The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Michael Malone Out in Denver. Plus, Florida’s National Championship Comeback and a Masters Preview With Scott Van Pelt.
Tue, 08 Apr 2025
Russillo starts the show by reacting to the news that the Denver Nuggets have fired coach Michael Malone (1:10). Then, he‘s joined by Scott Van Pelt to recap the NCAA tournament and explain what made Florida so good (12:01). They then dive into the Masters, discussing why Scottie Scheffler is the betting favorite and why Augusta is such a special place (38:08). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle (1:07:56)! Should I have stood for the national anthem at a bar? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Scott Van Pelt Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why Did the Denver Nuggets Fire Coach Michael Malone?
The Denver Nuggets had fired Mike Malone, their head coach, and also will not be extending the general manager, Calvin Booth, with just a handful of games to go and seeding in the West all over the place. It's a civil war up there in Denver. That was the quote that another team had said about the Nuggets to me before the season even started.
Just the way you get on the phone and gossip and what's going on here, what do you think could happen here, and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, that was something that I think a lot of people around the league knew. There's also a conversation because I'm sure some of you would think like, oh, now you tell us the Brian Curtis thing.
But there's also like a responsibility that you have with certain things where you wouldn't just like fire up a Sunday pod with Bill and be like, hey, another team told me it's like you just wouldn't necessarily do that. But now it's all out. It's all out on the table.
And so that was the way the description that was the description of the relationship between Mike Malone and Calvin Booth in the front office and head coach. I don't think this was just about this team being 3-7 in their last 10. I don't think it's just about them being an 11-13 record since the All-Star break. The defensive number is sinking again.
This felt like an untenable situation that apparently had just reached its breaking point and an unprecedented firing of a coach for a team that's still trying to figure out if they have a chance to pull something off here in the playoffs. But it hasn't felt that way, right? You've been watching them lately. I don't know. The two Minnesota games...
Um, even though, you know, the second Minnesota game was, was a double overtime game. So it's not like they necessarily like got smashed like they did in the first game against Minnesota. Um, so the first one really is more revealing perhaps of how they felt about this team, but there's a lot of stuff that we can go through.
Uh, we know that this team has not done enough to build a roster to maximize the best player in the world in Yoke kitchen. He's been the best player in the world for four years. But as much as we can feel that way about not supporting Jokic enough, I'm sure Mike Malone's going, well, you're not doing enough for me either. And I think that's where the disconnect originates from.
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Chapter 2: What Were the Issues Between Michael Malone and Calvin Booth?
So if we go through all the transactions that Calvin Booth has had, this is probably where Malone's going. You cannot build out the rest or the back end of this rotation with second round picks as we let vets leave for bigger money. Now, look, Contavious Caldwell Pope, the money that Orlando paid him, Denver didn't want to pay him. Orlando wanted shooting and defense.
Not sure that they've gotten a full return on their investment. So in a vacuum, not wanting to pay KCP that kind of money, I understand it. But then what are you going to do? And Denver didn't want to do anything.
They didn't want to keep the asset, even though it was going to become really expensive with the luxury tax, which I think is a consistent theme here with the way Denver makes its decisions. So it may not even totally all be on Booth. Bruce Brown's deal.
Well, he was great with them, but they knew when he got a free agency that they were going to be limited in what they could offer him based on the structure of his contract. So they could only offer him $7.8 million in the first year of a new deal. Then they were going to have to do like a four-year extension. Bruce Brown gets offered two years and $45 million.
And the way that was structured, the second year was a $23 million team option that everybody's like, well, that's not going to get picked up. This is like one of those Jabari Parker deals where it's like the first year is huge, and then you'll figure out the rest of it later. Well, because he was involved in like a trade –
He ended up getting the team option picked up, so Bruce Brown made all that money. Denver couldn't pay him that, but then if you're Malone, you're going, okay, fine. We lost an important part of our rotation. I get it. I get the financials. We had no chance. It wasn't like somebody said, hey, we just don't want to pay him, but now what are we going to do? They didn't do anything.
Reggie Jackson got a two year, $10 million deal. Not that big of a deal. It didn't really give them anything during the playoff runs, but they use three second rounders to move them out to what? Save on the tax, which kind of got lost in all the traffic of all of these transactions.
Because if you really dig into that one and they may have gotten a second rounder back, but you're like, what are you dumping all these future? Even if I think second rounders are comically overrated. You're still doing that to get off a lot. It's not that crazy of a number for Reggie Jackson. We go through the draft picks. Strother, don't know. Pickett, don't know. Hunter Tyson, don't know.
