The Drive with Josh Graham - The Ocho - 08/7/19

Attention, please. This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. Tune into The Drive 3 until 6 p.m. weekdays on the Sports Hub. I love it.

It's brilliant. I love hard knocks so much and this is gonna be such an entertaining dumpster fire. John Gruden, Oakland.

Final year the Raiders are in Oakland before they leave for Vegas. Last night I was watching and I pulled out the notes app on my phone and just started scribbling things down. Do you want me to go through the complete list of things I had written down just on my notes app watching this hard knocks episode? I have Gruden written down and about 8 bullet points. We've learned that I have an alright John Gruden impression. It's not great by any means but Des thinks it's actually pretty good and he's building up my confidence during commercials to tell me that this is actually okay. So, do you think it's good enough for me to bring back out this John Gruden limited impression that I have?

Yeah, as long as you stay within yourself. Don't get too crazy here. I'm gonna read the notes I have on the hard knocks episode last night in John Gruden's voice.

You can do it. John Gruden isn't in the dreams, man. He's in the nightmares stealing somebody's dream. He's also somebody who complains about the things, the way things used to be. I have a typo in my own notes right here, man.

I've got some typos in here. That's the first thing he said in the episode. He said, don't be late. Don't be overweight.

Use common sense. No hazing, man. Derek Carr throws a really good pass. He says, you like this offense, man? Then he sees a number 63 walking in who's not playing defensive line and he asks him, hey, why are you wearing that number?

What's up with this guy? This guy right here, he doesn't wear the right number, man. He was worried about an undrafted rookie's jersey number. Then he asks Mike Mayock in a team meeting, hey, is it legal for us to wear pads at this point? That's what you want a coach to say. Hey, is it legal for us to do this here?

These compliance officers, why do we got them around? Ultimate Schmoozer, hey, come run some routes. A fan would walk up to him, hey, I like the Raiders. Hey, how about you come on the field, run some routes? Well, Derek Carr, throw you a football, man.

Spider 2, why banana? Go out in the flat, throw you an out route, man. That's the degree of what I have written on Jon Gruden.

It's all written on this Notes app. Antonio Brown is in the headlines. Apparently, the reason why his feet were, quote, sore, why he wasn't running reps was because he decided not to wear any shoe wear inside a cryogenic chamber, which can go down to 200 plus degrees under, below freezing. You see the picture of his feet? Does not look good. No.

I'm not a foot person. Rex Ryan got really excited looking at those photos. Antonio Brown, he also is somebody who's fighting to make everybody on that team like him. He says things that just don't make sense. He said, quote, I'm just here like everybody else trying to make the team. No, you're not. You don't believe that. Nobody else believes that.

Nobody believes that you're fighting for a spot like Ronald Ali over here. The guy from Last Chance You who made an appearance before Brinson Buckner had enough. Brinson Buckner.

Yeah. Brinson Buckner in the episode, everybody. I love Brinson Buckner. That defensive line. That four man front. Buckner, Chris Jenkins, Pep. Pep and Rucker. Rucker, yeah. Jenkins, Buckner, Rucker, Peppers will always be my favorite defensive line.

That's back when I was emotionally attached to the Panthers where I was wearing Peppers jerseys and Stephen Davis jerseys. Do you consider Antonio Brown the best receiver in the game right now? No. Because it felt like they were framing him like that last night. The best receiver in the game. Statistically, he was. He was the best receiver in the game the last two years. Like, he's the first wide receiver I ever considered for being an MVP candidate.

Last year or two years ago, he was that. Receiving yards. I mean, what he did for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He was the most valuable player on that team. It rarely happens for wide receivers. But would I say he's the best player in the game moving forward at his age?

Probably not. Not with those feet. Probably DeAndre Hopkins. Not with those feet.

It's going to be hard with those feet. Cleland Farrell is going to be a star in Hard Knocks. He was the most entertaining interview of any college athlete I've spoken to in the last few years.

Cleland Farrell, awesome. You were probably the only person I had heard after the draft that was like, I'm okay with him going at that. Don't get me started.

Great reasons for it. Don't get me started about the draft nonsense. It's the first time I never, I didn't read the draft stuff ahead of time. What Kuiper was saying and all these people. And I don't want to take shots at those people. They know what they're talking about. They watch the games. But you don't. You fans don't. A lot of you don't. You don't have the access that the coaches do. And that the GMs do.

And you don't put the work that these guys put in to evaluate these players. So, when the fans are mad, football gurus with the air quotes are mad. Cleland Farrell's taken number four. I asked, I was in a room. I was with a lot of football fans who said, what are they doing there? I said, that's a good pick.

What do you mean? Kuiper or nobody had him going there. Okay, but we can all agree Cleland Farrell was going to be a first round draft pick. All of those Clemson defensive linemen were viewed to be first round draft picks. So, they just liked that guy more. They just liked him a little bit more than they liked Christian Wilkins. And liked him a little bit more than they liked Dexter Lawrence. It's the same beef I have with Daniel Jones. The way that people were upset about that.

