The kids are alright (6-2-20)

Earlier today, a Florida judge denied an attorney's request to protect Zion Williamson from questions regarding him and his family receiving illegal gifts before or during his one season in Durham. If this case continues, Zion will have to answer those questions and for that reason, I believe more strongly that a settlement is inevitable here. He's not going to answer these questions in court, nor should he.

There's no upside to it. You gotta remember, the NCAA's eligibility rule bar, like when it comes to gifts, when it comes to what you receive, it's outdated and it's unrealistic. For any athlete who plays college basketball, especially at Duke, but also somebody who is as big of an icon and a celebrity going into school as Zion clearly was.

Drake's wearing his jersey his junior year in high school. So I don't know what exactly Zion received. Quite frankly, I don't care. But if I'm Zion, I'm not answering questions about it. Because if, if he even answers the question honestly, and the answer is no, I didn't receive any gifts, I didn't break any NCAA rules, the people who are criticizing him now, they've already picked sides on Zion. They're not going to believe what he says. If he goes to court, Robert, even if he swears under oath, that he did not receive anything, the same people that have been criticizing and knocking this kid for almost two years now, they're still going to believe he's lying. They're going to believe, they're going to believe that he's not telling the truth, even if he swears under oath and says that it's not true.

New information doesn't change those kinds of people's minds. They? It's like sports, or it is sports, but it's almost like politics. Pretty much. The people that hear the president's statements, even from last night, the people that like him, like what he said.

The people who don't, aren't going to like it. Period. That's, that's just what it is. And in sports, if you hate Duke and you dislike Zion, I doubt he says something that refutes something you already believe, and you say, you know what, I'm going to change my opinion on this one here. That's just not what we do anymore.

We're very tribal. But looking further into this case, the attorney, or I should make it the agent that Zion agreed in principle with to have her represent him when he was in school. She's claiming she's owed a hundred million dollars by Zion. If you forgot, if you have forgotten, Zion wanted to be represented by CAA, he already agreed to be represented by Gina Ford. He got out of that representation because of this thing called the Uniform Agents-Athlete Act in North Carolina, which you have to be registered as an agent in the state of North Carolina to represent somebody who's still in school. Like Zion, who had not graduated at that point or finished his academic year at Duke before agreeing to work with Gina Ford. So the contract was Nolan Boyd. Zion isn't represented by Gina Ford under the North Carolina Uniform Act, Uniform Agents-Athlete Act.

It requires you to be registered. She was not. However, her argument is Zion was breaking NCAA rules that would have made him a pro, not an amateur, under the NCAA rules. So she posed these questions publicly to put Zion in a difficult spot where he now has to either answer the questions to prove that he wasn't breaking NCAA rules or you're going to have to settle. She's claiming she's owed over $100 million or around $100 million. She's not going to get that. There's going to be compromise, but she's going to get tens of millions. And if you think that sounds like a lot, I'm reminded of one of my favorite movies over the last decade or so, The Social Network, where at the end of this movie, if you haven't seen it, I'm sorry, spoiler alert. Mark Zuckerberg, he's in a court case with people who are claiming he stole their idea in order to create Facebook. They want a substantial amount of money to pay them off to fix this lawsuit. And at the end of the movie, Rashida Jones' character just says to Zuckerberg, hey, pay them.

It's going to be a speeding ticket when it's all said and done considering how big this is, considering how much money you're going to be worth years down the line. Zion Williamson, he's only going to get bigger and bigger. He's the best NBA player or NBA rookie I've seen play since LeBron James. And he might even be better than LeBron when you look at some of the efficiency and some of the analytics there. He's a magnificent kid.

He's a tremendous star. So if I'm Zion, I pay them. I pay them because in the end with the Nike deal and what he's going to get from the Pelicans and other endorsement opportunities, it's a speed bump. It's not going to be 100 million, but there's no value to coming out publicly and going to this court and answering these questions and getting trapped.

It's going to cost tens of billions of dollars. But in the end, when Zion looks back on it, it's going to look more like a speeding ticket. Chris Lee going to join us from WRAL in 10 minutes. He used to be a WXII good friend of the show.

336-777-1600 if you want in on today's program. Let's go to Ed and Winston Salem. Haven't heard from Ed in a while. Ed, what do you got on Zion Williamson?

Okay. What I'm thinking about here, Josh, if he is in a no win situation, what I'm wondering if he goes ahead and settles, do you think this will affect his future endorsements? Because like I say, a lot of people are going to say he's guilty. He might be guilty. He may not.

His family may be guilty. You know, they may not. We'll probably never know because it's going to be taken care of. And like I say, it's probably going to be settled and everything's going to be sealed. But my question is, do you think if this happens, it'll affect his endorsements down the line? Yeah, it's a good question. Thanks for the call, Ed.

Hope you're doing well. I don't. I don't think it'll affect them at all because we've seen it in the reaction to this story. When the allegations first came to the ruse, most of the reaction was, who cares?

We like Zion. Whatever he was paid, if he was paid, he's probably worth more. But we've seen a lot worse from kids in college overcoming bad PR to have great commercial success and to be great marketing icons. Like think about how many commercials Charles Barkley does, Robert, including I am not a role model. Think about all the stuff Michael Jordan overcame. And I'm not comparing Michael to Zion in this case. How about Peyton Manning? Look up what happened between him and a trainer when he was at Tennessee.

