What's going on, everybody? BT unleashed back on this
Thursday. Lots to get to 14 days before
the NFL draft. So we will jump right into it.
I've got I've got a lot of basketball today.
Got a couple of baseball notes. But today's show was always
brought to you by Sullivan Pipane, one of New York's best
personal injury law firms, according to U.S. news and World
Report. You can find
sullivanonline@triallaw1.com that's try low1.com and also buy
Premio sausage, the newest member of the BT Unleashed
family. Of course, great meal start with
great ingredients. Premio delivers flavor that you
can rely on Premio sausage the way sausage should be found them
online at premiofoods.com. That's premiofoods.com or in
your local grocery store. All right there, J Rod Young
Buck, let's roll a little housekeeping today.
Let's go. Yeah, I'm, I'm ready.
I'm going to pull you. We got a little Nick Celtics out
of the chute. But tonight, episode 3 of The
Jets Collective with 14 days to go to the draft.
I told you, you know, things are shifting now a little bit.
Who knows if it's posturing? Who knows what's real, but we'll
tell you tonight coming up at 7, myself and Jake Aspen, Rich
Simini episode #3 Jets collective, You know, are they
going to go to Bailey at 2 or they just kind of plain possum
trying to incentivize somebody to move up and trade?
Obviously Reese from Ohio State's been that guy pretty
much for the last couple of months.
But we shall see. And not just The Jets.
We've got a lot of stuff that's tonight coming up at 7, of
course, on YouTube. Like and subscribe it.
All right, couple things here. So this is just a side note.
So there's certain things that I do and there's certain things
that my wife does right now when I was younger and and single.
Now you don't have to do this J Rod, because it's it's just a
totally different world digitally here.
But I used to actually enjoy, I don't know what maybe because I
saw my dad doing it. I used to enjoy sitting down in
my apartment in Manhattan on a Sunday night, usually like
before The Sopranos or something and hammering out all my bills.
Got the check book, right. You know, I've got What Car
payment, garage payment, obviously rent or whatever it
might be, right? Take care of that.
Like I, I'd mail the four or five checks.
I'd feel good. All right, see you in a month.
Everything's taken care of. And then like, and I, I was the
kind of person who wanted to just even, I'm talking about
like early in our marriage, I wanted to do all that.
I was used to doing all that, but my wife's really good at it.
And I'm like, man, I mean, if she could do that and she enjoys
that aspect of it, well then by all means, help me out and, and
go for it. And she's great with that,
right? So there's certain things, as I
said, that as the husband, as the man in the house that I do.
And there's certain things that she does.
Now, you could say that this might be my responsibility, but
it's it, it's just not the way it's laid out in our home.
You know, we have a pretty good alarm system, right?
And this freaking alarm. Yeah, dude.
I am I am I'm seconds away from smashing my head through because
here's what's going on in my house right now.
Now they're returning from Texas today.
All right, I've had a couple of days to myself.
You know, I was out there for Easter throughout the first
pitch with the Rangers came back and obviously I want to do the
show today, Tuesday and yesterday and here.
So anyway, they had a couple of days there with with Brandy and
Papa. Kids are off spring break, no
school, blah, blah, blah. So one of the things that she
handles is the alarm and the meaning not, I mean, turning it
on and off. And we both do that.
But I mean dealing with the alarm company, because one thing
that I've got no patience for is calling an alarm company.
And I don't mean in an emergency, of course they pick
it up quickly then you hope. But like dealing with being
bounced around this dispatcher, this, I just can't do it.
I, I don't have the bandwidth to do it.
So she does that, right. So I don't really know how I had
to pick up the phone and make a call.
If I had to, I would. But Long story short, the I
guess there's a shortage here, which means you've got to
contact the I, I hear it now, the alarm company and they'll
reset it and all that stuff. Now when I texted her last
night, she was either out to dinner with the family.
I don't know what it was, but basically the alarm.
Not outwardly so you can't hear it from the street, but
incessantly. It is driving me nuts.
Every two minutes I just hear think, think, think, think,
think.
Think awful man. And then I forget about it and
then think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think,
think, think, think that it stops.
So I need her and them to get home, obviously, because I miss
him, but I really need her to get home to deal with this
because I'm I'm losing my fucking mind with this alarm.
And, and, and here's the worst part, Jay.
It was happening all night when I was sleeping.
All night. Even and and I even like shut it
off, right, and you know, you would think, well, you shut it
off. I mean, if it's off, it's it's
not going to think, think, think, think, think, think,
think. Now it's also not going to
activate. God forbid if we if I need it,
but I was willing to roll the dice last night, you know, And
all night, dude. Dink dink, dink, dink, dink.
That is brutal dude. Dinked out.
It is driving me freaking bananas.
I'm going nuts over with this man.
So, so that's one thing, all right, number #2 or #3 So I had
to do some stuff after the show yesterday.
That's why we had to start early and end early.
But after that, I had a chance to go out and play golf for the
first time. I told you, right, told you what
was going on with the boys. Right.
OK, so first of all, I'm not going to bore you with my, my,
my follies on the golf course. Let me, I, I, I will give you
the quick summation. And I usually putt pretty well.
I putt it like Phil at Augusta when he was winning and and I
and I hit the ball outside of probably 3 or 4 good drives, I
hit the ball so poorly that they wouldn't even let me sell
bottles of water 3 miles from Augusta in a broken down van on
the side of some highway. It was now it's bad.
No, I told my friend I'm like dude, how long with my buddy
Rob? I said, how long have we been
playing golf? Now again, I've been through
this thing where I think I told you that I'm not going to get
into it now, but where I started playing lefty because I was a
lefty hitter in baseball, didn't start playing golf until after
college. But so when you're that late,
it's an uphill battle anyway. And then I hurt my back and I
had back surgery. So I'm like, well, maybe I could
try to play righty because it alleviates the pain the way the
vertebrae's are stacked and the nerves and all the other stuff
that was going on with the compression.
So so I tried that and that didn't really work.
And then I had the surgery and then I came back.
I didn't play for five years. I'm like, well, let me try to
play lefty again because that's my natural, my my natural
default. And I suddenly got this, this
aversion like at the top of my swing.
I got the oh man, I got this Charles Barkley mental.
I don't even know what you call it where I I my hands like the
take back is good. The setup was good.
As I get to the top of my golf swing, getting ready to descend
and go through the ball, my hands would like almost go out
and then I I couldn't swing. So it basically led to I hit a
couple of shots backwards. No joke.
I had a couple of shots sideways like I dribbled the ball.
I'm like, I'm not, I'm either not playing or I'm not playing
like this because I'm not going to torture my now.
I'm also at the point where I've got no expectations.
So I no longer get angry. I used to be a lunatic.
I tell you the story when I shoot a club in the lake when I
lost it, my brand new pink putter, like I've been through
the mental gauntlet. I don't allow it to bother me
anymore because quite frankly, I'm just happy that I'm healthy.
I go out there, you know, 3-4 times a month, if that, you
know, at least a couple hack it up, see my buddies, have a
little fun, get a little mental respite, get back to work and
coaching and all the other stuff, right?
So, So what happened was so now, because I got that wacky thing
lefty, I still putt and chip lefty because it when you're
chipping, you're not bringing you your, your, your club past
your belt on a short chip, you know what I mean?
And putting is obviously easy. So I play right-handed, but I
chip and putt lefty. All right.
So number one, it's already as certain as that.
Like, so I mean, Full disclosure, if if you see me, I
mean, pray for me because it's really pathetic and it's
embarrassing, but it is what it is.
OK. So it's bad enough that that's
my plate in golf. The night before, I went in the
backyard for only about an hour, put a couple of logs of wood on
the fire pit, wanted to watch the Yankees a little bit, put
the TV on outside. And then when I was grabbing the
wood, I got it seems like such a wuss thing, but I could not get
it out. I got a splinter right in my SO
obviously gripping the club. That's not exactly ideal.
So whatever. I'm like, yeah, what if my kids
have splinters? You know, it's one of the little
subtle joys in life as a dad, when your child gets a splinter
and you actually get it out and I don't know it, it just feels
so good. Dude, So just a quick side.
So my dad, when I was younger, I used to be terrified of like
tweezers, like when I got a splinter.
And so he would put sandpaper on it and it would always work bro,
every time. Sandpaper like actually like on
the skin like. Yeah, yeah, he would sand the
splinter down and it would work. Really.
Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I could see why.
I mean the the skin would get lower which means the splinter
would get higher and then you pop it out.
So anyway I couldn't get it now I had like 1 drink, I was
watching the Yanks. I really had water out there was
just kind of just chilling enjoying the night and I wasn't
worried about it. And then during the show was
bothering me yesterday, not enough to where I'm going to
tell you, but I'm like as things annoy me or play golf like this,
I really couldn't grip it anyway, so I couldn't because my
wife's not here. I have no idea where that
freaking tweezers are. I don't know.
So I, I finally found I looked through every bag, every drawer.
It wasn't in the medicine cabinet for some reason.
I so I finally find it. It's not working right now and
I'm digging and I'm digging and I'm bleeding.
I'm like, I don't care, like I don't need.
I don't care if I'm going to need a stitch.
I'm getting this freaking thing. This thing is going to be out of
my finger be when I go to the golf course.
I'll tape it up, I'll suck it up, whatever right So then
couldn't get it. So then I go we have this board
with like push pins like like a calendar and and some old, you
know, pictures, maybe the kids well, just like a family thing,
right? I go and I get a push pin and I,
I sterilize it and I'm digging and I'm digging and I'm digging
and they then I'm doing research on ChatGPT.
I put it in hot water for 10 minutes.
It'll kind of solve for that. I do that now it's raw.
Now it's bleeding. I finally got it out and when I
let's tell you that this looks like a little tiny paper cut,
you have no idea how deep this thing is.
I performed surgery on myself just to go out and shoot a
shitty one O 2 it. Looks cut like It definitely
looks like a a sizable cut right there.
Yes, a sizable one indeed. I quit my golf.
Well, I don't quit, but I do. I I, you know, I I come before
you humbly golf gods. I'm not asking for much.
It's hard enough to figure out the grip and the tempo and the
swing and in the rough and all, you know, in the sand.
Just let me have healthy fingers moving forward.
It was it was brutal. All right, ma'am, let's get to
the show. So so we'll do Knicks and
Celtics tonight. Now the Celtics are really
banged up. It's not so much a preview with
the game because it's a regular season game, whatever, but I'm
talking more macro with the Knicks year.
So going the way the Knicks season ended last year and the
way the Knicks season going into this year, I should say the way
I felt then, you know, October ish and the way I feel now it's
2 completely different feelings. So I feel great about the
Knicks. I remember saying on the fan and
I quickly corrected it. I'm like, that's a little bit
ambitious. Calm down, tap the brakes.
But when me and Sal were doing it, our Knick prediction, I
remember saying, Knicks, we're going to win 60.
And then as soon as there's that, can you?
You can't hear the alarm, by the way.
It's not audible. You're good.
Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's driving
you ballistic, bro. I'm.
Going to smash it at some point if they don't get home soon,
which they will, right? So anyway.
But yeah, not autumn. Not OK, good.
So I said 60 and I'm like, yeah, that's, that's a little bit
much, right? I'm like, and I think I settled
on 54 for which they very well might.
