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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Yeah, all right, welcome to tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend. I am coming to you from the studio today, finally, not from a cruise ship, not from a lake in Washington, from the studio. I slept in my own bed last night for the first time since July, which I really appreciated as much as I had fun on this vacation and it was great, and
I have a lot of stories from it. Um, it's just a long time to be away, to get out of my routines, so I'm very excited to be back. I work out with a bunch of college athletes and professional athletes that come back in town over the summer, and I was training with some of them this morning and it was rough. I'm very, very out of shape, but that said, it's good to get act, to get back in the routine. It feels good to be back
in this room and to be talking about basketball. Um. We're gonna talk about Draymond's extension today, why I think he deserves a MAX and why I disagree with a lot of the discourse that's floating around him, particularly for Warriors fans. We're gonna talk about Lebron James extension. Why I don't think he wants to leave, but I do
believe he would if things went a certain way. We're gonna talk about Zion's contract clause having to do with his weight in his body fat percentage, why I think that's actually important, even though it's a little bit uncomfortable. In the last but not least, I'm gonna tell you, guys, which guy I think will be traded first, Kevin Durant
or Donovan Mitchell. At the very end, I'm going to share some of my stories from vacation, just my thoughts about the Pacific Northwest and about Alaska and some of the geology stuff. I get nerdy about some of that geology stuff, but I'm gonna say that for the very very end of the show before we get started today, though, I wanted to talk about Bill Russell for just a quick second. Um. He obviously passed away today at eighty
eight years old. You know there he had such a monumental impact on the world that goes so far beyond the game of basketball. And to be quite frank, there's just a lot of people that are far more qualified to talk about that stuff than I am. I don't have anything to offer their Bill's story tells itself, and there will be people that can tell that story better than I can. You guys know me, I'm all about
the basketball. But even if we just focus down in on the basketball, he's one of the founding fathers of
this game. You know, I love this game so much, and this game has given so much to me and to my family, and I don't I look at it in the sense that we wouldn't have these opportunities surrounding the game of basketball without people like Bill and the things they did to grow the game, the things they did to help the game survive during its infant stages, to allow it to get to the point where the next person could grab the baton and carry it further
and further. All of you kids who are playing in high school, all of you kids who are playing in college and getting your school paid for, all of you kids that are playing overseas, whatever it is that you're doing with the game, if you're coaching, if you're covering, even if you're just a fan, this game is where it is today in large part because of people like Bill. And he was around during a time when it wasn't
easy to be an NBA basketball player. There wasn't immense wealth, there wasn't you know, this immense fame that came with it. And obviously I don't need to get into it, but for him, on the race side of things, it was incredibly difficult and so from that standpoint, I'm just incredibly thankful for everything that Bill Russell did for the game of basketball, is so that all of us who are taking part in the game in some way, shape or form, are able to do so the way that we do so.
Rest in peace to Bill Russell. UM condolences to his family, and I hope we spend a good amount of time this week just kind of reminiscing and telling his story in more detail, because it's a story that is worth telling. UM, don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT. Don't forget to subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel, so you guys don't miss any more of our videos going forward.
And if for whatever reason, if you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back to YouTube to finish it, we do release them in audio form on our podcast feed under Hoops Tonight, which you can find anywhere that you find your podcasts. All right, let's get into this Draymond Green extension. So, you know, there was very interesting kind of shift in ideals as we
went from this championship season to the following season. Right we went from you know, Joe Lake of kind of saying like, oh, all right, the biggest luxury tax bill ever. I'll pay whatever I need to pay. We're gonna go, We're gonna make this work. We make more revenue than everybody. We're gonna do this. And then they let OUTO Porter Jr. Go and they like Gary paid in the second go, and I thought they would let one of those guys go, but they ended up letting both of those guys go.
And then Joe like It basically came out and said and like, hey, like, I can't realistically pay all of this money. So and that's to be expected. With the way that the luxury tax compounds on itself, with the way that the penalties work, it's just really difficult to consistently field the roster as expensive as the Warriors is. So we knew that somebody was gonna get squeezed, you know, And and it was always possible that Draymond might be
that guy. But as always is the case in these situations, you know, and I think this is a byproduct of stand culture. We have, like these fan bases that aren't only fans of the teams, they're fans of the players. And then it turns into this like let him go. He's not worth the max anymore, and now we're just going to rewrite history and pretend like he wasn't massively influential in this era of Warriors basketball. And I have a problem with that. And it's not specifically with the Warriors.
