A Radical NBA Idea, Wemby’s Musical Comp, Despising Duke, and Baseball’s ABS Revolution With Chuck Klosterman

We are also brought to you by the ringer podcast network where I put up a new rewatchable episode on Monday. It is the official end of CR Month. We did LA confidential me in fantasy and green wild and CR and that's it. CR Month no longer with us.

We're doing a one for us next week. We're finally doing it in the cruisers so you have six days to go check it out. It's all over the place now in a bunch of different streaming platforms. Speaking of the rewatchables, Wednesday morning, April 1st, 10 a.m. Pacific, you can go to the to the ringer.com/events.

And by tickets for our live show that's going to be in Simpsis gone April 8th at the Tony

Rembee theater, it is going to be on in Wednesday night. We've never been to Simpsis go before.

It is going to be me and CR and Mallory and Van and we're going to be doing a basic instinct. Second time we've done it way more categories this time. We've never done it in front of a live audience.

“I think this will be a hilarious podcast.”

I'm just warning you now and we really hope we see you in Simpsis go. So the ringer.com/events comes to us in the bay. Maybe we even hit a giant's game the day before who knows. Giant's Philly's. I think CR likes the Philly's, but we'll see.

Anyway, basic instinct can't wait to see everybody in the bay. Coming up on this podcast, Hall of Famer of this podcast. He has podcast Hall of Famer. He has pod Hall of Famer Chuck Losterman and it's his kind of year when we talk college sports, pro sports, music, AI.

We're going in 19 different directions as always.

Let's take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Chuck. This episode of the Bill Summon's podcast is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere, then that plenty of times of my life. No work.

It's your ready to go. Quite like Sam's Club. Snacks. The gear. Super low prices on gas.

They got a bunch of stuff that keep you in the whole crew rolling. And here's what you got to do. You got to join the club of yes and at Sam's Club.com/yes and.

There must be 18 years or older to purchase membership and membership is subject to qualifications.

Visit Sam's Club.com/yesand for details. Alright Chuck, close to minutes here on March 31st, 2026. The last time we saw you, you had a football book coming out and we were talking about how it was a great Chuck close to him in time of the year. There's a lot of things happening.

I feel like that's the case right now.

“As we head into time of year for me, yeah, I think this is a good time of year, I guess.”

You know, NCAA basketball tournament, what else are you referring to, though? NFL draft. Oh, you said coming up, sure, you have the basketball playoffs about, whoa, I lost my voice. Basketball playoffs about to happen. And then this is right, March, I feel like it's the calm before the storm in a lot

of ways. And it's when we kind of go nuts with different theories about things, we get angry about things. Like one of the reasons, we didn't even know we were going to do a pot today. You texted me last night, you had an idea about tanking, but this is like March is a

month where we complained about tanking, baseball brought in this ABS thing that I can't wait for you to talk about, but why do we start with the tanking because you had an interesting idea? Well, okay, yeah. So I've been thinking about tanking.

I just, it's an interesting problem because I feel like in some ways, it's almost an unsolvable problem, like I said in my text, like, it's a little like when they, you know, they're trying to stop teams from following at the end of the game, so they're like, we're going to remove the one-on-one, everyone gets two shots, but there's still no other option, right?

“That's the only way to get the ball back, late in the game sometimes.”

You still have to do it. There's no way you can stop teams from following, I don't know, there's really a way that you can stop teams from trying to lose if we exist in a system where there's a draft like this. You know, so you look at silver's ideas, I didn't think any of them were that great.

Did you like any of them? I didn't. I mean, the flat in the odds a little bit, there's something there, but I didn't think any of them got even 40% to where we needed to get to it. Well, I don't think, I mean, they might be good ideas, even, but not enough to actually

change anything, you know? And you had talked one time about like penalizing teams with like cab space, but I would guess the players union would lose their mind about that because it would be less money

was interesting, but kind of imperfect, I don't know if that would have a huge factor.

“I also, I don't, you know, you had this idea, I think, I've like going from 82 to 72 games,”

right? That's kind of something. But see, I, I wonder what your response will be to this. I don't think that will work for this reason. But the example, if I were to call you used is that, well, for like a guy like Devon Booker,

it would go from $75 million a year to $72 million a year for him. So you're arguing with him? Or whatever. Yeah. They won't really miss it.

Yeah. But the real kind of bedrock issue here is the guys not caring enough about the games. It's hard to compel people to care more by paying them less. Like, even though you say like, well, he shouldn't miss $3 million or he wouldn't. I mean, like, let's say like, you went to like, shine Amanda and said, I don't really like

the performance you're doing in the big picture. Yeah.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to let you do one less a month. Yeah. And they might be like, oh, and you'll be like, but I'm also reducing your salary. Right. Nobody has ever decided.

Oh, they're reducing my salary. Better get more invested. It was a flawed argument. I agree. So I just, I don't, I don't know if there is like a way to fix this.

“So then I started wondering, well, what if there was a way to enhance the tanking experience?”

If this is an unavoidable problem, maybe make the problem into a benefit. So like what I was saying to you is, since the all-star break, I feel like the best night for the NBA was last week, the night when the Celtics played the Thunder and like Joker had almost get 20, 20 triple double and Mary scored all those points and I think it was an overtime game between the wolves and the rockets, which was great.

But the second best night, since the break, was when BAM scored 83.

I thought that was a fascinating thing. I know there's people out there who see this as some tragic thing, but I thought it was much more interesting than pretty much any other NBA game that has happened in quite a while. Yeah. So when I was thinking, so what if this was the situation?

And this is a crazy idea. I can't believe it will be implemented, but I'm just, you know, so what's the all-star break happens from that point on? We look at who has the highest scoring percentage or the highest scoring night that year so far.

So let's say like at the all-star break, what was the biggest scoring night prior to that? Like, let's say it was like, let's say cat had 52 or something. And let's say that the highest score by any individual team had been 148. I say that from the all-star break on till the end of the year, if you become, if you put up the highest point individual total, you get 5% of the cat's base from the team you

did against or if your team scores the most points in a game, 155 or whatever, you get 5% of the cat's base of the opponent you did against. And that would just be an ongoing thing that whoever at the end of the year then has the highest point total for an individual and the highest point total for a team would get 5% of the team that they did this because at least it would bring in the idea that you're going

to embarrass these teams for doing this. But they're going to sort of be humiliated when like Lucas score 72 against them and then you play a few weeks later and some scores 78 or whatever.

“The rule would have to be that like, you know, you have to win to do this.”

You can't, otherwise the tanking team might try to do this. Like just put a guy at the other end of the basket and send me points you can score. So I think it would be interesting if they like spread the situation where for the last month of the year we were just seeing players and teams trying to put up insane numbers for this kind of little benefit that they get from kind of destroy these, the taking teams could

still lose. They could still lose the games and get no audience stuff. But it would actually be like, I think people would want to watch these games. And if you felt that, well, there's a chance tonight that like, oh, you know, Marvin Mitchell is going to try to score 80 points or whatever against the jazz.

I think that would be much more interesting in the situation we're in now. So you're tapping into a couple of things that I like, which is why I wanted to deep that this.

First of all, I'm RdM record.

I like the BAM game. I fully supported them going for it and I thought the far bigger issue was the disgrace of the wizard season that's happening and I liked that they were kind of humiliated. I thought that it was totally fair game, I appreciated it. And plus that the end of that game, the wizard actually did play hard.

Right. Right. And that would be only time that they've played hard for how many months was the last 10 minutes of that game. Well, so something else that happened that you didn't mention when you talk about like incentivizing

teams to actually care, even though they're losing. So in the NBA Cup, when they had the total points thing, before it got to the final eight, you would see these these teams really trying, even with a minute left when they're

You would be like, all their best guys were still out there for the team that was losing.

Their best guys were still out there. They're still running plays. They're trying to score with eight seconds left and it was kind of cool because there was some sort of end game. So I wonder if they were able to put in game kind of penalties and rewards in all of these

different ways, like what you laid out or like if you lose by 20 points or more, like Milwaukee

“I saw some stat, I think they were like 17 and 23 at one point now that they have one”

of the, one of the eight worst records, but I think they've lost 20 plus point losses. I think they have something like 14 if they're last 17, they just got killed. So if you had something in there, like if you lose by more than 15 points, there's also some other penalty that comes with that, right? Like you could either do it like there could be bonus pools for every team that you

can, you have your salaries, your salary, but you also have some sort of a commitment to quality of your performance for the season. So if the wizards are like, we're just blowing these games, we're throwing them away and it actually cost them part of their salary because they didn't care. Those guys would have to say, "Care more."

Or if you add with the teams, every 15 point loss you lose by ping pong balls or 10 ping pong balls. If he is kind of a little number for that, you can lose by 15 trying hard. I mean, you can still lose by, you know, right. So you'd be down 12 with a minute left and it'd be like, "Oh, no."

And the coach would have all his guys in. He would actually care about not losing by 16 because they would lose 15 ping pong balls. I don't even that would be more interesting than what we're doing now. I just, the reason I kind of liked this idea that I put forward is because I, like, what you're describing are ways to sort of mitigate the event from happening.

I'm almost saying, like, the event's going to happen. How can the event become more interesting? And I love it. I love one man teams. I love when some guys trying to score as many points as possible.

“I think it's really interesting when an entire roster sort of converges on this idea where”

he gets his guy the same basket over and over and over again. I think it would actually, like, I would guess you probably, like, you probably watched that he came down the very end.

Oh, I had it on the second quarter because I got a text that BAM had 30 in the first quarter

and we had just gone home from dinner and it's like, what happened? Yeah, I didn't even answer from that point to the third quarter or something. It was weird to think how this was, you know, I get shows in your life, like, who are the ranking people in your life, you know, but I, I just, I think it would, like, I also imagine.

So the, like I said, the deal is that it doesn't keep compiling. So if, like, if the wizards had this happen to them four times in a row, they wouldn't lose 20% of their captains. Only whoever ends the year with the highest point total with the highest team. Oh, there we get Pena.

So you're talking about rewards and penalties. So if somebody scores the most points, they'd actually get a benefit out of it. Yeah. Yes. The other way you get Pena.

Yes.

“Like, let's say, you know, in the situation like with BAM, how would we be now?”

The heat would get 5% of the wizards' cap space. That way it would move over to them. There would be no, you know, eradication of cap space, so the players you need and couldn't say, well, this is going to actually hurt the players because there's less money available. Right.

