Hey, pardon my take, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Man, that sunset is gorgeous.

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On today's part of my take, we have two great guests. We have PGA champ Xander Schofley, fresh off his first major. Really awesome interview with him, talking about winning the trophy on. What is it? The Wanamaker.

The Wanamaker trophy.

Yeah, the Wanamaker. He won the Wanamaker on Sunday. We talked about his final round.

Remember when Morikawa, like, spilled the lid off it?

Yeah, that's right, years ago.

Yeah, that was great.

We talked about his journey through golf. Really cool guy. Awesome interview. And then we have our good friend Brian Winhorse on to talk NBA little preview of the conference finals. Also, we have a new way to scout players. Thanks to windy. We're going to talk Celtics surviving game one. We're going to talk hot seat, cool throw. Then we got pardon your take. It's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. We're this close to crowning an NBA champion. With the action heating up on the court, it's even hotter at DraftKings sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. There's only so many games left, and DraftKings sportsbook has you covered with same game parlays, live betting, odds, odds boost, and so much more. Don't miss out or you have to wait until next NBA season to place your bets. It's super easy for first timers to get started. Try betting on something simple, like picking a team to win. Go to the DraftKings sportsbook app, select your squad and place your first bet. It's that simple. I did it tonight when Jalen Brown hit that three to force overtime, I said, the Celtics are going to win this game because you can't survive after the Pacers should have won in regulation.

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No place.

To hang out on washing and then I can't blame all on the sun oh, no we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue and then we'll take it home.

It'S pardon my take presented by Marshall Sports.

Welcome to pardon my take, presented by Draftkings. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app now. Use code take. That's code take for new customers to get a no sweat bet up to $1,500. If your first bet doesn't hit only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, May 22, and the Boston Celtics survive game one in overtime. And they win one. That. What do you. What was that?

I was doing two. I was. I was doing two. Was the twos for the two was they needed to win this one because game two is coming up. Celtics never win game twos.

That was. Hank, you have to say, that was like, one of those ones were like, we shouldn't have won that game. But we did.

No, it's a huge as a wake up call win. Which are the best types of wake up calls?

Yeah. Well, you guys needed sells so weird, because they needed wake up calls. Like, that game felt like it was over, and then they took their foot off the gas in the third quarter, and all of a sudden, Hal Burton hits that crazy bank shot to end the quarter. You're like, wait, this is a fucking one possession game. What's going on? Yeah.

Even in the second quarter, they were, they were up a lot, and they kind of blew the. Blew the lead going into halftime. They tied it up. I mean, that's been the Celtics team for the last, you know, three, four, five years, is being really good, getting up, taking their foot off the gas, always, always close games, no matter what. But they overcame. They, they were stumbling at the, at the end of the fourth quarter. Couple of really bad turnovers. Jalen Brown was not playing good in the fourth quarter, and then he, you know, came up clutch when it mattered most.

It was a crazy shot that he hit, too. And it felt like the Celtics had the game in hand. They were up by three points. They had the ball. The Celtics had missed a couple. Pacers had the game in hand. Celtics had missed a couple three point shots to try to tie the game up. Pacers advanced the ball past half court. Boneheaded turnover. Celtics get another crack at it. And then, and then Jalen Brown's three. Felt like it was off balance. It felt like it had no chance at all in going in. It went in, and at that point, it was like all the momentum shifted because the Pacers had the game won.

Yes.

And they gave it away. And when you give a game away like that in the last, like 20 seconds, it feels like even if it goes into overtime, there's nothing good that's going to happen to you.

Yeah, the, our guy stadthole just texted me, said both teams tonight had a 98% chance to win the game in regulation neither team wanted in regulation. That's pretty crazy. But, yeah, that was.

Those things are always.

Yeah, no, they're, they. But they're fun to just look at. Be like, oh, man, unless you're a Falcons fan. Yeah, unless you're a Falcons fan. And the Pacers, like, I thought the Pacers were going to come out flat in this game because they just played a game seven on Sunday, two days rest, or, you know, one day off and being like, all right, now you got to jump into the Celtics. They just kept fighting, kept making shots. They're just keep shooting. Like, I. They cooled off towards the end, but there was a moment in this game where they were shooting like 58% again. You know, insane. And, I mean, they look at least like they're in this series.

Their games.

Their game should have won this game.

Their game seven was also, like, half of the game seven. Yeah, because they put that away early. So it's not like they had to fight for an entire entire game against the Knicks. But I was. I was surprised that they were able to hang in there for as long as they did. I thought at the end of this game, when the Celt, when the Celtics ended up winning, I thought that the Pacers might be able to build off it. But then I just thought for a little bit longer, and this seems like the most demoralizing loss possible.

Well, it also was weird because it was, if you remember the last, like, sequence, I thought it was going to happen on the derrick White rebound, where he had that incredible rebound and was just out hustling everyone. And they kick it out and Jason Tatum misses a shot. And then the Pacers get the ball back and you're like, now it is officially over.

The thing about the Pacers is they're really good offensively, right? They can score a shitload of points, but if it's a close game, they just, they panic. They just smash the panic button. They freak out. And their coach was terrible, taking his time outs. Rick Carlisle didn't do shit in the last minute of that game that he should have done.

I also think Pascal Siakam, like, he got stuck in this spot. Jalen Brown can't hit free throws. Hank, you've been talking about it all year. It. It bothers you. You get scared when he goes to the free throw line. I just like in that situation, I know I'm not a big follow up three with 8 seconds left and more like follow up three with 5 seconds left and under. But when Jalen Brown gets the ball, it's like he, it felt like Pascal Siakam was about to foul, and then he realized, oh, shit, he's going to shoot.

Yeah.

And then didn't get a hand in the face. And then you get that, which was an incredible shot by Jalen Brown.

It was Jalen Brown.

He hit the shot.

He had two free throws at the end of the fourth quarter, and he kind of forced to turnover.

And he went left. Yeah, he was dribbling with his left hand.

What happened?

Gutsy. When.

What happened to Jason Tatum in the fourth quarter?

He scored ten points in overtime, which is the most order. I mean, he missed. Open shop shooters are going to miss shots. Yeah, he. He did get the. Jalen Brown had a bad beginning in the fourth quarter, like, in that middle period where the pacers kind of took the lead. That was. He had a bad turnover. Bad couple shots. I think a couple turnovers. Jason Tate missed a couple shots. They brought it back.

This is the ultimate, ultimate game for. For the Celtics, too, because they got. They got choked to an inch of their life, and then they were able to breathe through it, maintain their composure. Missoula is doing this, and he's probably loving every second of it on the sidelines.

Yeah, it was a loss. It felt like a loss. Like, the players felt like they lost it. They had that feeling of like, oh, fuck, I can't believe we lost it at home. We had the lead. We choked. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Been trying not to do that.

No, but you're right. A wake up call and a win is a pretty good wake up.

Yeah. The only thing you could say positively for the Pacers is that this same thing happened to them in the next series. That game won. They got screwed. And that was a very winnable game.

Yep.

And they still won that series.

Well, we were saying if the Pacers had won this game, Boston loses every game, too, across all sports. And then the Pacers haven't lost at home since, what? March 18.

March 18.

You were staring down the barrel of a sweep. If you didn't win tonight, our.

Now we're on the other side of the barrel.

Yeah. Now you're on the other side of the barrel.

Now who's got the gun?

Our good friend John Fidelberg, I thought had the best tweet about Jason Tatum. I love fights because whenever the Bruins get bounced from the playoffs, he just switches to Celtics. He said, after watching one Tatum game, I'd like to loudly agree with people who think he's the best player in the league. I also agree with people who think he's a bum. I think that's put perfectly.

Yeah, that's. That's Carl Anthony.

Town is just how you look at him.

Yeah.

Hank, here's the thing. Jason's really good, but he's also a star player. That, like, that's what happens.

Points in overtime.

I understand the fourth court star players get criticized. If Luca puts a dud tomorrow night. We're going to talk about Luca putting up a dud tomorrow night, but still.

Be, like, always the best player in the world. I mean, that.

I just said Jason Tatum is a fucking incredible player, but it's always the.

But it's always chasing Tatum, you know?

You know.

You know why? No, no.

I'm just incredible.

I'm running. I'm running this through the Hank translator right now. Hank is getting so defensive about this. This because Jason Tatum has never won anything. That's why he's defending.

But success.

But if he had, if Jason Tatum was like an NBA Finals MVP and you were questioning, weighted in the fourth quarter, Hank would be like, yeah, he's got to show up there. But because he's Hank's guy and hasn't won anything yet, Hank has to be like, you shut your mouth. He's my. He's my special baby.

I think Jason Tatum is really fucking good. If you have a really fucking good player, I just want him to take.

Over games and, like, ice the game out over time.

Overtime was great. Fourth quarter with the reason why the Pacers were even in that spot was like, there was multiple times, like, tatum, do it. Go take it. He did it. That. That layup he hit where TJ McConnell was basically trying to tackle him. Yeah, it was all strength. There you go. Was that. I feel like you just only listen to the bad things I say about him. It's not you.

It's just everyone.

Yeah, but you also remember that turnover.

I'm not gonna say. I can't say bad things.

There's bad pass off the pick.

I can't even exist.

Gotta.

Jason Tatum, thoughts.

Gotta communicate better than that, Jason.

I can't even exist.

Hey, just. Just when we talk about Jason Tatum, picture in your brain that he's already won in NBA Finals, and then try to absorb it through that filter.

I think that's pretty fair. He had 36 tonight. Ten points in the. In overtime.

What are you doing? The fourth hit.

Ten minutes where he didn't score a point. It's fine. They won the game. Who cares?

That's. That's my. That's what I'm saying. If you. Before the game started, Jason Tatum, 36 points. Ten points. Overtime. Celtics win discourse agree. Gonna be he didn't show up in the fourth quarter.

Well, how is that possible?

I just asked a question about the fourth quarter. I said, what about the fourth quarter?

We're process guys, not results guys.

That's facts.

And no, that the bottom line guy, and I'm a static.

So if you guys hadn't won this game, what would you have said?

It was bad. That it was bad. It would.

Okay, that's fair. You know what? That's fair. That's a completely fair thing. I think Jason James really good.

It would have been bad for, again, both of them played bad in the fourth quarter, but then Jalen Brown saved the game, and Jason Tatum carried them in overtime. That's all you can ask from your two best players.

All right, so game two. What do you think? Prediction?

Blowout. Wake up call.

Which way?

Celtics.

Oh, wait. Wake up call in a blowout?

No, they've been woken up.

Yeah. This was already. This was the perfect ending for you. It was a wake up call win.

Mm hmm.

Those are very hard to come by.

I know.

Yeah. Really, really hard to come by.

Yeah. That is truly. When you have to be a bottom line guy, a results guy is after a game like this.

How many fucking wake up calls this team? It's a wake up call. Every fucking series suck. You haven't played anybody. The piece just fucking sucks. How many times you're gonna get. How many fucking times you're gonna get woken up by a team that fucking sucks?

Max, you've seen how Hank likes to sleep in several ways.

I'm done with it. Jason Tatum played like dick in the fourth quarter. He was horrible. And then they were finally like, yeah, we're playing the fucking pacers. The fucking pacers.

It's like we spent the first ten minutes of the show just like Easter coffee, shaking a carbonated bottle of Max, and then just open.

He's also sitting. He's sitting in memes seats so we can't see him. I had no idea. He's just. Yeah, you're right. We just need it. What we just did is we just fucked with Mac.

He's dead.

It was a slow mo video, putting a mentos in a Pepsi can and just being like, all right, here we go. And then he comes out and he thought, what?

He just said, no, I mean, it's like, again, when you make it this far in the playoffs, you play more games, so you have more opportunities for wake up calls. That's just simple.

That's a good point. And Hank knows something about a wake up call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes you need several.

Yeah.

I mean, this is the first time you've played a team who actually has their best player, or.

Yeah.

What happened? We won, I guess, brother.

I guess the net. Well, actually, no, I'm all fucked up.

I'm all we come back to Jared Allen, was. Is the well done Mitchell miss games? Yeah, he did miss games. Yeah, he did miss games.

Yeah.

You're back on track. All right, should we. That. That game seven Oilers Canucks. I want to say shout out, Vancouver did not riot.

Did not riot. It felt like Vancouver was coming back, though. It felt like they were. They were going to tie it up in the third period after they got the second goal. Yeah, it felt like it was going to happen, that that barn was going to explode.

And it was the most dominating performance for the first 50 minutes of that game. Like, the shots were out of control. The Oilers, every single time the Canucks got the puck in the Oiler zone is like, they didn't get a good shot or they didn't get a shot, period. And, and, like, even the first period, like, I know, is zero, zero after one. But McDavid played five minutes, and they killed a four minute penalty, and they were just like, you could just see, you're like, the orders are so much better. But I agree, like, that. That last four minutes, you're like, oh, shit. Is this about to happen?

Yeah, it felt like it might, but congratulations to Edmonton. Canada marches on. I'm just glad that we have a canadian team that's this far. I want to see.

Oh, we wouldn't, no matter what.

I know, but I'm glad that it's happening.

Yeah.

Like, when you watch this entire series, whether the game is being played in Edmonton or in Vancouver, the canadian, the fans seem just, like, way more amped up than most american fan bases.

50 50 raffle. They walk in the door, it's like 600,000.

It's incredible. They go absolutely apeshit for hockey, and I like watching it, so I'm glad. I hope they get to the finals, and I I kind of, just for our own sake, I hope that Edmonton loses in the finals. Just for the storyline.

Story. The storyline. Just story. Sorry.

Canada.

Oh, they play. If they play the Rangers. I don't.

Yeah. If they play the Rangers, I'm going to be. Yeah, probably rude for. Although, if the Rangers win, I will count that as, like, a Tom Wilson Stanley cup.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ooh. Edmonton, Florida would be fun for people writing stories about how far they have to travel. Yeah.

Edmonds to Dallas for the same conference. That's a sneaky long trip.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

It's nothing I like more than talking about plane trip travel.

Yeah.

Yeah. We just, we just stumbled into Warren Sharp's twitter.

Global warming.

Yeah. Who's got the most miles? All right, anything else before we do? Hot seat, cool throne? Like I said, we have two awesome interviews. Xander Schofley and Brian Winhorse. Anything else going on in the sports world today that we had that popped up? Antonio Brown. Oh, I guess maybe someone have that Tony O'Brien is bankrupt.

Yeah. Sad that you have that.

All right, let's just do hot sea, cool throne. Because we got more sports to talk about. Hot seat cool throne is brought to you by our friends at Coors Light. Coors Light is the best beer ever created. The coldest beer ever created. Hot sea cool toronto, presented by Coors Light. I could let bad sports news ruin my day or choose a chiller mindset and then reach for a Coors light. I choose chill. When you embrace a chill mindset, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors light. Coors Light is mountain cold refreshment crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. When the mountains turn blue, it's as cold as the Rockies. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered cold, packaged for smoother finish. When you get worked up, Max, choose chill. And then reach for a Coors like at Coors Light, delivered straight to your door with instacart by going to Coors light.com. take celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. Haven't done this in a while. It's about to be. Memorial Day is the official start of summer. Tweet me some. Tweet me some, you know, blue mountains. Some. Some cold Coors light on Friday.

I want to. I want to get it going, get everyone looking at the Coors light looking at that beautiful icy can or bottle, and just get you in the right mindset for Memorial day. This is official Coors light season that we're kicking off right now.

It's awesome. Also, if you. If you load up a cooler, send us pictures of Coors lights. Yeah. I just love looking at cooler.

Oh, I love it, love it, love it, love it. Okay, Hank. Hot seat, cool throne.

My hot seats. Antonio Brown.

Oh, why? What happened?

He went bankrupt.

Oh, no.

Cleared bankruptcy.

So what's his career earnings? Let's look that up real quick.

A lot.

Antonio Brown. It's.

I'm gonna guess 78 million.

