Why Can’t the NBA Actually Fix the NBA? Plus, Super Bowl Hangover Stuff With Nick Wright and Bill’s Dad.

28:16And they were both meltdowns of the historical context. Right. Right. And so I wouldn't, and I would, so here's, because you included Burrow, I have a crazy stat for you. Last five years, last five years, Burrow and Lamar have played the exact same amount of games. And we look at Burrow as like a real injury concern. And he and Lamar Jackson have both played 73 games the last five years. They both have not played in the playoffs three of the last five years. So I would, for me, my top five would probably be for the next five years, Mahomes, Allen, Caleb, Drake, May, Drake, May, Caleb, three, four.

29:03And then my fifth, God dog it. Who would my fifth guy be? Burrow, Herbert, Jaden Daniels is in there just to chalk it off as an injury thing. Jaden's as skinny as I am. I would go Burrow, but I would be nervous. Burrow's my worst case scenario for the next five years for Jake May because part of the reason they had so many injuries is because he was getting the shit kicked out of him every year playing no offensive line. There's so many hits, they're just going to add up after a while and I don't care who you are. Don't you think Vrabel will... The reason I would not be as worried about that piece of it is Vrabel is just so much sharper than Zach Taylor.

29:43And Vrabel, like, I don't think Elliot, again, you know the Pats better than me. I don't think Elliot Wolfe is running things. I think Vrabel is. And Vrabel knows what to prioritize. So I think you guys will protect him. Can I ask you one more Pats question? I know there's other things you want to get to. Yeah. Do you want them to trade for A.J. Brown? No. I want them to build through the lines. I honestly, we see it every year and then we forget. I totally agree with you. I totally agree. If you can get to the point where you have a four-man pass rush that's effective, that seems like that's the single most important thing you can have other than a quarterback.

30:17And then the third most important thing is, can you block? Can you block? Can you rush with four? Do you have a quarterback you trust? And if you just have those three things, you can win the Super Bowl. And you just said a pass rush with four is the most important thing other than a quarterback. Some would argue it's the only thing that stops the great quarterback. Yeah, you're right. It certainly like Brady lost, Brady lost to the giants because of it. Both the Mahomes Superbowl losses is because of it. The patch just lost because of it. Like our last two Superbowl winning quarterbacks are quarterbacks that you grew to like, like, okay, there, but you had questions about who had these awesome D lines that just made the other team's quarterback pee down their leg or, you know what I mean?

31:05just play terrible. And so, yeah, that's the... So Wilds wants them to trade for A.J. Brown because he has the relationship with... I think the receivers are fool's gold. People should look at the Tyreek trade as the example why he wouldn't do that. Trade Tyreek, he won two Super Bowls the moment you traded him. Correct. To me, paying$60 million for two receivers, I would just never do that if I ran a team. But it does seem like part of the art of this. And I hope the Patriots, Bob Craft's been cheap. I'm going to use the C word. He's been cheap for 12 years. Part of the art of this and something Philly has been really good at.

31:43I think the Rams have been good at some of these teams of just, they keep pushing the cap a year later. It's like the dinner check comes and they give it back to the waiter and they're like, can you bring this back in a half hour? And then the guy comes back and said, can we take 30 more minutes with this? And they just keep pushing it kind of to infinity because all the NFL does is make more and more money every year in all these different ways. And that seems to work. So here's, so that is, so this is something, because I listened to Sheel. Sheel talks about this a lot. Yes, this is a big Sheel thing.

32:16And I disagree with him on the efficacy of that. If you believe you have a quarterback, the level you believe Drake may is. So let me just give a look. So what you're talking about is, I'll do this as quick as possible. I don't want people to turn it off. Talking about void years. teams tacking on void years so you can pay a player a bunch of cash and it costs you cap in years they're not going to be on the team right you're borrowing from future years it's like it's like a loan shark strategy correct a quarter of the league doesn't use them at all the chiefs are one of those teams the pats are kind of one of those teams they don't do it no the browns did it out of necessity because the watson trade's been such a disaster wait a second The Chiefs are doing something because they somehow have the ability to pay Chris Jones, Mahomes, Kelsey.

33:06But Kelsey makes no money. And those are the only guys on the roster they're playing other than their offensive linemen. But you have other expensive guys in the team, though. The offensive linemen, Chris Jones, and Mahomes is the whole list. That's where you landed now. That wasn't where you landed three, four years ago. Well, what the Chiefs are doing is Mahomes has a 10-year deal. So Mahomes is deal. It's not void years. They can just constantly rework that. But let me say what Philly's doing. Yeah. So the average team, like the median team, 16th rank, has like$60 million of void years, a future cap that they're borrowing from.

33:47The Eagles is at$472 million. and it almost all comes due in 2028 and 2029. So what the Eagles did, and they did this previously in one of Super Bowl, was they are saying, we are stocking up on this five-year run, and then we are going to, by definition, have at least one season where we're bad. Well, the Saints did this too with Peyton, right? That was one of the first teams that did this. Yeah. But they did it because their great quarterback was at the end. They're like, who cares if we suck after Breeze? We're going for it. I wouldn't want the Chiefs to do it now. When Mahomes is 35, start doing it.

34:33Because who gives a shit about the team when he retires? It's going to be bad. If I were you and the Pats, I would hate. That's what we should have done with Brady near the end. At the end with Brady, that's when you do it. You do the seven-year deal with Brady and you just keep pushing money around. But they never did that. If they did that now with May, it's like, okay, just so you know, when Drake May's 29, all these bills are due and we're going to have an awful team for a year. But that's why you give them like a 12 year deal for$700 million. And then you start getting... The Mahomes deal is so crazy that 10 years, I mean, he's on a 10 year,$450 million contract.

35:13So he makes$45 million a year that they've never added money to it. They've accelerated money through him. And that gives you a level of flexibility that other teams don't necessarily have. All right. We got to take a break. Coming back, some other sports I want to talk to you about. This episode is brought to you by Pepsi. I have one. It's right here. Pepsi Zero Sugar. Ooh. I'll drink it later. It reminds me. You guys have to watch the new Pepsi Zero Sugar Super Bowl. I'd find I'll have a sip. Okay. It follows a polar bear who steps up to the iconic Pepsi challenge. Labels removed. Which tastes better?

36:02Pepsi Zero Sugar or Coca-Cola Zero Sugar? The winner? You guessed it. Pepsi Zero Sugar. and that's based on real results. Last year, Pepsi revived the iconic Pepsi challenge and 66 % of participants agreed that Pepsi Zero Sugar tastes better than Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. I don't know what to tell you. Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi. All right, NBA All-Star Weekend is coming up. It's 37 minutes from my house. I'm not even sure I'm gonna go. I'm still on the fence. The All-Star Game has just beaten out any sort of curiosity out of me over the course of my life.

36:45Now they have the world. I don't know what's happening. Brandon Ingram is somehow on a team now. I'm like, I might just stay home. Can I try to convince you? Hold on. Before you get to it, because if you're not going to the All-Star Game. Yeah. Because I'm flying to LA Saturday morning for a number of reasons. One of which is in something that I almost think is better if we don't even explain and the audience who doesn't know my story is just perplexed by it. One of the reasons is I'm coming to L.A. to see my granddaughter, who's three months old. Wow. Unbelievable. But the other reason is, and this is where I think if you're not going to the All-Star game Sunday night, you certainly should hit up ringer colleague Rich Paul and come to the Clutch Sports Party Saturday night.

37:35The Clutch Sports Party? Wow. The Clutch Sports Saturday night All-Star Party. I'll be there. I'd officially be a member. I wore the Clutch sweatshirt last week, kind of ironically, during the trade that led. I know I'm just saying Can I give you an all-star Saturday thing That I just have to put my foot down on once and for all I don't mean to be a dick and just piss on stuff But nobody likes tall guys In the dunk contest I'm waiting to meet my first person Who's like hey I heard they have three centers for the dunk contest Can't wait The shorter the better I'd rather watch 5 '2 people try to dunk Than a 7' person I'd rather they pick 5 '2 people out of the stands who wants to watch Jackson Hayes dunk?

38:20I wouldn't want to watch him dunk if he was outside my house right now on my court. Dwight was the outlier. I didn't even enjoy that. It was fine. He was fine and there was a lot of showmanship. Dunking on a 10-foot hoop. How hard is that? Is this possible, Bill, that until we get to the point in human evolution where somebody can do a front flip dunk that all the dunks are done. That like we've said, that what's happened to the dunk contest is actually we're out of new ways. It's over. I've been saying this for 15 years. It's over. We're done. I was thinking watching the Winter Olympics. I used to love the ski jump as a kid.

