leash Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash.
Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
J Rod cooking up a little extra juice for the open.
What's going on? Everybody beats you on leash.
Here we go. Yeah.
Go New York. Go New York.
Go I I got to be honest with you, This is this is a very
straight. It's an awesome feeling,
absolutely awesome. It's a little bit of a strange
feeling, man. It's it's like it if you told me
at any point, at any point. I mean, even when the Knicks
were like amazing in the mid 90s and even getting to the Finals
in 99 before they got waxed by the Spurs.
I it it's just it's almost, I say, I hesitate to say this
because I know it's not, but it's almost too easy.
Like I almost don't know how to feel like really, the last time
you had a sweat was the Hawks series absolutely scintillating
historical run by our New York Knicks.
Absolutely crazy, J Rod. We're certainly not used to
this, buddy. What's happening, man?
Let's. Go.
I mean, I cannot, I cannot believe it.
If you had told me, you know, at the beginning of the season that
this team, at the beginning of the playoff season that this
team would be making a Finals run, dude, I wouldn't believe
you. It's it's incredible.
And you know, I was saying this to you beforehand.
Knicks have made the Finals every year.
Unleashed has been a program. Yeah, here we go.
One for one, one for one and the Yankees making the playoffs will
be two for two and the Johnny's getting to the Sweet 61 for one.
That we can't help you with the Mets and I'm not so sure that we
can help you with The Jets yet, but we will worry about those
teams at a later date. Today is today is a massive Nick
Day. All right, let's get into it.
Hopefully everybody had a great weekend.
Get the calls, get the chats fired up.
Today's show, as always brought to you by my friends at Sullivan
Propane. Find sullivanonline@trialo1.com.
That's trialo1.com. Remember the name Sullivan
Propane and my Premio sausage. Premio sausage is the way
sausage should be found with premiofoods.com or in your local
grocery store. Now the one thing about this
business is that you cannot escape, not that I tried to.
You cannot escape previous takes.
All right. And if you were to go on my my
ex account and had access to what I have access to, you can
see it anyway. But on a deeper level, what I'm
actually being hit with it, it's all good.
Some of my old takes about the Knicks this year, I'm not
talking about years ago. I'm talking about this year.
Well, true. That's and, and I was wrong.
And I've always said that I will happily take the L I'm going to
watch. I'm going to watch what I'm
watching. I'm going to dissect what I'm
watching. I'm going to tell you what I
see. And if I'm right, I'm right.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Now, before we even get into all
that nonsense, and there were a lot of takes that I, you know, I
trust me, I wouldn't mind running away from, but I can't,
I'm not going to run away from this.
And this is not to throw shade at Tom Thibodeau, but I'll never
forget this day. This was June.
Get it up there Jay. This was June 4th of 2025.
Knicks season had just ended. Me and Sal were discussing daily
on WFAN. What do you do with Tom
Thibodeau? And I said very clearly, I
believe with all due respect, they should move on.
We went back and forth callers all over the map, a little bit
of some people with me, some people against me.
And I remember I was at a stoplight coming back from the
show and we had pretty much done the entire show on this
particular topic after the Knicks lost to the Pacers.
And I opened up my phone at a stoplight and I saw the news
that Tom Thibodeau was was relieved of his job.
All right, so this was my response here.
Obviously you guys can read, but Tibbs is a very good coach and
Nick for life, always going to be revered by the true fans.
He's also, 20 years in, has not shown the ability to deviate
from past stubbornness and adapting up to the modern NBA.
Both can be 100% true. Meaning we could have great
reverence, great respect, profound respect for the
basketball lifer and coach that Tom Thibodeau is and and was not
just here but other spots, but also firmly believing it was
time to move on. Nick's did the right thing.
I don't think they're here if Tom Thibodeau was still the
coach. Now I know they're not here if
some of the players don't obviously step up to a level
that is that is inconceivable. But the reason why I think that
things change so much here is because everybody bought in.
It's an incredibly selfless team.
I remember hearing God in after a while.
I'm just, you know, listen, and this is not a shot at the Ogs by
by I mean, you love these guys, Clyde Frazier, Pearl, everybody,
right, Bill Bradley, the Bush or Holtzman, all those guys.
But you know, it's like nameth with the with The Jets and you
know, like Daryl and Doc and Keith Hernandez with the 86
Mets, you just get tired of living in the past.
It is exhausting. It is burdensome, it is tiring,
it is old, it is depressing. And as much as those 73 teams in
69, of course, as well, you know, last Knicks team to win in
73. Everybody knows that.
But I just I get the the references.
I just I don't want to hear it anymore.
I just, I can't it they have to finish this race.
The Knicks must win the championship.
And I'm listen, man, I'm not trying to deliver some hot take.
I promise you I'm not. But everything that they've done
in the matter in which they done it to the degree in which they
have obliterated everybody in their path.
I know the East is not as good as the West.
I understand that. I'm pretty sure that if the
Knicks were in the West, they would not have an average margin
of victory of 19.9 points per game.
I get that. But you know what, There are a
lot of years where you had to go through Jordan or, you know,
Shaq, was that over there? Or some politics teams, whatever
it might be. And nobody was feeling bad for
the Knicks that they were in the Eastern Conference when the
Eastern Conference was better because of Michael Jordan, even
though the West has always been pretty strong.
So it's, it's a little bit of everything.
I just, I really, I, I think I'm a pretty creative person.
I've got a very vivid imagination and I've had that
since the time I was a kid, which is one of the reasons why
I can remember things very, again, very vividly.
Some, you know, 8 ages 3 and 4, like I just, I've got these deep
imprints seared in my mind and as creative as I could be and as
open minded as I can be. There is no way under any
circumstance, no matter what you told me, no matter how much you
told me that the Vegas odds said XY, which none of the Vegas odds
said that the Knicks would play like this.
Nobody. I mean, it's absolutely it's
historical. I mean, as we heard over and
over and over, there is no way I could have conceived of a run
that is really without any sort of angst pressure.
You know, the the up and down major of being a fan outside of
when they lost the two games to Atlanta and then they just came
back and went on this absolute tirade of a run.
And This is why like it, it's kind of, I mean, it's it's
awesome. It is amazing, but it it was as
strange and in a good way as strange of a watch for any team
that I've ever rooted for in my entire life.
Because there's been teams that have overachieved and went a
little further than you thought. Whatever.
I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about the fact
that right around the middle of April when this thing start
again, outside of the early little blip against the Hawks
two games in a row, there has not been a moment where you had
to sit back and sweat. I mean, last night, pretty much
the same thing, by the way I'm sitting here, I got my notes and
by like the third quarter, I basically put my notepad down.
And it's been like that because there's nothing else to write
because the game's an absolute rap.
And it's been like this for a month where the Knicks just
literally beat the shit out of everybody in their way.
This is just insanity. I mean, listen, I know you've
had you've heard all the number. I do want to take you back to
one point in the game because there's a couple of things that
that speaks to the the the connectivity of this team, which
I've I've used that word a lot. They are connected on such a
deep level. And I didn't see that for a big,
I saw it during the cup. Got it.
But even since the cup, they're playing a different brand,
whether it's efficiency or how they actually play schematically
than they were for much of the season, which is why I had some
takes which are clearly erroneous, flat out, straight up
wrong, and in some cases embarrassingly laughable, which
I have to own. But I mean, there was just, I
don't know what switch they hit, what button they push, what
lever they reach for whatever they did.
This is stunning. It is absolutely stunning.
It is unfathomable to think that we have sat here for a month and
not worried once about the ultimate fate of this team.
Think about that. I mean, even with Ewing, they
lost the game to the Nets. They won an overtime against the
Nets back in the day, You know, even without Jordan, you had to
sweat it out with cool coach making that last second shot
when Pippin wanted to stay because he was pissed off he
wasn't getting the last shot. Even like when the Knicks were,
you know, relative to their level of of, of of greatness
back then, you know, every single every series was a battle
of fights scraping to get to 90 points.
This looks like a glorified layup line.
It is absolutely bonkers. Now, this is crazy.
So in the closeout wins, all right, we know that they won by
51 against Atlanta. They beat Philly by 30.
They won by 37 last night against Cleveland.
Jalen Brunson did not play a single second, not one second in
any of those three close out games to wrap up a series.
Not a second. I mean, not it's just this
doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.
We can watch the Knicks for 50 more years.
This will never happen again. But last night, this speaks to
their character, right? So you knew you were going to
get well. You thought you were going to
get hit with your best shot. Cavaliers, what a strange team.
You know, the analytics and I like Atkinson, they they've said
weird things. They played lazy, they played
soft. That's not our problem.
That's stairs. But I really did think that the
Cavaliers were going to give you absolutely everything that they
had last night. And they came out, they knocked
down some shots. They took a little lead there,
right. Mitchell played well and they
said it on the broadcast last night too.
Like his numbers were really good, but there was no juice.
Like there was no big moment where I Mitchell's going to go
for 45 and just pull this team across the finish line and stave
off the firing squad for a night.
But there was a moment where where in the that was a third,
obviously third quarter. Yeah, Cavs cut it to 7256 and it
was, and I remember I just circled the sequence and it's
literally the last thing that I wrote, right?
The they cut it to 7256, the Knicks were up by 20 plus
points. They start chiseling away a
little bit, a little energy in the building.
A lot of Knick fans, what do you know, another venue, another
series, Knick fans take over. It's that's another part of it.
Knicks fans do whatever the hell they want.
They're walking into the homes. They're not even putting their
feet up on the couches of the opponent's.
They are going and sleeping in the opponent's beds quite
comfortably. It's crazy, but when they made
their when they when they when they made that little tiny push
and I wasn't worried. I'm like, I let's just see what
happens here. Cat blocks a shot and then a
little later down the other end of the floor, that sequence cats
hits A3. Cat hits a three and then Mobley
misses a three and then bridges sticks to three from the corner
on a beautiful. I think I believe that was OG
who gave him the pass and you even heard, you know, breeze.
He had so much time to shoot breeze like all right, he's
lining up the laces, finding the seams there.
That's the wrap timeout Cavaliers Nick party is on
Cavalier fans go home the 76 or 7000 Knick fans who were very
loud and took over last night. I mean it it's just it's just
absolutely wild, man. I just you're really there's and
I've said this before. It's it's not it doesn't make it
it doesn't make it not fun. It makes it challenging to
properly contextualize just how great and how how many multiple
ass kickings and soul snatchings the Knicks have delivered.
Like, how many? Where's the praise end?
They were amazing, they were sublime, they were terrific,
they were awesome. They were locked in, they were
connected. I mean, there's really nothing
else to say. You cannot play better than the
Knicks have played. And really the circumstances
now, obviously the Western Conference going to have
homecourt, OK, different travel. Obviously, you know, Cleveland's
a quick hop, no, an hour, 10 minutes in the air where maybe a
little bit more, but not much. Obviously Philly is right there.
You know, Atlanta's not bad going South, homecourt
advantage. It's it it, it's going to it's
going to be different like the Finals.
I think we all know that and we'll get there when we get
there. Personally, I want to play the
Spurs. I'm not, I'm not sitting here
pounding my chest saying bring on the Spurs.
That's the championship route. But of the two, I would rather
play the Spurs and take my chance with with them.
Because think about this really for two reasons.
And not to get too far ahead of myself, but you know, there's
championships and then there's championships.
Like when you beat a Jordan or you beat a Bird or you beat a
Magic or you beat a Kobe and you beat a Shaq and you beat, if the
Knicks are to play the Spurs number one, if you're ever going
to play Wembe in the NBA Finals, you better get them now.
Because once that young buck gets some man man muscle on them
instead of being a little bean pole and he still, even as a
bean pole, he's a massive problem.
You're not winning. Like Wembe's about to have the
entire league on lock for a decade now.
He's very tall and there's a very short list of players that
tall that play, you know, 1518 years.
You have a lot of foot issues, you know, whether it's Walton,
Sam Bowie, not that kind of player, but still, you know,
even Patrick was limping toward the end. 99 was a bit peased in
play in the in the finals there, you know, jacked up lower, lower
calf there. But to me, number one, I think
it's a better match up. The Spurs don't have that
championship pedigree yet. But also think about if the
Knicks were to beat, were to face the Spurs were.
And again, I'll do more of this as we get closer to who.
Let's see who we're playing first.
I'm just giving you my initial thought, like the historical
context of punctuating a season with all these records that the
Knicks have. And you beat somebody who is, I
mean, if he stays healthy, he's destined to be a top 567 player.
That that's that's how good Wembe is.
So it's like beating Russell or Kareem or MJ or Bird or Magic or
LeBron, Like that's what it comes to.
But that's down the road, down the road.
So J Rod, check this out man, check this out.
We got the 2017 Warriors. We know about them all time
phenomenal 115 straight, longest win streak NBA playoff history
got the Spurs in 99112 straight. The Knicks right now.
Now again, they if they if they keep winning, they can actually
surpass everybody. Not that they're going to sweep
the finals, but like if they win four more, I mean to get into a
point where it's like, OK, the 2025 Knicks, the 2001 Lakers and
the 1989 Lakers all won eleven straight.
Think about that verified air. Think about that, the magnitude
of of God. Is insane.
Wow. Now really, I don't give a shit
if they want every like, I just need a championship.
I don't care if they want every other.
I don't need all these records. I need a championship is what I
need. And we had Joe on the show.
Joe B and Joe Nail. And that's exactly what he says.
Like don't give me the bullshit. Give me a championship.
It's got to be a championship. They have to win.
They must win. And I feel like they're I feel
and I don't get wrapped up in this much.
I don't because you can't quantify it.
A lot of times the mind and the fandom kind of lead you in a
direction that is not always accurate because the, the mind
like the hope, all right, and the excitement sometimes
overtakes the logic. Like first, I am curious to see
who's going to be favored. If it's the Spurs, I mean, it's
probably even money. I, I don't know, maybe, maybe
slight, maybe maybe the spurs -130 like it's going to be very
close. They're not going to be, they're
not going to be -300 like the Knicks were against the Cavs.
