Doug explains why new Steelers HC Mike McCarthy should want to reconcile and reunite with Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh, despite their post-Packers falling out, and why the NFL looks like it has lost the plot after robbing Bill Belichick of a first ballot hall of fame induction while simultaneously putting Shadeur Sanders in the Pro Bowl.
First, UWGB Guard Justin Allen discusses his breakout year after transferring from DIII to DI, and if he sees a path to a pro career.
Then, longtime NBA Analyst and Finding The Seams Podcast Co-Host Ric Bucher discusses what it would take to get a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo trade deadline deal done, which teams he thinks could realistically land the 2021 Finals MVP, and how Steph Curry and LeBron will end their Hall of Fame careers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Doug Gottlieb. Guess what it's Doug Gottlieb Show. I
think this is episode three. Yeah, it's episode three. I
don't know. I mean, do we count the pilot? It's
a lot like when you were a kid, and kids
these days don't remember. You'd ask me for directions and
they'd say, we go up six lights and you take
a left. Well, do I count the first light? No
one ever decided. We had no universal decision on that.
(00:33):
So I'm going to count the pilot. This is episode
three obviously. If you know me, I've been doing this
for over twenty years, and this is just a new
way to do it on a different on my time.
As I like to say, as I like to say,
there is a lot going on in the sports world,
right Mike McCarthy, former Packers and Cowboys head coach, hits
the triumvirint right, no matter how it happens or how
(00:57):
it works out in Pittsburgh. And I know he's from Pittsburgh,
but on your tombstone they say you coach the Packers,
the Cowboys and the Steelers pretty good. It's pretty good.
And he's won a Super Bowl and I know one
of the questions is does he want Aaron Rodgers back?
And the answer is yes, yes, and I am I'm
(01:21):
not blind to the flaws of a forty year old quarterback,
nor blind to the flaws of Aaron Rodgers whether he
was forty or whether he was twenty four. Right, Aaron
can be tricky or what was it that Mark Murphy said? Complicated?
Complicated is one of those words where it's really not
a negative, but anyone who hears it it deems it
to be negative. And by the way, it's true he's complicated.
(01:45):
Complicated and mediocre are in that same realm. Like ask
yourself right now, mediocre is it a positive or negative word?
That was? It's negative? No? Actually, mediocre is average? Is
right in the middle, right as the media, you know,
mediocre medium. But our assumption or the perception is that
(02:05):
being average, being in the middle mediocre is a bad thing.
You know. I take my team last year, we were
not mediocre, we were sub mediocre. Right, we would have
settled for mediocre would have been amazing. We want to
just be average. Now we want to be better than mediocre, right,
we want to be above average. But it really is
(02:27):
interesting that complicated is the exact same word. Complicated is
not a negative word. But when you say, like, what's
your relationship with your wife, like it's complicated, that's nobody
says that. When it's a it's a really, really good thing.
So do you want Aaron Rodgers back? The answer is yes. Why.
(02:49):
The easiest thing is they've worked together and won a
Super Bowl together before. Did they have their differences, yes,
well they still have their differences. Yes, But when you're
coming in in your first year, if you bring coaches,
players with you, if you bring people you've worked with before,
they know how you work, and they also kind of
have your back in the locker room because they know
(03:11):
how it's supposed to go and they've had some success
with you. And for a quarterback, when you know all
the plays, we know all the formations, we knew all
the calls, you know all the verbiage, you can make,
all the checks to the line of scrimmage. Aaron Rodgers
is not going to play in a new system next year, no,
thank you. He is no desire. So I don't know
if they keep Aaron Rodgers. My guess is they do.
They try one and it allows him to be the
(03:33):
bridge quarterback to whatever they got to figure out what
the next guy is. But whether he wins or whether
he loses, I can't think of a better resume in
the history of sports in having coached. I mean, I
guess Phil Jackson coached the Bulls and the Lakers to
eleven titles. He did coach the Knicks as well. Okay,
so those are the three biggest markets. Obviously, it didn't
(03:55):
work out well with the Knicks. Maybe that's that's the parallel, right,
because it didn't work out great, but not wasn't a
disaster with the Cowboys. It wasn't great for Mike McCarthy.
So that's that's the basketball analogy, is Phil Jackson. The
difference is Phil Jackson won eleven titles. Mike McCarthy's won one. Fair,
(04:17):
it's fair. And then we get to the most recent
sign that twenty twenty six is going to be like
twenty twenty five, like twenty twenty four, like but only worse.
Here's what I mean. Shador Standers was the third string
court maybe fourth string quarterback with the with the Cleveland Browns,
who were an abject disaster. He won a couple of games,
(04:39):
seven touchdowns, ten receptions, and he was recently elected to
the Pro Bowl. Now, look, the Pro Bowl is a
lot like you're in my house party where you just
start inviting everybody after everybody turns you down, Like yeah,
I'm gonna do a Super Bowl party and I'm new
in town and everybody's already gotten. You do it like
two days for the Super Bowl, Like yeah, I'm already
(04:59):
committed to other sup Bowl. But still, Shador Sanders is
a Pro bowler and Bill Belichick is not a Hall
of first ballot Hall of Famer. Now, you can tell
me all you want about spy gley Gate into flake Gate,
or maybe he didn't treat you. Well, I don't know,
and I do think that how you treat people is
super important in the world and how people look at you.
(05:19):
But what I can tell you is that when you
go to ten Super Bols as a coach who wins
six of them, when you have double digit winning seasons
in every year except for I think one in twenty years,
there's no world in which he's not a first ballot
Hall of Famer. And it looks incredibly small for Hall
of Fame voters, which are media people, to hold whatever
(05:41):
they want to hold against him. You could make the
argument of well, spygate is like steroids. But the problem
with spygate is after it was discovered, they went to
even more Super Bowls to flake Gate was a joke. Right.
Here's how I know it was a joke. The NFL
announced that they were going to have a season where
(06:03):
they checked all the footballs, all the air pressure, everything
to see what the air pressure was like before the game,
what it was like at halftime, and basically get a
control group. Does anybody know what happened to that study?
The answer is no, you know why because it probably
disproved any theories otherwise other than yeah, the balls can
(06:23):
lose air when they're putting the out and the cold.
That's what happens to basketball, is that's them the footballs,
That's what happens to anything that's inflated, and all of
a sudden, the air pressure around it increases or decreases,
cold decreases. So if it was that big a thing,
the NFL would have followed up and would have shown
their findings. It wasn't. Spygate was really really simple. For years,
(06:45):
You've been able to film the signals coming in, you'd
been able to film the plays taking place. No one
had filmed the signals and the plays at the same
time on the same tape Belichick did. Yeah, apparently he
might add some other guys rove in the stadium and
filming other plays. Whatever, But this is what's happening in
(07:07):
football for our entire lives. If you grew up playing
youth football, you know that your coach when you were
at practice probably did something to hide the fact that
you were running some super secret play. And high school
football is famous for this. High school football coach is
checking out their stands to see if the rival came
to watch their practice to watch their secret plays. This
(07:28):
is what sports is. Again. I'm not okay with blatant cheating.
I do think that the Astros should have lost their
World Series, But in this case, how can you argue
with twenty five years of unbelievable sustained success. You cannot
so as a still member of the media, I'm embarrassed
that members of the media decide to not let him
(07:49):
in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first
ballot when he's been to more and won more shupols
than anybody in the history of the sport. Makes us
look small. What makes us look insecure. And if he's
not a Pro Football Hall of Famer, who is right?
Who possibly is?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
All right?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Let's welcome him in. He's a senior, although I have
an idea and I'll throw it at him if we
can get him to have another year at GB He's
our star guard. They call him Juice. We'll get into
that in a second. He's Justin Allen, a transfer from
Carnegie Mellon University. Who is the first person to call
(08:31):
you juice?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Marcus Hall was the first person to call me juice.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So you didn't bring that nickname with you to Green Bay?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I did not know.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Did he tell you why he called you juice?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah? So basically, in like the pregame right ups, everyone
kind of has a nickname. So Marcus was money Marcus.
And this is before the season started, so I didn't woa.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Whoa, whoa whoa who gave him the name money Marcus?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Whoever? The reporters are who make the pregame like write
ups for Green Bay?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
What reporters?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't know. So if you click like preview before
games on our edule, it has like a little preview,
so they talk about a bunch of people they have
money Marcus. There's amazing O'Hara and they have suffer.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It sounds like students doing it. I don't know if
anybody probably okay, but do you know what you know
our nickname from Marcus was previous to this year, which
i've I've I've kind of let go a little bit.
I don't white Marcus, white Marcus.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, here's why it's white Marcus. So last year I
hired Eric Sanders and I had and I don't know
it was when Jerry Smith joined us. Who else was it?
It was, uh oh, we had Tyrs Thomas and h
and Eric Sanders and so they come into the office
and I was like, hey, a couple of the players
(09:41):
are coming by. You should meet him. Like who the
players like Marcus Hall and Preston Ruinger. Everybody calls him
Rudy and I think mac Recky and I don't know
who else was there. And they came back in the
office like twenty minutes later, like, coach, you didn't tell
us Marcus was white. I was like, it's a good point,
because Marcus is not always a white guy's name, right,
(10:02):
So then I would call him white. I call him
white Marcus most of the summer and at some point,
like he clearly did not like it, right, So I
was like, hey, dude, do you only stop calling you
white Mark. He's like, well, I don't really like it,
but everybody else does, so it's okay. So I used
to on the board always write white Marcus, but I
chose to not not do that. So so he starts
calling you Juice and it just stuck.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah. Well, first he was calling me juicy, and I
don't really like that one, so it kind of turned
into juice.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, why was he calling you juicy? Did you ask him?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
No? I didn't ask him. So when I called him
money Marcus, he was trying to come up with a
name back for me. And the first thing that Juicy
justin was juicy.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I did not love that day. And now it's just Juice,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So do you like the nickname Juice?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I do like Juice, honestly think it's pretty cool. Kind
of stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, yeah, I will point out, you know, the last
person whose nickname was Juice was don't you was it?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Oh? J?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Simpson?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
O J.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Simpson.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So Anyway, nonetheless, he was a great player, rushed for
two thousand yards to hide some trumphy winter he went
two thousand yards and only fourteen games in the regular season.
This has been a fascinating kind of experience being alongside
coaching you. But there's so many people in so many
layers to your story, so I don't want to dive
in with the whole story. I want to pick out
(11:14):
little pieces of it. Okay, high school, where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Fox Lane High School in West Chestern, New York. Box
School in my town?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yep, Okay, Fox Lane? What town?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Bedford, New York?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Okay, yeah, Okay, I know where Bedford, New York is
about what thirty minutes outside the city probably.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah. It's not upstate for people who want to say
it's upstate.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
No, it's a Westchester county.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I hate when people say I'm from upstate.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
No, it's a really nice, rich area. It's not upstate.
It's not country folk. It's not bad Sty. It's Bedsty,
which is Brooklyn is not Bedford, which is nice nice.
It's not spectacle, but it's really nice nice areas. Bad areas.
Why were you not offered a scholarship at high school?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's a great question. I mean, I feel like I
believe I deserved one. Back then in high school, I
feel like probably physically I wasn't strong enough, you know,
probably just little things with my game I play. Once
I got to college, I kind of got a lot
more aggressive word to my game, physicality, things like that.
