New Orleans Pelicans : Swamp Dreams, Soaring Disappointments (Ep. 10)

Welcome back to Misery Sports Co. The only company where productivity is low, morale is lower and the only thing we’re reinvesting in is disappointment. That’s right. Where you’re overworked, under-resourced executives of emotional collapse. I’m Zach and I’m Trevor. And here at Misery Sports Co our teams may never win, but our therapy bills always do. Ah, yes they do. Every week we clock in, open the spreadsheet of suffering and review another fiscal quarter of pure sports misery. Last time we spent uh, last week, we spent time in the break room and took a look at Nico. Harrison gave our thoughts on the GM position and wondered if they cared about us at all. I don’t I don’t think they do. To be frank, I think that’s where we ended. They don’t care about us. Uh, but maybe they’ll start to. This week, we’ll be back to our regular deep dive segment brought to you by Zach. But before we begin, let’s clock a mandatory training video from our first sponsor. Why, yes. This first segment is going to be brought to you by Jameis Winston’s YOLO decision lab, studying the art of saying, screw it, someone’s down there since twenty fourteen. Thank you James. I freaking love him. So thanks Jameis I do too, which is weird because I didn’t think I would get to the point where I do, but I really do. I really love him because it was him and Marcus that came out that same year, and he went first to the Bucs and uh, gosh dang it, I still love him. Yeah. And he had, uh, you know, the full Jameis Winston experience this week. He started for the New York Giants. He had a touchdown where he had a quarterback sneak in a really awesome celebration. And then uh had the back breaking interception with about 30s left in the game. So that is the Jameis Winston experience. That was that was a terrible route by that receiver, though. He just stopped running. It was it made it way worse. That was a bad route, putting our boy Jamison a bad spot. Well, thanks, Jamison. And your, uh, your YOLO balls. We love you, buddy. All right, with that, let’s head to the weekly earnings report. Where the numbers are ugly, the trends are worse, and the auditor just flat out refuses to make eye contact. That’s right. And I will go around to some of my sports teams. We’ll start with the Blue Jackets. Uh, they lost again last night. Um, still kind of middling, right? You’re in that weird space where you’re not completely garbage, but you’re just in the middle. You’re not going to probably go to the playoffs. You’re not going to get a great draft pick. You’re just in purgatory. It’s the worst place to be. Yeah it is. Completely agree. Cavs are doing alright. Looks like they lost to the rockets tonight. So we’re just going to continue the uh the losing streak. Uh let them live. It’s the NBA regular season. I mean, the first half is essentially preseason. And then we get to the main course, which is once again the Cleveland Browns. So the Cleveland Browns hosted the Baltimore Ravens. Uh, Myles Garrett had four sacks in this game. Mercy for mercy. He’s already had a game where he had five sacks. So he had four sacks and we lost. So Dylan Gabriel um ended up getting knocked out of the game. Um, he was seven for ten for sixty eight yards. It’s not bad. But uh, yeah, he got he got concussed. And so should Dr. Sanders came in and, um, he had a great game. He went four for sixteen, uh, forty seven yards and an interception. Um, didn’t look prepared at all. Uh, it was just another typical Browns loss at this point. Right. So you do all the right things on defense. It doesn’t matter. Um, every, every back breaking play that you could imagine happens in these games, and so you have to play a perfect game. We did not. We are just marching our way to the number one. Number two pick. Chill. You chill. You can take number two and it’ll be fine. But you got to see cheddar. What’d you think? Uh, he was not great. So it looked like someone who’s never practiced with the starting team. Um, which is exactly the case. They’ve never given him any practice reps with the receivers he was throwing to. Um, he did his patented. I’m going to try to break out of the pocket. I’m going to go all the way back and take a sack. So, um, you know, he’s got a full week this week. He’s going to be practicing with the first team, and he should start this week, um, against another two and eight team, the Las Vegas Raiders. So we’ll see. Actually, uh, I think this will be a good measuring stick because we’re both just hot garbage, especially on offense. That Raiders offense is terrible. Yeah. So bad. Yes it is so. Trevor, how’d your portfolio perform? Um, yeah, mostly. Mostly the same. This was another one of those weeks where I sat down to jot some notes down about the recap, and I genuinely could not remember what happened. Like the memory of Titans football. Just. I had already left it. Send it out of my mind. I was in a happier place. And then I had to re remember that we lost to the C.J. Stroud Texans sixteen to thirteen, and what has to be one of the ugliest football games in the history of humanity. Honestly, our sport, whatever sport we’ve been playing since caveman times, I think this takes the cake. Like before, forward passes were a thing like, this is still