If it's say, if the Thunder win two in a row and they look
phenomenal, they've got the championship chops, you got the
MVP, maybe it's a little bit higher, but I don't care about
that. Like aesthetically in terms of
winning. I just want to win now.
Aesthetics do matter when you're trying to formulate an opinion
on whether or not whatever team we're talking about, we think
that they've got the ability to win.
And I'm telling you right now, you guys can send me as many
clipped whatever of me saying whatever or screenshots of some
of the dopey takes now that I've had do you?
I don't care. I don't care.
Oh, old takes exposed. Who gives a fuck?
Old takes expose, expose this exposed.
You know, I see that last night, right?
And I really am laughing. I'm laughing at it.
But the people see there's two types of fans.
There's realistic fans and then there's fanboys, all right?
And I am the former, not the latter.
I'm not saying that I don't I don't sometimes get wrapped up
at the moment and have some of my judgments blurred by my
fandom. Like I'm not saying I'm above
that I'm not. And really, quite frankly, the
day that I become above that is the day that I probably don't
want to do this anymore. Because one of the reasons that
I love this and the reason why I got into this is because I love
sports and I love certain teams. And you guys know that right now
to get on the air every day with with a YouTube show and just,
you know, wax poetic. Hey, listen, I really think,
even though I'm not a Mets fan, like say if I was a die hard
Mets fan, Mets don't look too good, right?
I've got the Mets look awful. God, they look they look like a
AA team. Mets are a joke right now.
My God. But like, if I'm getting on the
air talking about the Mets, well, you know, I saw Lindor
stretching yesterday and maybe he'll come back soon.
He can come back tomorrow. Mets ain't winning anything like
you. You.
You've got to incorporate at least a modicum of reality, all
right? And I have to be honest, I stand
by my takes about the Knicks. And I can even read some.
You know what? I am going to read some of them.
I'm going to read some of them. This is how little I care like
people think. I got you, You got what you get.
I got you. You had a bad take.
Come on now. But this is not a good one.
I will admit. I wrote this on January 15th,
2026. Now keep in mind, I was also, I
was had a lot going on. I was just launching unleashed
right? Just ended my run at WFAN trying
to get things going. So maybe the head wasn't as
clear. I'm just kidding.
I I believe this. I wrote this.
I've never well, man, I've never wavered on this and I never
will. Knicks aren't winning a thing
with Cat being a primary piece of the puzzle.
Never was that guy never going to be that guy.
All right, now isolated, that looks like that, that is the
kind of tweet that should put you in social media jail.
Like if you have a tweet that is that erroneous all these months
later, right? Like that pathetic.
And that off the mark, like there should be a little
punishment. I'll be the first to admit it.
See, the problem is, is that too many of you, and not all of you
obviously too many of you are narrow minded dopes.
I don't know how else to say it. Who can't incorporate context?
Because remember when I said before you're either a a fanboy,
right, The two types or or a pragmatic fan?
You evaluate things ration, maybe not always rationally, but
you take all the evidence and you give an opinion.
That's kind of what we do in this line of work, right?
And the only people that were hanging on to this Knicks
championship dream back then were fanboys.
Like, that's it. Because if you watch them every
night like I do and like I did, I mean, I did it when they were
awful, You better believe I was doing it this year.
I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
They were not playing the same type of a basketball.
It's like it's it's like this, right?
It's like the Yankees looked one way.
Now it didn't they didn't win the championship, but they
looked one way. And then they're like, oh, man,
Devin Williams not exactly getting the job done here.
Closer. All right, let's get Bednar.
Now. Bednar is a problem this year,
whatever. But Bednar is going to become
the closer and we're going to flip things around or with the
World Series, we're going to Clay Holmes, we're going to kind
of reposition him and Luke Weaver is going to closeout
games. And it was very, very good if
you remember as a Yankee fan, right?
So think about that if you had the opinion back back then, and
I don't, I don't think that I quite said this, but because
they had Soto the year that they got to the World Series, I was
feeling pretty good about things.
But if you had the opinion, if you have to take like, hey, this
Yankees team is not going to win a World Series the way they're
the way their bullpen has said it.
Well, when them and they didn't win it, that's so it didn't
really come to fruition, but close enough.
They change things. They altered things.
So I don't know how people don't see this.
If you think that the Knicks are playing the same way that they
played in late October, November, a little bit in
December, but they still weren't playing like this.
And I don't mean level of efficiency.
I mean schematically, how they actually played the game, where
the offense ran, what they looked for, how other guys were
empowered. Everything has changed.
And you know who deserves the most credit for that?
Who do you think? The head coach, if we're going
to sit here and have those discussions, should Tom
Thibodeau stay? Should Tom pivotal go and does
he have a ceiling which that you know where I stood on that,
right? If we're going to have those
opinions. And then also, by contrast, have
the opinions, even though Mike Brown wasn't their first hire,
you know, when they looked at their most like their most
vulnerable point. If we're going to have those
opinions, hey, man, this team, they're going backwards.
And we heard a lot of people popping up like the whack a mole
on the, on the, on the, on the Jersey Shore, you know, not, not
Broadway, whatever the whatever the hell.
Boardwalk thank. You the boardwalk, right?
You got one guy popping up, not going to work, not going to
work, not going to work, not going to work and just banging
them away. Well, guess what?
When? If you're going to hammer the
coach back, then you better be on your knees kissing his Nikes
because Mike Brown, in my opinion, has done something.
Again, with all due respect, Tom Thibodau was incapable of doing
and it's called adapting to a degree that I think would have
been uncomfortable for Tom Thibodau.
Number and and we all know about the bench.
We know that, but but also the allocation of rolls.
There's two things at play here, guys.
There's the allocation of minutes, all right, the
distribution of minutes. Then there's the shaping and
sizing and allocation of rolls and the roles of the players
have changed. There's a reason why Bridges
looks like an All Star. The last, you know, I mean,
usually does step it up a little bit in the playoffs anyway, even
going back to the Celtics last year.
But like, he looks like it all. There's a reason why that's
happening. There's a reason why Karl
Anthony Towns is playing an incredibly high level.
I know he's had some foul issues and what whatever, but I mean,
he's been even with the Sixers series, he's been finite.
He's been a different player. Like he's not, he's not getting
22 shots a night like he got in Minnesota or like he got even a
lot of nights year one with the Knicks.
He is being used in a way that maximizes his talents and the
talents around him. And Jaylen Brunson, my God, I
mean, start, get the chisel and go to the nearest granite and
start chiseling this guy's face out right?
As as, as the guy. I mean, listen, Aaron Judge is
phenomenal and Aaron Judge is he can stop playing today.
He's a Hall of Famer. What Jaylen Brunson's doing,
especially if Judge doesn't win the World Series, Brunson,
Brunson surpasses Aaron Judge Forget.
I mean, that's just the way it goes.
If he wins, if he wins, he surpasses Eli.
He obviously surpasses Judge. Like I'm not saying he's going
to necessarily surpass like a Mole or Jeter because those guys
did it over and over. But this is the track that the
train is on right now for Brunson and these other Knicks,
like Brunson's number is already in the rafters.
If you're having a discussion, should Carmelo's number 7 be
retired or I'm bringing it to the table, Should B KS #30 be
retired? Start printing it up now because
it's it's going to be up there. It is just amazing what this
team has done. Amazing, man.
Wow, I am pumped up now. It's it's weird though, because
now you got to sit there, you got to wait.
You got to wait, you know, and I think I would have been a little
more worried, but the Knicks have been waiting a while.
Had to wait for Philly for a little bit, had to wait for the
Cavs. Cavs back to, you know, 7 game
series, two in a row. I don't know if it's going to go
7 out in West, but it's going to go at least 6.
And I have to say there's an incredibly high probability that
it will go 7. I don't see either team winning
two straight. I don't see it.
They're too evenly matched and each team has too many things
going for them. Like there's no way that I, I
don't think that Jay Gill, just Alexander's going to be so quiet
where the Spurs win two in a row or and as great as Wendy is, I
don't think that like Wendy is going to be so quiet where the
Thunder went to I I really believe it's going 7 and you got
to wait. You got to you got to do your
scout and you got to put your scout and head on.
But it's OK, guys. It's OK to admit that we may
have missed some stuff with this Knicks team because they just
didn't look like that team. And there are myriad examples in
other sports, right? Whether it's even the Mets a
couple of years almost getting to the World Series, you know,
playing very well against the Phillies, not even winning 90
games and then knocking on the doorstep of the World Series,
losing to eventually the Dodgers, who were just a lot
better. The Nationals.
Juan Soto, you know, a kid 1920 years old, they start 19 and 31.
They win the World Series, the 2000 Yankees Subway Series when
they beat the Mets. Go back and look at the Yankees
September that year. They did not look like a
champion. But that's that's the cyclical
up and down nature of baseball. It's far more common.
Part of the reason why I was so alarmed and, and, and, and, and
very resolute, admittedly, in saying that I don't think that
this team has what it takes to be a champion is because you
don't see that as much in basketball.
In basketball, we're used to dominance, not dominance to this
degree. But if you look at the at every
NBA champion, you don't have any champions with 49 wins, you
know, like that. The fifth seed, you know, in the
East or the West or the second or third wild card like you get
in baseball, generally, there's a correlation.
When you've got supreme talent in the NBA, you're going to win
60 and you're going to kind of coast probably until the
conference championship, conference finals, right?
So, and in football, you're going to, you know, you're going
to get some wacky, you know, stuff, whatever.
You know, it's a little different in football too, but
in in a sport where you know, you just know, like Colby and
his peak is going to drop 30. Shaq's going to drop 30.
You know, Patrick's going to give you 20 something and 12
against whomever and give the Knicks a chance to win back
then. Same with Barkley, Malone,
Stockton, even the the non champions.
But they just I don't know they it it's it's one of the most
amazing transformations really not to be a prisoner of the
moment, not to be subject to hyperbole.
It's truly, not only is it one of the most amazing
transformations, it's it really is the most impressive run that
I've ever seen for any New York sports team, even the great 98
Yankees and those teams that were just beating the stuffing
out of everybody. And I know that they were
coasting for a minute there. I know that.
Trust me. It wasn't that long ago I was at
the Stadium most of those games, locked into every pitch like an
absolute lunatic, as you can imagine.
But this is just different. It's different.
I don't know. I don't know the I'd, I'd love
to know actually. And there will be a book written
about this someday. There will be a book, whether
it's you can keep that up in a second.
I get to like whether it's Ian O'Connor or Mike Vaccaro or
whomever, somebody is going to write a book about these Knicks,
especially if they win four more and or champions.
Think about think about that, man, We're four away.
Wow. And I there's going to be a
point of inflection that we don't know about yet, whether it
was in the locker room, whether it was on the practice floor,
whether it was cat knocking on Brown's door, whether it was
Brown in his office, whether it was Brown knocking on cats hotel
room door and saying, hey, big boy, let's let we got to figure
some stuff out. But what maybe there was not
that. Did you know you're not going to
have a fist fight in practice like the old days, but a little
flare up, verbal flare up in practice, something happened
because there's nobody that can convince me that this was the
plan because it it, it, it's two opposite sides of the I get.
I understand the part about, well, let's not just show
everything right away. You know, it's not like you,
you, you don't you don't go on a first date and show up with a
diamond ring and a tennis bracelet and at a $300.
I don't even know what shoes there are stilettos or boots,
whatever the hell they want to wear.
I. You.
Just you. You go get something to eat, you
know, you don't divulge everything, You don't show
everything. And there's something to that
because the NBA doesn't require you.
At least this NBA, you can win on the road with more frequency.
You don't have to win 63 games. You don't have to be the top
team of the conference. It's about being healthy, being
deep, being connected and being right when it matters most.
And they got there, and I didn't think that they did, and I
didn't think that they would, and I'm thrilled that they did.
It is awesome. Like the shock has worn off.
There were points during, you know, it really didn't go back
to the Hawks series when they're up 51 points, you know, and just
drilling the Sixers like that. But but it it wasn't even as
much of A shock as it would have been if it happened months ago
because they were playing. And I said this, this, I did say
the last month of the regular season, they changed how they
were playing. I just want to know, I can't
wait to read that book, hear that conversation about how, why
and exactly when did it change? All right, let's get some calls.
Let's get some chats. Let's go.
Let me just shut that off for one second there.
Question for BT means more jet ship or a Knicks chip.
Oh, God, I've been asked this so much.
I've really been asked this a lot.
First of all, Jay Rod, what do you think my answer is?
You got to take a guess. If it were to happen, Oh my
gosh, I think what? Would what would mean more to
me? Now remember for those who don't
know, hold on. I want to say oh that's your
answer, but hold on, maybe this could change it.
Not that I'm trying to change it, just want to get the proper
context for those who don't know, Jared was producing my
unkillable Jets podcast. Yes, Sir, he knows that you
guys. I won't say everybody knows, but
sure, many of you, you know, saw the saw me flip out when Rodgers
got hurt. We are unkillable.
So that's your answer. The Jets, huh?
Let let me. Expound a little bit though.
So I think this is what I think, I think you would believe and I
think, you know, a Knicks championship would obviously
mean more to New York as a city. 100% but I.
Think what would hit you as a more jarring shot and really
like, dude, this would this would change your life.
Like obviously this Knicks finals could, but I mean, I
think a jets championship would literally change your entire
outlook on on every on life. Yes.
Oh man, you know. It's a tough question.
It must. Be it's a tough question because
there are really a couple of different ways to answer it.
Like what would be more shocking Jets?
What would be more satisfying? That's where it's really I got
to be. I it's the Knicks.
Believe it. The Knicks.
Yeah, I'm going to tell you why. Now, maybe I'm taking the easy
way out with this, But whenever The Jets win that Super Bowl,
right, whenever that is, right, hopefully I'm around for it.
So let's say that I am. Let's say that they eventually
do it. Now, if you win the Super Bowl,
you're having a good regular season.
Like you might not be 15 to 2, but you're going to have a fun
regular season. You kind of know who the you
know made there's always surprises going into a year like
what like Detroit last year under commanders took a step
back. There's always examples of what
we thought would happen that somehow does him based on
circumstance, tough schedule injury, whatever it might be.
