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Speaker 1: Welcome in What Driving Nick Grade? Episode four ninety. This episode of What Driving Nick gred is presented to you by boost Mobile. We really are getting close to episode five hundred. Appreciate all of you have been with us for any part of the ride. If you're new, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. Pardon me, Oh, and we're approaching to undred fifty thousand subscribers. That's pretty cool. You don't get a plaque for that, but you get one for one hundred k. You get a really sick one for a million quarter a million, no YouTube platform, but still would be really really awesome. So maybe we'll h two hundred and fifty thousand subs on YouTube right around the time we get to our five hundredth episode. Also speaking to the episodes, another again, just quick scheduling reminder for everybody. I am off the following two weeks. My wife and I are going to Europe, just the two of us. It is my first time with consecutive weeks off since the show started, so since the summer of twenty seventeen would have been the last time I had more than one week off in a row. So very excited for that. Ty Butler and Damon Bruce instead of us going dark, Ty Butler and Damon Bruce are going to be filling in for me those following two weeks. Demanse thought those two weeks started today. That may or may not have been my poor communication. Regardless, it is just me today and we have a bunch to get to, so we will jump to straight the voicemail brought to you by Boost Mobile. Kyler Murray is going to be quarterback one for the Vikings. More on that in the second. Leo Messi unsure about his future. I mean, I don't think it's crazy to say, especially because Argentina is going to get to host at least one World Cup game next rotation, that Leo Messi might find a way to be a deep reserve four years from now, when Argentina gets to host a World Cup game and Jaden Daniels, super pissed that they let a kid on the team, switches number from number three to number five files a season, desists saying they can't use his nil anymore. I I am a little I brushed up on this story a little bit right before the pod, because that's when it broke right was right before the pod. I I understand Jayden feeling like I won the Heisman Trophy. There should at least, you know, be a bigger gap between when I wore the number and the next person wearing the number. I understand that. I think it seems like a lot of the bitter, not bitterness, I don't know if that's the right word, but anger about this is because no one has worn Joe Burrow's number nine, who also won the Heisman. Yes, but while they both won the Heisman, Burrow, you know, had an undefeated national championship season, so you understand why, you know, his number might be a little more sacricanct but Jayden Daniels, you know, not hearing it quickly before we get to the Lakers. On the Kyler Murray piece of it, I was pretty adamant that once the Vikings acquired Kyler Murray, the earlier they named him the starter because they were always going to name him the starter. The better because I don't think with a new offense with a quarterback who's fighting to you know, keep his career as a starter alive, splitting reps in training camp is a good idea, and I do think Kyler is the better of the two quarterbacks. So I think just ending the quarterback competition, which was probably never really going to be a full blown competition, was the smart thing to do. I do not think anything else the Vikings have done in this process qualifies as the smart thing to do. I to draft a quarterback at ten when you have Kirk Cousins because you want higher ceiling than you previously had to Then a year later, let Sam Darnold walk after fourteen wins and four thousand yards because again you want the higher ceiling, reset the quarterback salary clock, all of that, and then ten games, granted they were bad, bad games, ten games into that player's career being like, all right, he's not the guy. The process there is just brutal, and you can't draft, in my opinion, one of the youngest players in the entire draft, with as few throws as he had at Michigan, and then ten games into his career be like, he's not the guy. Again, I'm not a JJ McCarthy got. I didn't like to pick at the time. I didn't understand it. But the process, and I know they have a new GM, that process is so flawed, and I think you have now once again attached your wagon to another low ceiling quarterback. Like I know, people think Kyler is something Kyler's not. People trick themselves into thinking Kyler Murray's going to be a different quarterback than he's been almost every year of his NFL career. So I am not as high on the vikings as some people, and I'm really not high on the process, but the big and also, you can email us for mail bags, which we do. I was calling it semi monthly. At this point it might be monthly. We've been doing regular Friday shows instead. What's Right mailbag at gmail dot com. But the shocking story from yesterday morning is the Lakers got house flipped by Mark Walter and he bought them just around a year ago for ten billion and just flipped them to Josh Kushner. Yes, that Kushner family. And Bob Iger. Yes that Bob Iger, the guy that ran Disney forever. Boughtom for ten sold them for twelve and a half. I am going to machine gun my takes at you on this and they are not in order of importance, and they're just as they I you know, I know what my takes are. Pay no attention to the order of them take one, man, oh man, those Bus kids. I don't know if a team could have made more or a family could have made more consistently bad, step by step decisions than the Bus kids made after doctor Jerry Buss passed and they took over the team from the infighting within the siblings about who is and who isn't running the team and the excommunication and the embarrassment of Rob Polinka and Magic Johnson and I'm not let me rephrase that, the embarrassment of the Rob Blink of Magic Johnson relationship falling apart like that, to Linda Rambiss being a huge part of the brain trust there to not so quietly whispering behind you know, Lebron's back, about how sick of the Lebron tenure you are up to and including, as we learned yesterday, getting ten billion dollars for a basketball team that evidently was worth far more than that. Because you can't convince me that if the Lakers are worth twelve and a half billion today that a year ago when Lebron was still on the team, mind you, that ten billion to the top of the market. I mean, it's either either the Bus family sold low more on that soon or Cushner and Eiger way overpaid seems unlikely. But so that's that's take number one. Take number two, it is not. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to find the timing of this and the people involved in this to be incredibly odd and to raise a lot of questions. So Mark Walter, who we found out over the last month under investigation by the FBI for practice related to his real businesses and whether or not he's gonna have to payback loans, and I'm not listening. I am not a business reporter. I don't. I don't not only do I not write for the Wall Street Journal, and I'm a big newspaper guy. I don't really read the Wall Street Journal much. So I'm not going to act as if I have that story clocked. What he is, you know, being potentially accused of what the government's investigating him for. What I am going to say that I feel pretty comfortable from the research I've done in the last twenty four hours. What I am comfortable saying is seems like there is a possibility that Mark Walter is going to need a grip of liquid cash in relative short order. And this is a hell of a way to free up a bunch of money and make a twenty five percent return in one year. But I don't think Mark Walter bought the Lakers with the expectation or with the plan of yeah, you know, it's a buy and hold for eighteen for twelve to eighteen months. I think he bought the Lakers for the plan of owning the Lakers, and he wouldn't have done the made the different moves that he made as far as potentially trying to meld the Dodgers' brain trust with the Lakers' brain trust if he thought he was gonna sell one of them and keep the other, which right now is what they're doing, keeping the Dodgers selling the Lakers. So the specter of this investigation hangs over the entirety of this sale. Ramona reported that he was approached by Kushner and on Sunday, and this was done Wednesday. I find that almost impossible to believe. And again, I'm not a businessman. I don't claim to be a businessman. I haven't had the last, the closest thing to a real job I've had since I turned sixteen years old, was door to door stake salesman. So I don't have a finance degree. I don't claim to be a you know, a sharp Wall Street guy or day Trade or any of that stuff. But the idea that you could on Sunday morning not even be thinking about selling the Lakers and by Wednesday morning it's been reported you've sold the Lakers really tests the limits of plausibility. So there's that piece of this story that I don't totally understand. There is the undeniable blend of politics