Reaction: Wemby Leads Competition In NBA All-Star Game + Adam Silver On Tanking & Much More

Hello, welcome, who clicked the podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Sunday evening just after the all-star game. Joining us from Naples, Florida, where he's finally gone home after weeks on end in LA is Bobby Marks. Gentlemen, I am home. I am home. A two week journey out to Los Angeles on a double red eye getting home today. I am home. A double red eye. Well, you know, leave at midnight connecting Houston and connect to go to Fort Myers. So, you know, something else. Yeah. You didn't go to Ryan Smith's all-star party. You know what? I had somebody tell me that I am the new mayor of Salt Lake City. So, no, I am not. But I, you know, I was at a breakfast Saturday morning and I had a gentleman come up to me and asked me if I traveled with security on the one I'm on the road. And I said, is it, we really had that stage of what's going on right now? Oh my gosh. Bobby had a little back and forth with the Utah Jazz on. Well, he really had a back and forth. I didn't, I didn't, I had a back for somebody else, not with him. I just let him, let him speak his mind. Well, maybe, maybe this is really well known, but I didn't know until today when I was actually watching the end of the, the Pebble Beach, the AT&T Pebble Beach event. Is it Ryan Smith has a beautiful home right on the 18th green, right on the 18th fairway or whatever, at Pebble Beach? So, he probably was there. You know, I know I would have been there. Anyway, I like Ryan, but, you know, everybody has to do what they have to do when they're. What I've learned, there are certain words that touch and nerve. That's right. Just because they're yellow, matcha, doesn't mean that you're wrong. Joining us from Los Angeles, where he somehow got out of into a dome in the wake of that game and made his way to his hotel before joining us is Vince Goodwill. I've been getting bagged on by your YouTube. You're not having like a hello friends sort of greeting or whatever. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Like, that's what, that's what Jim, the Tim's, the Tim's have a, have a saying or whatever. And I'm like, I'm just a black guy who just comes on and says hello. You have to be the new thing. That's what Jim Nance does on, hello friends. Hello, hello friends. Welcome to Augusta National. I'm going to let you guys know I'm getting sick. I have a preposterously tightly scheduled week with a lot of appearances, some of which are one-off like a speech I have Thursday in Akron, Ohio and a charity event that I have Wednesday night. And this is, there's never a good time to get sick, but you know, you can, you can hear in my voice. It's going to, I feel like when I listen back to this podcast like on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm going to be like, oh man, that was back when my voice was good because I think it's going to be gone. So we'll enjoy it while it's here. Anyway, you're giving us the best of what you get. That's what you're doing. We're going, we're limping through. Then some, I feel like this all-star situation was like stumbling around in the desert for years and stumbling on into Miami. All of a sudden, oh my gosh, you know Miami is an imperfect paradise, but it is in many ways a paradise. This game was imperfect, but being delivered from the horrible hellscape that the last several all-star games have been. And so therefore it must be declared a success. That's my viewpoint. I don't know how you felt about it being there. I thought it was a massive success. I think, you know, speaking of being yelled at by Twitter, I've been yelled at by Twitter over the past couple of days because I said the quality of the all-star game has gotten progressively worse over the past five or six years as if that's some type of news flash. And what I did say on first take with my good friend Steven A Smith was that all it takes is one maniac, just one crazy person to up the tempo to up to like the care factor. And that person was Victor Wimman Yama. You want to know why that man basically threatened to embarrass everybody tonight by blocking their shots, by doing all this other stuff. And it shamed Anthony Edwards and some of those other guys into playing a lot harder. And I for one got to give him a round of applause because yesterday I don't know if you saw this windy. You might have been. I sure did. And I thought it was kind of indicative. He said he basically he said it is what it is, right? Is that what he said at this point? Basically it is what it is. Yep. He said it is what he basically said is not going to change. Right. And then Victor Wimman Yama goes out there and starts blocking a couple of shots. Maybe even one was a go ten. And it starts getting everybody's competitive juices going like you saw you saw guys breaking a sweat. And I think Bobby, you can agree on me on this one. Nobody wants anybody to get hurt. Nobody wants anyone acting as if this is game seven of the NBA finals or high level playoff game or high level regular season game. Just want guys to try. And they actually tried and they actually cared. And I don't care if the last game was a blowout that the old guys got blowing out by the young guys. If I was kind of fitting, you got three good games out of four. You had 36 competitive minutes, a round of a plow's body NBA. Bravo. You know what? When when Jackson our producer asked to come to come on, I thought, oh boy, we're going to be talking. We're going to be griping. We're going to be talking. And then I sent him a chair in the first minute of the first game. And here comes Victor, block a shot, have it done. And I said, I think we might have something here a little bit. And as you said, that set the tone. It's unfortunate. I know we're not putting asterisks next to teams in this little mini tournament here. It's unfortunate that the international team basically ran out of bodies here when you look at Luca and then you look at Yokech as far as where they were. But what Victor did and I give credit to all the all stars did was it made us watch for two or two and a half hours. I went out and got something to eat. And you know what I did? I put on the game while I was eating. I wouldn't have done that in the past here. And yes, when we got to the last game, guys ran out of gas. I mean, that is the reality of I think that team at the Bronnstein had played. Was that their third game in a row? They had played. Yeah, they played three in a row. But I saw guys that I hadn't never seen. They had showed someone had posted a highlight of I think Jason Taterman said the record of like 55 points in a prior all star. Someone was putting highlights on I think Drew Hanlon is trainer put it on there and Drew's a terrific person. And I was watching this from three years ago and like the deep like I was like, oh my like I was like, that's why we were so up in arms about what was going on. And then I watched defense. I watched guys compete. I watched I saw the Bronn run back and try to block shots like it was like 2016 again. That's all we wanted. That's it. Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you. I wasn't planning on watching it. And then with Victor kind of through the gauntlet down relatively. I mean, he didn't you know, he didn't get out of a megaphone, but he said he was planning on trying. And I knew that he was, you know, the world team was the first team up. And so I said, yeah, let me give it a chance. That's what I did. I don't know what the ratings will be. You know, the the the whole all star weekend was early. I know people were people were I saw people, you know, saying good job NBA having, you know, the dunk contested five o'clock or whatever. The three point contest at five o'clock. It was not the NBA's decision that was NBC. They had winter Olympics are going on right now. That's, you know, the winter Olympics have never been a thing because on the same network. And so they the NBC, you know, gets you know, great ratings. They pay enormous amount of money for the Olympics. And so they're going to put that in prime time. That's why it happened. It wasn't the NBA's call. It's in your hand or there. But it, you know, I don't know how many people have get what would have given it a chance. We'll see what the ratings say. But I gave it a chance. And I watched the game be instantaneously competitive. And I stayed with it. And I was totally prepared to do this podcast. Tonight and I talked about the all star game. I was totally prepared to. Well, I heard, I heard, listen, when I was driving, I was driving back from the airport today. I listened to your, the, the, the most recent podcast. And you laid out the gauntlet of things you will not talk about. And one of them I believe was, was the all star along with Jonathan Kominga and tanking also. So I was wondering what we were going to be talking about here. Yeah. Well, we were not going to be talking about the all star game. But then, you know, I thought Victor's quote after this game tonight, which, I, I, I just, you know, Victor is refreshing in so many ways. But he said, I think being honest with ourselves is good. It's a game we love. It's a game I personally cherish. So being competitive is the least I can do. I mean, no notes on that comment. Yeah. No notes. And, you know, he, the thing thing about Victor is, you know, he was furious that his team lost. They lost an overtime in the first game. It feels weird to say first game. I kept thinking to myself first quarter. But they lost in the first game in overtime with Aunt, um, having a huge overtime. And then the second game that they played, they lost to Kauai, which I think is, we'll talk about that for a second here. But I will say that, you know, obviously, no shaggyoza, no yana, Luca Donciccia and Nikola Yokecch played, but they only played five minutes and then they were done. Uh, Luca had was, you know, hadn't even played this last four, I think games with the Lakers. And uh, Joke, Joker is, um, still protecting that knee. So I appreciate that they went out there and played, but um, I'm, I'm also going to halt on anybody on Monday trying to say, well, I knew the world team wasn't good enough. Um, the guys who were able went. I said the same thing. I have a suggestion or maybe a conspiracy theory, uh, for you guys, Wendy. Do we think that there is some secret NBA American players chat, like text message, that's going on between Aunt and Kevin Durant and LeBron James, because they've, I'm not talking about secret Kevin Durant. I have the extra point. Excellent. Go do your own research. We'll say, go do your own. To kind of that. Right now, we're not doing that. I read the rabbit hole earlier today. Man, that's a, that's a whole that it's never ending. That's what we say. It's never ending. But Kady, back to Kevin Durant's point of what he said, when I think the rocket to play it on Wednesday or whatever. And he said, you guys don't talk about Yokech and Luca, right? Stick that point there. Then LeBron, in his media session earlier today, because he has to do his own media session on All Star Sunday, he says, you know, I like Eastern West, you know, I don't know about all this other stuff. And he kind of said it with a little bit of like a wink, right? And then in the post game, and it wasn't in the post game session with us, it was the post game session, I think he's on NBA TV with our colleague, Chris Haines. And he said something along the lines of, you know, Luca and Yokech weren't out there bringing it. So, you know, we had an easier time. I wonder if the American NBA players maybe look at this whole the public desire to have them humbled by international players as something that they took personally, or that there's a perception that the American players need to be humbled by the international guys. And they, I think they're asking why. Maybe that's a great sociological question that's not necessarily fit for this podcast, but I do think there's, I don't think these guys are saying things coincidentally. Okay, I respect that. I would say, let's just, let's just for the sake of discussions, say that that's true. I can't prove it, but it's reasonable. Say it's reasonable. Let's say two things. One, the international players have been dominating the awards, the big award, right? The MVP. So that's number one. So right out of that, the international players are coming at the NBA, the Americans as who the best players are. Okay. That's number one. Number two, isn't that classic? That's like, let's look like what KD said was classic. What about is him, right? Like when you get in a corner and anything, I don't care if you're in second grade, or if you're playing in the NBA, you get accused of something. You know, you're, you know, you're in the corner, you're going to point go, what about them? What about those guys? You know, you know, you know, that's something I didn't like. Durant was correct that, you know, Luca and Yokech were guilty as guilty as anybody else of giving BS effort in the last few Alster games. I did not like that sentiment because he's, you know, it's like, you know, don't play a must for not caring. They don't care either. Like that is, that is not a defense. It's not an acceptable defense. And I will say that, you know, Ann Edwards, after he won the MVP, the Kobe Bryant trophy, which by the way, a lot of times I feel like Kobe can help