And nobody over the last 20 years, I'd venture to say, has done more commercials than Peyton has. So Zion, I don't think many people view it as a crime or even that bad of PR if he took anything because he probably deserved a lot more if he did. Okay. Robert, I feel like we need some positivity. It's been a tough week or so. Tears have been shed. Emotions, they've been on our sleeves. So I want, I think it's the perfect time to do weekly positivity.

We haven't done this in a while, but I think it's the time to do it. Oh, yeah. If you have something that's happened to you over the last few days, that's been good.

336-777-1600. Robert? Hey, Robert.

Hey, Josh. I got my first pair of Jordans over the weekend. You did.

I didn't see that on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. I was so excited. I can tell. Have you worn them yet? I wore them on Saturday just to see if they fit.

How'd they feel? They feel pretty good. I think I might wear them tomorrow to try and impress B-dot.

Oh, that'd be nice. I think I'm going to wear the same shoes I wear every day. What kind of shoes are you wearing?

Let me see. They're like... Well, they're Adidas. Adidas Cloud Boost. They're very comfy. You're about that three stripe life.

Stripes over checks. Do you have something good that's happened to you? Uh, yeah. Later in June, I'm going to visit one of my friends in Florida, and I found out that we're going to take a trip to Clearwater Beach to his boat he just bought, and I can't wait. I've never been to Clearwater. It looks beautiful. Oh, Clearwater's really lovely. I cannot wait to just soak it all up. He said it's a nice shell game down there. The beach, you know? Yes.

I understand. I wore them on Saturday. I wore my first pair of Jordans to a brewery this weekend, Robert. A brewery? I went to my favorite brewery because they have this great outdoor patio in Winston.

A lot of space. Incendiary Brewing Company. I love that spot, but it was one of those deals where when you go up to order your beer, they ask you, do you have a seat? And I'm like, oh, I've never been asked that, and apparently you need to have your seat already before you order your beer. Ah, because you can't just get your beer and then leave.

So you better be with a group, because if you leave your seat to get a beer, and there's nobody there to protect your seat, it might get stolen. But I was with people, and I didn't want to wear Jordans with shorts, so I had long pants, and it was 85 degrees. Was it a little too hot out there for you? It was kind of hot, but the beer tasted really good.

Well, that's nice. I'm more of like a blonde guy. I've got like a honey blonde. I like Colches.

Oh, you're talking about beer. Shout-out Sarah Bradford. Yeah, there you go.

All right. Former WXII Sports Reporter. Oh, wait, that's been Weekly Positivity. Former WXII Sports Reporter Chris Lee, who is now at WRAL, will share his thoughts on Dabo's comments and the current state of Wake Forest basketball next on The Drive. What are you talking about?

What's he talking about? I'm talking about the one and only Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. Our good friend, formerly of WXII, now with WRAL Sports Anchor Chris Lee, kind enough to spend some time back on in the Triad.

I do want to talk to you about Wake Forest basketball, which landed Winston-Salem native Davian Williamson over the weekend, transferring from East Tennessee State to the Deacs. We had Davian on the show yesterday. If you missed it, you can go back and listen.

Wherever you get your podcast, just search The Drive with Josh Graham. However, I feel obligated to talk about something that you've had no discomfort talking about on all of your social media platforms, not just in the last week, but really for the last few years. I know you were vocal about Ahmaud Arbery, and you've talked about other tragic incidents in recent years.

I'm just interested in this, Chris. Has this one felt different for you at all? For me, it didn't feel different. I do feel like all of the attention around it and the attention that's coming from other people, it feels different from that because I've had more conversations about racism, what it is, how it impacts black people with my white friends for the last five days, more of those in the last five days than what I've had in the last five years. I think a lot of it, people are sitting at home, coronavirus beforehand, a video will come out, a black guy clearly gets killed without any reason, and everybody's just busy in their normal everyday life, and it doesn't really mean much.

This one, I think people were forced to look at it. Then on top of Ahmaud Arbery and then with, I think the Christian Cooper, Amy Cooper situation at Central Park played a part in it too because then it just kind of set up that it is very much so possible that somebody who's black could just be minding their own business and then somebody can come out of nowhere and do things. What happened to Christian Cooper is exactly how Emmett Till got killed in the 50s.

Luckily, Christian Cooper had video and was able to tell his side of the story first. In the conversation you've said you had with people, with white people, which you described to be more than you've had in the last five years, what are some of the things that they're staggered by? Because I think about hearing Lavelle Moten over the weekend describe taking time away from basketball practice to have simulations for how police stops should go and what he tells his team or tells his players to do. That's just something I've never welcomed before. What's something in your own experience that you've shared that you've seen surprised looks in response to?

I think a lot of people are just surprised when the term racist or racism has become such a bad term that people don't want to associate with the actual word but they're not necessarily worried about the actions. So then when you talk about the actions that are happening and you say like, hey, yes, I have gone through this. I have been stopped and questioned by cops in the middle of the night and walked away with no ticket, but I had to answer a bunch of different questions for 30 minutes in Greensboro, they're shocked. And it's like, what did you do about it?

What can I do about it? This is just what happens. And I think a lot of folks, I said this to one of my friends too, I said when the 60s happened, a lot of people felt like, okay, cool, we have civil rights. We have some legislation passed, so we're good. But the only thing that really happened was people swept things under the rug and then now the rug is being pulled up and we're surprised with the mess that's under the rug. And so now we're starting to, we have to actually face that mess that we've been sweeping under the rug now and actually clean it up. And I think that's just what's happening right now.