the ugliest game of all time. Uh, for several reasons. First, would it surprise you to know that our top three wide receivers got hurt all in the same game, our top three wide receivers. Now, mind you, our top three receivers are like a number two and then two number four on other teams. Like we’re already talentless when it comes to that position. And all three of them got hurt. So cam was throwing to practice squatters uh, for most of the game. Calvin Ridley broke his fibula, so that dude’s done. Yeah, he’s, uh. I think he’s played his last game as a titan. So add him. You know, the meme where they’re all welcoming people to heaven, and we’ve got, like, Randy Moss, and we’ve got Julio Jones up there. So like another Tyler Lockett’s up there, another washed old receiver just stopping by the Titans saying, hey, before they go off to football heaven. Uh, we gave up two hundred and seventy four yards to Davis F-ing Mills two hundred and seventy four yards to that guy. Yikes. A little fun blast from the past. Uh, Nick Chubb is on the Texans. He only had seventeen yards on three carries, but I still have my Nick Chubb Browns jersey, which I conned the NFL into giving me after I bought a thirty dollars OBJ jersey. Uh, and sent it in. I, I still really like it because he got traded right. So he got traded. So you got the opportunity to trade in your your jersey. He did through the Jersey insurance program or something. I was like I don’t know. Can I have a Nick Chubb jersey. And they’re like yeah sure. That’s fine. Um, honestly, you know, like we’ve talked about at this point, you just want to see signs of hope from cam, uh, with our absolute dog crap offensive line. And I saw signs of hope. He only got sacked three times, which it’s sad that that’s progress, but it is. Um. The Titans were up three to zero at half. That’s how ugly this football game was. Our first possession out of half time. Cam had a really nice drive. And we had fourth and two from the Houston twenty eight. And you know what we did interim Mike doesn’t want to lose that job. So he said okay kick the field goal. So we went up six zero and then immediately gave up a touchdown. And we’re down seven six. Um, just like what’s the point. You have nothing to lose. Just go for it all the time. It’s it’s the twenty eight yard line. You gave up zero points in the first half. Like just go for it. Uh, more, more cowardly coaching is just driving me crazy. Uh, cam had a really nice drive with three thirty five left, uh, to get a game tying touchdown in two minutes. A really nice forty yard throw. Uh, had a nice fifteen yard scramble. So, like, there were signs. There was absolutely signs. Our right tackle is booty and had three false starts in the first two drives at home. Drives me nuts. Absolutely nuts. It’s just unforced. Like there’s no reason to commit those. It’s the first drive of the game and he had two false starts. Uh, but what are you going to do after. You know, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do after tying it up, thirteen, thirteen. You know, we’re going to do we’re going to let them convert on a third and sixteen to kick a game winning field goal. That’s what we’re going to do. So more kicks to the crotch part with these. That’s a hard part with these games is with the Browns and the Titans. It’s so hard to tell how good our quarterback is doing because it’s a miracle of God to get a play that is successful. The offensive line is either going to let someone through and they’re going to get crushed, or they’re going to deliver a beautiful ball, and the wide receiver is just not going to catch the ball. And so it’s like, I don’t really know what I’m seeing here. I think you’re okay. Like you said cam Ward, you’re looking good. The rest of the team just needs to get way better just everywhere if we can, if we can find like seven starters in this next draft, I think we’re going to be. I think we’re super solid, really good shape. If we can just do that. And it’s already starting the debate of do you keep spending these high picks on offensive line? Because it’s not like we haven’t tried. We’re just really bad at it. And I swear if we draft another Alabama offensive lineman, I’m going to scream like the book is out on offensive lineman from Alabama. Stay away. Okay. That’s not it doesn’t work. So just stay away. We have tried it several times. It didn’t work. Um, you know, do we do we keep investing or do we go edge rusher or do we somehow I saw you know, I’m already looking at mock drafts. I was looking at mock drafts like week three. It didn’t take me long. I lost hope quick. And, uh, you know, Titans, I feel confident, Zach, that we’re going to have the top pick. I feel very confident. More confident than I have felt about anything Titans related in a very long time. Myles Garrett had how many sacks this past week? Four. Okay I’m here to tell you he’s putting up half a dozen when they play the Titans later this year. And at least half a dozen he’s gonna set the single game sack record. I don’t know what it is but he’s going to set it just he’s gonna absolutely feast. So I’m confident that the Titans will have the top pick. I would love to see us trade down I guess the I didn’t really think the quarterback class was that great, but people really love Mendoza. They