0:10

Today's podcast is stacked. Danny Hurley, head coach

0:12

of UConn. I want to talk about his

0:15

draft prospects, two lottery picks in there as

0:17

well. Also how he has things

0:19

rolling at UConn and his Lakers flirtation. Sam Vecini

0:21

and I are going to break down a bunch

0:23

of the lottery picks, I think pretty much almost

0:25

all of them, all over the place. And we'll

0:27

also talk a little Brownie James as we get

0:29

a week out from the NBA draft. And of

0:31

course, life advice. This

0:34

episode is brought to you by hotels.com. When

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about American. They

4:00

see it that way. I think a lot

4:02

of the teams that are

4:05

considering him or are really excited

4:07

about him They've they've

4:09

been at multiple practices the last two

4:11

years, you know, they've been they've not

4:14

just shown up at games where You

4:17

know where we're playing to win So we're

4:19

really sticking to the script of

4:22

things that are gonna get gonna give you

4:24

con the best chance of win Which he

4:26

conformed to but you know if you go

4:28

and see summer practices or you see a

4:30

practice in October You

4:33

see maybe different elements to his game

4:35

You'd have a chance to maybe you know

4:37

watch him handle the ball away from the

4:39

basket more shoot more threes You

4:42

know experiment a little bit more and then

4:44

you know You obviously get a chance to

4:47

see his evolution of what he was when he

4:49

came in the door here as a young player

4:51

as a freshman And then see

4:53

you know what what he's leaving, you know

4:56

as a two-time You know

4:58

champion, but I think you

5:01

know, he's he's shown You

5:03

know a lot a lot of different things that he

5:05

can do as a passer as as

5:08

a five out as

5:10

a five out center and in the You

5:12

know in the dribble handoff game where he

5:14

could you know off the dribble

5:17

pass cutters I think he's shown a great

5:19

passing ability to feel for that As

5:22

a rim runner and as a as a

5:24

lob guy and as a roller he's shown

5:26

that As a short

5:28

roll guy that can catch it and find

5:30

cutters or spray it out to the three-point

5:32

line And then obviously covering

5:34

the entire court the guys an athlete

5:37

If you put him if you if you

5:39

played a baseball game You'd play him

5:41

at shortstop or center field if

5:44

you threw him a football Ryan like

5:46

he'd catch it clean and then he'd throw

5:48

it like a quarterback So it's rare that

5:50

a seven foot two guy is

5:53

like a real athlete What I've loved

5:55

about your offense at UConn and I know you

5:57

got in the depth of kind of explaining it

5:59

to JJ Jay Redick on his pod, which

6:01

all of us as basketball junkies loved. And

6:04

when I watched you know, throughout this season, I

6:06

go, you know, one of the things I always love about the

6:09

Warriors is that they never really stopped the possession. They

6:11

they always have like the next thing. And if

6:13

you get shut off in your first thing, it's

6:15

like, Oh, wait, but there's this other cutter, and

6:18

then there's somebody else repositioning. And

6:20

I think what it does is it lets

6:22

everybody feel involved. And when

6:25

I'm thinking about like different football people that

6:27

I've talked to, I don't know if Peole is the first person

6:29

I ever had say it, but he was like, if you want

6:31

a smart team, draft smart

6:33

players, when you're building

6:35

out your roster each year, is

6:38

it that you have more trust, or

6:40

you're recruiting the players that understand like

6:42

we don't just run a high ball

6:45

screen and then hope it works? Like

6:48

we were going to ask you to

6:50

keep playing and be engaged in the

6:52

possession. Yeah, right. I tried

6:54

that first thing you said, try

6:56

the ball, you know, run the ball street and then pray

6:59

it works. That got us eliminated

7:01

in the first round of the tournament

7:03

quickly. And I was

7:05

a lot less popular then. So we

7:08

changed a lot of just roster

7:11

construction, things we value, in

7:14

terms of, you know, giving up a

7:16

little bit of athleticism for

7:18

guys that could process the game, you

7:20

know, players that could think and, and

7:23

pass and, and,

7:26

and shoot and understand a

7:29

complex offensive system. So for

7:31

us, yeah, I mean, we have, you

7:34

know, initial entries that we like to

7:36

run. But we

7:38

talk a lot about like, what do we do to

7:41

keep the music playing? Yeah, like

7:43

what types of cuts? You know,

7:45

what types of split games? We just

7:48

give our players a lot of different

7:50

options, you know, to play after that

7:52

initial, initial action, you

7:54

know, doesn't work so that we could

7:57

continue to stress the defense. And

7:59

if you continue you to stress the defense eventually

8:01

it's gonna break down and you're either gonna get

8:04

that rim two that you want that

8:06

paint three that you want that

8:09

paint kick out three that you want or or

8:11

eventually a defense is gonna get tired they're gonna

8:13

foul you you see when I watch

8:15

you and I just was in love with this

8:17

because there's just a lot of teams there's usually

8:19

two sometimes even three guys like well if the

8:21

ball ends up in his hands like okay whatever

8:24

I'm not that worried about it and I kept

8:26

watching you going man if it

8:28

ends up in his hands he's fine obviously

8:30

cam or a castle or caravan and then

8:32

Klingens passing and there was

8:34

just like six seven guys deep where

8:36

I go I actually not worried when

8:38

this player has the ball so was

8:40

it a recruiting decision or are

8:43

you perhaps more more trusting because I think

8:45

a lot of coaches like hey you never

8:47

get to touch the ball unless it's just

8:49

desperation yeah it's it's it's those two things

8:51

without question it's uh it's

8:54

a philosophical shift in terms of what

8:56

you're going to value in terms

8:58

of you know the trace uh

9:01

it's it's um it's

9:03

taking practice time that I I was

9:05

always a big culture culture

9:07

and uh all right guys let's go

9:10

run through that brick wall right there

9:12

and we're gonna win the game in

9:14

rock rock fight fashion we're just gonna

9:16

bludgeon the other guy with culture and

9:18

effort so some of it

9:20

was just taking a lot more of like on

9:23

court time and video time of breaking

9:25

down these offensive concepts

9:28

so you know just taking

9:30

time from defense and rebounding and and

9:33

uh which is tough for a coach especially

9:35

a coach uh with my

9:37

with my history um and

9:39

uh and then also too just like

9:42

you know we're going live all summer

9:44

like a lot of college programs either

9:46

um the

9:48

the workouts are optional or it's a

9:51

lot of fundamental you know one on

9:53

oh or four on oh like we're

9:55

going live all summer long

9:58

for uh for eight weeks in

10:01

all of the offensive concepts that we

10:03

imagine ourselves playing this summer. Obviously,

10:07

you know, we're getting used to new

10:09

personnel, so we're going to tailor it

10:11

to what this group looks like and

10:13

their strengths and weaknesses. But like,

10:17

you know, a lot of it is when

10:19

you have a high school coach's background, I'm

10:21

not married to a system. So

10:23

a lot of our summer, we're going to spend experimenting

10:25

with a lot of concepts and see if it fits

10:27

the group. It's easy to

10:29

say when you're running a program that

10:31

you want to have a standard. Okay.

10:34

And I remember going to those games and

10:36

stores and going to the Civic Center and

10:39

watching UConn just get their

10:41

heads kicked in by all these great

10:43

NBA players. And then Calhoun shows up

10:46

and you're like, wait, they're going to be good.

10:50

And anybody that knows the area, and I've talked

10:52

about this after all these titles, the program wins.

10:54

It's like it's still kind of, because I've been

10:56

everywhere in college, basketball and football. I

10:58

mean, the campus is all the other place. I'm like, stores, man,

11:00

this is unbelievable. So the standard is

11:02

there because of what's happened prior to, do you

11:05

still sense, and maybe it's easy because it's still

11:07

recent with the back to back titles that you've

11:09

won, but that you're

11:11

getting a kid that comes in that understands the

11:13

history and understands that there is this kind of

11:15

standard. Did you just sort of express that? Like

11:17

when you show up in the offseason here, we're

11:19

like, we're going live. Like we're not screwing around.

11:21

Yeah. Listen, you know, Ryan, I

11:23

go back to Tate George. I

11:28

was a really big deal as a

11:30

high school player in Jersey. And when he

11:32

committed to UConn, I remember

11:34

like saying to my brother, like, what's

11:37

UConn? Like why, why

11:39

is he not going to

11:41

Carolina or, or, you know,

11:43

or Villanova or, you

11:45

know, or Kentucky or Kansas? Wait, what's

11:47

UConn, Bob? And

11:50

that's how quickly that, you

11:52

know, that whole thing, that, that, that script

11:54

flipped because,

11:56

you know, not too far down

11:59

the road. at the Meadowlands, you

12:01

know, watching them beat Clemson and to

12:04

go to the Elite Eight. And then

12:06

some of those Duke games, the

12:09

Latener, sought out a bound shot

12:11

to eliminate UConn. So yeah,

12:14

I mean, like this basketball

12:16

thing that's been built here has not

12:18

been built on, hey, come

12:21

here and be a high draft pick. And

12:24

like we live off of just kind of this,

12:28

these promises of just the brand

12:30

of our program, this big blue

12:32

blood brand and hey, come here,

12:34

you'll be a lottery pick. Like

12:37

this UConn basketball thing has been built on,

12:39

like on winning and

12:41

championships and a

12:44

relentless pursuit of championships with Genos

12:46

11 and

12:48

Coach Calhoun's three.

12:52

And then Kevin Ollie winning the fourth and then

12:54

the sixth that now we have overall. And they're

12:56

all within the last 30 years. So

12:59

just our basketball thing is different here.

13:01

People don't pick UConn for the wrong

13:04

reasons. You know, you don't come

13:06

here and go, you know, for 110,000

13:09

people at a football game or you don't pick

13:11

it because you think, you know, shit

13:13

is all sweet here. You know, like, this is

13:16

like you pick UConn

13:18

basketball because you want

13:20

to be compared to like great

13:22

players. And then like, if you don't

13:25

win a major championship, like

13:27

maybe your career was underwhelming or

13:30

maybe even a little bit of a failure and

13:33

that's heavy. Yeah, no, that's

13:35

well said. Castle, so

13:37

he's a big time recruit. He comes

13:39

in and we know he's gonna be

13:41

a lottery pick. I'll admit, I

13:43

never thought of him as a point guard when I

13:46

watched. And I know that's kind

13:48

of how he's being packaged, which is always part

13:50

of my favorite, you know, pre-draft stuff. It's like,

13:52

look, he's like, like what he is right now

13:54

is really, really good. And he wasn't gonna have

13:56

a ton of options offensively to initiate stuff because

13:59

of the roster. You didn't need him to do

14:01

those things. But what's the best way

14:03

of all of us on the outside understanding like

14:05

the full capacities of his game that maybe didn't

14:07

always see it in game? Yeah. You

14:10

know, Ryan, it's just so

14:12

much there. And then

14:15

I always like, you know, go into

14:17

the person and to, you know,

14:20

the inner circle. And you see it

14:22

with, you know, with some of the

14:24

young tale in the NBA, you could

14:26

tell that there was maybe not a

14:28

great inner circle or maybe not enough

14:30

old school values with the player. This

14:34

guy's got just incredible

14:36

people around him. He's

14:38

a ball player. You know,

14:40

he's not a tick-tocker or a social

14:43

meat. Like that's not his deal. He's

14:45

a ball player. He loves the game. He's

14:48

a pleaser. You

14:50

know, he's a he's a winner. So

14:52

all you know, he's got a humility about

14:55

him. He wants to

14:57

be drafted by a great organization. I

15:00

don't think it matters to him as much

15:02

or in Donovan as much as where they

15:04

go as to who they go to because

15:07

they want to go to an organization that

15:09

that resembles a little bit of what

15:11

their college experience was in terms of

15:13

the structure and the organization. So I

15:17

liken him to like a Drew Holiday

15:19

type of guard in

15:22

terms of like defensive stopper at

15:25

you know, at one through four positions because of

15:27

the size and the physical strength. You

15:30

know, a guy that when he's on ball

15:32

can make all the right reads has got

15:35

the finishing ability at the rim. You

15:37

also to you saw Drew Holiday and those

15:40

like quick roles as a guard in the

15:42

habit that that created with the

15:44

Maverick defense in the finals. So he's

15:47

a he's an incredible competitor. He's a

15:50

winner. I see a lot of similarities,

15:52

you know, between him and probably a Drew

15:54

Holiday. I'm always going to root for

15:56

guys like Cam Spencer because I mean, I know his

15:58

stories all over the place. The

16:00

shooting numbers are great. I've gotten in arguments with other people

16:03

about it because I know how much I like the draft.

16:05

And I go, I'll tell you what, what he isn't. That

16:07

guy's never been afraid in his life.

16:10

And he's, you know, look, he's bigger.

16:12

You know, the prototypical like, oh wait, that guy's going

16:14

to be in the NBA. And

16:17

I think he has a

16:19

chance. I really do think he has a chance.

16:22

What are the conversations like with him on his

16:24

potential to be drafted? Yeah, I

16:26

think, you know, from that

16:28

30 to 40, that,

16:31

you know, that 30 to 45 range where, you know, where

16:37

there's guaranteed contracts, you know, to

16:40

players, you know, in that range,

16:42

I think there's several teams

16:44

that really, you know,

16:46

value the level that he shoots the ball at.

