Hour 2: Chiefs WR Xavier Worthy, S.I.’s Chris Mannix’s NBA Season Preview

20:14Rich Eisen:So I'm excited to be even a small part of it. Fantastic. Will Jason Tatum be a part of this season, sir? What a segue. Just jumping right into it. Let's just get right to it. This man over there and all the Celtics honks are seeing him looking pretty spry on a practice court right now. What do you think? Is there any possibility? It was. So that was like a six minute YouTube video that Tatum uploaded that really 12 seconds of it captivated everybody. And that was the time he spent on the court in Boston. Now, he did his first on court workout about a week ago, Monday now. So that was the first time he got back on the court.

20:48I was in New York with him last week, and he said that was the first time he's felt like a basketball player again. That said, I didn't expect to see that. I didn't expect to see the cutting, the movements, all the things that you see Tatum go through in a normal workout. So it was incredibly encouraging. But when I talk to people that are close to Tatum and people around the Celtics, they're pumping the brakes pretty hard on the anticipation game because they know this injury is a tricky one. It's a tricky one to fully recover from. And even when you feel like you're fully recovered, you don't want to be kind of overcompensating in other areas to to protect this this type of injury so they're excited in boston that he's doing all this but nobody out there is you know stamping the all-star break or march as a time to bring him back okay so he is still human he's not an alien i think the other variable too and this is you know the celtics this is a gap year there's no doubt about it like maybe they can make the playoffs but they're not competing for anything this year next year 26 27 is when they're back in the mix and what's the best thing that could help them in that year that's probably having a lottery pick like they control their own draft pick in this next june's draft i don't think it would bother too many people in boston if they wound up slipping into the lottery and are able to use that pick to get another cheap controllable player or trade that pick to get a veteran that helps this mix all right let's talk about a lot

22:18Rich Eisen:of the news that came out of this past week of media days from coast to coast here. You were at a couple of them. Which ones were you? I went to Philadelphia's, which was early. And then the Clippers, which was on Monday. All right, let's take it one at a time. The Sixers, which one, what do you take away from the Philadelphia 76ers? Anxiety. Like, oh, wow. There's a lot of anxiety. Maybe it was coming from me because like I flew in to New York and took the train down to philadelphia the second i landed in new york i pulled up the old gambling app and i saw the sixers 42 and a half on the sixers over under hammered that hammered that rich like that i am all in i was all in on the 76ers to get like 48 50 wins this season taken off i looked at the roster the fact that the eastern conference stinks and i thought they were going to take off Then I get to media day.

23:15I'm saying then I get to media day and Joel Embiid sits down and has the cliche book right out going one day at a time. It's going to listen to the doctors taking it step by step. Got a lot of boxes to check. That made me incredibly nervous because it felt a little bit like deja vu, like where we were last year, where Joel Embiid was not ready for training camp and was not talking about being ready for the season opener. Maybe he will be. Maybe in a few weeks' time, we'll see Embiid out there on the floor for the 76ers. But his status and the uncertainty around it, that made me nervous. Because everything else is just gravy, right?

23:54It's like, Paul George, yeah, you want to get him back into the mix. Jared McCain, want to see him back. They need Joel Embiid playing 55 to 60 games to give them a chance to compete in the conference.

24:04Rich Eisen:Okay, so there's that. um and then the clippers media was that all about the pablo tory finding out or what it should have been it wasn't okay um look i thought it would the clippers they whisked him in and out of there in about seven minutes kawaii leonard kawaii leonard they're saying they got him in now like lawrence frank answered some questions about it but the clippers did everything they possibly could to avoid getting putting kawaii in a position to have to answer some tough questions He did answer some questions from Ramona Shelburne from ESPN. I was at the media day. I was trying to ask some of those questions.

24:43I was not given the opportunity to do so. Now, nobody cares how the media does his job, but I thought it was noteworthy that they were not calling on people that they knew were going to ask those particular types of questions. Because look, there are a couple of like Kawhi. He's obviously decided that he's going to play the fake news angle, right? Like this is a conspiracy theory. This is clickbait. He's going to say it's nothing. He called it old news. It's not old news. This is a alleged case of cap circumvention that could hurt the Clippers this season and cripple them for years to come. If it turns out that they did this.