everybody out here by just being invoked. And let me just say this. If Kobe Bryant was at that press conference, the Katie said that what would he have said? What he has said, he would have called out Katie. He would have called out Katie. Katie is great at creating straw man. That's what I will say about Kevin. He is great. He has learned from LeBron at the school of creating the narrative that you can then shoot down with a very broad bullet. Katie said, I watched all these all star games from decades before he said the 60s. He said I went back from the 60s. He ain't washing all the all star games from the 60s. Let's just take him at his work. Let's just take him at his worth that he did. And even if he did, right? And he says, this game, seven defense that you guys were talking about that wasn't being played. Kevin, nobody ever said that all star defense was at an NBA finals level. Nobody, at least tell me if I'm wrong. Nobody has ever said that. My colleague David Dennis, who I was on first take with, they created this sort of sentiment that you guys are saying that the game was played at such a high level back then. Nobody has ever said that. All we said was, hey, just provide a little resistance. That's all. What would Kobe say? W-W-K-S. That's all I'm going to say about that. I will say this, this performance tonight does not clean up. By the first off, you guys know I cover international basketball, dragged my ass all over the planet. And it's been extraordinarily rewarding. I've loved it. And what I say is that the U.S. remains the basketball power, but the U.S. margin for air is now almost no. You got to go around square corners and jump through round hoops. You got to run out the ground bowl. How ever you want to say it. And this way this went down tonight, I'm not going to allow that because the honest didn't play, SGA didn't play, and Yoke Chinluka were not 100%. They just sort of came out and waved their cap. But even still, because of the other international stud, Wembee, Ant said Wembee made him do it. Wembee got him going. So good job. Let's see it again. I don't even know where All Star is next year. Phoenix. Phoenix. The will bond All Star game. Oh my God. The will bond All Star weekend. You know what? I tried not to go to All Star weekend, but when you put it that way, Will bonds set up in Phoenix. The compound. Ah, aspirational. Wait, we can't use that word. God. Oh, man. It is aspirational though. It's aspirational aspirational. You can play tree. It's a good tree. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to say, I said this one that when the reserves came out that there have been supreme court decisions that have leaked before being published more, more recently than there's been leaking of the voting from the coaches All Star vote. The coaches vote for the All Star reserves. I've never got my hands. Or even I've never seen anybody get their hands on it. I've never seen anybody even claim like, oh, you know what? Source told me that, you know, player X got three more votes than player Y. I've never seen this is the most, this is the most lock in key thing that, you know, that pretty much in the NBA. I mean, one year I got the, Bobby, one year I got the NBA. The NBA's books leaked to me. I could see how much to every NBA team spent and made on everything. And I still have never even sniffed or anybody's even sniffed the coaches vote for All Star. Well, no, I mean, because it's, it leads to, you know, Deer and Fox comes in as a replacement, right? And they're thinking, well, where was he on the pecking order of votes? He must have been right, right there. Where was, you know, where was Michael Porter, Jr. Where was Dylan Brooks? Where were like some of these other names that we've heard. And I've never been around for a long time. I've never seen the coaches votes. What is never, you know, there's no penalty for them going, oh, yeah, I don't, you know, if I played Dylan Brooks for the next month, I'd be like, yep, I voted for Dylan. I don't know. My other peers, I guess they didn't vote for him. Yep. I voted for Michael Porter. Yep. I voted for Brandon, I don't, can't believe these people, they didn't vote for him. Like I voted for Bill Belchak, right? Sure. We all can't prove it. Yeah, I can't prove it. More hoop collective podcast after this. Okay, having said that, Kauai was not voted as an all star. And I was stunned. Actually, I wasn't stunned. I was, I was big time, I rolled because Kauai is having probably the best regular season of his career. Now, this is a man who's been new. 27, 2017 was really, really good. And take a look at the numbers, man. I know, I know, I know. He's, he's, he's average in 28 points. And he's toe in the line for 50, 40, 90. He's not quite there, but he's close. All right, let's step away from it's the best. It's close to the best, if not the best. Over the last month, especially, he's been top three player in the NBA, top five. I was taking a step further. If the Clippers had not gotten off to such a horrific start to the season, let's just say they played 500 basketball before, or even a step below 500 basketball, before getting to this point, whatever, what 21, 27 or whatever it is, we would be talking about Kauai Lennon as MVP. I agree. And he's been the best player in basketball since he started actually playing. So I feel like he's missed 13 games. So, so he's sort of borderline, whether he'll make the, the record was at 65, but there's a whole bunch of guys who are out already. And he, it's not, he's not one of them because he did have that knee thing that bothered him for a little bit. But he is, and I'll just point out, Bobby, that he finished last season, as well as he's finished any season as a Clipper. He, they, you know, Aaron Gordon, Tipped in a shot with one 10th of a second left. Otherwise, I don't know. Now, what? So Kauai has 31 points in 12 minutes of this game tonight, including a dagger three over the top of Carl Towns, which, you know, I if we wound it to watch Carl's face when he turned around and saw that go in. So what was that Bobby? What was that game in Dallas? I think he had a 40 point elimination game in Dallas in the playoffs. I think that game and this game and this night, the two best moments of him, for him as a Clipper, because it's in the Clippers arena, all this storm around the Clippers and he delivers that performance. Oh, I agree. I mean, I think that was as good of a stretch that we've seen. Certainly from Kauai in a 12 minute stretch that I probably have ever seen here. You know, it's interesting. You could have, you know, the most interesting part about it too is, you know, the ball on his hands, the wind a game and you're thinking like, you