I got three games to go. If they went all three, they'll
get 54 cuz they're 51 and 28 right now.
It's not about, it's not about projections or saying oh, I was
right or I was close, whatever. It's just about I felt great
about the Knicks going into the season and I felt great about
the Knicks for two reasons. Number one, I really like their
team, really like and I knew that they brought in some new
bit bench pieces, which was an issue for them last year.
So the issue that really plagued them a year ago, I thought they
resolved with the additions of the bench to fortify that.
And so I I love the team, you know, and so I just based on the
Knicks as a singular entity, I feel great about the Knicks.
And then to boost that even more, the circumstances, and we
all know what the circumstances were around the Eastern
Conference. You know, obviously Tatum's out
ruptured Achilles. Tyrese Halliburton always sticks
the dagger in the Knicks like Reggie used to, you know, out
for the season, ruptured Achilles.
Pacers are an absolute doormat. They'll be picking early.
The Celtics very, very, very impressively have strung
together an amazing season and obviously Tatum is back.
Now, when you think about this, the two things, how I view the
team coming in and the circumstances around the team,
certainly in the East and not even thinking about the
championship because you deal with the West if and when you
get there, but just to represent the East, I felt great.
So for me, check on the team, check on the circumstances, but
here we are. And I'm not trying to be overly
negative here, but it is. It's really the exact opposite.
I don't feel really good about the team and I absolutely feel
worse about the circumstances. Let me just give you a couple of
circumstances, a couple of things.
This is also impacting not just the Knicks, but Kate Cunningham.
If you guys missed, it did come back.
So he played the other night and last night he played, right?
And he played 25 minutes, 13 points, 10 assists.
All right, so the punctured lung, he's back.
They've got a couple that he's gonna, he's gonna he's got to
get his win to back and all that other stuff.
But what's happened in the process, in the 11 games that
Kate Cunningham missed #1 Detroit didn't stop winning.
They're 8:00 and 3:00. So that's going to bold in the
other guys of the team with like a slight increase in role.
And then obviously Kate comes back when he gets back to full
strength. They can go back to the previous
slot. But there's got to be much more
conviction, much more confidence within those guys.
So that's a win for Detroit and that's a loss for the Knicks.
And by the way, my guy, and I remember saying this a few times
on the air with the Mink man doing St.
John's games with Danis Jenkins, who followed Rick from Iona and
Danis Jenkins. Now he was on the two way deal
and I felt good from about that. But then they they, they
restructured that or they bought it out, whatever the term is.
Now he's officially an NBA player.
Dennis Jenkins without Kate Cunningham, 19 points a game, 8
assists, 4 rebounds in 35 minutes a night.
And that's over 11 games. It's not two or three games.
So what they're going to have to do and what they're going to
have to figure out. And they've got a good coach and
they've got a lot of selfless players.
So I do think it will be easy to figure out.
They've got to determine how willing they are to play Kate
Cunningham and Danis Jenkins together in the back court.
Now, I'm not saying you're going to run with those guys for 20
plus minutes a game, but that is a different look for the
Pistons. The Pistons are already a
problem for the Knicks and other teams in the Eastern Conference.
They're tough, they're deep, They could shoot it a little
bit. They got a superstar in Kade and
their other players have blossomed and they've taken
ownership of their new role. So that's a problem.
Now you get to the Celtics here. Now, again, the Pacers don't
factor in because Halliburton's out, but you get to to the
Boston Celtics. Now understand, like what Jayson
Tatum has done is it's beyond impressive as I read something
this morning that he returned from the Achilles rupture 200
days earlier than Kevin Durant did.
Think about that. 200 days, not 15 days or a month.
I mean, you're talking about what, 30609121?
I mean, I mean, 7 * 3 is 210. You're talking about seven
months. I mean seven months earlier,
just about right. So I I'd be lying if I said I
checked the box score. Sure.
I haven't seen Jason Tatum play a full game yet.
I've seen some of the highlights since he returned.
I did not realize. That's why I'm really looking
forward to tonight. Even though the Celtics are
banged up, which I'll get to in a moment, I just want to see his
movement because everything from a statistical point of view is
beyond. It's one of the most impressive
things that I've seen from a player coming back from an
injury maybe ever. So he played 39 minutes on
Tuesday, 39. So he came back in early March,
I think it was March 6th with his first game and the average
31 minutes a night. And in April it went from 31 to
35 S, an increment of of 4 minutes more, right?
And then again, 39 on Tuesday and they shoot 43% from 3.
So, you know, I, I, I look at the Knicks and I'm like, all
right, where is the optimism? Well, I mean, you can always be
optimistic. I mean, there there could be
blind optimism, there could be optimism that is laced with some
fact. And the Knicks are obviously a
good team. I'm not saying they're not good,
but this is all about the championship.
And it's funny, I didn't really get I didn't actually, I don't
think I got into this on the air at all.
Maybe I was travelling. Maybe that's why.
But did you see the other day, Jay, when Mike Breen on the this
is probably, let's see, maybe in the Hawks game.
So that would have been the Hawks game.
I think it might have been Nick's won that game, good Rd.
win. And at some point during the
game, Mike was talking to the Knick fan, not admonishing them
because that's not his style. I love Mike's the best, right?
But he was basically telling Nick fans, hey, don't forget,
you know, or basically don't have a championship or bust
mindset. Something I remember.
Yeah, I. Think I saw, because I saw
Stephen A go off on him for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm not going to go off on it, but I actually agree with
Stephen A, if you can find the quotes, but just pull them up
and I want to have you read them real fast here.
Yeah, but I, I know obviously the gist and and the meat of the
message. So I could certainly start the
my opinion on this. And I think that Mike Breen's
totally wrong on that. Now, if it's an opinion, you
know, I'm not going to. You can't say an opinion is
wrong. So maybe that's not the right
way to frame it. But I vehemently disagree with
Mike Breen on that. It's all about the championship
because everything that the Knicks did was to put themselves
in a position to win the championship.
All the picks for Bridges, the contracts, the extensions, the
trades, there's really nowhere else to go, man everybody.
Else knows this. Go ahead, I've got the quote, he
said. Alarm.
Oh my God. Every two minutes.
Every two minutes. 2 minutes left. 2 minutes.
Oh my God screw these pop up ads.
There are many Knick fans and many in the media and many
within the organization who feel that this season would be
considered a disappointing one if the Knicks don't make the NBA
Finals, Breen said. Obviously a championship is what
everyone wants and that's the goal, but just remember where
the franchise was before Leon Rose arrived.
Yep, Yep. And Leon Rose did not arrive
last year or the year before or the year before Leon Rose been
here a minute. So I, I say this with a smile
because I think he's one of the best ever and I think he's a
great guy. I, I, I don't really care what
my Princess about that. I mean, I care enough about it
to comment because I totally disagree.
That's wrong. That's wrong for me.
And it's obviously, as you said, wrong for Stephen A, it's wrong
for many other Knick fans. This is not like, say, when Tom
Thibodeau first got here and they had that renaissance where
like the COVID year and they won a good amount of games after
being in the abyss for most of the century.
You know that Julius Randle and, and, and the young RJ Barrett
and Nerlens Noel and that team, right?
And they wildly overachieved. And then they wound up losing to
the Hawks even though they had first round homecourt advantage
that year. Trey Young just absolutely
abused the man there. Right.
And it, it's not like we, we took that team and and what
happened that year and then with no other adjustments or
personnel upgrades the next year, all right, Which would
have been 2021, right. So the COVID 2020, yeah, you're
talking 2021 into early 20. Yeah, 2021.
It's not like we took that iteration of the Knicks and like
pushed it so forward where we were, you know, we, we, we
created this championship mantra or bust.
It's that's not the case. Like that would have been
unrealistic. They didn't have Julius Randall
was really good and we all had massive respect.
I love Julius Randall, even though he's got some
shortcomings, but it was a real deep appreciation for the, for
what the Knicks gave us. And honestly, for a lot of Knick
fans, even though most of those games there weren't fans there,
although because of COVID and, and the, and the regulations,
the ordinances, but if you remember when they got to the
playoffs, they started letting people back in.
So the Garden, you got to hear what the Garden sounded like.
And of course I've seen and heard and I've been to 1,000,000
Knick games, playoff games. But there was a younger
generation of Knick fans that, you know, if you're 15 years old
or you're 13 years old in 2021, you don't know what the Garden
sounds like or you've heard of stories from your dad, your
uncle, you've seen documentaries, you've read about
it, whatever. It came to life.
And it was a reminder like, yeah, This is why MSG is the
place to be. This is why there's no better
sound, in my opinion. There's no better sound in all
the sports then a late roar deep in the playoffs at the Garden or
a defense chant where it's full throttle.
You know, deep as deep in the stomach and the lungs as you can
conjure up when you know you've got a Knicks, a good Knicks team
with a chance to do something special.
And 19,000, you know, it used to be 19,763.
They adjusted the attendance a bit as they refurbished the
arena, but still around there. So I'll just say 19763 because
that's what I always that that's the number I I remember my whole
life. We've got 19763 in unison, You
know, just trying to will the Knicks past that next checkpoint
to get to a championship that for many of us we've never seen.
You know, I think it's I do think it's the best sound in
sports. I don't even really know for me
what what would be second. You know, like you think about
some of the great teams, it's not Dodger Stadium.
No disrespect. The Dodgers are phenomenal.
The Dodgers are great, but it doesn't sound like that.
Even the new Yankee Stadium #1 the Yankees are not what they
used to be. But the new Yankee state, just
the way it's built. I mean, think about the old
overhang at the old Yankee Stadium.
It used to hang like it was a threatening, ominous walk on to
that field. It felt like a like a mosh pit
that I I saw a lot more playoff games there that I did and then
I have at the new stadium. I've been in World Series in the
new one as well. But I mean, I went to basically
every game. I was there in 96 when they won.
I was there probably that was there for Mattingly multiple
times back in 95. There's nowhere I was missing
Donnie's postseason play anyway, you know, you want to tell me
like the old Boston Garden with the Celtics or maybe old Chicago
Stadium. I, I, it's funny, ironically, I
think the thing for me and Jay, I want you to jump in on this.
I know you're a little bit younger.
Maybe I have a different perspective, actually a lot
younger, different perspective. But to me it, it is masters week
here and the Masters is underway and all those, you know, Scotty
Scheffler, all those big names. I can't wait.
I'm going to watch it, you know, until they when the kids get
home and I'll be watching basically every shot, streaming
it and of course through the weekend when I'm not at the
baseball field, I'll come home, I'll record it, I'll watch every
shot. I absolutely love the masters.
It's awesome, right? To me, the only thing that's
comparable, and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.
So by all means, I want you guys to hit me up on out as well.
Jump in again. I think the garden late in in in
in May or early June or even a little bit deeper is the best
sound in sports. I think the second best sound in
sports for me is, you know, when you get to those back three
holes, 16, I believe 16 is the par 3 to Gusta with the little
pond that you got to hit it to the right spot that funnels down
to the hole, whatever. And then obviously 1718, like
when somebody drills a big putt late on Sunday, deep back,
especially if it's a player like a Tiger or Phil or like one of
those dudes, right? And it's like a swing on the
leaderboard. To me, that would be my second
favorite sound. Anything jump out to other
stadiums? Anything else?
