The World Cup, the Knicks, and LeBron James’s Fate: An All-Time Summer in Sports

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2:10This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It would be an understatement to say that this summer has brought a flurry of incredible sports activity to the city of New York, to the country and the world. What started with the triumph of my beloved Knicks in the NBA Finals has led to some remarkable tennis showdowns already in Wimbledon and a dramatic and already politicized World Cup tournament. And then there's all the speculation about the fate of 41-year-old LeBron James, the greatest scorer in the history of the league, who may be on the cusp of his NBA swan song. Breaking news out of the NBA.

2:50Arsham Sharanya reporting that after eight years, LeBron James, the NBA's all-time leading scorer, will be playing a record 24th season in the NBA, but it will not be with the Los Angeles Lakers. The reaction is pouring in on... To make sense of all the headlines and all the heroics, I sat down with my colleague, New Yorker sports writer, Louisa Thomas.

3:15Louisa, it's good to talk to you again. The last time we talked was with Vincent Cunningham, all verklempt and hysterical about the Knicks win. And I still think that's the dominant story in sports, possibly for the next, I don't know, decade? What do you think? Nothing else has happened since then. But we're going to let a few other events sneak through the door, namely the World Cup. And I got to say, there are a lot of reasons to be a little, well, I don't know, sheepish about American-ness lately. But that whole Trump episode and the American team, what do you make of it? What a disaster. I mean, it really was a U-turn in good vibes.

4:05what compelled the president of the united states to get involved in a red card and tell us the story david are you asking me to wax poetically about the interiority of the president of the united states why not why not why not um well i think trump had been uh kind of snoozing through the early part of july he'd actually been remarkably hands-off about the world Cup. He'd been involved in his, you know, his own 250th celebrations. He had not been at any of the games so far, but he repeatedly claimed that he did not know what a red card was. Red card? I didn't know what the hell a red card was.

4:44When I found out, I said, you got to be kidding. Until that moment. But he had lots of thoughts about it. Yes. He knew that that wasn't a red card, whatever it was. Generationally, a guy who's 80 years old, grew up in the New York area, Soccer is not his thing. This is a guy who still thinks George Steinbrenner is the owner of the Yankees. And so he gets involved and he protests the red card. And then the team gets their star back. And admittedly, it was not a great call, the red card. And the American team just seemed to go, you know, belly up. What happened out on the field? Well, one thing that happens is that they faced a superior team, which had not yet happened.

5:27Belgium played extremely well. Belgium played like they were motivated to defend not only their honor, but the honor of football. And, you know, it's interesting because the U.S. actually came out a little flat in several of the games, even in the first game against Paraguay. you know for the first few minutes they were pretty disorganized and Paraguay was actually the one with the better chance but what happened in the first two games especially is that they scored early and that seemed to settle them and allow them to sort of get into their patterns but in this game Belgium came out and had an immediate chance I mean it was like from kickoff An electric start.

6:10The USA didn't really take charge. And Belgium did. And I think that that rocked them back after what had been obviously an emotional 24 hours. And then Belgium scored quite quickly. And then it was just like the wheels just not only came off, but flew into outer space. Belgian celebrations fill the Seattle air as the Red Devils roar into the quarterfinals. United States of America 1, Belgium 4. You know, now that baseball, you know, people are, you know, you've got instant replay about balls and strikes and plays at first base and all the rest. And we have all kinds of video second guessing and other sports.

6:52How is that dealt with in football and soccer? What happens is, you know, the use of, as known as VAR in soccer, video-assisted referee, is extremely controversial and contested among soccer fans. Because when it helps your team, it's obviously just objective truth. And when it goes against you, it's misused somehow. But basically, the idea, and this is infiltrating sports, all sports, really, is that there's this idea that we should get calls right. and we have the technology to do it. So let's try. Basically, there is someone monitoring these TVs, basically, and they have the capacity to slow down or replay.

