Mike Vorkunov: Not Concerned About Cooper Flagg

0:00It's Saturday. The tailgate crew is on the way. You've got the cooler iced, comfortable seating, and oof. Where's the charcoal for the grill? No worries. That's when Express Delivery from the Home Depot can help. Order in the app or online. Get what you need delivered fast and track it along the way so you can get set up in time for kickoff. Get what you need in two hours or less with Express Delivery from the Home Depot. Subject to availability, order select in-stock items by 4 p.m. Restrictions and fees apply. Hey, let's chat about choosing the best tool for the job. When the pressure's on, you find out what's really built for the moment.

0:36That's true late in the fourth quarter of a big game. And it's true when there's work to get done on a deadline. On the job site, conditions change. The clock keeps moving, and the tools you reach for have to be ready to handle it again and again. That's why DeWalt tests its tools under real-world conditions that push even the best tools to their limit. Only then does a tool earn the DeWalt badge. So when the pressure is high and the work needs to get done, DeWalt tools are built to perform, built to last, and built to finish strong. DeWalt. Guaranteed tough. Available at the Home Depot. How doers get more done.

1:27rich eisen rich eisen oh that's suzy eisen's husband the rich eisen show and now sitting in for rich here's dan schwartzman that is correct i am in for rich here on a what is today a friday july 11th beautiful day all around the country i hope so much to get into but i'll tell you what it's that time of year. Baseball season nearing the All-Star break coming up in a couple of days. The ever-popular Home Run Derby is going to be upon us as well. Yes, I said that tongue-in-cheek. Wimbledon, we are in the women's final. We're setting the men's final up too. We'll give you an update on that. A lot to get into.

2:12Cooper Flagg making his NBA debut in the Summer League yesterday. Some called it uneven. I call it who the heck cares. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich Eyes and we have a lot to get into. And before we get into the meat and potatoes here, I do have to admit something. I liked tennis growing up. I watched tennis growing up. I was what you would call a fan of tennis growing up. And then the sport kind of lost me. I remember when I was a kid, I went to Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous arenas it likes to be called, and I watched, I think it was called the Nabisco Masters back then. and I saw Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg.

2:53I mean, really the greats. The generation before we got to the big three and Andy Murray, I'm not going to say the big four because no offense to Murray. He does not belong in the same sentence as Djokovic and Nadal and Federer. He was pretty good and injury kind of robbed him a bit, but I'm not going to group him in with the three greatest. And then tennis kind of lost me for a while, and I didn't really pay attention. And lately I've been kind of putting one foot in, a toe in here, started to watch a bit, got into the French Open a bit. Wimbledon's been kind of fun, I have to admit. It's fun when Americans get far.

3:33And I think that's what it really comes down to. It's fun when the Americans are in it. And the American men have been so bad for so long that now to have like Taylor Fritz, who was ousted today by Carlos Alcaraz and Ben Shelton, who was ousted a couple. I was a yesterday or the day before to get to the quarters, the semis, whatever it might be. At least it keeps you interested a lot longer than it used to, because the state of American men's tennis was horrendous from when Andy Murray won. uh no excuse me Andy Roddick one was that the U.S. Open whatever the heck it was seems like 20 years ago it may have been 20 years ago by the way and from that point on no American man has won anything and now you have guys like Shelton you have Fritz you have Tiafoe you have what Nakashima I believe it is I mean you have American men who are actually pretty good I'm not talking to John Isner's and guys like that the Marty fishes of the world.

4:35I'm talking about guys who legitimately have a shot to potentially win a Grand Slam event. And I think because of that, it has re-peaked my interest in the sport a bit to where I have to admit, all right, call me a loser if you want. I got into this Wimbledon a little bit today, and I was disappointed to see Taylor Fritz lose today in four sets, and a very competitive four sets to Carlos Alcaraz, who is the 22-year-old stud. So I have to tell you, though, I actually don't mind Alcaraz. I do think he's kind of a sore loser. I think he's a little too emotional on the court. I think that's, you know, I chalk it up to age, really, because he's 22.

5:17I get it. When I was 22 and younger, I was kind of a jerk when I played sports. No one likes to lose, right? And when you lose a bit here and there, you kind of act a little maybe inappropriately. You might say something. Your body language may not be the best. I think Alcaraz is guilty of doing that here and there. And in the women's game, you see it with the number one seed who went out to the American. I'm talking about Sabalenka, right? Marina Sabalenka from Belarus. She lost to Amanda Anisimova, the American, yesterday, who goes on to her first Grand Slam final. And there was an incident on the court where Sabalenka had said, like, are you going to apologize?

