Ballmer Accepts Punishment, Kawhi Trade Finally Completed + NBA Owners’ Meetings Expectations

- Hello, welcome to the Who Collective Podcast.

We talk about the NBA. We don't talk about college football. This is the NBA Podcast, which we are doing on Monday afternoon, joining me from the New York City area is Vince Goodwell.

- What up, Belmondi? What up, Mick Ma'am? - He's referring to the gentleman in Dallas, Texas, who won the wager that we had, which is why I'm currently wearing Texas Longhorns cap.

It's band, Mick Ma'am. - Howdy partners. And Hookham, Wendy, that is a good looking hat. Match is my T-shirt, actually.

“I believe the fine folks from Lids provided that for you”

after a turn of our wager, let's see what they got me. - Okay, oh, they're burning orange. Texas hat, you know, I like that look. Okay, we could be Twinkies, but I gotta keep. So my boys like the flat bill.

I'm a bin the bill kind of guys. So we're gonna leave that one there. - And then, you're in your 50s. - What else do we have? Oh, won't need that one.

(laughing) - Let's set me a very sweet Ohio State hat that has like the Buckeye leaf on it. And the Buckeye leaf alone, I don't have it with me right now, but I feel like if I wore it, I would be accused

of, you know, displaying cannabis paraphernalia. I was gonna say after that meltdown slash Texas comeback, you can smoke that Buckeye leaf and try to forget about it. You can pay. - We talk about the NBA.

I just let it be known and Vince, you're the witness here. I don't make many wagers and I probably won't win again, but I am immediately paying it off. I am doing exactly what I said I would do, which is where Texas hat.

- Are we making a wager and late November? - No, no. - That was the last, that was the last game of Ohio State, pretty much won. They played three big games since they beat Michigan, they lost all three.

- Oh, no, they've got a big one this weekend against Kent State at home. I don't see if they can pull that one out. - Yeah, I don't think it speaks too well for the slate. I don't, I haven't looked at the full college of all slate this weekend, but if Big Nune kickoff, our Fox brother and a big Nune kickoff

is Kent State, we gotta, it's the win. - That's pretty cool. - That's exactly what it is. - Yeah. - Well, I will give Wendy credit.

And this is a saying you've heard him use many times on the pod to describe NBA events. Not necessarily even specific games all that replies there, but just the NBA in general.

“The only thing he said in various group chats,”

during the game, when Ohio State was up, 23 to three, even end of the fourth quarter, end of the fourth quarter.

When you just kept saying, there's always time.

There's always time. - It's one of my mantras I live by it and I was bad. - Well, you died by it too, buddy. (laughs) - We talk about the NBA events.

(laughs) I'm sorry. - Nick, man, it's just giving you the business. - I was up and I can say, it was, it was a difficult defeat. Steve Balmer, late on Sunday night.

I wish I had some reporting on this. I wish I could say, oh, my sources are telling me. I suspect that there may have been some negotiating with the NBA and we'll be hearing about that, I think soon. But why Steve Balmer decided to put this statement out,

relatively late on the Sunday night in the middle of a cowboy's giants game. - Yeah, I mean, the old Friday afternoon, news dump, how about a week one, an NFL week one, Sunday night news dump?

It was definitely, like, the negotiating I'm sure occurred. But the timing, I think, was like,

“how can we try to slip this under the radar as much as possible?”

- Right, so he apologizes to the fans and employees and his fellow team owners. I think that's relevant because I do think that in the wake of this report, Vince, that, you know, based on the conversations I was having,

the owners were really pissed off by this report because Balmer has, I don't want to say has or had, but Balmer really had earned, he was well-liked amongst owners, not all of 'em, I'm sure, but I think they wanted, this, I do think in general,

I think the owners wanted to believe him. And I talked to a handful of them over the last year,

and I would always ask about the Balmer,

or sometimes they would bring it up to me. Sometimes they would ask me what I had heard because they were not getting briefings. But I think that there was a belief that they didn't want Steve to be guilty of this.

And then this report, you know, and he doesn't plead guilty in this. He basically, he says, we are committing

And we have communicated to the NBA that we are complying with the penalties assessed by the league,

have paid the $30 million fine in our moving forward.

Just like Kauai, he moved on to Toronto, they're moving forward, we'll talk about Kauai in a few minutes here.

“But Vince, I think the fact that he said,”

I want to apologize to fellow NBA owners, I don't think that should be a lie, we should just move past, I think there was a reason exactly why he phrased it that way. - We think of Steve Balmer as being one of the newer owners,

but if you think about as so many teams of changed hands over the past decade or so, even especially since Adam Silver took over, he's not kind of old guard, he's not exactly a blue blood,

but he's old money relative to that and had a pretty good reputation as far as ethics when it comes to these things. So it was really surprising for people to hear him being associated with something like this.

And it was just enough gray area and the investigation, like there wasn't, and I think, you know, we've all seen it, wasn't like the smoking gun, right? It was just a proponderance of circumstantial evidence that led it to be more likely than not, right?

That you could come to the conclusion that, hey, like, what's the NCAA phrase that we used to use back in the old days lack of institutional control? - Yeah, yeah.

“- I think that's kind of where Balmer sits”

and for a minute, guys, I don't know about you. Balmer was so ubiquitous at these games. I felt like taking a team away from, for a year, the embarrassment of that, when I almost call him to want to sell,

just to get out of, you know what I mean? Like, if you're taking a team away from me for a year, like you're cutting something out of me, I wondered if he was wanting to get out of the business, the NBA business at that point,

just because of the embarrassment of it. - Well, the last NBA owner who got suspended, which was Robert Sarver, he did sell. So like, and again, I mean, he sold under pressure to sell, though. - I understand that, but my point is,

I was not sure, and I don't have ironclad reporting on this. I may have better a feel later in the week this happened late Sunday night. We're doing this early Monday afternoon. I may learn more about it, but one of the things

that people were wondering in the league was, they've just taken away all these draft picks. They've, you know, kneecapped him, he's being suspended.

“Whereas Balmer's head at as remaining the owner, you know?”

And it wasn't like anybody, there wasn't, you know, that's not like anybody reporting that he was thinking about selling, but I think there was like, boy, this is such a severe penalty. Is this something, you know, that you know,

that he would mull over? - Well, I wondered if he would sell almost at a spite. Like, when he was going guns blazing with the letter from the lawyer and the, you know, like Barry, fiery statement from the team,

I wonder if he was just gonna say, you know what? Screw you, I'm selling. And what's crazy is with Balmer, like with almost any other owner, as rich as these guys are, you could say, dude,

he could sell cash out and make a killing. Like, why don't all the clippers go for now?

Six, eight billion who knows.