But it, and let's say, now, like, the, let's say this rule existed now. On the last day of the year still, there would be a chance for someone to steal that. If somebody could get 84 or more, then, then, you know, so it would be like, so that would be like the Thompson girl and last day of this week. It would be like that night, except in every city, the last night, the very last night.

Like, it hurts. It would yes. And, or, and also, it's like, I say, it'd be for the individuals and for the team. Yeah. So, you know, so, like, it wouldn't, so, so there could be some teams who maybe don't have

a superstar, but they're like, let's put this all together and see if we can score 200 points. You know, I guess the team is, and I don't know, like, in a way, it's, I, I feel really weird advocating this because I, I kind of in many ways, like, such a traditional list about sports and, like, oh, yeah, but the NBA is becoming more and more of an individual sport in every way.

The way it is played, but also the way it is considered, the way it's discussed, they may have to say, like, okay, we're going to have to accept that a lot of the fanbase is much more interested in the individual than in the team. And there's got to be ways to sort of make, you know, like, how can we make that? I, I don't know, I just, I, I think it's very, uh, nothing will make me flip to a game

faster than, and then same point total going on, even more so than a really close game. A really close game, I will too, but when it's somebody like a, when someone's putting up some, like, in same number, I just, I think that that there's, there's just something very unique and cool about that.

So it could be, you could basically do a monthly, right, so you could have six months

Highest for the team. Highest for the player.

I always think, whenever I hear these, like, because they would do this when they were

talking about what would be the rewards for the NBA Cup and things like that. And people always forget, like, if you're the players, if you're on the team, and it's, like, if, if you win the NBA Cup, your team gets a bonus lottery pick. You get the 15 pick. Why would any player in the team care about that?

They wouldn't. They would care about the incentives of money or some sort of, like, you get two extra home games the next year, instead of on the road, things like that. They care about themselves, money, less traveling, less being with their family more, having

“more by weeks, like, so you'd have to cater at that way, I think.”

Well, yeah, it could be, like, say, let's say for whatever reason they want to make the NBA Cup really contested. So they're like, if you win the NBA Cup, you get the number one pick that would actually deencentivize the guys who currently care the most, which is the guys at the end of the bench. It's like, I don't lose my job if we get the number one pick for help.

Yeah, I mean, now those guys are, like, I could actually use that money. Like, I could, you know, well, one thing I was talking with somebody about that I haven't talked about in the podcast is why it's so much easier for football to have parity. And, um, and just kind of have the, a team's fortunes flip in one year, where in the NBA, it's really hard.

And people think it's because of the salary cap for the NFL, but it's really the schedule. The schedule is the big secret sauce of the NFL. And you saw it with the Patriots last year and washed in the year before the fourth play schedule, you're just playing the other worst teams, um, you're, you're not on TV that much. You're not traveling that much and you can flip it in a smaller sample size.

Really, it's play 17 games.

“And I'm wondering, like, with the NBA, could part of this be, all right, well, how would they do that with the NBA?”

Well, you actually could. You could reward teams could have more home games the next year if they succeed and they could be have home games taken away the worst they do.

So if you're, if you're like the wizards and you're just tossing away the second half of the season,

with the franchise being as excited to do that, if that meant they had 37 home games next year instead of 41. So some teams would then have, you just looped up and over. Could you could have like 44? Yeah. So some team could have 45 home games the next year. I mean, to the NFL's credit, I mean, they had been thinking about parity since the early 70s. Right. That was we've ever cared about the NFL. Yeah. It was, you know, at a time when I don't even think

anyone was worried about it. Like, I don't think in 1974 there were a lot of people expressing despair that like there wasn't enough parity, but he knew that that was the central thing, that if you make a franchise feel like every eight to ten years, they have a legitimate shot to win a championship, no matter what their ownership does. I mean, it has changed everything. The smaller number of games probably is a factor to in that, you know, a team can start

six and over whatever and they suddenly feel like they're almost there, you know, even if they end up finishing. Yeah. I'm 100 or whatever. And there's lots of reasons why this has happened. I mean, it's just, it is, it is strange how like the NBA often makes me mad in a way other sports. Do you know, you know, I need to be able to. Because I should, when I would we were young people,

“I remember often almost seeming to advocate for the NBA. Like, it felt like the conventional”

wisdom was the NBA was bad. You only wanted to watch college. And I had to like the NBA as a kid and stuff like that. But it's hard. I mean, it really maybe just proves like pro basketball is a young man's game with a young man mentality. Because when I, it is so crazy to be, I'll see a game that I want to see and I'll turn on three of the guys aren't playing and it doesn't seem with the guys who they're care at all. And it's like, how do you motivate guys to like, like,

it's, it's just not enough. Somehow being in the NBA and playing these games is not enough to motivate these guys. And I, I, I don't know what to do about it. It's a weird thing. I mean, football has the other other upside that you can't coast, but you will get hurt if you coast. But you can coast in basketball. You can coast in baseball. I like your point about

how that shifted with the NBA work. Because it's been making me mad basically ever since I

had a column went post college. So like late 90s on just complaining about the NBA became like its own content vehicle. But in the 80s, and I'm slightly older than you, but you remember this too, the, the NBA was like this cool alternative like dinosaur junior where it was like, you found people in your life that like the NBA and you would like click with them and you would, you would be glass half full the whole time. You'd be explaining people why this was a cool league and you

really loved it. And I used to have a joke, even when I had my ESP and 020304, I would joke about how

This league is so much better than it gives credit for. And now it's the opposite, everybody's just

“mad at the NBA at all times. Well, okay, okay. So I would say outside of 1984 to 1989 or 1990,”

what other periods as the NBA not been in crisis, they always are. There's always something happening.

Yeah, I would say late, I would say late, the early 90s, when it was going the best, but we still had magic HIV and we had Jordan go play baseball as it was going the best. I also remember like sometimes in the 90s you'd watch a playoff game and it would be 64 to 71 or something. It was like this is wrong, sort of. You know, and we'll wait, think about that though, because we talked Zack and I talked about this on Sunday night. When they changed the 3.9, that was the first time you felt like the league was

responding to criticisms about, but then if you go back, you could go back to 767778, which we talked by a little on Sunday. And the big crisis back then was violence. And even before the Kermann Washington Punch, if you go back the first merger season, there's all these fights and guys, and some of them are on YouTube, like Kermann Washington, Dex John Schumat, stuff like that, or it's like fights,

“Kereen Punch, I think Tom Burlson, any punch somebody else, any punch campaigns and broke his hand,”

Bob Lugner, I think it too guys, Detroit was getting all these fights, and it was like holy shit, we got to do something about this. So, and then cocaine was in the 80s, so really this has been

50 years of this. It's always, there's always something, like I remember writing in the early 2000s,

I had watched a game between Vince Carter and Alan Iverson, and it just seemed awful, because it like, like even though as much as I said, like one man teens or whatever, it was not the best application of that. I just, it is sort of just set up in a way to be dramatic. It's almost like, now they've almost used that as their calling card, like this idea that you can follow the NBA without watching games, right? And you know, that's, you don't really hear that syllable to other sports.

Well, the thing, NBA has become like our family member, that's had a lot of issues over the years, but we still love them, but they make us crazy, and it's, it's almost like the son in parenthood, the move Steve Martin movie, but I said, God boy, the NBA has another hair-brain screen, scheme. If one of the games are good, like sometimes in the playoffs, they're so good, right? It's like, and it's so, you know, and it's like, why can't there, like, it doesn't always have to be this good,

but it should be able to be half of this, and sometimes not even close to half of it. I mean, it's like the intensity is just gone. Well, that's crazy about the shares. You have these four guys who are having like this spectacular seasons, right? On top of Wemby, who we'll talk about in the second, who is just now emerged as this generational guy, and then you have all these big markets that have a chance to win the title or markets that have an added chance in a while,

in your vocacy going for back-to-back, and there are a lot of good stories, even like the East playoffs, we have 10 teams, even if you play the 10 seed, like, are you crazy about playing the Miami Heat and the playoffs series? It's probably not, and yet here we are talking about what we

could fix for the first 50 minutes. I don't know what this is about the NBA that makes us always

want to do this. I mean, it is something about the nature of the game, because, like I say, it has never not been this way. Yeah. It has never, you know, when you when I first started following this, the games were like, you know, the championship game being showed after the news or whatever, I'm taking away. It was like, that was it, it's own kind of crisis, right? It can't become one it can't become a major sport. People don't even care enough to watch it live. Then it had that

little window when everything seemed to change and it was the kind of emerged maybe over to baseball and all these, but I bet if we went through all our old podcasts, how many would ever number there is? How many we complained about the league somehow? Number of times we're talking about problems with the NBA, we come up, I want 25 times, but there are 25 examples of us having a conversation like this in the span of our relationship. Well, this was one of the things I wanted

to talk about today, because I was talking on Sunday about this expansion thing, which has just been so weird for Madam with the basically saying, yeah, they're leaking out. They're given the expectation they're going to be adding these two teams. Meanwhile, they don't have the votes for the teams yet from the 30 owners and they don't know if anyone even has remotely the

“amount of money they're looking for. And I think one of the things that's bothered me about it”

and some other people is to push forward with the expansion when you haven't fixed all this other stuff, when we have this tanking crisis and you also are putting up solutions that nobody seems to like, right? And also, do you have some markets in your league that I don't think

Adam Silver's job is to run the NBA as a businessman, or he's supposed to care about

the spirit of the league, raising the level of the league, making the league a better place for fans, which goes back to the old Stern argument we used to have, was like, it's Stern running this league for the owners or the players. And we knew with Stern, it's like, he's running it for the owners. Good deal. Just all the way through has been, I'm running this for my 32 owners. Like, even that right now they're doing, they're going to add the 18 game season with two by weeks. You

can already see they're laying the ground right for it now. Yes. Nobody thinks this is a good idea. Not one person. We all like football and we'll put up with it. But nobody thinks this is going to make the game safer. This will make the product better. But they're going to do it because he works for the owners. Adam makes it seem like he cares about the spirit of the game and the players. Do you think he does? Well, I'm sure he does care, but he does work for the owners. It's maybe,

like, you know, like, mountain land just or whatever it could be like, I'm doing this for baseball. I don't care how it affects you. Yeah. But I, I, I, it's a kind of unrealistic thing now to imagine that that a commissioner would feel like would it would be empowered enough to do that? Well, I mean, would you want to commissioner that cares more about the state of the game or the

state of the business? Because it seems like we always get the latter. Well, we would want for the

state of the game. But that's not like, I mean, that would be like, if, you know, who would you rather have, you know, running target? Somebody who's concerned about how much money target makes

“or will be the best consumer experience. We would all say the second category, but that's how it is.”