But all things considered, even the if you if you're a Super
Bowl team, you've had at you've had a double digit win season,
even if it's like the lowest wild card 10 and said whatever.
So you've had a lot of fun for a couple of months right now.
But most Super Bowl winners now it's a little different.
You only get the one buy in in each conference here.
But you know, a lot of times like the Pats would have a buy.
So that's one less game. OK, one less game, which means
you're not watching anything. What you're not, you know you're
not going through. The.
Chins and the the you know your friends over and all that stuff,
right, the whole hubbub that is watching your team take each
step of the championship and then all right, so you sit out
wild card weekend because you get a buy or you play wild card
weekend and you dismantle somebody.
I'm not saying it's not fun, but it's one game done.
Then you're on to the divisional one game done.
Then you're on to the obviously to the conference championship
and then if you win that, you're in the Super Bowl.
Now the difference here is that where now, I mean, I, I, well, I
would find my way out there, but I went to probably, I probably
went to at least eight or nine with Tiki and I've probably been
to about 12 or 13 Super Bowls, like radio row broadcasting the
whole week, Arizona, Indianapolis, Detroit, you name
it, I've been there, right? And, and, and that's not to
break. That's just to kind of answer
the question because I'm, I'm kind of working through it
myself a little bit as well. Want to make sure I have the
right answer. I first said Knicks, but I want
to see if that's really, really true.
What I think it is. The thing that I would have
loved more than anything is to be in a radio row, right,
talking about The Jets for a week, you know, outside the and
we're joined by a former, you know, 12 year so and so five
time old pro. He's got the I don't know, he's
got a heart medicine that he's pushing some other boring push
interview that you got, which by the way, we stopped doing.
Well, I'm like, I can't do these anymore.
I can't have these inane, boring, you know, useless
conversations like if you're pushing a product, push it
somewhere else. And and like, not to sound like
a jerk, but one of the great things, especially doing it with
tiki, doing the national stuff. You know, Jim Rome was on right
after us. So we and Tiki and I were on TV
for most of our tenure together. So we were on the TV set, which
means, you know, like Jim Horribaugh, Brett Favre, Aaron
Rodgers, like guys Tim Tebow at the height of his, you know,
craziness. They would bring them to us in a
more specialized way rather than just having and no knock at all.
I mean, these guys were like, say Ronnie Lott going from
table, who was amazing, one of the 15 best players probably of
all time in the NFL, but still going from table to table,
pushing the same product, having the same conversation now.
So that would be like I like Hampton and and basically every
not not basically every year that I was there.
The Jets, not only were The Jets not there, The Jets were a joke.
They didn't start going until right after Rex Ryan.
OK, so they were awful, Yeah. And we're talking about a 15
year run of no playoffs, which is the longest North American
drought in team sports as we know.
So that would have that. That may have amped it up a
little bit. But honestly, dude, I go back to
my default here and it's always my childhood.
I'm a very sentimental person, you know that and and I remember
and I've told the stories I'm not going to tell them over and
over. My dad taken me to you know, you
took me to 1 jet game. You just didn't want to deal
with the crowds whatever like 80,000 people took me to a jet
steal their game. But we would took me to a ton of
nick playoff games. I remember the night that they
drafted Kenny Skywalker. So they got they.
Did you even know the name Kenny Skywalker?
I don't think so. Time ago, the old edge will
anyway. The Knicks get Patrick Ewing in
1985. Patrick Ewing And how great is
it to see the big fella out there with the hardware
midcourt? Dude, I love Patrick Ewing.
My my favorite thing about this guy, he dresses like he's in
like an 1880s saloon. Like he's he's like the only
dude who's still rocking the Derby hat and like the brown
vest. Yes, with the striped shirt.
It's almost like, is it a twill or a tweed?
Vest, You know what? I.
Mean, that's funny. He does.
My son said that too last night. He's like, you know, he knows
Patrick. He's like, he's like Patrick
Dress is interesting. I'm like, yes, it's called old,
old school flavor. Man gets taking after out of.
School like he's riding horses. It's awesome and I love it.
Yes, yes, yes. So I remember.
So Pat was drafted in 85, first overall pick out of Georgetown
the next year. And they weren't good.
They were. They won like 23 games his first
year. They won the rookie of the year.
I remember he sat out the final 20 something games with a bum
knee and his knees were always jacked up, even when he was
young. And then the next year they took
Kenny Skywalker from Kentucky, who was a forward who won a dunk
contest. You know, he had like the kid
and play flat top and the gold chase.
I loved them. I you know, the blue and white
Nike dung. See just that style.
And I back then, not every college game was on TV.
So you got a lot of Kentucky, like you got a lot of Len Bias
that that was the year that Len Bias was drafted first overall
about the Celtics. Kenny was a couple of picks
after that. Anyway, I remember I, I had to
be coming back from a baseball game because the draft was
always in June and we were in a Burger King and it would have
even been on WFN because WFN wasn't born yet because he was
drafted in 86. FN came in 87, as you guys know.
And my dad and I, we heard the Knicks may have been 1010 wins,
honestly, may have been an update that my dad just put on
and we heard Kenny Skywalker drafted by the Knicks.
So, and like I, I look at the database of memories, all those
games just sitting in the basement with my dad.
I used to call my friends, my my friend still laughing, me, my
college buddies, right, Especially my the guys that I
live with, Trevor and Maddie. So I would we would just yeah,
I'm school. We just go out.
We were there, we were, we were there to play baseball.
We were there to have fun. You know, school was a little
secondary too often, but we would go out all the time,
right? And we'd play Sega, we'd have a
40, we'd have a dip, we'd play Sega, and then we'd go out
right. And I can't tell you, Jay.
Now think about this is when Pat Riley's coaching the Knicks.
All right? This is when I'm at Marist.
I would, I would, I would tell my buddies, hey, I'll meet you
guys at whether it's birdies, whether it's Renaissance,
whether it's, you know, whatever, I'll meet you there.
I'll meet you there a little. I got to call my pops, talk
about the and I would call my dad and talk to him.
You know, because he is he is my best friend.
But just talk Knicks, talk Knicks and I would get up and my
friends still they always they're like, dude, we we you
know, like like when when people I was talking a quick Side
Story. I was talking to my buddy Trevor
on Friday night late. He coaches.
He's got that facility down in Florida.
Great coach, sons a good ball player.
And I played with him at Marist right, and I love him.
He's awesome. Lived with him and played with
him and we don't get to talk that much.
So I came back, my son had a game, whatever, had a couple
drinks, did a little fire pit hanging out.
My neighbor was hanging out. He went home.
So I'm like, you know what, I haven't talked to Trevor in a
long time. I got to call Trev and we were
talking and Trevor put his 13 year old son Preston on the
phone and he's like, so this is Trevor.
He's go he goes yo B, he goes. Preston wants to be on the air
and he's like, you know, he's, he's thinks it's easy.
Can you talk some sense into this young guy?
And I told and I did doesn't matter what I said, but I, I had
a real good conversation with, with the young man.
Try to try to steer him in the right direction.
And Trevor goes, he goes, he goes press, let me tell you
something. He goes B, he calls me B, He
goes, he goes BB would get up at 7:00 in the morning, right, and
go to the deli and get the news and the post and a bottle of
water and before practice before anything and read every single
article about the Knicks and the Yankees and the Mets and the
bike. His point was if you're not
dialed in and invested like you're not, you're not going to
make it like you have to. You have to, you have to work
your ass off like it doesn't happen.
You might see him now with, you know, with some some like you
make you think. I think he made it.
But it it's a hard route was the point.
And of all the articles that I would get up and read, I could
not wait to inhale the Knicks stuff more than anything, even
slightly more than the Yankees, as much as that is a strange
thing to say. So that was a very long answer
because it's one of the toughest questions you could ask me
because I've never seen either team win.
I'm a devout fan. I love both teams.
You guys know that Knicks, Knicks, Knicks, Knicks.
And you also get to stretch it out more like, and this, this is
part of this is part of my answer.
Like I'm not trying to take the easy way out, but to win an NBA
championship, you know, you start right around tax day in
the middle of April, you're rolling until middle of June.
That is months upon months like that is multiple months and and
it's two or three times a week now a little less because the
Knicks are sweeping everybody at this point.
But it's just a constant, you know, every other night, sit
down, watch and then the next day you unpack and process what
you watched and then you slowly transition that day to
anticipate what you're going to watch the next game.
It's just is more frequency. My answer is Knicks.
You said jets. My answer is Knicks.
There we go. My answer man.
I mean, yeah, I think the Knicks just hold a very special heart
and like a lot of New York, you know, seemingly a lot of New
York fans hearts and like, especially with that, the
childhood ties there. I gotta say, man, you know, some
was saying this couple first, let me answer one person's
comment blaming me and then and then let me say something else.
Is J Rod really a Celtics fan? He gets way too excited about
the Knicks. Yeah, imagine.
Imagine if I hopped on this pod and I was just going, yeah, I'm
not even excited. Honestly, though, but you, yeah,
but hold on. You, you got to be you.
I mean, I'm not saying that that's a completely accurate
take there, but I understand where he's coming from.
I understand. And here's.
I, I did have AI did have a certain thought last night where
I went. I don't know if I really want to
see this team win the. Well then, say it I.
Don't care really, because it will be insufferable for the
rest of time. I mean, if the Knicks win a
championship that is never lived down, ever.
Not that any championship really ever is, but especially that one
will never be let down. And now let me say something.
That Ben Stiller video was awesome.
Yeah. Yeah, Ben.
Oh, my God, dude. That that video of cat
whispering into Jalen Brunson's ear.
Four more. Four more.
I mean that. Is just.
How about this too? That is.
Freaking juice. Now, I don't know how I feel
about this. I get it and it it sounds good
and I like it. I definitely like it a lot more
than I don't. Let me say that up front.
Nixon Poppity Champagne, which I get.
They also didn't even crack a beer like.
That's great. I I.
Know, I know it's going to, you know, if they finish the job and
they win more before they lose 4, that's going to speak to like
that's going to be the cherry on top, as locked in and as focused
as you can humanly be. But I'm also a staunch believer
in enjoying the checkpoints. Like I remember over the years,
right, you know, not as much recently, but like when the
Yankees were just dominating everybody, right, winning
championship after championship. I remember being a little bit of
a topic like, all right, you made a wild corridor.
All right, you know, big deal. You you won the first round, but
why celebrate? Well, I I number one, I think
it's good for team unity. There's also guys on that team
that didn't that maybe weren't alone for the ride when you did
win the championship. So I just, I don't know, like
I'm not, I'm not taking champagne and getting the
goggles, but I'd have to think I'd be hammering back a few
beers. Yeah, I mean, you know.
Dumping it on the Brunson's head, I.
Mean, you know it like I do and like you're saying, like I do
respect them, I guess, for that cold move.
Like, you know, we're not celebrating.
There's nothing to celebrate. But I will say, I think I've
seen a video of pretty much every single finals maker prior
celebrating after their conference final.
Yeah, yeah. Like like like pretty much every
other team regardless champion or not previous has usually
celebrated after the conference finals victory.
It's amazing too. And listen, we we do national
stuff too here. So, you know, the Cavaliers,
this team, I'm listening to Atkinson and the analytics art.
That was that was odd. Whatever.
I don't even need to really, you know, get on them for that.
That just didn't make a whole lot of sense in my opinion.
But you know, he was asked about, you know, next year and I
remember sitting here, we took a massive step and and and and I
thought that Kenny Smith's post game take was great because they
had Atkinson since presser. Then they went back to the
studio with with Chuck and Kenny and the and the crew.
They were great last night. They were dancing there at the
top. That's on.
That was like the robots out. Yep, I saw you tweeted like that
little video of like Jack and Kenny doing the thing.
That was like one of the first times in a while I was watching
that show and I just like straight up audibly like laughed
out loud, like I. Was just like, this is
hilarious. Time.
I laugh all the time without you.
I think that show is legitimately funny.
But anyway, the point is, is that I think that, you know, if
I can, I can only evaluate it like so if I'm a Cavaliers fan
and I'm listening to my head coach talk about how we, you
know, we took massive steps, we made a lot of progress.
Well, you did based on how far you went and you did advance
under duress. And you know, Max Struce missed
a lot of time and who knows, maybe they would have been a
higher seat. I know he didn't play well in
the series. Nobody really did, but he's a
good player. I mean, Max Struce could play
and they just missed a lot of threes that were wide open
really from from game one. And if they have Struce, I don't
know, do they win 456 more games?
Probably. I think they're a little bit
higher seat, whatever. But I I would be very reluctant
to hear. I would not buy in myself if my
coach was telling me that we made significant progress when
we just got swept, all right, and got obliterated every single
game. And oh, yeah, by the way, in a
close out game in my crib, I'm losing by 19 points at the half.
I've been out rebounded by 9 by 9.
I've given up 23 points on the fast break and a -, 13.
They actually gave him 25, but it was 25 to 2.
So they were -23 fast break points allowed and they were -13
points off turnover. And the thing that you saw right
away, this when I saw this, I'm like, I like I thought, I
thought there was a chance the Knicks could lose a tight one
last night. I didn't think that they would
destroy him now. I thought if it got off the
rails a little bit that the foundation of the Cavaliers
would eventually crack and then they would blow them out.
But like I did expect much more of, you know, a back and forth
to an extent, although Mitchell might go for 35.
I thought Harden might have a bit of a throwback game.
I thought some of the role players would knock down more
threes, whatever. But as soon and you saw this
right away, as soon as you saw the Cavs not getting back on
defense, I'm talking about in the first freaking half when
you're playing for your lives, constant barrage stream of guys.
It's like dudes running wide open in the secondary and like
the linebacker and the safety looking at each other like
what's going on, man? Oh, somebody behind this 10
yards, like, you know, it's on film.
The Knicks knew that the Cavaliers just did not get and I
don't understand how you can't get back on defense.
There are certain limitations that you just that you have as a
team, right? If you have a shitty offensive
line, no matter how much you try and scheme and this and that, If
you're overmatched by the four, by the three, depending upon
3443 or whatever, blitz or whatever.
