We're back. Card letter confidential. We're gonna do it like we always do it. Cold open question time. We're recording this right before the playoffs tip-off this weekend.

And I was thinking about this. I always enjoy walking outside and thinking, what question am I gonna ask Chris and Josh that's gonna get this conversation started off right? And one came to my mind.

And I was thinking about your your guys in your collections. You collect three guys between the both of you that are not only in the playoffs, but will likely be huge contributors in their team's playoff success.

So my question is, if you had to put a pause on your Jokic, Luka, and LeBron collecting, and you were told you have to start a new player PC of an individual that is in the playoffs and you cannot buy any other cards of guys that you currently collect, who would that player be and why?

Josh, I wanna start with you.

Well, the the cheap answer is I'll just pick, like, the a bench player at the end of the bench and just, like, save a ton of money and not have to spend money on cards because I'm always worried about playoffs.

That's a good question. Well, I'm, like, already so heavily invested in Lakers. I'll just say Austin Reebbs. I'll just stick with my my team. I'll go Austin Reebbs.

I that his black prism came up for sale a few months ago, and I, like, eyeballed that thing because he's wearing it's like a it's like a number 31 jersey or it's like it it just kinda speaks to me, like, the the quirkiness of the card and how he wasn't really anything until a couple years after his rookie year.

That card would be sick. So what year I'm I'm trying to visualize Austin Reeves rookie card, and he's, like, one of those players I just can't picture what year he was drafted.

What what year of, like, Black Prism would that have been? I'm trying let me find that real quick. One sec. So I'm looking for, like, his highest sale.

I don't even see that one in here. Wasn't that through alt recently? His rookie year was 2021. Okay. And in the prism photo, he's wearing number jersey number 31. So this is, like, right after they won the championship they drafted him.

Austin Reeves is a menace. I'll forever, I'll forever, be scared of him based on what he's done to my Indiana Pacers. Chris, you've had some time to think about your answer.

What is your answer? In this hypothetical, do our PC players completely erase from history, or they're still there? We just don't collect them. The they're there, but you you have to freeze.

You still have all your cards. You just cannot buy anything new of those players. And instead, you have to put that money that you would have spent on those players towards a brand new player. Yeah. Yeah. Gabe for three.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because it just matters because, like, one guy who has a profile that I like is Shae Gilge Alexander. But, he's not quite there yet for me. Like, he like, Jokic is blocking him from being, like, the statistical king.

So, like, he's almost there. But if Jokic still exists, then I'm then I wouldn't go to SGA quite yet. So the way that I break it down I I have so many players I'd like to collect.

I I just started writing down all of them. And, like, I can break them into eras. So, like, the the late career guy that I would love to collect is Jimmy Butler. You've talked about him a lot over the years.

Love Jimmy Butler. Love Jimmy. My dad hates Jimmy Butler. So funny to, like, like, I'll just catch myself, like, like, we were watching the, one of the warriors game the warriors Clippers game.

And I was like, man, Jimmy Butler is so good. My dad's like, he sucks. My my dad's like a big Bulls fan.

Okay. Josh, did you have some? Just the 18 free throws. I just can't watch that foul merchant. Oh, and he's a total foul merchant. He is he is the he is like he doesn't get enough flack for just being a total free throw merchant.

That's the key to his efficiency is that he just gets so many fouls. Like, the warriors before he joined were one of the lowest free throw rate teams after he joined one of the highest.

The warriors were one of the lowest isolation teams after he joined one of the highest. I mean, this guy is just an isolation free throw merchant, but, you know, it puts him at the top of a lot of the lists that I like to look at.

So Jimmy Butler is the late career guy that I'd love to collect. And here's what I love about Jimmy Butler. Here's my pitch for why I think Jimmy Butler is so exciting as a player.

You can't you can't understand him if you just go to his Wikipedia page and look at his accolades because he has almost none. And he wasn't a hyped up rookie, and he had a pretty mediocre stint with the Bulls.

And then he was very uncelebrated during his Miami Heat run because they ran into the freight train of the Lakers and got smoked in the finals and got smoked by the Nuggets in the finals.

And, otherwise, he was just basically blocking the Celtics from advancing to the finals a whole bunch of times.

And Celtics fans hate him, and Celtics fans have a disproportionate representation in the national sports media, so they do not like to say anything nice about him.

Tyrese Halbert knows a little bit about that too. Okay. But anyway, that's so so Butler what I love about Butler is, like, you really need to know ball.

You either need to watch a lot of basketball or you need to know how to analyze stats to appreciate Jimmy Butler. So I just love I love that aspect of Butler. Okay?

A question about Butler is because Butler has been on several different teams in his career and is obviously considered a a superstar in this league just based on his career resume, but that hasn't just happened in one or two spots.

It's happened in several.

Do you think that a player as good as Jimmy Butler, who has had multiple stops and almost all of those stops have ended poorly with Butler and management? Do you think that has a negative, connotation on his overall collectability?

And then in light would present maybe a a good opportunity to collect, especially based on if it if his career or his statistical accolades fit within your kind of sweet spot? Yeah. Yeah.

I think, he his reputation has been torched over and over from, you know, souring relationships in the Bulls locker room, the Minnesota Timberwolves fracturing, the unceremonious departure from Miami where, you know, he was being suspended, and Pat Riley is, like, keep your mouth shut.

And, you know, just lots of nasty stuff.

But but that's another thing I love about Butler is that if you're a person or a fan or a commentator who likes to talk about the off court stuff, like, you can string Jimmy up and just tar and feather him.

But if you're a person who, like myself, I really just like to focus on 94 by 50.

I just really care about what's happening on the NBA court. Off the court, obviously, if people are doing immoral or unethical things, it's awful and I won't approve of it, and I won't like it.

But if we're talking about drama and sensationalism and, you know, who's popular and who's not and who negotiates well and who has a shitty agent and who has good PR, I don't care about any of that stuff.

I just care about what happens within the that rectangle.

And Jimmy Butler, that's that that's another great way to divide him up. It's like they have like, probably there's half a dozen franchises who hate him because of the way that he departed, but I love his on court metrics.

So yeah. Your your Jimmy Butler, selection has, caused me to ask a question, and I'm gonna toss it back to Josh.

And then we're gonna get into the agenda. But you you look at Jimmy Butler and what he has meant to the warriors, and I think it is you know, everyone wants to talk about Luka to the Lakers and the impact and this and that.

Very apparent that Jimmy Butler has had a similar, if not greater impact for the warriors. Now you look at the the matchups in the first round, and you've got the warriors versus the Rockets.

Maybe just complete opposite ends of the spectrum from the the experience versus the youth. And I know the Rockets are the two and the warriors are the seven.