Right. But by the arts, put shit away and admit that's not how it is with the NBA because I think the commissioner is trying to pretend they care. But what's interesting is baseball actually seems like they have cared about the sport and they have cared about the product and they have been able to make these fixes, which we'll talk about later and the NBA is not. Although, I mean, yeah, but you think that baseball fixes were for the, I mean, well, they came out of necessity because

it wasn't true. Exactly. It wasn't like, I don't see that as someone being like, what is, I think that from a traditional baseball perspective, that they probably kind of contradict that, but they're likely got to have people watch this game. You got to have people care about these games. The NBA is, you know, has, has so kind of into the idea of like player empowerment and it's a players league that they have to be much more vocal about acting as though this is for the benefit

of the, of the guys on the floor. I guess I don't, I, I, I, I assume that that, you know, adding two franchises, I mean, it just, it doesn't seem like that will help the product. No, I mean, there's no way things that's a good idea except for people living Seattle in Vegas. And I want Seattle to have a team. I just don't think, I think there's a better way for that to happen.

Why, you've always wanted Seattle to get the team back so much. Why is that? I mean, I'm not saying

that they shouldn't have one, but why is this good thing for you? Well, a couple of reasons. One is, I think it's a great sports city. I thought they really, really were great with the Sonics. I thought, I honestly felt like that was one of the seven or eight NBA fan bases, and they had real history in the 70s. It was actually a basketball town where basketball was the most important. It really was. And they won a title. I think if you're taking a team away that won the title,

“you have to really have a good reason for it. And I thought the reasons they lost the team were”

outrageous. It basically came down to the Starbucks guy, Howard Schultz, not being able to build an arena and just being like, all right, fuck it. And just selling to the okay C group, pretending he didn't know they were going to move the team when, of course, they were. And then Stern, who's now no longer with us, really kind of wanting the team to move to, to prove a point to everybody else. Like, if you don't build an arena, you're going to lose your team.

I really like having a team in Oklahoma City though. But that's fine. You could have had both. Thank their geographic location has been a benefit to that franchise. 100%. And I think you could argue, maybe Kansas City should would be another team that could do really well. And even if you look at a map, like they did this when they were talking about the teams moving, the conferences, and it's like shit, well, how are we going to have 15 East teams? And you look at the map.

And there's just wide pockets of the country that don't have an NBA team even near them. And then clusters of these other teams. But the bigger picture for me is like just talking about

“expansion is a financial decision. And I think that the league looks at this thinking,”

"Well, look how much money we made from the media deal. We'll look at how much money we'll make when we sell expansion teams." And to them, that's the success. But for me, the success is,

and they don't. So, to me, that's a 50-50 thing, and they're only caring about the 50, the business side of the 50. I just thought of something crazy. Yeah, with this mitigate taking. Why don't they wait back to a regional draft? So, like, if you were in the East, you're in the East, you can go round it up and figure it out from the Big East, or the ACC, or the answer to their conferences around there. Like, the teams in the Midwest could draft from like

the big 10 in the Mac and stuff like that. Like, you know, like the Lakers and the Wires, like they'd have to, you know, pick from like, you know, the teams in the West Coast.

But then you'd have owners moving, basically, what happened at the Banson BYU? You'd have owners

taking high school kids and moving them into their region. Oh, well, well, well, well, but maybe we could be able to get a little bit better. That sounds like there's a lot of pressure. Certainly, if you're a high school basketball player, you can only play college in the stature in or from a state that geographically touches the border of your state. So, so, like, we can, we could just enforce a regional aspect to basketball. We took from Minnesota.

A kid grows up in Nevada. He's got to, like, go to college. Like, you and L. E. Or in California, something, and then he could only play on the West Coast. You know, everyone would be like,

“a brown, then an Cleveland, where it's only, you know, that, where it's whole life is in one spot.”

I still thought the best idea I've come up with is having a lot of like to limit mobility. I don't like it. I like your right foot. Like, very minimalist. I like to hurt the lives of these

guys. My favorite idea that I've come up with that I think could actually work, but they would never

have the balls to do it. It's having the lottery for the first. Basically, like, you have your top five teams. Whatever you figure out the lottery the order. And then they all put in their name for who they would take first. And then the consensus first guy is like the number one pick is Cooper Flag and he just walks up to the podium. He's like, you're these five teams could be at home. And now we're going to find out where Cooper Flag wants to play. And we kind of shifted almost batch or style to

the player. I still feel like that idea could work. What if it was like the draft was over many days. So like the 30 day drafts? Well, like, yeah, like, so to the first pick happens on the first day, let's say it was whatever. And they pick whoever they take. Okay, that guy can go to that team. Or he has like 24 hours to negotiate with every other team with salary going down incrementally.

“So if he goes to the second, you know, so like, so he would be picked, but the only way to get his”

match money is by going to the team who picked him. Yeah. But he could go to any other team for a fraction eventually, you know, and that could be ultimately very dangerous. But it was like,

that that money thing, that's another thing I've always thought they should do like the longer you

have the player on your team. Like, Steph Curry, you actually get tax and cap relief after a certain number of years. So they could try to keep players in the same city more. I mean, this is another issue, the the player empowerment, which has had mostly good benefits, I think, for the last 15 years. But the worst benefit has been if these teams that, you know, once their guy decides they don't want to play for them, they're stuck making these pretty terrible trades. Like,

Utah's trade for Mitchell was actually, they got a lot of good stuff back, right. So on paper, you'd probably do that. But they also traded somebody who's one of the best 10 players in the league who hadn't even hit his prime yet, who was under contract for three years. And that's like, I exactly the kind of guy you'd want to build around for 15 years. And then you look at the flip side of Sacramento, Fox hates being in Sacramento. The teams at train wreck. I don't blame Fox

at all. And then his agent, the ringer's rich Paul, starts pushing to make a trade and kind of

“steers in the same Antonio, because he thinks that's the best thing for him. So he has every right to”

do that. Fox is every right to want to get traded. But there was only one suitor for Fox, who's really good. And I don't think that's a good system either. I mean, any in almost any walk of life, for any kind of employment. If you do things that improve the situation for the individual, it's going to hurt the collective. I mean, it's going up. It can be like a college basketball right now. One thing that I've noticed is a lot of people saying, oh, you know, we complain about,

you know, and I own money. We complain about the portal. But look how good these games are. Like college basketball in some ways seems like it's been playing a level that is kind of a new kind of apex for it. Yeah. That's because all of the good players are at the same 16 to 25 schools. Right. In the past, there were a bunch of reasons, dozens of reasons. Why an exceptional player could say, end up at Wichita State or end up at Davidson or something like that. And then,

Kansas State. That's never happening now. Well, I mean, it's still, I mean, Kansas, if you're in

if you're in a power conference, it could still happen, I guess. But the man, it's more for the mid-majors kind of. It's like, right. If you've got, if you happen, if you've got this great talent, the value waiter finds the kid that other people don't realize is going to be great, they're still, it's just like he's going to end up at Texas or Tennessee or something in a couple years anyway. So like, they're, they'll just, they'll just ratchet up the amount, we have the

“portal and you have them limited money. I, and I want to say don't mind it. I, I think this is where”

college sports should go where we have 20 to 30 colleges and football and basketball that are almost operating like a pro league. And then different roles and then everybody else is an amateur athlete

basically. That's because you dramatically prefer the pro game to the college game. And if I'm just,

I, I still feel like amateur athletics should, should still keep some sort of imbiltical court to the past. I'm right now, we don't have it. We should keep it or should like, no, I, I like people going to college just to get it, just to get a degree and be part of the campus and stay in there for a few years and play in the sport because they're a big part of every, you know, just going to the school take having having roommates for four years, living off campus,

that it's almost like that's not cool anymore. I know that's that's like you're saying you don't like what's going on now. You don't like the situation. I like what's going on for a certain select group of colleges, but not for all 300. Well, like, but the reason is not happening all 300

is because of those select colleges. I know, but it, but that's the issue. I'd like to go back to

just we had two awesome conferences and then everything else was just like college sports again. I mean, I guess that's not happening. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know, I kind of, I feel like in a sense

“that is what's going to happen. I think that when these, the super conferences break off from the”

end and stuff like that and then they'll be, you know, so then, but then it will just be like, it'll be the pros and then the semi-fros and then so you'll be, I mean, there won't be that much differentiation between the two. You know, there isn't no, like these guys, all right, these guys in the tournament right now who are allegedly freshmen. Okay. The moment their team gets knocked out, what do you think they, you think they're still going to class? You think they're still on campus?

Like they're done. Yeah. Well, the whole farce of that, like we should just own that and make that, like this is pro sports already. We pretend it's not, but it is and that I just think we should differentiate it better and go back to, I know there's no way to do it because there's no Zarov college sports. There's nobody who could be like, why is UCLA playing teams on the East Coast? This is the dumbest thing we've ever done. These kids are flying. You've crossed country kids,

flying 3,000 miles to do a meet when they're supposed to be taking classes. Like how did we end up doing in the spot? It's nuts. Well, yeah, I mean, it's so weird. We're talking like, even now, even thinking about like the academic consequences of this seems like just all this or football going until they're adding more playoff rounds, football is going to go until February. So you're going to have a same schedule as the NFL. We got to take a break and I want to keep going on this.

“This episode is brought to you by Mick Loeb Ultra. What makes basketball so exciting?”

All the superior skill on the court. This has been the case my whole life. The craziest thing, I mean, when be stuff he's doing every game. There's two three Wemby moments a game. We're like, I don't know if I've ever seen that. The number one thing for me is when he does the screen and roll. He's going to the basket. Somebody throws him an alley hoop and he just catches it and dunks it without jumping. It's an alley hoop, but it's not a new. It's just kind of an alley. And every time he

does it, I'm like, I've definitely 100% ever seen that anymore. It's a superior play. Superior play is aren't just for the NBA, though. Try Mick Loeb Ultra. The official beer partner of the NBA. And a crisp refreshing superior light beer. It's the beer Max Calerman. He just told me that plus to give me your chance to win court side seats, custom merch and more. Mick Loeb Ultra. Superior is worth playing for. Enter now at Mick Loeb Ultra.com/portside.