You can criticize the evaluation of the prospect. How do you think that guy's better than Dwayne Haskins? But the philosophy, if you believe, and the Giants did.

And they have much more information than we do. The Giants believe Daniel Jones is a franchise quarterback. So, they pick him six. The philosophy is you don't wait when you think you got a franchise quarterback for him to come around at 17.

Hoping that somebody else doesn't agree with you. Agree with your assessment that this guy's a franchise quarterback. They took him there. Like, Daniel Jones, it's very unfair.

It's very unfair what they did to you. What they did to you in criticizing the pick, I felt. I mean, I was just eating blueberry ice cream when the draft was on in the first place.

So, I didn't even know if it was first round, second round, fifth round. I mean, Eli, what do you think about that? Well, I was kind of just watching on TV and I thought, he seems pretty nice. I mean, you knew me already. I had already thrown balls with you before. You don't remember that? You had?

Yeah, man. You remember Coach Cutt? He came down to Duke and I was sitting on the side. You were like, who's that over there? And he was like, that's the dude that's going to take your job. And you were like, oh, okay.

And you walked off. You don't remember that conversation? I don't remember that. I thought that was Cooper. No, that's your brother. Oh, yeah, that's right.

It is my brother. And scene. Yeah, don't get me started about that nonsense.

Do I have anything left in my notes? Let me see. Oh, yeah. Guy Fieri is essentially John Gruden. He's the same person as John Gruden. Listen here, man. I'm going to take you the flavor down. No, that's not Guy Fieri. I see what you're trying to go over there.

No. Guy Fieri is John Gruden and John Gruden is Guy Fieri. Listen here, man. We're going to go into some diners and dives, my man.

That sounds like John Gruden trying to do a Guy Fieri impression. Hey, Guy Fieri, ask me what my favorite dessert is. Just ask me what my favorite dessert is very quickly. What's your favorite dessert? I want a chocolate Spider II. Why banana? Sundae, man.

That's what I want. Delicious, man. I've got a list here.

Do you have the bell ready to go? It's my five in honor of all of these things being on ESPN2 today. It's ESPN8, the Ocho Day, in honor of Dodgeball, which I view to be one of the best sports comedies of all time. I have my top five sports comedies ever.

Top five sports comedies ever. I'm looking at a screen right now. They're playing Tetris. It's entertaining. Probably not as entertaining as this radio show, but close.

It's very close. Watching Tetris on television. ESPN8, the Ocho. My number five sports movie, sports comedy of all time. Sports comedy.

Waterboy. Number four, Major League. Number three, Talladega Night. Number two, Dodgeball. And number one, Caddyshack.

Hold on a second. We've had this ongoing thing with you, we being the public, with Josh Graham regarding football movies and how they can't be great. You've got one in your top five?

Top five sports comedies of all time. Yeah. Wouldn't by default, it's not supposed to be there based off of what you've been saying before? No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that just because you're a great sports comedy doesn't mean you are a great movie. And also, Bull Durham, do we count that as a comedy?

I don't. I don't count Bull Durham as a comedy. Yeah. I think Bull Durham could be considered a comedy, right?

Or else that would be number one on the list. I think it's more of a romance movie. What? No. Yeah. It's a love story.

That's not the main plot though, right? I can't put that into the same category as Talladega Nights and Caddyshack. I think all the movies you named were great movies. My point was you put a football movie in there.

On top of that, I have a list. It's a separate list that Dodgeball belongs in. Top five comedies of the 2000s. Give me some Nickelback after each of these real quick since we're talking about the 2000s.

We'll be sharing with Darren Vought tomorrow. Number five, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's the one that's forgotten.

I see what you did there. Number four, Dodgeball. Number three, Anchorman. Number two, The Hangover. And the number one comedy of the 2000s, Step Brothers.

Superbad's not going to make that list at all? It was close, man. Wow. It was really hard. It was very tough. That number five spot, I had Superbad right there. It was tough to leave that one out. But someone had to be left out. Same thing for the sports list.

Happy Gilmore and Slapshot were left out on Twitter at sportsubtriad. We will revisit this. We certainly will do that. After a conference finals appearance, have the Carolina Hurricanes completely lost their minds?

Should we trust that they've got this here? We'll discuss with the award-winning columnist from the Raleigh News & Observer, Luke Ticock, when he joins us next. I'm not a doer or a thinker.

I'm a talker. You're on the drive with Josh Graham, the sports hub at AM 600, AM 920. We're now being joined by Luke Ticock, the award-winning columnist from the Raleigh News & Observer. And even though August doesn't feel like the time we should be talking about Carolina Hurricanes hockey, it also doesn't feel like this offseason should have been as much of a toothache as it has been for the Hurricanes the last few months.

