Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / Which Teams Are Under The Most Pressure?

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Which Teams Are Under The Most Pressure? · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe we here, ladies and gentlemen, not an NBA podcast, episode two.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We we got approved for a second episode?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, there is no approval needed.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this all in the basement of my house.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are with episode two.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get a round of applause?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not just because we're here for episode two, but if you look on Spotify in this exact moment, just on Spotify, because I'm I'm not on Apple podcasting just yet.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It takes two to four days for it to get approved for the first episode, and then after that, they will go up simultaneously.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're an Apple guy and you download a Spotify specifically for this, because I did get that message quite a bit, thank you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go to the charts of the sports podcasting world, not an NBA podcast with Kenny Beachum, is it's number four.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's number, it's number four.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This little thing that I decided um to just do because I was bored with no backing, with no producers, with no sponsorships, with no editors.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: With only thing I did was hit my guy Ryan up and say, hey, I need cover art.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know how much that's gonna cost me.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is that gonna cost me a coup a couple 50 bucks?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I d I don't know.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're number four behind Podcast P with Paul George.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I understand where they're number one.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: They actually put together a really good show.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the NBA player-centric podcasts tend to not, I'm not gonna say not be good, but they tend to not keep my attention for an hour and a half at a time.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Podcast P and his co-host do a great job.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is part of my take.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The guys over at Barstool.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is the Bill Simmons podcast, the most downloaded sports podcast in the history of podcasting, is something I heard him say recently.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And since he's been around for a hundred years, I'm not gonna refute it.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably a fact.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then look at me at number four, not an NBA podcast with Kenny Beachum.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I do want to clear up some things from episode one.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The name of this show is a working title.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm assuming that eventually it will transition to a different name, but I had no names in mind.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, give me some time to kind of figure that thing out.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is this simply the Kenny Beechum podcast?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it uh the Kenny Beachum show?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That listen, working title, not an NBA podcast.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun, but there are some people that DM'd me literally thinking it wasn't an NBA.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for a little way, it's not a podcast.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to say it's not a podcast, but people thought I was on here talking about One Piece, or I was on here talking about, I don't know, sneakers or something.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still talking hoops, but it's just not a podcast.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the real thing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a podcast, it's a collection of thoughts.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I was thinking about earlier today?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: What a transition from Kenny Beach and it's like he's been in this game for a million years.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what teams?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Players, coaching, organ organizations, who has the most pressure on their shoulders going into this next upcoming season?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because whether players want to admit it or not, there there is a ton of pressure associated with their job.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when when it comes to the game of basketball, a lot of people are remembered for the things that they did correctly, for their all-star appearances, for their all-NBA appearances, and deeper than that, for their championships.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some players out there that have been, of course, all-star, superstar, MVP caliber players for the last couple seasons that haven't been able to hit some of the other marks.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, it kind of transitions from oh my god, this young rookie sophomore third-year player is so good.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can see him becoming a star in his league, and then you get to becoming an all-star.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Man, I think this guy can be a superstar.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then you hit that superstar status, you make all NBA teams, and then potentially win some awards.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then once that all divvy's down, it goes to okay, is he going to win?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, that's not a determinant factor for me.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we team enjoy basketball, and maybe eventually this not a podcast exists on the enjoy basketball, enjoy network.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a determinant factor for me when it comes to determining how great a player is.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But if we are ranking, which I don't like ranking, I've mentioned this years and years ago, that like ranking is such there's no objectivity to it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's so subjective that I could have a guy sixth, you can have a guy third, and neither of us are wrong.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But we're supposed to go into a boxing match and just yell at each other to determine who's right.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if we be in realistic, arguments in the NBA world, the arguments in the world of gener in general right now is who's louder.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Forget the facts.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who's the louder person?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who's the most convincing person instead of the facts in the game of sports?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not something I enjoy.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But again, part of my job is kind of that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: For the last couple years, me and my dudes over the offseason, dudes, me and my other co-hosts over the offseason have done NBA rankings, and I hate doing it every year, but I understand the value.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I understand people that enjoy these type of things.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm going to use rings as a determinant factor, in more cases than not, I'm using it to determine the difference between the fourth best player and the fifth best player.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: A ring is not making me think, oh, this 20th best player is probably number five because he was able to raise the Leary O'Brien trophy regardless, regardless of his status in that thing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did he average 30, 50, 40, 90?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Did he average 12?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't matter.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a ring, so he objectively has to be higher.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dwight Howard's got a championship with the Lakers.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: His only championship.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make him better than what he was before that ring?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not because his contributions to that title were minuscule on court.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can't speak.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can't speak to what it was like in the locker room.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can't speak to the amount of emotion driven in it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like when he posted that picture, we're gonna be tangent in because that's what we do.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no notes.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: When he posted that picture of him with the Larry O'Brien trophy and him crying, and Shaq had his words to Dwight Howard about it.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was lame as hell.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I love Shaquille O'Neal.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of the coolest dudes I've ever had the pleasure to talk to, interview, meet, and watch over the course of my lifetime.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that was lame as hell for Shaquille O'Neal to say, take your one photo.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's my Shaquille O'Neal impression.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Take your one photo and sit your ass down.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't do nothing.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, though that's not verbatim, but it was something along those lines.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was kind of corny from Shaq.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that they've had their beefs over the years because who's the real Superman?