39:06It was the most terrifying event. They're using 1970s skis. They don't have the track the same way. And these people go down. You really felt like their life was in danger every time you'd watch it. You'd just be like, oh, my God, next one. Oh, he landed. And now they have awesome equipment. And it's the most boring thing I've ever seen. It's like, oh, he's a foot longer than the last person. It's like, cool. All right. And I didn't watch it. There's no danger at all. Once we've removed the possibility, there are certain things that the possibility of disaster is what makes it captivating. Well, that's F1.

39:47Let's be honest. People are watching F1 partly because of the danger, and if they say they're not, they're lying. So, I don't... The All-Star Saturday, I have a lot of feelings about the things the NBA needs to fix and needs to fix from a unilateral just an edict from Adam Silver. Like, not... Let's not have a committee. Let's not, you know, it seems like they keep tweaking different all-star approaches and none of them have worked. Well, it's like we're both married. It's like if our wives were like, hey, I'm going to try that tuna casserole again. And it's like, well, it was terrible the first 49 times you made it.

40:36No, but I was talking to one of my friends and they said, if I use these different kinds of breadcrumbs, it's going to be really good this time. It's like, all right, I guess. and you know it's going to suck. That's Saturday night. It sucked every year. And the game, here's the only thing that could save the game. Wait, can we go back? I'm going to get to the game in a second. The Saturday, strip everything down. Forget all the contests and the events. What do people actually want to see? Like if you ask your son, if I ask my son, just be like, what do you want to see? The first thing they would say to me is, I want to see Caitlin Clark and Sabrina trying to make threes and beating the NBA players.

41:22I think would be the number one thing people would want to see. The number two thing would be, I want to see the best players in the dunk contest. Right? Yes. And that's really it for Saturday night. And then, I don't know if you think of anything else. You're not into a one-on-one tournament? No, because I don't think the guys would care enough. I think they would do the half-assed. The same reason Horace doesn't work. They don't want to be embarrassed. These guys always move into I don't want to be embarrassed mode. You'd really have to pick it carefully. Like you'd have to pick the people like the Anthony Edwards types who would be like, I'm actually going to take this seriously.

41:56I mean, honestly, out of anything, I'd watch the Isaiah Stewart running off the bench contest over anything else. Isaiah Stewart coming off to save a teammate, risking a 10-game suspension, I'd watch. Do you think, slight non sequitur, You know, you guys have talked about how Joker, Joker wants to be, you know, wants to do something with his horses and is kind of cursed by how good he is at basketball. Yeah. Like if there's a hundred percent chance that if Joker could make as much money doing whatever he does with his horses as he can in basketball, that's what he would do. So you think he wanted to a horse event where he rode a horse shooting threes?

42:36No, I was thinking about Isaiah Stewart. Oh. We all agree that Isaiah Stewart's real passion is fighting, right? Like if somebody was like, hey, your NBA contract is valid, but it's for the UFC. He'd be like, I'm never touching a basketball again. Sign me the fuck up. The thing is, he's really good. Like that hurt the Pistons that he's going to get suspended. I think he's just like the greatest teammate. He really takes things personally on behalf of his teammates, which I love. But we've also seen that going wrong over the end on behalf of himself. he's the only person in 20 plus years who actually legitimately got mad at LeBron and wanted to beat the whole out of him he was going to fight LeBron and beat his ass is what was going to happen Ime Adoka was the only other one who kind of side-eyed LeBron and was like if we want to go I'm right here yeah I don't think that would have worked out well for Ime Isaiah Stewart maybe has the age advantage and would have had a shot You have him like minus 180 over LeBron?

43:40Who? Isaiah Stewart? Yeah. Well, I mean, young Isaiah Stewart against old LeBron, maybe. LeBron crafty. Like a little Julio Cesar Chavez. Right. But I would have LeBron minus 400 over coach Emei Adolka. Emei trying to act. He's a tough motherfucker, though, that guy. I know he's a tough guy. I understand. I still, but this is foolishness. Wait, I interrupted you on your Sunday thing. How would you fix the game on Sunday? Is it fixable? Because I don't think it is. It's fixable in four years if your guy, Con Knipple, continues on this trajectory. And we just have to say, you know what? PC headlines be damned.

44:23I know where you're going. White guys versus black guys. Luka, Joker, Flag, Reeves, Knipple against Wimby, whomever. I'm telling you right now, guys would play fucking hard. Like that, there would be a real edge to the game. It certainly would get a lot of talking points going. Get a lot of attention and we are getting close to a place where it'd be like, oh, that'd be a good game. Like there hasn't been a moment in the NBA in the last 50 years where if that ended up just by chance being the game, it would be, you could see either team winning. But right now, like Cooper flag and Conniple and Austin Reed doing a lot of work.

45:14Yeah. Right. But they also get all the Eastern Europeans. Like you get Luca, you get Joker, you have real talent. That's something. In the meantime, I don't know what the hell you do. This US versus the world thing is not good. Nobody understands it. here's the problem I do this for a living I don't totally when they announced the all-star teams I'm like wait I thought they were going to announce eight foreign guys 16 Americans they still did east west I didn't understand any of it I can't explain it in a sentence fire the guy who came up with the idea yes that's right like it's a it's a basketball contest can you explain in a sentence well there's three guys in the world this team's eight.

45:58There's going to be a round run. It's like, wait, you lost me five seconds in. This leads to... I really want to dive into Adam Silver here. I might even run into this weekend, so this could be awkward. But I thought of this one... I've been talking about Seattle and Vegas and expansion for four years. I was the first person to bring it up, and I think it was serious for a while. Then I think they backed off when the media deal was as big as it was. Then I heard it was just going to be one team. Now there's been buzz for a while that maybe they're thinking about two again. There's a big coalition against it that Jim Dolan is a big part of.

46:39And somebody reported this week, it's back on. I think it'd be a huge mistake. And it ties into the other biggest issue that the league has now is the tanking, which has become Groundhog Day. Every February we do this. It's like the first time everybody realized that tanking's terrible. we're going to have two more new ways to, what the Jazz have done this past week is unprecedented. We're going to have two more teams when we already have eight teams on February 7th that have punted on the season eight of the 30 teams have punted we're going to add two more that don't give a shit why would they do this?

47:17To me there's like huge fundamental issues with the league that they're just yada yadaing and pointing to all the media money they've made and the fact that their players are famous and that everybody loves the playoffs. It's like the regular season has real issues. It's too long. Guys are getting hurt too much. Everybody is making so much money. The only reason to have 82 games is because you make money from it. You go down to 70, you make less money. Guess what? Devin Booker, instead of making$75 million in 2028, he'll make 73. He'll be fine. All this shit, everything they're doing, they're not serving the larger picture of what do fans want?

47:58How do we keep our players healthy? How do we have a competitive season from start to finish? How do we avoid over one fourth of our league not giving a shit for the last two months? How do we fix this? And it's the first time I've really wondered, like, is do we have the right guy running the league? Because he doesn't seem interested in actually fixing real problems that everybody can see. And it's not about like, Look at the NBA Cup. Oh, we created this thing. It's like, your schedule's too long. You have to fix this. It's too long. It should be 70 games. So I want to, first of all, that's a great, great three-minute Simmons rant.

48:38Yeah, I just did a first take rant. Jesus. That was great. That's a great rant. Sorry, I got fired up. No, but is Adam Silver a wartime consigliere? And does anyone in the NBA office understand it's wartime? That I don't care. To your point, the media deal is separate from the overall health of the league long term. I listened, obviously, to your conversation with Chuck about his great book, Football. Um, and he talked about kind of a sidebar to your conversation was the ebbs and flows of leagues and popularity and what has been in the, in the sports fan zeitgeist over the last hundred years. And one of the lessons of that is no league, no sport has a lifetime license to importance or to being a major, major American sport.

49:40and the arrogance any of the leagues could have, which is it couldn't happen to us, is concerning. Major League Baseball, for whatever criticisms people have, their commissioner, who I think is fair, there's a lot of fair criticisms of him, he said, you know what? We have real issues right now, and I don't give a shit if people think these changes are too drastic. I am just going to, by edict, change some of the rules and make the sport because ultimately it's all entertainment. This is the entertainment business. We're fighting for eyeballs. We're fighting for interest with Broadway, with other leagues, with TikTok, with everybody.