But I don't know. Like, I'm looking at that series, and it's hard for me to pick against the experience. Where when you look at these two contrasting styles and the different ages, coaches.

I mean, it couldn't be any more different. Who do you lean towards in that, first round matchup? Well, the two best players in the series are on the warriors, so it is really hard to pick against them.

They've got Curry and Butler both, you know, if you look at their stats, they're probably, like, top 10 advanced metrics, especially in the playoffs when they're when they're both healthy and playing.

And they basically, like, carried the them to that victory over the grizzlies.

They barely beat the grizzlies, and it was, you know, 38 from Butler and 34, I think, 33 from Curry, and they're hitting big shots on the stretch. So it's gonna be really tough for the Rockets and experience to beat that.

But, man, last time the Rockets played the Warriors, Curry was one of 10 with three points, and Ahmed Thompson had him in a vice grip. I think Ahmed Thompson is a up and coming star. He finished the year top 15 in BPM.

He's a fantastic young player. He's gonna be obviously all over Curry. He's an excellent defender. He's got great size. The Rockets have a lot of size, and they can disrupt Curry and Butler pretty well.

And, obviously, they'll have fresher legs. They have better depth. They they arguably have, like, the three through, like, six best players in the series, and the warriors have one and two.

So I think it'll be a good series. Honestly, I'm I'm pretty interested to watch it just because of the two styles of, of play with, like, the size and youth versus the experience and the, you know, Curry and Butler of it all.

I'll I'll pick the I'll probably pick the Warriors. I I don't I don't think that they can, I don't think you can beat both of those guys?

Chris, before we move over, who are you picking in that series? I'm gonna go Rockets. Yep. I love Rockets. I'll tell you I'll just I'll keep it short to me.

I'll tell you why. The Rockets are one of the best offensive rebounding teams of all time. And Steven Adams, you you can check out Ben Taylor's video on thinking basketball about, Steven Adams' offensive rebounding rate this year.

It's the highest of all time. And if there's one weakness that the warriors have, it's they have no defensive rebound in, especially when Draymond is at the five.

So, like, Zach Eady was just getting crucified for his performance in that, playing game, and Eady had seven offensive rebounds and 17 total.

You know, he was actually he had a he was the a a plus six in that game. He had the best plus minus of any player on the Grizzlies in that game.

And with seven offensive rebounds, I mean, that's worth about seven points to the score. If a point possession is about one in a in a play and setting. So, like, Zac Eady's a rookie, he was just punishing him.

Sangoon and Adams might very well punish him on the offensive glass. And then Ahmed Thompson, like, all the wing defenders, and these guys are also athletes who get get a lot of rebounds too.

The Rockets advantage all year has been offensive rebound. That's been their advantage all year. I think the Warriors are just about the worst team.

The Rockets are about the worst team for the Warriors to match up with for that reason. The Warriors play directly into what the Rockets' strength is. That was a good one to get things rolling. Ahmed Thompson.

I'm excited to see him on a a bigger stage, I think, defensively. Likely, maybe all NBA first defensive team, really good young player. We saw some big sales of his cards over the last six months, and that leads us to the top.

And that my question to you is NBA playoff related, card related. Can anything happen in the first round of the NBA playoffs that positively impacts a player's market?

And I don't I'm not talking about, like, just a a quick up and then down, but just, like, sets them into a new territory and they stay within that territory.

Chris, what do you you have anyone that comes to mind or is does one round just not do anything for a player's cards?

No. No. One round can. It it won't for most, but the formula for this to occur is if a player or a team exceed expectations.

That that's the recipe for this. And for most teams, you know, they won't. It's like, it's not gonna do anything for Luka and LeBron if the Lakers win.

It's not gonna do anything for SGA if the Thunder win. It's not gonna do anything for Giannis or Halliburton if either of their teams win. A a lot of us as fans and collectors are already expecting our favorite players to advance.

But in those instances where you have somebody who's new and upcoming or who has very low expectations, and then they end up winning around and, like because if you win round one, you're you're already in the final eight.

And if you win two rounds, you're in the final four. And that you know, then you things get exciting, and there's a lot of attention, and fans start getting very optimistic about next year and everything.

And that that's what all translates to a price increase for a player. I know Josh has one in mind, so I'm not gonna go to that guy.

I'll go to somebody else instead. I think the I mean, there nobody's gonna even if the Grizzlies do make the playoffs because right now we don't know if they're if them or the Mavs are gonna make it.

If the Grizzlies make it and if they beat the Thunder somehow in round one, that's a recipe for Jaren Jackson junior, for John Moran, for Desmond Bane, for Zach Eady, for the cards of all those guys, those guys' cards will go up if the Grizzlies do something like pulling upset against the Thunder.

So there there's there's, like, the theory and there's the example. Josh, who's on your mind?

The one that came to my mind immediately was Katie Cunningham. Now he's already up, like, a % value on the card ladder index in the last six months, but that's a pretty small sample size for what we're tracking.

I still think Cunningham is the guy. This is gonna be his first playoffs. You know? He's gonna be going up against the Knicks.

They're obviously underdogs heavily favored to lose this series. So if Cunningham and the Pistons can pull off an upset, I think it would get I would put a lot of attention on Cunningham to Chris' point.

And then the other guy is Thompson. I know that the the Rockets are the two seed, but he's obviously got the matchup with Curry. Nobody really know I I don't think a lot of the the main public know about Ahmed Thompson.

And they're gonna figure out quickly he's the best player on the Rockets, and I think that's gonna be interesting to watch that that series if they can upset the Warriors.

Because I think the Warriors are gonna be favored, and the Rockets, you know, seemingly are just sort of, like, in the way of the Warriors Lakers matchup that everyone wants to see, so Thompson could make a name for himself.

I I was as you brought up Kate Cunningham, I was so curious because he is one of those players where it is had all the attention.

Right? He was the clear number one. We're all gonna invest in him, and, you know, the Pistons sucked up until this year, and this year has certainly been his breakout year.

But if you look at his player index and card ladder, all time, it's down, 93%, which everyone poured in money, then the team sucked and he wasn't exciting to follow and that is, you know, changed where then you shift it over to a one year perspective and the rate of growth is up 100%.

So I don't know. With it shows you, like, the wild roller coaster of what it can be like investing in a young, unproven, and emerging player.

I guess, like, what do you think of this all time market from Kate Cunningham? Is it just like the example of what we should expect in the hobby if we're pouring money upfront into one of these, you know, young, unproven prospects?

Either one of you can jump on that. It's probably more to do with, the alignment of his rookie season being sort of at the peak of the hobby.