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who's the best center in Orlando magic history?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yada yada yada.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: They have their own beefs and rivalries outside of, but I thought that was kind of corny.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not looking at an eventual ring to determine which player is significantly better than the other.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, once you take that jump from just pure stardom, I understand the next thing being a championship.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, we're always wanting more.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it be fans, whether it be the players that are actually playing the game, we want more.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Braun came in, he was an absolute dog.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: He made an all-star game in his second season.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, how good can he really get?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He made an all-NBA pair.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, how good can he really get?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Old snap, he led a team to the finals, ended up losing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we let's start thinking about him winning one.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh snap, he's been here for seven, he's been a clean for seven years.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He has no championship.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: How good could he really be?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those are real conversations about LeBron James, the greatest, second greatest player to ever pick up a basketball.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But in the moment, because he wasn't able to beat the goddamn Pistons, or he wasn't able to get past the Boston Celtics who acquired some Hall of Fame talent, he couldn't be an all-time great.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was baloney in the moment, at least in my mind, my young old mind, because he left in the year what is that 2011?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: 2010, 2011?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, uh 2010, that would have made me uh man, oh, mathematics is 14 years old.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I just saw LeBron greatness in Cleveland, where he averaged a million points per game and led a team where Mo Williams was his second all-star, and where Sasha Pavlovich and who was Anderson Verizau were starting players on his teams.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen him lead those teams to conference finals and eventual NBA finals, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was the best player in ball.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But there were some conversations about how good could he potentially be because he hasn't been able to raise a Larry O'Brien trophy.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, eventually he went to Miami.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: He raised two out of four.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was maybe not as good as they anticipated, but two out of four are still a bunch.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, he's got a couple other ones in back in Cleveland and in LA.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But in the midst of all of this, before he got his first championship, there was a ton of conversations revolving around him as a player and even him as a leader, which is maybe crazy to even think about now in 2023 that the leadership of LeBron James is in question, but that was the case.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing that right now amongst other great players in basketball.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And LeBron, when he left Cleveland, he was like 25-26 years old.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was still young.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: He just had his rookie deal be done.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was extremely, extremely young, and still, because of the greatness that he showed on court, there was still the conversation of whether or not he can be the best player in the game without winning a championship.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had the same conversations about Giannis.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Giannis was a two-time MVP, he was a DPOY, but man, once the playoffs come around, the teams just shrink the floor and now he's less effective.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Could he really be the best player in ball if in the playoffs he hasn't been able to get past those teams?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He hasn't been able to raise Illyrio B.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then he did.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then for a few seasons, he was the consensus best player in basketball.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But again, there were questions before he got the ring.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Nicola Jokic just got his first ring.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to him.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was a two-time MVP, back-to-back MVP.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some people might argue he deserved a third one this season.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my that's not my argument, but I'm just saying.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But going into the playoffs after the end of the season last year, where they got decimated by the Warriors, it was could could he be the best player in the league?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Could he be the best player on a championship team?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And again, now in hindsight, as a nine conversations because of how talented and how gifted and how good he is at the game of basketball.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But those are the conversations.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So now we see Jokic has his.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, Curry has his, Giannis has his, Kevin has his, and I know his maybe hold different weights to some people.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different conversation for another episode.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The next player in line.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just looking at rankings based on, I just typed in NBA rankings because it's just a way for me to remember uh who's in a league and who's not, because I do have uh a troubled time with just remembering people off the top of my head.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Joel Lembiad is the guy I'm thinking about today.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, getting back to our original point of pressure and ball, there's not a lot of people under more pressure than Joel Lambi, and probably the broader picture Philadelphia 76ers.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: As we know, James Harden formally requested a trade a few weeks ago.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I won't say out of nowhere, but I I was it was just I was just sitting in my living room with my daughter, just chilling, and a notification came that he was opting in and he was requesting the trade.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even though there were rumors that he was going to move on to Houston or move on to this team or that team.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It happened, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we I think we talked about this a little bit on the first episode that I still think there is a world where James is back, but right before I started filming this episode of A Collection of Thoughts, there they were saying that he's very adamant about not returning, and that he's very adamant about ending up with the Clippers.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Clippers trade package for James Harden is not a great one and in a vacuum.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a great one in a vacuum.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: You think about the production that James provided, especially during the regular season, where he led the league in assists, he was still a really good and important player on a plus 50 win team.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like he was great.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then the package that is potentially drawn up with the Clippers is like a Norman Powell, it's like a uh Robert Covington or uh Batoom or just a combination of those dudes, uh Marcus Moores, a combination of those dudes that are making between 10 to 20 million dollars.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if I am the 76ers, I don't really have a lot of interest in that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because my entire time as I'm building a team around Joel and Bede, I'm thinking who is his co-star.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've had Jimmy Butler, which man, what what a time that was because that team was really, really talented.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: They got um, of course, unlucky with the Kawhi Leonard, the doom, the doom, the doom shot that fell in in that game seven.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was probably the most talented team that's ever been constructed around Joel, and it wasn't a perfect fit, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: There was some spacing issues.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You you had JJ that was providing all the spacing, but like you had Jimmy, who wasn't a good three-point shooter.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You had Ben Simmons who, of course, never shot the three-point shot.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the spacing was definitely an issue.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're just thinking about the collection of talent, when you think about how good Ben Simmons was at that point of his career, when you think about how good JJ and Joel and Bede's dribble handoff and combination of just if you want to think about a star player and a role player, the type of connection that they have together, there was not a lot in basketball that were on the tier of Joel and JJ, and then of course, you know, that Joel was still looking great.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they had a great collection of talent.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: They just couldn't close out the series.