and suddenly really around the red years, maybe even earlier, she just locks in.

And we know behind the scenes she did a bunch of work on. I mean, there's a story about how Bob Lefsetz, the the music industry sort of gadfly blogger, wrote about, you know, accusing her of using auto tune. And she was such a like she reads everything that's written about her. She called him and argued with him for wrote the song Mean about him, which became a huge hit that absolutely eviscerated him. But, you know, in that moment, she went to the gym and became an absolutely terrific singer.

And these last couple of albums have basically showcased her voice in addition to the songwriter that she is. And it's just there is such a progression. So now her challenge is going to be, how do I recapture what I felt like at 14 and 15 and 16 when I recorded these albums and not lose that youthful energy because she really was just giving voice to a generation of teenage girls who were coming of age at the time of the Internet when it was super hard to be a teenage girl.

Everything you do wrong is saved online forever. And, you know, stuff that thank God we didn't have to deal with you and I have to deal with it through our daughters. Right. But but she she captured that energy in her vocal. And the nice thing about it, about this rerecord is that we know those songs already. And so they're sort of burned into our minds already in the way that they sounded. But what we get is in these new versions, a much more mature and interesting voice.

And so they seem to settle in.

It would be fun if you could do it in sports or the Browns, like I'm going to I'm going to redo the 2011 season.

I know. Watch what I have in store for JJ Barea, the low post in the finals.

What even these rerecords show what an incredible business person she is. If you go right now in search for love story on Spotify, one version says Love Story and the other says Love Story in parentheses Taylor's version. And they both pop up together. And if you are a fan, she is rerecording this catalog because she wants her rights back. She wants the rights to her master recordings back. She couldn't get them. They were sold to somebody else, sold again, and she said, the hell with it.

I'm going to go rerecord this stuff on my own. And now any time you're even a remotely casual Taylor fan, if you go into Spotify or wherever you listen, your music and you search for one of her songs, Spotify on Spotify, you search for one of her songs, you're going to see Taylor's version. Every fan is going to click that one. And so she effectively did is took back the rights to her songs without having to spend a dime to buy them.

That podcast is launching Sunday night. It is called Every Single Album, it's on the OR Dish Feed, where you can also find me and Dave Jacoby recapping the challenge on Wednesday nights, which has been unbelievable this season, as well as a jam session and tea time. Two of the judges on that feed. So before we go, I have to ask you about. Jay-Z sold title. And it was one of those. Kind of nebulous was for stock and cash and got the feeling it was like a lot of stock, maybe not a lot of cash was to a failure.

No. For its expressed purpose, it was, but I mean, any entrepreneurs job out of the gate, no matter what, you know, this you got to land the plane. If you don't have Facebook, you got to land the plane. Sometimes you make your investors a lot of money. When you land the plane, it can be a two x three five X money, but you got to land the plane. And what Jay-Z did today was he landed the plane.

That said, I do think there's a method to the madness here, which is we have all of these artists like the Taylor Swift's, like the Jaycees of the world, but also all of the smaller artists that the Spotify is of the world have given birth to who don't have massive fan bases. But because the discovery algorithms are getting so good and you can fingerprint each individual user, I as an artist can actually build up a smaller but sustainable fan base.

The problem is that while all the other brands in the world from retail are going direct to consumer to try to get around Amazon and build that direct end relationship with the consumer, the tools for artists to do that today aren't very good. And I think both Jay and Jack understand that. And the way it looks to me like the point of this acquisition is to create kind of a Shopify for artists, which is a technology platform or an operating system that lets the artist build direct relationships with consumers.

That's what Square has done for all the small businesses and farmers market sellers and, you know, little store shops that use the square software effectively as their operating system. I think the idea here is to pivot the platform, not make it a competitor to Apple and Spotify. That that's over. It is. Can we use technology to build a direct channel between artists and their fans? Do you think he would have been better off never doing title and just having his music on Spotify and Apple and everybody else?

I think in this transition that we've gone through from physical to digital that started in the mid 2000s, again, along with the rise of Taylor Swift, we document the way that she handled that through time. She stepped in some holes. She made some really good decisions. I think you have to cut artists a little bit of slack for trying some things. He's going to make money on this thing and he's joining the square board. And it looks to me like he's gotten even more power as a businessman, I should say he's a business man then than he ever has.

So this is a weird question. So you're given this the W for for Jay-Z? I give this a W four square. It is TBD. They still have a lot to execute on. But I do think the vision is real. A lot of the, you know, coverage of it today was like, well, this is because J. And Jack hang out on yachts in the Hamptons. I'm sure the conversation started there. But I think there's a purpose to this.

Did you do one of your things where you do like 12 straight tweets, like a thread about the thing, or was this original material the five a.m.? I did that. You did that? I didn't even say good. That's because regurgitated original material.