And then there was no like, him and Zion and, like, Jah and those kinda guys, they're, like, perfectly lined up with their markets coming in when everything was craziest and COVID and all that stuff.

And so, I'm not surprised to see his market take a huge tank from the beginning. I think it's more his rookie season alignment. But, I mean, look.

He's gone up a % in the last year, so he's recovered. It's just it was just so so high to start. Chris, do you have any comments on Cade and his market? And maybe just any do you know any, like, legitimate Cade collectors? No. I I know.

There is some, like, people who like Luca also like Cade. I know there's some overlap there just stylistically. So I I know some people who, like, who collect Luca who are high on Cade, but I I I don't go out of my way looking for it.

But I I couldn't tell you any Cade Cunningham collectors off the top of my head. But, yeah, if they went around or two, I think you'll start seeing more and more of them show up.

The other player I wanna throw into the mix on the Pistons also is Jalen Duran, who, when I did my, best player on the planet rankings for the season yesterday or two days ago, Duran ended up in, like, nineteenth, of all players.

And then, you know, if you zoom in on it, he for example, he had a true shooting percentage of over 70%, which I mean, he's a big, but that's elite for a big.

That's that's excellent. You know, he had a PER of 21. 4. He had box plus minus of 3. 1, and his strongest advanced stat was win shares for 48, which was you know, he was, like, top five or top 10 in that one in particular.

So, like, he's a guy who's grading out nicely in the advanced stuff as a 21 year old in his third season. So, like, he's a guy who could become a really high impact player.

I don't know if he'll ever become a superstar. I mean, he only averaged 12 points a game. I don't know if he'll ever become a big flashy name, but he looks like a guy who the metrics say is is really having a lot of impact on winning.

I love asking questions that's gonna completely alienate the audience, and there's gonna be one side that's gonna be upset with however the answer is.

But the question to both of you before we move on, can the Detroit Pistons beat the New York Knicks in round one? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Are are you are who are you picking to win that matchup? I I would take the and the Knicks are, like, minus four twenty on the series. So, like, if you take the Pistons, you're taking a big underdog.

Yeah. I mean, we see this every year where the young exciting team that we're all excited to watch comes in. They and they generally flop, you know, on their first go at it.

So I I'm not expecting the the Pistons to win, but I like them a lot more than I like the Magic last year. You know, people were excited about the Orlando Magic last year, kind of in a similar situation coming in from a long drought.

I just don't I just like the top players on the Pistons better than I like the Magic last year, so I guess I'm a little more excited about them.

I'm gonna maybe Chris and your theory, and I know you got really analytical and statistical talking about the Rockets, But we kinda we kinda solve this, you know, with the Thunder, bowing out, and you just said, you know, it's kinda the Pistons' first go around, so I'm picking the Knicks, and they're huge underdogs.

What how do you is it how's it is there any anything different in your mind with the Rockets? This is kinda their first first big test coming out.

You just like the stats? You like the matchup? Yeah. And they're not as young. Like, Fred VanVleet is a champion, and, he actually has, has a pretty decent tracker. He he beat Curry in the finals once, before.

Of of course, that's because Durant and Thompson both got hurt, and Kawhi Leonard was the best player on his team. But, you know, they're not all young. Like Van Vliet, Adams, like, you know, they they have some vets.

Jeff Green won a championship with the Nuggets. He's like on the he's he he can get minutes in in spots. Like, they've got some bets and, you know, it's it's also a matchup thing. It's all like, I love the warriors.

I I love Butler. The warriors would be my third favorite team to win it in the West. Like, I'll be rooting for them. And I won't be surprised. I mean, the warriors are favorites even as the road team in that series.

I think the warriors are, like, minus one ninety six or minus 200. So they're the so I'm picking an underdog in that series, but it's not a huge dog. The the Pistons are a huge dog.

You know? There there doesn't seem to be any matchup advantage that they have against the Knicks. The Knicks just have this, like, this this five man starting lineup that's just, like, no weaknesses in it. You know?

It's just lengthy wings and athleticism and scoring and connectedness and a great coach. And, you know, Jalen Brunson is the head of the snake who, like Brunson last year, was just my nuclear in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

So, yeah, I I would take the Knicks, but, like, the Pistons, you know, they've got these they've got an efficient young center in Durham.

They've got an exciting guy who could make an Anthony Edwards style playoff leap in Kate Cunningham. You know, there's it it wouldn't be, like, a the most shocking thing.

Now you wanna know what would be shocking. Josh mentioned the magic. Boston on FanDuel is minus 7,000 to win that series. Magic or plus 2,000. So, you know, basically implied odds 20 to one.

If you think the Magic would win against Boston in a seven game series more than one out of every 20 times, and there's value on Orlando. Man. No chance. Yeah. It's that's the one matchup. I just I just a Ben Caro guy.

I just can't watch Ben Caro. I don't like his game. Yeah. I just I they the feels like the magic are in just dire need of a facilitator, and they they need someone to run the show instead of I mean, their talent is out of control.

They've got so many guys that, Wag, Wagner, Banchero, the these guys are Suggs is out.

So Suggs is out. Yeah. It's I just the Boston. I almost wanna just it's hard to imagine Boston losing in the first round, especially to the Magic, but crazier things have happened.

That's for damn sure. I wanna get into a little warm up on the NBA playoff and card front. I wanna get into a topic that I've been interested in talking with other collectors about, and it's the topic of collection management.

And I think in the hobby, we all, monitor what other collectors are doing, try to piece, how different collectors are operating to continue to elevate their collections.

You drop a new person into Instagram, hobby Instagram, they're going to start appreciating and admire a lot of collections and cards, but then there's this wonder of how did this person afford to be able to do this.

And I think I am finding it very interested in digging into the different approaches and styles.

I think both of your collections like, you can pull up your, your your collections and card ladder, and someone would be like, jeez. Like, how much money have you guys spent on this? This is crazy. So I wanna get get into that.

But when I when I when you think of collection management, how would you describe maybe your approach to the way you manage the collection that you are building? Josh, maybe we'll kick it over to you to, start us off.

Sure. I love this topic. The word I thought that stuck out to me is crazy. We are crazy for how much of our percentage of our net worth we put into cards, but I think you gotta be a little bit crazy.

You gotta be a little bit crazy to be able to to dive into something this deep and believe in it this much and to see the returns on what you've done over a ten year period.

So I take the crazy word as a compliment in this case. So I think that's that's one part of it that I wanted to address is you gotta be a little crazy.

Every you know, people would say that about every successful entrepreneur, I think. Like, they're crazy for quitting their job and doing x y z.

But I would not recommend you know, if if I'm like if someone else is asking me and they're like, should I, like, invest x y z into the space that, you know, other people have been successful in, I would always recommend no.