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you go from Jimmy, of course, you've had Ben the entire time.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Ben and Joel fit was rough all the time through, but it was still good enough to win a bunch of basketball games.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ben was a monster defensively and playmake out of this world.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: They never ran uh pick and roll, uh any combination of Joel at the ball handler or uh Ben as the ball handler.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: They just never really did it in the times that they were together.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you had James.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the the James idea, when you think when you go back and reflect on how James ended up there, I mean, what a job by Daryl Mori to have a dude that was damaged goods, at least that's what it felt like across the association and Ben Simmons with him having his back injuries and with him sitting out an entire half of a season, to think that they turned that and a few picks into James Harden, who was just pretty damn good in Brooklyn and has been good for the seasons leading up to that, like that's an all-time great trade.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And even now with James requesting a trade and potentially getting out, the trade still looks good.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: If James is traded to the Clippers for a bag of bones of role players, I still look back fondly on that trade because Ben Simmons was not going to report.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Simmons was not going to play.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Simmons passed up a shot where Trey Young was his nearest defender at the basket.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you flip that because there was some team out there in the Brooklyn Nets that still had optimism about Ben, and you turned that into an NBA Hall of Famer who was past his prime, I would say, but he's not so past out of his prime that he's not a contributing player.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Again, led the league in assist this season.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you've had this collection of different talents and different modes of a team around Joel, and so far, the only progress you've had is a second round appearance.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, Kawhi Leonard's shot prevented them from potentially getting to the conference finals, but who knows what would have happened in that conference finance?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't really know.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Joel E hasn't reached the conference finals, and all of his peers around there Tatum, Doncic, Kawhi, Butler, Booker, Davis, Braun, Shay hasn't because Shay has a small amount of playoff appearances so far.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dame, Donovan, uh, Jamal Murray.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: These are all of the dudes, according to this ranker.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't care about wrecking players, it's just a collection of players, that have at least made a conference finals appearance.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And JoJo is still waiting on that first one.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's 29 years old.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be hitting the 30-year-old club very, very soon, and he hasn't had that appearance.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the future of this organization feels grim because James wants out.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get a one-for-one value for James, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want, I mean, of course, making it to the conference finals, making an NBA championship, winning an NBA championship, there is a decent amount of luck involved.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the 76ers have had the what is the opposite of luck?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Unluck.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: They've just been unlucky.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm trying to think of synonyms and anthony.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: They have just been unlucky.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: We think about Joel Embiid obviously having years where he was completely unhealthy.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Ben Simmons had the year in the bubble where he missed completely in the playoffs, and they get, I think they got swept or lost in five to the Boston Celtics.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jordan Bede got hit in the goddamn face in this series against the Raptors.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he had the bubble guts in one series and he missed because of a virus.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they have been extremely unlucky, and that doesn't, again, account for the Kawhi Leonard shot.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that doesn't account for the Atlanta Hawks having an out-of-body experience run that they've been trying to replicate for the past three seasons.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, all of these things, they have been extremely unlucky, and you think eventually it's gonna break, eventually it's gonna break, eventually it's gonna break well for us.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: But now we have this another unlucky thing because your second best player wants out, and you maybe consolidating and getting a bunch of role players and allowing Tyrese Maxie to elevate could be the answer for Philly, but to what extent?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you talk about pressure, the pressure is immense over there in Philadelphia because if the trade doesn't go well and Joel Embiid and company, the 76ers don't make a deep playoff appearance.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: What is preventing Joel Embiid from saying, hey man, the process was cool.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I've had my shortcomings, and I don't I have not performed to an MVP caliber in a playoff series just yet, or an important playoff series just yet, because first round uh playoff wins when you're at the higher C, I don't really look at those as being like, you know, oh man, he averaged 40 in that series because there was not a lot of pressure on you to complete that series.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But like in a high intensity series, I haven't been able to perform for y'all.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is facts, but you haven't also put together the perfect team around me, even though you tried.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Darryl has tried, the previous regime has tried trading Dario Zarich and Robert Covington to get back Jimmy Butler.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, think about that trait.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that trade.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then a little later after that, you traded Jimmy for Josh Goddamn Richardson.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that was an L.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they've tried, but we haven't been successful.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you know what?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ship me to my next team, man.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: New York.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all need somebody.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, who else would be interested?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure a lot of people are interested.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's Joel Embiid.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, we talk about pressure.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is the first team player that came to mind.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: The second team that came to mind is the Clippers, man.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Clippers are under as much pressure as Joel Embiid in the 76ers.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they have had a conference finals appearance.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually at the game that Kawhi Leonard hurt himself and didn't recognize in the moment that he did.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was in that series versus Utah Jazz.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is like slightly post, not post-pandemic, still in pandemic, but slightly after the league had opened up.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were only doing 50% capacity at the staple center.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was still the staple center at that moment.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I got tickets to a playoff game.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hell, let's, let's, let's get it done.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm there for it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when it happened, because there's no broadcast or zoom in on the tweaks and bumps and stuff, I genuinely thought that he just hurt himself a little bit.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think it was going to be an entire thing that was going to have him miss an entire season.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in the moment, it didn't feel like that, at least in the in the arena.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they but it regardless, Paul George, they win that game.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe not that game, they win that series and they end up in the conference finals.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the Clippers before that had never made a conference finals appearance, at least to my knowledge, I'm not Googling shit.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, under the Clippers.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they did when they were the San Diego and in LA, they haven't made a conference finals appearance.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that is a huge moment.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is a huge part in the progression of their organization.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, um uh things haven't looked good since.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh PG and Kawhi have both missed a ton of time.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kawhi put together a really good season where he played 50 plus games this year.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jimmy, not Jimmy Buller, whoa.