When you consider the fact that it's such a slam dunk that you bring John Forslund back if you're Tom Dundon, and it comes down to the very last second for that field to get extended. It of course is a slam dunk that you bring back Sebastian Ajo and match the offer to the Montreal Canadiens, but the Canadiens were the first team in six years to extend an offer sheet, and the Hurricanes of course matched it. Now, Dom Waddell, who was the executive of the year in the NHL this past season, who helped put together this team that went to the conference finals, we learned just a few days ago his contract is up, so essentially he's a free agent right now, and he's interviewing in person with the Minnesota Wild. So, Luke, I only want to ask you this, namely, should this offseason be this much of a toothache for Hurricanes fans to follow?

Well, I guess, Josh, the question I would ask is, has it? You know, they ended up matching the Ajo offer sheet, and they didn't get him for the term they wanted, but the price is right. Forslund is back, Tripp is back, Maniscalco is back, they signed Ryan Zengel as a free agent, they traded for Eric Halloff, they brought back Peter Mrazek, they added some depth in goal. I mean, if you look at what they've done on the ice and what the product is going to look like, the television product, you know, I think there's a lot to like, so I'll play devil's advocate there and just say that, you know, the process may not have been as smooth as everyone would have wanted, but, you know, the results certainly I think are pretty promising in terms of addressing some of the weaknesses this team had last year. Specifically at center, you know, a goalscoring winger, you know, a better backup goalie, you know, I mean all those things.

So, you know, it hasn't necessarily been smooth or pretty, but I think when you look at the finished product, it's still, you know, pretty good given where they started this summer. And that's where I usually arrive, when it comes to Hurricanes fans, I would just advise they trust the process, because everything to your point, Dundon has done to this point, or at least most of it, it has worked, especially when juxtaposed next to what we saw the previous nine seasons that didn't net even a playoff appearance. But when you consider letting Michael Ferland walk, okay, that's just business. Trading away Calvin DeHaan, okay, you get Eric Holla back who they really liked.

Jon Forslund, though, that drama and the Ajo stuff, it seemed like, and now this with Dom Waddell, it seems like it's a no-brainer what they should do here, and it is the process that's the two thing. I mean, maybe, but you also have to remember that Tom Dundon bought the team and promised he was going to do things differently. It's his team, he's going to do things the way he wants to do it. It may not always, it's certainly not going to jive with what other NHL teams do. It's not going to necessarily make sense to us. And that doesn't mean he's right and we're wrong, and it doesn't mean we're right and he's wrong.

It's just going to be different, and I think that's a lot of what you've seen. He's a guy who in business, you know, doesn't typically hold people back from leaving for other jobs. Okay, well that's fine when you're talking about an accountant. It's a little different when you're talking about a president and a general manager a month before training camp.

So, you know, I think a lot of this, you know, both sides can be right. Is it dysfunctional to have your president and general manager interviewing for another GM job a month before training camp? Absolutely. There is no question that is not a good way to run a professional sports franchise. By the same token, I think Tom Dundon's point that he's making very clearly is I don't value general managers.

I think they're all pretty much the same. If Don leaves, we'll replace him with someone who's just as good. You know, and to that point a year ago when they promoted Don from the interim to the permanent GM job, there were a lot of people who weren't very happy about that because they remembered that his tenure with the Atlanta Thrashers was not particularly good.

And they remember that because the hurricane beat the Thrashers so soundly so often. So, you know, these things are all kind of fluid. The timing is terrible.

The optics are terrible. You know, I think this is probably blown up on them in a way that they didn't expect it to. But it's also in keeping with the way Dundon has run the franchise. And, you know, he gets criticized as being cheap. And I think that certainly was a little bit behind the Canadian's offer sheet for Ajo. That this guy is so cheap, there's no way he'll pay all this upfront money. You know, I think you can look at it two ways when it comes to paying general managers and coaches and scouts and people like that. He's very cheap because he doesn't see the value that other NHL teams see in it.

And in some cases, what we see in those people. When it comes to players, you know, they've added a lot of salary this summer. They added salary in single. They picked up, you know, the Marlowe contract to get a first-round pick out of it. There are things like that.

You know, they matched the Ajo offer sheet despite all the upfront money. So, you know, as always, this isn't a black and white situation. There's a lot of shades of gray. I think the issue here isn't so much, you know, the way this is being handled as. The timing is just really bad. You don't want this kind of disjunction this close to the season. And especially with someone like Waddell who, whatever we may think of his skills as a general manager. And he was a finalist for GM of the Year.

He didn't win it. You know, his tenure as president has been invaluable in terms of stabilizing the business side of the franchise. So, you know, losing your general manager, there may be other people in the front office who can make trade calls. And they have a, obviously, they've been doing this by committee anyway, even though Waddell is the nominal general manager. You know, the business side of the franchise would face even more disruption if Waddell were to leave. So, that to me is the issue as much as anything. Is Benjamin cheap?