25:23the question that that ramona asked where she said she said to and i'm paraphrasing a little she said hey people are assuming you didn't do any promotion for this company aspiration effectively you did nothing to earn the seven million dollars per year that you were getting he said that wasn't entirely accurate the question i would have asked and still hope somebody asks if not me is that can you point to one thing just one thing like if you put out a tweet if you showed up at an event hell if you planted a tree in your backyard and said you were in favor of carbon neutrality go aspiration that would have been that would have gone a long way towards getting the clippers off the hook but he has not provided any evidence that he did anything to live up to or earn the money that came from this contract and until he does this thing is going to hang over

26:17Rich Eisen:the clippers head like a cloud the clippers are adamant nothing happened untoward happened and cuban has has tweeted out uh in support and i don't know what he's doing well i don't know i mean it's not his team i know that and his point is like you know uh i would love to point out that they cheated you know i would love to you know that that would potentially look back and help them i don't know i i mean that that's been his uh approach that you know that if they did anything untoward to any other franchise including the one i used to own he would he would want to point that out well okay i mean when i talk to different ownership sources yes the thing i hear the most is that this could potentially open a pandora's box because giving players extra benefits is not it's not uncommon it's just to the degree of the benefits you give your star player access to your private jet to take him to dubai like that could happen you give uh your mansion in palm springs I was making stuff up at this point, but you've given little things.

27:20What's made this story so big is the number attached to it, the$28 million that's attached to it. So there is definitely some anxiety amongst some owners in the NBA that if the NBA believes that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap and they come down on them hard, well, then you start looking around at other teams and other pieces. And look, Steve Ballmer, does he take this? if it does go that direction does he take it lying down does he start fighting back and pointing fingers at other teams like there is just a whole lot that could come from a a conclusion drawn by

27:56Rich Eisen:the nba that the clippers did this sports illustrated in nbc sports is and disowns chris manix a lot of slashes right here on the rich eisen show uh down the street the lakers had their media day uh jj reddick said that lebron is not going to you know be taking part in practices and things of that nature just yet. He said it was a nerve irritation in his glute, which is an interesting way of calling LeBron a pain in the ass, don't you think, without really doing so. But in all seriousness, what are we making of this? Is there anything, is there any there there? This isn't a late September, early October story we're not going to talk about?

28:30No, I don't think there's anything to be overly concerned with physically. In fact, I think the Lakers are showing signs now that they're going to do something smart with LeBron, which is scaling him back. LeBron last year played 70 games. He averaged 35 minutes per game in his age 40 season. You cannot possibly expect a player, even one as great as LeBron, to be at full strength going into the playoffs when you have that kind of workload. This is a guy that needs to be scaled back to like the 60 game per year range, to the under 30 minute per game range. It's not easy to do. Like superstars, they want to play.

29:14They don't want to take time off if they feel like they're healthy. But for the Lakers to have the best chance of succeeding in the postseason, I think they've got a good chance. Like Luka Doncic owns the Oklahoma City Thunder. Whether it's in Dallas or Los Angeles, he has played extraordinarily well against Oklahoma City. And that was prior to men's health, Luka. Prior to skinny Luka, the new version of him. So he plays well against Oklahoma City. He can't do that alone, though. He needs LeBron at the closest to 100 % that he can possibly be. And you're not going to get that version of him if he's going 70 games at 35 minutes per game.

29:49So my hope, and I'm sure all the Lakers fans hope, is that this foreshadows some load management for LeBron James this year. That still gets him into the games like 60 times per year, but keeps that workload down so he's in a better position in the playoffs. And Zion managed his own load, it looks like, huh?

30:07Rich Eisen:What's going on there? It's like we're giving golf claps for guys to come in camp in shape. Like he had paid max money. Well, it's more than golf claps for them. I know. I was excited. It's like a standing O in New Orleans right now. I was excited to see him in shape because it's not that long ago that Zion was great. He played 70 games two years ago. He's shown that when he's healthy, he's a dominant player. We just finished our NBA preview, and I talked to a lot of scouts and coaches about Zion. And they're like, look, he's as close to unguardable as there is in the NBA when he's at his best and he's healthy.