50:19We've got to become more engaging. And the NBA's right now refusal to, to me, address what are, they're in a three front war of what are real threats. front one, I'm not going to pretend to be smart enough to understand, which is something about the way modern basketball is played. Modern athletes' bodies are not really able to handle. Your guy LeBron said this on More Than a Game, and it kind of came and went at the moment, but he's like, basketball is way harder to play now. It just is. I'm telling you, I've been here for 20 plus years. It's harder to play now. There's more running. There's more stop and start.

50:59There's more sprinting. It's harder. if they're not going to listen to him what the fuck and you've talked about how the you know the canary in the coal mine is the achilles and how that used to exclusively be an old guy injury and it's not anymore and these soft tissue issues so that that is a big i i'm not saying there's a simple fix to that but that is something that is get rid of the euro step how about that as a fix How about change the rules dramatically? How about like, like the footwork shooting coaches and I have to name them, but how come certain clients of certain shooting coaches seem to have lower leg injuries all the time?

51:39It's because they're putting too much stress in their lower legs. Tyrese Howeburn and Jason Tatum shouldn't be blowing out their Achilles at age 26, 27. It's ridiculous. So, so that's the first one. And that's the, I think that's the hardest one to solve, but it might be as important as any. The second one is this. And this one, I don't care if I sound like an old guy. As I said, I'm a grandfather. I'm allowed to be an old guy. Grandpa Nick. Part of every sport has an identity that makes it special. For football, it's violence. It just is. It's just, you know, that's not the only thing, but there is a violence to it that attracts us.

52:21I think football is violence and strategy combined. Sure. I think it's those two things together makes it the most popular sport. Baseball, it's kind of nostalgia. And the fact that it just reminds, it brings you to a place in the year, a place in your life, summertime, outdoors, the feeling of that, all of that. And basketball for me, for my entire childhood and young adult life was, holy shit, is that guy flying? Like, it is crazy athletes. It is crazy feats of athleticism mixed in with balletic brilliance. And I would throw in coolness, too. Even in the 70s going to games, the basketball players just seem like the coolest fucking guys in my life.

53:11And that's been the case ever since. And what the analytics revolution and three-point shot has done to what is rewarded, what style of play is smart, and what types of athletes succeed in the league has taken away an enormous amount of what was the NBA's identity. which was the rewarding getting to the rim and rewarding different styles of play. And so when I say on this one, I have some drastic suggestions that seem insane, but I don't think in radical changes are out of line. Like, I loved the Hollinger idea of every team draws their own three-point line up to and including. a team like the, I don't know, the, but the nuggets three years ago, if they were like, we're not having one.

54:14And if we get home court, you better be able to win games going by two. And every day it makes the regular season matter more because home court matters more and teams need different styles. I've said, and people laugh at me like I'm joking and I kind of am, but I'm jealous of that three point line idea. He's had that forever, but it's a great idea. It's such a great idea. It's basically like the outfield wall on baseball. Every outfield And that's how we do it. And in different parks, it's like, oh, shit, we're going to Fenway. It'd be like, oh, man, we're going to Golden State. Remember, there are three point lines from 40 feet out, you know, whatever it is.

54:51And the other the one I've said that people think I'm joking, but I'm only kind of joking. Hey, everything stays the same except for one small rule change. Dunks also worth three. Dunk's also worth three, by the way. and see if you prioritize athletes and a different style of play. And again, that seems insane. And I'm not saying, and the NBA historian part of me doesn't even like it, even though it's my own idea. I'm like, ah, what would you do to the record books? But the sport is on shaky ground because the smartest way to play is not the most attractive way to play. and that then gets us to the third thing, which is the tanking.

55:36All right, so you have style of play, you have the injury stuff, and now you have the tanking. Those are your big three. And the tanking is an abomination and the fact that it hasn't been nipped in the bud by the, I don't care if you want to go to Mike Zarin's draft wheel, I don't care if you want to go to your idea of, hey, you are whatever pick you had in last year's draft, if it's in the lottery, you are guaranteed a pick at best three spots worse. So if you have the number one pick, you're capped at four. If you had, you know, whatever it is, I wouldn't care if they said, hey. How about you if you can't have two top four picks two years in a row?

56:23You just can't. So that kills. So Dallas, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Charlotte had top four picks last year. None of them are eligible. So Dallas, tank yourself away. You can only get the fifth pick. But knock yourself out. I also would be... I don't understand how you can see what Utah's done the last couple games. Well, the one... This week is... They might have made history with really good players just not playing the fourth quarter in early February. It's not even April yet. It's not even March yet. It's not even Valentine's Day yet. It's not the All-Star game. These guys are just sitting, Jaron Jackson and Lori Markkinen are just sitting on the bench and they win anyway, which was the funniest thing.

57:06Well, but it is. But think about what we're saying here. The Utah Jazz traded for a really good player. Yeah. With the intention being, yeah, of course, he's not going to help us win games. the Hawks traded for two players with the intention of well not for this year and we're all fine with it and I shouldn't say we're fine with it the league's fine with it you mean the Wizards not the Hawks oh yeah yeah I apologize they traded with the Hawks yeah they got Trey Young and Anthony Davis to never play them and I understand there's injuries I how do the Jazz like yeah but here's my question back to you.

57:51How do you blame them? The whole point. So I'm going to go back and I want to keep going on your three things, but I'm going to go back to 1984, which was the birth year of tanking. This was it. This was the Jonas Salk polio vaccine of tanking. Hakeem and Jordan are the draft prizes. It's still a coin toss for the first pick. It's so good. Everyone has traded away their first round picks in dumb trades. Indiana, they're one of the worst teams. They'd already traded their pick for Tom Owens. Cleveland, they're one of the worst teams. They'd already traded their pick for Mike Bratz. The Clippers, they'd already traded their pick for World B Free.

58:30So the only two teams that controlled their own picks that were bad were Chicago and Houston. Chicago starts out 15 and 17. At some point, they're like, huh, they finished 12 and 38. They lose fourth in the last 15. They get blamed for tanking. I went and looked at the roster. Their guys all played. I think they had a lot of drug stuff and weird shit on that team. I'm not even positive they're tanking. You know who was tanking, though? Houston. Houston has Ralph Sampson. Yeah. They start out 20-26. They finish 9-27 their last 36. They lose 14-17, 9 of their last 10. There's a famous game that is the birth of tanking.

59:06Second to last game of the year. They're playing San Antonio. They need to lose. Game goes to overtime. They lose in overtime. Sampson only plays 22 minutes. he is a 22 and 11 they don't play him basically second half elvin hayes is on this team you know elvin hayes is one of the title of the bullets top 50 top 50 guys i would say one yeah i would say one of the top 35 top 60 whatever he's washed up at this point he's playing 12 minutes a game he's at the tail end of his career he's like i don't know pick somebody now that's he's chris paul he plays all 53 minutes of an overtime game go 7 for 20 16 points they lose they never take him out and they're joking after like he needs an IV might need to take him to the hospital their way of tanking was to just put up and haze out to fucking die so what happens?

59:59Houston gets the first pick they win the coin toss they get Hakeem Olajuwon Chicago gets the third pick they get Michael Jordan everybody's like this is fucked up we have a lottery the next year and we haven't figured it out since. This was 1984, so this is 42 years ago now. And 42 years later, after this event of the Elvin Hayes game, we have Laurie Barkin and Jaron Jackson completely healthy, not playing in fourth quarters. 42 years later, they have not figured this out. So, all right, two things quickly. But by the way, it's worth it. Chicago got Michael Jordan, Houston got Hakeem Olajuwon.

1:00:34Would they do it again? Yeah. Of course. But so two things. First one is this. There is nothing you've ever said about LeBron, Patrick Mahomes, or my hair that hurt me more than you questioning if I knew who Elvin Hayes was. That was a dagger to my heart. I just wanted to make sure. That's fair. I like your hair. Thank you. No, it was House who killed it. It was just House. House is jealous. Obviously. I mean, give me a break. Come on.