In some ways, yes. He's extremely cheap. That's really hard for NHL people to understand because they place a lot of value on general managers. And there's sort of that cult of personality around the good GMs. And you think that one guy is going to turn your franchise around. That's not the way Duncan looks at it. Is he, is that a bad way to treat people? You know, again, that's the way he treats people in this business. It's weird for professional sports.

And it's jarring for everyone to see it play out as visibly as this is right now. Luke Tkach with us here from the Raleigh News and Observer on Twitter, at Luke Tkach. I saw news yesterday. I'm less interested in the acquisition. The Hurricanes bringing in a defenseman from San Jose. I'm more interested in who actually called the league office.

Who actually made this trade happen because Don Waddell is not under contract. Right. But he's still the GM. It's not like he's sitting at home waiting for a phone call. You know, he's at the Centennial Authority meeting Thursday. He's making deals without a contract.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people do their jobs without a contract. NHL bylaws for tampering reasons require a general manager to be under contract by September 1st. Team has to have a general manager so identified under contract by September 1st for, you know, tampering. Because of their tampering rules.

That's why they have that rule. But, you know, Don Waddell has been doing the president and general manager job since June 30th. Just as he was when he was under contract. That, you know, the idea that he's, that they haven't had a general manager for two months. You know, he, he was the one who took the facts and made the phone call on the AHO trade.

Uh, offer sheet, excuse me. So, he's still been doing his job. The fact that he doesn't have a contract means A, the wilds can talk to him. And B, someone's going to have to be under contract by the end of this month. The question is, will it be Don or will it be someone else? And the other question, and we haven't really gotten a satisfactory answer from Brendan, other than that he, quote, doesn't like contracts. Is why, if you're going to have to have someone under contract by September 1st, why isn't it Don? Is this, you know, so then you start to wonder, you know, does he not want Don to do both jobs anymore? And if so, why not just do that?

You know, there's, then you get into kind of the amateur psychology part of it. But the reality and the facts are Waddell has continued to do the job. And somebody's going to have to be under contract September 1st, whether it's Waddell or somebody else.

Last thing for you, Luke. You've noted a couple of times that this is not how business is generally done in professional sports and in hockey. What have you heard from places outside of that building about the way business is being conducted by Dundon? How is hockey reacting to this? I mean, they hate the guy. There's no secret that other owners, GMs, they don't like the way he's doing things. He's not one of them. He doesn't play by their rules in terms of general managers or any of that.

You know, he doesn't approach it the same way they do. I've been around hockey long enough to know that that doesn't mean Dundon's wrong. And the hockey world has certain ways of doing things. It's an insular closed world.

It's not always the most open or it can be a bit of a closed loop where the head is eating the tail at times. You know, whether Dundon is right or wrong, certainly the jury is very much out on that. The idea that you have to do things the way the other 30 NHL teams do it is not necessarily the right answer. It may turn out that Tom Dundon is smarter than everyone else in the NHL and things will go wrong. It may turn out that he's just another businessman whose ideas didn't apply to pro sports. But no one knows the answer to that, you know, 18 months in.

The results in his first full season on the ice were very good. The second half of the regular season and then obviously the playoffs. The summer has been controversial. So, you know, will this work?

Nobody knows yet. Do hockey people hate it? Absolutely.

Do they laugh at him? Absolutely. Did that maybe even play into the hurricane pants a little bit with the Ajo offer sheet? Because the Canadians thought that he was so cheap he wouldn't match that up for money. And they offered a contract that they were happy to match.

And while they don't like the term, they're pretty happy with the salary, maybe. I mean, I just think the offer sheet, regardless of whether it was designed to play on Dundon's alleged weaknesses or not, was just a terrible hockey decision because there's no way the hurricanes weren't going to match that, whether Dundon or you or I would be on it. It was just sort of weak political posturing by the Canadians.

And the answer is, we don't know any answers. You know, time will tell whether this works or not. What we know at this point is Dundon is not going to do things the way that Jim Rutherford and Peter Carmanos did them.

He's not going to do things the way the other 30 teams are doing them. And that is going to be very different. It's going to be jarring. It's going to be hard for people to understand at times. And it may work.

It may also be a glorious disaster. We just don't know at this point. And I think the one thing we can say about this summer is you don't want your general manager interviewing for other jobs in August.

That, I think, is something we can all agree on. Luke is on Twitter, at luketacock. Read his stuff in The Observer online at newsandobserver.com.

You can read his stuff. Luke, it's good to have you on the show. It's good to see you at the Wyndham Championship as well. Thanks for doing that. Yeah, out doing my Web Simpson duties.

