Uh, the NBA rescinded Yannis's triple double. Good job, Eddie. Your little petition worked haters. Run it back.  Good Tuesday morning and welcome to run it back. Eddie, I am so mad at you about this Yannis thing. I know you were behind it. We will get to that later in the show. First of all, of course, introducing everyone's stadium insider, Shams, Shirania, Chandler P with just what is becoming probably the best background of all, I mean, from zero to hero, just like in a day and Eddie G on the end, the man who hates everything and everybody. Unfortunately, though, just like yesterday, we have to start the show off with some serious stuff. Um, hopefully some way we won't, but Ja, look, here's the deal. Colorado police right now investigating him for brandishing the firearm that was in the video shams. Anything to add to that? What is the latest that we know right now with job? Yeah, there's an NBA investigation going on right now. There's a Colorado police investigation going right now. This could all lead to even more disciplinary measures for John Moran who's away from the team seeking help. The onus is going to be on job to get help and get responsibility. The onus is on him to figure this out and get better. But what's interesting is that I'm told recently there was a player's only meeting where Stephen Adams spoke out in the meeting and essentially directed comments to John Moran about the fact that the team needs to have much better discipline on the road. Guys need to essentially stop going out on the road. This is not a good road team. What's crazy is they're amazing at home. But then when you look at the road record 12 and 20 on the season, that's not really top flight for a team that's contending for a championship. And so everyone in that room, the Grizzlies have a lot of young guys on this team for sure. But everyone in the room, I'm told knew exactly who those comments were directed to Ja Moran. And when you talk to people around the Grizzlies, they say we don't have a systemic team issue with going out. This is a Ja Moran issue. And so this is something that it clearly came up. And Ja Moran clearly blew that red light anyway. And he ended up going out, you know, whether it was a week or so later in the early hours of Saturday morning, and he was seen on IG live his own IG live displaying a gun.  You've been a part of a lot as a leader as a guy that's a supporting cast guy. When you think about Stephen Adams speaking out, he's a guy that doesn't speak out much often, but he did speak out in this moment. And his his words clearly didn't go through. And Ja Moran still went out that experience still happened. What do you feel like if you're Stephen Adams? What do you feel like if you're in that Grizzlies locker room right now? Yeah, I mean, it's super disappointing. And this just seems to keep getting worse for Ja Moran. And listen, guys have these kind of team meetings, usually when it's rock bottom, like a team meetings, kind of like a tell all like, Oh, we've lost 10 straight. Let's have a team meeting or something of this nature where you really got to pull the group together. And I've had, you know, 20 plus of these in my career. And usually they stick and usually they pack a punch and whether or not whatever the issue is, you see a team kind of rally around this and they come together. This has a teammate. You make an eye to eye pack that, Hey, we're getting a little reckless. We're getting a little crazy on the road. Stephen Adams is one of the older guys on this team.  And it's and they didn't and Ja Moran just shows that he's on his own wave. And that this was just blatant disrespect that they didn't care what their team captain or team leader had to say. And now it's now it's out of their control, right? Because now the police are involved. Now the team, everything else involves. So now as a teammate, you're sitting there saying, Damn, I tried to help you. I tried to kind of direct us in the right way. Like now there's not much you can do. So it's definitely frustrating, but it just it's it's a very immature, very ignorant selfish move. Because the graces, they've created this identity, right? This culture on the court. They talk trash. They're tough. They're not scared. But they're good in the West. But when you start seeing that trickling off the court, now there's issues like this, that's not going to help anybody. And they do have a chance to win this year. And they have a good young team and a good court and a great coach. They're throwing that all the way this year just by their behavior. So it's extremely disappointing. And and clearly the message didn't get across to their star player, which is even more disappointing. I'm not in that locker room, but you have to figure Steve is a big voice, you know, in that locker room or at least an authority in the sense of, you know, he's our enforcer. He's one of our vets. He's played in big games before he's he's done it all in this league. And when there's a skirmish on the court and there's always a lot of skirmishes with this team, he's the first guy to run up, push everybody out the way, protect his guys. He was the guy going at the shedding sharp. He's the guy making sure everybody's cool. So for him to speak up and then for your star player to just be like, whatever, and roll his eyes and go on about it. It has to be frustrated in that locker room. It has to be disappointing. And you look at their record without job last year. It's pretty telling in the sense that, look, he's dynamic. He raises them a level in the playoffs. He's their unguardable option when they need him late in games, but they're able to make do without them. They're able to still defend. They're actually able to defend better according to the numbers and they're able to compete without him.  Yeah, look, outside looking in, I know I'm not in a locker room. I've never been in a locker room like Chandler, but that has to be frustrating and disappointing. And then everything that came after that is even worse. The way I know it's disappointing is that Shams knows what happened. And if you have a player on the meeting and you really want to keep it players only meeting and that's no disrespect to Shams. We know he's everywhere. He has eyes everywhere. But if you really want to keep a player's only meeting tight, you can. But we know about it now. The world knows about it. And that's how I know they're disappointed. What's my first thing. Yeah, what's crazy is most teams don't go out after losses too. And this is a loss on the road where they're going. He's going out. He's after the loss or in Denver and still just without a care in the world, he goes on his own Instagram. It's not like he got sniped by some extorting him. He got so lit or did whatever he was doing to where he literally just didn't care after a loss out in the public eye and then goes on Instagram live to even top that off to make things even worse for himself. So again, this just keeps getting worse and worse. And there's no chance that this is only going to be a two games suspension because once we actually get details of the gun and did he travel with it is the gun on the team plane. There's so many other stuff that I'm hearing out there that are just next level with this.  But man, this is a horrific look. I mean, look, when shotgun Willys Denver's premier gentlemen's club is calling, who can resist that, right? Like you have to go to shotgun.  But that being said, here's the thing when you're he's only 23, right? It's one you can lose the fans. You can lose the front office. But if you lose your teammates and you're this young, that's a bad start to what is probably supposed to be a really, really fabulous career. So we keep saying I hope he gets the help. I'll be honest with you. The cynical side of me is like, what exactly what help do we think he's going to go get? That's the part where I'm having a really hard time. Other than being told repeatedly, don't do this. I don't really understand what the help is. Like don't flash have more respect for weaponry. I have no idea what the help is. I know we keep saying it. It's a generic term we all use as media. But does anybody here have any idea what help? It's just supposed to be getting exactly like I think the only thing you can say, of course, you know, like Chandler said, I don't we there's a lot of stuff we don't know. Like how much how much alcohol substance was there anything of that involved? I think that's a fair question to ask when you're talking late at night. I mean, this is in the early early hours in Denver. A lot of people didn't even see it until they woke up the next morning. But what's curious here is is when you look at Memphis, the way they've handled John Morant, this is the guy they gave the keys their franchise to. They there's a balance there, you know, between how much do you want to have authority on him? How much do you want to hold him accountable versus you understand he is your lifeline. He's your guy. He's he's gonna you've already given him the keys. You've given him carte blanche to do what he wants to do and travel on the road and bring his bring his entourage on the road to city to city and essentially go out in every single city that he's in. So so to me when you think about Steven Adams giving in a players only meeting essentially saying we need to stop going out. I think that's that is very unique. I don't know how often that's I mean Chandler can speak to I don't know has there ever been a veteran leader speaking in the locker saying guys don't go out like it's very and everyone in the room knows exactly who that is.  And then he goes out Chandler and the red light is blown there.  