Did the Shock Just Guarantee a Title AND Blow Their Future?

[00:00:00] Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen, nichts entspannt mich. Echt? Mich entspannt meine Steuer total. Steuer? Wie Finanzamt? Die Steuererklärung? Ja, ich hab ganz locker über 1000 Euro zurückbekommen. Hast du geheime Connections? Nö, nur die Visu-Steuer-App. Wow, und das ist einfach? Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch. Plötzlich fühl ich mich so entspannt. Hol dir dein Geld zurück. Tiefenentspannt mit Visu-Steuer.

[00:00:27] Sorry. I love your laundry. No, no, no. Gotta be some laundry over here. I was over in New York City the entire time, brought all of my dirty laundry, you know, 8,000 miles or whatever it is, and got to the hotel and do some laundry now. They didn't have any laundry facilities at the Hampton Inn in New York? Oh, I'm sure they did. It was probably like $75 for a pair of my undies.

[00:00:53] Oh my god. That's the same price that I saw them on OnlyFans. All right, anyway. Welcome everyone to another episode of the PicklePod. I'm Nico the Lefty and as always your host Zane Navratil. Zane is dialing in from Tokyo, I believe, at a, it looks like a hostel from the movie Hostel. Bullet holes in the background.

[00:01:21] I think he's actually in the kitchen, it sounds like, but Zayn... No, it's not bad. Well, you know, it'll be fine. It doesn't sound that bad. Zayn is a man of the people. He will do this from anywhere. And I will say maybe this is possibly an upgrade from Panera Bread. And I'm over here in California. I'm actually at Gino the Righty's house. Oh, God. Yeah, I, uh... Well, this is my dedication to the Pickle Pod, Nico.

[00:01:49] I just did like an all-nighter flight from New York to LA to Tokyo. Literally got the cab ride over to the hotel, checked the bags, whatever. Go to the cafe. Now it's now. I had like two pieces of bacon and some sandwich thing. I have no idea what it was. It was great. Not a clue what it was. And now it's now. One of those egg sandwiches from Japan that I see at 7-Elevens?

[00:02:18] Like those like white bread. You seen those Zayn all over TikTok? It tastes, it looked a lot like that. It looked a lot like that. I am excited for a 7-Eleven over here. But in like an hour or so, Jenny and I have our tour of the whole city of Tokyo. I'm here for the PPA Asia Tournament in Tokyo this week. Really, really excited. Never been over to Tokyo before. This is definitely, hands down, the smelliest podcast I have ever done. I was in Hell's Kitchen yesterday.

[00:02:46] Drilled with my new teammate, Elsie, for a couple hours. And then did all of my recap work from there because I had nowhere else to go. I was basically homeless until I went over to JFK, to LAX, to Tokyo. Then now I am in the post drill session shirt still. And oh my God, it is. I will say, Zayn, the dedication to the pod is unmatched. For those of you who don't know, Zayn also refused to play on Sunday to make sure he had time to prepare for the podcast.

[00:03:16] As you guys all know, Zayn is allergic to Sundays, even in MLP. Hold on, Nico. Hold on. We made Sunday the first two times of this tournament. I didn't know because Zayn plays Sunday at 6 a.m. Pacific time. First match of Championship Sunday or Super Sunday. But here we are. We have a wild show. We're going to go over the New York City MLP recap.

[00:03:43] We're going to go over a scoreboard falling on a pro player. I still can't believe I'm saying that. But we're going to go over breaking news from trades, four-way trades, three-way trades, IR moves. We're going to talk about Casey Diamond and how he ended up on the Palm Beach Royals, who, if you ask Chris Cowley, might be the most hated team in all of MLP. We'll talk a little bit about that. Yeah, we'll have to debate that. We will absolutely have to debate that.

[00:04:10] We'll talk a little bit about some news from Jay Devillier leaving the PPA Tour, going to APP. Our guy Robert Slutsky sounds like he's retiring from APP. Is there like a Tour Wars 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 happening? Is two tours actually a good thing? We'll, of course, do our MLP draft. And giving credit where credit's due. Zayn may not be the best pickleball player. He is definitely kicking my ass in drafting teams.

[00:04:38] So, for those of you who don't realize this, I think this is like a year-long interview for Zayn to become the GM or general manager or president of an MLP team. Because he is drafting spectacularly. I still say I have one win. He thinks he has all of them. He definitely won last week. I'm four for four, Nico. I'm four for four. We let the ProPigballTalk Discord decide, man. And ProPigball Discord is popping off, dude. It's pretty cool to see. I mean, we just started that thing like a couple of weeks ago.

[00:05:07] And what, like almost 800 members in there chatting the entire time throughout the weekend? I can't even keep up anymore. I get like that signaled every once in a while. People mention my name in there. And I'll have to go back and look at it like two days later. But, dude, it's pretty cool to see. It is awesome. It's actually like a... It's weird. It's like the first non-toxic like ProSport Discord I've ever seen. So, people are pretty cool. You know, they don't dunk on a lot of people. Maybe they dunk on Zane, on me. But for the most part, it's a great spot.

[00:05:37] And we're going to talk about trades and breaking news in a bit. But you learn a lot of insider information. I don't know how these people get it from the ProPigball Discord. Dude, no idea. No clue. Like, no clue whatsoever. But like, I'm learning stuff about ProPigball from the ProPigball Discord. I'm like, what the fuck? It's crazy. Yeah. So, anyway, where do you want to start, Nico? Let's start with what happened at MLP Randall's Island.

[00:06:05] So, we'll start with the actual pickleball before we get into, you know, the world falling around Rachel Rohrabacher. But Fives, they win again. This is, what, three in a row for the Fives? Three in a row. Yeah, they take over sole first place. And so, I believe now if they control their own destiny to the one seed, I think they have two more events and the Beer City Open. So, obviously, that's kind of a long ways off. Yeah. Three in a row for them.

[00:06:34] And I've been pretty harsh on Will and Noe. That's a team that just needs to win for them in order to win the whole thing. And they clutched up against Riley and Christian Alshon in the final from Brooklyn. So, yeah, the Fives take three straight tournaments in a row, take over number one place in the standings. Any thoughts from your end on that? No, I think for me it's cemented the fact that as much as we talk about a top five contenders, there's definitely a top two.

[00:07:04] It's the Fives and it's the Shock. And I think everybody for the entire season has been willing to agree that the Shock are top, top tier. They're S tier. But I think a lot of people want the Fives to fail. Whether it be the chant, whether it be Anna Lee, whether it be the fact that they now have Georgia and they ripped her from her previous team. I don't think people are necessarily rooting for the Fives to win.