OK, this is a poor one just because, you know, it's a very
modern young person take, but I feel like in my time watching
basketball, man, like Oracle Arena has seriously popped.
Like, I mean, and it's a lot of bandwagon fans, no doubt.
No, I got to correct you on that, no.
You don't think so? No.
No, I know, I know. No, no, definitely not.
Now let me just differentiate between so you know, they don't
play at Oracle anymore. They obviously went from the Bay
Area where the A's and the red OK there because I used to live
there. Let me give you a little brief
map. So Oracle was like, say, like,
right, Just get me on a full screen for one SEC.
Thanks, man. So say, if if this is Oracle
right here, you had like literally the Coliseum right
next to it. All right, so you can get back
up there, Jay. So you had the the A's, the
Raiders and Oracle. And the really the truth of the
matter is now the tickets weren't as expensive, but the
warrior fans at Oracle because they were awful for so long as,
as we all know, before Steph and Klay and all that started
happening. And it really started with Mark
Jackson's team when Mark Jackson was the coaches, you know, so
that's, I don't know about the sound, but they were not front
runners. They were there no matter what.
Yes, their fans. I, I, I must defend the, the
Warrior fans at that point. Now, I will say this, I don't,
I, I don't live there anymore, obviously.
But when they moved from Oracle to the Chase Center in San
Francisco, well, now it's a different clientele based on the
prices. And when that happens, it could
obviously negatively impact the sound and just the overall vibe.
So I can't speak to that. But I can directly speak from
experience that Oracle was phenomenal all in, even when
they were average or bad. So just just, I just wanted to
get that. Out there, No, I mean, I just
feel like every every game I I watch in like that mid twenty
10s, early twenty 20s just yeah, yeah, it was I I don't want to
say the loudest, but I'm pretty sure like I feel like when I was
watching those games, it was just like chaotic.
It was loud. Any time a shot would go down,
it would just erupt. So yeah, there's like my spot.
Well, I mean, Oakland's gritty. I mean, Oakland is, you know,
it's it's like it's kind of like the Bronx and Brooklyn and
Queens old wrapped up into one very similar.
So yeah, those fans were. Phenomenal.
Like I wish I could say the Carrier Dome, but it honestly
was not crazy at all in my time there.
We had a couple of buzzer beaters, but what Joe Gerard
putting up 12 points a Joe. George.
And he's my guy. Listen till the day I die, he's
my guy. But you know, it was.
I get it. No, it's different.
You got to remember, I've been to the Carrier Dome when
Syracuse was still Syracuse doing St.
John's games and they had, you know, 30 something 1001 of their
traditions. I love it, you know, and, and
other arenas and other venues do this as well.
I'm not sure that they invented this, but I remember like, wow,
this is pretty cool. They don't sit down to the first
bucket scored like they stand up.
As you know, that's a tradition and and that plays it's such a
unique place. Now this is a different, like
branching out, different part of the conversation.
Like there's just that, that intensity and that, you know,
that that rage like the Garden, you know, Oracle, you know, an
old Raiders game. I'm, I'm sure the Bills stay.
I think Bills have an element of that for sure.
And I hope, I don't think they will, but I hope they don't lose
that with that new stadium, which looks absolutely dope.
But going to a game at the carried, I've never been to a
football game there. I've got 0 interest watching
Syracuse football play anything to be honest with you.
But to have been there for, you know, of of just the way it's
configured because it's just a mass, it's a massive bubble, as
you know, and like basically 70% of the venue is uncharted when
there's a basketball game and then it's blocked off and then
like some seats you could barely see no really, really at at in
its heyday, phenomenal. You know, I don't even know if
if quite, you know, Cameron Indoor and I've been to Cameron,
I've done three games there. And you know, I'm not saying
that's not this. You know, John Shire is a really
good coach. They've got really good players.
Obviously. Trust me, I just watched him
beat St. John's.
I know, but I feel like it's different.
Maybe maybe that's a misrepresentation.
But you know, without Coach K, without guys who were there for
2-3 years, I think that's taking a little bit of a step back,
quite frankly. I just feel like that that
fervent nature for sports in the actual venues and maybe even the
way people consume sports and watch sports, I think it's it's
been a little dialed down across the board for sure.
You're with me on that. Yeah, well, I also think now
it's just like there are so many like because prices are so high,
there's so many fans of different teams in different
cities that it's not necessarily about like the most die hard
fans are going to be at the games.
It's more so the ones who have the like the most money.
So it's like you could go to a a a Celtics game versus the
Knicks. And obviously, there would still
be a lot of Knicks fans in the past, but now even more so
because, you know, some Homer Celtics fans who maybe couldn't
afford the game can't make it. Now think about this.
That's a great point. Think about this when the Knicks
beat the Sixers in the playoffs a couple of years.
Ago. That was awesome.
Took over the joint. Yeah.
Looking over, it was embarrassing the way Sixer fans
got pushed out of their own home.
That wouldn't have been that. Listen, that would not have
happened again. The secondary ticket market
access that that's it's it's a different game here.
Not that you couldn't in the 80s go and scalp and get something
on the street. Of course that's how you'd get
tickets. You know, that was so funny
going to all those Knick games with my dad, man.
Like just all the all the hustlers on the side.
Yo, you take it, take it, take it, take it.
It's like, you know, but weed, weed, weed.
Now you don't even see that because you go get it wherever
you want if you want it. I mean, but yeah, that that
elements change. But that was not happening.
I would say Doctor J and Andrew, Tony and Moses back in 83 when
they won the championship. Hell, that wouldn't even happen
with AI back in the day, you know, and those guys when they
got to the championship and lost to the Lakers in five games.
So, yeah, a lot has changed and and we just roll with the
punches and and I think we all know that there's been a there's
been yeah, there's been a little bit of a shift here, but it
really does go back to what you know, not not it's not about
what Mike Breen said. Obviously I started the show
telling you I just don't feel the way I felt about the Knicks
coming into the season based on my expectations, based on what I
thought the team would be and then based on what I thought
would be around the Eastern Conference with the stories that
I already that I already ran through.
But I really, really pushed back vehemently and disagree with
Mike Breen when he said that. I know that Mike went back and
it again, his intention was not to jab.
That's just not his thing. I mean, he's just good of dude
as there is really, but I don't think that that one hit the mark
at all. You could be a great broadcaster
and you could be well-intentioned and a great guy
and you could say something that just doesn't resonate.
And I think a lot of people objected to that or push back
and it didn't feel it. You know, Stephen A was 1 and
I'm I'm another one as well. All right, chicks, They're 52
after last year's run, the expectation this year's a
championship. Exactly.
Of course it's a championship. Unfortunately, the teams
inconsistency this year, it doesn't seem likely.
I listen, I'm not even going to put a percentage on it, you
know, because I don't I don't really.
I could give you updated and NBA odds, whatever.
Anybody could do that, but I'm not going to say 0 because I
just think that that's irresponsible.
Anything could happen. I thinks aren't winning the
championship this year. Tell me how the OR or or give me
the reasons why and I'm going to do this myself.
I'm I'm asking rhetorically here.
But before you go, J Rob, before you get it back on the full
screen. All right, I'm going to write
that down. All right.
So why when you were talking about use the word OR, how do
you say this ORGANIZATION? How do you say it?
Organization. OK, so you grew up in
Connecticut and you didn't grow up in Quebec, you know, or
Manitoba. You you, you grew up in
Connecticut. You went to school in Syracuse,
right? Yeah, up in Syracuse.
Why organization? Why?
Why are we dropping the eye like?
Did I say that it did? Organization.
I. Don't know, maybe that's a
Connecticut. Yo, listen, we got the whole BT
on leave. They don't miss anything.
When I make a mistake, they let and it's not a mistake.
If that's how you say it, it's all good, but hey fam, let them
know. Organization, organization,
organization. I've never thought of that.
Yeah. I don't understand why anybody
that's not from Canada would say organization.
I caught my ear and I actually jotted that down, but then we
got to some other stuff. Wait, I've never thought of this
before. All right.
I wonder where I got that. I mean, are you're not a big
hockey fan, so I don't think it came from.
There, not at all. A big, you know, salmon or
halibut fishing fan. You go on these these these
Canadian excursions that we don't know about.
No, I don't know. I went to Quebec when I was 14.
That's. About did you really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice man.
Nice. I just had a circle back to
that. I'm like, organ.
Did he slip in an organization? Interesting, I've got a I've got
a super, super chat real quick and.
Then yeah. Oh, God almighty.
What are my thoughts on the Vrabel Rusini story?
My God, I have had her on the show a few times.
I like her. I don't know her very well, but
every time she's like, she's a big fan of WFAN.
She's a Bergen County girl. I think she's very good at
reporting. I think Vrabel's a great coach.
And that's the guy that I wanted for The Jets.
And go back and find it. I was, But he was playing The
Jets. You know, he wasn't coming to
this circus. It was just, you know, getting.
He was basically incentivizing the Pats to fire Mayo.
And once they got rid of him, they're like, yeah, he was just
using The Jets as a pawn 0 interest coming to The Jets.
Not that you can blame him, but this is not about that this to
me, honestly, you want my real opinion.
This is between whatever is going on and and I I don't I
mean, you can obviously deduce what's going on brain surgeon to
kind of take a stab at it. I I don't know their marital
situations. I, I know because I saw a lot of
clips surface where I had to talk about like when she got
engaged and when she got married.
It's not my business though. But if you put it out on air, I,
I at least know that you're married.
I thought Frabel was married. I couldn't get 2 shits at the
isn't if he isn't. Here's my honest opinion on all
this stuff, right? I actually think that there's
just too much probing into other people's lives.
If you were a grown man and you're a grown woman, all right,
and you both consent now, you know, if you were religious,
that's obviously a vow that you're breaking.
Not good. That's on you.
You know, you're gonna have to reconcile that at some point.
You know, if you, if you're, you know, Christian like we are, and
you stand up in front of your family and you take these vows
and you cheat. And I'm not trying to preach.
I'm just responding to the question.
But I'm going to respond to in my way rather than just rail on
people and just hammer people. I'd rather be more thoughtful if
you take those vows and you willingly choose to to break
them with infidelities or other stuff.
I mean, that's a youth thing. All right.
I just think that the ever present cameras are are such a
detriment to society. I really, really do.
You know, they're going to have to go back home and if that's
what it looked like, that's going to be a situation that's
going to be messy. I believe they put out a joint
statement so that they, I think they actually acknowledged it.
Right. What do you want me to tell you,
man? They're not.
You know, it's not like one of them, God forbid, is underage.
There's nothing illegal. They're two adults.
They're grown people. Now, the one aspect here, this
is this is a delicate balance. Yeah.
You want to tell me that there's a conflict of interest here in
terms of getting information and reporting?
Well, that's a discussion we could have, but I've never
interviewed Frabel. I've interviewed Diana probably
3 or 4 times. I really do like her and I
really do think she's cool and I really do think she's good.
But this is her thing, you know, I just, you know what, it's
funny, Like there's a lot of people, it's just a little bit
of a commentary on life. So, so bear with me.
There's a lot of people who love to gossip.