know, the best thing for team Europe is for this thing to go to overtime, you know, like because of all the different rule or they need to do it by three. Yeah. And everything. But in your right, a guy that did not make was not selected by the coaches has to be a replacement, um, boating by, um, you know, the commissioner. Um, but yeah, I mean, like you were kind of mesmerized and you knew, like, when he, we got to the last game, all these guys had nothing left in the tank. Right. Like there was just like nothing there, but, um, I give him credit, man, on a, uh, there's, it seems like nothing distract bothers him, right? You're, as you said, there's all this stuff swirling and we hear it. And when is it, when is it going to be resolved and is it coming soon? And was it him being left off a result of what was going, you know, every, how could it not be everything? How could it not be? Yeah. Everything that's been talked about, um, but my goodness gracious. I felt like I was watching like, like Toronto. It was feel like I was watching a little bit of San Antonio in him, um, all in, all in that one, you know, stretch of minutes there. It was incredible. Like you get to see, and I've said this before, maybe I feel like I've said this on this podcast or another one, but he looks like a cyborg of second, three Pete Michael Jordan, economy of moves, just stronger than everybody. The remaining athleticism he uses to his sort of just his advantage, just to, you know, just to get up enough space like with all of the noise around him, you forget he's an incredible basketball player. Like he's going to go to the Hall of Fame and we don't think of him that way. We don't, oh yeah, we think about him as two time finals MVP and everything else. Oh, and he's quiet. But I think one thing that we have not said and maybe this is a thought of ours as a media as a whole, you have to be incredibly resilient to come back from the repeated devastating injuries that he's had. Like you have to legit be able to attack the rehab to come back from the injury that he had with the spurs that ankle that nagging thing. And then he was dragging the leg around in Toronto. Then he had another surgery. Then he tore the ACL. Then he's had another surgery like I count like at least three or four lower leg procedures that he's had over the course of his career. And that's the fact windy. He comes back and he looks like the version of himself that everybody has been wanting to see six years ago. Like it's amazing that he has come back repeatedly to be some version of this type of player. And I don't think anybody expected him windy. Maybe you did when you were on Clippers Island earlier earlier in the preseason. And I make fun of it. And Clippers Island. It's a tough place to be. No, you look the stock that you have purchased you held on to and windy. I bow down to you like if they hadn't if they hadn't started the season like this windy day, we would look at them as a championship, continuing team or at least a party crash. That's going to that's going to get to the second round and give somebody a real scare because they had that horrendous start. We don't think of them period, but he's been amazing. The longer the short to say he's been amazing and he's been amazingly resilient and to on a human level to some degree like good for him to have this moment. I was this close to voting him for MVP of the all star game. I voted at because his team won. They blew him on the last game, but Kauai hit that type of display tonight. Yeah, I mean, it was the correct winner. I mean, they they rolled in the championship game. It's very hard to not by the way, speaking of stock, my clippers island stock is down about as much as Microsoft stock. You know, you know, Microsoft stocks down the last six months, it's down 23%. No, he's lost a lot of money. I know farmers. 40. A lot of money is still has a lot of money left. 40. Us 40 billion. That's insane. And he was happy tonight. He was still happy. He was thrilled. He was still he was off 40 billion dollars, which is only 23%. Now that's the other part of that. Hey, I got good news and bad news. What is what's the bad news? Oh, you lost 40 billion dollars. 40 billion dollars, my God. What the heck could be the good news? Five extra games. It's only 23% of your whole. Oh, okay. Good. Yes, he was thrilled tonight showing off his arena. And I remember he were you in there, Vince, when he was yelling to the crowd on the mic and he. And he reminded everybody this is a place where the 2028 Olympics are going to be, which had a friend of mine from FIBA who was in town over the over the week to take a look at the venue. It's the first time to be at the venue. They're getting ready for the getting ready for the, you know, thinking about the Olympics. But anyway, the crazy thing about this, Bobby. So this before, but the Clippers have waited all these years, seven years for why to be this player. He was, he was showing major, you know, and here's the thing like, you know, you knock on wood, but you have no idea whether it can remain healthy. But, you know, after waiting all this time and they had a major hint that he was coming this direction last year, the way he finished last year, you know, he had the most recent surgery was two years ago. And so he, he's, you know, was out the beginning of last year and then started playing last year. And then by the end of last season was, was looking great, you know, continued to do workouts through the summer into June to like prepare his body of what it would be like to have gone through a full playoff, a full playoffs comes into this year. It's one of the reasons why I was so high on them. And so it's not like he came out of nowhere. He's been building towards this for the last, you know, 16 months or so. And now is when they pull the plug. Now there's a chicken and egg thing here because James Harden, obviously, applied pressure to them to make a decision like whether they were going to pay him or not. And whatever answer that the Clipper's gave, obviously, was not satisfactory to James because he went through with the trade thing. So I'm not, I'm not for sure saying that, you know, it was all like an organizational decision, but, you know, they traded him for a player who is indefinitely injured. And, and then they traded Zubots as well. So, you know, I wonder if they were held in if they could be 100% honest about how they feel about that decision right now. Maybe the lend up being a good decision. Maybe those draft picks lend up being really valuable, but that was a Clipper fan. And I know several big time Clipper fans, season ticket level Clipper fans who this one guy I talked to who's a very wealthy Clipper