here where Josh Kushner is the money man behind this, because listen, I'm sure Eiger did great at Disney, but you know he doesn't have billions of dollars. But Kushner and his fund who were just involved in trying to buy the World Cup and that thing blowing up that they do. And Josh Kushner is Jared Kushner's brother. Jared Kushner is the son in law of the President of the United States. Jared Kushner arguably is about as politically powerful a private citizen as there is. And folks who want to look a scant at the timeline of Mark Walter being investigated by the federal government as a happy coincidence In the midst of that, Mark Walter and his Dodgers have a trip to the White House a couple of weeks ago for the ceremony, and then a couple weeks later, the president son in law's brother buys the Lakers in one of the most shocking sports transactions ever. Again, I don't even know. You know, it's kind of choose your own allegation. You could make there. It'd be like, oh, was there downward pressure because he's under investigation to cut Kushner a sweetheart deal? Well, that doesn't totally make a lot of sense, because this doesn't feel like a sweetheart deal. Was you know, he's paid twelve and a half billion dollars. Hell, a ten percent return in one year would be a great profit. Eleven billion it would you like worth ten a year ago, paid twelve and a half. So that doesn't mean it was did he get you know, heads up, hey man, this investigation ain't looking great for you. You're gonna need this cash. I I I don't know. I just know the timing of it, the people involved, and the fact that we do appear to right now be in an era of how illegal is the illegal stuff certainly gives you pause, So there is that piece of it. Simmons reported that Kushner and Iiger were hoping to get the Vegas team, but the Vegas team's expansion fee was going to be a minimum minimum of seven and a half billion dollars and maybe upwards of nine. And in that case, well, if you're gonna pay nine for a new team, why not pay twelve twelve and a half for the best brand in basketball. I do understand that logic. It seems absolutely bananas to me that the Vegas expansion team could be worth. It was crazy when they were talking. I thought it was nuts. It wasn't that long ago that we thought the Vegas that the expansion fees were gonna be four billion dollars. Then we started hearing six. Now all of a sudden, it's seven and a half and maybe more. That shit. The the Timberwl sold for a billion five a few years ago. It was utterly stunning and considered a shocking overpay a decade ago when Balmer paid do you pay two billion for the Clippers? Franchise? Sales prices the I'm trying to see the what the these teams have gone for, Like I know the Celtics just went for six, but that was recently. I mean the Mavericks three years ago. We're three and a half billion post COVID Mavericks three years ago, three and a half billion, big market. I don't know if they own their arena or not. I now an expansion team is going to be around eight that's kind. I mean, that strikes me as crazy, which does bring me to another point I have about this, which is and I talked about this briefly on the TV show yesterday, but I do wonder if we are going to in twenty years think it was quaint and a relic of the past that families that individuals owned pro sports teams, And are we going to yearn for the day of the quirky Jerry Jones almost mom and pop style family business. Because once you get to these teams being all of them multiples billions of dollars, and now the Lakers are in the Decca billion category twice in a year, which means you've got to think that cheapest NFL team is a approaching seven eight billion? Are you know in twenty fifty and are we gonna have all of our pro sports teams just owned by entities, private equity, hedge funds, foreign wealth funds. I know right now, I don't think all that's allowed, but you're running out of human beings who have the money. Even in an era of this type of wealth discrepancy and more billionaires than ever, the amount of people that can just write a check for multiples of billions of dollars is not a long list, and like, I don't think that good for sports. I you know, I'll tell a I'm gonna leave a lot of the details out of this story, but I will tell a one true story from the last month. I was, i'll say, at an event with a guy who seemed like a nice enough guy and we just got to chatting and there were you know, might have been cocktails involved, and I asked the guy what he does for a living, and he was explaining it to me. I didn't totally get it, and then he basically bottom lined it and he's like, he basically works at a fund whose businesses investing in sports teams, you know, private equity or head Again, I don't know this world. A group with a bunch of money, their whole businesses, they invest in different sports teams, and the potential you know, baseball work stoppage came up, the NBA salary cap came, a bunch of stuff came up, And at one point I said to the guy, I was like, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. There's probably no right way to take it. I don't think your job should exist like I don't. I was saying how I didn't like I didn't like the idea of just nameless or faceless financial entities owning a piece of American sports teams because I view American sports teams as kind of legalized monopolies, and and they're a bit of a public trust. They very often have a lot of, you know, real public dollars that help support them, and I don't think they should be run like a typical you know what do they always say widget factory where the goal is just turning it? You know, can we turn a profit this year? And you know, he handled me saying that I didn't think his job should exist better than I probably would have if he had said the same thing to me. So credit to him. But I look back on that conversation just a month later, and I realized how naive I sounded, because it's not only that his job is going to continue to exist. His job might have to exist for any sports team that's sold in the future, you might simply have to have these big institutional investors. Because if if Joe Lakab were to say, you know what, it's been a good run steps retiring, I'm gonna sell the Lakers or sell the Warriors, who not a bunch of people that are like, Okay, here's the ten billion. And I think it's one of the reasons probably bron who had always been serious about getting in the NBA ownership, doesn't talk about it anymore, And when he was last asked about it, it seemed like he said he had moved on from it, like it the idea of Okay, I've done amazing professionally investing all of it. I have one billion dollars Austin power style one billion dollars liquid, and I'm gonna take half of that, half of my liquid net worth five hundred million, and put it towards a sports team that doesn't even get you on the trophy stand on the podium if they win the title these days. Oh you, oh, you have five hundred million in it. Okay, We're happy for you. You you own five percent of the Golden State Warriors that just sold for ten billion, you know, in this theoretical universe. So you know, that came to mind. And the last thing that came to mind for me was because we now have this story about Matti Ishbia. Again. I'm not a cnbcre at Wall Street Journal guy, but it seems like his mortgage business might be in a bit of trouble. I'm not sure the NBA has crushed it with the latest round of owners. So everybody loved Mark Walter coming to the league. Less than a year later, he's under federal investigation and he's out. So that one, I don't know if anybody saw it coming, but that one didn't go great, Tom Dundan. Nobody's accused him of it, you know, criminal malfeasance or fraud or anything like that. Just seems to be like wildly cheap and holding the Blazers hostage. Not great. Ishbia takes over the Suns, starts meddling with everything. The saving grace was yeah, but at least we have another super crazy rich owner that will spend a bunch of money. You know, do all these different do all this stuff? Well, we'll see what his financial situation is. The Adelson family that bought the MAVs, the beginning of their tenure went so disastrously some people believe to this day they were doing a ownership version or a modern basketball version of Major League where they're trying to submarine the team's popularity locally so they can move the team. That was an ideal. I'm not saying Kushner and Eiger won't be a good group, but there is undeniably, deniably now a direct line political component to the ownership of the league's premier franchise. I'm not sure about that new guy that bought the champion Celtics again. I don't know if he's going to be a good or a bad owner. I do know that as soon as he got the team, they started tearing down the roster. That's probably not ideal. Hell, he's not even that new of an owner at this point, but it's in the last decade or so. Steve Balmer, he seemed great. They built an arena, put all this money into the Clippers. I don't know if you guys have been checking out, you know, Pablo's podcast, but seems like he might not have been doing