JJ Redick

Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Busting with the Boys, the greatest podcast of all time, sponsored and presented.

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That is a huge deal this week, this episode, banger.

That's why I had a cloud going on the entire time because I was thinking about we had fucking JJ Reddick on the bus, who's literally everywhere right now, Yes, bro, everywhere, dude, every way you look, you see people saying like we need to protect them at all costs. On ESPN, like all this, all of us. He's on first take a lot right, first take. I don't want sure what other segments stephen A Smith and that hairline, yeah, he said in that airline and mad Dog like JJ's out there

His vocabulary kind of pissed me off a little bit because it made me feel less than It's my own issue though, that is my own issue.

Yeah, it's my own bag to unpacked. Pat McAfee did the other day like, if you're gonna be done, like you gotta be a tough guy.

Yeah.

I think when JJ's talking you get a little mad, you want to get a little tough.

Tough, all right, yeah, so look at me. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Then you know what I'm saying, You're in the beautiful thing what you need to be.

And a cool thing that JJ said to us was that like he's like not doing a lot of stuff with people right now.

Like he committed doing busting with the Boys, which is really.

Cool with him, but then after the party is like, yeah, there's a lot of people ask me to do stuff every single day, and I just it's so overwhelming.

So I'm not I'm not gonna be doing that. Because he's been crushing it, crushing it and we get like humble too. Oh bro, he he was fucking awesome. Bro unreal.

He legit took over the podcast. Low key guys. Spoiler alert. We're not a huge basketball guys. We don't really know what's what. We don't have like the knowledge.

He's got a So you know when the Boys were in the top five for the charts now Apple Spotify, we're living in those charts.

Living top ten your shadow.

Everyone listening to continue to download our episodes on audio, like even if you watch on YouTube before watching on YouTube. Right now, just as we're talking, plut your phone, bring up Apple or Spotify download this up so that ship helps us, bro. But a podcast that listens to five with us is The Old Man in the Three, which is JJ Reddick's podcast.

He's got a banger podcast.

Banger but uh, yeah, man, he's a stud. You any white kid growing up, dude, you wanted to shoot like JJ Redick.

Let's see, Hey, I thought he was black, Taylor the day before he.

Came on zero and anything about basketball, Bro, you had still like I tweeted and had a gift of who JJ Reddick was. He's like, oh I thought he was black until you had that gift. Yeah. Uh, but if you watch basketball of any kind, like you wanted to be a JJ Reddick back in that the early two thousands. But yeah, got a stud podcast, The Old Man in

It's arguing for the boys.

But yeah, dude, we had an awesome teer talk about pizza.

Pizza was the tear talk, and that's where we kind of all kind of lost it with each other. I think that's where he kind of kind of put himself on a pedestal because he lives in the Northeast.

I think that's what it is, too, Like that's the word like.

You guys don't know pizza and then my tier one. You guys both shit on, which is fine. I honestly, that's not gonna be the number one pick of any anybody, like for a lot of people, but for me it was number one.

But he was.

I think he said the best thing we said was cheese, and that low key is disrespectful.

He was super He's saying some crazy shit, dude, Like we're trying to have Like he's just using big words.

Dude. He was just said leafs, but he used like stage and I'll say, he's.

A small word. You know what I'm saying for little words. You know what I'm saying, saying big ass words. Piece of ship.

I'm getting I'm getting tough again.

But yeah, he uh, it was just a you know, we're just trying to have a good time. Like, hey, let's like pick out candies and pizzas and ship like that. He's like coming ask with some crazy Northeastern But those dudes those different kind of think they're a lot better than like the Midwest, the Southern guys.

So you know what's like kind of a stable for them.

You were in you were in New York. Was the pizza that much better? You can be honest, this list was really good. Okay, the pizza is really it was that much better, you're gonna say, and he's just say it was.

That much better. Oh it's not that much better.

No, no, no, no, Like there's competitive pizza all over the country.

I feel like, is there anywhere in Nashville you would say we compete with New York.

That's good question, right. Are we given some free shoutouts? You just I mean is there actual an actual yes? Because if my head there might not be fucking Joey shut down.

I would say that one Joey's the House of Joey's House of Pizza really yeah, I mean they brought it on that one time that he tried it. He gave it like a high eight rating. No way, yes, Bro, day when he came to three spots, he went to Nashville is Joey's five points and one other one, but they all got they all got in the eighth, bro, really with respect, and I will say five points is good. You're mouth watering, right, Yeah, Rocking Dough is low key.

So Lyn is a brewery and everyone who's eating it.

I haven't had that. I would love to try it. You got to try it out Smith and Midnight Oil Bro, Midnight Oil off fifty. First.

You have about brought them. You brought it on this pot actually ship.

Yeah.

Well, Joey's brother still has a uh has a pizza spot though it's called Manny's. It's very similar to Joey's. There were brothers they competed in like the pizza world. But Manny's is still open it.

I'm glad you said that because I when I saw Joss shutting down, I was a little bum that, like I only had it that one time. He was only opening afternoons from like eleven am to four pm, not open on weekends, and only open on those afternoons in the weekdays.

Is this the plately operational?

Is this the place that uh Portnoy was like, I'm coming here and then they were like, please don't come.

Yeah, they were like they didn't want the attention because they there's always like a long line.

It's just family. It's family opera.

I wonder why they shut down then COVID probably couldn't have been bro they would have.

I read their ad and it said they're transitioning into like doing more food than just pizza.

So they're opening back up. Okay, they're not shutting down.

They're getting bigger because everything you guys are saying sounds like this would be the hotest place.

So it's not going to be pizza centric anymore. It's I think it's just going to be traditional Italian food again. That's just what their their Instagram post said, like their last post.

Okay, pizza's fire, but Italian food for me is not a really I know?

Is that crazy?

It is crazy?

Man? That wild. No, Italian Food's heavy, so it's not always like a choice. I try and go to but foods as you much like that?

Really?

Yeah, no it's not for me, but uh anything else else? Miss Jumping in the episode gives a finals prediction.

Oh he gave as prediction? What was it? You gotta listen, Taylor, come on different? What am I thinking of right now? You're good, bro, you gotta listen to the episode. Though.

We do have one thing though, because the whole rich eyes and remember the video.

Yeah, we can just shit it on lighty.

Right behind your seat, there is a device that is a fog machine and it possesses a not a big one but a small motor.

It's right behind your seat, will Oh, it's right there, yep, I see it.

Try and keep it level if you grab it, because I feel like it's like leaking. But rich Eisen said that he changed his listen to Jack because it is that video special you can yeah, just to prove that it's on here. Because rich Eisen has now said that he will come on the podcast if we just had any motor at all. That little device possesses a very small but still a motor.

Is that work? Does it work? Yeah?

We gotta plug it in and stuff, so we don't have it. Didn't have to be working, he said, he could be anything motor.

That's case we got. Isn't there a motor in this bus? All right, we can do that.

We just yeah, we need to clip it so he can send it to Rich. He should hopefully be coming on the show, So Rich, those tweets are gonna still be sending off until the day he gets on here.

It seems like Rich in the beginning really fucking dug his feet in the ground on what would make him come on this bus. And as we've gained a little more traction, it kind of seems like Rich has gone from doing us a favor to wanting to actually be on the bus and is willing to bend his own rules of how he's going to come on this bus. I've said it once in a thousand times. Its a huge Rich eisend fan.

Yeah.

I think the.

Interaction between Busting and and him has been incredible.

Uh, yeah, it was painful. At first when he just wasn't referring to me in the podcast. Yeah, like I just want Rich to see me type of thing. Yeah, but I agree with you because when you first, when he talks about you first coming on and talking about busting with the boys, I'm sure he's oh, like the like the haters people are like, oh the boys are doing a cute little podcast.

You know we were for real, I'm not gonna make it make anything of itself.

Yeah, he didn't know. Now look at us. Now you can play with us, play back and forth with us a little more on your own show because there's enough credibility behind it, enough credibility. Yeah, and he probably wants to get on that. And he's an o G too.

He's no G. But when you've been in the game for this long, he's here with the times, we're hip or with it.

Yeah you know, yeah, so he's been an o G Tier three. You know.

I think at this point we'll allow Rich to come on the pod, and I'm happy we could do this for him.

Do I do you are you sure we need a tread that way? Maybe that keeps him from coming on. I want just don't want him to go back when I'm playing as you just did.

I know you're right, and if you just give me. I in my head, Rich is watching this video right now and he's gone, He's like this on a stay on his desk and he's look, he's watching on his screen during a TV.

These guys, you know, And I just want him to smile with it. And You're right.

I could have been that might have been the thing that set him over the edge. But I want him to enjoy this. I'm just enjoying the banter, you know. O. G Michigan guy, dude, hero stud legend.

Is he gonna missage your Michigan one? Do you think he should? It should be him in a full sprint, is what it should be in a suit?

How so would that be? That'd be tool? But shall we get into it?

You know, it'd be cool real quick if we did a spring football trophy game between Michigan and the trophy was Rich, and they would do the Bo the May, the Boot team in the May team, and it was just a small trophy of Rich running and whoever won that team, their captain got to keep the Rich trophy. That captain the captain of whichever team. I'm sure they split up, right, Yeah, pro cool while everyone line up against the wall. Two captains. I got that guy.

They fucking get the game going. Cool ship. That's a funny idea.

Thanks man.

All right, let's get to this episode.

JJ Reddick, subscribe rate the boys do all the fun stuff. Enjoy the episode. How'd you feel about that game of pay that just happened there? I didn't feel great about it?

Yeah, coursewaty right now?

We just played it an intense game of pig, in tense game of pig, and JJ Reddick was the first man out.

Yeah, I think what I think what obsessed me is number one the l for sure.

Yeah.

But I texted Will yesterday and I said, Will, what do I need to know? What am I walking into tomorrow? And he laid out a show plan, some Duke stuff, some NBA stuff. There was no mention of mini basketball pig.

Yeah.

And had I known that, I would have I would have came more prepared. I would have my whole day would have been different. I'll put it that way. So you're blaming me a little.

Bit, Well, here's and let me have Will side for a second game.

Yeah, you guys probably got at least I don't know ten to fifteen warm up shots?

Why?

Why?

What?

But but usually when people play pig and someone comes in middle of the game, usually have to take a letter.

And you didn't have to come in mid game. Well, that's because my driver took me to twelve.

I'm not going to say you don't want to see the address, but he took me to different a different address that started with a C, not a K.

And then on the way over here we got stuck behind a train.

So just shit happens, man, A lot of adversity when you're coming to and during the podcast on the bus. But just to argue with you a little bit more, when you and I were sitting in the corner of there and we were like kind of first meet each other, you did whisper to me, I play this game with my kids, exact hoop exact ball every single day.

Did you not say that?

Was it?

Is that a comment you made? Exact hoop oh ball? You actually the ball is bigger and harder to make it.

Yes, you know, the there's like a men's basketball, women's basketball, youth basketball, and then there's like the mini basketballs. They're like three times the size that the ball you guys used.

That's what I'm used to.

Are you always aware when you walk into like a situation like that, like they all expect me to win this game, and when you do lose in that kind of fashion because it was pretty quick. Is this something where you're just like, damn, these boys like really think they got me for real?

I mean, if you guys really think you got me in basketball, I actually feel bad for you.

Let them finish, Let them finish and finish. Nobody laugh.

No, but I'm just saying if we, if we, if we all of a sudden like did a NERF football competition, we probably like throwing it at a target, like I would probably beat you, guys. I wouldn't say to myself like I got you in football. I would just say, like I won this specific random event.

Okay, but it's pretty straightforward.

It'd be better, it'd be better and easier for us to stay based on because there was no like real basketball there.

We're just better shooters than you are.

Again, like at this particular dress, outside of this particular bus, I'm that particular hoop you guys got me today, and I again, the competitive side of me is pissed off and I wish we could move on past this because now.

I'm getting angry.

It's going it's gonna be a.

Few minutes before.

Trust me, we do not want to see for take JJ reddick. Really, Yeah, have you not seen the ways a couple I've.

Seen you lose your temper, But I don't think it's anything we can't handle. I don't know if I've lost my temp well, I've been animated.

You can tell because your vein will start coming out of your neck a little bit, you start leaning a little bit more in your seat and.

Does the seat lean is a big giveaway? The producer said that to me the other day.

Really, because I know when you're about to get really engaged because I leaned forward.

Yeah, and I don't even realize I'm doing it. Yeah. I think I've got to be better at this exact This exact video is about Luca and Curry.

Uh. Now, this one was about Steven A calling Jimmy Butler a permitter shooter. Yeah, and he's not a premier perimeter shooter at all. Jimmy Butler is a fantastic player. He's you know, superstar.

Who als are who all are fantastic players? Well, Pat Beverly.

I'm just Beverly pressed me on the other day, you got a fantastic player, what does that mean?

And I'm like, I don't know.

Fifty fantastic players. The hierarchy of the NBA is really hard to figure out at any given time. But generally speaking, there's like five guys that are it. They are him, and you can win a championship with that player, and beyond that, you know, there's probably five more guys that on certain nights look like a top five player, that's.