6:02Because apparently Anisimova hit a shot that hit the top of the net, went over, and some people apologized for that in tennis, which I found to be ridiculous. What are you apologizing for? So should a baseball player who hits a ball and hits off the top of the wall for a home run apologize because it barely scraped over? No, who cares? A point is a point. A run is a run. You reach over a goal line and you get the nose right there. It's still a touchdown. In the box score, it's the same thing. Who cares how much of the ball crossed over? Who cares? Ball hits the net, goes over. It's still a point in tennis.

6:36There's no asterisk next to it. And then Sabalenka is the same one who lost at the French Open to Coco Goff, and instead of just saying Goff played great, she said, well, Goff didn't beat me, I beat myself, because she had 70 unforced errors, and sure, she played terribly, but still, give credit to where it's due. Goff won. Sabalenka apologized for her and Goff were cool, they posted, I think, a social media video together, kind of joking about it, so at least that's fine. But, you know, you do see guys and gals who have, I think, poor sportsmanship, and I get in today and I'm chatting with our esteemed producer across the glass, Art Martinez.

7:17And the first thing he says is, I hate Alcaraz. I hate the guy. Again, I have no problem with Carlos Alcaraz. I really don't. I mean, you know, I think he's a heck of a player. But Art, what is your deal? Like you're like steamed up today about Carlos Alcaraz because he beat an American. You know, we're going to figure out what the deal is here. I'm going to give you a chance to kind to collect your thoughts and say this appropriately on the air okay so when you collect your thoughts and you can say it appropriately i'll let you say it but i really have no problem with the guy i admire a guy especially you know you got to remember like in women's tennis players mature much quicker you could have a teenager win a tournament right you can have a 19 year old an 18 year old win a grand slam event and it's like wow they're young but still it's not unheard of.

8:10In men's tennis, it takes a bit longer to mature into a star. You very rarely have a teenage man win a Grand Slam tennis event or any tennis tournament. And Al Karaz, of course, has been winning since he's a teenager. He's 22 years old. He's got five Grand Slams. He's following in the footsteps of his fellow countryman, Nadal, although he's kind of won a plethora of tournaments you know nadal was obviously the greatest french open tennis player ever probably the greatest clay player ever i wouldn't even say probably he is the greatest you know clay clay player ever but that really is what it comes down to so we'll get to that a bit later on i i want to throw that out because it's obviously ongoing right now and uh right now it's going to be uh sinner versus jokovic another great semi by the way to have the number one rank versus Djokovic, one of the all-time greatest.

9:06All right, I want to switch gears because we witnessed yesterday Cooper Flagg's first NBA game. And it was a summer league game, so, you know, let's be honest, it's not exactly a true telling of his abilities. And people are calling it an uneven performance. He has described it as one of the worst games of his life. and yeah it wasn't a great effort he was what six of 21 i believe on the uh you know on his shot selection so it wasn't like he was uh you know throwing him great shots here and once again it is a summer league game so take it with a grain of salt brawny james played a bunch so right there tells you something okay but you know cooper flag is going to have games where he's not great I understand that there is an expectation that comes with being the number one pick.

10:02There's an expectation that comes with the hype of being a player that everybody looks at and says, you know, this guy's going to be the next superstar. I've been reading the articles about him. And what people are saying about Cooper Flagg is they expect him to be a superstar. And I don't think that's a real fair assessment for an 18-year-old kid. that's in his first NBA season coming up. He shot 5 of 21 from the field, 0 for 5 from three-point land, did get six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 32 minutes. But I got to tell you, I watched him play at Duke. There was a ton of expectations on him at Duke.

10:46He was the number one recruit in the nation. He had reclassified to go a year earlier. People forget he's got a twin brother who's actually going to be a freshman college basketball player at the University of Maine this year, the same year his twin brother is going to be an NBA rookie as a number one pick. And he goes to Duke. He dominates at Duke. I mean, dominated. He was a player of the year, lived up to the hype. So I don't think it's going to be a transition that's going to be very difficult for Cooper Flagg. It's great to see him playing these summer league games, get the experience. be in a position where he kind of gets these jitters out of the way before the regular season gets off.

11:28And there's plenty of time, by the way, before the regular season tips off. But I think for people to have these expectations this early for Cooper Flagg to call it an uneven performance, or even call it anything, frankly, is utterly ridiculous. I understand the microscope is on the kid. I get it. But what expectation did you have? I had none. Let the kid go out there. Let him kind of test the waters of the NBA and then let him go dominate. But I saw that incredible statistic. I guess it's a financial statistic. Last week, I believe it was. Because NBA salaries are now absolutely through the roof.