everything on the up and up and listen, this is this isn't a eat The rich billionaires shouldn't exist common here. It is to me a pretty obvious one. Though. It's very very very difficult to make billions and billions of dollars, you know, totally one hundred percent, never coloring outside of the lines, not saying it's impossible. This is difficult. And if all these pro sports teams are gonna cost multiples and multiples of billions of dollars, are we going to have more of these stories down the road? And are we you know, we're gonna sound crazy telling our kids, like, you know, you know who used to own the Pittsburgh Steelers a family the Rooneys and the Giants rown by the Mars, and the Chiefs rown by the Hunts, and the Cowboys were owned by Jerry Jones. By Jerry Jones. She's gonna be like, oh, yeah, that's the the Chiefs, who you know, have a guy that runs the team, they call them, you know, the CEO. But they're owned by you know, this capital firm and they've got I don't know, so brave new world of sports ownership. And I am really interested in if we get real deep reporting on what the hell actually happened where Mark Walter buys the Lakers, plans to meld them essentially organizationally with the Dodgers, and a year later flips them for twenty five percent profit to a family you know, member of the president and the former guy, the guy who used to run Disney to really it's it's one of the most shocking high level sports event transactions in my life. And then a couple hours after that, Russell Westbrook retired. We'll discuss that in a second, but first, the NFL season it's about to kick into full gear, which is why I want to give you a huge shout out to the sponsor of today's video, seat Geek. Over thirty five million download seat Geeks the number one rated ticketing at more than seventy thousand events listed on seat geek, including concerts, sports festivals and more. NFL preseasons here, regular seasons around the corner, and don't forget MLB is in full swing. I love using seat geek, you guys are Last week I told you I bought my wife Jay Cole tickets to the j Gole concert and MSG on seat geek. I bought me my justpena tickets me, my wife, and our daughter's tickets to the Jay Z concert at Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago on seat Geek. I got all my World Cup tickets on seat Geek. I've shown you guys. You guys know how easy the app is help and how unlike certain apps, they've got your back. Each ticket is rated on a scale of one to ten, so you know you're getting a good deal. Look for the green dots, big green dots that means good, little red dots that not so much. Every ticket also backed by their buyer guarantee. And as you guys know, I have a code for you guys. You can use code right ten wriig ht ten for ten percent off your next set of tickets at seat Geek. That's ten percent off any tickets with promo code right ten. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you, Seat Geek. All right. The other big news yesterday is Russell Westbrook finally calling it finally sounds meaner than I wanted it to. After eighteen years in the league. Russell Westbrook calling it quits, and you know he was still to the bitter end. If you gave Russ minutes, he was going to give you some level of production. Now it wouldn't always be efficient production, obviously, but even last year in Sacramento playing thirty minutes a game fifteen six and six basically, And there's a lot of ways to discuss Russell Westbrook's career. I it's one of the most interesting careers ever. It's one of the most unique careers ever. It also is a career that I think will be misremembered as far as at his peak how good he was. Really. So if you take Russ what I consider his peak, which is his first full year back after the knee injury, through his one year in Houston, that year in Houston, he was all NBA and was underrated. In those six seasons, his averages were twenty six nine to ten. He won an MVP, had three other top five finishes, and in those six seasons was All NBA every season, two time first team, two times second team, two time thirteen and critically speaking, in those seasons, his team was decidedly better with him than without him. And that's the part of Russ that I think because of how the career ended, and because some of the analytical numbers are so garish, people are going to act as if his style never led to any winning And that's a more complicated discussion than it actually seems like. But as far as was having Russell Westbrook on the court good for your team, undeniably yes. Throughout the entirety of his prime. Gets a little trickier in the playoffs, and we'll get to that. But russ Is during his prime in particular, availability crazy high minutes for the era, absolutely endless energy and effort. He was an absolute son of a bitch to deal with. And while people can parse all in twenty seventeen, MVP should have been this guy. He was absolutely a super nova that first season in Oklahoma City without Durant. It's not only that he averaged a triple double, first guy to do it since Oscar Robertson, and it was It wasn't only that he broke Oscar Robertson single season triple double record, and by the way, the game in which he broke that record, he had a fifty point triple double and the buzzer beating three to win the game. It was that that Oklahoma City team's entire plan every game was Russ create fifty fifty some points of offense for us, and he did it. He won the scoring title, scoring thirty one and a half a game, second scoring title of his career, I believe, and then also was a terror on the glass and despite the insane usage rate, didn't wear down and followed those seasons up with two years in a row where he won the assist title while averaging double digit rebounds. And then after that year in Houston, once he got to Washington, I think were post prime. But in Houston, you know, it was twenty two, eleven and eleven, and on those silly eighty two and zero games or whatever, they treat him like a god for that one year. That one year in Washington. He had a great career and he worked his ass off and all time great players that I think, you know, not the full list, but that I think he undeniably had a better career than and was a better player than mellow Dominique Dwight A. D. Gary Payton, Steve Nash, Clyde Drexler, guys that I think he is right behind as far as his full career. Tricky one, but Kawhi Iverson, Clyde Fraser, Jason Kidd, Patrick Ewing, that's the group. I have him right behind. He's one of the you know, what's my full list of guards better that have had better careers than Russ, the full list, Michael Magic, Kobe Steph those are obvious ones. I just don't want to leave anybody out. Zeke, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Shay West, and Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Stockton Harden. Those are the twelve guys that, to me like the only twelve guys that reguards that definitively are definitively higher on the pyramid than Russ. I think kids ahead of him, you know the I think Iversen's a touch ahead of him. The and I said, SGA right, SGA ahead of him. But so he's you know, somewhere thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, depending on how you want to do it. So it's an unbelievable career. It also is, you know, young elite or aspiring elite athletes can learn a lot from both sides of Russ's career. You can learn what endless energy, effort intensity, what that can do for you in a positive way. Now, obviously you can't learn his absolutely freakish athleticism where there was during his prime he was a can sit for a decade maybe a top three just raw athlete in the league. Can't learn that, But the other stuff you can learn the flip side. And I wanted to do this last, not first, because I don't listening. He's one of the forty ist greatest players ever. I just said, you know, he's one of the thirteen fourteen to fifteen greatest guards of all time. You don't want to spend it, and they're like, here's what was wrong with him on the front end, But it is part of his story, is the stubbornness and the hard headedness and the refusal to evolve once he no longer was the league's best raw athlete, and how that's a big part of the reason that in the final decade of his career, teams he was on went on one sorry, one, two, three, four, five, six, two to eight in playoff series from that first year without Durant to retirement, and those two playoff series wins were one year in Houston by the skin of their teeth over the young young OKC team and the Clippers. I'm sorry the Nuggets seven game bigory over the Clippers last Round one. That's it. And where you know, if you russ over that last decade of his career in the postseason was so wildly inefficient that it really really hurt his teams. From the MVP year through the end of his career, fifty three playoff games, thirty eight percent from the field, thirty percent from three on five threes a game, four turnovers a game, not ideal, and it is not nothing that for a guy who had that much just unbelievable talent, work, ethic, competitive spirit, all of it. When it came to overall team winning, underachieved because