So I'm very optimistic for the future. It's WRAL Sports Anchor Chris Lee with us here, he's on Twitter at ChrisLeeTV. It doesn't seem like to me, Dabo Sweeney is, he's capable of being the messenger that activists want him to be.

For me, I think it has to be in your heart. Like with Zion last year, when he decided, when he blew out his shoe and there were people who were anti-NCAA telling him, hey, stick it to the NCAA, don't return to play, they're exploiting you. Zion wasn't the messenger for that because he loved playing at Duke so much and he loved college basketball and he almost returned for a second year despite everybody telling him it made no sense to do so.

Dabo, he's very strong in faith. We heard what he said, he was available. I think he was being honest, but him not being this messenger that activists for positive change want him to be, how does that sit with you? I think where he came from was a very, came from a good place. I don't think he meant any harm by some of the things he said, but I also think this is a good teaching moment because Dabo said, what Dabo's words were is exactly what some other people are saying at home that don't have a microphone. So it's actually, I think it's a good teaching moment. And I think one of the quotes where he was like, it was something to the effect of love doesn't see a color, but hate does.

I really disagree with that. When you walk into a room, if everybody is averaging six feet tall in a room and then all of a sudden Danny Manning walks in a room and he's six foot 11, you're going to notice his height. If somebody is obese, you're going to notice their weight.

If they're really skinny, you're going to notice their weight. So why aren't we noticing color? The hard part is to notice color and to acknowledge I, as a person, label people with a certain color or a certain way they look with these stereotypes, and I need to get rid of it. Even though I don't consider myself racist, I don't consider myself a hateful person, I have these certain stereotypes that I attach to people who look like this. I need to face that and get rid of it. This goes back to what I was saying before about we've swept under the rug so much, and now we've pulled up the rug, and now we have to face the mess.

I think that's a huge part of it as well, is pretending to not see color, because also while you're pretending to not see color, a lot of people pretended that there weren't injustices happening to black folks in America. Transitioning things to Wake Forest basketball, I'm less interested in just talking about Davian Williamson transferring from East Tennessee State along with Steve Forbes, who, of course, is at Wake Forest. I'm more interested in talking about what the last month has done for you when it comes to Forbes retaining Jacobi Neath, Odie Igwama, retaining Ishmael Masood, bringing in Davian Williamson. He had the comments where he jabbed at Kentucky. Of course, he also was the person who spiked the medical face mask in the intro video as well, getting Wake Forest on the map. It seems like in a public way that Danny Manning and Dino Gaudio, heck, I'll throw Jeff Bezdelicate to that mix as well, weren't able to do with the Deacs.

What's been your early read on them? I do think when Danny first came, like when he very, very first came, there was an excitement because he's Danny Manning. That's still a big deal. But he has a great personality. He's very witty. He's a funny guy if you talk to him, and you know this, Josh, but I don't think it always translates to the fans. Steve Forbes has a lot bigger of a personality, which I think translates to the fans.

Danny is more of an introvert. Steve is an extrovert, and he's a great salesman, so he can sell you. So I think there's been a lot of excitement, and the crazy thing about it is being here in Raleigh now, being in Winston-Salem before, growing up in Greensboro and everything, I know what the fandom is like for Wake Forest basketball over there. Over here, people don't really care that much about Wake Forest, but since Steve Forbes has come along, it's made Wake Forest more exciting than what it was before. So I think that also speaks to something, too, because now it's like, okay, now there's a legit dog in town, and this guy could be stealing a lot of recruits that could be going to NC State, could be going to Carolina, and they could be over in Winston-Salem, and maybe they could be beating us down the road. So it's interesting to see. And I do think that having Davion Williamson is very key for Steve Forbes' success.

And as somebody who covered Davion in high school, I was not shocked, but I was definitely excited when I saw that he did pick Wake Forest because I think that's going to really help out Steve Forbes and then also get a lot of the hometown people, I think, behind the team with having now two hometown folks on the team. Chris Lee, it's just good to hear your voice, man. I hope you're enjoying the gig. I hope you're safe. Thank you so much for your insight and perspective. It's always appreciated.

Always. Love you, Josh. Love you, Robbie, in there. You got it. Yeah, love you too, brother. Love you, big dog. That is Chris Lee from WRAL Sports.

He's on Twitter at ChrisLeeTV. Breaking news regarding the Carolina Panthers that Joe Person just reported. The Panthers will not be going to Wofford for training camp as the NFL does not want teams going away for their camp. It should be noted that the Panthers, they've been going to Wofford every year since camp, for camp since their inaugural season in 1995.

A lot of other noteworthy things to get to here to unpack with it. The NFL, this is Pete Yandere on Twitter. Pete Yandere saying, according to his source, the NFL is going to announce that teams must remain at their training facilities for preseason camp. The Panthers, they're only one of five teams that still leaves the metropolitan area for camp. So the practice facility, it's not ready yet in South Carolina. It's not going to be ready until the summer of 2022, I believe. So they're going to be doing training camp from the bubble and from the outdoor practice fields?