16:48

I mean, he was a hair away from that

16:50

exclusive 50, 45,

16:54

90 club, which not a lot of guys hit at the

16:56

college level. You

16:58

know, he, obviously it looks slow

17:00

and it probably is

17:03

slow. Yes, it is.

17:05

It's slow looking. And then like, when you

17:07

see it, it's slow in

17:09

terms of where he moves, but he gets

17:11

to all of his spots against, you know,

17:13

whether that was Devin Carter this year in

17:15

the big East, who's going to be a

17:18

high draft picked or other players

17:20

that he, you know, that he destroyed in

17:22

a mountain conference or the NCAA tournament. So,

17:25

you know, the shooting you could see

17:27

for yourself, the competitiveness, the fire, what

17:30

he brings to an organization that way, I

17:32

think, you know, is

17:35

a real plus for him, but I know it

17:37

looks slow and I know it looks unathletic, but

17:40

against the best teams and the best players that are

17:42

all going to play in the NBA, he

17:44

got to his spots. He was able to get to the

17:46

rim. He got to the mid range. And

17:50

he's the exact type of guy you want to bring to

17:52

your organization and bet on. I was

17:54

at the Stetson tournament game and

17:56

I was sitting kind of like, you

17:58

know, a few rows behind you guys. guys and

18:01

you're up 30. I mean, look, it's the kind of

18:03

game that's supposed to happen. You're supposed to dominate that

18:05

game. And I was

18:08

watching Castle play defense off the ball when

18:10

you're up 30. And

18:12

I went, you've got to be kidding me. Okay.

18:15

Like he is playing and we could get into

18:17

the hole like you owe it to your teammate

18:19

thing and your prideful on stuff. And

18:21

I was like, whatever Hurley does

18:23

with these dudes to get them to care

18:25

that much about not like giving up an

18:28

easy bucket when this game was over at

18:30

the tip. How

18:32

do you get there? How do you get it's

18:34

not, I don't want to frame it as like,

18:36

they're afraid of letting you down. But

18:38

how do you get guys to

18:41

do that? Because I actually don't think it's that

18:43

common. Yeah. You

18:46

bring you bring in just

18:49

these guys, Ryan, that, you know,

18:51

like their families, that they've

18:54

got enough of those kind of old

18:56

school values, accountability,

18:58

responsibility. Is

19:00

it your intensity? Sorry to interrupt, but

19:02

is there Yeah, because it's not like

19:05

if they were brutal, like if these

19:07

guys were selfish, narcissistic,

19:11

you know, they're doing me a

19:13

favor by coming to Yukon type

19:15

of mentality, like we would look

19:17

like, you know, we'd look

19:19

like a clown show that you see, I'm sure

19:21

you've seen some other operations that don't look like

19:24

that. So I mean, but

19:26

it starts in that process of recruiting

19:28

by just evaluating like who still wants

19:30

to be a part of something like

19:32

this in college, or even in the

19:34

NBA, where not everything functions like this.

19:36

So yeah, I mean, we evaluate the

19:38

right people. I think that Ryan, we

19:40

bring a lot of value to these

19:43

guys, we have evidence that like we

19:45

can help these guys elevate their careers.

19:48

And then there's a tribal aspect to it

19:50

too, where like, what

19:52

human beings still don't want to

19:54

be part of like a super

19:56

connected, highly efficient,

20:00

achieving group of, uh, you know, cult, I

20:02

don't want to say cult, I got trouble

20:04

for that. But, um, you know,

20:06

like who doesn't want to be part of

20:08

like the absolute highest functioning group of people

20:11

in your sport that are

20:13

dominant and putting on incredible performances, winning

20:15

all the trophies and then players are

20:17

going on and getting drafted into lottery

20:19

or, or, or becoming an NBA player.

20:21

Like who doesn't want to be part

20:23

of that? Would you prefer to be

20:25

part of a locker room of selfish

20:27

assholes? I, you know, like, what

20:29

would you, I don't know if I could curse on

20:31

here. I don't know. You can. All right. But

20:34

yeah, I mean, it's, it seems like, like, what would you

20:36

rather be a part of? And I think right now that's

20:39

where we've got to be careful in

20:41

recruiting. Uh, well, I think we have

20:43

access now to, to a higher level

20:45

of prospect is a lot more interested

20:47

in UConn basketball because of what we're

20:49

doing. But we've got to

20:52

be true to what's kind of gotten us

20:54

here. The types of people, uh, players on

20:56

the way up players that are, uh, that

20:58

have some sense of humility and want to

21:01

be coached. Okay. So I

21:04

think that's a great transition and probably

21:06

what's going to be your least enjoyable

21:08

part of the interview in that when

21:11

I think about your approach, the buy-in,

21:13

the intensity and all that stuff. And

21:15

then when all the Lakers rumors were

21:17

happening, I went, I

21:20

love this guy's approach. I love the

21:22

program, but I've been around the NBA

21:24

a really long time. Did

21:27

you ever think, okay, if I actually

21:29

do this, how much do I

21:31

need to adjust? Considering we're talking about older

21:33

men in a longer season? Yeah,

21:36

absolutely. Well, when I think of,

21:38

um, you know, when

21:40

I think of, you know, my future

21:42

and, and, and eventually coaching at that

21:44

level, if that's something that, um,

21:47

you know, it continues to be something I aspire

21:50

to do, uh, you know, I

21:53

think about that a lot and

21:55

whether, um, you

21:57

know, whether that would be effective for me,

21:59

what, whether that

22:02

makes sense for me, I

22:04

would say I consider

22:07

that a great

22:09

deal. I think incredibly

22:11

well suited to coach players that are 18,

22:14

19, 20 years old. I love being

22:16

part of that process.

22:20

I feel like my

22:23

strengths as a coach and where

22:25

I could be at my best

22:27

right now is certainly it's best

22:29

suited to the college game

22:31

and the impact I can have. And still, like

22:34

you said before, Ryan, I could still

22:37

create a culture and a mindset with

22:39

my team and all out effort that

22:42

may be hard to replicate in

22:45

the NBA, in

22:49

an organization that doesn't

22:51

value those types of

22:54

things. In the however

22:56

many day window where the Laker

22:58

story was a story, was there ever a moment where

23:00

you thought to yourself, I'm actually doing this? I

23:03

think, yeah,

23:05

absolutely. I think I wouldn't

23:08

have considered it unless I thought it

23:10

was something real for me. I'm not,

23:13

I don't like distractions. I

23:16

don't like them in my program. We

23:19

keep our distractions limited.

23:21

It was a very

23:23

uncomfortable situation for me. Like

23:25

I would much prefer to just

23:28

be in the gym. I'm a pretty

23:31

simple guy. I, even though I draw

23:33

a lot of attention, you know, because

23:35

of the way I coach and the

23:37

way I may interact with the fan

23:41

post game, particularly on

23:43

the road, if I don't like what they're

23:45

saying, you know, like I bring a lot

23:47

of, you know, the way we show up,

23:49

how hard we play, just a

23:51

lot of the way we go about the way we

23:53

do our basketball draws a lot of attention. But I

23:56

don't really, I'm not, I was not

23:59

comfortable really. in that whole

24:01

situation, when it became public, it

24:03

made it much more difficult for me to

24:06

process everything. But

24:10

I mean, I thought long and hard

24:12

about it. And it just, it wasn't

24:15

the right moment for me

24:18

to go coaching the NBA. All right,

24:20

last thing on this, I promise, but when

24:23

your offensive video broke

24:26

out with JJ, right? Then everybody knows

24:28

JJ and LeBron's relationship. And then, I mean,

24:31

that's a whole nother element of this story.

24:33

Like, wait, what's going on here? Did

24:35

JJ just convince LeBron that Danny would be

24:38

the better head coach than JJ? In

24:41

your information gathering process, did you actually ever

24:43

talk to LeBron? We had some,

24:46

we shared some text messages and I think this just,

24:49

you know, LeBron, I think, just wanted me to

24:51

know that he

24:54

would support me and that he

24:56

paid attention to what I've

24:58

accomplished in my career. Obviously, we shared the

25:01

court together when he was a

25:03

high school player as a junior. And I was in my

25:05

first year as a high school coach and

25:08

he beat my ass in Delaware and slammed

25:10

dunk to the beach. It was a close

25:12

game, but he walked me down in the

25:14

fourth quarter and got us there. I'm a

25:16

lot better coach since then. Yeah,

25:20

but I think just the whole thing, you know,

25:22

some of the strengths of what we do, you're

25:25

considering like bringing my offensive, you

25:29

know, philosophy to the NBA. Okay,

25:31

you know, it's great. I mean, what we're doing

25:34

in college is great. Can I get NBA players

25:36

to move? You know,

25:38

can I get them to move and cut the way, we

25:41

are getting our team to move and

25:43

cut with my star players be willing

25:45

to, you know, to

25:47

let, to share the ball, you know,

25:50

to allow others to handle

25:52

it and at times be a screener, at

25:54

times be a cutter, at times be a

25:56

roller, you know, at

25:59

times. be a slipper, you know, like maybe

26:02

you're the first greener in a jet, you know, like

26:05

a lot of those things are what

26:07

you're considering as like, I think what

26:09

we do would be incredibly effective at

26:11

the professional level. But

26:13

you do wonder, can you get NBA players to

26:16

actually do it? I remember Van Pelt and I

26:18

back in the day, we had Coach Cal on

26:20

after like five players were drafted in the first

26:22

round. And it's an unbelievable accomplishment. And he may

26:24

not even done the quote with us. But Cal

26:26

was always fun. He would come on, he was

26:29

always good to us. And the

26:31

quote, again, I don't know if it was specific

26:33

to our show, or maybe he followed up after

26:35

already saying it, like, hey, this is one of

26:37

the biggest nights in the history of Kentucky basketball.

26:39

And of course, Kentucky fans are like, we'd actually

26:42

rather have another title, Cal. You

26:44

have the titles. But

26:46

what is draft night like for

26:48

you, the investment in these people,

26:50

the realization of dreams that only

26:52

a few people ever get to

26:54

complete when the first time they touch a basketball and

26:57

they, you know, you get to turn a certain age,

26:59

you realize, hey, this is gonna happen for me. But

27:01

it's happening to your guys in your world. What's that

27:03

night like for you? Incredible night. You know,

27:06

it's up there with the championship

27:08

nights. And those championship nights are

27:10

incredible moments that you

27:12

get to share with the boys and, you

27:15

know, and the staff. And it's that feeling

27:17

of love that you have for each other

27:19

and that you'll have forever when you're part

27:21

of like the net cutting and the big

27:23

championships and just

27:26

everything that these guys have been a part

27:28

of. But, you know,

27:30

like with, with, with Jordan

27:32

Hawkins who, or, or, or

27:34

Donovan, you know,

27:36

these guys that maybe like Steph's a little different

27:39

stuff came in as McDonald's, Steph came in as

27:41

a top 10 player in the country.

27:43

And I think, you know, he may have improved

27:45

his draft stock a little bit, but I think

27:47

he came into this year as a, as

27:49

a, as a likely one and done. But

27:52

like when you sit at the table with like a Jordan Hawkins,

27:54

who was like a top 75 player, Donovan

27:58

Clingan, who was maybe like a top 15.

28:00

player. And now these guys

28:02

go lottery or potentially first pick. And

28:05

you see like the emotion with the

28:07

family because this wasn't like

28:09

some preordained thing that they feel like

28:11

they were entitled to because they've always

28:14

been ranked the number three

28:16

player in the country. Like you'll see

28:18

in the green room, which I saw

28:20

last year, there'll be a uniqueness to

28:22

like a Hawkins or a Klingon where

28:24

like not too long ago, he

28:26

was just playing at Bristol High on a

28:29

non sneaker affiliated AAU team, just no

28:31

one knowing that this was going to

28:33

be how his story plays out. So

28:37

it's just awesome to be part of families,

28:40

trajectories and families changing in

28:43

an incredible way. This

28:45

was a real pleasure, man. I know how busy

28:47

you are. And looking forward to next week and

28:49

that night for you and the program. And I

28:51

don't need to wish you luck moving forward because

28:53

you have this thing dialed in. But UConn

28:56

fans that grew up with it know what it was

28:58

like. Appreciate it. Thanks. I got you.

29:00

I got you. I'll hold glass to bury down to

29:02

for you. All right. I got it. Yeah. Let them

29:04

know. Let them know. I looked

29:06

at real estate there, but I don't I don't know

29:08

if it's in the future. But if you

29:13

flirt with the Lakers again, I'm your guy in

29:15

Manhattan Beach. All right. I got you. Later, brother.

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ahead to skip the line. Limited

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time offer at participating US locations

31:08

while supplies last. We

31:11

are one week out from the NBA draft, one of

31:13

my favorite times of the year, and a guy I

31:15

love talking to from The Athletic. He is great on

31:17

the draft. All of his stuff is up right now

31:19

at San Vincenni. What's up, man? Good to see you.