fan who's a business supporter for many years. He said that this is perverse. Seeing, seeing Kauai be this good, knowing the team can't, you know, probably he's not going anywhere. I know Vince said, could they scare somebody? Yeah, they could go start scare somebody, but it's a tough hand right now. We know there's a lot of unknowns about the Clippers. Maybe the Clippers have a better handle on the unknowns and they're willing to admit I don't know. Maybe they don't, but either way, it's a, it's a tough reality. You know, the writing is kind of the wall where, you know, and he, Kauai has been very upfront about it where he says, hey, we were the oldest team in the NBA, you know, change. But part of the business, a 26 year old in Garland, two future picks that could turn out to be pretty good. Him on an expiring contract will be one of the most fascinating storylines is all seen along with a lot of others, but he's kind of the guy that's been there. You know, since, since 2019, and as you said, of kind of as has fun as hit his stride on the court and health lies both kind of go hand in hand. And now all the sun, we're kind of turning the wheel on this Clipper team that's been built with by veterans to now the youth movement. And how does he fit in long term? Because although you could say, you know, a 33 or 34 year old, you know, when you get to a certain age, I feel like he's getting better. Right now. And I think what's happened is it's almost like when you put that night, that pretty car in the garage for a long time, you don't put many miles on those legs. Some guys hit their strides at a different age. That's true. We'll have to, I don't know. We'll have to see how, you know, it's just, it's hard to say. I'm not even necessarily second guessing them because they have more information than I do about a lot of things. But it's tough. Vince, I just talking to Clipper fans that I know it's a, it's a tough reality. It's an ultimate, you know, better sweet situation. It's funny. I just looked it up. And I don't have the historical numbers of context, but Kauai Lunders only played 25,000 minutes in his career or right up against it. Right. That feels like an insanely low number for somebody who's been in the league since 2011. Tudapi's point of having low mileage. Now there's atrophy on the body, but it's low mileage on the body too. And with that, when the, the question is not Kauai as an expiring contract. The question to me is, what do the Clippers decide to do if even they keep Kauai next year? Like they have been wanting and openly saying, 2027 is going to be the year that we figure stuff out, hit the reset button, whatever it is, right? Lawrence Frank got an extension. Tyleu is still there. Like whatever is going to be will be the rubber will meet the road when they decide whatever they decide on Kauai Lundered at age 35. And you can only, I think was it, Bobby, you can only get two year extensions going into a 36. Yeah, the over 38 rule like curry, curry's in that boat. There's a bunch of them. So I'm very fascinated by what the Clippers, if they keep Kauai and Kauai still looks like this, do they say, let's re up for more Kauai Lundered business or those Kauai Lundered into the marketplace as a free agent that can play with the Lakers or place somewhere else as a very marketable third piece or second piece or with a championship style piece. Some 10 years after the last time he was a last piece to a championship that is fascinating to me. I feel like in the situation you got to raise your fold, Bobby, which is, you know, either extend them or you trade them. Yeah, I agree. You know, I think that's the case with a lot of, you know, that's like that's what happened with like trade young, for example, the hawks folded not to, you know, not to imply they like, you know, that was bad. Like they, they may have decision we're not going to, we're not going to extend them. So we're getting a trade, you know, that's what's happened with John Morant, you know, no extension of trade. And you know, with all due respect, I know Janus gave an interview to Malika and Janus said more words about wanting to be a buck with more qualifiers on them and pretty fast going to put Janus on the list of things I'm not going to talk about. I'm not so with you because at least I'm not going to talk about qualified, Janus responses, you know, where he says, you know, where he says a powerful statement and then says for now or whatever he said. But Janus doesn't extend, you know, it's sort of on his it's razor fold on his side too. You know, Janus seriously like. Janus, if you are happy with Milwaukee God bless you would be amazing if you played your whole career there. Sign the extension. I don't really, you know what I mean. Sign the extension. I promise you sign the extension or even announce your sign the extension. No one will say it work. It'll be gone. More hoop collective podcast after this. All right. So Adam Silver had a very meaty. That's a word. Probably one of the most consequential media press conferences he's had were like there was so many different topics and every single topic was a strong question. Then she had a question which one was yours. I can't remember. It was about expansion and relocation. Right. And I was asking, do you have to add two teams if you're going to, you know, add and if not adding two teams, could you add one and relocate another. And I did double back because he only really answered the two team question and he said relocation is now on the table. So that. Oh, that part of years up stop. What he said while toasting, Yannis was relocation is not on the table right now, which I don't mean it's on the table, but you know, he said right now. It's one of those Yannis things. I'm not looking to talk about it more. I'm just sort of tying it back to Yannis, you know, a good lawyer like Adam Silver never leaves himself in a corner. Anyway, he is asked about tanking which we'll talk about in a second. I won't talk about you guys can talk about it. Talk about expansion and relocation, which he shot down. I talked about the WNBA negotiations, which are not resolved. Talk about the Clippers investigation, which he said I haven't come to any decisions about because it's not resolved because they're not running the investigation. Was asked about Yannis being involved with the prediction market and answered it like it was a sports book when prediction markets and sports books are different things. But we're not going to focus on that here. He didn't he's he he was asked to one direct question and answered another, which you know again, that's what a lawyer does. He was asked about NBA Europe several questions, but NBA Europe, which looks like