[00:07:27] And I think now's the point where the writing's on the wall and all of the Fives haters have to recognize their top two for sure. They could be number one. I'm not sure. I'm going to call them number two, maybe 1A, 1B. But I think at this point it's a two-person race with three other teams trying to crack the Shock and the Fives. Would you agree there? Or do you think that I'm raising them too much?

[00:07:54] I would still put Columbus in low S tier. They had one bad-ish tournament with Tyra on the team so far. But you tell me you've got a roster of your defending champions swapped out Leia for Tyra. That in and of itself should be enough. Your defending champs swapped Leia for Tyra. That team has to be in the conversation at all times.

[00:08:21] The only problem is CJ Klinger's not playing the same ball that he was this time last year. And he did have a slow start to MLP last year. Andre and CJ weren't phenomenal early on. I think CJ takes a little bit of time to warm up with partners and so does Tyra. But I still think that they've got to be in that S tier conversation. Probably still put him at third, right? But one thing that's going to be pretty crazy is you've got both of these fan bases, right?

[00:08:50] Shock and the Fives. Both of whom have never won this MLP title. So one of them is set up for a massive, massive disappointment this year. And I'm all for it. And for those of you keeping score at home, the Shock have not even made the finals. They have lost the semifinals the last two years. If they don't make the finals this year, at that point, do they blow that team up? I don't think you can because they're so good. But I don't know what's happening. But they're looking good.

[00:09:20] They're talking about peaking at the right time. They're definitely, you know, they haven't lost in forever. The Fives haven't lost in forever. I'm not sure I can put the sliders in S tier until they win at least one event. We've had six events. It's been three for the Fives, two for the Shock, one for the Mad Drops, none for the sliders. But I agree on paper. They are right there knocking on the door. Yeah, funny enough, they've gotten worse every time they've changed and upgraded their team.

[00:09:46] But I think that, you know, speaking about peaking at the right time, it only matters in the playoffs, right? They're going to be a top four seed. And yeah, they'll be all right there. So it just depends who can bring it back to back weeks in the playoffs. And Zane, just for my clarification, I don't know all that. You're going to find out later in the pod, everybody, that Nico doesn't know shit about the rules. Probably Zane either and other GMs. But the top four teams get a bye. Is that correct? That's the coveted spot.

[00:10:15] Okay, so Crystal Ball right now, what team out of the top five is the odd man out? Who's not getting that bye? I think you'd probably go Brooklyn. I think they're probably number five. Yeah. Okay. I think so too. Let's see. Let's look at the website. They might actually be... I think they're averaging 15 points per event.

[00:10:38] And I think that does put them in fifth on a points per event basis. But let me see here. No, they're actually in fourth. Brooklyn is currently ahead of the sliders on a points per event basis. Yeah. Due in large part to the only 10 points from Columbus at the last one. So it's 15.3 points per event for Columbus versus 16 for Brooklyn.

[00:11:07] So I mean like that entire difference that we made up by the Beer City midseason tournament in a couple weeks. So they're actually... I still think they'd probably finish fifth. So that reminds me. So I think that Brooklyn does finish fifth as well. I think we're going to talk about Rachel Rohrabacher, whether she's going to be injured or sustain any kind of lasting effects from having an 800-pound scoreboard fall on her.

[00:11:32] But you mentioned the Beer City Open, the midseason tournament, how that will definitely... We might flop some teams there. I also understand the midseason tournament that has every single team in all of MLP plus college teams has the least amount of ranking points allotted to it out of any tournament all year. Why? Yeah, because it has like $50,000 or whatever it is. Some immaterial amount of money for six pro football players on these teams. I don't know.

[00:12:03] I mean like it's the highlight or one of the highlights, potentially the highlight of the MLP season. I think there's the finals, but like yeah, it's an awesome event. Well run, everything. Like I think it's got to be worth more than an individual event. Yeah, I don't know. I'd be curious to know Samin and the MLP team's reasoning for that. I'll shoot him a text right now.

[00:12:32] Let me see if I get an answer from Samin. If we get an answer before the end of the pod, wow, breaking news. But yeah, I think it's worth like, what is it 10 points or something like that versus 25? I forget what the number of points is, but very, very few. Should be worth 50. So I'm shooting him a text. Take over Nico. Let's see. All right. So as this is happening, we talked about the top five, right? And this is, I think the first tournament, or I guess actually last tournament was the

[00:12:59] first time a non-top five team broke through to challenge some of the top five. And now you have Palm Beach Royals challenging. You have the Ranchers who just beat the fives. Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. And you know what? Actually, shout out Caleb, GM of the Ranchers, who, you know, irrational confidence, sent me a text before the tournament. I was like, oh man, like, I was like, hey, tough sledding with Lane Sleeth getting injured.

[00:13:29] You know, but now you got Caelan Christian. Sounds like you guys are probably set up. He goes, he said, if we both end the pool play undefeated, we're beating the fives in the last game of pool play. And I was like, okay, good job, buddy. I'm sure, I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. And then they did. They did. Unfortunately to them, they lost to the SoCal Hard Aids, which is insane. But the fives look in, or not the fives, the Ranchers looking pretty good.

[00:13:59] All things considered, taking the fives in a dream breaker. They're set up to win dream breakers, especially if Nico Acevedo can play at least mid tier. You know, I think he absolutely destroyed Noé. He absolutely got destroyed by JW. But if he can play, you know, 50-50 dream breaker ball, I think that team is pretty hard to beat too. Yeah, man. The Ranchers are, at least this week, were kind of like a strange one for me.

[00:14:28] They were so up and down. Like they lose to SoCal in a dream breaker. And then they beat the fives in a dream breaker. They play Dallas really, really tough. And they almost beat them in a dream breaker, despite Nico going 1-11 against JW. Like just kind of everywhere. Like Nico and Eric are beating top tier teams, losing to, you know, weaker teams. Yeah, they're, I think that's just a, hey, which Ranchers do you get in the playoffs type of a situation?

[00:14:58] Because they could do really well and, or they could kind of, you know, fall to a SoCal. That's a team probably you don't want to play in the playoffs because their peak is so high, right? Like Eric can get you a game. And I think by the time the playoffs happen, I know that Lane is, I think she's sidelined for like six weeks or so. You know, she's sidelined until I think the playoffs or something like that. Yeah, I bet you they keep, they got to keep Caitlin Christian in though at that point. Like, are you really going to trust somebody who's been out for six weeks to come in and

[00:15:27] play like really tough for playoffs? I don't think you can, right? Like even if she's like 100%, like, and also like Caitlin Christian is really good. Like, you could argue that they're very similar even if Lane is fully healthy. He could even argue that that Caitlin might be is probably better at this point. I don't disagree. But my thing, my argument is going to be in the playoffs is that you sit Leah.