Like I said, I've seen Lebron fans do this. I've seen Katie fans do this, I've seen Steph fans do this. They kind of drive down the value of their role players to try to elevate the success of their favorite player. And it's it's a it's kind of a downside to the way that we cover the game of basketball. I think it's I don't think we do a good enough job. Draymond Green has done a great job of kind of
conveying this point. But we as basketball media do a good enough job of expressing the way that basketball games are one. Because basketball games are one in a very complicated manner, and often with things that are not celebrated enough, we just focus, because of the entertainment value on what the star does. And don't get me wrong, a star impacts winning in basketball more than most sports. So there's a good reason why we do put so much credit
on the stars. But I think we've gone too far in that direction and now we've begin to undervalue this. The reality is that Draymond Green contributes to winning more than a lot of players that are currently on max contracts. DeAndre Ayton just signed a max contract to stay with the Phoenix Suns. Right, did you think DeAndre Ayton was
a better playoff player this year than Draymond Green was? Now, I know that Deandreyton is a more polished offensive player, but if you actually look at impact on winning, Draymond Green did more who helped the Warriors win basketball games in this playoff run. Then DeAndre Ayton did to help the Phoenix Suns win playoff games. And there was no
question that DeAndre Ayton deserved Max. But because of the way that we look at the game, and because we don't properly, you know, distribute credit for the way that basketball games are one, a lot of the things that Draymond Green does goes un celebrated. You know. I always talk about how there's a list of responsibilities that have to get accomplished on a basketball court. It's not as simple as STEPH coming up, coming off of a ball
screen and knocking down a three point shot. There are all these different things that are happening on the court on both ends of the floor, between rebounding, defensive assignments. You know, even within just rebounding, there's boxing out, there's crashing from the perimeter right, there's there's there in general just floor distribution and rebounding so that you don't give
up transition opportunities. That's just looking at rebounding. When we look at the way that plays operate and the screening actions that are required, that the things that are done as decoys so that other people have opportunities. I mean Steph Curry himself operates as a decoy a good percentage of the game. Then we go to the defensive end of the floor and you look at guys who are lock and trail defenders that chase shooters off of screens.
We look at wing defenders that guard the bigger physical wings in the league and try to prevent them from getting to their spots. We have really, really intense you know, we have so many good guards in the league that can get dribble penetration. There are defenders that their sole responsibilities to try to contain dribble penetration, and then we have back line defenders, rim protectors, you know. There there's just you know, guys who defend and screen and roll
in a bunch of different ways. There are just so many things that need to be done on a basketball court, and when you have a guy like Draymond who checks so many of those boxes for you, it makes it so that Steph Curry, who has some limitations in those areas, can just be unbelievably great at the things he's unbelievably great at, which is putting the ball in the basket, moving without the basketball, and being a leader that he doesn't have to worry about so many of those other things.
This is why we always called Draymond Green a star role player. Just because he doesn't do the superstar, high end House of highlights types of things doesn't mean he's
not a star. His impact on the game, the way he impacts winning, is the same as that of a star, and so because of that, he very easily deserves him MAX Golden State in this playoff run was plus one hundred and seventeen and seven hundred and three minutes with Draymond Green on the floor, they were minus six and three hundred and fifty three minutes with him off during the regular season, they were two point three points better per one Hunter possessions with him on the floor versus
with him off. The only stat that has ever appropriately measured Draymond's impact on winning is the scoreboard. It has never been a thing that you could make a highlight reel of it. You know, I was, I was talking with Sam as Fondiari, who covers the Warriors with the guys uh from Light Years, and they a great job. If you're a Warriors fan looking for dedicated Warriors coverage,
that's another great place to go. You know, we were we were talking about the difference between Wiseman and Draymond, and Sam said something to me that really resonated with me. He's like, he goes. Draymond gets off on bullying other teams centers and other teams big guys, like mentally bullying them, physically bullying them. He just loves that process and result. That simple thing has such a massive impact on basketball games. Do you guys remember how bad Kevin Love was in
the NBA Finals every time they played the Warriors. Do you remember how bad he was in two thousand sixteen in particular. A huge part of that was Draymond Green from the opening minutes of that series just took the life out of him, just physically bullied him, talked a bunch of shit, sucked away his confidence and it was over for Kevin Love. And for the rest of the series, he basically became a guy that occasionally would take a spot up three and worked a lot on the glass
and played hard on defense. That was he did. The the multifaceted post up offensive player that you remember was erased from those series because of what Draymond Green does as a bully on the defensive end of the floor. It's it's so funny to me because over the years, with the Steph Curry thing, and again this is about the stand culture, Draymond Green's impact has constantly been undervalued.