No, only only only a couple tweets on it because you could see the heat coming. And I think there's a bigger picture artist. Businesses are becoming more valuable than ever. There's this intersection of artist, influencer and entrepreneur that's happening right now. And it's it's going to dramatically transform the music business over the next couple of years. We're going to see more moves like this to try to help artists just go direct to consumer. And that's what's so interesting about the iconic artists like Jay-Z and Taylor.

They have the chance to do this and set the bar for everybody who's coming up before we go. Are you excited that we spend our weekends on a soccer field? Again, it almost seems like life is normal except for the masks and the inability to recognize any other parent. It's going to be really fun. I'm going to be at two games this weekend. Look, I just hope everybody stays safe. But were you going this weekend? I'm going to Camarillo.

Oh, I got a little Temecula.

You do hautamäki the horse. The horse farm. You have fun. You got to step through a ton of horse shit to get it to go watch your kid play soccer. Yeah. Listen, we're going to be outside. Golf has fans, football has fans. Our daughter's soccer should have fans as long as everybody's being safe.

There's high school soccer is allegedly coming back. It's amazing.

I think I couldn't be happy. Neither can I. What have we been rooting for? All these are our favorite sports teams and we got to go root for the home team. Unbelievable.

All right. Nathan Hubbard, every single album, new podcast premieres on Ringroad Dish on Sunday with Norah Pinciotti. Good to see you as always, my friend.

Thanks, Bill. Whether you're looking to kick off or step up your online marketing game, constant contact has the tools to set you up for success. The powerful email marketing, online stores and more to drive real results for your small business or nonprofit constant contact knows that online marketing is anything but one size fits all from email and social media marketing to websites and e-commerce. Constant contact has everything you need to grow your business online in one place. Now that's a win win.

Start your free trial. A constant contact dotcom. All right. We knew this guy in this podcast before he became even more famous. Eddie Wong is here. He made a movie. My feelings were hurt that he reached out to tell me I need to promote my movie. I started doing reads on this podcast for the movie. And I'm like, wow, I got to get Eddie on. So I watched it last night. You made a sports movie.

You didn't fucking tell me. You went out. You made a whole sports movie. What the fuck?

I will show you the receipts. This is the first choice part I wanted to be on. I told Focus and that's where the signals got crossed. Thank you for having me, Bill. Number one sports podcast in the world.

I'm I'm more hurt that you made a sport a sports movie, and I wasn't even like that. Even like a text, just like, hey, give me give me like two thoughts for a basketball movie. And then you didn't need me, as it turned out, because you hit all the marks. But I'm here because you know what, honestly, what inspired me is a Boston film, right? I'm one good will hunting good one that everyone's been asking me.

Like, how'd you come up with the idea for this movie? Why do you want to do it? And I've been telling you, I came in a family with a lot of violence, like a lot of domestic violence in my family. I was not able to talk about. I would never talk to the cops or social workers when they came. But my aunts, uncles, everybody knew what was going on in our house. And so I watch Good Will hunting with my aunt and.

That movie changed my life because I realized you could talk about these things and I had nothing. I'd never been to Boston, I had nothing in common with that. But I fell in love with that film because I was like, damn, you can talk about these things. And even if you're super different, some kid in the middle of nowhere in Orlando can can relate to this and feel seen. And I decided that moment watching Good Will Hunting.

I will make a movie like this one day in an interview with the guy that writes page two, there's there's a there's more than a dash of above the rim.

You grab the tiny piece. Yeah, little bit of that. There's a little like Finding Forrester type of, you know, the transfer stuff in there. I don't want to step on it too much because I want people to see it. But the the the good will hunting thing, that makes sense to me. And the other thing is you're embedded into, you know, New York Times. People wait until they make it in New York basketball movie.

But there's maybe not the authenticity you were going for with this thing. Yeah.

You really need New York to be an authentic character that hits all the grooves and all the corners. And I just feel New Yorkers will watch this and feel very sad, especially because it's in New York that has changed a lot every pandemic. We finished shooting October twenty nineteen and then boom, you know, here we are.

So, you know, the is the Jeremy Lin comparisons and you get you get it out of the way of the movie in ten minutes. I could step on this. I feel like the character kind of trashes Jeremy Lin. It's like, oh, OK. All right. This is what we're doing. Yeah.

You know, I don't want to make it a thing, but like, you know, just because you're the same race to somebody doesn't mean you feel represented by it. Know, like when he was with the Knicks, I loved it when he wasn't with the Knicks. I honestly couldn't care less. Yeah. You know, because he's just he's just a very different than me. And I I felt it was a good thing because I know a lot of Asian basketball players.

And after Linsanity, you go play basketball. Everyone is Jeremy. Jeremy. So your name is Jeremy. And like, whether you like Jeremy or not, that was a frustrating thing to be like, hey, yo, your name is now Jeremy. So. Right. It's more about the frustration of being like if you're Asian, you play basketball, be defined by this guy that you have no connection to just in the league. Yeah, that's kind of a sad reflection of Asians of basketball, right?