12:08NBA salaries are at the point of being ridiculous. I forgot who just signed an extension. maybe it's Devin Booker where he's going to make 72 million dollars a year in this contract extension 72 million dollars a year Shea Gilgis Alexander is going to make 71 and a half million in his extension these supermax contracts these guys are entitled to sign because it's a set percentage of the salary cap which is obviously set by revenue and the NBA's got unbelievable TV deals, although their ratings aren't very good, yet somehow they have these incredible TV deals. And these guys, because there's so few players on a team, they're absolutely making a fortune.

12:50And good for them. I don't begrudge a player going out there and earning as much money as possible. Go ahead. It's mind-boggling numbers, by the way, but still, it's, you know, you're talking about Booker's going to be earning about almost a million dollars a game and probably more no one plays 82 games anymore right he's probably going to play about 72 games this year meaning he's going to get about a million dollars for his 48 minutes of action and in those 48 minutes he probably plays 32 or 36 minutes if you can get it go do it i don't begrudge it but i read that if cooper flag turns out to be the player that he has envisioned to become which means he will be an all-NBA player he will make all-NBA teams he'll be a perennial all-star he'll be one of the best players in the league I read that if he signs all these super max deals that he can sign along the way when he's 31 years old he would have earned not that not total this is just salary, okay, he would earn$931 million.

14:04So it's like 13 years, right? Because he will be in the league 13 years because he's 18. He doesn't turn 19 years old till the end of December. That's how young Cooper Flagg is. He literally turns 19 December 21st. so he'll be in his 12th 13th year signing all the supermax deals along the way cooper flag is going to earn 931 million dollars and here's where it gets even funnier okay he's not going to retire at 31 so he's going to continue playing and who knows what tv contracts are at that point cooper flag will earn literally in salaries if he's as good as he's you know we believe he's going to be he will earn more than a billion dollars just in nba salary over a billion dollars now you throw in the endorsement deals and i believe cooper flag will probably get a bunch of endorsement deals why not he's going to make multiple billion dollars when it's all said and done again the caveat is he's got to live up to being the player that he is expected to become.

15:20The money is outrageous. You know, it's always a fun conversation when you sit around with your friends and you're like, well, you know, if my son, if I could have my kid playing any sport, what would it be? And I like when people are like, well, I think golf would be great. Yeah, golfers make a ton of money. If you're like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, whatever, they can make a ton of money. Tennis make a lot of money too, individualized sport. Soccer's pretty cool, right? You travel to some of the most beautiful cities in the world. You do the winters in Dubai and stuff and train there. I mean, I'm sure it's a lot of fun.

15:57Soccer players have a really good time and they're highly paid. But I think basketball's the way to go. 82 games, every game is in a climate-controlled environment, right? Think about that. Every game is in a climate-controlled arena, dead of winter, but it's going to be 70 degrees in the arena, right? 72 degrees, wherever room temperature is. So you're not going to be uncomfortable. Oh, by the way, you have the summers off. If you're a star, you're not playing summer league basketball. You literally have the summer off, you know, baseball players, they're playing during the summer. Sure. The wintertime, they can go vacation to whatever Caribbean Island they want, or, you know, Mallorca, Spain, or wherever the heck they want to go.

16:37There's plenty of places, but they are vacationing in the wintertime. A basketball player, first of all, is making more money than a baseball player. They're playing half the games. They're playing indoors in a climate-controlled atmosphere, and they have the summer off. So forget golf, forget tennis, forget soccer, forget all that. If my kid, and I don't have a son, if I had a son, and by the way, they would never be tall enough because I'm like 5 '11", and my wife's like 5 '5", but again this is not reality but seriously i would steer my kid to play basketball when devin booker is going to make 72 million dollars a year and i read that uh after this uh shea gilgis alexander supermax he signed his next contract would be like for 100 million a year so the money's outrageous no question about the money is outrageous but what are the expectations what do people think when it comes to cooper flag you know obviously one game is not something that you can base anything on but i want to talk a little basketball all right the next bring in mike brown they fire tom timideau was mike brown really the choice is that a lateral step do they go backwards cooper flag what are the expectations what do we think he's going to be year one with the dallas mavericks mike vorkanov national nba basketball reporter for the athletic he's going to join us next we are just underway on a friday a nice hot steamy friday dan schwartzman in for rich eyes and it is the rich eisen show the greats don't shy away from change they attack it head on with confidence preparation and a clear strategy kpmg llp and their transformation professionals work with organizations across industries using their advanced AI to help them move faster, work smarter, and adapt with purpose.