it's going to be happen. What's going to happen? What else he asked about? I think that's about it. Anyway, every single one was was relevant. Okay. So Vince, you were there. What was your some of your big takeaways from what he said? I think like you said, when the Adam Silver is a lawyer and he can fill a buster with the best of them. You know what I mean? Like a lot of times you feel like short of the all star press conference we had in 2022 in Cleveland, which got really, really contentious between Adam and the media and that's the only time I can recall. Adam really sparring with us. But like you said, expansion relocation, the prediction markets, all that type of stuff, you know, Yanis's investment in it, talking about, you know, the clippers and where they go in his broad powers, ask commissioner. He said he was not going to overstep as far as a potential penalty on the clippers. If something were to come from this, you know, aspirations, investigation, whatever that looks like. You know, who knows when it's something could come down. But for me, yeah, the biggest stuff was the tanking Bobby and the thought of, maybe I'll take away, you know, maybe anything's on the table. Maybe I'll take away draft picks. Like I thought that was he almost sounded exasperated and frustrated that teams or franchises are not looking out for the better business of the league. It's almost like he lives in an idealistic world. Sometimes when talking to owners and teams and franchises, it's like he's disappointed that they're not, that they're looking out for themselves as opposed to looking out for the business, the ethics of the league. I think that's what to me came across was like disappointment and frustration as opposed to a dude, you have the power to really change things. And I've been talking to some people since that press conference. They've done on about a lot of different suggestions to curb tanking. Some things are a little more radical, but windy day, they've got some issues that they really have to address. And I think they're going to have to take stronger stances than what they've been taken. Bobby, I would say the rarity of getting two questions on tanking at the same press conference. He got it the first to lead off and then kind of came back back in the middle somewhere. My takeaways from that are that he does not want to be in a position to be big brother, overlooking everything and being in a position to watch, have somebody watch every game and scrutinize why players are being taken out at certain points of the game, why players are not playing in the fourth quarter and he does not, they don't want to do that. He said it's not healthy for the league for that. And listen, it's a slippery slope. It is a slippery slope when you start finding teams and taking away draft picks. Like it's, there's a lot to interpret there. It's not, it's not like investigating a fight on the court and finding why Isaiah stored elected to run off the bench and that's, that's not it. The ability to remove draft picks, interesting. I was thinking the league has dual authority to dock teams already when we have, whether it be salary cap circumvention or tamper agent tampering. When you tamper with a player, we've seen that happen with second round picks. But I got a feeling, I got the feeling after listening to that, that they have open ears from the, they'll have open ears from the competition committee about doing something and instituting something. I don't know what it will be, but like you, then I've gotten, I've gotten texts, multiple texts from teams on, hey, and really just like, Hey, what do you think? This is what I'm, this is what I was, I'm thinking, we're thinking about. Yeah, it sounds, oh, this is a little radical, you know, like this is a radical here. But I do think, you know, I do think it's, I think they're open to more about how to change. You made that comment. And he said, you know, I think you had an economist was, you know, we're talking. And they said, like, you guys are doing things backwards, right? You're incentivizing teams. You know, right? Yeah, if you, if you picked a management consultant, you know, would actually be an interesting, you know, someone who didn't know anything about basketball was brought in to study the league. They would say to a team, you should lose as much as possible to get the, the best possible single player. And if you're advising the league, you're consulting, would say, why do you have your teams have an incentive to lose? I mean, this is the paradox that exists. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Please, please jump into anything I'm wrong. The NBA, you know, basketball in general is a sport that is disproportionately driven by superstars. So, you know, compared to other sports, one great player is much more valuable in basketball than other team sports because not only is there only five guys on the court, but you play both offense and defense. Quarterback is amazing. But I'm going to play half the game, right? Pitcher is amazing, you know, pitches once every five days, right? Badder can, you know, show Hayotani, he can pitch and he can, and he can bat, but only bats four or five times a game, you know, he pitches once every five days, right? Still nowhere near the way a player like, you know, Michael Jordan can affect the game, right? So the NBA, you know, basketball and therefore the NBA is disproportionately driven by superstars. Okay. The 30 NBA teams operate voluntarily, maybe not, you know, wholeheartedly, but voluntarily, they all agree. They all play an a socialist exist, they play an a socialist system, right? The weaker teams benefit from the sharing of the richer teams. The teams that are very good and win help subsidize the teams that lose by the rules. Is that true? Yeah. Okay. The decisions that are made by the teams over the last 25 years and particularly over the last five to 10 years have largely become data driven, strategic strategy and data driven. I mean, Bobby, 20 years ago, was there a strategy department in any, none? People say analytics, but it's not just analytics. It's the strategy. They have strategists, right? You know, and the decisions in mass, the grand, the big level tree top decisions almost always are driven with revenue first. So this is the data set that we have. We have this proportion to stars, socialism, revenue generation is more important than anything. Volume is more important than quality, you know, which is another way of saying revenue guides everything. And the teams themselves have sort of become AI operations more than field operations. So what I would just say to you is, how do you solve tanking in that kind of environment? I don't