really love, um, uh, the kid from, um, Alabama. So, like, I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t hate Simpson. Um, there’s just a lot of unknowns because, you know, this is the first full season for Mendoza. Like with actual competition. Um, Simpson looks good in the SEC. Yeah, I agree, trade down if you can. It sounds also like this draft is just horrible for offensive linemen, which is exactly what the Browns need. So we’re going to draft just a super average player who doesn’t even want to play for us. Mhm. Um, actually, so it’s funny you say that. Uh jedrick Wills was from freaking Alabama. He was their right tackle for Cleveland. He didn’t even sign another contract. He was a first round pick I think, if not second round. And at the end of his career, he started pulling himself himself out of a game for business decisions. He literally said, this is a business decision. So I agree, there’s no Alabama offensive line allowed in the in the Cleveland Browns locker room. That’s business. Did he just do the like Johnny Manziel money sound like a coach. Sorry. Good luck with that stupid. He is still not signed. So clearly he doesn’t want to play the game of football. But oh my god let him live. Yeah let him live. Um, Mavs. The vibes are better now that Niko’s gone. The on court product is not better. I am getting the full d-lo experience. Good golly, what a ride. It’s just been all over the place. Um, great for Ohio State when he was at Ohio State. He was awesome. Yeah. Loved it. NBA not so much. No. And he will he will have stretches where you’re like, I get it, I see it, this is amazing. And then immediately following that stretch, he will not pass for four straight possessions and score one point. So like mm it’s really frustrating. But it is what it is. At least Nico’s not there. And the stars unfortunately the five game win streak came to an end last night. They scored with one second left to tie the game, but it was disallowed on a questionable, questionable goalie interference call where I think our guy got pushed into the goalie. But what do I know? It’s kind of like a catch in the NFL at this point. The general consensus among fans is nobody knows what goalie interference is anymore. It’s just whatever they decide, whatever they decide. So fun times. Surprise. More shockingly poor performances. Once again, Investor confidence gone. Stock valuation in freefall. Emotional return on investment. Negative shock. Let’s try to stabilize this market with a message from our next sponsored catastrophe. This next segment of the Misery Sports Company podcast is brought to you by Paul Pierce’s Emergency wheelchair. Have you ever been minding your own business at work? And all of a sudden that bubble gut hits you because you ordered cheese enchiladas topped with more cheese, even though the waiter was like, are you sure? And you basically had to double down like, yes, I’m sure, and then clean the plate to prove a point. Now things are happening down there and you try and float an air biscuit, but it’s more than you bargained for. Well, hey, just tap the app on your phone that says the truth and start grabbing your knee in pain, and instantly a wheelchair will appear and you’ll be whisked away to thunderous applause with Paul Pierce’s emergency wheelchair. He’s not. I don’t feel like he’s ever denied it either. No, that’s the weird part. No, he has not out there. And I swear my memory is like he told the story once and then like, immediately was like, oh, you know, stories, but didn’t come out and say, like, I was joking. And so, like, what else are we supposed to believe? You know, I’m pretty sure that happened. Oh, goodness. Well, thank you so much, Paul Pierce, for your wheelchair. I hope I never have to use it in that way, but let’s head down to the mail room where the floor is sticky, the envelopes are soggy, and the tweets are somehow worse. Trevor, what was stuck to the bottom of your inbox this week? I’ve got three submissions for the mail room this week. I am going to start with bluff. I’m guessing black seven thinks bluff. Uh, very just bluntly says everything about the Tennessee Titans franchise is an embarrassment to the sport of football. I totally agree. Thank you. Bluff. Uh, Shawn Foss points out on Twitter, uh, points out an interesting stat that contextualizes some of Tennessee’s offensive struggles. Says it’s hard to pile up tackles when the other team isn’t running the ball. Only the Bengals have fewer rushing attempts per game than the Titans. Tennessee also has been trailing on the scoreboard for just over seventy eight percent of their offensive plays this season. Good gracious. But finally, my winner. My top submission for the mail room this week is from Cornelius Ferguson on Twitter. Who? Really? Cornelius, you belong at MSK. Listen to this. All kids pick good teams as their favorite. As kids and I bandwagon Tennessee teams in pre-K in ninety seven ninety eight. I stuck with them all these years and neither has been since I the day I joined them. The Titans and the Vols. I feel that in my soul, you get stuck with these teams as a kid and you just have to stick with them. Hey, props to him for for continuing to fight through. He’s got a spot at Missouri Sports Co that’s for sure. That absolutely props to him