31:21

Ryan, it's so good to see you this time of

31:23

year, man. I'm so happy that we're doing this. I

31:25

mean, how do you feel about this two-day draft? That's

31:27

where I'm at. Like, this feels like insane to me

31:29

that we're doing this on two days. Yeah,

31:31

I blame the NFL. I blame the NFL for a

31:33

lot of the programming choices that we have where you're

31:35

just like, hey, is there any way to get some

31:37

kind of live audience number on another night? And

31:41

look, I get it. It's business, maximizing

31:43

all of your potential income earning

31:45

possibilities. But it's just, I don't know. If there was

31:47

ever a year to not have to do it, it

31:50

would be this year with this class. So let's start at

31:52

the top. I really want to focus on the lottery. You

31:54

have a mock-up. And I was going through it

31:56

this morning. And so I've

31:58

even touched on this with Bill. going back a couple of

32:00

weeks ago where it felt like teams were just hinting

32:04

at, and it's easy when you

32:06

don't have the pickup there, but hinting at like, Hey,

32:08

a lot of teams have very different orders of who

32:10

like one, two, three, four, five are. Um, I'd imagine

32:12

you've heard a lot of the same thing, which again,

32:15

to emphasize, it is also very easy to say you

32:17

would do something different when you have

32:19

nothing to do with a pick in that range. Yes,

32:23

that is accurate. Look, so the mock you

32:25

probably looked at, uh, I

32:28

would imagine is from like early June, right? So

32:30

I just literally an hour before

32:32

we started recording this, like updated and like finalized

32:34

a mock and send it off. Right? So we'll

32:36

kind of talk through this live.

32:39

So I

32:41

don't know about you, but like the name that

32:43

I continue to get like most connected with Atlanta

32:45

is Donovan Clingan. Uh,

32:47

like I don't, I don't know if you're getting that as well.

32:50

I'm not saying that that's exactly what happens. I'm not

32:52

even saying Donovan Clingan goes number one, but

32:55

the name I get most connected

32:57

with Atlanta right now seems to be Donovan

32:59

at this point.

33:02

Okay. Uh, Clingan has been somebody, I would

33:04

say weeks leading up to this

33:07

where it's like, Hey, this team would like Clingan.

33:10

This team would like to move up this team would like,

33:13

and then it was kind of getting like, I don't know

33:15

how high you're going to have to go up for him.

33:17

And then you have to have the internal debate of like,

33:19

well, is Clingan worth the number

33:21

one pick this year? Like as

33:23

I'm watching SAR and Risa Shay,

33:26

I'm just like, okay, well, in this year

33:28

these guys are part of that conversation, uh,

33:31

depending on how you feel about it. So I know you've

33:33

done, I think you had a note, you

33:35

do different tiers for just ranking

33:38

the prospects historically. What

33:40

was different about this year at the top of

33:42

the class? Sure.

33:44

So I always rank

33:46

out tears in terms of not by year.

33:48

Not by year. Like I don't have Alex

33:50

SAR, who is my number one player as

33:53

a tier one player this year. Right. Um,

33:56

I don't have any tier one

33:58

or tier two player. in

34:00

this class, that

34:02

is very abnormal for me. I

34:05

am not stingy with those grades. Like over

34:07

the last four years, I think I've had

34:09

16 of those guys. And

34:12

the way that I consider, you know, these

34:14

tiers are tier one, like very

34:16

high degree of likelihood. This person is an

34:18

all NBA player. Tier two, like

34:20

very high degree of likelihood. This person is

34:22

an all-star. And then like tier three

34:25

is, okay, there's some all-star

34:27

upside here. Like I can see a

34:29

world where Donovan Clingan makes a Jarrett

34:31

Alleny all-star game, right? But

34:34

I can't, you know, I can't

34:36

sit here and tell you that I think Donovan Clingan is

34:38

going to be an all-star either, you know what I mean?

34:40

Like, I think he's going to be a good starting center

34:42

in the NBA that plays elite level

34:45

drop coverage and screens at an elite level

34:47

and does all of those things well, right?

34:49

Like I don't think he's going to average 20 points a

34:51

game. So I look

34:53

at this class and I think that it

34:57

is entirely an eye of the beholder

34:59

draft. And it's almost

35:02

not dependent on how you

35:04

evaluate layer. It's

35:07

almost more dependent upon how

35:09

you see the league like

35:12

moving forward and

35:14

how you see like the shape of

35:16

the league. Like for instance, we just

35:18

watched Boston put Jason Tatum on

35:20

Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively for minutes

35:23

on end, right? Well,

35:25

like would Boston just be able to do that with

35:27

Donovan Clingan or would Clingan be able to like kind

35:29

of manhandle him in the post potentially? I

35:31

don't know, like teams have different opinions on

35:34

that, but ultimately where you're

35:36

going to fall on Donovan Clingan I think

35:38

is going to be dependent more on like

35:40

what your philosophy of like modern basketball is.

35:42

And if you think that, you know, you

35:44

need a five out look to be able

35:46

to be successful in the NBA and where

35:49

you fall on Alex Sarr is how

35:51

much potential you think he has to actually

35:53

be a real five out center as opposed

35:55

to a theoretical one down the road. Yeah,

35:59

the Clingan conversation. like we all saw all

36:01

the great parts of it, whether it's the

36:03

job coverage that you mentioned, the help defense

36:05

where he just swallows it up, Illinois trying

36:08

to attack him, thinking they were gonna like

36:10

expose him a bit or get him into foul trouble.

36:13

You're like, nope, this isn't gonna work. But

36:15

then I think all of us that love

36:17

basketball, love how UConn plays out every second

36:19

of every shot clock. Not

36:21

that they're running the clock down, but that when

36:23

the first thing is cut off, they'll keep running

36:25

their offense. And Clingan became a

36:28

part of that. Like I liked that Hurley, I

36:30

think it's a very simple approach to basketball. It's

36:33

like, let everybody touch the basketball because then everyone's

36:35

gonna be more engaged throughout the entire game. And

36:37

I think Clingan had some moments where you go,

36:39

okay, you know, you may be able to throw

36:41

it down in him and then he'll make some

36:43

sort of read, but it's kind

36:45

of like the EDI conversation. You can love them

36:47

in the post, but who's actually doing that? So when

36:50

you look at Clingan's offense, you're never

36:52

gonna be looking at him as like a primary option

36:54

unless you get some kind of small mismatch that you

36:56

were alluding to there with Tatum. And

36:58

then the shooting history, you know,

37:01

I think we all want all these big guys to be able

37:03

to space the floor. It's

37:05

a bit like the football evaluation where you'd hear some coaches

37:07

say, don't tell me all the things he can't do, tell

37:09

me the things that he can do. And the things that

37:11

Clingan can do are really good, but

37:13

I think we get greedy with bigs now where

37:15

you're like, oh, he doesn't make his free throws.

37:18

The three point shooting is in the threat whatsoever.

37:20

So what am I drafting here? Am I drafting

37:22

a help

37:24

side drop coverage center, number

37:26

one overall, where if you're

37:28

watching Sar, you

37:31

could probably, if you were in a good

37:33

mood that day, talk yourself into what

37:35

the best version of him is

37:38

offensively knowing that the shot part of it, the pull

37:40

up, the spot up stuff, is

37:42

far more developed than anything because Clingan doesn't even have

37:44

to do any of those things. So it's just two

37:46

different players. Yeah, like

37:50

Donovan Clingan is a better basketball

37:52

player right now than Alex Sar

37:55

by like a fairly real margin, I think,

37:57

like I watched Alex here in

37:59

Australia for... you know, all season this year, Donovan.

38:01

Clingan would like dominate this league in a real

38:03

way. Alex are came off the bench in this

38:05

league. It was effective when he came off the

38:08

bench, but he came off the bench in this

38:10

league. Now it's

38:12

exactly what you're saying in terms of Alex

38:14

are. And again, this is where we get

38:16

into like that modern basketball discussion. Like Alex

38:18

are for the most part this year was

38:20

like a pick and pop big and like

38:22

a pick and short roll big. Like

38:25

he slipped all of his screens. Like I

38:27

don't think he's a particularly good screener yet.

38:29

Right? He's more of a

38:31

perimeter player, but man, like when you watch the

38:34

flashes of him putting the ball on the deck

38:36

and you watch him shoot the basketball, yeah,

38:38

he shot like 29%. But he clearly

38:40

has like pretty real touch and like the ball comes

38:43

out of his hand softly. That's

38:45

what makes it all theoretical with Alex are.

38:47

But if you think

38:49

about basketball, kind of the way that

38:52

I think about basketball now, especially in

38:54

light of the Celtics winning the NBA

38:56

title, I think that every

38:58

team in the NBA from now on like

39:00

to win a title is going

39:02

to have some sort of five outlook.

39:04

It doesn't have to be necessarily your

39:07

bread and butter necessarily, but

39:09

I think that they have to

39:11

at least have it as a counter to what

39:13

defenses are going to present because otherwise it's

39:15

just going to be too hard to score.

39:18

I think given how good coaches are

39:20

now it's scheming against that. So when

39:23

I look at Alex are, I just see him

39:26

as the big in this class that has a

39:28

chance to actually be like a dribble pass shoot

39:30

big who covers an immense amount of space on

39:32

the court and help side coverage, who, you know,

39:34

is an elite level shot blocker. Like I just

39:36

think he kind of, he brings

39:39

more in like a modern basketball sense to

39:41

me, even if he's worse at basketball than

39:43

Donovan Clingan does. And that's where the projection

39:45

side of it comes in. Yeah.

39:47

He had a play against the Hawks. There was a block shot.

39:49

So it kind of leads to like a turnover and

39:52

he gathers the ball at like the opposite

39:54

free throw line and he brings it up.

39:56

He crosses over defender and transition. I'm not

39:58

saying it was like, But

40:00

for somebody his size to do that, but

40:03

then he gets into the paint, he kind of hits this

40:05

and one floater. And when I watch him, granted, James Wiseman

40:07

is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. But

40:11

when Wiseman didn't think about what he

40:13

was doing and his natural athleticism

40:15

took over in the very limited amount of games

40:17

that we had from him, you

40:20

could see the special qualities of projecting

40:22

of what he could be. But once

40:24

Wiseman had to think, you

40:26

could see it was like a bad

40:28

internet connection of just slowly

40:31

going like, oh, and then you're like, hey,

40:33

man, whatever you were contemplating,

40:35

now everything's over and now you're kind

40:37

of stuck, even though you have this

40:39

amazing frame and athleticism in this really

40:41

soft touch. Like I could see

40:43

with Wiseman, OK, the bus version of him is this,

40:45

but the high side version of all

40:48

these things, even with Sar, who for his

40:50

size looks like this seven foot wing. And

40:53

this is again being greedy. The

40:56

flashiness is really cool, but you could

40:58

tell it's still just not fluid. Like

41:00

this is not some fluid seven footer who you're like,

41:02

oh, I'm going to be able to do all these

41:04

incredible things with them. I think the pick and pop

41:06

part of it is probably the most

41:08

bankable thing right now. Yeah,

41:10

like the level to which Chet Holmgren is

41:13

ahead of him and like was ahead of

41:15

him at Gonzaga is like

41:17

staggering. Like I don't even think it's remotely close. Like

41:20

Chet is Chet was leaps and bounds ahead

41:22

as a shooter. I thought he was better as a

41:25

driver and as a ball handler. He

41:27

played with better bend, I felt like

41:30

with Alex. You know, there

41:32

are moments where like he'll try and

41:34

like jab step, like crossover in the

41:36

mid range and get creative. And like

41:39

I kind of love seeing the creativity

41:41

with them. But it's

41:43

just like not like you said, like it's not

41:46

fluid yet. It's not there. Like he got called

41:48

for like three or four travels doing the same

41:50

move this year and like just failing on some

41:52

level. So I agree. Like I

41:54

think that another thing that

41:57

makes it difficult with him is, you

41:59

know, him on a

42:01

less condensed court or

42:03

a more condensed court, I'm sorry, than like

42:06

some of the G league guys. Like we

42:08

actually got like a really cool opportunity to

42:10

see him play the G league ignite earlier

42:12

this year. And you know, we can talk

42:15

about like what it actually meant being a

42:17

better prospect than Ron Holland and modest bezelis.

42:20

But he was very clearly the

42:22

best player on the court in those games. And

42:24

having that extra space, having that like

42:27

little extra driving lane, we actually saw

42:29

him like short roll to pass a

42:31

little bit more in those two

42:33

games than I think I saw him do all year

42:35

in Perth. So

42:39

these guys that are so big and so skilled,

42:41

like I do think that the space matters, but

42:43

you really need him to fill out physically to

42:46

be able to play the five two. He really

42:49

is just truly like an eye of the beholder

42:51

player. And like, if you want to buy into

42:53

development, like I do, I buy

42:56

into him and I kind of buy into the person. Like

42:58

he's like a super mature kid. Like all the intel like

43:00

checks out at a really high level, but it's

43:04

a hard conversation. If you're a team like Atlanta

43:06

who thinks, Hey, we were just the 10th overall

43:08

pick and we got lucky and jumped up to

43:10

number one, we might not be that far away.

43:12

Maybe let's just go get the guy that's good.

43:14

You know what I mean? Yeah,

43:17

it feels like if he goes

43:19

one, I'll sit there and go

43:21

like, all right. Yeah, like I totally get it.

43:24

And, you know, teams

43:26

will tell you that they may have a

43:28

guy grade it a little bit higher. But

43:32

it's so hard to add that elite level talent.

43:34

Like what if this guy actually works out of

43:36

like some GMs know they're making the mistake while

43:38

they're making the mistake, but the rationale is just,

43:41

you know, okay, this is this is somebody that

43:43

least though, if it were to work out, like we we

43:45

know what the high side of him is, and ultimately getting

43:47

back to that word of upside.