That kind of pushed me to be able to play
at this next level.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
How I think every everybody assumes when you say Carnegie Mellon,
They're like, oh my god, he's going to do my taxes.
He's gonna he can build buildings, he can leap small
buildings in What were your grades in high school to
get into Carnigie.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Molon, I would say I had all like all a's,
like all nineties and above. You know, my mom was
super big on school and then my sister she went
to Northwestern and she was also super smart. So they
kind of pushed me and kind of pressured me a
little bit to succeed in high school and that kind
of led me to Carnegie Melon.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Okay, your mom she works in the school system, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
She she does? Yeah, what does she do? She does?
She works on like the administrative side in human resources.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, So when you told her, because I know what
she told me. But when you told her mom, I
know I could go to Carnegie Mellon and your last year,
You're actually everything was gonna be taken care of. Right.
That's that's how carnigea mail works. Like three years in
you get everything's basically scholarship. Yeah, hey, Cardie Mellon's awesome,
and I'm the guy there and I was twenty six geaen,
(13:12):
but I want to go to Wisconsin Green Bay to
play basketball for this coach who's won four games. What
was her response?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, So at first she was kind of like whoa,
Like hold your horses, like what are we talking about here?
And then you know, eventually, after I talked to her
for a little bit, she kind of came to understand,
like this has always been my goal, in my dream
to play at this level and set myself up to
play professionally. And eventually she was the one kind of
even more on board than me. She was like, no,
you have to do It's like, this is what's right
for you. So it's kind of awesome to see her
(13:41):
kind of go from kind of questioning things to you know,
being my biggest supporter and you know, pushing me to
make the decision.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
What was it, because I noticed when you got here
on your visit you were really comfortable. What was it
that made you feel so comfortable?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I would say you guys on the coaching staff, and
then definitely just the guys on the team. You know,
like coming from Carnegie mellon the guys team, they were
like a family. And that was a big thing for
me when when picking a school, and I feel like
as soon as I got here, like meeting Rudy and
meeting the rest of the guys, I felt at home
and it was great.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
She was very nervous about the cold in you driving
in the cold, living in the cold. I was like,
were you from New York And Okay, how have you
adjusted to our winter weather?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, it's I've survived. I mean it's definitely cold. It's
definitely a little painful. I thought coming from New York,
I was like, it can't be that much colder. But
it definitely is that much colder. But I mean it's
just a little bit of cold. I'm only walking from
my apartment to the athletics center and back, so it's
not too bad.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, you literally live in the gym, like you're always
in the gym, and as I tell people, sixty eight
in the gym, sixty eight my office, sixty eight in
the in the way room. It's it's generally sixty eight
sixty in Greece. Your favorite part of green Bay is.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What favorite part of Green Bay? I would say community.
I feel like our Carnegie Mellon. We didn't really have
a ton of fans who came out to games, not
a ton of support. And now coming here seeing all
the people come out to games, you know, supporting us
at games, supporting us even like outside of games, like
seeing people at the supermarket, things like that, just everyone
kind of supporting you as a team has been awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You are Do you consider yourself Jewish? Or is your
mom just your mom Jewish?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
My mom's Jewish, so technically I do consider myself Jewish.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, okay, what are your thoughts? You and I have
talked a little bit, but the idea of playing in Israel,
how does that? How does how would that feel to you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I mean it appeals to me a lot. I'm actually
working on right now getting my Israeli citizenship, so I'm
kind of like halfway in that process right now, so
hopefully that all works out and I can and hopefully do.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
You know what it's called. Oh yeah, it's called making Aliyah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah. I didn't want to mess it up, but by
I noticed, No, it's you did you did it, You
did it.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You did a really good job. It's it's super cool.
And probably the best part about it is that when
you're in tel Aviv and most of the teams are
in tel Aviv, there's like five first division teams in
tel Aviv, but then there's like six or seven second
division teams in Tel Aviv, and then there's a couple
of third division teams in tel Aviv. So what does
that mean? That means of the first division teams like
(15:58):
Maccabi tel Aviv don't have like five or six Americans
like because in some in I think you can have
four in Israeli league, and I don't know, I don't
know how it works. And then of course you have
people like yourself that are dual citizenship. Some players come
over marry in Israeli women, so they get dual citizenship
as well. So I remember there's a guy named Jesse
(16:19):
Salters I played with when I played in Israel. He
played at South Florida and Jesse was like our old head,
and so he's like, i'ma have a Thanksgiving party. All
the Americans gonna be there. I was like, okay, I
thought he just meant like us. And there's like sixty
sixty Hoopers there and many of them had wives or girlfriends,
and so it felt like you're in America and it
(16:39):
was really cool, which you don't get playing in any
in any other country. You really really do not where
when was the moment You're like, yeah, I can do this.
I belong at There's.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
One level I would say, I think at Minnesota and
then the Virgin Allens. I mean, you know, like the
first few games were kind of little shaky for me,
kind of trying to get my foot in and get
my confidence to everything. But like once that Minnesota game
we played that, I kind of felt comfortable playing against
the high level competition. And then you know, carry that
into the Virgin Islands and being successful there, it was
(17:12):
kind of like, okay, like I feel good here. Now,
I feel I can I can really compete in.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Your Your game is different than anybody else's, right, I mean,
it's just very unique. Your ball handling style is very unique.
Obviously you played the mid range jumpers, which it's taken
a lot for me to get behind, but I am.
I am now behind it if you only occasionally shoot
them and make I like it when you make them. Yeah,
big fan of Made Middies, not a big fan of
Miss Middies. But how did you like? Again, your game
(17:39):
doesn't look like everybody else's game?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Haw?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Did you put it together?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Put it together in terms of like how I got
my game to be that way? Yeah, I'd say a
lot of one on one I think when I was younger,
me and my best friend his name is Dylan, we
would just play one on one for hours outside in
the snow. We'd put on gloves and play one on one.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That sounds like bull crap.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Just I swear this is true.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That sounds like that's like, that's like something my dad
would say, we played with.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Gloves in the snow.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
He's from Long Island. He would like, yeah, we play
with gloves?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Is like, did I promise in my neighborhood, I have
like a little court, so like the full court is
probably the length of like it's like two hoops, but
just the length like a half court, and we would
just get going one on one full court yeah, with
gloves on in the freezing snow, and we probably get
freezing after like thirty minutes. We couldn't feel the hands.
We'd go back in. But just stuff like that. It's
a lot on one on one and just working on
my game.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Where Dylan play high school with you?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah? Fox nine?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah? And how good was see?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
He's a beast. He plays at a Connecticut college right
now at Division three?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, I know connecting college a little bit. Does he
have any years left?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
He has one year left?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I mean, can he get buckets the way you can
get bucket?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
For real?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I mean he's good.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, all right, Well, I mean I don't know if
I'm allowed. I think i am. I'll set it up
super weird though, Like we're allowed to go and see
Division two, Division three games. We we can't go see
Division one games, even though we know guys are going
to be in the portal. It's just, yeah, it's just
an odd it's an odd thing. Your favorite player we've
played thus far.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I'm going to say too. I think Kansas for sure,
that was just the most surreal experience for me coming.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
From don't you wish we could go play there? Now?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Now that we actually know, like they're still really good
and better than us, but now at least we give
a better representation because yeah, exactly, it's hard, like we're
trying to figure out who can play. I'm playing everybody,
try and figure out who who can handle it. Anyway,
go ahead with Kansas.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, I feel like that was just a real like
coming from my last game being a Division three game
probably in front of one hundred fans, and then going
to my next game being at Kansas in front of
fifteen thousand was incredible and I was just kind of
looking around like soaking it in the whole time. And
then second, I'd say, Robert Morris is because my whole
Carnegie Mellon team came and supported me there, and that
was the most amazing experience for me. So those are
the top two.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I near saying they like it so for people who
don't know, so we Carnegie Millon is in Pittsburgh and
Robert Morris's Moon Township, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh.
So at the game, how many how many players were there?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Like ten to twelve players?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Okay, your coach who had retired after you transferred, right,
uh huh? He was you forced him into retirement. He's like, man,
I don't know just now and I'm done. I'm out,
come out. And then two professors.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Uh so it was the coach, my old head coach,
my assistant coach, two of the women's team coaches. A
professor and like her family, I trained her son for
a little bit, so he came also. And then also
there's a sandwich spot on campus called the Exchange, and
those guys all came to and they brought my order,
which you order. It was a turkey provlo and leduce,
tomato and mayo on white bread.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And how many days a week on white bread?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Okay, how many? How many days a week would you
get it?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Every day? They're open? So six days a week?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Why what was your Are you just like one of
those guys? I want to eat the same thing every day?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah? Basically I had that, and then I would get
a bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant for breakfast
and then go back for lunch.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So that's the big on a croissant sounds like a
burger king, which is burger king very underrated for for breakfast?
The crissan witch is that what it's called? Thess You
never had it really, Yeah, yeah, we'll have you back
on and be like that was really. We don't get
anybody from burger King, but if they want to give us,
I'm sure. I mean, the mcgriddle is is really the
(21:09):
goat of all breakfast sandwiches, but it's terrible for you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Not that the chryssanwich is that much better for you,
but it is better for you than the mcgriddle. I
definitely think you need to try one of those. Or
maybe it's a bad thing for me to tell you
to try one of those, because then you're gonna get
hooked and that's going to be your every day thing.
They should say, hey, you know, it's really good. Is
quinoa and uh and some some bone broth?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Definitely not for some some some bone broth.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
How for for people who uh don't know you? How
many what's your day like in terms of how much
extra work you do in addition to practice?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So I would say usually before practice, usually we have
lived so I'll like form you for a little bit,
but nothing crazy. Before practice, we'll have practice. Then right
after just ends, I'll usually stay for twenty thirty minutes
with like a coach or a manager and work on
some finishing, ball handling, some shooting, then go home, rest
for a little bit, and then back at night. I'll
(22:10):
probably come back and shoot around three hundred four hundred
shots on the gun, work a little bit ball handling again.
So probably like at night, I'll come back for hour
and a half ish after practice, thirty minutes or probably
two hours total. But I fel like those those little
segments add up a ton for me and give me
a ton of confidence and help me keep progressing throughout
the season.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So you're getting three four hundred up in addition to
what we get up in practice every every day?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, how many?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
How many? How often do you skip that?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Never? I feel like I'll get like stressed out if
I skip it, Like if I don't use my day
as best as I can and progress as much as
I can, I'll feel like I'm like getting behind, and
I hate that feeling. So just trying to stay on
top of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I know your your dad passed away nine years ago.
Your mom obviously is a huge, huge part of your life.
Who where does that come from? Your mom's it come
to your dad? Is that just some of you like
that that level of not just work ethic and intentionality,
but it's almost it's almost an OCD sort of thing
where you just kind of have to do Where does
that come from?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I feel like a combination the way I was brought
up and also you know, going through something like the
past of my father kind of inspired me and like
motivated me to kind of put my onto everything and
put my onto basketball, you know, kind of hopefully make
him proud.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So yeah, I think he's got to be pretty proud.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Do you ever do you ever catch yourself in that
thought where you're like you're at at the US Virgin
Islands and you drop twenty seven twenty eight, like damn,
Pops would be.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Super Yeah, just like kind of this whole year honestly
just thinking like I wish you could see it, but
definitely knowing that he's proud.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Has your mom seen you play in person?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
She y?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Has? She saw me once at Kansas, But she's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Why don't you tell me I would have played you more?