Zach what’s clogging up on your side of the shoot. So I actually have two. Uh one is from Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. So he had his press conference. And um Jalen Ramsey ended up getting ejected actually because he got into a fight with Jamar Chase. Mhm. As it turns out after the game there was additional video. And Jamar Chase actually spit in his face. And so this was Mike Tomlin’s response to a question about how a player should react to being spit at. You know, I have no message if someone spits in your face. Do what comes natural. I you know what? He’s a head coach for the Steelers, my arch nemesis. I freaking respect this guy so much. He’s just like, well, someone spits in your face. Just throw hands like I don’t. What do you do? Like, what do you do? Remember, there was like, two weeks where people were like, I don’t know, I think the Steelers are going to fire him or try and trade him. All of Titans Nation was praying to whatever gods you believe in to please Mike Tomlin come stabilize this franchise. I would sign him to a lifetime contract right now. He one hundred percent respect him so much. He’s like Mike Vrabel. I mean, he just instills a culture. It’s toughness. It’s discipline, it’s accountability. It’s it’s stuff like that. It’s like, hey, if someone spits in your face, like punch them, like you’re allowed to do whatever you want at that point. This is football. Like that’s way outside of the lines of what’s allowed. And so I appreciate a coach that is upfront, is honest and is very quick to the point, like, okay, what? Why are you asking me this question? Absolutely. Um, but my my winner here is another brown stat. Um, it actually comes from at Stool gambling, which sounds like a stool softener, but it’s barstool gambling. Browns QBs in their first career start have never won in the history since nineteen ninety nine. Since the return, they have had seventeen quarterbacks in their first start lose zero and seventeen. Shedeur Sanders did not technically have the loss last week because Dillon Gabriel started. That’s right. He will now try to break this curse this week. Ah. It’s good. I think it’s gonna be okay. No, it’s gonna happen. Uh, I don’t know. That’s a lot, man. That is a lot. Uh, beautiful. Chaotic. Concerning. It’s pretty much our brand. That’s right. So let’s see which, uh, which sponsor forgot to opt out this week for our next segment? This is sponsored by Lane Kiffin’s. Trick play Tinder. Swipe right for gadget plays, trick punts and reverses. Guaranteed to confuse everyone, including your quarterback. Vote for Joey O Lane. Thankfully. Well, not thankfully, because it’s still not dead yet. You’ve seen all the chatter connecting him to the Titans this week, I assume. No I haven’t, yes, it’s I’m telling you, that is all I’ve seen. So like there’s been the always going to go to Florida or, you know, Ole Miss is giving him an ultimatum to commit or whatever. And so many people are running with Lane Kiffin to the Titans. I don’t want that. Oh man. That’s like Sark. That’s like Steve Sarkisian from Texas. That’s not that. You’ve been trying to put that evil on me for weeks now. Don’t you say that will be his offensive coordinator. We don’t know. No we don’t know. My god. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That amazing offense against Georgia that went super well. Yeah. Well it’s time to step into the office of Moral Victories where performance reviews are meaningless and the bar is on the floor. That’s right. My employee of the week this week is former Ohio State wide receiver Jackson Smith and Gigaba. He has set a new NFL record, having at least seventy five yards receiving in the first ten games of this season. In ten games, he’s already eclipsed his seventeen game total from last year. He is, uh, just over eleven hundred yards with five touchdowns and has just been an absolute stud. And I know Ohio State has had just this absolutely insane run of wide receivers. Just absolutely crazy. And I feel like Jason sort of, uh, gets lost in that a little bit. Um, but he was an absolute stud, and I just, I had to know because I had, like, sort of half remembered memory or dreams of, like the Rose Bowl against Utah. So I went and looked it up in that game against Utah. He had three hundred and forty seven yards receiving with three touchdowns, and he would have had another. But he fumbled into the end zone like halfway through the game. But he would have had another. He just absolutely lit the world on fire that day. C.J. Stroud had five hundred and seventy three yards passing and six touchdowns. It was just stupid. We lost him for the the next season. So he was actually injured. He got injured in the Notre Dame game. It was like the second game of the season and he never came back. So it was just Marvin Harrison. He I mean he was better than Marvin Harrison in my opinion. And clearly he’s showing it. No disrespect to to Harrison. But I mean what could have been playing Georgia that year and having you know Jason with Marvin Harrison. Like he’s just a problem. He’s really good at getting open. He makes yards after catch like he’s fantastic and he’s so good. He’s such a there’s so many Ohio State wide receivers right now. And obviously we’re homers. But it’s just like just draft a Buckeye