Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Talking With T-Pott About Beckett, SGC, & PSA Improvement Promises, And More Sports Card News!

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Talking With T-Pott About Beckett, SGC, & PSA Improvement Promises, And More Sports Card News! · Sports Card Clubhouse

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, it is Mike. This is this week in Sports
• 0:04
  Cards. I'm joined by Ty Teapot.
• 0:06
  How are you today? Doing great as always.
• 0:08
  Thank you, Mike. Awesome.
• 0:10
  Great to have you again. You're definitely in the short
• 0:13
  list on this rotation of people that I enjoy having on this week
• 0:17
  in sports cards. And today we had some, I think
• 0:21
  kind of big pre news this week that I wanted to talk about.
• 0:26
  Ryan Hogue of collectors went on his podcast and talked about
• 0:31
  some improvements that they're working on for Beckett and SGC.
• 0:33
  And I know you do cards on the table with Jeff.
• 0:36
  And normally it's a high priority watch for me.
• 0:38
  I really enjoy it. I did not get a chance to watch
• 0:41
  it this week. So I'm curious for your thoughts
• 0:42
  on this. What tell me first of all about
• 0:46
  your impression of them doing SGC kind of increasing the
• 0:51
  investment back to SGC after dialing it back last year.
• 0:55
  And he says that they're going to make some improvements to
• 0:58
  SGC. Yeah, that seems odd.
• 1:01
  I, I would like to know what shifted.
• 1:03
  I mean, he, he made it pretty clear when he was on Neo's
• 1:06
  podcast, you know, saying that they were making it more
• 1:10
  boutique and, you know, kind of it's, you sort of read between
• 1:13
  the lines even before the massive decrease in the grading
• 1:16
  numbers that we saw from last year that that seemed like the,
• 1:19
  the death knell, like this. Is it like they're going to
• 1:21
  eventually wind this down? I don't know, maybe they keep it
• 1:24
  open for the few people that you know, do it, but operationally
• 1:27
  they started scaling down. We know they took over some of
• 1:29
  that space and took over graders in Florida.
• 1:32
  And so I just thought would like to know what what switched.
• 1:36
  I don't know if that was. I mean, obviously businesses are
• 1:40
  entitled the shift, shift priorities or shift gears or
• 1:42
  change strategy. Maybe there were outside
• 1:46
  investment people get saying, hey, maybe we think this was the
• 1:49
  wrong move. Maybe they're worried about
• 1:53
  having to divest or sell off one of these companies if it does
• 1:58
  get caught up in antitrust. So they need it to be a certain
• 2:00
  size to like actually let them go again, who knows?
• 2:04
  I'm not saying any of those things.
• 2:05
  I just, I don't know. But it's an interesting, it
• 2:07
  seems like a real shift in, in priorities to say, we, we wound
• 2:12
  you down, we took some of your graders, we took some of your
• 2:14
  scaling operations and now we're going to spend the money to
• 2:16
  reinvest back into it. Interesting.
• 2:22
  Do you think that they will actually improve turn around
• 2:25
  time because turn around time under SGC was like 5 to 10
• 2:27
  business days. It's now I don't remember what
• 2:30
  they are quoting, but we're seeing a lot of people who have
• 2:33
  submitted there and it's more like 30 to 45 business days.
• 2:37
  Do you think they're going to bring that back down to, let's
• 2:40
  say, 10 to 20? Or in my video, I said, I am
• 2:45
  skeptical that they're going to do this because it's going to
• 2:47
  cost the millions of dollars to do it.
• 2:49
  And I'm not convinced that there's a lot of value to them
• 2:53
  since submissions are still at record highs across the board.
• 2:56
  And they talked about doing it across the board, not just SGC.
• 3:00
  I have to imagine their number one priority will be making turn
• 3:03
  around time shorter for PSA and I don't imagine a scenario where
• 3:07
  they would actually want SGC to start doing better than what PSA
• 3:11
  is doing like it used to. That was how they started
• 3:13
  gaining market share and I really don't anticipate, I don't
• 3:17
  see any reason why they would want STC to grow at the expense
• 3:21
  of PSA that that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
• 3:25
  So do they want to try to do it across the board with all the
• 3:28
  companies? I mean, probably there are times
• 3:31
  when I, I don't grade it a ton of stuff, to be honest.
• 3:34
  I mean, I keep a lot of my PC cards raw just because mostly
• 3:37
  because of the expense associated with grading, but
• 3:40
  also secondarily because I don't like not having my cards for
• 3:43
  four or five or six months and waiting for them to come back.
• 3:46
  So I will say if, if, if you know PS as grading times or any
• 3:50
  grading companies grading times were much shorter.
• 3:54
  You know, we talked about value proposition of cards and like
• 3:56
  the, the undeniable, you know, fact of PSA kind of commanding
• 3:59
  that secondary market value. If they shortened that, I would
• 4:03
  probably look to do a lot more opportunistic grading to sell to
• 4:08
  help more fund my PC. Like just, you know, that kind
• 4:11
  of activity. We know that's that can be
• 4:13
  pretty profitable, but a lot of times it's like it's too much
• 4:15
  capital tied up. So I think they're going to
• 4:18
  drive the times down. I don't think they'll want a
• 4:20
  scenario where SGC, or Beckett for that matter, are like
• 4:24
  significantly out in front of what PSA is doing.
• 4:27
  Yeah. But there's a point of
• 4:28
  diminishing returns with adding capacity, where you're adding
• 4:32
  capacity and you're gaining demand from adding improved
• 4:36
  capacity. But at some point that demand
• 4:40
  doesn't increase anymore and the amount of the demand increased
• 4:43
  is less than the amount of money you've invested in adding
• 4:46
  capacity. And I don't know where they find
• 4:49
  that improvement. Like I've worked in a customer
• 4:52
  support and software implementations for years and
• 4:55
  adding capacity is extremely expensive.
• 4:58
  And at some point you've added too much capacity and there's
• 5:01
  that. There's that line where people
• 5:03
  are answering phones too fast or people are implementing the
• 5:06
  software too fast and you're losing money.
• 5:10
  I believe that was a chapter called Economies of scale in my
• 5:14
  college business courses. And yeah, and and look, it opens
• 5:18
  you up to risk, right, If you scale.
• 5:20
  That's that's the conundrum. And I think that's a piece that
• 5:22
  a lot of people don't always understand or they miss about
• 5:25
  when things get painful and turn around times get, you know,
• 5:28
  behind and all of that go back to the COVID period when they
• 5:32
  had to shut down operations for the most part for almost a year.
• 5:35
  You, you can't just like flip these switches overnight.