think you can't. I don't think it can be done. I think it can be, you know, you could take the edge off it a little bit. But if you have 30 teams in a socialist system, I don't think you can do it. And by the way, just in case you think the NBA is really super crazy worried about it, they're going to add two more teams, I think. Okay. You know, they, they, they can't, they're, they, they could not get their arms around tacky. The Adam Silver even said, I didn't know this. I would have lost a bet on this, Bobby. Adam Silver said they've tweaked the lottery system five times. Yeah, I didn't know that either. So they installed the lottery system, and then they tweaked it five times. Okay. And they can't get their arms around the 30 teams competing in the, with the set of circumstances, as I just outlined. There's probably another pillar or two that you could add to that that I've missed. Feel free to do so on your own. I don't see how you get around 30 and they're thinking about putting it to 32. So just in case, you know, so like I said, you know, I think, you know, because Adam basically said I'm mad about it, but said I don't know what to do about it. Don't you think too guys like we're kind of hit like a little bit of a perfect storm, though, with a how much this draft is being talked about, be the two teams teams having protections on picks that they do not want to convey, right? Whether it be Utah, that would go to Oklahoma City outside of top eight, the Wizards, the same thing outside the top eight here. And then the other thing is is that we've seen it more, you know, more come to life in late January, early February here. Like I said it on, I said it on, on an NBA day on, on Friday, and you know, we can, we can talk about Utah and it's not Utah. It's not, it's not Utah. It was Toronto last year and it was other teams before that and it was all these teams. And I said, listen, I am part of the, I raised my hand on TV like I was under oath. I said, I am part of the problem. I was on the show a week ago or two weeks ago when we were talking about Janus and why the best interest of Milwaukee, they should get a lottery pick and him not playing the rest of the season here because that's the best interest of them. Isn't that the, the, the pick protection and what you're talking about where the best thing for Milwaukee to do. Yeah. Wouldn't you file that under strategy? Yes. Now, what I had, and this wasn't just me talk. This wasn't just a Bobby Mark saying last Tuesday, the issue that teams have had or had was the ability to kind of, I guess, manipulate the game, right? Whether it be pulling guys, starting guys, resting guys, end of game and stuff like that. That was the, that was the crux of some of the things that were saying, but it's as we, as people have pointed out, listen, Toronto did it last year. We didn't hear boo from them. We didn't hear boo from the league at all from that. There have been situations before here and now all of a sudden, here comes, here comes Utah, what happened in Orlando and then they went in Miami and Ryan Smith saying, wait a minute, we won that game. So I'm going to pay a $500,000 fine for a game I won. What in the world does that make sense? Right. The league rejected that. That promise. The league also completely ignored Jaron Jackson being put down for the season with knee surgery because they cited Jaron Jackson not playing in fourth quarters as, as a reason for finding them. The fact that three or four hours earlier they put out the Jaron Jackson press release on the knee surgery did not slow the league down. So whether they want to lose the game, like that's a very good defense. We won the game you're accusing us of taking it. But the league already is ignoring the fact that they're shutting a guy down with surgery. So they don't care whether you want to lose the game. They're more focused on the overall process. You can't handle the truth, Wendy. That's apparently what they're, you know, did you order the cold red? You damn right. Yes, they did. Or the cold red. And you know what? You're damn right. And it's worth it if I'm going to get AJ to banter Darren Peterson or one of these young guards there. And we're going to be instead of the worst team in the NBA next year, we're going to be competing in the top six. It'll be dead. And I listen, and I said that, and that's what I think that we're crying got mad at me was that I said. And this wasn't just, I just was talking a couple of teams about it said, listen, teams will write blank, I blank check to do when you're a billionaire, you will write a blank check for the ability to keep to draft in the top three or draft four because those players are transformational and everything. I had a team that attacks me in Park one crazy on me. I'm not on me, but on the team and said, listen, I tried right. I got here. What is it? Seven million, eight million. How much are going to cost, you know, for us to, to, what? Well, pay the fine. Now, listen, when you come out and say, we're going to start taking draft picks and we're going to start taking resources away. Now that's then the strategy that that become out. Well, yeah, Adam Silver was rattling the saber. Yeah. Throughout that. He didn't have a solution, but he did have a saber to rattle, which was the whole point of the fine. Wendy, when I'm president, you know what I'm going to do? Wendy, when I am president, no Jackson, we're not going to do it in the season tournament with all the lottery teams. We're not doing that. That was one thing that Sean's reported the other day that that's been throwing about in competition committee meeting. Do I want to get in trouble with the league here? Uh oh. I'm going to be. Don't get in trouble. Here, my suggestion and then you took it. Okay. I'll think about it. I'll think about it. I'll give you some time. I'll do a Adam Silver filibuster here. When I'm president, the lottery will be set. The lottery order, Bobby Marks, will be set at mid season. It doesn't stop tanking. It won't. It will stop tanking going to back end of seasons. And if you add, and if you say Vinny, what happens if, you know, the clippers, they start off six and 30 and then they have a great turnaround and they make the playoffs. Well, guess what? They're out of the lottery. And the next best team or next worst team replaces them in the odds of whatever the ping-pong ball needs to be. So you can't play yourself in some better position. The else can play you into a better position, but you can't. And secondarily, you can't get a top four pick two years in a row. That's one of the better things I've, I haven't had like eight things from different teams. That's one of the better things I've heard. I didn't