Sort of like the top ten or fifteen.

Then it becomes very circumstantial for the next twenty to forty guys, you know, and like Draymond he's a great example of that, because where do you sort of place him in the hierarchy of the NBA. If we're talking about someone who can go off the dribble and score on his own, like, that's not Draymond, but we're talking about impact on winning, well shit, he's top fifteen.

Top twenty.

So it's it's hard to rank players. I hate doing it. I hate you know, they make me do it.

May have you seen Raymond Green try to play football? I haven't.

Oh, there's a video fam if you can pull it up?

Pull it up, Draymond Green spring football, Michigan State.

What's like a good like for an average quarterback in the NFL? Average?

Actually, let's go not NFL, average FBS college quarterback?

How far can they throw football on the flo yards? Eighty yards?

Like?

What's good? Oh, so that's a you'd think like you think sixty? Yeah, fifty to sixty would probably be basically I could average D one quarterbacks.

Well, that's assuming that what you just said means you can throw the ball fifty or sixty yards on the run accurately.

On the run. I mean I can just do it standstill. You can throw a fifty or sixty yards standstill? Yeah?

How long you feel somewhere to go? Because we can go right to the field if you want.

I mean, I'm gonna you didn't give me warm up here? We can go out to the field after we finish. I have nothing to do the rest of today. We'll play Bay again, just you and me, and you can warm up as long as you want. My ongoing joke is basically that if I had not quit baseball, I would have been a big league pitcher.

You think so I had a heater man, Were you a beast? I had a heat? I'll tell you six or four.

Yeah, well I quit in seventh grade.

That's the thing my dad made me choose. But here's the thing I was. That is like the point where you have here.

I was a beast then, and I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet. I was five six, And then all the kids that I played against that were on the same level as me, they all either played you know, double A, triple A baseball, D one ACC baseball.

I feel like I could have had a I could have had a chance. I mean, are you hitting like low seventies as a seventh grader? Yeah? Oh easy. I mean that's that's just I feel that's just a loose seventies. Yeh.

I feel like that's pretty to mid sixties. You're like, holy shit, right, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, it's even sixty two.

Yeah. If you mound that.

Clothes back to the dug out and you're in like middle school and you know, hey, this kid can throw seventy two miles an hour, You're like, fuck.

I don't think I ever even heard of that. We would like to.

Interrupt this incredible episode with JJ Redder to let you know a couple of things. One we're gonna give an agory, but also make sure you guys are subscribing and rating five stars for our YouTube and especially audio. Will set it in the intro. We have been absolutely living in that top five on Spotify and Apple. Yeah, and both those boys right with Apples top five.

We've been on this.

We've been living in Spotify as top five and literally, guys, it's been an amazing thing. We've been going into two podcasts. You guys have been absolutely incredible. This ad read is one of the best, one of the best because it's Duke Cannon and when you go to their Instagram and you see their stuff, you think this is just this is a bunch of memes, just a bunch of dudes being hilarious making concerpt for everybody else. But you don't know is they make the best products for men.

Dude. They have that big ass brick of soap with the scrubber.

Will and I talked about it the other day, that little pouch, so the soap comes in, you fucking put it in there, get it wet, soart, rubbing it. It's just like a loofa baby because a lot of times we have issues the big boxing stuff willly what you got for us, Baby.

I would just like to do in a mini shot out, no free shout out of the week for teaching me about the case that is like a lufa, because I was trying to talk about here's how you can do with the Duke Cannon, but little did I.

Know that the uh that the case is a Lufah.

Yeah, I've been using a NonStop and I every time I do, I'm like, man, I'm really glad that they put me on game.

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That's a big deal. Duke Cannon not for clowns.

Taylor, honest with you, Your listeners know this. This is more of us getting to know each other. Where Where are you from again?

From Arizona from I grew up grew up in Airsa, born in California, grew grew up in Arizona, went to Michigan, and I've been here, so.

I do that, okay, And then so Bontaire, Missouri. Is that that's a real place.

Oh, I've been there. It's a real Actually, I've driven past there with Willie people.

It's a real place. Yeah. I have bacco lead Okay, cigarettes. For a long time in my life.

I'm not a conspiracy there's but for a long time in my life, I was like, man, I'm not sure Missouri and Nebraska actually exists. Like I don't know if they are real places or if it was just like we're going to put them on a map.

Because I didn't know anybody. You know, you, I'd never I'm like Nebraska because they don't leave. Nebraska people don't leave. It's weird. I'm pretty sure Missouri people don't leave either. You're talking about where I am right now.

No, but you like you like made it out kid, Yeah, I mean you told me all the time people from your town like don't really leave that town.

That's fair. Yeah, that's accurate.

Like Nebraska, it's a similar it's a similar conversation we've had.

I feel like most people if you're in a small town, though not a lot of people really leave. I think that's a great point, you know what I mean. No, and I agree with that, like cities like you like, yeah, I don't know what. We were an hour away from Saint Louis when I was growing up, so there really wasn't no city there.

There was like nothing around us.

So you just get used to the community aspect, I guess of a small town, like when you're growing up and when you're younger, like in my area, and say, you're like good at sports, you like picture yourself being like a head coach of that high school team when you grow up, or like a gym teacher, you know what I mean.

Yeah, you know I'm I always coach pe and I'm gonna or I'm gonna teach pe and I'm gonna coach football. What was a big city for you, Saint Louis. St. Louis Louis. Yeah. Huge.

When I went to leave in Nebraska, I felt like it was big for me and everybody else from like Texas and Cali, and they like just shit on it.

Like like when I went to Orlando my rookie year, I thought I thought Orlando was a city.

It's clearly not a city. It's not a real city. Well, Orlanto's a weird place place.

Every time I go to Orlando, I'm like, I like, everything's fake here because it's like the Disney the Disney World, and it's like, oh, there's a castle right there, or like this extravagant billboard, like it's so insane. But really it's just like fake. Nothing's real there. It seems like to me, I've only been there like three times in all three.

Of those years.

I don't know that I wouldn't call it like all of it fake, but it's a transient place.

So a lot of people in and out, a lot of tourists google transient for me.

Well, he's I mean, he can probably define it for you'll.

Be that'll be the easiest word to translate that I'll use today.

Oh wow, yeah, what is it? Short lived? Okay?

He always changes moves around, you know, people in and out. Yeah, nobody's from Like who's from Orlando? Who's like, oh, yeah, I grew up in Orlando and I stayed in Orlando. It's the same thing here Inshville.

The first six months I lived in Nashville in twenty fourteen, I didn't meet one person from Nashville.

I grew up in this area at all. Everyone's transplants.

Yeah, come from New York, come from Florida, come from all over the place.

What you're you're you know, you're touching the local boys back there.

Well, I mean, is that not true? Is there's so many people from out of town. Yeah.

So I'm not trying to come out the boys. I'm just trying to say, like, it's a transient places. The book you know, read a book boys, and it's just a transient place.

You know, are you stick to be um busting with the boys? I am stoked.

I mean shit, man, Like I gotta be honest with you all. The last eight or nine months has been kind of crazy for me because I always envisioned this year of bliss and quiet when I retired, and I was very hesitant to do ESPN and agree to do like a short one year deal, and I was still obligated to do the podcast for another year. So it's like, yeah,

I was like absolutely, absolutely, no hesitation. I'm super excited to be here.

What about bust? One the boys is if there's three or four a week coming to you saying hey, come on our podcast? What about busting?

Was like, so was it? The bus was a will?

It was mostly will? Yeah, most usually great follow up, a great follow on Twitter, a great phenomenal teeth. Yes, he's hilarious. He had one of them need to body back somebody for JJ. Somebody was coming at him. Really's guy named.

Chip and then jj JJ gave like a good response Tom And it was one of those things where you kind of like read through the bullsh like, hey, JJ, do you need do you need me to ask him for a favor?

Yeah?

I was so scared to clap back at people on Twitter when I was a player and then I was off of social media for like two years.

It was it was an awesome time.

But then when we started doing the podcast again, I was like I kind of gotta be on. But in retirement, I have zero problem lapping back. And I used to think about Kevin Durant. I'd be like, why is Kevin Durant? Why is Kevin Durant like clapping back. Well, he's the top five player. The guy's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Like why does he find the time. But the reality is when you have the app on your phone and you check on it.

It's human nature. You're gonna look at the mentions and like why not. It's very satisfying.

Yeah, very satisfy.

And it's a super that guy in a body bag the other day with the you put him to put him.

In the Yeah, So like.

How's your swaddle game right now? My swallow game?

Well now we're kind of, you know, we kind of we're kind of cheating now because we got the Ali swaddle because it's like voo that exists, Yes, that exists, and it is a good it's a very good swaddow. But before we got the Ali, my swadow was was actually getting pretty good.

I was like in mid season four, before we got the Ali, that's good.

Yeah, my wife only let me do the swaddle. She couldn't do it really for both our kids. Yeah, I was, and I went tight.

I went, well, that hands has poken out when when you first start then that hands starts creeping, they start scratching their face.

There's nothing, it's it's it's a wild thing.

The swaddle was something that took very seriously at competitive Yes, like when they're kind of tugging, You're like, all right, I'll fucking show you.

You want to you want to play games like that? You know what I'm saying. From in there, I didn't really fight back too much. Makes you feel kind of bad after, but while you're.

In it, you definitely like think, oh, this baby's trying me.

You know what I'm saying, I absolutely get it.

But yeah, I was telling Taylor like, uh oh, stoked that you were coming on because every every white kid in America when you're playing college basketball, they want to be able to shoot a ball like JJ Reddick. And I was more fired up now that you're coming on the bus because I was telling Taylor that you're legitimately one of the first ogs like in the in the active athlete world that was doing a podcast like you

I was like, oh, let me see like what JJ's doing, like how he does his stuff.

You retired on your own platform, like you own you like own your voice, you control your narrative.

You give a platform for.

Athletes, and so that's like why I'm so fired up that you're on the bus.

I appreciate that.

I never thought about that when I first started WOJ was launching a platform called The Vertical at Yahoo, and he asked me to write articles for him, and I got this like weird flashback to college, being like stressed out and then having to stay up all till six am to write a term paper.

I was like, fuck that, well, which I don't want to do that.

And then he came back six months later it's like me and Chris Mannix are doing the pod Do you want your own pod? And I legitimately had never listened to a podcast before. My wife had listened to Cereal the season one about the love triangle and the murder and stuff. Oh I never I was like, I listened to it and I was like, I don't know what to do, Like this is not what I'm going for. And you know, when I started it, it was I

Curious about people.

I'm very interested in the human psyche and It's given me this like amazing ability to to like interact with people. And then on top of that, as you mentioned, there's nothing better as an athlete than like having your own platform and being able to control the narrative. And I've used it in some ways, probably positively and probably negative lead to do that, but like I just I enjoy

When you were first starting your podcast, was there like that? Then in security that like, oh man, it was I put the start putting this out there while I'm playing. Am I going to be like oh yeah, Judge did My coach is going to think this way? My team is going to think a certain way, Like how did you deal with that situation?

Yeah?

I was fortunate because the clip the Clippers At the time. I get asked that question a lot. The truthful answer is anyone who is around me as a professional knew that my number one priority was basketball, even more so than my family. And I hate admitting that, but that's the truth. My entire day was structured around trying to be great at basketball. So no one that I worked with whatever question whether or not I was making the podcast a bigger priority than basketball, I think for me.

And it's still this way.

I still get a little bit of performance and performance anxiety when I when I I record a pod, because like I just want anything I do, I want it to be good. This is why I'm so mad that I lost to you guys in many basketball. No, I'm serious, like, I just want it to be good. And so it took twenty to thirty episodes where I like, legit wouldn't have to chug a beer before I started, just to calm myself down.

Really I would chug.

I would chug it was I was living at LA, so it's the North Coast Pilsner. I would chug a North Coast Pilsner, and and just to calm myself down, like okay, all right, you're gonna be all right. And I used to fucking keep I mean age like fifteen to twenty pages of notes on each person, and I would like have every question, I have a flow chart.

I mean I overdid it.

And now it's like I record and not do my notes, and I research and I work hard on it. But generally speaking, now it's just like it's natural, it's flows. I'm sure you guys have experienced the same thing. One hundred some episodes in. It gets easier.

It's way easier because's you gonna understand, Like the more you do episodes, like I took us about twenty episodes. Every once in a while too, like we'll do an episode somebody, We'll call each other in the car. But that was like our go to in the beginning was do an episode driving away, call each other like, hey,

Literally do outside.

So if it's just us too, it's never a difficult thing having a guest on. It's not a difficult thing for us because at the end of the day, we can bounce back off each other, you know, and we wit.

But it took us time in reps to learn that.

Yeah, I think with Tommy, I think that was part of the reason that I wanted Tommy as a co host, which our last season of The Ringer. I know he was trying to get me to do it, and I was like, I could. I'll be honestly, I don't really want to do it anymore. So we did it for a few months together and then COVID hit Pandemic hit World shutdown. We have both simultaneously discovered Zoom and we're like, oh,

Give me a pause during it. It's helpful.