Yeah let's go to a bar let's go have a drink if we have the night off or we don't have practice early in the morning there's obviously a balance these kids are young they're poppin they make a lot of money they're gonna enjoy their life. I enjoyed my life to the fullest trust me. I know Chandler. I'm just saying there's a time and a place for all this and John Morant has kind of brought this on himself where he has he has videotaped himself chugging tequila live on his plane with all his entourage parties at his house. So I think the real issue here would be to get him rehab for drinking a lot because it seems like that is the root of this problem and every time something bad happens it's late at night he's drinking and again there's so much evidence of him that he's filming himself pounding drinks and doing that that's an issue especially during the season especially on his Instagram live especially holding possibly a loaded gun like it's just all bad. All bad. This story is this story is insane to me. But the good news is we are done with it at least for today I'm sure there will be much more to come but we do have some basketball to talk about. How about those calves Celtics we get another overtime game. Thank you basketball. Donovan with 40 Moby with 25 Garland with 17 cabs beating him one 18 one 14 they're now 28 and seven at home. I love where this is headed. All right. Buck Celtic Sixers are we ready to put them on that tier or they still one tier below Chandler. I still think they're one tier below. Think about it. The Celtics just came off a double overtime loss and they set out some of their guys and the cabs had to go to overtime to kind of squeeze one out here. But I do love what they're doing. They're so young. That back court is just tremendous offensively. These guys play hard. You can tell watching this team play they're having fun out there. They're playing for one another. I talk to JB Bicker step all the time. This is the most happy he's been coaching this group of guys which means is half the battle. Honestly in the NBA that these guys like each other. They play for one another. They're unselfish. They get along and that alone will win you 20 games in the NBA. So I love where the cabs are going. I love this back court. I love their talent. I love their bigs. But but it's just tough like those three teams above them and they just beat one of them. But let's take it with a grain of salt. Like I said, they're coming off a long night the night before. But it's promising. And if not this season, they're only going to get better next season in the in the in the season after that. So I love it. But I just don't think enough quite yet this year. Not yet. I'm going to be advanced stats guy. They have the greatest. They had the best net rating in the league. They had the best defensive rating in the league and like look, those are team ratings and those are weird numbers that you got to calculate and all the stuff. But the point is Dave managed to be one of the best defensive teams in this league with that two guard lineup with with Darius Garland being as small as he is with Donovan Mitchell and his reputation is not as a great defender. I think he's fine. He's athletic. He can defend when he needs to. But with those two big guys up front, they've managed to have the best defense of the league statistically. So with that alone, they have a chance. Now it does come to matchups. It does come to what what they can do against very specific teams as of right now.  I look at Joel and Vita and James Harden. They're going to bother the Cavaliers. Obviously, the two best teams in the league and the two best teams in the conference, the Celtics and the Bucks. They're going to they're going to bother the Cavaliers. I wonder how they match it with the Knicks. We've talked about that series before. And the way they can attack from the from the wing and the way they can make deep shots and don't really necessarily need to be into the paint and dealing with those bigs. But when you have Donovan Mitchell and we've seen what he can do in the playoffs before and you have what Darius Garland has put together this season as well, they are dangerous, but Chandler is right. They won this game that they had the two double overtime game. There's no Jason Tatum. There's no Al Horford. There's and so and even then the Celtics had a chance to win this game. We're going to talk about it in a second, I'm sure, but so it's had chance to win this game should not have been even been close. So yeah, I still think they're a tier below, but the Cavaliers fans should be excited because if they if they all outperform themselves, they can win, they can advance a few rounds in the playoffs and maybe make some noise. Yeah, I'm not sure they're on that same tier as Milwaukee and in Boston and honestly, maybe even Philly. But what I will say is that from what I can gather what I know is Donovan Mitchell took it very personally last year, how he played in the playoffs and I haven't really seen him play at a high, high, high level in the playoffs and really win games in the playoffs first team since 2020 in the bubble. I saw that first hand him going back and forth with Jamal Murray. We haven't seen him play at that level in the playoffs, which I think until now he's he's had 840 point games this season. He's got 17 in his career. So half of those games have all come this season. He's already going to get the Cavs single season record for three pointers made in a year. So this is quite a debut season for Donovan Mitchell. I think you're starting to see him play at a really high level and his entrance to Cleveland. I don't think you could have scripted it any better 71 point game all star starter. This is a guy that clearly is on a mission this year and I think he's able, if he's able to play like this and play like a superstar, I think this Cavs team does have a chance potentially get to the second round in the conference finals. I think a lot of it will depend on Donovan Mitchell. I mean, look, if they do face the Knicks in that first round, I'm all in on that. There was a moment last night though, Eddie alluded to it where the Celtics could have won this game. Donovan Mitchell talks a little bit of trash to Grant Williams. Cavs are up by two at this point. Williams at the line says, I won't miss. And then does exactly what you think. It's a tie game here at 0.08 seconds left. He misses both Chandler. The question is basically do you feel bad? I have a funny feeling I know what you're going to say though. Go ahead. I mean, do you feel for the do but this is, I mean, I get it. He's trying to act arrogant. He's trying to act confident. All I needed was one. So I don't know why he was barking that he was going to make both almost make the first and miss the second on purpose would have been the ideal plan here. But yeah, this is unfortunate, obviously with nowadays and social media and all the cameras. Do you guys follow Nick Curios to tennis player on Twitter? Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. He absolutely hates Grant Williams. And it's almost, I'm starting to think there's actual personal beef here because I follow this dude and he just goes off all game long on Grant Williams and he had a field day after this kind of comment from him. But you got to feel bad, but also on the flip side. Man, like knock the free throws down. You have a chance right here to win your team. No one thought you're going to win this game.  This would have been nice winning. Everyone's talking about Celtics. Are they losing it now? Like the kid just makes one free throw. They win this game and know when we're talking about how they're off the snide and they're just fine. So you feel for the dude, but also you got to step up there and make the knock one of those down. Okay, the Kairios thing we need to get to the bottom of, by the way. Why is it so specific? I knew Grant was cooked when he slowed his form down for the final free throw. I'm going to make them both famous last words, but shout out to the Cavs. A lot of gamesmanship. A couple extra subs holding up the game a little bit. Obviously, Donovan Mitchell, Karis Lavert walks across the lane right before he's about to get the ball. They knew exactly what they were doing, but as soon as he missed that first one, and I'm just happy they lost the game because they did not deserve to win that game and they jumped out early and over time. So it was like, man, it would suck if they actually win this game. And then the game ends with him shooting a desperation three, which of course he bricks and he just rips his jersey off and he's pissed. I hope he didn't suppose game is Batman again because only Batman could answer for what happened out there. But yeah, I don't feel sorry for him. Grant's living a great life. He's got a bag on the way. So congrats. For the bag.  This feels very personal. Like he did something, stole a girl. I don't know. Something happened here that's very, very personal. Oh, he gets to do something. Yeah, Shoms. Drop everything and find out what is going on between Curio's and Williamson. You know what's special? Grant Williams actually trends on Twitter every night for, I don't know why, but he trends every night he plays good or bad. And you know, what's crazy about that play is Marcus Martin almost tip dunked that. You know, so he has got on Marcus Martin. That was nuts. On the half court line. By the way, he's trending because Curio's just ripping him to pieces every night and people are reading it responding. This is like, I'm going to start paying more attention to Curio. I know I was already following him, but I wasn't paying attention. Also, shout out to shout out to Danny for getting all these of riffing. Right. There's a thousand Moes did it. Moes did it. All right. So look, the Celtics despite close or not close wins, losses. They've lost three in a row. They're five and five in their last 10. This part of the year is usually about teams that get hot right now. Celtics fans have had a nice blessed year so far, Chandler. But at this point, do you think they're starting to get a little bit nervous? I don't think they're getting nervous. I think they're just fine. Again, we're talking about one or two possessions away in these games. They could have beat New York tonight before and they should have won this. If Grand just makes one of those free throws and again, not every play comes down to the end. I hate when teams do that. They could have won this game multiple other ways but is it concerning? Yeah, you don't want to lose three straight like this coming out of the all-star break. Your guys should be rested. Your guys should be focused. You should be on a mission right now. But I think the more level of concern isn't them losing these close games. It's how good Milwaukee is playing and it's how scary Philly can be. So yes, if you're Boston, you want to continue to trend upward. But when you look over there and everyone's following, this is the time of year where everyone's looking at the standings. Oh, we got the Knicks today. Oh, we got Miami. You know who's playing well, who's catching momentum, who's healthy and the Celtics as they lose three straight. They're looking at these other teams that are playing very, very well on the East and that's what's scary for them. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. That's almost the perfectly written segue as we take a quick break here because Harden had 20 assists in bead with 42. And like Chandler said, Philly's getting scary when we run it back returns. Run it up to run it back.  Run it. Y'all like points? We got point. Sixers beat the Pacers 147-143. Like I said, in bead had 42 Harden, 14 points, 20 assists. I love Tyrese Maxi. Finish up with 24. They're doing things right now that I feel like should be scaring the rest of the Eastern conference. Chandler, how dangerous can this team really be? They are super dangerous. And I love this version of James Harden. 