- Well, depending on how you're including the arena. - Right, 10, I don't know. - But I'll tell you one thing. They would go for a lot, because in all honesty, while the team is kneecapped with its picks,

if you were bidding on a team, and here's the other thing. There's, there's bidders, one of the things that happened with the Lakers, there's extra bidders right now. Like, like, there's multiple groups of teams

of people who are bidding on this Vegas team. And if you can't have a team in Vegas, boy, would you have be interested in having a team in Los Angeles, even if it was a flawed and damaged team? So if you wanted to sell right now,

and this is one of the reasons why Mark Walter was able to sell literally in three days, it was because Josh Kushner and Bob Eiger had their group already together. They had bid, I think what they bid from what I am told,

what they bid for the team in Vegas, for the whole 100% of the team, wasn't that far off for what they're paying for 73% of the Lakers. - But my point is with Balmer,

that kind of profit, 8 billion, 10 billion, whatever it is,

is a drop in the bucket. I mean, there are days in the stock market where it makes that kind of money. So for him, it would have been selling just at a spite. This statement makes it clear like, okay, hey,

I don't want to go to battle with the NBA anymore. Let's like, I'm putting my weapons down. He doesn't admit guilt. He says, while there are still disagreements considering or concerning the findings in the report,

this is not where I want to focus. I wouldn't want to focus on those disagreements either, 'cause they're pretty flimsy there, buddy. - And I think he's got bigger fish to fry,

At this point, whenever he does come back from the suspension, let's say the suspension isn't a year, let's say six months. Let's say maybe he gets a draft pickback or something like that and he's able to be back in the arena for games and everything else.

There's a huge mess that he's gonna have to clean up and some things that he's going to have to assess.

“You know, legitimately, and I think you have to start”

focusing on moving forward. I wonder, what does a suspension for an owner mean when you can't go to a game? Does that mean that you can't be consulted on certain things? Like, I'm wondering the scope of the suspension

and I wonder how much of that factors into, hey, if we cut down this stuff, when can I get back to my team? Like, you guys went over it, Wendy, I think it was last week,

and you talked about the geosmift stuff with Minnesota, how quick they get their draft picks back? - Right, I don't think that will be the case this time. - No, no, I don't think I don't think it's necessarily gonna be that,

but I wonder if there's going to be some stuff that's given back to the clippers and if that's the case, could rule number one to be, okay Steve, you're allowed to be back, you're allowed to be back around this team, around the franchise,

'cause I wonder what all of this means.

- A couple of things, first off,

“so Balmer has yielded basically and we will see,”

I'm very interested to hear the tone that Adam Silver speaks when he speaks on Tuesday. There was an owner's meeting on Monday and Tuesday. Frankly, I'm interested to see who the acting governor for the clippers is named,

because the clippers had their governor is obviously Steve Balmer, he's suspended. Their alternate governor is Dennis Wong, who owns a very small percentage of the team. He was not mentioned in the NBA report,

but he was implicated because he was an investor in aspiration. And then their second alternate governor is Jillian Zucker, who's also been suspended. - Well, we heard. (laughs) - I wonder who this representing the clippers

at these meetings. That's one thing.

The second thing is, I'll be interested to see

if there was a some sort of understanding of negotiation behind the scenes with Balmer in the league to basically agree, I'm not gonna see you and I'm gonna accept the punishment move on. I'm not expecting the Adam Silver to announce that.

- You know, is that just hey? We'll stop digging these are the penalties and whatever happened, I'm not gonna have the potential for the punishment. Double jeopardy is that we're saying to him?

- Not even double jeopardy, but like the original statement with the ruling made it very clear that if there was stuff that was found going beyond what was in that 36 page report that there could be further penalties.

And I think that was very intentional language basically telling Balmer like, you know, mess around and you might find out. - Fogor. - I mean, think about it like this,

but beyond that, Timmy, Steve Balmer was a really big advocate like he and Adam Silver are very close. So I don't think that this is a, I think this is better for both of them. You know what I mean?

Like, he's the chair at a finance committee. He's the richest owner in the league.

“And if that's why the 30 million is a drop in the bucket,”

it makes sense for Adam to have Steve Balmer back on his side it makes sense for Steve Balmer to be back close to the commissioner and be able to move away from this stuff as quickly as possible. Even if it's a year from now,

you'll be able to resume some level of that proximity to Adam Silver and Adam Silver to you. - I don't want to make any assumptions, but my guess is that the league was not surprised by the statement that they knew that it was coming.

- And that the league probably tried to encourage him to make this sort of a statement before the report came out. - I would agree. Oh, look, you guys know, I've set on this podcast, I've written that I've set on other shows.

I believe that this is what the Clippers had to do. This wasn't the Clippers and look, that he didn't say guilty because he said, they had some issues, what was in the report in his statement. He said,

quote, "team owners should support not distract. The challenges ahead of us are significant blah, blah, what I want to get what he said here about." - I think the support I read earlier while there are still disagreements

between the current and the current in the report, but I want to focus.

- Basically, I would say this is more of a described

as a no contest and a guilty plea, although it doesn't really functionally make a difference. The interesting thing that I don't quite understand is the last week the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice is looking into the Clippers.

Now, I am not a criminal defense attorney, nor am I a federal prosecutor,

You know, I remember when the laws came down

“or when the first investigations came down”

for the gambling scheme, when all those arrests were made, Terry was here at Chancid Billups, Damon Jones, et cetera. We had a guest on the show who was a formal federal prosecutor

in the Southern District of New York who prosecuted crimes like this and she described the parameters of what wire fraud is and it sounded to me like, I could probably be charged with wire fraud

for then moving somebody in Iowa to cover a fantasy football. You know what I'm saying? So like wire fraud can be used pretty wide ranging. They're not bringing, you know, charges,

but the one thing I was talking to a lawyer about this

because I was trying to understand like what would the federal government be interested in Steve Balmerin here? Because he certainly, to me in my view and certainly Adam Silver's view

was guilty of breaking a whole bunch of NBA laws. But, you know, part of what got them caught was them the paperwork, you know, really the genesis of the of Pablo Torres entire investigation was that Dennis Robertson,

for why Leonard's uncle, created a LLC. So why could get paid? KL2 aspire, that LLC was a creditor in the, in the, in the, in the aspiration bankruptcy and it's because that there was an existing entity

to get paid and granted it was a shell company but the shell company existed, you know, you know, and like, I'm not, I don't have knowledge if there was illicit payments. But I'm just saying like they were setting up a way

to properly get paid, you know, and I'm sure I shouldn't say I'm sure but I would speculate that KL2 might probably file some taxes.

“Why would you set up a LLC if you were gonna pay taxes?”

So, but my point is that I talk to a lawyer with a lawyer said is, and this is good for you to write down Vincent and McMannon case that either any of you guys are ever investigated by a federal grand jury.

Part of what the government wants to do is to make sure you cooperate with the investigation because part of what you can get in trouble for when you get investigated isn't necessarily what they're investigating you for.

It can be if you lie or obstruct or whatever because you see this a lot of times in Congress and this is a basketball podcast, but unfortunately in the modern day, where there's a lot of this, they haul people in front of congressional, you know, testimony,

haul, they bring people in there whether they're CEOs or law makers or whatever, recently, for example, Anthony Fauci was brought up. And it wasn't so much about what you are accused of having done, it's about what your answers are.

Like if you remembered, do you remember when they brought Roger Clemens? - Robbie O'Marrow, remember that? - And they wanted them to testify about whether they did steroids or whatever, they brought charges against Roger Clemens,

not for like doing steroids, they brought charges against them because they thought he lied to Congress. So part of an investigation is, do you commit any crimes while you're being investigated? And I'm sure that if this lawyer who I just reached out

to and asked about on a surface level said this, I'm sure Steve Balmers, very high price lawyers, are very much advising him and the clippers that this is a big part of it is don't commit any crimes dealing with an investigation because the New York Times

said that a subpoena had already gone out. In other words, if they subpoena something, you better turn it over because even if what you turn over is clean, if you hide something, you can get busted. So all of that is still out there in existence,

but that statement is probably going to be the last we hear from Steve Balmer for a while that he put out,

basically apologizing to Clippers fans.