But conventional stuff, a couple of bodies across from you lining
up that are just stronger, more ferocious, quicker, younger,
better. I mean, I can't crush you with
that. I could maybe crush the GM,
crush the GM for giving us a shitty old line.
But there's only so much you can do right when the guy, when the
guy in front of you is clearly better.
But things that are born on one, recognition and two effort,
those have to be non negotiable. And 20 minus at the half.
Not for the game -23 fast break points.
It is just layup. Oh, there there's OG, Oh,
there's hard, Oh, there's cat beautiful outlets outlet pass.
Oh, there's Brunson who he who basically tried to dunk.
He was so wide open on that one play.
You guys know what I'm talking about.
That to me is enough evidence and I like Kenny acts.
I think he's a terrific coach. They got to do a lot to that
team. That team's going to win times
because that team's going to win nothing the way they're
currently built. Maybe I should stop saying that,
although I I I do believe it with them.
Harden's not getting younger, whatever, but Kenny Smith really
pointed out some good things like they've got to learn to
play differently. They've got to get their bigs
involved more. Not that you get a dump, dump it
down to Jared Allen very much, but you've got to use Mobley
next year a little differently. They got a couple of rim
runners. You just didn't see a ton of rim
runs. As you know this series.
You saw a lot for the Knicks. I saw a lot of up top alley
oops, you know, to Mitchell Robinson flying out of nowhere,
you know, going up to the to the ceiling and hammered it down
like they are just the Knicks look freaking awesome right now.
Wow. It's just it's crazy.
And the cavalier years I that that's unforgivable.
Like you know, when when you're desperate and you're trying to
stave off elimination and you're home and you start out well,
like not that they were up 13 to 2, but they had a couple of
couple of possession lead there and the NBA so volatile in terms
of three-point scoring and comebacks and all that other
stuff. It's not that you think, oh,
they're UPS 8 to 2, whatever the hell it was like Cavs are going
to coast now. It's like you're up five nothing
to baseball or 21 three in the NFL.
We know it's different, but at least there was a competitive
tone and they still just didn't get back on defense.
So with all due respect to Kenny Atkinson, who I really do admire
and and and I'm rooting for because he is a local guy, of
course not this series. I wasn't informed, but I think
he's a terrific coach. I thought he was done dirty by
the Nets. Whatever.
Nobody wants to hear that. Like if Mike Brown said that
last night and the Knicks were on the other end of the beat
down like the Cavs were, I'd be getting on the air.
I promise you, I'll be getting on the air right now and saying
Mike Brown's got to go get rid of him.
Gone Loser mentality not going to work.
Fire him. So you know what is this guy see
to me this is the we'll get some calls, but can we get this guy
to call in? I I want to have this
conversation with you know, I don't even know your name at
PG17 under score 89. I'm going to guess you were a
point guard. If I can extrapolate here, I
don't. Think he's talking to you I
don't think he's talking to you bro I think he's talking to
someone in the chat I. Was going to say.
Let's just say, let's just say listen PG 17.
Listen, big time fan, big time follower of the program he
likes. He likes getting into some jabs
with I Got you with the other fans to say the least.
OK, see, by the way, do you think that my instincts are
right? He was a point guard who awarded
#17 who graduated in 89. I would love that.
I mean, he could also be named, OK, well, this is just such an
easy name, but that's this wouldn't be his actual name.
He could be named like something like Paul George, you know, And
his number was 17. Yep, Yep, yo, how about, how
about shamit? How about?
How about I just read? Something wait, I have a thing.
I have a question that I wrote down for you about Shamit.
Go ahead. OK, If you because he just made
himself millions. He just made himself millions
this offseason. Yeah, probably, Honestly,
probably about, I'd say probably about 30 to $40 million.
Like in total of the contract? Yeah, OK, OK.
No, no, no. I was going to say, I think he's
making, I think 17 to 20, dude. Well, that's what I've got, 17
to 20. Yeah, I mean, but you think
either way, go ahead. Here's a crazier hypothetical.
Yep, If you knew that you are going to sign an NBA player and
they were going to go 12 for 13 in an NBA playoff series down
the line, you don't know which playoff series, but you know at
some point in your in your NBA playoff run, Yep, players gonna
do that. How much per year you pay?
It's a good question. If you know one time for one
series, they are shooting 92% on the three-point line.
Yeah, yeah. Make sure that you add not, not
12 out of 13 overall, 12 out of 13 from behind the arc.
Yes, yeah, from three. From three.
That's a tough one. I would.
I'm not trying to cop out. I'll get you an answer.
I would have to know what else is there like, because if you
don't have like a Brunson and and the cat dynamic and and two
wings, like if he's like the second best player or third,
that's probably not going to be enough to really do anything
significant. If if you tell me that's the 7th
or 8th man, 7th man, 6th Mike. Oh yeah, by the way, Deuce can
knock him down too. I've always liked Shamit.
I Remember Me and Sal getting into Shamit.
I'm like, dude, I mean, he was at we we watched a couple of
Nick playoff games together last year in my backyard together
with the fire pigs. He doesn't live too far for me
and I was always on Sham like Shamit.
I remember after one of the playoff games on the air, I'm
like before he, you know, started playing well, I'm like,
you got to play Shamit. He's like Shamit.
I have always liked Shamit. I've always been a Shamit fan.
He's perfect for the modern NBA, you know, now and his story is
even amazing. He was.
We didn't even know he's going to be on the team.
Remember, they weren't sure what they were going to do.
Oh, they were really, They were thinking about letting him go at
a certain point or like maybe, you know, buying him out or
whatever, waving him. That's crazy.
He he he signed the unique contract and he signed it.
It was the kind of like, no, I I think it was non guaranteed.
I think. And then if you make the team,
you it it's it's kind of, you know, whatever, it's an exercise
where it becomes somewhat becomes guaranteed.
Not a ton of money, you know, relative to his peers.
But yeah, he went to camp and he had, I think he had some other
situations and there were no promises.
And if you remember, what what's the guy?
Oh, Jesus, who was in camp? I've got so many names in my
head who they brought in. Somebody's going to text this or
chat this. The veteran guard Malcolm
Brogdon. Thank you.
Malcolm Brogdon.
Wait. I I thought he was going to make
the team. Me too.
And, and I think that they thought that, like, if he
doesn't retire, I think he's on the team.
But I think Shabbat's gone. Oh yeah.
I I really, really do. It's amazing.
So you've got to be good. Also got to be a little lucky.
Yeah, a little bit. Circumstances.
The health, all the things that could have happened that didn't.
It is. It's amazing.
Go ahead, Jay. I know you.
No. Brogdon I saw like a little
Instagram, just it was like a meme.
What do you say last night? Malcolm Brogdon Think about the
NBA teams that he was on and what the team went on to do the
next season. He was on the 2020 Milwaukee
Bucks, he was on the 2023 Boston Celtics, and he was slated to be
on this Knicks team. Yep, yes.
And I remember when I remember when that came to fruition.
And I'm like, all right, champagne, good pedigree, good
veteran. I've always respected Brogdin.
I was so shocked that he retired this quickly and granted he has
dealt with ACL injuries and a bunch of lower leg injuries
throughout his career but man like he was still a solid
player. He won six man of the year 2.
Literally 2. Seasons ago, Twice, yeah.
Didn't he win it? Twice he won, we got.
Two years. He won it twice.
Yeah. Yeah.
For the player, probably. For the Bucks back in the day,
yeah. It's a good question here, Avery
Summit been with the channel for really from day one.
By the way, what do we got there?
How are the likes? How are the likes doing about?
It I got to, I got to pull it up on my phone and then I can
check. Let's go get the likes up.
Slam It 270 likes Slam. All right, at least.
All right, so SBT, is there a single player on this Knicks
team, from Brunson to Kolik? Who?
Who you would be unhappy if your kid wanted their jersey?
That is a good question. Goes to show the character of
this roster is Immaculate. Hashtag be real.
Yeah. And listen, I don't know that I
really thought about it through that prism, but I have thought
about often how likable this group is.
You know, I'm not trying to hide the Cat.
Of course, Cat frustrated me, you know, at points and.
And so every once in a while, still does, by the way, He's not
perfect, but Bridges, you know, was the source of consternation
for many. Not just me, but I mean,
character, A+ human beings, selfless, playing for the guy
next to all the things that, you know, what if you coach or you
played? And it really doesn't matter
what level, but as long as you have a good coach, you don't
need Newt Rockney or Pat Riley or John Wooden.
But if you were blessed to have a good coach, whether it was in
the 4th grade, travel baseball, 7th grade CYO, college division,
3D1 minors, majors, what overseas, if you had one of
those types of coaches, that's kind of the message that they
espouse, you know, before they get into the concepts and all
that other stuff. You talk about playing for the
for the guy next to you. You talk about being unselfish.
Like those are very core components of team play, right?
More important in basketball and and hockey, a little less
important in baseball because it's more series of individual
sports. But you still, you know, if if
you're old for four and your buddy hits a three run shot and
and you're sulking in the corner because you had a rough game,
well then you know you're not you're not being a good
teammate. We know that.
So I'm not saying it never pops up in baseball, but it's
certainly more obvious. And especially when you have a
chance to shoot, you just pass up a good shot for a better
shot. Like a lot of the shitty teams
aren't doing that. The Knicks character is just
it's all time. It's all the, and really, it's
crazy because I always thought now they've got these, these
qualities as well. But every time we talk about the
Knicks, there's always, you know, since for those of us who
didn't see the championship teams, right, just the 90s and,
and whatever, you know, like the Knicks have always been scrappy
and tough and a little bit of an underdog status.
You know, never like 2 or never two or three.
You know, even though Kat and Brunson have made all NBA
together as players, they did it last year.
You know, I'm, I'm not saying it, it didn't happen at all.
But nobody looks at Kat the way you look like Pippen to Jordan
or, you know, maybe a Kareem to Magic or a Mikhail to Berg.
You know what I mean? No, no disrespect.
It's just a different level. It's a, it's a level lower,
right? But they, they play, it's like a
Symphony. It like everybody's got a a
unique instrument. And everybody plays it to
perfection. It really is amazing.
And I remember the first thing that my dad told me about those
championship teams was the unselfish nature, the IQ and how
they really were great teammates.
How they just they're passing and you just see it in the black
and white or that the grainy color photo video, you know, of
everybody kind of doing the right thing, You know, beautiful
ball movement, getting the open shot guys knowing their role and
playing the way they were required to play to maximize
what they did as a team. And that's what this team does.
You know, it's crazy because as much as we love the 90s teams,
Starks didn't always play that way.
Now, Starks always played with his hair on fire and like an
absolute dog. So we give him a pass for, you
know, jacking up some bad shots and having some rough nights.
Starks is golden in, in my book, no matter what he did against
the Rockets, whatever. But you didn't always get that
with those teams. You know, there was a little
friction, probably more than you guys know because I remember
talking to Charles Oakley about this specifically and friction's
relative. I don't mean they were throwing
fists in the locker room, but you know, a little disconnect
where Patrick was kind of doing his own thing and you know, some
of the other guys kind of felt it and we're bothered by it to
an to an extent. This Knicks team is just, they
are their Symphony. I don't know how else to say it.
They really are their Symphony. Everybody just sounds.
It is beautiful music. All right, Jay, let's get a
couple of calls up. Let's go.
Let's get the likes going. Appreciate everybody hopping in.
Go ahead. What do we have?
Sir, we've got our friend Dan from Port Jefferson.
Danny, Dan, can you hear us? I can hear you.
What up, Danny Boy? What's?
Up beat D. What's going on, man?
How? Are you?
Oh man, Oh jeez, this is this run.
It's like it's incredible. It's like unprecedented.
I've never seen like it's 11 games and they're just
dominating everybody, I think. What the two losses were dealt
with, the one point loss to the Hawks and then every other game
they're just winning by double digits.
They're just completely dominating.
And they're doing it on the road that's they're doing.
It on the road. Too, man.
I mean, 51 in Atlanta, 30 in Philly, and 37 in Cleveland.
It's just crazy stuff. Yeah, these close out games too.
Like what's the point? The point differential is
insane. Yeah, well, I think that they're
+2. I got to update it from last
night, +2 Whatever they are, I mean, they first of all, they've
won. They've won by the average of
19.9 per game in the playoffs from game one against the halt.
Like everything, it's just they are.
They're destroying people destroying.
People and they made the Cavs quit.
I mean, in the in the halftime show, I don't know if you saw
it. I saw it.
Chuck, he puts a little thing on the on the screen of like, quit
and it's the Cavaliers. Yeah, I think he made it like a
verb, right to quit. I saw he was.
I'll tell you he was on a heater last night.
I think at some point Kenny, Kenny, I think it was Kenny, but
it could have been Jack, but I think it was Kenny.
Kenny's like, dude, what do we turn this into the Cavaliers
roast? Because you know, at one point
somebody said, you know, the Knicks and it was funny that he
said this. I I forget who it was, may have
been already like you know, no, I already wouldn't have said
this like putting the the boot to the Cavaliers ass and Charles
like they put it up their Hess. Remember that he.
Said it before the yeah yeah, I think even said it in the
pregame. I thought that was at half, but
either way they they were. Then you got the robots coming
out. I mean, they were phenomenal
last night, those guys. I know it's, it's great hearing
Chuck because like he usually hates on the Knicks all the
time. Yeah.
Well, I mean, let, let hold on, but let Danny, let's be honest
here. It's not like the Knicks have
given anybody who covers the NBA a lot of reasons to to to
glorify them here. Trust me, I, I know, I
understand. I, I get it.
I mean, they've been so bad for so long and now they're just on
on top of the world until they get the next four wins.
They got to get that obviously and did.
Did you catch James Harden in the post game?
I did. Like is this guy delusional?
I I can't. James Harden to me is the guy
that I just, yeah, I don't have any interest.
I don't have. Any I don't.
Like him like he's flopping and he just like says he's stupid
he's. Not a winner, dude.
That's the bottom line, Dan. Yeah, Oh yeah.
Not winner. Not winner at all.
I mean at the at. The ultimate level.