Because it's like, you're probably coming into it from the perspective of I wanna make money.

Right? Or I wanna, like, invest in this and and turn this into a profit. I think that's usually the the first pivot point of is this gonna work or not?

You have to you have to come into it and actually, like, wanna do this, so start there. From the management side, I just think of it in terms of this is like a marathon.

It's just like a really long hobby that I plan to be a part of for a long time. I don't need to get all the best cards in the first year, you know, of my participation. We're, like, ten years into the space now.

And if you care about something and you're passionate about it for ten years straight and it's you dedicate a lot of your time and effort to it, I guarantee you, you're gonna have something that you'll be impressed with after ten years.

Doesn't matter what level you're at. You know, Chris and I probably have a huge list of guys that we look at, and we go, wow.

Those those collections are far superior to what we have. They're they must spend so much money. How are they able to do that? And it it keeps going down. Right? Like, it's relative.

Everyone everyone's always chasing something else. So you have to kinda, like, stay focused on what's possible and doable for you and just and just treat it as, like, a really long, long, long process. It's a marathon.

Chris, I wanna hear from you, but, Josh, you said something that I think is interesting and worth digging in a little deeper where you wouldn't advise someone just to pour money into this space, especially if they're just trying to make money.

How important for you, especially maybe focusing in on your LeBron collection management and building that, how important has it been for you to understand the the intricacies of how his collector base operates, how the cards perform, like, getting nitty gritty in the weeds?

Like, how important has the information, absorbing it all, taking it in, synthesizing, analyzing, and making your buying decisions, how important has that focus been and the passion that you have had towards that player in his market through your your journey in managing your collection?

Yeah. It's incredibly important. I would say the thing that sticks out here that's most important is all the, like, mistakes that I made to get to this point, and you have to you have to kinda make those mistakes yourself.

You can't you can't have someone else come in and, like, tell you, oh, just skip this part and go straight to the one on ones or whatever. Just go straight to this part of collecting.

I've already figured it all out. I think I think you have to kinda make those mistakes yourself and then weave your way through all the different pieces of the hobby and find your lane that makes the most sense for what you like.

You know? If I just, like, tell everybody just go buy the LeBron one on ones or whatever, it's like I just don't think that's doing anyone a service.

They have to make those mistakes on their own. Chris, how would you describe your approach to collection management?

Yeah. I mean, well, this is a really, really big topic. Books could be written about this topic, should be written about this topic. I'm just gonna give, like, my opinion on one part of this topic.

And the opinion that I like, the the area of this topic is most interesting to me right now, and, and I and I really have, like, appreciated this consensual framework of collection management as you've built it, Brett, as sort of a thing that stands in contrast or that that as a framework that exists to protect the idea that you can manage your collection without being a profiteer, pure flipper, that there's a distinction between somebody who is constantly upgrading and shaping in a vault in their collection versus somebody who is just rifling through inventory without any collecting theme or strategy behind it.

And it's a good distinction. And so it it something that came up by your most recent episode where you were talking about collection management from this week was the idea of collect what you like.

And that's the concept of collection management that I wanna that I wanna inspect. So collect what you like is axiomatic. It's foundational. It's a great slogan, and I don't think it's steered many people wrong.

And and, like, within a closed loop, it just makes all the sense in the world. Like, tune out the noise of others and focus on what you like and build a collection centered around that, and you should be happy and have fun collecting.

And I think it does work that way, and it makes a lot of sense. But, whenever the slogan collect what you like is said, one of the first things I always think about is, well, what determined what I like?

Yeah. How did I come to like this? That, like, you know, what shouldn't should I just take it for granted that I like something, or should I try to figure out why I like it and inspect it further?

And is is it even is is is the is the thing that makes me like something, is that is it possible to reverse engineer that?

Can I control what I like? Can I like what can I choose what I choose, in other words? And so, Schopenhauer has a quote about this. He says that, you can will yourself to do something, but you can't will yourself to will something.

Okay? Now his era used the word will. So, like, our era more so used the word choice. So, like, updating it for us, we we we would say we can choose to do something, but we can't choose to choose something.

Okay? So this goes back to this idea of collect what you like. Well, can I choose what I like or not? Most people would probably agree with Schopenhauer. I don't. I mostly. I I think you can hack the system.

I think you can choose what you like if you can understand what made you like something in the first place. So, like, here's an example. Barry Sanders, very popular running back, from the era of football that we all grew up watching.

And why? Like like, his cards are very popular. People love to collect them. He's one of those collect football players. Like, what what's causing people to in other words, lots of people like Barry Sanders cards.

Why? Why do they like Barry Sanders? And I think one of the main reasons like, if you just sort of started to break it down, it's like he has these amazing highlight reels.

He was very flashy, exciting player. He sort of had this underdog story with like, he was just like this man on an island with the lions.

And, you know, he just has one of the one of the coolest sort of stories combined with flashy style play imaginable. Well, how did I come to, like, learn about these things and discover them?

It's because, like, ESPN is constantly putting his highlight reel out there, and social media loves to, like, show his famous cutback plays where he's just, like, stopping on a dime and, like, making eight guys miss and running for a touchdown.

Like, you know, he's he has this marketing slogans behind him that just make him seem like a really cool and desirable fun player to follow and collect.

Well, what if I what if I what if I purposely tried to create that for a different player?

What if I took Thurman Thomas, another great running back NFL MVP from the nineties, And what if I what if I had myself watch his highlight reel for fifteen minutes few times a week?

And I joined his fan club on Facebook, and every day, I just read about all these different fans who, like, really like Thurman Thomas.

And I read biographies about his life, and I looked up, like, where he came from and the his origin story.

And, like, what if I went out of my way to expose myself to material and slogans and and content that would build up the same fan base in me, but I'm intentionally doing it.

Whereas with a guy like Barry Sanders, it was more passively done. I just sort of sat back and the TV gave it to me, and the Internet gave it to me. What if I go out of my way to find and discover for myself again?

And you can't do it with anybody. You still need a Thurman Thomas caliber player to do it with. You still need a great player. But I think the difference between players is often passive.

We don't choose it. It gets told to us, and then we imbibe it. So my thoughts on collection management just from one angle is I want to inspect the idea of collect what you like further.

I want to push back on the point of why do I like this in the first place And against Schopenhauer, can I can I actually control what I like?

Can I make myself into a Thurman Thomas fan even though the external world created me to be a Barry Sanders fan first?

Oh, this is a good start, guys. I wanna hit the portion of managing our collection where we might have to say goodbye to a player or an entire lane within our collection. I don't know if you've caught this.