And you know, again, like it someone might have to get squeezed, and because of the way the contracts work out, it might be Draymond, But you don't have to burn him down on the way out and pretend like he wasn't one of your very best players and pretend like he wasn't a max impact player on your team. And when he gets a max elsewhere, if he doesn't sign one with the Warriors, you don't need to be like, I can't believe they're playing him paying him a max
that's ridiculous. He doesn't deserve that. Yes he does. He is a MAX player in the NBA with his impact on winning. He just might not fit into your cap sheet, and that's fine. I personally think it would be weird to see Draymond Green and anything now of Warriors uniform. So I hope he sticks around. But again, I just wanted to share my two cents on on that whole situation because it's it's it's it's a conversation that comes
about every couple of years. Came about again in the finals when he had a couple of rough games, he was down to one in the series, playing like shit, and he promised they would come back to win and played great doing it, and he was magnificent in Game six in Boston. That was that was some a very brave thing to do. And like we're we're obviously lucky,
lucky to have him here at the volume. You guys know that when he plays poorly, I'm someone who's gonna criticize him, and but I'm also going to defend him when I feel like he deserves defending. At the end of the day, basketball comes first here, Um and I think we're lying to ourselves if we pretend like Draymond Green is not worth a max hit a homer. With
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weight and his body fat percentage. Now, first of all, you gotta remember that this is in the contract because both sides agreed to it. I would imagine that Zion's agent would not allow something like that to get into the contract unless it was a real point of contention in an issue with leverage to where he kind of felt like they had to. Now, a couple of things. First of all, Zion was acted in June twenty of
two thousand and nineteen. There's more than three years ago, and he has played a grand total of eight five NBA games. And it's a problem when you really look at the modern NBA and how difficult it is to get players to stick around. And you're already three years into that typical seven years of control or whatever that a team has over a player that they draft, and you've only got an eight five games out of him,
and you're a very good basketball team. You took the Phoenix Suns to six games without Zion, So this is probably something that's legitimately frustrating for the Pelicans. And then you look at the stuff there were some reports that Zion wasn't being super wasn't communicating very well with the franchise. He was handling his rehab in private. And when you hear that kind of stuff, that adds to the level of concern with the franchise that would allow them the
leverage to add something like that into their contract. Now, I get that it's uncomfortable, but you know, I I joke with my wife. My wife works in a small business here in Tucson that's retail, and so she's got employees, right, And one of the things is like, you have to have difficult conversations with people. But the problem is if you avoid difficult conversations, then problems go unchecked, problems go unsolved.
And so you have to be willing to sit down with somebody even though it's awkward, even though it's uncomfortable, and have a tough conversation to get to the bottom of an issue so that you can fix it and make it. Believe it or not, this issue with Zion with his weight could literally make or break his career. The difference between whether or not Zion is a perennial All NBA player or someone who drifts out of the league quickly with an injury riddled career. Is this issue
the issue of him taking care of his body? And so I don't have a problem with the Pelicans advocating for something like this. They do have Zion's best interests at heart. They want him to meet these markers so that he can be the best basketball player that he can be, which is mutually beneficial. It will help the
Pelicans to win basketball games. It will help Zion to earn a ton of money and give him a ton of leveraging leeway moving forward in contract negotiations so that he doesn't have to have something like this in his contract in the future. You know, Zion is a very interesting basketball player because we don't see a lot of players like him around the league. You see Blake Griffin
comparisons because he's dunking all over people. You see Zach Randolph comparisons because he's just this ridiculously strong power post player who goes to his left. But the truth of the matter is it can be even greater than any of that. There is a version of Zion because of his ability to handle a basketball already and because of his unique body type with his low center of gravity that could be significantly better than either of those players
ever were. You know, obviously, we've seen the post ups and the power moves with his left hand, and the ability to finish around the rim better than just about anybody in the league. We've seen some of the slashing, but he hasn't even really been realized as a player that can run high, pick and roll and pass and make reads and get downhill and slash to the rim. He hasn't really flashed his ability to shoot the basketball yet, which right now he's not a good shooter, but that's
something that he could build towards. And right now he's a bad defensive player. And this is where it gets interesting because his him being able to take care of his body and him being able to have elite conditioning is something that he needs to be able to defend at an extremely high level. And the ability to defend an extremely high level is the difference between him being a top fifteen player in the NBA or a top five player in the NBA. Now he'll never be Draymond Green.