That Jeremy Lin will probably be the go to reference for. What do you think to like twenty, twenty five to anyone is playing pick up.

I mean, I mean unless Boogie tries out and makes a team sequel. Yeah. I mean I think we think our lead Taylor Tucker has to complain to the leagues of tight right now, but he's a real Vulpes, the all time leading scorer Halaby to high school. Yeah. Really, really.

Well I was not surprised that you took particular care making sure that the actors actually knew how to play basketball because you're a legit sports fan. You know how important stuff is. You can't do the the guy who can't really play and you have to cheat and you do the quick, quick cuts, all that stuff. You did not do that in this. Yeah.

I mean, like we got some dribble handoffs and things like Yeah. Warriors at the top. And it was funny because the producer was like, do you need to play this to come on man. Is this is the way kids play basketball now at the at the top of the key and they're running off each other.

I'm going to talk about the basketball on second. Back to the German live thing for one second. You know, I'm I don't feel like I'm spineless, but you tap into Michael Chang a little bit. Yes. And I don't want to give away the scene because it's great. But I thought it was really interesting that you played it that way because, you know, you and I both friends with Chang, you had been at some dinners where we've talked about, you know, greatest Asian sports moments of all time with Chang and Yang and Chen Chow, all those guys.

And the Chang one is the one that was the the one that has slipped through the cracks. The seven. No, no, no. Just like that, I think in history has kind of been forgotten how unbelievable that was, because he beats Lendl, who was really the biggest villain out of any individual sport guy that era, just because he was so freaking boring to watch. He's got the cramps. It's like a sports movie and they're watching and in the thing.

And it made me actually after the movie, go cue up the YouTube clip just to watch some of the points and stuff. And it's like, how did this happen? Why wasn't this actually a bigger deal than it was? It's amazing to watch.

It's an incredible one. I've been trying to I've been talking to the guys at thirty four thirty for two years now being like, yo, let me get the Chang because I'm a rabid fan, like I used to read about him in Sports Illustrated for kids I collected like African cichlid fish, like he collected freshwater fish from Africa. He's just like an interesting dude. And the reason why that moment is so important to Asian Americans is. The day before with Tiananmen Square, and that's what people forget, is that, you know, if you were Asian and especially if you were Chinese in this country, that was probably our most shameful day.

But you really didn't want to go outside. And four months after, you were just embarrassed. And I remember all the way up until high school, it was like funny to call us communists, you know? I mean, like, commie jokes were funny, like in the late 80s, early 90s, if you got Rocky for em. Like, the thing with Tiananmen was that. We weren't in this country necessarily by choice, you know, like especially my family's journey is we lost a civil war in China.

We had to flee to Taiwan. There's a lot of pride and that we're kind of detached from our country and then had to live in Taiwan. We then grew to have pride in Taiwan, but we're still by blood Chinese. And then I was born in America. And when Tiananmen happened, it was like, man, will we ever get to go home and will we ever be proud of our country and our culture and our history again? And I just remember how sad all of us with House and I was like five or six years old.

But like the next day we all sat and watched Chang and he had no business beating even then. He had no business being 17 years old and watching him with the Koreans, watching them sort of underhanded, looking at how small he was. It was just like we are all like we're all Michael Chang. And he gave us something to be proud about. And if I didn't have that moment as a kid, I don't know if I'm as proud to be a Chinese fellow, honestly.

So like I saw one of the great one of the great endings, I think, ever to a tennis match. If not number one, winner Chang on the second serve moves up right to the basically the the bottom of the box just to fuck with Lendl. And it works that little double faults. It's unbelievable. Honestly, it's like a sports movie.

It is. It is. It would be the greatest sportsman because he's the biggest underdog. And he doesn't win necessarily with the physique. He wins with his wit.

You know, any in the crowd, in the crowd turns on Lendl starts rooting for him. And the whole thing, it's it's it'll never happen again. I'm greenlighting the the Michael Shank. Let's do it. Well, I would love to. I'm not kidding. Let's let's really do it back in history right now. This is the first dog I've ever agreed to do during a podcast. We're doing this.

We've got to do this. It's too it's too good. And also it's in a very important time. And I'll tell you something, Bill is like, I've never been an American American evangelist like America. No one like I love America with America, too. We got our issues. But I spent the pandemic in Taiwan eleven months and living in a more monocultural society, even in one that I love and feels native to me. Man, there ain't nothing like America.

There is not an experiment going on in the world like this country where me and you can talk, I can be Parslow. We could do something together. Like the diversity is what makes us strong, what makes us amazing. And like that's that's the story of Michael Chang. Do you know, I mean, like anyone can do here.

Well, I love that you hit that part. You also the food. I wasn't surprised, but you know that I checked I checked with Chang just to make sure I was like eating other food in this right is like, oh, yeah. He went deep a couple of times. You mentioned a couple of things that I didn't really understand. But you spent you were able to sprinkle that stuff in. I mean, your favorite stuff is food and basketball.