• 5:37
  You can't build buildings or higher graders or do all this
• 5:40
  stuff. It takes time.
• 5:42
  There's also just an operational expense to the bandwidth that
• 5:46
  gets chewed up by everybody involved in helping with the
• 5:48
  expansion. I'm sure they have other things
• 5:50
  that they could do be doing internally to just improve other
• 5:53
  aspects of the business. And then if the numbers do go
• 5:57
  down, you've you've opened yourself up to being like, you
• 6:00
  know, having it cost you a lot more money for the short term.
• 6:03
  And nobody can predict the future with a crystal ball.
• 6:05
  So I think business strategy companies that require these
• 6:10
  large footprints for warehousing and and scaling up employees are
• 6:14
  always faced with that dilemma of trying to read the tea leaves
• 6:16
  and see out into the future and say what what's really going to
• 6:19
  happen here. We know the GameStop partnership
• 6:22
  has been highly successful for them.
• 6:24
  There's a number of different things they continue to
• 6:26
  evaluate. So I would say they must be very
• 6:29
  confident if they're going to sink the money into that because
• 6:32
  you're right, it is expensive. Yeah, A couple of other things
• 6:36
  they talked about, Ryan talked about giving the SGC and Beckett
• 6:41
  submitters the ability to vault and sell immediately upon
• 6:43
  grading, which is good. I know when PSA started doing
• 6:46
  that, that was kind of a boon for PSA and as well for greater
• 6:51
  to seller, the greater to sell pipeline.
• 6:54
  So you're, you're sending in a card to PSA now SGC, Beckett,
• 6:59
  they grade it and then you can say we would like to have this
• 7:01
  vaulted and sold on eBay via PSA store, which is as much as I
• 7:07
  dislike PSA, it's a great, great feature.
• 7:10
  It's a it's very slick, works very well.
• 7:13
  They keep making improvements to it.
• 7:16
  Now they're going to have PSA, sorry, SGC and Beckett as part
• 7:19
  of that. What are your thoughts on that?
• 7:21
  I. Didn't think that.
• 7:23
  Seems like a no brainer all around.
• 7:25
  They're helping capture that segment of the market and I do
• 7:28
  I, I'm really a big fan of that option for people to be able to
• 7:32
  do that. It, it removes that, you know,
• 7:34
  it's that F word friction that people talk about from time to
• 7:36
  time and being able to just move some of that stuff through it.
• 7:40
  It kind of ties into that point I just made.
• 7:42
  I have done, when I have done grading submissions in the past,
• 7:45
  Very typically it's a mix of stuff I plan to keep, but I want
• 7:50
  it authenticated. Maybe it's some 90s card that I
• 7:52
  want to make sure is real or some of those things and then
• 7:55
  other stuff that I want to sell because the grading multiplier
• 7:57
  is there. So if you have that opportunity
• 7:59
  to do that with those other companies as well and sell off a
• 8:02
  portion of them to help fund the whole thing, I think that's a
• 8:05
  pretty ideal scenario honestly. I will be curious to see.
• 8:09
  I mean, obviously you can send it to auction.
• 8:12
  They also just have the PSA offers where you kind of get
• 8:15
  your stuff and they're like, hey, we have these interested
• 8:17
  parties, whether that be GameStop and their repacks
• 8:22
  somehow through PSA. As the questions around that,
• 8:25
  you know, people thinking that PSA is the one making these
• 8:27
  offers when it's my understanding that it's usually
• 8:31
  companies like Cards HQ or other approved vendors who are trying
• 8:34
  to acquire inventory. I'll be curious to see if
• 8:37
  there's any real demand in there for Beckett and SGC cards or if
• 8:41
  most of those companies continue to want to only have PSA because
• 8:45
  I do know many of the large repackers almost exclusively go
• 8:49
  after only PSA graded stuff. And so do a lot of shops and
• 8:52
  dealers, unless it's, you know, really iconic stuff or some like
• 8:57
  RPA that somebody sent to Beckett or something along those
• 8:59
  lines or maybe a vintage SGC card.
• 9:02
  But from cards HQS perspective, they're in the game of volume
• 9:06
  and turn, you know, inventory turnover.
• 9:09
  And so they tend to really prioritize PSA because it just
• 9:12
  tends to be the most liquid people look for it.
• 9:13
  And they sometimes the Beckett and SGC slabs just sit on the
• 9:16
  shelves. Yeah.
• 9:17
  And I think now you can do the buy it now through PS as eBay
• 9:21
  store, which you weren't able to do six or seven months ago.
• 9:24
  Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think you're right.
• 9:27
  I think you can list it that way.
• 9:29
  So yeah, a lot of really good slick selling features for for
• 9:35
  submitters to PSA and and now soon SGC and Beckett.
• 9:40
  Another thing he talked about was Beckett improving their
• 9:43
  label and he was very quick to say because a lot of people are
• 9:47
  afraid they're going to get rid of sub grades and he was very
• 9:49
  quick to say sub grades are here to stay.
• 9:51
  Do you think sub grades will be here 2 years from now?
• 9:54
  I do actually, if Beckett's here from two years, 2 years from
• 9:58
  now, which is more of an open question to me.
• 10:00
  I do think sub grades will still be there.
• 10:02
  I I think they'll keep those. Maybe that sounds like a
• 10:07
  contradiction. I'm just saying that off the
• 10:08
  cuff. I don't know what about that,
• 10:10
  but that's part of their identity.
• 10:11
  They acquired them. So he's saying they kept them.
• 10:15
  They bought Beckett for a reason.
• 10:17
  He's saying they're going to rebuild it or, you know, make it
• 10:21
  better. They apparently want to make a
• 10:23
  label change. And if that's the case, I think
• 10:26
  they have to keep the sub grades.
• 10:27
  I think that's a differentiator. If they're really serious about
• 10:29
  keeping the business, if they get rid of the sub grades, to me
• 10:32
  that will be yet another sign that they don't want Beckett to
• 10:35
  be around it, that they're trying to kill them.
• 10:37
  Yeah, but they said the same thing about SGC.
• 10:39
  The differentiator was the quick turn around time, the customer
• 10:42
  service and then they did a lot of things to destroy that from
• 10:46
  SGC. Now they talk about bringing it
• 10:48
  back, of course, but he could just be paying that lip service
• 10:52
  now to the Beckett people who are fans of Beckett and saying
• 10:57
  that. And then in 18 months, they're
• 10:59
  going to take away the the sub grades, which I'm not saying
• 11:02
  they're going to, but adding sub grades I assume has some added
• 11:07
  expense. And so maybe, I don't know,
• 11:11
  it'll be really interesting to see.