30:42We don't know. Do you stick a big guy on him? He just goes around him. Stick a smaller guy on him. He just powers right through him. He is extraordinarily tough. When I saw him at media day, looking like he did, sounding like he did. It told me maybe that Joe Dumars might have gotten through to him a little bit. Joe Dumars, the new president of basketball operations, GM in New Orleans, has a lot of respect from a lot of players league wide. that dates back to his playing days. Joe has made getting through Zion a priority, understandably so. And when I see Zion sitting there looking like that, sounding like that, it gives me some optimism that, hey, this guy can get back on track to being the franchise player we thought he was.

31:19Rich Eisen:Let's talk about the Warriors a little bit, Chris Mannix. Interpret this Steve Kerr soundbite at his media availability this week after he said that he does not intend to sign a contract extension during this season. He's in his walk year, and he basically said, let's see how things play out. I don't anticipate any negotiation. Until the offseason? Yeah, during the season. And, you know, who knows? Maybe it all comes up at some point. They come to me, whatever. But I'm not the slightest bit concerned about it. I don't think about it. I just think it makes perfect sense for all of us. This, I've said this before, I think, but however this ends, it's going to be, it's going to be done in a really quality way.

32:12It's going to happen the right way. If it's meant to be for me to keep going, then I'm going to keep going. And if it's meant to be for, you know, the team to move on to somebody else, there will be, you know, nothing but gratitude and appreciation. So this, this makes it easy for everybody. We just let's see where we are at the end of the year.

32:32Rich Eisen:Want to interpret that for me? I think it's a reasonable take. I mean, Steve Kerr has incredible job security, contract or no contract. He is inextricably linked to Steph Curry and Draymond Green. As long as Steph Curry and Draymond Green are in Golden State, Steve Kerr is going to be there. But this is, look, those two guys have two years left on their respective contracts. But this is a interesting year for Golden State. You've got the mix of players that should be pretty good, but they're all the top guys on the older side. A couple of them have been injury prone in recent years. Should this go south this year, really south, where they're in the lottery at the end of the season?

33:16Then maybe Golden State says, you know, we might have to reboot this thing a year early. We might have to look to trade Draymond Green or move off of Jimmy Butler. And then if you're Steve Kerr, you probably don't want to be part of a rebuilding situation in Golden State. I saw when I saw that presser, I mean, your antenna goes up when you talk about a coach in his kind of walk year. And for most coaches, that's a difficult place to be. But not for Steve Kerr when you have the total allegiance of the two biggest stars on the team.

33:46Rich Eisen:OK, a couple of things I want to hit with you before I send you on your day. The WNBA. And this is getting particularly dicey. You know, Nafisa Collier coming out and ethering the commissioner of the WNBA. Just absolutely, I mean, what's the phrase you used on? Napalming. Basically saying that Kathy Engelberg doesn't call her, doesn't reach out in a way that her husband, who's running, you know, unrivaled, does for other players when they're hurt or need to be seeing some of the business at hand that she sees from that side of the family, that it doesn't happen here? Does the NBA reach out and step in here in this contract, collective bargaining agreement negotiation that does appear to be spilling out in many different ways because it's not moving in any direction that the wnba players like is that basically the question or am i asking the wrong question no i mean look i mean that was i've never seen anything like that for an active player to come out and in a prepared statement just napalm's the word just napalm your boss basically the person running uh your league that i'd never in my life seen something like that in sports some of the stuff i thought was a little over the top like kathy engelbert didn't call collier when she sprained her ankle like adam silver doesn't call players when they have relatively minor injuries like that that doesn't happen does does roger goodell call a guy when he's turned his ankle or pulled a hamstring or that that stuff just doesn't happen i also think there's it's a dangerous place to go to be revealing private conversations like which i'm and i don't know if kathy engelbert said the things that nafisa collier said let's assume for the sake of argument that she did i think if you're trying to negotiate a cba extension showing that you're willing to reveal anything that's said at any given time is is not a great thing all that being said i think kathy engelbert the wnba commissioner is very bad at communicating like very very bad at communicating so does adam silver step in in any way shape or for the because they own a piece of the w nba is in wnba i mean it's their brand too they're not look i don't know if kathy engelbert survives all this there's been some reporting out there that once the cba is done that she would step aside and somebody new would take over i don't get the sense that the nba thinks that she's doing a bad job as commissioner.