Mick Loeb Ultra. Quartzside. 25 to 26. No purchase necessary. Open U.S. residence. 21 plus begins on October 1st. 2025 ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entrepreneurs see official rules at Mick Loeb Ultra.com/ Quartzside for free entry entry deadlines and prizes and details. So you mentioned College Basketball in the last. We're heading into the last break. Duke UConn felt like just an old school. I remember I watched it kind of basketball ending. Everybody loved it. It was fun and social media. The

seemed like a maniac. Danny Hurley's wife. Bill Murray is somehow involved. It's just kind of kept

going and going and was awesome for all these different reasons. But the fundamental thing people seem to love was that something bad happened to Duke. I really do think they might be the most hated anything that we have in sports right now. I know people delighted that the Patriots sucked in the Super Bowl. I know people hate the Yankees. I know there's people hate the Lakers and the Celtics. But they also have their giant groups of people that love them too. Is Duke the most one-sided hate

verse like right now that we have in pro or college sports? It's an eternal thing. The players can change the coaches can change it. It doesn't people feel that hatred toward them still. Like with these other way with any pro franchise or whatever, you know, once a team really fails

for a while, you know, people, you know, the Patriots or whatever. It's like, if when they struggle,

“people will be like, they'll never forget the Duke. Like the guys who hate Duke, those hate”

them all the time. But what's hardest, I was in college the last time people actually were kind of rooting for Duke, which was when they upset you and all of it. Yes, and then within a year that flipped, I think latener had a big thing to do with it, which we did a 30 for 30 about once upon a time. But latener is like kind of the before and after his whole career by the end of his career, people are like, I hate Duke. And it's just they went away. Even when they upset Vegas, I mean, Vegas was an incredibly

cool team. Yeah. So I felt like most people like you and all the overdue, even though they were the favorite. So it's not just, it's not just that Duke is so often the favorite in these things. I think you're remembering that a lot, a lot, a lot, a little bit. Because Vegas was like the unit of it was the big bully. They were killing everybody. Like, they were doing a lot of trash talking and there was a lot of like the older media was getting really upset about their behavior.

These guys role models, and then upstart scrappy Duke did like the Hoosiers Norman Dale trying to

“beat them. And then, but that's what I've done a year. Yeah, but we were younger. So I mean,”

because my memory of this was that the two most popular teams from that period was the Vegas team. Yeah, and Fab5. Fab5, I think. And they were both kind of criticized in the same way. But then, you know, this goes back where we were talking earlier, how like we used to defend the NBA and not kind of drives as crazy. Yeah. I think I have this kind of growing type of business that's like, but basketball is something that is made for a young mentality and that that the sort of

the individual nature of only having five guys on the floor, the fact that their personalities are really present and all these things, it makes it desirable to the way you view the world. When you're 16, 17, 18, 19, 2021, that you kind of like, you want to, you want that sort of, but then when you become, and you mature and become an adult, you see like the way things work in football as more rational and reasonable, maybe how things should be, and that you should sublimate

yourself to some larger idea where basketball doesn't make that same requirement, particularly among teams like we're talking about like the really entertaining teams. Wait, let's, let's, let's

build this out because I think you're right. I think part of it is basketball, as I've always said,

is the most naked sport. Right. You're just, you've got five guys in the court. You can watch them at all times. You can watch them on the bench. You can watch them when the actions not happen or when it's happening. You can see how they interact with other people. It's almost like a microcosm of being in somebody's office, you know, or or being at somebody's Thanksgiving table. Like, look, what's happening with the rockets lately? I have real thoughts on the rockets. He's

not, I've never been in their locker room and I've never talked to any of the players this year, but I watched them on TV and I'm like, those guys aren't connected. They don't like each other. I wonder if it's the KD Burner scandal and no other sport works that way. Baseball's the only one that's as naked, but I think with, with baseball, we don't really see them interact other than celebrating after, you know, home runs or strikeouts. And in general, like, they, it's kind of an individual

sport. They're all in it for themselves, but collectively it just kind of makes sense. Basketball's

“not individual. And I think that's the difference. That's what hockey we always know. They're on the”

same page. They'll play with a broken, anything, you know, they're going all out. They're honors that stake at all times. Like, we don't worry about hockey players, but basketball players we talk about constantly. Well, it is, it's like basketball. You said, basketball is not individual. Well, it's not individual, but it is. But you still need your, you need your teammates to succeed and basketball. Yeah. Right. You know, it was interesting this year. I went to, I went to a blazers

locked in. Right. And they were so engaged. It just like, it didn't really seem like a college

“team. And it made me think like, it could be better than I thought they were. You know, it was like,”

yeah, there's a few teams like that where you can, I love, this is the kind of stuff I, I still love going to basketball games. And it's the kind of stuff I look at. You can learn a lot just from the behavior of teammates who aren't playing. And what happens in the huddles and things like that, that I just don't think in baseball, you would notice in the same way. Yeah. Well, I mean, totally. I mean, it's, the baseball is just like, there's less, there's, there will be personalities,

but less. I mean, like, in the NBA, it's like having no personality is a kind of personality. Like, a dunk in had a personality because he had no personality. For a long time, Kawaii Leonard had a personality by having no personality. Oh, yeah. You say naked, that's actually a pretty fucking good description because it's like almost any persona you have becomes something to be understood through, where it's in, in a lot of other situations. If you

have no personality, you just sort of disappear into the shadow. You know, like that's Darren Peters, I didn't even happen in this. Yeah, people worried about Darren Petersen that he has no personality. And he just seems, you're the point guard. You're not enough of a leader and a connector. But his personality is basically Kawai Leonard. And it's worked really well for Kawai Leonard. And I do think you can be that way. On a, like, Boosers, Ben, I thought he was relanged into

watch the last few weeks. And, you know, they have this terrible loss. But I always felt like

he was calm at all times. Even if you watch what happens after the most devastating, you know, steel, his brother gives does the steel crazy, 40 pointer. And all the do you guys are frozen. And he's like walking, he's trying to figure out, okay, he starts walking toward the ball. He was the only one that was like thinking, oh, we still have a game. And I was thought, like, that quality is going to serve him really well. And granted, I've never seen him in

“person. I'm just watching my TV. But that's why we love basketball. I have no idea if he'll translate”

to the NBA. I was so fucking wrong about Cooper Flag. I guess I was like, because my thing is like, I only watch the games. Yeah. So I like, so when I would watch Duke last year, and I'd be like, oh, he's good, but he seems like the second best player on this team. Right. So I was like, I just like, that he, I thought he's going to be a very, very, very good pro who's not going to be this sort

of like, we're probably never winning MVP. I now think he probably will win. I really think

that competitiveness. It's the thing that I always use, whether to try to decide who's going to be a great prospect in your, you're probably right. But when you brought that up the first time, I was like, I hear that about so many guys competitiveness. I mean, that's like, it doesn't, it seems to me, like, of like a filler aphorism you use about somebody, but there's two kinds of competitiveness. There's like, oh, he's a competitive guy. There's certain guys that you can just tell minute to minute

quarter to quarter, half to half, whatever, really give a shit. And I don't know how you quantify it, you can't figure out in the combine. I felt that way about Castle. I Castle is my favorite guy two years ago, right? It was a, it was a bad draft that was like the hottest take ever. But I really liked how he cared himself how hard he played. And I felt like he was in a weird situation on that you can't team because they were really good. That players all over

the place, there was probably more he could have done. So I think when you're, when you're projecting

“guys, you have to think like, all right, fundamentally, ultimately, is this guy badass or not?”

Like, I feel like we're about Buries on Arizona. I just think he's a badass. He's going to go in the league and he, I know he's going to succeed. And I wonder if sometimes it's that easy. I mean,

quarterbacks were never going to figure out. Well, yeah, I was going to see it. Like, so Indiana's

quarterback, what are you using your kind of sort of like judging their personality? Oh, my, my stupid bill. Thanks. Oh, well, one thing I like with him is he's apparently by all counts super smart. And I wonder with quarterbacks, do we underrate that in some ways? Because think about like even the ones that like farves a bad example, right, farves like just pretty dumb gifted guy, right, Rogers, Super smart, Brady, Super smart, Manning, Super smart. Like some of the best guys we've

had over the last 30 years. You know, not an intellectual. I mean, there's so many like, no, but damn Renault was football smart though. Like, you know, these guys that can remember like every player that they, you could bring up a play like week two, your third season, you're in San Diego and they're like, oh, yeah, third quarter. Like, there's something about their brain that's different. And it seems like Mendoza has that. It's an incredibly difficult job. And it's an incredibly

he's going to be able to basically do what he does. You know, in some places like bigger holes and others, but like what he didn't college and what he does in the NFL will be the same for quarterbacks.

That is not the case. You're almost always going into a totally different thing. And they can also sort of,

you know, you know, at the college level, you can kind of twist these offenses around where like a

“guide makes these same three reads every time. And if he can do that, I mean, I remember watching”

Kevin Moore at Boisee State. I was like, there's no way this guy's not going to be a successful of a quarterback. I've never seen him miss an open receiver, but that was because he was in a situation where he had a lot of open receivers. Right. Right. That's the middle of all times. You know, I talked to, I got to spend a lot of time with Peyton Manning last year at this conference. We're at and then not to not to talk at a school. I don't think he would care me talking about this. But I,

I'm really fascinated when I talk to these guys like when they see the other quarterbacks, what they see and don't see with either prospects or guys in the league. And if you talk to any of

those guys, they always say like the number one thing is when you go to the line to be completely

prepared in your brain for anything that's going to happen and then to be able instantaneously to realize everything that defense is doing. And all these guys are like, it doesn't matter how

“talented you are. If you don't have that quality in a split second to know everything that's”

going to happen, it doesn't matter how good of an athlete you are. Right. And learning that, getting better at that, just I'm going to the line, I'm completely prepared. I know everything, my offensive line has to do, my receivers, but I also know the seven things. And that was one of the reasons Drake may kind of suck in the Super Bowl. Seattle was basically doing two things over and over again. And he was too young. He wasn't ready for it. He couldn't, he couldn't unlock it.