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Paul George also played 50 plus games this season, and then we got to the playoffs, and the same thing that has happened to them every year happens again where there is an injury.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to say, going back to that game that I was at, this is why social media is like I have fallen out of love with it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all may notice I don't tweet nearly as much as I used to.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's a weird place.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: But a couple years ago, when I was in the arena for that, I tweeted a picture of me, you know, in the arena because it's a cool moment.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a lot of playoff games I've been to, believe it or not.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm a Chicago Bulls fan.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: You feel me?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a lot of playoff appearances that I've I've attended.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm like, man, I'm in a playoff game, you know what I'm saying?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm neutral here because none of my my team is not playing.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody asked, what's the vibes like?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: What's the vibes like in the arena?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I said just only thing I said was it doesn't feel like a playoff game.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because it didn't.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess I needed to add more context because I'm saying it didn't feel like a playoff game because it was only because of the state of the world.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Clippers fans was pissed.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, Kenny, it doesn't feel like a playoff game.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: You always say it on the Clippers.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not we we can't have a full arena.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: That was the that was the point, gang.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was the point.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, bro, everybody wanna be up in up in arms because I think most people are just used used used to people having agendas and not being neutral.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, bro, I am as neutral as it can get as long as uh team number or team Chicago Bulls are not playing.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: But people don't think that's the truth.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime Kenny's critical of a team, he can he's he's a hater of the team.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: If that's the case, I hate the Bulls because that is the team I'm the most critical of.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when I say uh it doesn't feel like a playoff game, that don't mean that Clippers fans suck.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: That the team sucks.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was just because of the capacity at the arena.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought through my my tweet that that was apparent to to everyone, but for some reason there was one demographic of fans, the Clippers fans, that didn't take it at that value.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just want people to realize that my My job is to talk oops, and uh usually I do that impartially, and I try my best to do that.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, back to the to the pressures associated with the with the LA Clippers, because you know, you got the conference finals appearances.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're going into year number five of this collection of guys.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and when I mean collection of guys, I'm just talking specifically the top two up top because the rest can and has changed throughout the last couple years where you've seen players in and out, but the thing that stands the same are those two.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and going into year number five and the success level, considering what you gave up to make this tandem a thing, is uh maybe not the greatest.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the conference finals appearance is dope.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Joel and beat has zero of those, and you have one, you know what I'm saying?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, I don't want to take that for granted, but at the end of the day, when Ballmer put this team together, when he traded all of those picks plus Shea Gears Alexander, the idea wasn't to spend five years kind of figuring it out, it wasn't to spend five years of kind of on the I.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's the offseason and we just be rambling and bored in the offseason, I see a lot of people talk about the actual Shea Gilles, Alexander, Paul George trade.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and I do want to remind people that that trade wasn't one for one for Paul, it wasn't for Paul George, it was for Paul George and Kawhi.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Kawhi wasn't coming to the Clippers unless he had a co-star, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they gave up all those picks.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not saying it's the right decision because here we are with zero championship under our belt and a core that looks like it might not be done, but it just don't look like there's a championship in the near future.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I could be completely wrong.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a healthy uh playoffs with those two could net them a championship.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm just saying, it it wasn't just to get Paul George, it was to get the collection, and the Clippers hadn't been taken seriously for some time.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, and Blake Griffin kind of changed that a little bit, but even they struggled to make a conference finals.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: They had zero of those under their belt in that collection of teams.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we talk about the most cursed teams and the most unlucky teams in the history.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about Philly's unlucky history over the last couple years.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the Clippers.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm gonna say.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk about unhealthy or unlucky teams in basketball, think about what the hell the Clippers have gone through over the last X amount of years, the last decade, the last 20 seasons, because it's been uh it's been rough.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we talk about pressure.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are very are up for extensions.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're 32 and 33 years old.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: They both have had trouble staying healthy, and they're probably both going to want a full max contract because the talent is otherworldly.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Kawhi Leonard is a top 10-ish player in basketball.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Paul George is a top 20-ish player in basketball.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm already expecting the tweets.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those dudes are worthy of max contracts in a vacuum, which is the the phrase of the day.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But considering the health, but considering the team's success, and considering how expensive the team is about to be, I don't know if a four-year max is something I would want to do if I was in charge of the Clippers for both of those dudes?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Could I play 50 this year again?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was a good season for him.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: The season before he missed with an injury, he's missing this time, he's missing this time.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Paul George is missing this time, missing this time.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: A four-year max where Kawilan walks out at 36 and Paul George at the end of it is 37 feel feels ridiculous.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're Steve Baumer and you're the Clippers, what is the alternative?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I know the alternative.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of what they did, right?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: They explored the options for Paul George, at least that's what was rumored that they called around and tried to figure out his value on the market.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because the writing might be on the wall that he's gonna want this amount of money, and we don't want to be the ones to pay him that amount of money.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't hear anything about a Kawhi Leonard rumor.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kawhi for some reason feels way more LA than PG.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that means.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe I don't really know what that means.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe because he's from LA, at least that's what I think.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that he feels more LA, that they would be willing to maybe reformulate the roster and allow Kawhi to be the guy um and maybe keep one of them on a max deal, but you cannot do two.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can do two, but it just doesn't feel like the right thing to do to keep both of them on the same timetable with that amount of money, especially because it's gonna pigeonhole you from creating the perfect roster or the roster that needs to be put together to win the championship.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um maybe you can convince them to take less years on their deal with the same amount of dollar signs, just because again, do we want to be paying Paul George when he's 37 60 million dollars?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's like the market kind of.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I just don't know.