Because I think this suspension will begin. Now, one thing that I think will also have to happen here is the Clippers, if Steve Balmers accepted this, I assume that Julian Zucker and Lawrence Frank are accepting this, too, which means Lawrence Frank would be suspended for six months.

The clippers need to name the head of an acting head of basketball operations.

“Right now, if you want to do business with the clippers,”

you call Trent and Redden, who is their general manager. And they owe it to Trent and Redden to say, this is now the guy who's running our team. And they've got a pretty important piece of business to get done.

Like, you just lost five picks. You got a chance to get two picks and probably a meaningless lot.

And some stuff back, like, what is,

like, why would you not want to get this deal done with Toronto ASAP?

“You're not bringing quite a training camp tomorrow?”

Well, the Raptors want to get a done ASAP. Absolutely. The Clippers, I think, have wanted to take their time because in case they want to leave all their options open. My belief at this point, and there could be some new investigations

or what have you or new things. But my belief at this point is that this is going to get done. That they will, in fact, do this deal for what was on the table. And it'll, you know, it'll get done. But from the Clippers standpoint, whether or not they did

the deal September 5th or September 25th, it really doesn't matter. Like, the terms wouldn't change. Certainly the Raptors want Kawai Leonard to start. Now, I was talking to an executive today. And he was saying, let's say the deal goes through.

And Kawai signs an extension with the Clippers. I mean the Raptors. The Raptors. The whole league knows the Kawai has an extension with the Raptors, like done, like agreed to.

And he said the Clippers should call for an investigation into how that extension was negotiable. So, I mean, that's the thing. You want to tell them. I'm right, exactly.

Like, oh, okay, what about that rule? How far are we going to-- does it get a piece of the maple leaves now? Like, he was trying to get before. Oh, yeah.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all. But they mean just like the deal hasn't been done. But, you know, Kawai, you know. Right, they're technically not allowed to negotiate. Right, but this happens all the time.

And the Clippers, I'm sure there's some hurt feelings in anger and all that. That Kawai really left them high and dry.

You know, Kawai except in the plea deal, basically,

for little slap on the wrist on $100,000 fine, Kawai basically copped to a misdemeanor. They got hit with all the felony charges. And that lost the right for arbitration. But nobody-- I don't feel bad for the Clippers here.

Basically, Uncle Dinnison Kawai were asking everybody they talked to for a bunch of stuff you're not allowed to ask. What does this like if a dude says, hey, I want the keys. And I don't want to have to follow any speed limits. And Steve Bomber said, you know what, dude?

Yeah, I got the fastest car. And I know we're all the back roads are. And not Kawai is giving them back the keys. And he's saying, hey, you're a car. It's in a ditch on one of those back roads.

I, you know, y'all can figure out how to get it out of there. I need to ride to the airport though. And so I got to go. And, you know, they got to get Mariah to get their two picks back. I mean, this goes back to the last year of Kawai.

Oh, Kawai being a Toronto. Remember, the Clippers were being investigated, or they wound up getting fined, or warned, or whatever, was for tampering with Kawai Leonard. Going back that far as 2018 for an AAU recruiting process.

I mean, yes, they were, they had multiple people at every freaking

Raptor's game, basically, all season long.

So there's bad blood between my point is to say that there's bad blood between these two franchises that goes back a little bit of away. Now, I'm going to say, you're curious now, a Toronto. I mean, not now in Dallas, you're not in Toronto anymore. But a lot of those, a lot of the infrastructure for both franchises.

It's still there like, Doc Rivers is going on.

“I think Doc Rivers made a statement saying that Kawai Leonard is like Michael Jordan or something.”

Something like that, and he won't begin ding for that. But the point is that there's a pre-existing relationship between these two franchises. And it ain't all great. So my thing is, in the words of Bill Belichick, wants a Cincinnati.

Like, let's get this trade done, so we can all move on. Well, that's what Kawai did. Can I, can I tell a story? Yes, sir. So far, get your money right.

More who collected podcast after this. One Kawai was a raptor. That one year he was a raptor. Now he'll be more more years. I don't know.

Like, mid to mid November, early December. I heard, I talked to somebody who worked for the raptors. And he's like, we got Clippers guys coming to every single game. We're, we're credentialing Clippers scouts at every single game. Even though they're not like, you know, if you get, if you get a scouting request,

you're going to, you're going to come. Okay, I mean, you're going to, you're going to grant it. Like, if you're, if you're playing, you know, if you're, let's say the, let's say the raptors we're hosting the wizards in a game. And you get a request from the Clippers to grant, you're going to grant it.

“Because you never know when you want your raptor scouts to go to a Clippers game, right?”

It's generally grant him. But the, the raptor started noticing because because in Toronto, Clippers scouts are scouts

This is one thing that, um, different arenas give different seats to scouts.

“And like, sometimes scouts will say, oh, man, there's a, like, for example, in Dallas,”

for years, the scouts have gotten a great seat near the bench, near the court, McMahon. And our Oklahoma City, that was the case for many years. Well, for many years, the scouting seat in Toronto was one of the best seats. And scouts were like, I want to go scouting Toronto because I can get so close to the bench. Well, as you can imagine, because there was a demand for the, the scouting seats.

You know, the only had maybe two of them or so, two or three. Right. That's the advanced scouting seat, which is different than.

But it doesn't, it doesn't matter. You don't have to, you know, yes.

But you're correct, the advanced scouting seats. But the point is is that the raptors, and this, this isn't unique to Toronto. This would happen in other arenas, too. But specifically in Toronto, they would get multiple advanced scouts or scouts who wanted to come scouting game because they knew the seat was so good. So what they would do, and again, I want to underline this that this is not something that only the raptors did.

But it became rare and rare for scouts to have good seats. So Toronto, this became more of a thing. The raptors would look. They would say, okay, we have, let's say it's a wizard's raptor's game. They're like, oh, we have these requests from these four teams, which two teams should we give the seat to? And they would look ahead and they would see, oh, the wizard is next opponent. Let's say, it was the 76ers. The wizard's next opponent is requested to see.

Let's give the 76ers the seat right here so that they can get a good angle. Or let's just even, sometimes we would even be the raptors next opponent. Let's say the raptors next opponent was the Celtics. Let's give the Celtics the seat. Now, why would they do that? They did that because it was a courtesy so that when the raptors scouts would want to come to Philadelphia wherever. Okay. And by the way, sometimes, like, for example, the nicks for decades have screwed scouts. They don't give

scouts good seats. So no matter when the nicks, so the nicks and I'm not saying, and again, I have to qualify this a thousand times because I'm protecting on the aggregation just bear with me.

The nicks, for example, their scouts a lot of times would never get a good seat. So even if the

nicks were playing the wizard's next, the raptors would be like, well, they always screw are, well, the raptors and nicks have their own. I was going to say, plus there was, like, some stuff work on the courtroom's area, but yes. Right. But there would be times when like a franchise would send orders, hey, don't give Team X good seats. They screw our scouts. It happened to be the nicks a lot. But, you know, so, but my point is is that there was a, there was an analysis done by

the raptors before games about where to put scouts. So the raptors started noticing, the clippers were coming to every single game. And then they started looking when they were going the road, you know, they would be playing in Cleveland. And they'd look, are the clippers playing Cleveland anytime, so they're not playing their raptors anytime, so when the clippers playing,

“no, they're not. So they started noticing the clippers were at, and I think even there was even one”

game where Lawrence Frank, the team president came to watch a game. It is, it's not unheard of, but it is, it is unusual, very unusual. Maybe in a place like Los Angeles where the team might also be in town or whatever, you might see that, but in a place like Toronto, it would be very unusual for the general manager or president of a team who was not involved in the game to come to the game. Okay? But Lawrence Frank, as I recall, actually you had come to a clippers, a raptor's game or two.

