July 11, 2026 • 45 mins
Colin’s top takes of the week.
First, he reacts to USMNT losing to Belgium in the Round of 16 at the World Cup. Colin gives his take on Christian Pulisic & Matt Freese's performance. Where does United State go from here? Will they ever breakthrough in soccer?
Then, he’s joined by 'First Things First' co-host Danny Parkins on the podcast. Colin explains why he missed The Herd today off the top. Then they go into Christian Pulisic's rest comments and give their takes on the US Soccer player and what the future holds for him. Finally, they deep dive into the Celtics trading Jaylen Brown and why Jaylen's value across the league wasn't as much as fans & media thought.
TIMELINE
03:00 Reaction to USMNT losing to Belgium
13:00 Christian Pulisic & Team USA soccer
35:00 Jaylen Brown Trade
All lines provided by @hardrockbet
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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(01:11):
s q U a r E dot com slash go
slash Colin. Well, it was a nice run. It was
a nice run. But I mean, I think ultimately, if
you look at the teams in the World Cup, you
know there is a kind of a class of eight,
(01:32):
and you know, Spain, we all know who it is. Argentina.
Belgium now counts, although they've gotten a little older, but
remember in twenty eighteen they were one of the three
four best teams in the world. And I mean, I
think it was pretty obvious. I think the first seven
or eight minutes you could say it was nerves. But
after that we weren't winning enough one on one battles,
(01:55):
we weren't maintaining enough possession, We got very few good
shots on goal. We looked like we were outclassed. We
looked like we did against Paraguay, just flipped the sides
and so. And I also think it's a little bit
like the NFL playoffs, is that the better teams you face,
the better coaches you face, and you know you can
(02:16):
get through the AFC or the NFC south you know,
then you match up against you know the Buffaloes and
the Philadelphia's and the mcveigh's, and you know, just the
better coaches and the better teams and your flaws become
gigantic holes. And I mean Matt Freeze looked like an
MLS goalie tonight. I mean when he had Tim Howard.
We've had Tony Meola, Casey Keller, Tim Howard, who was
(02:39):
a huge physical presence, a great athlete, hyper aggressive, big
strong presence in goal. Matt Freeze looks like an MLS goalie.
You know, an embarrassing mistake playing with his feet. I mean,
that's that's like that stuff you see in a Tuesday
night in the MLS. That's just not good enough. And
again it's not exposed against Paraguay that didn't have much
(02:59):
of a dynamic, or Australia, but it does.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Get exposed against Belgium.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And you know, I thought, again, one of the things
I've said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to
kind of project that you don't understand soccer. You could
see it very quickly, first five or six minutes. We
just could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We
couldn't win the one on one battles. Until the very end,
we couldn't get quality shots, and when Belgium was in
(03:28):
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims a thirty
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely, absolutely exposed. Also,
(03:49):
listen to Christian poolsic. If you look at the best teams,
Harry Kanes had a great tournament. So is Messy, so
is Embape, so is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian pool
Is did not. He's a slight player. He's always been fragile.
He gets banged up again and I didn't think he
played with any confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning
his one on ones and he kind of you know,
(04:13):
gave the ball up early in his one on one opportunities.
He just gave it up. That that feels a little
bit like kind of bailing you're lacking confidence. Then later
he gets injured on a legal play.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Was not a foul.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us handily.
I think it was five to two in a friendly
with great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of
felt like we weren't playing some of our best players.
But you know, in this instance, we played our best
players and we were just outclassed, you know, and you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
(04:51):
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Beljium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
got the most who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal? I mean,
(05:12):
how many quality shots did we get on goal tonight?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Two?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Even the Malik Tillman goal on the free kick was
a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose this
way than be frustrated. I mean, Baaligan really only got
one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes I
wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no shots
(05:38):
on goal, Belgium two to one. Physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA corner kick was at the end of the
first half. I just think when you see a team
that has a higher level of skill, more experience in
bigger games and side one point, stue Holden was asked
(05:59):
about how do you get better and big games and
his answer was appropriate, you play in them. And Belgium
just felt like they had been in more games like this.
You know, it was funny in the first seven or
eight minutes, I saw that they were calling it nervy
and I'm like, yeah, I'll give you that for about
five minutes, and then it was really really clear we
could not There must have been six, seven, eight, nine
(06:22):
straight moments where it would come down to a one
on one battle and Belgium always came out with a ball.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And we met our match.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
But we know now if we flipped goalies, would we
have a greater opportunity. Yeah, but we weren't going to
beat Belgium. I thought Matt Freeze felt like a little
bit out of his depth.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
This was a little too.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Big for him, and it happens. But we kind of
know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas, you know,
we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been. We're closer
to Portugal than we've ever been. But there does feel
like a gap, a skill gap between England. Five of
the top thirty three players in this tournament where I
(07:10):
was reading an article before the tournament by Fox, five
of the top thirty three were from England. And I mean,
you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch Harry Kane against Mexico.
They were easily the two best players in the pitch.
And you watch that in NBA games, you know, you
see that when you watch great football teams. You could
just see the best players jump through the television. So
(07:33):
it didn't matter if we were playing a four to
two three one or we had gel Rena substituted in
at half, it just didn't matter. We just got out classed.
And that's where we stand as of today, you know,
and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball, baseball,
and hockey league in the world. And you can look
(07:54):
at the Olympics and say, well, look at what we did.
Our men's and women's won gold at the Olympics in hockey.
But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer. Soccer's got
forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer, that's
like six to seven billion annually in hockey because of
the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights. If
(08:19):
you want to dominate international soccer, it is much harder
than dominating international hockey. It's just it means more to
far more countries. It's just hockey is just not as broad.
It often feels like a cold weather experience, a cold
weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer. Norway's good
(08:44):
at it, Cape Verde is good at it, Argentina and
France are amazing at it, and so you know, we
generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally for sports.
Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred million dollars
between our men's and women's team annually, four hundred million,
and that's that's on par with many of the top teams,
(09:08):
but not greater then. And we also don't have the
cultural fixation, fascination, intensity, or passion that other nations do.
I don't look at this World Cup as a failure.
I think we earned ourselves another World Cup sometime very soon.
Our infrastructure is so capable of hosting it.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But I think.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's just it's the one sport, the one Rubik's Cube
we're trying to decipher and it really comes down to revenue.
It's massive, very difficult to buy your way to championships.
And again we have some really nice players. But saying
(09:52):
in a globe with two hundred and fifteen countries that
were not in the top eight, there's no great shame.
But I thought we were out classed. And I will
say Sebastian Burrhalter adds great energy. We had great fight
until the end, but we met our match. And that's okay.
(10:14):
I mean it's not okay. It's infuriating. It's in Seattle.
But I don't think you walk away from this and
say so we gave it a good run, we gave
it a good fight. You just keep chipping away. Remember
England has won one World Cup, Spain has won one
World Cup. This shit is hard, you know, And I'm
(10:40):
sure I'll just get blasted my text tonight when I
wake up tomorrow. We'll we will never compete. This is worthless.
We got out class tonight. Belgium had it on that
final goal. So if you count the friendly against tonight
five to two and four to one, our back end
was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweet in the two times
(11:05):
we face Belgium gives you a sense of where we
currently are on the soccer global map. Remember, our average
age is under twenty seven, so a majority of this
team is back with more European and international experience. It's
not on our soil. But generally group stages aren't our
(11:26):
greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is a
very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine years
old is the average age. Still one of the youngest
teams at this World Cup. So, by the way, if
you're wondering, I am healthy enough to do a forty
five minute podcast today, but my boss has called me
after yesterday's show. I played hurt yesterday. I had a
(11:47):
fever and the stomach virus is going around the Midwest.
So I went to bed last night at seven thirty five,
took thorough flu. I broke my fever. So I'm okay,
stomach's a mess. It's a Midwest thing. Whatever. But we
had this planned and I think it's it's fitting because
there's so many things I want to talk about with
Danny Parkins. So you know, listen, every four years after
(12:08):
we lose in the World Cup, the drum beats it's
our culture, you know, it's our youth movement. But I
did think it was kind of instructive that Carli Lloyd, Stuholden,
Alexi Lawless all kind of had the same drum beat,
which is, hey, Christian Polisic, nobody wants to hear about rest.
(12:32):
This isn't baseball. You don't have a game tomorrow, We don't.