[00:15:55] Leah, wow, I swear, please do not be listening to this. But my suggestion is and me enough. So you're not doing any other any additional damage. I mean, she I think she ends up doing her and Brooke Buckner are going to have the same fate come playoff time and they're going to be dream breaker specialists. I think that you play Lane, you know, Lane and Eric were pretty unbeatable last tournament. And then you have Caitlin Christian, you got Nico, and then you have Caitlin Christian and

[00:16:23] Leah to bring in the dream breaker with Eric and Nico. I think that team that nobody wants to see that team in the playoffs. No, no. I mean, that's a solid team. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I'm not. My wife. Oh, no, no, no. Uh, gotta be some laundry over here. I was I was over in New York City the entire time, brought all of my dirty laundry, you know, 8000 miles or whatever it is, and got to the hotel and do some laundry now.

[00:16:53] So I don't have any law didn't have any laundry facilities at the Hampton Inn in New York. Oh, I'm sure they did. It was probably like $75 for a pair of my undies. Oh, my God. You could. That's the same price that I saw them on OnlyFans. Um, all right. Anyway, uh, um, so does anybody else have this problem? Like I consider myself like a 5-0 pickleball player, but I show up to a tournament and what do you get? You get like 4-0 Nico, like barely a 4-0. I don't even know what happens.

[00:17:22] Like I've never played pickleball before in my life. And I tried everything to get the focus and the energy I needed to actually perform at the level that I thought I was. I tried pre-workout, energy drinks, extra coffee. I drank an ungodly amount of Coke Zero, to be quite honest. I needed that extra boost and nothing worked until I tried prescriptions. And it was like, I said it once, I said it before, it's like Bradley Cooper in that movie Limitless. So you like take a pill and all of a sudden you feel like you're operating at like a higher level.

[00:17:51] It's this little pouch called blue canadine. It goes in between your cheek and your gums. It dissolves in a couple of minutes and within like five to 10 minutes, you feel unstoppable. It's like I'm playing four dimensional pickleball and they're playing checkers, right? Like I feel unstoppable. Instead of playing like a 4-0, I feel like I'm playing like a 6-0, right? And if you want that feeling, you can check it out. If you go to troscriptions.com slash dink or enter dink at checkout, you get 10% off your first order.

[00:18:19] I recommend it not just for pickleball, but for anything. Honestly, it should be called blue flow because I take it right before I decided to do work on my computer. I can bang out like three hours worth of activities in like 30 minutes because I'm just in flow state nonstop. So check it out. Once again, troscriptions.com slash dink or use dink at checkout for 10% off your first order. After the little break, I got a text message from Samin who said that the goal is to actually

[00:18:48] have it more of an independent event versus materially impact the season outcome. Kind of like the in-season tournament for the NBA, which I kind of forgot that it doesn't really impact the tournament, the in-season thing. But I don't know. Is there that much hype behind the in-season tournament? I know there's tons of hype behind the FA Cup and soccer, but is there a lot of hype behind the NBA mid-season? Probably less than they would have hoped or expected.

[00:19:18] Yeah, I don't think anybody gives a fuck about the NBA mid-season tournament or understands how it works. Does do the games impact the regular season standings? I don't know. I honestly don't know. But to your point, the FA Cup and like in soccer, it's great. I think in MLP, the hard thing is there's like not enough prestige. There's not enough money or whatnot behind it to make the independence worth it.

[00:19:45] I understand where they're coming from, but I think until it becomes something that you can stand up on its own, you probably need to put standings points behind it. I don't know. But I wonder if they're like, I mean, so the FA Cup is obviously huge though. So I wonder if they're positioning it eventually as like, hey, look, they've got four different random teams in there, right? Like they've got college, they've got Canada, like a couple other ones. I don't remember what they were.

[00:20:12] I wonder if they eventually do it like a pickleball World Cup type of event, which I think would be awesome. And an MLP style like world pickleball classic would be pretty sweet. Here's what I'd like to see. All right. We've already gone through six mini tournaments throughout the year. We have now the mid season tournament where everybody's there, including like four guest teams.

[00:20:40] What we should do is we should have a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket. This is just like the bread and butter nerdy turning where maybe the winner gets 10 points or $50,000, whatever. But when you lose, you go into the toilet bowl and you play until you win. The team that does not win the turn, the team that loses every single match is eliminated for the rest of the season. Their season is just canceled. You lose every single match and you lose to the college all-stars here.

[00:21:07] You are eliminated from MLP. Time out. Then we'll see how much people try. I'm for it. I'm for it. I like it. But then some of these teams might want that. Yes, exactly. You might have the hogs be like, oh, what vacation? One, two, three Cancun. And they would, they probably wouldn't even fly their team in. They treat it just like a MLP New York and half their team would not show up. That was crazy.

[00:21:34] Like, so they didn't bring three of their six players. Three of their six players just weren't there. Two of their women and then Brandon French as well. They, uh, they don't care for me, uh, podcasting from the, uh, from the cafe. Oh, well, uh, they didn't, they didn't bring three of their women, but they picked up 14 year old Kelly Goodnow, which helped them upset the Palm Beach Royals.

[00:22:04] Uh, three, one, uh, they lost the women's doubles match and then won the next three, which was, I don't know. She was electric, dude. That's insane. How, how is she? I wonder, I just wonder, like, how is she not on the team already? Like, I think if you're looking for building for the future, Kelly Goodnow, she's, she's legit. Like, I think she's, she is in the universe of Elsie Hendershot, you know, whether or not you think she's not as good or whatnot.

[00:22:31] Like, I think that she's at least worth stashing for three years on an MLP team. So that, I think that's a good for her for the win bad on the GMs for not picking her up earlier, but played great. Abby played great. Zane, I want to ask you, you, I forgot all about that upset, which happened. I think day one, I want you to write what, what is that bigger upset?

[00:22:52] But the Palm Beach Royals losing to, um, the Hogs, the Fives losing to the Ranchers or the Ranchers losing to SoCal? I mean, it's gotta be the Hogs, the Hogs beating the Palm Beach Royals. And then I would probably put the, the Ranchers beating the Fives after that. The only problem with the Fives one was it was somewhat of a meaningless match for them because they had already pretty much clinched one seed.

[00:23:19] I don't, you know, Annalie doesn't like to lose one way or another. So yeah, like it's still an upset. Like they're obviously still trying their, their hardest. Um, but I think, yeah, the, I think the Hogs beating the sixth place Royals, pretty impressive. I didn't think the Hogs were in one of the other matches the entire year. No, definitely not with their original team. Um, so we'll see, we'll see what happens. See if Kelly get picked up in the next, uh, waiver period or whatnot, but good for her. Great for the Hogs.