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a an immense amount of pressure, and I didn't even mention the fact that they're building and opening a new arena very soon.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Steve Bomber kind of needs something on the roster that Clippers fans can be like, oh, I want to go to this brand new arena to watch.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: In that brand new arena, from everything I read, they're gonna have a crazy amount of urinals.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Random, random thing, a crazy amount of bathrooms and urinals because they don't want which is which I can I kind of mess with, by the way.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want a world where you have to leave your seat for more than a couple minutes to use the bathroom.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: There has been times, specifically at baseball games.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it doesn't happen too much at NBA games from my experience, where I have had to get up to go to the bathroom to just take a leak and I miss a half of an inning because the lines out of the bathrooms are ridiculous.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it you know what I'm saying?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It happens more in baseball than maybe basketball, but they don't even want that to happen.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: A bathroom at the every section, because you know sometimes you gotta walk around a little bit to find the nearest bathroom.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, not anymore.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You just walk out of section 203, and there's a bathroom for 203, and there's a bathroom for 202, and there's a bathroom for 201.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, good practice.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good practice.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think all the modern arenas end up being pretty nice.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe not aesthetically, but I like the high tech of a lot of the newer arenas.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, dog, I went to go see uh the Rangers play baseball, and that's I think that is the newest ballpark in baseball.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was magnificent.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: You walked in, you get your ticket scan, you walked in, brother.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're on the field, you're at the ballpark.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know how sometimes you gotta go up ramps, you gotta go around, you gotta go through the concourse.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't exist.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you scan your ticket, you're in left field.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least we were from our entrance.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: We were in left field and we could like just stand there and watch the entire game.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was no blockage.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the they had so many different restaurants, like modern stadiums are cool.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But on the contrary to that, Wrigley Field is is cool as hell too.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Wrigley Field's one of the oldest arenas in America.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, it's like those middle tier, those middle tier arenas.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, bro, you was built when that ain't old enough.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: You was built when that ain't new enough, bro.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You you gotta you gotta at least upgrade some stuff some stuff.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the times, they do.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these arenas do make small adjustments here and there.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that is that is beside the point.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Suns are under a lot of pressure.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really want to talk about the Suns uh right now.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like a lot of people have talked about them since they traded for Kevin and then uh traded for Brad and then did their offseason.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that based on what they were given, their offseason was really good.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um with basically having nothing but minimum contracts to go out.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think they put together an adequate amount of players that can help contribute.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: How many of those players are contributing once we get to the playoffs?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily know.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they took some flyers on some dudes.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think KD Bates Diablo I just saw in Vegas, who was tall as hell.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's kind of weird how tall these players really are.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when you when you see them, of course, you know the number, you know a player is 6'7, but man, my fast seven, five'8 self standing next to that 6'7 player, just it looks ridiculous.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, they took some flyers on some dudes that had good seasons that maybe, you know, uh maybe had one good season out of four, and you hope that he can replicate that.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you use to get some you to Watsanabbies of the world that are a lot knockdown three-point shooter.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited about the Suns, but with all of the things, I mean, Matt Ishbier traded everything in the future to get at least one championship.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also Kevin is under some pressure, but again, that's that's a conversation for another day, I would say.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's been beaten to the ground when it comes to pressure.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some other teams uh lower on the list when it comes to pressures.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Pelicans.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Pelicans, the Pelicans are under pressure because, well, even though they're a relatively young team with BI being his age and Z being his age and Herb Jones being his age, because that's the core in my opinion.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, that's that's discrediting some people.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um, it's it's been a few seasons, and I guess it's more, maybe it's more Zion.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, actually, no, no, this goes into a different conversation that I wanted to kind of bring up about pressure.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an open conversation, even though I can't hear you, but you can always hit me up um at KOT for Q on Twitter.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um can a player that that has already signed a huge contract be under pressure, especially if we're talking like a rookie extension contract.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mentioned how Joel Lambi is under pressure.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he signed max deals here there.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um but like Joel Lambiad has had a lot of bites at the Apple going into basically year number 30, where he's had the opportunity to win championships.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: A guy like Zion, he's he's got paid, he's got the shoe deal, he's got the baby on a way.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I just I look at it and say, like, I mean, yeah, it's pressure to perform, but what is the alternative?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So for uh when I think about pressure for an individual player, it's about overall greatness in the grand scheme of the NBA slash basketball.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what Joel and B is that you're an MVP player, right?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's pressure for a guy on the last year of his deal to show his value so he can get that next contract if it's uh a lot of money, a little bit of money, or just in general, get a guaranteed deal.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: But a player like Z, who has signed his contract already, he's he's guaranteed that money.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And because he's damn good when he plays, it's not like he's gonna get waived or stretched out of that contract.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can understand you thinking that he has pressure, and I'm not saying you're wrong in that, but like he's got the stuff.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm bugging, maybe I'm bugging.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't see Z particularly with that, but maybe the Pelicans in general, because they haven't had seasons where their two-star players have been able to play basketball together more than a couple games a year.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: But again, their pressure is not nearly on the scale of a Clippers whose future might be grim, or 76ers whose future might be grim.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because worst case scenario, I mean, maybe this court doesn't work out.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: It ain't like you traded all your picks away like some of those other teams, and you just hit the reset.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you still have extra picks from the Drew Holiday trade, from this trade and that trade.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, maybe they shouldn't be on this pressure list, but we do want to see Z healthy in the playoffs.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want we want to see that type of production.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think Dallas is under immense amount of pressure because Luca is really goddamn good, and we haven't been able to um I mean I know they had the conference finals appearance.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not belittling that because again, there are people in the league that have not been able to do that, and Luca was able to do that at such a young age.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the current the current roster structure is a lot, it's it's rough.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's rough at the end of the day.