1:01:02But I don't know the year. You'll know the game. not that long ago. Mark Madsen? There you go. Gratuitous tanking was games 79, maybe, 80, yes, 81 and 82, fine. And Mark Madsen, green light from three, no problem. And we kind of were all like, like, yeah. And we kind of all were like, okay, we understand it. Like, we get that at the very end of the year. But the mission creep of that to where we are now is galling. And I do think that the simplest solution, in addition to what you're describing about you can't, you know, if you have top four, your next highest you can have is five or whatever, might simply be it is back to a version of the Ewing lottery, which was everyone has the same odds.

1:02:13Like everyone is at... I called for this in my book in 2009, and then I somehow got off of that idea, and now I think I'm creeping back onto it. Now, it's possible the negative impact of that would then be teams that could be in the playoffs would be like, nope, we want to miss the playoffs to get in. But I think if you just said... So I think if play-in teams are not eligible because the worst case scenario would be a play-in team being like, ah, we're not going to do anything anyway and they tank the play-in game, which would be an absolute disgrace. So play-in teams are not eligible. So the final 10 all have the same odds.

1:02:52The worst 10 teams, same odds across the board. 10 % across the board and with real harsh penalties if there is any indication that a team is attempting to avoid making the play-in. He's not going to do that. He's already been too soft on that. Can I throw an idea at you? Yeah. Because I think that no top four pick two years in a row would solve some of this. Any team that falls below 27 wins for this season, so you have to go 27 and 55, that's the cutoff line. for every loss under that, you lose a million dollars in cap space for the next season per loss. 2 % refund for season ticket holders per loss for the next season.

1:03:40So if I'm, I don't know, a wizard season ticket holder and they go 16 and 66, they go 11 games under the cutoffs, I have 22 % off my tickets for the next year. Just like, just blanket. So it's, I'm actually, we're taking money out of their pocket. Plus they would lose 12 million in cap space for the next year. So you couldn't do the thing where it's like, we're tanking, but then next year we're going to go for it. It's like, no, you can't do that. You didn't take last season seriously. We're taking some of your cap space. We're lowering your luxury tax and we're fucking you over on this because this is not right.

1:04:16Yeah, I'm, I am, I'm fine with like extreme penalties. I would be fine with they said, hey, just so you know, if you get the number one pick of the draft, if in that number one picks rookie contract, you make the playoffs, it's five road to home in the first round. I would be fine with drastic. And it would, and it's like, nobody, you know, who ends up with Cooper flag is going to actually be bummed about it, but they, that there is like, you can't do relegation in the NBA, but something that is relegation ish, where there is a real negative impact of being awful. Well, that's so that, so the way to relegate is cap space.

1:05:10yeah that's right like it like to actually like hurt a team's ability to make themselves better and to penalize them the thing to me that i always go back to is the season ticket holders like they have to pay full price for this shit you're in utah and you're loyal to the team and i like you i like their owner danny ainge is there like i get why they're doing what they're doing because the rules aren't telling them not to do it so they're actually playing this correctly but it's not fair Now Utah's, this is three years in a row where they haven't given a shit about the season. They have Laurie Markkinen, who's top 25 guy, top 30 guy.

1:05:45But, but so that is when you, what you just said there is a huge key to, I think also the three point issue, which is just directly contradicting incentives. And I actually had a Sloan conference 10 years ago or eight years ago. Oh, name drop. Well, I moderated a panel and our friend Daryl was on it. Yeah. And I asked him then, basically, how do you square the circle of the smartest way to build a basketball team, which is your job, might not be the best way for the league to grow? And he said, my job does not allow me to be concerned with anything other than what is the best path possible to build a champion, whether that's style of play, how we approach things, whatever.

1:06:46he said, and I'm paraphrasing him, it's the league's job to worry about those other things and put the rules in place to make sure the smartest way to win a championship and build a team does not contradict with the smartest way to grow the sport. And that's where I think the league has failed. I don't think it is an extreme position to say they have failed in that what What you're saying is these tanking teams, it's smart for Milwaukee. You know what you should do? Not play Giannis the rest of the year. But look at the people that we think are the best general managers or the best run teams, right?

1:07:26San Antonio tank twice. Yes. Right? Oklahoma City. Presti. Shut down SGA, I think, two years in a row. Danny Ainge with the Celtics. 2007, the team threw... Paul Pierce was healthy. They threw him away for the last... All the smart teams have done this. Daryl would do it. I mean, it went out of control with the process. But everything we're talking about is tied together, though. The schedule being too long. All the great GMs. Sean Marks, too.

1:07:56But the schedule, tanking, actually, you can solve a lot of the problem by fixing both at the same time. If you have a shorter schedule, like I look at the Premier League, which has a way shorter schedule than the NBA would ever do, but it leads to some really great things. And you have like Lester was able to win that one year, partly because the schedule, the sample size was smaller and they got lucky. But if you have a 70 game season or 72, whatever, better for the players, you could space stuff out better. It's more egregious if guys don't play. And you also cut down the last three weeks of the tanking, right?

1:08:35Like I had Con Knippo on my podcast in December and I gave him a ride back. Or maybe he said this on a pod, I can't remember. But we were talking about, do you ever get to practice? He's a rookie, he's 20. We think like, man, it might be important for Con to practice. He just got in the league. He said they hadn't had a practice at home in six weeks. How is that? Like in six weeks, they hadn't practiced in the practice center at Charlotte when I saw him in December or January, whenever that was. Like it's like, and Steve Kerr says the same thing. And at these press conferences, if you want a free, like, two-minute answer from Steve Kerr, ask him what he thinks of the schedule because he'll talk about it every time.

1:09:12It's like, we don't get to practice. Our guys are playing hurt. Our guys are banged up. The sport's too hard. The season's too long. Now Curry's hurt. Like, this is part, like, I was going to go to the Laker game. We're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. It was a good day. They arrested all their dudes today. And it's like, no, I'm not going to go. Yeah, momentous, by the way, because of that moment of silence, LeBron's incomprehensible 21, 20 straight All-NBAs officially dead. I know that he, listen, he probably wasn't going to make it anyway, but now he won't hit the 65-game threshold. Yeah, I mean, that is a week, and again, this part is cliche at this point.

1:09:49Everybody knows this is an issue, but people, Coach Mangini, my dear friend and contributor to First Things First. Spygate whistleblower, I'll never forgive him. Turned out his mentor. he's one of the greatest guys in the world. I had him on my podcast once. He and his son were in New York two weeks ago when he was doing the show and they had tickets to Lakers Nets because he wanted his son to see LeBron. They live in Cleveland. Son's a huge LeBron fan. And he talked with me a ton the days leading up to it. like, do I need to also buy tickets to Lakers Knicks? Because how confident are we that LeBron's going to play?

1:10:38And now, you know, LeBron's the oldest player in the league. Right. And so, but that is such a, you can't be, and I know people have heard this before, but it's so maddening. They haven't fixed it. You can't be a league where you are just stars, stars, Market the stars. Come see our stars. Our stars carry us. And by the way, if you go see a game, the stars may or may not play. It's a disaster. That is a disaster. And we're also on five different channels right now. And you have to spend 10 seconds remembering what day it is for the Peacock game or the whatever. I love the NBA. This is why I care.

1:11:14This is why I wrote a 700-page book about it once. I would say anything we have talked about for the last 40 minutes to anybody who works for the league. I know a lot of people that work for the league. I like the people that work for the league. They know this is a problem. And the schedule thing comes down to money and that's it. And it starts with that. And then the tanking thing also comes down to money and comes down to coming up with real penalties that would decentivize somebody like Utah, who clearly Utah is Jaron Jackson. They have Laurie Markkinen. They have Keontae George, who's been a breakout star.

1:11:47They're going to have another lottery pick. And they obviously want to be good next year. or Will Hardy is going to, you know, probably develop a drinking problem. If they're, if they're actually penalized for how they're handling this year with the cap and the cap comes backwards by 12 million or whatever, because of the way they're behaving, maybe they don't behave that way. Like they have to start thinking about this stuff. So here's my question for you, because I don't know the people in the league the way you do. I, but I do care about it the same way you do. Like this is my whole life up until probably 10 years ago at most.

1:12:22I'll be honest, probably till my homes came into my life. I would have said the NBA is my favorite by a mile. Yeah. And now I don't feel that way. I feel like the NFL is slightly ahead of it. I'm like, I'm 50-50 and I never used to be 50-50. I was always NBA first. Correct. Me too. I love the league so much. I understand on an intellectual level why shortening the season is a hard ask because of the money I get it. It's six home games for every team No, I think they should do it. You're talking 12 million a year plus TV money maybe it's 20 million per team split with the players it costs everybody 10 million a year I agree with you I agree with you 100 % but I still understand why that's hard I don't understand why penalizing tanking is hard.