43:50

Let me

43:53

be clear on Atlanta too. Like they're having

43:55

like Zachary Sashay in for a workout this

43:57

week, right? Like this could all all this

43:59

could. change like they might end up just

44:02

like taking Risaché and things are fine but

44:04

you know again like people

44:06

around the league like seem to think they like clinging in

44:08

some way and you know maybe they'll try and trade down

44:10

maybe they'll try and just take them at one but you

44:13

know I don't I don't know what they're gonna do yet that's

44:15

what makes this fun. Okay let's start Risaché

44:18

then. Okay so what

44:20

are your thoughts because I'm curious I'm always very curious

44:22

to see what people think the first time they watch

44:24

him because I'll give you mine real quick I watched

44:27

him last year at hoop summit and thought he was

44:29

like terrible like

44:31

point blank I thought he was really bad but he couldn't

44:34

shoot then and he shot

44:36

this like weird like flat

44:38

trajectory shot and

44:41

looked terrible but then this year

44:43

he comes out and shoots 45%

44:45

for the first like four months

44:48

of the year and then shoots 22% from

44:51

three from the next three months and then

44:53

has this like unbelievable stretch to finish the

44:55

season like I'm I'm

44:57

curious like I really want to know what you think

45:00

of him. He doesn't suck at all I

45:02

think that would be yeah I'm

45:04

missing the mark on him. He doesn't

45:06

I agree. No and

45:09

I like the shot that I saw in the Euro

45:11

stuff the

45:13

way he's like ready to go off

45:15

of the catch he does

45:17

a really good job like up fake and resetting himself

45:19

now some guys like I've mentioned this is true holiday

45:21

like if true holiday gets an open catch in the

45:24

corner he isn't he actually wants to get

45:26

a dribble down to be able to

45:28

reset himself and sometimes I actually think it's a

45:30

harder shot for him but Zach is so big

45:32

it's not the same challenge on the reset after

45:34

the up fake and so when

45:37

I'm watching him I think a lot of these guys

45:39

like I'll go okay let's watch him as if he's

45:41

bad and let's watch him as if he's good like

45:43

I'll try to do that with different players yeah if

45:46

you think he's bad you'll be like okay so this

45:48

guy's got all this size and

45:50

somebody like this that's potentially in the

45:53

conversation for the number one pick like I got

45:55

to see more ball creation and he's a spot-up

45:57

guy this past season and 40% of his possession

46:01

And it's a lot of catch and shoot. So like,

46:03

so what am I drafting? Am I drafting a guy

46:05

who's just anchored to the corner

46:08

and he hits enough threes that

46:10

he's providing space? And be like, can

46:12

I take somebody like that number one? But

46:15

I think when I watch him, when I'm like, okay,

46:18

he is good, because he is really athletic. He's

46:20

obviously, maybe I shouldn't say really athletic, because it's

46:23

not, whenever I think like really athletic, I always

46:25

think of like a Westbrook, and I'm not trying

46:27

to sell you on that, but he moves really

46:29

well for his size. I

46:32

think he goes up into traffic really well for

46:34

rebounds and then some shot contests that show like

46:36

an aggression with him that maybe people wouldn't see

46:38

right away, because there's not much definition in his

46:40

body. He obviously needs to get stronger in all

46:43

those different things. The

46:45

problem that I have is like, there's some

46:47

glimpses at times of him wanting

46:50

to do something with the ball, but

46:52

for the most part, like he doesn't

46:54

seem like he's doing much on-ball creation

46:56

at all. And then there's

46:58

stuff in transition where it looks like he has

47:00

the physical advantage of somebody's trying to meet him

47:02

at the rim, and then he doesn't finish a

47:04

lot. So I was like, what the fuck is

47:06

going on with that? Like, you're huge, like get up there and

47:09

finish this on him. So like a lot of

47:11

these guys, there's some things I really like. I

47:14

do like the shooting, despite the up and down

47:16

nature of it, because I just think he's a

47:18

very, I think he's

47:20

a very confident shooter. I don't think he's necessarily

47:23

taking awful shots, by the way, too. Like I

47:25

think with the young players, there's shot selection stuff.

47:27

I'm like, what are you doing? I always think

47:29

of Jaden Hardy in the G-League, where

47:32

it was some of the worst shot selection I've

47:34

seen of anyone I've ever evaluated. Don't think about

47:36

that anymore, Ryan. Like maybe don't. I'll

47:39

tell you what though, it actually translates in

47:42

a good way in the NBA, because when

47:44

he checks into a game, my man is

47:46

not afraid. So yeah, that's my Zach breakdown,

47:49

your thoughts. Yeah, I don't think any

47:51

of that's wrong, but like what you just described to

47:53

me, and look, I say this to somebody, like I have

47:55

Risa Che in the top five, and I have them

47:57

in this top group of players, but like what

48:00

you... just described to me is like the

48:02

Nick Batoom that we saw this year for

48:04

the 70 76ers who's like

48:07

39 years old, right? He moves better

48:09

I think than Batoom does. Would you agree?

48:12

Would you give me that? Yeah, he does like

48:14

it and but he doesn't move like Batoom did

48:16

when he was younger either. You know what I

48:19

mean? Like Nick was a freak athlete. He was

48:21

like in a dunk contest and like could really

48:23

go and like doesn't pass like Nick does there

48:25

did either like in Charlotte and places like that.

48:27

So man,

48:29

I go so back and forth with him.

48:32

Like there are times where I think he

48:34

is such an awesome like third

48:36

or fourth player to have out there just

48:38

because of that shooting. I think he's really

48:40

sharp in terms of help side defense to

48:42

like I think that you

48:44

kind of look at the way he

48:47

takes up space on that weak side

48:49

plays one on two really well. Like

48:51

those are very real NBA style situations

48:53

where he'll be tasked with you know,

48:55

responsibilities like that and be successful at

48:57

them. But

49:00

I would just feel bad drafting

49:02

a player where like I don't

49:05

feel like there's a lot of on ball upside or like

49:07

a lot of on ball juice because like I on

49:10

ball part of it is the thing that gets in

49:12

the way of like being excited about him. I completely

49:14

agree. So go keep going. Yeah,

49:16

like with him like

49:19

it's just like Franz Wagner

49:21

was so far ahead of him in terms

49:23

of like flexibility and like bend out of

49:25

ball screens at Michigan, right? Like and

49:28

like I guess that like Rissa Shea doesn't run a

49:30

lot of ball screens, but like even in transition, right?

49:33

You'll see him like just get out of control in

49:35

like a weird way to where I

49:38

don't know, like I think he's going

49:40

to be a good NBA player. Like

49:42

I think he's definitely going to be

49:44

a, you know, a guy

49:46

that you can have out there as your fourth or fifth

49:48

option. Who's going to knock down corner threes, but I just

49:52

like wouldn't love taking that

49:55

guy at like two

49:57

or one or like even three. Yeah,

50:01

I'd love them at nine. Whenever I watch

50:03

them, I'm like, man, if he was going ninth, I'd

50:05

be like, hey, nice work here. But

50:08

when you look at some of the pick and roll ball

50:10

handling stuff, they barely did any of that with him. I

50:13

think it's only 4% of his possessions. The numbers clearly

50:15

aren't gonna be very good because he wasn't really comfortable

50:17

because they never really let him do it. But he's

50:20

not a jerk of a player.

50:22

Like he's very good

50:24

with like knowing when he's supposed to

50:26

be spacing. And then there

50:29

would be time stretches where I'm like, is he

50:31

doing anything? And then he actually showed some good

50:33

instincts of like what they were doing in their

50:35

half court sets of getting

50:37

involved. And I love young players like setting a

50:39

back screen that's not in the play to be

50:42

like, hey, you know, this guy's not paying attention.

50:44

So there was some awareness stuff with him that

50:46

I went, okay, these are all like really good

50:48

signs, but I think we're on the

50:50

same page here. So let me ask you

50:52

this because if Bazzellis could shoot threes with

50:54

his on ball stuff, that is the opposite,

50:56

like when you get

50:59

the right stretch of Bazzellis, it's really impressive, but

51:01

he hasn't had any

51:03

history of hitting shots. Would

51:06

you think he would go one if he was like 36% from three?

51:10

I think he probably would, but like I don't

51:12

love the shot. And I'm like a little bit

51:14

lower on the on ball stuff than other people.

51:16

Like I get it. Like if you

51:18

think there's like on ball juice there, like we've

51:20

seen it in transition particularly. And one

51:23

of my personal like flaws is

51:26

an evaluator, right? Like I'm cognizant

51:28

enough to like understand it on some

51:31

level is that I

51:33

struggle at times with these like bigger

51:35

dudes who tend not to have a lot

51:37

of space to create, but

51:39

like have shown latent ball handling ability in

51:41

the past. Like I struggled with

51:43

like Scotty Barnes, right? Scotty was like weird

51:46

and stiff and like still is like kind

51:48

of weird and stiff bizarrely, but it works

51:50

on some level because he's so big. And

51:52

he covers so much ground so quickly, right?

51:55

He was also like incredibly advanced of like,

51:57

it didn't make any sense. Cause it was

51:59

funny. we were talking about it and he popped into

52:01

my head for a different reason, but

52:03

his awareness of what they were supposed

52:05

to be doing as the freshmen, I

52:08

went, Oh my God. So yeah, back to your

52:10

point though. Well, and like Scotty as well was

52:12

like this amazing passer, kind of like what you're

52:14

saying here, like he could run point guard for

52:16

them. Like I don't think modest can

52:18

really do any of that. Like I don't, I've never

52:21

really seen modest as like a passer or a playmaker,

52:23

even at lower levels. Uh, it's

52:25

been a lot of like, I'm getting up and

52:27

down in transition. I'm going to try and dunk

52:29

on people's faces. Like I'm going to,

52:31

you know, have these creative finishing packages whenever I

52:33

have some space to go. And

52:35

that stuff like can translate once you

52:37

get wider driving lanes, but look,

52:41

this Ignite team was like a catastrophe and

52:43

we can just like admit it and

52:45

call it out for what it was. But they

52:48

did play on like an NBA space court,

52:50

even if they were like the worst shooting

52:52

team in that league this year. So I

52:55

go back and forth on modest. I do like, I ended up

52:57

with him outside of the top 10 cause like, I just don't

52:59

know like what it exactly

53:02

is. But like

53:04

I think there are like floor outcomes

53:06

for him. They're pretty rough at the

53:08

end of the day. Yeah. Uh, the numbers

53:10

would back you up because the ISO stuff is good.

53:13

The pick and roll ball handler stuff isn't good. But

53:16

when I look at some of these big guys where

53:18

I go, what are you doing on

53:20

those drives with modest? There's no hesitation.

53:23

Like the aggressiveness from him, uh, is

53:26

something that I really appreciated. And I

53:28

felt like he was just entirely like

53:31

engaged the entire time where some of these

53:33

other guys are still overwhelmed by everything and float a

53:35

little bit too much. So I

53:37

know teams have basically written them off because

53:39

of the shooting. And I'm not even talking about

53:42

the teams that are drafting, but like when they're ranking them, I

53:44

think more people agree with you on the downside of

53:46

it, but I can't help. Like

53:49

again, if you're projecting, you're going

53:51

to, holy shit, can this guy handle at six

53:53

10 and he's like a real athlete, but

53:55

then he'll have a tendency to where

53:57

a lot of these younger players too. I'll be like, do you

53:59

even have. have any idea what you're doing on your drive,

54:01

or are you just kind of doing it because you have the

54:03

ball right now. And he'll get a

54:05

little like, dirkish, where he'll back you down

54:07

and fall in love with this kind of

54:09

like one foot turnaround stuff. And it's like,

54:11

hey, that's a really difficult shot. You

54:15

may not want to keep going to that unless it's going down.

54:18

But there's no hesitate. Right, yeah, right. But

54:20

with him, like the fluidity stuff that we're

54:22

talking about, he's fluid. There's no hesitation. He's

54:24

really aggressive. He legit can handle

54:26

for that size in comparison to some of these other

54:28

guys. But the shooting thing definitely,

54:31

definitely hurts the stock. All right, so who else

54:33

do you like? To your point on Modest, too,

54:35

like I'll say, the intel is super positive. Everything

54:38

I've gotten on Modest is like, work

54:40

ethic is incredible. He looks

54:42

skinny right now, but really, he's tried to embrace

54:45

getting in the gym. And he

54:47

looked so much bigger at the combine, comparatively,

54:49

to what he looked like even during the

54:51

G League season. So to your point, I

54:53

think that there is real reason

54:56

to believe in that, is a real

54:58

potential growth outcome. People buy

55:00

him as a human. Well, that's

55:02

great to know that as a

55:04

human, because

55:07

you never know, right? It's

55:10

not always there. There's so few

55:12

guys, though, that you'll hear about, and be like, disaster.

55:16

You just don't hear it as much as you used to.

55:18

So I don't know if these younger guys, like

55:21

maybe we should give them all a little bit more credit.

55:23

Because I feel like when I first started doing this, be

55:25

like, did you hear about this guy? Like, what's going on

55:27

with this? Or whatever. And there's always like. I remember you

55:29

got all the shit for New Orleans Noel, right? Yeah, I

55:32

got a ton. That was fun. No.

55:36

It ended up on the front page USA Today. And

55:38

then the funny thing is, is then I think his

55:41

agent said something like, oh, he just believed another agent.

55:43

He got worked. I was like, no, that's not what

55:45

happened. But

55:48

sometimes, in fairness to New Orleans, it was more about

55:50

what was around him that people were freaked out by.