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you got the top-in talents with with Luca and Kyrie, and you know, a lot of people are questioning that duo, but I mean that team was so goddamn good offensively with those two players last season.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was otherworldly.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just I'm just gonna assume that next season, too, if those two players are on the court together, they're just gonna be a really good offensive team.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the game is not just about offense, but the the rest of the rosters where I struggle.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And could they afford another season of them being mediocre to not a championship contender?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is the temperature with Luka Doncic?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: So far, you know, this is this new era of basketball where it's such an international game where we talk about the top players in ball.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read you again the ringers top players in ball in order.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jokic is one international player, then you got Curry, number two, Giannis, international player, Kevin Durant, Joel, international player, Tatum, Luca, international player, then you got Kawhi, Butler, um, Booker, Davis, Braun, like Shea, who I guess is technically an international player.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to top and talent, some of the best six players in the league, uh, four of the top seven players in the league according to this one ranking are international players.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we haven't had no, we I can't say we haven't had um this type of great international play, but we haven't had this many of super, super high level international players.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know, I know everybody's an individual, but we don't necessarily know where the priorities lie for them.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to American-born players, we kind of seen that that's most of these people, most of these players are not against saying, hey, I'm gonna check up these deuces, dog.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, y'all ain't done this right about me, and I want to go to a scenario where I'm happy and I can hoop with the homies, right?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Kevin has done it, Kawhi switched teams a few times, Jimmy has done it a few times, um, Anthony Davis did it once, LeBron has done it a few times, like Dame is and cur is currently doing it.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, it's not rare for American board player to do that, but when it comes to the international talent, we haven't seen it to that extent just yet.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is Luca the type?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is Giannis the type?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is Jokic the type to say, hey man, it's been a few years of us being bad to awful.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of bored with this, or are they more inclined to stay with the organization that took the chance on them because Giannis was what the 14th, 15th overall pick, the 42nd overall pick for Jokic?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And well, Luca was one of those dogs, you know, in the top end of the lottery.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: But like a lot of those guys, all they know when it comes to the NBA is that one organization.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So would they be comfortable?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Would Luca be comfortable going to Mark Cuban and saying, hey man, this just ain't it?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it because of his roots and his international play where loyalty is one of the main things?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Does that translate over to the NBA?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really know.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But based on the current roster, it's hard for me to look at this team and say, yeah, they're doing it around Luca.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because what does their starting lineup look like this season?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it's a little bit rough.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the top two guys?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Tim Hardaway Jr.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is it uh Grant Williams and one of the centers?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool, I guess.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's missing a lot.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's missing a lot, and it's not like that a lot is on the bench and and gonna get oh no, Josh, Josh Green is probably starting at the three, and then we will probably have Grant at the four, and then is it Dwight coming back to the starting lineup?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is it Rashawn Holmes?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's gonna be lively because he is just so young.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even though he's looked good so far in summer league, you know, blocking shots and shit.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's just that's not a championship quality team.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't look at that team and say contender.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, but when you have one of the top five players in the league, I guess anything is possible.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if you have a secondary guy who's top whatever as well, I guess anything is possible technically, but those two players can only do so much.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: So how much longer does Luca have patience?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: How much longer do they have paces?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's not like the Mavericks haven't tried to like do some swings.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: They traded for Porzingis, they traded for Carrie Irving, they've attempted these type of things, but it hasn't necessarily worked out.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I always wonder that type of stuff too.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: With even with Joel and B, who we mentioned earlier.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's not like the team has been complacent and just okay with bringing back mediocre roster after roster.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every single year, both of these teams have tried to make an upgrade one place or another to put Joel and put Luca in the right spot where they could be successful.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, with that, you have some trades that you look back on and say, oh, that was ugly.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: But on the contrary, you have trades that you win and things like that.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: You find gems, you fill diamonds in a rough like uh Doran Finney Smith was, you know, being a second-year player or second-round player or an undrafted player and developing his three-point shot enough to where he's serviceable enough to play big, big time minutes.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it might have been Zach Lowe who mentioned this on his podcast a few weeks ago, where when you look back on that team that made the conference finals appearance, majority of the people that played significant minutes on that team are gone.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jalen Brunson, Duran Finney Smith, these dudes these dudes are gone.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're no longer a part of the roster.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you you've basically rewrote this roster in the last two seasons, and it's a it is a worse roster collectively.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And top hand talent is there because uh Kyrie is that nice, but collectively, I just think that this is a worse roster this season than it was the year that they made their big push.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the chances you take when you trade for a superstar caliber player, a star caliber player, and uh Kyrie Irvin.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is pressure on them.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it immediate this year pressure?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but I think the time the time is the clock is ticking, the time is running out, or whatever you want to call it.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, that those are my pressure teams.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, whatever.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk about so so the Espies were yesterday as I'm recording this.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and look LeBron has been so dramatic the entire career, his entire NBA career.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not me complaining.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love the dramatic version of LeBron James.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's a meme, he's funny as hell, without even trying to do it, and he is super, super dramatic.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we can notoriously talk about how a few weeks ago or a month or so ago he talked about or hinted at a potential retirement.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody really thought that that was a real possibility.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's goddamn LeBron James at the end of the day, and I believe that LeBron is the type of guy that would want a farewell tour, if I'm being honest with you.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Kobe's farewell tour from the outsiders was amazing.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: My boy Kyron ended up getting tickets to the game here in Chicago.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: He spent so much money.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if I if I asked him right now, would he do it again?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I 100% guarantee you he's going to say yes.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was it was all worth it.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: LeBron's not going out with no god without no goddamn farewell tour.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he hinted that there might be a world of retirement.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I call this bluff.