Alrighty then. And it's twice as many people. You're talking about 100 players that you need to whittle down to 53. And the practice squad players, that's going to be interesting. The Panthers, they don't have, in terms of facilities yet, quite as high quality stuff as the vast majority of the national football league.

So that's some news to pass along. Up next, why I'm not a fan of this new NBA proposal, and oh, we've got our NFL trading card war coming up on a Tuesday drive. Before we get to our weekly NFL trading card war, this NBA proposal, I find to be interesting. We don't quite know how the play and dynamics are going to work, but Brian De Windhorst, Adrian Wojnarowski have both centered on 22 teams being involved in this proposal, which would allow for the Portland Trail Blazers, Zion, and the Pelicans to be competitive. It also would even, according to reports, Ropin, even the Phoenix Suns somehow, the Washington Wizards somehow. And to those thinking, 22 teams, this sounds fantastic.

Let's have this play. Why do we need all these losing teams? Why not just have 16? I wish the proposal would be head straight to the postseason. I understand the concern of that. It's a disadvantage to the favored teams when you don't really have games to get underneath your belt, some exhibition-like games in order to be ready to go, in order to be solid.

But I think there are ways around that. You can have scrimmages within the playoff teams, have Eastern Conference teams scrimmage against Western Conference teams in a friendly exhibition-like format in order to get those games in, get those reps in to feel comfortable to start this thing. Everybody's going to be in the same location. You don't need to add all these teams. Just with the premise of, hey, we need to make sure we're not jumping straight into the postseason because these players, they're going to need to be at their tip-top shape to want to compete. I would not be in favor of bringing 22 teams back because every extra body that's on this Disney Orlando campus that's being reported adds risk of potential infection.

It adds risk, not just to the sport but also to the players. Why would you add six more teams when you don't have to? All the extra teams, they have losing records, including Portland. Memphis is an eight seed in the West. We talk about how great the Western Conference is. Memphis is a game under.500. Portland, well under.500. Look how many games the Wizards are under.500. Why are we tailoring to them?

Why are we getting them involved? They haven't deserved to become a postseason team. I understand Dane Lillard and Zion wanting an opportunity to chase down Memphis, but you haven't done anything, and I'd even throw Memphis into this group, to prove that you have a shot at winning a title. And if you don't have a shot at winning the title, why are you being sent to Orlando? Why is it fair that you deserve a shot, the same opportunity that some of these other teams get? So I don't like the 22 team format. I would start with the playoffs. And if you're concerned about getting games under your belt, have pre-season-like, air-quote, pre-season-like exhibition games against Eastern Conference teams, Eastern Conference teams playing Western Conference teams and vice versa to get you set and ready to go. Because everybody that's on campus is going to be having these exhibition games for the same purpose to try and get ready to go for the postseason to begin. 3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600 on Twitter.

It's sports of triad. I'm against the 22 team format. What say you? I agree with you.

I am not for it. But for us, as a radio show, would I like to see Zion and the Hornets both in the playoffs? Would the Hornets even be a part of this?

They are currently... I think they're the eighth worst team. I think the bottom eight teams wouldn't be considered. They're the 10th seed currently.

Right. I think this is about teams that have mathematical shots of still getting in. Oh, I thought they were just going to let 11 teams from both.

I thought that's what you were saying. It's different. Okay. I've seen multiple different reports about what teams are going to participate and what aren't. Because if it's just 11, I don't think Phoenix would qualify, would they? Phoenix currently, no. Phoenix is the third worst team in the league.

Yeah. Or in the West. Which is still a lot better than the Charlotte Hornets. I mean, for sure, ranking-wise, they're not better. Standings-wise, they are. And they have tougher competition that they play.

So it's totally up in the air to see where exactly this is going to be headed when they get to that vote on Thursday. I would just have 16 teams. I know there are financial ramifications of that, where these players are going to want to get paid out, and there's local television requirements. I'm just speaking hypothetically, the ideal way to do this is 16 teams get straight to the playoffs. Make sure you get the full playoffs in. Don't add six more teams.

That could enhance the risk of potential infection. Okay. It's time for our weekly NFL trading card war. This is us attaching the nostalgia of opening up a pack of cards with playing war. I don't know about you, during the pandemic, I've had several points where me and Sarah Bradford have been bored, and she's like, what do you want to do?

And I'm like, I'm fine just sitting here watching Seinfeld. And then she gets mad, like, let's do something else. And I'm like, well, let's play a card game.

What card game can we play with just two people? How about war? So this is a combo of war and the nostalgia of opening up cards, and it gives us an excuse to talk about the NFL. It's what we call NFL trading card war. This means war.

You're a tough little guy, aren't you? This means war. It's cool.

It's cool. This means war. What? Does it have to? Can it mean something else? Okay, you dirtbags. This means war.

Finish him. For those playing at home, we have five superlatives for each week that Robert comes up with, and we try to open up a pack of cards, which we just did, and we have ten players in each pack. We do not know what players are in the pack ahead of time, obviously, and we have to attach players to the given superlative.

Here are the five superlatives today. Most likely to have a messy room. Most likely to chug a beer on the jumbotron. Most likely to quote movies he's never seen before.

Or, excuse me, I misread that. Most likely to quote movies nobody else has seen. Most likely to eat a bug on a dare.

Most likely to dress up in a two-person costume. All right, how are you feeling about your deck, Robert? Not bad. It's a nice little mix of characters here. I'm trying to think of the most delicate way to describe what my pack gave me.