• 11:13
  Yeah, it's, it's really tough to know.
• 11:15
  Like I try to think about, I try to stay away from making like
• 11:20
  strong declarations when I don't have any evidence.
• 11:22
  But I like the conversation. I met, I've met Ryan a few
• 11:25
  times. Not like didn't spend a lot of
• 11:27
  time with him, but I, he seemed like a really nice guy.
• 11:29
  And I've in the, in the past really, you know, kind of seemed
• 11:33
  like a, a collector. I want to be able to take people
• 11:36
  off for, you know, on their word.
• 11:37
  But when it comes to like big businesses and things, it's not
• 11:41
  so much a personal element at that point as much as it is
• 11:44
  business strategy and how companies need to execute those
• 11:46
  things to get to their goals. And so it's, it's just tough to
• 11:50
  know if I were, but if I were, you know, Beckett's biggest fan
• 11:54
  right now or had been SG CS, then I would have been worried.
• 11:59
  And so far with SGC, I think that's proven to be right.
• 12:03
  It just remains to be seen like how serious they are about it.
• 12:06
  But it is, it is a little odd like flash forward a year from
• 12:09
  now, if they really if, if Beckett's numbers have dropped
• 12:13
  80% like SGC's have a year from now and SGC hasn't recovered
• 12:19
  either. At what point does that just
• 12:22
  look like really bad egg on your face as like an overall
• 12:24
  corporation for consistently saying this isn't what we're
• 12:27
  going to do? And then it winds up happening
• 12:29
  so that that almost like to me, it adds a little bit of credence
• 12:33
  to it like I wouldn't want, I wouldn't want the optics of
• 12:34
  that. Yeah, that's a good point.
• 12:37
  If I were Beckett's biggest fan right now, I'd probably be
• 12:39
  excited. You know, Beckett was already, I
• 12:44
  don't know how to phrase it. They were on the downswing and
• 12:47
  things looked bleak for them. And now with some more
• 12:50
  investment behind them, a bigger company that wants to improve
• 12:54
  them, maybe I think that there's more hope for Beckett right now
• 12:57
  than there was three months ago. Yeah, I can't tell.
• 13:04
  I thought Beckett was going to be totally gone a year ago.
• 13:07
  I really did. After, after just all the news
• 13:09
  about their owner and the felonies and fraud and just
• 13:14
  inside. I don't know if I'd call it
• 13:16
  insider info, but just talking to some people who had been
• 13:19
  impacted by turnover and different roles and shuffling
• 13:21
  around of people and I just thought they seemed like they
• 13:25
  were nose diving in a way that was not recoverable, But
• 13:29
  obviously they had enough sustainable business.
• 13:33
  My big conspiracy theory is that I think Beck, I think Beckett, I
• 13:37
  feel very strongly that Beckett actually loosened their grading
• 13:39
  standards and started giving out quite a few more 10 Pristine's
• 13:42
  and black labels overall in an in an effort to try to win
• 13:46
  business. Because if you're the submitter,
• 13:49
  you just want the best grade. You don't even care if it's
• 13:51
  actually that quality. You get back at BGS 10 pristine
• 13:54
  and then, you know, it's got a little corner Ding.
• 13:55
  What's the most people are going nice, you know, got it.
• 14:00
  So I, I think there's it'd be interesting to dig more into the
• 14:04
  gem rate numbers for that and to see.
• 14:05
  But you know, obviously another big part of that was just
• 14:08
  Pokémon, which has a higher gem rate overall on certain sets and
• 14:11
  certain cards. And so people knew send it in
• 14:14
  and try to hit that black label and get your, you know, hyper
• 14:18
  crazy ridiculous like 5 to 10X premium on the price point for
• 14:21
  that card if over even APSA 10. So let's say you get a pristine
• 14:26
  10 on a on a big card iconic card, and you put it up for
• 14:30
  auction and it's going to go for six figures normal, like a an
• 14:35
  actual legit pristine 10. But over on Twitter, people
• 14:40
  start taking screenshots of the card and they're pointing out
• 14:44
  little flaws that shouldn't be there for pristine 10 corner.
• 14:47
  See this all the time, and I'm sure it happens on Instagram
• 14:49
  too. I'm not very big on Instagram at
• 14:52
  all, but on Twitter, people are taking screenshots of cards and
• 14:55
  tearing apart the grade. Does that actually affect the
• 15:00
  sale price in an auction or in a private sale?
• 15:03
  Or is Twitter just so small even though it feels big when you're
• 15:07
  on? It feels like everybody's
• 15:08
  talking about something that it doesn't matter at all, and the
• 15:12
  people who are buying 6 figure cards couldn't care less and
• 15:14
  aren't even familiar with that idea.
• 15:17
  I think it's very case by case for who the the bidder and the
• 15:20
  next low, next high bidder are because some people do care.
• 15:24
  I would say if it's somebody who legitimately is like a very
• 15:27
  strong, more pure collector type who cares about that and
• 15:31
  understands and values paying the premium for that extra half
• 15:35
  subgrade difference, they might be scrutinizing it and say, no,
• 15:40
  I'm not going to do it. This isn't a true, you know,
• 15:42
  Christine, I've seen the evidence, but I think the vast
• 15:45
  majority of people, they buy the slab and the number and and they
• 15:49
  don't necessarily care if it actually has a defect on the
• 15:52
  card. I think we see that across the
• 15:54
  board with like 1996 tops Chrome basketball refractors where you
• 15:59
  can have APSA 10 that's completely hulked out and people
• 16:02
  pay more money than they do for a nine that looks as beautiful
• 16:05
  color and good centering and maybe just had some defect
• 16:08
  somewhere, a surface issue that you can barely notice.
• 16:10
  So it it probably is case by case, but I think it would
• 16:15
  generally skew in the direction of it doesn't matter like people
• 16:17
  are going to pay for that. Yeah, that's what I think too.
• 16:21
  Before we move on, any other thoughts on the the Ryan Hogue
• 16:25
  PSA podcast I had? I threw a harebrained idea out
• 16:32
  there that I it wasn't so much meant to be sensationalism, but
• 16:35
  I just I kind of wonder how this would work.
• 16:38
  And again, I don't have any, you know, more inside info into the
• 16:42
  broader strategy of what collectors is planning to do
• 16:44
  with the three grading companies.
• 16:45
  But knowing how SGC has wound down and knowing how we all have
• 16:50
  access to those gem rate reports and seeing like the sports
• 16:53
  versus non sports breakdowns and some of these other things, I
• 16:58
  threw it out there like why not just officially make SGC a
• 17:01
  vintage only company, kill BVG and make Beckett 1980 and
• 17:05
  forward and just split the two and serve those two audiences?