[00:23:49] You had your moment of fame. I hear people asking for Carolina Hogs merchandise now. We'll create a GoFundMe, create the merch, send those teams to their MLP, uh, matches, uh, with comp flights. Yeah. The only reason that she's not being picked up is because, well, I mean, I'm, I think she probably will be picked up for the rest of the season, but, uh, she can't be kept for three years. So if you pick somebody up during the season, you'd only be basically like having her for the next couple of events. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:18] I think, I think, uh, that was one of those, as soon as you saw her play, oh shit moments from the GMs to your point, she can't be kept for the rest of the year. She's probably not that valuable this year. So I'm not sure she's going to go for a ton in waivers, but next year I expect the Kelly Goodnell draft stock to be through the roof. Um, so we'll see. Yep. And so, so Zane, this, uh, this brings us, I want to talk a little bit about some of the trades that happened, uh, over the past, uh, I guess week, right? We had a three team trade.

[00:24:47] We had a four team trade. Zane, you guys traded Mari Humberg, uh, and Hunter Johnson for Elsie Hendershot and John Mushengowings in a roundabout way. There was definitely a couple other teams involved. We'll get into that in a second. And you guys also paid the shock $50,000 or I don't know, I'm not sure how much it was to, to take Hunter Johnson. Like, is this because Hunter Johnson has bad vibes?

[00:25:13] Why would you give money to give away possibly your two best players on your team? Uh, so I mean like the way that it was put out there on MLP, uh, essentially it was Hunter and, uh, Hunter and Mari for, uh, John and, and Elsie and cash. Right. So part, a lot of it is how long these players can be kept, what their keeper fees are, all that stuff.

[00:25:39] And so I think John and Elsie are both something at like 25,000 and Hunter was like one more year, like 80,000 and Mari I think was something like $90,000. So it was a, it was not just for Hunter. It was in the, in the, in the aggregate. And then you obviously factored in a bunch of other, other teams and stuff too there. But you know, I, I posted about this too, as I was cruising down the streets of, of New York. Uh, I was like, you know, this team was going to be a playoff team probably.

[00:26:09] And that's still our goal, uh, make the playoffs this year. But like, I've, I've said it previously, like if you're not first, you're last in, in pick all, like that doesn't change whether you're the Chicago slice finishing seventh or, you know, the St. Louis shock is going to be, I think devastated if they finish second, they're gonna be just as pissed off finishing second as finishing hogs. Right. Yeah. Um, so like, it doesn't, it doesn't matter.

[00:26:33] And so like, yeah, we just wanted a team that we could like build with, um, longterm. And I think, look, we lost all four of our matches this week, but I was unbelievably encouraged. Did you catch any of our match against the fives? Uh, I was at a track meet or something. I was attracted to my phone, but, uh, please fill me in on the highlights. The only, the only part that you needed to do. Yeah. The only part that you needed to see was the, the women's doubles.

[00:27:01] Um, so, you know, I've been putting the lineups together and having everybody, all, all six players in the lineup. Um, and the day before that, Elsie was like, Zane, you better put me against Annalie. And I was like, well, I had a hard time. Um, I was like, absolutely go for it. Uh, she, she balled out pretty good. Uh, it was like 11, 11, five or 11, six or something, but it was one of those 11 fives

[00:27:30] that was actually like way closer than that. Like a lot of side outs, you know? So it was a, it was a relatively close, uh, 11, five. And yeah, I mean, I got a lot of text messages afterwards being like, yeah, that was, that was a, uh, a legit, legit move for the, for the future. Oh, so yeah. I mean, I think it's exciting. John played some really, really good ball in both mixed and, uh, and a couple of men's doubles with me too. So I'm liking where the slice is at.

[00:28:00] I think it was, I think it made sense for, for both teams. I thought it was interesting how many people are like, is Hunter actually an upgrade over John Lucian goings and singles? And I get it. John is, he is on your team now and you would never speak bad about him. But Hunter Johnson is like one of three S tier singles players on planet or everybody else is like a tier. In my opinion, if you're not a Hunter fed or Chris or Chris Hayworth, you are at a tier

[00:28:25] below Hunter, I think has double the singles points as John in the same amount of tournaments. Like it's definitely a reason to have Hunter. So I think it makes sense for them. I think it makes sense for you guys. No, I think like the shock may have just guaranteed themselves a championship and also committed a generational fumble at the exact same time. So expand on that. What do you mean generational fumble? Is that getting rid of LC and John?

[00:28:54] I think LC and John are going to be both top 10 players as their floors coming up. It depends how long that takes to get there. But like, I think that that conservatively top 10 player as a floor. You're probably right. And it's possible that they could have gotten more money from you guys. I think the only fumble I see is that they didn't get more in return. I don't think that they're going to part ways with their start.

[00:29:23] You know, sure. John and LC could be top 10 as their floor, but they have three players that are already top three in, you know, their respective genders. And then there's Kate who obviously, as we mentioned, was MVP of the last tournament. So I think their team's set. I don't think they're going to play those guys anytime soon. Maybe they could have gotten 200,000, 400,000. I don't know. So that might be the fumble, but I think everybody's excited to see them play. Knows that the talent is definitely there.

[00:29:52] LC is going to be, you know, top three, top five, you know, minimum top 10. So I like it. Yeah. Funny enough, we had the strategy going into the draft of getting LC and John in our five and six spots. And we were bidding at, I think we were up to like 30,000 or something for the fifth and six picks bidding with the shock. And they took LC and John right out from under. It was part of our plan initially to get those guys in the five and six spots.

[00:30:22] And it was, you know, we got them eventually. All right. The job is done. That's good job. Zane, I do have a question for you strategically around the lineups. One thing that I've noticed is that teams tend to fumble when they have six players that they rotate in and out of the lineup. Is it better just to have four clear starters and two bench players that never see the light of day?

[00:30:47] Like, you know, for example, you know, you know, Blaine Hovigny, good friend of the pod was on the Vegas night owls. And they swapped all three of their guys all the time. They swapped all three of their women all the time. Now he's on the breakers. And they're doing the same thing. Right. Right. And so your team also now doing the same thing. Like if you swap all of them out repeatedly, does that hurt chemistry? Does that hurt consistency? Like, is it hard to play with a different person all the time?

[00:31:15] Maybe this is just a strategy for kind of mid to bottom tier teams to get exposure. But what do you think? No, I mean, I think for the most part, like there's usually there, there are certain teams where I think it makes sense. Like you see the way that Dallas did it this past weekend. They had all three of their ladies playing in different roles. Right. For us, like we, you know, we don't think anybody develops on the, on by sitting on the bench. And I feel pretty confident saying that. Right.