You barely played that game.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
But she's coming this weekend, so it's gonna be good
for us.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Oh now now I got pressure. Now I can't Now
I can't add Matthew because then you got a Jewish mother.
You don't want to mess with her.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
She's seen it though I don't.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I'm ah, Now she gonna cook? Like does she is?
She gonna cook?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
No, no, she's not going to cook.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Okay, So you guys going out, Yeah, we'll go out.
Where's your spot in Green Bay?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I don't have one yet. That's the thing I like.
I go to the chains and I need like why
it's easy Chick fil A, Olive Guardian.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
You can't take her to No, no, don't respect.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I mean I like her there. Okay, I was thinking
Angelina's just haven't been yet.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So Italian Blue is is really really good. Obviously, Republic Steakhouse,
you have Iron Duck where you've you've been there before.
There's some some good places. I got some some others,
but yeah, there's nothing. Angelina is just awesome, awesome, really good.
You guys get your Italian fixed. We've I've done like
too much Italian, I know, but a lot of pasta
(24:48):
is not great for you. You should know that. And all
these guys about Italian. Oh, one thing you wish people
knew about you?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It's a good question. I did think about that one.
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, would it help you if I share one thing
you don't know about me? Yeah, trying to think, well,
it's funny because when you talk about playing in the snow.
So my late uncle, his name was Sam. Uncle Sam
was in uh he lived in Stamford, Connecticut, and so
(25:32):
there was two different Christmases. I was a bit of
a hell ai in when I was in middle school,
Like I stayed back in eighth grade. But I knew
I was going to stay back. So somebody tells you you're
going to stay back, You're like, well, I'm not going
to school. I don't cares. So my parents are like, dude,
go And I spent my Christmas break at his house
with my aunt Marge, my uncle Sam, two different winners
(25:54):
in a row. And I would go down and shoot
hoops and be snowing, and I would have gloves on,
but I would make it like fifteen minut And the
thing I hated about East Coast hoops was no nets.
I just did. I couldn't do the no net thing.
My dad would take me to New York City in
the summer where he used to where he grew up playing,
and we'd play it like West Forth or battlegrounds for
some of these other places, and there were no nets,
(26:16):
and I was like, I can't. Yeah, I'm I mean,
obviously in college I wasn't a good shooter, but I
was previous to that. But I just couldn't do it
with note with no nets. But I was thinking about
Uncle Sam. Okay, so I'm not sure I shared with
you any pythagoram theorem. But it's a little little something.
Give me, give me something you wish people knew about you.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
One thing is I love music. I love country music.
And I made a few back in like middle school,
high school, made a few rap songs that I put
out for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
But wait, can we find them if we google him?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Probably not. They're they're hitting him pretty well, so I'm hoping.
I'm hoping they're not able to be found. But was
proud of them when I released them.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Really yeah, he dropped some out. What was your What
was your rap name?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I can't say because then they're gonna be able to
find it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Okay, I mean, listen, there have been there have been
black rappers, there have been Jewish rappers. I don't know
if there's a black Jewish rapper. You could separate yourself there.
It's not bad. It's that bad, right, and I we
Actually here's one my best My best friend growing up
was got A Miles Simon. He was the MP most
(27:24):
Outstanding player in the nineteen ninety seven final four played Arizona.
So we had a kid in our team named Jasmine Johnson.
We called Jasmin Johnson Bump because he had a big
bump in the back of his head. And we want
to do a rap group called Chocolate Vanilla Swirl because
Miles was mixed race and Jasmine was was dark skinned
and I was obviously vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl. Right. That
was our We had a we had a rap group
(27:45):
going at the at the same time. Who is the
most Who's the funniest of your teammates?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm gonna say Rob, Rob Stroud Stroud, Yeah, he's hilarious. Yeah.
So we were together in the dorms like over the summer,
me him and Lebron and he Yeah, he was always
making this lab He's a funny He's the funniest. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I think, what would they say about you? They're like,
here's what you know about justin?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I feel like I would want them to say that
I'm hard working, and I feel like I always try
to bring a positive, positive attitude on and off the course.
So I feel like those the main thing.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Are you annoyingly positive?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No, no, no, no, you don't you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
The annoying people. You're just like, okay, it's not that great.
No no, no, no, no, I know what the degrees outside.
Put some beautiful y degrees outside. Like dude, dude, really, dude,
really in twenty years, just down's doing.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
What twenty years hopefully just finishing up playing professional basketball,
maybe looking to get into coaching or training or something
like that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You have to remember the place off your.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Coach maybe maybe train. There's no place I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I'm I'm I'm messing with you. But it is one
of those things. It's like the guy who went to Harvard.
We all make the assumption. It's like Romel with navy.
We all make the assumption that like he's he can
leap over small buildings and he's you know, he's been
shot out before, and he's like, look, dude, I was
a mechanic in the navy.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Okay, yea.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So people think because you're cardigiam Mail and that you
should balance our checkbook, pay our Texas, know every play right.
It's it's actually a good assumption, but it's definitely assumption
that people think you're the smartest guy in every room.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It's definitely not me at all. I feel like I've
kind of got made fun of on the team as
like being a dumb smart guy, and people were kind
of surprised, like how did you go to carnegiatemill And
obviously I don't really know, but I'm grateful I was
able to.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So sadly, you're a New York Giants football fan, Yeah, sadly.
What do you think of John Hartball as a new
head coach?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I think it's exciting. I feel like a fresh start
could be good, especially with Scatago, Scatto, Bow and Jackson
Dar and how their season was kind of going. I've
also kind of converted to be a little bit of
a Packers fan. Yeah, you know, we didn't love how
the season ended, but I feel like they kind of
kind of grew on me as the season went along.
So I guess I'm splitting out Packers and Giants.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That's okay, I'm Chargers and Packers. You can't be here
and not unless you're like a hard, hard and true
Pairs fan, right or last year we had Ryan Wade
who was a Lions fan because he's from Detroit. But
you can't really like you, you can't not at least
appreciate the packages. Yeah, what was it like running the
steps at Lambeau?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
So I didn't get I didn't get to run it
because I forgot your foot was messing, So I missed
the whole.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Do you want to go run it?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
To eight degrees outside? We can go run there?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Definitely not, I can set that out. I think problem.
I think watching everyone else run it, like being in
there even was just like a super cool experience, you know,
seeing that, And then I went to a game a
few months later and then being able to see being
like by the field and see the arena empty. I
had like six in the morning, and then going to
a game and seeing it packed out and the Packers
playing playing. It was just amazing to kind of see
(30:58):
the transformation.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
What would it mean to you to go to the
unsafe term everything?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Literally everything? I feel like that's been my dream in
like most kids' dreams. Since you're like a kid, you're
watching March Madis on TV and you kind of like
that's like the the end goal. You kind of want
to play, like I don't want to play there in
March madness, and now having an opportunity to be there
is is amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So we need to we need to sue. Right, you
only get one year Division one, three years of Division.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Three to figure that out. Okay, but here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I can only go and get the best lawyer and
sue if you're going to come back and play here,
of course.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Okay, Well that's if I get another year, of course.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well yeah, everybody says that, like you know, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I got I got, I got sorry coach, I got
somebody else online too. I got Danny Hurley online online too.
I got Rick Patino online too. Okay, well we'll uh,
we'll work on that. So is it okay? When you
get the ball at the Rest Center, do you want
people to say juice?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I like that. Yeah, let's start that.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Let's start that. Let's do it, okay? Or do you
want it to when you get buckets or when you
or when you get the ball?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Probably buckets get me. Yeah, I feel like just getting
the balls a little pretremature, like I have I have
to earn it.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You do have to earn it. Yeah, well, our star rebounder.
When was the last time he had nine rebounds in
a game?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I had ten on one game at Cardigie Mellen, like
my freshman year. But since then, I don't think I've
had nine.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
We're flying to him. You're flying to him. We're flying
your team, your coach, your professor, and the guy at
that what's the spot called the change at the exchange.
So you get your turkey sandwich and make sure you
get more rebounds. Justin's been really fun to coach you
so far, and I'll look forward this stretch run. Thanks
so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Appreciated, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
All right, let's welcome in. For the quarter century, he's
covered the NBA. He has an awesome podcast with Brendan Haywood,
who's a good friend of mine, a former NBA player
and of course an NBA analyst. Also this college basketball
as well. It's called the Seams. He's Rick Buker, longtime
NBA insider. Let's let's start with the Milwaukee Bucks. Okay,
(33:09):
the shopping Yiannis. What is a reasonable package for the
former MVP and h Finals MVP.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I mean you're talking you're talking about three or four
first round picks and at least I would say two
young potential talents. I think that's the that's the minimum.
It's basically a starter kit to rebuild the Milwaukee Bucks,
the start over kit. And I know that we've had
a variety of deals out there. Luka Doncics. They didn't
(33:40):
get a whole lot for Mikhale Bridges, the New York
Knicks gave up a ton. I believe that that the
the Yannis market will reset things to a more logical place.
And that's why I don't believe that it's going to
happen until after to the season. I don't know whether
(34:01):
Yannis plays again this year. He has currently has a
calf injury. It's really it would be really easy to
just shut him down considering where the Bucks are and
wait until they can do something in the off season.
But the thing that this comes down to, Doug is
neither Jannie nor John Horset the Milwaukee Bucks wants to
(34:23):
be the first to say we are going to actively
look to move Jiannis or in Giannis's case, I want
to be traded. This really is about who's going to
take responsibility for the breakup. Who's going to be the
initiator of it. Both sides are waiting for the other
side to do that so that it's not on them,
(34:43):
because in a small market like Milwaukee that resonates, you know,
who decided to leave is going to have an impact
on one.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I don't know. I mean, like, look, the model is
Oklahoma City, the model is San Antonio. If you look
at in terms of how to start over. Sure, right,
both teams had superstars. Okoma City didn't win a championship,
but they had First they traded Harden, then they lost Durant,
(35:17):
and then ultimately and then ultimately it was Westbrook was
gone to Paul George then gave them, gave them SGA
and that's when kind of the complete refeth complete rebuild started.
And now they still have a cornucopia of first round
picks for the next like five years. Houston obviously is
(35:37):
midway through from where the rebuild was to Again, I
don't know if ultimately this is the championship team because
they keep trying to add pieces and I think shorten
the span of time it takes to rebuild. And San
Antonio is finally back Obviously getting Wemby helped, but that
was after tearing it down, getting a bunch of draft
picks building it back up. And oh yeah, by the way,
Houston isn't. But San Antonio Okamoma City are small markets
(36:01):
and San Antonio won championships, Oklahoma City did not. But
I think the parallels right there. That's what you have
to do, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Sure? And in terms of rebuilding, no question about it.