Now, this isn't necessarily gossip.
This is an actual image, a visual that the world, the
sports world's responding to. So it's a little bit different,
but I've never been a gossiper. Like, I don't know, maybe it's
just where I was raised, you know, like when, when, when you
when somebody tells you something, and this goes back to
my childhood in Brooklyn, you just keep your mouth shut.
You don't run around and chirp and tell everybody like that's
I've got no interest in that nonsense.
I've never been that guy. You know the old expression,
what loose lips, right? You know, I mean, if you if your
lips are too loose, eventually you get popped in the mouth.
More of an old school expression, sure, but you get
the gist. I, I don't understand why people
are so interested and consumed with other people's lives.
I've got a theory and here's my theory.
My theory is that those who really parachute into that stuff
a lot and are, I mean, really consumed with it, the gossip,
the nonsense, the innuendo, who's cheating on whom, who's
doing this right? I actually think that their
lives suck. Because if you have a good life,
if you're fulfilled, if you're happy, if you're content,
whether it's in a relationship, whether it's with a, you know,
with another person, certainly as a parent, that goes without
saying. In a work environment, why would
you give two shits what's going on somewhere else?
There's enough to worry about in the world, you know, whether
it's a ceasefire, whether it's economics, whether it's a health
issue, it's just a general direction of the world, which
really at the end of the day is all I care about because you
know what? I'm not here.
I'm and you know, as a parent and, and we all this is just the
reality of it. We're leaving behind something
that, given the direction that it's going, is far worse from
what we grew up in. And I really think that the
invasion of privacy and, and the cameras and the just DJ just
pulling back the curtain on everything, opening up a phone
and just eviscerating A colleague.
Like, you know, I, I had Stephen A on, right?
And you know, I'm not getting in the middle of his feud with
Whitlock. I don't I don't know Whitlock at
all. Never met him, never talked to
him. Don't judge, right?
His style is not really my style, but it's working for him.
He's making some good money and he's got a presence, right.
So I'm not here to really judge him.
Stephen A's my boy. You know, that's different.
But I don't know Jason. But when I, when I see them
going back and forth, yeah, it's good for monetizing brands and
getting those clicks and all that other stuff.
But is it, is it really a thoughtful conversation that's
going to add anything of substance and value to life?
It's not. It's just not, and I'm not
trying to get preachy, man, but I was asked the question and I,
I don't care. I care about my wife, I care
about my kids, I care about my inner circle.
I care about my parents, my sisters, my nieces, my good, my
good, my good loyal friend base. But I do care about the world on
a on a greater, you know, level and the direction is very
dangerous. And it's been like this for a
very long time. So I'm going to wrap it up with
that. But you know, what's my opinion
on Diana Rusini and Mike Vrabel holding hands and playing
Footsie in the pool gives a fuck.
Who cares? That's my most honest opinion.
Yeah, Honestly, man, that's it. Yeah, it's celebrity drama.
It's People magazine stuff. It's like, what is this guy
supposed to do? I don't know.
Yeah, I know. Not not variable.
I mean, you like, Yeah, like, yeah, like what are you you.
Know, I mean, they got to deal with it.
I don't I got enough to deal with, you know, between this
finger and this little cut on my finger and try to get the show
off the ground even more. No, I mean, you know, but again,
I I guess I do need to circle back to this a little bit more.
You do need to, and her employers will have to do this,
get to a place where they're still comfortable with her
reporting on the NFL. I mean, it's a real conflict of
interest right there like that. It is no, that that is, I'm not
going to deny that that's not a good look.
It's not a judgement on, you know, stepping out of a marriage
or two consenting adults, again, that stuff, whatever.
But the other stuff is real. Like, think about like if say,
if say, if Diana was instead of being a journalist, which she
is, say, if she was just, you know, like a content provider
independent of a journalistic path, right?
It's basically me like doing this, right?
And you had a head coach in the NFL and you have somebody who's
pumping out content but not not reporting news.
Then then is then there's zero issue.
I mean, I still have no issue with their with the with that
stuff. Like that's on them.
They'll figure that out or they won't.
But yeah, I mean, anytime there's now a story or anytime
that she presents information about the Patriots, how can it
not be construed with what? Well, how did she get that?
I mean, that that is the sad reality of, of what's.
But the the other reality of this is that really it's it,
it's been going on forever, you know?
I mean, you know, you hear about the like the the casting couch
and you hear about all these horrible Hollywood tales, you
know, young actors, I mean, of legal age.
The other stuff is it's a world of evil that I, I can't even
wrap my mind around. I'm talking about of, of legal
consent age, right? And you don't have any people
that that you know, that you watch and that you Revere as
actors and entertainers like if if, and I don't know the
absolute path, but I know enough that a lot of them.
How do you think they got there? Yeah.
What? What do you, what do you think
was done to get there? Same with a lot of me.
Not all of them, clearly not a broad brush, but it is what it
is. Musicians is the way it goes.
I mean, if you're a if you're a person of incredible power,
right, and you have literally the leverage to hire and fire
and offer raises. I mean, you've got a button that
you can push that can change somebody's world in a massive
economic way. And when that's presented, there
are a lot of people who will abandoned morals and scruples to
get there. That's just the unfortunate
reality of the world, man, you know?
Big Tom. Anyway, that was an interesting
curveball. Yeah, no, I mean that will
someone also they didn't send a super chat, but there were
definitely a couple comments about it yesterday that we're
looking looking for the answer. Let me see here this I didn't
see. I must mention Diana was
recently named the Eagles Insider of the Year by 94 WI Do.
You see the typo? Do you see the typo in that
that? That makes it hilarious.
Hold on, who's been stirring things up with Jalen Hurts and
AJ Brett? What am, what am I missing here?
Recently named. Eagles inside of the year.
OK, I don't mind me, all right? I don't I don't start going
there. My good God almighty.
It's a little bit more on brand, at least for what the the show
started with Nick's crank it up in the postseason.
We upped this we we upset the Celtics a year ago, the favorite
for the title. Yeah now, before we got the
Diana Vraybould comment there or chat.
I start to go into like what? What is the tangible?
Let's then get me back on that one screen there, Jay.
Thank you. What is the tangible evidence
that the Knicks are ready to win a championship?
Like, what is it? You know, I can tell you, like
with the Celtics, they've already got championship
pedigree, All right? I can tell you with the Pistons,
they have shown incredible while they haven't won a championship,
this group, this group, they have shown incredible pedigree
the previous year, how they pushed the Knicks, how they
smacked the Knicks all around the court this year in the
regular season, you know, their superstars back healthy.
Their coach seems to be really, really good in picker staff.
Some evidence there. Denver Nuggets, they already won
a championship together. Jokic is a champion champion.
So is Jamal Murray. All right, different coach now,
but still at least championship pedigree.
So outside of pedigree, which the Knicks don't have because
they've never gotten to the NBA Finals as a group, what are the
tangible basketball things that you look at this team and say,
all right, This is why they're going to win the championship?
And usually when you do that, there's two or three things that
come to mind, like #1 do they have a championship head coach?
No, that doesn't mean he can't win 1.
You know, obviously there's a lot of guys who weren't
champions before they became like Malone before he was fired
by Denver, who now is taking the job at UNC.
That is a weird hire for North Carolina.
I don't understand that 30. I don't even care about the
money, 30 million I thought I saw for Malone who I wanted for
the Knicks. I just I don't I don't know that
that was a weird UNC is they're all they're kind of losing their
way from a basketball point of view.
They need to figure it out. I don't love to hire, but OK,
you've got a championship coach. So like when the Rockets were
doing their thing with Rudy, Tom Jonovich, obviously incredible
all time iconic names like Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, Casey
Jones, back of the day with the Celtics, you know, like Popovich
coach is like Curry, I'm Curry, Curry, Curry cheese, Steve Kerr.
So it's not a head coach. So we don't put a check in that
column. So it's not the head coach, is
it the superstar player? Not for the Knicks it's not.
And I love Jalen Brunson. I love him, man.
He ain't Colby, all right? He ain't MJ, he ain't LeBron, he
ain't KD, he ain't Steph. He's just not.
He's not a Lajuan. He's not Timmy Duncan.
He's not one of those guys. He's like that next cut.
And it's very hard to win a championship when your best
player is that size and a deficient defender.
Even though he puts out Max effort on defense, he's still a
subpar defender. We know that, right?
So it's not the coach, it's not the superstar player.
All right, well, now we're really working uphill.
What we're grasping at straws. What could it possibly be?
Well, how about the supporting cast?
Not to the point, no. I read this this morning.
Jay, I don't know if you saw this.
You probably didn't. I saw a story.
You might not realize this, but the Knicks had the highest paid
starting lineup. Totality.
Yeah. I think this year it's $179
million. I think it is for all 5, right
For the starter. Nobody in the NBA when you go to
the opening tip has five guys making more money than the
Knicks. So they've obviously invested,
you know, the draft picks with the britches, but an incredible
amount and Brunson still on a cheap deal of financial
resources to the starting five. So that's that's number one.
But the story was that a couple of I don't know if it was a week
or so ago, Stefan Bondi from the post had this good work.
He does a good job covering them too.
Where the Knicks medicine organization and they were
kicking around ideas because they didn't think about this.
And Knicks get off to bad starts a lot.
And if you're not starting the game well, I'm not looking at
the bench, I'm looking at the starters, right?
That's common sense. So they were trying to kick
around some ideas like, well, what can we do to maybe sit one
guy down, insert some other guy and maybe go from there to fix
what ails us? And there was a thought, now,
not everybody's I got to sneeze here.
That's the worst. That is the worst.
Excuse me. Bless you.
That's the first sneeze on YouTube.
Thank you. Really.
That's the first sneeze on on BT on Lesion, Yeah.
So the. Allergies are kicking up a
little bit here anyway. So the guy that they thought and
was eventually shot down, I don't know how, I don't know how
much it was, you know, was it was it a midfield?
Was it inside the 20s? Was were they on the goal line?
I don't know. Excuse me, ultimately how close
they were to doing it, but it was going to be Landry Shamit.
I like Landry. I've always liked Landry Shaman.
I don't like him as a starter for a team that's trying to win
the NBA championship. So the fact that they had to
even think about doing that and got to a point organizationally
where they're like, maybe we do something pretty radical and it
probably would have been Bridges or bridges are hard.
I mean, who you sitting down, right?
Somebody's making good money at least, you know, 20 something
25,000,000 bucks a year as both of those guys are.
So if it's not the head coach that you have belief in that's
going to get you to a championship.
If it's not the superstar, but you have ultimate belief that
he's going to get you to the championship.
If it's not the supporting cat, same deal.
And it's not the relationship between your two best players on
the court like Brunson and cat, although they did do a little
more pick and roll the other night.
Oh, what a concept. I don't know why the hell you
wouldn't do that every time down.
You know, if they say I go Brunson, bang jumper in your
mug. If they if they leave cat open,
bang 3 in your face. The hell so hard about this.
I really don't understand it, but they did do that a little
bit the other night, to be fair. So if it's not that
relationship, what I want you to answer this because you're a
Celtics fan, but I know you can do this objectively.
What objectively stated is the real reason why a Knick fan
could get up today and say I believe that we're going to win
the championship. I'm all ears.