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people call this bluff on something like that.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then yesterday at the Spees, he made this entire speech about saying that he still got a lot to give to the game, as if anybody questioned if he didn't.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just being dramatic.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Family look cool as hell up there, though.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's real real life goals.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can't score 40,000 points, but god damn it, I can win an award for something and end up at the Espies or host the Espies one day.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he's just ultra dramatic in the best and worst way possible.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like even on the basketball court, as we know, he was um maybe king flopper of the league, one of the king floppers of the league.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with with Vladi D Votch and Manu Ginobili being up there as well.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when Azi Mohammed pushed him down, that was the best moment in Bulls fandom other than Derek Rose's MVP season.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and current Bulls fandom after the 90s.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um And nothing is more dramatic than when that man got fouled by Tatum and they didn't call it and he threw that whole tantrum.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, boy, that moment, I will forever remember that moment.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about LeBron James, there's a few moments that I ooh, I should do episodes where I'm just going through the history of players and thinking about my favorite moments.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm remembering the time he took over against the Detroit Pistons where he scored 20 plus points in the row by himself.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think about the shot against the Orlando Magic.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think about the decision because that was a crazy moment in fandom.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think about the block and coming back down 3-1.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think of think about him fake coughing at the press conference to mock Dirk.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna think about the bubble.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um that that was that was that's a good one.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna think about it's about damn time, and then I'm gonna think about the temper tantrum he threw on that random regular season game when Tatum fouled him.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's up there.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's all-time LeBron moment.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: He ain't retiring, man.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: He got too much to give.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine the Lakers made all of them offseason moves for yesterday LeBron during the SBC.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's all that's all she wrote for me.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would be pissed if I'm Palenka.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Damn, you couldn't shoot me no text a month ago telling me that she was even considering it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Gang, we gave D'Angelo Russell all of this money.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: We ain't had to do that.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: We we have to do that.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: You should have just told us we would have let bro walk and then just brought in um, I don't know, everything else.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the last sports-related topic that I want to talk about, just very briefly, is the uh MLB All-Star game happened a few nights ago, and it ended up being at seven million viewers, which is a new record low, um, or a new low since they've been tracking the amount of people that are watching these festivities.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is kind of the consensus across all of the major sports.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the NFL, the Pro Bowl, which the Pro Bowl sucks, it's the worst of every single All-Star festivity, whatever you want to call it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Pro Bowl has 6.28 million people viewing it last year.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: The NBA had 4.59 million people watching last year, and the NHL had 1.5.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: The NFL number is the lowest it's been since 2006.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: The NBA one is the lowest in the history of tracking it, and then the NHL one was the lowest one since 2015.
• 43:59
  unknown: All
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: All-star game numbers are down.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: The fans aren't caring about the all-star festivities.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is just the game.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the three-point shootout dunk contest did numbers because Mac McClung was really doing that thing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the home run derby did numbers, even though it was fucking horrible to watch.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: The home run derby is not his the old hand of me.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: The home run derby is a lot worse nowadays than it was when I was a kid because we can't see the damn ball.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Since they changed it away from being total outs to being a time thing, the pitcher's just throwing and the hitters just hitting, and there's no time to admire a 460-foot hit ball because now Vladdy's hitting another one, and this one's 412 feet.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just they need to re revert back to total outs so we can take our time and visually see.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know the overall home run numbers might go down, but I I think I would be willing to sacrifice that because the presentation of it all would be a lot better.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: But that's neither here nor there.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: As many of y'all know, I'm locked in on baseball, like more than I've ever been since I was a kid.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm watching random regular season games, and it's 162-game season, and I'm I know a lot of the players, I mean, not on a personal level, but like two years ago, I couldn't tell you who the rotation of a certain team was.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty locked in to that extent.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I did not care to watch the All-Star game.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not even a little bit.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ask me what happened.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be able to tell you.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be able to tell you what happened in the All-Star game with the best collection of talent in baseball, American baseball, was was put together.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Those other leagues got a lot of stars.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Murakami, Munataka Kumurakami, you know what I'm saying?
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's his name?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Roki, Roki's, Roki, I'll just say Roki.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of talent in these other leagues.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm just gonna say American talent, even though obviously the percentage of Americans playing are probably lower than some of the other countries, but you'd be able to say MLB, the best talent in MLB, right?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are together and I could not care less.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Shohei Otani, Mookie Betts, uh all of these dudes are sitting there and they're doing stuff, and I did not watch.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: So why?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: What what about the game made me not even want to tune in for a single second?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: What was it missing?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely don't know.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I've never watched a Pro Bowl before, even though I know it sucks.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: I never watched the NHL All-Star weekend, so I don't I I mean I say I'm I don't I don't know if it's good or bad.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I have been a guy that at least watched the all-star games and basketball and and and baseball.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this year, I didn't really care, I didn't care to watch.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's coming from a dude that's really locked into baseball, right?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: So how can you convince, even though the numbers are good, like 7 million is low, but it's a lot higher than what the NBA is doing.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was higher than the M MF NFL, it was the highest of all the major American sports.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if you couldn't convince me, who's stupidly locked in in my Jimmy Butler voice to watch the All-Star Festivities, how can you convince the casual fan?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that they I think the All-Star Festivities in general is catered and supposed to be catered to the general public, you know?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: We be talking about uh war and and WCR Plus or all of these other fucking statistics as diehard MB MLB fans, and this that's not what this is about.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is supposed to be about personality, it's supposed to be about showing off the top end talent, and I couldn't care less.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, and I just don't know why.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know why.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: The NBA struggles with this problem too, but I think their problems are stemming from the fact that the actual game isn't very good, it's not very competitive.