But I just wonder if that goes back to the brain thing. Yeah. Like John Krudney said that show,

he talked to the quarterbacks, you know, and that was always pre-game because you were really

watching when you watched that was like how really, you know, straight like how smart do they seem when they describe these things. Right. But then if you don't have the athleticism, you're not being Steve Wash. Well, you're Josh Rosen or like pick a guy, like you still have to have the the monocom of athleticism to get by. Yeah, well, there it means because there's also guys who can explain the things they can execute. Those are the guys who went to becoming quarterback

coaches usually. You know, but right, right, right. Tell them more and be being one of these people over there. It is it is such a, it's just unlike you, because you'd ask one time, it's like, why are we still so bad at like, did you think what quarterbacks to draft? So, you know, finding a guy sits in right now. Yes. Now he's the polarizing guy. Like some people think he might go way higher. It's a little like Jackson Dart last year. And he's become the guy everybody's been talking about yet he's played 15 games

in college. It is, I mean, it's such a demanding thing. And I do think that it is like I use such

“situational. I think it's unusually situational. But there's yeah, but there are probably”

a lot of quarterbacks who could succeed in certain scenarios and almost none who could succeed in other scenarios. I mean, it's, you know, well, well, now someone like Ryan Lee for whatever. We almost put the totality of his bust on him, right? So that like all his problems really were him and, you know, and you know, breaking the law and all these things. But it is interesting to wonder if he had gone somewhere else entirely and been around totally different people, if he would have

had a completely different career in life. I mean, I don't think that's unsinkable, you know. I think that we'll look at Mendoza. He's going to Vegas. They money to spend. They have the hard a coach that is a very well regarded offensive coach Kubiak seems like he's going to be able to have some semblance of an offensive line coming out of the gate. But even if you look at him when he was at Cal compared to Indiana, he was not the quarterback. He was Indiana. That's

the problem with this stuff. Well, that's like while they're in Illinois in a year goes from I'm not a top 100 guy to I might be the fifth pick in the NBA draft. Sometimes I do wonder with this stuff like I've just watched it with my own kids and my daughters like about the 21 and my son's 18 and they've changed so much year to year and all of these different ways that it makes me think like this draft process is nuts. How would you how do you you're pegging these kids who are

19 and 20 and assuming when they're 23 they're going to be the same people. How do you know you know, we do this in lots of things. Yeah. You still find it impressive when some, you know, 40 year old person, we translate them. They went to Harvard or they went to Yale. Well, that meant they were an incredibly ambitious 16 year old who was really smart at 16 and had parents

about you as a person outside of what you were like as a teenager and we kind of do that with tons of stuff. I mean like with a you know with sports it is I mean it's kind of a glaring situation because the careers are shorter. So what you are at 18 actually isn't that far removed from you at

“28 but still a lot still a lot though. Right. But in I think at basketball I've been thinking”

about Jade and Ivy this week who's obviously going through a lot of stuff and it seems like he's unraveled a little bit. This guy was a top five lottery pick. Yes. And I don't know if he was a sure thing because he was a you know he's a guard. It was a combo guard but he was somebody, you know,

an incredible athlete. People really thought he was had a chance to be like I don't know if

it all on BA guard but definitely an all star goes to the worst possible to trade situation. Right. At one point they lose 20 plus games in a row. He's playing with K to his better than him. So he's got to figure out a play with him. Last year Red is it's about to happen for him and he's really starting to play pretty well. Brakes is leg. I was watching the game when it happened and now is in a tail spin and now is probably out of the league and it's like you think he's done.

“You don't think you like if I said that the league for now I think he's come back a year or two years”

now maybe will he ever be an NBA starter again? That I don't know because he's lost a lot of could he be an NBA rotation guy sure we've seen we saw we saw right our test come back. I mean anything and it's possible but my point is like if you just played his career 30 times this was probably the worst outcome going to the worst possible team having the worst possible injury you know and there's another outcome where he goes to the right kind of team with the right kind of

infrastructure and is having a really good career now so I don't know. This is the tough thing with the draft. I think very rarely with drafts like Hashim the beats a good example. I hope he's not listening. It was just a terrible pick it was terrible in the moment I was

writing about he went second and I think it was the draft that had had had a curry and rubio

“and maybe even James Hardin I think all three of those guys were in that draft and the grizzos”

were like we don't know what to do we don't really need a card and they were just like they took the beat and it was crazy when it happened that was like oh I know this is gonna be a bus but there's other ones like how do you know it's Michael Beesley the guy was averaging he was like one only three or four guys ever to be like 25 in 10 in college the stats were saying he might be an awesome pro he was just a little dubious off the court so he rolled the dice and and it didn't work

yeah that career he played on but I mean yes but yeah exactly yes it was not it was it was not the career after he thought he was gonna have coming out if I worked at a team if I was like in a front off like a GM or if I was an owner and I I would spend all my time talking to people about this I would be like obsessed with how do we figure this out there's got to be some way to crack it and I don't think there is well but okay so you like you said about you know Ivy like we play his career

30 times yeah you think this might be the 30th outcome yeah yeah maybe like 29 there might be one worst outcome so let's say you did your career 30 times hmm say like what outcome are you at

I did think about this once like would I have like the because I was like basically a late

blimmer professionally but I was probably coming out of college I probably would have been a first round pick because I had had I'd written my sports column for all four years and I had like a perspective and then I've liked the only how world I don't know whatever I'm getting I'm just trying to do it okay yeah keep going keep going and then it's like oh I'm going to work with a newspaper and I'm going to be on the bench for whatever and it didn't work out and I basically had like

that quite jaded Ivy but well that would have been though yeah that would not have been the best outcome for you would draft yes if you would have the original you would have immediately if you would have immediately got a newspaper job even a call coming straight out of a bad for me college yeah I don't think we'd be talking now I don't think you'd have that house but think about this and so it's actually a 30 year anniversary this because it was near the end of March 96

where I left the Harold because I knew I was stuck there forever you know I'd probably made a couple mistakes on my own but I left and I didn't have a plan I was going to like freelance so I'm 26 years old I'm not working or writing for everybody and eventually I start bartending and I don't think I wrote anything for like 10 months so my career was like over and I'm sure there's some NBA NFL baseball there must be I can't even imagine how

many people are like God damn like they're at this fork in the road and then they end up just doing

because you want to think anything that happens to you is because of merit or hard work but

“the biggest factor is luck yeah I graduated from college in 1994 if I had graduated in 93”

or in 95 there is zero chance that I'm here right now talking to you there's no chance I think that if I had graduated in 93 or 95 I don't know if I would have ever written a book but because I graduated in 94 and certain things were wind up that year everything is different that's the same these dudes I mean it's just um well it's not the same I think Cooper flag is good no matter where he goes what happens but there's certain guys yes whatever happens it's out

yes but although I mean let's say so you're saying that you think he could have gone to any franchise and it would not I would argue he's in the worst position possible this first year in Dallas he goes to a team that the fan base is so scarred and upset about the trade that just happened that even as the new season is starting there's still mad and but in the GM and

“Shannon that he has to get fired that's how you start 80 gets hurt right away I read decides”

he's not coming back they trade it basically 80s of some cost they trade them they decide to start tanking I don't none of that was good he's playing out of position trying to learn how to be a point guard when he's not a point guard and but what if he stays there we're five years

from now and the maps have never improved well you could argue this it's all he's putting thick

skin and scar tissue on himself or when they actually get good I mean but we don't say that about Zion we don't say like Zion's put on you know scar tissue my Zion is different issues though I mean like that yeah but I mean but I'll tell you what coming out of college if we could somehow go back in time and someone said you can put money on Zion being great or flag I would have put money on Zion well I look at I think most people would well from a time standpoint yes I would

bet on flag because I I thought the way Zion played made me nervous even though I thought Zion was incredible but all the in the air guys make me nervous I'm sure you did stuff about Zion coming out of college I'd be curious I thought he was awesome yeah but I thought I was all in on flag I just thought I actually didn't think he was gonna be this good offensively but when you talk about situations it's funny like the best situations that anyone entered the league in

of the guys from the last 12 13 years are Tatum and Brown and Boston and I wonder if it's one of the reasons Brown spent so he's got like he's in your 10 now he's gonna make it on VATM but he goes to that for Celtics team and they were good remember they made they made the Eastern finalist

first year he didn't even play that much he was playing like 12 13 minutes again who's a bench guy

he got to watch almost like Mahomes sitting on the sidelines for a year better than Wendy situation

“now Wendy doesn't count Wendy's like well I mean I think he also got put in a perfect situation”

it was pretty good dunk in his probably the standard for this well but that's dunked joins a really good sparse team they tank for one year he's next to David Robinson he's got pop of it that's about it that's about as good as it gets as well as what many I'm as playing I still feel like they're kind of bringing him along surprisingly slowly I love it I mean I love that 29 minutes a game is the best and I would I would be very

wait hold when because we like my hope is that they get into the playoffs and they're like we're gonna unleash him now he's playing 35 minutes a game and we're gonna see what kind of numbers he puts up now and like you know or I I because it does seem as though they are still like he's like a he's like a horse and they're still not letting him run full speed they just will not like just just little blinches he'll gallop that's it I have thoughts on this we had to

quick break so everyone's that looks through the NBA slate I try to find us a really fun

parlay that we could all do together and of course we always do it on Fando I love betting on the

NBA on Fando easy to build by bet I know I'm gonna get my winnings instantly so we are in the last two weeks of the season which means we could throw together a lot of big favorites that are going against teams that are no longer trying to win and add them together with the team that we like and I keep looking at that Atlanta Orlando game in Orlando's and something from free fall coming off a 60 point loss and Atlanta seems like the easy pick in that game

and yet I wonder is this like a playoff game for Orlando so that might be one I do or Boston Miami if everyone on Boston is playing it would be one of those two but the bet would be live in the Fando sportsbook out Wednesday don't forget to use a profit boost token to increase

they're kind of easing him along I think there's a real reason for this and I've noticed it it's seen in person a couple times he's so tall and there's so much room for error when he lands or steps on things or he's up in the air that I think they've decided like during the regular season the less time he's on the court the more we're game in the system our way that's something bad now he's worked on and I've talked about how he's worked on falling you know he's

worked on just being careful like when to kind of jump and traffic things like that but he can't

“stop his body once it's up in the air because he's so fucking tall and that's how that's your worst”

case scenario is he's up and he lands and he's so big and he lands the wrong way and he bends the wrong way and I just think I think what you said before the break was right like it's like a horse they're going to unleash I think I don't think it'd be more than three to four minutes at some point he's got to go for it like it's like it's it is like you can't say it's like he's too fragile to ever you it's like it's not fragile though he's been he's not he's been pretty durable yeah but

when exercises or whatever because that was always the big fear with guys that he's you know

create their feet or whatever I mean when when we're started writing about him a while ago and talking about all the Wendy's basically I don't know like a musical prodigies or would other artists whatever people would want to put in like somebody who realized early in life that they're going to be special and basically all these decisions that he made from almost being a pre-teenageer on like all this stuff is going to happen to me I got to be ready he's like learning at a fall he

trains his legs all the exercise he does learning at a speak English right his English is the best I think of any foreign guy that's come in the league who's been a star because he was practicing it forever knowing that at some point I'm going to be a superstar in America and I have to be by lingual um it's been calculated in the wrong word but the way it was calculated yeah no it was really smart like it's like he's a little tailor swift like like he like he made decision