89 million.

Okay, let's see here. I'm gonna guess 94 million.

Cause he wasn't obviously, like, highly drafted, so he probably. He had to.

Someone said 79.

Yeah. I said 89.

78.

What is it?

80.7.

Oh, track. Ooh, nice, Hank.

So he. That means he doesn't. He spent $80 million.

Well, half for taxes.

True. Well, he played in Florida.

Another ten. Well, only for a little.

For a little bit.

Very little.

And he lived with Tom Brady, so he probably saved some money there.

And percent on agent fee.

Yeah. So now we're down to. He's basically. He was broke the second he got.

Pretty much stop playing football.

Played for raiders.

Yeah.

Remember that?

The hard knocks.

Hot air balloon.

Yeah.

So I hope that the bankruptcy court proceedings are like the last episode of Seinfeld, where they just bring out every single person that he has not paid money to over the years. Like, whether it's any home contractor, anybody. He's had do, like, video work for him. It's like every six months for a while. People were just saying, yeah, I worked for Antonio Brown. I was a chef, and he never paid me. And then he also sexually assaulted me.

Yeah.

I hope they just bring him out one by one this hearing and have them testify for him.

I also hope that CTE, ESPN is not part of this bankruptcy.

No, that's why he started CTE. ESPN was so that those assets could not be touched by a personal bankruptcy.

Got it.

Yeah. So, smart, savvy business move.

Yeah.

Part, I think.

Any thoughts on it?

No, it's. I feel bad. Ctspm.

Yeah.

I mean, he definitely has CTe.

Do you remember when he was just, like, jacking off in a pool, like, a year ago?

That was weird.

As. Really strange. Yeah.

Really, really weird.

He's successfully done so much weird shit in the last three years.

Perfect.

That you completely forget about the next one that he does.

Hunters. Perfect. That one hit. He really. That was.

Yeah.

I don't know where you can point to it. Be like, that was. That was kind of where things changed. All right, who's your cool throne?

My cool throne is Chet Hanks. And. And white boys.

Shit, that was mine, too.

White boys on the cool throne.

White boys. Back up. White boys. What do you say?

He. Well, first he. His dad. Text him asking about the Drake situation.

Wait, who's his dad?

Tom Hanks.

I'm not. Okay.

What's he been in?

Catch me if you can't.

That's the one you go with. With Tom Hanks? I feel like it's a saving. Private Ryan or Forrest Gump.

Forrest Gump is the one. One big. Right.

You've got Meg.

Biggest.

Greg is good.

But what do you.

Philadelphia.

Do you think the number one. If you say Tom Hanks. Tom the movie. And Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks had nothing but success in the movie Philadelphia.

Yeah. What. What would you say the number one Tom Hanks, if you pulled a hundred people on the street would be Forrest Gump may cast away. Would sneaky be high?

I think I. Has he done any voices in a kids movie to.

Sorry.

Yeah, Woody. Yeah. So it'd be toy story or Forrest Gump.

I think you've got mail.

Sleepless in Seattle.

Saving Private Ryan would be big, too.

Yeah.

People love catch me if you can.

Go to great movie. But he also is not the main character.

Yeah. No.

Go to goat it. You think you could do that?

How did. Yeah, in the sixties.

What about now?

Probably not. There's, you know, it was so innovation. Yeah.

So easy to do crimes in the sixties.

Oh, dude, like 100 years ago, could you move across?

Move to the next town?

You can murder anyone. You just fucking kill someone and just be like, all right, I'm out. Yeah.

You just get on a horse and go like 20 miles and no one knows you.

Yeah.

Wasn't the first guy to get Covid.

Who?

Oh, he was one of them.

Yeah, he might have been under.

You remember when he was locked in that australian prison fair and he had to pretend that he was hosting SNL.

On a groove for that first night? They said he had it, and everyone thought like, oh, my God.

Yeah, it was interesting.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was like a triple whammy of the NBA getting canceled, Rudy Gobert. And then Tom Hanks locked in jail in Australia.

Yeah. And that Georgetown St. John's game, the hat, halftime. I was eight. Oh, and one that weekend, I was on fire.

He texted his son Chet, and he said, big main seems fake.

Main. I guess he have to talk like he's trying to relate with his son.

He goes, big Maine. Can you explain the Drake Kendrick Lamar feud to me? And then Chet Hanks sent him, like a two paragraph long text explaining it, and he said, holy cow, exclamation point. These are fighting words, people taking side. Who's winning? So that was funny.

Okay, Tom Hanks is like, who's winning, son?

Yeah. Is there a score tracker I can keep up with?

But then jet Hanks came back the next day. Post Instagram said, I've consulted with the heavens, felt westward breeze, walked outside of a strip club and saw my shadow. This will be a white boy summer.

Hell, yeah.

Okay, I have spoken.

Let's.

All right, let's go.

What else? Wbso.

What about city boys?

Nothing about city boys. Are they up there now?

White city boys.

Okay. City boys up. White boys up.

Did you just learn that?

I did, like 8 hours ago. You remember what he drank correctly?

Yeah, like two years ago.

You remember what you put the fuck.

White boys. Summer was two years ago.

But.

Yeah, but Chad, that's back, so I need to.

Who made it? City boys.

No, but that was city boys did.

So bring it back. City boys.

I think it's like I just learned what it is.

Bring it back, please.

Some. Some white boys are city boys. But not all city boys are white boys.

Got it.

And all white boys are gonna have a good summer.

Yeah. Remove that shirt. The most racist font ever on the back of it.

Yeah.

It was like the calligraphy.

Yeah.

That was a great shirt that he did.

Yeah, white boys.

Do you remember that shirt, though?

I do.

Oh, yeah.

I do know. He had a whole lot.

It was such a funny shirt.

Yeah, yeah. He had a whole line. He did his workout where he would just do burpees and then for some reason, just, like, hit. And his, like, dick muscles. Yeah, hit, like, the v muscle every time he was. He's. He tried to see, I think, try.

To sue us because the Nick and KB thing.

I didn't know. Nick and KB did something with him. And then they got his number and then we called him on the yak. I think Tommy smokes tried, like, said something to him and he's like, I didn't know I was live. I'm gonna sue you guys.

Sounds like he's got a fair grape.

Yeah, I mean, it was Tommy's fault, so he. Tommy wants to get sued, he can get sued.

Has he been anything recently? Your honor.

And, yeah.

You was good. In your honor.

Yeah, Chet.

Yeah.

Like a crackhead.

Yeah.

Did a really good job.

He was very good. White boys up.

City boys, sit.

White boy summer. City boys up. Got it.

White. White boys up. Does that play?

I don't know.

White boy Summer is better.

Yeah, I agree.

White boys up is. Yeah. Okay, good call, boy. Summer call. Yeah, I guess.

Okay, you just let us know.

Okay.

Asking. We should ask Chet.

Yeah, well, I'm on.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Well, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

My hot seat is the guy who had Bryce Harper ask a girl to prom for him. Did you see that?

Yes.

So the price Harper goes with a guy in Philly. Right? Philly kid goes to a girl's door. They knock on the door, and Bryce Harper helps this kid ask the girl to prom for him. The girl is just thrilled that Bryce Harper's on her doorstep. She says yes somewhere in there. And then after she says yes, she goes and immediately gives a big hug to Bryce Harper right afterwards. And it was. It was interesting because I guess. I guess mission accomplished, right?

Yeah.

You got Bryce Harper in there. But now, did she say yes just because she wanted to give Bryce Harper a hug?

Yeah. I mean, you can't bring Bryce Harper to, like, your crushes house, right? Like, please go on a date with me. Please have Bryce Harper, like, objectively very good looking guy. Really good at baseball, even though the Phillies have been playing the Savannah bananas every night. Uh, and then just be like, yeah, but it's me. I'm going. You're going to problem with me, not Bryce Harvey. Yeah.

You don't want to stand next to somebody way more attractive than you when asking such an important question.

Right, right.

I don't know, but I guess it works. So good job.

Yeah.

Max, what do you. What do you think about this weird.

No all time good guy, Bryce Harper. Philly just appreciates Bryce Harper. And obviously, she was thankful for Bryce Harper to come and be part of her prompt promposal. So she was saying, thank you, Bryce Harper. This is something I'll remember for the rest of my life. And now I'm going to go spend the rest of the rest. Rest of my time with this lovely man who got Bryce Harper to come.

To my doorstep wishing it was Bryce Harper.

That's not true.

Wishing he was.

That's not true. Bryce Harper is just a very good guy, and philly respects good guys.

Okay. Have you ever had the Phillies are.

Playing really good baseball?

Who do they got next week? The Trent and thunder?

They're playing the world champs, the reigning world champs right now.

Oh, let me see. Pretty good.

Well, yeah, they. Now they're under 500. They lost the fills. All these seems loser. The fills, and they don't go under 500.

Yeah. Baseball, major League baseball has a Philadelphia problem. All the. All the teams are bad because the Phillies keep beating all crack.

I don't. I think the Phillies are very good. I just, like Max has not been able to say, like, good win fills without also saying, what are the losers going to say?

I mean, well, that every time anyone posts anything about the fills, it's just they haven't played anyone's. It is crazy.

Isn't it so annoying when people do that? Max, you can only fucking play the teams in front of you.

But Hank, he got you when he said just a tatum played like dick, but now you're back.

And he also didn't in the fight.

Said in the fourth quarter.

He said in the fourth quarter.

And he was also 25.

Oh, so they have the Rangers, the Rockies. That will be good.

They haven't played a team over 500 since opening weekend. The opening series, the. I don't know. Because they still don't until June.

When a team loses to the Phillies, they get beaten so badly, they get demoralized. And then they lose all their cars and they can't go on and win any more games.

500 in the NL right now.

Yeah. But.

So their fault.

They're playing the Rockies, the. The Giants and the Cardinals coming up.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know.

You want me to say, okay, but.

All time good guy.

All time good guy. Love Bryce Harper.

Bryce Harper's a great guy.

Great guy. I still. Kind of a weird move to have somebody else come in one of them.

It's not a weird move. It's more of, like, a dumb move. Yeah, yeah.

Short sighted move.

Like, have Bryce Harper come and visit. Be like, hey, will you go to prom with me? If we go to prom together, I'll have Bryce Harper come to your house.

Yeah, that's good.

Or angle it like a carrot.

Or just have Bryce record a video.

Yeah.

Like, hey, will you go to prom with this guy?

Yeah. Yeah.

I'll hit a dinger for you if you do.

I like that.

My cool throne is Marvin Harrison Junior because he is engaged in a big legal dispute right now. I don't know if you've seen the ongoing dispute with him, but I saw headline. You can't. If you're a Cardinals fan or anybody else, you can't buy a Marvin Harrison junior jersey yet. And the reason for this is because he never signed with the NFL PA. And the reason for that is back in college, he was approached. A lot of players get approached by fanatics when they're in college and they are asked to sign their rights over for, like, autograph sessions, merch, things like that. Because college players can do that. Now, Marvin Harrison junior said, no, I'm not going to sign this right now because I think my name is gonna be so big when I'm a rookie that it's gonna be worth more than you're gonna offer me as, like, a college sophomore.

Right?

Which is probably accurate. Probably smart. So he didn't sign that then? And then they asked him to sign the NFLPA thing so they could now sell more of his merch. He said, no, I wanna figure this out and do more negotiating on it. And now fanatics is suing Marvin Harrison junior so that they can start selling his jerseys. So they claim that Marvin Harrison junior signed an term sheet, which is just basically a piece of paper saying, like, I intend to do this, not a legally binding contract. They claim that he signed that before the draft and that they should be allowed to sell it. But the bottom line is you're not going to be able to buy Marvin Harrison jersey, Marvin Harrison junior jerseys in stores for a very long time. And he's probably not going to be in video games either until he gets this all sorted out. But once he does, he's probably gonna get paid a shitload of money for it.

Smart by him.

So very smart by him. And again, I'm taking Marvin Harrison junior. S side in this 100% because his dad is Marvin Harrison senior.

Yes.

And I would not want to be engaged in any sort of dispute with that family. They're a great family.

Yes.

But it does seem like he's figured out, oh, yeah, maybe we shouldn't sign these contracts when we're college sophomores. If we are planning, if we're expecting to get drafted highly in the NFL, signing, like, a five year deal when you're a college sophomore, not the smartest thing in the world.

Was he at the rookie thing where, like, everyone was in their jerseys running around the. It was like. It was like, yeah, the first round picks.

Let me see. Marvin Harrison junior.

Probably not based off of.

Yeah, this. I'd like to go in the trust tree for a second. Can I say something with full trust and can't be clipped? This is something I'm gonna have to get over. But it's just years and years and years of this. The minute Caleb Williams put in on the bears uniform and they had him, like, running around as a quarterback, he lost all his swag. Yeah, and that's the bears uniform.

You have to overcome the speaker.

Speake.

He two's gotta figure out how to overcome the bears quarterback uniform.

The entire vibe around it, right.

People were tweeting about it, like, dude, this guy's got no swag anymore. I was like, shit, I kind of agree. I think he needs to advise her. Maybe some kind of cool arm sleeve. I don't know what it is, but it scared me because it was like, again, it's not Caleb Williams. It's the bears uniform that scared me. Yeah.

There's only so many things you can do.

Well, it's just like, I can't envision someone, like, dropping back in a bear's uniform and, like, throwing it down the field.

What about, like, pink shoes?

That would be cool.

Pink shoes, maybe. Yeah, that's a good idea. Marvin Harrison Junior was invited to. Did not attend the rookie premier. Hank, because of all this.

Speaking of which, did you see that photo? Any thoughts on your guy trying to steal a couple inches?

No. Respect. You got it.

Did you see that?

Yeah.

You got to take every inch in league.

Yeah, that's true. It's game inches.

I don't.

Al Pacino taught us that.

Tippy toe.

Shame on the greatest NFL coaches of all time.

It happens but, yeah, so the rookie premiere is weird. They just stand out on a field, right? And then they're just like, look, they're wearing their new uniforms. Yeah, that's it. That's all it is.

Yeah. They like, run around a little bit.

Yeah. The NFL monetize anything.

Yeah, yeah. And everyone just see. And then everyone just like. And then dove climbing. Tweet something.

Oh, did you guys see that? The fake news going around about Joe Burrow?

There's fake news about Joe Burrow?

Yeah, the hair. Yeah, the hair went, like, mega viral and it was just, it was made up.

Why did anyone think that was real?

I never for a second thought I was rock.

Spotted a UFC fight like, two weeks ago, and what?

It's just still like, yeah, that was the fakest.

He had longer hair, but it's that they literally just took Anakin Skywalker.

Yeah. Right. I don't know why anyone thought that was real.

I don't. He looked like it. Like an early nineties sitcom actor.

Yeah. Like a hair metal band guy.

Yeah.

But then there was also the clip.

If you had a mullet, that would be fucking sick.

That would be sick. There was also the clip of Mahomes showing up to the first day and people saying, he looked fat. I don't think he looked fat.

He looked powerful.

I. He also, I feel like Mahomes. You can't call Patrick Mahomes fat when you have three Super bowl rings. Whatever he's doing is working, so just let him do it. Like, that's not a guy. You can't. You say, oh, a guy looks fat showing up to camp. If they're like a second year player that had a disappointing first year.

He needs to be staying next to Andy Reid for all these pictures.

What are we talking about? Pat from home's fat and he's not fat.

And he's going to play his way into shape. That's what, that's what. That's what training camps all about.

Yeah. Like Eddie Lacey when he showed up that time, he was fat.

He was big.

Yeah, he was fat.

China food.

That was fat. This.

You have the whole summer to run around and lose a couple pounds.

Agreed. And he also wasn't fat. He just, he looked at a tight shirt. He had a tight shirt. He had a shirt that he needs. The me and Max's shirts that we can, you know, do this. The Instagram shirts. Yeah, we're just pulling on our shirts constantly. I'm getting a lot of those right now. Max all the time. And. And also the best part about the. The shirts you buy on Instagram that hide your boobs. Allegedly. If you buy one shirt, you also buy 7000 emails for the next year and you can't unsubscribe. They figure out a way through it.