36:35Like her communication skills clearly suck, but I don't think that the NBA believes she's horrible at her job. Like this whole, like this is all, everything traces back to the CBA and like they're barreling towards a work stoppage. That seems inevitable at this point because these two sides, it seems like they're really far apart. I think that the WNBA and the NBA to an extent has a point where the WNBA came in and their initial ask was to look for a piece of the pie. They were talking about splits, like revenue sharing, that kind of stuff, the stuff that NBA players get. The NBA players get 50 % of the revenue from the NBA.

37:17Well, you can do that in the NBA where you have a total revenue of like$11 billion. You can do a 50 % split. The WNBA's total revenue is like$400 million,$500 million. contracts that's with it like 500 million if you want to say if you ask for a for let's just say a 50 50 split that doesn't you can't run a league with like 250 million dollars it's just apples and oranges in some ways i think what the wnba and their players should be emphasizing and this is where you you can win over a lot of the public support is a hey 70 ish thousand dollars for these salaries is nowhere close to being enough let's get that up over 200 000 let's get uh max salaries well over a million dollars.

38:00Those are the things that I think people can get behind because the WNBA is growing as a sport. It is growing in popularity. But I think we're just headed towards a nasty, nasty work stoppage. Well, it's already there. It's there, but we haven't stopped working. I think when you get to the end of the month, and I'm not a diligent WNBA reporter on all this. I'm sort of learning in real time. But it doesn't seem to be anything that will stop this from being a shutdown.

38:27Rich Eisen:Well, we've been through labor negotiations as people who have covered sports. And this absolutely screams lack of progress. This screams lack of trust. This screams, as you said, work stoppage. We're obviously not. We're still playing games. But I just wanted to ask you about what the NBA thinks about it. You go back to the, and I covered the David Stern labor negotiations back in the day. there's some nasty things said about David Stern back in those days as well it it always gets said but I'd never like for someone to come out I mean that was a coordinated attack like someone to come out I'm not saying it was a bad thing but to come out and read a prepared statement that said those things then like I think the union came out right after that with their own statement and player player reps for teams are ready to go with their responses like this was negotiation man like all hands on deck it's all hands on deck in a CBA negotiation that and and and it's this is money and it gets really intense and emotional.

39:28Rich Eisen:And it spills out in many different ways. Let's keep chit-chatting, man. Great to see you. Congrats on the NBC gig. And then we'll just keep an eye out for all of your great reporting and then your podcast work as well. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated is here on The Rich Eisen Show. We'll be back with more of your phone calls in a moment.

39:50Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.

39:57Rich Eisen:O 'Reilly Auto Parts can help take the guesswork out of your vehicle's check engine, ABS, or maintenance light with O 'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. Ask for O 'Reilly Veriscan today. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. Future stars who are already turning heads at age 14. because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and neither do we. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. We did it when we made advanced safety standard on every vehicle and engineered EVs with ultra-fast charging capability because the future isn't some far-off concept.

40:38Rich Eisen:It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA.

40:46Rich Eisen:ESPN Radio, live stream along with Disney Plus and ESPN. and I was just talking about my opinions on what's going on with the collective bargain agreement conversations with the WNBA and their commissioner. Again, I think SVP said it expertly on his show. It is one big thing. You can't, if Commissioner Engelbert said, Caitlin should be grateful she makes$16 million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't make anything. means she completely missed why caitlin clark is filling up the buildings in the wnba if she really said this yeah but nafisa collier who's rightfully outing her for that sort of thing especially if they're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars at the table trying to figure out a collective bargaining agreement and this is front and center of a wmb finals is about to tip off um it's gonna get uglier i i went through the lockout with the nfl it's exactly what it sounds like you know union goes into the commissioner players go at the commissioner and at some point you know robert craft and jeff saturday got together and solved a lot of issues i don't know who's the who those people are going to be right here for the w you but man there is a vote of no confidence in the commissioner right now that i don't know if it's going to help at the collective bargaining table and certainly not once the deal is done and there's some kumbaya that happens wouldn't it also help their case though if their biggest star in the league had something to say other than no comment about all this going on too like what do you mean well that was kate when asked about the feast of statement caitlin was was no comment like she didn't want to speak up on it well at this point in time i don't it's a it's bigger than all of this yeah i'm telling you this is about the collective bargaining agreement not being done and the ugliness behind the scenes and just spilling out right now because it's go time at the end of this month something's got to get hammered out all of this is coming from a collective bargaining agreement negotiation that hasn't gone well at all and there's some distrust and mistrust in the room.