wide receiver I mean go after Carnell Tate this year. Like it’s just you’re going to have production. Absolutely. They look so great. So shout out to you Jason. keep doing your thing. We are proud of you. My employee of the week. You know, I’m actually going to stick with the Browns. I typically don’t do this after a loss. But Myles Garrett with four sacks again. So through ten games Trevor he has fifteen sacks fifteen I think the sack records twenty two and a half. So he’s got seven. Yeah he’s got seven games to do basically eight sacks. He’s going to get that in the Titans game. Dude. If he just played one game one more game this season he would be fine. And then everybody would be like yes, he gets the record because he only played. I know we’re in seventeen games now, but my God what a stud. Yeah, I mean we’re uh, we’re looking at I don’t even know when the Titans are there a few games down the road, but that could be the the clincher there. We don’t know. It will be. Um, and but Strahan’s last sack on, was it Brett Favre? It was somebody. It was. So he went down. Yeah. They let him through. Myles Garrett doesn’t have to do that against the Titans. Oh he’s getting he’s getting doubled and triple teamed every single play. And he still got four sacks. He had five sacks in one game this season as well. He’s just he’s ridiculous. Jeez. Um and then I wanted to shout out. So it’s kind of just random, but the Panthers are six and five. I know we’ve, you know, thrown some shade at their QB Bryce Young, but six and five and the bears are seven and three. Like shout out to the Panthers and the bears. Yeah they’re getting it done Missouri Sports Hall of shame if you will. But like they’re producing and we applaud that. We like to see that. Yes. Chicago’s coach Ben Johnson is what the Titans thought Brian Callahan was going to be. And that was a huge mistake. So I’m glad Ben Johnson’s working out. He’s great. Yeah. And it shows you that you know a QB you know like Caleb Williams can go from really bad one year to pretty good the next year. Enough to go seven and three at this point. So shout out to those teams. Keep on keeping on. Congratulations to all the honorees. Your awards will be framed, forgotten, and immediately lost in his inbox. All right, let’s move into this week’s Deep dive, our investigative department, where we take a long, unflinching, unflinching look at a tortured fan base. This week, we will be examining, drumroll, please, the New Orleans Pelicans. Oh, from the NBA. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. So this is a really interesting story. There’s so many different versions of this team. Um, so officially they are founded in two thousand and two, which seems really early, but they actually treated it as an expansion team in the NBA. Um, so this team actually originated from the New Orleans Hornets is what they were previously called, um, which was the Charlotte Hornets at the time. So they relocated in two thousand and two. And we’ll get to that. So a little bit of history about basketball in New Orleans, uh, nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy, they were the New Orleans Buccaneers. That was a professional team. Um, they ended up relocating to Memphis, uh, nineteen seventy four. They gave him an expansion franchise, the New Orleans Jazz. Okay, that makes sense. All the sense in the world. All of the Saints eventually relocated to Salt Lake City in nineteen seventy nine, where they changed the name. Surely the Utah Jazz. It doesn’t make sense there, which we will get back. We will get back to that, which is really funny. But during that time, right in the seventies, when it was in New Orleans, they actually had Pistol Pete Maravich I found during that time. So there was some some level of history here for a while. They just didn’t have a professional team in the nineties. Nineteen ninety four Minnesota wanted to relocate, so the Timberwolves wanted to move to New Orleans. But the league said no. Your financial situation sucks. You have to stay in Minnesota. Minnesota just has to eat it. Jeez. So sorry Minnesota. But now it’s paying off. That’s true. Yeah, they’re in a good way. Yeah. So in the nineties, um, the Charlotte Hornets at the time were pretty competitive. Um, they were doing pretty well. They had a pretty good team. Um, but their owner, George Shinn, um, was just not a great human being. So he actually, uh, what went on trial for sports team owner is not a great human being. Shut up. He went on trial for sexual assault or sexual abuse. Uh, was ultimately acquitted, but reputation completely tarnished. Um, And he thinks, hey, I should probably leave Charlotte. That seems like a good idea. Um, so he looked at. Okay. Memphis in two thousand and one. Yeah. So it was between the Charlotte Hornets and the Vancouver Grizzlies. Uh, he lost. Okay. He looked at he he looked at Saint Louis. He said, I gotta get out of here. Give me Saint Louis. Uh, didn’t work out. Shocker. No, I don’t think. Has there ever been a Saint Louis franchise in the NBA? Not that I know of. Not that I know of. Yeah. I mean, the NFL peaced out the NBA, I don’t think has ever been there. I don’t understand that. Maybe they maybe they had like an ABA team back in the day. But I don’t I don’t remember an NBA team. Yeah I it