20 assists, one turn over with him. We all know he's a scorer. He can always go get a bucket. But when they thrive and they exceed early is when he gets everybody involved. When he kind of gets off the ball, lets Tyrese Maxi do his thing. When he lets Joelle and B dominate. And this is the best version of their team because this makes them unguardable. This makes you, you can't do it. You can't trap them in a pick and roll because you have arguably the best player Joelle getting it in the pocket and rolling down. You have guys like Tyrese Maxi and Tobias Harris that can score, that can shoot the ball. And then they have a really good mix of wings like Jake Milton and McDaniels and D'Anthony Melton that can also knock down shots but they also defend. They pick up the slag for James Harden. They pick up the slag for Tyrese Maxi. So this team is built to win. They have shooters off the bench with Georgie Nyang who's been knocking down all year long for them. There was not much defense in this game last night but this team, I think their best version is this where they have the most dominant big. They have James Harden who's getting everyone involved and taking care of the ball. The one turnover is huge. It's almost bigger than the 20 assist. In my opinion, just not giving up possessions for this offensive team to not be able to score. So they're super dangerous and yeah, looking at those numbers, those are, it's history. It's, they're trending they're trending in the right way. I want to be like the old 90s grump and be like, this game stunk. This is a frustrating game to watch. It was two Mike D'Anthony DNA teams. Mike was a consultant for the Pacers last year. Yeah, obviously James Harden and all the things they've built there. Joellen Beach shot 19 free throws. This game was 79, 78 at half time. It was one of those ones that made me look at my TV, make sure I was tripping. A lot of free throws. Charlize Hallenberg shot 14 free throws as well. It was, this is new basketball. This is pace and space basketball. They're spreading their shooting threes, dunks and lifts, everything like Jason Tatum shot start. But to answer the question are the Sixers dangerous? Absolutely. Absolutely. They have Joellen Beach who can just do this on a nightly basis. Nobody can guard him. The Pacers are a pretty bulky team and you think they might have had a better chance with Miles Turner and the likes that they had there. They had no chance. They had zero chance. There's nothing they could do. But credit to Tyrese Halliburton for this game staying as close as it did. He's been, he's been ridiculous since he's came back from his injury. And you know, I bagged on him quite a bit and didn't know if he should be in the All-Star game over Jalen Brunson and all that cool stuff. But he's had quite the week out there. So look, I'm familiar with the game now, buddy. My bad. Look at you growing. Wow. Sorry, Sean. So go ahead. No, I mean, listen, they're definitely dangerous. We'll see as the as the year goes on. Are they going to be able to stay healthy? The coaching, how does that play out over the year and into the playoffs? But to me, the way that Joellen Beat and James Harden are playing, I think this is only good for this organization. I think it's good for them. This is not the chemistry that they had last year. I think they were really trying to find it. They didn't have it. And I think once Joellen Beat, you know, was able to be the man when James Harden went out, Tyrese Maxson went out. He reestablished himself. They really weren't seeking an identity after that. It was Joellen Beat's team. And then you saw James Harden come in, play at such a high level, scoring. You're seeing him get back to the way he was scoring a few years ago in Houston and he's shooting 40 percent from three. His field goal percentage is around 45 percent from the field. So you're seeing him step up his performance. He's playing at a high level. He's shooting it efficiently. And now he's he's dishing the ball at a really high clip, getting his teammates involved. And I really look at him to set everyone up on a nightly basis. And I think that's the role he's back to and he's comfortable in. All right. So here's the question, Chandler, like if you're the opposing team, what are you supposed to do here? I mean, if they do what they did last night, 40 points, 20 assists. What's the plan? It's tough to Joellen Beat's making 19 of 19 free throws. I'm double team and Joellen every touch. I'm making these other guys beat us. I'm making the Tobias Harris. I'm making Tyrus Maxi beat us. And it's funny, playing with James in Houston, you would see so many different matchups and coverages. He thinks he's so lefty dominant. You try and force him right, but he's it's like Zion. He's going to get back to the left. He's even gotten better finishing at his right hand. You just you kind of want to limit his space. You want to be physical with them. But now with the new fouls, you can kind of you were able to do that back in the day. You could even get close to him because he would basically initiate the contact and get to the free throw line. It's tough. They are they are a mismatch nightmare to have this kind of duo and pick and rolls in the space and both of them being able to ISO and go get a bucket pretty much wherever on the floor. It's very tough, but you almost got to pick your poison. Double one of them and try and let the other one of these other roleplayers beat you. Back to how much like Oh, go ahead real quick. Taylor mentioned a huge thing that will be major for them in the playoffs. Jolan B is shooting a career high 86 percent from the free throw line. He's been 81 percent over his career. When you can get that many free throws and shoot them that well at that size, that's a cheat code. Couple that with James, James Harden, and Tyrese Maxing both shooting over 85 percent from the free throw line. If those guys are up late, the game is over. You can't do anything about that. They're going to make their free throws. They're going to win the game. So great point by Chandler and that alone makes them dangerous on top of everything else they have going for them in the playoffs. I cannot wait for the playoffs. Look, Eddie, you admitted your growth on Halliburton.  He had 40 points in 16 last night. He also had the game winner against the Bulls on Sunday. He's the future of the team, right? Like you're building around this guy, correct? Yeah. I mean him, Benedict Matheren, whatever they get in the draft going forward. But those are two nice pieces. Ben had an up and down game last night. But Tyrese is like the most modern point guard there possibly could be.  He plays like you played 2K, but in real life, he zigzags to get threes. He pretty much only shoots threes at layups. He holds the ball all possession long until he can get an assist. It's like, it's like almost like running the read option in the NFL. He does it out there on the NBA court.  I don't know if you caught this stuff with Pat Beverly. But Pat Bev took a couple shots to them last year and then Tyrese took some on podcast too and he remembered all of that. So when he gamed him like this, he let him know on the court and he let him know on Twitter and I love a Twitter clap back. If you follow me on Twitter, you know, I love a Twitter clap back. So Tyrese, you're in my favorite big fella. Yes. Yeah, I love them. And again, who else are they going to build around? They just traded some bonus for him.  He's an all star with mix him with Madarin and a couple draft picks.  This is their guy and this is their guy moving forward and he's proved his worth. He's kind of shut up a lot of the haters on being an all star this year and he's not slowing down. And there's a chance of not making the playoffs and most players can kind of throw in the towel after that. His kids still going to get 40 and having crazy games. Good for him. He's he's there. That was good. Yeah, clap back. It just, you never forget what people say about you. All right. Nuggets beat Toronto. This one has some weirdness. 1-18, 1-13. They went on a 20 to eight run ending this game. Murray with 24. Yolkic 17, 13 and 9. So close. Here's Jamal on the biggest factor in this comeback win. Bring up these fans, of course, you know. Speaking of that, Jamal, this is your 30th win at home this season. You guys are 30 and four here at ball arena. Just talk about the dominance that you guys have displayed here all season long. Just fun to play here with the energy. Every time we make shots, the crowd gets loud. And like I said, we just love playing behind this crowd. It's really as simple as that. St. Louis, we love you. I mean, that's the best pandering I've ever heard. I'm here for all of it. And look, here are 46 and 19. There are now seven games up in the West. You heard 30 and four at home, Chandler. How much is that home court advantage really going to help carry this team through the playoffs if you believe it will? It's huge. But I wish you would just thank the altitude and not the fans. That counts. Listen, they are a great home crowd. They are great fans, but that altitude is no joke.  It's brutal. And you see teams in the second half kind of tinker off. And this happened with Toronto last night. They played great. They had a great balance attack. Everybody was contributing. And they just allowed this huge run from Denver who was used to it, who was used to that arena, who's used to that weather, that altitude, because it really does catch up on you. So it's it's a huge home court advantage. Especially I think whoever they draw first round, a lot of teams kind of go there a couple of days earlier as soon as they can to kind of get their wind. So I definitely would look for whoever they draw to kind of do that just to kind of get familiar with that, get their lungs and get their wind. Yeah, they're definitely setting up a lot of expectations for themselves in the playoffs. Everyone wants to hate on them. I saw them in the bubble. I think I have a lot of confidence that Jamal Murray is healthy. The fact that he's playing at such a high level now, his three-pointer looks back. He's not feeling it in his legs anymore. They got to be the pick, right? Out of the Western Conference. Yes, you have the Warriors. You have the Clippers. A few other teams out West. But to me, the way that they're playing, they're running away with this conference. And I think you have to give Jamal Murray. I can't wait to watch Jamal Murray in the playoffs. Shoms, you also have the Suns out West. Let's not forget. But I don't know if they're the pick. I favor the Warriors. I favor the Suns. I think the Lakers would give them a hell of a matchup. I think the Grizzlies, if they have Jamal. Oh, my God. Whatever this is. The what?  Michelle, Michelle. Did you just say Lakers? In the same sentence as all these teams we're talking about right now? I will say this. I will say this for the Nuggets.  