So you figured out how to put together a moving food, basketball, rap music.

Yeah, yeah.

That's just like it is a pretty unbelievable. So I intentionally read nothing about this movie work because I just wanted to watch it. I didn't want to be affected by anything. All I knew was the ad. Yeah, I like to do it that way too. I don't read reviews. The only time I read reviews is if I come out of the film and I'm like, whoa, that is a polarizing film. Now I'm curious what other people think, but usually I might maybe read two reviews a year.

Yeah. So I done dude had a couple of ads on the pod and was like pop smokes in it. Yeah. And then I'm watching it and I'm like wait pop smokes though. They did like a little bit of the Tupac above the rim where like he's going to be the villain in this like holy shit. And, and he's really good. And of course this ends up being his last movie. But man, it's it's crazy that. I feel like he could have done this.

Yeah, no, he he absolutely he did it and he would send me text. We talk is like your big dog, like Hollywood. We got to do that like he wanted to act. And this was a crazy thing. I'd be talking to Colombia about remaking Last Dragon. And I was like, yo, you know who the best show off would be? Who I was like, that's for sure enough, you know? And unfortunately, he got taken from us far too soon.

But, you know, I really want to celebrate him because when he's I've met a lot of talented people like, you know, like Tony Bourdain always comes to mind is one of those times. Yeah. But like even Tony and Tony met papa, I swear he he'd feel the same way. Pop is the most talented person I've met in my life. Wow. He would go record for six hours in a studio and then come and do an overnight shoot and then do it again the next day.

And even we weren't shooting. He's just eating gummy bears, making up dances. And he said, you took this are who you know, like who's doing all the dances. And he just had unstoppable energy, undeniable charisma, a real toughness. But under the toughness was like a real kind of heart. And I'll never forget, we're standing on the sideline in between shots. And he really understood the script and the boogie character. And he he he understood why Boogie acts the way he does.

And he said to me, said, you'll big dog. You know, I was a good kid. You still good kid. Pop is like I used to get good grades. Right? That's definitely I mean, I wouldn't I would not believe you, Pop, like, I'm sure you got good grades and he's like you've seen that. You've seen the real star video. And I was like, I have seen the world's top video and the world top video was on top was about 14 or 15.

A group of kids circled him in the neighborhood and slapped him. And the video went viral. And everyone was like, oh, that's that kid from the Flosse that got slapped and embarrassed. And that followed him. And he said to me, said, I never wanted to be treated like that again. And that moment made me a monster. We would talk about that for Boogy and he would talk to Boogie about that. And it's like you don't want to be picked on anymore.

Like you want to fight back and pop, like, would really poke boogie when we were shooting. And a lot of those lines we improv like in between scenes, we would just throw new insults at Taylor Takahashi trying to get under his skin and get the performance out of what Pop was really my coach on the floor for the basketball scenes. Like, he's he's just phenomenal. It felt like Dwayne Wade rookie year with the Heat, you know, and he was he used to play basketball.

What's it like, 15, 16? And then I remember vaguely in the stories about him way back when he had, like some heart thing or something.

He was a high school recruit. I don't know how he went to jail and the jail and that got in the way. But I don't know if it was a physical ailment, but he could really play ball.

What kind of what kind of game did he have? What NBA player? Who is this comparison?

You know, it's funny. It's it's it's he's very much like you and Elvie LJ Larry Johnson. Interesting. Elvy Yeah. With a jumper, you know, modern day. Every kid got a little bit of a jumper, but he really reminded me of Larry Johnson. Huge shoulders like pops back is huge. He he really had strength. And, you know, he was just tough. Like, I played him a few times. Three on three in the post.

You can't you can't stop him. He's very much like Anthony Mason. Anthony Mason, obviously, he's about six feet, you know.

But when those strong deceiving six footer who's like plays bigger than that, who's that other?

I was taking those real big up top. Big shoulders ended up in the league. Marcus Fizer. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, like a little bit. Like his body was huge up top. Know, I hope you enjoy your last three years of pickup basketball before your body completely falls apart in age forty three because that's how it's going to go. Trust me, I lived it. You have one last nice run. Thirty nine. Forty, forty one.

It starts to kind of go sideways a tiny bit. Yeah. And then by forty three it's done. Unless you do like hyperbaric chamber, all that shit you don't have to.

Joe Rogan was tell me he's like sauna four times a week. If you sign up four times a week it decreases the the potential of all diseases by 40 percent. I didn't know what. Yeah. Dr. Joe Rogan I doing knows everything with all my vitamins is vitamins Joe talked about.

Joe is is one of the things I liked about the pop smoke character in this because it's, it's, it's on the Tupac Corner above the rim. A rapper is a villain. There's strip all that stuff but above the rim is very cartoony. As much as I love it. Yeah, it's it's cartoony. And to his character, that is a cartoon villain. Yes. This the the character pop smoke poison. That's what's his name. Mark Monk.

Yeah. Much more comic is pretty brown. Yeah.