And they're for other, like, fat related products.

They just. They just got you. They just got you. That's what you're signing up for. All right, my hot seat is angry birds. Angry birds. You guys remember Angry Birds?

Yeah, I replied it like six months ago.

Yeah, angry birds. So this one was crazy because is.

It like a game that you can finish?

Yeah, there's a bunch of levels.

What happens when you win?

You win.

Yeah. So I don't know why this is off. My turn this morning when I woke up, very weird. Angry Birds account, which has 700,000 followers, said, we sincerely apologize for an unfortunate incident that occurred on our account recently in an inappropriate post, was accidentally reposted from the account. This was a genuine mistake. We deeply regret any harm it may have caused. Huh. Streisand effect. I need to find out what was said. So here was what they retweeted. This is the angry birds account, the game. This is from Jelly Quee said, I used to jerk off to angry birds when I was about 13. I loved angry birds. I had every game and bought every toy they had. One day I was playing angry birds when all of a sudden the big red bird turned me on. I couldn't stand it. I was going crazy. I decided to pull and they retweet. I did not have angry birds on the bingo card.

I see no, I see no problem in retweeting that. That's. That's somebody that loves your game. Like, if this podcast made people so horny that they had to jack off to it, it's so funny. I would retweet all those endorsements.

Yeah, it's just like, why. Why are they even apologizing? Because then I immediately was like, what did Angry Birds do? Some. Some kid admitted that he jacked off to angry Birds when he was 13. Who cares? But, yeah, angry birds. Remember Angry Birds?

It's a fun game.

It's way. Damn it.

A topgolf, though. Remember we beat that.

We've been hanging, right.

There was a movie.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, they did make a movie out of it.

Was it good, Jake?

I didn't see it.

That was one of those movies that came out like three years after the game was popular.

What's your favorite bird from the games?

I don't. I was a tiny wings guy. I still play tiny wings. Tiny wings is elite, I think.

I like the red one.

I read one's a standard.

I honestly don't remember the. The different birds.

You remember ones? The boomerang, the big black bomb one that did a lot of damage.

Yeah.

On the levels.

Yes.

Remember Flappy bird?

Yeah, flat.

The guy. The guy got so stressed out that he quit that he took it down.

Yeah.

Cuz everyone was getting mad at him.

I don't remember that.

The game when there's like a flappy bird 2.0. That was a big.

Yeah.

Temple run.

He's getting like that. It was like a really, really hard game. And he was getting death threats and it was like the most popular thing of all time. And he just. And he just deleted. Deleted the app because he was too stressed out.

Do you guys ever play the running T Rex thing on Google? Like when you don't have Internet connection? You know how like a Trex shows on like. Oh we don't have Internet connection. Did you know that's a game that you can play right?

That's pretty cool.

Yeah. If you hit spacebar you like just run through all these levels and you jump.

Oh, that's awesome.

It's actually great game.

I play tiny wings. I like every flight still.

Really? I never got into those games. I was the old school only one. I mean Snake was the greatest game ever created. Brick breaker probably, I don't know, a year of my career, my former career was brick breaker just trying to beat it. And then I found out that when you beat it you just go back to level one. It just goes faster. That was a bummer. And then Snood. Snood rocked on the computer.

Snooze.

It was no, Snood was good. I remember that when I was like.

Very blue guys that you had very good shoot.

Actually when he was very young.

Oh shit. How young I was probably. Yes. Old game. I'm old, right? What do you want me to say?

These guys don't know about Microsoft pinball. You know about the one that came.

Oh yeah, yeah. Snoot rocked.

Yeah. But yeah, the. The one that came on like every PC.

Yeah, I would play that when, when the Internet would. Would go out.

That and plan trying in like every, I don't know, like two months. You get so bored. You'd be like, maybe solitaire is fun.

No, no.

Never fall.

There's great.

And mine when the cards explode. What about those? There's not far.

The other Microsoft one. Will you mind slick around yeah, I didn't. I don't know how to play that. But I would just like.

Oh, the one that were there a bomb like you had that you had to figure out. I didn't know I would do it.

Oh, my God. This just fucking brought back a memory. Did you guys ever play the game where the guy. You were the guy skiing down the hill and then.

Jump or some.

No, no, this was like a addicting games or Java cafe.

No, it was like, you draw that one.

Oh, my God, this is gonna piss.

You basically do like a. You try not to crash, but no matter what, eventually, like the. How do you say, indomitable, abominable, domicile Sue. Snowman. Snowman would come out and just grab you and that'll be it. What was that game called?

This might be a Mount Rushmore.

Bad.

Non console game.

Free. What is that?

I don't know. I'm looking at a. Did you guys might be ski free?

I was ski free.

Did you google it?

Yes. Yeah, there's the monster that would come out, he would grab you. Ski free was awesome. Oh, man, I might have to play this game. Yeah, this might be Mount Rushmore.

Did you know I'm like non franchise console games? Like, no. Mad.

Yeah. Like, yeah. Java cafe. Addicting games. Calm.

Did you play co op?

Oh, that game sucks.

The runner.

Yeah. You had to get all his body parts.

Impossible. If you can make it 3 meters without runner, you're board with backyard baseball work. No, backyard baseball. I feel like that's too much.

Yeah.

Too similar to a console.

Yeah.

And that was like a game you'd buy in like a store, I think. Yeah, no, or like you had to buy you the buy CD rom you.

Had to get a cd for.

Yeah. These games.

You didn't have to get a CD.

Max. Max Dirt bike is the Max dirt.

Bike was a good one.

Great.

Did you. We had one that all of them were blocked on our school computers except.

For slap the monkey math.

Like it was like math games or something.

Oh, the rocket.

Cool math for kids.

Cool math for kids. And we would do lemonade stand. I remember crush lemonade stand at school.

Oh, I mean with the goat. With the ti. 83. Drug wars.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So.

Holy shit. That was. That was grand theft auto.

I sold so many. Lou?

Yes.

Mario teaches typing.

Yeah.

Mavis Beacon maybe speaking.

Yeah, yeah. Carmen Sandiego.

Yeah, yeah.

Hot. Oh, hot for sure.

Agreed. Hank.

Mavis Beacon. Hot.

No, I think Mavis Beacon was like an old goose. I think she was like an elderly goose.

Could be hot. How do we get here? Oh, angry birds. Yeah. So, yeah, angry birds had to apologize.

Somebody jacked off to him.

Then when they were 13, my cool throne is the Los Angeles Chargers, because Jim Harbaugh is starting the process of changing the culture. Our friend Sam Schwartzstein reminded us, or told us the story when we had him on, about how, when Harbaugh got to Stanford, he said, I am going to have to eliminate all traditions and things you guys do because you're such losers. I have to figure out what makes you losers. The Chargers had no music at OTAs, so Harbaugh took away music that is maybe the first thing he saw and was like, is this why they're losers? We will find out.

You have to earn your music. Yeah, I like that. I like that.

No music.

Whatever. Whatever was happening before was not working. So everything's gonna be different.

It's. It's a sound strategy. You guys are losers. Let's figure out why.

Mm hmm.

So, yeah, the Chargers, they're gonna be good. They're. Harbaugh will be in an AFC championship game over under four and a half years under. I agree.

I think it's like, I'd set it for five years.

Do it with three. I think we'll do it in the third or fourth year.

I think it's three.

Yeah. Yeah. AFC championship game, horrible. Be there. We'll be there. All right, Jake.

Finish off my hot seats. The chain gang, our friends on the sidelines, might be losing their jobs this football season. No, because tonight the NFL announced it'll run a trial throughout the preseason for electronically measuring first downs.

Yeah, this is bad.

Approves through the preseason.

It's really bad.

So this is bad. And here's why. Every time you watch a game, you're like, I can't believe we're using sticks in a chain.

That's what makes.

It's a billion dollar business to figure out where the ball is, if it's a first down or not. I don't give a fuck. The chain and the stick is awesome. It gives you. It's like another play. It's a free play that you get. So if you're close, if your team's close to get a first down and you're like, oh, I don't know, they bring the chain out there and you get a first down. The ref signals it when. When they put the thing down, you feel like you just gained a yard right there. You feel like that's a huge win. Also, if you're rooting for the team that's on defense. And you get what you think is a stop. You get to celebrate it because you get to hold your fist up and be like, yeah, we stopped you. And then the chain comes out. No, they didn't get it.

The incident stops running out.

It's another stop. It's one of the weird things about football that makes no sense at all. And if we were starting football from scratch right now, there's no chance in hell that there would be three old guys with sticks and a chain that run out on the field to measure things. It would be electronic. If we're starting football from ground zero. But that's what we love about football, is the weird shit, right?

Yeah. No, this is bad.

Yes.

We need. We need, like, chinese or russian hackers to hack the electronic ones.

Yes.

We need something to happen to malfunction. We can't lose the chain.

Chain gang fly like an EMP drone over the. Over the electronic system. Make it fuck up.

We can't have this. We can't have.

Hopefully the NFL has people. And maybe. Maybe our takes bad. Maybe people don't like her take. Maybe people.

No, no, no.

This. No, I think. I think I'm right.

Because, see, our take is correct.

It's. It's something that you would never see in a modern game that was invented. But it makes it feel so much more real because there's human beings that are doing it and not a fucking AI system that's doing it.

Think about Davian Clowney hit. That's not cool. If we don't have the chain gain coming out and doing the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who's the guy?

What was the index card?

Yeah.

Measure. Now, they told him not to do that anymore, but it still happened. And it happened because the chain gang.

Yeah, I. Yeah, this is bad. It very bad.

I hope they don't change it.

I really hope they don't change it.

Cuz they're doing it.

Preseason, the anticipation. All right, I might boycott some of the preseason. No, the last game. Last game, they don't play anyone.

Maybe. Yeah, but it's football.

Yeah, but that last game, all.

At that point, we're just star free.

But remember, that last game always happens when there's, like, real college football playing.

I'm gonna boycott the second quarter of one of the games in week three.

Okay. All right. You have our demands. 24 hours to respond. NFL.

My cool throne is getting hit by foul balls. Usually it's a bad thing, but this blue Jays fan, she took 110 miles an hour foul off Bo Bichette's bat. You guys see the picture?

Yes.

I have a bad take, but.

But she looks like selling 110 cards of her, and it's. The damage is crazy. She took it like a champ.

I have a bad take about the shit injured.

She has a black eye, and she.

Had a giant, she had a huge.

Hematoma that was swelling out from her forehead was massive. She looked like. That was her thug rose that lost.

That UFC for she wearing.

What do you mean? Was.

It was crazy. It was crazy.

Where was she sitting? Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Oh, my God.

Where was she sitting?

She looks like JFK.

All right, I'm gonna keep my bad. There it is.

Okay.

Yes.

Selling her car.

There.

A video of the. Of the foul ball.

I thought it was kind of lame to beg for a ball after I did. I just, I. Yeah, but I don't know. I just saw it, and I was like, okay, that sucks. She should have gotten a ball in the moment. Yeah.

I mean, someone should have probably come over to.

Right, right. But then to, like, wait a day and be like, hey, I didn't get a ball. Give me a ball.

Yeah, it's just kind of. No, it's common courtesy that if you catch that ball, if it lands next to you after bouncing off her head, you treat it like, it's like a. An athlete throwing a ball to a child in the stands. You catch it and you give the ball to that person that got hit. Yeah, in the moment.

Yeah, she should have gotten the ball in the moment. But once the moment passes, it's like, hey, guess what? No ball. I don't earn it.

I don't like, I don't like her being on a baseball.

I don't like free. I don't like free. Like, you don't get the free ball. She also's got a ball in her head. Jesus Christ.

Or her name's Liz McGuire.

I like the show. I'll say this. She is way tougher than I am, because I would fucking. I would have had a stretcher take me out. No chance. I would have stayed there.

It looks like she has a baseball. Like, the baseball went under her skin and is attached to her forehead.

How. Where did she get, where is the video also, where did this. Yeah, where was she sitting?

I need to know where she was.

Wait, wait. I didn't even get the ball. Lady who eventually got the ball that ricocheted off my face wouldn't give us the ball. That woman's the worst woman ever. Mm hmm. Okay. That woman is the worst woman ever. You have to give the ball with the section channing. Give her the ball.

Wait, so this.

I'm back on Liz's side. You know what? That. You know what, though? Here's the thing. She shouldn't have tweeted the Blue Jays. She should have found that ladies at and ended her life so that this.

Lady Liz gets hit in the head with 110 miles an hour and she stays at the game for the rest of the game. For the rest of the game as.

Another woman takes the ball and leaves as a section chance. Give her the ball. So what would you have done? Would you tweet the next day being like, hey, I got hit in the head. Can I have a ball? I would. I honestly think I would have just tried to find the woman who stole the ball and just try to end her life.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like she's begging for the ball. The tweet was like, me up. Yeah, it's not a bad read. The tweet. It was like, hey, can you hook a girl up? Pretty good way to do it. But, yeah, I think her. Her anger, if she has any, should be reserved that really for the woman.

I would have.

I would have the ball.

Yeah. I would have been like, I'm gonna find you walk no matter what.

Walked around the streets with a cudgel until you saw.

Yeah, yeah. But you're fucking done. Also, where did she get hit? Because, like, not. I know where she got hit in the head, but where is she sitting? Because there's nets everywhere now. How do you get hit with 110 miles an hour like a deep foul ball?

Line drive. Outfields like those back sections in foul territory. I don't know if those are net.

I'd like to see a replay of the. Of the play. Same Mike. I just. I would like to see what, what, you know, what would. Did she try to make a catch? Miss it? Totally fair. Was she not looking? I don't know. I. I have her side. I just wish she had tried to strike vengeance with this woman, this scumbag who took her ball. That's a bullshit thing. Crazy fucking. That's a crazy hematopoe.

It's so big. Is this it right here?

The Toronto blue j?

I don't know where the footage is, but.

What's that in the middle, down the middle?

That. That I haven't seen. I haven't seen a hematoma like that since. Oh, sin. Since Rockman the boxer. Remember that one? No.

It's like there was one in UFC a couple years ago was a thug rose.

Yeah. Foul ball. I don't think we're gonna get the video. Yeah. What if she just was drunk, fell?

A lot of the broadcasts don't pan the foul balls unless they're close to being fit in fair terror territory.

Yeah.

What if this never happened, and the Blue Jays, she's like a marketing plant, are giving her a ball to get all the. And that. That thing on her forehead is all stage makeup.

We're on the Internet too much.

Yes.

Yeah. All right, so my final ruling is I'm I back Liz McGuire. I wish she had not asked for a free ball. I wish she instead had tried to end this person's life. That's fair, right? Yeah.

Or no. It would have been better if she asked the Blue Jays to find that woman. That woman. Yeah. Hey, guy hitting the head. I didn't get the ball. Unfortunately, somebody else caught it. Is there any chance that you can have her killed? Yeah, that would have been good.

All right, so, yeah, that's the final answer. Is that her tweet? She said when she said, can you hook me up? It should have been, can you hook me up with all the information of this fan so that we can enter?

Yeah.

With her home address, her work address, and a semi automatic.

Yeah. Okay, so good hot seat. Cool throwing, guys. Let's get some interviews. We got Xander Schofley and Brian Winhorse, and then we're going to finish with pardon your take.

And the lottery ball.

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Great deal and great shades. Try for yourself. The shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. That's shady rays, baby. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. Fresh off his first major victory, the PGA champion, Xander Schofley is joining us. The trophy is in his background. It looks great. I also want to say, xander, your hat tan line is starting to look a little bit better, too. When you won the. We want to talk about everything, but when you took off your hat, did you know in the back of your head, you're like, oh, this is. I've been playing a lot of golf in the sun recently, and I'm like a Stewart sink out here. Damn.