7:34And when something is missed, the referee is alerted that they're going to go to a video review. And in this case, the original call was not even made on the field, but the video review alerted, we're going to review this. And there is a rule that if you basically if you step on someone's leg, that's considered quite dangerous as because it is, you know, and there have been cases in which players have just totally kind of flown out of control into players and stepped on their legs and broken them. So in this case, though, in the sort of regular run of play, like in the flow of the game, it was just a sort of typical football challenge.

8:17But what happened was when they went to video review, they actually watched the replay over and over. And when you slow these things down, they can look pretty horrific. I mean, there is a photo of Flo, as many people in soccer call him, for the obvious reasons, standing on top of, you know, the Bosnian's player, twisted ankle. And that is, you know, pretty uncontrovertible. However, you're actually supposed to watch it as the referee has watched it. So one of the U.S.'s objections here was that they had misused VAR by slowing it down and focusing on the still photos instead of watching it as the referee would have watched it, which is a sort of more typical play.

9:01This drive toward exactitude, it's kind of like a philosophical question. Oh, absolutely. That we no longer are going to tolerate the, you know, sort of the ups and downs of the judgment and eyesight of an umpire or a referee. and we're going to get it so absolutely right that you can now have off-sides calls determined by a sensor that's in the ball. Yes. How does that work? There are sensors in the ball. I mean, it works as it sounds. There are sensors in the ball that can measure exactly not only where it is, but if it's been touched. And so there have been several controversial calls where it hasn't looked like it's been touched, but the sensor has kind of flared and maybe it sort of hit a few strands of someone's hair or, you know, maybe someone's offside by a millimeter.

9:48And, you know, one of the interesting things here is that there is a very small margin of error for all of these things, but we are not allowed to operate in the gray here. This has been an issue in tennis. This has been an issue in baseball, obviously. This has been an issue in all sorts of sports as we sort of try and figure out what kind of human judgment we want to involve. Now, another big issue, another big issue with World Cup, before we leave it, is I'm now starting to see, because as you know, trend pieces in journalism, if you have three examples, you're all set to go. Is there a Trump curse?

10:23Trump came to see the Knicks in game three, the Knicks lose. He goes to see the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs get obliterated. And now he interferes in the World Cup and the U.S. team really performs poorly. Are you willing to set down the law here and say there's a Trump curse when it comes to sports? Because I absolutely am. I was ready to do it after two. Two a series makes. Yeah, there you go. But yes, I mean, I do think, you know, there is some question about whether or not this was just a soccer question. Was the U.S. going to win? But I do think that there was a different kind of energy around the team.

11:08There was a different kind of energy around the Belgian team. um we cannot these are not double blind experience experiments we can't go back in time and say what would have happened if they were able to um to play without this kind of interference but i can say that um you know the u.s coach is um very interested in and uh energy he thinks everything comes back to like positive good vibes um and that stuff is sort of usually kind of overlooked because he's such a good tactical coach. But in this case, I think he might be completely right. The energy around this team, it shifted. Yeah, it really did.

11:48I'm speaking with the New Yorker's Louisa Thomas. More in a moment.

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13:46out Thursdays, wherever you get your podcasts.

13:53Now, let's get to very important things. The Knicks. I feel they did not improve substantially during the free agency period. I think they kind of, for financial reasons, so and so on, are standing pat. The big news in the NBA action in recent days has been the destiny of the 41-year-old, now former Laker, LeBron James. And the choice seems to be whether he goes to the Cavaliers for a poetic ending of his career or whether he goes to join the Warriors and have fun with Steph Curry. What do you think he'll do? And here I thought you were going to spend the entire segment talking about Mitchell Robinson going to the Celtics.