“in a very young age that like everything about my life is going to in some way be involved”

with success at this one singular deal right everything about even the things about my personality that have no relationship to basketball they can't in any way contradict basketball I can't get really into something that could somehow damage this I can't you know I can't love pastries or whatever whatever the case maybe whatever choice he's making right these are yeah when I really like that Taylor Swift thing that's a good one I've heard that one before

I think it's a really good analogy somebody who had success early because he's overseas people know who he is by the time he's 14 15 and he's already completed his main successful yeah like wasn't like he he was not in the basement he's on the main floor he's not in the basement it also somebody who's been stared at because he's incredibly fucking tall somebody who's just

been stared at differently every moment of his life basically from age 13 14 on

“when did Taylor Swift hit like 15 I mean 14 15 she was meaning I think she had records 13”

but like yeah I still I don't love how often when he's on the perimeter I love it so much more when he's closer than that I guess that's just how it is it's just crazy to I know but that's there's Chuck that's their super sauce I know they have this like hammer yeah this hammer that when it's like the biggest game of the season or it's a game seven or they're down three two in the road and a game six like they can start moving them closer to the basket the other team

panics when he's within ten feet if he's posting up like they the defense is just completely changing every strategy they have once that happens I mean I guess yeah I still don't know like how complete his post of game hits like he's like how I mean he looks good when he does it but it's the regular season and sometimes he's you know I would I would really be interested to see like what his bank vault of moves is well he's got he already has a little bit of that

and bead I could just shoot a 20 footer over you and you can't walk it he's got like a little jump hook and then he's got this hook with this little turnaround where he leans over the guy

but he's usually like seven inches tall and the guy can't block it because when he's basically in his

face he's got this little George Garvin spin move the other way yeah I think we're all moved I've seen all those things but I just want to be like what like it would be exactly like a turnaround just like well I don't know I would just like see what it looks like if there'd be a quarter of basketball where he's playing against a big dude and it's he's on the block and they just keep going to him going to him going to him and see what it's like like could this happen in a play? Have you seen him

in person? Like yeah it person no I've not I have not seen him in person. I would highly recommend to

must see we've had in a long time I don't really remember the last time curry was probably the last

one where it's a he's just got to go see this you gotta go watch them warm up you gotta go through the whole thing they did it's funny because we were doing all that face of the league stuff I forget when that was don't one of the dumbest conversations ever and it's still dumb

“but I think the overriding face of the week face of the league everything's like”

the league when I have a face of the league could Jason tell you to be the fact it was like this is stupid why we're doing this and my attitude of time as you know when you see it you know when it's happening and it's happened this year with Wemby he's the number one attraction in the league he's you can feel it in the games people are going early to watch a warm up he's nobody leaves their seat when he's on the court and he's the most compelling

guy they have and it happened in the span of six months hmm yeah I guess I guess the face of the league thing that's just that just seems to be like what they talked about when there was nothing else to talk about right you know because sometimes they just have things they got to fill space and it's like well it's because you know when it can really even properly like you say properly describe what that means you know it's like you know when you see it like pornography or whatever

but yeah we you don't say that with like we weren't saying that with about music in the late eighties with like alternative music can Michael Steppy the face of the face of the league music does have its own version of that which is defining something as the biggest band in the world or the biggest artists in the world and it's right and artists and bands feel like they can sort of say that sometimes even if for only last like two months like yeah there's like yeah there is like

“like accounting crows I think a documentary or something like that was it yeah well no I don't think”

that one this is an old earlier one where he's talking about going to Japan and he's like you know we were like the Beatles there we were like you know the biggest band the world that's like oh maybe we're that weekend or whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah but um you have any other Wemby thoughts because I had a couple other quick things for you well I think it is interesting that he sort of like defenses half of the game so he should be the MVP's like already sort of in a

way kind of very formally making his argument with like it's not looking like he's got a lot of revato he's like trying to like logic it out and I think now it you know in 2026 or whatever I think that argument he makes is better than has been in a while you know I wouldn't have said that in the past that you know it seemed like offense was 80% of it and then you know but now it is different I mean it's like they're uh when the games could serious I then the defense intensity is

pretty pretty centrally you know it's like you know in a way that I remember but so what I mean I would I who are you who are you gonna like I assume that Shea is gonna win MVP right

“I think he is and that's I don't know who I'm voting for you but that's why I mean it's it's tough to”

vote against me what I watch and play I feel like long stretches go before I see him miss a shot I know him is a shots yeah I know it's field goal percentages but whenever I watch him he seems to

never be missing jump shots he's even all go in it's shocking when he misses that thing you said

about when be on defense I was saying this to somebody the other day about because we never got to see Russell but we read all the books about Russell and we saw the documentary isn't clips of him and how everybody over and over again would be like there was just nothing like this he just blocked everything like he he drove guys out of the league guys who had like oh this is my little my little Skyhook that I have and Russell be like I'm just never making that against me ever and

the guy would just be done after that I've never seen a better defense support than one be in person now I've seen defensively impactful things that like Jordan and Pippin together seen that feel kind of feels in my in my head like what Wendy's like now we're watching those

guys together when they were aligned I've never seen anything like that and Wendy is like that

for me too I did see Minupo a song market and I saw some of these taller guys and how they kind of even go bare to a lesser degree so it's not like we have a seen versions of this but this is the most impactful I've seen you know who Larry Brown says is the best defender he's ever seen who will Chamberlain 1985 really why watch him play a games at UCLA against magic and all these dudes yeah one point he blocked seven consecutive shots from like all the you know and it would ever

age he was 40 whatever something you know it's finally circled around for will where now all the all the bad stuff with the world experience kind of fades away over the years and now it's just

all that stuff with his his statue in my mind is rising I now think that try or two the merger and

“sort of when the NBA change in the late 70s I think Chamberlain is the greatest basketball player”

as well we've been arguing about this except knowing you uh quick topic ABS we could probably end on this uh you don't want you interesting to get some weird theory you wanted to throw to me yeah but I I didn't want to go longer than 90 because I wanted to save stuff over the next time but we should do ABS um which is completely changed baseball in five days it's changed the experience of watching it I think it's made it better um it's

something for everybody like my buddy hands shoes a complete maniac um and is among multiple

Boston threads with him and all I'm I think I'm on fourth threads with him um but is always like

getting up loves getting upset and route up about stuff ABS is like his venn diagram because there's always something to get upset about either the initial call can be the worst call and you're mad at the empire that you can't believe you missed it the challenge that you got to strike out and then the challenge happened and now the strike out's gone for your team that's terrible the guy who does the challenge but you missed it the guy in your team like Roman Anthony had one you know he does this

and it's like no you are actually wrong and now I've lost a challenge and it just brings all the stuff to it but what's interesting is how the fans react to it especially in the home games where it's like oh that's not a strike and they'll show it and it's like not a strike out and the fans like

“cheer like it like it hit happen I think this has been a home run I love ABS well I I my position”

on this pretty clear I don't like the inflammation that the employing technology for officiating I think it's done okay let's hear it let's hear the case did you like it for tennis it made tennis better

I mean I mean tennis is kind of an interesting example it's one I never think about I just

don't think we need to do it I don't think it's necessary I think that the that I mean in this this will also make no sense it would almost be different if we went to complete technological officiating that there were no empires there were no referees we might be going there well that's gonna happen eventually somehow that I guess I would be a little more comfortable with because it almost be like saying like okay the sport is different now

the sport there's no human element to the way the sport is sort of governed but what's the good thing about it what's the good thing about having like the red socks one of the reasons they lost Saturday's game was there was this empire CB Buckter who's just in all time bad on pire

“and I think he only got 88% of the calls right so one of every nine pitches he just missed”

and it's like how it how is that how is how is that better than just having an automatic strike zone where we just know each one of this I guess I mean it's just part of it I would say this is just part of that that these games are played by people and they're governed by people and that's good in the in the same way you're you know there's going to be errors in baseball there's going to be got you know there's going to be errors in officiating in an upiring and

I go I it just it's funny because I feel like I'm arguing against you but I like 90% agree with you I'm just saying I like ABS but I I think this is not ruined basketball but made basketball worse like this kind of sort of doing a stuff or I mean I mean this is it so it's I'm making argument that even it feels weird to make even though it's what I believe sort of which is that when I see the like the idea that like you know it's it's a it's a pitch right you know yes it can be the

difference between out and a walk I realize that but it's a pitch and sort of that so this is too complicated to just handle with us we can't do this we can't we can't I can watch a baseball

and make a decision and these games that ultimately yes money is on the line people are gambling

these guys care a lot they are exhibitions these are social constructs do we really need to use cameras and lasers and all these things to understand whether or not it's two and two or the guys out it does it seems done to me it like it's just it's you know where we were like like I'm trying I I'd love to come up with some like perfect analogy for it but it's like I mean you know what he's this is not a perfect analogy but it's something similar it's like sometimes

not go away yeah and that and that the music sense then for whatever reason seems to be more

disposable than it shouldn't be it shouldn't you know if anything it should be an improvement

“because they have that music kind of look back and on and use but I think part of it has to do with”

that when it was when there was less ability in the studio to fix everything and make everything perfect and like use you know or find ways to to make the vocal ideal every single time like the the things that we heard in music that were imperfect are actually the things that sort of humanized it and made us drawn to it and now we're seeing this sort of this perfect version of music where every vocal is perfect where every you know where they will just punch in the guitar or the

keyboard or the drum or whatever it is until we have an imperfectly sculpted thing something about

that subconsciously we understand to be sterile and sort of distance from us and not really human and I think that now the reason is not a perfect analogy is because one is art and one is sports but and these are you know I I think that things that we do that distance the sort of the visceral human element from sports probably make us feel less about it or care less about it the outcome yes we more accurate you know we will we will have a more sort of a precise understanding of

“who actually won this or who actually lost but it's like I think that it makes it less important”

and less meaningful and less real so I mean that's a kind of a ex you know this is you're not the only one who feels this way yeah I think the difference is how do we avoid calamities and things that swing games versus how do we strive for 100% accuracy and I think the MBAs in this in this mess right now