I'm just saying that from a small market situation. You
saw it with Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant left, Kevin Durant
has been wearing that ever since right Kawhi Leonard left
San Antonio. He's been wearing that ever since it left
a mark. I'm just saying that the reason that Giannis
doesn't want to come right out and say, you know what,
it's time for me to leave is because he doesn't
(36:30):
want to have to carry or wear that mark if
he doesn't have to. And on the flip side, John
Horst doesn't want to be Nico Harrison and say, yeah,
you know what, we decided it was time. Even though
the circumstances are a little bit different, the impression left
on that market is the same. Now, I agree with
you in terms of the rebuilding. If the Milwaukee Bucks
(36:51):
were really going to take a lesson from Oklahoma City
and Sam Presty learned this the hard way. It's the
second your sty our player appears to have one foot
out the door or is uncertain about whether he wants
to stay there, you got to make a move because
now you're at his mercy. Now you're making a Damian
(37:14):
Lillard trade, even if you know that that's not a
good trade to make.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Okay, here's here's the here's the analogy. Here's the analogy. Right,
you're dating a woman for like a year and a
half and then somebody goes like, hey, you guys are
gonna get married. You're like, I know, you know, yeah,
it's not gonna happen. Yea, And right then it's really
hard to do.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
But then they go like, you know, I didn't have
I wasn't always good as a dater, right, I was
a serial dater, But that that was one thing that
I was good at. The second I knew it wasn't
happening or this there was the future here, I.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Was gotta go. Okay, Doc Rivers, there's no reason to
think that he coaches his team next year. If they
trade Giannis is there.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Now you're going in a completely different direction. I've never
known Doc to be even though he won his one
Coach of the Year taking an Orlando team to go
forty one and forty one. And I don't see him,
particularly at this point in his career. I don't see
him as a developer of talent or a rebuilder.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Did you think the Damien Litle thing would work? When
it happened, I thought, you're placating.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
This is the price to.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Get Giannis to re up. I never thought it was
going to work. I never thought it was a good idea,
and as it has proved to be. I also didn't
think that you trade Drew Holliday and resigned Chris Middleton.
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You could.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Maybe you get less for Chris Middleton. Chris was done,
He's done through as he's demonstrated it still had a
lot left in the tank.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
The genius to the Patriots, and I started this show
by talking about how unbelievably the idiocy to people in
I guess, I guess it's still my profession, although really
more my previous profession. Now your profession, which is covering
the then now they cover the NFL in not putting
him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Which the
genius to Belichick, and how that thing was sustainable was
(39:21):
one Brady. He didn't really take top dollar. Now he
wasn't like he was making the minimum. But they found
clever ways so that they had more money to spend.
And then the big thing was they got rid of
guys that you're early rather than a year late. Yep.
And the difference in that, again, that's not what's happened
here in Milwaukee, and that's not what's going to happen,
(39:42):
and so it makes them it has died a slow,
slow death and not exactly a good one.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Now, unfortunately, we have a lot of owners that have
become so sensitive to the public reaction to anything, and
so when you have someone who is a player who
is beholden to the market, the owner is less likely
(40:10):
to make a move. I would say the Golden State
Warriors may have done the same thing in the instance
of Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, at least as far
as the decision making. They're clinging to one thing while
trying to move in another direction and get younger, and
that's created chaos that they're going to pay for for
years ahead.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, that one's a crazy one too, right. That one
feels like Police Academy. Right, Well, you have some of
the same stars, then you try all these different things
like what are we doing? Just yeah, all it?
Speaker 3 (40:42):
And meanwhile the fan base is like, they're wasting Steph
Curry's last years. I'm like, all the moves that they
have made was out of trying to squeeze another one
out for another championship out for Steph Curry.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Okay, So that leads to the question, what happens to
Steph Curry next year?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
I don't I don't know that they're going to make
any move. I don't know that he wants to make
any move. It is a matter of are you gonna
be willing to hit the reset button? And what I
don't what what I believe is Steph is a little
more wed to helping re get this team going in
(41:20):
the right direction again as opposed to the Lebron James.
If I'm not playing for championships, I don't want to
be here or it's not worth my time. Because we've
seen Steph go through this already in the couple of
years when they were down and they're a playing team
and he's giving everything he's got just to get them
into the plan. He's doing it now, right, And so
(41:41):
I think he knows as most people who have watched
him over the course of his career. No, he's not
the same guy, like everybody wants to say, Oh, it's
all the pieces around him. Steph can still play at
a very high level, and at times he can look
like the old Steph and he can he can recreate
that magic, but he can't do it consistently enough with
(42:04):
especially at this point, with this particular team and how
they've where all the money is spent, and the lack
of resources that they have that I think he understands
all of that. So I don't I just I don't
see any way anyhow that Steph makes the decision I'd
(42:24):
like to play for some other team other than the
Golden State Warriors. I think he knows that he has
I don't know that he's a guy that wants to
play to forty. You know, I could see him playing
another year or two.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Okay, last thing, what happens to Lebron James next year?
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Man, that is that is the one hundred million dollar
question in terms of where do you go? Because I
don't think there's a place for him with the Lakers,
certainly not a place that would be.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
In a word, that story does not get out by
accident that Genie Buss is like over the whole Lebron thing. Right,
there's no way that that is that For anybody who
doesn't know that's uh, I heard of virtue signaling. I
don't really know what that is. That that is like
signaling to everybody like they're done. Okay, you gotta find
if you want to keep doing this, you got to
(43:20):
find a new place. We're good here.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So here you you walked into a restaurant where you're
waiting for your table, right yeah, And and you can
see them setting it up, yeah, putting out the napkins
and plates, and they're getting everything all right, and the
candle in the middle and all that, and then they say,
your table is ready, Genie Bus, just set the table,
(43:43):
and now we're going to sit down to the reality
that Lebron James's time with the Lakers is over.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So what what like he there's no way he doesn't
go out with the victory tour, right, there's just is
I know, I know, it's just not who. It would
be so out of character for him. He's like, no,
I'm just gonna like middle of the night, I'm done,
never see me again, right, or you pop up on TV?
But what are the options like this? Would Cleveland take
him back?
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I don't see that that's the choice. I don't see that. Miami. No,
it doesn't make any It makes no sense. They they
had their fill of that. That's the great question. I mean,
that's that's why. I think, that's why it's a hundred million.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I think you want to go to Golden State and
step was probably like no.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
No, and I would say yeah. I mean, Joe Lacup,
I could see being intrigued by that. Mike Leavy, Mike
Dunleavy Junior, and Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr, I'll tell you
right now, he hasn't said it to me. Know, he's
Steve Kerr as I do. He's not signing up for that.
He's not, he is not really. I don't think he's
going to re up anyway right now. That would but
(44:50):
but that would guarantee that he's not going to re up.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
It's fascinating to me because he's Lebron's gonna have to
like take a very large discount with the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yes, and they're gonna they're gonna cut Bronnie too. And
they're gonna cut Bronnie too.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, well I would, I would hope. I'm reluctant to
talk about Bronnie because I do not want to pile
on to the kid either.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I'm just I'm just telling you the reality of how
you the emotions of Like, listen, he's a dad. I
deal with you know with dads all the time. Okay, No,
they're just blinded by love. Hey, that's just what it is.
But the reality is that like he's going to say, like, Okay,
you gotta take me, you gotta take my son, and
then I had to play, and you're gonna have to
(45:43):
pay me more than you want to pay me. And yeah,
it's crazy to think somebody will acquiesce. I just don't
think it might be the somebody's that we think it'll be.
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
What's what's what's interesting about this is that Lebron created
then where he got to play with his son.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, this this historic.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Moment that didn't quite play historic because everybody knows that
it was artificially created.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
But all that said, the culmination of that is going
to be what that's what LEDs to his own still embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
No, that's what led honestly, that's where they were just
like I again, Geenie can say whatever she wants to say,
like that part makes it embarrassing to the Lakers, like
this is not what the Lakers have ever been about.
And then you know the reports are he's not even
grateful for it. And you know now they got Ramelina
Shelburne saying no, he never asked for them to draft him.
Come on, like, what do we what do we do?
Speaker 3 (46:43):
I know, what do we that? That makes me sad
because it's what do you say?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Are we?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Are we semantics here? He didn't go right into the
office and say, hey, listen, you have to draft Bronnie. Okay,
so Rich Paul told him, hey, lebron wants you to
draft Annie.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I mean, what are we? What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Bronnie James would not be a Laker if the Lakers
did not know that that's what lebron James wanted. However,
that was communicated. Who cares this idea that it was.
He never asked for that. They just they they unilaterally
decided to draft Bronnie and then we're gonna throw in
these other teams that supposedly had interest. The Golden State
(47:26):
Wars weren't gonna draft him, the Phoenix Suns were not
going to draft him. They were if there was any
interest in it. It was Oh, lebron James Might says
he wants to play wherever his son is. I mean
that was said, right, yes, okay, so so so what
are we talking about. Lebron said, I'm gonna play wherever
(47:46):
Bronnie is. Lakers are like, okay, well we want you
to play here. We're gonna draft Bronnie. I mean, what
are we talking about.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I don't know. You'll get the best. Let's do this again.
Finding the Seams is the podcast you should find it
of you find your podcast. He and bred In do
an awesome job. Buke, thanks so much, you got it.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
My thanks to Justin Allen, and my thanks to Rick
Buker for joining me on the third edition of The
Doug Gottlieb Show. I do want to leave you with this,
as we have our Super Bowl teams right the Seattle
Seahawks and the New England Patriots, And I think it's
fascinating right how the New England Patriots went through. This
(48:30):
is their second incarnation of trying to find the air
apparent to Tom Brady, and they seem to have hit.
But the team I will be rooting for is the Seahawks,
and not because I care about the Seahawks in any way.
Matter of fact, like most Packer fans. Of course, I
remember the NFC Championship came there, the touchdown interception in
(48:52):
the end zone, the Richard Sherman. I found the legion
of Boom to be incredibly talented and remarkably annoying as well.
And the bosure of Russell Wilson has been fascinating, fascinating
as none of those guys loved him and he hasn't
found a home since he left Seattle. But my reason
behind supporting the Seahawks cheering for the Seahawks as one guy,
(49:14):
it's Sam Donald. Now. I grew up in Orange County, California.
He's a former basketball player football player at Santa Clement
High School, which is the southernmost part of Orange County, California.
But more than anything, it's something that's relatable to so
many of us. Watchington play at USC, watched him win
a Rose Bowl against Penn State. That doesn't mean that
(49:34):
you're going to be a great pro player when you're
a great college player. But always loved that when you
had Sam Donald coming out of college, and if you
asked anybody at USC, they loved him as a guy,
as a dude, right, that was the big thing. He
goes to the New York Jets and bad. Do I
(49:56):
think some of it is the Jets are a mess?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Do I think some of it is that Adam didn't
put him in a position to succeed. Sure, But do
I think some of it was Sam Donald wasn't wasn't great,
lost his confidence and when you're not confident, you're not
gonna be good at anything you do. Absolutely. He bounces
around the league, gets a chance with the Vikings, and
the Vikings had the chance to resign him, and I
get it. You'd wait. You had had your first round
(50:19):
pick and he's sitting out and you're like, man, JJ
McCarthy's inexpensive. He's a first round pick. We believed in him.
He's the next guy. We got a quarterback whisper as
our coach. Well, let him move on. Think about letting
Sam Donald walk out the door when he has a
career year with the Vikings. And look, it's fair. He
looked bad in the playoffs last year, but their offensive
(50:39):
line got destroyed. How much of that was him? How
much of that was the Vikings? Only the coaching staff knows.
But think about all those teams that had owned his rights, Jets, Panthers, Niners, Vikings,
And think about how well he played this year, how
well he played in the NFC Championship game, and how
(51:00):
you sit there and go like you know, I know
Jackson Smith and Jigba is their best player. Is an
unbelievable talent. But how could he not root for a
guy who got beat up by his own performances or
by being with crummy franchises or coaches that it didn't
all work, and then finds a way to figure it out.