[00:31:43] So we want to get everybody some, some playing time there. But yeah, I mean, look, if we were trying to finish seventh place this year, we wouldn't have made the trade to begin with. So like, I think it depends on the situation, but I think Vegas is doing it as well. Cause they're a team that's like looking to, to build for the future too. And yeah. Also like for us, that trade came together on, like it came out on Wednesday and we played

[00:32:12] on Thursday. So we've just been trying to figure out who plays well with who, and we didn't really have any time to actually practice and figure that out either. That's what the games are for, I guess, you know? So, uh, worked out that you traded basically almost in the middle of the tournament. The trade almost didn't go through. Uh, if you guys are also following on Twitter, uh, I, I, uh, tried my hand at being, uh, the woge of pickleball, uh, broke the news.

[00:32:41] And it's so funny, it's like, I get a message from a pro pickleball player. It's like, Hey, I heard, and I was, I was at a lifetime fitness and I heard from a guy that was playing in the money ball that the shock and the slice are making this trade. I go behind the scenes, you know, I'm feeling super important. I make some calls and some text messages and I'm like, all right, great. This trade is actually happening. I'm like trying to confirm everything.

[00:33:05] And then I post it and immediately get two text messages and two DMS from GMs are like, Hey asshole, this isn't even legal. We can't make this trade because Mari is a top 20 player. And I'm like, Oh my God, how did I not know this? And then I'm like, Oh, I, maybe the two teams involved didn't know this either. And then I'm like, then I get a message from Caleb, the GM of the ranchers. He's like, it's okay. Not your bad.

[00:33:31] This, this rule went into effect basically mid season at MLP Dallas 30 days ago. Um, so it's just a wild experience. And then I got completely dunked on by our colleague, Eric who was like, he was like, if anybody's seen Nico, the lefties breaking news, um, you know, it can't be actually, it actually is illegal and it's important to know the rules because they're important. I'm like, fuck.

[00:33:59] So that was my experience, Zane. Um, it's, it's hard for everybody to keep track of MLP rules. I think it's the, that is true. And also you had the, the essence of the trade. Correct. Right. Oh, so I loved it too. Cause everyone's like, all right, Nico's leaking stuff. Now it must just be coming from Zane. Who's on the Chicago slice, dude, Nico heard it from some dude who heard it at a lifetime.

[00:34:24] This stuff gets out there so unbelievably quickly, like within hours of it, it was already circulating like full circle back to me. Uh, and like, like, yeah, I know about that, but like, yeah, it was, it was an interesting situation. Like, you know, uh, figuring out how to basically get that done after the realization that Mari was 19th in the rankings.

[00:34:50] Uh, so Ross, you know, Ross and Joe from the, the shock and the slice had already basically agreed. And then he just had to figure out how to make it work from his end. But, um, yeah. So anyway, Nico, you're going to keep, uh, keep trying to break some news or what? I'm going to try. I'm going to try. I actually, I enjoy the rush. It's quite a rush to do it. Um, so I'll probably continue to, uh, try and provide some insider information, especially

[00:35:18] if I'm part of this pro discord that gives a ton of information all the time. Anyway, that's how I found out about the Daniels, the Daniel Townsend trade. Uh, so I, I have the sources. Hopefully I can hone these skills, not make the same mistake again. And it's just funny also just talking to you and then messaging. Like I messaged Ross. I was just like, I just sent him a text. I'm like, Hey buddy, are you going to make this trade legal or what? And I just, I get no response back because he's probably in the middle of trying to

[00:35:47] trying to find four teams to get this all done. Zane's over there. Like, uh, Zane is like a beautiful mind, you know, Russell Crowe style. And he's like, well, Mari might have some points that are taken off at the end of this year, 366 days ago to this point. Maybe she won't be number 20 by the time this, uh, this actually happens. That didn't actually end up working out. So, um, I, it was, it was fun to watch everybody scramble. Everybody learned the rules.

[00:36:16] Um, but, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll do it. You can call me, you can call me Woj. I'll do it. I like it. Yeah. Stick to it. If at first you don't succeed. The thing is you got the, you got the, I mean, the, the important part of the trade basically, basically done. Exactly. Exactly. I think the one thing that's hard for me about the breaking news stuff is that I have a lot of

[00:36:40] satire and jokes, hyperbole and sarcasm in all of my tweets and a lot of my videos. And so I, some guy got super pissed at me because I think I had posted like, I was like, Oh yeah, the shot, the, uh, the flash are about to go from worst to first, but people, but I'm nevertheless, I'm hearing that people saying that Danny, Danielle Townsend is overrated and shouldn't be on the team. And the guy's like, well, how does this qualify as news? Like cite your sources. This is shitty reporting.

[00:37:10] I'm like, this is a joke, buddy. Like this is a fucking joke. So I got to either be better at telling jokes to make it very clear. I got to stop doing breaking news, some, something there, but like just may, if you guys are not clear and if it sounds like a joke, you know, it is a joke. If it walks like a duck, it is a joke. Um, but, uh, yeah, we'll see. I have a couple more, you know, tournaments to go and they just extended the trade deadline for another, what, 13 days from now.

[00:37:39] So the annual MLP tradition of extending the trade deadline every year, I think you should keep doing it. I think, I think, uh, who cares what the, uh, what the people online say, but speaking of some other interesting comments online, I was seeing a bunch of comments saying that teenagers should not be allowed to play major league pickleball. And, you know, I'm in my head trying to make that argument make sense.

[00:38:10] You know, as somebody who now has like three teenagers on this team with me, oh, can you like, they were just saying like, there wasn't too much to add from that side of the conversation. Can you make an argument that pro pickleball should not include teenagers or do we just dunk on these people for being stupid? I think we got to dunk on them. I think, I don't know any other sport that's like, I understand the reason why like you

[00:38:37] don't see 16 year old basketball players or football players is big or even baseball players is because they're not built physically enough for the game, but pickleball doesn't require that. We always had this conversation about like, is it like cerebral? Is it physical? Like what's the combination, right? So there's no physical contact with the other team. So I don't, I don't understand why you couldn't have a 10 year old if you wanted to, you've seen all of the best players were like under 18, you know, like between Hayden and Gabe

[00:39:06] and Georgia and Anna Lee and now Elsie, like we have the history. So I don't, I don't understand. I think it's just, they don't want to see like small kids. I don't know. I think it like bums them out. Like that's, that's the case, but I don't know. To me, it sounds dumb. Yeah. I, uh, I can't really think of a good reason for it either. I mean, there are other sports like the NBA, NFL, MLB that have like certain age limits, but don't you have like 17 year olds getting drafted in the MLB?

[00:39:35] Like, uh, maybe I'm wrong on that. Yep. Oh, no, I know you don't like NFL and NBA. Yeah. Yeah. In, in, in major league baseball, they have like a high school draft and they have a college draft. Um, and more and more kids in MLB are starting earlier and earlier. Like you should, you used to be like, you get drafted, you're stashed on minor league rosters until you're like 21, 22, 23. And now you see 19 year olds coming into the big leagues because they're strong enough. They're good enough.