I get the first thing to do is remove the idea of the word calamity from what we did

to say I know but it's the people of the calamity well remember my friend for oh that we would that was the last cut discussion we had I know that we were all started my question we had that discussion I feel you walked away from that or we walked away from that with you sort of making the argument that like it wouldn't have been better if we could have used instant replay in that scenario because Houston could have beaten Pittsburgh we would not be talking about it

at all if that had been the case if we had instant replay you like bad things because then they're marching well sometimes yes sometimes things are meaningful because they were imperfect well so the iron that out flat we would there is an absolutely no way we would be talking about Mike Renville this many years later if they had been like we checked it it was a touch out even if even if Houston had won that game and beaten their arms in the Super Bowl but that

would still be would not be something to be care about the way we do about the human problem and that was you know the manifestation of a guy having to make a decision about something he saw

“in real time that's what sports is I know and in the NBA you're really feeling it because”

they only have it's replay for some things but then if there's like sometimes goaltending they'll just miss and then they'll replay it after the commercial back whoa they missed the goal-tending on Kada it's like guess what we all lived it's fine well yeah and then it's like block charge let's look at this for four minutes like I just can't believe how stupid some of this stuff is and you know it's okay if we call the block charge wrong let's keep the game moving

and because yes we have what we're doing this we care about these sports I know someone could listen to this and be like well they don't care about the outcome where are they watching these things but like it is crazy to me when you're watching a thrilling basketball game late in the game a guy hits a jumper they're now up one oh we're gonna stop to see if it's 0.7 seconds on the clock or 0.4 seconds on the clock yes I know if it's 0.2 seconds you can't catch and shoot there's all

these reasons forward but it kind of takes something that's just electrifying and they're like okay now let's go do our taxes for 10 minutes and then we'll come back and make this decision I I don't think it is improved sports I just I don't think I don't think that that that these things have have been a real because then they still sometimes get things wrong and then they seem doubly uncomfortable well we actually did all you know we actually looked at the thing again and it

didn't change anything well it's funny because some of the people that hate all the advanced insect technology already predisposed to hate ABS stuff like that but I think I'll admit I haven't watched any baseball yet this year so maybe if I saw this I like the fact I like the fact that you say like that you know that the the player has like his head do it himself and you can't do it immediately you can't take anything yeah this is actually it's maybe Nick Wright had said this had this idea

to trigger it because so many of those guys are wrong right I mean those those guys are wrong

“all the time and then you lose like you lose two points if you're wrong because you lose you lose”

the challenge like you know like luke will ask for something to be seen if you're not a matter gloss yeah yeah like you look at I I mean I'm sure you've but you've talked about this before it's dementia I can't imagine a guy whose game I should like more who as a player I hate luke is my least favorite player in the he complains on every I know really terrible clippers team it was like that you know they they had like Chris Paul and all the way yeah

there and Blake Griffin they're mad about everything he's worth it all of them yeah he is worse than

that entire team and sadly joker started to become a little that way too he used to never

complain I see him more and more complain that's because whoa joker has reasons because he's just getting annihilated game after game I think he's just fed up with it also I'm the strategy of guarding him just being the shit out of him I guess it's where I believe he is right when he claims the way which I never believe the luke like I never believe it you know what's so you're tired because you tapped into something interesting talking about you like the human element of

“it's okay if we screw up some calls that's what human beings are like like soar I just basically”

was a huge boss right I don't know if you followed that at all but open as I spend all this stuff on soar and when it's happening it's like look how amazing this is we'll be able to take all of these characters and things you like and you could make videos out of them right away and everybody's gonna love this and it turns out it was just an incredible amount of money and a lot of time and energy and all this time that the company was spending to make this video product that

people didn't really like that much and weren't using that much and they were like cool and they didn't really want but what is the better verse too yeah Zuckerberg spends tens of billions of dollars whatever you spent to try to create this alternate universe people could go into and people are like I'm good with the one I'm in thanks anyway though and it's just like these are like steps right so like they're creating this universe we can live this other life and people are like

well that sounds kind of fucked up to begin with and then if they even try it if they go into it they're like well I guess this is something what's gonna have to happen is they're gonna have to keep failing and making these steps and failing making these steps and failing until they

come up with something that when people use it they're like oh this I've always wanted this as it

“turns out you know it's like that that's how it's gonna be like no one's going to want this stuff”

until they see something and they're like oh I guess I didn't realize that it was my dream to have this sort of experience I mean you know I I remember with all these it the fun TV came out then it was described to me and I was like when am I gonna need to freeze television what why would I ever need to stop television like you know it's like it seems so idiotic to me and then all of a sudden at one point I used it in the way like it was like this is actually what

I needed and now if I if I've ever had a hotel and I can't freeze the TV then I'm angry about that this technology that I couldn't even vision 30 years ago I'm now upset about if I don't have it at all times I think the funniest one for all of these that's impossible to explain to anybody under 30

years old is how we never knew the score of games we were watching like if you went into a bar again

or you walked into the living room and your dad was watching a game and there was just no score and no time there's no context to any of it and then occasionally they would just flash it but that that has inadvertently I'm glad we have that but it has inadvertently led to greater social isolation and here is why because it used to be if you walked into a bar and the game was on you'd ask about something to talk about with the person right away that would never be seen as a

weird question you'd be like what's the score here and they would tell you and then maybe if you could tell if the guy wanted to talk because he'd be like oh it's 21 14 but steeper cows he's heard or whatever you know then yeah he's only want to talk about this now it's like you have nothing to ask the person you have nothing to ask that that was a big loss cigarettes was another one here Jelas cigarettes were an unbelievable social connector they never

are great let's say long cancer millions of bad things you want to talk to somebody separate you ask or do you want to have a cigarette or whatever yeah you don't hope that much maybe she only smokes you act like you do so you can it was it was I used to go to to like shows in Fargo when I was first covering music there didn't know any of the people in the scene it was kind of weird to stand there so I would just smoke cigarettes it was

something to do or the group outside having say anything you ask somebody for a light and you're

plus people more people on their phones now when they're in public which wouldn't have either rink less now all these things like all these things that in a vacuum you could be like what

might be good for society but when you put them all together it's just as people never talking

any point about anything and never needing to and then getting this weird point where it feels like an imposition if they do like not yeah and I'm not saying I'm totally different from this I just find that I think I used to be much more open to random conversation than I am now it happened so rarely that when someone just starts talking to me sometimes I think they're crazy

“right like maybe this is insane person but you must get recognized by some people”

all of it you can always tell that you can usually you can usually tell of a person's coming to talk to you and they know who we are as opposed to they're just talking you because they're

normal right it should be normal it shouldn't be weird for someone to start talking to me

in a line at the grocery store but then it happens to rarely now that you kind of think it's weird when it occurs I don't I don't know some people have that natural welcoming my wife's like this my wife is too people just yeah you know like if she sits on an airplane with a stranger that stranger's gonna stop 100% for our kind of book yeah and other people just give off the I'm probably gonna just read this book welcome to we kept the receipts presented by tax act

where we look back at our predictions figure out who deserves a victory lap and who is completely off base tax act helps you with actual receipts like the kind that you can use for tax deductions or credits and the ones that help you get your maximum refund every tax season so let's see I'll give you one good one and one bad one that I had before the basketball season

“I was really bullish on saying Antonio being good and I think I think they're over was like basically”

43 wins I thought they would go over that it was one of my locks and I just thought this when be thing was gonna happen faster than people rise I did not think they're gonna be a final skater but I did think they're gonna be really good so that was a good one conversely I just assumed like everybody else that Phoenix was gonna stink it felt like a rebuilding revamping here for them and meanwhile they're gonna be like the seven seed

in the playoffs so not only did I miss this one but their owner taunted me on Twitter about it so you win some you lose some we kept the receipts presented by tax act this tax season make your max refund the one prediction that actually pays off visit tax act.com learn more additions apply see tax act.com for details last thing and then we'll go this is a quick one my son has been going backwards with music mm-hmm my son loves music is he back to the 40s now

no he he's been listening to classic rock okay and he was listening so he I almost wish like there was video tape that I could have just sent you each time where he'd come over to me like that velvet underground was pretty good um the other day he came by is like I've listened

“all four led Zeppelin albums I think I like three the most four second and just started going through”

Led Zeppelin I was just thinking like did you tell him there was more than four oh he knew he had just he got the first four um but I was thinking when I really loved music and got into it in the early eighties right and it was like my dad was listening to Bob Seeger and Springsteen and it's a couple of these other ones then the Simon and Garfunkel concert album and then from there it's like why I want I need my own then you start listening and buying stuff and we only really had like 15 years of

since 1982 for me only like 15 years of albums to go back and check out so I remember like bad company greatest hits remember getting that like oh greatest or like Steve Miller had the greatest hits one then Elton John had a greatest hits like greatest hits were a good way we don't have

Spotify back then good way to kind of learn the best of different bands but then we had this incredible

80s for music and then the 90s were even better and we had all of our all this new music that we spent more time listening to but now if you're my son and it's 2006 he has 60 years of modern music to go back and listen to and I wonder if that's part of the reason there's less of a necessity to listen to new music than there used to be because you can just go backwards and has this also apple and movies absolutely that is the case I mean it's I would that that particularly

sense like because modern music modern rock and pop and hip-up it's still operating in the

they're making either using the same instruments with the same sort of length of song is basically

“the same versus still sort of the same structure like it's like so you're you're really”

are competing against the best of everything because it hasn't changed enough I mean that's why when they talk about the slow cancellation of the future this is part of it I mean it's like if the future continues to be retro reinterpretations of the past well it is it's you know it is it's pretty difficult for anything to be more interesting than the interesting thing it's trying to replicate you know but you but you're right if it was in the early 80s you know the

the expectation was well you really only have to go back 20 years you know you're getting the beginning of the Beatles and and you're getting all music going forward so it's like you know

that it was there was a lot of music there but it was possible now it's that much more difficult

plus we've also sort of expanded the possibility of things that were once not seen as remotely canonical being things that you're supposed to know about if you care about music you know like it was there there are many it would have been very possible if say you really like you were really the music and in the early 80s something to be like well there's some shit you don't gonna worry about you don't gotta worry about Abba you don't gotta listen to those records