I didn't know I entered that legendary status, but, yeah, yeah, I made aware. Don't worry. I don't get away with much with my team. So they. My caddy told me he was. I took my. Or he shaved my head, and while he was shaving my head, he was like, damn, dude.

I was like, what?

What?

This? It was perfect. I mean, that's always. That. That always happens with a major champion, too. It's like something they win, and then everyone's like, oh, how can we roast his outfit or something just to make ourselves feel better? But I want to go back to 18 in that putt. Um, what were you thinking before that putt? And, uh, were you like, this is. You know, it was. It was obviously not super far, but what was going through your head when you're lining up that putt and about to hit it?

Yeah, I was nervous. I mean, it was. It was. It was a bad spot. I. I walked up, I saw left to right. I saw, like, left edge, left center. I kept reading it, and I saw, like, right edge, right center. And then I was like, this is. This is not good, you know? And then I was like, I can't call Austin in. It's going to make me, like, doubt myself more. So I kind of was. I just. I was like, screw it. I need to commit to this. And so I actually didn't take that much time because I was like, the more longer I look at this, the more more stuff I'm going to see. So I was nervous. I just ended up hitting it pretty straight. I actually. My putting coach texted me. He's like, he pulled it. And I was like, thanks, man. He's right. You know, I was watching. I mean, I've watched that putt now, like, six times, and it looks. It looks like it's going to miss every time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Being a fantastic putt under pressure. And the shot, I think it was two shots before that. When you're standing in the bunker, your feet are in the bunker, and you're hitting the shot. It's. It's elevated. You and your caddy had a little talk before that shot, and the mics picked up some of it, and it sounded like your caddy was saying, yeah, you know what? If you end up hitting that into the bunker, that's not a bad shot. It's a good place to be. And I thought I saw you give him a look like, hey, don't. Don't say that. It's okay if I hit the shot into the bunker, but when he's guiding you through that shot, like, are you. Are you angry with him in the moment for being like, don't even introduce the concept of a bunker to me?

No, no. He was. He was talking about that middle bunker. He was like. Cause I was like, you know, I want to aim really far right. And I was like, if I hit it on the right side of the green, no problem. And then he was like, actually hit it on the left side of the green. It's easier. And I kind of looked at him, I was like, is it? But then I was like, I don't know if I should. You know, I don't want to think that hard. One of my goals was to keep it simple. So, you know, he's. He's my caddy. I pay him to give me good advice, and so he gave me good advice. So I aim kind of. I aim far right, obviously, because I'm hitting like a baseball stance golf shot. But I pulled it left of that middle bunker, and then luckily, it didn't go into that left bunker. Cause I would have been a hard up and down.

Yeah.

And as you're playing that hole, is the thought in your head, like, I don't want to get into a playoff, where the playoff hole will be a par five and I'm going up against Bryson hundred percent.

I mean, absolutely. Actually, I didn't even know the playoff is actually an aggregate. It's three holes.

Oh.

Oh, yeah, I know that.

And that's. Yeah, that's just way more pressure. So, I mean, it's just.

It's just a lot. Yeah. I mean, the momentum would be like, you know, he birdies the last hole, I mess up the last hole and don't clutch up. And then here I am, like in a playoff, like, where I feel like I shouldn't be. So I just was in, like the season moment situation and luckily that ball lipped in.

Yeah. Could you tell, was there anything that you could tell that was different about this last round? Because you've obviously your unbelievable golfer and you've been in these big moments and come just short a bunch, but like, that last round, I thought the, the bogey on ten when it, like, the leaderboard switches and it's like, that's the moment. You're like, uh oh, is this going to fall apart? And then you come back and go, birdie, birdie. Could, was there something different about Sunday that you just, like, had a confidence to you or some, some feel to it, like, this is mine.

Yeah, I know for sure. I mean, I had that sentiment. You know, I was, I was good all day about committing, like, staying my process, you know, all that nonchalant, all that cliche stuff. But I get to ten and I'm kind of like, I don't know how I want to hit this chip. And then I ended up hitting the chip I didn't really want to hit. And then I f it up and I make bogey and I, you know, I get to eleven and I was like, I need to hit a good shot. Hit a great shot. I get up to the putt and I look up to the board and it says I'm in second. And I was like, damn. You know, I was like, how am I in second? Like one hole ago I was leading, now I'm in second. So everyone I knew, everyone was burning ahead of me. And the big difference was, was just that, I mean, I, I had this overwhelming feeling of sort of not, not today, you know, like I've been in this spot too many times in the last two years where I've sort of, you know, curled up a little bit and got a little, like, defensive.

And so I just said, screw it. Like, I need to, I need to earn this, I need to win this. I need to stay aggressive because guys are making birdies and I need to be one of those guys. And so that's what I did.

Yeah.

Did you do anything different for breakfast or for your meal? Like a quick snack during your round that, that maybe switched up the vibes for you this time?

No, just, it was, it was a lot of self talk vibes that were different.

Yeah, just like confidence building stuff.

Like, yeah, yeah. I always am, like, pretty, pretty confident. I always am pretty, like, you know, comfortable in these spots, but I just. Something was. Something was different this time around. I really felt like it was my time. It was like it was my time to shine. Like, after last week happened, that was a big letdown for me. You know, I got beat. He played way better than I did. I didn't give him any pressure. It was that kind of. It was like those last seven holes where it's like to be in a final group on Sunday and to have, like, the first nine holes feeling like you're going to win the tournament, and then, like, two holes later, you're playing the last seven holes. Feeling. Feeling like you have zero chance to win a tournament is like, an awful feeling when you've pretty much, like, led a tournament for the entire week. So I know that feeling, and I really didn't want to have that feeling again, so I just had to stack up.

Yeah. And then, then you celebrate, and you. It looked like a pretty fun celebration. I saw you drinking out of the trophy, and I feel like you have to do that. What was the first thing that you poured into the trophy?

Austin poured some cheap champagne into it, and everyone was yelling at him. And I looked around, I'm like, where are we going to get nicer champagne? And everyone's like, all right. So we all just ended up drinking.

It was like, Andre, I don't even know.

It was started with a k. I have no, I mean, I was. I was drinking. A member at Valhalla was nice. He gave me cigars, he gave me whiskey. It was. It was a night where I know, I know. I normally don't drink too much, but, you know, it had to be done.

Yeah. All right, I got a dumb question for you, and don't take offense to this, but do you feel like you robbed us a little bit of being the guy who can't win the big one? As, like, media people, we love being like, oh, that guy can't win the big one. You kind of won the big one a little too early. I need another, like, five years.

You want me to bathe in my own shit for another five years?

Yeah. Yeah, because that's our favorite storyline. Huh? Great golfer can't win the big one.

Phil was like that for a long time.

Yeah. Did you. You kind of. Sergio. Yeah. Did you rob us?

Yeah. You know what? I did.

Yeah. Maybe apologize. I don't know.

I mean, you're. You're honest. At least you're not. At least you're honest. You know, you're in this line you're in. You're in this line of work, and you're one of the honest ones to say that, you know, everyone else is like, oh, I'm so happy for you.

Yeah, yeah. They're thinking in the background, in the back of their head, they're like, oh, we had so many more stories. Like, you know, like, we could have done a big, you know, feature on Xander being like, can Xander win the big one now that you robbed them food off their table? Yeah.

Listen, Dan Marino has. Has served that role very importantly, I would say, for NFL media for the rest of his life. Right? Like, the amount of stories, the amount of things that people got to say now, it's like, okay, yeah, Xander, I guess. I guess he proved us wrong. Now we actually have to be creative and do something interesting with our job and try to actually dig into something deeper behind the. Besides the fact that this guy just hasn't won a major yet.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, nays gotta go talk shit about someone else.

Well, I just realized we played ourselves because I was thinking, like, who's the next can't win the big one guy? And we'll just say that. No, that guy will win a big one.

No, it's not him. No, he's talking about Max.

Yeah, he's gonna win a big one. That's gonna win a big.

Do you think Max has what it takes to win a big one?

Of course. Yeah. I mean, if you're a top player in the world, I think all those guys. I mean, you just. I am, like, I can do an interview on close calls. So, like, I I know better than anyone else what it's like to just sit on the other side of the fence, like, with pretty much your entire body over, and you're just like, what? Why am I not on the other side of this thing completely? And so, yeah, you know, you just. You need some things to go your way. You need a good break. You need to be in the better wave. Like, all those small things add up, and then at the end of the day, like, you just need to really take advantage of the moment and, you know, put yourself in the position enough times. Like I said. I mean, I know that better than anyone else. You're going to. You're going to. I kept saying knock, knock, knock on that door until you fricking bust that thing down. I just need your damn battering ram to do it.

Yeah.

And what you did on Sunday was incredible because it felt like, you know, big cat talked about when you. When you lost the lead momentarily. And then Bryson hits his. His ball off a tree, and it bounces perfectly into the middle of the fairway.

I heard about any birdies. I heard about that.

Yeah.

That. That, to me, felt like, okay, the gods are just stacked against. Against Xander right now.

You see that stuff?

Yeah.

Like, when I won the travelers, I hit this ball, like, out of, like, towards, out of bounds, and it hit. And then hit off, like, you know, there's like a fence post. Like, every 4ft, it hit off one of the fence posts and then kicked back in play. And I'm like, that was my break, you know, like, from the golf gods. But then, you know, I hear about Bryson doing this, and it's like, I'm sure everyone watching was like, oh, my gosh. Like, this is his break. Like, this is what you need to win a tournament. So it's fortunately, you know, fortunately went my way.

Yeah.

Have you gone back and watched your final round yet?

No, I haven't. I've just seen the putt, you know, six times now, I think.

Yeah, I would do that. I would do that if I were you. I would just sit there and watch my entire championship winning round.

Yeah.

Sit on the couch like everybody.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you don't. You don't seem like a guy that would do something like that but win a championship.

I would just have it be playing on loop forever for the rest of my life.

Yeah, I. Yeah.

Walk in my house. You have to watch the final round. You have no choice.

I download the mp3 of the. Of just the announcers, and I just have it in my car all the time. Oh, I would be a terrible champion.

Yeah, I. Xander, I saw a winner. I got a question about your dad, who seems like an all time figure. He's your swing coach. Been your swing coach your entire life. That's. That's nice of you to give him a job. He also. I read that he watched, or he didn't even watch you win this tournament. He was in a shipping container in Hawaii because he's building a family compound. So that alone, like, what. What happened there and then I have a follow up question.

Yeah. So a lot of that is true. He's been my coach for forever. I actually, actually ended up hiring Chris Como in November. We've been working together since November of last year. And so I've known Chris for quite some time. Had a mutual friend that kind of introduced us, uh, way back. And so my dad knows Chris pretty well. He. Chris did like a little golf channel thing with us when he was working with them, and so, uh, my dad just felt comfortable. He was like, you know, I don't. You know, he's always going to be, you know, he's always gonna be my dad, but in terms of, like, the golfing capacity, he sort of passed the torch over to Chris, and he felt like, you know, there's no need for him to be there if, you know, I'm there with, you know, the rest of my team. So he is. He is definitely a character. His nickname is the ogre.

Yeah.

We can get into why that is.

But why is that? Yeah, tell us why.

It is pretty self explanatory, but.

All right, so here's. So how is the ogre, though? I've seen pictures of him. He's always wearing, like, linen and cool hats. He seems like he's, like, right out of a Tommy bahama like catalog. But he's the ogre.

He's the. I mean, the ogre is more of a. He. He handles. He handles conversations and tough, tough, I guess, situations in an ogre fashion. You know, he's not afraid to get. He's getting your face. Yeah, put it like that. He was like that growing up, too, so he's been consistent on that front.

Well, so that was my other question because I heard this story, and it's a hilarious story. Your dad was your swing coach, is your swing coach your entire life, and he would not let you watch your own swing until you were 17 or 18 and even threatened your friends to be like, if you show him a video of his own swing, like, you're gonna be in trouble. Yeah. Is that true?

Yeah. Kids are like, I'll be like, dude, look, come on, let's. Let me. Like, I need to see what's going on. Like, you know, I don't feel good about this. And they're like, no, sorry, man. I can't get someone else to do.

That's incredible. So why did he not want you to see your own swing?

He just was like, you know, there's no. He's like, one, you're not going to know what you're looking at. Two, he's like, you're going to try and be too perfect. So he's like, what's the point in you looking at your swing and, you know, you know, making you want to lose your freaking mind? And so he's kind of right. You know, sometimes I look at my swing now, and I'm like, luckily, you know, I have Chris to talk to about my swing in the videos, but sometimes I look at my swing. And I'm like, I mean, it looks fine to me. And they're like, no, you're doing that wrong. And I'm like, I mean, I guess you're right. Like, I didn't see that, but sure. So we just let the pros handle that.

Yeah, that's, that's a smart move. Like when you're 1617, you, your swing is built up in your mind's eye. You have it like pictured in your own head what it looks like. And then if you see it, it's like hearing the sound of your own voice and you, yeah, it's like you.

See yourself running, you see yourself getting interviewed. You see yourself throwing something. You feel like you're Jason Bourne in the situation. You see a clip of it and you're like, wow.

Yeah, I got a lot work. Yeah, people are roasting me online for my backswing. I got to fix something so it looks better.

Yeah, I just love the idea that he told all your friends, like, do not show him his own swing. And you're just walking around being like, will someone let me see my swing?

I did see a picture of him. He's got your gold medal. Or at least he did. Does he still have it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I have this, I got this puppy right here just for the, just for the moment. It's going to go back to the west coast. My parents are like the safekeepers of my trophies and so they're going to, I mean, they're probably going to party way harder than I did with this thing to be. They're going to go around town in San Diego and let everyone drink out of it if I had to guess.

I love that. Yeah. That your dad posted kind of a, kind of a thirst trappy picture of him wearing the gold medal, just wearing like a swimsuit, flexing your dad's strongest shit.

It's a speedo. Yeah, he's, you know, he's got that old man strength, you know. I don't know how I feel about it anymore. He's getting, he's going to turn 60 this year, so I'm sure I can, I can take him at some point.

I got, this is another dumb question for you. It's something that we're planning on doing here because we saw John Daley's round on Thursday where it was reported that he smoked two packs of cigarettes, had couple cokes and I think four Snickers bars. We're going to try to do the John Daley challenge. Do you think that's possible for us, as a podcast, to smoke 40 cigarettes, and. And obviously, the two cokes is fine. Max takes care of that in about five minutes. And the Snickers bar. Do you think it's possible for a non smoker, mere mortal, not named John Daley, to accomplish that feat?

100%. I mean, it just depends on what's on the line.

Nothing.

Pride.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just us embarrassing ourselves.

Just the ability to say a lot.

Yeah.

Smoke a lot of cigarettes.

I don't know. Usually when someone tells me I can't do it, I usually get it done. So it may take me. May take me longer than others, but, you know, if you tell me I can't smoke 40 cigarettes in a day, I mean, I. I might need an iv and a hospital, like, treatment after that, but, like, I think. I think three or four of you guys can. Can rip through some heaters.

Okay.

Yeah. Um. Hey, did you have a chance to talk to Scotty at any point this weekend? Because he kind of. He kind of cut you a little bit with the storylines being like, I got arrested and you just won your first major. Did you have any chance to talk? It was the craziest story.

Yeah, yeah, I did. You know, I. He was. He handled it really well in Scotty Shuffler fashion. I mean, he's. He's a. He's a good dude. As soon as I saw it, I mean, I won. I thought it was a prank, and then I saw it on news, and I was like, holy smokes, it's actually happened. And then he's, you know, I hope he comes out. It's not. It feels like he's going to come out like, okay, from all of this, it feels like things are going to get dropped. I don't know. But he's. He took it like a champ, and we're all giving him. You know, we have, like a. We have a group chat, you know, with our physio or our team recruits like me, Gary, JT, Jordan, Scotty, Pat. We all share the same physio. So the boys were heckling Scotty a little bit. Just enough.