We don't want to hear about rest. And I think
it's fair, and I'll tell you why. Pulistics twenty seven
Messi is a smaller athlete, has never messed a World
Cup game, and you know he hasn't been healthy one
hundred percent of the time. We know, we know Polistics
not Earling Holland he's not He's not a soccer version
(12:53):
of Gronk, but he gets banged up a lot. He's
twenty seven. But there is an indifference or a lack
of urgency. Sometimes that comes off as condescending from Polistic,
like he's above it all, and we don't like that
from Arathic. By the way, if you said that in Argentina,
the Argentinian press would savage you. If you said it
in Greece or Italy or London, you'd get crushed for it.
(13:15):
I think my knock on Polisic is that this is
this is different than the other sports, is that it's
every four years. Soccer already faces a little cynicism because
of the flopping, so you kind of fake injuries all
the time. So like when you come up and say,
(13:35):
all right, I can still see on the pitch, you
can still move, I don't want to hear about rest.
I don't think that's unfair. I think it's pandering to
call that unfair. I think that's very reasonable. International Soccer
commentary by Carly Stewing Alexi.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I mean he after the game said that he thought
he maybe sprained his ankle. We expect you to play
through a sprain ankle, right right, Like I mean, if
it would have come out afterwards that he would have
ruptured his achilles. You know, no one would have said anything,
you know, but it was like, wait, you you kicked
the other guy. You kind of stubbed your foot into
(14:14):
the ground. You were hobbling around out there, like we
expect you to be able to hobble that off. And
I'm not saying that I could do it, but I
am saying that world class athletes should be able to
do it.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And this is the thing I am.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I am not a twenty four seven, three sixty five
soccer person, but I really prepped very hard ahead of
this World's Cup. I take my job very seriously with
how our how first things, first overtime is going, Like
Nick Wilds and Brew are not on the show with me,
so I'm doing the full hour with me and Dax
McCarty and maybe other soccer people that we bring on.
(14:50):
So like, I prepped my ass off ahead of this
World's Cup. Part of that was watching the five part
Team USA documentary, and in the documentary there was a
whole section of time on Polisic feeling defensive and pushing
back against the old American soccer establishment, guys like Alexi
(15:10):
and Landon, who had criticized him for skipping the Gold Cup.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
They were like, you've got to play in the Gold Cup.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's because this is such a huge tournament for Team
USA and it's a home World Cup, and he was like,
I need the rest and I have to prioritize rest,
and they really criticized him and he pushed back against it.
And then Polisic also, I know he's not the most
media friendly guy. But I think that's a little overstated.
There's also a nine part documentary just about him on Paramount,
(15:39):
It's the Polisic Story. And then he was profiled in
GQ ahead of this tournament and he said it's just
another big tournament. Like I came out of this thing saying,
I honestly wonder if the World Cup is as big
of a deal to him as playing for AC Milan.
He makes money from ASI Milan. It's the biggest American
(16:02):
transfer fee in the history of our country. Like it's
weird to say, but I honestly felt like, do we care,
does Donovan care? Does Alexi care more about wearing the
crest of America than Polistic does? And I know he
laid his body on the line and had the great
goal in the last World Cup against Iran and all
(16:24):
of those things, But you would never catch Messi saying
it's just another tournament about the World Cup. And so
I think when you combine skipping the Gold Cup, it's
just another tournament. Asking out of both a group stage
game and a knockout stage game with non devastating injuries.
(16:46):
These people who are soccer establishments people in America who
played the game. They did not reach this conclusion on
Polisic just because of the game against Belgium. This is
years in the making for them with Polisic, and I
think it's totally fair to question if playing for America
in the World's Cup is his absolute number one priority.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Listen, I've said this about Luca Dantage his reality now
and Joe Burrows, they're both like one more injury away
from we're out of the peak, like their injury problem.
Like I've said that about Luca, He's never in great shape.
He now has three straight years of being injured. If
it becomes four, that devastatingly great. Trade isn't as great
(17:28):
as you thought. Neither Dallas or the Lakers are viable.
So and I think, but what one of the things
that pushes back I would push back is our soccer
culture isn't terribly hard. I mean, we still consider playing
college soccer a big deal. Where if you go internationally
to a Morocco, the best African nation now in terms
of soccer, if you go to England and you go
(17:48):
to other places like that that collegiate soccer, it's academies
and ours is hey get a D one scholarship and
it's a little I would say it's a little precious.
It doesn't really And by the way, in basketball, one
of the reasons there's so many great international players that
if you serve like our great domestic players is their
academy system is better than our AAU system. And I
(18:10):
do think sometimes the people that cover soccer for a living,
especially the print people, New York Times, the Athletic, they
get a little precious, they get a little defensive, they
start pandering. You don't understand soccer. I don't have to
be a chef to know the fish is undercooked. I'm
sending it back to the kitchen. I don't have to
be a music critic to know that guy's a hack
and that person's great, Like you don't have to be
an expert. Pholissic is twenty seven injury prone and to
(18:34):
your point, there's a sense he lacks kind of like urgency.
There's a certain esthetic and a certain commentary where I
feel like, bro, this shit matters like a lot. I mean,
I mean, this World Cup was so successful, America is
probably going to get another one sooner than anticipated. I've
(18:55):
read that several times. This has been a ground breaking
World Cup.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, listen, it's a that's why you have there's a
there's a lot here and I think it's fascinating. And
I know sometimes like the hottest take is the best take,
but I think there's a lot here. Like the World
Cup has been a huge success, ratings, attendance. My six
year old asked for a messy jersey, like you know
(19:20):
what I mean, Like he's getting into it. So like
growing soccer in America, all that's like that is happening
even without the US stepping forward. I also think the
US did make progress in this specific way if you
look in the rearview mirror, like I think the say
we're the eighteenth best team in the world for a number, Yeah,
(19:42):
I think the gap between us and like the fiftieth
best team has grown. Whereas like we've the last now
four World Cups that we've made, we've made it to
the same round every time, the round of sixteen, but
in the past we've kind of eked our way. There
draws one to one games and in this World's Cup,
and I know part of it is where the host
country so we got the pot one draw. I know
(20:04):
part of it is expanded field, so there's a round
of thirty two now, so a little bit weaker competition,
but we kind of kicked the shit out of some teams.
Scored three goals, scored four goals, had the most first
half goals of any team in the whole tournament through
the round to thirty two, like we were putting the
ball in the back of the net. I do think
we have separated ourselves a bit from Paraguay and Australia
(20:26):
and teams like that. But when you lose as convincingly
as we did to Belgium, right, the whole thing was
are you going to take a step forward? We still
have a huge gap between us and the truly top teams.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yes, well, it's interesting you bring that up. So here
are the quarter finalists France, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain. Those
are World Power Cups. Yeah, Sweatshirtland once again, fifth sixth
straight World Cup. I think this is the third or
the fourth time they made it to the quarters. Historically
respected Morocco is now brilliant federation apparently depths top African
(21:04):
nation and then Norway has a superstar Okay, so either
superstar soccer power respected, historical relevant, European team or the
best African nation. That's who beat us out. And I
would say this between Casey Keller, you know Tim Howards.
(21:25):
We were.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Uniquely weak in goalie.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
We had an MLS goalie. Our goalies have always been
English Premier League Casey European guy for fifteen years. If
we had one of our usual goalies in we lose
two to one. Yes, we don't give up the second
or the third goal. We give up the first, we
give up the last. We lose two to one. We're outplayed.
But the sense is well, if Belgium beat Spain, we're
(21:50):
losing to really good people. So A, you're right, there's growth.
B look at who ends up in the quarters the
best African nation superpowers. The other thing that should be
noted is participation. Remember this, Danny, look at the world
going forward. A lot of parents don't want their kids
to play football because of violence. Basketball genetically, Let's be honest,
(22:12):
it is a really tall person sport. Baseball to kids
often a lot of standing around and boring. Hockey super expensive.
Soccer's fun. There is pay to play, but it's cheaper
than hockey, probably two to three times cheaper. This will
increase participation. And my guess is, although albeit or pay
to play, I think in communities, if you really saw,
(22:35):
if the local teams really saw a spectacular kid at eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve years old, you'd find a way to engineer it
and get him in. There's a lot of visibility now
with soccer, the academy system is broader. So I do
to think to your point, this was an absolute win.
Better goalie. We lose two to one, and we were embarrassed.