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have had years recently where it was where we were here in Chicago and it went down to the last basket, but for the most part, it's an exhibition where you don't play defense.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's understandable, right?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine Giannis playing the best defense of his career and something happening, and now he's injured.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: That that game, the the best uh NBA all-star game in a long time, caused Kimball Walker a shit ton.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: Kimball Walker basically didn't even play the second half of the season, uh, but he played like 40 games, 40 minutes in that one game.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: I thought there was more conversation to be had about the All-Star game.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of do want to showcase some numbers and say, like, hey, somebody needs to reformulate it.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's don't hire me because I have no suggestions whatsoever.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Getting back to pressure, you know who's under an immense amount of pressure?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am for the first time in my life, I have the opportunity to make a big decision about the future of my work.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: As long as I've been like an on-camera type dude, um, I've been doing a lot of work independently, obviously, but I I decided to team up with House of Highlights about five years ago, and it's been it's been really good.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: But for the first time ever, I'm renegotiating contracts, and it's not just one suitor.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when I say pressure, it's pressure to make the decision that's gonna set me and my family up for a lifetime or for the length of the contract, whatever it may be.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there are so many different paths, and I don't know how many of them are the right are the right path.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not how many companies are involved or interested, but let's say there's seven different paths.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if only one of them grant me like my overall goal?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna say this right here to the couple thousand people that download this episode on Spotify because it will not exist on any other platform, at least at this point.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to be a a j genuinely top dude in sports media.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not oh, he's an up and coming, rising dude who has a future.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be him, and I'm ready to put the time, the effort, the blood, sweat, and tears, whatever it may be, to make that a reality.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have so many different people talking to you about how they can help you get to that point, and it all sounds good, and it all sounds gravy, and you only could select one of the options.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: My life, as I known it so far, my adult life has been in an internet oriented.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Start a YouTube channel when I'm 16 years old, it becomes a full-time job by the time I'm 19.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked two real jobs in my life.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I worked at a movie theater for a couple months before I said, forget this, because it was one of those sit down and eat movie theaters, and I was a a person that ran the food, and I got treated like trash from the staff and from the customers.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not this is not worth it.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 17 years old.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Find another job won't be hard.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't hard because I worked at a vitamin shop.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the only two real, I'm putting in quotation mark, real jobs that I've ever had, and both of those jobs happened, you know, early in my adulthood from 17 to to what I say, 19.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: So two years worth of real job work.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else has been internet oriented, everything else has been self-sustainable.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's me making content and people enjoying those cont that content and me using the funds based on that content to reinvest in the content to the point where I could buy a house and start a family and all of that.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: But not saying that that's going anywhere.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think my biggest fear in in life is not capitalizing on the buzz that I have now and letting that transition me to a point where it's deeper than just YouTuber, where it's deeper than just, I don't know, the guy that is played this plays 2K, where it's deeper than all of that.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's like, dog, that's Kenny Beachum, one of them wants.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I get tweets and messages all the time of people that view me like that, and I appreciate it, but I don't view myself as that.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal is to eventually view myself as that through the work.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: People always make fun of Kenny has this different project, he's starting this different channel, he's doing this and doing that.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's because I know no other way.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know no other way other than content, y'all.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to create content at the highest level.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many ideas for different shows that I want to develop, but I've got to the point where developing shows is hard to do by myself.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've invested and reinvested so much money into my own personal stuff, but some of the shows that I want to develop need more than just my own capital.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: They need a team of people that trust my vision.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: And right now there are people that do to some extent.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: No offers are on the table, but to some extent, they we get in those meetings and it's all it's all smiles, it's all we love you, it's all this and that.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do I make the right decision?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of pressure.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if if this same thing was happening two years ago, it wouldn't be nearly as much pressure because I was living for myself two years ago.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: If y'all don't know, I got a kid now.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting married in two weeks.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I like if I always I hate using the words fall off because it's the internet and you know you can only control what you can control.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people grow out of the content, and because of that, your your numbers go down.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Me falling off, I'm putting in quotation marks again, two years ago wouldn't have been that big of a deal.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I would have been ready to ride into the sunset with the funds that I've created, go get a normal regular job and just chill.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the rest of my life.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Me falling off now is the biggest fear imaginable.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because dog, Avery wants to go to college, don't she?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help her get to that.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't know.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's fucking 14 months.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't even know what she wants to do.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: But falling off is a scary idea, and I think that while I'm at the quotation, peak of my powers, peak of popularity, it's important to make the next decision now so I could continue to build.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where right now I feel like an internet dude and I want to be so much more.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be respected.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't necessarily mean that I need a TV show because it's 2023.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Who the hell?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have cable.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have cable.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I got a show right now on one of these networks, more likely than not, I couldn't even watch my own show because I don't have cable.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when I when I say that type of stuff, it's it's a lot deeper than being known as an internet guy.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think right now that's where I'm at.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm 26 years old, so it's so early in the times.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like people usually have to grind for decades at a time to get to the point where they're even in front of some of the people that I've been in front of, and I'm appreciative of that.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I got a lot of pressure on my back, man.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be real with you.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody that's been here for the journey, whether you subscribe a decade ago or you subscribe today, or you just found out what the hell this podcast was because it was top four on the Spotify charts.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate everybody equally, man.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I genuinely do.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, when we when we talk about the next chapter, once my contract is up and I renew with someone or I go somewhere else, we can be like, damn, Kenny made the right decision.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm asking for.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tell a friend and tell a friend, not an MBA podcast, baby.