55:53

And look, there's another player that was

55:55

recently drafted really high. I heard the exact same

55:57

thing. And it has not been an issue. And.

56:00

and this player is awesome. So, but

56:02

I'm not gonna name him. I

56:04

did a big Reed Shepard thing with

56:07

Bill on Sunday because

56:10

the shooting numbers, I don't think it's even

56:13

close to like hyperbole to say he's

56:15

one of the best shooters I've ever seen

56:18

coming into the draft. Every single

56:20

number you'd go, wait, what is he

56:22

on catch shoot? Wait, what is he on

56:25

unguarded? Wait, guarded? He's at

56:27

like 99th percentile? Every

56:30

single number is like the best number

56:32

you could possibly have, but he's

56:34

six, one and a half. And

56:38

as we're going through all these guys, I feel

56:40

like, man, I would be so scared to be

56:42

Atlanta because you're

56:44

likely just gonna get it wrong. And then of course, one of

56:46

these guys that we don't like is gonna end up being the

56:49

best player of this draft. And he's gonna go eighth and everybody's

56:51

gonna say you guys didn't see it and all that stuff, because

56:53

that's just the way the draft is. But I just

56:56

can't fathom even with the questions that we

56:58

have about other people and Shepherd translating the

57:01

gap of like, is he really going to be your

57:03

point guard or is he going to be coming off

57:05

the bench knocking down some shots to give you some

57:07

spacing? Yeah. Yeah, I have read

57:09

it too in this class. I

57:12

love them, like I've been. I

57:16

feel like bad about it. Let's be clear, like

57:18

Reed would not be a top five guy like

57:20

last year at all. But

57:23

on some level, it's just like, this guy's

57:26

really fucking good at basketball. Like

57:28

you just watch him play. And it's just

57:30

like, oh, holy shit. He's like the best

57:32

transition passer in the class. Oh, well he's

57:34

like the best shooter I've evaluated in, I

57:36

don't know, five years, at least. He

57:39

is like capable of taking ball screens. He

57:42

has like a real floater game. He's

57:45

unbelievable. The thing that we haven't seen him

57:47

do a lot of is like coming off

57:49

of screens and shooting. Cause Kentucky

57:52

did that with like Antonio Reeves all year really. I

57:54

was really the only guy that they had like run

57:56

those actions, but I don't know.

57:58

I feel pretty good about him coming off the screen. probably

58:00

given the shot, right? So there's just like

58:03

a lot of ways that his game translates to

58:05

the NBA. And when

58:07

you can shoot from 32 feet

58:09

away from the rim, I almost

58:12

think that like, Iris Halliburton here

58:14

is like somewhat instructive. It

58:16

just opens up the floor in so

58:18

many ways for you to where like,

58:21

you don't need this unbelievable handle where

58:23

you're, you know, breaking down guys with

58:25

like six crossovers strung together back to

58:28

back to back, right? You

58:30

just have to be able to change pace and be

58:32

able to play off of a live dribble. And I

58:34

think he can do that to a like, real level.

58:37

The defense is fascinating. Like

58:41

his defensive tape is like some of the

58:43

most complicated defensive tape I've ever had to

58:45

evaluate because he'll make these like unbelievable

58:48

anticipatory defensive like plays

58:51

where he'll like come from the weak side

58:53

and, you know, figure out that

58:55

the ball is going to the lob

58:57

man out of ball screens before the

58:59

lob man, like even starts his role,

59:01

it feels like. And he'll just be

59:03

there. But then like any blocked

59:05

0.7 shots per game as

59:08

a guy that's six foot one, right?

59:10

His closeouts are awesome. Like he gets

59:12

to spots way quicker than what I

59:15

think people like understand, but then kind

59:18

of goes like space, Cadetty at times off the

59:20

ball and then like on the ball, obviously there

59:22

are real concerns and he gave up like a

59:24

ton of straight line drives this year. And like,

59:28

like, do you just buy the playmaking and

59:30

the instincts on some level? I think he's

59:32

just like a special basketball mind on

59:35

top of being a special shooter. And I just like

59:37

always kind of bet on those guys figuring it out.

59:40

Like it's almost like he's like a

59:42

small Derek white to me kind of

59:44

like, but like a better shooter, but

59:46

like the size off puts it, I

59:48

don't know. Like I think he's going to be

59:50

that level player, I guess though is like probably

59:52

not an all-star, but like somebody that's just really

59:54

good and really useful to a team winning basketball

59:56

games. The transition passing was the

59:59

thing that like. like made me look at

1:00:01

him in an entirely different level because that

1:00:04

will always show me like with a basketball player

1:00:06

where you go, okay, you do just because you

1:00:08

have the ball and you're probably the best option

1:00:10

crossing half court, like you want

1:00:13

to get that's like a team

1:00:15

thing for me. It's really, really important when I

1:00:17

see that especially with a young player that as

1:00:20

soon as he crosses half court, if he gets that

1:00:22

high screen and the lower defender isn't

1:00:24

there to meet him to contest or whatever, it's a

1:00:26

layup for him. Like watching teams lose

1:00:28

him as he repositions himself as well, which

1:00:30

is another thing I loved about him where

1:00:33

it's kind of that warrior's deal of like, hey,

1:00:35

just move a little bit around the perimeter as

1:00:37

all this chaos is happening in the paint or

1:00:40

around the rim. Cause if the ball comes loose

1:00:42

or somebody's cut off if you're just moving a

1:00:44

little like left to right you're

1:00:47

just going to get a wide open shot. And then

1:00:49

you can see the opposing teams in the SEC being

1:00:51

like, I can't believe I like lost track of them

1:00:53

again because Dillingham would

1:00:55

run so much of what they were doing on offense too.

1:00:58

And then there's the times where I'm like, can you really

1:01:00

draft a guy who's like, I can't see him right now.

1:01:02

Like he's lost in the trees because he

1:01:04

is that small but he is a really good athlete. And

1:01:08

the high side of it is if

1:01:10

you could really trust him to kind of run your offense

1:01:12

but I think there's some passing stuff in there even though

1:01:14

he can get a little turnover, happy.

1:01:17

I don't know if that's not seeing it. I don't

1:01:19

know if that's size. Sometimes I think it's just his

1:01:21

risk where he'll go. I don't care. Like,

1:01:23

let me see if this will work which sometimes I'd

1:01:26

rather see that. I don't want to see it all the time.

1:01:28

I'd like you to kind of outgrow it a little bit with

1:01:30

a younger player that he's even

1:01:32

thinking about some of those passes. Like at this stage,

1:01:34

I can go, all right, you know what? Like that's

1:01:36

better than never ever seeing any of this stuff or

1:01:38

never even wanting to do it. But you have them

1:01:40

too. God, this draft is so weird.

1:01:42

Oh, look, I don't feel,

1:01:44

again, like I don't feel great about having him

1:01:46

too. Like I'm somebody that like I really struggle

1:01:49

with guys that are that small. Like I was like losing

1:01:51

my mind when Peyton Pritchard was on the court for the

1:01:53

Celtics. I was like, okay, he's just like way too small.

1:01:56

Like he's just getting attached every time by Luca.

1:01:58

Yeah. Yeah. So,

1:02:00

like, look, Reed is not much bigger

1:02:02

than Peyton Pritchard, but he's way better,

1:02:05

obviously. But like, like I

1:02:07

just, I

1:02:09

don't know, it's this draft, man. Like, like I have Devin

1:02:11

Carter at seven. Devin Carter's like 22, man. Okay.

1:02:16

You said you weren't good. Um,

1:02:19

who was it? A

1:02:21

bezelis, those types of players you said you weren't good

1:02:23

with. Um, I

1:02:26

already know that Devin Carter. Like

1:02:29

I'm already ready to be wrong about this. And I know he's

1:02:31

not as high as some of these other guys that are talking

1:02:33

about, well, you just had him seven. Uh,

1:02:35

give us your Devin Carter sales job. So

1:02:38

like the way that I would explain it is

1:02:41

he's the guy, do you remember hearing last year

1:02:43

about like Jaime Jockez? He just like go into

1:02:45

workouts and just like kill people. Like

1:02:47

every single like workout he went in, he was the best

1:02:49

player on the court. It's like that

1:02:51

except like times two this year with Devin Carter.

1:02:54

She is just like completely like obliterated

1:02:56

every workout up until I've been told

1:02:58

by like multiple teams that

1:03:00

he went in there and was like

1:03:03

the best workout they've seen since they've

1:03:05

like been in place at that job

1:03:07

basically. So he is

1:03:10

six foot two with like a six foot

1:03:12

nine wingspan. So like not super big, but

1:03:14

super strong. And I think the guys that

1:03:16

tend to overplay that height issue

1:03:18

tend to be the ones that are

1:03:20

like physically strong. I think like Fred

1:03:22

van Vleet, Chris Paul guys that are

1:03:24

like physical and capable of like dealing

1:03:26

with contact, uh, has the length to

1:03:28

be able to make up for it. He's also

1:03:31

not just like the most explosive athlete

1:03:34

in this class. He's like

1:03:36

functional in the way he uses it on the court.

1:03:39

He is exceptionally quick with his first

1:03:41

step as a ball handler. He is

1:03:43

exceptionally quick with like his first slide

1:03:45

defensively. He blocked like a shot per

1:03:47

game this year, mostly on closeouts because he's a 42

1:03:49

inch vertical leap and a nine or

1:03:52

six nine or six nine

1:03:54

wingspan. You know,

1:03:56

he is so unbelievably vertical

1:03:59

at the. it as a dunker where

1:04:01

I think he had like 35 dunks this year. It's

1:04:04

six foot two with a bunch of those being like

1:04:06

half court dunks where he's just like rising up and

1:04:08

going. The question that

1:04:10

people have is the jumper. I'll

1:04:13

just be honest with you, like I've like

1:04:15

met the kid. I've watched him work out

1:04:17

the job. He's going to figure out the

1:04:19

jumper like that. That kid's like not

1:04:22

going to stop working until he figures out the jumper

1:04:24

and we saw it this year. He made 39% or

1:04:27

whatever he did on seven three point attempts per game.

1:04:30

So I get

1:04:32

the concern. Oh, by the way, like half of those

1:04:34

three point attempts were from 25 feet

1:04:37

or beyond. So like already from NBA range

1:04:39

and he made them at 37%. So

1:04:42

he has the range already to be able

1:04:44

to account for the NBA line to be able to

1:04:46

make up for the space that he's going to give

1:04:48

up and you know, has the slower release on the

1:04:50

jumper. So like it might take him a second, but

1:04:54

I just think he's I think

1:04:56

the world of his competitiveness. I think he's an

1:04:58

elite level defender. I think he

1:05:00

is a guy that will score points in the NBA

1:05:03

and be able to pass and play make. I

1:05:05

thought his issue this year was like he over drove

1:05:07

and kind of got in trouble

1:05:09

a little bit because they relied upon him

1:05:11

for so much, but yeah,

1:05:14

like they just needed him to do everything

1:05:16

it felt like and man, when I watch

1:05:18

him, I think he's I just think

1:05:20

he's a guy that's going to help a lot of teams win basketball

1:05:22

games at the end of the day. So

1:05:25

just so people that are listening maybe going like

1:05:27

who you're talking about. Play

1:05:29

to Providence led the Big

1:05:31

East and scoring was the Big East Player

1:05:34

of the Year and as

1:05:36

Sam mentions just a shade over 6-2. He

1:05:39

was third in rebounding in the league this

1:05:41

year at nine boards a game. He

1:05:43

started South Carolina. He

1:05:46

was kind of between 27 30% from three those first two seasons

1:05:51

and then this year as you point out 38% his dad's

1:05:54

Anthony Carter played in the league for over a decade. So

1:05:57

he's not a point guard, but he

1:05:59

was. tasked with kind of figuring everything out for Providence

1:06:02

and you said something too that I went ahead and

1:06:04

I need to look up with The final number is

1:06:07

watching his tape the number of times He's given

1:06:09

the ball back at the end of the shot

1:06:11

clock to be like, please just save us like

1:06:13

I think the shooting numbers are way better with

1:06:15

better players because I Can't

1:06:18

he may have led the Big East with

1:06:20

grenades and how many shots he had

1:06:22

to take where you're like I can't I can't believe

1:06:24

you guys just gave me back the basketball. He also

1:06:27

Has he's not Lowry the point guard, but

1:06:29

he already has all the Lowry bullshit down

1:06:33

Not as egregious as Lowry who again should be

1:06:35

banned from the league, but he

1:06:37

he does things I'm like, okay Well, no kidding

1:06:39

like your dad played in the league this whole

1:06:41

time So whether it's the contested three where he'll

1:06:43

get you he'll get you deep He'll up fake

1:06:46

you like I have respect for up fake and

1:06:48

contact around the rim because that's part of the

1:06:50

defense But there's all these other little tricks that

1:06:52

this dude has That

1:06:54

you go I what is this guy like 32, but

1:06:57

because he's six. I'm like, okay Well, maybe he's not

1:06:59

gonna rebound that way, but but

1:07:01

gems keys rebounding translated But

1:07:04

again, he's bigger but not like dramatically bigger. We

1:07:07

get the point is I don't know if he's

1:07:09

functionally bigger Like yeah with the

1:07:11

wingspan part of it. You're probably right Yeah,

1:07:14

and again Devin Clark I thought not

1:07:16

Devin Clark good God Devin

1:07:19

Carter is the best athlete in the straf

1:07:21

class like I think point blank if you

1:07:23

look at any of the explosiveness scores at

1:07:25

the combine if you

1:07:27

watch like the tape like he's just

1:07:29

a sick sick athlete and I Think

1:07:32

I agree with you. Like I don't know if he's gonna be

1:07:35

like a nine rebound per game guy I don't think he's gonna

1:07:37

be like Josh Hart as a rebounder But man,

1:07:39

like I think he might be like one of the three or four

1:07:41

best rebounding guards in the league Yeah,

1:07:43

but Jamski is almost two inches taller, but

1:07:45

his wingspan is four inches shorter. Yeah but

1:07:50

I'm like, okay, so you

1:07:53

take in Devin Carter, you know

1:07:55

seventh or eighth and It's

1:07:59

gonna take I think it's going to take a

1:08:01

walk because he sometimes he doesn't even look like

1:08:03

he's as athletic as he tested. So

1:08:06

then when I went back watched, I like I watched him

1:08:08

and then I went back and looked at the testing stuff

1:08:10

like even to the Reed Shepherd point, like I think Reed

1:08:12

was right there among the leaders in

1:08:14

VRT, but Devin technically had the highest

1:08:16

max VRT of anybody, right at the

1:08:19

combine. Yeah, I have some I

1:08:23

don't want to accuse anybody of anything. Anytime

1:08:25

that I look at

1:08:28

the VRT number, I look at

1:08:30

the standing reach number and

1:08:32

see if it is commensurate with everybody

1:08:34

else who is around that person's size.