[00:40:05] And so I think it's, they will, they will lower the age as long as the person is competitive. Right. And they're not setting them up for failure. The only thing I can actually think about is like, what happens like with college eligibility, like you go pro you're getting money. Like, does that affect anything? NCAA. And you and I have been told multiple times by the college pickleball association of dorks to stay in our lane. Uh, but I don't, I don't understand how it works.

[00:40:33] All I'm saying is like, it does, does it make sense for a 14 year old to go pro? And do they, do they give up anything in terms of college eligibility down the road? Yeah, but like, okay. So LeBron James went pro right out of, out of high school and he didn't have the opportunity to ever play college basketball because of it. He seems like he's doing all right. Right. Like, I mean, if you have the opportunity to play pro, like, yeah. Are you ever really going to go back and play that sport in college?

[00:41:04] No, no. Who would, right? Like you can always go back and get your degree at college, but who's going to go from playing pro to then be like, oh man, I can't play this college sport anymore because I made so much money playing pro. Like, I don't know. That's right. The only person I saw go back is Colin Schick. Yeah. But who knows? Maybe in a couple of years. College. And see the play, right? That's true. That's true. He's playing money bowls with West Dog.

[00:41:30] But I just, I always, I, my biggest question is like, let's just say in three years, Stanford has a professional or has a pickleball team and else he could get a scholarship to go to Stanford. Maybe that's like the biggest question mark. But I think at this point, let them play. Hey, if you get creeped out by watching them, I think that might be a you problem. Not, not a MLP problem. Yeah, definitely a you problem.

[00:41:58] I feel like this is no debate, even though there's so much, so much online about it. But then again, you definitely knew where, where I stood up. But also like, imagine telling somebody who's 14 years, like who's 14 years old and good enough to do it that they just can't like, who are they supposed to go play against that? They're, they're not going to be able, there's nobody else their age for them to play against. Right? Like, so you'd be like stunting their growth by some arbitrary number.

[00:42:29] I'm very anti that. I think that Elsie and John and Kelly this week just proved that like, yeah, you can be 14 years old, 13 years old and absolutely ball. So good for them. Yeah, there's been a ton, a ton, you know, Will McKinnon. They were almost the second seed, you know, 17 years old. You got Jelena Ingram, Kiora, all of these people. So yeah, fuck them. You know, we'll let them play if they're good enough.

[00:42:59] I think that should pretty much be the only rule. Speaking of rules, Zane, going back to another thing that happened is at the beginning of last week, Casey Diamond was put, or Grayson Golden was put on IR from the Palm Beach Royals. And the Royals picked up Casey Diamond. And even though Grayson Golden and the Palm Beach Royals both acknowledge, I am not injured. I am not an injured player.

[00:43:26] I'm going on injured reserve so that they can pick up Casey Diamond. Why is the whole league not outraged at this situation? Or are they? I think they are. I think every single GM is pretty outraged by this, right? Like, because it completely impacts, you could just stash these players on the bench, call them injured, and allow them to develop. That's just, somehow, shoot, do you, somebody made a funny tweet about IR, a snarky tweet.

[00:43:56] Let me find this. Oh, you had a funny tweet. Zane's already a positive feminine presence. That was good. I'm looking through. Okay. Oh, so Jimmy posted that same thing that you could basically, like, just allow people to develop on the IR. And so I've just been snarky. I was like, wait, what does IR stand for? Obviously, I know it's like injured reserve or injury reserve, something like that.

[00:44:25] But somebody, somebody, actually, I recognize this face from the Pro Pickball Talk Discord. Just says, ignoring rules. And that's just the correct answer. Like, how can you just say that, like, he's completely healthy and we're waiting for him to develop. So we're putting him on the IR. How does that fly? At least lie about it. But then again, so I think if you're on the IR, you shouldn't be allowed to play anywhere. You shouldn't be allowed to play. Or at least compete.

[00:44:53] You can practice, whatever, but you shouldn't be allowed to compete. Yeah. I actually, I don't understand what's in it for Grayson. Because I'm sure there's other teams that possibly needed Dream Breaker Specialist. I don't know. Like, I feel like he could have gone somewhere and played. Maybe he didn't want to be a Dream Breaker Specialist. Maybe he wanted to play PPA Asia and Challenger. But to your point, I think any team will lie in the, you know, you can't stop people from lying. Right? And maybe you need some kind of independent medical professional to verify.

[00:45:23] Like, I think that might be important. But that's not happening anytime soon. But the fact that you just let the team say the quiet part out loud. Hey, this guy's not injured, but we're stashing him anyway. It's got to be a no-no. So I think if you're the league, you got to just, you got to have some kind of punishment. Maybe they have a, they lose a draft pick next year or some kind of weird fine. But, you know, it made, it makes the Palm Beach Royals, to be quite honest, one of the least likable teams in all of MLP.

[00:45:53] And I think my favorite was a tweet from Chris Callie, who said, the Palm Beach Royals are speed running, becoming the least liked team in all of MLP. And I think that's true. So, yeah, I think back-to-back, back-to-back pretty bad looks from them in a row. But, yeah, well, all right, let's do a power rank the top five most hated teams then.

[00:46:23] Not on a percentage basis, but on a volume basis. Like, which team do you think has the most haters? I think, I think it's got to be, for me, it would go fives and just volume of haters. Shock. Probably Royals. And then everybody else. I think there's really just a top three. I don't think anybody else really hates any. Maybe Hogs, just because. Hogs. Yeah.

[00:46:51] But, I mean, like, I feel like the Hogs are actually pretty fun to cheer for because it's not the player's fault. Like, they hate the fact that they aren't investing. But, like, I think they like. The fact that, like, the Hogs are the underdog team. So, I don't even know if you can say you hate, like, that they're a hated team at this point. Yeah, no. I don't know. I would still put the Hogs in that top four. I think those are the only four teams that you can really hate. I think that, you know, two teams are hated just because they're good for the most part. Right? They're just obviously the best team, so they're hated.

[00:47:20] One team is hated because they do some shady shit. And another team's hated because their owner likes them to lose. And so, you more so hate management than you hate the team. But I think those are the only four. Everybody else, you know, I hate the Brooklyn pickleball team when Jake is there. I think we've got to put the mad drops there as well for the whole trade situation last year with Ben. Extension of the trade deadline, getting Ben, all that. I think they've come.

[00:47:50] Okay. I don't think they're that hated anymore. But, like, last year there was definitely some outrage. And if we have to put five, they're the only ones that I could really think of to round out a top five there. Yeah, I think you're right. I think at the beginning of the draft three years ago, you could have put the Utah Black Diamonds there because it was Pardo's team. He did a pretty shit job of drafting, decided to put Tyson and Tyler Loong on the same team. So, I think they just kind of hated that team.