Very good. That's luketacock. Again on Twitter, at luketacock. Coming up, Kimba Walker wants us to all know just how badly the Hornets mess this up.

This is The Drive. Kimba Walker wants everybody to know just how badly the Charlotte Hornets mess things up this summer. He was talking to Sean Skirania of The Athletic and specifically about leaving Charlotte for Boston. He's been on record multiple times saying that he would have preferred to stay in Charlotte, but he's not letting it go. And it's clear that this wasn't just Kimba saying the right things because Kimba's a classy guy. No, he's bothered that he had to go to Boston. He had to make a business decision that Charlotte couldn't offer enough, not even close to enough, that would be respectable.

Respectable to keep Kimba in town. He told Shams, tough days, bleeping tough days. I can't even lie. Excuse my language, it was difficult. I couldn't see myself just being on another team. It was just hard. That's all I've known with Charlotte.

Definitely some tough times. I had a feeling that I was going to get the offer that I wanted and maybe not even close to it because of cap space. I had to get my head wrapped around the feeling and picking another team. He went on to say that I'll get to be around a lot of Yukon fans, which is good, and get to go to school and catch some more games. But Kimba told Shams that he would have accepted the regular Max offer. If the Hornets offered 190 million versus 220, he would have accepted that offer if it was close to 190 million. Charlotte instead offered the five years, which would warrant the Max. Only the Hornets could offer five years. Other teams would only have the option of four years, 190 million. Not only did they offer 30 million dollars less, 160 million dollars, they also wanted that for five years.

Five years, 160 million dollars. It was a glorified slap in the face. Kimba tried to do everything he could to make it easy on the Hornets to keep him.

Or easier than probably any other superstar in the sport. And for what? Nobody chose loyalty in the NBA.

Nobody. But Kimba Walker was showing it and Charlotte did not reward him. MJ should have went into the tax for that reason alone. That you have an all-MBA player who said he would be willing to stay with you even if it meant not winning.

Even if it meant that my ceiling here is maybe the second round of the playoffs. He was willing to sign off on that and you responded with 30 million dollars less, but still the fifth year. Blatantly disrespectful. Kimba wanted that to be put out there. Charlotte lacked a plan. They knew there was a chance that Kimba could have been all-MBA. He was a starter in the All-Star game. They paid attention to that.

The game was in their own backyard. You have to have a plan that involves the Max, the Supermax. But even if you don't, he would have accepted the regular Max, he tells Shams. Now, only Kimba will know if that's true. Only Kimba will know that.

But I have to believe Kimba when he's still out here saying this a little over a month after July 1. Other than Bobby Phil's passing and Charlotte losing basketball for those few years. This has been the darkest summer. That day they lost Kimba. The darkest day in Charlotte Hornets basketball history. The fact you lose your best player when he wanted to stay.

He's in his prime. He wanted to stay. You lost him because you bleeped up.

And Kimba is saying that time and time again that you bleeped up. It's also weird that Kimba's wearing number eight. Like when I think number eight for Boston, I think Antoine Walker, who never really made it quite anywhere. Also, I believe that number was worn by Stephen Marbury at one point. I think Stephen Marbury was wearing that for the Celtics. I know Al Jefferson did for a year or two when he was in Boston.

Jeff Green wore it for a handful of years. Eight's just a weird number. I don't know why Kimba chose number eight.

Nobody's been good in number eight for Boston. So Celtic fans are a little bit superstitious about that. Meanwhile, I've got a lot of ESPN8 The Ocho on here in the studio. We have Tetris. Some hardcore Tetris going on.

Tonight, around seven o'clock tonight, make it seven thirty. Slippery Stairs. Aaron, what do you got on Slippery Stairs? What exactly is that? What it sounds like. It's a Japanese game show. It would have been better if you just said, Josh, they're slippery. Thank you. That's pretty much what happens, man.

I'm Aaron Gabriel. It looks like they dress up in Power Ranger outfits. There it is. Maybe latex, but not exactly Power Rangers.

That's not in the name. But that's what they look like. They look like the Power Rangers have assembled to climb the villain that is Slippery Stairs. There are a lot of great things I'm looking at on my screen throughout the day. Mike DeCorcy pointing this out from the sporting news that he looks up and just sees things that you would never see on your television any other day out of the year. It's ESPN8 The Ocho Day in honor of dodgeball. Lawnmower racing.

That's coming up in about five minutes. And I'm looking at some videos of what lawnmower racing is. You have drivers who are in the full jumpsuit as if they're about to compete at Bristol Motor Speedway or Charlotte Motor Speedway. Helmet and all. Helmet and all.

Except they are on lawnmowers and they look like they're on a track that would be run for motocross events. How fast? I don't want to continue sending you down a rabbit hole, Aaron, but I'm just I just have so many questions. All from The Ocho. I have so many questions. So many questions. How fast can a lawnmower go? How fast does these do these lawnmowers go? Well, that was my question to you. Are they modified? Are they modified lawnmowers? Well, don't ask me. I have no idea. I'm just asking the question about the lawnmower racing, because by God, it sounds fascinating.