Maybe it's just a me thing, but it it I have been noticing there have been members of, you know, the Instagram community that are speaking out publicly, and it's very thinly veiled, and it's centered around people getting rid of cards.

And I am of the mindset always, and my mindset isn't the the right one.

It's just the mindset that I have where I try to not spend a lot of time concerning myself with the collection management or behaviors of others within the community because I always found, like, that it's really taking it away from my own focus.

But, inevitably, when another collector or someone viewed as a collector is selling a player that they collected forever. It's like, see you later player PC, or maybe it's a whole diff different category.

See you later. We never really consider the reasons why they're doing that, whether it's a personal decision, something going on in their life, or maybe they're they're doing that because they wanna go buy a grail that became available.

So I think exiting is hard enough, when we're building out our collections and making decisions, and it becomes even harder when there are others in the community that maybe aren't directly calling us out.

But it feels like they might be calling us out or the activities that we're doing. So I'd love to maybe learn from you guys because I know based on your collections, you've had to make tough decisions over the course of the years.

Like, when you're managing your collection, like, how do you think about exiting a player or exiting a category in the decisions that you have to make to do that?

Maybe we'll start with you, Josh. Yeah. I did it with the, McKale Bridges collection very shortly lived.

I think I only had it for a few months. I got caught up in, like, that, like, one to two year window where the sons were actually competent and had decent management, and they held on the players that were young.

And then I I don't know. Selling it, it was just like, you know, I went too hard. I went too aggressive at buying his cards, and it's just like, alright.

I made a mistake. I'll just sell some of the stuff back. And I guess I just don't really think about it in terms of making a big show of it, and I just, you know, just sell it.

And I've said this before, like, the cards are pretty easy to sell in my experience. You just you don't really need to, like, do a big show about it.

You don't need to, like, say, this is why I'm doing it. It seems that it's like the more you do that, the more attention you bring to it, and the more, like, people wanna start hating on it.

I just I just sell them. You know? People, just make the the story post where I'm selling it very straight and direct.

Like, this is for sale. You know? I don't I don't need to give my reasons or whatever. And it's and, like, the other funny one is when people are selling something at auction, then they'll they'll show the auction.

Like, this is gonna be the next big player, and this this is the most incredibly rare card. It's gonna be a big deal. It's like we know you're selling it because you don't believe in those things.

Otherwise, you wouldn't you know, like, why if if you thought the value was gonna double, why would you be selling it? So you're you're clearly just trying to, you know, manipulate everybody into buying this card that you're selling.

So I I I just try to avoid that end of it and then the other end of it, which is, like, you know, I hate collecting. I'm trying to get out. This is this is terrible. Buy all my cards.

I just avoid both of those and stay in the middle of this is for sale. When people are selling cards and they add qualifiers or more information and try to give everyone reasons why they're selling this card, I'm of your mindset, Josh.

If I'm selling a card, I'm putting in a box and it's going to auction, or I'll do a story with the price. And I there's no explanation because I I don't feel like an explanation is owed to anybody.

But do you do you think individuals do that because they're concerned about what the their peers might think about them selling a card that maybe two years ago, they posted and talked about how great it was to acquire that card?

Do you think it's just a perception thing? Yeah. Of course. Nobody wants to be the guy who makes the post about this is their grail, and then two years later, some circumstances change and they have to sell it.

Nobody wants to to be that person, and it's never an enjoyable experience or a good look. But I think just, like, don't even talk about it. Just do it. Like, most peep most people are so this is the this is the key advice.

Most people in life are so focused on themselves and their own stuff. They're just not gonna care about these minor decisions that you make, especially if you just don't bring any attention to it. Like, no one's gonna remember that.

They're just only gonna remember their own stuff. Nobody cares. Chris, exiting? You you might have I don't know. I'm thinking I can't really nothing really pops to my mind on what you're you're a you're a little bit of a hoarder.

You don't get rid of much stuff. But how do you think about just the collection the exiting of certain cards to maybe make room for others in managing a collection? Well, I sold a big card last year.

I sold my, Luca n t r p a. That's right. Yeah. And I had that card I I had, purchased that card right when twenty eighteen nineteen n t came out. It was it was, like, maybe April or May of twenty nineteen.

And I was taking a break from studying for finals in law school, went to the card shop, and it just so happened that somebody had pulled that card from a box at the trade night that night.

And so I went to I, you know, we found him Christina and I found him within the card shop. I was like, I'm interested. And, like, I didn't have the cash to buy the card, but I did have some cash.

I had some cards for trades. Like, I put together a big trade package and, like, got the card with card with cards and cash. And that so that was, you know, I I owned the car for, like, a little over five years.

And, yeah, I mean, that was a that was a big card sale. That card sale sucked. Again, I had to pay taxes on that. It was awful. I felt the bite of that very recently. But, okay. So, yeah, I I definitely sell cards.

I I have sold. I will sell. My money doesn't grow on trees. I have a limited amount. So if I if I evolve in my collecting preferences in any way and I wanna change something around, I'm gonna have to make moves.

And it just happens. Another example, like, last year, or maybe and also, like, the year before, I mean, when I got the McCaffrey n t shield autograph, I sold, like, over a hundred McCaffrey cards to get that.

I I had total pivot in, like, my cracking approach.

So maybe talk about it from the lens of you you didn't abandon collecting Luca or McCaffrey, but, what maybe with those examples, what what were the driving forces for you to exit those cards?

Like but can you obviously can say that again.

Limited funds. Yeah. And and need to consolidate and, you know, shift for I had to make a tough choice. Like, with McCaffrey, I had taken this approach for a few years of, like, I wanna get every one of one of his that I see, period.

And so, like, I just had this, like, crazy pile of all these different types of one on ones, and that was a really fun way to collect.

But when that NT Shield autograph came up of his, like, I I it wasn't a very tough decision for me to be like, I'd rather have that than this pile.

And and maybe part of it was that, like, I got to have all the fun of collecting the pile.

Like, I already I already went through it. Like, I've been doing this on eBay for two or three years, like, finding all these, and now, like, I'm ready to to do something else, do something new.

Like, the like, that that's almost the fun part about, like, this concept of building equity through your collection and consolidating later.

It's like, you get to have the fun of collecting all those cards, and then you also get to have the fun of turning them into, like, a bigger different card that represents a different direction or a more fun, cool card for your PC.

And, like, another like, I I was, like, I was, like, on this run of collecting all the Jokic Prism gold.

Like, I wanted to get all of them, multiple copies, like, just all I just was so obsessed with it. And then I just, like, pivoted. Like, about a year or two years ago, I was like, I have, like, 10 or 12 of these, maybe even more.