he was a bit of his own worst enemy. That's not like an unfair statement, and there's a lesson in that as well. But overall, you know, eighteen years in the league one MVP won, there's seven, six, ten, nine time All NBA, two time first team, five time second team, two time three team, four consecutive Top four, Top five pardon me, MVP finishes and as an added bonus, one of the greatest off the court guys as far as how he treated people on teams and the work he did in the community all those things. When I treat people that worked for teams those things. Uh, one of just the greatest UH guys in the league for twenty years and a first ballot Hall of Fame career, and anybody that's arguing he's not a Hall of Famer is a moron. I can't even say they're just trolling. They just they just don't understand how the Hall of Fame works. And this is he's a no doubt walk right in immediate guy. You know what, one thing maybe we could do over the weekend and you guys can just use cut this and maybe use it as an intro. I think it could be fun if we have the capability to do it. Sorry, the producers love when I just give them on the air assignments. But maybe we drop into the feed with this as the intro. The you know, eight minutes or ten minutes of my fifty Greatest Players of the last fifty years, the Russell Westbrook portion of that episode, just as a little standalone thing. I you know, he was, let me see where he was. He was thirty fifth on that list of the fifty greatest players of the last fifty years. We did that. You know four years ago, so you know, nothing really much would have changed for Russ in that regard. I think that could be a fun thing to do. All right, I want to talk a little NFL in a moment. But first, you guys, notice how everything seems to just keep going up. Rints going up, streaming services going up. Your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks soulzes should cost extra now with boost Mobile. With boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the will this go up soon? Game? Why? Because Boost Mobile has unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that will never go up. In fact, it's the same price you pay for life. So switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that will never go up. Only at boost Mobile. After thirty gigs, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay twenty five dollars per month as long as they remain active on the boost Unlimited plan. All right, So yesterday I talked some on the TV show about these concept I ain't been at deep sleepers, which is the idea that right now, when people are making their preseason or their playoff picks in the preseason, you're going to hear a lot of the same types of teams, same types of teams, a lot of the same teams being listed as my sleeper, Like the Giants are going to be very trendy alleged sleeper pick, the Colts are going to be a trendy alleged sleeper pick. I I think that the New Orleans Saints, or really any team from the NFC South, when eight wins can win that division, you know a lot of years we're going to be called sleeper picks. Which is why I started talking about deep sleepers, which are teams with greater than one hundred to one odds to win the Super Bowl, the worst teams in the league, of the projected worst teams in the league, and about their ability to make the playoffs, because what we have over the last half day, at least, that's just as far back as I went. Every single year one of these deep sleepers makes the playoffs. Last year with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds to win the Super Bowl. The Carolina Panthers made the playoffs the year before that with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds to win the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos made the playoffs and with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds win the Super Bowl. These odds courtesy of Football Reference. The Washington Commanders made the NFC Championship game. The year before that, The Texans the worst preseason odds in the league two hundred to one. They made the playoffs and won a playoff game the year before that, the who was it that year? Oh my Jags one hundred and thirty to one before the year to make the to win the Super Bowl? They made the playoffs. So it begs the question, who are the deep sleepers this year and does anyone have the courage to pick one of them to make the playoffs. The deep sleepers this year are Miami, Cleveland, Arizona, the Jets, the Raiders, and the Titans. And you hear that list and you say, well, obviously none of them those teams can make the playoffs. But again, think about what we thought of the Texans three years ago when they traded their future first round pick as a way to get Will Anderson after drafting CJ. Stroud, and we all hand up, we're discussing whether or not they just traded away the number one overall pick, and it was just and you know they made the playoffs, won a playoff game. The Commanders, after drafting Jaden, made the NFC Championship game. So I'm making this argument. I'm giving you the history and I'm staring at this and I'm like, yeah, but none of these teams have a shot. So Miami new head coach, they did spend some money on quarterback. Counterpoint, they probably want to be bad. They have cleared all their books of their veteran talent, and they're in a division with two teams that we expect to be quite good. They don't even have like the easy division path. Feels like you can cross them off. Cleveland should have a good defense, and I like Jared Vers, but not quite as good as they've had in years past with Miles Garrett. I'm not certain on Monken. They have the worst quarterback situation in the league. They're in a division with two all pro quarterbacks are caliber in Burrow and Lamar. I'm running to cross them off. Arizona toughest division in football. New head coach Jacoby Brissett's starting quarterback. It doesn't even seem possible. The Jets. The reports out of camp about Gino have not been overwhelming. Aaron glenn Is pre fired. We already mentioned the pats in the Bills can't fathom that the Raiders veteran quarterback, at least for the beginning new head coach, but probably a good thing Ashton genty year two. But in a division with the Chiefs, the Chargers, and the Broncos. The producers worried I'm gonna fall for the Raiders again like I did last year. Really hard to see how that works out. And the Max Crosby saga kind of hanging over them, which leaves us to one team, the Tennessee Titans. Case for the Titans number one overall pick quarterback in year two, Okay, he should be better. Disastrous coaching situation Toy Salah. But Robert Sala, who now is out from under the yoke of Aaron Rodgers and Woody Johnson. Robert Sala, whose defenses always have improved once he got there, spent a lot of money on defense this offseason, drafted a quarterback's safety blanket. You think, in the top ten in Carnel Tate and a potentially softish division. I can't believe this is where I'm landing. But and I'm not even guaranteeing that I am going to follow the history, that I'm gonna have the courage to pick one of these six teams as a deep sleeper to make the playoffs. But of these six teams, it seems like the easiest case and the best case we could make, would be for the Tennessee Titans. I'm gonna spend you know, a lot of my time while my wife's vinted shopping in Europe, you know, going through all our NFL preseason magazines, all the projections, all that stuff. But if I want to find a real, oh my god, pick again, it's gotta be Miami, Cleveland, Arizona, the Jets, the Raiders, are the Titans. And I think of those options, my money would be on the Titans. Titans plus three forty to make the playoffs. I think I'd probably want better odds than that, but that is there are six teams with worse than three to one odds to make the playoffs, and then the six I just told you Titans plus three forty, Browns plus five seventy, Raiders six to one, Jets seven to one, Dolphins fourteen to one, and the poor Arizona Cardinals twenty to one. I gotta tell you, I don't like anything about the Cardinals situation, but twenty I don't know that any team should ever be twenty to one to make the playoffs in the NFL. All right, so here's what I want to do. Barnwell, not Barnwell, pardon me. Orlowski just ranked quarterbacks on arm strength, ball placement, mechanics, decision making, pocket presence, second reaction, and rushing ability. It's it's a maddening ranking. So I want to discuss that, and I might or might not put on my sports media on Budsman hat, even though it's usually just for the TV show, and discuss what sorry about to sneeze and well, you know what, I'll leave it as a tease and discuss a major what I consider sports media story from the week. Those two things, plus maybe a couple listener and viewer emails on the Bonus Friday Show. We're gonna record that right now. It'll be in your feeds tomorrow and then next week and the week after Ty Butler and Damon Bruce on for me. Uh So, we're gonna have another podcast dropping in your feed tomorrow. We should have the Russell Westbrook episode coming sometime over the weekend. Not episode, but kind of the repurposing of Russell Westbrook's Top fifty players last fifty years and again if you want to get things in future mailbags, What's Right Mailbag at gmail dot com. Thank you so much to our friends at boost Mobile and seat Geek. Thank you to the Volume, Thank you to Blue Duck. I will talk to you guys on these feeds tomorrow. I'm going to record that right now, What's Right