I'll go with the word caustic. I have a lot of players who are not in the team's uniform that the card is suggesting they are. Like, I have a Buffalo Bills John Brown, but he's in a Baltimore Ravens outfit. Ah, okay. See, these are cards for last year.

Still works. Okay, have a messy room. I'll start us off. I'm going with Antonio Brown.

Oh, man, see, I'm on the other side of the field. I'm going Akib Talib. I feel like his room would just be so messy with plunder that he's taken from other athletes on the field. Things that he's stolen from people? Yeah, maybe that he's like, you know, maybe change from Michael Crabtree, playoff hopes from the Panthers. You know, he's probably got a really messy room. I mean, a bunch of ice packs, Steve Smith telling him to ice up.

There you go. Antonio Brown, I don't think I need to go through his entire track record, but, like, I'd like to imagine he still has the Hollywood Hogan mustache, like the remnants of it. I'd like to picture my Antonio Brown as Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Yeah, I bet he still has the remnants of that sitting on his, like, dresser. Yeah, that's where he shaved it. That's right, he just shaved it, and he has it there as a prize, and all the shirts that he takes off are just laying on the floor somewhere. I mean, the apartment's half painted, of course, because he harassed whoever was painting, allegedly, and the food that he didn't pay for, I'm sure, is just all over the place. What are you thinking here?

Hmm. Keith D'Elib or Antonio Brown, Robert, I'll leave it to you. I guess I like your Antonio Brown. All right, I got a 1-0 lead. Most likely to chug a beer on the Jumbotron.

Where are you going? See, I have a predicament here. I know that I have one player that did chug a beer on a Jumbotron. You got Aaron Rodgers? He did not do it successfully, though.

I know, that's not what you want to do. So I'm going to go with another guy, Cameron Hayward. Wow. I feel like he could end up at a Pittsburgh Penguins game and be on the Jumbotron, and they're like, uh, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive stalwart Cameron Hayward. I've got Carson Wentz. He's a big dude.

I've stood next to Carson Wentz. He is pretty large. He's from North Dakota, man.

What else do you got to do other than chug beers? I'm going to have the deciding factor be where is Casey Hayward from? Like, give me the hometown. If it's somewhere like Wisconsin, Minnesota, if he went to Iowa, well, this is probably going to favor you, then, if he's from Iowa, because they like those wheat beers up there.

Corn people, Iowa. Where is Cameron Hayward from? He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, but he did, he went to school at Ohio State.

I was in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, they get after it. Also, he's a defensive lineman.

As big as Wentz is, I don't think he can outdrank Hayward. Yeah, quarterbacks don't have a good track record on the jumbotron, so it's tied up. Quote movies that nobody else has seen. I got Greg Olsen, and I'm going to win this one because I know Greg Olsen does this.

Oh, no. Greg Olsen, he's quoting Anchorman. Greg Olsen, but everybody has seen Anchorman. He's quoting other sports movies. Like, he's doing Any Given Sunday.

That movie's come out over 20 years ago. That's Greg Olsen's game. That's his bag. What do you have in response? I got to throw away here.

I got Daniel Jones. I feel like he's just going to be not fun to hang around. Just quote movies throughout the whole conversation. I'm a movie quoting guy. Yeah, but I mean, you don't do it incessantly. This guy would be like, how's it hanging? And then you would respond, and then he'd be like, how's the weather up there? I don't know. When in Rome. Yeah.

Eat a bug on a dare. Who do you got, Robert? I got Philip Rivers, who I feel like is a trump card. He is a trump card for this game. Anything that's competitive, you can throw him out. I'm glad you said card at the end of that sentence.

Right. I feel like he's going to be like Farva. You know, he's going to be like, hey, take your coffee with the bar of soap in it. And he's just going to take that bar of soap out and bite it. So I'm going Philip Rivers.

I have three I was thinking about putting here. Derek Carr, Adam Thielen, or maybe even Cameron Brait. He just seems very, like, goonish for sure.

I don't know. He went to Harvard, though, man. I think he'd be too smart to eat a bug. It's going to be tough to beat Philip Rivers. So we're going into the final one tied, Robert. This is where things get dramatic. We don't set this up like this either.

We really don't. Like, I try to beat Josh. Most likely to dress up in a two-person costume. I got Greg Zirline, OK? Dr. Z, weird dude. Kickers are weird people. Megatron. And this is a very white activity. The two-person costume.

So I'm going Greg Zirline as being my pick. I have saved Aaron Rodgers specifically for this because he dates very attractive women in Hollywood. And I feel like they would go to parties. Annika Patrick's not in Hollywood. I mean, she's well known enough to get invited to parties. Sure. Maybe they would dress up as Mickey and Minnie Mouse together.

Maybe like, I don't know, Mushu. Zirline's not getting invited, even though he plays for the Rams, to the Hollywood parties. It happens. I'll give it the Rodgers. OK.

So you win the NFL trading card war this week. Have you ever dressed up in a two-person costume? I have dressed up as Cheech and Chong before. OK.

I have been. You never did like a horse, though, where you're the front and somebody is the tail. No, but I have done the ostrich costume where you put your legs into it and blow it up and it looks like you're riding an ostrich and he has the little legs hanging down. Not a two-person costume, but still pretty cool. I have never done anything like this.