They obviously didn't have Jamal Murray their last two years in the playoffs. And then they lost to the champs. Like, it's so, yes, they have proven themselves in a sense. But there's a lot of pressure on them to win this year. And like Taylor mentioned, they have the altitude. All these playoff crowds will have loud crowds. The Kings will have a loud crowd. The Grizzlies will have a loud crowd. It's like the Warriors will have a loud crowd. The Timberwolves will have a loud crowd and they'll celebrate if they win one quarter out there. But it's not the crowd. It's the altitude. And it matters. You ask anybody who's ever played. Anybody who's ever went high altitude and walked around and had to like go, go, am I okay? It matters 100%. So it's like one of the true home court advantages in the league. So, yes, it does matter. It's great that they're holding home court. And that's why they need the number one seat because they're going to need that against any of those top teams because they have their flaws. We've mentioned them over and over and over. And they got to prove it. They got to show us when it matters most. I'll say this though. The altitude helps. Thank you, right? Something's altitudey about you. Something's going on. You're not normal. Listen, the altitude helps. The weather helps the travel helps. But the altitude's not putting them seven games ahead in first place. That's their talent. That's their team. That's Yolkic. That's Jamal Murray being healthy. That's Aaron Gordon having a career year. Michael Porter being healthy. So it's interesting because I still like, I like Philly. I like Milwaukee. And I like Boston over pretty much every team in the West. And KD is scary on Phoenix. But when you look at the consistency of the whole season, it's hard not to take Denver. But also I understand the doubt. I understand the hesitancy just because that they're just not, I don't know, for whatever reason, they're not like an automatic luck and pretty much all of our eyes, I think. I think we're all hesitating until they do it. But I also hope that Yolkic, just like a lot of people takes all the slander this season and uses that. The rest of his team too.  And it was bizarre. Scott Barnes was injected. It was quick. Called for a technical. Scott Foster, he said, quote, I was just saying something to myself. And I guess he took offense to it. So he just kicked me out of the game. It was one technical foul. And then he was out. It was so fast. Foster said that he was using verbiage, which quote, directly question the integrity of the crew. Anybody else know what happened here, Chandler? What could that even possibly mean? Because that's a quick ejection at a very crucial moment in this game. Yeah, it basically means that Scott Barnes said he was cheating. There's no way around it. That's what he meant.  Or would you take the spread or would you take the nuggets or literally just like, even if you say something like, oh, you guys are cheating us. The reps have zero tolerance for that. And Scott Foster, especially, you know, he's kind of been in this scenario a lot. He's had this beef with Paul. He really doesn't, you know, he doesn't take this stuff lightly. So it's had to have been something of that nature. Fandal and Denver? Is it, I hope the name dropped Fandal. I hope he said, yo, like, your parley is not hitting on Fandal, my God. This was crazy. And Scott Foster, look, he's been questioned a ton. And when we watched the Netflix doc in 2035 or whatever, I'm going to remember this. I'm going to remember this for a long time. One point again, you eject the guy for, I don't even think the foul was on it. Like that was really, really, really strange in between all the Chris Paul stuff and all like, there's a lot going on there. But hey, if he says he mentioned Fandal Parley, thank you so much, Scotty. Take the ejection. It's cool. You guys are going to win this game anyway. So great branding from the rookie of the year, the rainy rookie of the year there. But yeah, he must have said a magic word and it had to be quite a lot of magic on that word. That was, that was nuts. Right. Like the verbiage was that, that's the part. I mean, it was so fast, still really was very confused. All right, we're taking a quick break. We've got to thank Shoms here. We will see you not bright and early, just civilized hours. Tomorrow morning, Shoms. Thank you as always. I know, I don't want to make it sound like we're getting up at four. But when we come back, I can't. Is Brani better than current NBA players when Run It Back returns? I didn't agree to that. On this date, 13 years ago, Kobe didn't even flinch when Matt Barzloff picks a ball right in his face. Chandler, would you have flinched? 1,000 percent. There was an angle to this. I saw like a different angle where it was like, it was over his head. But yeah, either way, I'm still I'm still asking for a substitution. It's just so good. I don't know. I feel like it's close enough that the flinch is inevitable. Yeah, shout out to Matt, Sacramento native. He's told two different versions of the story. I like the cooler one where Kobe didn't flinch, but he definitely said he did it was a ball fake. It was the play. It's like, yeah. But Kobe didn't flinch seen in flinch. Kobe didn't flinch. And that's what we're going with that forever and ever. I got a little you buy in that coming up speaking of Sacramento. How about the Kings beating the Pelicans? But that's not what we were talking about necessarily. It's the fact that they won six of their last seven after the All-Star break. They're about a half game now from Memphis for the number two seed. What a good time to be behind Memphis in the West. rookie Keegan Murray. We want to play our first playoff game at home. It's not easy. We know we had a lot of tough stretches coming up. We know we have to be locked in every single night. Janela, you buying the Kings will have home court advantage for the first round of these playoffs? I am barring just an absolute meltdown there. They're four and a half five games above the Warriors and these teams are behind them. And they're also a half game just back out of being in second place. So I am I'm buying it. And I think it's great. This is honestly the feel good story of the year. Timby, the Kings. I love what they did. I love the positions they made. I love the draft of Keegan Murray. The two stars and Foxes of bonus have just flourished. And again, this is just fun. The Kings have went through misery. They've had so many down years. And I think now often the goal is to advance and to contend. I think they even know that that's not the ideal expectations. But yeah, give them home court advantage. Get the city excited and have a heck of a series in Sacramento in that arena. Fantastic. And I am totally. Look at that crowd, Eddie. God, they're ready. Let's do this. I mean, they absolutely let the city on fire. The city's been waiting for this since the early 2000s. Yeah, they're four and a half up with with 16 games to go. They better not fall below the fourth seed. They better. They look great. Big win last night without the iron fox. It's, you know, looking on the other side of the game, the Pelicans are slowly slipping out of the play. It was like two months ago. They were the one seed. I don't know what has happened out there. They lost Zion. They got Brandon Ingram back. It's been rough out there. But the Kings best story this season by far. It's really not even close to me. Everybody else we kind of knew would be here. We didn't really weren't really sure with this team. But the Montessabones, the iron fox, they deserve their all star spots. And I mean, I hope they get to the two seed. I hope they have that great of a season and they really get out there and win a series and put this team on the map for the for the years coming forward because they look great and Mike Brown, the most well-deserved coach of the year in quite some time. And I hope nobody else better get a vote. They better get every single vote unanimous coach of the year. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. Look at the standings though, Eddie, Phoenix, Golden State. Minnesota is who they play right now. I think that would be their best matchup. But if you are you taking the Kings over the Clippers, the map, any team in the top eight, except the Timberwolves. Matt, I think I might take him over the Mavericks. I'm taking over the Mavericks. Maybe Yikes, I don't know. But you're right.  It gets dicey. Maybe Clippers. I know what Sacramento is hoping for because apparently the Lakers said this, but they want that Lakers match up. They want to renew the rivalry. They want to finally beat them in a playoff series. And I'd love to see it. I'd love to see them get it and beat them. It ain't happening. That ain't happening. I like them. That's not happening. So let get another dream, Sacramento. That was not happened. Pelicans though, by the way, they were in third place just as recently as January 1st. Like obviously they don't have Zion. That is a huge factor. I don't want to pretend like it's not a big deal. But at this point, it's just it's a it's a free for all. And it's a bummer because I think they were one of the feel good stories as well beginning the season. Is it too late to just take it the rest of the way the 18 or however many games they have left channel or just just go just go for it. I don't think so because they have zero shot of winning especially without Zion. And yeah, you remember the beginning of the year we're talking Willie Green coaches. We're talking how exciting this team is with Alvarado and Herb Jones and these all these young guys that are exciting pair with those that big three. I like the idea of actually tanking now because they're starting to get this team back. They're hopefully again fingers crossed Zion is healthy next year. And it's not like they have to give up much just to start losing games. Sit be I sit CJ kind of try and lose the rest of these game to put yourself in the best position for the draft this year while retaining your pretty much same roster next year that we were so hyped on in the beginning of the season. So yeah, they're not going to win this year's and not just you know load management it up. Man, never too late tank. They're not catching the tank gods the spurs the rockets the pistons the Hornets. But everybody else. They can lose more than them. But like I like the challenge if I'm them. Get that pick. Get that pick. Got that Lakers piece too. The sixth pick is better than the 12th pick. Why not? Look at that math. That math was done like this. That was good. Yeah, there you go. All right. The snitches snitches have won. They just snitched their way into taking away joy from Yanis with the triple double the other night. It has been rescinded. Eddie. I hope you're happy. Are you proud of yourself being one of the snitches that made this happen? Chandler. Chandler, we should be proud today that we have this power to maintain the sanctity of basketball.  