He's a villain but it all feels authentic. They even the ways he tries to get under his skin is our normal way. Somebody it's not, he's not doing anything crazy. Just have a razor blade in his mouth.

Yeah. And you know, people want to in the process of development, not the studio, but producer I work with at times wanted him to be more of a villain and more set up like that. And now it's not it's not like that. Like this is just basketball is just two guys going into each other. And that's why it's so important.

At the end, Pop comes over and is like says this thing at the end of the at the movie to Boogie, you know, did you feel the weight of the the vortex of Asian people in America who love basketball and rap? One hundred percent of them will see this movie and basically you have to come through like they're almost kind of like not trusted, like, oh man, I hope this doesn't get fucked up. Did you could you feel that way?

I always I always feel it, but I welcome it. Yeah. I'm like, I'm that dude. That's like, look at my team needs 60, I'm going to get 60. And I felt that way about fresh off the boat and just funny. People thought I was like a real dick for saying this was like the only person to hold Jordan under 30 who is Dean Smith. And I was like, that's what fresh off the boat was out there.

You should just give me the damn board. Like, I'll go for 60. But that's that's just me. That's my personality. Like, I love pressure.

I like to think one of the things I like about you is you just sort of like, fuck this, I'm doing it. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what it is, it's like, oh, come on, try that. Yeah, I'm going to do that. And it's like I'm going to make my own movie and get it funded and I'll write and direct it and I'll even be in it. And it's going to come under budget and I'm just going to do it.

Yeah, that's what I did. I delivered it about five hundred thousand on the budget.

I'm not surprised that was guessing. You don't you don't seem to me like the type of person that's going to be ten days late from shooting at a million point five over budget. You're just going to get it done because you're you're a chef. You chefs can't fuck around. It's like, oh, God, whatever.

Yeah, we don't have margins to mess around. And then also as an immigrant, it's just like you come from a family that work really hard. Like my family made money, but it was all through work in a restaurant. And we just there's nothing extra. You got to save everything. You got to make it all work. And people say this is the budget. That's that's the budget here. So if you had if you'd sent me the script, you deliberately left me out of this.

But had you sent it and you say, give me one piece of advice. Here, here would have been my piece of advice you forgot to read in the cameo for a famous NBA player who shows up for a pickup game something because first of all, you get that guy and all these guys think they're actors anyway. Right. But then you get their social. Now they're tweeting it, come see me and boogie. And that that I think.

So when Boogie two happens, you've got to figure out how to work with Kyrie into it or one of those guys.

Well, you know, who I wanted was because this is before he got drafted was I want to die because twenty nineteen dollars a year. We need Tzion for this film. I wanted Tzion to play the Dennis Thompson character. Right. And I was like that would a bit spicy. Yeah. Spicy.

But you know, even if you're going underground with like a little jam or something like that which I'm a rancid boogie, what the hell. Yeah. Boogie too. I think when, when we go to I wouldn't want to spoil the ending but when the natural ending for boogie too. I think somebody's got to be in there. We need we need all the kid in the league right now. The Great Star JJ his name starts with the J Green.

Alayna, who's the kid in the league that's really poppin right now?

I no idea. There's a popular Léger. Yo, he's like, I really got to bone up on my G league. Yeah, he he plays, he plays for the team. I think Brian Shaw's coaching is really, really good.

Um, all right. So the movie comes out on Friday. Yeah. If you like sports movies and you like Eddie, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're going to really like this movie. But I thought it was I really liked what you did. And I thought it was it had the right level quirks. It felt like you. Yeah. You had some hidden stuff in there that I thought was really smart.

I don't want to say too much, but I would recommend it.

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Tell me what's going to happen with restaurants.

Well, I had to close Barrelhouse this year because of the pandemic, but it's not I'm not set. I got a ten year run. I'm very, very grateful to all of our customers. And it's just, you know, I know I've been bouncing around between jobs, but directing film is where I wanted to be. Like, this is an absolutely the craft I will cast on my book. I'm going to work on this is this is this is what I want to do.

So I'm just I'm just happy to be writing and making films and making television.

Tell me what happens with restaurants as a whole. You know, I'm kind of because you by the way, you talked about you Chang'e. When did you guys do that? Like in April or May on his podcast. Like, what's. Yeah. What's going to happen going forward now? It's been nine months. Like, where are we right now with restaurants? Yeah.

The thing with restaurants right now is that I'm really disappointed also about what's going on with the debate over the coronavirus. Bill, you know, like I thought we had the majorities that we needed to push things through that we all thought for. And I'm like, let's go. But I really think there needs to be a restaurant relief bill. Yeah, because restaurants to me are their libraries or their museums. And these are the things in our communities that are charged with distributing culture.

You know, like you don't have to read a book. You don't have to watch a movie played. You go eat in an Ethiopian restaurant or a Lebanese restaurant, a Korean restaurant. Your kid is going to learn about that culture, not just through the food, but in the way your serve, the way they treat you, the way they talk. Like that's how I got to know a lot of people and that's how I felt. I got to travel around.