Because you could stick like a Harley Davidson engine in a lawnmower. Right. And it's like 50 miles an hour. There's axe throwing and arm wrestling and cornhole.

Shouts to Evan Leppler. There's Tetris. There's dodgeball.

There's putt putt. How fast do you think the world's fastest lawnmower goes? I'm going to go ahead and guess.

Mm hmm. Like if you're on a highway, I think 85 miles an hour. Eighty five days. I'm a go. I'm a go higher than that. I'm going to say 100. Honda's HP or 190 HP lawnmower shattered the world record.

No, the CBR something. Lots of numbers. Power lawnmower V2 has a top speed of 150 miles an hour. Oh, my gosh.

What? How much grass are you cutting? Who would want to be on a lawnmower going 150 miles an hour? These guys. These gladiators. Thrill seekers. I mean, honey, I need you to cut the lawn.

No problem. These gladiators that are in the lawnmower racing event. That's who wants the 150 mile an hour lawnmower. When you mowed lawns, did you use the push mower or did you use the rider? Man, we were poor.

So I had a push mower and I had to push an acre. I've had both. Yeah, it's bad. I never had an issue with the rider because I love listening to podcasts and headphones and listen to music. It's great when you have the rider.

It's also the same way with the pusher, too. I had the push mower when I was in Colorado. Did you say when you mowed lawns like past tense? Yes. You don't mow lawns? Would you?

Oh, no. I live in the city. Well, see, I still cut grass.

He's big time. I still cut grass. The simple things like grass cutting. I don't I don't cut grass anymore. How about that?

I don't smoke it either. He's moving on. On Twitter at Sports Up Triad three three six seven seven seven one six hundred. Just putting it out there. Making things well known. Got to make things very clear out there.

Get off the weed. Shout out to Stephen A. Smith, Winston-Salem's finest. LeBron James, also in the headlines, saying that the NCAA. Is targeting his agent and right hand man, Rich Paul, with these regulations that have been put forth as a result of the Rice Commission on College Basketball last year, suggesting that the NCAA allow for agents to be credited, accredited by the NCAA. And to monitor or represent players interesting, interested in testing the NBA waters underclassmen.

Who want to be a part of the draft process. Now, the system is broken. It's not ever going to work because if you're an agent. You're interested in the financial aspect of things.

Yes. If you get a player that you represent, you're going to try and get them to go pro. Why?

Because. If you don't, if he decides to go back to school, he's going to have to fire you. Then you've got to go through the process all over again of trying to land that same prospect the next year. Of course, you're going to try and advise for the kids to go pro.

So it doesn't really work that well. I don't know who's really calling for agents to be a part of the process. But the reason why LeBron and Rich Paul feel like they're singled out. One of the new stipulations, part of the criteria requires a bachelor's degree, which Rich Paul notoriously does not have as he was selling jerseys out of his trunk when he met LeBron.

LeBron coming out of high school in Akron, leaving an airport. He saw, I think, a Kobe Bryant jersey, if I remember correctly, and they built a relationship. And LeBron, one of his most unrecognized achievements is just how he's been able to empower the inner circle around him. He brought his crew up with him, much to the trend of agents and the current or the former power structure of the league.

Phil Jackson calling him a posse, which was a big headline once upon a time. Rich Paul's story should be celebrated. This is a guy who once he got the opportunity has excelled. Unlike other situations where you have entourages or you have crews that just simply serve as leeches of the popular and wealthy athlete. That's not what Rich Paul has been clearly.

The people that surround LeBron, they are business people and they are people who have succeeded, have done very well with business. That should be celebrated, not cut down on. So once this was released by ESPN that there would be a criteria which includes a bachelor's degree, LeBron went to Twitter and said, can't stop, won't stop. They big mad and scared. Nothing will stop the movement and the culture over here. Sorry, not sorry. Hashtag the Rich Paul rule. Seems like another unnecessary L for the NCAA, but they are to blame because Mark Emmert hired this Rice commission and they had the suggestions and they took the suggestions and implemented this here.

So the headache is all on them. You are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPCM Burlington, WMFR Highpoint. Those signals making up the Triad Sports Hub. OK, let me spell out the timeline a little bit for this. LeBron James Rich Paul NCAA agent story. It starts in May of last year where the Rice commission releases its report with suggestions to the NCAA on ways they could fix problems in college basketball. One of those including agents working them in and requiring that the agents be certified by the NCAA before they work with NCAA players who might be trying to test the waters for the NBA.