But he did not deserve this. There's no reason he should have had this rebound. I blame Court Kisbert though. I still blame him like put a body on him, big fella. Like do something. They talk to you more than this. But yeah, the basketball gods won out. The snitches won out. Is that what you meant? And you know what? Now this is such a deal. Now people guys won't do this ever again. I don't I hope or at least it won't help. So I love it. Shout out to Davis here. But yeah, that's not a hard. Yeah, see that guy gets it. Whoever that is, that's what Court Kisbert should have done. DeSean Stevenson gets it. DeSean Stevenson. He doesn't take me. Give me that. There's pride there. Look, I can't. You can't blame Giannis for lack of pride on the other side. Like that's not his fault. He did what he did. I blame Giannis for lack of pride. I'll blame Giannis for lack of pride on his side. But he said you had all game to get that 10-3 round, buddy. You should have got it on that other end. I blame Giannis for that lack of pride. And then Court Kisbert raised lack of pride. Well, sometimes time is the way. What's going on in this game? No, I really would have actually preferred that. Breaking news. A man's father tweeted positive things about him. Here's from LeBron. What? Am I wrong? That's facts. From LeBron with a tweet. Man, Brani definitely better than some of these cats I've been watching on League Pass today. Shout out League Pass. It's lightweight hilarious. Disrespectful, Eddie. Brani better than NBA players at this moment. Please, please say something smart here. I want him to name names. I want to know that this is about Grant Williams in the free throw. I want to know exactly what LeBron was talking about. Obviously, this is like crazy disrespectful, but it's also super proud dad moment. So there's no winning. I'm not going to criticize LeBron and go viral. Michelle, it's all on you. You got it. You got it from here. What? I'm just saying. Well, look, he's his man. He's his father. That's probably the man who should be his biggest fan, right? All right. That's pretty cool. Peek, AAU dad. Just say my kid is better than the NBA players. Peek, AAU dad. But also it's not it's not helping your son out. I feel like you just it's setting this whole thing up to be a disaster. Chandler, like what did you think when you saw that? I mean, what are we doing? Listen, the kid has gotten a lot better. I will say I saw like a mock draft and they have him like going 10th. But Eddie's right. This is his father. Is he he's already made it clear that he wants to go play with him and whoever takes him LeBron's going.  Someone's listening and he's going to get his chance and Bronny has put himself in this situation to, you know, have an opportunity there. But like the idea of thinking he's better right now than current NBA players. It's just it's a stretch, but I get what he's doing. Rude. It's straight up disrespectful. A stretch is really nice. A stretch is really nice. Between this and the Michael Jordan dream tweet the other day. Please. I'm going to need my goat to put his phone down when he picks this bottle up and like one or the other big fella. One or the other. No, no, that was after a dream, Eddie. Allegedly that happened in the morning when he tweeted that. And somebody needs to tell him that that dream was not wild, nor was it epic. Big freaking deal. You're at a basketball game with MJ and how did it end? No one cares. Worst cliffhanger of a movie I've ever heard in my entire life. I've had some better dreams. Um, we're going to take a quick break on the fly parlay. I don't even know if we hit it. That's how cool I am about it. And then we'll have another one for you tonight when we run it back for turns. Make the rest of the NBA season a slam dunk with Fandall. Right now, new customers can get a no sweat bet up to $1,000. That's up to $1,000 back in bonus bets. If your first bet doesn't win, now is the perfect time to join Fandall. The app, easy to use. They're always great promotions. And when you win, you can get paid instantly. So jump into the action and bet the NBA. Download the app and sign up to get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. Fandall official sports betting partner of the NBA. Well, I was hoping that I was the one that got it right last night and I was not. We did not great. Chandler, yes, the bow was well-deserved on your end.  Oh, man. You know what though, Eddie? You had Dame over 36 and a half. It was a gutsy call. He ended up with 31. You know, is what it is. Is what it is. I was Grant Williams in the line. I said I'm going to make both and I break both. I know. I know. Poor Grant Williams. I hope he has a good day today. I feel like it might not be. But the good news is we can go ahead and try to fix ourselves and make money for the world again tonight. Eduardo, what have you? Now, Fandall must know that Joel and James aren't going to play or something. I can't believe the Sixers are getting points even on a back-to-back against the Wolves. Love the Wolves. But, you know, when all comes down to it, I'm going to bet against Rugo Bear. So I'm going to Sixers with the points. Thanks. That's on that's on brand way to stick it. Chandler, what do you have? It's crazy because Joel and James aren't like out on the report yet. But no, I love the Jazz plus nine. I mean, that's a lot of points. If they're fully healthy, they're playing. Mads have had their issues. The game's close. I like the Jazz winning it, just how the Mads have been ending games. But nine points a lot. Give me the Jazz. The Jazz plus nine. I know I'm actually shocked. I'm shocked to do that. All right. I'm doing, look, I think this is disrespectful. Rockets play the Nets tonight and the Rockets are on a, I believe two game win streak. That's a seven plus six against the Nets. I feel like they might lose. They'll probably lose, but I'm going to guess they lose by four. Oh God. I'm not even close. All right. Before we go tonight, the Lakers are going to retire. Powell, Gasol, Jersey. Oh, we got a, okay. I'm going to show you guys. All right. Let me show you guys what to bet. Just just in case. I know you guys are listening with Bated Brett on all of our picks. It's so good at it. I want to make sure you see the visual. But yeah, no. So Powell, Gasol, Jersey is getting retired tonight. The number 16, a good feel, good moment for Lakers fans. Chandler, tell the world how good this man was. Oh, he was so nasty. He was such a good compliment to Kobe and those championship years. He was, you know, such a dynamic player for his size, the way he could face up in the post, the way he could get the defensive rebound and bring it almost put that point forward roll. Shout out to Powell, Gasol, because he was an absolute legend and much deserved because he had game for a seven footer. I love that photo, by the way. A lot of credit. A lot of credit to the Dirks and the KDs and whoever else for the big fellas who could stretch the floor, who could handle the ball. All that stuff. Powell, Gasol did this as well and he did it at a championship level. He could bring the ball up the court. He could play point four. Like Chandler said, he could pop out and hit the jumper. And this was when it was way taboo for somebody that big to pop out and hit the jumper. And plus, if you remember, when he got to LA, there was a lot of talk about him being soft and this, that, and the third. He has not looked at any of that anymore. Deserve it, Hall of Famer. Deserves to have his number up there. There's a reason why Kobe ended up looking at that guy like his brother and going to war with him time and time again. Legend, Pargasol. I love it. That is a big part, right? Kobe loved it. And not to mention, he had a little brother that was cold, too. It was probably the backyard battles they had were probably insane. I wonder what the food bills were like.  I'm always obsessed with that. That's a lot of food, no? Pal, Pal is so amazing. He was almost going to be a doctor in his free time. Like, what kind of life is this guy living? Wait, he did what in his free time? He was going to be a doctor. Like, he was just going to like moonlight as a doctor. Well, being a basketball player, he's incredible. What can't he do? I do not want my doctor to be moonlighting as a doctor, though, just for the record. We'll be back to our 10 Eastern. We're going to watch a lot of basketball and come back super smart to help all of you. Have a great night.


It is always great to be with my friend, my colleague, Dmitry Koleva, but especially good here to be here at NATO and sitting around the table together and making sure and making clear, as we heard from every single country around the NATO table, our enduring commitment to Ukraine, to making sure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself against Russian aggression, to continue to take back territory seized from it by Russia, as well as to build a strong country that stands strongly on its own feet militarily, economically, democratically. All of that was very, very clear around the NATO table over the last two days, including with the foreign minister today. The relationship, the partnership between NATO and Ukraine is also vitally important. We reaffirmed the commitments made at Vilnius that Ukraine will become a member of NATO when allies agree and conditions are met, but we also focused intensely on the practical work that is being done and will continue to be done as we head to the Washington Summit next year on continuing to strengthen Ukraine's capacity. And when I was walking out of the meeting, I can clearly, I wish I could tell journalists what I heard in the room, but since our meetings are confidential, we will keep it with ourselves. But if I am to sum up this meeting that we had today, it was a clear no to fatigue and a clear yes to continued and increased support to Ukraine. And it's striking to see this spirit of unity in the room on these two issues. Thanks everyone. Come on in.


We can also use the definite integral to find arc length. In order to find arc length, we'll need to find a representative length and sum it. Suppose we have the curve y equals f of x. A representative length is that between the point x, y, and another point, x plus a small bit of the x-axis, y plus a small bit of the y-axis, x plus dx, y plus dy. We can use the distance formula to find the length of the segment joining these two points. And even though it isn't a fraction, part of the reason why the dy dx notation is useful is that it reminds us of things that we can do. In this case, we can rewrite this expression. We'll factor out a dx squared. Or, since dy dx is the derivative of our function, we have our expression for the representative length of the arc. We can then sum this over the entirety of the curve. And this gives us our theorem. Let y equals f of x be a curve that is continuous and differentiable over the interval between a and b. Then the arc length of the curve is going to be the integral from a to b of square root 1 plus f prime of x squared. For example, let's find the length of the curve y equals x to power 3 halves over the interval between 0 and 4. So our arc length is going to be the sum of the representative length, square root 1 plus f prime of x squared, and our sum is going to go from the start of the curve at x equals 0 to the end of the curve at x equals 4. We need the derivative of our function, and we can do a little bit of algebraic cleanup. To evaluate this, we'll use a u substitution.  We need a 9 fourths dx, so we'll put it in as long as we take it out by multiplying by 4 ninths. Making our u substitutions, we can then find the integral. Putting everything back where we found it gives us the function we'll need to evaluate. Since everything is multiplied by 8 27s, we'll remove it as a common factor. So we need to evaluate our function at 4 and at 0. And while this is a perfectly good answer, we'll rewrite this without the fractional exponents because we can.