1:13:11Why can that not just be a red line? Hey, Utah, congrats on what you did this week. You don't have your first round pick now. So do whatever the fuck you want to do. So you're talking about wartime concierge Adam Silver being like, I've had it. If you do that again, I'm going to suspend you. So another theory that, or another idea that a couple readers had was could you suspend ping pong balls? love it yeah so with utah they do the laurie market and jaron jackson thing adam silver's like i didn't like that you're gonna be 20 ping pong balls shy at the lottery well that's you could i'm taking away 20 and this is where you need to just have hey i you need to have a commissioner who people trust is ethical which i believe the league has i don't think people think Adam Silver's that you need to have someone who they trust is ethical, but you might need a fucking asshole at this point.

1:14:15You might need like mid 2000s, David Stern. Right. And, but the rule needs to be, you know, if the more lenient than what it takes to overturn a call in the NFL, basically like if i think that's fishy you might get penalized it's like you know so and and you're gonna have to trust me that i'm not playing favorites i'm not but just so you know if if i think you are not on a night in night out basis trying to win basketball games yeah you might end up out of the lottery no matter what you might end up having real penalties that go against what the whole, you think the whole purpose of this is. I don't think it's that hard.

1:15:03So the ping pong balls with the lottery, I forget how many there are for each team. Well, there's, I mean, I can do that. There's a thousand total. So if you add... Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, so the top team gets or the top four get 200 or whatever. Yeah, so 130 would be a 13 % chance. Would you allow teams to trade ping pong balls? like maybe ping pong balls are part of the answer with this. Adam could penalize people, ping pong balls when he sees fit. And there's just less ping pong balls in the, in the thing. I mean, it's sad that we're have to come up with dumb ideas like this. This already should have been solved.

1:15:44Cause here's the thing with the league. They do this new CBA. They basically put in a hard cap, right? You saw these teams scrambling to get under the tax, making their teams worse. It's a hard cap because yet again, they took advantage of the Players Association, which got its ass kicked, I think for the fifth or sixth time in my lifetime by, go figure, by a bunch of rich dudes with better lawyers. They just figured out how to do this, cut the cost, because they're going to make as much money as they can from everything possible, right? He could still be kind of a hard ass with the owners. They all won.

1:16:22They're all winning. They all made a kajillion dollars already. Like, start cracking it a little bit, Adam Silver. Well, that's the part of it, and that gets back to the point I was making about the difference between shortening the season and fixing tanking. Shortening the season, you're right, it would be better long-term. I think everyone would make more money. There's a million reasons to do it. The one reason they wouldn't do it is those 30 owners would be like, wait, so 12 million less? That doesn't sound great to me. And you don't want to have that fight. But there is no, it doesn't cost the owner's money to fix the tanking.

1:16:59All it takes is a stern will to actually enforce your book, your rules on the books. You have anti-tanking rules. Just like you have anti-flopping rules that don't get enforced. You can simply say to teams, hey, you are allowed, if you would like, to trade away your best players. That is fine. You are allowed to do things where you were like, we're not there yet. So you are allowed, if you're the Pacers and you see Halliburton's hurt and you want to, I know they didn't trade Miles Turner, let Miles Turner walk. You're allowed to build your team however you want. But once the season begins, those guys who are paid to play pro basketball and the coach who is paid to try to win games, if you're not doing it, there is no world where that's good for you.

1:17:50There is no world where people can come on this podcast and be like, Milwaukee not playing Giannis is smart. That's not smart. That's abhorrent. And it would never be accepted in the league that keeps growing in the NFL. It would never be accepted for at the, at, before Thanksgiving, much less before, you know, they wouldn't be accepted at Christmas. But if the, what's a good example this year? if the Cowboys, after the first six weeks of the season, was like, we're sitting Dak Prescott because we really want Julian Love out of Notre Dame. Is he hurt? Well, he had that injury last year and we're just being careful.

1:18:36But let's be honest, we're not playing for anything. You think Roger Goodell would accept if the Cowboys were like, I know we're playing on Thanksgiving, but Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens aren't because we want to lose the game. Well, the players are out there, we'll try, but we actually want to lose. No, they wouldn't. It would be an outrage. Yeah, they'd be probably afraid of the reaction from the person in charge of the league. Correct. It's, as I said, this has been a 42-year problem, and it's funny that it becomes a talking point for people like us right after football ends because people look around, they're like, NBA, dog days, what is there to talk about?

1:19:15And the irony is we have more good players than we've ever had in the league since I was a year out of college. This is the most high-end talent we've ever had. I did a trade value list that had over 80 guys on it. Night to night, it's been the most entertaining kind of group of games. There's always one awesome game every night. We have all these young players that have come in the league that I love watching. This last rookie class was a home run, and it seems like this next rookie class is a grand slam. The answer to all of this isn't to expand the two teams and don't fix the tanking and don't really fix anything, including like what's going to happen with the Clippers thing.

1:19:56Like what's going to happen? Because just because did it happen? Did it not happen? We've had three months to look at it. Everybody's talking about it. If there's not a smoking gun, does that mean they look the other way? I like that's been another topic. It's weird. It's just weird. We always talk about. And then the other thing that people are talking about is like, Jokic isn't going to be an all NBA. He's going to, if he plays 63 minutes, but he plays 2100 minutes, if he's 20th in the league in minutes, but only plays six, three games, he's not eligible. Well, the all NBA thing, if you got the, there aren't, you couldn't find 10 people in the world who care more about historical accuracy of the all NBA.

1:20:42Right. Exactly. So like it is 2 ,000 minutes, just make it 65 games or 2 ,000 minutes. Or again, make it with at the commissioner's discretion. Like the, again, so I am all, I'll use LeBron as a, for instance, pretend for a moment, LeBron was playing at the level he was at two years ago. Yeah. Okay. Just for, just for the sake of this discussion. if if a guy in year 23 at 70 000 minutes suffered an injury before the year a real injury and had to miss 15 miss the first 15 games of the year and then over the next 67 games played 62 out of 67 it's like nope that guy's ineligible for everything that guy that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

1:21:38That's not... But I understand why they did it the way they did it because they were trying to crack down a little bit on guys just skipping games, which goes back to your story about the Knicks and the Nets game and not knowing when LeBron was going to be there. At least in this case, the spirit of it was okay. I just think they came up with the wrong numbers. I agree with you. Let me ask you a bigger question, though. Do you think the NBA does this intentionally? to create some level of controversy? They're intentionally flawed. They like this. They like that we're doing segments about this.

1:22:15They like that we talk about the league and how we should fix this and they should do this and they should do that. Because that's the only explanation I have because some of these fixes are so easy and simple. Literally, nobody likes the instant replay thing. Nobody. Not one person. nobody's like oh cool last two minutes of the game now it's gonna take a half hour this would be fun nobody likes it they just bring it back it's like they like that we don't like it so if they if that is true i think it is a massive strategic error maybe instant maybe instant replays not because actually with it like the ratings still go up the late like the longer the game goes so maybe that's fine but the other stuff i think is outrageous but here's the other reason why I think it is a real threat, if you will.

1:23:05One thing leagues, I've never liked, but they are correct about. The reason they have rules about celebrations and taunting is because kids emulate. I've always thought that's stupid. Listen, I had a kid who played college basketball and was a high level, all state level Texas basketball player. And I told him the same thing I would tell anyone, tell their kids like, hey, here's the rules. Once your games are on national TV, you can act like the guys on national TV. Until then, you're a high school athlete, you know, conduct yourself and such. But they are correct. Kids, whether it's the three goggles or the style of play, emulate the pros.

1:23:51and I'm watching this kid at Kansas who is emulating the pros that appears in a different way, which is, yeah, I don't really need to play all the time. And that's concerning. This guy, you guys were talking about as the best guard prospect since Dwayne Wade or since whomever. No, probably since Vince Carter at North Carolina. Right. Even better than him. Maybe like the Kobe level potential talent. Potential. Right. And they're playing the number one team in the nation at home. Yeah, but this is like all I need to know if I'm drafting. Because the number one thing that we know that I'm older than you.