Speaker 1: Welcome in What Driving Nick Grade? Episode four ninety. This episode of What Driving Nick gred is presented to you by boost Mobile. We really are getting close to episode five hundred. Appreciate all of you have been with us for any part of the ride. If you're new, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. Pardon me, Oh, and we're approaching to undred fifty thousand subscribers. That's pretty cool. You don't get a plaque for that, but you get one for one hundred k. You get a really sick one for a million quarter a million, no YouTube platform, but still would be really really awesome. So maybe we'll h two hundred and fifty thousand subs on YouTube right around the time we get to our five hundredth episode. Also speaking to the episodes, another again, just quick scheduling reminder for everybody. I am off the following two weeks. My wife and I are going to Europe, just the two of us. It is my first time with consecutive weeks off since the show started, so since the summer of twenty seventeen would have been the last time I had more than one week off in a row. So very excited for that. Ty Butler and Damon Bruce instead of us going dark, Ty Butler and Damon Bruce are going to be filling in for me those following two weeks. Demanse thought those two weeks started today. That may or may not have been my poor communication. Regardless, it is just me today and we have a bunch to get to, so we will jump to straight the voicemail brought to you by Boost Mobile. Kyler Murray is going to be quarterback one for the Vikings. More on that in the second. Leo Messi unsure about his future. I mean, I don't think it's crazy to say, especially because Argentina is going to get to host at least one World Cup game next rotation, that Leo Messi might find a way to be a deep reserve four years from now, when Argentina gets to host a World Cup game and Jaden Daniels, super pissed that they let a kid on the team, switches number from number three to number five files a season, desists saying they can't use his nil anymore. I I am a little I brushed up on this story a little bit right before the pod, because that's when it broke right was right before the pod. I I understand Jayden feeling like I won the Heisman Trophy. There should at least, you know, be a bigger gap between when I wore the number and the next person wearing the number. I understand that. I think it seems like a lot of the bitter, not bitterness, I don't know if that's the right word, but anger about this is because no one has worn Joe Burrow's number nine, who also won the Heisman. Yes, but while they both won the Heisman, Burrow, you know, had an undefeated national championship season, so you understand why, you know, his number might be a little more sacricanct but Jayden Daniels, you know, not hearing it quickly before we get to the Lakers. On the Kyler Murray piece of it, I was pretty adamant that once the Vikings acquired Kyler Murray, the earlier they named him the starter because they were always going to name him the starter. The better because I don't think with a new offense with a quarterback who's fighting to you know, keep his career as a starter alive, splitting reps in training camp is a good idea, and I do think Kyler is the better of the two quarterbacks. So I think just ending the quarterback competition, which was probably never really going to be a full blown competition, was the smart thing to do. I do not think anything else the Vikings have done in this process qualifies as the smart thing to do. I to draft a quarterback at ten when you have Kirk Cousins because you want higher ceiling than you previously had to Then a year later, let Sam Darnold walk after fourteen wins and four thousand yards because again you want the higher ceiling, reset the quarterback salary clock, all of that, and then ten games, granted they were bad, bad games, ten games into that player's career being like, all right, he's not the guy. The process there is just brutal, and you can't draft, in my opinion, one of the youngest players in the entire draft, with as few throws as he had at Michigan, and then ten games into his career be like, he's not the guy. Again, I'm not a JJ McCarthy got. I didn't like to pick at the time. I didn't understand it. But the process, and I know they have a new GM, that process is so flawed, and I think you have now once again attached your wagon to another low ceiling quarterback. Like I know, people think Kyler is something Kyler's not. People trick themselves into thinking Kyler Murray's going to be a different quarterback than he's been almost every year of his NFL career. So I am not as high on the vikings as some people, and I'm really not high on the process, but the big and also, you can email us for mail bags, which we do. I was calling it semi monthly. At this point it might be monthly. We've been doing regular Friday shows instead. What's Right mailbag at gmail dot com. But the shocking story from yesterday morning is the Lakers got house flipped by Mark Walter and he bought them just around a year ago for ten billion and just flipped them to Josh Kushner. Yes, that Kushner family. And Bob Iger. Yes that Bob Iger, the guy that ran Disney forever. Boughtom for ten sold them for twelve and a half. I am going to machine gun my takes at you on this and they are not in order of importance, and they're just as they I you know, I know what my takes are. Pay no attention to the order of them take one, man, oh man, those Bus kids. I don't know if a team could have made more or a family could have made more consistently bad, step by step decisions than the Bus kids made after doctor Jerry Buss passed and they took over the team from the infighting within the siblings about who is and who isn't running the team and the excommunication and the embarrassment of Rob Polinka and Magic Johnson and I'm not let me rephrase that, the embarrassment of the Rob Blink of Magic Johnson relationship falling apart like that, to Linda Rambiss being a huge part of the brain trust there to not so quietly whispering behind you know, Lebron's back, about how sick of the Lebron tenure you are up to and including, as we learned yesterday, getting ten billion dollars for a basketball team that evidently was worth far more than that. Because you can't convince me that if the Lakers are worth twelve and a half billion today that a year ago when Lebron was still on the team, mind you, that ten billion to the top of the market. I mean, it's either either the Bus family sold low more on that soon or Cushner and Eiger way overpaid seems unlikely. But so that's that's take number one. Take number two, it is not. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to find the timing of this and the people involved in this to be incredibly odd and to raise a lot of questions. So Mark Walter, who we found out over the last month under investigation by the FBI for practice related to his real businesses and whether or not he's gonna have to payback loans, and I'm not listening. I am not a business reporter. I don't. I don't not only do I not write for the Wall Street Journal, and I'm a big newspaper guy. I don't really read the Wall Street Journal much. So I'm not going to act as if I have that story clocked. What he is, you know, being potentially accused of what the government's investigating him for. What I am going to say that I feel pretty comfortable from the research I've done in the last twenty four hours. What I am comfortable saying is seems like there is a possibility that Mark Walter is going to need a grip of liquid cash in relative short order. And this is a hell of a way to free up a bunch of money and make a twenty five percent return in one year. But I don't think Mark Walter bought the Lakers with the expectation or with the plan of yeah, you know, it's a buy and hold for eighteen for twelve to eighteen months. I think he bought the Lakers for the plan of owning the Lakers, and he wouldn't have done the made the different moves that he made as far as potentially trying to meld the Dodgers' brain trust with the Lakers' brain trust if he thought he was gonna sell one of them and keep the other, which right now is what they're doing, keeping the Dodgers selling the Lakers. So the specter of this investigation hangs over the entirety of this sale. Ramona reported that he was approached by Kushner and on Sunday, and this was done Wednesday. I find that almost impossible to believe. And again, I'm not a businessman. I don't claim to be a businessman. I haven't had the last, the closest thing to a real job I've had since I turned sixteen years old, was door to door stake salesman. So I don't have a finance degree. I don't claim to be a you know, a sharp