OK. So I think the I think it's I
think it's a mixture of things. I think it's because this is
quote UN quote the best team in so many years.
And so, you know, you're as a Knicks fan, you're kind of
you're up in that sense where you're like, OK, I'm on the same
tier with these other championship rosters.
We're here, we've made it. This is.
We're here. They might get a big zoo shout
out. We're here, we outside.
But I also think there's a bit of a thought of a possibility
of, OK, you know, and this is true.
Any injuries could occur in the playoffs.
Any thing like that could happen.
You know, freedom could happen. A Thunder could happen.
But based on the Knicks roster themselves, I don't really know
what you're looking at here because I mean, Bridges and OG
at this point to me, their names, their names, yes, they're
not, they're not great. They're not great role players.
They're people who you heard of playing for their other teams
three years ago and you went, wow, that guy is really great.
That guy's and but real quick, Jay, that's a great.
I want you to finish, but I don't want to lose this point,
especially given the positions that they play 3 and D guys,
which is obviously, you know, the rage in the NBA.
Can you D it up? Can you shoot?
Go ahead. That's a good point.
No. Can you D up?
Can you shoot? I mean, they can both D up a
pretty, you know, they're both pretty good offenders, but in
terms of true shooting, true bucket getters, not who they
are, it's not great. You know, they're more they're
more akin to I don't. I always bust this guy out as my
well. Robert.
No, Sam Houser is always like my comparison.
They're closer. They're better than Sam Houser.
No, they're way better than him, especially on defense.
But scoring wise, they're closer to him than they are to a LeBron
James type. True, but hold on a SEC, Jay.
But they should that that's kind of the point.
So I think it gets back to the first issue.
They shouldn't have to be like a LeBron James type.
You've got Brunson and Cat. Yeah, they're supposed to be
role players, but the top two players don't mesh enough.
That's why my conviction is just not there.
You know what I'm saying? And think about the other thing
that you just said. And it's a salient point.
And it applies to every team every season, whether it's
baseball than ace. If you know, so and so's elbows
bark and he's going to go for imaging.
Let's hope it's not Tommy John. You always have to hold your
breath with injuries. Football quarterback, you know,
obviously Mahomes rips up his knee.
Other quarterbacks, running backs get hurt.
I I get it. Star defensive 10s like Bosa,
dudes like that, you get hurt. It changes the entire complexion
of your team. But was like, we're Celtics fans
in the 80s now that's one of the best teams of all times, maybe
the best, but that's not a great example.
But we're Celtic fans in the 80s saying, well, you know, listen,
then maybe there's some injuries that could happen around the
residence. So maybe that's an Ebony to win.
Or do you think in Chicago and MJ and and Scottie Pippen and
and Horace Grant, that first iteration before Rodman and all
the shooters they had Hodges Tucker got curved guys like
that. You think that they were sitting
there saying, well, you know, listen, maybe if Patrick Ewing
pulls A hamstring or Charles Barkley, you know, pulls A thigh
muscle, we can win the championship.
No, they reacted to what they had.
And really, when you're that good, all right.
When you're that good, it should.
Your main hope shouldn't be rooted in somebody else's
demise. Yeah, no.
And I think the only team honestly in the NBA, maybe the
Pistons have this a little, but I don't even think so.
I think the only team who's kind of in that position where
they're kind of looking down is the Thunder, where they're where
the Thunder are not going into the playoffs with any caveats in
mind that they're looking 4. Whereas like every other team,
even the Celtics are are hoping for maybe an injury, not hoping,
but like hoping for some tribulations to come in the way
of the Thunder, the Knicks, the Pistons.
Every Eastern Conference or the Eastern Conference team that
comes out of the East is going to come out of the East.
Because the other teams that that are also in the East, the
Knicks, the Pistons, the Celtics, the other two faced a
tough road to the Eastern Conference finals or face like a
lot of injuries or tribulations along the way.
Look at Jay Rod flexing some of that NBA rod in the house.
Look at him. Hey, go to Syracuse for nothing,
folks. That a boy.
That was good. You're right.
And you think about this stuff about injuries as well.
And then you mentioned the Thunder.
Well, the only time that they would like their fan base would
talk about injuries, it's like, as long as we stay healthy.
Exactly. Yeah.
You know, not if the Yokich goes down or Murray, like when he
hurt his knee a couple of years ago, whatever it might be.
So no, I mean, I'm going to be locked in.
We'll do some live watches with the Knicks.
I can't wait. Once the playoffs start it looks
like they'll play the Raptors in the first round.
I love that match up. There was a point where I wasn't
even sure why I had great confidence next based on the
match up. Would be a lot to get through
the first round. I I would be stunned that they
lost. In the round they will.
They will move on. And they'll beat the Raptors.
But Round 2? I don't know, man bar, let's get
this notorious Doe 113. Bridges and OG going to have to
take it to another level in the playoffs here offensively in
order for this team to win a championship's own reality.
They'll be out of the game, out of the playoffs by Yeah, round
two. Think about that.
So that's the other thing too. When many of your opinions or
hopes or both are based on players doing something that
they have not consistently done, you're not going to win because
that might happen in the first round.
But to win an NBA championship, it's not like football where you
got to win a couple of games right now.
You got to you got to play well to win those games.
But in the NBA, you've got to play two months basically from
tax day until the middle of June, great.
You could have a bad game. You can't have a series where
the things that you've kind of worked around all year or
coached around or tried to fix, they're going to resurface that
This goes back to I said this when I was talking about my
horrendous golf game as I played golf yesterday for the first
time this year. I, I like the analogy of, and I
use this for St. John's lack of shooters as well
from the outside, their guards going into the tournament and it
actually wound up hurting them where we all have a club in our
bag. We just don't we we try to avoid
just you clip it, you hustle it, you line it, you flub it,
whatever you do just doesn't feel right now.
Conversely, there's always a club in your bag where you're
like, alright, I'm playing horrendously, but this guy
usually gets me and it happened to me yesterday where I just
playing terribly. As I said, I take it and I
usually my buddy Dan always says it too.
He's like, man, you're 6 iron always clicks in and I had a six
iron from the rough about 190 something and and it bounced off
the green and I'm like, alright, that felt pure, that felt good.
Didn't do it again the rest of the day.
But the the point is, is that like, that's one thing that I
generally feel good about. And then there's a couple of
clubs from a couple of distances I don't want any part of.
But eventually if you play enough golf, you're going to
have to use it. Otherwise you're not going to be
a good golfer, right? And same with the NBA.
It's a 2 month marathon, not a Sprint.
It's a 2 month marathon. And for the Knicks to win the
championship, they're going to eventually have to rely on a
club that they don't like reaching for in their bag
because they don't trust it and I don't trust it.
And that club, instead of A5 Wood, it's going to be Bridges.
Or instead of a flop shot, it's going to be OG or whatever it
might be. You guys know what I mean by
this. It's irrefutable.
Now, I'm not telling you not to be hopeful, not to have faith,
not to be pumped up, not to know, not to enjoy the game
tonight against the Celtics. I'm really look, even though the
Celtics are incredibly banged up, which I'll get to again in a
minute, but it's just you know, it's three games to go.
I want to see the rotation. I want to see if they do a
little bit more pick and pop with with Brunson and and and
Cat. You know, I want to see again
the minute distribution. I'm looking for a few things
here, not so much the opponent because they're very diminished
the Celtics tonight, but more from a Knicks point of view.
Right, right. But anything that's rooted in in
like any other than pure optimism and and maybe a little
sprinkle of delusion, to be very honest with you, I don't I don't
know how you feel it. I don't know how you feel it.
And you know, I'm a big Knicks fan, but I'm also honest here.
And I have really not felt this team felt this team more than
maybe two or three Spurs for the season when they won the cup.
And not just because they won the cup, but because how they
looked in route to the cup and all that stuff.
And you know, another spurt here and there.
But even that wedding streak that I talked about a week or so
ago where they won seven straight.
The two games before that out West against the Lakers and the
Clippers didn't play well. And then they they won seven
against like the Wizards, the Nets, some bad teams.
I don't have the other teams in front of me, but I know it was a
few of those teams. You're supposed to win those
games. And then the two games after
that, they lost to the Hornets, who were playing very well at
home. And maybe the Thunder.
I think maybe that was the second Thunder game as any time
myself, I can only tell you how I feel gets that real belief
like all right, OK, here we go. It's starting to click the
starting to gel. This is what I thought it would
look like. There's evidence to the
contrary. And that's where I've tapped my
brakes and now I'm just watching eyes wide open, understanding
what they're very good at and they are very good at certain
things. But really knowing slash,
fearing their weaknesses, I believe will prove to be fatal.
I mean, listen, anybody can sit here, right, and say, take the
Yankees, for example. You know the the alarm is still
going off, Jay. Every time I take pause and just
say stay silent for a second, it goes off.
I mean, it's perfect. That's when I hear it.
Oh my God, like the Yankees, right.
You got a couple of guys who weren't hitting jazz.
What is he? Buck 67 now Buck 90.
Grisham hasn't done a damn thing.
He better get going here, man, because Grisham's going to
become a target. I know it's early, but he's
hitting 167. Ryan McMahon is just I'm not
going to go on. He's just an easy target.
I'm not looking to be disrespectful, but he stinks.
He's hitting O 77 and my God, Boone yesterday.
I, I just this is I can't defend this right?
Cannot and I will not even try. Aaron Boone said last night that
and Rod McMahon played shortstop, something they kind
of messed around with in spring training.
They wanted to get Caballero off the off the field because he
hasn't been either. And then Rosario, the two home
runs the other night, including a three run game-winning shot
against Lighter in the 8th inning.
You want to reward Rosario with some more times.
Anyway, Rosario was the 3rd and McMahon at short and after the
game, I mean, Boone's like, I know you got to back you guys.
I get that. But yeah, you can't lie to us.
You know, he's like Ryan McMahon's.
He's a, he's a good hitter. He's not, he's one of the worst
hitters in baseball. You know, just look at his 9 or
10 year career. I mean, it's, it's mostly league
average and some of the OPS and, and deeper, I mean, that's not
deep at this point, but some of the other deeper analytical
stuff, he's way below average, like strikeout rate, some other
stuff. So I just I don't I don't get,
but the point is right, I can present to you in an incredibly
optimistic way. You know, I love Ben Rice,
although he did have a really rough night playing defense last
night. But like, you know, Ben Rice is
a stud and Jazz is going to get going.
He's going to go 4040 and both he's going to come back and he's
going to, you know, be the player that everybody thought he
would be when the Yankees took him in the first round out of
high school, Dale Barton in New Jersey.
And McMahon's going to start popping bombs with that short
porch and, you know, remain Greg Nettles with the leather.
And Austin Wells is going to find a way to become a 250
hitter with power. And Grisham's going to start
replicating, replicating what he did a year ago.
And Judge is going to to be Judge Belly, who's been good is
going to remain belly and the Cole's going to come back and
he's going to be amazing, which I do expect and which Schlittler
and the other guys obviously freed and this and that a
bulletin. I know Bednar stumble last
night, but Bednar is going to be unlocked and then these young
flamethrower is going to come up and really make the bullpen
untouchable. Of course, I can present to you
an incredibly overly optimistic view of the Yank.
