Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Mon, 17 Feb 2025
USA Hockey is back and better than ever. We talk about the Four Nations absolutely crushing NBA All Star Weekend (00:00:00-00:19:47). Jets move on from Aaron Rodgers (00:19:47-00:22:45) and Richie Incognito finally gets his named cleared in an article about Jonathan Martin (00:22:45-00:33:41). Who's back of the week including some College Basketball talk and Giancarlo is hurt again (00:33:41-00:46:32). Ryen Russillo joins the podcast to talk NBA, World War II facts, who's going to win the title and more (00:46:32-02:15:49).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take
Chapter 1: Why is USA Hockey dominating?
We're the best fucking country in the world in hockey. Again, USA, we're so back.
Well, we got the Stanley Cup. Right now, as of the 2nd, we're still, and still, the best hockey country in the world. We got the Cup. They're not getting it back. That was an ass-kicking... Now... The NHL got it right.
Hats off to the NHL. Oh, I mean, the NHL, this entire sports weekend, so the first weekend without football, and I did see our good friend Chris Long making fun of everyone who posted, like, I miss football. Guess what, dude? I do miss football. Sunday was weird today. It was weird waking up and not being able, like, you know, I wanted to get in on the football action.
It's weird to have our bodies change.
Yeah, listen, you guys can miss football. Real ones misses football because we're married to the game.
Yeah, exactly. The story, though, for the first weekend without football was – and listen, he's our good friend Adam Silver now because we did have a great interview with him on part of my take on Wednesday.
But the NHL absolutely bodied the NBA in terms of getting it right and what they've done with the Four Nations tournament instead of the All-Star game versus everything that's been going on for the NBA All-Star game. It's not even close. That was such a cool – I mean, it's still going on. We have a game Monday night. There's the finals on Thursday.
But it's – the NHL knocked this out of the park, and it was – the guys cared a lot, and it was so much fun to watch USA Canada on Saturday night.
It was the complete opposite of the All-Star Game, right from the first whistle. I think, were there three fights in the first ten seconds of the game? Nine seconds. That's awesome. First nine seconds. There's nothing like a little pure, unadulterated nationalism to really get people going. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: How did the NHL outperform the NBA All-Star Weekend?
One of the, one of the teams was, I want to say it was team Mitch. I don't know. Either Chuck or Shaq had the international guys.
He just drafted them because they did a draft, so he just did that on purpose. Yeah. Got it. And we also had LeBron James decide he's not playing in the All-Star game two hours before the All-Star game, which, look, I don't... I mean, I'm not going to... People made this huge debate about... Like, I can't believe he did this.
It's more just like, dude, just say you're going to do this five days ago. You know what I mean? Like, don't do it two hours before the All-Star game. And people do want to see you play. And it's probably you're at the end of your career. It's just kind of a lame move. He's probably injured, but still just give everyone a little more of a heads up.
He was sitting out with foot and ankle discomfort. I don't know about you, but we have a producer on this show that broke their foot and didn't miss a single episode.
Yeah, that's a fact.
LeBron James has to bow out at the last second for the All-Star game. But yeah, the moral of the story is that the NBA cucked the NFL during Super Bowl week, and the NHL cucked the NBA during All-Star week. NHL is king.
Yeah, NHL is king. They crushed it. They absolutely crushed it. They should never go back to anything else. It should always be four nations every single year. I know Olympics coming up next year, but this is the best.
What are you going to say, Hank?
What about Russia? He's trying to make a motion. What about Russia? Russia got banned because of the whole war in Ukraine. Next question.
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Chapter 3: What are the key takeaways from the NBA All-Star Skills Competition?
It was very funny that they thought that they had a loophole, and then they were just like, no, this is Bush League shit. Get out of here. But yeah, Chris Paul – I think everybody thought it was Chris Paul's idea until after the fact.
Yeah, and then it turns out that Wemby, he did go around basically asking every ref if this is okay and can he do this, and they all were like, okay, yeah, I guess so. And then the minute they did it, they kicked him out. By the way, Team Shaq is about to win. So congrats to Team Shaq. They're going to beat Chuck's team. That's huge. Big upset. Huge upset. Yeah. Where were you for Team Shaq?
They were like, I think, maybe one and a half point underdogs. So where were you for Team Shaq's big upset?
Okay, so I do like the play to 40 rule.