1:08:37

That's how I'll phrase that. Reed

1:08:40

Shepherd seven foot nine standing reach

1:08:43

when he's the same size as

1:08:45

Jared McCain basically gave me some, gave

1:08:48

me some questions. Maybe I don't know if these

1:08:50

are unfair. I'm just asking questions like this is,

1:08:52

this is the, you know, ringer. This is the

1:08:54

Bill Simmons network. I'm allowed to go conspiracy bill

1:08:56

here for a minute, right? It's

1:08:59

encouraged. It's encouraged. All right. Let's try to

1:09:01

get some of these other guys because we

1:09:03

still haven't, haven't hit on everybody. Dalton connect,

1:09:06

another guy who is a real athlete tested really

1:09:08

well on all that stuff. We know the story

1:09:10

of how much he grew from

1:09:12

high school, JUCO on and on and on. I

1:09:15

know he's older, which is going to scare some teams away.

1:09:17

That should not scare you this year. Should

1:09:19

not scare you this year. I think he's, he's

1:09:22

a pretty easy plug and play guy right

1:09:25

away. Yeah. Awesome shooter. Like he's going

1:09:27

to be able to step in and knock down shots

1:09:29

immediately. The question is, if you're taking him in the

1:09:31

top 10, like what is the upside, right? I think

1:09:34

that the way to like access his upside

1:09:36

is to put him in a scheme where

1:09:39

you're running all sorts of movement. You're going to run

1:09:41

him off of like a bunch of floppy sets. You're

1:09:43

going to run him off of like flares and you're

1:09:46

going to get him into the action early, right? To

1:09:48

be able to kind of move him around like a

1:09:50

chess piece. Like if I

1:09:52

was like kind of dreaming, if Miami could like

1:09:54

find a way to move up to, you

1:09:56

know, eight, 10, wherever Dalton's going to go and

1:09:59

just. just like somehow get him

1:10:01

as an upgraded athlete of like

1:10:03

Duncan Robinson, that'd be like

1:10:06

pretty sick to me in that offense.

1:10:08

But, you know, as long

1:10:10

as, you know, there's no way, he's like a no fail

1:10:12

guy because of the shooting. Like he's just gonna knock down

1:10:14

shots and he's confident. The defense

1:10:16

is a concern. He's not a great defender, but

1:10:18

has athletic tools to maybe be able to overcome

1:10:20

it at some point. But

1:10:23

plug and play kind of like you said, like I think he's gonna be

1:10:25

able to go in and knock down shots, which is

1:10:27

incredibly important in today's NBA. Where

1:10:29

are you on castle? I

1:10:32

would be comfortable taking the bet, maybe

1:10:35

is the way to put it. Like I have

1:10:37

him in that top tier of players. I

1:10:39

do go like back and forth on is he

1:10:41

three, is he four, is he five, right? I

1:10:45

think where I'm at is I would just be comfortable

1:10:47

making the bet and seeing if it works. I

1:10:50

think if he shoots, he has a chance to

1:10:52

be potentially the best player in this class because

1:10:55

he's a great defender. He's like a very

1:10:57

versatile defender. You can give him a ton

1:10:59

of different assignments. Like he chased

1:11:02

Baylor Shireman off of screens, in multiple games

1:11:04

this year and dealt with Mark Sears at

1:11:06

the point of attack defensively in the final

1:11:08

four. Like you can put him on anybody

1:11:11

like one through four and he's gonna do

1:11:13

a good job. I don't think he's all

1:11:16

defense guy, but he's gonna do a good job at least.

1:11:20

Showed real ball screen upside in high school. Showed

1:11:24

some upside as a passer this year at

1:11:26

Connecticut, three assists versus like 1.8 turnovers, something

1:11:30

like that. The

1:11:32

key really is like, do you think he will

1:11:34

ever have shooting gravity? And I think it just

1:11:36

depends on how you evaluate the shot. And I

1:11:38

think he has touch. It's just, I think mechanically,

1:11:40

it's a little bit messy right now. So I

1:11:43

feel great if I had a great shooting coach, I

1:11:45

would be a little bit more questionable maybe

1:11:48

if I didn't. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's

1:11:50

like mechanically fluid or anything. I think he's

1:11:53

thinking about it a little bit. And

1:11:56

that's kind of a perfect transition in Iran

1:11:58

Holland, who I like. at Ignite,

1:12:01

but I always love the aggressive guys. When

1:12:03

you wanna talk about like different drivers of, okay,

1:12:06

like here's a perfect example. When

1:12:09

I watch Cody Williams at Colorado, I'm

1:12:12

like, okay, you've got this

1:12:14

size, you've got a little bit of this

1:12:16

handle, and I

1:12:20

get it, like you're probably gonna go in the lottery, but

1:12:23

you don't really know what you're doing on a lot of these drives.

1:12:26

You seem to be in love with this like

1:12:29

catch on the side, slow back down,

1:12:31

and then you take like a 17 foot

1:12:33

turnaround, and the other team should be like,

1:12:35

awesome, like thank you for doing

1:12:37

that. And then when you go

1:12:39

to the Cody Williams tape to the Ron Holland tape,

1:12:42

you're like, okay, I know Holland can't shoot, and I

1:12:44

know that there's turnovers. And I mean,

1:12:46

look, some of the metrics alone, like bezellas, when you

1:12:48

start looking at some of the metrics for like what

1:12:50

happened to those guys at Ignite, like there's some horrifying

1:12:52

numbers baked into all this stuff, and

1:12:54

I know Holland definitely has ones that'll scare you, but

1:12:57

it's a bit like Matherin. You

1:12:59

know, I even felt this way with Whitmore in the past

1:13:02

where I'd watch Cam and I'd go, is he just gonna

1:13:04

drive by everybody every single time? I'm like, I guess he

1:13:06

is. And some of that's

1:13:08

actually translated in the NBA. Matherin will

1:13:10

not be denied. Matherin will get to

1:13:12

the rim, and it's up to you

1:13:15

to like just watch because he's not

1:13:17

going to get cut off. And

1:13:20

Holland has some of that. I'm

1:13:22

not comparing him directly to those

1:13:24

guys because some of the on-ball stuff, but I

1:13:26

just, I really like, I love,

1:13:28

and he's ready to go. Like when

1:13:31

he steps on the court for

1:13:33

somebody that young, going through

1:13:35

the Ignite process, you know, decommitting from

1:13:37

Texas after Beard, there's

1:13:40

something that it stands out in comparison to some of

1:13:42

the other lottery guys, because I'm like, this guy's like

1:13:44

ready for a fight, and I'm always gonna like those

1:13:46

guys, because at least I know they care. Yeah,

1:13:49

I think that's like a great way to put it.

1:13:51

He's super competitive, right? And

1:13:53

I really appreciate that. Like that's why I still have him

1:13:55

in the top 10. Like I really

1:13:58

respect the fact that he... I

1:14:00

know he's gonna go 100% every single game.

1:14:03

I know what he's gonna bring me every

1:14:05

single night and that's valuable. Oh

1:14:09

boy. So you mentioned

1:14:13

like Ham Whitmore and Ben Mather and

1:14:15

like both those guys were, you know,

1:14:18

38 to 40% three point shooters, right? I

1:14:21

just don't buy the shot with Ron

1:14:23

at all is my issue. Like

1:14:26

I've seen it in person. I've seen

1:14:28

it, you know, every

1:14:30

three he's taken this year probably and it's

1:14:33

just inconsistent. And I don't

1:14:35

love like the way like he gets into

1:14:37

the shot. I think it's just like a

1:14:39

total rewrite in terms of like how

1:14:42

he's gonna have to fix his mechanics once he gets

1:14:44

to the league. The

1:14:46

decision-making tree seems like kind of off, right? But

1:14:48

you could say that about a lot of young

1:14:50

guys like Whit, that's one with like Whitmore where

1:14:52

it was like so clear where like he just

1:14:54

didn't have that, you know, vision

1:14:56

looking out. It was all gonna try

1:14:58

and put guys in the basket. Once he had the ball, the ball

1:15:00

was Cam Whitmore's. So

1:15:04

that's I think like fixable,

1:15:06

I hope. I think that as a guy

1:15:08

gets older, you know, Jaylen Brown's a great

1:15:10

example of this, right? Like Jaylen Brown like

1:15:12

never looked outward once he started driving, but

1:15:14

figured it out as he got older. The

1:15:17

thing that disappointed me most about Ron Holland this

1:15:19

year, and again, I say

1:15:21

this as somebody, like I'm like shitting on

1:15:24

him and you know, like talking about like

1:15:26

every part of his game that I don't

1:15:28

like, right? I

1:15:30

really thought he struggled on defense this year

1:15:33

was my issue. Like was

1:15:35

not nearly as good of a scrambled defender is

1:15:37

what you would hope for. I thought he closed

1:15:39

out super high. I thought his technique was like

1:15:41

terrible. And like

1:15:44

you would see moments where he's great on the ball

1:15:46

like just for mo, like if he gets a matchup

1:15:48

like he's gonna be able to like put that guy

1:15:50

in a real issue because he's six, seven with a

1:15:52

six, 11 wingspan and plays hard and is

1:15:54

disruptive and is like super strong through his

1:15:56

core. But again, like it

1:15:59

was the processing again. like off the ball

1:16:01

is just like, man, I just want, I

1:16:03

want you to be better because I love watching

1:16:05

you play. But

1:16:07

then I look at the way that

1:16:09

the league is going. Like I want these guys

1:16:11

that like think through it quicker

1:16:14

and react better and can shoot like

1:16:16

it's, he goes

1:16:18

against like everything I want in the

1:16:20

modern NBA right now almost, but I

1:16:22

just respect the shit out of how

1:16:24

hard he plays and I can't get

1:16:26

past that all boasts. Uh,

1:16:29

yeah, look, that's, that's all

1:16:31

fair. Because

1:16:33

when I, when I watch some of

1:16:35

the best defensive stuff, it's his aggressiveness, right?

1:16:38

Yeah. And the problem is, is that

1:16:40

same aggressiveness leads to like, what are you

1:16:42

doing out here? Yeah, by you going

1:16:44

into the passing lane or like, you

1:16:46

know, across half court, the other team wants to swing it

1:16:48

to the other side. And like, when, when you get that

1:16:51

play, when you pick that one off, and then leads out

1:16:53

to the break, and you throw down this great dunk and

1:16:55

all this stuff, it's like, it looks really,

1:16:57

really good. But there's just

1:16:59

the other times you're like, why, why are you trying

1:17:01

to do this right now? Because you're compromising everything else

1:17:03

that we're doing. I

1:17:06

guess there was just one play with him where there's

1:17:08

two big guys on the other team right at

1:17:11

the rim, the shot goes up, the balls kind

1:17:13

of loose, and they're both kind of expecting a

1:17:15

one of us is going to get this. And

1:17:17

Holland just comes in from the baseline grabs the

1:17:20

ball right away from him and fucking finishes and

1:17:22

nobody even knew the other two guys weren't even

1:17:24

aware of what had just happened. Because

1:17:26

Holland had decided like this is so you're at

1:17:28

least with me on the Holland Cody Williams thing

1:17:31

because I've seen it reversed. I

1:17:33

have Cody ahead of Ron, but maybe

1:17:36

you're where I saw it reversed. No,

1:17:39

like I've gone WYO

1:17:41

on Cody the whole year. Like it

1:17:43

was so funny. Like I was just

1:17:45

finalizing rankings today, really. And I was

1:17:47

just like, well, you know, I guess I'm moving Cody up

1:17:49

again. I guess like, it just like

1:17:51

ended up that like, Cody like slid up the

1:17:54

board to six. And I was like, well, do

1:17:57

I really believe this? I don't know. But

1:18:00

I know that like he is a

1:18:03

worker. I know that he is somebody

1:18:05

that I think he thinks

1:18:07

the game at a high level. Like I do. I

1:18:09

know that you're saying like you hated the way that

1:18:11

he would like back down and like

1:18:15

end up driving and like posting these

1:18:17

dudes and taking these like bullshit, like

1:18:19

17 footers, right? But I

1:18:22

thought that he actually put like real pressure on

1:18:24

the rim in a college setting that was like

1:18:26

very, very difficult to do so, even though Colorado

1:18:29

had like a very well spaced court, like it's

1:18:31

just always difficult to put pressure on the rim.