And I was just like, this ran its course. I'm ready to do something else. And now I have zero Yogic's Prism goals now. None. You know? I went from, like, 12 or more. I don't know how many. I had a lot.

I went from went from that to none and just shifted the direction of my Yogic collection. So, dude, that that's happening all the time in in my collecting world. Before we move off of this topic, Josh, you mentioned it upfront.

Let's hit, like, patience. And patience is certainly not the most attractive topic to talk about in the hobby, but I think it's essential for sustainability and our own sanity.

How do you think about being patient in the hobby as opposed to making kind of quick decisions because you want action or or you want some sort of movement?

Yeah. When we first joined the hobby in the first, like, five years, you could be impatient and just buy because in the next year, it would go up in value faster than the dollar.

You know, if you had been if you had been patient, it would have been worse off for you. But I think in the last, like, four to five years, patience is has been the winner.

And it's probably the biggest change I've made from my first five years to the second five years is I'm not just, like, having to have the mail day every week.

I'm pivoting more to, like, I'm gonna kinda wait for the card to come to me versus trying to force it.

Like, I think you have a question coming up about showing off our mail days. I don't have anything this month because it's just I'm working a couple deals, but neither of them have hit at this point.

So, you know, I just don't have a mail day because I don't have a mail day. It's not because, you know, I'm not collecting or whatever. So the patience has been an interesting change from the first five years.

The last five years, I've noticed. You can't exactly just, like, fall into tripling your money anymore. Chris, I would imagine you based on the way you just talked about your Jokic getting out of the prism golds.

Right? Those probably were readily more readily available than some of the stuff you're chasing now, so you have to be more patient.

How has patience played a role in your just overall collecting management journey? I hate being patient. It's I just hate it so much. Like, I won't be too patient.

You know? If if I'm if it's April and I haven't landed a card that I'm excited about, like, I'm forced on it. I'm going out there, and I'm like, I'm landing it, man. I'm going out there, and I'm doing the thing. But yeah.

But I completely agree with what Josh said. I think patience once was, you know, possibly had downside, and now I think it has a lot of upside if you are able to be patient, especially because the flippers vortex is just so present.

And, like, when flippers are bidding against me on golden, like, that's that just never made a lot of sense to me.

Like, I'm like, golden is very visible. This is not your this card the odds of this card going for cheap are very low. Everybody sees this. There's there's not gonna be a ton of steals here.

So, like, when I'm like, in those situations, it can really pay off to be patient, let the flippers burn themselves out, realize that they're paying top dollar for a card, and they're outbidding all the collectors who could conceivably be the end user of it.

So they're they're they're not there's not the margin to be made there that they want to be. So, like, let's just, you know, let them burn themselves out.

You know, like and it's so funny too. Like, you'll see cards, like, like, there was a there was a Luca logo man that, like, circled the vortex three or four times over a period of two years, like an immaculate, I think.

And, like, those are just cards that's just like you know, back in the day, it would have been, like, if that card comes up, I better grab it.

Because if I know, it's probably gonna get stuck into a shoe box in Macau, and I'm never gonna see it again.

And nowadays, it's like, yeah. If I don't grab that card, it's probably gonna be on a different auction platform in three or four months.

It's gonna be on a different one after that, then it's gonna have its run on eBay, then it's gonna go through six different dealer showcases at the Dallas card show, and then finally, they'll burn out on it, and I'll be able to get it.

So, you know, I I I it's it's tough, man, being disciplined and being patient.

I think that was a good thread to pull on collection management, something I'm always thinking about. I've gotta hit this, and, I'm glad, Chris, you course corrected.

And you said, as a matter of fact, the number was higher. And I went back, and I I dug in and looked at it. And we always try to, when it's relevant, pull up the industry tab in Cardbladder.

And I this was, like, maybe the most important story that the fewest people saw or the fewest people reacted to, and it was the March monthly sales volume that was tracked by Card Ladder.

Originally, the number was two ninety five you reported on on your Instagram story.

That number is now 303,000,000, which is the highest, highest month of sales that you've ever pulled since card ladder has been active, which I think is relevant.

However, I'm I outside of me and my content referencing it, and I'm sure there's other people too, but I just usually, this this the stuff people, like, share in their stories and people get all excited about because they're saying, look at all the cards going up right now.

So I just wanted to spend a moment since you you both have had plenty of time to to think about this number.

I guess, what what do you make of it? Like, what is going on or what went on last month that led to this all time high, number one? And number two and maybe I'm wrong, but why has there not been a lot of conversation about it?

Chris, we'll start with you. Yeah. I've seen some coverage of it. I saw, CLLCT covered it. It it got it got some discussion. I think it's a it's it's a pretty abstract thing also.

It's it's easier to understand what it means when, like, prices are going up. It's a little bit more conceptual to think about what it means for volume, for a for an aggregate volume to go up.

It's it's not if if I show somebody this chart, it doesn't quite mean the same thing as if I show them a chart of Shay Gilgeous Alexander silver prism PSA 10. You know? That card tripled, and that's really easy to understand.

It was $500 a year ago. It's 1,500 today. If I show this, it's like, well, 300,000,000 and last month was 250. Mean, what's this really mean? You know? So I think that's part of it.

And and and I and I think it's even complicated further by the fact that, yes, like, if you look at the car letter indexes page, it's all green. But, you know, the end most most indexes are up, like, ten, fifteen, 20 percent.

So if if you look over, like, the last year or six months or something and if you compare prices to where they were in 2021 or 2022, you know, when the 86 FLIR PSA 10 Jordan was 700,000, and today it's, like, $1.

80 to 200 still. You know, there that's there's there's a tension there because it's like, well, this card is 20% or 30% of what it was selling for, but volume is up.

What does this mean? Now my takeaway is that there is no, there is no environment that's more optimistic for sports cards as a long term thing.

There's no environment more optimistic than the environment where prices have been, in general, decreasing for two or three years, not in all cases.

There's certainly some categories of cards that have gone up even over the last two or three years.

But in general, prices have decreased over on average over the last two or three years, and they're certainly down, you know, 40% from where they peaked at.

And even as that has occurred and even as prices sort of stabilized even at this lower range, the fact that the volume, the number of cards that we're buying, the amount of money that we're spending on cards, that's going up in an environment where prices are coming down and are stabilizing.

To me, that can really that that can be interpreted as people just love collecting cards, and they're buying even more of them when the price is going down. Now are is there also some people who are just making bets?

They're like, let me buy low, and then I'm betting that the prices are gonna come back up again, and that's probably some of the buyer pool too. Absolutely. And so those that those people might not be such a bullish signal.

That those people might just be people who are buying. They're hoping to exit when prices come up a little bit. That's that that's short term. That that'll be a short term spike. That won't be long term.