Yeah, you got to change the picture of that group chat to the. To the mug shot.

Obviously, that happened.

Yeah. That's good.

I actually think that's what I'd want.

My boys to do if I. Yeah. If I got arrested for not a really serious thing, just being right. Yeah, let's roast them.

That's how you know you have real friends, right? So, yeah, I was thinking that the day that he got arrested, it was actually tougher for everybody else playing, not Scotty, because Scotty is riding off the adrenaline. It's fun to get arrested sometimes. And you're like, okay, sweet. Let's go to the golf course. Whatever. I'm out. I'm relieved. Everybody else is playing, thinking like, holy shit. I can't believe Scotty Scheffler got arrested for felony assault on a police officer like that. That screws with everybody else's brain out there, too.

Perverse psychology there. Yeah, maybe. I mean, he. And I mean, he shoot. He played. He shot 66 coming out of jail, so, I mean, that's like.

It's pretty crazy.

It's legendary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone else can say that. No one else on tour has been able to do that one. So, I mean, he's.

He's.

He's definitely. He's. He's at the top of the mountain for several reasons.

All right, I got another dumb question for you. Have you seen real bros of Simi Valley?

No.

Ah. All right. The main character, Xander, it's actually sonder. He's how he pronounces it, but that's like. That's one. Two of xanders. I don't really know any others.

Yeah, I guess that's why I've heard some guys yelling my name, yelling Sonder. And I just. I knew it was from something, and I just. My. One of my roommates was from Simi Valley, so I guess I'm not too surprised.

Yeah, yeah. You gotta watch it. It's very, very funny.

It is.

Okay.

How did you make that decision to go by Xander, not Alexander?

Well, my dad's German, if you've never heard him speak, so my name is Alexander, but, like, when he would yell at me as a kid, it just sounded like Sanda, you know, like a german dude. I never realized how, like, aggressive my dad's accent is until all my friends are like, dude, your dad's, like, really german. Just grew up listening, being yelled at by this dude, and then all of a sudden, you know, removed from him, I'm like, yeah, he does sound pretty weird, I'm not gonna lie.

Yeah. It's an awesome name. It's, like, very unique and cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, easy, you know, x. X is nice. It's simple.

Yeah. Throw the x.

Going to give it to you.

Yeah. Did you. Did you have. I would imagine you go online after whatever, after you party and everything. Did you have just a million people being like, I bet on you every tournament, and finally you did it for me, because I feel like that was like. A lot of people were like, yes. I've always. There's. There's, like, a huge Xander crew that was like, he's gonna do it. And that was their moment as well.

I don't. I actually. I don't really have social media, so smart. I have it, but I don't see. I don't have any of my passwords. I don't see anything smart. But, yeah, I mean, people will tell. I mean, I had, like a. I had, like, a twelve year old kid yell at me while we're playing, like, you're gonna choke.

I.

Like, I remember I was kind of walking and normally just keep my head down, but I remember in my head, I was kind of like, what the.

What did you just.

Where is your father? Yeah, what's going on here? So I can imagine, you know, I think I haven't won in such a long time. All the people that were betting on me, I feel like I hit this curve where it's like everyone was betting on me to win, and then everyone's like, this guy's never going to win. And so they just stopped betting on me. And then as soon as they stopped betting on me, I win, and now everyone's like, God damn it.

Yeah, the true believers. There's some true believers out there. So shout out.

Yeah, the ogs know who they are. You know, there's some quitters along the way, and that's fine, too.

Yeah, yeah. That's funny. So I read that when you got married, in your wedding, you dressed your dogs up in formal attire for the wedding. Is that true?

Yeah. I mean, you think that was my idea?

Like, are we just talking tuxedos or did one wear a dress or what?

Yeah, yeah.

I got an Aussie Labradoodle and a Frenchie. And my guy, my Frenchie, he looked like a stud in his tux.

Dude. We. Pft. And I went. So I have a coffee company named after my dog, and we give some of the money to where I rescued her in Chicago. And every year there's a thing called the fur ball that. It's literally, like a black tie affair, and people bring their dogs in, like, dresses and tuxedos. Yeah, it's crazy.

Long dresses that, like, follow the dog around. Yeah, it was awesome.

It's nuts.

Oh, my gosh.

Might have to have your dogs. They got the tuxes.

Yeah, yeah, no, I don't know. Yeah, he's a little chunkier than he used to be, so I don't know if it's gonna fit, but that's.

That's brutal. If he tries to fit in the, like, I can't fit in this anymore.

That plays. If it's a Frenchie, a Frenchie, like, trying to squeeze into a way too tight tuxedo.

Yeah, that would be a funny look.

Yeah.

Yeah, that does play. It's a nice touch for a bulldog.

Yeah. All right, well, this has been awesome. Xander, I got one last question. It's a rowback question. Rho back.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Qzips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com promo code take. It's a longer question, but your, your story is really cool because you weren't, like, coming out of high school, you weren't like one of these guys that everyone was talking about, and you end up going to a school that's not, like, known for golf. Like, when you, when you're like, coming up and going through the qualifying and everything, was there ever a moment where you're like, this, this is. I'm just so far off because I even read a story about how when you were in college, your golf coach, like, one of your first years, put you up against Patrick Cantley when you played UCLA. And he was like, I just want him to see, like, what the difference is, how far he has to go. And the story goes that you shot like a 76 and he shot a 63, so well. Oh, you shot us higher than 76, 78. Oh, shit. But like, that's. It's a very cool story because it doesn't feel like you were one of those guys that was anointed from this, this young age, but now you're one of the best golfers in the entire world.

So in that process, was there a moment you're like, this is. I'm never going to make it?

Yeah. I mean, 100%. I mean, I, like, I think because of everything you've just said, I just had this chip on my shoulder my whole career. And, you know, I am a firm believer if you look at all sports, there's always, you know, the walk on type guy. You know, I had a, I was pretty, I was, I was a good amateur. I just, you know, wasn't. My class is ridiculous. If you just look up the class of 2011 golfers, I mean, I can name like 15 guys that are all on tour, that have won, basically. And it's like, that's just ridiculous to have a class where everyone's that strong. But, yeah, I mean, I think coming out of college, my senior year of college, I went to Q school, and I failed in second stage. I missed second stage by six shots. And so I was like, you know, I've been working my whole life. You know, I'm like, 21. Or, yeah, I turned 21 my senior year. So it's like, okay, like, this is what I really want to do. And then, so I go, I go to q school after I graduate, I end up getting through because a guy misses his putt on the last hole to let six of us in.

And I was one of those six guys. So I get in on the number, then I go to cornfairy web.com at the time. I do my time there, and I'm, like, 115th on the points list, like, losing my card, and then, like, I rattle off, like, you know, three, four top fives at the end of the year, and then I finished 26th on the money list, miss out by $900 to get my tour card, and I'm like, oh, my God, this is frickin you know, like, I feel good. You know, this is, this is not it. So then I go to the playoffs. I get my cards at the playoffs, and then I, you know, then I get on tour, and then I'm like, you know, same, same shit, different tour. I'm playing all year long. I'm like 130th on the FedEx cup because I haven't done anything. And then I Monday qualify for the US Open. I finished Hyde fifth, and that just, like, vaulted my entire career from that moment. And then I ended up, like, I secured my card at the travelers a couple of weeks later, and then I ended up, like, winning greenbrier, and then my life just changed.

Awesome.

It's like, but until that moment, like, until I secured my car to travelers, I mean, I had, I don't know where I had more relief, like, on 18 on Sunday when I made that putt and, like, I put my arms up and I was so relieved. Or when I, you know, got my car to q school or when I was able to secure my car to travelers and then to win a greenbrier, I mean, those are all like. And to me, it was cool because it all, they all just kind of stacked up. You know, they all stacked up, and I just kept going. And, yeah, you know, it's like, you know, you see other sports stories that are kind of like that. You know, it's like you don't really get your shot, but then you do get one, and then you just take advantage of it, and then you just can't look back.

It sounds to me like you're, like, one of the greatest, like, procrastinators, slash under pressure guys, where you're like, I'm not. I'm going to start playing my best golf right when I need to. Even the PGA, where it's like, all right. Enough people are like, oh, Xander's never going to win. Now I'm going to win one. So you just got to put a little pressure. It's like, then you just become the best golfer in the world.

Yeah. I mean, I'm San Diego born and raised, pretty laid back, so maybe you're right. Maybe I need to get a little east coast, like, energy into my veins.

Yeah.

So, where do you go from here? Now that it's hard to have a chip on your shoulder right now, you're. You're the hottest thing in golf. So what's. How do you motivate yourself now?

There's a chip on my shoulder. Uh, I don't think. I don't think it's ever going to leave. Charlie Hoffman was trying to tell me there's no chip on my shoulder, like, a couple years ago. He's like, you don't. He's like, you don't have a chip on your shoulder. And I was like, I lied. I couldn't even give him shit because I don't know if you guys know who Charlie Hoffman is, but, yeah, he would have. He would have given me shit about how he was right. You know? Like, he's just. He's just. He's just that guy. So it was funny. I was playing at in Dallas, and Charlie Hoffman's like, you don't have a chip on your shoulder anymore. And I was like, this mother. You know what I mean? Ended up shooting, like, 62 in the final round to finish, like, tight fifth because I wasn't playing very well at that time. This is like, two years ago. And I didn't text him because I knew if I texted him, he would have been like, you're welcome. I told you.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, for sure.

You know what I mean? So it's just winning one is a dream come true, and it's something I've always wanted to do, but I've always envisioned myself winning more than one. So, Scotty Scheffler is at the top of this mountain that I've referred to before. And, you know, I think when you're the number one player in the world, then you start have. You have to reassess what's going on and how to motivate yourself because you've pretty much accomplished everything you'd want to accomplish. But for me, I'm the second best player in the world, which is an awesome accomplishment somewhere I've never been, but I'm so far behind Scotty Scheffler that it's like I just have to keep my head down and keep grinding.

Well, no, no felonies, though.

Good point.

Yeah. I mean, but yet for golf, though, you know, golf is such, like a, like a professional sport. Like Scotty's got for. He's from Highland park in Texas or whatever. He's got more street cred than all of us.

I know. It is crazy that this is going to end up being like, oh, it's Scotty. Like, you know, that's kind of cool.

He gets, like, one of his ears pierced off.

Yeah, it's golf. Like every other sport, you're like, oh, shit. Like, is he gonna be able to make it in the season? And then now it's like, oh, he's a badass.

Yeah.

Neck tattoo. He's gonna.

Yeah, you guys. Yeah, you guys are just sitting around, you know, this beautiful country club being. Scotty's just telling the story for the hundredth time. He's like, so, yeah, they told me to stop, and I didn't stop.

Chip on your shoulder. You just said it. The chip on your shoulder is people saying you don't have a chip on your shoulder.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you're a chip on the shoulder guy, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. It's gotta. I mean, aware it, man. It's there stuck. Stuck on me.

I love it. Well, Xander, thank you so much. Congrats again, man. It's an awesome story and best of luck the rest of the year.

Appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on.

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And like I said, you can use marketplace groups reels in your interest exploration. You will find things you never thought existed and that's the beauty of Facebook and the Internet. So go right now. Check out Facebook. Visit Facebook today if you want to discover more. Okay, here he is, Brian Winhorse. Enough is something completely different. Okay, we now welcome on a friend of the program recurring guests. Very special guest. It is Brian Winhorse from ESPN. You can listen to him on the hoop collective. Brian, actually, I'm gonna do it from the start. You're gonna, you're gonna be mad at me for doing this. We got to get Wendy's book. He told me not to do this, okay, but I'm doing it as a friend. Yeah, we got to get Wendy's book. He's close to passing the advance so he could start you know, that's when the real money comes.

Yeah.

I was listening to his podcast. He said it. He was a little ashamed that he said it. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to. Let's get it going. So the book is return of the king, LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers, and we need you to. We need people to buy it. And I also need an update. How strong is LeBron right now? Is he still so strong?

So strong? Beyond just strong? So strong.

Okay, good. How does that work if we.

If somebody buys the audio version? Is there an audio version of it?

Yeah, it counts. So, I mean, like, you know, I've written a. You know, just. I appreciate. First off, Dan, I appreciate that.

Yes.

You know, thank you very kindly. It's always appreciative of you and your audience. That book was a New York Times bestseller. But, you know, the way it works is, you know, you heat, there's a certain line, and we've been dancing on that line. The book south seven years.

Right.

I've subsequently written another book also on LeBron that also was a bestseller. But I was just making a joke on my pod that I need the Lakers to win again, because the last time the Lakers won in 2020, we had a nice. You know, because normally you write a book about LeBron winning with the Cavs, about the championship, you know, by 2019, when he's in LA, that book ain't selling anymore. Right, right. We're doing overseas sales. Then when he won in 2020 with the Lakers, you know, it was pure mid Covid. People were like, oh, yeah, I'll take this LeBron book. And we had a nice bounce. So, you know, the Lakers, you know, getting knocked out in the playoffs is just hampering my chance to get past the advance, which is a no. Yeah, maybe. Maybe you guys would write a book and it would fly past the advance, but some of us, you know, have a harder time to do that.

Well, let's get. Let's get our audience to buy the book. Maybe if we get past the advance, you'll tweet out an update on LeBron's strength. Be like, just, you know, breaking news. LeBron still so strong.

I think that's a fair. That's a fair deal that I can run past various agents if you want.

Us to help out with, to really goose the numbers a little bit. We'll just report that. You said on part of my take that LeBron is going back to Cleveland. Oh, and then now there's a sudden interest in LeBron's career. In Cleveland. So what are the chances that Dan Gilbert gets on the phone, gets the band back together? Two boys riding again as one.

Yeah. So this is how it went. Lebron went back to Cleveland for Mother's Day.

Okay.

I love it. I love it. But yeah, yeah. Wendy did not ask me to do that. I'm doing that because I love Wendy. So do buy it. All right, so let's talk some basketball. I want to start with, we'll get to the Pacers Celtics series, but I want to start with the Mavs and the Wolves because I think we, you know, all of us watched that game on Sunday night and saw what the Wolves did, and we were shocked with the fact they came over, came a 20 point deficit in Denver for this matchup, though. How do you see it going? I feel like people are forgetting the Mavs are also a very good team and kind of anointing them the wolves already. I think they're the better team, the Wolves. But do you think, like, how do you see this matchup playing out in this series?

Playing out, first off, you guys are, you guys is infatuated with Aunt Edwards as I am. I know that's a vogue take now, like, everybody says that, but, like, last year, I went to a Team USA on this month long trip to Abu Dhabi and Manila. I spent a month with Aunt Edwards in Abu Dhabi, in Manila. And he had never been overseas before. And in all honesty, he, he later said that he kind of felt a little bit nervous about being on that team because, you know, he didn't know where his place was. And, I mean, it can kind of be nerve wracking if, you know, but this, this amazing thing happened with that team. Steve Kerr kind of saw him as a six man. They were like, I think we're going to bring Ann off the bench. And he came to ant before the playoff, before they played. He's like, hey, you know, in Team USA, sometimes star players come off the bench. You know, Dwyane Wade, in 2008, the redeemed team, Dwyane Wade came off the bench. Cause, you know, Kobe was a starting two guard and Ant was like, I was cool, but I didn't see Kobe on the roster, right?

And by this maybe the third exhibition game because they played like five exhibition games, Steve Kerr was like, yeah, actually, he's our best player. And so watching that process, I, like, walked away from that totally convinced Ant was going to have a great season. And so to see him do this has been awesome. And so I have no doubt at all that he is going to come into this conference finals with no fear and he is not going to be influenced by the moment.

Yeah.

But I am a little bit worried about the rest of the Wolves with that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Good.