This paper presents a novel approach for predicting peak particle velocity, PPV, in surface mines using an ensemble system consisting of artificial neural networks, ANS, and extreme gradient boosting, XG-Boosts. The results show that the ensemble system out performs the best individual models in terms of accuracy and can be used to accurately predict PPV in surface mines. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis indicates that the spacing between blasts and the number of blast holes have the greatest and least effect on PPV, respectively.


While Joe Biden is on TV comparing Donald Trump to a yo-yo and literally arguing with himself, Bernie Sanders is actually proposing real solutions that would help people make it out of this global pandemic. And the reason why Bernie Sanders is able to speak so clearly to the needs of working Americans is because he has already demonstrated that he is knowledgeable of what normal Americans are experiencing so he knows and can predict the depths of this crisis. He knows how bad it could get if we don't take action and not just any action, very precise action to protect the working class. So in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, he demonstrated why out of a time when we really need a leader, Bernie Sanders is the leader we've all been looking for. Listen to the way he just eloquently and beautifully explains how we have to make sure we look out for working people and this crisis shouldn't have just made us aware of the needs of working class people. The fact that it got to this point to where people are living paycheck to paycheck and are now missing paychecks, it's not just a crisis that's created by the global pandemic. This is a crisis that we kind of brought on by ourselves with our absolutely ruthless and brutal economic system known as capitalism. Take a look. What we face at this moment in terms of the pandemic, in terms of the economic meltdown, the most serious set of crises that have been faced in this country perhaps for 100 years. And our job right now is to think big, is to act in an unprecedented way, both in terms of healthcare and in terms of the economy. And it is going to cost a lot of money, but not spending that money now will make a bad situation even worse, because as you know, there are some people out there talking about by the end of June unemployment being 20, 25, 30%. So right now our focus has got to be in my view to make sure that all workers in this country are kept whole. They continue to get their paycheck to make certain that in addition to that people get a check of $2,000 a month to make certain right now that we move in an unbelievably aggressive way to make sure that our healthcare providers, our doctors and our nurses are not dying on the job trying to protect us. And that means that Trump has got to enforce in a vigorous way the Defense Production Act to make sure that companies now are not producing T-shirts and underwear that is not our major need at the moment, masks, gowns, gloves are the need. And companies have got to do that. Some are already voluntarily doing it. They need to be compensated well, but they've got to transform their production capabilities to deal with the crises that we face right now. The other thing I think, Chris, you know, is that while Congress and they're going to be people up all night right now working on this $2 trillion bill, people are working really hard. They understand the extent of the tragedy. We also have to take a deep breath and ask how we got to be in a country where so many people are in financial despair right now. What I worry about is that at a time when half of our people live in paycheck to paycheck, those paychecks are stopping. There are people out there watching this program who are saying, I can't feed my kids tomorrow. How did we get there? How did we have a healthcare system which was so unprepared among many other things for this epidemic? So contrast that interview that you just saw with any interview that Joe Biden has done in the last week. He did three or four today. What you hear from Bernie Sanders is clarity and leadership. He is very quick to speak precisely to the needs of the American people. He says Donald Trump needs to utilize the Defense Production Act. We're hearing a lot about this, but he goes further. He explains exactly what it can do and why it's necessary. We don't need companies producing t-shirts and underwear, as he put it. We need them making equipment that can assist healthcare workers. Because guess what? If we don't have the necessary equipment to protect people with COVID-19, to protect the healthcare workers who are making sure that those people stay alive, then this crisis is going to get a lot worse really fast. Speaking to the financial need of people, what we need is obvious. $2,000 per month to people throughout the duration of this crisis. I think it should be permanent after that, 1,000 at least. But that's something that will help. On top of that, we have to make sure that we suspend rent, we suspend mortgages. We don't allow people to go further into debt, suspend student loan payments, freeze all of that. Like if we're not talking about cancellation at a bare minimum, everyone in government should be talking about freezes. But the fact that only Bernie Sanders and a handful of lawmakers are talking about this, it's kind of insane. It shows you how out of touch they are. But Bernie Sanders said something here that really should scare every single out of touch elite. This isn't surprising to you or me, but the out of touch elites in DC, the pundits, the politicians, they really need to heed his warning. He said, at a time when half hour people are living paycheck to paycheck, those paychecks are stopping. I don't think people really get that. I don't think they grasp the gravity of the situation, people in government, that is. They don't get it.  You can leave them out to dry for decades. But at the end of the day, so long as there's no more distractions, there's no more need for them to continue being a cog in the machine because they're losing everything.  That's when social order starts going into chaos, right? People they behave, they go to work, they come home and they distract themselves with video games and Netflix. But when you take away their livelihoods and they feel as if they have nothing left to lose, that's when people really start taking to the streets. That's when we see a general strike. So lawmakers who aren't taking this seriously, they do it at their own peril. Because if workers have nothing left and you're not willing to stop them from losing what little they have, do you honestly think that capitalism is going to be able to survive? No, the system will implode in on itself and this is what anti-capitalists like myself have been warning people about. If you don't at least try to rein it in, it's difficult, but if you don't try, it eventually becomes so big to where it enters late-stage capitalism and now end-stage capitalism and it starts to literally eat itself. Where it takes away everything from workers because that need to increase profits is so strong that, oh wait, we've taken all the money from the peasants and now they have nothing and they can't buy the products and the services that we're producing. What do we do? And it's reaching that point. COVID-19, this global pandemic could accelerate that process. And with the way that government is dragging its feet, we had a lot of talk about universal basic income temporarily, but Democrats were talking about means testing it and now Republicans don't really want to do anything for workers, at least what they're proposing isn't sufficient, but if Democrats go along with this, then they're also bailing out large industries, private companies, corporate welfare and there's no stipulations, no assurances at all that that money isn't just going to go into stock buybacks and we need it to help workers. So the situation is grim and lawmakers, I don't think that they fully grasp what's about to happen, how society will devolve into chaos if they don't actually take this seriously, both from a health care standpoint and economically, but Bernie Sanders gets it and look, there's still a chance. He can still be the president. He can still be the nominee. So half the country in the Democratic primary, they still haven't voted yet. I haven't voted. New Yorkers haven't voted yet. It's not too late. We could have a real leader. We could have a real leader and it's tough. Bernie's going to struggle to get headlines during a global pandemic. It's difficult to organize when you can't knock on doors, but there's still a chance for us to turn this entire thing around, save the country and save the planet if Bernie's president. But anything short of that, I just don't think we have a chance and even if he does become president, that doesn't mean that our path forward is easier. It's going to get tougher regardless. Our trajectory that we're on, our prospects are relatively grim. So we just need someone who's willing to fight. That's it. And we can still have that with Bernie Sanders. So whatever you do, convince people in your family, digitally, don't see them in person because they're social distancing, convince them that they have to vote for Bernie Sanders. They actually want to change the country for the better because he cares. He cares about the people and this is self-sacrifice. He's not running for self-serving reasons. I mean, if he were wanting to be president, he probably would have ran when he was younger. But I mean, he's running because he cares. Help him help you. Vote for Bernie Sanders if you haven't already. We still have a chance.


My name is Adegu Kiamida Tadeneke. I'm a student with D-Brand Consulting. I started the boot camp with D-Brand Consulting three weeks ago and it's been an excellent experience. Before D-Brand, I have knowledge in Microsoft Excel finance analysis, but now I've gained a lot. I cannot build a model from scratch, I'm still in the process, I'm still learning to do few things, but it's been an experience, a very joyful experience. I'm so glad to be here. I would definitely recommend D-Brand Consulting to anybody and anywhere in the world. Thank you D-Brand for the opportunity.