Draymond Green is a unique Every time we see an undersized post player, that's the first name that we throw out, right like oh, he could be Draymond Green, but that doesn't properly give credit to the things that Draymond Green does. Like we talked about earlier in the show, he's kind of a crazy person when it comes to bullying and shutting down opposing post players. He thrives in the physicality. He loves it, and he pours his heart and soul
into that side of the floor. You know, Zion is a much better offensive players, so he may never devote resources like that, but there's no reason in the world why he shouldn't be able to be a much better defensive player than he is, And in order to unlock that, he will need to take care of his body in a way that he hasn't the idealized version of his. Ion is a pantheon type of player, but he may not be able to stay on the floor if he
doesn't take care of these things. And if he doesn't take care of these things, he'll never become the shooter that he needs to be. He'll never become the defender that he needs to be to reach his ceilings. So again, it's uncomfortable, it's awkward to get all of that, but this is just an important step in Zion's development. Understanding the importance of taking care of your body. You don't get to do this forever. When you're young, you think so,
but you don't get to do this forever. Like I I stepped away from the game for fourteen days at thirty years old to go on a vacation with my wife, and I put on twelve pounds like like that, just quickly put on twelve pounds. So hopefully I can drop it all I get back into shape. But it's it gets even harder as you get older to maintain your
conditioning and to maintain your level of athleticism. Now is a great time for him to figure some of these lessons out, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's awkward. Um let's move on to Lebron's extension. So there was some debate eight early on as to whether or not Lebron would weaponize the threat of his lack of extension to try to put pressure on the Lakers front office to make a deal for Kyrie Irving or to do
things that will make massive improvements to the roster. But then we heard from Jake Fisher that he's extremely happy in l a and that sounds right to me. I remember when all this was going down last year. Last season, right about the time that I started with the volume, there was some concern around the All Star break as to whether or not Lebron would ever leave the Lakers. I don't think he would unless he had a really
good reason. The the idea, I think Jake Fisher phrased it as his family is becoming increasingly entrenched in the Los Angeles area. That's just a really fancy way of saying they love it here there, they love it in l A. And so they would not leave unless they had a damn good reason. But here's the problem. Lebron is still very very good at basketball, and this could be his last great chance. This next couple of years could be his last chance to try to add to
his resume. And when he sees those two things and he sees a front office that is botching that, it's going to add concern. Now. I think part of the reason why Lebron still has a little bit of leeway
is he shares some blame here. You know, Lebron was the one, him and Anthony Davis, who pushed hard for the Russell Westbrook trade, and so he can't blame Robin Genie for that, even though I personally think that it's Rob's job to look Lebron in the face and say, I've watched a ton of film on Russell in the last couple of years. He's not a good fit. This isn't a bad idea. Where this is a bad idea, We're not going to do that. That's Rob's job. That's the way I see it. Lebron shares some blame, so
does Rob. But Lebron understands his culpability in this situation. So Lebron understanding his culpability in this situation is what's going to give him the patience to give Rob and
Genie one more chance. But make no mistake, if they get to the season and they haven't made monumental changes to add talent to this roster, and Lebron's looking around and he doesn't see it feel like he has the horses to even compete in the NBA at this point, I do believe he would leave because I think he would see it as a waste of his last good years as a basketball player to spend it with a front office and ownership group that's not capable of surrounding
him with enough chance, with enough talent. So I do think that there is some threat there but making a mistake. If they do execute a trade, if they get you know, Miles Turner and Buddy Healed, if they get Kyrie Irving, Lebron is gonna feel, especially with how much his family loves it in l A, He's gonna feel like he has enough in l A to not justify him leaving.