[00:48:19] And they were like the laughingstock of Premier for a whole season, which is crazy because their team is, like, competitive now with basically the same players. Yeah, so I think that could have been a top five. But I think, really, there's a clear number one, the fives, and then there's everybody else. Do you see it now, Zane? I wonder, though, okay. Have you been purified from the disease that is the fives? No, no, no, no. So, here's the thing.

[00:48:46] I think the fives have the highest volume of haters. But I think that the shock are most disliked on a percentage basis, right? Or have a lower approval rating. Thoughts on that? Yeah, like... So, you think that the haters for the fives are, like, more loud and proud and angry, but then there are more people in general that hate the shock?

[00:49:12] I would say volume of haters for the fives is the highest. But I also think that the fives have far and away the most fans, I would say. Like, showing up at all these different events, they've got tons of people everywhere. And maybe they're just Annalie fans or whatever, but, like, I think the fives have the most fans as well. I think the shock have the second most haters and the second most fans. But I think that percentage is off for them slightly.

[00:49:42] Interesting. I can see it. I can see it. I still think that more people hate the fives. I think, like, I think if you hear people talk about haters, I don't hear as many people just that disgusted about the shock. Especially because they haven't even made the finals two years in a row. They don't have Annalie. They don't make the chant. I think you can hate the shock because they're so rich. I mean, one, they're good. And then you have the owners who have so much money, like Richie Rich style. They're always flying in their PJs. And you're just like, ah, fuck you guys. Like, it's not fair.

[00:50:13] It's like a hate us because they ain't us kind of thing. I don't know. I think we do have, you know, the top four than everybody else. But Palm Beach Royals, congratulations. You're an expansion team. You got there fast. And you might end up having the most, you might be the most hated by people that know ball. So. Up and coming. Up and coming in the power rankings. Most hated team. Exactly. All right. Where should we go here next, Nico? What else? What else are you thinking? Should we draft?

[00:50:43] We have got to talk about Rachel. No, hold on. We have to talk about Rachel. It's been an hour into the pod and we are not talking about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. And when I say gorilla, what I mean is MLP scoreboard. Somebody told me it was 800 pounds. I don't know how much it was. It was a fucking final destination style takeout of Rachel Rohrabacher.

[00:51:08] Where for those of you who have not seen this, go on my, you go on my Instagram or TikTok. Go on memes of pickleball. Go basically anywhere. And you can find it at like 10, like game point or almost game point. And one of the matches against you. Yeah. 10 to Rachel steps back to get ready right before a point. And all of a sudden the entire fucking gigantic scoreboard, you know, the one that they always have to dim down just falls down and you hear somebody scream.

[00:51:38] I thought it was Jake Gavlar, but he wasn't there. And then, oh, sorry, Gavlar. And then you hear Greg Dow go, oh shit. And then boom, it just lands. Luckily, luckily, I guess, crushes her leg, her Achilles, her foot. She crumbles down to the ground. But the entire facility fell down on Rachel Rohrabacher. What happened? I was not there. You were on site. What was going through the site? You, were you there? Where were you when you heard it?

[00:52:08] No, I wasn't there when it happened. We had finished up. But like, honestly, they put out that statement that like there was a gust of wind or whatever. And maybe there was, but it was not windy, dude. Like, I think that they put that out to cover their ass. Like, it looked like it was a lawyer, which like, you know, somewhat understandable. Personally, you know, I don't have money invested in the UPA or anything.

[00:52:36] So like, I would love if they were just transparent and be like, yeah, we fucked up. We're firing that fire team. Like, that's, that's brutal. They didn't acknowledge Rachel. They, I think, made a crappy excuse about the, the wind. We've played tournaments with way more wind. They just didn't, they just didn't put weight on the board thing. Looks like. And they also said that no players were seriously injured. And now it turns out that that was correct.

[00:53:04] But like, or correct enough, I guess Rachel did play. I don't know the extent of her injuries. But yeah, I mean, like that statement was, I think, worse than silence. Yeah, I agree. One is like, you got to have this tested. Like if there was a gust of wind, if you said, oh, hey, we apologize. This thing was rated for up to 50 miles an hour and it was 90 miles an hour. Then I understand. I'm like, okay, they fucked up, but that's something.

[00:53:34] But they just said, oh, hey, you know, there was this bad thing that happened. And thankfully no players sustained any significant injuries. Like one, that's crazy. Two, you're right. They got to fire somebody. Three, I'm not sure what Rachel is going to do or what the Brooklyn pickleball team should do. But like she did not play the rest of the match. She did not play other matches.

[00:54:00] Like somehow there's got to be some kind of compensation for the grievances to her or the team. And I've never seen this happen in almost any other sport. It's crazy. I think memes had it right. Like I'm sure they showed up with bags of cash for her to go away on this. Right. Like I'd assume that it's settled since she's played. Like, I don't know if I'm Rachel.

[00:54:29] I'm not playing until I and yeah, until I've. Because like she shoots the credibility of like, yeah, I'm very seriously injured in the foot as soon as she goes back to playing. Right. So I don't know. That's where that's where we should chat with some some lawyers or something, because I don't know. A hundred percent. If it was Zane, guys, just know Zane would not have played the rest of the tournament. I think Zane would have retired on the spot.

[00:54:57] He would have said my leg might need to be amputated. I can't move anymore. I'm going to need millions of dollars. I'm going to I'll move. I'm going to be moving into a GM role on our team now. But I'm going to need a ton of money because I am completely fucked. That's Zane. Rachel Rohrabacher has a whole career ahead of her. Zane's career is right there. Dude, he was hoping that I would have been him. I would have been I would have been being rolled around in a wheelchair, full body cast.

[00:55:25] I would have found somebody to put me in a full body cast. Just roll me around the entire week. No, but hey, on a serious note, like they would have blame aside. Any of that stuff aside, it seems like Rachel was good enough to play. And I think that's the I mean, like that's the most important thing. Like Rachel is. I just want to give a shout out to her.

[00:55:51] She's been, I think, a great friend of mine on the tour for four years since the Chicago slice. Like her energy is incredible. She's an incredible player. Great fiance, Bobby. Shout out. I'm just super thankful that that she wasn't further back. And that thing didn't like legit freaking crush more than her leg. Like, I think we can all be very, very happy for that. And yeah, hopefully, hopefully several people are fired. Yeah, something has to happen.

[00:56:20] Literally, this is I could not think of another cross sport comparison to what just happened. The only thing I think about was in WWE, like in 1999, when Owen Hart ended up dying and falling from a harness that that broke. But yeah, this was crazy. So I hope that they they speak up a little bit more. Like, I want to see more from MLP about either what they're doing. I hope they don't sweep it under the rug.