I mean, of course he's the winner in life and he's a great
like to the peers, like the the assassins, the guys who are
possessed by winning, including Brunson.
He just ain't that guy. No, he does not.
He's never been that guy. No playoff Harden is like a real
thing. Like he just does not come
through for. His Nope, I agree.
I just saw a video of when he of James Harden, he was on the the
Rockets when Chris Paul was there when they were like the in
the huddle and like Chris Paul was like trying to like, you
know, amp him up. But I'm not sure exactly what he
was saying. And then James Harden just wax
his hand. Like Chris Paul is trying to
give him like a pound. Like, no, let's go, let's go.
And then James Harden just wax him.
I'm like, this guy's just a bad teammate, the way he plays.
Hey, listen, I guess what though, Danny ain't no problem
man. No, no, no, not a problem.
I know. It's never our problem.
Let's get these four wins now. Whoever it is, let's just get
it. Let's go, buddy.
I know we'll be talking a lot next couple of weeks.
Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it.
Here you go. How about this?
Let's get another chat up here at Andrew Miller 513.
I worry that the West plays a different game.
I'm not poo poo with the Nixon in any way, but the fact that
they didn't really get tested scares me a bit.
Like a majority, like a major reality check might be coming.
You know, I, I, I understand that fear to an extent, but I
don't, it's not the same as like say, I don't know why this is
popping into my head, but I'll give you an example here.
It's a million years ago, as many of my examples are, when
Bobby Hurley came in as a young player at Duke and they played
Larry Johnson's UNLV run Rebels and got absolutely dismantled,
right? It was his first year dismantled
and then Bobby and company came back and beat him the next year,
that UNLV team. And I think it's a little bit
more in college, even on the college football level, or even
like Tyson when he's in the ring with Buster Douglas in Japan.
And Buster's not going away when you are the bully, right?
And you know, you just you win, you get downhill immediately.
People fear you and people fear that you want to, you want.
I don't know why I can't say that you want LV team.
I'm just say the rebels, they feared, you know, that team,
everybody in the world feared Mike Tyson.
And even like, you know, another stupid deal.
Even when Drago gets cut, you see, he's not a machine.
He's a man. Like you cut him.
And to me, when you get when you're a bully and you get cut,
you know, some bullies, most bullies go backwards rather than
going forwards. The Knicks aren't a bully like
the Knicks. And again, I know what you mean.
There's going to be first of all, they're not going to sweep
the finals. News flash, it's not going to
happen. They're going to play a
different brand. They're going to play different
players, different skill sets, different challenges, who if
they play the Thunder, they're playing a champion.
I mean that that just start with that.
If they play the Spurs, they're playing somebody who seems to be
the next version of Wilt, Kareem and and Jack and then him like
the modern version of of those three, right?
So it's not going to be easy. But I think the greatest asset
of the Knicks, they have a slow heartbeat like the Knicks don't,
even though they they have gotten ahead and they have
played downhill and they have hit a barrage of threes and done
whatever they want in the half court, gotten out in transition,
gotten stops. I mean, going on these
ridiculous, you know, 18 to 20 to two runs, basically whenever
they want and winning by, you know, 30 plus points multiple
times in each round. Like I think I would be a little
concerned if I felt like that's the only way that they can win.
But because they can play different types of stuff, like
listen, fights, you know, styles make fights.
And you know, if it's going to be a race to 130 getting up and
down the court, we've seen the Knicks can do that because
they've got a ton of guys who can shoot and they got a lot of
guys who can finish on the wing as well.
If it's half court, you know, and and and and you're you're
running the ball more through cat now, ideally it's going to
be a hybrid. You're not you're not going to
like run all night like the Lakers with Magic and you're not
going to take the air out of the ball like, you know, like it's
1959 or whatever and black and white team, you know, in in on
on like you see the old highlights like a koozie and
amazing. But you're not going to play
like that. I think you're going to get a
mixture of running up and down, banging threes and then doing
what you have to do what it calls for in the half court.
But I think they're equipped to do that And the DNA of the team.
We keep saying it, but I think it really is worth saying now
based on that, that fear, that question that I just read like
it's it all started. And obviously with Leon Rose and
Dolan staying out of the way and of course, blah, blah, blah.
Moving on from Tom Pivotal. Tom pivotal bringing consistency
and toughness and energy and focus night tonight.
And Julius Randle was a piece of that puzzle for sure.
Shout out respect to him. He got it going and then more
talent brought it to where we are now.
But what do we always say about these Knicks, the Nova Knicks?
And Brunson's got it, and Hearts got it, and Bridges has him, and
Debo had it. And I wish Debo was here rather
than on crutches watching right now with that ruptured Achilles.
But I do believe that they had the character, if they fall
behind two games to one in the series or one game to none or
whatever it might be, or, you know, they're down by 10, but
they were down. Think about what they did last
year against the Celtics. You know how they came back
twice from 20 points. So we've seen it before, again,
different matchups, different rosters, different styles.
I'm not saying it's absolutely going to equate to previous
comebacks, but we know that they've got it in them.
So you could be aware of it, but I it's not a fear of mine.
It's not, you know, it's I really don't have much fear with
this team right now. It's confidence, not arrogance,
it's confidence. It's hope, it's enjoyment, it's
pride. You know, you just hope that
they finished the race and I'm not, you know, I'm not going to
guarantee that they will. I want to see who they're
playing. I want to see what happens in
these next couple of games here. But I mean, we're four away.
We're four away from all the shit that we've talked about.
But all these years about this team.
I remember being asked to be part and I said no because I'm
I'm just not that kind of guy. But I remember being asked to be
a part of an anti Dolan anti Knicks demonstration in front of
Madison Square Garden. I'm like, you guys do that.
Like I think I was even doing the Nick Supreme poem.
I'm like, I probably shouldn't do it, you know, even though I
wanted to, you know, But now it's like the the the entire
energy has changed. And it's almost like Dolan, who
seemed for so long like the anti hero, like he just reveled in
being despised. I know that that sounds crazy.
Just got sitting there like this courtside looking miserable and
frumpy. But if you see a lot of these
videos after the games, now you got James Dolan coming out of a
limo or, you know, you know, a nice, nice SUV which signed
basketballs and interacting with the fans.
Hey, Woody, take it take. I never thought I'd say Woody,
if Woody Johnson could become James Dolan, we got some good
stuff coming. Just watch what he's done.
You know which. Is why.
Imagine saying that 10 years ago.
Oh my. Gosh.
But This is why. This is why I don't like, I
don't believe that bad ownership is terminal like I don't, I know
it seems that way with Woody. I know it seemed that way with
Dolan. I know it seemed that way at
times with the Wilpons and other ownership groups throughout the
entire country with different teams, right?
But to me now, if you're a team that doesn't spend the money,
like you just don't reinvest, that's different.
I can't help you. I mean, there's got to be a
certain threshold that you're willing to hit if you're truly
willing to compete and go for it, right?
And all of the teams in New York have that, but some other teams
in other cities don't, right? But if you spend the money, and
Dolan was never reluctant to spend, he just didn't know how
to spend it and he didn't know how to stay out of the way, it
really just takes 1 smart decision.
And once you see early evidence of that decision paying off and
coming to fruition, you got to know to lay out.
And that's what James Dolan changed.
He gave he basically said he basically said, Leon, save me,
help me, save me. All right, you got all the
juice. Do whatever you want and I'm
going to be there. I'm cutting the checks, all
right. And Leon Rose has proven to be
the most valuable hire. I mean, you know, I mean, let's
I I would say Pat Riley, but Pat didn't win.
So I can't even say Pat. You know, I mean, shit, even
even if the Knicks weren't to win the champ, weren't to win
the championship here, it's not like they have their windows
sealed shut and everybody's 34 years old and it's over.
You know, you're 1 little creative roster tweak away.
I don't mean blowing it up from, you know, being in a position
to, you know, battle for a championship for a couple years.
I think it's going to be very tough.
It's going to get tougher, which is why you've got to cash in
this year. But I mean, the transformation
of James Dolan is nothing short of absolutely amazing.
It's stunning because he finally stayed out of the way.
It's not that bad. Bad owners never hire the right
person. Sometimes you hire the right
person and you know your petulance, or I'm not even
talking about Dolan now, although he was very petulant
for many years. Your petulance or your lack of
vision or your stubbornness, whatever it might be, gets in
the way of the early stages of a plan that may have actually
worked. You just never gave it enough
chance to bake and to grow and to evolve.
And that that that worries me about Woody Johnson.
You know, I'm not I'm not going to turn this into a jet.
You know, what do you think? But to contrast it to the and it
terrified me about the Knicks, obviously, because what I always
worried about now he's proven to have moved on and grown from
this Dolan. What I was worried about with
Dolan, aside from, well, the ridiculousness, which we talked
about chapter and verse, my fear was that when the Knicks finally
got to the precipice of a championship, like he was going
to want to be the guy that got all the credit, you know?
And I don't I don't think that he's like that.
Like he always stayed out of the way of the Rangers.
Now the Knicks, you know, Rangers, I'm not taking a shot
at hockey, but there's just a lot more Knicks fans than the
Royal Ranger fans. Like NBA is more popular than
the NHL, right? We can't agree on that.
I'm sorry. It's no disrespect.
Hockey's great. Those guys are warriors.
It's the best trophy in sports. I've got respect for hockey, but
it's it's not the same, right? So I know a lot of people have
an issue with that. It's not a diss.
It's my reality. If it's something, if you have
something else, that's fine. I respect that.
But the point is, is that I feel the same way about Woody, like
my biggest fear. And Woody ain't getting the
benefit of anything because he's been an absolute train wreck,
right? So to me, Woody's one of these
dudes who's seeking all the glory, like Woody Johnson.
It's almost like it's like, yeah, I'm not calling him the
little nerd. I don't want to.
I'm not getting personal. But that's like the little nerd
in school who wants the validation.
Like, I feel like Woody, you know, needs the validation.
And my fear is like, when things start getting.
And I think that they're getting in a better spot now because,
you know, I have full belief in Muji.
Different story with Aaron Glenn.
We'll see, but like, if The Jets start incrementally getting a
little bit better, which I believe that they will, and then
it stagnates for a second, does that petulance come back?
Does he make them talk about Woody do something that now
derails the progress and we're back to phase one?
Like that is my legitimate fear with Woody because he spends
money. You know, they've drafted a lot
of good players now, a lot of Magan, like Sauce was good.
Q was good. You know, it's like they they
they had no players when when Joe Douglas was here.
But it really is like you can't talk about the Knicks today.
You can you can't talk about them and just gloss over and
say, hey, good job James Dolan. It's got to be more than that.
Because the vitriol, and he earned every ounce of it, the
vitriol that we unleashed toward him, he earned it all.
But it was hot. Like it was it was deep and it
was it was rough. And if you're going to come with
that energy, even though it was warranted, I believe, I don't
mean personal attacks, but everything else warranted, well,
you better be man enough to man up and say this man's changed.
And this man has hired smart people and allowed them what a
concept to do their job and stay out of the way.
You know, I met James Dolan twice.
You want to hear When I met him? Yeah, I mean of course of.
Course not. A very impressive exchange here.
So Isaiah's coach of the Knicks, all right, And I'm doing a pre
and a post game and the halftime show for the Knicks on the radio
back in the day. And I would go and I would
interview Isaiah before every game in his office.
Which which was cool, I got a lot of times.
Oh. My God, yes, I liked Isaiah.
I I truly did. He he, he was cool.
And one time we were wrapping up and me and Zeke were just kind
of shooting the shit. They was not good.
Like there was more bury. There was they, they were mess.
They were more contro. Whatever the problem was we were
talking about, it was being pretty honest with me and where
his office was in the in, I guess, I guess it still is for
Mike Brown in the bowels of the garden, although it's it's been
reconfigured so maybe it's in a different spot.
Actually, I think it is, but the Nick's lock room is right there.
Anyway, I'm wrapping up. We do the interview on talking
to Zeke, Knock knock incomes Dolan, Steve Mills, shit, one or
two other big Nick executives right.
And now it's incumbent upon me. I'm just a little tiny radio guy
and the and the Knicks and Dolan had to clear me to do it.
So I was very thankful. I don't expect him to introduce
himself to me. I'm just a little a little peon.
He owns the Knicks. I'm going to I'm going to show
the respect. All right, So I introduced
myself and I shake his hand and I'm like, and I said to myself,
just get out. Like, it's not, it's not a good
meeting that, you know, she didn't even look me in the eye,
right? Yeah, yeah.
Like I get all the shit going on, but still.
All right, I'm like, OK. And then like a month later, it
happened again. And I got the, I got a symbol
that were sitting out the times that things were not getting
better. So it's not like he was in a
different mood, but same thing. Barely shook my hand, didn't
look at me. And I and I remember saying,
fuck that. I I'll never, I'll never say
I'll never, I'll never say hi to him again, you know, but you've
got to be again, you know, aware and, and and big boy enough to
understand that, you know, I mean, first of all, people can
change. But even if he even if he would
do that today, the job that he's done as the owner of the.
Knicks is what really matters. You'd have to go.
Hey, I still respect it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember. I was.
Annoyed with the second time.
I'm like, I'm never shaking his hand again.
That's too fun. But you've seen the videos of
him coming out of the the cars, right?
He's been like, absolutely. I remember he came up to
somebody the other day. They're like, who's your
favorite Nick, right. He said it.
He's like, who's your favorite Nick of all time?
And I, I think the kid said the guy said Clyde just hands him a
basketball with Clyde Frazier signed.
Like that is a connectivity that is awesome.
And credit and credit to him for capitalizing on that.
He could very easily just go his own way and go back to his
palatial, you know, get on the chopper, go out to the Hamptons.
It is, you know, 80 or $90,000,000 compound, whatever
he's got and remain disconnected from the world.
He's got that kind of money. He's got that kind of affluence,
but give him a lot of credit there. 300 likes Drop them. 300
likes We need 300 likes, right? Now you tell them baby, this
instant. OK couple First off the chat, I
just I've been loving this. I don't know if you saw it in
the top in the bottom left. I have not just been.
Rattling off every, you know, down rotten Knicks player Frank
Langston Galloway. Galloway was a guard.