Now I'm bullish on the yank. I'm more bullish on the Yankees
chances than I am the next chances this year, just to be
clear. But I, I ran through those
scenarios. Anybody you can sit here and
say, well, if this happens and that happens and this guy does
this and this guy fixes that, do the same thing with the Mets.
You know, if Polanco starts hitting, if Simeons not done,
you know, if Lindor, you know, finishes top three in the MVP
and Bichette's going to be a beast.
And if this early sign from Alvarez is a foreshadow of a big
season And Louise Robert, who started very well, is getting a
little chilly now is going to go back to what he was the first
two weeks. And bench is going to figure
things out despite it in one O 8.
And you know, Soto comes back and he's going to be he's going
to win the MVP and Peralta is going to be better.
He's got to be a little bit better.
He's going to be better than he's been so far.
And Mcclain's going to just kill it and be a beast.
They're going to call up this kid and Devin Williams going to
46 saves with a 1.270. All right, he might.
But like, that's the overly optimistic view of of what the
Mets could do. Anybody could to do that with
any team, even a bad team. So if that, I really do think
that that's the only way that you can sit here with three
games to go in the season and identify the Knicks as a true
championship contender. You could say they're in the mix
and they are. They're one of five or six
teams. But to me, they're 5 or 6.
They're not 1-2 or three or four.
And if you're not one, 2-3 or four, unless it's a real outlier
of an NBA season, ain't winning. So here we go.
It looks like the drought's going to continue.
We got to hope I'm wrong. BT Bridges is one thing, but why
are we suddenly acting like OG is some disappointment that is
from Omar. Yeah, I know.
Listen, I definitely delineate between OG and Bridges.
OG is better. He's just better.
I think the problem with OG out of Nobi, and this is also a
problem a little bit of Brunson as the point guard who likes to
shoot. I just feel like sometimes the
ball sticks and you know, you're going to do so much to go get
you can't run up to Brunson and say, give me the ball.
It's got to got to run plays for you.
And you know, he's not the first option many times, you know, you
would think that he shouldn't be the second option.
That should be Cat. But there's been many games as
we documented where he's had single digit shot attempts,
which is confounding. And that's all Mike Brown and
partially on Cat. He's got to be more assertive.
You would think that OG really would be the third, like the
third option. Like to me, in a perfect world,
I would love to see like in terms of shot distribution, you
know, let's go, Brunson. Oh, God.
As soon again, as soon as I I, I, I I.
Can't hear it. I can't.
Hear it. I know you can't.
I can talk about plowing through some noise here.
Let's say Brunson. I'd say 15.
I know he takes more than this, but in my perfect world, just
allocation of shots 15 to 16 for him, and he should take the most
shots every night. We'll get Cat in the
neighborhood of, you know, 12 to 13.
But he can never be below that. He just can't like unless it's a
game where Brunson is dropping 50 or 45 and he's just eaten and
let everybody just get out of the way and let Brunson cook,
which he obviously does and he's done it in the post season with
a ton of 40 point games. But I'm saying at a conventional
road map here, 1516 shots for Brunson, 12 to 13 for Cat.
I would absolutely want OG double figures 10 or 11.
I would say Bridges would be next in line here with 7:00 to
9:00, you know, and then obviously start filling in like
the hearts and the shammets. Deuce who, who I want to shoot
Deuce. To me, Deuce should actually
have the same amount of shots that Bridges has every night.
Now, it doesn't always work that way.
He's not shy, but it doesn't always work that way.
And there's a little redundancy a little bit with OG and
Bridges. You know, I, I just thought it
would look better and we're at the crossroads now and we'll see
again, you know, where I stand on this, I don't know.
But I started the show. If you guys just tuned in like,
you know, there's, there's two reasons why you would really
think your team's got a chance to win a championship.
One would be the team that you root for.
I don't care what team it is like just that belief and
conviction in the team, the way they're built, the way they're
coached or managed, depending upon the sport, number one.
And then #2 circumstances, are you in an incredibly difficult
conference where it's a very arduous road to get out of the
conference to even get to the championship, right?
In this case, the NBA Finals, are there a lot of injuries?
And you know, that's one of the things that we really thought
would benefit the Knicks here. It has not.
So I would say, let me ask you this here, Jay, I want you to
give me a number. What's up on a scale of 1 to 10,
based on everything that you've heard me say about the Nixons,
you and I started working together here, 10 being the most
supremely confident and one being completely a non believer.
Give me a number that you think I currently reside at in terms
of my Knick belief to win. And I'm going to write.
Hold on, I'm going to write it down.
And I'm no wait, wait, wait, don't say it yet.
I got to write it down. My Nick believed to win a
championship. To win a championship win.
A championship. I got to win championship.
My first number was too high. All right, I'm going to I have
it written down. I'm going to pop it up in a
second. Come on, Jay, let's be.
On the 2 1/2 is it at any? You can throw in fractions if
you. Have two and a half 2 1/2. 2 1/2
there's, you see it there? Three.
All right. Look at them and if you you
could see I actually had a four and I'm like no, I.
Don't have that. Yeah.
No, you're definitely lower than a four.
Yeah, in terms of in terms of thinking they're a good team.
I think you're up there. I think you think they're a good
team. No, they're a good team.
I just. Championship, man, you have not,
you have not let up in that, in that belief.
No, because they've given me no evidence to really change my
mind. I've said this a million times.
I don't mind being wrong. Like I want to be wrong.
Even though I, you know, I gave say, Aaron Glenn a little bit
more rope than many others did. But like I, I don't have great
belief in him. Why would I?
I want to be wrong on that? Like, you know, I just I, I
when, when I benefit from being wrong, I don't mind being wrong.
Exactly. You know, works out.
Oh my God, if you think about this right, think about the
essence of of what this is now the the formats change, at least
for me, the medium is evolved beyond almost recognition from
when WFAN was born back in 87 with Susan Waldman with the
first update. But if you really think this is
actually an easy question. If you think about what is the
core existence reason or debate point, I'm trying to frame it
right because if I don't frame it right, it's not going to be
easier for you to answer, but I want you to take a stab at it.
What do you think is the main pursuit of every conversation or
call in the history of sports radio and obviously now
extending to generate? Buzz generate buzz.
No, no, that's actually a really, that's actually a really
good get now. I think it's more about
generating buzz. But what back then, I don't
think it was about generating buzz.
I think it was about I think the reason and tell you, I think the
reason why people call and espouse what they espouse and
tweet what they what they tweet is because it is the ultimate
motivation is to win a championship.
All the calls you get about this general manager, this head
coach, who should The Jets draft?
Who should the Giants draft? Who should the Ravens draft?
What should the Steelers do with quarterback?
What should this should the Titans draft?
The running back Jeremiah Love when running backs generally
shouldn't go that high. It's all rooted in having your
team make enough right choices to get to a point to win a
championship. That's all that it's about.
You know anything like I'm just trying to think of for some some
of the the three years that I was on the fan, some of the real
hot button. Obviously Daniel Jones was one.
I'm going to just jot down some stuff here.
Daniel Jones, Dabel, Shane. Aaron Rodgers was massive.
Oh, my God, it was huge, dude. Soto.
Yeah, of course. I mean, it's that's probably the
biggest one. Yamamoto was a big one, at least
for us. Yamamoto, the pursuit of him.
All right, so I'm going to go with those.
Right? Daniel, John.
And there's so many others. Daniel Jones, Dabel Rodgers,
Soto and Yamamoto. Now, every one of those, like
anytime somebody would call up about Daniel Jones, it's never,
I mean, sometimes it gets personal, but it's never rooted
in trying to, you know, talk about somebody's personality.
Or is this guy is at that point, is Daniel Jones good enough to
help the Giants win? Lombardi #5 nothing else
mattered. If you thought he was too boring
or too vanilla, it was. That's fine.
Can you win this way when he's running the way he does and
getting hurt and put himself in harm's way?
Can you win a Lombardi with Daniel Jones?
That's what all the calls were about.
How much is he worth? And even that, if you go to the
subset of that, how much should this player get in free agency
or whatever? But in the NFL with the salary
cap, it's more pertinent. How much, you know?
Is he worth the $25 million? The Giants gave him whatever,
even though they were easy outs, as we know.
But I think it's 25 mil. Oh, is it too much?
Oh, you're paying him how much? Well, all right, If he's not
really that guy, well, is it too much that's going to prevent you
from doing other stuff in terms of building out the roster to
what? Joe in the back of the
classroom? What's that?
Joe what? Yes, yes.
Joe to win a championship, yes. Joe Dabel.
You think about the calls and the, you know, all the
storylines around Brian Dabel, you know, quarterback Whisper or
whatever coming from Buffalo, Josh Allen, all that stuff.
His first game as a Giants coach, We're going for two,
we're going for the win. Let's go showing balls.
You know the exact. And I'm not saying that the
other Giant coaches didn't have stones.
I don't mean to like, I'm not trying to like, you know, be
that guy. But like Dabo projected a
different energy, like a different culture shift.
Like we're going for it. And the way he lit up, he
eviscerated, eviscerated Jones in that Tennessee game.
And junior Giant fans remember that on the sideline.
I think it may have been for a was it for a bad two point
conversion pass in the back? Whatever it was, he made a
mistake. I think he was trying to connect
with and he undressed them because no other Giants coach
had done that. And Dabel, so we're sitting
there saying, all right, wow, so they won the first game.
Jones looked a little different. He was incredibly aggressive.
He's obviously demonstrative on the sideline.
So from there, every conversation was this guy.
The early ones. Maybe we found our new Parcells.
Maybe we found the modern Parcells and then it morphed
into all right, when are we going to fire this guy?
Can you win anything with Dabel and it Yeah, MM back there.
Mike, What what was that again? What was the the core debate
with with Dabel? What?
What's that? Yes, yes, yeah.
Correct. Can you win a championship with
Dabel? You know, Soda was a little
different. I will admit Soda was different
because you when you have a player like Soto, you just know
he's obviously going to impact the bottom line toward a
championship. Although it didn't work out for
the Mets last year with 83 wins and no playoff appearance, but
it did work out for the Yankees getting there.
And he is great. And eventually when these Mets
figure everything out, you would think that he'll get to at some
point, I would think a World Series with the Mets.
It was never about that. It was more about it was like
more, you know, the infighting between the Yankee and the Mets
fan. So that was definitely unique.
Aaron Rodgers right now, Rodgers was unique in the sense because
it was a lot of politics and a lot of those who don't like
Aaron Rodgers for a lot of different reasons, you know,
evasive or even lying if you want to say lying, which I don't
think he lied. I think he was just evasive and,
you know, a little cute with the with the COVID shot and all that
stuff. And I love Rodgers.
I'm an I'm an Aaron Rodgers. I don't care what anybody
thinks. I like Aaron Rodgers, but many
of you don't, right. But when Rodgers came, hey, you
know, listen, oh, you got this defense.
Think about what The Jets defense look like with Robert
Sala. Remember they were seven and
four with Zach Wilson before, you know, a little bit of an
uptick. And with Rodgers, you would
think it would be a lot of an uptick, but then he got hurt, of
course, because they're The Jets.