I was just gonna say there was a very funny moment where it was cat and Ant after the game where they, they were asking him, you know, usually have to lose in the playoffs to figure out how to win. And he said, goddamn, how much do you want us to lose? Lost a lot in the playoffs already. Like, how much do we need to lose before we can win? And I get the feeling from Ant, like, he's definitely, he has, he seems to have the mental makeup to not shy away from big moments and to be a guy that will step up. He has the dog. As we've said, he is a dog. But then you worry about a guy like Carl Anthony Towns, who he will play, like, for one half like a dog and the other half like a cat. And then you're like, how do you put this together? I'm not so sure. So the question is, does he have, could he be the guy? Could he just put the team on his shoulders throughout a seven game series and be the best player on the court when you have a guy like Luca on the other side?

Yeah. This is like, they haven't been to this part of the playoffs for 20 years. Like, 20 years. I mean, they hadn't won a playoff series for 20 years. I mean, so, like, this year they put out a press release at the end of the season about how they sold out the season. The Timberwolves did. And they sold out the season because they. I think, and if this is wrong, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get in trouble if this is wrong. But I think they, like, covered up a couple of sections with, like, tarps and they sold all the available seats. This is like, I remember when I first started going to Miami years ago. Like, when Dwayne Wade got there, they had sectioned off the, up the highest deck of the arena. I don't know if it's second or third deck. The idea, like, of the wolves being this good, like they had closed off part of their arena for games.

Right.

That's where the wood. That's where the Wolves were.

Yeah.

Okay. And so now they're in the conference finals. And so, like, calling them the favorite in the conference finals, like, is wild.

Yeah.

And you know what's amazing, you know, I thought was, was such a indication of the way ant looks at the game. He wore the microphone in game seven. Now what? I mean, you know, obviously they want him to wear the microphone every game and I think it's kind of like an unwritten rule that the star players kind of got to wear the mic at least once in the playoffs. Maybe they make you wear it once in the finals if you get there. The players usually don't want to wear that and if they wear it, they'll wear it like early in a series. It's like, hell, yeah, give it to me. Game seven on the road. I'll take that mic. Put it right here. Yeah, here. And I know that that sounds weird that I would focus on that, but that meant that before the game was like, yeah, I'm not worried at all. Yeah, go ahead and record everything I said. Go ahead and record my trash talk too while I'm at it.

Yeah.

And so they haven't done it before, but his, his leadership and his belief, I don't know, maybe can care the best thing because Lucas been there. Lucas, you know, been, you know, over in Europe. I know people don't give Europeans any credit, but go try to win a road game like in the Euroleague where in some of those places there's little, there's fires and they have to have a police escort for the referees and there's people are lighting coins on fire and throwing them down to the bench and they have to like, not let the visiting fans into the arena or have the visiting fans leave and go. Tell me, yeah, the level of basketball is the same as the NBA. Luca won everything there was to win in Europe by the time he was 19.

Right.

So I'm not. Kyrie has obviously played in a ton of big games. There's less mystery for the Mavericks than there is for the Wolves. And so when you have a favorite and what is the number, do you guys know what the numbers?

I don't know what it is. I think it's, it's not, it's not severe. It's like, I think the Wolves were like -140 or something. Okay, so it's not crazy, but yeah, they are the favorite. But yeah, you're right. Like the. So I've been on a little thing where I'm probably going to end up picking the Wolves, but I think that people have a perception of the Mavericks that is not what they have been doing in the playoffs and the cohesiveness of their team and their role players stepping up. And here's one that I would like you to maybe explain. Everyone just says, lucas defense stinks. I feel like he's been playing better defense than his reputation. And it's kind of one of those things that it's going to take a little bit. He's not a lead defensively, but especially the team defense the Mavs have been playing has been a lot better than people assume. So when we get to this series, people are like, oh, man, this is going to be a lot harder for both teams to score because we know about Minnesota's defense.

They were the number one defensive team for the last six weeks of the season, which is one of the most amazing things that we saw happen in the, in the, you know, over the course of the season. And the, the Mavericks fans are really pissed off that Luca, I think he got one or two mvp votes. They're like, really pissed off that the team didn't get more credit because they went 16 and two to finish the season. But, you know, it's most valuable player of the year. You know, that's, you know, not that he was terrible before, but that, you know, you can't disregard everything else but the way that Luca had. There was a couple of times in their first round series where, like, I felt like Luca had never played defense. I'd never seen him play defense like that. Now, in this last series against Oklahoma City, his knee was bothering him, and I don't think he was quite as able to dig in as he was against the Clippers. But there was like, there was like one game against the Clippers I can't remember, was game two or three where I was like, oh, my God, Lucas, like, making game changing defensive stops, and they got him doing that the last quarter of the season.

I can't imagine if you were a Nets fan to watch what Kyrie is doing. Like, he is the perfect teammate. He is creating no distractions. He is playing defense. He is like, bringing people together. Like, even if you're kD, your KD out in Phoenix, you're like, wait a minute, what is going on? And I don't know. Maybe it's just that Kyrie is like 32 now and he's not 28, but like, this is the Kyrie that's a dream teammate. Even Lebron, like, Lebron was. Now, whether LeBron actually would have followed through on it, I don't know. And maybe Kyrie knew that. But like LeBron said on the record in front of people that he wanted Kyrie to kind of be this guy. He was willing to sort of shepherd him into it. I do think LeBron kind of saw him and Kyrie going for a while. That was impossible. Kyrie was like 25, right? This version of Kyrie and this version of Luca is not what we have seen before. So, yeah, the Mavs. The Mavs can win it all. The Wolves can win it all. And that's why this is going to be interesting series.

The other thing is two really good defenders that are underrated. Jaden McDaniels, I don't know. He's got $130 million contract. He might be, he might not be underrated. He's awesome. And he's going to be on Luca, that matchup. And then Derek Jones Junior, who makes the NBA minimum, was available for anybody to sign. Had, was in Chicago there last year and just didn't work out as the Bulls. The Bulls thought they took him from Miami. They thought he was going to be like a, like this kind of player for them. He never, by the end, he wasn't even playing. He is like them. Putting him in the starting lineup, like with about 20 or 25 games to go help trigger Dallas being really good on defense, well, he's going to get in, you know, and so those two matchups, Jaden McDaniels on Luca and Derek Jones junior and other people will help, but Derek Jones junior on ant, that's going to be a big part of that series.

Yeah.

You are. You're always at the forefront of reporting on what teams are eating the best dinners together and having the best productive dinner meetings together. I remember you wrote an article about the spurs legendary dinners. You told us about the, it was in the Heat Celtics series last year. A dinner kind of galvanized the team this postseason. What teams are the closest off the court?

I'm behind. I don't have, I think the closest off the court with the Knicks, by the way.

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Well, they play those guys watching the eclipse together.

Yeah.

Did they? I missed that.

Yeah.

They want the eclipse together.

Yeah.

Can I just say something about the eclipse real quick?

Yeah, go off.

I was really negative and skeptical about the eclipse, mostly because I was really annoyed. I had to travel around the eclipse and it was causing me a lot of problems. I was going to Ohio because my mom was having knee surgery on the day of the eclipse. So she scheduled it like, you know, she was having her knee replaced. She scheduled it, you know, months in advance. Obviously, the eclipse was known years in advance. I didn't know. And my sister was like, hey, maybe we should reschedule her knee surgery because it's an eclipse. I was like, what? We've been waiting for the surgeon for five months. We're not rescheduling the freaking thing.

Yeah, that's a crazy take from your sister. Yeah, that's a crazy.

Thank you. Thank you. So, anyway, I was really kind of annoyed because in my hometown of Akron, like, in Cleveland, it was like, you know, center of the totality.

Yeah.

You know, and I'd seen eclipses before, and I was like, come on, people. Like, what are we talking about? So I didn't actively try to get into the totality. I found myself there. And so I got the glasses, whatever, and I went outside, literally went outside the orthopedic hospital on the veranda to watch this totality eclipse. And it was 1 minute away from the totality. And I was like, okay, this is mildly interesting. I would look out the window. It is not worth traveling thousands of miles. And then that totality thing happened, and I was like, oh, this is actually pretty remarkable. And literally, in the moment that the totality happened, however, it was long, like four minutes or whatever. I get a call from the nurse, like, oh, your mom's been. Because we were like, she had got her knee done. We were waiting for her. She was waiting for us in her. In the hotel room. They're like, oh, your mom's in room 516. She's looking forward to seeing you. I'm like, I was like, yeah, hold on, hold on. Yeah, I'll get back to you. You know, she's just out of surgery, you know.

Yeah.

Like, hold on. I actually came for the eclipse. The surgery was just coincidental.

Totality going on.

Yeah, man.

Change how that was team building.

Yes. Yeah.

Team building of the totality.

I could honestly see Kyrie Irving becoming a whole new man after an eclipse.

Yeah.

I could see him experiencing that and being like, you know what? This is post totality, Kyrie. I'm gonna be a good teammate, okay? I'm not gonna tft.

I am making a note to ask ESPN stats and information, which is the greatest asset at ESPN.

Yeah.

People think that it's like, Stephen a or it's like the. The studios. The greatest asset at ESPN is the stats and information group. You can. This is a secret that no one will. ESPN will ever tell you, like, these games where they're end at, like, two in the morning or whatever, and you got to be on. Get up. Like, you roll out of bed, you got 2 hours sleep, and you've got this packet of information from stats and info we get on there. You know, the Mavericks were shot 66% coming off pin downs in the last 12 seconds of the shot clock, and that was a big difference in the game. They're the greatest.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm having stats and information. I'm giving them an assignment to look up. Kyrie posted clips.

Yeah. If there's like one number might be amazing.

Yeah.

If there's one thing that's changed. Because I do feel like on kind of a more serious level, like Kyrie, he has. He's learned over the years, I think not to. He's learned the hot button things that he can't say to the media. Right. He can have whatever conversations he wants with his friends, but it feels like he's not bringing that drama as much as he used to.

Yes. For now, without question. Especially since there's things in the world that he could definitely comment on that would be controversial.

Yes.

So. And by the way, now that I think about it, Dallas was like heart of the totality, right?

Yeah. Right.

I'm telling you, I think something flipped.

Look it up.

You have. You have potentially identified something incredible.

We got reverse werewolf Kyrie.

All right, so this is good. I can't wait to see the stats. I got a question for you. This is not Brian Winhorse opinion. This is GM's opinion. So it's a two part question. Rank the players. All say all contracts equal. You know, you call up a GM who they would want over everyone else.

Yeah.

Luca Tatum, ant Halliburton. So that's the first part. And then I have a second part of that question.

Luca tatum. I think they probably take Luca because he's six eight and he can be such a difference maker in a single game. And then Tatum and Ant is interesting because the ant defends, man. Like, this is the thing. Like when I see people rank these players, it's two ends of the court. And not only does ant defend, he wants to defend. This is the one thing. I don't know anything about college basketball. I don't have time or I don't have bandwidth to study it. I do watch the tournament, which is not a responsible way to evaluate college players. So I would never come out and.

Say, that's a John Paxson way to set up for the draft. Yeah.

The guy from Connecticut. Klingon. The center.

Yup.

The thing that blew me away about him when I watched him was that he wants to play defense. What I mean by that is he like, busts his ass to get into position. You can tell what happens on that end of court. He. He feels personally responsible for. And that's one of the reasons why to me, he is an exciting player. Because not only is he seven foot, whatever with like a seven foot, and I think Gavoni said seven foot nine inch. I think. I think Avoni said his standing reach is nine foot seven. So basically, if he gets on his tiptoes, he can probably touch the rim.

Yep.

It's one thing to have that and then not want to play defense. I've seen plenty of players like that. You know, I've seen seven. I've seen seven foot three guys who only want to shoot threes. Seriously, they have no interest in going into the paint. This guy wants that. And so that's why when I see Ant, not only does he, first off, he's got super long arms. Even though he's not super tall, he's like six four, he's got really long arms. He wants to defend. And that's the thing about Tatum. One of the things that happens at ESPN is that, you know, we always have these parlor games, you know, for first take, who is the best duo? Who's the best guy to build around? Who would you pick to start a team with? And I am always going to default to the guys that play both ends and Tatum plays both ends. And that's why a lot of people, I think, would pick Tatum. But Ant plays both ends, and he wants it. Yeah, he wants the ball. He wants the microphone. Honestly, I would. I was so impressed with him wearing the microphone.

Microphone got you.

If I was. If I was in these drafts meetings, you know, I was listening to guys talk about what they got, what they got asked. But I know this is a big thing at the NFL combine. This is a. This been gone for years. I would start asking potential top picks. Would you wear a microphone for a road game?

I love this one.

I could just see it. Yeah. Brian Winhorse sitting in like, you know, a front office, like a set of moneyball. And you got the. During the Utah Jazz thing and be like, will he wear a microphone? Game seven.

Right? Like, you got the coach over there going, how would you execute this pin down? And you got, you know, the general manager going like, you know, what's your most embarrassing moment? You know, well, you know, the first time you were alone in the backseat of a car with a woman, what did you do?

Yeah.

And then I would be like, they get to me and I'm the guy like, you know, the consultant who's like, you know, got some sort of B's thing. Would you wear the mic in game seven on the road? That would be okay. That's my question. See you guys later.

What about this? Do you think that. That Jason Tatum is such a coward that he made sure that his team had home court advantage so he would never have to wear mic on game seven on the road?

Absolutely. I think there's no. I think you should absolutely go with that take.

Yeah.

We're going to get back to Winhorse in a second. He's brought to you by Chevy. As everyone knows, this is a Chevy truck podcast. Up and down, through and through. They're the greatest trucks ever built. And our good friends over at Chevrolet have been a big part of the. Part of my take story throughout the years. We drove it across the country to get from Connecticut to LA for the big game. It got us there safe and sound. Chevy sponsors the low man trophy every year. We give it to the nation's top collegiate fullback, and all the regalia and ceremony around the low man presentation is brought to you by Chevy. It's been a part of our DNA here at part of my take for years. For years, Chevy's been there for us, and we're there for Chevy. I personally drive a Chevy. I love a Chevy. I love the Silverado. More importantly, it's the best truck that you can ever buy for tailgating. It's got unstoppable grit, legendary capability. It's dependable, it's commanding. If you're behind the wheel of a Chevy Silverado, you're going to absolutely fall in love with it. Just take it for a test drive.

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All right, so. So that's Celtics Pacer series. The Celtics are really, really good. Like, I know that they have not played.

Thank you for saying.

Well, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's unfortunate. The Celtics play in a conference that is not good, and they are a lot better than everyone. I. They're very, very good. They very well could win the title. I would probably. They're the favorites right now. Is there any chance the pacers can win this series? And if they do, how does what, what has to happen?

It's so tough to say that there's no chance, because I've seen the Celtics play in the playoffs these last few years. As I wrote in my 2009 book. What was the name of that book? What's going on right now? Reminds me of in 2009, the Cavs won 66 games. They went eight. No, the first two rounds of the playoffs obliterated the first two opponents, but weren't, like, amazingly impressive. They just, they got through the series, they had to wait nine days, and they played Orlando. Mad, the Orlando Magic, who had just gone off a seven game series with the Celtics, same situation. Orlando wins on a Sunday afternoon and comes to Cleveland to play the number one seed. 66 wins. Celtics have 64 wins. And the Cavs weren't ready for it. Now that Orlando team was not the six seed. They were, I think, the three seed. I think they won like 57 games. It's not exactly apples to apples, but I remember about that game is the magic hit the floor like they had been driving in a race going 100 miles an hour, and the Cavs hit the floor like they were slowly merging on, like Grandma looking over their shoulder with the turn signal on.