And so the raptors were like, this is getting a little bit ridiculous that the clippers are so blatantly like smothering Kawai, as you say, McMahon like an AAU team. Yeah, it's like AAU recruited when you show up to the guys games all the time, and you know, just to be seen, you just want them to see you, that's all. Yeah, just want them to see you. And so I said on this podcast and/or wrote in the paper, or you know, paper, my god, wrote online, like boy, the clippers are sending a heck of a lot of

people to these raptors games. And I got a Blitzkrieg text from someone at the clippers who will be unnamed. This is back in 2018, 2019, right? But how out of line I was about like, you know, how on you were. Not like, not them you, the old acidity. Like, you know, like, I'll

“Dessie, how who are you to say and who are you or the raptors to say when where we send our scouts?”

You know, and I don't remember what the verb I used, but the individual took issue with the verb that I used. Whatever I said about how the clippers were acting. And so, you know, like, whatever. So then when they signed him the next year, the clippers bragged about it.

but they were talking about their recruiting process or whatever, and they were like,

“we had personnel at some number of games. I can't remember if it was 47 or 59 or whatever it”

was. The raptors felt like it was 82. Right. Well, the raptors, this is before the shenanigans, right? So the raptor's back was already up. Now, look, they won the championship, and you

guys know, winning the championship never means ever saying you're sorry. So after that happened,

I took that quote, which I can't remember if Lawrence Frank said it or Steve Bomber said it, and I said it to the unnamed individual, high ranking at the clippers. And I said, what are we doing here? I was like, what is this about? And I got a shrug emoji back. And I had forgotten about that. I shouldn't have forgotten about that. Nothing they did with Kauai was on the open up the entire time. This was Steve Bomber deciding that rules, regulations,

protocols, none of that stuff applied to the clippers. Kauai has felt for a long time, certainly uncle Dennis has felt for a long time, and none of that stuff applies to them.

And it's the way that they went about the recruiting process. Clearly the deals that they made,

that were blatant cap start convention. I mean, the frickin' injury reporting something. Kauai was day to day with a torn ACL. I mean, give me a break. Like everything they did was Steve Bomber, again, hand in the keys, dunkle Dennis and Kauai. And same, whatever you say goes,

“and that's how the clippers ended up in this ditch. Now, was it a risk that a lot of franchise”

franchises might have taken? I was true. This, yeah, did it completely blow up in the clippers face, absolutely. And not only did they give up the foundation to OKC's championship team. But now they're getting hit with five more picks, and they got squat to show for it. You know, it's funny. I just thought about that, because that was at the tail end, so to speak, of quote, unquote, player empowerment error, right? Like we aren't in that anymore. But I wonder if a player who fits that particular

profile, finals MVP, perhaps the best to weigh player in a game, injury risk, if he is a possible free agent. And today's era, with that player still hold that type of leverage, over the entire league. Remember, that summer, it wasn't just the clippers going on from the lakeers really wanted them to Ronald wanted to keep them. There were a multitude of teams despite everything we knew about Kauai Leonard from my help standpoint. We'll be found out about

from him and Uncle Dennis later that really, really wanted him. And I wonder if we fast forward that timeline. It's not the summer of 2019 more. It's the summer of 2027. It's summer of 28. Whatever it is, if that, if we can, if that could be recreated, if a player could have the whole league on the hold, the way that Kauai Leonard had the league on hold. That alone, somebody extra stuff, but just from the climbing of where the league is now compared to where the climbing of where the

league was then, if that could be recreated. Yannis had the league on hold. Did he not? And Yannis is a significant injury risk. I mean, you look at his games played in recent years. But not a free agent. Okay, but hey, you know what I mean? What's the difference between a free agent and a guy who is that cowboy player and has to be traded? You know, they're still dictating a lot of things. And so I, you know, I just think the, what we saw play out with Yannis tells you that when there's that type of

town, you know, they're always going to have a lot of leverage. He's still dictating it. He's still

dictating it. He, you know, I mean, according to the reporting, like I don't know who to give proper credit to this, but he told the clipper is I want to be sent to Toronto or San Antonio, which San Antonio's hilarious boy, boy. He's going to get there and then he's going to get extended. He's still dictating it. Yeah. I am not sure that that interests me. That was as far as the interest that they have that they have. I got traded with a raptor. So that's all. Yeah, I would, I would just say

I'm not sure that that was something that both sides were motivated to make happen. Toronto seems pretty happy with the deal. They want it done like yesterday. And I get it because for them, it does raise their ceiling to where contingent is at least in the realm of possibility. Well, unlike, by the way, I just want to point out, so, you know, they're trading Brandon Ingram. Ingram

“had a poor playoff performance against the calves. Then he got hurt and I believe he had surgery”

in May. He had surgery on his foot in May. And so like, I don't, you know, this is a guy who signed

them draft cap, but I'm not ignorant of that. But, you know, do you guys know a co-wise what co-wise

numbers were last year? And I totally understand. Oh, they're monster numbers. The idea of assuming that he's going to be able to play 65 games this year is, you know, it's beyond a risk. I understand that, but he finished 7th of MVP voting. That's the highest MVP voting he'd finished since his first year in LA. So it was arguably his best year of the decade, 28 points, 51% shooting, 39% on threes, six rebounds, four assists, 65 games. And they are not that playin'

which is the, I'm, I'm with you, the crazy thing about that little co-wise, he's going to be 35. He's still really, really good. Like at this, there's going to be a point like we're talking about this, not because it's the middle of September and media day isn't for another two weeks. But there's going to come a point in the season where we're going to be talking about high

incredible co-islander that's a basketball player is. And all that other stuff won't even matter.

He's not getting suspended. The $700,000 is a drop in a bucket. You don't, you won't see that coming to effect in terms of salary cap or how available he is or whatever the case may be. Like he's going to go out there and play. And to some degree, make people forget he was even involved in this nonsense and according to the NBA, they're not sure that he wasn't involved in the nonsense, or I said according to the NBA, make man, I didn't say according to my comments.

Listen, the risk that the Raptors are taking with Kauai has nothing to do with this entire investigation. It's just Kauai Leonard with his durability issues in his mid 30s. And you're about to give him a fat extension. Like how is that going to age? You said he's going to get on the floor and play and make people forget I don't know if he's going to how often he's going to be on the floor. Last year it was the majority of the time. But that's the risk that Raptors are taking.