He's not yet thirty years old, and he's got plenty
of time to get to another Super Bowl, but maybe
(51:21):
this is the only chance to win one. So if
you ask me, that's why, despite the fact that I
live in Green Bay and the Seahawks make anybody's stomach uneasy.
I'll be rooting for the Seattle Seahawks. I'm Doug Gottlieb,
Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Doug Gottlieb. Guess what it's Doug Gottlieb Show. I
think this is episode three. Yeah, it's episode three. I
don't know. I mean, do we count the pilot? It's
a lot like when you were a kid, and kids
these days don't remember. You'd ask me for directions and
they'd say, we go up six lights and you take
a left. Well, do I count the first light? No
one ever decided. We had no universal decision on that.
(00:33):
So I'm going to count the pilot. This is episode
three obviously. If you know me, I've been doing this
for over twenty years, and this is just a new
way to do it on a different on my time.
As I like to say, as I like to say,
there is a lot going on in the sports world,
right Mike McCarthy, former Packers and Cowboys head coach, hits
the triumvirint right, no matter how it happens or how
(00:57):
it works out in Pittsburgh. And I know he's from Pittsburgh,
but on your tombstone they say you coach the Packers,
the Cowboys and the Steelers pretty good. It's pretty good.
And he's won a Super Bowl and I know one
of the questions is does he want Aaron Rodgers back?
And the answer is yes, yes, and I am I'm
(01:21):
not blind to the flaws of a forty year old quarterback,
nor blind to the flaws of Aaron Rodgers whether he
was forty or whether he was twenty four. Right, Aaron
can be tricky or what was it that Mark Murphy said? Complicated?
Complicated is one of those words where it's really not
a negative, but anyone who hears it it deems it
to be negative. And by the way, it's true he's complicated.
(01:45):
Complicated and mediocre are in that same realm. Like ask
yourself right now, mediocre is it a positive or negative word?
That was? It's negative? No? Actually, mediocre is average? Is
right in the middle, right as the media, you know,
mediocre medium. But our assumption or the perception is that
(02:05):
being average, being in the middle mediocre is a bad thing.
You know. I take my team last year, we were
not mediocre, we were sub mediocre. Right, we would have
settled for mediocre would have been amazing. We want to
just be average. Now we want to be better than mediocre, right,
we want to be above average. But it really is
(02:27):
interesting that complicated is the exact same word. Complicated is
not a negative word. But when you say, like, what's
your relationship with your wife, like it's complicated, that's nobody
says that. When it's a it's a really, really good thing.
So do you want Aaron Rodgers back? The answer is yes. Why.
(02:49):
The easiest thing is they've worked together and won a
Super Bowl together before. Did they have their differences, yes,
well they still have their differences. Yes, But when you're
coming in in your first year, if you bring coaches,
players with you, if you bring people you've worked with before,
they know how you work, and they also kind of
have your back in the locker room because they know
(03:11):
how it's supposed to go and they've had some success
with you. And for a quarterback, when you know all
the plays, we know all the formations, we knew all
the calls, you know all the verbiage, you can make,
all the checks to the line of scrimmage. Aaron Rodgers
is not going to play in a new system next year, no,
thank you. He is no desire. So I don't know
if they keep Aaron Rodgers. My guess is they do.
They try one and it allows him to be the
(03:33):
bridge quarterback to whatever they got to figure out what
the next guy is. But whether he wins or whether
he loses, I can't think of a better resume in
the history of sports in having coached. I mean, I
guess Phil Jackson coached the Bulls and the Lakers to
eleven titles. He did coach the Knicks as well. Okay,
so those are the three biggest markets. Obviously, it didn't
(03:55):
work out well with the Knicks. Maybe that's that's the parallel, right,
because it didn't work out great, but not wasn't a
disaster with the Cowboys. It wasn't great for Mike McCarthy.
So that's that's the basketball analogy, is Phil Jackson. The
difference is Phil Jackson won eleven titles. Mike McCarthy's won one. Fair,
(04:17):
it's fair. And then we get to the most recent
sign that twenty twenty six is going to be like
twenty twenty five, like twenty twenty four, like but only worse.
Here's what I mean. Shador Standers was the third string
court maybe fourth string quarterback with the with the Cleveland Browns,
who were an abject disaster. He won a couple of games,
(04:39):
seven touchdowns, ten receptions, and he was recently elected to
the Pro Bowl. Now, look, the Pro Bowl is a
lot like you're in my house party where you just
start inviting everybody after everybody turns you down, Like yeah,
I'm gonna do a Super Bowl party and I'm new
in town and everybody's already gotten. You do it like
two days for the Super Bowl, Like yeah, I'm already
(04:59):
committed to other sup Bowl. But still, Shador Sanders is
a Pro bowler and Bill Belichick is not a Hall
of first ballot Hall of Famer. Now, you can tell
me all you want about spy gley Gate into flake Gate,
or maybe he didn't treat you. Well, I don't know,
and I do think that how you treat people is
super important in the world and how people look at you.
(05:19):
But what I can tell you is that when you
go to ten Super Bols as a coach who wins
six of them, when you have double digit winning seasons
in every year except for I think one in twenty years,
there's no world in which he's not a first ballot
Hall of Famer. And it looks incredibly small for Hall
of Fame voters, which are media people, to hold whatever
(05:41):
they want to hold against him. You could make the
argument of well, spygate is like steroids. But the problem
with spygate is after it was discovered, they went to
even more Super Bowls to flake Gate was a joke. Right.
Here's how I know it was a joke. The NFL
announced that they were going to have a season where
(06:03):
they checked all the footballs, all the air pressure, everything
to see what the air pressure was like before the game,
what it was like at halftime, and basically get a
control group. Does anybody know what happened to that study?
The answer is no, you know why because it probably
disproved any theories otherwise other than yeah, the balls can
(06:23):
lose air when they're putting the out and the cold.
That's what happens to basketball, is that's them the footballs,
That's what happens to anything that's inflated, and all of
a sudden, the air pressure around it increases or decreases,
cold decreases. So if it was that big a thing,
the NFL would have followed up and would have shown
their findings. It wasn't. Spygate was really really simple. For years,
(06:45):
You've been able to film the signals coming in, you'd
been able to film the plays taking place. No one
had filmed the signals and the plays at the same
time on the same tape Belichick did. Yeah, apparently he
might add some other guys rove in the stadium and
filming other plays. Whatever, But this is what's happening in
(07:07):
football for our entire lives. If you grew up playing
youth football, you know that your coach when you were
at practice probably did something to hide the fact that
you were running some super secret play. And high school
football is famous for this. High school football coach is
checking out their stands to see if the rival came
to watch their practice to watch their secret plays. This
(07:28):
is what sports is. Again. I'm not okay with blatant cheating.
I do think that the Astros should have lost their
World Series, But in this case, how can you argue
with twenty five years of unbelievable sustained success. You cannot
so as a still member of the media, I'm embarrassed
that members of the media decide to not let him
(07:49):
in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first
ballot when he's been to more and won more shupols
than anybody in the history of the sport. Makes us
look small. What makes us look insecure. And if he's
not a Pro Football Hall of Famer, who is right?
Who possibly is?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
All right?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Let's welcome him in. He's a senior, although I have
an idea and I'll throw it at him if we
can get him to have another year at GB He's
our star guard. They call him Juice. We'll get into
that in a second. He's Justin Allen, a transfer from
Carnegie Mellon University. Who is the first person to call
(08:31):
you juice?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Marcus Hall was the first person to call me juice.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So you didn't bring that nickname with you to Green Bay?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I did not know.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Did he tell you why he called you juice?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah? So basically, in like the pregame right ups, everyone
kind of has a nickname. So Marcus was money Marcus.
And this is before the season started, so I didn't woa.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Whoa, whoa whoa who gave him the name money Marcus?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Whoever? The reporters are who make the pregame like write
ups for Green Bay?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
What reporters?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't know. So if you click like preview before
games on our edule, it has like a little preview,
so they talk about a bunch of people they have
money Marcus. There's amazing O'Hara and they have suffer.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It sounds like students doing it. I don't know if
anybody probably okay, but do you know what you know
our nickname from Marcus was previous to this year, which
i've I've I've kind of let go a little bit.
I don't white Marcus, white Marcus.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, here's why it's white Marcus. So last year I
hired Eric Sanders and I had and I don't know
it was when Jerry Smith joined us. Who else was it?
It was, uh oh, we had Tyrs Thomas and h
and Eric Sanders and so they come into the office
and I was like, hey, a couple of the players
(09:41):
are coming by. You should meet him. Like who the
players like Marcus Hall and Preston Ruinger. Everybody calls him
Rudy and I think mac Recky and I don't know
who else was there. And they came back in the
office like twenty minutes later, like, coach, you didn't tell
us Marcus was white. I was like, it's a good point,
because Marcus is not always a white guy's name, right,
(10:02):
So then I would call him white. I call him
white Marcus most of the summer and at some point,
like he clearly did not like it, right, So I
was like, hey, dude, do you only stop calling you
white Mark. He's like, well, I don't really like it,
but everybody else does, so it's okay. So I used
to on the board always write white Marcus, but I
chose to not not do that. So so he starts
calling you Juice and it just stuck.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah. Well, first he was calling me juicy, and I
don't really like that one, so it kind of turned
into juice.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, why was he calling you juicy? Did you ask him?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
No? I didn't ask him. So when I called him
money Marcus, he was trying to come up with a
name back for me. And the first thing that Juicy
justin was juicy.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I did not love that day. And now it's just Juice,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So do you like the nickname Juice?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I do like Juice, honestly think it's pretty cool. Kind
of stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, yeah, I will point out, you know, the last
person whose nickname was Juice was don't you was it?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Oh? J?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Simpson?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
O J.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Simpson.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So Anyway, nonetheless, he was a great player, rushed for
two thousand yards to hide some trumphy winter he went
two thousand yards and only fourteen games in the regular season.
This has been a fascinating kind of experience being alongside
coaching you. But there's so many people in so many
layers to your story, so I don't want to dive
in with the whole story. I want to pick out
(11:14):
little pieces of it. Okay, high school, where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Fox Lane High School in West Chestern, New York. Box
School in my town?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yep, Okay, Fox Lane? What town?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Bedford, New York?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Okay, yeah, Okay, I know where Bedford, New York is
about what thirty minutes outside the city probably.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah. It's not upstate for people who want to say
it's upstate.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
No, it's a Westchester county.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I hate when people say I'm from upstate.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
No, it's a really nice, rich area. It's not upstate.
It's not country folk. It's not bad Sty. It's Bedsty,
which is Brooklyn is not Bedford, which is nice nice.
It's not spectacle, but it's really nice nice areas. Bad areas.
Why were you not offered a scholarship at high school?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's a great question. I mean, I feel like I
believe I deserved one. Back then in high school, I
feel like probably physically I wasn't strong enough, you know,
probably just little things with my game I play. Once
I got to college, I kind of got a lot
more aggressive word to my game, physicality, things like that.
That kind of pushed me to be able to play
at this next level.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
How I think every everybody assumes when you say Carnegie Mellon,
They're like, oh my god, he's going to do my taxes.
He's gonna he can build buildings, he can leap small
buildings in What were your grades in high school to
get into Carnigie.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Molon, I would say I had all like all a's,
like all nineties and above. You know, my mom was
super big on school and then my sister she went
to Northwestern and she was also super smart. So they
kind of pushed me and kind of pressured me a
little bit to succeed in high school and that kind
of led me to Carnegie Melon.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Okay, your mom she works in the school system, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
She she does? Yeah, what does she do? She does?