The world is going to different restaurants, but all of these mom and pops, all these small restaurants are closing. And that's like that's like our neighborhood mothers, you know, and like without them, I don't know how we're going to get this culture. And I think it's really an issue we need to think about.

Yeah, it's the one to one restaurants that are just seem to be falling by the wayside left and right in L.A. where we had this is like franchises.

You know, they get big money because they know how to apply for it.

But like the little ones in L.A. and L.A. before all this happened, I thought the LA food season food scene was the all time most exceptional. I just couldn't even believe I lived there. And how many amazing one off restaurants there were, you know, and obviously talked about it here in this part a bunch of times and on Chang's pot and stuff like that. But it really felt like it was the epicenter of the food universe here and in New York and a lesser extent.

But man, yeah, saneness is about twenty seventeen. I was like the best food cities in the world are L.A. and Toronto, you know. Yeah, we're the best. And people would think I was crazy because they don't sound exotic, but I'm like they have the the biggest immigrant populations and then spread out and kind of an urban sprawl.

What would you tell somebody to be a chef now? Like somebody who's like twenty years old, who is great at it and wants to open a restaurant, put the ten years in like you did. Would you even would you talk them out of it or would you tell them to do it?

That's a really good question. And I will give you the most honest answer. It depends on what other skills that kid has. If you have something else that you're really good at and you can tell your story and feels in your voice, I don't think there's a harder job than opening a restaurant. I'll tell you a funny story. I was I was definitely nervous about being a director. Like, I sold it in and I fought for it. But then once you get it, I'm not going to do this.

Right. And a DP that I interviewed for the job, Sam leave you ultimately had a great uncle, which was the choice. And I love him. But Sam Levy said something very interesting to me. He said, I live next door to Barrelhouse when you open it with your brother and you don't remember me. But I used to come in. I watched you guys. Look, seven days a week, 16 hours a day, back to back with your brother and he goes, there is going to be a lot of people in Hollywood and on this production, they're going to tell you, you don't know this and you don't know that.

And that's why you're going to. He said don't trust a single one of those people who know everything you need to know. And I saw you do it. And there is no way this is going to be harder than opening that restaurant. And I was like, you're crazy. He's like, no, I'm not crazy. You'll see. And he was right. He's right. Because on a movie set, yeah, it's hard and it's hard mental work and psychological working in a team.

But you got a driver to pick you up in the morning with a green juice and drives you back at home with a box of food and you got an assistant. You got things like, yeah, there's a lot of pressure, but you physically can do this at the restaurant. It's not just a mental and a financial stress, but it's the physical on your feet 16 hours so well. And then getting up the next day and having to do it again.

There's though. Yeah, it's like being a professional baseball player. Cross with the doctor. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the it's in there. I've never met a restaurant owner that wants their kid to be a restaurant owner too. I'm I have a feeling every restaurant owner gives their kid the same speech Vito Corleone gave Michael this for you.

You could be a judge, you know.

You don't you know. So that's it, you're never cooking anything again, you're not even making mac and cheese. No, I just I just put your post-paid and caviar. That's it.

You know, the date date. You know, I don't get I'm not going to get by dating and not cooking dinner. I mean, like the point when they know you got that in the bag like that, like if you don't cook and you don't like me. So I got to cook.

Yeah, that's true. That is part of your arsenal. What's your number one dish right now?

My number one dish is, you know, I really like to make a high chicken, right? Oh, chicken is really nice because I do a very good chicken rice where I toast the rice with chicken schmaltz and then I cook it with chicken stock and then I put the chicken on top. It's very nice. It's a famous Singaporean dish. So that's always a go to make a really nice to be cheap. So that that's good too. But then I make a good sundae gravy and those are all dishes that I like to bust out every once in a while.

How much NBA when were you, how long were you in Taiwan like 11 months.

Yeah, 11 months. I woke up every day seven a.m. to watch basketball. I'm not surprised. Yeah, I kind of I got to say, I now remember Bubalo basketball finally. I really did. I really do look back. I'm like, Yeah, that was really fun. It was amazing. I don't think it was fun for the players at the pandemic. Not fun at all. But I just look back at the quality of some of those games.

And I mean, I really kind of enjoyed that, but I can't lie.

I loved like J.R. Smith hosting the food that he had to eat, like, you know, what is this like, dude? You may be in the bubble for ten days. Don't worry about it. Right.

There is a lot of a lot of comedy coming out of the bobblehead film about the Knicks.

I'm so happy. I mean, I got to be, you know, on the West Coast as you watch three games a night, you know, when you're grown up on the East Coast, when you have like a triple, how do you like this is the greatest day of the year. I got a triple header on NBC Saturday. Now, every night is like four o'clock. Seven o'clock. I got I got games coming out my ears. But like the Knicks were back, the Knicks are back.