1:18:33

If you're six foot six with seven foot one

1:18:35

wing span in college basketball, you just naturally take

1:18:37

up more space on the court than what these

1:18:39

other guys do. And it's harder to drive. So

1:18:43

I like that he put pressure on the rim. I

1:18:45

thought that from like basically

1:18:47

mid January onward after he, I think

1:18:49

he broke his nose and then had

1:18:51

the ankle stuff happen, I thought

1:18:53

we just like didn't see the best of them, basically. Like

1:18:55

if you go and you watch the tournament games, like compared

1:18:58

to the games that he

1:19:00

played in December, November, right?

1:19:03

He just looked compromised to me at the end

1:19:05

of the day. Like he just didn't look like

1:19:07

the same guy in terms of

1:19:09

first step and in terms of, uh,

1:19:13

you know, being able to like drive off

1:19:15

of that ankle in any way. So maybe

1:19:18

I'm just giving him too much credit, honestly. Like

1:19:20

maybe I'm like giving him credit, you know, in

1:19:22

the face of, well, I know we didn't see

1:19:24

the best of him because he has, he has

1:19:27

an excuse for why we didn't see the best

1:19:29

of him. Whereas like some of these other guys,

1:19:31

like they don't have the excuse necessarily. And maybe

1:19:33

that's unfair, but yeah, I've liked the passing going

1:19:35

back to when he was younger, I think that

1:19:38

defensively, like he showed, you know, some signs of

1:19:40

being able to like play within a scheme this

1:19:42

year, but yeah, like he was

1:19:44

one that just like kept sliding up the board. And like,

1:19:46

I can't even, like I don't have a good excuse for

1:19:48

it. I can

1:19:50

just tell you that I need to go back and watch, watch

1:19:53

more. Of him because the second

1:19:55

half of the season, I think to your point,

1:19:57

there's just, I think there's guys

1:19:59

that. get the ball, they have

1:20:01

the resume, and they just go, well, I

1:20:03

guess I'm gonna drive. And it's

1:20:06

like, okay, but there has to be some hope

1:20:08

on the drive, there has to be like some moment

1:20:10

where you feel like, okay, this is something that

1:20:13

could potentially work, and there's just a lot of

1:20:15

plays, and because he's slight, and I know it'll

1:20:17

get bigger, he gets kind of rerouted a

1:20:19

little bit as

1:20:22

he's on his way to the rim. Okay, I think

1:20:24

there's somebody we left out, though, that we need to

1:20:26

make sure we get to. And is that your number

1:20:28

two guy right now? No, I've read

1:20:30

it too. Who are you talking about? Topich.

1:20:33

So I ended up with Topich a

1:20:35

little bit lower, but look,

1:20:38

he's like the big question right now. Like

1:20:40

I get asked the question, like

1:20:43

what do you think Nikola Topich's

1:20:46

range is right now more than

1:20:48

anybody else by NBA teams? Because

1:20:51

nobody has a real great feel for it, it

1:20:53

feels like after the, he has a partially torn

1:20:55

ACL for people who don't know. Six

1:20:58

foot six point guard can really pass and

1:21:00

play make, played for mega, the prospect

1:21:03

factory over in Serbia to start the year, and

1:21:05

then decided that

1:21:07

he's owned, his rights are owned,

1:21:09

not he's owned, originally by Red

1:21:11

Star, which is this Euro league

1:21:14

power over in Serbia, and

1:21:16

he decided to go back there for the rest

1:21:19

of his season in January, and

1:21:22

he sprained his knee after like four

1:21:24

games, came back, played

1:21:27

like four more games, and

1:21:29

ended up partially tearing his ACL. So

1:21:34

it's a complicated conversation with him. I almost

1:21:36

don't care that he's like a write off

1:21:38

for a year. My

1:21:40

issue is that this was a guy that was kind

1:21:42

of like off the radar a little bit coming into

1:21:44

the year, and

1:21:47

we're really all basing, having him as like

1:21:50

a top three, top five, top seven guy,

1:21:52

wherever you have him, off of

1:21:54

like a 13 game sample with mega,

1:21:56

when if you

1:21:58

look at like what happened when the Cola, Jurisic

1:22:01

who I would bet is definitely a resillo guy

1:22:03

based off of what I know about you. If

1:22:05

you watch him, uh, Jurisic

1:22:08

came in and average like 18 points and

1:22:10

had like a 59 true shooting percentage after

1:22:13

Topich went out. So I think like

1:22:15

part of it can be attributed to

1:22:18

the scheme a little bit, but

1:22:20

then he does stuff as a passer and playmaker

1:22:22

where he's like clearly manipulating like old

1:22:25

men, uh, in the Adriatic league and it's

1:22:27

like, well, this is super impressive, but then

1:22:30

he's like six, six with a six, six wingspan. I ended up

1:22:32

with him at 13. Like I just

1:22:34

don't feel super confident one way or another

1:22:36

about him because the sample is just too

1:22:38

small. Oh wow. Okay. So you, you've

1:22:41

dropped him quite a bit then from where you were at in

1:22:43

May. Uh, if

1:22:46

I, well on the mock, yeah, I think I had

1:22:48

him at like six on the board, but I've dropped

1:22:50

him a good amount. Yeah. I just

1:22:52

never got comfortable with the sample size is

1:22:54

my issue. I want to finish with Ronnie

1:22:56

James. Now this is going to say this

1:22:58

seemed like unfair because we're comparing Ronnie to

1:23:00

lottery picks. We're not, we're just adding in

1:23:02

the highlight headline like any show would have

1:23:05

like, okay, let's talk about Ronnie James. So

1:23:08

I did a deep dive this week and

1:23:12

I can't believe we're even doing this. There's

1:23:17

almost nothing that stands

1:23:19

out. He, you

1:23:22

forget he's on the floor in

1:23:24

college. Yeah. The

1:23:26

shooting numbers are not good. Um,

1:23:29

a cool screen here or there. I think

1:23:32

he's a really engaged like half court guy. Um,

1:23:35

yeah, there'll be a nice pass here or

1:23:37

there. But

1:23:39

the idea that a team is going to

1:23:42

spend a first round pick on this kind

1:23:44

of player makes zero sense

1:23:46

to me. And I, it

1:23:48

would have to simply be, they

1:23:51

want to do clutch the favor or

1:23:53

be able to say that the clutch was, was

1:23:55

able to get Ronnie James drafted in the first

1:23:57

round because we would never, ever.

1:24:00

talk about a player that

1:24:02

plays like him at his size without the shooting.

1:24:05

There's no good numbers. There's

1:24:07

just not like I looked at all the catch and shoot stuff and

1:24:09

like you just go what, what am I supposed

1:24:11

to do with this? And

1:24:14

if people can take this however they want. But

1:24:16

like we're talking about draft prospects, the good and

1:24:19

the bad. And if we went 60 players deep,

1:24:21

Sam and I would have all sorts of players

1:24:23

that we couldn't stand. But

1:24:26

now after I've done the real like

1:24:28

digging in and watching him play, no

1:24:32

NBA team would you be drafting a six to

1:24:34

glue guy that put up no numbers in college

1:24:36

in the first round, but somehow we're going to

1:24:38

debate this. Well, I can, I

1:24:40

mean, I can tell even go more baseline than that.

1:24:42

Like you're bringing up like catch shoot numbers and all

1:24:45

this stuff. I've done, you know, a

1:24:47

dive back to like 2008 or

1:24:50

so. And I believe

1:24:52

that Bronnie would be the only

1:24:54

one and done like ever drafted

1:24:56

point blank that is

1:24:58

six foot one that

1:25:01

averaged under five points per game.

1:25:04

Like it's just like an

1:25:06

uncommonly small,

1:25:08

you know, player

1:25:10

that didn't have production that's

1:25:12

in the draft. And look, I

1:25:16

would be staggered if somebody used a first round pick

1:25:18

on him. I don't think that's going to happen for

1:25:20

what it's worth. I mean,

1:25:22

like, I guess Phoenix has had him in for

1:25:24

a workout and maybe

1:25:26

they're going to have him in for a second one, but

1:25:28

like, I

1:25:32

can't, I can't see

1:25:34

it. Honestly, I think that this is just setting

1:25:36

up every step of the way.

1:25:38

Like rich Paul went on that interview tour,

1:25:40

you know, talk to Chris Haynes, talk to

1:25:42

Woge and the folks at ESPN, right? And

1:25:46

strategically, everything that he did there in

1:25:48

my opinion, and like, I don't say

1:25:50

this, having talked to rich Paul, like

1:25:53

this is just my opinion

1:25:55

on like the strategy of the whole situation,

1:25:58

everything that he did there. was

1:26:00

in my opinion in a

1:26:02

goal to get him to fall to a certain

1:26:04

spot, which my guess is 55

1:26:06

to the Lakers, right? Saying that he won't

1:26:08

do it two way, saying that

1:26:11

he's going to be very specific with where he goes to

1:26:13

work out, right? Turns down a bunch

1:26:16

of workouts from teams. To

1:26:19

me, that's just how you set it up

1:26:21

for somebody to drop to a certain level.

1:26:25

To where he's able

1:26:27

to end up in the situation that he wants to

1:26:29

end up in. I don't

1:26:31

have Bronnie James in my top 70. I don't.

1:26:35

I'm with you. I don't see it. Like

1:26:38

I've Riley Minnocks from Moorhead

1:26:40

State ahead of him, right? Who's

1:26:43

like a 23 year old kid that

1:26:45

played four years at Nova Southeastern, not

1:26:48

Nova Southeastern, Southeastern at

1:26:50

the NAIA level, right?

1:26:53

So I don't

1:26:55

get it. I'm with you. I can't

1:26:57

believe that we're doing this on some level.

1:27:01

I can't believe that we're doing the the

1:27:03

media tour and look

1:27:05

like I'm not going to lie to you like

1:27:08

I'm guilty of it on some level. I've written.

1:27:10

I've been asked to write like a bunch of

1:27:12

stories on it and the

1:27:14

stories click like undeniably the stories

1:27:16

do incredibly well because he is

1:27:18

somebody people are curious about like in a

1:27:20

real way. And I think that they're curious

1:27:22

because of the leverage piece of it with

1:27:24

LeBron. Obviously this summer

1:27:26

is a free agent and they're curious because

1:27:29

of you know, the

1:27:31

father-son dynamic and everything. But look,

1:27:34

I he is a six foot one

1:27:37

player. This is kind

1:27:39

of what it comes down to for me. He's a six foot one player

1:27:41

that like I don't think can dribble well. Like

1:27:44

everyone's like, oh yeah, he can be like this three and

1:27:46

D player. Do you

1:27:48

know how fucking good Avery Bradley was at basketball?

1:27:50

He was like a top five recruit

1:27:52

in the country and average

1:27:54

like 10 points a game at Texas

1:27:56

was all freshmen that year and was

1:27:59

like incredible defensively. He was

1:28:01

like, Bronnie James is a good defensive basketball player

1:28:03

as a freshman and as a teenager. He's not

1:28:06

like Avery Bradley, who was like the best

1:28:08

on ball defender in college basketball that year.

1:28:11

Like it's yeah. Like

1:28:14

I, in my opinion, it would have been better for

1:28:16

Bronnie James. Like the, the

1:28:18

best thing that was suggested to me by people

1:28:20

around, you know, uh, like,

1:28:23

let's say the basketball world was

1:28:26

Bronnie should go back to college, go

1:28:29

to Duquesne and transfer where Drew Joyce is

1:28:31

there. Drew Joyce obviously played with LeBron

1:28:34

in high school, just got the job from

1:28:36

Keith Dambrott who coached LeBron in high school.

1:28:39

Uh, that's a place where like, if you needed

1:28:41

a trust factor, if you feel like, you know,

1:28:43

USC didn't go well, you know, I

1:28:46

can't imagine them not trusting Drew Joyce

1:28:48

to like really take care of Bronnie

1:28:50

and just letting him develop like

1:28:53

guys are so good in

1:28:55

the NBA. Like

1:28:58

it's, it's silly, but like I went through

1:29:00

this earlier with somebody, do you remember

1:29:02

how good Tony Allen was in college? Oh

1:29:05

yeah. Tony Allen won the big

1:29:07

12 player of the year. He

1:29:09

won the big 12 tournament MVP was the best player on a

1:29:11

31 and four final four

1:29:13

team at Oklahoma state

1:29:16

that beat the Jamir Nelson

1:29:18

Delonte West team that like everybody

1:29:20

loved. And

1:29:22

like this guy ended up being like

1:29:24

a defensive specialist in the NBA. Yeah.

1:29:27

He was the D without the three. Yeah.