She works on like the administrative side in human resources.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, So when you told her, because I know what
she told me. But when you told her mom, I
know I could go to Carnegie Mellon and your last year,
You're actually everything was gonna be taken care of. Right.
That's that's how carnigea mail works. Like three years in
you get everything's basically scholarship. Yeah, hey, Cardie Mellon's awesome,
and I'm the guy there and I was twenty six geaen,
(13:12):
but I want to go to Wisconsin Green Bay to
play basketball for this coach who's won four games. What
was her response?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, So at first she was kind of like whoa,
Like hold your horses, like what are we talking about here?
And then you know, eventually, after I talked to her
for a little bit, she kind of came to understand,
like this has always been my goal, in my dream
to play at this level and set myself up to
play professionally. And eventually she was the one kind of
even more on board than me. She was like, no,
you have to do It's like, this is what's right
for you. So it's kind of awesome to see her
(13:41):
kind of go from kind of questioning things to you know,
being my biggest supporter and you know, pushing me to
make the decision.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
What was it, because I noticed when you got here
on your visit you were really comfortable. What was it
that made you feel so comfortable?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I would say you guys on the coaching staff, and
then definitely just the guys on the team. You know,
like coming from Carnegie mellon the guys team, they were
like a family. And that was a big thing for
me when when picking a school, and I feel like
as soon as I got here, like meeting Rudy and
meeting the rest of the guys, I felt at home
and it was great.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
She was very nervous about the cold in you driving
in the cold, living in the cold. I was like,
were you from New York And Okay, how have you
adjusted to our winter weather?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, it's I've survived. I mean it's definitely cold. It's
definitely a little painful. I thought coming from New York,
I was like, it can't be that much colder. But
it definitely is that much colder. But I mean it's
just a little bit of cold. I'm only walking from
my apartment to the athletics center and back, so it's
not too bad.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, you literally live in the gym, like you're always
in the gym, and as I tell people, sixty eight
in the gym, sixty eight my office, sixty eight in
the in the way room. It's it's generally sixty eight
sixty in Greece. Your favorite part of green Bay is.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What favorite part of Green Bay? I would say community.
I feel like our Carnegie Mellon. We didn't really have
a ton of fans who came out to games, not
a ton of support. And now coming here seeing all
the people come out to games, you know, supporting us
at games, supporting us even like outside of games, like
seeing people at the supermarket, things like that, just everyone
kind of supporting you as a team has been awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You are Do you consider yourself Jewish? Or is your
mom just your mom Jewish?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
My mom's Jewish, so technically I do consider myself Jewish.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, okay, what are your thoughts? You and I have
talked a little bit, but the idea of playing in Israel,
how does that? How does how would that feel to you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I mean it appeals to me a lot. I'm actually
working on right now getting my Israeli citizenship, so I'm
kind of like halfway in that process right now, so
hopefully that all works out and I can and hopefully do.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
You know what it's called. Oh yeah, it's called making Aliyah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah. I didn't want to mess it up, but by
I noticed, No, it's you did you did it, You
did it.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You did a really good job. It's it's super cool.
And probably the best part about it is that when
you're in tel Aviv and most of the teams are
in tel Aviv, there's like five first division teams in
tel Aviv, but then there's like six or seven second
division teams in Tel Aviv, and then there's a couple
of third division teams in tel Aviv. So what does
that mean? That means of the first division teams like
(15:58):
Maccabi tel Aviv don't have like five or six Americans
like because in some in I think you can have
four in Israeli league, and I don't know, I don't
know how it works. And then of course you have
people like yourself that are dual citizenship. Some players come
over marry in Israeli women, so they get dual citizenship
as well. So I remember there's a guy named Jesse
(16:19):
Salters I played with when I played in Israel. He
played at South Florida and Jesse was like our old head,
and so he's like, i'ma have a Thanksgiving party. All
the Americans gonna be there. I was like, okay, I
thought he just meant like us. And there's like sixty
sixty Hoopers there and many of them had wives or girlfriends,
and so it felt like you're in America and it
(16:39):
was really cool, which you don't get playing in any
in any other country. You really really do not where
when was the moment You're like, yeah, I can do this.
I belong at There's.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
One level I would say, I think at Minnesota and
then the Virgin Allens. I mean, you know, like the
first few games were kind of little shaky for me,
kind of trying to get my foot in and get
my confidence to everything. But like once that Minnesota game
we played that, I kind of felt comfortable playing against
the high level competition. And then you know, carry that
into the Virgin Islands and being successful there, it was
(17:12):
kind of like, okay, like I feel good here. Now,
I feel I can I can really compete in.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Your Your game is different than anybody else's, right, I mean,
it's just very unique. Your ball handling style is very unique.
Obviously you played the mid range jumpers, which it's taken
a lot for me to get behind, but I am.
I am now behind it if you only occasionally shoot
them and make I like it when you make them. Yeah,
big fan of Made Middies, not a big fan of
Miss Middies. But how did you like? Again, your game
(17:39):
doesn't look like everybody else's game?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Haw?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Did you put it together?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Put it together in terms of like how I got
my game to be that way? Yeah, I'd say a
lot of one on one I think when I was younger,
me and my best friend his name is Dylan, we
would just play one on one for hours outside in
the snow. We'd put on gloves and play one on one.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That sounds like bull crap.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Just I swear this is true.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That sounds like that's like, that's like something my dad
would say, we played with.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Gloves in the snow.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
He's from Long Island. He would like, yeah, we play
with gloves?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Is like, did I promise in my neighborhood, I have
like a little court, so like the full court is
probably the length of like it's like two hoops, but
just the length like a half court, and we would
just get going one on one full court yeah, with
gloves on in the freezing snow, and we probably get
freezing after like thirty minutes. We couldn't feel the hands.
We'd go back in. But just stuff like that. It's
a lot on one on one and just working on
my game.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Where Dylan play high school with you?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah? Fox nine?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah? And how good was see?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
He's a beast. He plays at a Connecticut college right
now at Division three?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, I know connecting college a little bit. Does he
have any years left?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
He has one year left?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I mean, can he get buckets the way you can
get bucket?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
For real?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I mean he's good.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, all right, Well, I mean I don't know if
I'm allowed. I think i am. I'll set it up
super weird though, Like we're allowed to go and see
Division two, Division three games. We we can't go see
Division one games, even though we know guys are going
to be in the portal. It's just, yeah, it's just
an odd it's an odd thing. Your favorite player we've
played thus far.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I'm going to say too. I think Kansas for sure,
that was just the most surreal experience for me coming.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
From don't you wish we could go play there? Now?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Now that we actually know, like they're still really good
and better than us, but now at least we give
a better representation because yeah, exactly, it's hard, like we're
trying to figure out who can play. I'm playing everybody,
try and figure out who who can handle it. Anyway,
go ahead with Kansas.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, I feel like that was just a real like
coming from my last game being a Division three game
probably in front of one hundred fans, and then going
to my next game being at Kansas in front of
fifteen thousand was incredible and I was just kind of
looking around like soaking it in the whole time. And
then second, I'd say, Robert Morris is because my whole
Carnegie Mellon team came and supported me there, and that
was the most amazing experience for me. So those are
the top two.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I near saying they like it so for people who
don't know, so we Carnegie Millon is in Pittsburgh and
Robert Morris's Moon Township, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh.
So at the game, how many how many players were there?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Like ten to twelve players?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Okay, your coach who had retired after you transferred, right,
uh huh? He was you forced him into retirement. He's like, man,
I don't know just now and I'm done. I'm out,
come out. And then two professors.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Uh so it was the coach, my old head coach,
my assistant coach, two of the women's team coaches. A
professor and like her family, I trained her son for
a little bit, so he came also. And then also
there's a sandwich spot on campus called the Exchange, and
those guys all came to and they brought my order,
which you order. It was a turkey provlo and leduce,
tomato and mayo on white bread.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And how many days a week on white bread?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Okay, how many? How many days a week would you
get it?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Every day? They're open? So six days a week?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Why what was your Are you just like one of
those guys? I want to eat the same thing every day?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah? Basically I had that, and then I would get
a bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant for breakfast
and then go back for lunch.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So that's the big on a croissant sounds like a
burger king, which is burger king very underrated for for breakfast?
The crissan witch is that what it's called? Thess You
never had it really, Yeah, yeah, we'll have you back
on and be like that was really. We don't get
anybody from burger King, but if they want to give us,
I'm sure. I mean, the mcgriddle is is really the
(21:09):
goat of all breakfast sandwiches, but it's terrible for you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Not that the chryssanwich is that much better for you,
but it is better for you than the mcgriddle. I
definitely think you need to try one of those. Or
maybe it's a bad thing for me to tell you
to try one of those, because then you're gonna get
hooked and that's going to be your every day thing.
They should say, hey, you know, it's really good. Is
quinoa and uh and some some bone broth?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Definitely not for some some some bone broth.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
How for for people who uh don't know you? How
many what's your day like in terms of how much
extra work you do in addition to practice?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So I would say usually before practice, usually we have
lived so I'll like form you for a little bit,
but nothing crazy. Before practice, we'll have practice. Then right
after just ends, I'll usually stay for twenty thirty minutes
with like a coach or a manager and work on
some finishing, ball handling, some shooting, then go home, rest
for a little bit, and then back at night. I'll
(22:10):
probably come back and shoot around three hundred four hundred
shots on the gun, work a little bit ball handling again.
So probably like at night, I'll come back for hour
and a half ish after practice, thirty minutes or probably
two hours total. But I fel like those those little
segments add up a ton for me and give me
a ton of confidence and help me keep progressing throughout
the season.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So you're getting three four hundred up in addition to
what we get up in practice every every day?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, how many?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
How many? How often do you skip that?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Never? I feel like I'll get like stressed out if
I skip it, Like if I don't use my day
as best as I can and progress as much as
I can, I'll feel like I'm like getting behind, and
I hate that feeling. So just trying to stay on
top of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I know your your dad passed away nine years ago.
Your mom obviously is a huge, huge part of your life.
Who where does that come from? Your mom's it come
to your dad? Is that just some of you like
that that level of not just work ethic and intentionality,
but it's almost it's almost an OCD sort of thing
where you just kind of have to do Where does
that come from?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I feel like a combination the way I was brought
up and also you know, going through something like the
past of my father kind of inspired me and like
motivated me to kind of put my onto everything and
put my onto basketball, you know, kind of hopefully make
him proud.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So yeah, I think he's got to be pretty proud.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Do you ever do you ever catch yourself in that
thought where you're like you're at at the US Virgin
Islands and you drop twenty seven twenty eight, like damn,
Pops would be.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Super Yeah, just like kind of this whole year honestly
just thinking like I wish you could see it, but
definitely knowing that he's proud.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Has your mom seen you play in person?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
She y?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Has? She saw me once at Kansas, But she's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Why don't you tell me I would have played you more?
You barely played that game.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
But she's coming this weekend, so it's gonna be good
for us.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Oh now now I got pressure. Now I can't Now
I can't add Matthew because then you got a Jewish mother.
You don't want to mess with her.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
She's seen it though I don't.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I'm ah, Now she gonna cook? Like does she is?