Would you take a bet that he would play 60 to 65 games this year? No, I would bet against it. Just right. You guys want a better hat bet? Absolutely not. I will say this. We did our

“top 100 voting, you know, that's going to be revealed or whatever it is. And I think I had Kauai”

like number eight. And if I knew he was going to be available for 82, he might have been hired in that. You know, I might have put him hired, you know, I might have put him hired in a K-cunning ham or an Anthony Edwards or whoever else. Yeah, but he's still that caliber of player on both ends with a floor. The question becomes how how's that body going to age? LeBron and step and somebody's other guys have made a mockery of aging. Well, it's not aging well. Right. No,

wait, like you just said, you just said, Wendy, he had a career year at this stage of this. Well, it wasn't a career year. It was the best year of the 20s is what I said. You could make the argument Wendy that this was the best regular season year of this career. I wouldn't say it, but you could make the argument from a numbers standpoint, from an efficiency standpoint, that this was this was a top two, top three year that he's played. It was his highest scoring season. Now, he's not like his

“last, he's not the two, he's not the defender that he would use to write. That's what I was going to say.”

His last healthy year in San Antonio when he that was a year, he finished third in MVP voting,

Russ won it hard in a second. Like, that's when he was legitimately the best two-way guy. And Lee, that's when he was legitimately like what he finished. He was third in defense player the year, that year. He won the previous two defense players of the year. He's not the guy now. Like, he can do it a possession here, a possession there. He's not the guy now where he's going to be a go to guy and he's going to shut down the other teams go to die. Well, look, in 2019, when he won that that

MVP finals MVP with the Raptors, he'd already started to have his injury problems, obviously, but he was a top three player in the league. Yeah. Yeah. When they required him, when the Clippers acquired him is a top three player in the league. And they'd load management in that year.

“That's why he played six to games that year, but the last nine seasons that year before that”

was when he played nine games for the spurs. And it was like that whole year was about him and uncle Dennis Forston's way out of San Antonio. But the nine years start only that with that. He's played 60 games or more three times. He's played and that was 65 last year, 68, a couple years ago. And, you know, missed a full year, had a 37-game year. Like, it's, it is a risky bet that

Kawai stories that I always think about that I think is underplayed because it wasn't during the season.

Kawai had surgery and it gave me a little bit of latitude on the exact date here. But Kawai had surgery after the 2023-24 season. Okay. I think it was in May. It might have been April. It might have been in May. And then in June, like a month or five weeks after surgery,

“he tried to show up and play for Team USA. Do you remember that? Like, and I remember, like,”

I remember Team USA tweeting the arrivals of all their players. It was like, they're, they're coming. They have arrived in Las Vegas for this six or eight week stretch where they're going to try to win the gold medal and everything like that. And I remember, like, seeing Kawai, like, arrive with, like, you know, his, his gear and everything. And he was clearly limping, clearly clearly limping. And Team USA looked, took, like, a look at him for, like, two or three days in practice. And they're

just, like, I mean, we can't, we can't play you. And they, you know, they send him home. And if you remember, like, Kawai said, can I just, like, be like with the team and like, I'd be on the roster

and basically be at the end of the bench. And they're like, no, we only have 12 players. We need all of

them. And you know, you can't just, you know, there's like a limit to how many people we can out. We can only have three assistant coaches. We can't have, like, a, you know, like an intern.

“And what I remember about that is that he then didn't play for the clippers until after the new year.”

So what is it say about Kawai Leonard that he would literally, like, in some ways, that's like incredibly admirable, like, oh, my gosh, you want to play for your country so bad that you would be four or five weeks off knee surgery. Come to Las Vegas and try to grind your way through getting on to the team because you wanted to be on team USA so bad. Like in some ways, it's amazingly admirable. Like, that's like a story to hear about Kobe, like the Kobe would do.

The Kobe would have knee surgery and drag his leg to play for team USA. But then he treats his own team, like, total crap. Wendy, who's paying him the money? What was the clippers reaction to team USA saying, Kly, we, we, we can't have you on the roster. We, we can't have you limp around

“the Olympics. I quote Lawrence Frank. It was USA. He's calling us quite frankly very”

disciplined with the decision. Kly wanted to play. We wanted him to play. I was there the first two practices. He looked very good. Blah, blah, blah, blah. But then you realized he didn't play for six more months. And the clippers were still at the point in their franchise where kissing Kly's butt regardless of circumstances. In fact, was the organizational philosophy. The guiding light was fine, Kly's butt planter lifts on his duality. Like what Wendy is saying,

Kly is head a bunch of things. I'm going to say career end. There's like the ACL is no longer the career ender. But it definitely alters your career. The injury that he had in San Antonio, a lot of, he hasn't been the same player, the same sports car that he was in. I call him a sports car in. He's like an SUV right now. And I say that affection. He's like a Lamborghini SUV, but yeah, breaks down. Yeah, but, but I say that. It's like a Range Rover. But I say that to say,

there's a duality in this of man coming back from these injuries is not an easy thing. Agreed. Agreed. But also to win these play, dude, are you you're choosing when you want to play and holding yourself up and everything else, you don't know me like, I don't know how to square these two things. Like the the perseverance to come back when he's injuries required is required. So that real talk, like it used to bother me when Steven A would get on Kly for not playing. And he

would go on about he doesn't show up for work or whatever. And I was kind of like Steven A's got, you know, if his knee is coming off surgery, his knee is coming off surgery. Like what do you want him to do? They have arthroscopic surgery and play like the next day, but that all got undercut by him showing up for Team USA and then not playing. Look, I just looked at that. His first game for the clipers that year was January 2nd. And look, if he's hurt, he's hurt, but you can't show up for

Team USA and June. And then not play for six more months. Well, and the simple fact is Kly,

throughout his time with the clipers was the franchise's top priority. The clipers were never

ever, ever, kly liners, top priority. And you can be mad at Kly or you could say, you know what,

after booting him to the curb in the middle of the last season, put Blake's number up to the rafters for recruiting pitch and then dumped him to Detroit months later. More who collected podcast after this. Can I just say something about the, about the Chris Paul number thing? This numbers are very important to players. Okay. It's kind of like starting. Like starting for an MBA player is very, very important.

I've never 100% understood it because ultimately to me, I'd rather be on the court at the end of

the game than on the, on the game. But after 20 something years around the league, I understand that starting is a very important thing. That status is very important. And so when you mess with starting, you have got to be very careful about how you respect a player. Even if the right decision is to not start the player. The same thing with numbers. Chris Paul's identity is number three. See, Pete three. Okay. And even if you had a bad end to last season and even if Chris Paul

didn't maybe operate in the way he said he was going to, whatever. And even if you weren't planning a retiring as number this year and you were going to make him wait a while, you can't give

out his number this year. And you can't give it to Bradley Beal. No offense to Bradley Beal. No

disrespect to Bradley Beal. But like he wore zero last year and contributed zero. It's not like he's got any kind of. Yeah. Well, like look, if like if they draft a Cooper flat and Cooper flag said

“the only way that I can go forward is to have number three on this team. You know, that's a problem”

for, you know, to deal with. But like you're like, look, I mean, if it's that important hand, let's call CP three up and talk about it. With all the respect, you can't be given it to Bradley Beal. The next year. And this is a franchise they don't have a single number in the rafters. And I just mentioned the two guys who you can make a case for CP three's jersey should absolutely be in the

rafters. I don't know if that's ever going to happen at best. It's like a KG and Minnesota type of

thing where I don't know if it's happening under this administration. Nobody's wearing 21 for the timber wolves. Nobody's true. You're in a whole time. That's a very whole time that they were in, in a, in a battle and everything like that. Nobody, nobody was having 21. And it's just a just an own goal really. I mean, think about like this. And this is far back. Grant Hill's jersey is not retired in Detroit. Nobody has won number 33 since the year 2000. It's 25 years later. Like it's, it's a signal

of general respect. Right. I remember Chelsea billups get traded from Detroit for our 9% what number the anniversary get? He got Chelsea billups is number like these. And it took Chelsea a long time