get that from a team. That is, those are my suggestions. When I'm the next black president, those are the two things that I'm going to attack. Campaign stump. That's my stumping speech, Wendy. So go ahead and get yourself in trouble with the league. No, I'm just, you know, I just, say the league has only added games in the last decade. They're, they're, they're, their schedule adjustment in the last decade has only added games. They've added them. So Shoshams, you know, talking about a concept where a lot of teams will play off like, I'm sure they like that. What the hell would you do? Nothing is, when the hell would you do that? Like you already, your television inventory is already stretched out. The season is already stretched out. So you're going to have a lot of routines playing against each other while the big boys are actually playing in real life playoff games. That's what you're going to do. I'm not getting the call. I'm not going to get the call. Okay. All right. I don't want to get you in trouble. Not going to do it. That's interesting. Okay. That I'll go back to the thing is it's a, it's a strategy driven socialistic league. So whatever, wherever the team is incentivized to lose, teams will lose. And if that, if that, if that means losing in October, November, instead of March and April, then they'll just lose in October, November. Now you may create the, you may say, well, you're better off losing October, November, less damaging to your product than it is in March and April. Listen, that might be a trade off. They're willing to do. But as long as you incentivize losing, teams will lose. And if you add two more teams to it, they'll be even more of a basket of non-contenders to will find that incentive. I thought you was going to say something else, Wendy. When you said basket, I thought you were going to say something else. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to do that. I may be a little loopy. I'm not on cold medication yet. It'll be soon. All right. I really, this ended up being a sort of a rich topic from the weekend. I really thought this was going to be a zero weekend. And I'd like to applaud the NBA for now. We didn't talk about Saturday night. No need to. If, Vince, if you ever competed in an also Saturday night event, would you come on to the court showing off your six pack? Would that be the first? If I had a six pack for one, if I had a six pack, it was impressive. If I had a six pack, you would never see me with a shirt on ever. So all started Saturday night would not be any different than a random Tuesday. All right. It was, it's an impressive physique. I'll give you that. Also, I hope Jay's Richardson is okay. Yeah. He showed the dunk that he was trying to do. Like he showed it on Instagram or Twitter or something like that. And it would have brought up. That's a new thing. Like, Mack McClellan provided all the dunks we've done. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, like, I think that's where we're headed. We'll just, just, just AI the dunks. Just, just, you know, just AI. Don't say that. Well, that's the other thing that Adam talked about was AI. Like, Adam, are you trying to kill us all? Do you want press conferences to be nothing but robots? Do you want to, I mean, we can have a commissioner, AI commissioner. Like, do you want to, what are we doing here? Yeah. I mean, there's no, it's, it's, it's no less for you to say we could have an AI commissioner when he said that we're going to have AI broadcasters. I mean, like, why stop at the broadcasters? Why not have an AI commissioner? Why not have AI referees? Why not have AI coaches? Why not have AI? I don't, I don't have the whole thing. Just be one giant simulation. I don't, I think it's stupid. This is when people say that Adam is kind of, you know, too loopy with his ideas. Sometimes I think he loses sight of what basketball is at his height. Like, when this is a shared experience between players and fans and where all invested, whether it's media or fans, whatever you reason, you're invested as a community. When you siphon these things off, you lose the sense of community. You lose the sense of what makes this thing special. If we're watching one broadcast and someone's watching another broadcast, like, well, how, how can we communicate? How can we create a community if everybody is in their own silo? That does not help your game. That's all you're making a fine point. I honestly think he had just been to the tech summit, which the NBA does every year, you know. Am I getting upset for no reason? I mean, yeah, I wouldn't get upset. Sorry. Sorry. Anyway, I would say the All-Star weekend I came in with very low expectations and those were massively exceeded. Now the expectations will rise next year and we'll see whether they can do that. I have to make it, I have to declare a success. All right. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Vince, for running over to the hotel after getting out of the into it. Thank you for your coverage this weekend. Well, me and the Tim's didn't have to do it. Thank you, Bobby. I hope you're, I hope the Academy went well this last week. You know what? You know, the sports business classroom was a tremendous success and here is the power of social media, Brian. And we had an expansion draft. Okay. At the end, that was their project. We broke up teams. We had an expansion draft. They had the brand their team. They had to put their logo. They had to do all this great stuff and pick a team. And so I figured, you know what? Let me show their work on social media. So on Friday, when they were presenting, I was taking pictures and I was putting it on social media. And two million views later, you know, trending on Twitter and expansion draft. And I think half, I would say the majority of those people actually probably thought it was real. That that was probably coming from the MBA here. And as I told my students, here's your look. The lesson about social media. Don't read the comments. Enjoy what you put out there. Don't read the comments. That's for you, Vince. Don't read the comments. I have Jackson read him for me. I try to stay away, but sometimes, sometimes they pull me back in. Listen, listen, I went down the rabbit hole a little bit on Saturday. I'm getting online, getting on it. And I want to let me just take a little peek about my friends and saw like, sitting with their saying about me here, ooh, let's, you know, pull the curtain back. Oh boy. It's all in good fun. All right. Thank you to Mark Jackson and Devon, our producers. Thank you to Vince and Bobby. Thank you for listening and watching the Hip Collective. I have no idea whether I'll have a voice on Wednesday. Come back and find out.