We weren't beaten. It's not that we lost, it's how
(22:57):
we lost, and it got really embarrassing last thirty to
forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, I thought, look, I mean honestly, I thought it
was kind of embarrassing from jump with how cautious they played,
Like I did not consider the fact that we could
get blown out in that game, and we did, and
I thought that that was a parent Pretty early on
I was like, oh my god, like it just like
the moment felt a little too big.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
For them, and it is.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I mean, Egypt almost beat Argentina and would have been
further than us, and then we would have been like,
well what about this group? That is to like, why
can't we be Egypt? And I do think it's totally
fair to be like, why can't we have our earling Holland,
Like we thought it was going to be Freddie Adouo,
it wasn't. We thought it was going to be Christian Polisic,
it wasn't. Now people are like, there's this kid, Kevin
Sullivan who's sixteen on Philly and MLS And I'm like,
(23:41):
I can't keep waiting for the Great Savior to come right.
And I do think, and again I am not an
expert on the pay to play thing, but there is
something too. Our best player is Floren Balligan, who was
completely developed in England, Like, yes, you know what I mean.
(24:01):
His parents are Nigerian. He came up through the English
club scene and the only reason he was able to
play for America is because his mom had him here
in birthright citizenship because she was pregnant and deemed that
it wasn't good for her to fly back when she
was pregnant. And he was like, I don't know that
I will start if I play on England because of
Harry Kane everything that they have, so I'll go play
(24:21):
for America. Like we got to figure out why they
were able to develop our best player and figure out
a way for us to be able to develop a
couple of our own best players.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah. And and by the way they're they're you know,
if you look at France and a lot of these nations,
there is these routes to get your best players. Apparently
the federation in Morocco. I was reading about it this
morning actually as my stomach flew was ravaging through the house.
Morocco's federation apparently has done a really good job to
(24:52):
find connections through Europe and that's why they have so
much depth. If you watch Morocco talking about a dark horse,
like you watch him maybe the fastest team left man.
They are like in France, speed, They they got a
bunch wings, midfielders, they move, they're hard to defend. So
I think a lot of this is federation based, academy based,
(25:15):
and it's hurting our basketball a little bit. I mean,
who are our best domestic players, Cooper Flag and Edwards,
Jason Tatum, And it feels like there was a drop off,
like like what Trey Young. I mean, the analytics don't
like Jalen Brown. Yeah, so yeah, I mean I think,
but I do believe every four years there is this
chorus is that we're not growing. There's clear growth from
(25:37):
participation to elevation of skill and technical expertise. I think
we're a little soft. I think the soccer culture is
a little harder in England than Argentina than it is here.
But I felt growth.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I did too.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I felt growth, like I said, kind of looking like
we distanced ourselves from the lesser teams which we were
a part of. And I'm not sure if we grew
enough in the direction of the top teams. And I'm
going to be very interested in like, because listen, poach
Tina was expensive, Like what what do they do with him?
(26:14):
I know everybody wants him back, and I do too.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I like him.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
It did seem interesting to me that it was like
we weren't tough enough, we weren't ready to play, but
we love the manager.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's like, I don't know, some of that might be
on coaching, Like I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Exactly know, but it seems like but I do think
that you know, they've opened up USA soccer complexes and
training development programs, like you spend more money on it,
you will develop better players and you need a continuity
of program And to your point, this tournament kind of
flipped my whole life watching the US on the international level,
(26:49):
it was like, can we score goals?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Like we had four goals? We had four goals in
the twenty twenty two Worlds Cup in total, I mean
our in total. This it's like, okay, we can score goals.
Like if we took Tim Howard and a couple of
great American defenders from the past and put them on
this team with Balligan and some of our midfielders and
you know, forward players, we could have had a great team.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It's just we don't have the we got. We got
to put it all together once.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
See. I feel better about this because I'd rather say
we got to find a better goalie, then we just
don't have the technical skill to score goals. I feel
broadly great about our technical skill. It'll only get better.
This whole team comes back, probably with three to four
editions at least, but we just have to find a goalie.
I always felt like we got a goalie. I wish
we had seven guys who could pass and dribble like
they knew in England. So I feel broadly very good
(27:40):
about it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I mean, listen, Tim Reim was too old and too
slow as like our main defensive player, right, So I
think it is probably.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I was reading articles about like projecting the twenty thirty
men's national team roster and it's very difficult to do.
But there are there are names. You know, Dax McCarty
are our first things. First, an who's been great. He
played a ton of MLS. He played on the men's
national team. He knows the MLS. He's like, yeah, there's
a lot of really young talent, but they just we
need to hit like we need we need to hit
(28:11):
on some stars. I mean, Belgium is sobbing in Lukaku
and it's like we would he be our best player.
He he he came off the bench for them. Weston
McKinney is really good for us, but he's been like
okay on Juventus. You know, Christian Polistic a huge deal.
He led Milan and goals and assists, but Milan was
(28:33):
really disappointing, like they weren't. You know. He was like
a good player on a historically great team that also
had a bad year. So we do need to We
have players who are playing in Spain and Italy and
Europe and you know all over, but like we need,
we need stars. We need to keep leveling up. We're
not We're not there yet.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
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my Reset gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler. I
want to shift to Jalen Brown. That's obviously a bit
a big story, overshadowed by the Olympics, overshadowed by the
World Cup, obviously. So it's interesting when analytics foot all analytics,
we don't talk about a lot soccer analytics, hockey analytics
(31:03):
not so much. It's really been it's taken over baseball
and basketball analytics. If you're not upstairs, if you're not
in on analytics all in to like a Celtics level,
you're falling behind and your viewed as sort of hacky
and jurassic. So in baseball, analytics marginalized the manager. Players
didn't have to love it, but it was really about
(31:25):
the manager now may not even fill out the lineup.
That going with your gut instincts is like it sound
like a bad president. Now you have to read the
briefings in the morning. You can't go with your guy, right.
Analytics in basketball isn't about the coach because they all
believe in it. It's about the high scoring player who's
a bad analytics player. So whereas baseball managers grumbled about it,
(31:48):
like moneyball, you know, the art Howe moment with Brad
Pitt Right. In basketball, the analytics punish often the Trey Young,
the Jalen Brown, not the baseball manager. The first time
I heard about analytics, a good player in analytics was
Monte Ellis for the War for the Warriors, who people
just in it. I wasn't even like paying attention, but
(32:10):
I remember high usage rate, didn't do much of the
defensive end, didn't necessarily elevate teammates. And so the point
being is, so now you're seeing players get a little
like the Jalen Brown story is really an analytically behold enfranchise.
Nobody's more formulaic than the Boston Celtics, and Brown's a
(32:30):
bad analytic player.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
So in the.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Departments of the Celtics, so the coaching staff asks about
Jalen Brown and they're like, and he doesn't really he
pushes back in analytics, the analytic department with the Celtics
is like, yeah, move him. Tatum's camp, according to stories,
is not close to it, and the ownership guys are
He's really expensive. So if somebody was gonna get rid
(32:53):
of me, there'd be several departments at Fox you go to.
If all four were like Eh, Coward doesn't work in analytics.
He doesn't get along with Nick Wright, you know, to
be honest with you, he's really expensive. And the boss
at FS one in him, he said he's not that coachable.
So the truth of the matter is analytics to baseball
(33:16):
marginalized most managers. What it's doing in the NBA now
is the Trey Young's and the Jalen Browns. We're conditioned
to think they score twenty eight, they're great, and the
data now says they don't work for a shoot quickly pass,
quickly offense.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah. I think that there's also, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
The the CBA, and this it gets confusing. First apron,
second apron. You know, bird rights people don't like talking
about it. But in baseball you do have some owners
that are willing to just kind of spend over it,
and if they're willing to pay the tax, they can
pay it. Basketball doesn't really operate that way. And so
(34:03):
Jalen Brown, I do think, is a I think it's
been a little overstated. He is an excellent basketball player, yes,
but if he was making forty million, everybody would want him.
But because he's going to make fifty five million, people
are like, eh, we can replace that production in a
different way. So I think it is it is like, yes,
(34:23):
analytically driven, but it's also analytically driven relative to the cap.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Like that's how you have to look at it, Like.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Can we get ninety percent of the production for seventy
percent of the cost and right? Which is business? And
I think that that is. And then you add in
the personality stuff with him and Tatum and all of
it that you go in that direction and listen, Brad Stevens.