1:24:36Yeah. It's like psychotic competitiveness. Cooper flag. Just like right now, just like being like, I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm going to keep working at it to get better as any way I can. LeBron. In year 23, still getting up at five in the morning to use the fucking VersaClimber. He has every record that exists. What makes him use the VersaClimber at five in the morning? Because he, I don't know. There's something inside him. And it worries me that this kid's at Kansas being like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm playing today. It reminds me of Ben Simmons at LSU, which was a red flag when that happened.

1:25:11But my question would be, is there any chance if he has the experience Right. 20 years ago, if he has the exact same makeup, exact same everything, is there any chance that happens? Or is it like, no, of course I'm playing. Of course I am playing. And so it just, it has trickled down. All of this stuff has trickled down. And do you, I know you're, like, have you been to a, I guess you'd have no reason to go to one, but I'm talking like middle school basketball game. It's just threes. All of it is emulating the pros. Oh, I lived through that. Yeah, both of my kids were in high school. Yeah, it's just pull out.

1:25:53It's fast breaks. The two kids dart out to the sides instead of trying to get a layup. And I know we sound like old cranky men right now. I don't mean to. But what I'm saying is there are real things. There are great things about the NBA. There are things better now about the NBA than ever before. Your point about the depth of talent, about how I think it is a testament to the league, the whole weak link theory, that it's less about do you have the best guy and more about can you put out five really good players? I think that's all awesome. And everybody plays really hard, which we should point out too.

1:26:31Like there's an intensity to these games when the people do play. Correct. People are playing defense. They really like, it's always impressive. And it's harder to play and it's smarter. and the strategy is so much more sophisticated and all of that stuff. And we have gotten more, if we were like, hey, what are the 10 greatest old guy seasons in NBA history? Eight of them are LeBron, Steph, and KD over the last four years. You know what I mean? Like we are, the all-time greats are playing longer. There's so many great things about the league. And then there are these giant warts that seem so obvious to not be directly attacking them head on is frustrating because they're never going to lose you and me ever.

1:27:26But to bring in the larger tent and young people to care is important for the health of the league. Well, you made the key point earlier. You mentioned baseball, who realized they were at a crisis point. They were at a much more dangerous point than the NBA is. But they realized, like, we have to fix this. And they did it drastically. This is like a real problem. Our sport might be going sideways here. And they fixed it. And I think the problem I have with the NBA is they think everything's fine because of the media deals they signed and because people like their players, which I said at the top.

1:28:00And there's still real issues here that are going to get worse. and you could stop it now or you could wait four years from now and be like, oh shit, we should have done this four years ago and that's just where we are. All right, Nick Wright, I took too much of your time. This was really fun though. I felt like we had to do this. I was excited to do it. Well, it was night. You had me on for the first time when, as you put it, once the Chiefs were dead. Yeah. So it was nice to come on once the Patriots died. Yeah. And I guess I'll see you in a few days at the Clutch Sports All-Star Park. Let's see you there, buddy.

1:28:39It's very possible. You might. All right, Nick Wright. Great to see you. Thank you. It's time for a special part of today's episode. It's brought to you by Michelob Ultra. A really good beer. You should try it. It's a superior light beer. Best served cold. Kind of like all the best, weirdest, funniest, strangest moments of the NBA season so far. We're heading toward All-Star weekend. And it's a good time to reflect on all the things that we've seen. over the past, what is it, three and a half months, four months, whatever it is. I have a mini mailbag we're going to do. Six questions, just six tiny questions that I'm going to bounce off from this season.

1:29:16First one's from Justin Cario. And he asks, do you realize that small game James has been sitting there out in the open as a nickname for James Harden all this time? Frankly, astonishing that Bill Simmons hasn't been using it. I agree. It's petty. It's unfair. It's a little mean-spirited. It's right in my wheelhouse. Big Game James, obviously, was James Worthy, who, you know, for the record, 1984 finals, game two, through the pass that got picked up by Gerald Henderson, Celtics tie it, they go into overtime, they win it. He shed the name. He became Big Game James, thanks to game seven, 1988 finals.

1:29:54He was just a great big game player in general. Not too late for this to happen to James Harden. We'll see. But for now, small game, James is pretty good. Next one from Matt from Ithaca. Can we get a quick clarification on the Ewing Theory eligible for Jordan and the resurgent cornice? He means Michael Jordan. Wow. Here's my answer. I can't believe he's besmirching the goat, Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan deserves it because he was a really, really, truly terrible owner. This isn't Ewing Theory. Ewing theory is you lose a player who is considered to be a superstar and then he gets hurt and the team inexplicably plays better without him.

1:30:37That's not the Ewing theory because if you win a championship, you're ineligible. I think there's a cousin of the Ewing theory, which I would call the Yawkey family trust theory. This is what happened with the Red Sox where they had the Yawkey family own the Red Sox. First Tom Yawkey, he died, gave it to his wife. She got old. She had a trust running it. I can't remember if she even died or not near the end, but the trust was terrible. Fenway Park was a pit. The area around it sucked. The team didn't spend enough money and everybody was really, really frustrated about what was happening with the team.

1:31:11And then the team got bought by John Henry and Tom Werner and Larry Aquino. And it was basically, and I remember writing about this at the time, like it was the very cool, nice boyfriend following the terrible boyfriend. That's what the new owners became. And I wonder if the Yawkey family trust theory could apply here to the Hornets because they have a really good ownership. They hired a smart coach. They make smart moves. They're actually building a team that has a sense of purpose. This is what happens. It's the opposite. We have new owner syndrome when we have situations like Matt Ishbia and people like that.

1:31:42When they come in, they try to get crazy. The Yawkey theory, that's where you want to be if you have somebody taking over a team. This also happened to the Warriors with Joe Laco, by the way. Okay, next one. Doug from Chapel Hill. Why don't we call the Giannis Trade Derby the freak out? it's pretty good. Kind of mad I didn't think of that. Freak out. And by the way, we didn't end up freaking out because he didn't get traded, which leads to the next one from Jacko. Not the same Jacko. I checked the email address. He said, I see your point that I made in the trade deadline podcast that Giannis could have forced his hand and right near the trade deadline and forced to trade somewhere and he didn't.

1:32:22But he says, historically, we have scrutinized rightfully Harden, KD, Kyrie, etc. for saying, I want out at every stop. Shouldn't we be talking positively about Giannis not being a jerk, keeping in-house for the most part and handling this like a respectable employee? It's a fair take. Here's my counter. He never really a hundred percent did that. He never came out and said, I don't want to be traded. Please take my name out of these trade rumors. I want to retire in Milwaukee. He just never said it. He was kind of like, I don't know. It was like watching one of your friends being wishy-washy about whether they're going to break up with somebody or not.

1:32:56And then the day after, all of a sudden, he did that, the deal with the prediction company. And it just felt like the whole thing was a roost to get attention. And if I was a Bucs fan, I wouldn't have liked it. I'd be happy that we kept Giannis, and maybe you scratch him for the air and you get a lottery pick. But it wasn't like a Dirk Nowitzki situation, where Dirk Nowitzki was just like, I'm never getting traded from Dallas. If I get traded, I'm not going to my next team. It was basically what he said. I feel like Curry's like that now with Golden State. Milwaukee and Giannis, it never, Giannis was always kind of like, you know, he's getting dressed up and going out to the nightclub, showing some cleavage at the trade deadline and then pretending he wasn't doing that.

1:33:35I think he was. So next question is from PH. He said, can we agree that Chris Paul officially had the worst retirement tour in NBA history? It was pretty bad. the worst one ever though was elgin baylor who was on the 1971 72 lakers and his knees were just completely broken down at that point and instead of having a retirement tour he kind of abruptly retired he just felt like he wasn't playing his standards it was just over and then the lakers went on to win 33 straight games which is still a record and then they won jerry west's only title title. And not only did LJ Baylor not participate in any of that, but then he became a famous Ewing Theory.

1:34:20We didn't know what the Ewing Theory was in 1972. That's the worst retirement tour, because LJ Baylor was one of the 15 best players of all time. And probably when he retired, one of the best 10. So now he's probably in the 20. But that was pretty bad to abruptly retire and then watch your team win the title without you. This Chris Paul thing wasn't great. Last question, Nick from North Carolina. The way the Kings and Bulls keep trading with each other is hilarious. I agree. Even in three-team trades, they cannot stay away from each other. It's pretty funny. It's like when your friend gets another friend from college or something, and all of a sudden, they bring them along whenever and wherever.