excited to have Sophia, Aunt and Natasha here. They all have tremendous experience in brand marketing, both at startups and larger corporations. But to kick things off, why don't we start with each one of you sharing a very common misconception about brand marketing from a founder perspective? Dang. So, ease us in early. Ease us in gently. I think the most common one I tend to see is that it's just not important, which is crazy to me because brand is absolutely everything that you do, think, say, touch and make. And it impacts everything. And for me, the idea and especially, you know, working with as many very early stage companies as I do and a lot of companies in the B2B space and for them thinking that marketing and brand just isn't something they need to think about is a total oversight to me. I can just echo that and say that many startups I find are very tech and product driven. So at least my experience with Spotify, spending a lot of time with extremely talented developers, I really needed to sort of convince them that it was important to build a brand. And it took a while, but I felt a bit sort of singled out in the beginning because they said, you know, if we just have a great product, we don't need to put any makeup on it. So let's just build something that's good. And I think, of course, that's key. But even though you have a great product, you need to make it easy for people to talk about it and to understand what it is. No, maybe maybe this is boring if I just build on what was said, because I think this is actually the true aspect of it. I think we most of the people look at brand as being advertising or media or something like that. But I think we need to understand that there is a much broader approach to brand. And from the founder perspective, I think it's also important that they understand the whole ecosystem, the whole aspect of the holisticness of branding. And sometimes that's a struggle because, you know, if you compartmentalize everything, you know, communication, branding, you know, such product, and there is a lot of other disciplines, I think it's not leading you to the real result that you need to bring, which is consumer concentricity and really building something that has purpose and is strong. So it sounds like we're all in alignment that a common misconception is that founders just don't value brand enough. And in terms of companies that are doing well with branding and brand marketing, do you have any examples of brands that you think the audience here should look out for from a brand marketing standpoint? I have one that I really love. It's called Oatly. I don't know if many have ever seen it, but they're doing Oat Milk. And they're really driving the course of that, you know, humans aren't really made for drinking cow's milk. So they are raising awareness, and it's kind of both quirky and fun, but they're really taking a stand and being bold. And I love that. Brands that have a bit of balls and need to want to stand out. And didn't Oatly also sponsor like a music festival in Sweden? Yes. Yeah, which is like a milk sponsoring a music festival, yeah. I love this brand in the UK at the moment called Bulb. So they are somewhere you get your energy from. So really boring, absolute commodity, right? As well as something where there's just not really any customer loyalties or really difficult market. And they've created this entire positioning around positive energy.  So it's got that amazing balance of the emotional drivers, why you would want to use that over other ones. And then as well, there's the brilliant kicker of a 50-pound referral fee. So you have that rational thing as well that if I do use this product, I'm going to save money. And I get to sort of, you know, peacock and tell everybody that I've done a really good thing in the process by using something that is renewable. The beauty of it being that the energy comes off the same grid as everyone else. It is pure branding. It's genius.  So knowing that brand is super important, we talked about it here. What are, for startups that are maybe in the audience here, just starting to think about their brand marketing and maybe their marketing budget in general, like, what does it actually cost to build a good brand? Like, is there such price? Time? I'm sorry to say it again. How much does it actually cost to build a good brand for someone who is allocating their marketing budget as we speak? So I think it's not coming for free, that's for sure. And this is not a misconception that you have to actually always discuss with founders, obviously. But I think there is something to be said about, again, you know, what is the actual proposition that you have? I think in some cases you have brands that actually take so much attention because the product and the proposition that you have is so unique and so new. And I'm actually glad that I work in a company like that, that, you know, has an incredible attention at the moment, even if we don't have a product in the market at the moment. And so sometimes then it gives you the opportunity to actually do things that are much cheaper than, you know, just a traditional company would do it. Obviously the marketing budgets of traditional companies are much broader and much bigger than the startups. But I think it is also, it's really depending on, you know, how new, how innovative your business model really is. And if you can score on that one, it's actually possible to build a brand from very little, I would say. I can testify to that, actually, because my first two years with Spotify, I didn't really have a budget. But I think if you use PR, no, I know it's a bit stupid. But if you work with PR in a smart way, and depending on what type of product you have, and if you find the network's effects and listen to what the audience is sort of getting excited about around your product, and if you can tap into like fan bases or communities that are fans, I think there's a lot you can do. But I would say that the most important sort of ingredients when building a brand is time and passion and dedication, and just being relentless. Yeah. And also repeating your message in every opportunity you get, in all of the channels you get. But I think as well, you know, what I tend to see a lot of the time, especially in there's not necessarily a marketing or a brand person in the founding team. So you've got that entire skill set that's missing. And so then what happens is people think, right, well, I need to just throw money at the problem, because I've sort of delayed it. I've not thought about it. And then it's like, ah, we need to actually grow. What do we do? How do we do it? And so then they're like, okay, let's bring in a consultant or someone from the outside. But I often see that full flat, because when you spend a lot of money on a kind of a piece of paper, essentially a lot of the time, which is maybe your purpose, your values, your mission, all of those things, then you have nobody internally who can actually activate on it. It's a total waste of time. And so I kind of, I really urge and advise people if they are going to invest in brand to make sure it's something that they can follow through. I like your suggestion on seeing what the consumers are saying and amplifying on that. That's definitely something we had experienced with that Uber as well. I think normally you have to spend a lot of money when you're changing the message. But if you're just amplifying it, you can really tap into network effects. My other question, and speaking on like product, and you're at a company that's having a very innovative product right now. So Ant is at Lilium, which is the first, I mean, maybe you can do a quick, just like elevator picture. We are creating a innovative air mobility service that is based on air taxis. It goes like this. Yeah. Vertical takeoff and landing. It's like no starting path. So my question is. MailChimp. I'm sure all of you in here are familiar with MailChimp and their latest campaign is all about the fact that they have outgrown their name. They're no longer just a newsletter service, but rather a full service marketing tool. What is your advice in terms of like early stage marketing strategies around your product? Are there any do's and don'ts between like creating your brand, surrounding your product services? I think it's good to think about the bigger picture and not just the first product or feature, so that you're not limiting yourself with a name that is talking about that first thing. So maybe more think broadly about what is the area that I want to become the spokesperson of, which is the area that I want to take lead on and what is the change that I want to drive and how do we do it? I think the reality when you're very early is it's going to evolve. What shouldn't evolve is the purpose and the why you're doing it, but the reality of what the product is, especially right at the beginning, is going to change. And so a lot of the time people want tag lines and strap lines and things, and I often look to those as kind of conduits for campaign moments.  I think for me this is, first of all, as we heard, it's the end in mind, being clear about what you're trying to get to, but then also being extremely crystal clear on the value that you bring to the customer. So at the end of the day, it's very sobering to sit down to really think about the fact what makes this product so valuable and what makes it different to others in some cases. And really understand the user cases and you have to be crystal clear on this and you have to be really relentless in understanding this because that's the starting point of everything. If you don't, if you skip that point, if you try to be, let's say, a storyteller without having the story, then you're missing the point. I think it's super important to be very clear about that. The three of you have experience working both within smaller startups and with larger brands, either on an agency level in your case or with Fortune 500 companies in your case. And, Sophia, you were within Spotify from super small startup to large corporation. How does the role of marketing evolve in such a shift? Like from being at a startup versus a large corporation? I can give my two cents, but I think it goes from being kind of man-made, in-house, one person doing it all to turn into like a big machinery where you act in plus 50 markets in probably as many languages and you're doing multiple campaigns on an ongoing basis. So you really need to be good at hiring and have a big team that supports you. And of course, processes in place that help you maintain the brand. So in the beginning it was easy because then I made all the decisions about what was right and on brand for us. But then as we grew bigger and the local team started doing things, we needed to keep that in control. So we created this whole brand management scheme that I was running and overseeing. A brand management team. Yeah. Wow. I think this is a totally different business, in my point of view. The moment you're getting to a certain threshold, everything changes. So you have international teams, you have communication challenges, and you think about cultural diversity in the markets that you want to enter. I think in the beginning of the startup career, let's say, this is playing a role in the background, but it's not really up front. But as you go forward, then all these things become, let's say, front and center. And you're thinking much more about entering different markets. And how do you enter different markets? How do you have to actually build adaptation to your proposition, to actually enter these markets? So it becomes another ballgame. I think being in this situation that I had, let's say this scenario before, I can say that startup thinking is super different to running an actual corporate marketing team. That's different and both wonderful. In between, there's a long journey. Sophia, as an investor, what do you look for when you're investing in a brand? Do you have a checklist? What do you look for? I don't have that checklist, but maybe I should put one in place. I think it is that authenticity that you look for. And normally it starts within a company. So I think you can tell from the founder if they have that sort of enormous passion and grit and determination to do this and to drive the type of change they want to see. So I think, I don't know, I think I have some sort of antenna for when it's real or when it's people that are just putting something together, but the purpose and the heart is not in it. When the heart is in it, you can normally feel it in the culture of the team and that they just do it without thinking about it. It kind of comes natural to them, I think. When your whole soul is embodied and you just want to do this. And Natasha, you are the CMO at Seed Camp, so a CMO within a VC firm. I'm curious to hear what your work entails and what does a week look like for you. Yeah, it's super varied and it was a really weird transition going from doing that role in a startup