I've said it before, I will say it again. For
(34:51):
my book Pipeline to the Pros, we talked to dozens
of coaches and executives in the NBA. He is, maybe,
other than theo Epstein, the smartest person I've ever talked
to in sports media, coach, player, executive. He didn't like
get the wool pulled over his eyes on this one, right,
like he got fleeced.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
No, he didn't, like I don't. I have not.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Spoken to him about this. I haven't spoken to him
since the book. He's not that kind of guy. But
like it is a he didn't get fleeced, And so
I actually came out of this trade thinking they actually
weren't close to getting you honest, Like, I don't. I
don't like I think that the Bucks used that as
leverage with Miami to get as much out of that
deal as they could have possibly wanted. Like, I don't
(35:37):
think the league viewed Jalen Brown at that contract as
a supremely valuable basketball talent. And it is fascinating because
it might be the biggest disconnect Colin that I can
remember in basketball between media and eye test and watching
the games and analytics and understanding of the money. Because
(35:59):
the media just voted him sixth per MVP. If you
would have said to me a month ago, top ten
two way players in basketball, I think Jalen Brown would
have been on my list, sure, just like removing money
from it. Well, and now he's traded for Paul George
(36:19):
and a couple of picks. It is a crazy story
to wrap your head around.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well, Joel Embiid one MVP, Yeah, I would argue pushback
that he didn't even fit with the Olympic team when
you put him with winning, great players, most analytically superior,
Embiid didn't really fit.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, Like, so Embiid's the classic.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I mean, I don't know what his analytics are Paul
George is a very good analytic player. I think what's
happened with the second apron is everybody chooses one player
in Denver, it's Jokic, and then what you do is
build to support his weaknesses. Jokic wasn't a good defensive player.
Let's get Aaron Gordon from Orlando Athletic springy. Now Gordon
(36:59):
has sorted to age and have injuries. They probably stuck
with Jamal Murray a little longer, who's not super athletic,
but they they're like they fit like a glove right
And in Boston they made a decision. They're like, Okay,
we're gonna go with one of these guys going forward.
We can get out of the Paul George contract sooner.
And he's also not going to get an extension. We're
not going to get into those talks. And the beg
truth is, if you have to put him next to
(37:20):
each other, we're into analytics. Tatum is better analytically, The
coaches feel more strongly about him. We win when a
usage rate is here with Tatum and Brown is struggling.
You know, he can be a dribble the air out
of the ballplayer at times and you can't get that
usage rate according to the Celtic staff. I mean you're
seeing stuff now. This is why it's coming out. It's
(37:42):
leaking the Celtic staff saying, here's the usage rate. We
win ninety percent of the times. When Tatum has thirty
three percent usage rate, we struggle to get there when
Brown's on the floor with him. It really comes down
to this organization is more formulaic than any and they
had to make a choice and they chose the guy
they probably liked a little more. They felt what was
(38:03):
more willing to listen to coaching, and that analytically was Supario. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yes, So I need to be very clear I am
not shocks that they traded Jalen Brown. The thing that
is still hard for me to wrap my head around
is that you could only get Paul George and a
couple of picks for him. That's the part that, like
I would have thought you could have gotten more for
teams that didn't have a guy like Jason Tatum that
has some redundancies with Jalen Brown like that. That's the thing,
(38:30):
Like he did just be the he was just the
best player on a team that won fifty plus games
when Tatum missed the whole year. He is a finals MVP.
He does we were talking about polistic like he does
play you know what I mean, Like he doesn't sit games,
he doesn't get hurt, he is tough, he does give
you effort on defense, like all of those things. Like
I just I still am surprised that you weren't able
(38:51):
to get more for Jalen Brown. But I think because
of the Apron and the money and all of it,
more teams are going in that direction. And just to
bring in another story, like I wouldn't love giving Donovan
Mitchell the contract that the Cavs just gave him.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Guy who has.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Had inconsistent playoff performances, guy who hasn't one big, guy
who is undersized, guy who has had some injuries, and
you're gonna pay him all of that money, you know,
into his thirties as an undersized guard. I wouldn't love it.
But my guess is they're like, what other top ten
(39:30):
player are we going to be able to get? Free
agency is basically dead. Maybe we'll trade this contract in
the future, but like we are in the Donovan Mitchell
business because we have no other path. You have to
keep our own guy's.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Right, that's right, and Harden is not a guy you
want to do that with. Mobley is probably not a
guy you're gonna pay that. Whereas the Celtics felt we
got two of them, Yeah, right, we have, and so
we're gonna move the guy that the staff decides. I mean,
you can tell from leaks, Yeah, you can tell what
gets out how people felt about him, like you can
(40:03):
tell coach ability. You know, I was thinking about this
the I was thinking about this last night because, as
I said, I got into.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Bed at seven, so I did time.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It took me a while to fall asleep that I thought.
You know, I was in Local for fourteen, ESPN for
a decade, Fox for a decade. I own my own
company now, so I've I've seen a lot of this
stuff where corporations all the time. I've seen it a lot,
not on air people, but upstairs, like when talented people
leave and the CEO of a company, whether it was
(40:34):
in Local TV, Fox, ESPN, or even at the volume
when you move off productive people. And it does come
down to some of the stuff that you've read leaked
with Jalen Brown, Like I was reading this stuff and
it just it kind of jarred memories. I thought, you know,
I sometimes, first of all, companies make mistakes and let
the wrong person go.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
That could be, that could be the case case in point,
Colin Coward, whatever that was the record, but that that
is that is out there.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
They're like, where was a mistake?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Uh, that's nice. Well. ESBN also let go of Mike Tarico,
and I should say NBC bought him. But when that happened,
I remember calling one of the top three people at ESPN.
I'm like, you let who's gonna be who's your lead
voice at the company. But I don't understand what you're doing.
Like the NBC came in and you know, paid him
(41:25):
a lot. But it was like there are times companies,
I think, in my opinion, make mistakes. Of course, so
that that's if Tatum gets hurt again, you're like, yeah,
you made a big mistake. Secondly, it usually comes down
to these are the discussions you hear. Remember when NBC
had to pick between Letterman and Leno. Bill Carter wrote
about this at the time of The New York Times.
(41:47):
Is that Robert Wright ran Ge who owned NBC, and
he comes in the air conditioning's broke the meetings in Florida.
He walks into the room. It's a great movie, it's
a great book by Bill Carter, and he asks who's
easier to work with? Leman or Leno. Everybody's like Leno.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Everybody I'm jaylen O, right.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Like like Leno won the room. He'd gone to NBC affiliates.
I even saw him in Vegas when I was at
an NBC affiliate. Leno played to the affiliates, he played
to the advertisers, and the question was who's easier to
deal with? There are according to certain reports out now,
they give people felt like, you know, the staff worked
with Tatum more easily than jaylen Brown. I've seen that
(42:27):
happen twenty times in my career. That that, and and
and again. Companies make mistakes. If Tatum gets hurt again,
they made a mistake. But it's sometimes it is just yeah,
the staff likes him, listens a little better, you know,
whatever it is. And so I kind of feel like
(42:49):
the stories I'm reading coming out is the staff chose Tatum.
They like Tatum.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, and Tatum is Atum is awesome.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Tatum is an awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Better jump shitter, higher, seilaying, more fluid.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, and they they They're like, we won what it
was it, fifty six game. They're we won fifty six.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Games with Jalen Brown doing it, and now we'll just
have Tatum do it, and we're going to reallocate that
and like they're not going to be the same team.
They'll they'll have Paul George, Okay, fine, they'll have Mike Conley, Okay, fine,
But they also added Mitchell Robinson, like one of the
best offensive rebounders defense.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Like the whole thing was we need to change.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Our you know, our our identity and who we are
and be more diversified and you know, not do the
same thing all the time. Well, Mitchell Robinson is going
to make the Celtics look really different next year, Like
they should have a fully healthy Tatum, a better backup
point guard, and one of the best rebounders in the
entire sport. Like they're probably going to win fifty four
games next year and be a real threat in the
(43:49):
Eastern Conference. So I'm not like predicting the demise of
the Celtics over this at all.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I just I did this on.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
The show, but like when it was like Jalen Brown's
clearly going to get traded, I did some mock trades,
you know, and I just put him in the trade machine,
had some fun for thirty minutes, came up with something
that I liked and put him out there. And it
was like Jabari Smith, Kevin Durant and a couple of
draft picks to Houston, and it was like Kawhi Leonard
(44:16):
and a couple of first round picks and send him
to the Clippers, and like send him to Atlanta and
give him, you know, Nikhil, Alexander Walker and Kamenga and
Risha Chet and some picks. And if you go and
you look at the comments from people with Celtic clovers,
you're an idiot. You don't know ball like that. That's
(44:37):
that's fifty cents on the dollar. And then they all
hated the Paul George trade and I was offering way
more for Jalen Brown than they got. Like so I
think again, Like the surprising thing is Brad Stevens does
not appear to be an outlier and how he views
Jalen Brown, like the market says, Jalen Brown is nowhere
(44:59):
near the sixth best player in basketball. And I think
that is what a lot of us, myself included, like
I really am still like recalibrating. I'm like, because I
like analytics, I like, I likes, but I'm pretty sure
Jalen Brown is better than whatever calculation, even with his
contract that people are are are telling me that he's
(45:20):
worth
The volume.