It's helpful, by the way, even this year working for ESPN and kind of having a real sense of the landscape of sports media, like being in it and getting to understand it a little bit better. Like we are in the first wave of athlete driven content, the first wave, and like you mentioned you like I was a pioneer, like I think all of us are. I think all of us in this first inning, first couple innings, are pioneers in it.

I don't.

I don't think this is like a novelty something that's going to be a short lived thing. I think the future of sports media is going to be athlete driven. That's not to say that traditional journalists won't have their place in it, but.

Honestly, people are star for this.

Like we have been fed and soda for the last fifteen or twenty years. And being able to peel back the curtain a little bit and offer someone a three course meal with a leafy green salad.

I think people eat it up.

Man.

I really don't. I agree.

I think not just that, but like the suit and tie like got to be super proper all the time. I think for us is we're kind of learning like people want to feel like, oh, these guys are just like me k type of vibe, like we might play sports, but I mean we're sitting here.

In shorts, t shirt. Barstool does.

One of the best parts about hanging out Barstool one of the best parts with You've mentioned.

Bill not letting you own the podcast during that time. You said that was during the COVID during Yeah, this was so.

Our contract was running up.

I think it ended like July thirty first or August first, so it's basically two weeks into the bubble. And I told Bill in June, I was like, hey, you know, just so you know, like we are like going to other companies and being like, do you want to help.

Us sell ads on our podcast.

I'm you know, I want to be transparent with you that this is happening, so please make an offer. And you know, they made an offer, but they were the only company that was like, you can't own it. And this was right around the time of of the Ringer sale to Spotify and so and not to.

Mention Barstool with color Daddy, like there was a lot of IP conversation.

Yeah, exactly, And so that was just it wasn't even it wasn't even a money issue because it honestly, honestly, the Ringer offered us more guaranteed money than anyone else. But it was just like I just wanted to own the IP, even like simple stuff that you want to do down the line with, you know, conversations or episodes.

It's like, well, if I don't have control of that, like what good is it? You know?

And so it really just became bottom line, like are you gonna let me own it? And he said no, And I said, okay, no hard feelings, that's fine, We're moving on.

No what was it called before the JJ Ready podcast? And he wouldn't let Yeah, yeah, and and they So we lost.

I mean, it's the same thing that barstool with McAfee. Yeah, is Pat McAfee showing us Pat McAfee two point zero?

Correct, for sure, But you just almost think, like, man, it's we lost.

Yeah, So we lost kind of crazy, right, We lost our subscriber base obviously are to be the biggest thing, right, And I had done it twice already because I lost it when I left the Ringer. Yeahoo, I love I lost mine then, so I've had to restart three times basically, which.

Well, what's huge, but I think speaks so good to your audience. It was like very like intriguing when like learning about you when we were doing Bustle with Boys, was that, Yeah, you guys amassed one hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube within six weeks.

On our old Man. Yeah.

I mean that's the thing that we realized early on. It was like an epiphany moment we had my last year with the Ringer, we did Zion in person in LA and it was his first long form interview. And we did Jimmy right before literally two weeks before COVID and March eleventh and the you know, the world shutdown. Basically we put that on YouTube and those are still the two most watched videos on the Ringer YouTube channel.

I like him now. That to me is like that's it. That's the juice for me.

Yeah, pretty impressive.

And you said yeah, and I was like, oh no, on this.

Yeah, the juice for me is basically coming on YouTube mostly and like seeing like subscriber, seeing people commenting and like just loving what we're doing. It's it's still a cret thought process to me that we're sitting here on mics on cameras and you when you play a sport your whole life and you think, oh, this is all

So it's just fun. I do love it when people come on this this say I thought I didn't like this guy, but I do like this guy. But for me, it's just like it's given me. I feel safer in my own life after doing a podcast as far as like a session, Yeah, but it is, Uh, it's actually thing I think about all the time. There used to be a point in my life where I was like football, that's like the only main income I have. Like, yeah, I've made a lot of money in football, but like

I'm gonna be fine. Like this was like that step, that little piece for me to be like, Okay, I'm gonna be all right and thing's gonna work out.

I knew going into my last year of my contract with the Pelicans that it was gonna be my last year, and.

The other side of that was so terrifying. It was so scary.

And I and I had had a podcast, but I again it was like it was podcasting my future.

I didn't know.

And it almost feels weird to say podcasting is my future. Just you're like is that even a thing? But I, oh, yeah, it's the thing.

I know, I know, but like what what you were like? Yeah, but you first kind of started like is this really a feel? And like the last three four years I called come into it.

My parents, actually my parents called me because they were worried about me. It was a New Year's morning. We had played a road game in Oklahoma City. I think the night before I got in late. I went to bed at like three am, woke up at eight. I had a miscall for my mom. So I called my mom back and she was like, you know, we're really

And like letting go of that, letting go of that thing. Fuck, dude, it was terrifying.

But I can say to your point about like feeling safe about it, like, no, I can. I can do other things, and maybe it's maybe it's this for a while, maybe it's something else, but I'm it's a weird place to be, you know, basically a year out of retirement to be like, Okay, I'm gonna be fine, my life's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be all right.

Getting to that other side of it, because you're right, like it's that example. We spend, however, many years of our life just doing one thing, and I feel like like you're probably the same way. Like even when you're in it, you have interests, and every kind of player and athletes feels like they have something they're kind of lining themselves up for. They have a curiosity or a

Like I love like talking to people.

I feel like if I get to learn something about somebody, like we've had on like Darren Waller, Max, We've had on a lot of incredible people, but a couple of those stories saying now where Max is talking about his sobriety, Darren Waller's talking about his sobriety and just going in depth and like like giving athletes kind of a platform to talk about stuff, and like you said, like I'll you'll have people call and be like, yo, I didn't fuck with that guy, but that's really cool, or it's

Yeah, everything's up.

You're not gonna you're not gonna actually give reporters and talk about stuff, not because you won't give it to the reporter. One you won't give it to the reporter, but also like the environment you're in, you're just not your guards up, like you said, egos are going and like when you're on something like this, I just feel like everybody feels more comfortable when they're talking with like athletes or there's more of like an unfiltered approach, like

We kept ours on, but somewhere.

It's like, yo, just be yourself.

So yeah, yeah, like you know, just let it fly and be yourself. And if you're yeah, yeah, you're driving very much. You want to take a coup, we'll take it off.

People ask me all the time what this podcast is about. I literally go, I think it's just like a bunch of guys in the locker room talking. Yeah, it's like

It's a year round thing.

And what this has allowed us to do or especially myself because I get super caught up in like thinking like everyone is so focused and dialed in on Tennessee Titan football when really, if I just like zoom out for a second, it's like there's a there's a bunch of people that are but for the most part, like, ain't nobody gives a shit what I'm doing.

You know.

It's like I'll be in camp and it'll be the middle of August and it's I'm right in the middle. The start is too far to see and the and the end's not close enough, and you're just kind of like fucking in it. And you have a day off and you go drive home and you say, you know what, I'm gonna go cruise down Broadway.

Real quick and see what's going on.

And you go down Broadway and you see every type of person walking up and down, drinking, having a good time going. They don't give two shits at the Tennessee Times had practice today, or we were watching film, or who we're gonna play. And it allows you to be like, oh, like I'm gonna be It's gonna be all right. It's kind of comes down to is like, oh, this isn't as overwhelming consuming to everybody as you think it is.

I experienced that at Duke because I felt like I feel like I was like they all wanted it there.

Like I was in a fishball at Duke, and.

When I got on the other side of it, I was like, oh, you know, like Duke basketball, like it's well known, but it's not actually like that important. But at the time, it felt like every single thing I did was live or die. It felt very intense to me. I did to asker you guys a question because I

Normal good time.

Like there's so many things that I felt like I miss missed out on, like Christmas being an example. I think I think I played on Christmas Day twelve times in fifteen years, and I carried I carried like a little bit of resentment about that, Like I don't know what it was. And there were moments where I was like, you know, I could do something, why don't I do

Did you guys, Do you guys feel that at all?

If I feel like me feeling it was probably if anything, in the last couple of years, like when I know, I'm kind of like I have a foot out the door, like I kind of know what I want to lean into and do when I'm done now with bustling with the boys and everything else, and so you think about it a lot more like when I'm in the season, but I would say, like the first large the first like seven years, I more so think like I can't wait to do this when football's over with, like because

Thing like with Thanksgiving.

You don't get to do any of the holidays like during the season, like Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, all these things. New Years, it'd be more so like I can't wait to do this, like when I get done.

Playing complaining not complaining. No, But it's because it's a great life and I'm I was. I never felt any sense of like ingratitude. I was always grateful. I was always you know, I would still like even my fifty and you're super frustrated, Like dude, I have fucking thirty six and I'm in the NBA, Like how fucking cool is this?

Yeah, you know what I mean. Like I loved it every day, but still there were there were moments. There were moments.

Everyone goes through the grasses greener And the thing is, there's so many different lives you can live on this world, and so everyone always daydreams and think about what if. I always I remember being in college and like having to get my weight up because I came into college

How cool is this? Regardless, like it's just hope.

You're living.

Every kid's dream has to be a professional athlete at it's some position.

We did it.

We made gratulations, we fucking made congratulations.

We made it, and it's just cool. It's a cool vibe.

But yeah, there are there's always something you want to do other than what you're doing at that moment.

YEA, yeah, I think I've retired with the last three years.

Yeah, every year, this is it, this is known will every single year he's been like this is the last one?

Is the last one? And now we're talking about your ten. You know, it's just crazy. Do you think, like I'm.

Curious too, do you think there's a difference in basketball and football like doing the media stuff and having personalities? But I think because I think it's like it's wild that Draymond has a podcast. I think it's awesome, but I'm like, damn, like he's got some stones. When you go do a podcast like right after a game and talking about the game, like, do you feel like there's a difference there because you obviously did the pot for

I know everybody liked this, so it was all good.

But when I was in the building and seeing guys work and appreciating kind of like, damn, like these dudes like fucking they love like I love, But I'm like they love ball way more than the spot that I'm at in my career right now, to where you almost you almost feel bad bringing up any of the stuff because you don't want to seem like you're like not in it as much as they are.

Yeah, again, I go back to that point. I don't.

I go back to like any teammate I've ever been around, like saw the dedication of work I put in, So I never sort of worried about that. On the basketball football side, I mean, that's probably part of a larger conversation just about the empowerment that NBA players have right now, the player empowerment era that we're in the middle of right now, relative to the NFL. And I don't think the NFL has gotten to the level that the NBA has. And probably some of that is are guaranteed contracts.

Yeah they are.

They run the league more.

You know, again, it's you get the right guys. You can not predict, Like it's a lot more competive now, but it's a lot easier to.

Predict what Lebron and these boys on this team, like these teams are going to see each other in the final.

There's also just inherently because of the way your cap works, there's there's like more parody in the NFL and because it's a two way sport like.

In the NBA.

It's like if you're one of the five best players or ten best players, like.

You fucking run it. You run it.

Some guys don't take advantage of that. Some guys do, But there's just more. I just believe inherently there's more power. If you are Lebron James, or you're a Kawhi Leonard or Kevin Durant, there's you just carry more than even a great All Pro NFL player does. It's just the way the sport works.

Plus, guys probably when you say run it, you mean like they run practice and meetings and they say, we're fucking this is what we're doing.

There's input on everything. You have input on everything. I don't know if you guys like Aaron.

Rodgers are like Peyton Manning. There's very few guys kind.

Of but I think every team in the all thirty teams probably you could probably name five guys in the NFL.

Ten guys.

Maybe you'd name the best wide receiver the NFL, and yeah, but that he's not he's not having input on like who they should draft, right, they should trade? Yes, where in the in the NBA, the top two guys on pretty much every team. I mean I had that with the Clippers, and I was like the fourth or fifth guy,

In the NBA, it's it's.

A little more organic where a player's talent can sort of shine in a bunch of different Right, does.

That make that that you guys?

The mannings thereon Rodgers, the Tom Brady's like, if you play, if you play good offense, like running the ball, and you can keep them off the field, like you can keep those guys off the field, like those quarterbacks need the defense, and the special teams in literally everybody just as much as they feel.

Like they can affect basketball.

It seems like, well it seems like not knowing basketball, but like it seems like you have two or three dudes you can take over and do whatever the fuck you want.

Almost yeah, you know what I'm saying. Pretty much like when Lebron.

As long as those dudes were like good in twenty twenty two and not the last time they were good was like twenty sixteen, Like the Lakers this year, right, they built a team around guys that were good six years as?

Uh?

Is that? Why?

Then?

Is that why Lebron? That man? Though? Yeah, yeah he still is.

I mean where would you rank him in the top ten today?

I mean he's in the top ten.

I don't know the top five though, it's hard to judge based on this year, just because of how bad that team was and how bad badly that roster was constructed. You know, I probably to a degree the Brooklyn that's not as bad of a roster but also equally bad because it's the NBA has changed, and it's very recent, but the NBA has changed, Like I really believe you need homegrown talent.