And so that's one thing I'll say about this, is that the Pacers have been playing meaningful. Every game matters, basketball, even back into the back end of the regular season, because they were trying to get that 60. They didn't want the seven and go into the play in. And that's why they haven't lost a home game in two months. I think the last home game they lost was like March 18, because all those games they had to win. And when you're, when you're the 6th seed, you can't be losing a home game in the playoffs and think you have any chance. And so they haven't. They've got, they've approached all those home games, seriously. The other thing is, it seems to me like the Pacers fans don't sell their tickets. So, you know, the Knicks have a huge fan base. We saw them. And I know Philadelphia and Indiana, it's different. But, you know, think there's not a lot of Knicks fans, Chicago area or whatever. When, when the doors opened up for game three, like, all of a sudden, like, the first 20 fans that came down to the court were Knicks fans. I was like, oh, boy, here we go again.

Nope. That whole, that whole crowd was, was that gold, yellow, whatever you want to call it. That place is hard place to play. So I know that the Pacers are much more in rhythm than the Celtics because these two series that the Celtics had, they were not exactly put the metal to the the gas to the floor series. The Celtics have had time off and the Pacers are awesome at home. So I do think this is not going to be a pushover. The Celtics are going to have to play. And in the same sentence, same paragraph, I'll say the Pacers are there in large part because the teams that they played were so banged up. No Giannis, then Dame got hurt, half the Knicks got hurt, and they were already missing Julius Randall. I want to honor the Pacers in the same way as saying that they were the beneficiary of not playing a team like the Celtics to this point.

Yeah, good answer.

I think that's valid. That's valid because they did, they took care of business, and the Knicks weren't necessarily like an easy out for them. That was a seven game series and they gave them all they could handle even with the depleted roster. But I do feel like the Pacers, they can score and the Celtics, they have a couple games, it feels like every series for the last few years where they just forget how to shoot, where they can't make a shot. And if you do that sometimes.

Pft. Sometimes they don't dribble.

Yeah.

They forget how to dribble.

Yeah. And if you can't. If you can't dribble or shoot, the Pacers are going to outscore you. They'll be able to do that. So I feel like. I feel like the Celtics should win this series. They should win it easily. But I wouldn't be shocked if the Pacers took two off them.

Yeah. I think that's a fair thing to say. The other thing is, like, the Celtics, they just, they've cost me so much time with my family the last two years. What I mean by that is they've had so many series that should have been over and that they messed around. And when I could have come home in between series, that's when you, as a, as a media member, that's when you get acutely aware of everything that happens in a game and, you know, getting, getting down 30 to the, to the heat and then winning three in a row and then losing game seven. If I was a Celtics fan, I don't know if I'd have been able to recover from the experience of that series, you know, and, and so that's the thing. They never do what you expect them to do.

Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. There are two losses. This, this playoffs have been like blowout losses, which, which had you scratch your head, but then what do they do? They just dominate the team after that and it's like that was never even a doubt. They're so much better than the Cavs in the heat.

Well, it's game twos, right? Bosses sports, Boston sports in general cannot win a game two in a series.

That's what Hank's been saying, so he's worried about game twos. All right, so, yeah, I like your answer, though, with the Pacers playing meaningful games, you know, the last two months and the Celtics have been on cruise control, I still think they're going to win this series somewhat easily, but that is a wrinkle. I had a question for you about. So I did a bad job, probably explaining it on our show on Monday. But the Mavs proved the tanking works with Derek lively playing incredible in game six. I remember the NBA media and everyone being like, pretty upset that the Mavs were blatantly tanking when they still could.

Luca was pissed off.

Yeah. They still could have made the playing game. Is, is the league going to now overreact to this? Because it. If. I am a big believer, if your team doesn't have a chance to win a championship, think about the future. Don't think about playing in a play in game and getting one more home, home court, you know, sale for the owner. Think about the future. And that's what the Mavs did. And they did it. And it worked.

Yeah. And so Luca had, in the closeout game against the thunder, Luca had a couple of, like, alley oops to Derek Lively, and he kind of had, like, this sly smile at the end of the game in the post game press conference, he was like, I'm actually pretty happy that the Mavericks got Derek lively right, which was his sort of, I mean, it was already obviously well known, but it was sort of his little, like, wink. Like, I guess it was worth it. Here's the thing about the NBA. You can tank. Just don't, just don't say you're tanking. That's when you get in trouble. You know, when you say that you're tanking is when you get in trouble. And, you know, I think there have been a fine or two over the years, and I think the Mavericks even got hit with it because I think Mark Cuban, like in a, in a interview, someone said, well, we tanked. They don't care. They just, you know, you know, you, you know, it's like, it's like they didn't care that you rested the players. They just wanted you to, like, announce it in the, in advance or sometimes not even say that they were resting.

It's about perception that you don't need, like, you don't need to bring in like, a hundred thousand dollar consultant, uh, who's got, you know, three management degrees and 50 years of experience fixing distressed companies to get the idea that looking at how the NBA rules work and suggesting tanking, you know, go tell the San Antonio spurs that tanking doesn't work.

Right.

Excuse me. Yeah, they got Tim Duncan and they got Victor Wembonyama by blatantly tanking in both situations. So, of course. And it. But not only that, but they, the Mavericks. One of the big problems the Mavericks had last year was that they were after the Kyrie trade is that they were ridiculously top heavy. They had those two guys, and that's it. And Nico Harrison, who's their GM, and Mark Cuban, who's involved with those kind of things. They really got creative in ways to get a couple of extra guys to fill this roster out. And one of them was tanking to get Derek Lively. And by the way, they did a draft night trade. They not only tanked, they did their work on the scouting end and correctly identified that Derek Lively was the guy that was going to fit perfect for them. And then they got their information by other teams, and then when they got to draft night, they saw an opportunity to move back in the draft and maneuver a little bit and still get the guy that they wanted. And those assets helped them later on. They did a deal with Sacramento, and they got kind of creative.

And it's actually kind of fascinating. This trade deadline trade they made with Oklahoma City. They needed. They needed an extra first round pick. They only were allowed to trade one because they traded a bunch of stuff for Kyrie. They needed, they wanted, well, they really wanted to trade for Kyle Kuzma, but Kyle Kuzma said he didn't want to be a maverick. And the Wizards actually allowed him to veto the trade, which is one of the most amazing scores of the NBA season. And they went on the record. Michael Winger, their team president, won the record and said, yeah, we went to Kyle Kuzma, said, do you want to go to Dallas? No. Okay, see you at practice tomorrow. It was like they thought they were going to trade for Kyle Kuzma, but they made this trade with Oklahoma City, where they traded a pick swap, like in 2030 for a first round pick, and they used that pick to trade for PJ Washington. And like, look, I'm not even blaming the thunder. They. That pick swap in 2030, who knows where Luka is going to be? That might end up being a top five pick.

I know. But PJ Washington splashing threes on the thunder when they enabled that trade. Maybe a little bit harder for breakfast to go down in the morning, but they did a great job in Dallas to manufacture getting Derek Lively because they very easily could have been in, like in and out of the playoffs and not had that pick. Manufacturing how to get a PJ Washington. Gafford was sort of the backup deal when Kuzma said no. But they did do that trade. They did acquire that player, and they've added three rotation players one year to the next. Like, three rotation players on a conference finals team, like, that's not easy to do. And without, without sacrificing either their two top star players. So, yeah. Lively was part of an overall strategy by Nico Harrison, who, you know, is there, is there GM or present? Whatever his title is, was really good work.

Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, it's crazy to go back and look how everything came together and they played it exactly perfect and lively. So he's so fun to watch. He's so high energy on defense. He gets the boards. He does like all the dirty work. So I got a fun parlor game for us. You were talking about the first take. Parlor games. Who is the best third option on any of the remaining teams? If we're doing. If we're doing it like that, saying, okay. That the role players are going to be the difference in the playoffs. Who is the question.

Good question.

Thank you.

I like it.

Thank you. Thank you.

I don't care. I don't think you would make it to first take because we don't care about third options on first take. We only care about, you know, about seven different guys and about four different teams.

Well, you guys do the Batman. Robin. Yeah, Batman Robin. Which is an important conversation to have.

Very important.

Alfred. Alfred.

Yeah.

Make the cut. Pardon my take. Alfred.

Yeah, let's do the Alfred's.

No, Alfred.

Yeah.

Okay. Got it. Really, actually, really good question.

Great question. You don't even have to answer. That was just. Yeah, just.

Yeah, we're done.

He keeps telling me how great it was.

Poor Zingas is there.

Wait.

And we. And we don't know whether. How good he's going to be.

Wait. Is Porzingis your Alfred?

Yeah, I. You don't think so, Robin?

I think Derek white. Derek White has been so good. It's. Maybe it's just because Porzing has been injured, but when Derek White is going, that Celtics team feels like it has a different gear.

He's playing like an Alfred right. I'll give you.

That's right. In Porzygon. Okay, that's fair.

I think they need Porzingis to be the.

Okay, that's fair. Yeah.

White is played like an Alfred. Yeah, he's a, of all the classic Alfred's. Yeah, there been more of a classic. More classic Alfred than Derek White this year? I think not.

Derek White actually has been. He, he had a few games we played, but like Batman poo, you got.

You're not kidding. Superman also. Yeah. He did something interesting. They offered him a contract extension last fall, which I don't know how much they offered him. He turned it down. He's, the contract he's on right now is like, it's good, but like, he is so much better than that. He totally, like kind of bet on himself and maybe it was a no brainer. Turn it down. Like, I don't know what the numbers were. Then he had this awesome season. Boston's got to pay him. So Jalen Brown's $300 million contract starts next year. It was signed a year early. Tatum has already qualified for his 300 million. Actually, actually, Jalen Brown's came in a little below 300. Was like 288. I think Jalen, or I think Jason Tatums is going to be about like 308 or something like that. So they're going to sign him. He's good. They're giving him 300 million. They have to. You're going to pay Derek white, by the way. That's going to be an expensive team. All right.

Poor Zingis is your number one.

Alfred I think so. But, you know, like PJ Washington was pretty important.

He was big. Alfred. He was big. Alfred.

Ok. Alfred. Yeah, I'm going to stick with poor zingas.

Ok.

Final answer.

All right. What about, what about the wolves? Alfred, who's the Alfred that needs some, because, you know, you'd think it would be a, however you look at it, Rudy or cat, but it could easily be a Jaden McDaniels.

Yeah, I think McDaniels is big, but, you know, Nikola Jokic, who is not somebody who I would say is effusive about too many things. You know what? He basically gave Mike Conley to Valentine after getting eliminated. And also, you always congratulate the opposition when you lose, but you're not in the mood when you're sitting up there and you're thinking about your season being over. He took the time to basically completely applaud Mike Conley. And so while Conley is not going to put up 25 a game, normally he gets them organized because, you know, that team gets a little wild. Kat starts having possessions where things go a little crazy. Ann goes a little off board. And Conley always does the right thing. Sometimes it's to get the ball and immediately pass it. He has the ball in his hand for two tenths of a second because that's the right thing to do. Sometimes what he does is he gets the ball and he's like, okay, you go over here. You get over there. Rudy needs a touch. Rudy's getting frustrated. He's blowing steam a little bit. We're going to give Rudy Gobert touch because it's going to help us on the defensive end.

Mike Conley, I think, is there probably their third, like, Jaden McDaniels is more important, I guess, because they got to use him on Luca. But Mike Conley playing well and being healthy and doing his job, I think, is third most important.

And the games he didn't play this postseason, they did look like a much different team. They looked. They looked way worse organized and said.

That he was like, they're like, what's the adjustment? He's like, we got. We didn't have.

Mike Conley feels like the Timberwolves have several alfreds like Nas Reid. Ooh, he could be an Alfred, too.

Wow.

I love Nas.

Nas. Reed's awesome. So much fun. And he, that stretch he had in game seven where it was like a two minute stretch where he completely dominated the game on both ends. Like, it feels like he has that every other game where it's like, oh, this game was just decided by Nasree. Just out playing every man of the year. Yeah. Yeah.

And he is so strong.

He's so strong.

There's that. You know what? There's a lot of super subs. You know? You know, you're talking about Alfred. Talk about super subs. I don't know. Work on your cartoon.

Yeah.

Comp for that. Pf.

I don't know.

Tj McConnell.

Yep.

Guy is amazing. I mean, just watch TJ McConnell play. It's just amazing. Peyton. Peyton Pritchard.

Yep.

Who is an absolute pest when he comes in the game for Boston. You got Nas Reid defensive or a 6th man of the year. And Derek lively comes off the bench. I mean, super subs, like, and by the way, that's one of the reasons why these teams are here. They have good pinches.

You forgot Luca Garza.

Luca Garza, by the way.

Yeah.

That dude is freaking ripped.

Have you seen his dad? His dad's big, too.

I don't want to mess with his dad.

Yeah.

I mean, that guy is even in a league where you see freak athletes, because, with all due respect, like, NFL players and baseball players.

Uh oh.

The freak athletes are in the NBA.

Yeah.

There's certain NFL players that are incredible athletes. Like, for example, when I sit next to Shannon sharp on the set of first take, I look at him, he's like, 50 something years old. I'm like, how the hell did anybody ever tackle him? Ever? But even amongst the freak athletes for the NBA, where you've got these six foot ten guys who were ripped, Luca Garza stands out buff.

And I loved it when, you know, it's like, whenever you get the Luca Garza minutes, you're like, all right, Tim, rolls are rolling. So it's, you know, got a men.

Feel, not quite Darko millisic victory cigar. But I could. I could see that. I would never say that to him. No, Mister Garza, please.

No.

Please enter the game. Allow me.

Yes, yes. All right. Well, Wendy, I had one last question for you. You don't do predictions, by the way. Wendy doesn't do predictions, which I respect.

I mean, sometimes I get, like, tricked into it. So maybe you're going to trick me into it, but I prefer not to.

Yeah, you. I mean, like I said, I listened to you and Bond, Thompson, McMahon, and you. You actually did accidentally predict that the Nuggets were going to win that series, by the way.

Shady business on that particular thing, because we have a group chat where we talk about the show before the show. I'm sure you guys maybe send a text each other.

Oh, yeah.

And I said, nuggets are going to win the series. Like, when it was two one and they took that. You don't bring the group chat.

Oh, yes. Your different rules. Everything is said in the group chat here is said out loud.

You know, it's fair game.

Everything.

That's why our pre podcast conversation.

Yeah, listen, there are no. I mean, we got. When Hank takes a nap every other day, we tape him doing and taking a nap. Like, everything.

I see. No, I got it. Yeah, I got it.

Yeah, we're on the record all the time.

So our pre podcast conversations on text are basically just like, what do you guys want to eat for dinner?

Yeah. And then. And then if Hank tries to jinx one of our bets.

So you're saying I gotta take the l. Not only that, I made a prediction that wasn't meant to be public. That turned out to be wrong.

Yeah, you can't make a prediction. Yeah, yeah. Wherever you make the prediction, it still.

Counts because that tells me that you do make predictions. You just don't want to do it publicly.

Yeah.

You don't want to get the backlash if you're wrong. So you have to be about that life on and off the court.

Yes.

Busted.

Okay. All right, so my last question, the robot question. Rhoback.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Qzips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com promo code take. You don't make predictions. But if we were to see a text message on a group chat from Wendy, he would have said, with the final four he set, this team's gonna win it all again. This is not a prediction.

If Boston doesn't win, it's a terrible missed opportunity.

Okay. I like that way you spend it. Because that's not a prediction.

Because, like, who is, like, Boston, first off, they've been here a whole bunch of times, like six or whatever conference finals in the last, like nine years. LeBron's not in their way. The warriors are not in their way. Giannis, who, they had to go seven a couple years ago, and they only won that series, really because Middleton got hurt. Giannis, they didn't make it there because he was hurt. The team that, the only team that handled them all year long in a regular season was the Nuggets. You know, I think they lost two, three games in Boston. Nuggets came in there and handled them. They're gone. Like, I'm not saying that, you know, Luca is a pushover and is a pushover. I'm not, you know, disrespecting the Pacers, but if you're going to win the title, how you got home court, you're playing the 6th seed. Again, with all due respect to the Nuggets or the Pacers, they're the 6th seed. You're playing the 6th seed in the conference finals. You know, if you're not going to win 18, banner 18. That's the whole thing about Boston. Boston, La, they both got 17 banners. They both won 18.