18:36Because in today's business environment, winning teams don't react to change, they shape it. Learn more at visit.kpmg.us slash velocity. It's Saturday, kickoff's getting close and your weekend project just hit a wall. You're short on materials or you need one more tool for the job. Turns out that quick fix needs a quick assist. That's the perfect time to call an audible with express delivery from The Home Depot. Order in the app or online. Get what you need delivered fast and track updates along the way so you can finish your project in time for the first snap. Get what you need in two hours or less with express delivery from The Home Depot.

19:11Subject to availability, order select in-stock items by 4 p.m. Restrictions and fees apply. Rich Eisen here with some advice. If high interest credit card debt is grinding you down, it might be time to call an audible with a SoFi personal loan. It consolidates your debt into one low monthly payment with no fees required. And with as soon as the same day funding, you can make the right play fast. Call an audible on your debt today at SoFi.com slash debt play. Loans originated by SoFi Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891. Fast funds terms apply at SoFi.com slash debt play.

19:46Cooper Flagg making his NBA debut in a summer league matchup yesterday. Result doesn't matter. 5-21 from the field, 0-5 from three-point land. Wow, he struggled. Whoa. Who would ever thought an 18-year-old kid making his NBA debut would struggle a little bit? But he did. But he's human. I do think he's going to be a heck of a player. Let's talk a little bit more NBA basketball. Mike Vorokunov, National NBA Business Reporter at The Athletic joining us. Mike, how much stock did you take in what we saw from Cooper Flagg yesterday?

20:18Negative 100%.

20:23I agree, man. And it's amazing how people are like, oh, it's an uneven performance. Wow, this happened. Who cares? Let him get his ears a little wet here in the NBA before we start judging what an 18-year-old is going to do. He's going to play some summer league. Let's see how it goes. And he's going to get into the regular season. Is the microscope on him a little too much? Yeah, probably. But, you know, that happens with being the number one pick, right? Once you get to that level, everyone kind of just, like, starts looking at everything you do and putting so much weight and value on it. And, you know, it's probably less so than it is for even recent number one picks.

20:59Like, I remember Kirtuwa Manjama, like, I was there for his, you know, summer league debut, and he's not very good at all, and people started asking questions about him. And it's like, yeah, that turned out fine. It was just summer league. It had been a long few months for him, same as it had been for Cooper, where they're spending, you know, the last few months. getting the doctors in the college season, doing all their marketing stuff, and go straight to summer league. You know, Mike, what's interesting to me is he goes to a place like L.A. or New York. The media attention is going to be through the roof, of course, right?

21:31You have a press conference. It's going to be 30, 40 reporters. He goes to Dallas, and it's like, okay, you know, they're a good basketball town, but it's still Dallas. I think of Dallas more, of course, as a football town, but he's kind of, in essence, in people's minds, replacing Luka, right? So when you think about the pressures on top of being that number one pick, he goes to a market where their beloved player gets the rug thrown out from under him, shipped off to L.A. in a very unpopular deal. What has that done in terms of how people in Dallas are going to be looking at Cooper? Is he always going to be compared to Luka?

22:07I think maybe the way that Luka got traded, he's not going to be compared to him. I think really he's like, you know, I think he almost gets the benefit of the doubt in the fact that I think there's so much animosity towards ownership and GM Nico Harrison over there, and that he was kind of like this life raft for them after they traded Lucas. I think it'll be probably a little bit kinder to him than maybe if he was just, if the sequence of transactions that got Luca off that team and Cooper to that team happened a little bit differently, if that makes sense. it does you know it does make sense and i you know i think you have a great explanation for how it should go from considering of how the deal happened and the hatred as you mentioned for ownership in the front office there but you know i was speaking earlier about what i saw last week which was that if cooper flag is as good as advertised and he makes all the nba teams and all-star games and all he's supposed to do when he's 31 years old he would have earned i think $931 million in NBA salaries.

23:07And while I think it's great and make as much as you can, the first thought that came to my mind, and maybe I'm just dumb and twisted, is, is this sustainable for the NBA? I get it's about revenue. It's about salary cap. It's about percentage of a salary cap. And I see players getting$20 million a year. And I'm like, he's a 10.4 rebound a game guy who shoots 40 % from the field. But is this just going to be an up, up, upwards trend? Or is there going to be a time, Mike, where the bottom's going to fall out. TV ratings aren't that great right now in the NBA. Is this sustainable? Guys making$70 million a year.