Like you have the draft.

Well, that's that's the inefficiency in the marketplace. You have to draft well, you have to have homegrown talent. You can't buy championships anymore because you need all the ancillary pieces. You can go get two or three great players that are super max or max players. You need really good

But if you okay, so if you're the La Rams.

They went and they didn't do anything in the draft, and there's fifty three guys on a roster in the NFL, how come you can't do that in the NBA anymore? Like it seems like it'd be way easier to go pay seven or eight guys and then and then have them be a super team.

Are you saying, do you see? You see that can't happen anymore?

Once when the Rams just did that with way more guys, You know what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, I don't see what I'm saying.

I'm not again, I haven't put my GM hat on to be an NFL GM. Yeah, I have put it on to be an NBA GM, right, And it's just the general way our our cap works. So there's a there's a cap, and then there's a luxury tax, and there's a there's a hard cap, an apron, there's a you know, the difference between the luxury tax and the hard cap is like an apron. So once you get into like two max players, then it's like, all right,

But that's the challenge, the bird rights, bird rights? What's the bird rights? Bird rights?

Basically, if you're drafted by a team and then you're you're a free agent, and that team is over the the.

What the salary the what's the star cap? Yeah, salar cap.

If you're over the Sellard cap, you can resign them. Came in with Larry Bird. So like if when I signed with Philly on the one year deal, they didn't have my bird rights the following summer, so when Lebron didn't sign there, they signed me on another one year deal. Had I re signed there, they could have gone over the luxury tax because after two years you have early bird rights, after three you have full bird rights.

And this is all because of Larry Bird. It's all because of Larry Bird. Do you care to explain that situation to me at all?

I again, I not a complete basketball historian, but my general knowledge of the situation is that the salary cap came into place sometime in the nineteen eighties and Larry Bird's rookie contract was over and the Celtics wanted to resign him, but they couldn't go over the salary cap to resign him. So there was a rule put in place in the collective Barging Agreement that you could resign your own free agents to go over the salary cap as long as you had bird rights.

All right, Yeah, that was a good explanation. That's a great explanation.

The Well, not a historian, but here's exactly what you need to know in for the for the Rams question, I feel like they've been kind of cooking that team up for a couple of years.

Yeah.

I mean like each year they've kind of added a different place. And mind you, they drafted Aaron Donald. They drafted they've had it. They had Aaron Donald. He realized like, okay, they missed, they're missing a qbpiece. They were able to

I was mund it fascinating with the NFL, Like how you guys can sign a contract and like two years later, like a new contract happens. We're like we, you know, we sign a contract, like, we can't renegotiate our contract if we're gonna make Let's say a guy's gonna make twenty million dollars and a team wants to go sign another player. They're not gonna go to that player and be like, hey, will you take ten next year? You know, it's like yeah, no, it's just like guaranteed, like that's what you get.

Yeah, and then it's a real issue on Harry.

Beard is like it's like this guy's cat, he's gonna make thirty seven million dollars, but his cap hits thirteen and it all.

It really depends on that ship. To me, it depends on teams and how much like money they have. Yeah, Like if you're if your owner has lots of money, really the cat doesn't really matter, right because we'll be making ten million dollars and his cap it's going to be seven. Yeah, and we're gonna say, all right, hey, well we're gonna give you nine million dollars in a signing bonus right now, So now your capit's one and you're making minimum this year.

It's just a crazy concept. Yeah, it really doesn't matter, and we have a lot of tenders.

We have a lot of Like the tenders are wild. The fifth year.

There's a fifth year option where if you're a first round you're a first round draft pick, it's a four year contract with an option for the team to pick up a fifth year option. Mind you, you can get franchise tag twice too, because you can literally play seven years on one deal.

Basically.

Yeah, and if you're out playing your contract, your rookie, we're about to get paid, they can put a fifth.

Year option on you.

And the fifth year option is like you make an average of what the top ten guys are making or something like that, which is usually top three or four guys make a lot of money and there's a big there's a big difference in the bottom, so you kind of average out position at your position, and then you can get actually get another I think you can put another option on the guy.

Again. No, that's a fresh eye stack. That's fresh eye stack.

It's the average of the top three, right, Yeah, they have the top three players. But yeah, you can just crazy on these one year one year deals, and they have your rights for like Taylor said, like up to seven years if they actually wanted to. But rookies nowadays, like if you start out performing your deal, like going into that fifth year, if like they try a fifth year option, you guys are getting a lot. You know, guys are like holding out or saying that they won't play something like that.

Guys will hold out.

And usually what teams do is they'll pick up your fifth year option and then they'll negotiate as you're.

Going to your fourth year or your fifth year.

It doesn't really it doesn't really matter anymore, but it just gives them more time. Just in case, I signed my second contract going into my fourth year, but they already picked up my fifth year option.

They have to pick it up by what your third year, like by like mayor may or third year. It's a it's a wild deal. It's a wild deal.

The it's it's crazy when you when you're an NFL player and you guys are we're all sitting here talking about money and stuff like that, and then we look at the NBA.

I was like, Yo, it's fucking wild. How these guys kind of just run the show.

It really is just like, we're like, mother fuck like these you are just making Like I think Derek Carr literally I didn't even play that much, right right right?

Ten million dollars dude.

Derek Carr signed his contract, not this most recent one, but the one before that, and somebody tweeted him it was like one hundred and twenty million dollar country or something like that, and he's like, hey, congratulations, you make as much as a sixth man in the NBA.

Now that's not true.

Well that someone says like that, and I was like, that's just fucking wild.

That's but the money is like, have you been announce starty and made a nice little.

My two year deal with the Pelicans was nice. Yeah, I mean I made like thirteen and a half or something a year and you were in the top five. And I wasn't a sorry, yeah, that's crazy.

It's good for you.

I'm thinking that's crazy, Like I didn't play either, give me that, that's crazy. If you're not a starter and a half million dollars different, it's different.

I don't know how different. How is it?

What do you I play twenty eight minutes a game and scored over fifteen points, was second the league in three point percentage.

Go off game.

All right, Okay, listen, a guy, a guy in the NFL who's not a starter might play ten snaps a game like there's a that's my point.

There's a difference. So you're still getting kick me. I'm right here on the bust.

Look at me.

You might not play stuff in the NFL. He's just like, just look at me, man. I didn't say it ten mil. Know what I'm saying. You're you're paid.

You're paid in the NBA based on production, and so you don't have to be a starter to produce.

That's where the difference is. You know, that's true. And you guys have like way like less guys.

We have less guys. Yeah, and again it goes back.

If you're generally speaking, you have like a max guy or a couple of max guys. You have a couple guys that get salary cap, which is what every time I was a free agent, I signed with cap space. I signed with to a team with cap space. Then you have like the exceptions, the mid level exception, and if you're over the tax you have the tax payer mid level exception, which is about half of the mid level exception. And then everything else is like minimum, So

A nice man, that's a nice little baggy. I was like, as a tenure guy, I think it's one.

One front player is minimum. So now you're on our son. You see him change the tune a little bit.

Yeah, that's minimum after you've played like eight or nine, yeah, ten years.

Mind, this pastor is based on like nine eighty maybe I think that's what it is. How many guys?

How many guys minimum? Guys though that are like bawling that are starting and producing, And I'm not saying they're like necessarily all pro players, but they're they're good.

They're really good. Well I'm grade out well in analytics, I see.

I think analytics is a it's not not the move but this.

Yeah, I know you have a bad taste about like analytics and the people.

I don't think it makes a whole It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Stats like you can do it for quarterbacks, maybe wide receivers.

You can do it to an extent, I feel like, but it doesn't tart the.

Entire story when people say numbers agree with you, People say numbers of the entire story.

I disagree with that whole whole heart. And I love analytics.

There's the most beautiful uh synergy that I've you know, can witness. And synergy, by the way, is a name of advanced stats company. The most beautiful synergy that I can see. Like, when I analyze this stuff is my eye is telling me so. And I'll hit up a couple people I use for advanced stats. It's some of the stuff I check myself. But I'm not great on second spectrum. I don't really know how to operate it.

Can you look that up?

And then it'll be like, oh, yeah, they're running forty percent more ISOs during this series than they do in the regular season. I'm like, oh, it matches up. Sometimes the eye test and the analytics they match up. Sometimes the analytics tell us stuff we can't see with our eyes, and sometimes the analytics lie to us with what we see with our eyes. Yeah, Like Devin books are an

They don't tell me he's as great as he is. Very well spoken man, he is. Jevin Booker, you are sure for sure? No, Yeah, I don't know. Definit Bucker answer your question about the minimum things.

I feel like it probably happens more for like defensive guys than offensive, yeah, because if you're if you're if you're like on offense, I feel like when you're like when you're having a year like it's it's it's easier to see, Yeah, Like defense could be harder because there's a lot of variables that you sometimes need to go to your way, like as far as opportunity and everything else. So if you might see a minimum guy bawling on

So here's another question I asker you.

I'm glad I have you guys on my podcast right now, but I have another question for you.

I'm curious about this seriously.

I think about the NBA and like a guy who's a free agent who needs to put up numbers, Like in the NBA, it's a lot out of it is like your points, your rebounds, your assists, field goal percent, all of this stuff, Like you need to put up numbers. And so there's a way for a guy to basically have goods counting stats, earn a nice contract, but have literally no impact on winning, either because he's playing on a bad team or because of his role. And he just you know, he's able to just shoot the ball

I think to another one that goes for defense, because you can hide behind statistics in a lot of way.

Ways.

If because a guy, let's say a defensive end, he can have a lot of sacks, you can look at him and be like, oh that you have twelve sacks, your holy shit, And then you go watch his film and he he might not be beating guys one on one. The quarterback might be holding the ball really long, or he gets flushed out of the pocket the wrong way.

Are their statistics for that, like how many times you beat you? Sure there are? Yeah?

Yeah, That's where PFF comes in to play Pro Football Focus.

Numbers, right, because there's times there's one thing I won't go back to this, the task part of it. You could do your task, but someone through their bias of how they think the task should be run right, grades you a different way. Internally, the Titans could be like, oh, you did that perfectly right.

And there there was a point in twenty sixteen where I was the grade of the number one tackle for the first nine weeks of the season, and I said the same thing then too. It's just like they don't really know what they're talking about when it comes to the offense line. And now with quarterbacks, I think running backs would be another difficult one to do.

I think defenses will be very pretty hard.

Depends like with a O lineman that you could see it like if you're moving the guy out of the gap, like you could be doing the task, but are you are you moving him to the sideline Like for me as a backer, like I could take a I could take.

An offensive lineman on in the hole.

But if we're stagnant or I'm barely getting moved even though I'm doing the right thing, like I know, mom leveraging the right side to all these guys, don't know what the fuck the talker takes on more of a more of a thudder dote hi tower takes on somebody and puts the offensive lineman in the gap. You'd see why he'd get like a better grade because he's he's physically moving the guy more, which could play into it and to do a spill.

Uh, it's so crazy because defense.

Doesn't feel the same way when you're talking about some of the basketball Stuff'm like, I kind of don't know what that means.

But he makes that shit sound great.

It's crazy, right, and but yeah, that's what's a crazy world. More so defense where you can hide behind stats like dbs who get a lot of picks, you have like you got a lot of picks you made a lot of plays on the ball, you get a lot of sacks, he could be a bad run defender, like maybe he's rushing to get a sack every damn play.

Right, that's a great point. Yeah, DB's too.

It's like if you get a lot of picks, that means they're throwing the ball on your side right right.

Yeah.

Or if you're a safety too, safeties do like Kevin Byron. He's on the Titans.

He had a lot of interceptions this past year, and he's just in the right place at the right time.

Again, full quarterbacks that type of thing.

But if you're a corner one on one like Drew Revis at one point when he was on Revis Island is like he it was like, you don't even throw to that area, Like he just lost.

Dudes down the great ones, like they probably won't have a lot of stats because then the ball's not thrown to him, right, you know how it is.

So it all comes down who's.

The cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys. Keep going ahead and we'll keep going Stefan Diggs. No, the corner is it's the Trevon Digs. Trevon Diggs, He's a guy I saw a stat I don't know if this is true or not. He had the most interceptions in the NFL last year. But he also had the most yards given up by any cornerback too. But he was all pro. He would play aggressively. You could beat him on a double move because he's like looking to.

Get a pick. He trying to get them. Pichy, he is a stud. But yeah, like like the great ones.

But you know how it is, like all those numbers, all that stuff comes down to like trying to gain leverage, like in a negotiation. So some guys it does work out, you know, others you know it might not.

But it all comes down to probably the thing. Another thing is too just like supplying demand. Like a lot of guys would go in to free agency and you'll be like, he's not that good, but he gets broke off because this team needs there's let's say there's market day, the market down, there's not.

Many tackles out on twenty sixteen free agency. By a year, I was a free agent twenty seventeen. I tried to get a player option for sixteen after the sixteen year. I didn't get it with my Clippers contract, and I missed out like that summer was Bombers.