• 17:09
  I don't, I'm sure they're out there.
• 17:11
  I don't know of many, if any vintage collectors who prefer
• 17:15
  BVG over SGC or PSA. And that was kind of my
• 17:21
  harebrained idea. I, I, I haven't read through the
• 17:23
  comments on Cards on the Table yet to see how many people
• 17:26
  thought that was ridiculous or maybe liked it.
• 17:27
  But for simplicity and if you really are trying to like
• 17:32
  streamline operations, that seems like it might actually
• 17:35
  make sense to me what to do about non sports.
• 17:38
  I don't know, maybe they maybe they also just want to start
• 17:41
  really promoting Beckett for that or something.
• 17:42
  But it already kind of exists, like the dynamic already there's
• 17:47
  certain types of cards that we know people like to send to
• 17:49
  Beckett because of the subgrade dynamic and thicker cards and
• 17:52
  patches and things along those lines.
• 17:55
  And the vast majority of the stuff going to SGC and certainly
• 17:58
  their biggest fanboys are the vintage community.
• 18:01
  So I don't know, what do you think of that idea?
• 18:03
  Crazy. No, in fact, I talked about that
• 18:06
  very same thing with Greg to maybe 3 weeks ago, not long
• 18:10
  after the announcement was, you know, doing.
• 18:13
  I I think that they will, I don't know if BCCG even still
• 18:16
  exists, but if it does, I think that they'll shut that down.
• 18:20
  I also think that they will shut down BVG and SGC will become the
• 18:25
  vintage grader, right? I didn't say I think it will,
• 18:29
  but I I said what if they just make SGC their vintage grader
• 18:34
  Beckett would be like their 1980 to 2010 grader and then PSA, the
• 18:41
  more modern and the more ultra modern, so pretty similar.
• 18:45
  OK, so there's one of two possibilities based on this one
• 18:49
  is great minds think alike or or maybe not great minds so we
• 18:53
  mediocre. Minds.
• 18:54
  Yeah, mediocre minds, you and I think alike.
• 18:56
  Bald minds think alike. The other possibility is that as
• 19:00
  I do very often, I turn on podcast driving to and from
• 19:03
  work, but I'll zone out on like a work thing in my mind.
• 19:06
  And I heard you say that without consciously processing it and
• 19:09
  then woke up one day for Cards on the Table and was like, I
• 19:12
  think I have an idea. Maybe this is, I don't know.
• 19:15
  It's both of those. It's 5050 on that.
• 19:18
  Totally honest, but I didn't consciously remember hearing you
• 19:20
  say that. No, that's OK.
• 19:22
  I understand. No, I think it's a good thought.
• 19:26
  I, I'm not saying I think it's going to happen, but I think
• 19:30
  it's certainly a possibility. I'm sure that it's something
• 19:33
  that they've tossed around or they will toss around as a why
• 19:36
  don't we just do kind of generational card products.
• 19:41
  So we'll see. We'll see what happens.
• 19:44
  They talked about the label change.
• 19:46
  For for Beckett. Beckett called it a fiasco.
• 19:49
  The one that they tried a couple years ago, which I enjoyed.
• 19:52
  That was a real fiasco. It really was.
• 19:54
  I got it. I will say I'm more of a fan of
• 19:59
  like slightly rounded corners on slabs than the Super sharp
• 20:02
  pointy ones. So I think they were trying to
• 20:05
  kind of move in that direction more like a CGC slab I.
• 20:10
  I think that's a good idea, but I don't know.
• 20:12
  There's so much psychology to the slab and then to the label.
• 20:15
  The acrylic, you choose how their Sonic welded shut, does it
• 20:18
  fog up inner sleeve or no? There's a lot to decide on with
• 20:23
  that. But in general with their label,
• 20:26
  like what do you think of the current Beckett label?
• 20:28
  What do you think they should consider?
• 20:30
  And then should they also consider something different and
• 20:33
  if so, how much with SGC? Well, I have two Beckett slabs
• 20:37
  and that's it. And so I'm looking at them right
• 20:39
  now. One of the the big problems I
• 20:42
  have not that aren't the slab themselves, it's that you have a
• 20:45
  Beckett logo to the left of the label.
• 20:48
  And so the label looks very off center.
• 20:51
  It's right justified on the slab and it to me it looks terrible.
• 20:57
  And then it's the the lettering is tiny.
• 21:02
  You can't read it. Like I can read all of the PSA
• 21:04
  slabs that surround it, all the the labels, but I cannot read a
• 21:09
  single word or letter on the Beckett slab and I'm only three
• 21:13
  feet away from it. So I thought the bee that they
• 21:17
  changed to was really stupid, like compared to the old one to
• 21:21
  me, like Beckett is supposed to, whether you agree with it or
• 21:24
  not, based on the current version of the slab, it it kind
• 21:27
  of supposed to carry that weight of being like a little more
• 21:29
  fancy and elegant maybe than the other companies, a little more
• 21:32
  high, high end seeming. So I think they should keep
• 21:35
  that. The metallic finish on the gold
• 21:37
  9 fives to me looks nice. I sort of proposed a font
• 21:42
  change, like rethinking, you know, the sizing and spacing and
• 21:45
  just having somebody do some some a good designer do some
• 21:48
  optimization around that because I agree it's really small.
• 21:54
  You know, some of the other more pop up grading companies have
• 21:57
  moved to have put like sub grades on the back.
• 21:59
  I don't think you want to do that.
• 22:00
  I think you still need to keep it on the front so you can see
• 22:03
  it in the showcase and online. But I don't think, I think they
• 22:08
  should just honestly keep that gold throughout and not have,
• 22:12
  like the other, they got rid of the white, but not have the
• 22:14
  silver, just standardized something along those lines.
• 22:18
  And it's funny, I'm a big kind of like alignment snob when it
• 22:21
  comes to font and how things look in apps and on spreadsheets
• 22:24
  and things. So me too.
• 22:26
  Yeah, I, I think I could get behind that.
• 22:28
  Me maybe being reconfigured? Yeah, the other thing that
• 22:31
  bothers me is I, one of my 2 Beckett slabs is an autograph.
• 22:34
  And on almost every Beckett autographed authenticated card,
• 22:40
  the autograph grade is a sticker next to the label and it's off
• 22:45
  center. It's it's tilted.
• 22:47
  They, they got to figure that out, how they have to fix it,
• 22:51
  and I've got to think they will. It just seems like the most
• 22:54
  obvious thing. I I hope they do.