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(01:11):
s q U a r E dot com slash go
slash Colin. Well, it was a nice run. It was
a nice run. But I mean, I think ultimately, if
you look at the teams in the World Cup, you
know there is a kind of a class of eight,
(01:32):
and you know, Spain, we all know who it is. Argentina.
Belgium now counts, although they've gotten a little older, but
remember in twenty eighteen they were one of the three
four best teams in the world. And I mean, I
think it was pretty obvious. I think the first seven
or eight minutes you could say it was nerves. But
after that we weren't winning enough one on one battles,
(01:55):
we weren't maintaining enough possession, We got very few good
shots on goal. We looked like we were outclassed. We
looked like we did against Paraguay, just flipped the sides
and so. And I also think it's a little bit
like the NFL playoffs, is that the better teams you face,
the better coaches you face, and you know you can
(02:16):
get through the AFC or the NFC south you know,
then you match up against you know the Buffaloes and
the Philadelphia's and the mcveigh's, and you know, just the
better coaches and the better teams and your flaws become
gigantic holes. And I mean Matt Freeze looked like an
MLS goalie tonight. I mean when he had Tim Howard.
We've had Tony Meola, Casey Keller, Tim Howard, who was
(02:39):
a huge physical presence, a great athlete, hyper aggressive, big
strong presence in goal. Matt Freeze looks like an MLS goalie.
You know, an embarrassing mistake playing with his feet. I mean,
that's that's like that stuff you see in a Tuesday
night in the MLS. That's just not good enough. And
again it's not exposed against Paraguay that didn't have much
(02:59):
of a dynamic, or Australia, but it does.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Get exposed against Belgium.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And you know, I thought, again, one of the things
I've said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to
kind of project that you don't understand soccer. You could
see it very quickly, first five or six minutes. We
just could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We
couldn't win the one on one battles. Until the very end,
we couldn't get quality shots, and when Belgium was in
(03:28):
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims a thirty
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely, absolutely exposed. Also,
(03:49):
listen to Christian poolsic. If you look at the best teams,
Harry Kanes had a great tournament. So is Messy, so
is Embape, so is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian pool
Is did not. He's a slight player. He's always been fragile.
He gets banged up again and I didn't think he
played with any confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning
his one on ones and he kind of you know,
(04:13):
gave the ball up early in his one on one opportunities.
He just gave it up. That that feels a little
bit like kind of bailing you're lacking confidence. Then later
he gets injured on a legal play.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Was not a foul.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us handily.
I think it was five to two in a friendly
with great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of
felt like we weren't playing some of our best players.
But you know, in this instance, we played our best
players and we were just outclassed, you know, and you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
(04:51):
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Beljium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
got the most who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal? I mean,
(05:12):
how many quality shots did we get on goal tonight?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Two?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Even the Malik Tillman goal on the free kick was
a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose this
way than be frustrated. I mean, Baaligan really only got
one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes I
wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no shots
(05:38):
on goal, Belgium two to one. Physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA corner kick was at the end of the
first half. I just think when you see a team
that has a higher level of skill, more experience in
bigger games and side one point, stue Holden was asked
(05:59):
about how do you get better and big games and
his answer was appropriate, you play in them. And Belgium
just felt like they had been in more games like this.
You know, it was funny in the first seven or
eight minutes, I saw that they were calling it nervy
and I'm like, yeah, I'll give you that for about
five minutes, and then it was really really clear we
could not There must have been six, seven, eight, nine
(06:22):
straight moments where it would come down to a one
on one battle and Belgium always came out with a ball.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And we met our match.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
But we know now if we flipped goalies, would we
have a greater opportunity. Yeah, but we weren't going to
beat Belgium. I thought Matt Freeze felt like a little
bit out of his depth.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
This was a little too.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Big for him, and it happens. But we kind of
know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas, you know,
we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been. We're closer
to Portugal than we've ever been. But there does feel
like a gap, a skill gap between England. Five of
the top thirty three players in this tournament where I
(07:10):
was reading an article before the tournament by Fox, five
of the top thirty three were from England. And I mean,
you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch Harry Kane against Mexico.
They were easily the two best players in the pitch.
And you watch that in NBA games, you know, you
see that when you watch great football teams. You could
just see the best players jump through the television. So
(07:33):
it didn't matter if we were playing a four to
two three one or we had gel Rena substituted in
at half, it just didn't matter. We just got out classed.
And that's where we stand as of today, you know,
and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball, baseball,
and hockey league in the world. And you can look
(07:54):
at the Olympics and say, well, look at what we did.
Our men's and women's won gold at the Olympics in hockey.
But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer. Soccer's got
forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer, that's
like six to seven billion annually in hockey because of
the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights. If
(08:19):
you want to dominate international soccer, it is much harder
than dominating international hockey. It's just it means more to
far more countries. It's just hockey is just not as broad.
It often feels like a cold weather experience, a cold
weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer. Norway's good
(08:44):
at it, Cape Verde is good at it, Argentina and
France are amazing at it, and so you know, we
generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally for sports.
Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred million dollars
between our men's and women's team annually, four hundred million,
and that's that's on par with many of the top teams,
(09:08):
but not greater then. And we also don't have the
cultural fixation, fascination, intensity, or passion that other nations do.
I don't look at this World Cup as a failure.
I think we earned ourselves another World Cup sometime very soon.
Our infrastructure is so capable of hosting it.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But I think.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's just it's the one sport, the one Rubik's Cube
we're trying to decipher and it really comes down to revenue.
It's massive, very difficult to buy your way to championships.
And again we have some really nice players. But saying
(09:52):
in a globe with two hundred and fifteen countries that
were not in the top eight, there's no great shame.
But I thought we were out classed. And I will
say Sebastian Burrhalter adds great energy. We had great fight
until the end, but we met our match. And that's okay.
(10:14):
I mean it's not okay. It's infuriating. It's in Seattle.
But I don't think you walk away from this and
say so we gave it a good run, we gave
it a good fight. You just keep chipping away. Remember
England has won one World Cup, Spain has won one
World Cup. This shit is hard, you know, And I'm
(10:40):
sure I'll just get blasted my text tonight when I
wake up tomorrow. We'll we will never compete. This is worthless.
We got out class tonight. Belgium had it on that
final goal. So if you count the friendly against tonight
five to two and four to one, our back end
was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweet in the two times
(11:05):
we face Belgium gives you a sense of where we
currently are on the soccer global map. Remember, our average
age is under twenty seven, so a majority of this
team is back with more European and international experience. It's
not on our soil. But generally group stages aren't our
(11:26):
greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is a
very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine years
old is the average age. Still one of the youngest
teams at this World Cup. So, by the way, if
you're wondering, I am healthy enough to do a forty
five minute podcast today, but my boss has called me
after yesterday's show. I played hurt yesterday. I had a
(11:47):
fever and the stomach virus is going around the Midwest.
So I went to bed last night at seven thirty five,
took thorough flu. I broke my fever. So I'm okay,
stomach's a mess. It's a Midwest thing. Whatever. But we
had this planned and I think it's it's fitting because
there's so many things I want to talk about with
Danny Parkins. So you know, listen, every four years after
(12:08):
we lose in the World Cup, the drum beats it's
our culture, you know, it's our youth movement. But I
did think it was kind of instructive that Carli Lloyd, Stuholden,
Alexi Lawless all kind of had the same drum beat,
which is, hey, Christian Polisic, nobody wants to hear about rest.
(12:32):
This isn't baseball. You don't have a game tomorrow, We don't.
We don't want to hear about rest. And I think
it's fair, and I'll tell you why. Pulistics twenty seven
Messi is a smaller athlete, has never messed a World
Cup game, and you know he hasn't been healthy one
hundred percent of the time. We know, we know Polistics
not Earling Holland he's not He's not a soccer version
(12:53):
of Gronk, but he gets banged up a lot. He's
twenty seven. But there is an indifference or a lack
of urgency. Sometimes that comes off as condescending from Polistic,
like he's above it all, and we don't like that
from Arathic. By the way, if you said that in Argentina,
the Argentinian press would savage you. If you said it
in Greece or Italy or London, you'd get crushed for it.