“well now if your son is really into pop music at any point you would be like you need to”

listen to these Abba records too like I mean there is a whole bunch of things that almost anything that any kind of cultural tenacity now seems more important that that that that it's important

enough to revisit where there are many things you just even like talking about bad company wherever

like there was certainly a time in the 80s when I would if if we would have been hanging out and you would have listened one of those in the bad company I would be like what the fuck for like why would we listen to this now it doesn't seem that way now it seems like well there's some meaning I feel like we just would have argued all the time I don't it's it's hard to imagine I don't think we would have had we we would have been bonded on basketball and football

and I think musically we just would have been completely different with everything other than Van Halen who we both would have loved well I mean depends what age we may be police I don't know there were been a couple I didn't like the police when I I mean depends if we were really young if we were 13 I don't know if we had been 18 it would have been like do you like drinking were friends like that's all I mean I was very open to people when I was like if they were

into party that was all it took you know I had I had friends who had nothing in common with me at all except you went to these places Friday night and Saturday night and then sometimes there's day and sometimes Wednesday like that was all that's all it took to be friends you know now I don't know how that you know you know it's the best for that is restaurants people who work in restaurants you're thrown together almost like you're in like people in a prison how like the people in

Shawshank would become friends just say nothing common they're just like hey want to hang out in the yard restaurants because you're on the same schedule and if like this guy also smoked Marbleites you just became friends that was all you needed that we both got a better for in the morning and yeah we nobody wants to work in an office right if everybody has the option of working at home or going in the office everyone would say I want to be at home because then I can like

I can do my laundry too and do the thing man and yet I mean I'm sure I would have want my whole life if given the option of not going in the office I would have taken it and yet 90% of the people in my

“life are important to me I met in an office I like I I'm so lucky that I was in you know the office”

it's been an office an acronym the office in Fargo and the office in my calls newspaper those it's like there's this kind of intangible loss to these things so this kind of shift we've made in society that again like I said earlier better for the individual much better for the individual in that singular experience much worse for society as a whole these things that helped you know it's like like my they one way when the when the walk man came out you know they were like oh the walk man

you know it's gonna be terrible it's gonna be people walking around listening to music in their own world but that it'll be yeah you know what they were fucking right that totally happened that totally happened when these when MTV was out what was the critics and oh it's gonna change you know yeah it totally happened all the criticisms of television in the 1950s they did happen all like all of these things that are seen is like you're so out of touch this new technology is

great how good everything people are currently saying about AI is going to happen like like all of like maybe not to the full totality of we live in dystopia but all of the things that we think

be true like that's just because it always seems that way right the people who overreact are

“the ones who are right later I'm more optimistic about that we just said I won't say the movie”

but we did a movie that was really big for next rewatchables that was really big in the 80s and we were talking about basically what you said before about when these things that would happen in the 80s sometimes these movies you liked you liked because they were always on and you eventually talked yourself into them right and I was saying and I made the comparison about in music when people listen to albums and we actually had more time to listen and talk

about different albums we also had less stuff to do eventually like the seventh best song in the album to become your favorite favorite song in the album and stuff like that which was also what was happening with some music and TV shows and the 80s but now everybody moved so fast from one thing to the next I wonder if the same kind of devotion will be there for these different

“things I think about weird shit like that now you know I mean I remember I wrote a thing”

for Grantland which was about sort of the idea and the problem of nostalgia and one of the points that I was sort of making which I do think is true is that part of the reason that we feel nostalgic for things from the past was not even necessarily because of our experience with it or what the thing was it was the pure repetition of hearing a song over and over and over again or for a movie or anything yeah over and over again and you know I I think with music it is

unlikely that that will happen with video experiences I don't know because it does seem like I know it's with my kids they still are very comfortable rewatching things that they like that they'll just kind of you know the kids as well I think is a natural thing but I mean I used to there were many I many books that like novels that I read multiple times when I was young I can't imagine that happening now like me reading a new novel and then be like I'm gonna read again

here just doesn't seem like that happens but when you're young you're really like that you know I think you almost teaching yourself how to understand the thing like it like season on the brink I read that book at least three times in high school and I do think that a lot of the way I think and right about sports is really based on that text because I was like well this is how it's supposed to be done I'm just the people you know and I'm not saying that's the greatest book ever

“written but I loved it and it was sort of though it was like you have to I like the book animal farm”

I read the book animal farm so many different times in my life and I think that at some point you read these things enough that you kind of think like well okay this is the structure this is how it's supposed to be this is how it's supposed to work you know I'm glad you said that because I probably mentioned this in the past couple times but when people ask like advice for writing like tips what are your tips other than and you just tell them like just keep doing it every day like

this is the number one thing never stop keep going keep pressing but the one of the things that I

loved that I think really made me better was I had probably I don't know 8 to 10 books that I would just read over and over again and kind of study what they did and they were books more the writing style wasn't even really like my style in certain cases like my favorite book ever was breaks in the game which I really made an effort to read every 12 to 15 months just to because it would kind of reset my brain with and my style was nothing like how we're stem style and the style of that book was

nothing like what I was writing but I would get a lot out of it not only no why and it was the repetition of the choices that he made were really helpful to me and I don't know it's just it's it's like putting on an album you've heard a hundred times and it would just make you think about stuff hundred as Thompson supposedly used to literally retipe earned his tending waste stories really he would yeah because he wanted to know how it felt to write like these short kind of

crisp sentences like how it would be and he would so he would literally retipe them on a manual

typewriter now I've never done that but I understand that idea I under you know I like yeah I

when I was a music critic so many records I reviewed you know having listened to twice or three times especially a newspaper sometimes I'd be like get the right up I don't think I know like I really don't understand any record until I've played it five hundred times and when I mean understand and I need not make a decision of whether or not I like it or if it's good or bad like or for me to really like being able like have thoughts on it that are both meaningful

understand things and everything about our culture is trying to stop people from doing that

“they're like you don't even have to read the thing anymore you can just type this thing”

and it will give you a synopsis of everything that's been written about it I mean it is trying like like we are moving in a direction where deep understanding of things is not just becoming a rare but like irrelevant like stupid like why would you you know there's more answers to there's more more ways to unearth things but even I mentioned my son earlier getting a music which is fun in its own right because he just comes in with these takes knowing nothing

so that he thinks smashing pumpkins are just better than Nirvana which is an interesting argument to have but he just likes their songs more and he doesn't understand why they weren't bigger than Nirvana coming out of the 90s so I was explaining to him I mean that's a real case though yeah like like when somebody has an opinion like that a young person's like that is like

“it's not found knowledge they were not convinced to think this like my my son one time”

was telling me that he was like these late period George Harrison songs are as good as the

Beatles and first I was going to be like what the fuck kidding me but I was like no actually what

he's it was like this is a good thought he's yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like it's like he it's an unsullied thought without any without reading and everything like like you know like you know when you like you know before you take mushrooms for the first time they'll tell you well you'll be able to think anything he want and in your mind you're like well I can already think what I want but you can't there are things in ourselves that stop us from having certain ideas

so sometimes when a kid is listening in music like that you're something listening in music like that there's like this kind of enforced ceiling of collective knowledge does not exist so he can actually think whatever he wants about it I got interviewed me once for a book and he was saying like you know he was much younger than me and he was like you know it was really interesting because I went back and I loved Nirvana I loved Sound Guard and I loved Alice and chains and I loved

Stone Temple Pilots I thought they were all great but I guess Stone Temple Pilots is terrible and I

was like no actually great first time but what you you were actually just listening to the music

there's people like me who is listening to the music and also picking in all this other Ancillary bullshit that was affecting the way I was understanding it it's like you understand it for real yeah my son to good point my son he even found a special pumpkin song that I didn't know about somehow called the boy and it was it was one of his favorite ones and he's like do you know this one it wasn't on any of the albums and I somehow missed it I really liked that band

and it was a lot of records yeah yeah so it was on like a re-released thing or whatever and it was why he was right it was like one of the best seven or eight special pumpkin songs that I've heard but I I like that he deep-dove and I think that's one thing I think deep from what I've noticed for my kids they really like something they go all in on it and then it kind of goes to the next thing sometimes but then other things stay and that that gives me more hope that the circle back

“to the things that kind of resonated the most which I would I would hope that's how it keeps going”

I just it makes me nervous it makes me nervous I think you're rightfully nervous yeah all right one on that one on that disappointing topic a hub football how do you book do good to make it really well relative to other books it's easy to be doing great it's hard as hell to sell books now especially now fiction yes I was very pleased I mean I'd say of all of the books I have released the this like release however you look at was probably been the most fun

since the very first one in a lot of ways like it it is like great I think I did like 25 podcast

or something it's unbelievable it's just crazy how it is now but that's just how that's how it is you know you were like a borderline podcast horror I was watching from afar I was like wow yeah this guy well it I just went on whatever I mean it was like they kept saying do you want to they want you to be on this one will you be on it and I'll be like well why not like it's because he's we're also is shocking to me it made it shocking just maybe predictably

surprising a podcast can be extraordinarily popular and yet completely unknown to every single person who doesn't actively listen to it like it is just wild it was not like there's been nothing else like this we're like you know you could be somebody like you didn't watch the TV show Dallas but you knew Dallas was a popular TV show yeah you didn't like nickel back but you knew nickel back was huge they're all these podcasts with massive audiences that every single

it is yeah and then we always in New York you would some of these and like you kind of

“Chinatown or like on that Lea Lowery side and like every time you see like a dilapidated office building”

you go in and it's all podcast studios that's like like how many podcasts are being put out there it is just like the it's bizarre it'd be like I mean it must have been like you know

when they always say like you know one point like the city of Chicago it's like 1502 daily newspapers

or whatever yeah kind of what it's like now or it's just like all these people being able to do this you

“know that it is it's fine there's nothing there's no downside to it but it's strange I think that's”

a good analogy though because like you think about whatever time that was in America when every city had seven newspapers but we had to live in another city you didn't know anything about the other seven newspapers and like Boston or Chicago it's kind of what it's like all right Chuck Losterman

“great series always thank you for the time I was either in the NBA playoffs okay all right all right”

that's it for the podcast thanks to Chuck thanks to Eduardo and Gahal as always don't forget

the ringer dot com slash events tickets going sale for our rewatchables live show in San Francisco in April 8 so in April 1st 10 a.m. go there get tickets and we'll see you in the bay I'm going to be back on this feed one more time on Thursday one more podcast see that okay must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino

or 18 plus in president DC Kentucky or well and game problem caught 100 gambler 1 800 my reset call 888 797 777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or md gambling help.org and Maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 50 50 for 24 7 support mess chusets or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 770 787 76767