1:29:31

And it was funny because the Celtics, the Celtics like tried him

1:29:33

at point guard for a little while. I

1:29:35

remember that I was like, wait, I don't know about

1:29:37

this deal. Look, I think it's, it's

1:29:39

all, it's all fair. You're talking about players and whether or

1:29:42

not we think they can be guys. And

1:29:44

the more I dug into it, I just was

1:29:46

watching it going like that. We would never, there's

1:29:48

no player that's ever played like this that put

1:29:50

up such little production. And

1:29:54

then when you look at like the catch and shoot points per

1:29:56

shot and you look at like the guarded catch and shoot points

1:29:58

per shot and you just go. This

1:30:00

is a I actually feel bad for him.

1:30:03

I feel bad because if he is drafted to

1:30:05

a team that is not Connected

1:30:08

to his father in that

1:30:10

first year. It's gonna be fans

1:30:12

that are really excited about it. And they're just

1:30:15

They're just gonna be like well, they're gonna

1:30:17

have a weird set of expectations on them

1:30:20

Well, like I've seen I've seen to like

1:30:22

the idea of oh, no, like

1:30:24

he'll help like juice the G League team Like

1:30:27

he'll help, you know get us

1:30:29

like merchandising things okay, like maybe they

1:30:31

might sell like G League jerseys of

1:30:33

brawny James, but Like

1:30:37

nobody here's the thing. So like

1:30:39

let's say that you get better TV ratings

1:30:41

You're not actually selling like the

1:30:43

you know TV You

1:30:45

know nobody no advertisers are going

1:30:47

to no providers are

1:30:50

going to take G-league games

1:30:52

because brawny James is there without like a

1:30:54

proof of concept And

1:30:57

the problem there is that okay, let's

1:30:59

say brawny is good, right? And

1:31:01

he becomes a show for the G League. He's just gonna

1:31:04

get called up and Let's

1:31:06

say that he's bad. Nobody's gonna care

1:31:08

if he's bad So it's

1:31:10

like a USC this year like USC I

1:31:12

think that their average attendance was like 65

1:31:15

percent this year or something while brawny was

1:31:17

there like it wasn't very good like it's

1:31:19

any of the like Marketing things

1:31:21

I've seen like I just think that

1:31:24

they fall apart on any sort of

1:31:26

closer scrutiny No

1:31:29

Yeah, like to me it's all about like you

1:31:31

mentioned like feeling bad for him like It's

1:31:34

all about the kids and like all about just like making

1:31:36

sure these kids like get developed in the right way and

1:31:38

I truly think that like the best circumstance for him would

1:31:40

have just been like going to a smaller school and Becoming

1:31:43

more comfortable just handling the ball and

1:31:45

you know being a better on ball player When's

1:31:48

the newest mockout you out today

1:31:50

you're saying I don't whenever it

1:31:52

gets edited today or tomorrow I would hope yeah,

1:31:55

cuz what is this is going live Thursday live

1:31:58

Thursday. So yeah, hopefully Thursday it'll

1:32:00

be out and then the full draft

1:32:02

guide will be out on Thursday or

1:32:04

Friday is the idea. So you guys

1:32:07

will have a lot of words from me over

1:32:09

the course of the next little while. Looking

1:32:11

forward to it. You can check out Sam's

1:32:14

work on the athletic as

1:32:16

I do religiously. Sam

1:32:18

Vasini, thanks, man. Yeah, of course. Anytime. This

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You want details? I

1:33:19

drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's

1:33:22

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1:33:26

I have every toy you can possibly imagine.

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And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

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So now you know

1:33:33

what's possible. Let me tell you what's

1:33:35

required. Life Advice,

1:33:38

the email address,

1:33:40

lifeadvicerr@gmail.com. Before we get to

1:33:42

some of the emails, we'll

1:33:44

get to other emails. I don't know if

1:33:47

the nation has ever been less

1:33:49

divided on a topic than

1:33:52

our guy wondering

1:33:54

if he should build a van to live in. What's

1:34:00

that? I didn't know that would be that

1:34:03

controversial. I thought that was- No, I said less divided. Oh,

1:34:05

okay. Okay. I thought it

1:34:07

was- Yeah. No, we are unified on this one. Rare for

1:34:10

us, but when

1:34:13

it comes to just a guy going, I'm not good at

1:34:15

this stuff, I think I'm going to

1:34:17

build a van to live in and drive around. The

1:34:20

nation unites is maybe a better way to phrase

1:34:22

it. So yeah,

1:34:25

it's kind of like the, you know, hey, I suck at cooking,

1:34:27

but I'm thinking about opening up my own restaurant. That

1:34:31

would make more sense. Would

1:34:33

it? The hope

1:34:35

is just to end up on bar rescue and get free stuff.

1:34:38

It's the one in a million shot, moon shot. Whipped

1:34:41

you into shape. Oh

1:34:44

my God. I love it whenever the advertisers are

1:34:46

based on the culture of the town. Just

1:34:50

like, I would just want people to feel

1:34:52

like they're more connected to Tucson. Face

1:34:57

the fries. Yeah, there

1:34:59

you go. When

1:35:03

you're in Rutland, what do you think about?

1:35:07

It's a blue collar town, right? People

1:35:09

are spending their paychecks. When

1:35:14

he's in the SUV and the other person just

1:35:16

has to say yes to like every idea. Like

1:35:20

Rutland, I'm thinking logging, mud, traffic,

1:35:23

brown snow. Mudslides.

1:35:30

And then the other expert is just sitting

1:35:32

there shotgun going. Yeah,

1:35:34

it makes a lot of sense. Gold

1:35:37

mine. Like

1:35:39

construction guys getting off of

1:35:41

work, railroad workers. You

1:35:43

know, they're going to walk in and think mudslide. Okay.

1:35:51

I don't know how many of

1:35:53

these van ones I even want to read. I think there were

1:35:55

just a couple of good ones. Okay,

1:35:57

here we go. Six foot 220 bench 220. leading

1:36:00

into that dad bod life. I have an

1:36:03

important response to the 20 something guy considering

1:36:05

a van build. Do not do it. My

1:36:08

wife caught the van life fever at the beginning

1:36:10

of COVID and I was ultimately forced to agree

1:36:12

to the project. Here's the thing. I'm

1:36:15

decently handy having worked for several subcontractors and

1:36:17

done a fair amount of home renovations over

1:36:19

the years. And this project is

1:36:21

way over my head. Our guy should expect this

1:36:23

project to be five times more expensive than he

1:36:25

expects, and

1:36:27

10 times more time consuming. I stupidly thought I could

1:36:30

knock this thing out in six months, but here I

1:36:32

am four years later with the project 60% done. I

1:36:35

was able to do all the framing and cabinetry, but I'm

1:36:37

a complete loss, at a complete loss

1:36:39

when it comes to electrical power, plumbing, et cetera. Our

1:36:42

van now sits on the side of the house collecting

1:36:44

dust. Our guy would be better off yoloing on

1:36:46

GameStop with Roaring Kitty. Thanks

1:36:49

for the show guys. All

1:36:51

right. Wow, living in a van

1:36:53

down by the river. Not as easy as it seems.

1:36:57

It's hard. Not fully referenced for you. Yeah,

1:37:00

no, we got it. We got it. Appreciate

1:37:02

it. We skew younger lately, so I just wanted to

1:37:05

throw it out there. Yep, that's fair.

1:37:08

This guy said, to the guy who wanted to get

1:37:10

a van to go see the national parks, don't do

1:37:12

that. You're over your skis, assuming you'll have the time,

1:37:14

tools, and skills you need to build out a van

1:37:16

the way you want. Get a four by four, slap

1:37:18

on a rooftop tent, buy yourself a

1:37:21

small diesel heater and some cheap camp gear,

1:37:23

and you're set cheaper, more efficient, easier side

1:37:25

bonus. You'll also have a car. That's

1:37:29

a good one. I

1:37:32

admire your goal to build something to see the parks, but

1:37:34

building a van will take all that desire

1:37:36

out of you, almost like buying a

1:37:38

boat. The second best day is when you get rid of

1:37:40

it. Yep, we've heard the joke a thousand times.

1:37:43

But, this email is

1:37:46

really good. I

1:37:48

don't think we have anything else to add. Although, yeah, I did

1:37:51

have somebody follow up and be like, hey, you, people

1:37:53

get so mad about, I've

1:37:56

noticed this over the years of like, whenever I reference any of

1:37:58

the construction days, really mad about it.

1:38:01

Like I'm fucking lying about it. Yeah, like,

1:38:03

I don't know what to tell

1:38:05

you. But yeah, mostly the

1:38:08

framers don't know how to do any of the

1:38:10

other stuff. And the electrical

1:38:12

people don't know how to frame. And

1:38:14

the finished carpenters want nothing to do

1:38:16

with the framers. And the

1:38:18

framers don't have the delicate touch of the finished

1:38:20

carpenters. I mean, you know, look, it's a team. It's

1:38:23

a team. There's rebounders, there's screensetters,

1:38:25

shooters, defenders. Who's

1:38:28

the star player? Who's the little brawn of the

1:38:30

construction site? Well, that's the GC.

1:38:34

But it just becomes a collection of everybody

1:38:36

thinking everybody else sucks at what they do,

1:38:38

which is really funny. It

1:38:41

is a lot like a basketball team. It's

1:38:44

almost like a Paul George podcast. We're

1:38:50

like after the house is done, you just do a pod. GC

1:38:53

is like, well, you know,

1:38:55

our insulation guys, we're not great.

1:38:57

It's like, well, isn't that really your call? By

1:39:03

the way, Paul George sharing that Hardin

1:39:05

said that a

1:39:09

player's talk and Daryl Morey and the Sixers

1:39:11

and all this stuff. Do you realize how

1:39:13

insane Paul George sharing that while

1:39:16

he's sharing the ultimate leverage that

1:39:18

he has to get the extra year from the Clippers?

1:39:23

That's that's more of an open. It's not really life advice.

1:39:25

I won't let us here. Yeah,

1:39:28

no, I feel like I feel like we're I

1:39:30

need to warm us up here. So let's just get to an email. Okay,

1:39:33

picking up girls to the gym. Good luck. 2557 173. Precise

1:39:35

dude. Player comp late career Raymond Felton.

1:39:42

Not at 173. Do decent

1:39:45

passer might hit a three, but that's about it.

1:39:47

I live in Brooklyn, originally from New Jersey. I've

1:39:50

never been much of a ladies man stems

1:39:52

from self confidence issues, lack of putting myself out there

1:39:54

and kind of not wanting to get out of my

1:39:56

own comfort zone. Move to Brooklyn back in

1:39:58

October, I went on a bunch of to dates for a

1:40:00

while, mainly through online dating. I've

1:40:03

always kind of hated the guy that hits on girls

1:40:05

at the gym, but recently I was thinking of sparking

1:40:07

a conversation. I figure someone who gets to the gym

1:40:09

could potentially be worth pursuing. The question is, is there

1:40:11

a good way to go about this? If you ever

1:40:13

done it, I love the pod.

1:40:17

Not gonna lie, it's a tough one. Yeah, if

1:40:20

you're not a ladies man and you're

1:40:22

primarily interacting with women via online, this

1:40:25

is not the place to try out your skills. Maybe

1:40:28

try a farmer's market first or something, goddamn.

1:40:31

You think a farmer's market is easier? That's triple A?

1:40:33

No, I actually don't think so either, but I just,

1:40:35

I don't know if that's... Summer

1:40:38

league is not, it's

1:40:41

definitely not the gym. I mean, I

1:40:43

feel like- What's the summer league, what's the summer league

1:40:45

of meeting people? College? Amusement park?

1:40:47

Well, college, obviously. Yeah, totally,

1:40:50

totally. 1000 times. College

1:40:52

is, because it's just, there's that great long and-

1:40:54

College is like a skills camp. It's like fucking

1:40:56

this. It's

1:40:58

like a summer skills camp. Yeah,

1:41:03

I almost feel like it's kind of like a lower,

1:41:06

is it like D3 hoops where you're like, well, that shit's not

1:41:08

gonna work when you go to the next level. Like

1:41:12

you think you can dribble past this guy and

1:41:15

you think that's a good shot, but once the

1:41:17

competition gets a little bit better, that move's not

1:41:19

gonna work, it's spin dribble. Yeah,

1:41:24

that's good. I think the major

1:41:26

leagues is just maybe meat

1:41:28

packing district and it's prime. I

1:41:35

would probably name like five

1:41:37

different LA hangs, but like if

1:41:39

you walk into there, you will

1:41:41

be exposed immediately,

1:41:45

or you just hang and cheer. Made

1:41:49

another three. Happy to be here, guy. Yeah, right, like

1:41:52

I didn't- Free shirts guy, free gear guy. Good

1:41:55

bench, man. Yeah. Okay,

1:41:59

the G. The gym, the gym. I

1:42:01

think the only way it really works at the gym, and you've

1:42:04

already said, like, by the way, first of all, a

1:42:08

very basic thing that I

1:42:10

believe in is that I

1:42:12

too don't like the guy that hits on everybody at

1:42:14

the gym, because I'm just like, here you go. But

1:42:17

in a way, I think there's a little

1:42:19

baked in, is it jealousy?

1:42:22

Is it, is it, I

1:42:25

wouldn't do that, but I kinda wish I could,

1:42:28

or good for him, like who gives a

1:42:30

shit? Now, the guy

1:42:32

who hits on everybody at the gym falls into a bunch

1:42:34

of different categories. Like, one guy is

1:42:36

just that good of a ladies man, and he's

1:42:39

good looking, and he looks great at the gym,

1:42:41

and he's just had a very, right,

1:42:43

he's had a very, very blessed life, and he

1:42:46