“to get over that stuff. I think what we're saying is, well, Chelsea was angry about the trade,”

even though he was going home to Denver. Yeah, which it was a lot, right? But the general thing is, this is a people business. And somehow the clippers have managed to get the people stuff wrong at every single turn of this. Even if it's in the name of appeasing Kauai Leonard, you're trying to do, you know what I mean? You're still doing it wrong. I don't love that we've talked about Kauai for an hour here because I feel like our listeners don't want. But like, this is a thing,

like no matter what you think about Blake Griffin, okay? And no matter what you think about Chris Paul, how can you look at the way they date? What did they ever do to the clippers organization? Okay, Blake had some injuries. Okay, Blake used leverage to try to get a better, a better contract. You know, like, I mean, you can argue that Chris Paul did force a trade on his way out, but that was after that trade helped them. That was after his arrival gave them the only in its stretch of relevance

“thing. Did anybody think Chris Paul didn't give us all for the clippers for every time he was in uniform?”

And, and even last year, you don't sign Chris Paul and think he's going to be some shrinking violet at the end of the bench. It's like, Wendy, having me on this podcast and telling me, I'm not allowed to make jokes. Of course, Chris Paul's going to be trying to see my movies, like that's, you know, older players at the end of their career can be a little bit on the insufferable side when they're no longer the player that they used to be, but that's

baked into the equation when you bring a Chris Paul back. In his defense, he was a little bit on the insufferable side when he was in his prime. Listen, I really want to like the clippers. I really want to for so many different reasons. They've got great toilets in a bunch of them. They make it really make it hard. I mean, they, I don't know, man. I'm going to be going to a

a concert at a into a dome this year? Never been to a concert into a dome. I have been to a concert

at the forum, which Mr. Ballmeroans were neighbors with the clippers now. That's the thing. The clippers, not, you know, ESPN has moved its studios in LA from downtown LA next to Staples, then I'm in crypto to, you know, mile away from, from into it. Like the clippers are now, we're not, we now live in the clippers neighborhood. Yeah. And listen, speaking of toilets, it must be an angled thing because this NFL network studios, like they've got these, it's the most modern

toilet I've ever seen. It's like, there's heating, there's a, I didn't actually sit on it because

“it wasn't necessary. And honestly, I looked at it and I was intimidated. Like, this is a piece of”

machine. I don't know if I want, like, I don't want to have to figure out tech in those, that kind of situation. How about how is Perk? Is Perk going to enjoy the new toilets? These toilets look like to build the handle of man like Perk. How did we get here? All right, before we go, and I'm, I do apologize both for wearing this hat and for talking so long. I respect you wearing this hat. I don't make a lot of bets, but I do pay them off. Okay, so, like, bottomed. The, the, the,

down and so far has a few things to deal with, you know, over these, this, this, this, this NBA owners meetings, he'll talk, you know, first off, we've got this Lakers sale. We want to hear what the league has to say about that, about Mark Walter flipping it, about Mark Walter potentially having these financial problems. By the way, it was reported over the weekend, or at least at the end of last week, that Mark Walter was selling his, like, 13% stake in Chelsea football club in London.

Yeah, you're selling these things for a reason, you know. We obviously have expansion on the books.

“And I believe expansion will move forward. So, the one thing that you have to realize on expansion”

is the, they've not actually said they're going to expand. I know that everybody is making assumptions and they've, they've had their bankers take bids and everything like, but they haven't actually said we're for sure going to expand. And they haven't said we're for sure going to expand to Vegas and Seattle. And they haven't said whether they're going to expand to Vegas and Seattle at the same time. Having said that, I expect them to expand to Vegas and Seattle at the same time. I mean,

don't you have to, if you're going to expand, don't you have to do it at the same time with two franchises? No, you don't. You're going to have the warp side of conferences. MBA played with 29 teams for years. Now, was an ideal situation, but the MBA played with 29 teams for years. So, they could play with 31 teams.

“And I'm, I get, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I am just saying,”

do that, they have to go through a process. I talked to an owner recently who told me

that they are budgeting, getting between five and six hundred million dollars in expansion fees,

which means they believe that the two teams will generate between 15 and 18 billion dollars in sale. And it sounds to me like that owner was going to be voting for expansion, if he was all in a kind of a special account. And again, early in a TV deal, right? So you're not, you're not slicing up the shares the TV deal until what is it? 9 or 10 years left on this one. So they can be negotiated different ways. But yeah, like, I was talking to

his owner and he was pretty much, he was, he was talking about, there's their teams spending and their their cap position. And he's like, he's like, well, we've got this five or six

hundred million dollar windfall coming on the expansion. I go, whoa, whoa, stop. Why in that back?

Talk to me more about how you're budgeting that because, I mean, obviously they don't have the money yet, but it sure sounds like he's expecting to get it. But I think we'll see something like that. From what I understand, the bids for the Las Vegas team were all over eight billion dollars. They got multiple bids over eight billion dollars. And so that means it's going to go higher than that. How do we feel about expansion, Wendy? I'm not really super

for it. Why, why not? This puts me in a weird spot. Here's why. When I was 17 years old, the Cleveland Browns, while I was 17 years old living in Akron, Ohio, the Cleveland Browns relocated to Baltimore. They have since won multiple super bulls. That franchise is one multiple super bulls. And the Browns have been horrendous. And it was devastating. That was 17 years old, completely devastated.

It was actually a pretty good job by their politicians to secure a team back. But now they're building

a team at the airport. Another building of stadium at the airport, which is the whole other topic that gets me fired up. But I've seen some of the books of the NBA teams, and I'm not sure that there's 30 healthy teams. Okay. And again, my-- We're living in a world where there's not 30 healthy financial teams, and we're seeing every couple of years the NBA have some funny money coming around, too. Well, forget about even that. But the unhealthy teams, if they were put up for sale,

would still their ownership, would get a massive profit. Yes. But my point is, these some of these teams are barely scraping by on their operating, because they're losing so much money. And we're seeing the NBA have to put in tanking rules every couple of years, because you got teams who realize they don't want to be in the middle. And so you add teams, you're continuing to prop up teams that are not financially healthy, and you're creating a bigger middle that

nobody wants to be in. The question-- the question I have is, is it realistic to expect all 30 or 31 or 32 teams to all be financially healthy? Is that a realistic experience? No,

“otherwise they wouldn't have revenue sharing. Like, you have to, you know, at some point”

you have to make a decision, do you want a 10 team league where everybody's filthy retro? Do you want a 30 or 32 team league where there's teams in Milwaukee and Cleveland and Minneapolis and Oklahoma

City? The answer is they want the latter. They want to have those teams. That's why they have

revenue sharing. But I'm just saying this. Like, teams don't operate the way they use to in terms of, nobody is fewer and fewer teams are happy with mediocrity. You know, there were, you know, like herb Simon, the old school owner of the Indiana Pacers. He was this big believer in, I would much rather have a 45 or 42 win season where I went to the arena every home game and knew my team was fighting, even if we finished eighth, then I would want to take. And so that's why

between the late 80s and the 2020s, they never had like a high lottery because he just didn't believe in it. That's the rare now. Now, private equity guys buy teams and they have analysis that shows that that's crazy and they are like, if we don't, if we're not going to win, we're going to take. But honestly, not to me, it's not about private equity guys. It's about people in front of offices. Well, just become more scientific. The entire, yeah, like, so for example, last week, Vince,

I was visiting London and I spent some time at full them. Full them is this small London club.