Deron Holmes, early, we don't know. Azeek Najee extension, four years, $32 million guaranteed. We're the fourth year as a player option. And he's kind of playing, I guess, because they have to play him.
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Chapter 3: Could Nikola Jokic Be Considering Leaving Denver?
Houston, you're like, all right, who are all these dudes again? You know, and they, they've been on this, this multi-year run with Samson where they're certainly deserving of all the praise and Houston gets up 12. You're like, how do you, how do you come back down 12 in the second half against Houston? And there's just no way you're thinking it's possible. And Florida pulls it off.
Yeah, somebody I saw made the point that you get what they're saying, that being down a dozen to Houston is like being down 50 to another team, right? Like you see, the Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, those SEC teams that are like up 15, down 15, we don't care. We're just going to keep playing like we play, and we're going to score in the 90s, and double-digit leads, kind of like the NBA.
They can evaporate quickly. Against Houston, that's just not how it goes. And so I give Florida a ton of credit for just staying in the fight. Now, a lot of that probably, Ryan, comes from the fact that they don't have to go back too far on the mental Rolodex to go, we're down nine with 251 to go against A&M, right? Auburn had us down a pretty decent number just Keep plugging away.
And you had to think at some point, Clayton's going to score buckets. I believe he didn't make his first basket till there were eight minutes left in the game. And it was an and one. And then he hits a three and like they're chipping away and they're chipping away. And then the thing that really bums me out about it, I love Calvin Sampson.
I love the whole idea of the program and what it's about toughness, the DNA of that. I hate for them that the last three times they had a basketball, they didn't take a shot. That's really going to be hard to live with. You don't get the ball on the rim. For a team, it's as offensive rebounding centric as anyone. They just turned it over three straight times.
And for as much, Ryan, as we talk about the toughness, the defense, and the rebounding of Houston, Florida won that basketball game because they were tough. They guarded and they rebound. They outright, they out rebounded Houston, which I don't know how they did it. Cause the length of Houston at the rims insane. Um, so in retrospect, like Florida was that team. They really were all year.
They, they, that's who they were. They've been as good as anyone and them winning feels like appropriate. But if you tell me they're down a dozen and, and, um, They're just, they're not going to get any points from number one. If Clayton's not going to make a basket, like, well, it's probably going to lose. And somehow, you know, they're in the Riverwalk.
My wife and kids were there, by the way, which is a fun story. They rolled the dice and went. and got a picture of my little guy at 12.50 asleep on the Riverwalk. She's like, little guy left it all in the field. I'm like, what a memory, man, for life. They were in the building, but I didn't see that path being how they got there.
I thought they would make a shit ton of threes and just be who they were, and that's how they'd win that. That was not the script I saw being how Florida got to have a parade.
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Chapter 4: What Made Florida's National Championship Comeback So Remarkable?
There's seven seconds up in the shot clock and you haven't, you thought you were running something, but you're just, you're still out there for 20 seconds. and nothing's happened.
Yeah, I just, the Condon, his, and I get it because Robert's got him a couple of times. And then there's like, they've got seven dudes with length that are going to challenge every shot. And I understand that after a couple come back, you're like, all right, enough of this. But truly, in a game where a bucket I understand threes, we value them more than twos. I can do the math.
But a bucket and a one-point game where Houston's having a hard time scoring, let's take that. And you just saw him, no thanks, no bid on this shot that seemed like point blank. But you know what? On the other end, Ryan, Houston couldn't run anything for the last five minutes. They just looked so bogged down. And again, Florida's got a shit ton of length too.
And they got four or five guys that they just, you know, run them in. So, I mean, I loved it. There was somebody at some point made about like the number of five stars on the floor, which was zero. And, you know, Florida's found guys from all over the place, some from the portal, some internationally, this and that. Famously, we know that Clayton, he was heavy at Iona and blah, blah, blah.
He's turned into something different. But Houston, Roberts is a sixth-year guy, and the line from that Duke game about what Sampson said is, we trusted our grown-up against their teenager. And that wasn't being disrespectful. That's what it was. This is an adult. He's a 24-year-old man. And Cooper Flagg's the number one pick, and he's awesome.
But in a gotta-have-it moment, we're like, we're going to trust this man. And it felt like it was all men out there last night. And it wasn't pretty necessarily. And again, I think you feel cheated as a fan. You just want to see the ball in the air. And I feel so bad for Sharp because he was great for them all year. He hit the biggest shot of that Duke game, I thought, down six.