Wall Street guy or day Trade or any of that stuff. But the idea that you could on Sunday morning not even be thinking about selling the Lakers and by Wednesday morning it's been reported you've sold the Lakers really tests the limits of plausibility. So there's that piece of this story that I don't totally understand. There is the undeniable blend of politics here where Josh Kushner is the money man behind this, because listen, I'm sure Eiger did great at Disney, but you know he doesn't have billions of dollars. But Kushner and his fund who were just involved in trying to buy the World Cup and that thing blowing up that they do. And Josh Kushner is Jared Kushner's brother. Jared Kushner is the son in law of the President of the United States. Jared Kushner arguably is about as politically powerful a private citizen as there is. And folks who want to look a scant at the timeline of Mark Walter being investigated by the federal government as a happy coincidence In the midst of that, Mark Walter and his Dodgers have a trip to the White House a couple of weeks ago for the ceremony, and then a couple weeks later, the president son in law's brother buys the Lakers in one of the most shocking sports transactions ever. Again, I don't even know. You know, it's kind of choose your own allegation. You could make there. It'd be like, oh, was there downward pressure because he's under investigation to cut Kushner a sweetheart deal? Well, that doesn't totally make a lot of sense, because this doesn't feel like a sweetheart deal. Was you know, he's paid twelve and a half billion dollars. Hell, a ten percent return in one year would be a great profit. Eleven billion it would you like worth ten a year ago, paid twelve and a half. So that doesn't mean it was did he get you know, heads up, hey man, this investigation ain't looking great for you. You're gonna need this cash. I I I don't know. I just know the timing of it, the people involved, and the fact that we do appear to right now be in an era of how illegal is the illegal stuff certainly gives you pause, So there is that piece of it. Simmons reported that Kushner and Iiger were hoping to get the Vegas team, but the Vegas team's expansion fee was going to be a minimum minimum of seven and a half billion dollars and maybe upwards of nine. And in that case, well, if you're gonna pay nine for a new team, why not pay twelve twelve and a half for the best brand in basketball. I do understand that logic. It seems absolutely bananas to me that the Vegas expansion team could be worth. It was crazy when they were talking. I thought it was nuts. It wasn't that long ago that we thought the Vegas that the expansion fees were gonna be four billion dollars. Then we started hearing six. Now all of a sudden, it's seven and a half and maybe more. That shit. The the Timberwl sold for a billion five a few years ago. It was utterly stunning and considered a shocking overpay a decade ago when Balmer paid do you pay two billion for the Clippers? Franchise? Sales prices the I'm trying to see the what the these teams have gone for, Like I know the Celtics just went for six, but that was recently. I mean the Mavericks three years ago. We're three and a half billion post COVID Mavericks three years ago, three and a half billion, big market. I don't know if they own their arena or not. I now an expansion team is going to be around eight that's kind. I mean, that strikes me as crazy, which does bring me to another point I have about this, which is and I talked about this briefly on the TV show yesterday, but I do wonder if we are going to in twenty years think it was quaint and a relic of the past that families that individuals owned pro sports teams, And are we going to yearn for the day of the quirky Jerry Jones almost mom and pop style family business. Because once you get to these teams being all of them multiples billions of dollars, and now the Lakers are in the Decca billion category twice in a year, which means you've got to think that cheapest NFL team is a approaching seven eight billion? Are you know in twenty fifty and are we gonna have all of our pro sports teams just owned by entities, private equity, hedge funds, foreign wealth funds. I know right now, I don't think all that's allowed, but you're running out of human beings who have the money. Even in an era of this type of wealth discrepancy and more billionaires than ever, the amount of people that can just write a check for multiples of billions of dollars is not a long list, and like, I don't think that good for sports. I you know, I'll tell a I'm gonna leave a lot of the details out of this story, but I will tell a one true story from the last month. I was, i'll say, at an event with a guy who seemed like a nice enough guy and we just got to chatting and there were you know, might have been cocktails involved, and I asked the guy what he does for a living, and he was explaining it to me. I didn't totally get it, and then he basically bottom lined it and he's like, he basically works at a fund whose businesses investing in sports teams, you know, private equity or head Again, I don't know this world. A group with a bunch of money, their whole businesses, they invest in different sports teams, and the potential you know, baseball work stoppage came up, the NBA salary cap came, a bunch of stuff came up, And at one point I said to the guy, I was like, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. There's probably no right way to take it. I don't think your job should exist like I don't. I was saying how I didn't like I didn't like the idea of just nameless or faceless financial entities owning a piece of American sports teams because I view American sports teams as kind of legalized monopolies, and and they're a bit of a public trust. They very often have a lot of, you know, real public dollars that help support them, and I don't think they should be run like a typical you know what do they always say widget factory where the goal is just turning it? You know, can we turn a profit this year? And you know, he handled me saying that I didn't think his job should exist better than I probably would have if he had said the same thing to me. So credit to him. But I look back on that conversation just a month later, and I realized how naive I sounded, because it's not only that his job is going to continue to exist. His job might have to exist for any sports team that's sold in the future, you might simply have to have these big institutional investors. Because if if Joe Lakab were to say, you know what, it's been a good run steps retiring, I'm gonna sell the Lakers or sell the Warriors, who not a bunch of people that are like, Okay, here's the ten billion. And I think it's one of the reasons probably bron who had always been serious about getting in the NBA ownership, doesn't talk about it anymore, And when he was last asked about it, it seemed like he said he had moved on from it, like it the idea of Okay, I've done amazing professionally investing all of it. I have one billion dollars Austin power style one billion dollars liquid, and I'm gonna take half of that, half of my liquid net worth five hundred million, and put it towards a sports team that doesn't even get you on the trophy stand on the podium if they win the title these days. Oh you, oh, you have five hundred million in it. Okay, We're happy for you. You you own five percent of the Golden State Warriors that just sold for ten billion, you know, in this theoretical universe. So you know, that came to mind. And the last thing that came to mind for me was because we now have this story about Matti Ishbia. Again. I'm not a cnbcre at Wall Street Journal guy, but it seems like his mortgage business might be in a bit of trouble. I'm not sure the NBA has crushed it with the latest round of owners. So everybody loved Mark Walter coming to the league. Less than a year later, he's under federal investigation and he's out. So that one, I don't know if anybody saw it coming, but that one didn't go great, Tom Dundan. Nobody's accused him of it, you know, criminal malfeasance or fraud or anything like that. Just seems to be like wildly cheap and holding the Blazers hostage. Not great. Ishbia takes over the Suns, starts meddling with everything. The saving grace was yeah, but at least we have another super crazy rich owner that will spend a bunch of money. You know, do all these different do all this stuff? Well, we'll see what his financial situation is. The Adelson family that bought the MAVs, the beginning of their tenure went so disastrously some people believe to this day they were doing a ownership version or a modern basketball version of Major League where they're trying to submarine the team's popularity locally so they can move the team. That was an ideal. I'm not saying Kushner and Eiger won't be a good group, but there is undeniably, deniably now a direct line political component to the ownership of the league's premier franchise. I'm not sure about that new guy that bought the champion Celtics again. I don't know if he's going to be a good or a bad owner. I do know that as soon as he got the team, they