You know, there comes a point in every season, and it happened again last year as the Lakers missed the playoffs where you want to say, you know, Lebron's done, Lebron's washed, Lebron's on the tail end, the end is near whatever. But every time I feel like people have become so you know, like jaded on how good Lebron is that they don't acknowledge how good he still is. You know, I send out a tweet earlier I asked everybody,
I said, how many people? If I asked you, how many people do you think in the NBA this season averaged at least twenty five points, five rebounds, five assists on at least from the field and from three Those are pretty base level markers. Five rebounds, five assists, points from the field from three doesn't seem like that crazy of a list of parameters. I asked people, how many players do you think met those those hallmarks? And I had a lot of huge numbers, throwing out thirteen, six, four,
blah blah blah blah. The answers three. There were three players who did that last year, Kevin Durant, Luca don Cheich and Lebron James and five at least forty percent from the field and from three. That's how rare it is to be as consistently productive and efficient as an offense, as an offensive engine as Lebron is. That's how rare it is. And we've taken that for granted for way too long. That player is playing for the Lakers next year.
So is Anthony Davis. There's a reason why Lebron feels urgency, and it's time for Rob and Genie to feel that same urgency. Last note, I wanted on this to hit on this. Lebron will age well in this league as well. Let's say he tries to play twenty three years okay, which who knows it will probably end up being whether or not he suffers a major injury that makes that decision. If he tears an a c L or t tears an achilles like Kobe did, then I think he'll be done.
But if he stays healthy, I could see him playing twenty four seasons. So what does the aging Lebron look like? Because you're nineteen Lebron was one of three players in the NBA to average at least twenty five and five from the field and from three, So you're not a Team Lebron top five player in the NBA. Your twenty Lebron probably top ten, right, but you three? What does Lebron look like? His game is set up and built in a way that will age well. He passes the
ball extremely well. He reli is on size and strength at this point, almost as much as his athleticism, which is what allows him to play bullyball and to be so successful in the post. He's incredibly smart, and he knows how to play different types of roles on a basketball court, especially as he gives responsibilities and seeds responsibilities
to better players. So I think that even year twenty two, Lebron is going to be a top fifteen player, a top twenty player in this league, worthy of a MAX contract and capable of contributing massively to winning, especially if he's around other players that can handle some of those top tier responsibilities. So I don't think there's a ton of risk in the Lakers extending Lebron two years, which I believe is the limit with the way the CBA works when you're extending players who are at least thirty
eight years old at the beginning of the extension. So it would be only two years. But I think there's a really good chance that Lebron would more than perform up to the expectations of that contract value. So I think the Lakers shouldn't have any reservations about it, and Lebron is smart to apply some some pressure on the Lakers just because he feels urgency about his situation. Alright, So, last basketball topic of the day. Who will get traded first?
Kevin Durand or Donovan Mitchell. Now, the reason in particular why this Kevin Durant trade is is dragging on, and really the Mittell trade as well, is the Rudy Gobert trade completely screwed up the market. I said all last year that I thought Rudy Gobert might be considered a negative asset because he's gonna make like forty seven million dollars in six as a player who cannot score the basketball against switches down low in the post and really
is just Capella on the offensive end of the floor. Now, I think Rudy Gobert is one of the best defensive players in the league, and I think that he is wrongfully maligned on that end of the floor, But he doesn't do enough on offense to justify his contract value. Like he's even worse on offense, even more useless on offense than Draymond Green gets accused of being from time
to time. Right, So, the way I look at it, Minnesota with a new owner and a new GM throwing four first round picks in a swap and three quality NBA starters from a playoff team for a guy like Rudy Gobert completely screwed up everyone's belief about what value
should be with with stars in the league. So a lot of these offers that are getting thrown out by teams, like I bet you the offer that the Miami Heat made or the offer that the Phoenix Suns made for Kevin Durant was worse than the Rudy Gobert offer, and so that's completely screwed up Brooklyn's whole view of all
of this. The only offer that I've seen thrown out that's a legitimately better offer than that is the Jalen Brown one with the Phoenix Suns or maybe some of the offers that Toronto is thrown together with like a surrounding O g And and and Nobi. Right, Like, I just that that that just completely screwed up the market. So I believe Donovan Mitchell. Now, these these are just guesses. I have no idea what's gonna happen. I don't have any specific reporting on this, but I believe Donovan Mitchell