• 22:57
  I have seen so many Beckett slabs where the full label is
• 23:02
  just like halfway down inside of it.
• 23:04
  And like I, I had one, I couldn't sell it.
• 23:07
  I was like, try. I was like I can't have this in
• 23:09
  my collection. It was 1 where I bought it on
• 23:11
  eBay and then when it came it was crooked.
• 23:14
  I don't know if the the the seller had like tapped it to get
• 23:17
  it like lunch or if something happened during shipping could
• 23:19
  could be either one. But I couldn't get it back and
• 23:22
  it was driving me nuts and I like listed it at less than I
• 23:24
  bought it for it. It just wouldn't sell.
• 23:26
  Like nobody wants that. Nobody wants the label crooked.
• 23:29
  Yeah, I have a really interesting story coming out
• 23:32
  probably on Monday of a guy who had PSA fix a, a card that was a
• 23:39
  card had slid down in the slab. And they, yeah, the story's
• 23:45
  bigger. I'm not going to obviously give
• 23:46
  away much of it here. But so they PSA agreed to take
• 23:50
  it back and fix it. And he sent it back at their
• 23:54
  cost, which they're, they're good about that.
• 23:56
  And then they sent it back to him and it was still loose and
• 24:00
  maybe even more so than before. So it's a crazy story.
• 24:04
  That's APSA slab, not a Beckett slab.
• 24:06
  But that's odd. Yeah.
• 24:08
  That's very What about SGC? Should they change anything with
• 24:10
  them? You know, I love the colors of
• 24:13
  the SGC slab, but there's so much black space on the, the SGC
• 24:20
  slabs and they're bigger. I, I think they could streamline
• 24:24
  those slabs. And that's not a very popular
• 24:26
  opinion in the vintage space, but that's OK.
• 24:29
  That's where I stand on it. I think they could optimize.
• 24:32
  I think they could make the slab size the same as other companies
• 24:36
  slabs more because there's a real dilemma.
• 24:39
  If you have like a Zion case like I have sitting here and
• 24:42
  then you try to put like Zion case actually has to sell like
• 24:45
  Zion case XL I think or something they call it with like
• 24:48
  wider rows. So you can fit SGC slabs, but
• 24:52
  then your PSA ones like and CGC like slide all over the place.
• 24:57
  So yeah, I don't know, maybe I don't think that'd be good for
• 25:00
  business for for Zion case. So people have to rebuy new ones
• 25:03
  that fit once they if they were to move away.
• 25:05
  But I think making it smaller if they still want to keep that
• 25:08
  tuxedo look with like the matted framing inside of it could still
• 25:12
  work. But the IT just the whole thing
• 25:16
  doesn't feel very premium. And those things just pop open
• 25:18
  like you, you just take a little Flathead and you can just I
• 25:21
  mean, people open them with their hands.
• 25:22
  It's there's some security aspects to it, some some label
• 25:27
  design. I think they could still respect
• 25:30
  tradition with the tuxedo and and make it better overall.
• 25:35
  Yeah, I agree. Next thing I wanted to talk
• 25:40
  about was the LeBron 23rd season patches.
• 25:43
  Have you seen these? I have.
• 25:47
  I don't know what your take is on LeBron.
• 25:49
  It doesn't really matter, but let's hear it.
• 25:52
  Do you like LeBron? I sense something when you said,
• 25:54
  Yep, I have. I do not like LeBron.
• 25:57
  Me neither. LeBron is my least favorite
• 26:00
  athlete of all time for a lot of I mean, maybe putting aside like
• 26:06
  actual convicted criminals and like really bad people, but
• 26:09
  like, look at the NBA was my favorite sport growing up,
• 26:13
  followed closely by the NFL. And my favorite sports team of
• 26:18
  all time is the O4 Pistons that, you know, just dominated the
• 26:21
  Lakers, much to everyone's surprise outside of Michigan in,
• 26:25
  you know, back then. And we had a real thing going.
• 26:29
  We had a real franchise that was that was humming along, still
• 26:32
  had the same strong defense, first identity, maybe not of
• 26:35
  like body slamming people from the bad boys era, but like, you
• 26:38
  know, next next best thing. And it was just so clear to me,
• 26:43
  like the NBA was the LeBron was the new chosen 1.
• 26:47
  He was next man up, you know, right out of high school.
• 26:50
  And if you watched the games, I really don't think it was
• 26:53
  confirmation bias. In fact, I've had a lot of high
• 26:55
  integrity. Cleveland Cavs fans and others
• 26:57
  tell me like, no, no, LeBron definitely got every call.
• 27:00
  And that's the nature of sports these days.
• 27:02
  Tom Brady, too. Tom Brady it's the superstar
• 27:05
  treatment for a lot of people Mahomes.
• 27:06
  I'm a chiefs guy and he Mahomes has definitely gotten calls it
• 27:10
  these leagues are in the are self interested and they they're
• 27:13
  monetary driven and like when the when the oh gosh, what's his
• 27:19
  name? Why is it escaping me?
• 27:21
  Tim Donaghy like Netflix or whatever documentary came out
• 27:24
  about the, you know, betting scandals.
• 27:25
  None of that surprised me. Rashid Wallace has some really
• 27:28
  funny sound bites about, you know, just for she was like
• 27:31
  playing. I love she'd playing against
• 27:34
  LeBron and it was so aggravating because we had a better team
• 27:39
  than those teams, but they just put his head down, get called
• 27:42
  for the foul and then and then you're bounced out of the
• 27:44
  playoffs. And there's other reasons.
• 27:47
  I just, I grew up actually crying every time the Bulls won
• 27:50
  championships because my we were Pistons fans.
• 27:53
  And so, you know, I grew up in the house where my dad was like,
• 27:55
  we hate the Bulls, we hate Jordan.
• 27:56
  We don't like any of this. I have a much different attitude
• 27:59
  toward Jordan now that I'm older.
• 28:01
  And it's just one of like admiration for greatness and
• 28:04
  true competitive spirit and being an incredible 2 way
• 28:07
  player. And I just think LeBron is
• 28:11
  completely about himself. And you know what maybe the hard
• 28:14
  part in all of that is if I had been LeBron and this like
• 28:17
  anointed kid from a young age, like 14, I don't know, I
• 28:21
  probably would be the same exact way with all of that.
• 28:23
  And everybody tell literally calling you King James and all
• 28:26
  these things. It's tough.
• 28:27
  But. I I like players who who convey
• 28:31
  and demonstrate humility. It's why Barry Sanders is my
• 28:33
  favorite athlete. It's why I like John Stockton.