We're playing only ball. We're rotating on defense, help defense. We don't even shoot three pointers. It's amazing.

Yeah, they are. I'm amazed how they pulled it off. They went for specific types of guys, half of whom seem to go to Kentucky. But I think they knew from their Kentucky connections, like Kentucky recruits certain types of guys. Yeah. And they just try to put them together with a coach who's like a roll up your sleeves, hard working coach. And the guys all kind of makes sense together. It's I would say to somebody the other day, it's it's kind of a shame.

They don't have a crowd because I feel like the MSgt crowd would have loved this team going crazy. This is this is an amazing team that you want to love. It reminds me of that. Jamal Crawford. David Lee. Yeah. The Trevor Rezo like junkyard Renaldo Borkman. We like we got so excited about that team, even though we were really going really fast to nowhere. We love that squad. But this this team, it's like if you came to somebody with an idea, though, and said, like what you just said, hey, we're going to get as many Kentucky players as we can get and then we're going to hire Tibbs and teach him to play the best defense possible.

That makes sense because teach like defense Cal's role in the ball out and just like Rut, right? Well, they they tapped into whatever with Randle that I had given up on that as. Yeah. As I just thought he was a black hole. Who going to get his stats. But your team's never better and now he's a complete player.

Yeah. I thought, I thought that Julius Randle is basically going to be like a shittier Zach Randolph. Yeah. I did see him at Summer League with a diplomat's tee shirt last year and I was like, there is a bad man and we just have to bring this out. And who knew he was the Ebbitt Joker?

You know these guys guys the Brockman's to Nikola Jokic And then they got a Roberson got hurt but I liked what they were doing with him where he was always a talent headcase but they were able to get the top part and then quickly I think is a legit keeper and one of my favorite guys in that draft and I think he's somebody that really would have fed off the crowd if there was one, because that they're just plays hard.

I really like him quickly is so funny too, because he has that funny little flat footed Gilbert Arenas jumper. But it goes in and he does that thing Gilbert loved to do, just shoot from five feet behind the arc for no reason like Curry does it because the defense extends to he was just like, I'm going to shoot from here because I like it. Yeah, it quickly is the same way. Just stays out there. I love quickly. And, you know, let me ask you, I want your opinion on this, OK?

If you're the Knicks and you redrafts type like I want to Tyree's Halliburton originally. But do you take Tyree's Halliburton or you take will be Toppin. I I loved Halliburton, he was my second guy in the draft, I personally would love to have Halliburton and quickly on the same team because I think they would play really well together. So that would have been my preference.

Yeah, I still would go Halliburton. But there's something about Olby top Enron like this wasn't a wasted pick. This isn't Frank.

I agree. No, I agree with you because especially if he can turn into like a thirty eight point thirty eight percent, three point shooter, if he could just be good. Not not even great, but good. Combined with the inside outside stuff. There's something there. That thing, though, is I think if they knew Randall was going to do this, you kind of wouldn't have needed Toppin, right. You would have just taken Halberd. We have a logjam.

That's the issue. And people are wrong. We're talking trading, Randall early in the season and I really thought about it. But now I'm like, no, this guy is a legit number two guy on a squad. We need a bad man. No one like a Bradley Beal, something like that. And then quickly is a great I think he's going to develop into a number three RJ, I think is the problem. And I love it because he's a nice guy, you know, and he plays really hard on defense.

He started to hit some threes recently, but RJ is a black hole going to the hoop. He can over the double team and I, I don't know, TIPS is talking about this, but I'm sure he never realizes Nerlens Noel is just waiting under the other side of the hoop every single time. Keep up, by the way.

Did that at do too. I still like them. I'm still buying everybody's RJ stock because I think he's going to put in the work when he will will himself into being a really good player.

What's a good comp for RJ you feel. It's tough, it's because it's for what you said, he's he's not good at creating shots for other guys. Yeah. Whereas, like, you look at somebody, like you would say, could he be this is a weird comparison. They're nothing alike. But let's say could he be like man who could be a six man off the bench who creates offense, can get his own shot? S part of that.

But man who is such a good playmaker, like he could create shots for other guys. And that's what I haven't seen from RJ yet. I feel like we said he's. He's he's not a black hole, but when he's going to the basket, he's thinking about him. Yeah. Versus I'm going to pull this guy over and then I'm going to find this guy in the corner like he's thinking about his own shot.

Yeah, like, I think low. And worst case, he's an aggressive Evan Turner, you know, which is that's a good call.

Yeah, I like that. He's like an aggressive Evan Turner and unfortunately, I don't love that. And then Top End, I'm like I mean, maybe he can kind of be like Danny Granger or something like that, but like it would require a three point shot and and just an ability to see at least the first pass, not even the second pass. I don't even need you to see the corner or the or the wing, but just the pass in front of you because he's not seeing that.