23:43I mean, I guess it all depends on how sustainable you think the NBA is. You know, like if you're thinking the NBA is going to fail at some point, then you're probably thinking that the player salaries are going to fail, you know, and drop off after a while. But at least for the next 11 years, they have $76 billion coming to them in just media rights and the players get 51 % of that. So, yeah, I mean, I think we see the player salary as kind of like the tip of the spear for how much money the league is making. But it means that the owners and the teams are getting the other 49 % of all that revenue.

24:14So are they making too much money, I guess I would ask, when they sell their teams for$6 billion and$10 billion and then also turn, a lot of them turn profits every year. So it's just, you know, the players are the faces of it, but everyone shares in that wealth. chat with mike vorkanov national nba business reporter for the athletic here on the rich eisen show dan schwartzman in for rich on this friday but is it a good deal for the networks you know espn nbc everybody paying billions and billions you mentioned the crazy amount of money in tv rights deals what 11 years 70 some odd billion dollars is it really a good deal for them too are they just taking a loss to be able to say haha we show the nba yeah i don't know i I think that's a good question.

24:57I would love if somebody from NBC or Amazon or Disney was like, hey, here's our books, here's how much money we make off all these games. I think part of it's interesting because so few things really attract people reliably anymore, right? But we know that live sports like the NFL, like the NBA, baseball do, and so that's why they're paying for them, and especially if you're launching streaming services like Peacock and ESPN has its streaming service, and obviously Amazon is streaming too. Like that gets people to pay for your service. And they hope that, you know, it's, you know, you get more stuff on Amazon prime day or whatever, right.

25:34While you're there and they'll have a black Friday game for the NBA and you buy more stuff there. And, you know, I'm sure ESPN and NBC have their own ways of monetizing. Does it make, you know, is it going to be a lost leader for them? I don't know. Truthfully. But I think if you're betting on something as basically a marketing engine for your other products, pro sports is pretty good thing to bet on. I guess it's like having your flagship store in New York City, knowing that you're taking a loss because the rent is so high. But if you want to be a legit brand, you have to have that Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue address, regardless of the fact that you're losing money.

26:06If you want to be, you know, Air Miss or Gucci or things like that. But I bring it up because, you know, you look at the NFL, for instance, we know the money's ridiculous in terms of media rights deals for them. And if you did the per game amount of money, you think with the number of commercial spots that can be sold, things like that. are they really making a profit? I think for the NBA, with the money being so ridiculous, there are more games, obviously, so it's spread out a bit more. I do wonder, are these networks making money or are they losing money? And as you said, it's just an engine or vehicle to get people to go for Amazon, for instance, to spend more on Prime Day or buy more products.

26:41And my wife does that. She doesn't even need the NBA to do that. But Mike, I want to get to the Knicks real quick. Okay. I'm a Knicks fan, grew up a Knicks fan. And I think Tom Thibodeau did a nice job turning this franchise around with Leon Rose. He gets axed. The Knicks are turned down by at least three teams in terms of talking to their coaches. They bring in a Mike Brown. It seems as if they scramble to do so. I watched the press conference. I think he's a really nice guy. you know are the Knicks at this point just trying to save face because this has been a terrible offseason for them in terms of what's happened at the coaching position well I don't know there's been a terrible offseason I think I think you could I would argue there probably wasn't a reason to fire Tom Thibodeau but I think Mike Brown is a good coach I think would be better than Thib I wouldn't say that.

27:36But he's different than him, and he'll coach differently. And I think the front office will be able to get more involved and they'll probably play more players and have more depth as you've seen them kind of round out the rotation a little bit. And I think in the NBA now, it's really, really hard to win deep into the playoffs without depth and without a long rotation. Like, if there are any lessons to take from the Thunder and the Pacers, it's that you need to go, like, 10 deep in the finals, right? Like, you just need to give some guys a break and be able to play really hard for that long. And that was something Tim didn't do.

28:08And almost, he had to do that at almost like gunpoint in the Eastern Conference Finals when he brought in Landry Shannon and right off the bench and all those guys. The actual coaching search is obviously very clumsy, right? Like, a scattershot, and it seemed like they were pivoting to something out of, you know, because they hadn't expected to do a coaching search. And so they were trying to go get guys that they probably knew they weren't going to get. But it landed them in a decent enough place. I think Mike Brown is a good coach. I think it's really important to see who his coaching staff is, because I think they are probably going to try to optimize that offense because it wasn't under Tom Thibodeau.

28:41And I'm curious to see what that coaching staff and that offense is going to look like next year. Mike, it's very early. We are in the offseason. Summer League has just begun. But the Houston Rockets so far have won the offseason. In the seven-team trade, they land Kevin Durant. They brought in a bunch of guys. You talk about depth in the NBA. how important it is today. They've added incredible amounts of depth. Are you right now on that rocket span wagon?