Then you get the news from today. Really, it was yesterday that the NCAA issued a memo to agents outlining a new certification requirement, which included having a bachelor's degree, which LeBron James took as being a shot to Rich Paul directly because, of course, with his background, he did not possess a bachelor's degree. To talk about this and plenty more, it's Mike Decorsi of the Sporting News who joins us, Hall of Fame sports writer that you can follow on Twitter at TSNMike. Nobody, Mike, seems to like what the NCAA has done here, their integration of agents into basketball.

Who's most responsible for where we're at right now? You have to say he's the most responsible because he is the one who reacted to what occurred two falls ago in the fall of 2017 when four assistant basketball coaches, Division I assistant basketball coaches were arrested along with several other men in and around the basketball business. Those four former assistant basketball coaches have all been convicted of crimes. At the time when that happened, Mark Emmert's reaction to that was to form what we now call the Rice Commission. He put Condoleezza Rice in charge of eight, I think it was 14, maybe 16, somewhere around there, panel designed to examine the issues and come up with some solutions to try to clean up college basketball. I don't know who they talked to. I know they talked to the executive director of the Players Association, I know they talked to the head of the NABC, and I know they talked to Adam Silver of the NBA. But I know pretty much everybody that's involved in college basketball, not to brag or anything, but I've been doing this for, I've been doing it at the Sporting News for more than 25 years, and I've been doing it around the nation for 30 plus years, so I know pretty much everybody that's involved in the game, and I don't really know pretty much anybody that went in to talk to them. And I know people very close to me who volunteered, practically begged to get an audience with that commission, and were ignored.

Just had no time for you, for those people. None at all, because I don't know, they had so much on their docket that they didn't have time to talk to the people who actually knew about the game. I know all the top recruiting analysts, and I believe I've asked every single one of them, if they went in to talk to the rights commission. The recruiting analysts know that part of the game better than anybody.

Better than the coaches, better than AAU coaches, certainly better than Adam Silver or Jim Haney or anybody like that. They know that game. Brian Snow, Evan Daniels, Eric Bosse, Paul Biancardi, they know that game because they have to know it, and not one of them was asked to discuss the recruiting business, the business of recruiting, with that commission. So, what you got out of that commission was a lot of misdirected proposals, a lot of unintended consequences, basically nothing that has fixed the game, and it includes this concept of allowing agents more involvement with prospects. When I first hear, okay, we're going to allow agents more involvement, great. A lot of them, not all of them, believe me, but a lot of them, some of them, if you want to make it the best case scenario, are already involved with athletes who are well in advance of their college careers. Giving money, giving advice, that sort of thing, to prospective players, and so I thought, bring it all above board, right? And then it's not a problem any longer.

At least, then you know who's doing what. But no, all they do is say, okay, you can have an agent, but only when you're in the act of considering the NBA draft process, so you're basically when you're on the NBA's early entry list, you can have an agent. And then if you decide to get off the list and come back to college, then you have to fire that person.

I mean, so it's a preposterous construct to begin with. And then they go and they say, okay, in order to be certified for this, you have to follow these procedures, and one of them is having a bachelor's degree. It all comes down, Josh, to their idea that AAU is bad and high school is good, which goes to the AAU coaches, you don't have to have a high school degree to be an AAU coach, you really don't have to have much of any qualification.

You have to be willing to spend a lot of time with young people, there's no question about that, but you don't necessarily have to have a college degree. If you're coaching high school basketball, it's almost universal. It may not be unanimous, but it's almost universal that you're going to have a college degree. So they equate those two things as being what makes someone good. And that's where this came from.

It absolutely grew out of that belief that college good, not college bad. And that all began with their assertion that AAU and the people who run it are bad. But where did the agents come in here? Who was the one out here saying, you know what, this is a good idea to get the agents involved because it wasn't the coaches. And as you mentioned, the recruiting experts here were not consulted. You know, maybe I can't say for sure, because obviously we weren't allowed in their deliberations and their examinations and everything, but they did talk to Michelle Roberts, I believe it was, from the Players Association. So many people they did talk to, so it could have been all, what can we do, let's do this, let's see how this flies. And like I said, I was a believer in involving the agents because, as Yahoo reported last February, February 2018, when they showed documents. Now, I mean, the veracity of those documents, who knows, but there were lots of documents that demonstrated that a particular agency had records of having paid particular athletes while they were in college to try to maintain a relationship with them and then represent them after their time in college and when they were professionals. And so my belief, that sort of confirmed at least my belief that it's going on anyway, whether or not those relationships are reinforced financially or not, I know those relationships exist.

And so the idea of bringing that all above board I thought was a good idea. I thought it was ridiculous, though, to have this half-pregnant idea where you can have an agent when you're in the draft process. So like, if I finish the final, let's say I play in the Final Four, I don't know if I'm going pro for sure or not, but I want to give it a go. So I finish in the Final Four on April 5th or whatever, and then on April 7th I decide, okay, I'm in the draft, so then I can hire an agent on April 6th or 7th or whatever, and then I decide on, you know, after I go to the Combine, don't think things are going right, I decide college is better for me, and I decide that, like, by May 20th or whatever, then I've got to fire my agent and say, sorry, see you next year. I mean, it's a ridiculous construct. It's way more ridiculous, even.