• 28:35
  It's why I like Giannis. It's why I like a lot of those
• 28:38
  types of players who just play it competitive spirit,
• 28:43
  intensity, but humility. I that's what I like.
• 28:45
  I love Giannis. Yeah, so great.
• 28:49
  Yeah, I I agree. And there's more like LeBron,
• 28:51
  such a whiny, selfish guy that and, and I'm a Celtics fan, so
• 28:58
  I'm legally required to hate him just like you are.
• 29:01
  But there's like I also sometimes say to myself, if, if
• 29:06
  Giannis did this, would I hate it?
• 29:08
  Or do I hate it because it's LeBron?
• 29:11
  Sometimes it's just because it's LeBron.
• 29:14
  But often times it's like, man, Giannis would never act this
• 29:17
  way. Yeah, the integrity check for me
• 29:20
  on it is, you know, people point out like, oh, Mahomes is a
• 29:23
  crybaby sometimes. And I'm like, yeah, I hate it.
• 29:26
  Like he is. You're right.
• 29:27
  Sometimes he throws a fit. And you know what?
• 29:29
  You know who else? Yeah, You know who else did?
• 29:32
  Tom Brady. People forget that.
• 29:33
  But Tom Brady threw tantrums, too, on the sidelines.
• 29:36
  A lot of teammates do. Screamed at his teammates, you
• 29:38
  know, Yeah. So yes, I, it's OK to say I
• 29:43
  really like an athlete because of XYZ.
• 29:46
  But I wish he wouldn't do X, you know, And but there's a
• 29:50
  collective. It's pretty much a holistic
• 29:52
  disdain for me. A lot of things with with LeBron
• 29:56
  and I, you know, you can't deny his ability and the things he's
• 30:00
  done. Yep.
• 30:03
  But agreed, not a fan so. So these patches is there, what
• 30:09
  what do you think about them? Like the rookie debut patches in
• 30:15
  baseball, which they're adding to all sports now.
• 30:18
  I like them a lot. They're starting to feel now
• 30:20
  like they're it's almost like, are these as valuable as we're
• 30:27
  making them out to be? Or the fact that they're putting
• 30:30
  it on him for however many games.
• 30:31
  They did say multiple games and then they're going to take it
• 30:34
  off to put it into cards, many cards, and they're going to give
• 30:37
  him some, I think too, yeah. Is that as cool as the rookie
• 30:42
  debut patch? No, the rookie debut patch is
• 30:46
  singularly legitimately, as I think Mahan said earlier, might
• 30:51
  have been Ruben one of them. Like it might legitimately be
• 30:55
  the greatest innovation in sports cards in a long time.
• 30:58
  It's it's rare to. Come by that.
• 31:00
  It's it's novel, but it's not gimmicky.
• 31:05
  It was a really smart move because we live in a time where
• 31:09
  the manufacturers which which fanatics inherited via tops of
• 31:12
  the present zeitgeist of the hobby, every player has 2320
• 31:16
  thousand different rookie cards. And in baseball in particular,
• 31:21
  in particular, where they launched these debut patches,
• 31:23
  you know, it's it's Bowman first or bust in a lot of ways, like
• 31:26
  the Bowman first autos in particular, because there's only
• 31:29
  it's their first car. There's no other Bowman firsts
• 31:33
  really have carried a premium. They stand out amongst the crowd
• 31:35
  and and basketball and football don't have that in the same
• 31:39
  pedigree. They have college jersey stuff,
• 31:41
  but it hasn't caught up to in in any kind of significant way.
• 31:44
  So they managed to really create a card, one and only one card
• 31:50
  that stands out in the sea of the rest as like a true iconic
• 31:54
  piece to compete with, like the Bowman super auto.
• 31:57
  And you know, those two things kind of stand up against each
• 31:59
  other. And I, I think the debut patch
• 32:00
  is sort of already taking that. That's not easy to do to like
• 32:04
  just come up with an idea, have it take off really fast and not
• 32:07
  have it be really based on hype. There's hype around it, but it's
• 32:12
  like the I think it's legitimately warranted.
• 32:14
  So I think those were genius and I've been happy to give flowers
• 32:18
  where they're due as I'm, I guess sitting here wearing a top
• 32:20
  sodie, the award winner patches that they'd give to like the Cy
• 32:26
  Young and the MVPS in the following season.
• 32:31
  I think they look amazing. I'm not sure they should wear
• 32:35
  them for every game of the year. Maybe they should only wear
• 32:39
  those for the opening game that they play in the following
• 32:42
  season. And maybe those should just go
• 32:43
  into one. And only one thing I will say, I
• 32:47
  I I really wanted to try to get a Terek Skubal.
• 32:52
  I would have loved to have the Terek scuba Chris Sale like dual
• 32:55
  patch with the autos, but it's I don't remember how much it went
• 32:57
  for, but it was like 100 times what I would have been able to
• 33:01
  pay for it. So I'm bummed in a sense with
• 33:05
  both of those that I'll probably I don't want to say I'll never
• 33:07
  own one, but like they just have gone up to a price range or even
• 33:10
  like scrub relief pitchers only pitch one time for the Tigers.
• 33:13
  I don't want to pay for it. You know, they're really cool.
• 33:17
  The LeBron 1 to me is like itchy, gimmicky.
• 33:22
  I I mentioned on cards on the table, I think it looks like an
• 33:25
  FC Barcelona logo, like the colors they chose.
• 33:28
  It reminds me I was like staring.
• 33:29
  I'm like, where have I seen this before?
• 33:31
  And then I realized I'm like, oh, it's like a Barcelona logo.
• 33:33
  Like it, it, it conjures up messy.
• 33:35
  Not LeBron for me or something. And I don't I just don't.
• 33:40
  I don't love the design of the logo.
• 33:41
  I think they would have been much better off making it look
• 33:44
  really fancy like the gold ones that they do for baseball and
• 33:48
  and doing something special with like a 23 and just a gold logo
• 33:51
  man or something would have been much cooler than this like brand
• 33:54
  new kind of goofy looking thing. All that being said, just from a
• 33:59
  purely business perspective, I, I don't know if I'd throw the
• 34:01
  word genius at it, but it's going to work.
• 34:03
  People are going to lose their lose their minds for this.
• 34:07
  The cards are going to go for a crazy premium.
• 34:09
  I'd be careful if I don't, if we didn't have, if I were somebody
• 34:12
  in the market for one of those, some LeBron super collector or
• 34:15
  if I were Kevin O'Leary wanting to pay big money for some card
• 34:19
  to make sure I understand just how many of those patches are
• 34:21
  going to make it into cards. Because I think, I think Tops
• 34:27
  was still making Wembe rookies in 2025 when 2023, you know,
• 34:32
  they came out with Mercury and we're like, this is his RPA.