Roddy Baker. Hold on.
Hold on.
Go through. Hold on.
Who was the last one? Rodney Baker.
Roddy Baker. I thought Wichita State.
I thought he was going to be good.
Rod Baker, Chris Duhon from Duke.
Point guard. Keep going.
Who else? Yes, I think he went to
Michigan. I I couldn't be awful.
Was he a Michigan? Kid.
Yeah, I believe so. He was pretty solid there too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he may have been a
lefty, too. Mike Sweetney.
I was at the draft when they drafted him.
Yeah, he was top 10 from Georgetown.
Who else we got here? Who else?
Who else we got there? Who else?
James. I've never even heard of it.
James. White.
I believe he was a forward I I remember it's also a very common
name. Maybe I'm conflated with some
other, but I feel like I really do remember him.
Who else? I think it like James Young.
This is the number one guy. Oh, absolutely.
The man bun. He's mentioned Louie had the man
bun. He had the big man bun.
The going on. Yeah, of course.
Remember Louie? Vonley.
Noah Vonley, I remember him, played for the Magic for a
little bit as well. Tony Douglas.
Florida State. I like Tony Douglas.
Tony Douglas was going to be good.
Oh, God, I thought half these guys were going to be good.
Stevie Francis. I remember, hold on.
I remember doing a the postgame show.
We you could easily check. It doesn't matter.
But Stevie Francis, I believe it was down in nation's capital
against the Wizards hit a buzzer beater and the Knicks absolutely
sucked. And he stood up on the scores
table or did something crazy. It was like Marbury and Francis
and Crawford. Now, Stevie was nice.
Stevie was nice at Maryland. Stevie was nice in the NBA
before his knees. But Stevie Francis, you know,
but yeah, I remember that that game winner against, I believe
it was the Wizards. Go ahead.
Who else we got? Anybody else?
We got some old. Malik Rose.
Malik was one of my favorite guys ever.
He was my go to guy from Drexel. Anybody question my Knick fandom
suck on this. Let's see how many people that
you listen to could run through this without anything in front
of them. I see a name, I give you a story
so stop with that nonsense Malik.
What I loved about Malik Rose now he was on those bad teams
with Marbury and those guys. Malik Rose was always my go to
guy. Jamal Crawford as well and David
Lee too. But Malik was the OG that the
Jedi cuz he came from those spurs teams that won the
champion. Really.
OK, yeah, yeah. And he played against my buddy
that I grew up with in college. Malik was at at Drexel, my buddy
was at Hofstra. So we talked.
That's how I kind of started the relationship.
He's like, Oh yeah, I remember Jimmy.
So we talked about that a little bit.
He was always a great voice of, of, of realness of, of where
they were. And he would just tell me he's
like this team man, like he was, you know, he just said he don't,
don't say that. I said it.
But, you know, we're not this and we're not professional,
whatever, whatever it might be. Like.
I love Malik Rose. Who else said the other name?
Old Penny. Penny.
Yeah. Old, old old Jalen Rose came out
for a minute. Barnyani.
Yeah. I actually got excited for
Barnyadi because he was, you know, he he average juice.
He scored like 21 or 22 points a game for the Raptors at one
point there. Barnyadi.
And we'll end it on this Eddie F and Curry.
Oh, God, that Eddie, Eddie, Eddie Curry was one of the more
frustrating people that I had to go.
That we that we not I, that we went through because Eddie Curry
was incredibly talented and you wound up having a heart issue,
which was a problem for Eddie. He just, he just wasn't a
serious professional man. He did not take his cramps.
And I'm not trying to shit on him now.
He's, you know, he's he's not playing.
I'm not trying to, you know, take a shot here, but just
reacting to these names. He was never in shape.
And I remember like, you know, going into he wasn't here for
that long, but for the couple of seasons, especially when they
first got him for the Bulls, where I liked it because I'm
like, he's young. Remember, he was drafted at a
high school along with Tyson Chandler.
And I'm like, this guy's big. He's a decent athlete.
You know, I'd have to think he's going to get in better shape.
Pretty good hands, pretty nimble for a big guy.
And he just, and he had everyone.
So he'd have a throwback night where I'm like, there we go, 23
and 11. It's coming.
The amount of time that I talked about Eddie Curry as a
potential, not savior, but as a stabilizer and all that, how
much of a waste of energy that was.
Oh my God, who else? Keep them coming, dude.
I mean, this is fun. This is fun because I'm seeing
ones that are like, horrified. Benny Baker.
From listen, I know he had a
similar kind of thing to Eddie Curry where he dealt with some
off court. Issues yeah, well, he had he he
went to rehab, he was, but he was alcohol issue he was he's.
Like one of those forgotten All Stars of the 90s.
He was, he was great for. The box I believe Benny was
number 42 from Hartford University from from up in
Connecticut, obviously was with the Bucs All Star team came
here. Vinny Baker, wow, who else we
got? I remember him guard.
This is fun. What a game this is Keep.
It let's go old Dikembe. Rest in peace, Dikembe.
RIPRIP. Great, great.
Absolutely. And Drake Vice I.
Mean, first of all, you spelled it wrong, but I get the point
and I'm not I'm not going to bank on it, was Weis.
I'm not going to bank on Freddie Weiss.
He, he had some real issues like his run with the Knicks and in
the NBA. Well, with just with the Knicks,
you know, not not literally with the Knicks, but all the stuff
that went down when they drafted him over on our test led him to
a very dark place. I don't know if it was pills or
oh, wow, like the contemplation. I believe he contemplated
killing himself. Like I'm, I'm not going to beg
on Freddie, Vice said. But we all, we all know.
What? I mean, wait, we've got our man
in the call room. We'll pull him up in a SEC.
Anybody going to stump me by the way?
I just ran through. Dirty I I kind of disagree with
this one a little bit. Seth, I don't know.
Is Kyle Quinn really? Was he really that horrific?
No, no, no. He wasn't a great center, but he
wasn't like no. Horrible.
I agree with you. He was from Queens, I believe.
I know he's a local kid, Kyle. Oh, yeah, I liked him.
Thick, strong, tough. Now I got no, I had no problems.
I mean, the teams weren't good. But no, I got no disrespect.
Shane Larkin. Shane Larkin.
Oh my God almighty. OK, I thought this guy was
decently solid, too. He wasn't good for the Knicks,
not never mind no Wayne. Was he a Carolina?
Where'd he play in college? Carolina, probably.
I remember him for Lakers and he.
Maybe I'm off on that season. He just double check Wayne
Ellington was it you win C. Yep, there.
You go. Who else we got?
What was the one after Wayne or before it?
One more Courtney. Lee.
Oh yeah, Courtney Lee, Shooter, a little guard.
And here. Here's another ultimate one I
like to teach you about that I liked him.
No way really. I remember that was, you know
where he went, you know what trade he was in.
Well wait, did he get traded to the Knicks or away from the
Knicks? Away.
Oh gosh, oh gosh. Jr.
Smith and Aman Shumpert. What, what?
What? No, wasn't he with?
He wasn't it Mozgov and Chandler and he wasn't to Denver?
You and Carmelo. You right, You they.
Sent like 4 guys there. It was definitely Chandler,
definitely Gallo, because Gallo played well before he ripped up
his knee. Timber Faye Mozgoff.
Yeah, Timber Faye. I mean he was the original
overpaid NBA player like. There's a lot of them, dude.
No, no, no. He was not the I'm going to, was
he not? Mama, Mama.
Modern 2016 era but school me, school me, school me.
Stop I'm I'm going to school you here.
Look up the name John Konkak Jay.
I believe it's Joni don't even think there was an HJONKONCAK
and just have contract. John Konkak in the late 80s or
early 90s got a big deal from I believe it was the Atlanta Hawks
and he became the poster. As a you dude, you weren't even
born so I don't expect you to know it.
It's all good, but this was this guy talking about going into a
bank and stealing. I'm looking at his numbers.
Dude was making an NBA contract that you could make today.
Yeah. What was the number?
What? What was it?
Six years, 13 million and he was averaging 2 points.
I told you, yeah, that was. A2 points A, you're right.
What year did he get that contract again?
He got that contract in the year 1989 I.
Said 89 or early I'm late in these early nights OK, so in
eight I've got a stats up here and John was announced one of
these guys who was a very good college player, John Konkak.
He was an SMU. You didn't see him on TV a lot,
but he could he was I remember hearing his name I remember
seeing him in like Sports Illustrated, like the top 25.
I would always like cut out the pictures of, you know, of the
Big East players, put them on my door.
And I'm so I, I was pretty familiar with John in college.
So we signed it in 89 and then he comes back and he averaged
3.7 points per game off that contract.
Then he went for 4.13 point 1. And I mean jeez, I mean 3.5.
Like the guy shouldn't have even been remotely touching a cord
but as an MBA player. Listen, let's just call it the
way it is and, and the NBA used to have a lot of these guys and
no disrespect to John, John Konkak was one of those 7 foot
white guys who couldn't do anything but bring 6 fouls to
the table. I mean, that's it.
I mean, there was no European influence yet.
There was no step backs and no, no look passes like, you know,
like Sabonis coming from from Russia or obviously players
today and there's a ton of them. But no, he was just he was a
stiff. I couldn't move, couldn't run,
couldn't jump, couldn't, couldn't do anything.
But he had 6 fouls and back then, I know it sounds crazy you
needed dudes like that. You needed guys who were, no, he
wasn't an enforcer like Oakley, but he had no problem, you know,
fouling you and playing, you know, he was played with
Dominique and those guys. Those were good teams.
This, this one, this literally sent like a chill.
Like, I saw this name and I was like, yeah, this dude is the
epitome of like, you know, no dishes, no.
Like, we get it, he's a. Hooper.
He is the literal epitome of like holy NBA NBA player.
Yep. Holy NBA player.
I've got a better one. I'm not trying to top you and
trust me, that fits right. By the way, this is turning into
a fun bit. I mean, I love this.
I mean, I'm seeing Joshi Shinjo Mets.
OK, OK, OK, OK. I'll field her.
I think he had like orange hair. Shinjo and Mets.
He probably bet in 3rd for the Mets now.
Freaking Mets. This weekend was crazy for that.
Also, I had a let me just give a quick 10 second aside this
weekend I became addicted. I don't know if your son's into
this to MLB The Show. Oh.
Yeah, he's got it. It has got me in a baseball
hole. I don't think life, I don't
think I don't think I ever expected.
Dude, I'm watching documentaries.
I'm watching vids. I watched like a whole an hour
thing on a rod yesterday just on like the most controversial
player to ever play. Are you serious?
I am deep right now, bro. Nice.
Actually, Alex. Just texted me before I'm trying
to get him on this week. Nice.
I saw I saw him courtside at the Knicks game last week.
Alex single now. Oh, OK, it's not a you know, I I
I love this ex-girlfriend. So I'm like, you know, I was, I
was surprised. OK, Rob.
And listen, maybe they get back together, but you know, in the
meantime, single Alex is going to be hitting that, hitting that
path. I would.
Imagine. There you go already hard M
kudos is begging me. Jerome James.
That's that was a problem, yeah. He got paid off one game, one
series Jerome James I still he was an absolute I saw Jerome
James. This is a true story.
I saw Jerome James. So my old station 1050 was at
the Garden, right? Literally in Madison Square
Garden. And there was a Verizon around
the corner on 34th St. and I had to go something with my phone
and I'm in there. Jerome James gets out of a
limousine. It's the middle of the day and
he's wearing pink slippers like these big pink furry, stylish
pimp slippers and something else that was wacky.
And I'm like, what the fuck? Look at this.
No wonder why we suck. Look at this guy.
But nobody has mentioned the name.
Nobody's mentioned the name. To me, that is the perfect
encapsulation of everything that was wrong with the Knicks.
We've got a lot of good ones. Trust me.
There's a lot of people vying for that prize that now it also
comes with a personal story. So that's if I, if I hadn't
experienced this, I don't know that I would.
I would say this name, but I wouldn't say it #1 You ready for
the name? Yeah, Ronaldo, Bachmann.
Oh, I don't even know. I don't even come close.
And. It's a late first round pick who
actually showed a little bit of promise, could defend the great
athlete, right? But this was the height of the
Knicks dysfunction now, and this is all when I was doing the
stuff with the radio broadcast where he was.
What year was this? If I had to guess, Who the hell
knows, 2005, 6, something like that, right?
Possibly 7. I don't think it would have been
beyond that, but I might be off a year or two where, I mean,
they were just a disaster on the court.
They were a disaster off the court, right?
And I remember there was, now this is not like 2 1/2 hours
before the game. This is about like basically the
layup line had kind of started before the game.
And I'll never forget I saw Ronaldo Balkman.
Now I'm not mad at him. I mean, it's actually this
pretty. It's pretty bolder in hindsight,
but when you're trying to win, it's probably not a good look.
He's sitting courtside in his fucking uniform.
He's wearing his next uniform because he's getting ready to
play a game and he's there like basically where Spike would sit.
What? With a model on each side.
What the hell again? It's hard to get mad at them.
What bowler? You know, if you're playing at
Rucker Park, you're playing a little pick up, you have a
little fun little celebrity game.
It was a regular season Knick game.
Oh my God, bar mitzvah bro. Yo that is crazy.
And you would met Jay. Now, I wouldn't have done it
just based on my affiliation with the team.
But at that point, could you imagine if I would have taken a
picture of that and just put that on social media?
You know, him chilling. It is Nick's uniform with he's
still got his warmups. I like, I think it may have been
this one, I think it was Reebok back then or some version of it
just chilling with two, you know, 2 models, one on either
side. I mean look how far.
That's kind of baller it's. Kind of.
Now they just get the models after the game.
Come on man, scroll up. Oh, OK, somebody.
I didn't see it. I didn't see it, but I've been
hit. With a lot of.
Names here respect Alan Z Yeah. Anybody.
Are there any other good ones? Anybody.
Else dude, I think. We, I mean we ran through a.
Lot. Oh, Quintel.
I don't even you don't know the name Quintel, but here's a
little Side Story to Quintel Woods.