[00:56:47] Somebody tweeted and they pointed the finger at you, which I think might have been the wrong person, because I think, Zane, you probably said this in a recap video and shared your thoughts on this as well. We're talking about on the podcast. But I was also surprised there were not more players that were like, what the fuck? You know, so I guess I just I wonder maybe it's like, I don't know if that's the healthiest environment to probably be in where you don't want to say anything bad about your employer as they accidentally almost crush a player.

[00:57:14] But I would have loved to see more from other players be like, hey, this is unacceptable. How do we fix this? Yeah, I mean, I usually don't try to like bitch for the sake of bitching. I think this is a case where that's kind of warranted. I usually always try to be like, hey, here's the solution. But I feel like that's something where it's like, it's so out there that you're just like, what the fuck? Like, like, how did that? I don't have anything constructive to add. Like nothing.

[00:57:42] Like, how did we not have something to hold the boards up? Like, I got nothing to add. Maybe that's where the other players are at. I don't know. It's the weekly thing that we do where we draft teams. And my team ends up being better than Nico when you guys vote on it. But this time we're going to draft the best MLP team using one person from every continent. You've got North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

[00:58:12] You count all that, Nico? You want first pick or the next two picks? I will take the next two picks. All right. Give me Annalie out of North America. Okay. All right. I figured you'd do that. I'm, I feel really good about the fact that you took that pick because there's, that is the deepest spot in the board is North America.

[00:58:37] I am going to take, give me Danny Townsend, the number one pick of number one picks always in the Australia or Oceania, whatever you want to call it section. Give me her. I'll take her. The first pick. Uh, and then give me, give me Andre Descu, uh, with Europe. Wow.

[00:59:07] Okay. Where do we, where do we, where is Israel fall in here? That's closest to, that's closest to, is that an Africa? I mean, you could kind of call that Europe, Africa or, or Asia. It's the Middle East. Asia. Oh my. I think we're about to make a political statement here. In the spirit of the game, I feel like that's got to be Africa? I don't know. You're, you're Asian.

[00:59:34] Are you trying to, this mother, this guy's trying to take Declbar. I know. Uh, Zane, here's, here's what I'm going to have you do. Just either Google it or, or, or clawed it or chat GPT it. Whatever it says Decl is, whatever, whatever you say the continent Israel is, you take that. It doesn't, it doesn't fit into our category. It doesn't. All right. Then you can't take Declbar. That's right. I guess I can't take Declbar.

[01:00:01] Um, give me, give me Asia, Jamie Way, and then give me, give me Europe, Tina Pisnig. Okay. That's a good one. That is a good one. All right. Um, give me, I'm going Asia.

[01:00:23] I am going to take Zoe Wong and give me fudge. This is tough. Uh, Africa. I will take, I take Tammy, Tammy Emrich, right? She's a South African. Yep. You can take Tammy. Yes. I'll take Tammy.

[01:00:53] All right. Um, so what do I have? I have Europe. I have Oceania and I have Africa. Give me out of Africa. Give me Declbar out of Africa, obviously. Um, in protest, in protest. You know what? Well, yeah. Leave us a comment if that was just nonsense or, or where you would put Israel in these,

[01:01:23] in these six. Um, but I'm taking it. Um, and then give me, um, give me Gabe on the right side with, uh, with him. All right. So you got Gabe. All right. So I have, who did I just take? I took, uh, okay. I think I took Zoe and I took Tina. All right. Or not Tina. I took, um, Tammy. All right. So I got two guys left. Last two picks.

[01:01:51] Give me Ben Johns from the United States. And to round it out, uh, South America. Give me, man, I got so many picks here. I want my team set for Dream Breaker. Give me, nope. Give me Eric Onsens. No, no, no. I want Federico's tax shoot. Give me Federico. I'm taking Fed. I like it.

[01:02:18] South Africa or South America's Moki's sneaky. Sneaky. All right. Last but not least, I got Oceania. Ah, give me, uh, give me Joey Wild. Joey Wild. All right. I think I kicked your fucking ass this time. Even with you cheating. And I'm pretty sure Israel is in Asia, but, uh, you know, maybe it's in Africa. It is over there in that. Don't they call it like, I mean, it's the Middle East. Yeah. I don't know.

[01:02:48] I think it's closest to Africa, but I'm just mostly saying that so I can justify it. All right, guys. Well, let us know in the Pro Football Talk Discord, which team do you think is better? Mine is Annalie Waters, Jamie Way, Tina Pisnick, Joey Wild, Dekelbar, and Gabe Tardio. Nico's shit team is Danny Townsend, Andre Deescu, Zoe Wang, Temi Emmerich, Ben Jones, Federico, Cat's Food.

[01:03:17] I think, I think if my team doesn't win this one, I'm never winning ever because this team, this is, this is pretty much just dog walked you. My goodness. So. Yeah, no. The, the, the, we don't play when the jet lag is tough. I need the W. It'll be my second. No, I am on, I'm on my final, final brain cell over here, I think. One of two. All right. Do we do, do we have Guess My Duper?

[01:03:47] Let's do it. And then Zang, you'll get your ass kicked out of the coffee shop or wherever you're at. Oh yeah, I'm getting looks. All right, let's do this. All right. All right. Oh, we got some singles. Oh, singles. Guess My Duper. All right. Single. I am so bad at this. He really leans into that backhand. All right, that's good. I like this. This guy's very good, I think. This guy on the pro tour. He's pretty solid.

[01:04:16] He's not really dipping those passes, though. What did he? That one was good. Oh, okay. First, I thought it was Adam Harvey. I was like, what are you doing? Run around. Oh, oh, what a stat. Oh, he misses it. Oh, good. He's really trying to serve like Eric on scenes over there. That's a nice little pass. All right. I'm assuming we're doing singles duper?

[01:04:45] It's got to be singles duper. I didn't see any raw power or too much raw power. Like the strokes looked pretty good. Didn't really get to see too much movement. Didn't really dip the ball either. So I think, I actually think he's probably at 5.2 duper singles. Okay. No net coverage either. I'm going to say he's a... No net game. I'm going to say 492. 5.1. 5.14.

[01:05:15] Roberto from Rio. All right. All right. Tiago, you got to get a little more power and a little more dips on those ground strokes, brother. Those are coming through right in the strike zone for that guy. You start dipping those, crashing behind them. Oof. That's going to look like a 5.5 pretty soon here, Tiago. You sign up for the transition zone pickleball and you're going to be immediately a 5.5. So you heard it here first. It works for me. I've been on transition zone pickleball for two months now.

[01:05:42] Check out my singles duper and you know that you have a quality product. 3.9. All right. I do not want any credit or blame for Nico's game. He is not in the transition zone. All right. Nico, my tour guide's here. Another episode of Pickle Pod. Mommy is free to play in the 1951台. And día everything is right. Even if we haven't played this match here, we're all gonna have time for this.