That was the summer where you know.

Timothy Mosk, I've got sixty four million dollars from Lakers.

Holy shit. Yeah.

Yeah, we're gonna take a break from Old Man and three and we're gonna get to bust with the boys right now. Yeah, let's go with that. We interrupt this episode to bring you, guys, revital Light. Shoutout, Revitalight, no free shoutouts. The boys that revital Light are creating an advance have created an advanced rehydration solution designed to replenish vital fluids and minerals that are inside of your body.

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Now back to the episode.

Dude, I want to talk about like I know you've talked about it openly, but like your Duke days, like you were one of the most hated players in college basketball, like history, like obviously Duke as well, but like it just in college basketball in general. And there were times where you talked about quitting, and I've seen that you did. Is it true that you've changed your number at times? Like your cell phone number?

Oh my god? So yeah.

I mean my sophomore year, I've probably changed it ten or fifteen times. There were so many nights that year where I don't know who was the culprit who from it was somebody from Duke that had a friend at another school that would pass along my number, and you know,

Ran poetry when you're depressed, that it is the move, it is the move, that is this move. Sure, And and then I didn't quit.

Second semester, I went into what I would describe as a spiral. I was out every night, nights before games. I would drink twenty five thirty beers n show up the next day. I counted really crossing, like the marker on the wrist. I move after the season there. Do you guys remember the OC please? Some of you watch the OC.

Yeah, I remember, but I did not watch it.

That was the show when I was in college. That was like we would record it on VHS. We record it and like watch it later. So it was a Thursday, and I was like, OC's on tonight, and I was like, I'm going to see how many beers I can drink tonight. And I started at eight o'clock when the OC came on, and I got to like thirty nine by the next morning, and and it was just like that was my second semester at Duke. I was just I was out of control, and a little bit of it was immaturity and selfishness.

I want to go to Duke. And it was like a dream come true.

And then I get to Duke and I'm like, oh, everyone fucking hates my guts, Like this is not what I signed up.

Why did everyone? Why did anyone hate you so much because I was a Duke. I mean if I had gone to Florida or Uva, like it would have been funne. I would just would have been a normal kid. I would have had that hate vibe home.

They do they do and it's like the white villain at Duke like that was.

That was definitely part of it. I was next in line for that because.

We I mean we had we had like eleven or twelve games my freshman year that we played at the beginning of the season. It was like home games, and then we played like UCLA in Indianapolis. We played Ohio State in Greensboro for the Big tenn ACC Challenge. We'd have a road game till after the new year, and we go to Clemson. We come out for warm ups in the entire student sections chanting ship. Two weeks later, we go to Uva, my home state. There's all these students.

On their shoulders. Hilarious. By the way, I thought it was hilarious. I was, you know, I was very sensitive. You think it was funny.

I did, even though it was really sensitive about you know, my my shoulder acting. I was like, man, that's that's fucking creative. Why didn't you go T shirt unto the jersey? Then if you're so if you're insecure, about it.

It was a rule.

We couldn't do it. I convinced him thephomore year, I went into his office. I may have cried and I was just like, you gotta let me know. Shit shirt under my jersey.

Damn you you say may have I cried? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's that's a real deal.

So the end of my sophomore year, we lost in the final four. It was a it was a low point for me. We we lost to Yukon. We were up eight with like three and a half minutes to go, and they came back and I had a chance twice, actually once to take the lead with like ten seconds left.

I'm like, what the it was a ticket.

Basically, They're like, wherever you want to go after the school year's out, you can go.

So I'm like all right.

I was like, oh, I want to go see my buddy, duke soccer player. I want to go see my buddy in California. So I planned this trip. We went to Davis, California. We went to the Bay, we went to Santa Barbara, we went to La drove back up.

Well.

By the time I got to the trip, my parents knew that I was in a really bad place. I had seven dollars in my checking account. They're like, we're not going to give you any money for this trip. We'll let you still go on the trip, We're not going to give any money. I basically like bummed off people for those like ten days I was out there. And I got back from the trip, and I was supposed to finish an incomplete because I had knock gone a class all semester either so I was supposed to

It was the time.

It was the time, and I've and I've got these these flip flops that I had bought at the Gap in San Francisco with my last five dollars. They were on sale, and they're like, they're like, come outside. So I'm like, all right, So I'm two, I'm probably one ninety five. I'm two twenty five. Bro, I'm fucking fatty. I'm fat as fuck. I hadn't shaved in like three weeks. My hair is like Sae frat boy hair, you know what I mean.

A little wavy, little curly right over the years.

They're like, you know, come outside. We get in the car, we drive all the way back to camp.

Possible for where's your anxiety? And when these dudes knock.

On the door, ten out of ten, ten out of ten, which is debilitating.

Debilitating. There was bongs everywhere as well, like it was bad. It was a bad scene. Beer beer cans everywhere.

In a way though, and I'll in a way, I was like, finally, really, yeah, someone came to get me. I was like finally. And so they we go to campus. We're getting ready to cock. This is a random part of the story. But we get we get ready to turn on campus and Wojo looks in the rear for yoummu and he's like, nobody said a word, by the way, since come outside, Like I just followed them into the car. We get to campus and he's like, so what have

I was like all right.

So they took me up to Coach K's office. They dragged me through the through the fifth floor. He's on the sixth floor. They dragged me through the fifth floor to embarrass me and shame me, which I love that they did that because Bojo and College are complete assholes and I love them to death. So they dragged me through, I'm like looking like shit, and then we go up to Coach's office. We had a lot, like a long hour and a half meeting, and you know, they they

I saw a psychiatrist as well.

They put me on a fucking hourly schedule that summer and it was dude, I swear to god, I still have the sheet. Is eight am, wake up, nine am, check in, ten am class, you know, one pm, study hall, two pm court, three pm, weights, four PM run, five pm, pick up, six pm, dinner, eight pm. You know, you're in your apartment ten pm, lights out. And I did that all summer.

They check in your apartment to make sure it was.

Funny because it was two weeks into summer school, so I didn't have I had have petitioned the dean to get back into summer school.

They let me back in.

I took a class on the Civil War and there's the start of my transformation as a student as well that summer. I got basically straight a's after that. But because it was so late in the summer, they were like, we don't like all the all your teammates, all the managers, everybody, you know that they already have roommates. So there was this random dude, I don't know his name. There's this

You're gonna live with this person.

And he had no affiliation to anyone I knew any affiliation of the team. And I walked into the apartment. I was like, hey, man, I'm going through some shit. I would appreciate it. I'm going to be friendly to you, but I appreciate it if you just like let me, let me be for the next like six weeks.

And he's like, what a first impression? Yeah? Yeah, so what did he say to you? He's like, okay, O, good, no worries.

And I would like see him like later on like my junior and senior year, and it was like it was like a passing, you know, sort of like I didn't know his name.

No, he probably talks about you all the time. He probably talk about you all the time.

Dude, you're probably talking about he was instrumental and JJ reddick.

A yeah, jj reddick h. Yeah. When I met him, he was going through it is done. Yeah, see what he's done that schedule.

That was life changing. Yeah, because that became the rest of my life. And I wouldn't have done what I did in the NBA, or don't even done what I did a duke had the length of career I had. I was, I mean, from that point I was a psycho. I was an absolute psycho. It was like diligent routine, my schedule that takes precedence over everything. I need to get my work done, I need to get my sleep, I need to eat right, I'm going to go after

Oh shit, dude, that's a that's an incredible deal.

Yeah, what do you think I discipline, disciplines the number one you need for success is what you're saying.

Well, I think obsession is I agree with that.

I think because even with like a creative you don't necessarily need discipline if you're super talented. I know guys in the NBA that aren't as disciplined as I was. I know guys that probably are more disciplined than I was. Like I, it's obsession. It's like the true love the stuff we were talking about earlier about like fuck, man, I want to go have a beer on Broadway, or fuck I want to go, you know, have Thanksgiving dinner with my family, all those things, like we have to

When you do stuff like that, though, does it ever feel like if something messes with that schedule, like your kids are doing something, your wife does something, you can argue with somebody and at fucksuper situal where you're nothing, you're now off the minute? Yeah, it does it fuck up your game? Did it fuck up your situation? Because being that obsessive.

It would fuck me up in the moment.

I don't know there was one example I can think of where it really fucked me up in the game, but it would fuck me at the moment.

I'll give you an example of that.

My first game with the Pelicans were in Toronto, and again they don't know that I'm like this, And so Jamel McMillan, Nate McMillan's son, comes in the training room and I've started my routine ninety minutes on the clock. I'm in the training room, sixty five minutes on the clock. I'm in the weight room, fifty two minutes on the clock. I'm on the court eight minutes. I'm finishing up my workout. I'm back in the locker room at thirty six minutes,

It on him.

And I really Jamel and I are cool, like, but it was our first interaction that we had had, and.

I was like, what the fuck? What what kind of operation is this? That's not my shooting top. I agree to this shooting time this morning. I told you, motherfuckers.

Like then, I'm like, okay, I gotta go apologize like seven people right now.

Yeah, But that was the game. That's the game, like all that stuff.

The one time was I was in Indianapolis when I was with the Bucks and were it was a different hotel than we normally stayed at. And I ordered my room service and it never came, and I went, you know, I'm like, I'm running out of time. Now I've got to go down. I canna take my bags under the bus. So I went down. I go to the restaurant like, hey, room service never came, Like whatever, they go get it. They gave it to me a minute before my bus time.

Was it because of the because of the food, because the food is bad? Like you're, yeah, what do you think about the routine?

There?

Me up?

Messed up your dad?

Here's it?

So it was all about control for me. You know, I get here, that's what I can control. I'm going to control this and like you're now you're now fucking with my control. The one thing I can control is my routine, and now you're fucking with it.

And I'm pissed.

Yeah, and it sucked up? Looked Yeah, two for thirteen? Yeah, see. I've tried to be like that before during game, especially in game day. But one thing I've realized for myself, when I do best when I had like I don't try to have control over anything as long as like in my head, I'm like, oh, I just need to feel good before this game starts. I can show up four hours before the game starts. I showed up two hours before the game starts. It does not matter to

But then one thing would happen.

It would fuck me up, and then I would tell myself after the game, I like, oh, that's it's because you messed up your deal.

Yeah. I got over that at Duke.

Like by the end of my Duke time, I was like, I'm my performance on the court is not because I made three out of four on the last spot of my routine and didn't make four out of four. Like, I just got over that part of it. I think it was more about just like it was like, here's what I need to do to peak at seven oh seven or seven thirty seven when that all goes up and it's tipped, like, here's what I need to do to peak at that time. So it was that was

But it wasn't about superstitious.

It was whatever. But it was like a few got a feel you have a thing? Do you have a precision? Yeah, not that I'm like thinking of, Like you know, I love a pregame latte.

Yeah, But I wouldn't say it's like a superstition like if I missed it, I would like think a certain way.

I mean, what if somebody said that we don't have lattes, We're just going to give you an espresso shot, Like.

Oh, I'm good, you're not gonna sn't take it. So it's not about the caffeine.

No, no, no, it's not about the caffeine. It's just like the vibes going into the stadium. It's like about getting a latte's putting into the cup holder, it's turning up zz top, Sharp Dressed Man, Lagrange all this easy Top Cinderella Man by eminem a lot of like old school bangers and like feeling good walking outware latte.

What No, Cinderella Man. That's a banger.

You said its easy Top three times and all of a sudden it Cinderella Man eminem.

Ez time. Yeah, Sharp Dressed Man Lagrange. Yet. Yeah, Like Cinderella Man is another one.

Like if if I'm feeling like I got to have like a comeback game or a get back on track game in my head, I'm going to Cinderella Man when I'm walking inside, because to me, it's like I'm Cinderella Man.

I'm the fucking underdog. All that kind of So, you.

Know what, we're all telling ourselves our story.

You're always telling yourself what you need to do.

Yeah, that's kind of like I guess I think there's not is that because you listen to it one time before a game and you played well and then you're like, okay, that's my Yeah.

Some of that yeah, yeah, like visualization, like running through the same reel in your head about like old plays that you've made, just to like see yourself do it and feel this and feel that. Yeah, it's like a kind of like a routine like that, and then if you have a baller game, you're like, yeah, I gotta go back to that kind of routine.

But if it throws off, I'm not Like flow states, it's like that's the wat.

Talk about peak, getting to the peak, like hitting the peak at seven thirty seven? Yeah, what are the things I need to do to get into a flow state? Because as an athlete, like if you're not in the flow state, you're okay, maybe you're shitty, but you're not like the best version of.

Yourself, right, You're in your own head a lot.

Yeah, it's also one of the most difficult things to achieve is the flow state. Just be like nothing else mana as you're so present right now, you're thinking about anything else.

Yeah, Yeah, for sure.

One time in Tampa is like before the fourth preseason games, the first time I made the team out right, So I was in my second year, went through preseason anxieties at a ten because I'm like, this is it, Like I gotta make the fucking team? Yeah, And uh, I had I had, I had ice cream before the game. The night before the game, I made myself up with ice cream M and MS had some caramels and fudge on that thing. And the boy ball like the boy played well, you gotta let the team and tackles that game.