And believe me, I think needing a bachelor's degree to meet the NCAA's approval is ridiculous, but I think it's even more ridiculous, this half-pregnant idea where you have to fire your agent once you go back to school. Mike de Courcy's on Twitter at TSNMike, writes for the Sporting News, and he is somebody who's very well plugged in, as you can tell, but he's also somebody we go to on movies. The last time we had you on, we were talking about The Lion King, which was about to be released. You gave us a couple of Disney movies you liked, but then after the interview, you gave us your full Top 35, and I want to reveal your Top 5. Number 5 on the list of Mike de Courcy's top Disney movies, The Original Jungle Book. Number 4, The Jungle Book Remake. Number 3, Mary Poppins Returns. Number 2, Aladdin.

And Number 1, Frozen. I was out on The New Lion King. I thought it looked too much like Planet Earth.

I needed animals to emote. I didn't get enough of that. Where does The Lion King fall among your best Disney movies? Did you like it? The remake? I didn't go. I didn't see enough positive about it to make me feel like I needed to see it. Did you see the new Tarantino movie yet? I did.

Alright, now this is what I'm interested in. See, it's an idea of Hollywood. What did you think of it? I loved it. One of the things I really like about Quentin Tarantino movies is his willingness to allow a scene to breathe, beyond what most directors would trust, and to believe in his writing and the performance to carry you through that. And I got into a Twitter argument with a friend, I have a friend who's a movie critic and entertainment reporter in Boston, and I got into an argument with one of his friends, I don't even know who it was, and he said he thought it was too long.

And I'm like, you don't get it? That's the whole point. That's what makes it great. What makes it great is that it's so long. Saying a Tarantino movie's too long is like saying Zeppelin's too long or saying a Queen's too long.

What are you doing? Yes! It's what makes it great. The scene that's in there with Leonardo DiCaprio and a young actress who plays a young actress in the movie, and it is just mesmerizing. And no other director would let that scene go as long as he did. And it enriches the movie to such a degree. And the suspense that you get when Brad Pitt visits the ranch, what I guess for lack of a better term would be called the Manson Ranch. And the suspense, because you just don't know what's going to happen, and that scene goes on forever.

And it's what makes it great, because you keep thinking he's going to stop it now, and he does it, he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, and that's what makes it great. So I loved it. I loved the way it all turned out.

I'm not going to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it. I will say the ending is controversial. Some liked it, some didn't. Some loved it.

I'm in the love camp. And I can't recommend it highly enough, but I haven't loved every picture that he's made. I did not love Django Unchained. I thought he got too cartoonish in what was a very serious story.

I didn't care for that. But I thought that Inglourious Basterds was a movie that the first time I saw it, it jarred me. And then I saw it a second time, and I loved it. I mean, there were things about it I loved all the way through, and I had trouble with the ending.

I just didn't see it. I'd never seen anything like it before, so it jarred me. And then I saw it a second time and loved it. And of course, Pulp Fiction, I've been a believer since day one.

That was magnificent. So if you are a fan of those movies, I don't see how you won't go and put this very close to the top of his list. I've only got about a minute left, but Dodgeball is being talked about today because it is ESPN 8, the Ocho Day, and they have all these sporting events that would never make air on a normal day being broadcast. Dodgeball, now that we're 15, 16 years out from when it was released, where does it rank among sports comedies? Where does it rank among comedies in the 2000s in Mike Decorci's mind? It was great. I thought it was wonderful. A very funny movie. I thought everything about it was really good. There's just so many funny lines in it. I don't know what other sports comedies... Caddyshack is a movie from my generation that's revered, and there's a lot of funny stuff in it, but I never thought it was a great movie. I thought it was too loose and sloppy in a lot of ways. I think Dodgeball is actually a better film than Caddyshack.

It may not be as funny, but it's a better movie. There's a lot of invention. The Ocho thing... I was just at the gym, and I looked up, and there was a thing on TV where they were bowling with trolley trains.

Legitimately, in Europe, bowling with trolley trains. And I'm like, what is that? And then I saw it. They wiped and went to commercial, and they said, the Ocho. And I'm like, oh, man. Way to go, guys.

People have been mad at them for a while at ESPN. But today is a good day for them, because that was pretty cool. Mike, it's good to hear from you. I hope you're enjoying your summer. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, Josh. You got it. That's Mike the Corsi on Twitter, at TSNMike. Coming up, I want to get into whether or not any of these sports that are being broadcast today would actually work beyond ESPN 8, the Ocho Day. Also, why Netflix is in trouble. This is The Drive.