I think that's a good rule. The Elam ending? Yeah. Well, no, I think they're just doing first to 40. Yeah, it's just first to 40. The court looks like shit. The court, I do not like. But, yeah, I like that as well.
Also, did you see that John Morant saw Mac McClung and he was like, yeah, we got to do this shit next year. I'm in. Count me in. And then he tried to get Zach Levine to say that he was in. And then I think Giannis also tweeted that he'd be down. This happens every year, though. Something cool happens in the slam dunk competition.
And then all the stars that you want to see and are like, yeah, we're going to, we're going to definitely do this next year. And it's a good night because like you can, you're just making a future problem for yourself that you're going to cancel anyways. But for that night, you feel like you're a hero. It's like, thank you for saving the slam dunk competition, John Moran.
Yes, I want you to do it. I mean, there were people complaining about there were people complaining about Mac McClung being like a two way guy shouldn't get to compete in the dunk contest. I got to tell you, if you if you're thinking that hard about the dunk contest, like and you're that much of a stickler for the rules for the dunk contest. You can't take this away from Mac McClung.
It's literally all he has. He's three times in a row. He jumped over a car.
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Chapter 4: How did the Jets move on from Aaron Rodgers?
I mean, he had his Achilles injury.
Yeah, but he started the season off so good, and then he fell off a cliff. Also, Schefter said that Sam Darnold's most likely Raiders or Vikings.
Also, he didn't really start off the season so good. He had two incredible games against the Bucs. Beat the Super Bowl champion.
He had that one drive where it was like, okay, Kirk, go out there, and we're just not going to run anything from the playbook. Just do no huddle.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, last story I had before we do Who's Back. Richie Incognito. What a day for Richie. I mean, that was... So for people who missed it, there was this pretty good article about Jonathan Martin. I think we're right around the 10-year anniversary where he essentially was like, yeah, a lot of that stuff, I never really thought I got bullied. And by the way, that was kind of...
Our take from – we've had Richie on the show a couple times. I actually texted him. I was like, this day has got to feel really good. He's like, thanks for having my back. And he – like Richie is not for everyone. Richie also I think was put in a spot where he was an easy target to be the face of bullying. And this story that just came out essentially explained it that Jonathan Martin's mom –
put the words bullying onto the whole thing. And then it just kind of took an entire left turn where it became this thing that was so much bigger than just a locker room. And Rich Incognito became the face of like, you know, this, this anti-bullying campaign that was, was just not real for what Jonathan Martin said today.
Yeah, so in this article, he was like, yeah, I was not bullied. Bullying was never really what it was about. I think Jonathan Martin, he's had his fair share of issues off the field in the last 10 years. I hope he's doing well. He seems like he's at least in a space where he wants to clear everything up and try to move forward.
There was a lot of stuff, a lot of meaning that got put onto this story that probably should have been it should have become like a wide cultural issue. Correct. That NFL players and fellow offensive linemen were talking a lot of shit to each other. And some of the stuff went like way over the line for sure.
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Chapter 5: What is the real story behind Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin?
Was Josh Smith on that team?
It's pronounced Josh Smith. Smith. He was my all-time, like, he's just going to chuck a few threes. I think he was on Detroit by then. He might have been, yeah. Maybe like 27% from three.
I love that he would do it, though. He'd be like, you just got to pencil in that he's going to chuck some threes, and they're not going to go in.
I like those guys. That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. Henry V.
Oh, okay. You're dropping knowledge on us. Yeah, you are. You've been reading a lot, haven't you?
A lot. You know what people don't talk about enough is Shakespeare's depiction of Henry V is so fucked. I agree. I totally agree. Yeah, right?
We actually were talking about that earlier.
That's good. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, Billy Shakespeare, he couldn't get it wrong. Are you serious? Yeah. Have you ever fucking talked to writers?
No. Have you ever read anything about Henry V? It's completely misleading.
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Chapter 6: What are the NBA championship contenders this season?
I can see it happening.
Are you leaving tonight?
No, tomorrow morning.
Oh, you're out tonight?
No. Yeah, I have to stay tonight for dinner, but then I'm free.
Is tonight the night? Yeah. Neil Young?
Yeah. Tonight's the night. Let's go.
Tonight, tonight.
Yeah. I booked two flights on Saturday. One a little way too early and then one... How early is the early one? I think it's like 8 a.m.
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