The boy the boy Yeah, And so sometimes.

Like that would be my reason for having like I I literally think back to myself, I'm like, it puts me in like, uh, puts me in a good mood.

Obviously, some ice cream puts anybody in.

A good but like if everybody's like, why you eat that the night before a game, you just worry about yourself.

You just yourself. There are dudes there everyone.

I don't know every team you've been on, but Tians have a Sunday station every night before a game.

You're like, why the fuck is that out there? That makes sense to me. It's like, what are we doing here with this this thing? I feel you guys can agree.

But when we go back to the flow state thing, when you're in a flos, it's like the game goes by so fast and it's over. But there's other games where you're not like you're the opposite of flow state. Don't know what that is on flow state and you remember everything. Like we played Michigan, was playing Notre Dame. It was a night game. When we came back, it was like hundred a minute forty two left in the game. There's like five scores or whatever. That's when Denard threw

On something happened like two days before it happened. I cheated on her. There was there was like a discover there's something was going on. But it was like it was during that game, and all I could think about was trying to get her back.

And I played the entire game, and I played all right, played pretty good, decent, but like the whole game, I was not ever invested in that game.

I was just thinking, like, how do I make it up to this girl? Was she at the game? Probably it's one hundred and fifteen thousand, How can I tell I know?

You know, because you know where your girl sits, and you feel like, no, I never knew anything like that where they're sitting.

No, I never I never had that, and not till I got not to think the NFL, where I knew like people whe people were sitting. Yeah, and my dad would always sit and want a certain spot, always kind of look up at him every once in a while. But my girl, every every game my dad ever came to, even youth basketball, yeah, I'd always like find.

Him, find him. You're the flow state part is like.

When you're not in that state, you're thinking about what just happened. So it's like that you're carrying something to the next play. And I always always be like, oh, should I had a turnover? Okay, that's like a tally. And then like I'd be like, all right, I made a shot. Okay, now we're even Oh I missed a shot. You are teaching right now, Okay, I just had a good pass. That's like then all of a sudden, like what are you playing? You're not actually in the game.

There would be times where I'd be like so stressed out about games that I would do that on purpose, Yes, right, but okay, all you have to do is just play well in this series and your player should be Okay, that was a good play. He could have been on that play, but like that won't be like a minus. That'll because I made that good play on that yeah earlier. Well, no, that you you start playing the like a lot of times the way the greatest like minus zero plus zero did your job.

Minus you didn't do your job.

Plus you did something extra, something extra there, And so I like go and I have like a couple of I have like zero across the board, one minus.

And a plus.

Bag I'm up and even like a plus to me would be double what a minus was you know in your head. But you're like playing this game so you can tell yourself I played good any way to tell yourself I did well.

What about the feeling of.

Being in the arena, being on the field, on the court, whatever, and just knowing that you're shit, like knowing that you are having September this year game of your life.

Oh yeah, we and unfortunately we were all at.

And you're like, well, you can't escape it, and you feel like everybody knows that you're ship. Everybody knows you're terrible.

What game was that? Worst fucking feeling as an Athletetember.

Twelve, twenty twenty one. I so I tore my ACL in October.

Of twenty twenty. I'll have the four right so, and in my head, I'm like, come back season.

I'm with the boys, all these all these guys the whole year, telling like, hey, this would be a comeback here. I feel great, I feel amazing, and I wasn't feeling the best. I go into camp and I'm like, no matter what is this better not be the film I want to see right now? Roll the tape. I'm like, I'm like, I have to start. I have to start a half to start. I go out to play. They announced the offense. I'm fucking women, crowds going wild. I gave up two sacks in that game got dusted. Well,

But it feels like within the first three series, there's there's some there's this is the next.

Series, this is the next series no chance, So I stop, stop, stop, stop.

So at this point I've given up two.

It's the first fucking quarter still, and I'm like, I've never done that in my life. That's never happened to me ever in my entire life. We're in the first quarter of four. I'm having a horrible game, Like there's no way to come back from it. It's got and it just the rest of the game just got worse and worse and worse. I'd be seen on the sideline and like, you just feel like everyone's looking at you. I went and got an IV because I was cramping.

Go Tail.

Lajuana's back in the game. The whole stadium, not the whole sam but the stadium starts booing and I'm.

Just like, Will, Yeah, Will, I saw Will up there. Me and his wife are in the suite just fucking booming.

Oh yeah, it was, dude.

It was the worst, the worst feeling in the entire world as an offensive lineman. Would you get a penalty? What's going through your brain?

O care? Same thing? No?

No, hey, no, old man in the three We're in the Old Man in the three podcasts right now he's potting you up.

Well yeah, okay, go ahead, you know what. You guys have the four. You guys have the four.

I was gonna say, what's the worst moment, what's the worst what's that situation for you?

Game one, twenty nineteen playoffs against the Nets. I was some shit and they kept targeting me and isoing me, and I fouled out with like four minutes ago, my blessing, Did you foul out?

You're like, yeah, I'm gonna try and foul out.

No, I was able to foul out of the Cardinals game. I would have it is a little bit of blessing, you know what I mean? Yeah, this is the great thing about basketball. You have other players. They can produce, so like if you're having a shit game, sometimes they'll just be like, all right, we're gonna relieve him of his duties and we're gonna go with the other guy. He's getting getting benched, Yeah, getting benched. Yeah, just foll out, thank god.

But yeah. Uh and then D'Angelo Russell waved me off the floor. He drew the sixth file. He waved me off the floor.

And as I'm walking off the floor, yeah, I was playing in Philly, the whole Philly. You know, the crowd is booing me. Yeah, which there insane thing. Yeah, and like that was that was a low point for me.

Know what I mean. So that probably those those moments probably were worse. Yeah, they're the worse. It's the whole.

Two thousand I'd say two thousand and sixteen Thanksgiving game for the Dallas Cowboys. Like I've talked about it before on here, but when I missed two tackles in a row on Ezekiel Elliott. And not only that, but Dak would check at the line of scrimmage and.

I knew, like what the run plays were.

He'd be like, he'd like step back and be like whether it be like Pope or Giant, Like I would know what plays were coming and what they were chee copies. Yeah, And I would know what the play is and tell people. And fucking he broke a tackle from me, I like leave my feet diving off the diving board. And the second miss tackle. The first one was in my head and I'm thinking, don't miss his tackle. And you know that that usually never works out for you. Universe doesn't hear negatives?

Yeah, And then they come there.

It is right there, right fucking there, dude, And it was a big back.

Go back. They drive, they drive all the way down again. I want him to hurt like I did earlier. They they drive all.

The way down and score and we get to the sideline and I'm sitting on the bench and those are that's the time for me when I yeah, I really for you, yeah, I mean he had a hand on me too.

And then he does the fuck heating, which, by the way, is he Elliott stole that from dond Robinson. And then they score and I go to the soul whole your effort did not look great. Right there, that's a minus. That's a minus.

I looked like as right there, Yeah, yeah, we can go ahead and say that.

And I'm sitting on the sideline and I'm wondering. I'm like, man, everybody like it's a Thanksgiving game. Everybody's watching the Cowboys play on Thanksgiving, yep. And I saw an articles like the most televised like football game that year and shit, and it's just I'm sitting there thinking like, well, I

It's a weird thing. As terrible, it's a weird thing as an athlete.

I don't know if you've ever felt this way of feeling like you've made it, like you're a star in the NFL or you're a star in the NBA, and you think to yourself, Man, I.

Hope I don't get exposed. Everyone knows I don't belong here. There's a feeling. Yes, yeah, that's normal. That is you felt that. Oh yeah, that's normal. Okay, most I think most well it's years of therapy. Yeah, but I love that.

No, but it's it's I think most high achievers and anything. If you asked, I don't know what the percentage is, but be a large percentage of actors, actresses, musicians, professors, like like, unless you're a narcissist like that has like delusions of grander like you, you really do think at times like I'm gonna be exposed.

I'm going to be exposed as a fraud. That sucks.

It almost be better to be a narcissist. Honestly, it sounds like it sounds like a nice deal, like you just don't know.

I agree with you that way. Yeah, like imence ignorance. I was, Yeah, super, I'm not I'm that dude.

Everyone's like, no, you're not, You're like you guys are haters. But it's just fucking your narcissist. I gotta become a narcissist twenty twenty too, shit urcissis Taylor. Yeah, let's go. Hey, I do want to ask about your therapy. Do you feel like the therapy stuff is where that started to help you make your shift mentally in basketball? Like what did you learn from therapy about yourself that was holding you back?

It's a great question.

I think I I I learned, I learned who I was. I think I became more comfortable with who I was. And do ever, you guys ever take personality tests? Yeah, with the enneagram or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you know I've done. I did a bunch of college I did him in the NBA. I took one recently.

No, I never have. I never have. But it was a very clever.

So it was I think it was like becoming like just just confident, like it's not it's I don't think it's egotistical to be like sure of yourself, you know what I mean. You could still be sure of yourself and be self aware enough to know when you're wrong, know when you fucked up, to know that it's not all about you, Like my dad. That was the greatest piece of advice I've ever got in my life.

You tell me that.

Every day as a kid, I'd complain about something like JJ, it's not always about you, not always about you. That helped me, you know, is a is a as a basketball player on a team sport. It helped me help me navigate everything. But I think I think that's what it came down. That's that's that's the real benefit later on in life, you know, as I became confident who I was, I I We'll see I've seen a therapist that lives on the West Coast and comes into New York like once a month, and I talked to him on

So damn.

Yeah, have you guys you guys don't you guys aren't in therapy?

See therapists? Oh yeah, I see therapist every week.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I first started doing couples therapy before we got married, and then we like fell in love with the whole therapy aspect, like emotional intelligence, all that stuff, Like I'm I like love like looking into that stuff because I feel like you're psyche. It's like everything right, like losing control of yourself in a moment, like figuring out like why am I reacting to this?

Or why am I.

Getting upset or losing control? Or what am I scared of?

So, I'm glad that I'm glad that this is a safe space for us space.

It's definitely a safe space. You work with what's the dow's name.

You work with Armando.

Armando at least part of cheat code, and it's like supposed to do a bunch of things he does, like a sound way and different songs and stuff like that, and you put those on. He talks you through stuff, and it's pretty cool because you talk about what's what's bothering you in this moment. It's like a present feeling, like what's what's the he that's bothering me the most? And he'll be like, all right, look forward, like how do you feel when you look forward and think about it?

Like what is that from from being a child or whatever? And like how do you get to a point where you're the only ones trying to person to yourself? And it's just it's like you said, like the whole growth thing is it's super It's the most important thing. It's probably it's the most important thing as a human to do. And we talk about reading, like we're both like trying.

To read more. And when I got to read, I'm.

Like to look at a fiction book like a book that's not real. It's not a self help of Like it's so hard for me to go and read that because I could go find something that's going to help me like be a better person, you know. And so that's that's something definitely, And it's like you said all the time, it's the most important thing, like with whether it's sports, being a father, being a husband, all that stuff. On the emotional intelligence, he's doing it again, No, I

Okay, carry immediately we started it.

No, I would say this is a little bit of a call back to what we were talking about earlier about what will I ever be good at anything else? And I think what I realized at the end my career, and what I've realized over the last nine months is like when you develop that side of your personality and developed that side of your brain, you can fit anywhere.

I think, yeah, i'd agree with you. Have you read an emotional intelligence two point zero? No?

I haven't. Where do you get the emotional intelligence thing from.

The first time I heard it was actually, uh is now become a good friend of mine. David Solomon who now runs Golden Sacks. I met him, he was not running Golden Sacks, was not the CEO. But yeah, it's a little flex.

But no, but it was. It was like the first time. It was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase.

I spoke at this This was like in twenty sixteen, I spoke on this panel at this retreat that Goldvin Sachs was having for like tech and media CEOs.

I have no idea why I was invited. I really truly don't know.

But I spoke on this panel with Maverick Carter and Casey Wasserman and David and I spent some time together at the dinner that night, and it was the first time that he brought it. I was like, you, you have good emotional intelligence. You could you know, you can

Been very specially, it's been a very special time.

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And now back to the show. Are we doing tier talk? Oh, we get some tear talk. You have some tear talk.

We can have some tear talk.

Let's do some tear talk now. My question, so tear talk. You guys are getting familiar with tiar talk. Everybody out there in the audience. It's something newer that we've done, but it's we have a tear system, we have our our audience. There's tier ones out there, tier twos, and tier threes. Now we bring it into a segment where we rate things. Most notably recently has been the burger thing that's one out there a couple of times when we rate it in and out, which, by the way,

Okay, cool, we need then the questions over the question is now over, Like it's fine. It's not like but you watch my thing and you're like, yeah, I totally co signed with you.

I'm like, it's like, fine, dude, this is great.

I'm having a blast. Okay, God, well talk about you know, let's see what his favorite fast food burger is. Uh.