1:34:59It's like, I know we've had this plan to go to Topgolf for weeks, but can my friend Ralph tag along? Or like when a big brother has to bring his little brother along with him to meet up with friends. I wonder if Vivek has to check in with the Bulls before pulling the trigger on some of these trades he makes. Hey, I'm about to get fleeced at another deal. You want in? I don't know. It's too funny. I agree. The Bulls and Kings, when you see them in a trade together, the only thing you know for sure is that you want to be the third team. It's Bulls, Kings. I want to be the third team. I don't even care who's in the trade.

1:35:29That's where I want to be. Vivek just brings an incredible amount of comedy. He's going to probably not enjoy the live show at the Wiltern Theater tomorrow night. The only other thing I want to do before we wrap up the six-pack, let's talk about a superior all-star player. I have my eye on Jamal Murray because Jamal Murray has come out and said, I care about this game. I'm going to try really hard. Let's see if anyone can follow your example, Jamal Murray. That's it for today's six-pack. Go grab your own six-pack, Michelob Ultra. Plus, Michelob Ultra is giving you a chance to win exclusive prizes, including courtside tickets and more.

1:36:01Enter now at michlobaltra.com slash courtside. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Courtside 2526. No purchase necessary. Open to US Residence 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michlobaltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and prizes and details. All right, last but not least, my dad is here. He thought I was banning him from being on Netflix, one of his favorite streaming services, but he's depressed. You'd big blizzard. The Pats lost. Celtics made a trade not looking as good. And you were in a great mood with sports a month ago.

1:36:43And now I'm worried about you. I don't know what's going on with you. So I'm checking in. I was in a great mood two weeks ago. Yeah. A week and a half ago. I'm not a big fan so far of the Celtic trade, as you know. I think it upset the chemistry. I love the way Simons played. He gave them energy and was a great scorer off the bench. And it's going to take them a while to get some chemistry with this guy. Maybe it will work out. I hope so. Did you figure out how to pronounce his name yet or no? No, I just called Vuk. Okay. Do you want to give it a try and see how it goes? No, Vukovic, right? Something like that.

1:37:22Vucevic. You've always liked him, though. He was one a year. I always liked him, guys. But unfortunately, now he's in his mid-30s. Yeah, I always liked him. I didn't know he was going to be 36 years old soon, but I liked him. I wish we had traded for him five years ago. Yeah, I went to the game Friday night, the Miami game, and then obviously they sucked on Sunday night. But yeah, we were just worried about going from three guards to two. The team, what was working was these three guards that were interchangeable. They could play off the ball. They could play with the ball. You always had two of them out there.

1:37:56and you can feel the shift, but it feels like Tatum's coming back for real. I mean, every check mark, and it really seems like beginning of March, there's two home games in the beginning of March. It feels like it's going to be one of those. Yeah, it's the only thing that's getting me through the lack of chemistry that we have right now after the trade. Oh, I thought you were going to say the end of the Patriots season. My concern's about Drake May. Okay. That they know Tatum's coming back. Yeah. They know that they're going to get scoring that they didn't have before to take the place of Simons.

1:38:31I still, though, like the three guard movement. And I would have liked the three guards coming back with Tatum. And I understand the money thing. And it's a shame. All these moves we've made in the last 10 months, they're all money motivated. But I guess that's the new NBA. Well, you know, there's two ways to think about it with the tax. and I don't mean to defend the Celtics and you're coming on after a segment where we were really critical of the NBA with their schedule and a whole bunch of things for a half hour. So with the Celtics though, getting out of the tax for one year that enables you to have all the spending flexibility for the next three basically.

1:39:12And I think that, I don't think fans fully understand that because on the surface you see like, oh, they're just cheap. They don't want to pay it. And it's like, no, actually, like now they can go all in on next season where they have this trade exception. And, you know, they can actually outspend some of the people they're competing against who are more hampered by the tax. That's how that's the glass half full reason for it. The glass half empty is pay the fucking tax. You just paid for the team. I understand all that. It's just. You know, I don't know how many more windows we have with this current makeup of Tatum and Brown and the people that trying to surround them with.

1:39:54Are you worried at all about Tatum coming back when it's kind of Jalen Brown's team now? I am worried because I've been to the games, and you've been to a couple, and this is a different Jalen Brown this year. He's kind of a black hole in an okay way, meaning that the ball, once it gets to Jalen Brown, doesn't always move to another player. But he makes good decisions when he has it. He does, except for four or five plays a game that you and I always talk about. No, you talk about it. I'm way higher on Jalen. You get frustrated by the missed free throws at the end of games. I do. I think he's been unbelievable.

1:40:34Honestly, I think he's first team on NBA right now. I don't disagree with you. I love that he's going to the basket so hard this year. It looks like he built up some strength because defenders are just bouncing off him. Yeah. But he's playing a game that he didn't play when Tatum was here. Healthy. Right. And, you know, I don't know how they're going to mesh when Tatum comes back. Because Tatum likes the ball. Obviously, when Jalen Brown is out there, I don't know what his usage rate is, but he always has the ball. Yeah. And Tatum always had the ball. So they're going to have to learn how to live with each other again in a different way, I think.

1:41:15and Tatum, I'm sure they'll bring back slowly. It's going to be emotional. You know, because the way we thought before the year, their over-under was like 41. I thought they were going to be better than people thought. I didn't think they'd be a top three seed. But it seemed like the likely scenario was there'll be a seven seed. Maybe he comes back if he's completely healthy. Plays 20 minutes a game, but it's not a serious playoff team. But they have a chance to be a serious playoff team if he comes back, which I don't think. They do. You know, a game like the game against the Knicks Sunday worried me.

1:41:52Yeah. The team just didn't look together. And they've looked together all season long. Now, I realize you bring in, you know, we haven't had a real post player in years. So you're bringing in a guy who's a post player, a center who passes very well. And from what I've read and looked at his stats, he hits the three. We haven't seen too much of that yet. We've seen some bricks. I don't even know if he's had a practice with the team yet. So I guess we have to wait until after the All-Star break. And you have a date in mind for Tatum to return in your mind when March turns around. Yeah, so I think one thing with the All-Star break is the two guards and Jalen, I think, just had a pretty...

1:42:34To me, white looks cooked. Yeah, white looks cooked. And white's shot has gone sideways. Like even today, somebody got bounced, somebody got scratched for injury from the All-Star game. And I think White would have made it three weeks ago, but he just hasn't been consistent at all shooting wise. So Brandon Ingram got the spot. But I think Pritchard, White, and Brown really need the break. One of the best things about Brown this season, he hasn't missed, he's only missed a couple games. Like he's been out and he's guarding the best guy on the other teams a lot of times. I just think he's been awesome.

1:43:06You know, that's a very good point. he wants to guard the best guy on the other team. That's publicly he's talked about that. Pritchard really needed a rest. And I've loved Pritchard all year long and last year. But against, like Sunday, against a team like the Knicks, he had trouble just getting a shot off. When a team really guards man-to-man very closely, our guys have some struggles. Maybe Tatum will help fix that. But that Sunday game was a worrisome game. Fun subplot. Well, that's the thing. When you're in February, March, you can't overreact to wins and losses. Because you're just... But the Tatum thing, him coming back and getting in there, will be really fun to watch.

1:43:54It'll be really fun. The Pats, not fun. You know, I've thought about it a lot, because you and I have talked after the game. I go back to September, and I would have been really hopeful if they were nine and eight and, and excited if they were 10 and seven. Yeah. You know, I didn't pay attention to the schedule that much, but I was thinking about the two terrible years we just had where we, we, we were lucky to win four games each year. So nine and eight on a rebuild year with a new coach, working with a second year quarterback, I would have been satisfied and maybe we would have snuck into the playoffs.

1:44:33So this was all gravy. I mean, we were in the Super Bowl. Nobody expected that. Wow, man, you're handling this really well. I am. I've been philosophizing a little bit. Sounds like it. And it was obvious Drake May's shoulder was hurting him. Yeah. And now more news comes out. They shot him up. And now more news is coming out about the left tackle. Maybe he never should have come back from his injury because he was terrible. Yeah. Yeah. So this, but we're in the Superbowl. I can't complain, really. And I love the coach. I love the chemistry and camaraderie he's built into that team. I hope most of them come back and they supplement a couple of guys with great draft picks.