• 34:35
  And then they released like 3 more sets with Rpas in them.
• 34:38
  So just be careful with that type of scenario.
• 34:42
  I don't know what happens to the rest of them.
• 34:44
  It's it's weird to just like pull them off and be like, here
• 34:46
  you go, LeBron. Is he going to like give it to
• 34:48
  his friends or? Yeah.
• 34:50
  So I think they should have just done it for like 1 significant
• 34:53
  game or something. And maybe for the Sacramento
• 34:56
  game where they said he started his career and just be done with
• 34:59
  it, like now, that would be more significant.
• 35:01
  Yeah, and for anybody who's not familiar, it is the Choctaws.
• 35:04
  The iconic Choctaws outline a silhouette of him doing that.
• 35:08
  Did you ever watch the TV show Arrested Development?
• 35:11
  A little bit, yeah. So he had a there's a character
• 35:14
  called Steve Holt and he would hold up his he would go Steve
• 35:18
  Holt and hold up his hands over his his head.
• 35:21
  And that's what the silhouette to me looks like in the patch is
• 35:24
  Steve. Yeah, it could have been more
• 35:26
  like arms out instead of like touchdown.
• 35:28
  It's like, yeah, now, now that I'm thinking about this, what
• 35:33
  would have been really iconic and amazing to do maybe unless
• 35:37
  gimmicky, would be make it look really premium logo man, do
• 35:41
  something. And instead of maybe trying to
• 35:43
  put the Choctaws on the patch, just have the logo man or
• 35:48
  something. And or some other, I guess they
• 35:51
  tried to do an iconic image instead of Jerry West.
• 35:53
  I get it. But he does the chalk toss.
• 35:56
  Get an image of him doing that at the Sacramento game where
• 36:00
  he's going to wear the patch and then turn that into the card.
• 36:02
  Some really cool like dramatic looking thing with the patch and
• 36:05
  an auto on it. And like don't overdo it.
• 36:08
  Just, you know, one and done. Agreed.
• 36:11
  Do you have time for one more topic?
• 36:13
  Sure all. Right.
• 36:14
  So Carly Anthony Towns just did some, I think one of one or
• 36:20
  maybe one of two cards for his wedding.
• 36:24
  And I don't I think he's gifting them to people.
• 36:26
  I'm not sure. I don't know all the details
• 36:27
  because it's a Knicks player and I'm a Celtics fan.
• 36:31
  But and then you had Bobby Witt, who got some custom cards for
• 36:34
  his wedding. Now, Tiger Woods just gave away
• 36:38
  415 custom autographed cards at his 50th birthday party.
• 36:42
  Is this the new celebrity gift is custom cards?
• 36:46
  Well, it's funny you say that because I've got a auto card
• 36:49
  coming to you as a nice little gift of me.
• 36:51
  I don't know, It's I'm sure people like it.
• 36:56
  I've had people ask me for my auto and that's real weird.
• 36:58
  I just, I don't know, But if they want it, yeah, maybe sounds
• 37:04
  like a cool trend, you know, like cameos became a thing and
• 37:07
  like paying for cameos just for somebody to say something.
• 37:10
  This is a little maybe more more personal.
• 37:12
  It's I don't know where you draw the line between like pride and
• 37:15
  humility when you're like undeniably a great athlete and
• 37:18
  you know it and everybody knows it and it's so is it like weird
• 37:21
  and self-serving to to do that or is it more like a token?
• 37:28
  I think if I'm somebody like Bobby Witt, like I know these
• 37:31
  athletes, a lot of these athletes, baseball and whatever
• 37:34
  they, they really, you see how emotional their parents get in
• 37:37
  the crowd when they make their debut or hit their first home
• 37:40
  run and players too. Or like when I love it when the
• 37:42
  dads pitch at the Home Run Derby to their, you know, sons when
• 37:45
  they're competing. And like, you know, you're
• 37:48
  talking about a, a, a lifetime of a lot of work and money that
• 37:52
  was spent to try to get them to where they are.
• 37:54
  And so there's a, there's quite a bit of appreciation.
• 37:57
  So, you know, if my son grew up and was a, a Major League
• 38:01
  ballplayer or something, yeah, heck yeah.
• 38:04
  I'd want one of his cards and, and want it signed.
• 38:06
  Like I, I guess I would really like that.
• 38:08
  And same thing if I had like, if like one of my friends, actually
• 38:10
  Scotty B, my one of my, you know, good friends who I do
• 38:13
  spitballing with. He collects Billy Butler because
• 38:17
  and he knows Billy Butler like he's friends with Billy Butler.
• 38:19
  So that's so he collects, he's like a super collector.
• 38:22
  Like he has like 100 and someone of ones of Billy Butler and goes
• 38:25
  after every Billy Butler card he can get.
• 38:26
  So that's cool. I don't know.
• 38:28
  That's that's pretty. I think it's a good idea.
• 38:31
  I think that's that's kind of fun.
• 38:33
  How many of those will make it onto the golden auction or
• 38:35
  something if it's Tiger? Yes, with 415 of them out there,
• 38:40
  you know you know that some will.
• 38:42
  Oh yeah, yeah. Any final thoughts on this week?
• 38:50
  Oh, let's see, who is your Super Bowl?
• 38:54
  Pick Patriots. What do you?
• 38:59
  How do you feel about them this year?
• 39:01
  Like they obviously did. Their record was incredible.
• 39:04
  That's undeniably incredible. You know, make people make their
• 39:07
  arguments for here, Stafford. And I can understand both sides
• 39:10
  there. In fact, that the MVP kind of
• 39:13
  reminds me in football of a very much of like the debate between
• 39:16
  Raleigh and Judge and in baseball what it was this year.
• 39:19
  There was just some overlap there.
• 39:20
  But do you like their chances? Do you do you think they're as
• 39:25
  good as their records suggested? Or do you have concerns that
• 39:29
  their schedule was obviously one of the easier ones in football
• 39:32
  and it it might be a a little bit of a mirage or a flash in
• 39:35
  the pan? Yeah, so for sure, all of the
• 39:38
  above. And Mack Jones is so young and
• 39:43
  he throws a perfect deep ball. But.
• 39:47
  Yeah, did I see Mac Jones? Oh man, my my friend.
• 39:51
  My friend James is a huge Mac Jones fan so I'm constantly
• 39:54
  giving him crap. I thought you were like going
• 39:56
  somewhere with that, like a like a joke or something and.