(13:15):
I think my knock on Polisic is that this is
this is different than the other sports, is that it's
every four years. Soccer already faces a little cynicism because
of the flopping, so you kind of fake injuries all
the time. So like when you come up and say,
(13:35):
all right, I can still see on the pitch, you
can still move, I don't want to hear about rest.
I don't think that's unfair. I think it's pandering to
call that unfair. I think that's very reasonable. International Soccer
commentary by Carly Stewing Alexi.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I mean he after the game said that he thought
he maybe sprained his ankle. We expect you to play
through a sprain ankle, right right, Like I mean, if
it would have come out afterwards that he would have
ruptured his achilles. You know, no one would have said anything,
you know, but it was like, wait, you you kicked
the other guy. You kind of stubbed your foot into
(14:14):
the ground. You were hobbling around out there, like we
expect you to be able to hobble that off. And
I'm not saying that I could do it, but I
am saying that world class athletes should be able to
do it.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And this is the thing I am.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I am not a twenty four seven, three sixty five
soccer person, but I really prepped very hard ahead of
this World's Cup. I take my job very seriously with
how our how first things, first overtime is going, Like
Nick Wilds and Brew are not on the show with me,
so I'm doing the full hour with me and Dax
McCarty and maybe other soccer people that we bring on.
(14:50):
So like, I prepped my ass off ahead of this
World's Cup. Part of that was watching the five part
Team USA documentary, and in the documentary there was a
whole section of time on Polisic feeling defensive and pushing
back against the old American soccer establishment, guys like Alexi
(15:10):
and Landon, who had criticized him for skipping the Gold Cup.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
They were like, you've got to play in the Gold Cup.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's because this is such a huge tournament for Team
USA and it's a home World Cup, and he was like,
I need the rest and I have to prioritize rest,
and they really criticized him and he pushed back against it.
And then Polisic also, I know he's not the most
media friendly guy. But I think that's a little overstated.
There's also a nine part documentary just about him on Paramount,
(15:39):
It's the Polisic Story. And then he was profiled in
GQ ahead of this tournament and he said it's just
another big tournament. Like I came out of this thing saying,
I honestly wonder if the World Cup is as big
of a deal to him as playing for AC Milan.
He makes money from ASI Milan. It's the biggest American
(16:02):
transfer fee in the history of our country. Like it's
weird to say, but I honestly felt like, do we care,
does Donovan care? Does Alexi care more about wearing the
crest of America than Polistic does? And I know he
laid his body on the line and had the great
goal in the last World Cup against Iran and all
(16:24):
of those things, But you would never catch Messi saying
it's just another tournament about the World Cup. And so
I think when you combine skipping the Gold Cup, it's
just another tournament. Asking out of both a group stage
game and a knockout stage game with non devastating injuries.
(16:46):
These people who are soccer establishments people in America who
played the game. They did not reach this conclusion on
Polisic just because of the game against Belgium. This is
years in the making for them with Polisic, and I
think it's totally fair to question if playing for America
in the World's Cup is his absolute number one priority.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Listen, I've said this about Luca Dantage his reality now
and Joe Burrows, they're both like one more injury away
from we're out of the peak, like their injury problem.
Like I've said that about Luca, He's never in great shape.
He now has three straight years of being injured. If
it becomes four, that devastatingly great. Trade isn't as great
(17:28):
as you thought. Neither Dallas or the Lakers are viable.
So and I think, but what one of the things
that pushes back I would push back is our soccer
culture isn't terribly hard. I mean, we still consider playing
college soccer a big deal. Where if you go internationally
to a Morocco, the best African nation now in terms
of soccer, if you go to England and you go
(17:48):
to other places like that that collegiate soccer, it's academies
and ours is hey get a D one scholarship and
it's a little I would say it's a little precious.
It doesn't really And by the way, in basketball, one
of the reasons there's so many great international players that
if you serve like our great domestic players is their
academy system is better than our AAU system. And I
(18:10):
do think sometimes the people that cover soccer for a living,
especially the print people, New York Times, the Athletic, they
get a little precious, they get a little defensive, they
start pandering. You don't understand soccer. I don't have to
be a chef to know the fish is undercooked. I'm
sending it back to the kitchen. I don't have to
be a music critic to know that guy's a hack
and that person's great, Like you don't have to be
an expert. Pholissic is twenty seven injury prone and to
(18:34):
your point, there's a sense he lacks kind of like urgency.
There's a certain esthetic and a certain commentary where I
feel like, bro, this shit matters like a lot. I mean,
I mean, this World Cup was so successful, America is
probably going to get another one sooner than anticipated. I've
(18:55):
read that several times. This has been a ground breaking
World Cup.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, listen, it's a that's why you have there's a
there's a lot here and I think it's fascinating. And
I know sometimes like the hottest take is the best take,
but I think there's a lot here. Like the World
Cup has been a huge success, ratings, attendance. My six
year old asked for a messy jersey, like you know
(19:20):
what I mean, Like he's getting into it. So like
growing soccer in America, all that's like that is happening
even without the US stepping forward. I also think the
US did make progress in this specific way if you
look in the rearview mirror, like I think the say
we're the eighteenth best team in the world for a number, Yeah,
(19:42):
I think the gap between us and like the fiftieth
best team has grown. Whereas like we've the last now
four World Cups that we've made, we've made it to
the same round every time, the round of sixteen, but
in the past we've kind of eked our way. There
draws one to one games and in this World's Cup,
and I know part of it is where the host
country so we got the pot one draw. I know
(20:04):
part of it is expanded field, so there's a round
of thirty two now, so a little bit weaker competition,
but we kind of kicked the shit out of some teams.
Scored three goals, scored four goals, had the most first
half goals of any team in the whole tournament through
the round to thirty two, like we were putting the
ball in the back of the net. I do think
we have separated ourselves a bit from Paraguay and Australia
(20:26):
and teams like that. But when you lose as convincingly
as we did to Belgium, right, the whole thing was
are you going to take a step forward? We still
have a huge gap between us and the truly top teams.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yes, well, it's interesting you bring that up. So here
are the quarter finalists France, Argentina, England, Belgium, Spain. Those
are World Power Cups. Yeah, Sweatshirtland once again, fifth sixth
straight World Cup. I think this is the third or
the fourth time they made it to the quarters. Historically
respected Morocco is now brilliant federation apparently depths top African
(21:04):
nation and then Norway has a superstar Okay, so either
superstar soccer power respected, historical relevant, European team or the
best African nation. That's who beat us out. And I
would say this between Casey Keller, you know Tim Howards.
(21:25):
We were.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Uniquely weak in goalie.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
We had an MLS goalie. Our goalies have always been
English Premier League Casey European guy for fifteen years. If
we had one of our usual goalies in we lose
two to one. Yes, we don't give up the second
or the third goal. We give up the first, we
give up the last. We lose two to one. We're outplayed.
But the sense is well, if Belgium beat Spain, we're
(21:50):
losing to really good people. So A, you're right, there's growth.
B look at who ends up in the quarters the
best African nation superpowers. The other thing that should be
noted is participation. Remember this, Danny, look at the world
going forward. A lot of parents don't want their kids
to play football because of violence. Basketball genetically, Let's be honest,
(22:12):
it is a really tall person sport. Baseball to kids
often a lot of standing around and boring. Hockey super expensive.
Soccer's fun. There is pay to play, but it's cheaper
than hockey, probably two to three times cheaper. This will
increase participation. And my guess is, although albeit or pay
to play, I think in communities, if you really saw,
(22:35):
if the local teams really saw a spectacular kid at eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve years old, you'd find a way to engineer it
and get him in. There's a lot of visibility now
with soccer, the academy system is broader. So I do
to think to your point, this was an absolute win.
Better goalie. We lose two to one, and we were embarrassed.
We weren't beaten. It's not that we lost, it's how
(22:57):
we lost, and it got really embarrassing last thirty to
forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, I thought, look, I mean honestly, I thought it
was kind of embarrassing from jump with how cautious they played,
Like I did not consider the fact that we could
get blown out in that game, and we did, and
I thought that that was a parent Pretty early on
I was like, oh my god, like it just like
the moment felt a little too big.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
For them, and it is.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I mean, Egypt almost beat Argentina and would have been
further than us, and then we would have been like,
well what about this group? That is to like, why
can't we be Egypt? And I do think it's totally
fair to be like, why can't we have our earling Holland,
Like we thought it was going to be Freddie Adouo,
it wasn't. We thought it was going to be Christian Polisic,
it wasn't. Now people are like, there's this kid, Kevin
Sullivan who's sixteen on Philly and MLS And I'm like,
(23:41):
I can't keep waiting for the Great Savior to come right.