started tearing down the roster. That's probably not ideal. Hell, he's not even that new of an owner at this point, but it's in the last decade or so. Steve Balmer, he seemed great. They built an arena, put all this money into the Clippers. I don't know if you guys have been checking out, you know, Pablo's podcast, but seems like he might not have been doing everything on the up and up and listen, this is this isn't a eat The rich billionaires shouldn't exist common here. It is to me a pretty obvious one. Though. It's very very very difficult to make billions and billions of dollars, you know, totally one hundred percent, never coloring outside of the lines, not saying it's impossible. This is difficult. And if all these pro sports teams are gonna cost multiples and multiples of billions of dollars, are we going to have more of these stories down the road? And are we you know, we're gonna sound crazy telling our kids, like, you know, you know who used to own the Pittsburgh Steelers a family the Rooneys and the Giants rown by the Mars, and the Chiefs rown by the Hunts, and the Cowboys were owned by Jerry Jones. By Jerry Jones. She's gonna be like, oh, yeah, that's the the Chiefs, who you know, have a guy that runs the team, they call them, you know, the CEO. But they're owned by you know, this capital firm and they've got I don't know, so brave new world of sports ownership. And I am really interested in if we get real deep reporting on what the hell actually happened where Mark Walter buys the Lakers, plans to meld them essentially organizationally with the Dodgers, and a year later flips them for twenty five percent profit to a family you know, member of the president and the former guy, the guy who used to run Disney to really it's it's one of the most shocking high level sports event transactions in my life. And then a couple hours after that, Russell Westbrook retired. We'll discuss that in a second, but first, the NFL season it's about to kick into full gear, which is why I want to give you a huge shout out to the sponsor of today's video, seat Geek. Over thirty five million download seat Geeks the number one rated ticketing at more than seventy thousand events listed on seat geek, including concerts, sports festivals and more. NFL preseasons here, regular seasons around the corner, and don't forget MLB is in full swing. I love using seat geek, you guys are Last week I told you I bought my wife Jay Cole tickets to the j Gole concert and MSG on seat geek. I bought me my justpena tickets me, my wife, and our daughter's tickets to the Jay Z concert at Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago on seat Geek. I got all my World Cup tickets on seat Geek. I've shown you guys. You guys know how easy the app is help and how unlike certain apps, they've got your back. 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Now it wouldn't always be efficient production, obviously, but even last year in Sacramento playing thirty minutes a game fifteen six and six basically, And there's a lot of ways to discuss Russell Westbrook's career. I it's one of the most interesting careers ever. It's one of the most unique careers ever. It also is a career that I think will be misremembered as far as at his peak how good he was. Really. So if you take Russ what I consider his peak, which is his first full year back after the knee injury, through his one year in Houston, that year in Houston, he was all NBA and was underrated. In those six seasons, his averages were twenty six nine to ten. He won an MVP, had three other top five finishes, and in those six seasons was All NBA every season, two time first team, two times second team, two time thirteen and critically speaking, in those seasons, his team was decidedly better with him than without him. And that's the part of Russ that I think because of how the career ended, and because some of the analytical numbers are so garish, people are going to act as if his style never led to any winning And that's a more complicated discussion than it actually seems like. But as far as was having Russell Westbrook on the court good for your team, undeniably yes. Throughout the entirety of his prime. Gets a little trickier in the playoffs, and we'll get to that. But russ Is during his prime in particular, availability crazy high minutes for the era, absolutely endless energy and effort. He was an absolute son of a bitch to deal with. And while people can parse all in twenty seventeen, MVP should have been this guy. He was absolutely a super nova that first season in Oklahoma City without Durant. It's not only that he averaged a triple double, first guy to do it since Oscar Robertson, and it was It wasn't only that he broke Oscar Robertson single season triple double record, and by the way, the game in which he broke that record, he had a fifty point triple double and the buzzer beating three to win the game. It was that that Oklahoma City team's entire plan every game was Russ create fifty fifty some points of offense for us, and he did it. He won the scoring title, scoring thirty one and a half a game, second scoring title of his career, I believe, and then also was a terror on the glass and despite the insane usage rate, didn't wear down and followed those seasons up with two years in a row where he won the assist title while averaging double digit rebounds. And then after that year in Houston, once he got to Washington, I think were post prime. But in Houston, you know, it was twenty two, eleven and eleven, and on those silly eighty two and zero games or whatever, they treat him like a god for that one year. That one year in Washington. He had a great career and he worked his ass off and all time great players that I think, you know, not the full list, but that I think he undeniably had a better career than and was a better player than mellow Dominique Dwight A. D. Gary Payton, Steve Nash, Clyde Drexler, guys that I think he is right behind as far as his full career. Tricky one, but Kawhi Iverson, Clyde Fraser, Jason Kidd, Patrick Ewing, that's the group. I have him right behind. He's one of the you know, what's my full list of guards better that have had better careers than Russ, the full list, Michael Magic, Kobe Steph those are obvious ones. I just don't want to leave anybody out. Zeke, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Shay West, and Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Stockton Harden. Those are the twelve guys that, to me like the only twelve guys that reguards that definitively are definitively higher on the pyramid than Russ. I think kids ahead of him, you know the I think Iversen's a touch ahead of him. The and I said, SGA right, SGA ahead of him. But so he's you know, somewhere thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, depending on how you want to do it. So it's an unbelievable career. It also is, you know, young elite or aspiring elite athletes can learn a lot from both sides of Russ's career. You can learn what endless energy, effort intensity, what that can do for you in a positive way. Now, obviously you can't learn his absolutely freakish athleticism where there was during his prime he was a can sit for a decade maybe a top three just raw athlete in the league. Can't learn that, But the other stuff you can learn the flip side. And I wanted to do this last, not first, because I don't listening. He's one of the forty ist greatest players ever. I just said, you know, he's one of the thirteen fourteen to fifteen greatest guards of all time. You don't want to spend it, and they're like, here's what was wrong with him on the front end, But it is part of his story, is the stubbornness and the hard headedness and the refusal to evolve once he no longer was the league's best raw athlete, and how that's a big part of the reason that in the final decade of his career, teams he was on went on one sorry, one, two, three, four, five, six, two to eight in playoff series from that first year without Durant to retirement, and those two playoff series wins were one year in Houston by the skin of their teeth over the young young OKC team and the Clippers. I'm sorry the Nuggets seven game bigory over the Clippers last Round one. That's it. And where you know, if you russ over that last decade of his career in the postseason was so wildly inefficient that it really really hurt his teams. From the MVP year through the end of his career, fifty three playoff games, thirty eight percent from the field, thirty percent from three on five threes a game, four turnovers a game, not ideal, and it is not nothing that for a guy who had that much just unbelievable talent, work, ethic, competitive spirit, all of it. When it came to overall team winning, underachieved because he was a bit of his own worst enemy. That's not like an unfair statement, and there's a lesson in that as well. But overall, you know, eighteen years in the league one MVP won, there's seven, six, ten, nine time All NBA, two time first team, five time second team, two time three team, four consecutive Top four, Top five pardon me, MVP finishes and as an added bonus, one of the greatest off the court