I'm actually I would probably say what a burger because I lived in Austin and that's probably like I think it's I think it's good.

I don't what about are we are we like solid burger? Like are we doing like it's five guys fast food? Is that not fast food? That's that's a that's a big question people are saying right now. Yeah, because there's no drive.

Through, drive through, which I do, like, I understand.

It's five guys, is more on the fast casual side like Chipotle.

Basically, Oh, I don't even think a fast casual. It's the second time i've heard that. Charles said it about Shakeshack. She's like, Shakeshack, Like Shakeshack, I think is awesome. She's like, but it's a little more fast casual because yeah, it's not. There's no drive through.

And I'm like, you fancy, yeah, yeah, you fancy you.

Think the number one burger is because I'm sure you've talked about you guys, but that's not that's not fast food.

Yeah, take okay, so just drive throughs. I bet you, I bet you men and out Burger makes it up. There doesn't. I was gonna say shake Shack, but shakes I mean Hartys.

Wow, Okay, Yeah, Carl Parties is fire. What a burger is good? In and out is good. And I said, but you're thinking and out burger is better than what a burger? No, you know you're just saying.

I'm lying. In and out burger is better than.

In and out would be your number best fast burger. Carls Junior one in and Out too. I don't know, man, once five guys has taken out for you kind of falla.

Because I think Shakeshack is good. Yeah, you kind of fall apart. Just a classy bitch, dude, you know what I'm saying. That's funny as all right. So basically, so tears dog go ahead.

You rattled me, You rattled me. I'm not even thinking about that anymore. I'm trying to think of out fast because we just found out that everything really stilled themselves on the last two weeks.

It's not anymore.

I think the spicy ketchup is overrated at what a burger? Mm hmm okay, because because Texas are big on that perfect the whole the whole thing for me was coming from Missouri like you be in the locker rooms and when you travel like a Texas game or will you we go on the West Coast to play Arizona and the guys who are on your team or West Coast like, oh, we got to go to in and Out and dudes from Texas immediate argument in the locker about what a

But I would say in and out Burger is probably better burger than what a burger.

Try fat burger too, Well, that's not all you drive through either, that's casual.

Man, we learned something.

Yeah, but on this tier talk, we're gonna be doing should we do pizza toppings or pizzas.

To where you can combine certain toppings and the well, but some people like just a pepperoni pizza, riches pizza or like whatever.

We're not the thing you can toppings themselves.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be difficult too. I don't know where I'd stand on that, but I don't know where you stand if I had to rank the number one topping.

That's what I'm saying, Like, are we gonna say if if Taylor.

Says that show?

I don't know how the tear talk were.

I think it's best pizza. I think best pizza. Yeah, whatever is.

Your best your number one favorite pizza tears. You know what, We'll do our three favorite pizzas and then you guys will tear it for us. No, what do you mean here for us? Because if we're doing tier talk, there's tier one, two, and three.

Yeah.

So JJ says my favorite pizza is X, and you say my favorite pizza is why, and I say my favorit pizza is Z. How are we gonna tear that? We can't because we'd always say that our pizza is number one.

Right, But that's what we did with Bert with the fast food burger.

We go one, two, three, like we quietly let JJ have the floor and he does this tier one through three.

But if you're just making a pizza, there's no he's gonna make three pizza for us right now.

Off the top of my head, I can go. Let's go, I feel like everyone. Yeah, I can say three pizzas. I'll figure out way say three pizza. You can go last, Taylor, you can go. I'm always going last.

Now, JJ, you have the floor, All right's gonna go.

I'm gonna go in an order of how I want to eat these pizzas. That makes sense.

Well, I don't know a little bit.

More so I like, if you go to a great pizza place like Luke Collie in Brooklyn, I would I would want to eat them in this order. Not the entire pizza. I'm not that glutinous, but maybe a slice or two of each. What I'm saying, gluatness is one of the seven deadly since I've been glad. I would start with two toppings that you guys don't actually have on this graphic here, which.

Your number one? This is number one?

I would say, this is my number one pizza, okay, number one, Like I just want like shallotts and hot peppers.

Shallattes and hot peppers. Let's just let them have the floor, did it.

Second pizza would be what I call a twin special, my wife's saired pizza along with her twin ago pepperoni, white onion, green pepper. And then for kind of like a dessert, I would go with ricotta sausage and maybe some some stage mm hmm.

I fucked you guys up tonight.

Yeah, I'll tell you why you did your chef special on us just now, so my man knows it's pizzas.

Well.

You have the floor, my tier one. You already laughing because I just feel like you just said some artistic ship and you're gonna go sausage.

I mean, this is hard.

My Tier one is very hard because there's a couple of pieces I'm thinking about. Well, either way, I got to decide this tier one. That's what the hard part is. But I think if I had to order a pizza, I think I'm gonna go.

Wait, he texted me this last night, so he's he's had twenty four hours.

I thought about the entire I thought about my one. I know exactly what I have it.

I think I'm gonna go like a sweet heat where you got pepperoni halapao's. I love onions, so you can just throw onions on them. That's not really part of it. But I do love onions. But you throw like a uh you get the red pepper flakes, but you also drizzled honey over top.

You drizzle honey honey. Yeah, some MIC's hot honey. Yeah. I like that.

My number two is Hawaiian. That's what battle for my number one. I'm a big Hawaiian pizza guy. I believe in pineapples on pizza. I am pro pineapple on pizza. And my number three.

Big CPK guy.

I love supremes, I love meat lovers, but I think if I had to order, I would go pepperoni and bacon.

My Tier three, M Taylor take it.

From here, brother, Okay, My Tier three is gonna be very basic, extremely basic. It's gonna be your Neapolitan cheese pizza. I think you can't beat it. You got a little bit of garnish on there, you got your cheese, your sauce, and I think it's fantastic with the fluffy crust, it's it's outstanding.

That's my Tier three. My Tier two is.

Also the Hawaiian pizza, but with a spice. You gotta throw banana peppers on there or jalapinos. I like a little spice.

I have the four.

And number one is going to be I almost said yes when you said sopk because I'm a barbecue chicken pizza guy. That's my number one barbecue sauce chicken. Really yeah, a little on on there. I think it's out It's my favorite possible pizza I can make for myself.

Barb cute chickens, Robert good chicken.

Now that we're done, What the fuck was that, dude? Yeah?

What did you say? What was your number one? Shallots and what shallots and Pepperoni's shallots? Shalots on pizza? It's a cheat coat. What's a shalat? A shalot is like like a little onion right between like a red onion garlic. I like garlic, Yeah, I like onions.

I mean I like both those cook a little bit. Shallat and sheldon what uh? Hot peppers? Hot peppers? How some of those are like terrible and greases. I'm just thinking you're tier one. You're like, hey, JJ, what do you want to eat? They got someone with the shallots and not peppers on it.

Here's the fuck man. I am not not a CPK hater. I think I think restaurants like CPK Chili's TJ Fridays like they have their place in America, and I respect them, and I've ate a lot of meals at places like that, But you're.

Better than them.

That question where you guys are eating pizza based on you, you guys saying Hawaiian pizza for both of you was number two?

Fire and a barbecue chicken said number one.

I think question that, I think you can't touch barbecue chicken pizza if you have the right barbecue sauce on it.

Brother, that's the one thing, like I mean cheese to me, I was like, but everybody some people like like their cheese pizza.

I don't want to sound like a coastal elite here. Yeah, but I'm gonna sound like a coastal elite.

Yeah, not getting you.

Like I live in New York. I live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is the best pizza in the world. Like, the ship is discussed, what do you mean the ship that we're talking about? So you would need a sweet heat. I think you ragged it, like, oh that sounds pretty good. Yeah you said that, you actually did it. I think you said that so sweet heat sounded nice.

Hawaiian pizzazza is fire, bro.

Yeah, a coastal elite, you guys should just sit on the traditional ingredients and you guys just make the best pizza and that's it.

That's how I think a coastal elite works.

So I think by you doing by you doing some special like challottes and hot peppers, does that make you a coastal leaders? Make you use your you're just a little fluff ad your TJ fright us with some Fluff's what it sounds like to me, it's just what it sounds like.

But I will agree on the barbecue chicken part. The barbecue chicken throws me off.

Brokay, I'm not here to argue that part. I've gone downhill within an out burger. I've seen what the people have done. If Seal will stow to do to me, I think it's fucking ridiculous. Chicken pizza, honestly shameful of you guys to handle you yourself the way you have.

I think it's fucking ridiculous.

I think barbecue chicken pizza is the best pizza by cue chicken pizza.

No, they wouldn't eat Barbie chicken pizza. We wouldn't feed that, y'all fucking up. We wouldn't feed that. You're fucking up you like a Barbie.

My daughter?

What's my daughter to mellow mushroom last Sunday?

She wants to go back this, she wants to go back tonight. I probably go get one tonight. You know what I'm an order the Barbieae chicken pizza. Nope, hang on, no, I'm like go half and half now.

Look wine is fucking goot.

A little little heat on it? Right, Yeah, I'll put a little sweet heat on it. Absolutely, I did like the sweet heat vibe.

You want to know where you get that pizza at? Go Ahead Midnight Oil. So if a fifty first, no free, shout us to Midnight Oil. But you go to Midnight Oil and you order a sweet heat pizza pizza from and I don't like that. Let him know the boy sent you. Okay, a little something in.

There once you know I sent me and I wanted to just sweet hate pizza.

Please, it's it's phenomenal. Really, are you here until tomorrow? Bad? Leave tonight? What time? Uh ship a little bit? Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, okay, is this one of those show at seven thirty things? Are we getting there a couple of hours early.

To my flight? Yeah?

No, I don't get or I don't go to the airport early. Who does that? I'm not a But here's what we're trying to ask. Driving there to fly out at seven thirty? Are you getting there at an hour hour and a half before?

But we're going through TSA. Are we're not going to tsay? Oh, I see what you're asking.

I see what you're asking you guys flew me down like I'm like this this trip was not on me.

Oh, he's right now, you know what he is, right, bar barstol Fleet, you're our first.

Guest that we've flown down to be on us. Yeah, we've just started kind of doing that. You should ask for some money, probably would have gave it to you.

Yeah, it's just my pleasure to be on the show.

Man.

I love that your show. No, I don't. I don't think I'm not a I'm not. I'm not that level it. Guys, you don't like barbecue chicken pizza. I don't like what we're talking about. Are we're not talking about we're not talking about.

Talking about private jets? Yes, I last start too extreme right now to be doing that. I don't think barbecue pizza is trash. I just don't order it or I don like. To me, it's like, what are we doing? I felt that way about Supreme. It's really just staple. But for me, I'm like, all the extra shit on it yours and I said it was solid.

You have Barbie Chicken, any Barbie CHICKI Chicken in the back there, Chicken b Ranch.

It's number one by far, Like it's not even fucking close that Hobbin Aero cream Pie. Holy fuck dude.

Yes see, that's where it kind of throws me off when he start talking aboutizzas, because there's like that's like a gourmet pizza, like five points is like Jack Brown's in a lot of ways with the burgers, Like you can't like just go like if I were to say to you, guys are like jalapenos, but the seeds carved out with cream cheese on on it. Also, it just doesn't make any sense to be able to explain that pizza.

You know what I'm saying.

I thought JJ's gonna explain something. Did I think he did? I still we need an interpret to figure out what you said? Yeah, what was the Yeah you said a little bit of stage.

And that's where I was like, you.

Guys have had like a fried sage leaf before, like a little bit of little fried sage leaf on the sausage in ricotta pizza.

That does sound like white sauce. Like I look like a guy that had fried stage on my pizza in your life? You've never had fried sage? Did you have when you grew up? Fried stage? It's seven bucks?

Is chicken expensive? It sounds expensive. It just sounds expensive to me, Like he's a very expensive place.

Is it is? It must have been nice? But what was that? Why don't you move down in Nashville? What's up? Sorry? I go do what's question first? Well again, what was the dry I get you explained? What what about it? What was what were the toppings? What? Ricotta? Cheese, sausage and fried sage? See?

I think table combo. It sounds like it's like a tasty pizza, for sure. But if we're just like ranking our pizzas, dude, and you're saying sage and racanon sausage.

I actually the best thing I heard from both of you was just a classic Neapolitan cheese pizza.

Honestly, I think that's well that's.

Because I said garnish too. Did you hear I started sound fancy like you, I said garnish. So basically, what you just fucking said with all those fancy words is a sausage pizza with a little bit of age keys A sausage pizza. Toasted me that green ship on there as was what you said to the person on the counter.

You like melow mushroom, though I do Melo pizza, I underrated pizza.

I went my daughter to a birthday party last week, Chuck E Cheese. Don't fucking at me, dude, that Chuck E Cheese is low key fire Peter Harper Pizza.

For those of you in the West, chuck e Cheese in a long time.

So I'll when and I went.

That, When and I went there, it was the pretty money grown up so we couldn't go to Chuck e Cheese, that's.

Crazy, that's cray. We got the fried stage though. Huh, that's a lot of sausage and fried sage.