1:45:21So I'm not that disappointed. I was disappointed Sunday night, obviously. You were disappointed and then you got to watch Cousin Sal make fun of me for 15 solid minutes. I didn't enjoy your position that night it was tough at least I had time to prepare for it cousin Sal I've never seen him so happen how about if you had told me in the early 90s that we were going to be in 12 Super Bowls by the time we got to the mid 2020s I was thinking about that the other day they made the Super Bowl once in 1985 and it was it was played in 86 but then he 85 pats and it was like we were so dumbfounded they made the super bowl yeah then it happened again in 96 it was like oh my god we made it again and now now we have the record for most super bowls which was when we were pats fans in the 70s just winning a playoff game would have been we would have been excited i know i remember sugar ray hamilton i still have nightmares about that game.

1:46:25And you took me to the Oilers game, the playoff game. Yeah. We got killed. Got killed. The irony is, yeah, we've been in 12 Super Bowls. We've lost half of them. I know. That's bizarre. And this was the, out of all these, the first one and the last one were the two where we just felt like we got our asses kicked. Even the Packers one, I still feel like if they didn't kick off to Desmond Howard, I still feel like we would have won. I'm always going to think that nobody will change my opinion. I can close my eyes based on where we were sitting and see Desmond Howard coming right at me. Guys had so many shots.

1:47:04You went to the game. I didn't. You went to that game. I went to that game. I give the pats and the coaching staff and the players energy and they're always plugged in a lot of credit. What's the mood in Boston? Because I know you've been dabbling with the TV, radio stuff. Has it been more negative than I thought it was going to be? No, I don't think it has been. I think there's some, if there's anything, there's some disappointment, I guess, in Drake May. Maybe a little less so when it came out that he had to get shot up before the game. You know, because they really downplayed that he was injured.

1:47:41Yeah, I'm aware. And they probably should have had him on the injury report for the Super Bowl. That could come back to haunt them if he got shot up, right? Yeah, you don't get shot in your throwing shoulder unless something bad happened to your throwing shoulder. Yeah. And we also watched him all year and he was like, you know, he was really accurate. And then in this game, he just wasn't. So I don't, like the fear is like maybe his shoulder wasn't that hurt and he just choked. But I'm not willing to go there because we saw too much from him during the year. He was so accurate all year and it wasn't just the Super Bowl though.

1:48:19The whole playoffs were kind of, a nightmare in terms of turnovers. Well, maybe he needed it. Maybe this will make them double down and maybe it'll make them want to have a better offensive line next year. Yeah, of course, there is that radio station that talks about, is he really Mac Jones in disguise? I can't even imagine. Yeah. Because there's still, I was there this weekend. There's still, now it's like frozen snow on the ground. It's freezing. Well, you know, that's the other thing. If we had won and they wanted to have a parade. You couldn't have even had it. They couldn't have had a parade.

1:48:59There's cars that won't come out until April. They're covered with sheets of ice. And then where did you come down on the second season of Landman?

1:49:12I thought the last four episodes pulled it together. and uh oh pulled it together yeah i thought there were middle episodes in the middle like three four or five they were a little bit slow and i didn't know where they were going what are your what are your top tv shows right now other than all of your favorite netflix programming i know you love the rip i'm just saying that's netflix plug no you love what what are you what are your top ones is the donny walberg show up there did you know i I think it's mediocre. I like the three Chicago shows. PD, fire. Oh, the math, the Chicago marathon? What is it?

1:49:53I'm into that. Police, fire, and hospital? Are those the three? I'm okay with that. Do they ever merge them where somebody sets a fire and the people end up in the hospital and then they have to solve it and it's all one three-hour show? That's coming up. I'll text you when it's the night it's going to happen. Oh, that sounds exciting. Yeah. again, you and I both love Landman. I thought you didn't think it pulled itself together at the end? I thought it was a four-episode season. That was ten episodes. They just padded a lot of stuff, which seems to be one of the moves now with the streamers. You don't watch Industry, but Industry's been amazing.

1:50:33No, I don't. And then both of us really liked The Rip. I think that was my favorite movie I've seen. I went back and I did a second tour of it and I liked it more the second time than the first time. First time, I think there was too much going on for me. The second time, I was like, all right. But it was like an old school, you used to call them the five o 'clockers. Yeah, this was a six o 'clocker. It was a five o 'clocker with better actors. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I watched it again. I like your new channel. I like the stuff Netflix is producing. Oh, thanks for the Netflix podcast. So I did the 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century at the end of last year.

1:51:17And it was controversial because I had Limitless, number 16. You love Limitless. Not number 16. But you watched it a ton, though. I watched it a few times. So out of the ones that were on the list, what should have been on? Because Taken is a big one for you. All three equalizers you would have had? Oh, definitely. kidding equalizer three was the best i thought basically anything denzel you're in or john wick did you have all the john wick i had wick too i arguably could add wick one as well oh yes that wick one it's all about the dog yeah with one um i wouldn't leave i like ballerina i'm probably the only one in the country but uh no ballerina did all right yeah uh that whole genre you know that I like that genre.

1:52:07So it's just sort of been off. Yeah. Yeah. All that. It would have been all that genre. All right. So you're going to make it through the gross winter and the terrible Super Bowl loss and get ready for Jason Tatum. As we're talking, it's snowing here again. Oh, my God. This is just awful. Yeah. I'm looking forward to now I can look forward to Tatum coming back because it looks like that's going to happen. and worry about the chemistry when he comes back and does Jalen Brown take him back the same way. It would be interesting. How did you like how the Devers trade ultimately turned out? Oh my gosh, you and I killed the trade.

1:52:47It was a money dump and they then had to do a second money dump of one of the guys that got in the trade. There's nobody left. They traded all three guys. But we've been told that they're going to use that money elsewhere. Right, which they did. Yeah, which they have not yet. No, we didn't get the big thumper, which is what the papers are criticizing. We don't have the middle. We don't really have Contreras. We don't have that middle of the order outfielder or third baseman. It seems like, I don't know this for sure, but it seems like they're banking on Roman Anthony basically being their version of what happened with Drake May this year and that they don't need the expensive guy because this guy is going to be an MVP candidate.

1:53:31possible him getting hurt really hurt our team, obviously. It hurt my summer. I was having a really fun time watching the team until he went down. And we really did get a sense, is he going to be a power hitter? He certainly was a hitter. Yeah. But can he put up those home runs? Yeah, people are excited about him. People are always excited when everybody's healthy. It's the injuries that start cropping up. I'd say our pitching staff looks pretty interesting who they brought in, the depth. And I did like the trade they made yesterday for the third baseman, but again, he's not a power hitter. That's pretty lukewarm on that one.

1:54:10And I think they're done. You know what they're not done doing is taking money from the fans. Well, most expensive ticket in baseball. They're not done with that. Send your checks here. I guess John Henry's still doing very well money-wise, right? Well, he just sold the Penguins for twice as much that he paid. And I'm sure they're in on this. If the Vegas expansion actually happens, they're probably saving money to be one of the ownership groups going after that. It's just, it's inexplicable how they have stopped spending money after we won the title in 18. I would say it is explicable though because they won four titles and they were like, we're good.

1:54:52You're welcome. And then they scaled back. I think they felt like they did what they needed to do. It's eight years later. I know. I'm aware. That's the trade of Mookie Betts. I don't know if you remember that. You know, the Devers one didn't bother me as much because they promised they would respend that money. Of course, they didn't. The Betts trade was an abomination. Also, the Devers maybe got out of that one in time. That might have been a good mulligan. They paid him a lot of money for a guy that I'm not even sure what position he would have been two years from now. But the package they should have gotten back for a guy at his age with his stats, they didn't get that package back.

1:55:35You know, they just sold for the first bidder, it looked like. Well, I know you saw Jacko this weekend, who has only won one World Series this century. I might have brought it up. How are you Yankees looking? We've won four times as many as him, so that was good. All right, be careful in the cold weather out there. Good to see you. It was good seeing you this weekend. Thanks for popping up. Okay, bye. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Nick and my dad and Gahal and Eduardo and everybody at The Ringer. I will be back on Thursday with one more podcast. It's going to be our live show that we haven't done yet, but I know it's going to be fantastic and I know you're going to enjoy it and I can't wait to do it.

1:56:14So we'll be back on Thursday with that. New rewatch was coming next Monday. We're doing GoldenEye. The last one that went up is Ace Ventura. Go check that out. I will see you on this feed on Thursday. Thanks. I want to see them. I want to waste all that I want to say. I don't have periods with them.

1:56:56Chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.