just doesn’t make sense. So in two thousand and two the NBA approved um their move the Charlotte move to New Orleans. So they became the New Orleans Hornets at that point. And the NBA promised Charlotte an expansion team, which became the Charlotte Bobcats. That’s a whole other story. Probably worth a deep dive. Horrible history with that franchise. Michael Jordan was the owner. Maybe he still is. It’s just bad. Um, so their first season, right when they’re in New Orleans, they actually had a pretty decent start. They went to the playoffs. They were forty seven and thirty five. Um, those first two seasons they make it to the playoffs. But its first round exits, which becomes a theme. Um, the biggest mistake that I think this ownership group team, whoever made was in two thousand and four when they went to the Western Conference. So they were originally in the East. Things were easy in the in the early two thousand, I’ll tell you that much with LeBron. Like, yeah, you had the Pistons eventually the Celtics. But it was not a deep conference. And you remember it differently because you were on the western side during that time. Yep. That’s right. Yeah, yeah. So big mistake. They went eighteen and sixty four that year. Good. They’ve had some success here and there. And in two thousand and five I think their biggest win was drafting Chris Paul. So they they drafted Chris Paul. Um yeah. Number four. Yeah. But actually during that time they had to move from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina for two years and had to play their games at Oklahoma City. So they were the OKC slash New Orleans Hornets during that time. Um, and that was Chris Paul’s first few years actually with the team. Really strange situation. Wow. Um, so they returned in in two thousand and seven back to New Orleans, got the NBA all star game. Um, and actually had some pretty good seasons around that time. oh seven oh eight, they went fifty six and twenty six, won the division, beat the Mavericks and lost to the Spurs in the conference semis. Um, I’m sure Chris Paul just pick and rolled you to death. Um, as he would. Yep, yep. And then twenty ten wasn’t Rick Carlisle coaching there during that time? I, I think it was Alvin Gentry. Oh that’s right. There was like yeah there was like Alvin Gentry. And then there were, there were a couple of well, well respected coaches during that time. They just couldn’t get over the hump. Um, another really weird situation in twenty ten, they got bought by the NBA. Do you remember that when they got purchased, she literally sold the team to the NBA and stern. And if you remember, they tried to trade Chris Paul to the Lakers. That’s what I remember is them trying to trade Chris Paul and then being like no, we’re gonna step in and say, nope. Because yeah, Mavericks fans were like, what do we have to do to get a Chris Paul situation around this Luka thing? Like, are they can they step in and be like, this is dumb. Exactly. And so we were in college, that news came down and we were like, what are you talking about? How do you just deny a trade? And it seemed like a decent trade. So Chris Paul goes to the Clippers. That era ends. No championships, just a lot of first round exits. Twenty twelve they get acquired by Tom Benson and his wife I believe her name is Gail is now the owner. Another interesting thing Tom Benson owns the Saints and he just bought at the time the New Orleans Hornets. So he owns New Orleans Sports. At this point, I didn’t even know that was a thing. Yeah. Um, this is where some of the, uh, the NBA, I don’t know, deep dive into is the. Is the draft rigged in twenty twelve? They end up getting Anthony Davis with the number one pick. So they won the lottery. They get Anthony Davis. People think it’s just because of all the the stern stuff right. Messing with trades doing this that or the other. We’ll never know. We’ll never know. Um, but this is right around the time when they renamed to the New Orleans Pelicans. So the brown pelican is the state bird of Louisiana. And so that’s what they went with. And this is where it ties back into Utah. He first approached the Utah Jazz and said bro give me my name back. Good. There’s no jazz in Utah. There isn’t. No, no. Uh, so Utah, Utah abstinence or something like the jazz just makes no sense in Utah. Yeah, the Utah Mormons, I don’t know. Yeah. Um. so Utah politely declined. Uh, at the time, the ownership group really liked the New Orleans brass and the New Orleans crew. K e w e allegedly. I, I can’t imagine that they put that out into anything public, but it was reported. Um, so again, they rebrand. And the other interesting thing is, right at the same time, the Charlotte Bobcats are like, we hate this franchise. We hate our name. We’re going back to the Hornets. Yep. And New Orleans just gave them back all the history. So they said nineteen eighty eight to two thousand and two. Here you go Charlotte. You get all this. They’re real. They’re real. These records it was harder for Utah to do that because they had the Karl Malone Stockton days where it was like they’re tied to the jazz, whereas they’re like, well, it’s been crap here. So like, you can have you can have it all this back. It’s totally fine. We’re looking to move anyways, but there are real ones for that. That’s cool. Yeah, so they’re considered an expansion franchise starting in two thousand and two. Some of the the players that they’ve drafted like or traded for, they’ve acquired some talent. So they had DeMarcus cousins at one point. Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram was pretty good. Yeah Josh Hart with the Knicks pretty solid. Jrue Holiday he was with the Celtics. He went elsewhere. Solid player. Tyreke Evans was okay. And now they’ve landed on Zion Williamson. So they took Zion with the number one pick I just don’t understand Zion at all Trevor. Um he’s he’s always out of shape or getting injured. Something’s going on. He has incredible talent. But again it’s one of those picks that just it doesn’t seem like it’s working out. I hope it does. Mhm. Um. Well okay. The Zion draft. The New Orleans had the same percentage chance to get that pick as Dallas did, because I remember thinking when they moved up like, oh my gosh, that could have been the Mavs. Like, think what would have happened if we got Zion like, this would be amazing. And now you look back on it. It’s like, thank God we didn’t like Draft Zion because it’s just been an exercise in frustration because like you said, the talent is there. Just the drive to condition and chase after the greatness that he clearly could achieve if he wanted to just doesn’t seem to be there. Oh yeah. Yeah, he is physically imposing when he is healthy, when he is in shape. He’s an incredible athlete. Mhm. So we’ll see. Um looking at you know just the last twenty three seasons they’ve been in existence eight hundred and fifty two wins, nine hundred and ninety eight losses. Uh so not great last season was bad twenty one and sixty one. Uh, they’ve made it to the playoffs nine times out of those nine times. First round exits in seven of those playoff trips. When was the last time they made it? That is a good question. It was recently, I would say, in the last two to three years. Okay. Um, it feels like a long time, but just because they probably they’ve been so bad lately. Yeah, I’ll have it for you. So they made it? Yeah. Two years ago, twenty, twenty three, twenty four. Uh, they lost to the Thunder. They got swept. Um, I remember watching him in the playoffs and they didn’t have Zion at that time. Like, he wasn’t even playing. They just had a good collection of talent. They went forty nine and thirty three that year. Um, so best of luck to the the New Orleans Pelicans. We’re rooting for you. Uh, but that is going to be recorded in the history books for Misery Sports Co. Indeed tragic Historic, deeply preventable everything we expect in a proper MSC case study. And that concludes our deep dive. Please direct all follow up questions to HR. Who will not be returning your calls? Shocker. Nobody’s running those phones. Uh, speaking of wasted effort, here’s a word from our next sponsor. Need to look like you know what you’re doing at work. Because inside your head you’re thinking, oh, my God, I have no idea how I got this job. Well, now you can. With Doctor Hofbrauhaus oversized glasses. Doctor Hofbrau has provided glasses to the stars. Think about Jason Kidd’s thick rimmed glasses, Mike McDaniel’s nineteen seventies serial killer glasses, and, of course, Quinn Snyder’s cocaine residue filled, red rimmed frames. Distract them from the product on the field in court with doctor Hofbrauhaus oversized glasses. Love those glasses. I remember JC hidden those glasses, asking one of his players to hit him while he had a cup of water. And I just will never forget that moment. I’ll never forget it. Stupid. And he wanted like a break in the play or something. Yeah, it was when he was coaching Milwaukee. I think he was like, hit me, hit me, bump into me. So dumb. Like we can all see that. Coach, there are eight HD cameras on us right now. They’re all pointed at us. Uh. So stupid. Well, thank you so much. To the glasses producers out there at Misery Sports Co. We believe in ending every meeting with something resembling hope, even if it’s delusional. My pep talk of the week this week actually goes to the Saints and Pelicans fans. So in doing this deep dive, I didn’t fully grasp that the Saints and Pelicans are actually owned by the same ownership group. When that’s good, that could be really good when it is bad. I can’t imagine watching both of your teams. The Saints and the Pelicans are both bad right now. They are struggling and being like, oh man, well, at least I don’t have the same weight. It’s the same ownership group like I don’t there’s no way out. No. And it’s bad. It must be terrible. Imagine if I was dealing with Jerry Jones owning the Mavericks right now. I would lose my flipping mind. It’s insane. Yeah, I can’t even think about it. Like, how do you even have the time to own lead and direct to massive sports teams? And then when you’re bad at it as a fan, it just weighs on you because you’re like, I can’t change anything. Yeah. Nothing’s going to change. Yeah, yeah. That’s brutal. Stay strong. Stay strong. New Orleans fans. My pep talk of the week goes to Mikko Rantanen. The all star forward for the Dallas Stars that we traded for last year, who is an absolute stud. We have never in the history of the Dallas Stars, we have never had anybody quite like Mikko Rantanen. Uh, his nickname is The Moose because he is just a giant, solid specimen. Uh, really fast, really skilled. Forward. Um, is excellent. And last night during the game, he unfortunately committed a very serious boarding penalty, uh, late in the third. Now it was. I’m obviously super biased. So I’m a homer here trying to explain away, like, a very serious penalty. But it all happened very quickly. And he was had some contact from a player behind and sort of lost balance. But he did straight up shove somebody at full speed straight into the boards, and I’m pretty sure that person shattered their collarbone and probably their arm. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. It was all a hear me out. And guess what I just heard before the show? That the league is not going to take any action against him. So interpret that as you will. Um, but I just wanted to give him a little pep talk because I think this was against the Islanders and we have not played in New York yet. And so when they do, I want this. I’m giving this pep talk to Mico. Just sort of buckle up, because you’re going to hear the New York Islanders coach, the Hall of Famer Patrick Waugh himself, lose his ever flippin mind as Mico was walking down the tunnel. So I’m going to play the clip and then I’ll share, um, sort of what he was saying, because he’s so fired up, it can be a little hard to hear, but I’ll, uh. I’ll play the clip here. Now they’re going to pick him up. He’s in all kinds of pain. And there is some verbal violence going on from the Islander bench. So. And that was Hall of Famer, uh, uh, razor, uh, who just went into the, uh, razor Ray who went into the Hall of Fame recently. Okay. But what he said was we’re going to play the game at home in New York, and you’re not going to finish the effing game, I promise you that. So. You know, it’s hockey. I love hockey for lots of reasons, but I also love hockey when the other coach can just threaten you with, we’re gonna beat you up next game. So, uh, we’ll see you when you come to New York. So, Mico. Glad you’re not suspended. Buckle up and, uh, get ready to fight when we go to New York later this season, because they’re coming for you. That’s some mafioso stuff, man. We’re putting a hit out. It really is. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. You’re not finishing that game. Yeah. So that’s my pep talk of the week. Uh, we’re going to do our quick look ahead. Let’s take a quick look at what’s coming up for the Titans this week. Uh, spoiler alert it’s more heartache. We are hosting the Seahawks who are seven and three and just came off a really bad Sam Darnold performance where I think he threw four interceptions. Uh but they have such a good culture there that the team immediately picked him up and was like it’s not his fault we put ourselves in bad position. So like they’re really pissed from this past week. Um, so they’re going to come in and just destroy us. What do you think the spread of that game is right now? Is it in Seattle or is it in Tennessee? Let me tell you, it’s in Tennessee, in that vaunted home field advantage. Uh, I’ll give you eight and a half points. Seattle. Oh, I thank you, Zach, for believing in us. That’s adorable. The spread is thirteen and a half. Oh, yeah. So that’s, uh. It’s not going to go well. So I’ll report next week with the little bit of hope that hopefully I can see from cam, because that’s that’s all I want to see. How about you Zach? Well we have another actually it’s it’s a battle for draft position. So I’ll say it’s an important game. The the Browns are at the Las Vegas Raiders. Both teams are two and eight. We are chasing the Titans who are one and nine for that top spot. Um, it’ll be interesting. It’s a later game. I, I, you know, it used to be fun to watch late games at four pm. You’d be like, oh, this is awesome. It’s going to go late. It’s, you know, lights are going to come on. It’s just it’s not that I just want the game to end, be over. So this will be Scheider’s first start, which is, you know, exciting on one hand and kind of terrifying on the other. Just because it’s our third quarterback this year, um, to start a game. And I don’t know from an evaluation perspective, Las Vegas is so bad that like the talent level should be fairly equal. We should get an idea of what should or can do. Um, but he’s also a rookie. He’s just like Dillon Gabriel. So they’re going to make horrific decisions, terrible throws. And, um, you know, I just hope to see something so we don’t have to draft a third quarterback in two drafts. Trevor. Um, hey, we’re going to come back next week, and you’re going to say Starting quarterbacks for the Browns are one and seventeen in their first game. Let’s break some curses. Let’s break some curses. It’s time I feel the hope. Well, that wraps up this week’s shift at Misery Sports Co, where every week is a performance improvement plan. Be sure to follow us on X or Twitter as it was formerly called. Check out our website Misery Sports. Com and give us a listen wherever you listen to your podcasts. If it’s Apple, if it’s Spotify Pocketcasts just learned about that one. CAS YouTube and let us know which team ruined your week. We’ll be back next time with more pain, more laughs, and maybe, if we’re lucky, a moral victory. Until then, clock out, rest up and remember misery loves company.