43:05Rich Eisen:It's exactly what happened. I was sitting there in the spring of 2011 wondering how in the world was this not going to wind up with a playing season wiped out. I was wondering if I had to start figuring out what happens. That's how I wound up on David Letterman's show on Late Night. He wanted to know what it's like to host a draft during a lockout. Other than that, Dave was hunky-dory. Everyone's wondering, like, what's going on? And we were wondering if it was ever going to come back. That's how bad it was getting. Let's get the lawyers out of the room. That's what everyone was saying.

43:49Rich Eisen:But it's all being laid bare right now. And I hope it all works out, obviously. 844-204-RICH, number to dial Jason in New York. You're here on The Rich Eisen Show. What's up, Jason? Hey, how you doing, Rich? I wanted to talk about the game tonight, the two managers. Obviously, you've got Booney and you've got Cora. Alex Cora. Cora, yeah, Alex Cora. And obviously every Boston fan and, quite frankly, most of the New York fans are going to say that Cora's a better manager. But he's rolling the dice with a 23-year-old today with four games of Major League experience, has never pitched in a Major League stadium on the road.

44:32and I say that because he's only pitched against the A's in Sacramento and the Rays in Tampa. It's an elimination game. It's the playoff lives. Is Cora a genius? Is he crazy? Let me tell you this, Jason.

44:45Rich Eisen:Is he trying to make Boone be Boone? What's he doing? Cora is an outstanding manager. Every button he's pushed in the first two games has worked, with the exception of maybe keeping Whitlock in longer in the eighth inning, but you had no other choice. You wanted to get him through it, and then you go to Chapman and see what happens in the extra innings. I mean, can you even fault Cora for making that move? No, the only thing about yesterday that I was surprised at is that, you know, Baio didn't have his A-plus stuff, but only 28 pitches. But he was managing like this was game seven. For sure, for sure.

45:17Rich Eisen:And so he put all his eggs in the basket. Now that there's a third game, his bullpen might be a little bit unsettled. The Yankees have a better bullpen-rested situation, I'd imagine. although they have to they'd have to throw Bednar on a third straight day tonight right whereas Chapman didn't pitch last night I Jason I don't know but crazier things have happened that you know this kid both kids for the Yankees and the Red Sox and I could pitch the games of their lives and we wouldn't bat an eye and both of them could you know do what to the bed and we wouldn't bat an eye either and now it's a bullpen war and who's gonna actually and thanks to the call who's gonna to who's gonna make it's it's all about that's the playoff baseball thing it's incredible it's all about the small moments last night when they brought in when uh was it wilson that that he brought in for for baio right yeah and it was second and third infield in cody bellinger up i turned to cooper and i'm like this is it because core has made a move that could be second guessed and i'm sure there are red sox fans second guessing it right now and it could be really iffy to take your starter out and put your closer, not your closer, put your reliever in right now.

46:31Rich Eisen:And the infield's in with two runners on. I don't know if Cody Bellinger's going to have a shot like this the rest of the game. And he didn't, and he didn't get it done. Yankees still took it down. The Hyundai Palisade all-new hybrid. What makes it an incredible SUV? Is it because of the spacious interior, the capability of going off-road? And that spacious interior is comfy for the whole crew. Maybe it's that 600-plus miles of range that I'm very impressed with. Maybe it's all of that and more. Maybe it's you behind the wheel of an all-new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid as well. So much more than just another SUV.

47:01Rich Eisen:Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. That's 562-314-4603. The Ridge Eisen Show Podcast. You know when you're locked in, focused, and fearless. Welcome to the WNBA. Your vision narrows. You can't look away. Every assist, every stop, every logo three. From beyond the logo. Every did you see that moment. You bet. What records are going to be broken this season? All of it right here. Lock in. It's the WNBA on ESPN. All season long.