But hey, with this uptick in offense and you got Breece Hall,
you got Garrett, you got Sauce, you got Q, you got DJ Reed as a
quarterback, you'll cooking. Can't.
Yeah. Mary.
Mary what? What if you really think about
it, Mary, what? All those conversations about
The Jets back when they got Rodgers, right?
Aside from the other stuff that people jumped into, the football
stuff, What what was that about? Mary?
Yes. Yeah.
Correct. Could The Jets win a
championship with Aaron Rodgers? It's all rooted in championship
pursuit. So when Mike and I love Mike
again, I don't want this to get, you know, hijacked.
When Mike Breen says what he said the other night on the
game. Disagree, don't want to hear it.
It is about the championship. When I hear from Nick fans,
well, why can't we win? But you, you can.
We can. I just don't think that we will
because I don't think that we're good enough.
And if you choose not to acknowledge that, that's fine.
Maybe you'll be proven right and you could bang your chest on the
top of the mountain. And I'm not going to lie, I'll
jump in, you know, I'm going to jump in on the track because
I'll be living and dying with every nicked possession for the
next couple of months. You know that.
But you know, I mean, it's just, it's, it's very, very
interesting. Same with the Yamamoto.
Same with any other Japanese player.
Can we get this guy? Oh, what's the scout report?
Let me get some video. Always got the goals, The 4th
ball, the ghost ball. He throws 99.
Yankees offered this 325, three AAV.
Dodgers this, Mets that. Where's he going?
Yanks wanted them. Mets wanted them.
Dodgers wanted them. Why Susie?
Susie is not really participated much these last couple of weeks
here in class. Yes, Susie.
And what was that conversation rooted in?
Yes, winning a championship. So that's all this is.
This isn't hate, this isn't shade, but I'm not going to get
on my show and tell you something that I don't believe
about anything now that obviously some of my beliefs are
just going to be flat out wrong and some of my beliefs are going
to be just flat out dumb. Like I've been proven with the
Zack stuff and, you know, and the other, some of the other
stuff that's out there that I can never get away from as we
know because it always lives on the on the Internet.
But that's the bottom line and that's the bottom line.
That's the bottom line there, Jared.
Oh, Speaking of the bottom line, yeah.
What's up? Something here with WWE, but
where are we if we get a little update here as I call on Jay
Rod, who is a good student, sits in the front of the room.
Thank you for reminding. Me.
Absolutely. Oh, jeez, that's not a good
sign. Can I get an update on the
pursuit of 1, Jake? Yeah, let's see.
Let. Me let me and hack saw my daily
check. This doesn't sound promising.
Oh no. That was for Hacksaw Ridge, OH.
By the way, I do not hear the beeping even though there's been
a lull. Yeah, no, I'm not hearing
anything. All right, So have not heard
back via e-mail. Now we take to Twitter.
We take to Twitter now.
OK. OK.
Now one more question. I will say another thing.
Go for it of their. Podcast seem to have been
discontinued. What if you go on Jake the
Snake's YouTube page? Their last episode was like 8-9
months ago. Are you serious?
I hope everything's all right. What about hacksaw?
I think similar like his last podcast was a decent while ago
as well. Really.
Let me check. Yeah.
OK, that's that's tough here. I'm going to have to maybe come
up with another other name. There's just not many guys
though who are still alive that from from that era, you know
that, let alone I would want to talk to.
No, I'm big time. I mean, let's see the Hacksaw
Hour. Yeah, there's like there hasn't
been an episode in a while that. Was that was a gimmick?
And and Hacksaw, you know, I I love to have him on the show.
I was, I just I, I never loved this gimmick, man, Sure.
I love, I love. What was like, what was his
thing? Because I know he's a New
Yorker, but I don't know if that was like, America wasn't.
Which I love. No, his whole thing was was
patriotism like that was great, but like he would come in, he
was with the four by four. No, and he'd had this, his
ridiculous goofy look and he'd just be in the mid ring.
God who God know, and he's talked about this.
So I'm not talking that at school.
God knows what type of drugs were when he was in the middle
of the ring screaming at the top of his lungs with a 2 by 4 over
shoulder and the American flag and this big barrel chested
monster going, Oh, it's just. But the gimmick was, you know, I
don't think he was a great wrestler.
He wasn't great on the mic, but he didn't represent the flag.
So. There you go, He always.
Had that red 1. I don't think he ever did a heel
turn like Sergeant Slaughter was, You know, remember him, you
know. But then he went.
He was a sympathizer for an Iraqi sympathizer.
That was like his heel. Turn yes dude.
The WWE just. Loves these like little like
dude, I'll tell you this is like the one of the wildest things if
anyone is like a kind of a modern WWE fan.
Do you remember the wrestler Alberto Del Rio?
No, he's kind of a 20 tens guy. I.
Know Jack Del Rio, the former coach.
He was like, he was, he was like the Spanish.
And it was kind of, I think it was kind of playing into a lot
of like at the time, it was kind of when like a lot of
immigration stuff began to be like spoken about.
And he was like John Cena's main rival, and he was like the evil
Spanish dude dude who John Cena would come in and just beat the
shit out of like every week. But was he, what was he like
when you say it was one of his main rivals?
Did he ever fight for? Yeah, yeah.
Like, yeah. Oh, he definitely had the
championship a couple times. He was, yeah.
He, I mean, I just always found it funny how like WWE just
always played on like these like racial battles of like, of like
there's like the white American buzz cut hero guy and then he's
fighting off just like all the enemies.
Yeah, no, they did even Well, that's one of the real not that
not that they played up to the stereotype necessarily, but
that's why Bruno Sammartino, if you think about you talk about
immigrants and you know the the Italian influence certainly on
Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, you're going back really post
World War Two. I'm sure before that, yes,
absolutely before that. What am I saying?
Before World War 2, but definitely thereafter as well.
And that's on my maternal side. That's I know that well because
my grandma, you know, I have Italian.
But one of the reasons why Bruno have the belt as long as he did
was because all the Italians would go to Madison Square
Garden to do them on. And I, like I, I know it was a
totally different era and I didn't really have as many
characters back then, but I look at the film of Bruno and he was
a beat like he could bench and squat.
He was a strong man, man of pride.
And he really was. He was an American hero for for
Italian. American.
I mean, he's certainly one of the names that gets talls.
Around, no doubt about it. But I look at the footage and
I'm like, God, what a boring champion man.
He was horrible on the microphone to the point where
when Vince brought him in as an announcer, he was terrible.
It was a very different era. That was the start of it.
But but that wasn't that wasn't a heritage gimmick.
That was just like natural, like, hey, here's a big, you
know, hairy like this hairy chest, like muscular looks like
he can move a car, you know, the nose and every like
stereotypical. You know, I'm half Italian.
I could say this so far. He he looked he Italian.
I mean Bruno, Bruno Sammartino. People flocked.
My grandmother used to go watch him at the garden all the time
with her. Twins.
Wow. Rest in peace.
Yeah, dude, I got a funny story for you.
I don't think I've ever told you this story on the air.
I don't think I ever have. Did I ever tell you the story
about when my grandma and my aunt intervened in a wrestling
match at at the garden? Absolutely.
All right. Now intervened is is a loose
interpretation of intervening. But now back then the the ticket
prices were cheap and like, yeah, everybody's smoking in the
arena. Like the garden like it was just
it was totally different vibe, right.
So they were able to get good seats.
Now they didn't come from money. My grandfather on my maternal
side had four or five jobs at one point.
Yeah, He was a short order cook. He fixed televisions.
I think he did some security. I know when he was young, he was
literally shoveling coal to help his family put food on the
table. Like that's how that's how my
family started in America on the Italian side.
And so, so they'd have a lot of money is the point.
So, but they were able because it was cheap to get these great
seats. And my grandmother and her twin,
Oh my God, they filled up a water gun with vinegar, right?
Yep. And if you're old enough and I
barely remember watching these guys wrestle, but I certainly
know historically the Moon Dogs, they would wear tattered jeans,
long blonde hair. I think they came in, they were
biting a bone. They were supposed to be like
subhuman, right? And they're pretty good.
Like they would fight like Mr. Fuji, Mr. Saito, Pedro Morales,
when he was, he actually held all the belts at one point, but
when he was tag team champion anyway.
So one of them, I don't know if it was Spot or Rex, goes flying
out of the ring, right? And my grandma and my aunt or
right on the the barrier, like the metal barricade where a lot
of guys are dropping hammers and through doing stuff.
She takes the water gun and fires it right in his eye.
Vinegar. What?
That's bad ass vinegar, man. How do you like that there, Moon
dog, get back in the ring. Go get the shit kicked out of
you. That was, that is.
So cool. Yeah, and and I say that because
back then I've seen so many documentaries.
I could watch this stuff all day where, you know, guys and I go
back to the Sergeant Slaughter as an Iraqi sympathizer in the
90s, early 90s desert story. Like, I mean, you know, history,
you know, that's not a good thing as an American to
sympathize with that, I'm sure. And by making that heel turn,
like when a guy had heat back in the day, I don't mean now real
heat fans would like wait outside the parking lot with a
baseball or a gun. I mean, it was it was a lawless
environment. How crazy is that?
And. So it's like, OK, obviously the
people still knew it was fake or acting or some deal, but just
like their vitriol towards the superstars was just greater.
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, well, first of
all, kayfabe, which is when you stay in the like the orientation
of character. Now everybody deviates from, but
because everybody knows it's it's it's entertainment.
It's a totally different presentation.
My dad hated it. He couldn't stay.
I told you this. He hated when I watched it.
I watch it every, I watch it all the time.
He's like, God, these idiots, look at these jerks, these guys,
morons. He just, he didn't like it,
right? And my grandma loved it.
She introduced me to it and she believed it was real.
She believed it was real. I remember, God Almighty, it
wasn't I was it Morocco who was a really good heel.
I'm going to wrap it up after this, but now I'm go and look on
this. Not now, but if you're
interested, I thought it was Jimmy Snuka and Morocco.
So before Piper smacked him with the coconut and before that,
right, earlier 80s, eighties, 8182, something like that.
They had a massive rivalry and that's when Jimmy went to the
top of the cage of the garden and did the Superfly from the
top, from the metal. I mean like 10 feet higher than.
The I've got it pulled up. That's crazy.
And the the picture, because he was all bloodied and Morocco was
just laying there and Jimmy'z bloodied everywhere and he just
held the pose and you can't see it like with like this and just
took it all in for a second before he splashed him.
Yeah, All right. So anyway, the I back then, like
it was totally different with mean Gene.
Mean Gene would do the interviews with the WWF logo
behind them and like guys would roll in.
It would be mean Gene in the middle and like say Andre and
Heenan or Hogan and whomever, Hogan by himself, Bundy and
Heenan. But back then Jim McMahon would
do the interviews by the ring. I don't know if you knew that
like by I'm talking late 70s, early 80s, right?
And I think it was Snuka was doing an interview in a suit.
And I actually think that this was the start of their rivalry
going up to the steel cage match.
Anyway, Morocco attacks him when he's doing the interview.
And I I think Jimmy was bloody there.
They got after it. Obviously, you know, fake, I cut
yourself blood packets, whatever.
But it looked real and they sold the shit out of it.