So did you see the Blazers documentary yet that I told you
to watch? You probably didn't.
See I need to I. Need to all right, I don't know
if it was Netflix or Amazon. I saw the day that it came out.
Awesome, right, absolutely awesome.
Stoudemire, she'd phenomenal and they Quintel Woods comes up
there. Quintel Woods was, I think he
was about 6-8, chiseled, good athlete, interesting, but he had
some multi chord issues and he was involved in some, I think it
was pitbulls some dog fighting scandal.
Man. Yeah, no, legit, legit.
I remember him very well. Isaiah brought him in, no doubt.
Quintel Woods or Kintel. I I I don't know how you, but
yeah, I remember him. I do.
What is this?
BT's got a story for everybody. Not not everybody, but, you
know, when you have access, as I did for, you know, for a lot of
those years, you can you can see a lot of stuff there.
Impressive. Speaking of.
Yeah, we said, we said Freddie Vice, of course, that's one of
the first names that comes up. So Speaking of this here, Jay,
I've got a real dilemma. I think my wife thinks I have
powers that I just don't have. She's like, you've got to take
you got to take our son to to the NBA Finals.
And I'm like, you know, of course you don't think I've
thought about it. I mean, first of all, how much
is it going to just to get get in right?
I mean, do you have, do you have that kind of or like do you have
that kind of power, bro? I mean, not really, to be fully
honest, I'd like to say yeah. I mean, I mean, what can I, can
I, what am I going to do? I mean, I did text Spike.
I want to get Spike on the show. Haven't heard back yet.
I'm not going to go and ask Spike, yo, you got extra tickets
or what are you going to do? Because I listen, I'm not
paying. I cannot.
I'll be totally honest with you. It's irresponsible for me to
justify paying a couple of $1000 for a couple of hours.
I mean. I don't blame you for that.
You know, and this is coming from the guy who, you know,
always looks into this camera or a microphone and says, hey, if
Yanks are in the World Series and it's a late game where
Knicks my son's staying up, he's watching, he's going to school
tired. Like I create those.
I am all about that stuff. But it's got to be financially
prudent. I mean, you know, I've, I've,
I've done pretty well for a long time and there were many times I
wouldn't even flinch said sure, how much couple thousand, let's
go, you know, but you know, I've, I've got to consider that
a little bit now as, as we build this thing out.
And then this is where she has no idea.
She's like, oh, just get credentials.
I'm going to get credential BT unleash credential.
I mean, my gosh, I appreciate, by the way, that's not a knock
at her at all. I appreciate her.
I it is. I appreciate her.
She even, you know, because she texted me that last night.
She didn't want to forget. We were down here watching the
game. She was upstairs with my
daughter and she's like, you got it, you got it.
You got to get there. You got to take them.
So what I'm thinking is maybe the happy sweet spot, but I
don't even know how to do this would be to to go go watch party
at Radio City for for for an awake.
Game if yo, if you're going, let me know.
Like dude, that would be awesome, right?
The tickets for that are only $10.
Yeah, I don't know. Yo, that's not a price thing.
That's just an access thing. There's only, I think there was.
Well, how many 600? What did they get out?
I'll make it. That looks so much fun though.
It does. That looks so much fun.
Yeah, when I saw the get in price, I mean, I had to film a
show, but I was like, dude, I wish I went to that.
Like that would have been great. Yeah, I mean, I mean, listen,
there's a lot of things that I could do, you know, like when I
was in the fan, I I took him to the World Series game.
He'll be a fan home for the Yankees.
Yeah, God's got the oh. The game Wait, that was the game
when Volpe hit the. Granite, Yeah, Volpe hit.
The Grand Speaking of decent weekend for the Bullet.
Decent. Weekend for the bullet to run.
Knock left field. Let's go.
There we go, I. Love it, I love it.
You know what? Let me give you 1 stat on the
Yankees. Obviously Knicks, I do have to
get 2 little baseball things over here.
All right, So I don't know if you guys saw it's not just about
the Yankees, but couple of days ago.
Obviously Tigers need to get their act together.
Tigers are a complete mess right now.
School Bulls still out. It was not a very invasive
procedure, just some, you know, loose bodies floating around the
elbow. You suck them out, you come
back, it's fine. It's actually a a process that
they've really or surgery that they've really perfected the
last couple of years. It's basic.
It's basic like arthroscopic. I mean, it's basic stuff, right,
compared to shoulder and ligament transplant.
So he's coming back, obviously now, you know, because his
contract is up after this year. And you know, he's going to
enter with Boris. He's going to enter the free
agent pool as he should to maximize his value.
Like, what are you really willing to give up?
And basically, the teams I know, the Dodgers were stunning.
The Dodgers would be won. The Yankees were listed.
I didn't even know if the Mets were listed, but I, I think
Toronto, there was like 4 or five teams that were listed as
the the prime players for school.
You don't need school if you're the Yankees.
You need a bat. You need somebody who can hit.
All right, great with the walk off by Judge over the weekend.
Great. The two run knocked by Volpe,
but Yankees just can't hit a lick.
You just can't. And I'm look look at this the
last time, one time through the rotation, all right, Schlittler
gave up two earned runs. Rodan gave up one, Cole gave up
none. Weathers gave up none and and
obviously Warren gave up two yesterday.
Think about that. You have two, three in in in 5
starts, the Yankees gave up five earned runs and they're two and
three in those five games and both wins they had to come back
and win it in the 9th inning. I mean, it's don't tell me about
Tarek school. Tell me about where's the
offense we going to import? Like who's going to hit for this
team? You know, that's what they got
to focus on. Now.
You want to be really greedy. You want to get schoolable and a
prime time stick, go for it. But this thought that the
Yankees and I don't know, they're going to have
conversations and Yankees farm systems become and some of the
pitchers who are in the majors now, not Schlittler, maybe
Warren, whatever they they'll command some interest now with
schoolable. So you're going to have to give
up a lot and but but if it if that's the case, that's fine,
But it can't like you got school.
Can he hit? Can he bat lead off?
Can you bat 6th or 7th or 8th or 9th?
You got to get another stick to win every single time, which is
every night you watch the Yankees, their starters do the
job. They either hit like shit or the
bullpen takes a gas can to the game and they lose offense.
That's it. You don't need school bull.
All right, And then listen, I just I can't waste a lot of time
on the Mets here. But he just the Mets are
unwatchable, you know, and we just ran through all those Knick
teams, right? Think about that.
All those Knick players out of we rifle those 20 or 30 names
that are synonymous with lost, empty, hopeless, pathetic
seasons. The difference in the NBA, not
that it's fun, but like, you can still watch any one of those
names. And most nights there's a guy on
the other team that is at least fun to watch.
You know, whether it was a Penny or whether it was, you know, a
young Stevie Francis or Yao Ming or whatever.
It may have been young Jack Colby, somebody rolling in for
the Western Conference. You'll Dirk for the one time at
the Garden. So you sit through two hours of
horrendous basketball, but at least you get to watch a star do
his thing. Oh, that's what it's like to be
good. Well, that's what it's like to
have those kind of players, right, Gasol, whatever it might
be, you know, the names from back in the day.
Baseball's different. I mean, unless you're watching
like a school ball or one of the best pitchers in baseball deal.
And it's just amazing to watch. And you and you like that kind
of stuff. When you don't hit, I don't give
a shit who you're playing. It's it's just no fun.
I mean, the Mets can't hit. Talk about the Yankees not
hitting. I mean, when I know Soto's going
to be back, he's sick. But whoa, my God, I don't know
how you sit through this nonsense, man.
The Mets have scored four runs in their last four games. 4
They're utterly unwatchable. And you know the thing about the
Mets, we are very quickly at this point, unfortunately,
there's nothing even to yell about at this point.
Like, to me, when you scream and you yell, at least I know when I
scream. And yeah, sometimes it's
cathartic. So even if it's not going to
change anything, it does make me feel a little bit better.
Like when I'm yelling about The Jets, I will admit it sometimes
makes me feel a little bit better temporarily that it's
gone. Whatever.
Even if even if it provides no solution, but to yell about the
Mets now is the height of stupidity.
Look at the light up that they're rolling out.
What do you expect? I mean, if you rolled out this
line up and you put them in it in whatever.
I don't know the AAA Easter, what?
I don't know. I can't even think right now.
I don't know whatever AAA wherever the Yankees and the
Mets place here. I know what towns, but the name
of the league dude, I'm not even going to win the division with
this offense. They are just a rag Ted group of
guys who were just never be never going to be nearly as good
as you wanted them to be like Vientos, like Beatty.
Really. We are another week or two away
and even if we don't get there in the next week or two, I still
think unfortunately we're going to get there eventually.
But like it's, it's more and more pressing based on winning
two out of three against the Yankees.
And then what they did after that, any little flicker of hope
that they were generating after playing pretty well against the
Yankees. It's it's, it's it's gone, it's
gone again, right. What are they 1415 out of the
division? Like it's hopeless, dude.
So I I guess we're another bad week, another, you know, two and
five or three and six over their next 9.
The only thing that you watch for and the only thing that you
hope for is to feel instead of feeling good, you feel really
good about going into next season with Benj and Ewing.
OK, that's where we're at. And the other place that we're
at, and nobody's done this for a while, but people were doing it
for a minute. Tap the brakes on McClain.
Tap the brakes, man. I've heard conversations.
Who's better, Camp Schlitter or McClain?
And I like the kid, I really do. Cam Schlittler is one of the
three or four best pitchers in baseball right now.
Mcclain's ERA is basically what 5I mean.
He's been you've been getting tattooed, you've been getting
hit and giving up home runs. So Mets or This Is Not Me, just
deliver the punch line and taking the easy shot.
Didn't do the show yesterday. Lot of baseball's been played
for both of these teams. Even though it's a next day.
I got to give you some thoughts. Yes, Google sounds great.
Yanks need more offense, OK. And the Mets are just they're
just it's disgusting to watch. It really is.
All right, who's up next there on the phones?
What do we got, Jay? What do we have?
We've got our buddy. Seth.
Seth, can you hear us? Loud and clear.
Seth. Seth Yep, go ahead, buddy.
That thing I'm starting to green Barrett with how shit they are,
because at this point I just want a damn regime change and
then maybe I'll be happy. You'll probably get it after
this, after the season. If this keeps up, Stern's
probably gone, so you you might get your wish.
I want Mendoza gone too. Well, that's easy.
I mean, and I, I don't know what we really expect.
I don't think Mendoza's as good as some people do.
And hell, I even want. Lynn, but he's not this bad.
I even want Lynn Dorgon. Yeah, I mean we're you can.
Win the cause of. All that.
Since he's the cause of all this.
Why is he the cause? His wife is on Mendani's
cabinet. No, I don't bring.
Come on. Don't bring the politics into
it. Come on, come on, It's true.
Well, I mean, it's true for you, but it's not true for my entire
audience. So, you know, come on.
You know what I'm saying? And As for the Knicks, I'm happy
that we're back in the Finals after.
Overtime. Yeah, you sound.
Yeah, you sound thrilled. Now we wait.
The big question is who wins the chess match in the West?
Who do you want to play? Who would you rather play?
I'd rather get San Antonio. Me too.
Cuz at the very least we're capable of beating them.
Well, yeah, that's the goal. I mean, so you don't think they
have any chance to beat the Thunder?
If the reps are as deep in the pocket as people perceive them
to be because of how much of STHS flock fest they put up
with, no. I got you.
Seth.
Where do you watch these games? How do you watch the Nick
playoff games with anybody? On a Discord server that belongs
to a guy that goes by the pet name of Uncle Freezy, the
Blanched Tears channel. I'm not sure what that is, but
OK, it's a. Nickname channel.
Oh, OK, I got you. Good.
I got you. OK, All right.
That's just you 2 that you just you watch it like the whole
group. Oh, I got you.
All right. Who is it?
Blanched tears. That's not CP the franchise, is
it? No, it's not.
OK, he does a good job, but and I'm sure the the people that you
hang with too do a good job, but I I don't know them as much.
All right, so you guys get after a little watch party.
All right there, Seth. I mean, it's just going to be, I
don't care who wins. I just want to see that check.
I've never seen the Knicks win the Kings.
I've seen win the title from New York for the New York New Jersey
area in my lifetime. 94 Rangers. 95 Devils 9698992000 Yankees
2007 Giants. Look at you 2. 1008 Same thing
in 11. I know.
Yankees in O 9 actually forgot. About that, I know I was waiting
for that. 24 I guess you could say Liberty, but who gives a
crap about the WN? BAI mean, come on.
I mean, Seth, why are you trying to make enemies here, buddy?
I mean I I'm not a huge WNBA. Come on.
I was. I was pretty deep in the
highlights yesterday. Seth, come on now.
They're looking for Sophie Cunningham.
That's what he's looking for. Skyler Diggins.
I mean, I have yet to see an Islander Cup, a Met World Series
or a Jack Lombardi or a Nick O'Brien Nick or Nick O'Brien.
Mary O'Brien Yep, I got you. Understood me too.
So yeah, I'm older than you, but I did not see that 73 Knicks
championship. And the only other team I do
like that has one entire like witness Carolina, you know, six
with the cop. Oh, the.
Hurricanes, OK, that does nothing for me.
But no, it was a good team fun. All right, Seth, let's let's
talk again soon. OK, buddy?
Late. Thanks, man.
Seth, He's he's an interesting bird, isn't he?
He's a legend. Dude, I, I fucking love this
dude. Listen this comment, this
comment's a little mean, but I, I think it's a self.
I think it's so funny. It's not being mean here.
Why it's? Not mean.
It's not mean. It's nice.
It's it's funny. It's more funny.
I just think of the character dude.
That is funny. Yes, that's set this for the pad
itself. He gets one call.
It's the BT everyone dude. Seth, like, let me just tell
you, bro, dude, if you hit the social media, bro, you would be
you would be, I mean, and you already do.
So I'm not listen, I'm not pressing you there.
You do your thing and you're having a good time and you're
having fun and I fucking love you and thank you for calling
bro. Absolutely.
If you, if you went after this dude, you would be a star, don't
you? You would be a star.
So go for it man. I I just love you, Seth.