When is it going to happen? Like, I mean, yeah, they've got an injury to Porzingis, but look at the other teams. Other teams have also had injuries, you know, so bought. It's sitting there in Boston's lap. They gotta take it. Also, they haven't had to work. They hadn't had to stress the last half of the last quarter season. They haven't really had the stress in these playoffs. Like, there's just. There's just no assuming health. They got nothing to. They got no excuses.

Okay.

You're saying it's now or never.

Good. Good non prediction, but I get what you're saying.

Championship window closing on the Celtics if they don't.

Yeah. We'll say this this year and next year with where the Celtics salaries are, because you look at who they're paying, they're going to have three guys making 300 million. Porzingis what he's making. They're going to have to pay Derek white. They just extended Drew holiday. They are not the Clippers. Their ownership does not have $120 billion. They cannot, historically, they cannot pay unlimited amount of luxury tax. Their team is set up. This particular group is set up for this year and next year. Then I think they will have to potentially retrofit a little. But doesn't mean they're not going to have Tatum and Brown. And they're. But if they're going to win it, it's. It was. Even if they were playing 86 version of the Celtics or the 97 bulls or whatever it was going to be, this was going to be their prime. Prime these two years. So even more amped up, 2024 and 2025. I'm sorry. Are where the Celtics have to hit it. And this is. This is a great opportunity right now.

Okay.

All right. Seize the day.

So, wendy, you're the best. We appreciate you, as always. Go buy a book so we can get an update on. On Lebron strength. Thank you so much. And we'll see you on tv and hear you on podcasts.

How strong is Luca Garza? That is.

He's so strong. I think you said so. Buff.

Yeah, he's buff.

That's different than strong, by the way.

Yeah. One tends to go with the other, but Luca Garza. I'm just telling you, man, don't bleep talk. Luca Garza.

Okay. All right. That's good. Good lasting advice.

And tell us about Kyrie's eclipse stats, too.

Yeah, let us know.

Even if I'm gonna get back to you on that, find, like, one small part of his game, if that's all that it takes. That's taken enormous leap since then.

We'll just run with that zone of totality. That's what they should call his cheering section in Dallas. Zone of totality.

I love it. I love it. All right. Thank you so much, Wendy.

Take care, guys.

We got part in your take coming up. Max, going in this ad read you had a take that I think actually could be on. Pardon your take. What is it?

The EA Sports college football franchise. Best franchise in all video games.

I would agree with that.

I agree.

That's a solid take. So this entire segment is brought to you by EA Sports. Very excited. We saw the trailer. The trailer dropped on Friday.

Incredible.

It was awesome. I love that. There was allegations of maybe trolling Ohio State.

This is college football.

It's the most college football thing ever where you can drop a video game, and the trailer for it makes people mad because their team wasn't featured enough.

And this is why. I mean, this is why it's the best game. Because the most passionate fan bases and an incredible video game put them together is just non stop content.

Great times. Great times. College football 25 coming out. They have a new feature, campus iq, gameplay, all new composure system, player wear and tear, home field advantage, diverse playstyles across 134 FBS teams through dynasty. You can create a coach like Doug's, you can upgrade their abilities. You can establish your staff, then recruit the best talent either straight from high school or direct from the transfer portal. Pre order the MVP bundle. You can get college football 25 and Madden NFL 25 plus. Can't miss rewards in both. Check it out. Order the MVP bundle. You can preorder that right now, and you get college football 25 and Madden NFL 25, max.

Is that your best take ever?

It might be number one.

Might be. Yeah. I can't wait for this game. I cannot wait for this game. All right, Hank, pardon your takes. Hey, guys.

Hey, Hank.

I have sports theory about the PGA.

Oh.

I have reasons to believe that Scotty was set up to be arrested. If you look at the PGA numbers the day before, it was extremely down, and they've been down all season. I. That's a little editorial. I. Oh, so.

Oh, that lit those, Liv. Hank, it's just a fact.

They paid a cop to tell Scotty the wrong information, that the police department knew what time he'd be coming in and what car he would be in. I believe it was set up for a large number of views the next couple days. Xander, a PGA Stan was given the opportunity to make a great story, which he did. The story doesn't add up. I'll be doing more investigating to this subject. Have a great day.

I like this. I like this a lot. False flag arrest. Look up our operation Northwoods. We have a history of this type of stuff.

What happened? Operation Northwoods?

The CIA was trying to have people hijack airplanes and then crash them and then blame it on the government of Cuba. So we'd invade Cuba. Oh, and then John F. Kennedy said, no, we're not going to do that. Because we're not going to murder our own citizens. And then the CIA killed him.

Ooh.

But, yes, same thing. Same thing happened with Scotty Scheffler.

Juba arrested Scotty Scheffler.

History doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

I I like this take a lot. I mean, who the cat? That was a story that took over the entire Internet, that, like, casual fans, sports fans had to have seen it, would lead everything.

And Scottie winning would have been boring for the sport, right?

Mm hmm.

So they're like, what if Scottie winning with a felony?

Well, like, how do we get him to not win?

Well, that wasn't why he didn't win. He didn't win because he just didn't have his caddy on Saturday. Also, Jeff, the craziest story ever.

Jeff Darlington. He's an NFL guy. Yeah, he happened to be there.

Oh.

To be the one that saw this.

Interesting.

That is interesting is maybe Schefter, because.

You know, Schefters in the Illuminati, he probably was like, I'll throw you a bone, Jeff Darlington. Mm hmm. You can have this one.

Well, I was thinking that if it was a PGA reporter, if it was someone esteemed, like true in Rapaport that was there, he would never go along with anything like this. But you call in a hired gun from the. From the outside, Darlington's your patsy. He brings you, and now you've got the report, front and center, video evidence. Why did it take an hour for Jeff to release the video that he took of Scotty getting arrested? Have you thought about that one? He had the video before he had the tweet, but he put the tweet out first, then an hour later put out the video. Was it edited? Yeah, he had to send it back to Bristol.

Yeah, this all makes sense. I like it.

Yeah, good.

Because they're scared of Hank and the live boys. It's good.

Take an idea that will right all that is wrong with this country.

Oh.

Prison league basketball is televised, and in ranked bracket, winning team is freed from prison.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, in.

Yeah, sure.

100% in.

What I heard was more sports.

I'm actually shocked that Mister Beast hasn't figured out a way to, like, do, like, a free the prisoners. I got a thousand prisoners, and I cc which one could stand for the longest? Like that. Doesn't that feel like something he's maybe.

Working on, like, squid games?

Yeah.

Yeah, I could see it. I built a giant horse, and I put a bunch of soldiers inside of it, and now we're wheeling it up to Moscow, Russia to see if they accept this gift.

Yeah, I could see it for sure.

I have a question that should have happened a few weeks ago. Oh, but do you think when a player is surrounded by a bunch of other four or five star prospects that it hurts a player's potential growth? One school that specifically comes to mind is Alabama. Outside of wide receiver, running back, they historically don't have great NFL showing despite being drafted high. I am not an Alabama hater.

That's also not, not.

There are many.

I think what he's talking about is course stand out.

Bama, Ohio State, Clemson, et cetera, that don't perform well in NFL. Offensive linemen and quarterbacks stick out particularly.

Yeah. So quarter, I guess you could say in recent history. Alabama earmuffs. Big cat.

No, I know. Ohio State forever.

The quarterbacks don't pan out. Maybe it's because they've got great receipt. They don't have to work on the, the small details as much as the guys that, that don't have all that talent around them.

But then how would you explain Joe Burrow?

It's a fair point.

LSU.

Right.

He had great receivers.

Justin Jefferson, like, he had incredible receivers around him.

But they're not traditionally a quarterback.

No, but I'm saying, like, how would you explain a guy like that who is good in, in college with incredible talent and then also good in the NFL?

He was actually the double threat. He was LSU and Ohio State.

Yeah. No, this, this is a regular take. I kind of agree with it because you guys got, if you're, if everyone is always open, it's going to be easier and harder to grade.

But what about quarterbacks that go to maybe not as good of a program and they play worse competition so it's easier for them because they're not playing as good defenses. Josh Allen, Jay Cutler was really the best example of this.

Yeah.

Cutler at Vandy, Caleb Williams didn't have great receivers. Gets to the NFL, but he's still used to playing against SEC defenses.

It turns out that it's just harder to pick quarterbacks.

Yeah, probably.

All right, last one. The NBA season should start in December and final should finish first week of August.

Yes.

Fully indoors so the weather doesn't matter. It fills the void of no major sports in July and early August. And it compete with NFL viewers for less than two months or for two less months. Everybody wins.

I don't think it should go to August because like when you're in July, you don't, you don't want to be sitting inside watching like sports the whole time. If it's the NBA, if it's like the conference championship. But I am a big proponent of starting it like 60 game season started on December 25. Remember the year, the lockout year?

Yeah.

Started. That was awesome.

It's good.

Best schedule.

What if it was the NHL that did that? That way you get to go to hockey games in July. It's nice and cool in there.

Yeah. I just think that the like July is very hard. Yeah. To get people to watch. Mm hmm. So I. Yeah, I am. I think every sport outside of football should do smaller seasons like 60 games in the NHL and the NBA. It feels like it would be. You just have more at stake. MLB should be like hundred, 20. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. We're just because that's really, and it's. You can't do 18 games or 17 games like they do in the NFL. But that's why the NFL, part of the reason why the NFL is so highly rated and so widely popular is every single week matters. There's only 17 of them.

I can't imagine that. What are, what are the average like ticket gates for NBA games in the month of November still probably, I mean.

In big cities probably still very.

They're still making enough money where the owners will never agree to.

Yeah. No, they'll never shorten it.

Yeah.

Because also the. That's less tv revenue.

True.

Like if anything they'll probably do more.

Games about maybe some double headers.

Yeah, double headers.

That'd be sick.

Double header. NBA game would be awesome.

Be great.

Yeah.

Load management city tips would love some double headers.

Or just have it be like have, have like a you week where it's like every team plays, they play doubleheaders and also every single day like they do a full tournament for five days straight.

Yeah.

Just knock out 15 games.

Yeah, that would rock. That's what they used to do in UFC too.

Yeah.

It would just be like you have to keep fighting this entire weekend.

Yeah. I do think the NBA should, I actually think one thing that NBA could fix most for the most of the NBA season, it's what like three games a week. Right. If the NBA should do a consistent, call it Tuesday, Friday or whatever you want to do where it's like these are the two days that everyone plays so people can start getting their schedules around it. Where it's like I don't know how it would actually work out if there's enough games. But like if you had an actual day where it's like these are the days that are played. Tuesday, Friday. You know, you're gonna get to see, like, the entire full slate of NBA. I think that'd be cool.

It's like in football, you know that the games are gonna be on Sunday and then Mondays and then sometimes Wednesdays and then every Thursday and then also some Friday.

Black Friday and Saturday in the season. Yeah.

They make it very easy for football fans to know when the games are.

There's only six to seven days.

Yes.

Except for Covid. There was a.

There was a Tuesday night. Was it Monday?

We have Brazil Friday this year. Week one.

Brazil Friday.

Yeah. And the Black Friday last year. Yeah, what was that?

Let's go, birds. The Birds played Brazil.

How do you think the bird season is gonna go this year?

Great.

Why. Why are you.

Why'd you say tough division?

Are you worried at all that you got the guy?

It goes. It goes directly from embiid season to Jared sees.

Are you just. Are you sure?

Oh, yeah.

Couldn't be 100% the guy. Percent. Okay.

Hundred percent.

Nick. Sirianni.

Jalen hurts.

You think he's the guy?

Sirianni? Could be. Could be back. I'm optim. I'm going in this season optimistic with Sirianni. We got good coordinators this year. We didn't have good coordinators last year.

Leader of men.

This isn't. This is an eagle stock.

Okay, well, you. You said go, but you said the Brazil game. No, no, said the Brazil game. The booth started the eagles talk.

We were talking about days.

Yeah, sorry, bird. I was.

No, Jake, don't. Don't apologize for that word. We're having a dazed conversation. And then. And then Max had to insert his birds into a conversation.

Well, you bring up the birds. I got a. It's my God given right to say, go, birds.

It was very funny. Max did an interview. What's the show's name?

Barcelona breakdown.

Barstool breakdown. Those guys are awesome. But Max did an interview. He was retelling, coming on with part of my take, and Hank telling him, like, hey, like, this is going to work out because you're a big Philly guy. And, like, big cat said he wants a big Philly guy. And Max said back to Hank, like, okay, but I don't really know when that's going to come up.

That did happen.

Whoops. Okay, let's finish show numbers.

846.

20.

That was a dead heat.

Rocks favor. Suit. Shoe for.

I mean, 18.

Well, you're a scale.

Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a rider.

Dead heat.

So God is you got it.

Looks like big cats. Like a 56.

Let's go. All right. Shane. Shane.

99.

Poke.

Shane.

Change. 21 three. Lottery ball has chance to. The funniest thing right now.

Let's go.

Oh.

46.

That's me.

You got it? Yeah. Wait, seriously? Yeah. Oh, I didn't hear.

Excited.

Hank. We got it.

It's easy.

Good job, Hank.

46. Jordy. 40.

Dude, really happy. So fucking easy to do, right? Wow. D Max, did you take anything from that? Like, that was. Hank just showed you how fucking easy this.

I know.

He showed. Pft.

And I.

It's really easy. Showed you?

I know you showed, Hank.

Were you sure I didn't like that. Showing me, or were you showing Max how easy was.

I mean, Max is one of those things. He's just a loser. It's fun to win in his face, but it's also like, he's never gonna get there, right?

He's never gonna get it.

I have.

You know that. He's never gonna get it.

I have gotten it.

No. No, you haven't. No, you haven't.

And I got in New York before you did, buddy.

Doesn't matter.

Like, 46 has come up a lot.

Easy.

I just started picking it.

Yeah, Hank, that wasn't even. You didn't even react.

Let's go, numbers.

Third time. I'm part of my balls.com.

20 sucks.

Hank is a fucking beast at this.

Good work, Hank.

Yeah. Max, just. Hank, real quick. How did you do that?

You know, how'd you do it?

I just.

I just picked two numbers that were good luck, you know? Reminded me of some friends, and those are their lucky numbers. So I combined Joe Biden. Yeah.

Yeah. You just. You just said the number, right? Yeah, 46, and then pft.

We can learn.

The number came up.

It just popped right up.

We can learn from. This is.

Did you say.

I've been saying it.

Okay. No, like, your reaction has me very confused.

Max, you're talking.

I just.

It's like I've already won before. I know. I'm not so.

You know, Max, you're talking a whole lot right now for someone who's not mad.

I'm not mad. I'm just. I mean, something we can learn on. Learn from. Learn from. Learn from.

Listen, Max, I don't give a fuck about the lottery machine, because either. No, again, you're talking a lot.

Christmas.

I don't give a fuck about it. It's just numbers. It's gonna happen eventually. It's just statistics for me, so I'm not concerned at all about it. That's why I'm not forcing myself to nod my head a lot and say, yeah, I'm gonna get this. Pft. You're gonna get this. You're not gonna get it because you're so nervous about it. You're gonna like yourself out.

The lottery ball knows. It's like. It's like a dog. They smell the fear. They don't want anything to do with Max.

Hate stocks too, right?

That was so good, Hank.

Thank you.

You're the fucking man.

Thank you, Max.

Maybe wake up tomorrow and be like, how can I be more like Hank? Well, actually, no, that wouldn't be waking up. Maybe sleep in tomorrow and be like, how can I be like, more like Hank?

Love you guys.

Take on me?

Take me on?

I begun?

Take on me?

Take me out?

I begun?

Things that we say?

You? All the things I've got to remember?

You're shying away? Well, I'll come here anyway?

Take on me?

Take me up I beg.