She gonna cook?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
No, no, she's not going to cook.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Okay, So you guys going out, Yeah, we'll go out.
Where's your spot in Green Bay?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I don't have one yet. That's the thing I like.
I go to the chains and I need like why
it's easy Chick fil A, Olive Guardian.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
You can't take her to No, no, don't respect.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I mean I like her there. Okay, I was thinking
Angelina's just haven't been yet.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So Italian Blue is is really really good. Obviously, Republic Steakhouse,
you have Iron Duck where you've you've been there before.
There's some some good places. I got some some others,
but yeah, there's nothing. Angelina is just awesome, awesome, really good.
You guys get your Italian fixed. We've I've done like
too much Italian, I know, but a lot of pasta
(24:48):
is not great for you. You should know that. And all
these guys about Italian. Oh, one thing you wish people
knew about you?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It's a good question. I did think about that one.
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, would it help you if I share one thing
you don't know about me? Yeah, trying to think, well,
it's funny because when you talk about playing in the snow.
So my late uncle, his name was Sam. Uncle Sam
was in uh he lived in Stamford, Connecticut, and so
(25:32):
there was two different Christmases. I was a bit of
a hell ai in when I was in middle school,
Like I stayed back in eighth grade. But I knew
I was going to stay back. So somebody tells you you're
going to stay back, You're like, well, I'm not going
to school. I don't cares. So my parents are like, dude,
go And I spent my Christmas break at his house
with my aunt Marge, my uncle Sam, two different winners
(25:54):
in a row. And I would go down and shoot
hoops and be snowing, and I would have gloves on,
but I would make it like fifteen minut And the
thing I hated about East Coast hoops was no nets.
I just did. I couldn't do the no net thing.
My dad would take me to New York City in
the summer where he used to where he grew up playing,
and we'd play it like West Forth or battlegrounds for
some of these other places, and there were no nets,
(26:16):
and I was like, I can't. Yeah, I'm I mean,
obviously in college I wasn't a good shooter, but I
was previous to that. But I just couldn't do it
with note with no nets. But I was thinking about
Uncle Sam. Okay, so I'm not sure I shared with
you any pythagoram theorem. But it's a little little something.
Give me, give me something you wish people knew about you.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
One thing is I love music. I love country music.
And I made a few back in like middle school,
high school, made a few rap songs that I put
out for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
But wait, can we find them if we google him?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Probably not. They're they're hitting him pretty well, so I'm hoping.
I'm hoping they're not able to be found. But was
proud of them when I released them.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Really yeah, he dropped some out. What was your What
was your rap name?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I can't say because then they're gonna be able to
find it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Okay, I mean, listen, there have been there have been
black rappers, there have been Jewish rappers. I don't know
if there's a black Jewish rapper. You could separate yourself there.
It's not bad. It's that bad, right, and I we
Actually here's one my best My best friend growing up
was got A Miles Simon. He was the MP most
(27:24):
Outstanding player in the nineteen ninety seven final four played Arizona.
So we had a kid in our team named Jasmine Johnson.
We called Jasmin Johnson Bump because he had a big
bump in the back of his head. And we want
to do a rap group called Chocolate Vanilla Swirl because
Miles was mixed race and Jasmine was was dark skinned
and I was obviously vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl. Right. That
was our We had a we had a rap group
(27:45):
going at the at the same time. Who is the
most Who's the funniest of your teammates?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm gonna say Rob, Rob Stroud Stroud, Yeah, he's hilarious. Yeah.
So we were together in the dorms like over the summer,
me him and Lebron and he Yeah, he was always
making this lab He's a funny He's the funniest. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I think, what would they say about you? They're like,
here's what you know about justin?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I feel like I would want them to say that
I'm hard working, and I feel like I always try
to bring a positive, positive attitude on and off the course.
So I feel like those the main thing.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Are you annoyingly positive?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No, no, no, no, you don't you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
The annoying people. You're just like, okay, it's not that great.
No no, no, no, no, I know what the degrees outside.
Put some beautiful y degrees outside. Like dude, dude, really, dude,
really in twenty years, just down's doing.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
What twenty years hopefully just finishing up playing professional basketball,
maybe looking to get into coaching or training or something
like that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You have to remember the place off your.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Coach maybe maybe train. There's no place I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I'm I'm I'm messing with you. But it is one
of those things. It's like the guy who went to Harvard.
We all make the assumption. It's like Romel with navy.
We all make the assumption that like he's he can
leap over small buildings and he's you know, he's been
shot out before, and he's like, look, dude, I was
a mechanic in the navy.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Okay, yea.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So people think because you're cardigiam Mail and that you
should balance our checkbook, pay our Texas, know every play right.
It's it's actually a good assumption, but it's definitely assumption
that people think you're the smartest guy in every room.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It's definitely not me at all. I feel like I've
kind of got made fun of on the team as
like being a dumb smart guy, and people were kind
of surprised, like how did you go to carnegiatemill And
obviously I don't really know, but I'm grateful I was
able to.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So sadly, you're a New York Giants football fan, Yeah, sadly.
What do you think of John Hartball as a new
head coach?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I think it's exciting. I feel like a fresh start
could be good, especially with Scatago, Scatto, Bow and Jackson
Dar and how their season was kind of going. I've
also kind of converted to be a little bit of
a Packers fan. Yeah, you know, we didn't love how
the season ended, but I feel like they kind of
kind of grew on me as the season went along.
So I guess I'm splitting out Packers and Giants.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That's okay, I'm Chargers and Packers. You can't be here
and not unless you're like a hard, hard and true
Pairs fan, right or last year we had Ryan Wade
who was a Lions fan because he's from Detroit. But
you can't really like you, you can't not at least
appreciate the packages. Yeah, what was it like running the
steps at Lambeau?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
So I didn't get I didn't get to run it
because I forgot your foot was messing, So I missed
the whole.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Do you want to go run it?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
To eight degrees outside? We can go run there?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Definitely not, I can set that out. I think problem.
I think watching everyone else run it, like being in
there even was just like a super cool experience, you know,
seeing that, And then I went to a game a
few months later and then being able to see being
like by the field and see the arena empty. I
had like six in the morning, and then going to
a game and seeing it packed out and the Packers
playing playing. It was just amazing to kind of see
(30:58):
the transformation.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
What would it mean to you to go to the
unsafe term everything?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Literally everything? I feel like that's been my dream in
like most kids' dreams. Since you're like a kid, you're
watching March Madis on TV and you kind of like
that's like the the end goal. You kind of want
to play, like I don't want to play there in
March madness, and now having an opportunity to be there
is is amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So we need to we need to sue. Right, you
only get one year Division one, three years of Division.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Three to figure that out. Okay, but here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I can only go and get the best lawyer and
sue if you're going to come back and play here,
of course.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Okay, Well that's if I get another year, of course.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well yeah, everybody says that, like you know, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I got I got, I got sorry coach, I got
somebody else online too. I got Danny Hurley online online too.
I got Rick Patino online too. Okay, well we'll uh,
we'll work on that. So is it okay? When you
get the ball at the Rest Center, do you want
people to say juice?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I like that. Yeah, let's start that.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Let's start that. Let's do it, okay? Or do you
want it to when you get buckets or when you
or when you get the ball?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Probably buckets get me. Yeah, I feel like just getting
the balls a little pretremature, like I have I have
to earn it.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You do have to earn it. Yeah, well, our star rebounder.
When was the last time he had nine rebounds in
a game?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I had ten on one game at Cardigie Mellen, like
my freshman year. But since then, I don't think I've
had nine.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
We're flying to him. You're flying to him. We're flying
your team, your coach, your professor, and the guy at
that what's the spot called the change at the exchange.
So you get your turkey sandwich and make sure you
get more rebounds. Justin's been really fun to coach you
so far, and I'll look forward this stretch run. Thanks
so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Appreciated, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
All right, let's welcome in. For the quarter century, he's
covered the NBA. He has an awesome podcast with Brendan Haywood,
who's a good friend of mine, a former NBA player
and of course an NBA analyst. Also this college basketball
as well. It's called the Seams. He's Rick Buker, longtime
NBA insider. Let's let's start with the Milwaukee Bucks. Okay,
(33:09):
the shopping Yiannis. What is a reasonable package for the
former MVP and h Finals MVP.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I mean you're talking you're talking about three or four
first round picks and at least I would say two
young potential talents. I think that's the that's the minimum.
It's basically a starter kit to rebuild the Milwaukee Bucks,
the start over kit. And I know that we've had
a variety of deals out there. Luka Doncics. They didn't
(33:40):
get a whole lot for Mikhale Bridges, the New York
Knicks gave up a ton. I believe that that the
the Yannis market will reset things to a more logical place.
And that's why I don't believe that it's going to
happen until after to the season. I don't know whether
(34:01):
Yannis plays again this year. He has currently has a
calf injury. It's really it would be really easy to
just shut him down considering where the Bucks are and
wait until they can do something in the off season.
But the thing that this comes down to, Doug is
neither Jannie nor John Horset the Milwaukee Bucks wants to
(34:23):
be the first to say we are going to actively
look to move Jiannis or in Giannis's case, I want
to be traded. This really is about who's going to
take responsibility for the breakup. Who's going to be the
initiator of it. Both sides are waiting for the other
side to do that so that it's not on them,
(34:43):
because in a small market like Milwaukee that resonates, you know,
who decided to leave is going to have an impact
on one.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I don't know. I mean, like, look, the model is
Oklahoma City, the model is San Antonio. If you look
at in terms of how to start over. Sure, right,
both teams had superstars. Okoma City didn't win a championship,
but they had First they traded Harden, then they lost Durant,
(35:17):
and then ultimately and then ultimately it was Westbrook was
gone to Paul George then gave them, gave them SGA
and that's when kind of the complete refeth complete rebuild started.
And now they still have a cornucopia of first round
picks for the next like five years. Houston obviously is
(35:37):
midway through from where the rebuild was to Again, I
don't know if ultimately this is the championship team because
they keep trying to add pieces and I think shorten
the span of time it takes to rebuild. And San
Antonio is finally back Obviously getting Wemby helped, but that
was after tearing it down, getting a bunch of draft
picks building it back up. And oh yeah, by the way,
Houston isn't. But San Antonio Okamoma City are small markets
(36:01):
and San Antonio won championships, Oklahoma City did not. But
I think the parallels right there. That's what you have
to do, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Sure? And in terms of rebuilding, no question about it.