to doing it in a fund, I guess, namely because in a startup you have all of the metrics and the numbers you need to be hitting and it's very tangible. You can measure it really clearly, especially when you're in product type businesses as I was, whereas when you're in a fund, obviously the core measure is how you're returning on your investments, which takes seven plus years. So the things you're doing the kind of day to day and actually measuring the impact on it is so much harder, but it's so rewarding because we at Seed Camp because we invest so early, we have such a massive breadth of companies who are really doing anything and everything because we're sector agnostic. So I get the chance to work with all of those businesses on how they build their brand and taking them really from often their pre-product and there's nothing there to how they shape something around it. And as they scale and as they grow into bigger businesses, what that then looks like, if they are starting to think about different markets or hiring or agencies or speaking to the media, it's really varied, which is great. Cool. And Arndt, you're at a company who hasn't yet launched the product. What's exciting about that versus challenging? So it's kind of challenging because when you think about it, we are starting from scratch, really from scratch. So it's starting a new category that people really can't really grasp. Even though I tell you that we're working on an air mobility service, we think, what? Right? So at the end of the day, so what we are trying to do here is, and we have to do that, is basically launching the brand before the product is launched. And the reason is first of all, we need credibility for a whole new way of moving around a whole new way of, let's say, mobility that people need to understand first. So we have to bring them along. So in the beginning, it's all about credibility, understanding that this is possible, understanding that it should happen this way. And then on the next step, we have to think about how do we actually bring people along the idea that this is something for them. They consider it as something that is important. So we need to have social acceptance. So in order to do that, we have a couple of years to really educate people about the brand and the category and the business model before we actually launch. If we wouldn't do it, I think it would be a quite a surprise to everybody. And I think this is something that happens naturally because there's also so much interest in this category right now so that we basically have to build the brand in already a very significant competition level that is happening from day one. So it is something that is not even a choice. So we have to really build this brand and build the brand Lilium to be able to compete in the market. And what's your guys' experience when it comes to prioritizing brand versus performance marketing? I sometimes feel like they're at the opposite end of the spectrum. Can these work together? Are they separate departments? What's your experience? They have to work together. I think especially at the very early stage, performance makes sense. It's more tangible, it's more immediate when you're trying to speak to investors and demonstrate your growth. It's a lot easier to make the case for it. However, if the brand message and content is crap, your performance is not going to fly. So they're not one or the other. You have to invest the time in thinking around the stories that you want to tell and then thinking about the channels and the levers you're going to pull to help you tell those stories. And performance is a really critical part of that in the early stage. Does this story part come from like one player in-house and like the performance marketing from someone else or how is that collaboration? Again, at the early stage, from what I've seen, it would be one key player shaping what the brand message in the story is and then you perhaps have somebody underneath who's actually planning what the performance is going to look like, running the Facebook campaigns, iterating, testing, seeing what your customer segments are looking like and being able to quickly turn things on and off based on what customers are performing and responding best to the messages you're putting out there. It's my favorite topic because I think this is really two sides of the same metal and people really make it very difficult. But at the end of the day, both is needed. Both have reasons to be. There's different strategies that drive both parts. The one is more transactional. The other one is, of course, more driven by consideration and brand, let's say, equity aspect. Do they have to be managed sometimes simultaneously? And I come from an omnichannel company environment where this conversation is happening all the time. How much money is going in this direction? How much money is going in this direction? So there needs to be strong leadership that is protecting, of course, the brand part because it plays an important role. But also, there needs to be also clarity on the performance and, for example, performance marketing lost some of its magic in terms of retail, for example, in the fashion industry. We all know the retargeting banners are following you around when you looked at a product and people got tired of it and totally lost its kind of spin. So at the end of the day, it loses efficiency by 50% and more. So at the end of the day, there is always movement and you have to react to it and it's part of the marketing mix that you have to manage.  And so it's not the one or the other. It's hard to actually make them work together in the best and possible way. I echo what you guys said and the way we did it. I think it's super important that it worked together. The way we did it was that my team was the sort of storytelling team and we had like an in-house agency that created all of the correctorals. And it was our job to make sure that people understood who we were and sort of trying to convey our soul. And then we saw the growth team as the machinery that would take the message out. Could we maybe also talk a little bit about the inevitable transition from having a product that's tailored for the early adopters and then shifting towards the mainstream market. This is a shift that I feel like every startup hopefully has to go through. And what are your do's and don'ts in that transition? It's a good one. One reflection I had is that when you are operating in one or maybe few markets, it's easier to have a personality and it's easier to have a tone of voice that can make jokes and be more than a vanilla voice.  Then I saw that the tendency we had that we became a bit more boring actually and in the more markets we were rolling out because we were trying to be not offending anyone and just be sort of not doing harm. But that also meant that we didn't make as much sort of impression I guess because we didn't make any jokes in the same way as we did when we were in few markets. So I think it's a bit of a challenge to keep your personality and your tone of voice when you're operating in many countries. I don't have the solution to it. I think it's a hard one that everybody probably is trying to crack. I think there are nuances as well with the type of brand and product that you are. It's something that we've really seen with Transferwise which is one of our investments. Transferwise started up in 2011. It was a few years after the economic crash and the banks were kind of public enemy number one. So having a really irreverent strident brand coming out and literally saying F you the banks which was the early marketing campaigns, everyone loved and it was brilliant and it was you know they did nothing to hide and they did a sort of naked protest showing that because there was no fees with their product they also had nothing to hide. You know that as as they build as the market sort of calmed down as that hatred towards the banks has sort of swayed and they've had to sort of convey the importance of trust. The message has has sort of you know not diluted but has had to to calm down I think a little bit alongside it but they still know the sort of brand that they are and I think that that still comes through and which is important to that earlier doctor customer because otherwise you sort of look at it and like well this no longer speaks to me.  Yeah and I guess that's part of my question too with like taking an example like Nike they have mastered being both in the sense that they're very mainstream you can probably find them in like every outlet but then at the same time they continue to innovate and engage with the early adopters and the trendsetters and I'm curious as to like what does that recipe look like for startups. I think I think the recipe works I personally think the recipe works I think this should also of course in a startup scenario you are already and by definition when you're using the word startup you're already very early in the process right so later you're becoming a real grown-up company mature company you're not necessary startup anymore but at the end of the day I think every company needs to think about that every company needs to think how can it be let's say a little bit more bold and interesting at the very at the very beginning of the brand career and and how can we actually build you know build a story about it and Nike is exactly what I also think you know if you ask me about Nike I think this is wonderful how they did it how they were able to create a business in all channels you know being able to the highest possible channels with celebrities and you know with with all the other things that are going around and they're potentially also in a Walmart right so it's really it's really something that that is that is mastering the idea of of the of the brand Pyramid and I think it I would love that to I would love to see that also happening in the case of Lillium and this would be my my hope that we get there but I I don't think that every brand should or can be bold and I think that's the sort of misconception as well with a lot of startup brands like Nike works because it's true to their brand DNA and so when you see things like the Kaepernick campaign you know it's brilliant and it doesn't feel too jarring whereas a lot of the time with startups they because I don't think they've properly defined that early stage you know the why do you exist where do you sit in the market how do you express yourself it then means that the sort of campaigns like flip-flops they think oh we want to be bold this moment I will want to be this and what they haven't done is actually think about what do our customers want from us and what's that disproportionately influential customer going to want from us and how do we tailor the brand and the message and the story around them I guess it's also sometimes being bold in a campaign versus being bold in your DNA and that's where authenticity comes in it's not authentic for a brand to just be bold from one day to the next but if that's like part of your DNA then maybe that's your strategy and I also wanted to talk speaking of like going from early adopters to to mainstream what are the possible trade-offs between marketing and sales I guess it depends on where you are and what organization you're in for me it meant sometimes that we were having discussions about integrity of the brand versus a pile of money and it's hard to win that battle so you know in the end of the day it's again it's the same scenario that we already had with performance and so on there is a part in the organization that is driven by other KPIs and it's driven by tactical approaches that's not wrong we all kind of want to be successful in everything and so sales has a role in that and there is marketing and that tend to be on the other side of this of this kind of scenario where we are also thinking about protecting the brand protecting the bigger idea but the other thing is most of the time this is just a debate and the debate needs to happen within the company and it is very important that it happens but in the end of the day it's also a debate that needs to be somehow mature because we're talking about the same thing we're talking about short term on mid and long term right so and I think there is first there's times when you have to give more focus on the sales and then there is times that you probably don't do this because you know you might harm your brand or you know there are certain certain aspects that a mature company manage well and is that a valid argument by the way like we can't do this because it will like dilute the brand even though if it if it has a pile of money for me that was a very very wise leadership to actually understand where to say no that's that's that's clear otherwise brand is always in defense because because you you know if you have you have somebody you know waving a check then it's an it's an easier it's an easier way to describe you know what the benefit is thank you guys so much thank you thank you