guys as far as how he treated people on teams and the work he did in the community all those things. When I treat people that worked for teams those things. Uh, one of just the greatest UH guys in the league for twenty years and a first ballot Hall of Fame career, and anybody that's arguing he's not a Hall of Famer is a moron. I can't even say they're just trolling. They just they just don't understand how the Hall of Fame works. And this is he's a no doubt walk right in immediate guy. You know what, one thing maybe we could do over the weekend and you guys can just use cut this and maybe use it as an intro. I think it could be fun if we have the capability to do it. Sorry, the producers love when I just give them on the air assignments. But maybe we drop into the feed with this as the intro. The you know, eight minutes or ten minutes of my fifty Greatest Players of the last fifty years, the Russell Westbrook portion of that episode, just as a little standalone thing. I you know, he was, let me see where he was. He was thirty fifth on that list of the fifty greatest players of the last fifty years. We did that. You know four years ago, so you know, nothing really much would have changed for Russ in that regard. I think that could be a fun thing to do. All right, I want to talk a little NFL in a moment. But first, you guys, notice how everything seems to just keep going up. Rints going up, streaming services going up. Your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks soulzes should cost extra now with boost Mobile. With boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the will this go up soon? Game? Why? Because Boost Mobile has unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that will never go up. In fact, it's the same price you pay for life. So switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that will never go up. Only at boost Mobile. After thirty gigs, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay twenty five dollars per month as long as they remain active on the boost Unlimited plan. All right, So yesterday I talked some on the TV show about these concept I ain't been at deep sleepers, which is the idea that right now, when people are making their preseason or their playoff picks in the preseason, you're going to hear a lot of the same types of teams, same types of teams, a lot of the same teams being listed as my sleeper, Like the Giants are going to be very trendy alleged sleeper pick, the Colts are going to be a trendy alleged sleeper pick. I I think that the New Orleans Saints, or really any team from the NFC South, when eight wins can win that division, you know a lot of years we're going to be called sleeper picks. Which is why I started talking about deep sleepers, which are teams with greater than one hundred to one odds to win the Super Bowl, the worst teams in the league, of the projected worst teams in the league, and about their ability to make the playoffs, because what we have over the last half day, at least, that's just as far back as I went. Every single year one of these deep sleepers makes the playoffs. Last year with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds to win the Super Bowl. The Carolina Panthers made the playoffs the year before that with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds to win the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos made the playoffs and with one hundred and fifty to one preseason odds win the Super Bowl. These odds courtesy of Football Reference. The Washington Commanders made the NFC Championship game. The year before that, The Texans the worst preseason odds in the league two hundred to one. They made the playoffs and won a playoff game the year before that, the who was it that year? Oh my Jags one hundred and thirty to one before the year to make the to win the Super Bowl? They made the playoffs. So it begs the question, who are the deep sleepers this year and does anyone have the courage to pick one of them to make the playoffs. The deep sleepers this year are Miami, Cleveland, Arizona, the Jets, the Raiders, and the Titans. And you hear that list and you say, well, obviously none of them those teams can make the playoffs. But again, think about what we thought of the Texans three years ago when they traded their future first round pick as a way to get Will Anderson after drafting CJ. Stroud, and we all hand up, we're discussing whether or not they just traded away the number one overall pick, and it was just and you know they made the playoffs, won a playoff game. The Commanders, after drafting Jaden, made the NFC Championship game. So I'm making this argument. I'm giving you the history and I'm staring at this and I'm like, yeah, but none of these teams have a shot. So Miami new head coach, they did spend some money on quarterback. Counterpoint, they probably want to be bad. They have cleared all their books of their veteran talent, and they're in a division with two teams that we expect to be quite good. They don't even have like the easy division path. Feels like you can cross them off. Cleveland should have a good defense, and I like Jared Vers, but not quite as good as they've had in years past with Miles Garrett. I'm not certain on Monken. They have the worst quarterback situation in the league. They're in a division with two all pro quarterbacks are caliber in Burrow and Lamar. I'm running to cross them off. Arizona toughest division in football. New head coach Jacoby Brissett's starting quarterback. It doesn't even seem possible. The Jets. The reports out of camp about Gino have not been overwhelming. Aaron glenn Is pre fired. We already mentioned the pats in the Bills can't fathom that the Raiders veteran quarterback, at least for the beginning new head coach, but probably a good thing Ashton genty year two. But in a division with the Chiefs, the Chargers, and the Broncos. The producers worried I'm gonna fall for the Raiders again like I did last year. Really hard to see how that works out. And the Max Crosby saga kind of hanging over them, which leaves us to one team, the Tennessee Titans. Case for the Titans number one overall pick quarterback in year two, Okay, he should be better. Disastrous coaching situation Toy Salah. But Robert Sala, who now is out from under the yoke of Aaron Rodgers and Woody Johnson. Robert Sala, whose defenses always have improved once he got there, spent a lot of money on defense this offseason, drafted a quarterback's safety blanket. You think, in the top ten in Carnel Tate and a potentially softish division. I can't believe this is where I'm landing. But and I'm not even guaranteeing that I am going to follow the history, that I'm gonna have the courage to pick one of these six teams as a deep sleeper to make the playoffs. But of these six teams, it seems like the easiest case and the best case we could make, would be for the Tennessee Titans. I'm gonna spend you know, a lot of my time while my wife's vinted shopping in Europe, you know, going through all our NFL preseason magazines, all the projections, all that stuff. But if I want to find a real, oh my god, pick again, it's gotta be Miami, Cleveland, Arizona, the Jets, the Raiders, are the Titans. And I think of those options, my money would be on the Titans. Titans plus three forty to make the playoffs. I think I'd probably want better odds than that, but that is there are six teams with worse than three to one odds to make the playoffs, and then the six I just told you Titans plus three forty, Browns plus five seventy, Raiders six to one, Jets seven to one, Dolphins fourteen to one, and the poor Arizona Cardinals twenty to one. I gotta tell you, I don't like anything about the Cardinals situation, but twenty I don't know that any team should ever be twenty to one to make the playoffs in the NFL. All right, so here's what I want to do. Barnwell, not Barnwell, pardon me. Orlowski just ranked quarterbacks on arm strength, ball placement, mechanics, decision making, pocket presence, second reaction, and rushing ability. It's it's a maddening ranking. So I want to discuss that, and I might or might not put on my sports media on Budsman hat, even though it's usually just for the TV show, and discuss what sorry about to sneeze and well, you know what, I'll leave it as a tease and discuss a major what I consider sports media story from the week. Those two things, plus maybe a couple listener and viewer emails on the Bonus Friday Show. We're gonna record that right now. It'll be in your feeds tomorrow and then next week and the week after Ty Butler and Damon Bruce on for me. Uh So, we're gonna have another podcast dropping in your feed tomorrow. We should have the Russell Westbrook episode coming sometime over the weekend. Not episode, but kind of the repurposing of Russell Westbrook's Top fifty players last fifty years and again if you want to get things in future mailbags, What's Right Mailbag at gmail dot com. Thank you so much to our friends at boost Mobile and seat Geek. Thank you to the Volume, Thank you to Blue Duck. I will talk to you guys on these feeds tomorrow. I'm going to record that right now, What's Right