• 39:59
  No, no. I'm constantly giving him crap
• 40:02
  about how well Drake May is doing now, and he's bitter of
• 40:06
  it. He's a huge Patriots fan, but he
• 40:08
  loved Mac. He's a big Alabama fan.
• 40:10
  So he loved Mac Jones, and now he's bitter about the fact that
• 40:14
  Mac Jones is. Bet the backup on San Francisco,
• 40:18
  but plays well for San Francisco anyway.
• 40:19
  Sorry, Yes, Drake May throws a perfect deep ball, but he's 23
• 40:25
  maybe, and so it's hard. Even though Tom Brady was 23 or
• 40:30
  24 when he won his first Super Bowl, it's hard for me to say
• 40:34
  this team is going to win it all.
• 40:36
  I I would never say it anyway, but their defense is really good
• 40:40
  and their offense is good enough.
• 40:43
  I was, I was looking at the field this year.
• 40:46
  This was a this was a really rough year for me from a
• 40:48
  football fandom perspective because the, the team at the
• 40:52
  really the only team I care about the most is the Lions.
• 40:54
  And it's so masochistic at this point.
• 40:58
  Like it just, I hate it. I put it on my Instagram story.
• 41:00
  Like, what do you do when your favorite teams just like if the
• 41:03
  ownership refuses to like commit and try to win things.
• 41:08
  And we were so close a couple years ago to what literally
• 41:12
  would have been a lifelong dream of of Chiefs, Lions in a Super
• 41:15
  Bowl. It should have been the Chiefs
• 41:16
  and the Lions. They kicked the Lions went into
• 41:19
  Arrowhead to open the year that year on Thursday Night Football
• 41:21
  and won in a in a nail biter. It was so close.
• 41:25
  So this year didn't go well with the Lions flopping and the
• 41:28
  Chiefs, you know, woundering and Mahomes tearing his ACL and and
• 41:32
  Notre Dame. I'm a fan of Notre Dame.
• 41:33
  They got snubbed out of the playoff and it just I'm feeling
• 41:36
  very bitter about football. So, so I say all that to know
• 41:41
  that what I'm about to say may be coloring this statement a
• 41:44
  bit, but like I was looking at these teams this year and this
• 41:47
  NFL season just felt so bizarre to me that I don't think there
• 41:51
  are actually any good teams this year.
• 41:53
  Like if you were to look at the last 25 years, I have to go back
• 41:58
  and check every team. But this might whoever wins this
• 42:01
  year might be the worst Super Bowl winning team that in the
• 42:03
  last 25 years. I just don't actually think
• 42:06
  anybody's been consistent. At times.
• 42:08
  The Rams looked like they were the best team in football and
• 42:11
  then they just went on like a three-game losing streak and
• 42:13
  look terrible. The Bears, who I'm not a fan of,
• 42:17
  I'm still convinced aren't actually a good team and keep
• 42:20
  finding weird ways to win. And I think Caleb Williams has a
• 42:22
  lot of upside. He's super inconsistent.
• 42:25
  He's also super young. The talent's obviously there and
• 42:28
  like there's a schedule sync the schedule things with the with
• 42:32
  the the Patriots and the Broncos won like 9 games by 4 points or
• 42:36
  less. And this is a really, really
• 42:39
  weird season. Like you can't convince me any
• 42:42
  of these two ever wins this year would have like beaten the
• 42:45
  Chiefs or beaten the Eagles or beaten, you know, these teams
• 42:48
  that competed in the in past seasons, Patriots, Bucks.
• 42:52
  Like, I don't know. But I'm sure anybody who's a fan
• 42:56
  of the teams that are still in it this year will disagree with
• 42:59
  me. I'm personally rooting for a
• 43:01
  Bills, Rams, Super Bowl at this point.
• 43:04
  I'd like to see Josh Allen win. I really like him and.
• 43:08
  Me too, but I don't want to see him win this year.
• 43:11
  I'll root for him if the if the Patriots aren't in the Super
• 43:13
  Bowl. That's good considering a
• 43:15
  divisional team, you know, but. I I do like Josh Allen a lot.
• 43:20
  And my nephew picked the Bills from a very young age.
• 43:23
  For some strange reason. He lives in, he lives in rural
• 43:26
  Maine and everybody's a Patriots fan and somehow he became a
• 43:31
  Bills fan. And so we always talk about
• 43:34
  that. Buffalo vibes are more like
• 43:36
  rural Maine I imagine than than Austin is so.
• 43:40
  Maybe so. Yeah, rough year for football
• 43:43
  for you, but at least you have the Pistons.
• 43:46
  Yeah, the in the ultimate irony, I have the Pistons in a year
• 43:49
  that I've found it just incredibly difficult to watch
• 43:52
  the current brand of NBA. It's so hard.
• 43:55
  I watched them last night, the fourth quarter against the Suns,
• 43:59
  and I was just like. Kate Cunningham what do you
• 44:04
  shoot? 3 for 16 and they still won.
• 44:07
  Yeah, he had a really rough game.
• 44:08
  It was like Sons without Booker and without several people.
• 44:12
  And Dylan Brooks was doing Dylan Brooks things and Grayson Allen
• 44:17
  had 33 and it was just a weird game, but they won.
• 44:19
  But it come playoff time, I will definitely be watching.
• 44:24
  It's a, you know, I think the intensity turns up then.
• 44:26
  And I do like that they're playing gritty and and defense.
• 44:29
  And I think that's showing something in the NBA like you
• 44:32
  need to play defense. You really need to play.
• 44:35
  The last thing I'll say in my big hot take is was a little bit
• 44:38
  of like an epiphany moment. It was like, what if Luca is the
• 44:41
  new James Harden? So a guy who is amazing
• 44:46
  offensively, terrible defensively and never wins
• 44:48
  anything, Yeah. I mean, he went to a
• 44:51
  championship, you know, they went, he went, he and Kyrie went
• 44:54
  together in a year that I I didn't see that coming.
• 44:57
  They lost, but it's similar game, similar gaudy stats, you
• 45:04
  know, triple, double S, step back threes, phenomenal,
• 45:07
  incredible, undeniable talent on offense.
• 45:09
  But like, just stepping aside, watching guys blow by you, you
• 45:13
  know, no real hustle on the defensive end.
• 45:16
  I remember that championship because the Celtics beat them.
• 45:19
  Yeah, of course. I watched every second of it.
• 45:22
  Amazing. All right, Teapot, thank you for
• 45:26
  coming on. I appreciate it.
• 45:28
  This was a blast, as always. And thanks for having me.
• 45:31
  Yeah, my pleasure. We'll do it again.
• 45:34
  Yeah, see you all soon.