Thank you so much there. You go, yeah, you do get extra
happy when Seth checks. It's just dude, he, he brings
such a great, you know, funny energy.
The chat loves him. Yep.
Like, I just think, I think that kid is special.
I saw now there's yeah, no, he he he's good.
He's he's a very different presentation and that's good.
The I we, we don't have, we don't have to dump on the WNBAI
mean again, I don't watch it, but it's incredibly high level
and I have to take a shot at the WNBA, try to keep politics out
of it. Outside of that, Seth doing a
pretty good job. So there was a guy and I saw his
name in the chat a few times, like much earlier in the show,
Omar, that would call me and Sal.
I think we call Sal overnight. Omar Youssef or a different
Omar? I think Omar Youssef's a
different Omar than the one who used to call you inside.
I think it is too. I think he is too, dude.
He was bananas, man. We got to get this guy in here.
Got to get him in at some point. Omar, drop a call if you're if
you're the right Omar. Speaking of Omar Youssef,
though, man, I mean, I don't know.
We don't have to go back to this.
He is throwing out some names that are just.
You got some more He's throwing. I've I've yet to be stumped
here. Damien Dotson.
Yep, shooter. He was a guard.
He was two guard I. Remember him?
He's a dude who was in two. K he may have been from Texas
Tech if I'm not mistaken. I thought Datsun was going to
actually be pretty good. He could shoot good body.
There's gonna be like a three and D guy.
Datsun I remember very well. Who else keep it going?
Player Maurice. Indoor, if I'm not mistaken.
Like a biggish forward, but he's a little more obscure to me.
I can't lie on that one. Oh my gosh, just when DeAndre
Jordan played for the Knicks. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, Wesley Matthews for five.
Wes Matthews. From Marquette.
O Aldridge. Oh Jesus, ridiculous God.
He was, oh, but you know, here's a good one.
This is a very notable guy because he he's one of those
guys who you'll always remember alongside Ron Baker cause
Minskis. Here's another one, Jared Jack
from Georgia Tech. Jared Jack, a little point
guard. His motable.
His most notable play as a Nick was that bomb full court shot
like that. Just completely missed the
backboard like it it was a bug hazard beater and he went for
the full court shot and even for a full court shot it's a bad
miss. Jarrett Jack played a long time.
He was at Georgia Tech. They had a good team.
I like Jarrett Jack not with the Knicks of the.
Ramon Sessions. Oh yeah, Ramon Sessions,
Milwaukee Bucks guard. I think he tore his Achilles
too. Jared Jeffrey's from Indiana.
Hey Jared. Honestly, this is going to sound
crazy. Of all the names that we've
thrown out there, Jared Jeffrey's like this is going to
sound crazy. Could have actually fit on this
team. Yeah, I thought he was a decent
center. I thought he kind of had a some
good like body to him, like some decent toughness.
Like he wasn't a great bucket getter, but a lot of the centers
from that time weren't. Really.
I think. But I've looked at Jared Moore's
as a, as a versatile front. I don't look at him as a center.
I look at him because Eddie Curry's playing a lot.
I look at him more as like a versatile.
You know, he could, he could step out.
He was quick enough to guard A3. Certainly if I look at him more
as a four, no, but he was a great college player.
But yeah. Jared Jeffries.
Who else? Mumpe, yes.
Mumpe no. Clue let.
Me, see if I can nail the year. Look him up.
They had that's when they had I think they took 3 picks that
year. This was early 2000, like mid
2000s. Hold on, don't tell me Lompe, I
want to say was like O3O4. Yo-yo, I mean, I First off, I am
just like a jar. It's O3.
You're right on O3 bro. What?
What do you show me the way he looks?
Just bro what's? Why are you making fun of the
way he looks dude? This dude just looks like like
he look he like just the look in his eyes is like reminds me of
like that of like Jokic's brothers.
Like he's overwhelmed or he's ready to kill somebody.
Or like that 1000 yard stare, like you're just like, like
there's nothing going on up there other than just like.
Well, don't. Mammalian Instinct.
I mean, come on already. I mean, I mean.
I remember and there. Was another guy go sluris
bronchus or something like that? See the the Knicks for Ronnie
Turioff. He's the.
Guy that gets ripped. But now, like people on
Instagram will be like, yo, Ronnie Turioff's like great ball
knowledge. Like if you know Ronnie Turioff,
you know ball. And he'll actually respond in
the comments of the videos. No, I think he was a Gonzaga.
He was a good pro. Like he he played for like,
let's not bro Ronnie Curry app and some of these other names
here. The the Knicks.
I remember my biggest gripe with the Knicks.
It was right when the European wave was really starting to hit
the NBA. And I'm like, why can't they
just find the European? And then they finally got the
Danilo Gallinari, and I was pumped.
Right. And, you know, I mean, I I
actually thought Danilo was going to be outstanding.
Yeah, I did. I liked him.
He he's on a whole other tier than the other guy they're
talking about. No, if you look at if you look
at Gallo's numbers with the Denver Nuggets, he put up.
Oh, my gosh, yeah. He, he he got to the free throw
line a lot. The thing that surprised me with
Gallo, I'll tell you, I got a quick Gallo story for you, too.
Where I was like, OK, I'm like this guy, this guy's got some
balls here, but I thought he was going to be a drop dead like
from downtown. It was more like get to the
line. Now he became a little bit
better shooter with Denver, but I thought he was going to be a
shooter. He was actually more of a a
little bit of a a penetrator and and then he had a bad back.
Yeah, I think he had back surgery.
Gala was good. But this where I'm like, all
right, this guy's this guy's got hope.
They're playing now. I don't I don't mean this any
other way than just telling you what I heard.
And this happens. I'm sure probably less now, but
back in the day you could imagine they're playing the
Celtics and they're playing Garnett.
You're playing your boys right. And I just now where I used to
sit when I was doing the next pre post in half was right
underneath the basket and I would sit next to Alan Han,
Frank Isola, Al Troutwick. I always sat literally right
next to Al, who was the best. Rest in peace, Al.
And I wish Al was still around for this great, great man,
awesome dude. And you can hear everything.
You can hear all all the smack talk and I hear Garnett yell and
yo, give me the rock. I got white boy on me.
That's how that's how little he respects Gallo.
I don't blame him. I mean, Gallo's like pencil fan.
He's got this floppy. You're like you just floppy
hair. Looks like he's 12.
But where I knew that Gallo had some balls and wasn't going to
be abused if like if he could stay healthy and he eventually
got there in Denver and even with the Knicks, he played hard.
He went back at him the next trip down the board.
He was demanding the ball and he actually got a couple of buckets
and not wide open. I mean, where he like caught it
in the mid post and like turn Gallo 611 turned like used his
footwork like a fall away. I'm like, OK, all right.
I mean, and they used to say the same thing to David Lee.
Oh whoa, we got this white boy. Yeah, they, you know they.
David Lee was so solid. He's such a solid NBA player.
I saw someone, I mean MK Doza, David Lee, he could play on this
team. Oh, God, yeah, yeah.
I still remember doing the other stuff.
David Lee's tipping at the buzzer against the Bobcats.
Oh, that's at the Garden. Literally tipped in it at the
buzzer was like 2 seconds left. Whatever it was that was a, that
was a rough OK. Wait, OK, Avery Summit has this
and let me just disregard this chats from from earlier.
Oh, wait, no, I found it. Here's one of my thoughts.
So the other day, I was saying this and this like a little
side. Whatever.
Quick side. Yeah.
So Linsanity was the biggest Knicks moment since this team.
And the other day I was debating whether Linsanity was still
bigger than this team's final run.
Last night ended that completely.
I mean, last night completely ended that.
Say that again. Say that again.
I want to. Make sure I understand and you
and you might completely disagree.
Do you think Linsanity, like the idea of Linsanity, is still a
more popular singular event than this Knicks Finals?
Rock, are you fucking crazy? Yes or no?
No. OK, that Agreed.
Agreed. Agreed.
I mean, I hope so.
But, but let me let me say, listen, a lot of people's moms
my age are a lot of, you know, knew Jeremy Lin's names, name.
I don't know if all of them would know a single player on
this Knicks team's name. OK, I mean.
Like the the Linsanity story I got.
You. Nationwide.
Well, no worldwide. Really.
More so than you're right. Listen, you know, you saw my
reaction. I'm obviously messing with you
here. But I mean, it's I think you get
that anytime you have a moribund team and there's like a flicker
of hope, doesn't that little flicker of hope always get
elevated? And I'll just because you're so
desperate for something to gravitate to and to latch on to.
Like we almost view so and so as the savior.
It happens with like quarterbacks.
I mean, it happened with DeVito and you know, love Tommy DeVito,
but it happened with Tommy DeVito for a second.
Syracuse legend. Yep, Yep.
Yep, Yep, Tommy the beater. I mean, it, it happens.
There's a lot of it happened, you know, back, back, back the
day Kevin Moss with the Yankees, you know, like, oh, he went
from, you know, a left-handed hitting first baseman who played
at Stanford to the next Mickey Mantle, Rodger Maris, when he
hit like 12 home runs in his first 80 or 90 at bats, whatever
it was. And you know, he had like the
movie star looks in the square jaw, 6 foot 5, big old school
stance and hitting bombs. And Yankees were terrible at
that point. Donnie's back was at his
absolute worst. This would be 4 stumped, pardon
me, before Buck really came and fixed things.
It was kind of at the end of the stump era where the Yankees were
awful. And I know Moss kind of was
around a little bit more than a year for sure.
But when you're down and you see a little something, that's why
all the conversations and that that's what makes it so
gratifying that I've had on the radio about Eddie Curry, about
whatever draft pick we're talking about, about, you know,
maybe LeBron coming to save us back in the day, or Amari who
actually tried, or the Carmelo stuff and the insanity stuff.
Or hey, Phil Jackson's coming. Even though he's not the coach,
he's the executive. We got a champion coming to make
this like with these things that we just latch onto out of
desperation. It really it is.
It is more times than not, overwhelmingly it's just a
fruitless endeavor. It's a complete waste of time.
So you get this. You get this as you you're a
Knick fan once in a lifetime in terms of like, well, I mean in
terms of making the finals three times for me, but you know what
I mean? I didn't think that any chance
in 99. I thought we were going to win
in 94, but that's also decades ago at this point.
Enjoy it save Rick. I can't wait to run through this
with you guys in terms of the journey.
Really, really just you know, it's crazy.
We're here. We are three rounds in, but now
it's just starting now it's going to be a different watch.
It's going to be a different fear, like a different, it's
going to be a different energy because they're just not going
to mop, whether it's the Spurs or the Thunder, this is over
like winning by 20 points a night and winning by 51 and 31
and 37 on the road. And Jalen Brunson not playing a
single second in the close out game of the fourth quarter.
And us watching Tyler Kolek and and you know, all the other
reserves who we respect, but doing floaters and hitting bombs
like Theo are like just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.
Like it's it's crazy like it is, it's just it's been an awesome
run. So we're just getting going now.
The tough part, they're all tough, but now is the now it's
the last round, it's the last climb and I can't wait.
So that's about it, man. I'm going to wrap it up now.
Jay, do you have anything else for us here?
I mean, I've got one more chat you can hit on a on a certain
potentially divisive topic that could lead to a great segment or
clip. And it comes from a super chat
from our friend Johnny Boy. Are you willing?
Are you willing to to to breach the topic unleashed?
Obviously you touched it on Twitter already.
I did, yeah. And you and you know your answer
was pretty reasonable. Yeah, yeah, of course.
Like I'm not afraid to touch anything.
Yeah, I had that written, but I was going to actually save it
for tomorrow. I mean, we can do that too.
I know, but it was a couple of days ago and I don't want to
just stuff it in here and not give it the time that I'm going
to save it for the ball. I'm going to save it.
Yeah.
Make just, I haven't written down, but make a note.
He doesn't need to do another super chat.
Like I appreciate school, but just make a notation of that.
I'm going to do something like that.
I don't want to just cherry pick and selective.
I am like, you know, I'm also, you know, 2 hours and 10 minutes
with just going hard. You know, my my head starting to
hurt a little bit and I want to have that discussion and I also
don't want that discussion to get in the way of reveling where
the Knicks. Are you know what?
I'm saying no. This is This video is Knicks.
This is a Knicks video right here.
Yes, yes. So I will do a little bit of
that tomorrow. I promise you I'll do more than
a little bit on that tomorrow 'cause it's not just, it's more
of a deeper commentary on society.
Like it's not just Carter tweeting what he tweeted,
Jackson Dart coming and and introducing President Trump.
Like that's just that. That's the New York example.
Like that's the most recent example.
But there's so many other tentacles to it, which which I
will intelligently discuss and look forward to it.
So I'll do that tomorrow. You never know what else is
going to pop on. I'm trying to lock in Alex.
He told me he's good this week. I don't have a day yet.
I see a lot of messages here from some numbers I don't even
recognize. So I've got some feelers out
there for some other guests. It's going to be a big week on
the show, put it that way. So thanks to everybody who
chimed in. Appreciate you guys liking it,
subbing it, sharing it, getting it out there, a couple of calls,
some great chats, great energy. And obviously, you know, we get
a little deeper diversify some stuff like like the dart and the
Abdul Carter stuff. But it's going to be A and not
just Knicks. I mean, you're a Thunder fan.
You're you're a spurs fan and I will be following this series
every single possession like this is where I put on the
advanced scouting hat like that's what I was doing, you
know, on what's today with the off date always throws me off
next on Sunday. That's what I was doing on
Sunday night watching that game. So it's it's going to be fun and
hopefully it culminates with the parade.
And then we just lose our minds and we go absolutely bonkers.
All right, so have a great rest of you Tuesday.
Catch you guys tomorrow at at 10.
Now Jay, quickly as we go out here, right, do we have the new
little open? Did you do it on the back end as
well or? What?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we got that.
We we got that outro looking clean.
So the all right, so if you mix the the intro just a little
little subtle. Little subtle difference we'll
keep. We'll keep making tweaks all the
time, babe. That's right, hit me with it now
and I'll catch you guys tomorrow, Pace.
Listening.