And I do think, and again I am not an
expert on the pay to play thing, but there is
something too. Our best player is Floren Balligan, who was
completely developed in England, Like, yes, you know what I mean.
(24:01):
His parents are Nigerian. He came up through the English
club scene and the only reason he was able to
play for America is because his mom had him here
in birthright citizenship because she was pregnant and deemed that
it wasn't good for her to fly back when she
was pregnant. And he was like, I don't know that
I will start if I play on England because of
Harry Kane everything that they have, so I'll go play
(24:21):
for America. Like we got to figure out why they
were able to develop our best player and figure out
a way for us to be able to develop a
couple of our own best players.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah. And and by the way they're they're you know,
if you look at France and a lot of these nations,
there is these routes to get your best players. Apparently
the federation in Morocco. I was reading about it this
morning actually as my stomach flew was ravaging through the house.
Morocco's federation apparently has done a really good job to
(24:52):
find connections through Europe and that's why they have so
much depth. If you watch Morocco talking about a dark horse,
like you watch him maybe the fastest team left man.
They are like in France, speed, They they got a
bunch wings, midfielders, they move, they're hard to defend. So
I think a lot of this is federation based, academy based,
(25:15):
and it's hurting our basketball a little bit. I mean,
who are our best domestic players, Cooper Flag and Edwards,
Jason Tatum, And it feels like there was a drop off,
like like what Trey Young. I mean, the analytics don't
like Jalen Brown. Yeah, so yeah, I mean I think,
but I do believe every four years there is this
chorus is that we're not growing. There's clear growth from
(25:37):
participation to elevation of skill and technical expertise. I think
we're a little soft. I think the soccer culture is
a little harder in England than Argentina than it is here.
But I felt growth.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I did too.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I felt growth, like I said, kind of looking like
we distanced ourselves from the lesser teams which we were
a part of. And I'm not sure if we grew
enough in the direction of the top teams. And I'm
going to be very interested in like, because listen, poach
Tina was expensive, Like what what do they do with him?
(26:14):
I know everybody wants him back, and I do too.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I like him.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
It did seem interesting to me that it was like
we weren't tough enough, we weren't ready to play, but
we love the manager.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's like, I don't know, some of that might be
on coaching, Like I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Exactly know, but it seems like but I do think
that you know, they've opened up USA soccer complexes and
training development programs, like you spend more money on it,
you will develop better players and you need a continuity
of program And to your point, this tournament kind of
flipped my whole life watching the US on the international level,
(26:49):
it was like, can we score goals?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Like we had four goals? We had four goals in
the twenty twenty two Worlds Cup in total, I mean
our in total. This it's like, okay, we can score goals.
Like if we took Tim Howard and a couple of
great American defenders from the past and put them on
this team with Balligan and some of our midfielders and
you know, forward players, we could have had a great team.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It's just we don't have the we got. We got
to put it all together once.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
See. I feel better about this because I'd rather say
we got to find a better goalie, then we just
don't have the technical skill to score goals. I feel
broadly great about our technical skill. It'll only get better.
This whole team comes back, probably with three to four
editions at least, but we just have to find a goalie.
I always felt like we got a goalie. I wish
we had seven guys who could pass and dribble like
they knew in England. So I feel broadly very good
(27:40):
about it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I mean, listen, Tim Reim was too old and too
slow as like our main defensive player, right, So I
think it is probably.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I was reading articles about like projecting the twenty thirty
men's national team roster and it's very difficult to do.
But there are there are names. You know, Dax McCarty
are our first things. First, an who's been great. He
played a ton of MLS. He played on the men's
national team. He knows the MLS. He's like, yeah, there's
a lot of really young talent, but they just we
need to hit like we need we need to hit
(28:11):
on some stars. I mean, Belgium is sobbing in Lukaku
and it's like we would he be our best player.
He he he came off the bench for them. Weston
McKinney is really good for us, but he's been like
okay on Juventus. You know, Christian Polistic a huge deal.
He led Milan and goals and assists, but Milan was
(28:33):
really disappointing, like they weren't. You know. He was like
a good player on a historically great team that also
had a bad year. So we do need to We
have players who are playing in Spain and Italy and
Europe and you know all over, but like we need,
we need stars. We need to keep leveling up. We're
not We're not there yet.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
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my Reset gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler. I
want to shift to Jalen Brown. That's obviously a bit
a big story, overshadowed by the Olympics, overshadowed by the
World Cup, obviously. So it's interesting when analytics foot all analytics,
we don't talk about a lot soccer analytics, hockey analytics
(31:03):
not so much. It's really been it's taken over baseball
and basketball analytics. If you're not upstairs, if you're not
in on analytics all in to like a Celtics level,
you're falling behind and your viewed as sort of hacky
and jurassic. So in baseball, analytics marginalized the manager. Players
didn't have to love it, but it was really about
(31:25):
the manager now may not even fill out the lineup.
That going with your gut instincts is like it sound
like a bad president. Now you have to read the
briefings in the morning. You can't go with your guy, right.
Analytics in basketball isn't about the coach because they all
believe in it. It's about the high scoring player who's
a bad analytics player. So whereas baseball managers grumbled about it,
(31:48):
like moneyball, you know, the art Howe moment with Brad
Pitt Right. In basketball, the analytics punish often the Trey Young,
the Jalen Brown, not the baseball manager. The first time
I heard about analytics, a good player in analytics was
Monte Ellis for the War for the Warriors, who people
just in it. I wasn't even like paying attention, but
(32:10):
I remember high usage rate, didn't do much of the
defensive end, didn't necessarily elevate teammates. And so the point
being is, so now you're seeing players get a little
like the Jalen Brown story is really an analytically behold enfranchise.
Nobody's more formulaic than the Boston Celtics, and Brown's a
(32:30):
bad analytic player.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
So in the.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Departments of the Celtics, so the coaching staff asks about
Jalen Brown and they're like, and he doesn't really he
pushes back in analytics, the analytic department with the Celtics
is like, yeah, move him. Tatum's camp, according to stories,
is not close to it, and the ownership guys are
He's really expensive. So if somebody was gonna get rid
(32:53):
of me, there'd be several departments at Fox you go to.
If all four were like Eh, Coward doesn't work in analytics.
He doesn't get along with Nick Wright, you know, to
be honest with you, he's really expensive. And the boss
at FS one in him, he said he's not that coachable.
So the truth of the matter is analytics to baseball
(33:16):
marginalized most managers. What it's doing in the NBA now
is the Trey Young's and the Jalen Browns. We're conditioned
to think they score twenty eight, they're great, and the
data now says they don't work for a shoot quickly pass,
quickly offense.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah. I think that there's also, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
The the CBA, and this it gets confusing. First apron,
second apron. You know, bird rights people don't like talking
about it. But in baseball you do have some owners
that are willing to just kind of spend over it,
and if they're willing to pay the tax, they can
pay it. Basketball doesn't really operate that way. And so
(34:03):
Jalen Brown, I do think, is a I think it's
been a little overstated. He is an excellent basketball player, yes,
but if he was making forty million, everybody would want him.
But because he's going to make fifty five million, people
are like, eh, we can replace that production in a
different way. So I think it is it is like, yes,
(34:23):
analytically driven, but it's also analytically driven relative to the cap.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Like that's how you have to look at it, Like.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Can we get ninety percent of the production for seventy
percent of the cost and right? Which is business? And
I think that that is. And then you add in
the personality stuff with him and Tatum and all of
it that you go in that direction and listen, Brad Stevens.