But the the the optimistic interpretation is that there must be a ton of people who really love collecting cards because even as prices have come down and their collection value has come down over the last two or three years, the amount that they're spending on cards keeps going up.

They're getting they're just they're getting more bang for their buck. Josh, anything on this that Chris didn't hit that you wanna dig into or you're thinking about?

Yeah. If the prices are, let's say, half as much as they were at peak, that means and the volume's consistent. If not going up, that means people are buying twice as much stuff.

There's twice as many transactions. There's there's a lot of activity going on. I there's probably some, like, clever, you know, political, philosophical reason for why the volume keeps going up. Some joke about tariffs, insert here.

I don't know. But, like, when I see this graph, I just think of when we first started crossover, we were doing this content around, you know, the, the middle finger graph versus the steady up and right graph.

You know, the the Michael Jordan PSA 10 inserts where every time we looked, like, you know, it obviously, like, had a little bit of a peek and a dip like everything did.

But in general, like, those MJ PSA tens, they just kinda keeps chugging along and making this, like, slight upward right trajectory.

And I think of cards as that. Like, the industry of sports cards is that we've it's been around for so long, you know, hundreds of years, basically, at this point.

We've got tons of data. We've got all these different industry people focused on it. We've got tools like CardLadder focused on it. It's just, it's here to stay, obviously, and the volume is so consistent.

And we've had to put up with just years of just badgering us with all these other stupid categories that have just middle finger there all across the board, NFTs and type one photos and all these things.

And here we are. Cards have just kinda stuck along steady as it goes up and right. Volume keeps ticking up. People are still interested in it.

It's been this constant consistent thing that, I think we take for granted, and we're just gonna keep getting badgered with, like, Cheetos or next or whatever whatever the next stupid category is that someone's gonna try to divert our attention.

And it may divert it temporarily, but eventually, people come back, and it's like, oh, I guess nobody left cards.

Like, I should just, you know, give up on NFTs and come back. So so next month, we're gonna talk about, Top Shot and its performance, Shit Beasts and its performance, Cheetos and its performance. We'll just line them all up.

Are hitting the floor, man. Those are those are anything. Oh, poor investors. Alright. You don't have a mail day or new pickup, which is at the it backs up to the theme of this episode, which is quite alright, Josh.

Chris, do you have anything you'd like to share? No. No. I don't have, I have no mail date either, but I hope I I hope I will have it by next year. Okay. Perfect. Let's close out this episode with Chris. You have a topic here.

Maybe do you wanna present the topic? Yes. This topic is all about the NBA playoffs. And, I saw a great tweet from Boimani Jones, who is a really interesting analyst and and, Twitter content maker. And he basically tweeted that, look.

For the next two months, I'm gonna be very sleepy because this is the best time in the sports here, and I'm gonna be up late every night watching NBA playoff games and then consuming content about it afterwards and then waking up and doing the same thing all over again.

And, yeah, I just love these two months of of NBA playoffs.

It's just, it's it's the peak of my sports fandom, but it wasn't always that way for me. Like, for for for between the period of, like, nineteen ninety eight and twenty eighteen roughly, I was a very casual sports fan.

I would, watch Bears games every Sunday, you know, with my family and, you know, play fantasy football here and there, watch casually NBA games, but I I was not and I played a lot of sports.

I've I've I've played a lot of pickup basketball in my day. Always was playing, but, never really became a super passionate fan of sports.

I mean, I was a very passionate fan as a kid. I really, really was into, like, studying basketball and football as a kid, and that just stopped for, like, twenty years.

And I really got into it again. The thing that really got me into it again, obviously, was cards. And there was this clear push, like, especially like, I started in cards with Michael Jordan twenty sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

I didn't I didn't I I I was very entry level sports fan, very casual level. Michael Jordan is not hard to figure out.

But, once I started playing ultra modern, then I really started taking an interest in all the different ways the sports are analyzed. I started really taking in an interest in the history of the sport.

It started with basketball. It spread over into football. And now I'm just, like, really into some of the I've I've fallen into some of the deepest crevices of sports analysis that exist, and and I love it.

And it's because of cards. Cards have pushed me over to that, and I and I love it. It's just this really virtuous circle of, like, reinforcing happiness between cards and sports analysis and back and forth and back and forth.

And then this the more I get into sports analysis, the more pushing me back in the cards and rethinking cards and reapproaching cards. So that's the that's my topic.

This is because but in I just came out with this topic just because this is what I'm thinking about. I'm just so fired up right now about the NBA playoffs. I'm just studying everything that happened over the season.

And I just wanted to hear you two talk about to what extent card collecting makes your sports fandom better and to what extent being a fan of sports makes your card collecting better.

I I think there's some definitely some unity between the two, which is great.

And when I saw this on the sheet, I was thinking about it. And what's interesting for me personally is that I am very I'm very dialed into my sports fandom and what I like, and I express that through my collecting.

And one of the things that I've noticed about myself is that I'm not not collecting all of my teams and interests year round.

However, it's probably not the right thing to do, but when it's the season, like NBA playoffs, like, I am way more inclined right now to look at my Tyrese Haliburton save searches, and then also be like, should I start buying it Andrew Nimhard cards?

Because I really love him.

And when the Colts are in his training camp, I'm way more dialed into wanting to connect that fandom because I'm listening to the content, and it's just I'm pulling out my cards, looking at collections, seeing gaps.

And so I do I collect everything year round. However, I've noticed this about me is I definitely get more focused, especially during these moments, and I think the playoffs are stressful.

They are it is the NBA playoffs are the most stressful thing of all time. There's no I I like the NFL better. I like football better than basketball. It's not by a ton, but football is more more my speed.

But it's the the whole approach the way the series, the length, every play matters. And I just remember last year when the Pacers were on this just magical run making the Eastern Conference finals unexpected expectedly.

Just the whole time, I was I was so thrilled that the Pacers had done that, but it was just so stressful. Like, I I I could hardly sleep.

And I found solace in going down and just looking at my cards and it kind of took my mind off of the loss that we just had or just the incredible win. So I blinked and we're back. The playoffs are here again, which is insane.

It feels like yesterday that this was happening. It's been the fastest year of my life. So right now, I am trying to mentally prepare myself, especially as a Pacers fan. Like, this this you you have to play Giannis in the first round.

That sucks. Like and it's gonna be a tough series. It's it's just gonna be hard. And I would imagine maybe if people look at that series, they're they're like, it's a coin flip either way.

Seven games. Like, a lot of people are picking that. So I don't know. I'm, I'm stressed out, but I'm also very dialed into my my collecting.