I've done the duo, but I don't think that counts, where you're dressed as something and your partner's dressed as something else. Anywho, good fun. You are listening to WSDS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPC in Burlington, WMFR High Point. However, and wherever you're listening, we appreciate that. You're on Sports Up Try It. Can I tell you a big pet peeve of mine?

Please do. I hate when people bang on the youth, always blaming everything on the millennials. It's something that happens with every generation. I don't know if you've watched True Detective with McConaughey and Woody Harrelson where people were just blaming the generations after them for all the problems that are out there and Matt McConaughey has that great line where he's like, you know, people have been saying that for generation after generation, but the world continues to spin and there's a reason for that. And it always seems like, I don't know what the most popular pinatas out there are, but I would probably submit millennials. It's the easiest thing to blame things for, maybe social media, maybe just cell phones altogether.

Pat Fitzgerald, I'm looking at you. But I've always hated that because I think each generation has gotten in some ways incrementally better. And the younger generation during this week of tribulation, violence, and just bordering depression, watching what's happening night to night in all of our communities. The younger generation is my source of optimism because working in sports in a college market, one of the best college markets in America where I cover Wake Forest, UNCG, NC State, Duke, North Carolina, I'm around a lot of younger people. What I've found in my interactions over the last five years, let's say, this generation is very concerned with shedding identity-based prejudice. That's something that matters to them. It's not just with race, even though we saw Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow go further than I think any other quarterback who's playing in the National Football League with the way they talked about what George Floyd's murder meant to them.

I think that's not a coincidence. Billie Eilish is one of the best young musicians right now. She's a teenager. She wears oversized baggy clothes, and when she's asked why, her response is, quote, it doesn't matter what's underneath. I don't want people to know what's underneath.

I want to be judged for the quality of my music. Shedding identity-based prejudice matters more to that generation, and I can attest in my background, it's not something we ever discuss. I don't know about you, Robert, but growing up, it's not something my parents discuss with me. It's something I learn through their actions. It's something I learn through my friends and my experience, how I should be treating people, and to me, I just arrived myself at shedding these identity-based prejudices that many people seem to have out there, but I think more and more parents are bringing that up to their kids, and these are discussions that are happening that didn't happen with me growing up. Secondly, the younger generation, they have more information available to them.

I'm kind of jealous of them a little bit. Like, growing up, Robert, YouTube just became a thing, and we didn't really know what it was capable of. Now, everybody has a library to every song it seems like ever made. Dude, do you remember just looking for one song forever?

Yeah, forever, forever. And never being able to find it. Like, these kids never had the struggle with LimeWire.

Oh, my God. Never had the deal. They don't know what Napster is. Accidentally download the wrong song and you put a virus on your mom's computer? Right. It's on your phone, too. Like, they never went through the trouble of having a Walkman.

They never went through the trouble of having an iPod Nano. Oh, my gosh. I had, like, an orange iPad Nano. And if you tried to run with them in your pocket, you shook to shuffle it? Oh, you shuffle it. You shuffle every freaking song! It's terrible. Like, what's crazy, I had one of those sleeves where you put the Nano in. It's specifically forerunning, and it just shuffled, and I had to get something else to listen to music, a la my old Walkman.

Terrible. And the shuffle feature was huge on the Walkman. Like, it was a revolutionary deal when you're like, oh, man, I don't know what songs are going to come up next, but I have a feeling it's one of the six songs I bought. 99 cents apiece. That's right! These kids don't know anything about that.

$7.99, Amazon Music, and you have every song that's ever been made. I say that to make this point. They have more information available to them, so they have access via social media to other American experiences. They can relate potentially to the black experience better than we can, because they see black Twitter, they see people that they otherwise want to interact with, and they can relate to those people in ways that we didn't before. We're more connected than we've ever been, the younger generation. And I think all of this, as a result, made our children, people who are coming in after us, who are teenagers now, they are far more compassionate than we were. Not to say we weren't compassionate, but this often gets confused as being soft.

This gets confused for softness. I think we need a lot more of this. So where I find my optimism, in a time where that's barren, it's in the way the younger generation has reacted to things, because they're more compassionate, they're more informed, and it matters more to them to shed identity-based prejudices. We're going to discuss all these return-to-play proposals we're seeing this week in Major League Baseball, the NBA, and heck, maybe even the MLS at NHL with Adam Gold when he joins us in 10 minutes. We need to get an update on our beloved NC Dinos. I didn't even see what the score was, so Robert, you're going to give me some news right now. It's time for Dinos Daily. In my opinion, they lost in the first inning.

You could have called this game off. Dinos just couldn't stick with the Wiz. I mean, honestly, if you thought about it, a wizard would probably beat a dinosaur in a fight. When I think Wiz, I don't think wizards. I think of going to Philadelphia and asking for Wiz, with Wiz. Oh, geez, Wiz. That's right, with Wiz. Actually, you don't even say Wiz. You just say Wit. So you'd be like, all right, give me a steak wit, and that's it. That's what you're talking about. When I think about Wiz, I think about that little demonstrative kid who would turn his back and be looking back at the camera.

How long do you want to do this? When I think of Wiz, I think of Wiz Khalifa. When I think of Wiz, I think about the Broadway version of The Wizard of Oz with the Michael Jackson version.

What? The Wiz? You never heard of The Wiz? Never heard of that. Dude, it's like a whole different take on The Wizard of Oz.