14:40fare thee well mitchell don't break your hand don't punch any more trucks i mean i you know where where does my where does my heart go my heart always goes to poetry so um you know i want him to be odysseus you know returning home um but much like odysseus i actually think that there is something in lebron james that always needs to leave um so bye bye penelope exactly

15:10I think that there, I think he really is considering Golden State. I mean, there are other reasons for him to want to go to Golden State. One is, yeah, to have fun with Seth Curry, which would be its own kind of poetry. Yeah, watch that. Yeah, for sure. And also it is closer. He has no intention of moving his base camp, his, you know, back to Akron. You know, he still has family there. He still has roots there. But his life is in L.A. now. And that's an easier trip from San Francisco than from, you know, Ohio. I think you and I and Vincent, even though we're all reduced to tears, tears literally streaming down the face of Vincent Cunningham on our sub-stack live final night.

15:58Wemby tries a three, puts it up, off the mark. And Anobi the rebound. It's over! It's over! Nick fans, this is not a dream. Your long, long wait has ended. Go ahead and cry after 53 years. We all realize that San Antonio is a great team. And Victor Wimbanyama is a fantastic player who's only going to get better. What does he have to do in the offseason to be that much better, particularly in the playoffs? What's the slight missing piece in Wemby that's going to have to come together? Well, one thing that happened is that he played, you know, 20 to 30 minutes during the regular season. And suddenly he was playing 40 minutes a night in high pressure situations.

16:47So one thing is just building up his fitness base. I think, though, that, you know, Wemby is a person who is sort of obsessed with the completeness of the game. and yeah, keeping us cool. You know, you referred to his penchant for, you know, smushing the opposition. Oh, whoa. That's, excuse me, that should be a flagrant one. I can understand why Brunson and then Wendy's laughing at it. I think some of that was a little deliberate because he was a little bit soft and a little too nice and a little, not badass enough. and okay maybe you don't have to try to break our hero's ankle in the process but um i think some of that might have been deliberate yeah he does do that and you know it's going to be interesting to see because he went speaking of u-turns on vibes um he went from someone who was universally admired and celebrated almost um to being someone who uh who is seen as a great villain.

17:54And there is a place for villains in the NBA, for sure. And finally, another thing that I was watching was tennis. And I was really taken, really, really moved by Serena's comeback match against this very young, very nervous. It was just very touching to watch this match. Tell me about how you saw that. oh yeah i mean i i was actually surprised by how moved i was um in part because it's it seems to me that everybody was surprised by serena coming back i had been waiting for this day since she had quote unquote retired um so i was not at all surprised when she came back um but yeah i mean you saw from the very you know there's this kind of espn has these cameras everywhere i mean it's like absolutely surveilled and in the hallway where you go from the players locker room out to the court they were tracking the the players the whole time and and uh uh serena's opponent was she did not know where to put her eyes right you know she she had no she'd never been in this situation and she was just like a deer you know and serena because she has been in this situation so many times um and she very much knew she was on camera just looked as relaxed as you know a lake and when they stepped out there i was like wow this is uh this is this is moving um and but we didn't get you know it sort of was a slow a slow build and just when i thought the match was you know going to be over serena did the thing that serena does and she started throwing down aces you know down break point she started kind of there was really there's a in in tennis there's classic pattern of the big surf followed by the big forehand.

19:46And she did one of those. And it was just like I was transported back to 2011 or 2012 or 2002. It was just one of those moments. It was like muscle memory.

20:05You don't become one of the greatest athletes of all time for nothing. Champions, champion spirit. And she's in this fight, Serena Williams. But now Serena has knee problems. And do you think this comeback is over just as it started? She has actually announced, or one of her coaches, Renee Stubbs, who is herself a doubles Grand Slam winner, that she's going to play in the US Open. And hopefully, as long as her knee is OK, she's going to probably play a warm-up event. So do I think it's over? I don't know. I mean, she is not someone who likes to go out on a loss. The problem is in tennis, unless you win the tournament, you go out on a loss.

20:56And it's also hard to imagine her going out on a win. It's really that's that that would be just beyond beyond. Yes. Well, Louisa, it's always a pleasure to talk sports with you. Thank you so much. Always.

21:13Louisa Thomas writes the sporting scene column for The New Yorker, and you can find her writing on the World Cup, Serena Williams' attempted comeback, and much more at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

21:41with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parrish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.

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