And I remember my grandma, one of the things that a lot of
Italians to the old school battalions, when they're mad at
somebody, well, first they'll they'll curse you and they'll,
they'll jinx you and they'll get you to throw all the curses on
you up. They'll go like not really spit,
but they'll pretend that they're spitting at something.
My grandma jumped up. I just remember watching this
with her and started cursing in Italian and feigning spitting at
the TV at Don Morocco. That's so did they believe?
Did they believe it was real? Yes, yes, they believed it.
Wow, yeah, man. So I mean, if that's the case, I
mean, you must have a like, you must have a different kind of
energy watching it where you're going.
This guy's a real life. Villain, Oh yes, Oh my God, yes,
like there were certain wrestlers that you just you
know, and that was maybe I'll do I love her.
I can talk wrestling all day, so I'll give you another minute or
two on this if I'm born everybody to tears, hopefully
hopefully I'm not but one of the things that I loved about piper
first of all, his work on the mic number one all time for me,
the best right storytelling angles wit like people people
think that Roddy was a brawler, which he was even outside of the
ring like he could actually hit him.
He was a boxer, but he was very smart and witty and you know, he
would divulge later on where he would like take notes and write
stuff down to get personal with people.
Like you couldn't find it on Google and no idea how we found
it, but he did. But the thing about Piper and as
much as I loved his interviews, there was a point where I just
wanted to see Hogan just beat the shit out of there and and
others as well. And Piper was he perfected the
art of getting the last hit in, whether it's smashing out battle
over the the head with the record that the for the manager
of the year or and then slipping out of the ring just as the the
hero. You know, the babyface was about
to RIP them to shreds and it always left you.
My God, why can't they get this guy and just RIP him in two?
And then of course, well, here we go.
Now they're going to fight in a month.
And now all this is sold out. Like, I don't know that anybody
was as good at that. Like, like Hogan didn't project
that he was just a hero. Andre was different.
Morocco was, I couldn't stand Morocco, but he was a like, I
couldn't stand him in a good way.
Piper was Orndorff had a little bit of that before he became a
babyface guy. I don't know, never heard of
him. Oh, you didn't?
Never heard of Mr. Wonderful? He was Mr. Wonderful, Yes.
Oh, Mr. Wonderful. OK, Yeah.
Great body, could fight real tough guy too.
And and I thought when he turned good and it was interesting
because he paired up with Hogan, then he turned on him, but the
he was better as as as a heel, because it was it was easy to
hate him. And I don't I don't know.
I don't watch wrestling enough now to know if people who do,
you know, inhale this like I used to, If there's a guy or if
there's anybody that is similar to Piper, I don't mean on the
mic, but where you just want to go and he just slips out of the
ropes and then he, you know, gives you one of these and he
goes behind the curtain. It's just never see him get beat
up. I don't think that exists.
Anymore. I I mean, he definitely gets
beat up, but I guess Seth Rollins now would maybe be that
kind of guy. I bet if you.
Don't know. I bet it rap.
Yeah. Great, dude.
It was great. It was great.
Let's see. Do you know who do you know?
I mean, I'm showing my age here. Jim Cornett.
I got you. Jim Cornett, What you say?
What you gonna say? Jim Cornetti.
No, I I knew. I knew how to pronounce the
name. I was just like, I'm not sure
who this is. He well, he was manager, I
believe he was the guy with the tennis racket WA wrestling
historian. That's actually a great name.
It's a great name and I think he would do it OK.
And also we Sam and I had brother love in studio.
Why am I forget? What's really?
Yes, well, because I lost the bet and I had to dress up his
brother. I remember that, yeah, I
remember looking at those pictures.
Almighty, all right man, any other chats that you see
interesting worthy of anything you want to pop up?
There's a lot of there's like a lot of the here.
I like this one actually, because this it, it made me
think for a second, made me ponder.
OK, I I can. I already see it.
It's a good point. Christopher.
Christopher Marie, right? Morley I would have just said
Christopher St. Marie or something.
Like that? Yeah.
There you go. That's good.
The Knicks had no pedigree, so winning playoff series three
years in a row and making the Eastern Conference final counts
for nothing. Meanwhile, let's just pencil in
Detroit, who's won exactly nothing.
It's a really good point. I think the difference, though,
is I'm not basing it so much on pedigree.
I'm basing it on talent, what it takes to win connectivity
coaching, but that is honestly that is a very well thought out.
Yeah, I I like that. That's good.
I like agree with it, but it's good.
I like the point, and I think I disagree with it as well.
I mean, yes, you're right. Like people are throwing in
Detroit into this finals, Eastern Conference finals role
without, you know, much of A playoff track record to back it.
My thought though is I think like you said.
I don't think. People are honestly really
basing the Eastern Conference. I know even I'm not, I'm not.
I don't think the Celtics are going to make the Finals.
I think the Pistons are like, I think I'm basing it mostly on
this season. Who have I seen as the best team
in the Eastern Conference? And I'm going to go off of that
rather than history, because I just think the Pistons have
shown that they're that much better than the rest of the
crowd. OK, that's a fair take.
I mean, we basically played seven months of basketball,
right? You start in October and and
middle of April regular season 7 months, right?
Are there is an easy question, but I'll let you answer it.
Have there been more stories about the lack of chemistry with
the Knicks or the concerns about the Knicks or people who are
beating their chests? And I don't mean fans, I mean
people who cover the game for for a living saying the Knicks
are the team to be. What's the answer?
We need some more chemistry. I mean, the, the, the Carl
Anthony Towns story was the story the first day of train,
the first week of training camp. When he said I'm, you know,
they, they said, Hey, what's your role with Mike Brown, the
new offense? What's your role?
And he's like, I don't know, we're still trying to figure
things out. And I didn't go nuts on that.
I knew you had to give it time to breathe and it's a new system
and all that stuff. New coach.
So I wasn't going to go nuts. But then he said the same thing
a week and a half ago. So he bookended it.
Not good. Hope I'm wrong.
I don't know that I will be, but we're here for it.
Last one. What do you got?
Which special? Yeah, go ahead.
Why don't you read it? Good.
Rod Power, which specialty match do you like more in wrestling?
The chain match or the I quit match?
Now the chain match is which. One well, the chain match is is
when you basically it's similar like if this would you can keep
that up Rod. I think what Rod's talking about
is it's called, it was called the dog collar match where?
You would put a. Dog collar around your neck and
you'd be connected by this massive chain, I mean thick.
And the other guy would have the dog collar connected to his neck
so you couldn't run away from each other.
And it was only like 10, maybe 10 feet of of give.
That is insane. And a matter of fact, I
mentioned Roddy Piper before there was he was in this before
they came to the WWFI. Think it was the N.W.A, but it
could have been the AWA. One of those two for sure down
South somewhere and they were in a dog cobbler match.
I think it was like 82 or 83. And Greg Valentine hit Roddy
Piper so hard in the ear. Greg Valentine, his dad was a
wrestler. What's up, guys?
Well. Bleeding.
It busted his eardrum. It's like it's like busted his
eardrum and you know, Roddy obviously died a while ago, but
even up until his death, like his hearing was always impact.
I don't know if he was fully deaf, but it like he just
obliterated his eardrum. So if that if that's what you
mean, I'm going to go with the old school dog.
I'm going to give you all the ones I remember.
All right, steel cage is basic at this point, but back in the
day it wasn't and it was really, really cool.
All right, battle royal. You see that a lot Cage Hell,
there was this thing called the Lumberjack match, which I.
Remember that is that when you got thrown out the ring and they
were like, it was like there were the superstars who would be
around the ring. No, I thought that was when
physically you had like a piece of wood.
I maybe I might be messing that up.
I I I could be wrong on that? Because I thought, I thought
lumberjack was like a style of match where you you're like a
log of wood yourself, where when you fall out of the ring, the
it's like they've got the rest of the WWE roster.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Inside to push you back in.
That's interesting. Okay, you know what's funny?
I used to There was a gimmick match too where Andre would
wrestle like 3 vertically challenged people.
Yep, Yep. And it would just be like a
certain. Modern, something similar.
This guy Ryback. I mean, he wouldn't.
Be I've heard he wouldn't. Be wrestling like true
vertically challenged folks. He would be wrestling just like
skinny schmucks. Like just like.
I don't know. Who do look like me?
Like he just like put them in a bag.
Backbreaker. Oh, the Backbreaker was a good
one. I like the I like the battle
Royale. I mean the old ones.
What I always found interesting about the battle Royale is that
you know, you say you have 20 man battle Royale, right?
You know Garfinkel, you know, with the on the announcer, the
announcer and just it was just a sound that connected like naming
all the wrestlers. I loved it.
But what I always found interesting about that, I always
had such intrigued because you know, 20 guys are going to have
10 good guys, 10 bad guys, right, generally, and you'll
have like a couple of guys who get, you know, have no chance of
winning first couple of guys over the top rope like say the
killer bees, like be Brian Blair, no disrespect, but got
jumping Jim Brunzel or like a Tony gorilla or somebody like
that. One of the food, one of the one
of The Fugees and one of the Samoans, right.
I always found interesting was like #1 eventually you had to
have heal go against heal at some point or good go against
good. And the other thing I loved is
you would see see this a lot with Andre and Hulk for sure.
We'd have like 3 heals conspire against Hulk to try to get him
out and then like Hulk and flip somebody over the rope and he'd
be out. My God.
So I always enjoyed that as well, but always good going
through memory lane with that. So yeah.
So Cornett would be a good get. Let's try to get him as well.
Jim Cornett reach out to him as. Well, and brother love and don't
forget. I wouldn't tap out on Jake and
keep going though, right? Keep going.
I just, I, yeah, I just don't know how active.
Like whoever was running their social media or some stuff is
currently is my. That's my only thought.
Gotcha. Understood.
Keep it going. Only so much you could do.
Good luck to you Celtics tonight.
I don't really say that sincerely.
No, by the way, for the five starters might not play.
You got Kate is probably not going to play Derek White,
Howser, Jaylen Brown all bagged up.
So this was not about, you know, Knicks Celtics tonight
necessarily more about the direction of the East and it's
just my lack of belief with three games to go for the Knicks
to win a championship. So thanks again to our sponsor
Sullivan Propane, of course, and Premio sausage have a great rest
of you Thursday. Let's get it up tonight, though,
that little jets collective you still have there it is.
Look at them right on point J Rod.
Good pass right on the hands too.
Good job. So we've got that tonight.
I gotta go figure out this damn buzzer sensor, which I'm sure I
won't to my wife gets home. But 7:00 tonight, episode number
3 of The Jets collected with Jake Asman, myself and Rich
Samini. We're going to talk a lot about
the draft of the shifting draft wins here pertaining to The Jets
at the two spot, all the different possibilities and
can't wait to make sure you go there, check it out, like it,
subscribe it, support it, get those comments, get that
traction. And of course for BT Unleashed,
like it, subscribe it all that good.
You didn't get the subscribe button up there today, Jay.
It's all good, but you didn't do it.
So you're going to do it after yesterday's encouragement?
So check that out and the more comments and I respond to the
comments we get that bouncing around the algorithm continue to
build out. Thank you, Jared J Rod in the
house build out, build out, build out.
So have a great Thursday tomorrow with 10 for this show
for unleashed and tonight at 7:00 for The Jets collective.
See ya.