He had to hit a three and he had the patience to find the window to shoot it. But man, he turned it over twice in the last 30 seconds. It's like, I don't know, man. I imagine that'll stick with a young man until he's an old man.
Yeah, I don't care who you are. It's weird when you feel incredibly bad for somebody you don't know and likely will never meet. And I'm sitting in the hotel room watching a game. And I'm just wondering, like, once Cryer got stuck on the other side, You're like, okay, this is bad. Got to go. Yeah, like, okay, now this could get a little ugly.
And I thought there were some possessions there where you want to be fair because there's even times against Houston where I thought Hauk got deep. And there's been versions of him where I've seen him more aggressive with his shot. And I think it's back to kind of some of the Houston stuff we were talking about.
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Chapter 5: Who Stood Out in the NCAA Tournament and What Are Their NBA Prospects?
there was a contest. He was in the right corner and he basically had to find a way to clear the contest. So he just kind of moved his body to the right. We're talking about the same one. Yeah. I'm talking about the same way. Now he was clearly frustrated last night. Cause he took a quarter three in the left on a closer. What the hell are you doing, dude?
Like what, what that was one of the worst shots of the entire game. And he was DB was, he was clearly frustrated. Then it seemed like he didn't want to shoot at all. I, So we know the playbook.
And if you were working for an NBA team and you were sitting there banging the table saying, hey, this guy has it, then there'd be somebody else being like, do you know how many times we've been burnt as an NBA team talking about a college guy who's older saying, hey, this guy has it. But I do think that his...
his shot making is like the full palette of shooting as opposed to just, Hey, he has a good three point shooting percentage. So I do think he has a chance, but it may be, it may be now that it's getting like, it's like when I liked Evan Turner and then it was like, Evan Turner was going to be a top five pick. I was like, geez, I liked him, but this is not a difference between liking him and top.
I hear you. I just, I think, I don't know. Anytime there's a smallish guard that I kind of have to squint to see what, what other people see, or I don't see it at all. Like I, I feel like, well, I didn't know Brunson was going to be this either.
And I don't, I don't think anybody did, but then to, to just compare them to a guy that becomes a true all-star and a, and a face of a franchise in New York city, that's a big stretch too. I just, I just like watching the game. I thought I love college basketball and, And I love this final four because these teams felt worthy.
And then the games kind of lived up to it, but I don't, it doesn't trouble me if these guys don't translate to the next level because they're that sometimes those can be different things. Often they're different things, but I, I don't know.
I just was curious what you thought, like the, the how kids a fun story just because I happened and he was on my radar several years ago, just because he was this guy that Northwestern was looking at. And then he visited marital visited Maryland and, And they thought maybe they were going to get him. But then he had this affinity for Florida and they called. That was the end of that.
But I didn't... Look, two years ago, I don't think Golden knew he was going to become a guy that had... the ability to really floor it, get to the rim and score, obviously shoot threes, but then play defense and challenge. I mean, he had some big time block that turned into an and one when the game really started to swing. I don't know.
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Chapter 6: Why Is Scottie Scheffler the Favorite at the Masters?
And then in the beginning, it's like, all right, yeah, nice. They have hope that you're going to play this great round. And I'm in that fucking sand. And it's not the sand trap. It's the shit on the sides that you're allowed to practice swing out of. And so the first few times, I'm like, I'm going to. I was like, I think I can clear this. I can get a hold of this guy.
He's like, absolutely, you can get a hold of this. Next thing you know, you're flushing the iron right into one of those mounds. And you think your wrist is broken. And then even if you got it out, now it's just in the sand trap.
It's the native area, I believe they called it.
The native area. Yeah. Well, I would like to be deported from that area. Understood. Yeah. So, look, that was rough. Look, there's a reason why I wanted to bring this up. And it wasn't for us to do story time, which I hope people don't mind too much. But now that I've played some courses and you understand, like, this was the concept. This was the setup, right? This is why this place is a layup.
This is why this place is so fucking hard. What is it about Augusta and the way it sets up for guys that is unique to the place? We talking routing here?
No, I know what you mean. No, it's the genius of the place is, and you've been here so you can speak to it, just it's immaculate, it's perfect, it's pristine. Everything feels almost make-believe. But the thing that I've heard going back to...
way back when I started with players from like literally at this point, another generation and then to Tiger and then all the guys that have chased Tiger is that if you understand how to play it, it's very playable. But if you're fractionally off and if you don't know where to miss and you miss in the places where you can't miss, you're doomed.