Well, you're in good shape. And I think Randle has to be kept. I think your keepers ultimately are random and quickly. And Robinson and then. Our just three and a half right now. Yeah, and then and I do like a big man rotation of Toppin Robinson Randall, I think that that'll work and we can work with that again for next year. And then if Toppin really starts to develop, then you have a you know, you have a James Harden situation on your hands if you possibly could have it.

I thought they could have tried to get James. I don't know why the next four did that.

Yeah, why not? I think it's just that James that he didn't want to play for the next year. Going to play for the other team.

I know, but kick the tires, get the fans excited. I will say they've done an amazing job of not saying anything to anybody. When you think like this is the biggest the biggest franchise in the biggest city. And their guy who's running at Leros has given one interview in like a year, nobody knows what he's thinking. He doesn't leak stuff to people. He's not interested in doing anything other than just quietly running the team and then having all the contacts that everybody else, which I think it's impressive.

He pulled it off. I didn't know somebody could run the Knicks and disappear like this.

Yeah, I love it. And he feels very old school and just very like I don't care what anyone thinks. It's about winning. And it's a very like New York mentality. And you got tips is just such a bully. Like he's he's very much kind of like a story of the NBA, you know? I mean, just like Rutgers guys in the ground. I love it.

I was hoping that they would say fuck it and trade for a piece to try to get like the four or five seed, like actually make like a run at this, you know? And I don't I guess the question is, who's the piece? And I think it's a swing. I think it's like a three kind of a two three hybrid who could create his own shot and play D. And I don't really know who that player is because none of those guys are available except Bill.

Can I pitch two ideas? Yeah, that's what it is. I feel RJ to the Kings. For Buddy Hield. Well, I would send RJ and the next pick for Buddy Hield and their pick this year like a pick swap. Yeah, but you're going to have poor RJ playing with the Fox and Halliburton. I mean, they're just going to throw the ball out of bounds.

All right. Let's hear the idea of vetoing that. And the other one would be RJ to the Hornets for Terry Rozier. Interesting, yeah, so if I'm the Hornets versus 20 points a game this year, I actually really like Rogier this year.

I do. But you have the I mean, they can play together, the team can play together. I mean, they're pretty good with the Melo Rogier and Gordon Hayward and PJ Washington, Miles. That's like a nice team, but I'm like, that's my favorite league past team.

How dare you try to break them up?

What? I would kick the tires to see how they're stupid. Like, will they look rosier for RJ Berry, you know, because you may. So let me throw this one at you. Yeah. Because you have some cap space, too. You guys can work some shenanigans with these trades. What about a deal that the centerpieces are R.J. Baird and Kyle Lowry? So that would absolutely make us the four or five seed, right, in Toronto, our Canadian.

Yes, spicy spicy one, right. Very spicy, but I feel like Lowry Lowry may be one of those guys. I believe that could just play forever. And he kind of I think is I do think he could be exactly who he is right now for like three more years. Chris Paul is kind of like that, too, right? Chris Paul is like forty five years old at this point, still chugging along.

I do think Kyle Lowry, the him play, he has three more years and he plays smart and he's strong and he's got a three point shot. So I think he could last.

But I feel also you left out this part that was the big Knicks. What if right where they almost had the Lowry trade and then it turned into Bargnani, which turned to them eventually losing an awesome pick. Remember that whole sliding doors, not even not even a top 10 worst next moment of the twenty first century, but where, like Doray with Kyle Lowry, Darby was Andre Bargnani and Typic.

Yeah, that was terrible. Be good. We would have been I mean Blowering Lobello would have been nice.

It said sneaky. What if because then Toronto doesn't win the title. They don't have enough with that. They don't trade for Kawhi Leonard who gets Kawhi Leonard. It's Yeah. Minus Lenders'. All right, so your movie's coming out, you're doing a ton of press, but I knew I would be able to get the a the A-list version of Eddie on a podcast. So I was I wasn't worried.

You guys, all the smoke I really like a lot. So I appreciate that. Let me know. Let me know next time you want to. Come on. Let me know when you're in L.A.. Best of luck with the movie. Check it out. It's called Boogie. Did it was there any sort of did you have to check with DeMarcus or.

No, no, no, no, no. Because, you know, guys, that the court always. Oh, you don't want to, you know, so that's kind of OK. Good. I was fine with it. Yeah. So it's out. Check it out on demand. No theater premiere, though, right? Uh, we're premiering at a Drive-In tonight in Vineland. That's fun. Industry City, True Detective, Season two, but.

Yeah, and then it's in theaters tomorrow everywhere.

OK, good luck. I'm proud of you. Made a sports movie. This is awesome. Way to go. Make the change. Up next, man. That's it. People heard we have witnesses. You got to do that with me. All right.

I'll talk to you later. All right, that's it for the podcast, we will be back on Sunday night, probably after the All-Star Game, which God only knows. That's. But we will see you on Sunday, enjoy the weekend, stay safe. See you soon. Simply safe is incredibly easy to customize for your home. Just go to simply save dotcom jobs, you can easily choose the exact sensors you need or get help from one of their experts.

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