will get traded first. I think that Utah is a little bit more blow it up then Brooklyn has accepted at this point, so I think that he'll end up get getting traded first, and it will be for a package significantly less than what the Utah Jazz. Excuse me that then what the Utah Jazz got for Rudy Gobert when that happens, because they happened to catch the Minnesota Timberwolves desperate under new leadership, right, the rest of the fields not in that situation, So they will get less
for Donovan. When they do, that will reset the market, re establish the norms, which will then allow some of these Kevin Durant offers to make more sense for Brooklyn. And then so I think the Katie trade will follow shortly thereafter. That's just a guess. I have no earthly idea, but I think the market got screwed up by Gobert. I think a Mitchell trade will kind of reset the
market a little bit, and then Katie will follow. I do believe that both players will get traded before training camp, because I do think that the whole will bring him. The camp thing is just an aimless threat to try to change leverage, and I think that most well meaning basketball organizations understand that you want to fresh start when
you start training camp. When you gotta coach sitting down with the players, going over team princip polls and rules and and things, and trying to get buy in from a group to an ultimate goal. You don't need a guy who's half in half out the door. You don't need a player who's publicly, you know, requested a trade, and you know there's I I don't even know if there's any legitimacy to this, but I wouldn't be completely shocked if Kevin Durant refused to show up, which is
a whole other type of drama. So I do think they both get traded. My guess is as Mitchell's first, and my guess that the delay is caused by the Rudy Gobert trade and how it's screwed up the market. All Right, Before we get out of here for today, I just wanted to tell a couple of stories from my vacation. Um, Like I told you guys earlier, I get kind of nerdy about some of this geology stuff. And the Pacific Northwest is so incredibly different than where
I grew up. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. The only other places I've lived are Utah, which is completely different vibe than Arizona, and Charlotte, which is in the south and once again completely different vibe from Arizona. But I've never even been to the Pacific Northwest. When I was in college, we played at North Idaho College UH
three times while I was there. So I drove up to court a Lane, which is in northern Northern Idaho, which is close to Spokane, therefore close to the Pacific Northwest, but it's once you get on the other side of the Cascade Range, it's a completely different climate out there. It's more like high desert at that point. But we went up and we spent like, I think five or six days on Lake Shellan in Washington, and then we went to Seattle, boardered a cruise ship and spent a
week up in Alaska. And you know, I I learned a little bit about glaciers growing up in school and stuff, but it's just not something you talk about a lot in the desert of Arizona. I mean, it's been like a hundred and five degrees every single day for the last like two months. It's just not a topic of conversation down here. And I was so incredibly fascinated by
all of the geology up in that area. I guess during the last ice Age, all of these glaciers were basically down over the entire state of Washington, and as they were seated, they just dug out all of these you know, fiords or lakes or passages or sounds or things along all the waterways in the area. And it's super fascinating to me because I had never really understood what the glacier was. I just thought it was like a big piece of ice that shedded other small pieces
of ice and one of them sunk the Titanic. That that that's just about it all. I knew about glaciers before I went up there, and so obviously, like I usually do, I just dove headlong into researching it. And it's crazy. They're actually like flowing rivers of ice. They actually move under their own weight, which is super really interesting, super interesting, and that's what actually causes them to dig
out the surrounding terrain. When I was on the cruise one of the mornings, they're like, we have the scenic drive that we're gonna go on. It starts at six am and it's gonna go to ten am. And so I wake up and I look out my window and I see like little icebergs floating alongside the ship. The water is this like beautiful like green aqua color. There's like this mist hanging over the mountains. It's almost like
you're on another planet. And I got up, and I got my wife up, and we walked up to the top of the ship and we pulled up on the DAWs Glacier, which is on the Endicott arm which is one of the fjords in Alaska, and it was one of the most incredibly beautiful things I've ever seen. I put some pictures of it on my Twitter feed so you guys can see it there. Um. But just in general, like this whole other element of geology that I had never experienced before was so interesting to me. I'm obsessed
with glaciers now. I was watching YouTube videos about them, uh, two nights ago, and I really really enjoyed seeing Alaska, seeing the Pacific Northwest. My last note on the Pacific Northwest. You know, we have mountains in Arizona, but they're like chains of mountains, right, and they kind of dominate the skyline,