I'm just saying that from a small market situation. You
saw it with Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant left, Kevin Durant
has been wearing that ever since right Kawhi Leonard left
San Antonio. He's been wearing that ever since it left
a mark. I'm just saying that the reason that Giannis
doesn't want to come right out and say, you know what,
it's time for me to leave is because he doesn't
(36:30):
want to have to carry or wear that mark if
he doesn't have to. And on the flip side, John
Horst doesn't want to be Nico Harrison and say, yeah,
you know what, we decided it was time. Even though
the circumstances are a little bit different, the impression left
on that market is the same. Now, I agree with
you in terms of the rebuilding. If the Milwaukee Bucks
(36:51):
were really going to take a lesson from Oklahoma City
and Sam Presty learned this the hard way. It's the
second your sty our player appears to have one foot
out the door or is uncertain about whether he wants
to stay there, you got to make a move because
now you're at his mercy. Now you're making a Damian
(37:14):
Lillard trade, even if you know that that's not a
good trade to make.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Okay, here's here's the here's the analogy. Here's the analogy. Right,
you're dating a woman for like a year and a
half and then somebody goes like, hey, you guys are
gonna get married. You're like, I know, you know, yeah,
it's not gonna happen. Yea, And right then it's really
hard to do.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
But then they go like, you know, I didn't have
I wasn't always good as a dater, right, I was
a serial dater, But that that was one thing that
I was good at. The second I knew it wasn't
happening or this there was the future here, I.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Was gotta go. Okay, Doc Rivers, there's no reason to
think that he coaches his team next year. If they
trade Giannis is there.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Now you're going in a completely different direction. I've never
known Doc to be even though he won his one
Coach of the Year taking an Orlando team to go
forty one and forty one. And I don't see him,
particularly at this point in his career. I don't see
him as a developer of talent or a rebuilder.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Did you think the Damien Litle thing would work? When
it happened, I thought, you're placating.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
This is the price to.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Get Giannis to re up. I never thought it was
going to work. I never thought it was a good idea,
and as it has proved to be. I also didn't
think that you trade Drew Holliday and resigned Chris Middleton.
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You could.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Maybe you get less for Chris Middleton. Chris was done,
He's done through as he's demonstrated it still had a
lot left in the tank.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
The genius to the Patriots, and I started this show
by talking about how unbelievably the idiocy to people in
I guess, I guess it's still my profession, although really
more my previous profession. Now your profession, which is covering
the then now they cover the NFL in not putting
him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Which the
genius to Belichick, and how that thing was sustainable was
(39:21):
one Brady. He didn't really take top dollar. Now he
wasn't like he was making the minimum. But they found
clever ways so that they had more money to spend.
And then the big thing was they got rid of
guys that you're early rather than a year late. Yep.
And the difference in that, again, that's not what's happened
here in Milwaukee, and that's not what's going to happen,
(39:42):
and so it makes them it has died a slow,
slow death and not exactly a good one.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Now, unfortunately, we have a lot of owners that have
become so sensitive to the public reaction to anything, and
so when you have someone who is a player who
is beholden to the market, the owner is less likely
(40:10):
to make a move. I would say the Golden State
Warriors may have done the same thing in the instance
of Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, at least as far
as the decision making. They're clinging to one thing while
trying to move in another direction and get younger, and
that's created chaos that they're going to pay for for
years ahead.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, that one's a crazy one too, right. That one
feels like Police Academy. Right, Well, you have some of
the same stars, then you try all these different things
like what are we doing? Just yeah, all it?
Speaker 3 (40:42):
And meanwhile the fan base is like, they're wasting Steph
Curry's last years. I'm like, all the moves that they
have made was out of trying to squeeze another one
out for another championship out for Steph Curry.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Okay, So that leads to the question, what happens to
Steph Curry next year?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
I don't I don't know that they're going to make
any move. I don't know that he wants to make
any move. It is a matter of are you gonna
be willing to hit the reset button? And what I
don't what what I believe is Steph is a little
more wed to helping re get this team going in
(41:20):
the right direction again as opposed to the Lebron James.
If I'm not playing for championships, I don't want to
be here or it's not worth my time. Because we've
seen Steph go through this already in the couple of
years when they were down and they're a playing team
and he's giving everything he's got just to get them
into the plan. He's doing it now, right, And so
(41:41):
I think he knows as most people who have watched
him over the course of his career. No, he's not
the same guy, like everybody wants to say, Oh, it's
all the pieces around him. Steph can still play at
a very high level, and at times he can look
like the old Steph and he can he can recreate
that magic, but he can't do it consistently enough with
(42:04):
especially at this point, with this particular team and how
they've where all the money is spent, and the lack
of resources that they have that I think he understands
all of that. So I don't I just I don't
see any way anyhow that Steph makes the decision I'd
(42:24):
like to play for some other team other than the
Golden State Warriors. I think he knows that he has
I don't know that he's a guy that wants to
play to forty. You know, I could see him playing
another year or two.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Okay, last thing, what happens to Lebron James next year?
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Man, that is that is the one hundred million dollar
question in terms of where do you go? Because I
don't think there's a place for him with the Lakers,
certainly not a place that would be.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
In a word, that story does not get out by
accident that Genie Buss is like over the whole Lebron thing. Right,
there's no way that that is that For anybody who
doesn't know that's uh, I heard of virtue signaling. I
don't really know what that is. That that is like
signaling to everybody like they're done. Okay, you gotta find
if you want to keep doing this, you got to
(43:20):
find a new place. We're good here.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So here you you walked into a restaurant where you're
waiting for your table, right yeah, And and you can
see them setting it up, yeah, putting out the napkins
and plates, and they're getting everything all right, and the
candle in the middle and all that, and then they say,
your table is ready, Genie Bus, just set the table,
(43:43):
and now we're going to sit down to the reality
that Lebron James's time with the Lakers is over.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So what what like he there's no way he doesn't
go out with the victory tour, right, there's just is
I know, I know, it's just not who. It would
be so out of character for him. He's like, no,
I'm just gonna like middle of the night, I'm done,
never see me again, right, or you pop up on TV?
But what are the options like this? Would Cleveland take
him back?
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I don't see that that's the choice. I don't see that. Miami. No,
it doesn't make any It makes no sense. They they
had their fill of that. That's the great question. I mean,
that's that's why. I think, that's why it's a hundred million.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I think you want to go to Golden State and
step was probably like no.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
No, and I would say yeah. I mean, Joe Lacup,
I could see being intrigued by that. Mike Leavy, Mike
Dunleavy Junior, and Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr, I'll tell you
right now, he hasn't said it to me. Know, he's
Steve Kerr as I do. He's not signing up for that.
He's not, he is not really. I don't think he's
going to re up anyway right now. That would but
(44:50):
but that would guarantee that he's not going to re up.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
It's fascinating to me because he's Lebron's gonna have to
like take a very large discount with the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yes, and they're gonna they're gonna cut Bronnie too. And
they're gonna cut Bronnie too.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, well I would, I would hope. I'm reluctant to
talk about Bronnie because I do not want to pile
on to the kid either.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I'm just I'm just telling you the reality of how
you the emotions of Like, listen, he's a dad. I
deal with you know with dads all the time. Okay, No,
they're just blinded by love. Hey, that's just what it is.
But the reality is that like he's going to say, like, Okay,
you gotta take me, you gotta take my son, and
then I had to play, and you're gonna have to
(45:43):
pay me more than you want to pay me. And yeah,
it's crazy to think somebody will acquiesce. I just don't
think it might be the somebody's that we think it'll be.
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
What's what's what's interesting about this is that Lebron created
then where he got to play with his son.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, this this historic.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Moment that didn't quite play historic because everybody knows that
it was artificially created.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
But all that said, the culmination of that is going
to be what that's what LEDs to his own still embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
No, that's what led honestly, that's where they were just
like I again, Geenie can say whatever she wants to say,
like that part makes it embarrassing to the Lakers, like
this is not what the Lakers have ever been about.
And then you know the reports are he's not even
grateful for it. And you know now they got Ramelina
Shelburne saying no, he never asked for them to draft him.
Come on, like, what do we what do we do?
Speaker 3 (46:43):
I know, what do we that? That makes me sad
because it's what do you say?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Are we?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Are we semantics here? He didn't go right into the
office and say, hey, listen, you have to draft Bronnie. Okay,
so Rich Paul told him, hey, lebron wants you to
draft Annie.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I mean, what are we? What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Bronnie James would not be a Laker if the Lakers
did not know that that's what lebron James wanted. However,
that was communicated. Who cares this idea that it was.
He never asked for that. They just they they unilaterally
decided to draft Bronnie and then we're gonna throw in
these other teams that supposedly had interest. The Golden State
(47:26):
Wars weren't gonna draft him, the Phoenix Suns were not
going to draft him. They were if there was any
interest in it. It was Oh, lebron James Might says
he wants to play wherever his son is. I mean
that was said, right, yes, okay, so so so what
are we talking about. Lebron said, I'm gonna play wherever
(47:46):
Bronnie is. Lakers are like, okay, well we want you
to play here. We're gonna draft Bronnie. I mean, what
are we talking about.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I don't know. You'll get the best. Let's do this again.
Finding the Seams is the podcast you should find it
of you find your podcast. He and bred In do
an awesome job. Buke, thanks so much, you got it.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
My thanks to Justin Allen, and my thanks to Rick
Buker for joining me on the third edition of The
Doug Gottlieb Show. I do want to leave you with this,
as we have our Super Bowl teams right the Seattle
Seahawks and the New England Patriots, And I think it's
fascinating right how the New England Patriots went through. This
(48:30):
is their second incarnation of trying to find the air
apparent to Tom Brady, and they seem to have hit.
But the team I will be rooting for is the Seahawks,
and not because I care about the Seahawks in any way.
Matter of fact, like most Packer fans. Of course, I
remember the NFC Championship came there, the touchdown interception in
(48:52):
the end zone, the Richard Sherman. I found the legion
of Boom to be incredibly talented and remarkably annoying as well.
And the bosure of Russell Wilson has been fascinating, fascinating
as none of those guys loved him and he hasn't
found a home since he left Seattle. But my reason
behind supporting the Seahawks cheering for the Seahawks as one guy,
(49:14):
it's Sam Donald. Now. I grew up in Orange County, California.
He's a former basketball player football player at Santa Clement
High School, which is the southernmost part of Orange County, California.
But more than anything, it's something that's relatable to so
many of us. Watchington play at USC, watched him win
a Rose Bowl against Penn State. That doesn't mean that
(49:34):
you're going to be a great pro player when you're
a great college player. But always loved that when you
had Sam Donald coming out of college, and if you
asked anybody at USC, they loved him as a guy,
as a dude, right, that was the big thing. He
goes to the New York Jets and bad. Do I
(49:56):
think some of it is the Jets are a mess?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Do I think some of it is that Adam didn't
put him in a position to succeed. Sure, But do
I think some of it was Sam Donald wasn't wasn't great,
lost his confidence and when you're not confident, you're not
gonna be good at anything you do. Absolutely. He bounces
around the league, gets a chance with the Vikings, and
the Vikings had the chance to resign him, and I
get it. You'd wait. You had had your first round
(50:19):
pick and he's sitting out and you're like, man, JJ
McCarthy's inexpensive. He's a first round pick. We believed in him.
He's the next guy. We got a quarterback whisper as
our coach. Well, let him move on. Think about letting
Sam Donald walk out the door when he has a
career year with the Vikings. And look, it's fair. He
looked bad in the playoffs last year, but their offensive
(50:39):
line got destroyed. How much of that was him? How
much of that was the Vikings? Only the coaching staff knows.
But think about all those teams that had owned his rights, Jets, Panthers, Niners, Vikings,
And think about how well he played this year, how
well he played in the NFC Championship game, and how
(51:00):
you sit there and go like you know, I know
Jackson Smith and Jigba is their best player. Is an
unbelievable talent. But how could he not root for a
guy who got beat up by his own performances or
by being with crummy franchises or coaches that it didn't
all work, and then finds a way to figure it out.
He's not yet thirty years old, and he's got plenty
of time to get to another Super Bowl, but maybe
(51:21):
this is the only chance to win one. So if
you ask me, that's why, despite the fact that I
live in Green Bay and the Seahawks make anybody's stomach uneasy.
I'll be rooting for the Seattle Seahawks. I'm Doug Gottlieb,
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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