He just said sausage and cheese pizza.

I know he did, but he's also he's also like, the only thing you guys said good was the cheese pizza. And I'm thinking, like, bro stop anything like you didn't react and I said sweet heat.

Yeah you did say that because I almost because when you said that's well, I almost said, hey, we don't react here.

We don't react on the tier talk, do you know. I know, trying to keep it. That's why I was holding it in while he was going, well picture when he said the sweet heat.

I'm pictured. There's a there's a place called Emily in Brooklyn. It makes a great burger as well as guy, No, it's kidding, good water's better up there, man, Like, what do you want me to say the water's better for pizza?

Why the bagels are so good?

And bagels, but Emily has like a like a sweet heat pizza that basically is the description what you described.

And they do a little MIC's hot honey on the top and you've had it and I've had it. Fire, it's fire. It's a good pizza.

You just don't I think you don't agree with pineapple and pizza.

No it sus I don't wake up, you know, well, who's the morning and be like I'm the things. I can't waitant people tonight and I want to put pineapple on it. Like that's just a weird thing to me. It's that mush mushrooms. Like I eat everything, but mushrooms. I can't. I can't touch. I can't touch mushrooms.

Not for me.

Now Italian truffles, I could hear.

Whiplash. I'm turning looking at you so fast, dude.

What was the second pizza you say, because you were kind of did it run like a run on sentence for the last special?

Huh, twins special. It's just simple pepperoni, white onion, green pepper. We just got to start naming our shit cool so it sounds better.

Yeah, he said white onion, like when he said when he said the way when you I'm saying even out there. When he was talking like that, I legit thought to myself, like we picked the wrong category.

We're about to say sausage and ship. You know, we're about to say basic ship. I believed in what I was about to say. I stay, I stay in tantoed down.

Yeah, but he said twins pizza, he said ricotta. He used the word ricotta, stayed cheese.

And what's crazy is he been thinking about that since last night. Yeah, he's a homework guy. He's got fifteen pages on both of us. Forgot where I was from Instnia.

I the only reason I thought of all those pizzas because when I saw the toppings, I was like.

Oh shall it's not on there? Can I ask you a hard hit?

Went back to the catalog in my brain. Can I ask you a hard hitting basketball question? Who's the greatest of all time?

Man? Who's the goat? I like that second part question was Michael Jordan narcissist. I think it's like it's one A, one B to me. I don't I don't. I don't like that answer.

I want you to take a strong one A Who's Ah.

It's weird because Jordan is who I like, grew up watching, but then Lebron is who I played against, and it's hard for me to like pick either one. Kyle Korver once said to me, he's like, you know, like MJ. I know the accompliment. Accomplishments are great, but like MJ had to take two years off. So like the discredit Lebron gets for making eight straight finals, I think is kind of insane. So I'm I had to say it. I'm just gonna say Jordan one A that.

Was your say answer because if you would have said Lebron, you'd got torched. Jordan is Jordan? Okay, Lebron's your two? Oh yeah yeah? What about Kobe? Great player? Great player? Oh you know what.

Here's the here's the other thing I've learned, especially in the last year, is the you guys know what a stand is, right, yes, yes, okay, eminent callback.

The song is incredible, too, incredible song.

What I've realized is that certain players stands are fucking insane. On social media, and I said a bunch of nice things about Steph Curry the other day, And but the question was who do you want in the clutch? More Luca or Staph. I saw that, but I said in twenty twenty two, I said Luca. And the amount of hate that I got from the Steph stands.

Do you think he deserved it? A little bit? Greatest shooter of all time?

Again, that wasn't the question, though, game in the line, who do you want the ball in their hands?

The question, yeah, exactly, And I said, Luca, who do you want with the ball? But why diys?

But if he if my man can just pull up at the logo and splash that thing and no problem, then we don't need size. Oh I sound like a basketball right now. Luca is big, he's a dominant player. He can't shoot like Steph. Everyone knows that no one can shoot like stuff. Okay, so why wouldn't you put Do you need a basket?

Right?

The whole concept of basketball is to put the ball in the hoop. The issue more is like how you go get the basket?

You know what I mean?

Like so when I think about like watch, I think I look at statistics because they track those about your honis.

The best player in the world right now, you'd rather have Luca over him too.

No, the question was the question that I got asked, was Luc or Steph, Well and bust one of the boys. We like to throw in wrenches, you know what. There's like ten guys I'd like to have in the clutch with the ball in their hands.

All right, but go on to me about Luca. Sorry, I didn't mean to throw you in there.

What I was when I think about, like, who do I want to have the ball in their hands in the clutch, It's guys like Luca's, guys like Lebron who have size, because they're going to create a shot, whether that's against the double team, whether that's one on one, they're going to create a shot. There's nothing wrong with saying Steph in that answer, by the way, and he's made a ton of clutch shots. I was basing some

It sucks. I can't imagine.

I can't imagine getting the point where like, you have a show every day and you're like, man, I got to fill two fucking hours with the same take, but in a different way.

That's tough. I like to pop in and pop out. You know.

Yeah, I loved what you love the clapping back you were doing on a mad Dog. I think every young generation an athlete, young generation person was fairly hype about that.

The one thing I'll say, and this is not in sort of any direction towards Matt Dog. The one thing I say is like I and I'm sure you guys have seen this too. I have witnessed and lived both in my own personal experience and my peers experience a lot of tired narratives around athletes. And you know, I remember going through the lockout and seeing articles written about athletes, and I'm like, why, why is everybody siding with the

And it's so dehumanizing and so demeaning, and a lot of.

A lot of the stuff that has gone viral on first take has been in a direct response to some of those narratives. And that's one example of it. But you know the other part of it, I don't really want to talk about. Sure, the undertone I don't want to talk about, but you know, so much of that is like, hold on a second, Like the narrative is wrong, the narrative is tired.

Let's let's start a new narrative that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, man, I do want to ask before I know, we've.

Been We've had a long pot and we got to play it.

In the game of pig, is is coach Is Coach K a psycho from the outside When you watch a lot of situations unfold, it seems like a lot of things that he does seems very calculated.

Huh and uh, And yes, I'm wondering it's like, is coach K?

But I guess I guess when you because my version of a psycho, my definition of a psycho. I I also use the word sicko interchangeably about when I talk about people.

Gotcha, and like, what's your sort of definition?

Psycho is pretty hardcore, over the top, very much, brilliant, demonstrative on players. Hardcore makes you feel less than a lot of the time, stassistic, narcissistic.

Understand manipulative game that he can do with players. I mean, you've played for him, there's been a lot.

I wouldn't. I don't. I think I think manipulative is the wrong word. I think.

The word you use about calculative, I think that's probably more appropriate.

I don't.

He's definitely not, definitely not a narcissist. He's definitely not a psycho in sort of the traditional sense. He is very intense and he's very demanding, but he's a truth teller.

He is always a truth teller.

And you know, my four years with him, I say this sincerely, my four years with him, I never saw him have a bad day, like not at what he's on. He's on every day we get back from Virginia Tech on the bus at three am. He you know, we lose meeting. You know, we're in there for an hour. We got practice the next day. He's on the bike at six am. He comes to practice, energize, ready to go, ready to coach. He's like that with every team he's

He's he's a psycho.

He's a psycho, But like I actually would say, all the good shit that said about him is true. And then so like he's my dad is the greatest man that I've ever known. I didn't have to look far for a role model. Coach is the second. Like, coach is phenomenal.

And I.

Became friends with him my junior year and we've been friends now for whatever that is, seventeen years. He's like such an important part of my life and it has been for you know, since two thousand when I committed, Like he's just he's the man.

I love that dude.

After your little stint your sophomore year when you were brought back and put on a big schedule. Did you and him ever talk about it, like reminisced maybe a couple of years ago about it, like, hey, you were I was worried about you there for a second. Do you ever give you that he didn't know if you're going to make it.

We talked a little bit about it when he came on the podcast in the fall of twenty twenty. But actually the moment we became friends and the moment that I felt like he wasn't just my coach was that following spring we lost in the sweet sixteen to Michigan State in Austin War School.

Yeah.

Terrible, And you know I had I'd gone through all that my sophomore year and then I, you know, got ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament, Tournament, m v P, First Team All American, I got one of the national Player of the Year awards, I got the Rough Award, and we yeah, let's give it.

Now.

Context context matters, Yeah, no doubt, high point, no doubt.

Uh.

So he called he called me into where we we lose at the arena. We're all emotional, I'm crying, and we'll get on the bus. He's like, hey, come to my hotel room. We'll get back to the hotel and we went in there and we basically talked about that. We talked about that day in May of two thousand and four when he dragged me, when they dragged me to the office. Talked about that summer, everything I'd done, We talked about the season. He talked about how proud he was of me, like I was a lifer at

And then one last thing, another one last thing, they gambling story of you almost coming to blows with one of your teammates. Yeah, I heard you said it was one of the closest times. Uh yeah, I mean I ever came up fighting a teammate.

Yeah, I mean I've got I've gotten hit by teammates before, Like you've gotten punched by teammate, Yeah, he did.

Turculu used to hit me.

He hit me a couple of times, a couple of times when I was like a rookie, and then once again my like my third year, he just like to fuck with me.

But I like when he got into.

A little strap with Carlos Arroyo, me and Brian Cook got into it one time. Like I never like came to blows with a guy in practice, but like I was trying to fight find a place in the leade like in the league.

So I was just scrappy in practice.

And if you're a vet, like in his shoot around, I that's one of the times turkleu elbowed me in the in the eye and gave me a black eye. He's just like I was playing too hard a post defense when we were we weren't walking through plays. We were running through plays, and he just turns and he like noticed it was me and he caught me in the elbow. Got with an elbow. The Justin Anderson story basically, everybody in the NBA plays Blu Ray.

Do you guys play bou Ray? In the Okay? Everybody plays Blue Ray.

So there's a there's a player's cabin on we used Delta charter flights. In the player's cabin there's always a table and then there's a bunch of other seats. So the table is four card games and so playing bou Ray. And there had been some tension building between Justin Anderson and another teammate of mine. They were going back and forth.

And we had been drinking as well.

There had been some wine on the flight, and so there was Amir Johnson, Me, Jared Bayliss, Justin Anderson diagonal to me, and then there wasn't a fifth seat, so Joel would sit on the arm rest in the aisle.

Joel and Vieu was sit on the arm rest in the aisle, and UH.

Basically got to the point where their bullshit was sabotaging the general flow and enjoyment of the car.

It was ruining the night. It was ruining the night. Thank you.

So I got a little vocal and then he got vocal back with me, and then I said, you're a little bitch, And he said, what did you say? And I said, you're a little bit. I doubled down, and I'm not proud of this. Like I just said, I said you're a bitch, and he said, what did you say? I said, I said, you heard me. I said you're a bitch. And then he like stood up on the table and like, you know, almost swung on me. Joel luckily like grabbed him, and then all these flight attendants

You're a little bitch, dude.

You gotta think if you're really gonna fight somebody, well he's taking the time to get up on that table.

You gotta make a move. Yeah, you know if you're gonna win that fight.

The flight attendants they obviously fly with all the other teams. The word got around that that had happened, so I had a bunch of text from buddies around the league that I heard you guys got into a fight, you know whatever.

I was like, no, there's nothing. It was nothing like what happened after you guys.

Cool. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I would have to ask him. Jay's my guy. We appreciate you.

Going on, man, Thanks been unreal to your flight.

Hey Jack, is he doing the green screen? All right? Cool? Did I appreciate it?

Man?

Anything else? Anybody got anything? You trying to hit that pig one on one pig? Uh No, I don't think so.

I don't think so.

He's scared.

Is anybody better than you at the collegiate level of all time shooter?

Steph? Really?

Yeah, it's Steph would have I mean, there's other guys that have surpassed like the three point thing, but Steph would have shattered it had he played one more year, he would have shattered it.

I think I was. I don't know who I was having this conversation with. It was somebody the.

Other day, like I think why, I think why?

It's like, oh, oh it is omar omar from my house Highlights. Omar Omaraja is now his sports center. We were talking about this two days ago, and I was telling him, it's like part of the reason, like the Duke version of me is, you know, there's a legacy to that. I think a little bit, even though I didn't win a championship, and oh, there definitely is. Yeah, there's a there's a little bit of like if you were growing up in that area you watch college basketball.

That we all knew and we all grew up knowing.

Now with the one and done, it's just different, Like you don't have that attachment. Yeah, you're in and out. Most people don't even pay attention to March Madness anyways.

So now it's like back then, it was like you and Adam Morrison, yes, yeah, and you know, and then you and c was awesome.

When I was there, they want to know five, you know, we had some great games with them, so and they were all upper class. When like all those guys left it, they were all my high school class, and they all left after their junior year. I decided to stay one more year. So I just think it was like part of part of it was like just the era we were in. It wasn't necessarily that like I did anything that was that much special relative to other great college basketball players.

I mean, you're pretty good, so I was. I mean I was, you know, you were decent leventh overall pack. You're pretty solid.

That was.

That was good them, the Robbet