It's worth a billion pounds. They were telling me that they believe that they have

“18,000 fans that live in London. 18,000. That's what they believe they're fan bases. 15 to 18,000”

people. They're worldwide fan bases huge and they sell out every game. It's hard to get tickets and whatever because people travel in and everything like that. But they're a club that operates in a suburb of London that has 15 or 18,000 fans. And their goal every year is to not get relegated. If they finish 7th or 11th, it's a great season. They're, they're really happy. And they have other competitions that, okay, they're not going to win the Premier League.

They can potentially win this League Cup or they can compete in a European competition and they can be in 14th place in the English League. But they can be in the semi-finals of the League Cup. And, you know, really engage your fans and try to win a trophy. The NBA in American sports doesn't operate like that. And Adam Silver knows that's a problem, which is why he's trying to creates the NBA Cup for teams to play for, which is why that they're trying to create a European

division and maybe they could co-mingle days. Because if you keep creating teams and they only have to play for one thing, you're going to get the polarization of it. And they're putting in all these rules to try to keep the teams legislated from being pull on the polar ends. Because nobody has satisfied with a 38 win season where they develop their young guys and they had some

“big wins. Nobody wants that. They want to be in the finals or winning the lottery. That's what”

the two things that they want. And just adding more teams to that, when you have teams that are not healthy and not able to financially compete, I think is difficult. Now, if Adam Silver was on this podcast, he may say, "Just you wait because we're going to make it deal in the next couple of years with Amazon or Netflix or Apple and we're going to have all of our local TV on, so you don't

saying or ESPN unlimited, whatever venue." But I'm just saying, if you're asking me whether I

favor expansion? No, I'm not somebody out there saying, "Doesn't mean I don't want to team in Vegas in Seattle? It doesn't mean I want to take a team away from a city that's struggling." I want to team in Seattle. I want to team a lot of places.

“I think it comes down to this. Adam Silver, since Adam Silver has taken over, I think the number”

is 14, not counting expansion. 14 teams have changed hands. Since Adam Silver has taken over, if you go back to the 2011 CBA, it's, I think the number is like 18. That's more than half the league. A little less than half the league since Adam has taken over a little more than that ground breaking

CBA that went from 57% going to the players to not basically being in, we're on 50, 50.

So the money that's been invested by these franchises, or by these buyers, and to the league, they want the return on air investment as far as in the way of winning compared to what the old school Arnold owner, the herb Simon's, the Bill Davidson's, the Jerry Rhine's, or if the real estate guys, the stakes were lowered then. The now the stakes are so much higher, and because Adam Silver has said in F essence, and I'm projecting here, but I think this is what he's told guys,

not only would you have a chance to win, but you're going to make money doing it.

“That's what these guys are holding Adam Silver's feet too, and they're holding their executives”

too, because they were coming into a league expecting to win when everybody doesn't win, and making money when everybody doesn't make money, like that's the weird thing, the weird space that wins. So that's why I was curious, Wendy, if you felt like expansion was a good thing, like I like more jobs for players, more jobs for media, more places to go, all of that stuff, I just wonder if growing by two teams as opposed to maybe one team not on one team in a couple

of years is the more prudent thing for this league to be doing right now. And at a certain point

when you touched on it, but the local TV thing to me is one of the NBA's most important issues,

and they're not alone in that. It's the same with baseball's the same with hockey, the NFL's in exception, because there's not a local TV aspect to that, but when you talk about teams' finances, the crumbling of the regional sports network has really hit a lot of teams hard there,

“and then honestly, just from a pure fan perspective, it should not be hard to watch your local”

team. It should not be difficult. I should not have to jump through hoops. I should not have to, okay, I'm getting what this screaming network or that, and if I just, if I'm a big enough fan to buy a league pass, I shouldn't be blacked out from watching my favorite team. I'm sorry. It's not that complicated. Okay, so on the Vegas thing, there's multiple bitters, but the one I would keep an eye on is the Nancy Walton, Lori, her and her husband are believed to be

one of the bitters for Las Vegas, not believed to be. They are one of the bitters for Las Vegas, and whenever you have a Walton bidding, I think it was about four years ago, the Broncos were for sale. There was a whole bunch of bitters, you know, NFL teams don't come for sale often. There was some big time bitters, by the way. Maddish Pia was bidding. Josh Harris, owner of the 76ers was bidding. He ended up not getting them, and he bought the Redskins, Maddish Pia didn't

get them, and he bought the sons, and the folks at Clear Lake Capital were bidding. Clear Lake Capital didn't get them. They bought Chelsea football. As soon as Rob Walton, who was the son of Sam Walton, decided he wanted a team, guess who got the team, the Walton family. The Walton family has been getting more and more interested in pro sports ownership. Obviously, they bought the Rob Walton bought the Broncos. A couple of years ago, I don't know if you even know this

remember this Vince, but Lucas Walton and his wife, who's the grandson of Sam Walton, bought, I believe 10% of the Chicago bulls. Nancy Walton, Lori, is bidding for the Vegas team, and most people believe that she and her husband and their group are the favorites. Nancy Walton's sister, Anne Walton, married a gentleman by the name of Stan Crunky. Nancy Walton's brother-in-law is Stan Crunky, who owns the Denver Nuggets Los Angeles Rams, Arsenal Football Club, and most

are they one of the richest families in the world, but they have, you know, her sister is in the

NBA family, her nephew is in the NBA family. You know, it's being handicapped, sort of, that the Walton's, her name is Nancy Walton, Lori, or husband, Bill Lori, you know, I don't even know he might even end up being the governor if they win, but there's Walton money potentially bidding for Vegas. And so you're asking me, Vince, if I like the idea of expansion or not, it doesn't matter. Walton's are bidding on expansion, and there's, there's money in Seattle as well,

“including from, I believe Melinda Gates, the ex-wife of Bill Gates, she's joined one of the”

ownership groups. There's too much money that wants to come into the league for it not to happen. It's going to happen. And that get back to your concern, Linda, your concern is there's,

you know, teams that aren't financially healthy, well, a $600 million check would probably

aid their financial health. In the short term. In the short term. It's what I think on this doesn't matter, you know, and I've talked with owners about this, and they've explained, they've gone through their explanation to me and everything I've listened to it and from the billi, when I'm being told by a billionaire, that something makes financial sense, am I going to tell the billionaire he's wrong? You know, no, I'm not going to tell the self-made billionaire that he's wrong about his viewpoint,

which is the same thing I got told. I did a podcast last week about NBA Europe, which I think you'll also be on the agenda that comes out. And I've had some of these billionaires, these self-made billionaires explained to me why they think this is a good idea. And I'm not in position to tell them that they're wrong. But I'm not sure it's good for the basketball aspect of European basketball. I'm not so sure that having 32 teams is good for the overall health of the

“league on a night-to-night basis. But I'm not like saying it's the worst thing on the world and”

pounding it, but we'll see Adam Silva, I think, will have something to say updating that process. I think it will move forward. We'll see that. But more than anything, as we wrap up here, more than anything, I want to hear the tone that he has when discussing the Baltimore situation. And whether it's a tone of anger, whether it's a tone of come-upence, whether it's a tone of or he's, you know, like, you know, shaming them or, you know, you know, lecturing them.