I've said it before, I will say it again. For
(34:51):
my book Pipeline to the Pros, we talked to dozens
of coaches and executives in the NBA. He is, maybe,
other than theo Epstein, the smartest person I've ever talked
to in sports media, coach, player, executive. He didn't like
get the wool pulled over his eyes on this one, right,
like he got fleeced.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
No, he didn't, like I don't. I have not.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Spoken to him about this. I haven't spoken to him
since the book. He's not that kind of guy. But
like it is a he didn't get fleeced, And so
I actually came out of this trade thinking they actually
weren't close to getting you honest, Like, I don't. I
don't like I think that the Bucks used that as
leverage with Miami to get as much out of that
deal as they could have possibly wanted. Like, I don't
(35:37):
think the league viewed Jalen Brown at that contract as
a supremely valuable basketball talent. And it is fascinating because
it might be the biggest disconnect Colin that I can
remember in basketball between media and eye test and watching
the games and analytics and understanding of the money. Because
(35:59):
the media just voted him sixth per MVP. If you
would have said to me a month ago, top ten
two way players in basketball, I think Jalen Brown would
have been on my list, sure, just like removing money
from it. Well, and now he's traded for Paul George
(36:19):
and a couple of picks. It is a crazy story
to wrap your head around.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well, Joel Embiid one MVP, Yeah, I would argue pushback
that he didn't even fit with the Olympic team when
you put him with winning, great players, most analytically superior,
Embiid didn't really fit.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, Like, so Embiid's the classic.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I mean, I don't know what his analytics are Paul
George is a very good analytic player. I think what's
happened with the second apron is everybody chooses one player
in Denver, it's Jokic, and then what you do is
build to support his weaknesses. Jokic wasn't a good defensive player.
Let's get Aaron Gordon from Orlando Athletic springy. Now Gordon
(36:59):
has sorted to age and have injuries. They probably stuck
with Jamal Murray a little longer, who's not super athletic,
but they they're like they fit like a glove right
And in Boston they made a decision. They're like, Okay,
we're gonna go with one of these guys going forward.
We can get out of the Paul George contract sooner.
And he's also not going to get an extension. We're
not going to get into those talks. And the beg
truth is, if you have to put him next to
(37:20):
each other, we're into analytics. Tatum is better analytically, The
coaches feel more strongly about him. We win when a
usage rate is here with Tatum and Brown is struggling.
You know, he can be a dribble the air out
of the ballplayer at times and you can't get that
usage rate according to the Celtic staff. I mean you're
seeing stuff now. This is why it's coming out. It's
(37:42):
leaking the Celtic staff saying, here's the usage rate. We
win ninety percent of the times. When Tatum has thirty
three percent usage rate, we struggle to get there when
Brown's on the floor with him. It really comes down
to this organization is more formulaic than any and they
had to make a choice and they chose the guy
they probably liked a little more. They felt what was
(38:03):
more willing to listen to coaching, and that analytically was Supario. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yes, So I need to be very clear I am
not shocks that they traded Jalen Brown. The thing that
is still hard for me to wrap my head around
is that you could only get Paul George and a
couple of picks for him. That's the part that, like
I would have thought you could have gotten more for
teams that didn't have a guy like Jason Tatum that
has some redundancies with Jalen Brown like that. That's the thing,
(38:30):
Like he did just be the he was just the
best player on a team that won fifty plus games
when Tatum missed the whole year. He is a finals MVP.
He does we were talking about polistic like he does
play you know what I mean, Like he doesn't sit games,
he doesn't get hurt, he is tough, he does give
you effort on defense, like all of those things. Like
I just I still am surprised that you weren't able
(38:51):
to get more for Jalen Brown. But I think because
of the Apron and the money and all of it,
more teams are going in that direction. And just to
bring in another story, like I wouldn't love giving Donovan
Mitchell the contract that the Cavs just gave him.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Guy who has.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Had inconsistent playoff performances, guy who hasn't one big, guy
who is undersized, guy who has had some injuries, and
you're gonna pay him all of that money, you know,
into his thirties as an undersized guard. I wouldn't love it.
But my guess is they're like, what other top ten
(39:30):
player are we going to be able to get? Free
agency is basically dead. Maybe we'll trade this contract in
the future, but like we are in the Donovan Mitchell
business because we have no other path. You have to
keep our own guy's.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Right, that's right, and Harden is not a guy you
want to do that with. Mobley is probably not a
guy you're gonna pay that. Whereas the Celtics felt we
got two of them, Yeah, right, we have, and so
we're gonna move the guy that the staff decides. I mean,
you can tell from leaks, Yeah, you can tell what
gets out how people felt about him, like you can
(40:03):
tell coach ability. You know, I was thinking about this
the I was thinking about this last night because, as
I said, I got into.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Bed at seven, so I did time.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It took me a while to fall asleep that I thought.
You know, I was in Local for fourteen, ESPN for
a decade, Fox for a decade. I own my own
company now, so I've I've seen a lot of this
stuff where corporations all the time. I've seen it a lot,
not on air people, but upstairs, like when talented people
leave and the CEO of a company, whether it was
(40:34):
in Local TV, Fox, ESPN, or even at the volume
when you move off productive people. And it does come
down to some of the stuff that you've read leaked
with Jalen Brown, Like I was reading this stuff and
it just it kind of jarred memories. I thought, you know,
I sometimes, first of all, companies make mistakes and let
the wrong person go.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
That could be, that could be the case case in point,
Colin Coward, whatever that was the record, but that that
is that is out there.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
They're like, where was a mistake?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Uh, that's nice. Well. ESBN also let go of Mike Tarico,
and I should say NBC bought him. But when that happened,
I remember calling one of the top three people at ESPN.
I'm like, you let who's gonna be who's your lead
voice at the company. But I don't understand what you're doing.
Like the NBC came in and you know, paid him
(41:25):
a lot. But it was like there are times companies,
I think, in my opinion, make mistakes. Of course, so
that that's if Tatum gets hurt again, you're like, yeah,
you made a big mistake. Secondly, it usually comes down
to these are the discussions you hear. Remember when NBC
had to pick between Letterman and Leno. Bill Carter wrote
about this at the time of The New York Times.
(41:47):
Is that Robert Wright ran Ge who owned NBC, and
he comes in the air conditioning's broke the meetings in Florida.
He walks into the room. It's a great movie, it's
a great book by Bill Carter, and he asks who's
easier to work with? Leman or Leno. Everybody's like Leno.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Everybody I'm jaylen O, right.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Like like Leno won the room. He'd gone to NBC affiliates.
I even saw him in Vegas when I was at
an NBC affiliate. Leno played to the affiliates, he played
to the advertisers, and the question was who's easier to
deal with? There are according to certain reports out now,
they give people felt like, you know, the staff worked
with Tatum more easily than jaylen Brown. I've seen that
(42:27):
happen twenty times in my career. That that, and and
and again. Companies make mistakes. If Tatum gets hurt again,
they made a mistake. But it's sometimes it is just yeah,
the staff likes him, listens a little better, you know,
whatever it is. And so I kind of feel like
(42:49):
the stories I'm reading coming out is the staff chose Tatum.
They like Tatum.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, and Tatum is Atum is awesome.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Tatum is an awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Better jump shitter, higher, seilaying, more fluid.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, and they they They're like, we won what it
was it, fifty six game. They're we won fifty six.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Games with Jalen Brown doing it, and now we'll just
have Tatum do it, and we're going to reallocate that
and like they're not going to be the same team.
They'll they'll have Paul George, Okay, fine, they'll have Mike Conley, Okay, fine,
But they also added Mitchell Robinson, like one of the
best offensive rebounders defense.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Like the whole thing was we need to change.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Our you know, our our identity and who we are
and be more diversified and you know, not do the
same thing all the time. Well, Mitchell Robinson is going
to make the Celtics look really different next year, Like
they should have a fully healthy Tatum, a better backup
point guard, and one of the best rebounders in the
entire sport. Like they're probably going to win fifty four
games next year and be a real threat in the
(43:49):
Eastern Conference. So I'm not like predicting the demise of
the Celtics over this at all.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
I just I did this on.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
The show, but like when it was like Jalen Brown's
clearly going to get traded, I did some mock trades,
you know, and I just put him in the trade machine,
had some fun for thirty minutes, came up with something
that I liked and put him out there. And it
was like Jabari Smith, Kevin Durant and a couple of
draft picks to Houston, and it was like Kawhi Leonard
(44:16):
and a couple of first round picks and send him
to the Clippers, and like send him to Atlanta and
give him, you know, Nikhil, Alexander Walker and Kamenga and
Risha Chet and some picks. And if you go and
you look at the comments from people with Celtic clovers,
you're an idiot. You don't know ball like that. That's
(44:37):
that's fifty cents on the dollar. And then they all
hated the Paul George trade and I was offering way
more for Jalen Brown than they got. Like so I
think again, Like the surprising thing is Brad Stevens does
not appear to be an outlier and how he views
Jalen Brown, like the market says, Jalen Brown is nowhere
(44:59):
near the sixth best player in basketball. And I think
that is what a lot of us, myself included, like
I really am still like recalibrating. I'm like, because I
like analytics, I like, I likes, but I'm pretty sure
Jalen Brown is better than whatever calculation, even with his
contract that people are are are telling me that he's
(45:20):
worth
Host
Colin Cowherd
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