Interesting. Speaking of, my favorite Oz is the HBO show Oz, or Kevin Nash when he was Oz. Not Ozzy Osbourne? He would make it.

Crazy Train would be on that list somewhere. But back to the Dinos. I forgot we were doing our Dinos Daily there. Park Min Woo, dude. Trade him. Get him off our team. Come on, man. He's our best player. Three at bats and one hit.

Come on, dude. Hit somebody with the bat and get home. We need some runs. Where are these home runs at? I thought they were the Swole Daddies.

They're just cranking these bad boys out. What's funny is the mascot who we've been calling Swole Daddy this entire time actually isn't his real name. Oh, no. James Dator. That's his name is James Dator?

No, no, no. He's from Eastern North Carolina, oddly enough. Lives in Greenville from SB Nation. He put out a blog post where he nicknamed it Swole Daddy and everybody just thought that was the real thing.

Ah, so what is the... I don't know what the mascot's name is, but we're just going to continue calling him Swole Daddy. The same way I might know her name is Cherry Berry, but I'm going to call her Cherry Berry anyway. Yeah, for sure.

Like, Darren Vaught is going to be filling in for me on Thursday, Friday. He might call it correctly the Marriott Hotels. It's the Marriott. It's the Marriott. And I'm going to call it the Marriott no matter what. You can't change my mind. So your Dinos Daily, the Dinos lose the SK Wiz.

Do you have an update on what the mascot's name is? No, I was going to do that when you were talking, but I can get there. All right, get that up as I share a text from my girlfriend, Sarah Bradford.

Thanks for listening. She says, I feel ancient. I learned to drive a car before I had an iPod. I used to record songs from the radio because there was no internet. I remember that.

I remember having to record your voicemail. I was in high school when I got an iPod shuffle and I didn't get a car until my junior year of high school, but I think that's normal. And my first car, what was your first car, Robert? A 96 Grand Cherokee and only the driver's door would open up. I had a 98 Ford Explorer. And what's amazing is I gave it to my brother in Los Angeles and apparently he still has it. That thing apparently still runs.

A 98 Ford Explorer. How does that happen? I don't know. Before you even get to this update, like Sarah Bradford's alleging I'm lying to sound older. You were not all caps. You lie to sound older. Oh my God, Sarah. No, I mean, I broke my iPod Nano. I got one like my freshman year in high school and I broke the thing. So we're going to get in a big fight later.

What do you got? The green brontosaurus' name is S-E-R-I. Sarah is still a cool name. Yeah, and the blue dinosaur's name is Dandy with an I. I love Dandy. Okay. I have all the love for Dandy. Pro Dandy radio show.

That's Dinos Daily. Okay. Our early afternoon host, Adam Gold, he's going to help us break down all the major sports return to play proposals next on The Drive. Your one stop shop for sports talk. Sports.

This is The Drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. I don't think any leagues have an official deadline when to get something done by, but this week does feel like if there ever was a deadline for the summer major sports to return, this is it, where the NBA vote is expected Thursday on a 22 team proposal that's expected to pass. Major League Soccer, it's imminent that something is going to be agreed to before the deadline of tomorrow for the MLS's proposal to the MLSPA. Baseball, it seems they've made a lot of progress from the owners originally having an 82 game proposal with no pro-rated salaries, the players countering with the 114 game salary or 114 game schedule with pro-rated salaries and then the owners last night with 50 games pro-rated. It seems they've made a lot of headway and I'd be surprised if something doesn't happen in the next week when they want things to happen in terms of players reporting to have a start date around July the 4th to break down all of this as he did a good stretch of time earlier today on his show on Sports Up Try It.

Adam Gold joins us, our early afternoon host. Adam, let's start with this one with Major League Baseball. Really, with the last three proposals that you've seen, what return to play proposal have you liked among the ones that you've seen suggested?

I don't think I've liked any of them. The one that almost made the most sense was the players, but the owners will never go ... I mean, they were going to reject that out of hand, but the encouraging part of that for me was the fact that they actually used the term deferred money and it always was going to have to be part of the equation to get a deal done.

I'm not sure we're close based on the conversations that I've read, but I do think that they don't have a choice. So, by the end of this week, they have to have an agreement. Otherwise, a 50-game season isn't going to fly, but an 80-game season can, but they have to have things on paper by the end of the week. Otherwise, there's really no hope for starting this in the beginning of July. They're going to need at least three weeks to ramp up.

People have been doing nothing since March 12th, so they're going to need some time, but I think by the end of this week, they have to get a lot closer than where they are, so at least they can start reporting. The NBA is talking about 22. We don't quite have the format in front of us. We're hearing things about play-in. We're hearing things about the teams that are already locked to make the postseason, having a couple of games to get their legs beneath them before you have the traditional 16-game format. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me when you are talking about a campus in Orlando at Disney to add six extra teams and all the support staff as well. It seems that adds to the risk of a potential infection blowing all of this up.

What do you make of 22? I don't know the risk. Yes, there are more teams, but the risk is already there when you're bringing so many people together anyway.

I think it goes up minimally. Look, the NBA wants Zion Williamson to be potentially part of the mix. They want Damian Lillard to be potentially part of the mix.

I think in a way they'd kind of like Trae Young, who's a good young star, to be part of the mix. The way to do that is to expand the field. I've got no problem with it. 22, that's fine. That number's fine.