As a song or tone or if it's a tone of moving forward. Oh, that's that's the tone. I don't think Adam has the, and I like Adam a lot, but Adam doesn't have the Emperor David's star and sort of, he don't get that tool and his tool box. The, I'm disappointed in you, tone. Yeah, yeah, like you mess with the wrong guy type of thing. That ain't really the case here. And, you know, Adam took that tone with Donald Sterling. We have not seen that Adam silver since then granted

“a million reasons why and everything else. But I think he saves that tone for the most extreme”

of cases, does this qualify or does this turn into a, they've accepted their punishment. Steve Barnersman, a great ally to the NBA. We look forward to having him back in the fold in a year. I have other questions I want to ask Adam silver tomorrow because I'll be in attendance for the Board of Governors meeting. So if you ever go back and watch that Adam silver press conference, it's, it's important to real with the Adam silver press conference with Donald Sterling. Adam silver

became, he had started doing press conferences with David Stern, like they eased him in. But he had become the commissioner in February. This was going down in like April or May of of 2012. We're very familiar with how Adam silver handles public speaking now because we've now heard him do it a hundred times. If you go back and watch that press conference, which I actually did last week when I was writing about this, he's nervous, Vince. For life, that's that was the other thing,

but yeah, that, that statement he was strong. But everything leaned up to his trim, he was a little trembling. Yes, it's not the, you know, Adam silver is always composed, like David Stern would get,

he would pound the, first off, David Stern would always sit. Adam silver is a tall man. He's 6364.

He stands. But David Stern would always sit. And so there was always a table. And David Stern was not afraid to pound the fist on the table. I was at the, I just happened to be in New York. The calves were playing in New York. The, the two or three days after the brawl. He had the press conference at Mass Square Garden. I, I wasn't like I was sent to it. I just sort of tiptoed in there

for like, he wouldn't like scream, but his face would get red, and he would say stuff. Adam is

generally even tone, even when he's, you know, quote unquote angry, and I'm expecting an even tone. But if you go back and watch that, uh, Vince, he was nervous. He knew that that was a big moment. Four life. That was the thing. It was like the sound lot, maybe I'm taking it too far back.

“When, when they had, when they were telling the old story, and it was like, for a bird, that's what”

that's what Adam sounded like. Adam sounded like he had found his voice. I am banning Donald Sterling. That, that, that. For life, I was like, oh, okay. This is, it was, it was a watershed moment for him. And I don't know if he's going to go back to that place again. Um, like I said, they've established the, they've established a different animal. That's why I called they've established the emperor. Adam silver is not the emperor. Well, Vince, and this podcast is going to

wait too long, but Vince, you were in Vegas at the, um, at the, uh, the last Adam silver board of governors, me. And this was when Wendy was in a lazy boy. Yeah, I didn't say hello to you. I was in the back of my name and say hi. I was just like, yeah, I'll talk to him later. Anyway, um, at that press conference, Vince, that's when Adam silver said that he was getting, um, regular updates on the investigation, but he still, I wrote the other day that he, it's still sounded like he was doing

the judge Judy meme with the clock. He didn't sound like somebody who was sitting on a bombshell report. And I'm not, I'm just saying that's my interpretation. I'm not saying I know what he knows. I'm just saying it didn't sound like somebody who knew that there was going to be this wrecking ball came through. It sounded like somebody who's like, okay, let's wrap this up. You say Adam has a polka, more of a polka face. I don't know what to read that. I don't know what to read that. They said

in the report that laid information had come in. So I, you know, I don't know. So I will be interested

“to hear how Adam's tone is. And if you're going to ask a question, I might be half, which you should”

definitely do. When did he know that this, you know, that this was going to be a, when did he have the information that he was going to, you know, deal this type of blow like did he know back in the finals when he was like, this is got to get wrapped up? Because I, he, he didn't come off as somebody who was, who was, who had the hammer just below the table. He didn't tip his hand like I have my own question. Um, and but I can do one of those. I can do a Tim Bond temps. Remember during the finals,

it was in Boston where Bond temps asked Adam like three questions like it was like a triple triple luts of questions. Those are part questions. Hey, right, right, he did say it. It of course, I followed Adam and I said, hey, Adam, I only got one question for you and Bond temps his face went completely red. You know, that was Bond. But yeah, I can do a and or to Adam tomorrow and see what he

“says. You shouldn't do that. That's what we call in the business, a double barrel question, because”

this is for all, because only only journalism students are listening this far into a podcast and it's September, don't ask two questions. I can't do a shameless plug, Wendy. You've of course, you're going to do a shameless. I don't want to give you journalism advice, but don't ask two questions

because these subject will almost always take the easier question. Correct. Like if you say,

did you, did you murder murder? Wow, that's what we're going. Yeah, did you, were you, you know, just going to the airport? Which questions you, he's got to take these or I was just going to the airport. Like what are you talking about? I was flying in Chicago. Bad example. That was terrible example. I've got rules that I want to become part of the MBA regulations. And this is regarding press conference questions. And this counts post game pregame availability

all that stuff and even scrumpt number one. During press conference, there should be a 24 second shot clock on the table. And if the buzzer goes off, you pass the mic. You're done. You don't get your question in. No questions should take longer than 24 seconds. In and my advice to make sure that that doesn't happen, you get one sentence that can have a period. After that, your next sentence has to have a question more about it. Have you seen the way that chat GPT writes things? They don't

write things in sentences anymore. They do the the boy points. Yeah. So, so people in the chat GPT,

how I would never know what that was talking about. No, there are people. And I won't say

a bot. Like you think you're being very smart in how you're framing stuff. But you saw like a

“damn bot. I won't say who it is. But man, I wish I could confront this person. But we're”

wrapping this up. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. This edit's going to be

a challenge for you and your your cohorts. Can I do a shameless plug? Yes. You always do. All right.

Starting on Tuesdays. Oh, I know that. Yes. Exactly. Start on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Go to YouTube for short vignettes of get up. I will be hosting alongside some days Brian Winhorse. My buddy Bobby

“Marks. Maybe to make man. It starts tomorrow. I think to make man's going to be the first guess.”

We're just going to fill the NBA Jones. You know, while the football season is happening. So, feel free to go to YouTube and everything else in the shopping at Algorithm. I don't know. Is it actually called vignettes? I just called it vignettes. Not not like vignettes. They want to name it after me. No, no, no, no. Vinnie. Vinnie, yes. No, they like to name things. They like to do that kind of stuff on get up. So, I could see that happen. They do. I wasn't. I would not

give him. I'm not giving him an idea. Then, yes. All right. Well, we look forward to joining you.

“Yeah, that's what I'm looking for is, you know, I wonder if it's that like football season is that”

shows like get up and first take leave me alone. Great. Now, I got, now I got to get dressed up.

Oh, here's some personal problems. Poor Wendy's. It's so in demand on TV. I look forward to being a vignette. Yeah. Goodwill and be it. Thank you. Thank you to Tucker and Mark and the rest of our producers, including Jackson, who is not going to talk about Syracuse performance over weekend. And thank you for very, very much for watching and listening to who collective and especially in the dog days of summer here. We will talk to you later this week when we may have some news. Wendy,

tip of the cap to you. I'm taking it off. The podcast is over. It's all. An audio semigo's. Go boom.