And so it's a process of learning what to do and how to do it. And then it's a matter of executing. Rory McIlroy arrives, as you and I talk early week, he knows exactly what he can and cannot do. The question then is, can he do it? And I think that it's the ultimate kingmaker course because you're a forever player. Like I was talking about Jenkins as a forever player in the tournament, right?
And Sharp had a chance to maybe be one. You win here and you're a forever guy. And it's because of what it asks of you. And you can't kind of fake your way to it. And yet there have been guys that have one incredible moment. Charles Schwartzel goes bananas on the second nine. Danny Willett goes bananas on the second nine. And it's a place where those guys have...
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Chapter 7: What Makes Augusta National Golf Club So Unique?
And I can only hear his words and his voice about talking about putting on a green jacket that reminds a man of who he was all those years ago. And you're like, get goosebumps, right? Like when you were the best version of yourself. And that's what this place does. So it's the course, yes. Yellowstone season eight. Huh? Yellowstone season eight. Yeah, it's along those lines.
He's up there on the gulch, right? What'd you say? Some line about some shooter. I remember some of them.
about a gulch or something no we i we used to do this stupid brett farve impersonation that was it and then it wasn't even brett farve anymore so then all we would say is like terrain references like he's up on uh he's up on the ridge there and i don't even know what we were doing no i don't either like here here comes far but he's pondering his next move up on the crescent
He's out there by Fiddler's Gulch. That's better. I like Fiddler's Gulch better. I don't know.
Anyway, that's right, Thompson, talking about the mythology of the place. So, yeah, it's the course. Yeah, it's the fact that you can, right now, if you've watched this at all, and I say, ninth hole, and you go, yeah, you got to hit it down there at the bottom of the hill, then you hit it, and then there's the, that hole's got like three different, distinct tiers.
And if you're short, you're going to roll back down the hill and you're kind of screwed. Like you just know the holes and in ways you probably don't about other golf courses. So I don't know. Maybe I'm overstating it because I've been here so much, but I don't think so.
I think there's probably plenty of people listening that they just nod their head and go, yep, I know what every hole out there looks like.
that actually is i think the best explanation that i've ever heard about like because people have knocked it not knocked it but whether you had the tiger part of it where you know early on we're going back 25 years ago like this course can't contain this dude right and then you had bryson talk about it being a par 67 years ago comes out of the gates i think he shot a 65 and then he think he was over par the rest of the way and everybody's like
very protective of the place. Like how dare you, you know, this blasphemous statement heading into this. So I, I think for people that don't really understand that, and I put myself into that group, it's like, okay, but like some places are long or some places are narrow and some places, and it's like, is it any of those things?
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Chapter 8: What Are Rory McIlroy's Chances at the Masters This Year?
Someone who you're like, man, I want this guy to get a jacket more than anybody.
I think probably Rory for the reasons that I spoke to earlier. There's plenty of guys. Justin Rose is a guy that could have slash should have won here, who's an awesome, awesome human. And I've said often that when your chance presents itself here, you better take it. Because if you don't, then you're Scott Hoke on the other side of the ropes. You're Ernie Els that had a chance.
You're David Duvall who was sitting in the Butler cabin watching and they said, oh, don't worry, nobody ever makes this putt when Marco Mera was on 18 because they think it's going to be a playoff. Then he buries it like, sorry, we're going to need to have you go because Mark's going to come in here and put the jacket on. The chance when the window's there,
you just have to hope that you can slip both arms in it because if you don't, you have no idea if the opportunity presents itself again. And Rory's never been that close. You know, he stood on the tee on 10 famously, and then it all went wrong. Uh, I just think in the sport for who he has been to the sport, um, to win would be, it just would feel entirely appropriate.
And it would feel like the end of a chapter in the book that would allow him the ability to put that book up and then just work on the rest of another book, a different book that doesn't include chasing this. So that would be, that'd be my guy. I'd like to see Rory for that reason.
Our favorite HOMA. I know it's been a bit of a struggle in comparison. I mean, last year he was just playing so well. Do you think it's a matter of him clearing his hips?
I think it's probably tempo, Ryan. I think it's tempo, and then you really want to dig that left heel in. You tell me, what did you learn at Pinehurst?
I learned what not to do. I learned, you know what's funny is the guys in the group, the only guys, I mean, we had a guy shoot a 79, another guy shot an 82. On two? On two, yeah. Yeah, these guys could play. One guy didn't even bring, he left the villa and left his driver in his bedroom. He's like, I'm not even giving myself the option. I'm not hitting this today.
And then the other guy that I think that shot the 82 didn't.
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