It's kind of arbitrary. The NHL went to 24. The NBA will release something on Thursday. I think they'll announce their plan for competition like the NHL did.

Now, they just have to get the logistics ironed out and, oh, by the way, public health has to cooperate. Follow Adam Gold on Twitter at agoldfan. Listen to the Adam Gold show noon to three right here on Sports Hub Triad. I've been proud of what many of our show's approaches have been to what's happened in Minnesota with George Floyd and really in all of our communities since then, including what you did on your show yesterday at points today. What do you think, after seeing what's been done across the board in our industry, is our responsibility in the sports radio space in addressing issues like this has presented? I don't know if you heard, we took a caller today who asked me, was I at the protest? You're just sitting behind a microphone. And you know what?

All that is true. I think our responsibility is to not forget that it's happened and not ignore the problem even when people are not protesting. I kind of think that it's part of my DNA to not forget those types of things. I'm sure I annoy people with the times I have brought up. And I think they're legitimate conversations to have.

When you bring up the situation with Colin Kaepernick or other athletes, I think it's appropriate to point out that there's a racial element to people's dislike of Cam Newton. And those types of things are, I guess, our responsibility to keep talking about it and keep people, you know, just make people understand that these things matter even when they're not top of mind. But other than that, I don't know what our responsibility is other than to shine a light on it. And there will come a time where we'll all just move on and we'll get back to games. And maybe that's wrong.

Maybe we shouldn't forget the societal aspect of what we do. From one aspect that's serious to one that's not at all, when I think of your show, one segment that always sticks with me that I think is just great is what's for lunch. And I enjoy that. And I've wanted to ask you and I've always forgotten to ask you when we have you on, what's for dinner? Well, tonight, it's going to be rotisserie chicken. Solid.

Rotisserie chicken. Yeah. I'm going to make make a little homemade mac and cheese and some cornbread.

Yeah. That's that's for dinner tonight. But you see the what's for lunch thing. I cheat because we do that on Fridays now because we try to try to get some other things in. But I don't have lunch.

I never have lunch. What? Because the show.

Yeah. The show's at noon, man. I eat breakfast in the morning and then I'm just kind of too wound up to eat anything. I might snack, graze during the show, have a granola bar. I ate some yogurt today. But I mean, my lunches are just trash and they're just not lunch.

So generally, when we do that on Friday, I tell people what's for breakfast, because that kind of doubles as my lunch. I mean, nobody wants to hear that I had a sit crunch bar. I mean, who cares?

That's that's the best. The 20 on the baseball scouting scale of 20 days. I mean, I didn't get I didn't get in the major league.

So nobody cares about that. You're the people to tell us what their lunch is. Yeah.

Yeah. Robert, what did you eat for lunch? What did you eat for lunch? I'm asking Robert real quick, because I just ate fast food today. Robert, what did you get? I had two chicken thighs that I baked last night and some baked cauliflower. Well done.

Baked cauliflower. That's solid. That's that's at least a fifty five.

Maybe a sixty. Oh, wow. I'm honored. That gets you to the big leagues. That's wholesome. Absolutely. That gets you to the big leagues. Adam, thanks for doing this, man. Stay safe and we'll talk next week. You got it, man. That's Adam Gold.

That's on Twitter at a gold fan. Our early afternoon host that doesn't eat lunch. And I thought my eating schedule was weird. But then again, if I had a show from noon to three, I haven't really thought about it.

How would I approach it? I eat lunch before noon, though. So I think I'd be good. I eat. I don't eat breakfast. I'm a lunch guy. I eat between 11 and noon.

And then I try to eat dinner no later than eight o'clock. See, I'm such a weird guy, man. I can. I know you are. Look at your hair.

You got braces, t-shirts. We all know you're a strange dude. But tell us more. I cannot eat breakfast ever. I can't do it. It's like something wrong with I know it's probably because we wake up later than most people.

Maybe. See, we have an afternoon radio show that we do here. I get to work probably around 930, 10 o'clock. And then Josh sees me about an hour and a half later. Yeah, Robert. Robert shows up.

Yeah. Robert just shows up at 1130. He doesn't say a word to me ever when he walks in. I say, what's up, boss? Sometimes. What's up, chief? We don't talk unless I go into a studio and he's usually watching like videos or something. I get word done. I just do it sporadically. Yeah.

Very diligent, Robert Walsh. I'm more optimistic than Adam is about baseball, but he does sound like he agrees that it has to be done probably by the end of the week if you want to have players report by the end of next week and you want to start your season around July the 4th. Because if the Major League season doesn't start until NHL and NBA games are being played, well, what's the bleeping point?

You're probably going to be third fiddle to that point. So Major League Baseball, they just need to figure out. They need to figure out a way to get something done this week. I don't think it's going to be 80 games because I think the owners are probably going to view that as a loss if their proposal from last week that did not feature deferred money on it was rejected and then they end up settling with the same amount of games and having deferred money. So I think they're going to end up somewhere between 50 and 82, so I'll split the difference, go halfway 66, the same way the NBA had 66 games when they had their last work stoppage I don't know, a half dozen years ago or so around 2011, 2012. That's what I expect is going to happen. There is a lot of stuff to do. Dabo Sweeny, he is receiving a ton of scorn.

I'll tell you why it's not deserved in Dabo's case. Just on the drive.