So, I think they go together, and I think fandom and collecting are a a beautiful thing when you're a a collector or a fan who have got both things honed in the right way. Yeah. I love everything you guys have said so far.

I have two things that I thought of, and I'll get through them quick. I promise. The first is we used to always get this question on crossover, and it was like, if you had to get rid of one, would it be the sports or the cards?

And, like, everyone kind of said cards, and I was always the one holding the line saying, or sorry.

If you could get get rid of one, you would keep the cards and get rid of the sports. And I was the one saying, I wanna keep the sports, and I would get rid of the cards.

I came from sports obsession fandom. I've I've always watched all the sports, always get really into it, and the cards kinda became the supplement to, like, oh, how can I how can I make the fandom even more of an an an experience?

Because I had followed LeBron since he was in high school and just, like, always followed his career.

And then once I started collecting cards, it was just like a natural easy thing for me to wanna increase my fandom of LeBron buying his cards, and it just and now it's at the point where you guys both said where they're just sort of feeding each other, and it just goes back and forth.

So that's one that's the first part.

The second is my fandom itself. So away from the cards, the sports has evolved over the last couple years, and it's really been more focused on being more nimble and willing to, like, follow players around.

I think that's the new I think that's the new trend, and I I can totally see why. For example, I I'm obviously a Suns fan.

I live in Arizona. I've I've followed the Suns my whole life, but, man, that team just continues to break my heart. And it's just like I've been so, like, I've rooted against Luca because he keeps running into my Suns. Right?

And then the Suns just completely shit the bed this year, completely fall apart, and then Luca gets traded to my favorite player's team. So now I've done a complete reversal where I'm like, I don't give a shit about the Suns right now.

They suck, and I'm rooting for Luca. So I think you have to be more nimble and more open to, like, following players. That's kinda my new strategy of fandom, and it kinda keeps me more excited throughout the year.

It's like, if I was only a Suns fan, what would I do right now? Just just sit around and cry. No. It's like, I got I got this other thing I'm rooting for right now, which is the Lakers.

So being able to, like, follow players, I think, as they continue to move teams has been an interesting topic of fandom for me. And I think it lends perfectly to collecting where you could you can collect a player.

You can follow him from team to team, not worry about the jersey he's wearing on the card, and being able to, like, adapt to that change is, it's been an interesting it's gonna be interesting.

If the Lakers make the finals, am I gonna root for the Lakers to lose so that LeBron doesn't lose the finals MVP perfection run, or am I gonna root for them so that LeBron can get another championship?

There's all these different things that start playing into the individual rooting.

It's it's a lot of fun. That's what I actually, I'm very interested from a card ladder crossover perspective, the Lakers making the finals, and the both of you are competing against who ends up with the finals MVP.

I think that would be a fun story line. Chris, I'd love love to hear from you on this before we close out this episode. What what thoughts do you have?

On the the Lakers, LeBron, Lucas No. You're the topic you presented on the connecting, can collecting cards enhance your sports fandom? Anything, like, you wanna add to the conversation that you based on what you heard.

Yeah. I wanna add this. You said that, which I'm sure is true, that you didn't expect the Pacers to go to the conference finals last year. I did one thing.

I did. I did. I've known how good the Pacers are. Now with that said, I was higher a little bit higher than last year than the than I am this year. I I think the Bucks are gonna be really tough in the first round for the Pacers.

So I'm not as high. I I wish I was a little bit higher, but I think that Bucks series is gonna be really tough because I I wanna ask you I wanna ask you They're gonna ask you Giannis call right now, Brett.

We're, like, they've got Giannis and three shooters and Brook Lopez.

And, yeah, that they can win four out of seven playing that way. Yeah. It's I mean, it I'm not I'm not to say I'm looking forward to it is would be an understatement here.

But, my question to you based on that observation, I think it's completely fair and justified. And I I'm not one of those guys that's, like, gonna try to defend someone else's opinion on this and that.

I I think it's it's a coin flip that can be viewed as a coin flip. But I'm interested based on you being higher on them last year.

What's interesting about the Pacers going into this this run, essentially, the same squad. However, they have the addition of Benedict Matherin coming off the bench who can create his own shot. I mean, there's not a lot of creators.

You've got Giannis, which is his own conversation, but on the on Milwaukee, there's not a ton of creators, more, you know, spot up shooters. But I'm I'm interested in that dynamic from your perspective.

Like, does does the addition of Matherin, enhance maybe what the Pacers are doing, or do you think that maybe slows him down a little bit? No. Mathern is an amazing addition. You also have a great coach.

If if I had to pick any of the 30 teams to if I needed a three point shot and I had five seconds left and I have a sidelines out of bounds play and I need to pick one team to make that shot, I'm picking the Pacers.

I mean, Rick Carlisle draws up these, like, football roots and he has, like, all of the, he's done this play, like, two or three times where, like, you guys need this shot.

And, like, the most recent time he did it, you had these crossing patterns and Halliburton, like, gets the ball in the corner and gets fouled on the on the three point attempt that gets the four point play.

And I think that was to beat the Bucks. It was against the Bucks.

Yeah. Okay. So, like, there's so much like about the Pacers, but the other side of it is that that was the only time the Pacers beat the Bucks this year. The Bucks were pretty dominant against them for the rest of the season.

And, and it's just all about matchups. To me, it's just all about matchups. And I and I think that the Bucks pose a challenge because they're playing so well right now.

But I think if it was the Pacers versus the Celtics, I like the Pacers chances in that matchup. I think, pace I I think the Pacers match up really nicely against the Knicks. I I it's just a matchup thing.

I just think the Bucks playing Giannis' ball right now is is, is a is I I wouldn't want I no matter if it was the Lakers, I anyway, the Bucks are just they're sneaky right now. So and Lillard's been cleared as of this recording.

I don't know if you guys saw that, but Lillard's been cleared. He's off the medication. They've cleared him the thumb thumbrosis. And he won't play in game one, but he's potentially gonna return the middle of the series.

We we dealt with this, Bucks news. Is Giannis playing or not each and every game? So it's the same story this year, but so I'm just gonna deal with it.

But do you know you listen to Bucks fans, and it's like, you've got a segment of them saying they're better without them, and then you've got another segment saying there's no chance better. So it's the whole thing.

They're definitely not better without them. Yeah. Well, the the best part about this, next time we record, they'll likely be a lot of teams eliminated, and we'll be able to focus in on who's still standing tall and playing ball.

But, always fun to dig into, collecting topics heavy on the NBA playoffs, but come on. This is this is look who I'm talking with.

We gotta dig into that. So appreciate everyone tuning in to card ladder confidential, and looking forward to do doing this again, in a few weeks. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Josh. Thanks, buddy. See you.