particularly in Tucson. Phoenix has really short mountains. Uh. Tucson is surrounded by three particularly large mountains, Mount Lemon, mount Rightston, and then there's a range of mountains to the east of us. And so we kind of are just used to seeing mountains on our skyline all the time. But when we were in Seattle, we came over this kind of ridge and I knew Mount Rainier was near Seattle, but I wasn't aware of the dynamic and we came
around this corner. Look over to my left, and I see this beheamoth of a mountain that's like almost perfectly symmetrical, that's just staring down at the city in this super ominous way. And I've always had a thing for high mountains. I I I love to ski, we spend we go to Colorado a couple of times a year, we hang out on the mountains and two son. It's always been something I've been fascinated by. But I had never seen
a mountain like that before. So then once again I dove into it and did a bunch of research, and there's basically this connection of all these of volcanoes in that area that they call the Pacific Ring of Fire, and they're essentially they're the surrounding terrain is relatively flat, and they just kind of rise out of the terrain. And you know, on the flight out of Seattle, it was a perfectly clear day and I got to literally see one after the after the other, Mount St. Helens
in Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. I'll share a picture of it on my Twitter feed later today because it was really cool. But they almost looked like pimples on the earth because the earth is like flat, and then there's just like this big mountain that comes to a point at the top, and it's such an interesting thing to see, so different than anything I had seen growing up. Obviously, I went to the Pacific Northwest during some good weather
because it is July. But I've heard I've talked to some of the people that lived there and they're like, yeah, for nine months a year, it's just glue me every day, and you're probably gonna want to spend a couple of weeks during that stretch to get out and get into some sunlight, just so that you don't go crazy. And I don't know that I could ever live in a place like that. Who knows what will happen is the years go by, But it was really cool to get to see it for the first time. I loved getting
to see the mountains. I loved getting to see Alaska. Last note, cruises are not for me. Uh. The swaying back and forth made it so that it was really difficult for me to get into my routine, particularly working out, like doing the ap ply metric workouts that I do, doing the basketball workouts that I do. With the ship moving beneath beneath your feet was really really tough for me.
The small spaces, uh, you know, like just trying to take a shower and that tiny little coffin of a shower hour in your room is is kind of ridiculous. I enjoyed certain elements of it, like obviously they the operation is amazing to me. There were eleven hundred people on that ship that were in service that we're taking care of about two thousand passengers, so there's almost one
service person for every two passengers, which is ridiculous. And they do they're so incredibly well run, they're like a machine. It was incredibly fascinating to me. But it's just not and I the other thing too is I don't I'm not really a huge drinker. I'll have the occasional drink with my wife and we're not opposed to it or you know, conscientious objectors or anything, but we're just not
We just don't partake that often. If you are into that in particular, you'll love the cruise ship because you could get so many drinks so many different places that usually packages that make it affordable and you can just kind of drink your way around the ship. But I
think if I did Alaska. Again, what I would do is I'd fly to Juno and from there I get an Airbnb crashed for like four nights, and then I book excursions, like I'd get a boat excursion that would go see at Glacier and then I would, you know, go hiking in the surrounding area. If I wanted to go see wildlife, I'd go on a wildlife tour or something like that. But like, you can kind of capture a lot of the elements of the cruise without the
boat by doing something like that. And then obviously when you're sailing up to Alaska from Seattle, there are two stretches where you're just at c for two days. So for basically three and a half of the seven days we were just and on the ocean on a cruise ship. So it kind of gets a little claustrophobic and you kind of feel like you're trapped in in in a in one place. But again that's just my experience. I'm sure many of you guys have been on cruises and
loved him. Again, with any of this stuff, it's either for you or it's not. I was blessed to get to do this particular cruise for free as a reward for the company that my wife works for. UM. So I obviously enjoyed it and was thankful for it, just not necessarily for me, and I would do it differently if I went back to Alaska, which I hope to go back one day. UM, but very good trip. I'm glad to be home, Glad to be back in the routine.
That is all I have for today. I sincerely appreciate all of you guys and all of your support for the show. UM. This next week we're gonna get started on our player rankings and our all time rankings, so we have lots of fun stuff in August surrounding ranking players in the league currently and all time. We have some special stuff planning for you guys there. All right, that's all I have all. See you guys in a couple of days. The volume